The Man on the Ladder 3: A Great Opportunity
The Man on the Ladder 4: Over the Threshold
The Man on the Ladder 5: Labors of Love
The Man on the Ladder 4: Over the Threshold
The Man on the Ladder 5: Labors of Love
Patherna clutched Lucy’s hand as she
hurried down the path. Patherna, or
Patty, was Joseph’s beautiful waxen wife.
She had hair of crimson tied in the back and wore a newly dissonant blue
dress she made herself. Maggie had
already left for school. The two were on
their way to Martha May’s for gossip (don’t call it gossip though. Patherna thought of it as a communal exchange
of local information) and trade.
Patherna brought fresh eggs and Martha May gave them milk and butter.
It was only a three-mile walk. They would get there and back in time to have
lunch. Probably bread, cardoons, and
water. Dinner would require extra preparation. They would have pheasant and asparagus. Honestly, she wasn’t a great cook but she
more than did her part in keeping the house.
They earned income from dresses she would sell at the Valentine General
Store. Thrice a week she’d trade eggs
for milk. She kept the house clean and
took care of the girls. She only rested
when it was time for bed.
Patty wasn’t from Valentine
originally. She was a Southern
girl. She met Joseph when he attended
the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia South Carolina. He traveled clear across the country to study
Christ and possibly enter the clergy.
That didn’t work out though. One day
while checking his post office box for correspondence with his parents he laid
eyes on Patherna. He fell in love.
They courted for two years and with her
parents’ blessing they married and he took her father’s baby girl back to
Valentine Nebraska. She certainly missed
home but was content. She was married to
a sweetheart of a man who worked hard.
They had two great daughters. The
town was much smaller, more boring than what she had been accustomed, but she
had a man of faith. A man of
uncompromising love and duty. It was her
honor and joy to pamper him. She was too
cosmopolitan for Valentine, but he was worth it.
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