Allie Pleiter - Mission of Hope

“Thanks, ma’am.” Sam punctuated his attempt at manners by wiping his nose on his sleeve.

Mrs. Freeman moaned. “I’m climbin’ uphill both ways to keep anything clean here.” She rubbed the back of her neck with her hand and sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a true sink and a clean set of sheets.”

Quinn gave his mother a quick peck on the cheek. “You’ve worked wonders as it is, Ma.” He pointed to the stock of supplies. “And somebody’s taken notice.”

“And wouldn’t I like to know who?” his mother said, smiling. “And what else they’ve got. Father Christmas coming in July. Who’d have thought?” She wiped her hands on her apron and began loading the supplies back into the trunk. “Get her back now, Quinn, before her father starts to worrying about where she is.”

Quinn shrugged his coat back on as they walked. “So your father’s office didn’t deliver that package? I thought surely you’d done it. You had the list, after all.”

“So did you,” Nora replied. “And you posted it. Someone with the things must have seen the one you tacked up. Still, what showed up didn’t really match up to the list we’d made.”

“It’s a mystery, to be sure.” He went to do the button on his coat, found no button to do, and gave out a little hrrmph as he was forced to let it hang open. “I may have to beg Ma for a little of that thread, won’t I?” They walked on, and Nora made a note to dig through her father’s coats for a spare button tonight. “Everyone needs everything, it seems,” Quinn sighed. “Reverend Bauers at Grace House can be a resourceful man, but he needs all of those things as much as we do, if not more.”

“I’ve heard stories about Grace House. Is it still standing?

“It is,” Quinn replied. “The building next door fell to the ground, but Grace House is mostly fine.”

Nora let out a long sigh. “It’s hard not to wonder how He’s let all this happen and why. I can’t get my mind around anything that makes sense, no matter how many prayers I say.”

“No sense to be made, if you ask me. Some things just are. You could stand around all day trying to figure out why, and it still won’t find you dinner or get your house rebuilt. It’s not the whys we need to worry about now, Miss Longstreet, it’s the hows that matter most.”

“How, then, do you think those things found their way to your mother?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t rightly know.”

“Someone, somewhere, has played the hero. I think it’s perfectly grand. I hope everyone hears about it and twenty other people do the same. What a wonderful thing that would be, don’t you think?”

Quinn laughed. He had a very delightful, forthright laugh. “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, miss. It’s not smart to make so much of one good deed.”

“One good deed like a teeter-totter? Oh, I think you know the power of one good deed far more than you let on.” She didn’t hide the broad smile that crept up from somewhere near her heart.

“Grace House does the important work, not me. But even they’re busting under the load right now, or so Reverend Bauers says. He’s got a few benefactors who can help out, you know, friends in high places and all, but not nearly enough.”

Why hadn’t she thought of it before now? “I can help with that.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I think you’re helping as much as you can now. Your pa’ll be sore at your being gone as long as you have, if not worse.”

“No, I mean with the benefactors. I know someone who can help. We had a wealthy woman named Mrs. Hastings to tea at the house the other day. She’s wanted to see the ruined city but her husband won’t let her come any farther than our house.” Nora looked at Quinn. “What if we could get Mrs. Hastings to tour Grace House? Surely her husband couldn’t object to something like that? Then she could meet people. She could meet Reverend Bauers. I’ve heard so much about him, even I’d like to meet Reverend Bauers. It’s the perfect solution.”

Quinn stopped walking and looked at her. “You’ve never met Reverend Bauers?”

He made it sound as if her social upbringing lacked a crucial element. “Well, of course I’ve shaken his hand at some city ceremony at some time or another, but I don’t really know him. I only know of him. Papa knows him, I think, but not socially.”

Those words came out wrong. As if people like Papa didn’t socialize with people like Reverend Bauers. It was true, in some ways, but not in the way her words made it sound. Quinn had noticed. He stood up straighter, started walking again, and the set of his jaw hardened just enough for her to notice.

Nora reached out and caught his elbow. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No one ever does.” The edge in his voice betrayed the wound her words had caused.

“No, really. It was a horrid way to put it. I just meant…” What did she just mean? She’d said it without thinking, without consideration, of what Mama would have called “their differences in station.” Why consider some great foolish gulf between them—especially now, when all that seemed to matter so very little? She dropped her hand. “I don’t know what I meant. But I’ve not met Reverend Bauers and I would very much like to. And I want to help. I believe Mrs. Hastings will want to help, too, if we can show her Grace House. Please. I know she will.”

“If she honestly wants to help, and not just gawk at other folks’ hardship. I’ve seen those types. Riding in carriages around the edge of our camp with hankies pressed to their noses. As if we’re all some odd entertainment.”

“Mrs. Hastings can be a bit stuffy, but I think she truly does want to help. She just doesn’t know how. Or maybe just where to start. I know something good would come of it if we could just make the arrangements.” Suddenly, it had become the most urgent thing in the world. Something large and important she could do to make things better. And surely, once she’d been to Grace House with Mrs. Hastings, Papa might let her do more than just sit around and wind bandages. Mrs. Hastings had loads of friends with all sorts of connections. Even Mama would be delighted to work on projects with someone of the Hastingses’ stature. It was the most perfect of ideas.

Quinn’s expression softened. “I’ll see what I can do.”

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