Eternity (Montgomery/Taggert 17)

While Carrie fried the eggs, Tem put cans of things in a bag and a jar of pickles in the bag too, then the three of them and Choo-choo set off to the fields where Josh spent all day every day. On the walk there, Dallas chattered nonstop, asking Carrie a million questions about the sea and China and her brothers, so Tem had time to think. Time to dream, actually.

He imagined Carrie handing his father his sandwich and then his father saying that the sandwich was so good that he’d love Carrie forever, then he’d ask her to stay with them for always. Carrie would say yes, and then they’d become a family. And Carrie would make his father laugh as he once did, and everyone would be happy. The only problem that Tem could see was what to do about the dirty dishes that Carrie didn’t want to do, and then, too, there was her cooking that could stand a great deal of improvement. Tem had no idea what to do about those things. In fact, the thought of Carrie’s cooking made the dream a little less rosy.

The dream lost all its rosiness when Carrie saw the three fields that Josh worked on all day. Tem had seen his Uncle Hiram’s fields and knew that they looked like something out of a storybook, but Tem was proud of his father no matter what he did and had given no thought to the fact that his father’s fields were full of bugs and weeds and that some of the corn was tall and some short.

After one look at the fields, Carrie started laughing. Tem was already used to the idea that Carrie seemed to find humor in everything, but Josh didn’t seem to understand that. Tem saw his father get very angry when Carrie laughed, and he got angrier when Carrie said that Josh was as bad a farmer as she was a housewife. Considering the way Carrie had left the house and the sight of his father’s cornfield, Tem thought she was telling the truth.

But his father didn’t seem to see any truth or humor in what Carrie was saying. In fact, the more Carrie laughed, the angrier his father became. He only laughed, when he bit into Carrie’s sandwich and crunched down on a big wad of eggshell. He seemed to think that was very funny.

Carrie turned around and walked away, Choo-choo barking furiously at Josh, as though he knew that Josh had made his mistress angry, and now Carrie was as angry as his father had been.

The children stood still for a moment, not knowing whether to stay with their father or go with Carrie, but Josh told the children to go with Carrie. “You seem to like her better than me now, so go with her.” He stomped back into the fields.

Dallas burst into tears, so Tem picked her up and carried her back to the house.

Thank heaven that when they got to the house Mrs. Emmerling was there cleaning and cooking. Carrie went to the bedroom and slammed the door, and the children were sure they could hear her crying.

Tem sat down on the rocking chair in front of the fireplace while Dallas took her new doll and Choo-choo and went outside to play. Mrs. Emmerling bustled about the kitchen, then swept and dusted while Tem sat on the chair and thought. After a while Mrs. Emmerling sat on the opposite rocker and began to sew up some of the holes in Josh’s shirts.

“You look as though you have a very serious problem,” Mrs. Emmerling said. “Anything I can help you with?”

Tem didn’t know this woman, but he liked her. She was nice and fat, and her face and hands were red. He shook his head no.

“Are you sure? I have eight kids of my own so I’m used to listening to problems.”

“What makes people love each other?” Tem blurted out.

Mrs. Emmerling sewed for a moment. “Why would you want to know that?”

Tem blinked rapidly. He didn’t want to cry. He wasn’t going to cry. “Carrie won’t stay unless Papa loves her, and Papa won’t love her because Carrie can’t cook. Could you teach her how to cook?”

Mrs. Emmerling smiled. “Cooking doesn’t have to do with love. Being a good cook helps make a marriage a more pleasant place, but I doubt if a man ever gave a thought to cooking before he asked a woman to marry him. And if he did, he’s not the type of man a woman would want. She’d want a man who wanted her, not her apple pies.”

This helped Tem none at all, and his face showed his continued confusion.

“If your father isn’t in love with a lovely lass like Carrie, then there’s something else wrong. Why don’t you tell me what’s been going on?”

Tem told her as best he could, but he didn’t really understand it himself. He said that his father had wanted to marry someone who could do farm things, but Carrie had come instead and it had made him angry.

“Your father wanted someone to help him take care of you kids,” Mrs. Emmerling said softly.

“Yes,” Tem said brightly. “And Carrie does take care of us. She tells us stories and makes us laugh, and she can fish real good. But—” Tem looked down at his shoe toe.

“But what?”

“But she laughed at Papa’s farm fields.”

Mrs. Emmerling had to hide a smile. So did everyone else in town laugh at Josh’s fields, but they didn’t let him hear their laughter. No one in Eternity had ever seen anyone try harder at farming than Josh with so little success. He so much wanted to make a good home for his children.

Mrs. Emmerling looked about the house that a day ago had been a disgrace and now was downright pretty. No doubt Josh’s pride had been severely hurt by Carrie. She had come into town and done in a day what Josh had been struggling for months to do—and he had failed at it miserably.

Personally, Mrs. Emmerling didn’t see any hope for Josh and Carrie’s staying together. It was her experience that men didn’t like women who bested them in anything. She gave Tem a sad look. Everyone in Eternity felt sorry for these poor, motherless children, and every unmarried woman had at one time or another tried to get her hooks into the handsome Josh, but all of them had failed. It was as though he’d developed an aversion to women—or at least to women who wanted to marry him.

So now, Josh was married to the lively, laughing Miss Carrie, and she was laughing at his fields.

“You see, Tem,” Mrs. Emmerling began, “when two people marry, they have to think that each other’s the greatest person on earth. They may be very ordinary people in reality, but they have to think that the other one can…well, can move mountains, can make the sun rise and set, that sort of thing.”

Tem looked at her as though she were daft, not understanding a word she was saying.