May and Jed Beginning the Journey

By Jo Ann Snapp

With his head in his hands, “Gone,” is all Jed can muster and the catastrophe of what happened crystallizes in May’s mind. Wet and worn, Jed flops on the bench next to the ferry landing. May and Jed had watched all the money for their farm float away in little kegs down the raging Wabash River.
She wants to turn back to Kentucky, back to her parents’ prosperous farm, but she decides to trust her husband. The newlyweds face a long detour in Chicago, working to replace the funds for their farm in Cateman, California.
Are they strong enough; is their love strong enough, to bear what God has laid before them?
Chicago 1885: A place as foreign as Europe for a seventeen year old girl who has never been further into the world than Logan’s Holler. And a girl most thought loco for even wanting to leave home, but now she is Mrs. Jed Simpson, married to a preacher’s son, and is being thrown into the strange world of a big city.
Chicago: Standing in the middle of a small, stark apartment, reality sets in for May. God rains on the just and the unjust... God works all things together for good to those that love him... Tested as a married couple and as people of faith, May and Jed discover the detour in Chicago is for their ultimate good but also has a life-changing purpose for the friends they meet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jo Ann Snapp
• Release date: Jul 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476270876

Jo Ann Snapp

Jo Ann Snapp was an Arkansas author of fiction. She had been writing books since she was around nine years old. After a long career in retail and logistics she took up the mantle to get some of her work out to readers.Whether historical, contemporary, mysteries or romances all her writing is from a Christian perspective so you can be assured a clean read even if the subject matter is controversial. Some of her work is inspirational; some of her work is just plain good storytelling. No matter the genre, to Jo a story was a story that had to be told.Jo Ann Snapp passed away on November 29, 2013Jo Ann lived in Mountain View, Arkansas and the area inspired her Norma Jean Mystery series.Find more of Jo Ann's books at:http://joannsnappauthor.com Jo Ann’s Blog Words with a MessageTitles by this author:May and Jed Beginning the JourneyA Reconciled HeartEmilyThe Pathway HomeMarisa’s DestinyA Twist in the Old Lasso (Short Story)Norma Jean’s Mysteries Series:Herpel Holler Homecoming Book OneBody in the Bluff Book TwoBody in the Barn Book ThreeBody in the Big Box Book FourBody in the Barrel Book Five

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May and Jed - Beginning the Journey

by

Jo Ann Snapp

Copyright 2011 Jo Ann Snapp

Smashword Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

When I was a young girl, my mother and father would tell me stories of the lives of people around about their homes in Arkansas and Tennessee where both of them grew up. Though fiction, the characters of May and Jed are drawn from the experiences of my mom, my dad and stories of my grandparents. To those early movers and shakers that settled this wide country, taking their faith in God with them, I dedicate this book.

Chapter - 1 – From the Beginning

Momma, May Logan entered the door of the dwelling with a jolt, breathless at the half-mile run home. They’s a stranger comin’ into the holler!

How’d you know that? You been up in them trees again, ain’t you? Maybelle, I declare! How in this world you ever gonna find a feller climbin’ around in them trees? Her mother shook her head, but smiled. Preacher’s ‘spectin’ an evangelist from Frankfort. Reckon it might be him.

Don’t know, but he has such a head of red hair he was competin’ with the sun out on the road in. May put an apron on to help her mother start supper. She didn’t dismiss her mother’s mention of finding a fellow but passed over the statement.

She knew she was too old to be climbing trees, but it was a hiding place, her place to dream as well as her bird’s eye view of the holler. In 1885 being seventeen and unmarried was the burden May had to bear alone. Two of her sisters were married with children by the time they were seventeen. Of the five siblings, her youngest brother Charles was the only one, besides herself, remaining in the old homestead.

Frankfort was as far as May had ever been from the holler into the outside world and only a few times with her mother and father.

