The Hidden Things

By Shirley A. Huffines

Be diligent . . .

When her father’s deathbed plea challenges Sara Scott Davis, she never expects to find anything of worth. But when a long-forgotten houseguest of her childhood shows up at the old Scott family farmhouse, she seizes the opportunity to partner with him.

In the pursuit . . .

Even stepping through the front door of her childhood home after so many years is an emotional battle, but Sara is on a mission. She is resolute. She is determined to discover what her father had left behind.

Of the hidden things of life . . .

Soon Sara becomes involved in more than just a search for the tangible—and what she finds is something much more valuable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664237049

Shirley A. Huffines

SHIRLEY A. HUFFINES is a retired teacher who holds a B.A. from Brescia College and an M.A. in education from Western Kentucky University. She enjoys writing short stories, narratives, and poetry. She authored one work of non-fiction, Journey of Faith, published in 2003. Her work has also appeared in anthologized collections of poetry and other writings, including Stones to Defeat the Giant, complied by Betty Whitworth and Legacy . . . is what we leave in others, which is a collection of writings by Word Knitters.

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Copyright © 2021 Shirley A. Huffines.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by

any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system

without the written permission of the author except in the case of

brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents,

organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products

of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-3703-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-3702-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-3704-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021911684

WestBow Press rev. date: 06/17/2021

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

In memory of

Paul Eli, Bonnie Sue, Paul Ed, and Denver Ray

Special thanks to A.F. Moore

for her steadfast diligence and guidance.

PROLOGUE

ELI

Being the youngest and scrawniest of the family was never easy for me. Being the only son left at home on the farm was even more challenging. Ben, the oldest and the biggest of the Scott children, flew the nest for the army—never to return. His parting gift was his portion of the chores. When Thomas, the tallest of the clan, ventured off for college, my duties on the farm increased exponentially in my eyes because I became the proud owner of them all.

Meanwhile, I had nothing much going for me, neither bulk nor height. But that didn’t matter much when there was work to be done. My father had a full-time job in town but ran the small farm in the evenings and on the weekends, which left me to step up in his absence. And that’s how it was—period.

My long and arduous day would begin early in the hay barn, filling up the feed bins for the milk cows, leaving me just enough time to grab my stuff and walk out to the main highway to catch the bus. After a full day at school, I spent my evenings knee-deep in various types of muck. It’s no wonder I possessed not one, but two pairs of gumboot—not every person can lay claim to that! But it was the weekends that got me riled: from sunup to sundown, a never-ending list of things to do. I was never fond of school, but, needless to say, when Monday morning came, I was more than ready to go, so eager that sometimes I didn’t take time to change my footwear. To my dismay, the ladies shunned me those days. However, the guys patted me on the back for my audacity to go against the norm.

Not to say I didn’t have loving parents; we just had different ideas of what fun was. I didn’t consider it fun to work in the garden or prepare vegetables for canning to set the record straight. But my parents enjoyed it with a whistle as you work kind of joy. It was what they defined as a hobby. However, I didn’t take much delight in peeling tomatoes or shucking corn all day. No one asked me, but if they wanted to stock up on food for the winter, they should have just sent me fishing in Buck Creek. The Scott property conveniently ran down to its edge. I never knew Buck or how he came into the possession of a creek, but it was a mighty fine place to cast a line.

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My impending departure for college was a stress-filled time. There would be no one upon whom I could bestow my chores except my parents. And even I had enough sense to feel guilty about that. There would be no gotcha moment for me because I was at the end of the line. Somehow I felt cheated.

When my final day on the farm arrived, Dad presented me with an unexpected gift. Robert Eli Scott had been a collector of old coins for as long as I could remember. He would inspect every coin he found, searching for the rare and unusual. Many times my father showed me his growing cache and talked about what made each one special. Imagine my surprise when he gave me my own starter set.

Eli, he said, be diligent in the pursuit of the hidden things of life.

The hidden things of life? What do you mean by that? I questioned.

Ah, my son, that’s for you to figure out.

With those parting words, as clearly as you can chart anyone’s life in retrospect, all things in my life shifted at that moment. And little did I know the significance that gift would have in my life, as well as in someone else’s life yet to be born.

Leaving the farm was more difficult than I would ever admit to anyone, especially me. The outer shell of me couldn’t wait to go, to make my escape from all those mundane tasks. However, the inner core of me wanted—needed—to stay, to relish the feeling of a job well done, and to experience the nod of approval from my father. To pursue my own life and ambitions, I watched through the rearview mirror the place of my birth as it diminished in size like a drawing in perspective. And deep down inside of me, my gut twisted and turned like cream in a butter churn as I crossed the McHenry County line.

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The decision to return to McHenry County was not a difficult one. When your parents needed you, you went, no questions asked. I had just graduated from college with a degree in, of all things, agriculture. Although my plans did not include moving back into my childhood home, I ended up doing just that. In the natural course of things, parents grow old. Dad had just retired from his white-collar job in town, but he still had a farm to run. There was no such thing as retirement in our line of work, so my father turned to his youngest son.

When I drove down over the hill on the first day back, the weight of my decision settled heavily upon my shoulders. My emotions were conflicting: I was rushing toward the very thing I had long tried to avoid. Maybe this was good, maybe not. Self-doubt was ever-present. Education and life merged into one big reality: the need to balance the book knowledge from four years of study with the lessons learned as the result of both hands on the end of a hoe. I was welcomed home in style: hugs and kisses from a mass of well-meaning relatives, a much welcomed home-cooked meal followed by the presentation of a more trendy pair of work boots to replace the childhood gumboots, and a lengthy escort around the farm. Although the four years had taken care of the scrawniness, I still fell slightly short of my Dad’s height of six feet and four inches. However, standing side-by-side, the family genetic code was evident.

In his wisdom, Dad gently guided me in all things, allowing me to draw upon my knowledge and insight. Growing up, I had never given him enough credit for anything, let alone his understanding of how to run a farm. I now understood that it was more than putting crops in the ground. It was an art: knowing what to plant, when and, where. Having an excellent mechanical mind was also a must. Dad was the ultimate jack-of-all-trades, who could go from a suit to overalls without a thought.

It amazed me how much my perception of life had changed. I was no longer standing on the edge looking in; I found myself positioned right smack in the middle of things, looking out. The view was somewhat different—alarming, at least to me.

No doubt about it, Dad was the anchor in this family, a steady presence in good and bad times. So when his health began to fade, I started to panic. What would it mean for the farm? Would I be able to handle it—alone? In the recesses of my mind, I sought answers to those questions.

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My father’s death caused me to mature quickly. The impact of grief was not at arm’s length, not even close. It was a right-in-the-face encounter. My choices were few: Do I see red and meet it head-on, like a bull charging a cape? Or do I try to side-step it, like the matador?

For me, I believe it was a combination of both. I was more determined than ever to show myself and everyone else that I was up to the task of running the farm. But at the same time, I knew I would need help in the future and would need to summon the courage to swallow my pride long enough to ask for it.

My father had taught me that managing a farm was like running a business, debit versus credit. The goal was to make ends meet. If the year ended in the black, the overage was re-invested back into the farm. If the bottom line were red, one would make adjustments. With farming, a contingency plan was a necessary part of survival.

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Somewhere along the way, I realized my love for the farm. I quickly dismissed any other kind of life. I had found my purpose, although no single moment in time highlighted this discovery. I didn’t love it just because that’s how I made my living, or just because it connected me with nature like no other profession could, or just because it gave me a feeling of accomplishment. It was all those things and much more than I could ever express in words. The farm had been in