12
WHILE we were still looking into that part of the tent that was still standing, it seemed good not to have any rain beating down on my face and bare head. In the quick look-around I had, I noticed, even in the half dark, the interesting camp equipment such as a three-burner camp stove, a metal rollaway bed and a rollaway table, on which was a pad of writing paper with a flashlight lying beside it. Also on the table was a kerosene lantern which was probably the same one Mrs. Everhard had been using the night we had first seen her digging in the old cemetery, beside Sarah Paddler’s tombstone. Hanging from one of the leaning tent poles was a religious calendar with a picture of the Good Samaritan on it, showing the man who had gone down from Jerusalem to Jericho and had fallen among thieves, who had robbed him and left him half dead. The man was getting his wounds bound up by the Good Samaritan.
For just a second it seemed like I myself was trying to be a Good Samaritan and couldn’t be on account of the person I was trying to be a Good Samaritan to was lost and I couldn’t find her.
I hoped that when we did find Charlotte Ann and Mrs. Everhard they wouldn’t be half dead like the man in the Bible story was.
I also noticed that some of the numbers of the calendar had circles around them which somebody had made with a red pencil or with red ink. Without thinking, I said, “That’s a pretty picture on that calendar.”
Mr. Everhard must not have heard me because he looked all around quick and said above the roar of the storm, “The shovel’s gone! She’s gone out to dig again. Let’s go find her, quick!”
As much as I wanted to help him find Mrs. Everhard I was worrying worst about Charlotte Ann. So I said, “What about Charlotte Ann?”
“Look,” he said, “she’s left a note!” He picked up the pad of paper and shined the flashlight on his wife’s pretty handwriting and started in reading, with me looking over his elbow—I knowing it isn’t polite to do it, but doing it anyway because the note might have something in it about Charlotte Ann—and this is what it said:
“Dearest: I had another one of my spells and when I came to myself I was digging over near the rail fence across from the Collins house. I was still very depressed but when I looked up I saw dear little Charlotte Ann toddling out across the road all by herself. The minute I saw her all the clouds in my mind cleared away and I felt immediately happy. The little darling was all alone. I took her back across the road to the house, but there was no one at home. I couldn’t understand why they would go away and leave her all alone, but it was her nap time and I thought maybe Bill might have gone to camp to take us a jug of water, so I brought her back with me to camp. But you were still away so she and I have gone for a little stroll down along the creek. I think we will go across the north road today because I want to see if I can hear the wood thrush again down by the swamp. If we don’t get back soon and you want to follow us, you will know where to look. I have mastered the wood thrush song at last so I will have a new whistle from now on. Besides the turtledove is a little mournful for one who is beginning to be happy.
All my love,
Fran.”
It was a very nice letter for a woman to write to her husband, I thought, and when I finished I liked both of them better. In fact, for a jiffy I had a kind of homesick feeling in my heart like I wished there was somebody in the world, besides the gang and my parents, who liked me.