She dreamed though of the land beyond, dreamed of owning the largest vegetable farm in California but doubted a girl would ever fulfill that dream—doubted that a Logan woman would ever leave the clan. Slender framed and told that with her curly dark hair, she was pretty, May didn’t want to face the fact she would marry a clansman and spend her lifetime in the holler.

Red hair, huh? Her mother broke into her thoughts.

Red like a tomato, May nodded. Ain’t there some kind of omen ‘bout red-haired people?

Maybe an old tale, but ‘member your Bible. We don’t hold to those old tales about people. Preacher says we owe all mankind respect. Her mother folded in the biscuit dough with her work-reddened hands.

May chopped up the vegetables and admired the fact that the Logan’s grew the best tasting and largest vegetables anywhere within traveling distance. They always got top dollar for the crops. It was a prideful thing to be a Logan in these parts of Kentucky. Just then she nicked her finger. Pride comes before a fall—or a cut. She was sure it was just an accident but tried to contain her pride, just in case.

May, you better get them vegetables in that pot if you ‘spect them to be done by the time your Pa and Charles gets home. Her mother rolled out the dough. Guess we’ll find out about the red-head Sunday meeting.

Guess so. May picked up the heaps of potatoes, onions, and a great assortment of other items left from the crops that had been stored through the winter and poured them into the big kettle.

May be that he’ll preach some to salvation. Her momma glanced sideways at her with a slight smile.

May refrained a reply. Her momma strictly followed the Word of God, and though May had been in the church every week since an infant, she never made confession of belief on Jesus Christ. That was a worrisome thing to her mother, but she didn’t treat her un-professing children any differently than the ones professing faith. Her mother did take any opportunity to show God’s hand in everyday happenings. Her mother stood as a true example of God’s love, and May could not quite find the reason why she herself didn’t feel the need to make confession.

*****

May waited impatiently for Sunday to arrive. Not often did anything new happen in the holler, so, though not so interested in the fact the stranger was a man, it was that something different would be awaiting her when she got to church.

The Logans were well off compared to most area farmers. She straightened her dress, one of the prettiest she had designed and sewn herself. Her dad had brought all the girls some very fine shoes from St. Louis, but even with her mother’s coaxing in the past, May had refused to wear them. This morning, with protesting feet, she wore the shoes.

When Pastor finally introduced the new evangelist, he stepped from the side room, and an audible murmur filtered across the building. The stranger, now with a name of Jedidiah Simpson, was very tall and just as May stated, he had the reddest hair she’d seen in those parts.

Good Lord’s day to you all. Jedidiah started and a hoarse whisper from a child third row back made him stop.

But momma his hair looks like it’s painted . . . and the mother muffled the voice.

Jedidiah smiled and answered the child. It was painted, son. God give me a good dose of color on top of my head.

Everyone laughed except May. She was captivated. The hair didn’t detract from the twinkle in Jedidiah’s eyes and the sincere expression of joy on his face. The eyes May remembered from somewhere but couldn’t connect the time.

I come to speak to ya’ll about the joy of knowin’ Jesus. I don’t know too much about fiery preachin’, though I like to hear a good anointed sermon. I just want to ask all of ya’ll. Do ya know the joy in knowin’ Jesus?

May sneaked a peak around. The same stern faces she saw every week nodded. Her mother had the joyous look she always seemed to carry. Her dad, though a professing, believing man, did not quite exude the same level of happiness on the outside as her mother, but she had heard him pray many times with her mother and knew he believed God heard the prayers.

She did believe in God, but her mother said that was just the beginning. Jesus was the person of God that was in the saving business. Jesus was the one that would take away sin and make a person a new creature.

The new creature was the reason May was a bit confused with the issue. She hadn’t done much living as the creature she was, let alone becoming someone new. She wasn’t even sure who she was yet. Oh, she had all kinds of talks with God but didn’t quite understand the part about Jesus.

She realized the stranger had moved from behind the pulpit and was asking several people the same question, and now he spoke to her.

Young lady, do you know the peace and joy of knowin’ Jesus? Jedidiah asked and started to go on, but turned back slightly when she did not reply positively as the others had responded.

Jedidiah’s eyes met hers, he paused then continued going past her. It’s the best thing in the whole world to believe in God, but do you know the Bible says that the devils believe in God and tremble? Do ya know why it’s so important to know Jesus, not just about him, but in your heart? The young redhead returned to the pulpit. The Bible says there is no savin’ from sin except through Jesus. God sent Jesus to die as the final sacrifice of blood. God won’t look at sinful man, won’t save men from sin, but through the blood of Jesus. When I said yes to Jesus when I was just a young boy, old things passed and my whole heart and life was new. Oh, I am the same person if you’re a lookin’ at me, but changed none the less. It’s only what Jesus can do.

May looked at her mother. She never knew her mother to be any other way but loving Jesus, but she remembered something she had seen as a child.

There was a lady, Mrs. Hartful, that they used to call Mrs. Hateful because she was so mean to all the children that passed her cabin next to the Mercantile in Logan’s Holler. One day she did a complete change.

May remembered when it happened; her father said the lady had finally seen the light. Her momma said she had confessed and professed and become a new creature. And sure enough, she was never the hateful lady again to anyone.

She now mused on the ‘new creature’. Mrs. Hartful, though she was still the same looking lady, was new in her heart. She thought it strange how something like that memory and the message she had just heard touched her heart. She now knew what her mother had tried to tell her all along. The saving has to come from Jesus.

When the call for the altar was given, May went down and asked Jesus to forgive her and make her new. She asked Jesus to give her the joy in Jesus that she saw in her mother. Then just as the word promised, not really able to explain what happened, she knew Jesus had come in, and she wondered why she had waited so long to accept the peace and joy she now felt.

Her mother, tears streaming, listened as May made confession of her salvation.

*****

May walked home after church instead of going in the buggy. She took her Bible, tucked it into the bottom of her skirt which she tucked into the waistband and effortlessly climbed her tree.

From the top of the tall, oak tree, May Logan could see all the cabins lining the ridge, the bottomland covered in crops and in the distance Frankfort, Kentucky as a little dot of light at night.

The family had grown from her great-grandfather’s founding; the younger members had gone out into their own cabins along the ridge. The land would not have sustained the number of Logans much longer if some members had not packed up and headed to Kansas a few years back. Those remaining farmed the communal land and shared in the harvest and profits equally.

The miles stretching from the flatlands to the hills and holler were occupied by Logans. At the edge of the holler there was a church, a blacksmith, a small supply store and the cabins of the few who lived there. It wasn’t really a town, just a meeting place to share news and fellowship with farmers from outside, but the place was called Logan’s Holler.

May got comfortable in the widespread spot in the arms of the old tree and began to read her Bible. She continued to read until the sound of footsteps in the leaves below drew her attention.

Jedidiah Simpson, looked up into the tree. Your momma told me while we was having dinner you might be here. Can ya come down so we can talk a spell?

Momma shouldn’t have told you I was out climbin’ trees. May felt the warmth in her cheeks.

I love climbing trees. If you don’t mind, I could come up there and we can talk?

Talk about what?

Just talk. Do ya care if I come up?

No, come ahead if you want. She pulled down enough of her skirt to make sure her bloomers would not be showing.

Jedidiah scurried up the branches like a monkey and soon perched in the fork of the tree across from May.

I can see why you like it here. You can see all of Kentucky from up here. Way off in the distance, way beyond Frankfort, why I think I can see my homestead!

Well, you must have mighty good eyes because all I can see beyond Frankfort is more hills and trees . . . May shaded her eyes looking across the distance, then she turned to Jedidiah.

He smiled with a twinkle in his eye. Wishful thinking . . .

Good thing you said wishful thinkin’. She remembered those twinkling eyes from somewhere. Preachers ain’t supposed to be lyin’.

Nobody is supposed to be lyin’—not only preachers. He laughed. No, I guess I’m missing my family.

If you’re married you sure ought not to be up here with me! She yelled and started to retreat but a gentle hand on her arm stopped her.

Oh, no, no, I ain’t married. I got a big family, lots of brothers and sisters—though all are married except me, but we’re still real close. He leaned back in the fork of the tree. I spent the last few years in the Infantry, but I’m home now and deciding what to do. My brothers are preaching men so I guess they’re ‘spectin’ me to do the same but . . . He stared into the distance again. I can’t really say it’s God’s calling for me. I don’t mind telling anybody about Jesus, but I don’t have the call—though I’ve tried—I don’t feel it’s my path.

What do you want to do?May pushed back her hair and offered a sideways glance.

I want to go out West, start the best farm in the country and raise the best crops anyone ever laid eyes on, crops to make Logan’s Holler jealous.

Peripherally, May saw him look for a reaction. That would take some doin’.

If I had the help of a Logan, I think I’d make out fine.

I don’t think any men folk is interested in leaving the holler.

May be I wasn’t thinking of men folk. Logan women know as much about the secrets of vegetable farming as the Logan men, or so I’ve been told.

Her heart fluttered, and she looked away toward the ridge. So you come here with one of them in mind?

Got her picked out years ago, way before she hit marrying age. He stared directly at May. Remember? You was eight and I was ten—

Jed?

I only met you one time when my Pa come to hold a meeting. You looked pretty as an angel setting there next to your momma, and I told Pa when we headed home, I said, ‘Pa, she’s the girl I’m gonna marry . . . if she’ll have me’.

It was you! I thought I recognized those sparkling eyes, but I never would have thought . . . why, we only exchanged names and a handshake at meeting. We was younguns. There ain’t no way you can tell me all these years—you come back here . . . May stopped and felt heat on her face. My momma’s told you, hasn’t she? She started descending the tree, leaving Jed stunned for a moment.

Your momma told me what? Jed sprang into action and clamored down after her.

Ain’t a fella in the holler wants to marry me—not no kin once removed, no newcomer—nobody. They think I’m strange. She made it out of the tree with a thud on the ground. Well, I don’t need no fella marrying me out of pity!

Wait, May. He caught her when she started to run. I don’t think you’re strange, and I’ve been waitin’ a long piece for you to grow up. If I hadn’t been sworn to the Infantry for the last two years I would’ve been here when you turned fifteen. I figured by then you’d be trying to choose between beau’s, and I wanted to be amongst ‘em.

You’re making fun of me. Every time I get a beau and they start hearing my scatter brain ideas they run as fast as they can!

She tried to pull loose, and Jed let her go but asked a question. What scatter brain ideas?

Momma must of told you. Why else would you say what you did?

What?

You said you wanted to go out West and build the best farm in the country . . . May’s tears welled up, and she turned back to Jed. It was my dream, and Momma shouldn’t have used it to get me married off!

Your dream? Your momma didn’t tell me anything. It’s been my dream for years.

She ran down the tree-lined pathway.

May! May, please wait. He stood still. I’m telling you the truth. You’ve been in my heart since we first met—but if God ain’t got you feeling the same, I’m sorry. I won’t bother you no more.

She slowed down, looked back and saw Jed, shoulders slumped, standing in the pathway under her favorite tree. The afternoon sun filtered through the trees, and his red hair glowed. She felt a piercing hurt in her spirit. Still running, she turned back to the pathway, misjudged the distance from the next tree and clipped a branch causing her to go sprawling into the berry vines.

May! Jed ran to her. Are you all right?

I’m fine. Can’t you see? She tried to pull herself free from the thorny vines.

Jed held out his hand, and with a slight hesitation May put her hand into his large one. He gently pulled her free. How terrible she felt every time one of her suitors would laugh at her dreams and some of her out of the ordinary ideas. Jed’s eyes held a disappointed look.

Thank you for your help. She straightened her dress, reached out, and took her shoes and Bible from Jed who