Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: BUY - BYE (01/19/23)
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TITLE: Promises Kept | Previous Challenge Entry
By Hannah Gaudette
01/25/23 -
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Pa bought a diamond ring and gave it to her. Must have taken the entire family savings to do it. Then he packed his suitcase and left.
Pa had gold fever, Mama said. Not because he’d found gold and wanted more, but on account of the fact that a few of his neighbors had gone off looking and found a lot. Came back rich men.
So he headed for Alaska, and we were left to tend the farm in Oregon. I thought Mama was angry, since she cried, but she kept wearing that ring. Never took it off. Not even to feed the chickens.
My three brothers managed the apple orchard all right. But without the family savings, when disaster struck, we didn’t have the money to fix it. A storm took half our trees in one night. Knocked all those pretty red apples, nearly ripe, to the ground.
We wouldn’t survive without that income.
Mama took out a loan, using the cattle as collateral. But when she couldn’t pay it back, they took the herd.
My brothers muttered awful things about Pa as the months crawled by and the money ran out. I shook my fists at them for saying such things.
Danny threw his hat to the ground and said, “He ain’t comin’ back, Rose! And what’s worse, he’s left us headin’ to the poor house!”
Then I cried, too.
Mama picked up some seamstress work, and my brothers took odd jobs. But it wasn’t enough. Would we really go to the poorhouse? No. Pa would come back before that happened. He’d be a rich man, just like some of the neighbor fellas were.
One night, Danny talked to Mama when they thought I’d gone up to bed. “What about that ring?” my brother asked. “You could sell it.”
“Never,” Mama whispered.
“Why not?”
She held it up on her finger in the lantern light, while her cheeks glistened with tears. “This here is your pa’s promise ring. He bought it to say he’d be comin’ back.”
But Pa didn’t come back.
Christmas passed by unnoticed. Then Easter. Then my birthday.
Teacher must have noticed I was looking a little skinny, because she kept trying to get me to take food home. Told her we didn’t need charity.
Mama sold everything of value that we owned. Even her wedding ring.
But not Pa’s promise ring.
We sold the riding horses. We sold Grandma’s hina.
But not Pa’s promise ring.
One night, I heard Mama weeping downstairs. I sneaked down to the kitchen, where she was. I looked at the ring on her finger as she touched the beautiful diamond. Please, God, I prayed, don’t let us lose the house. Don’t let us go to the poorhouse.
Next morning, a gentlemen dressed in a suit came to the house. I couldn’t hear him talking, but I saw Mama take off her treasured promise ring and hand it to the well-dressed man. He handed her back a wad of cash like I’d never seen in my life.
Mama . . . sold the promise ring.
Why? Why? When Pa would be back any day?
I told my brothers, and we met Mama in front of the house when the man drove away in his fancy carriage.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked, heartsick. “Pa’s promise ring?”
“Folks don’t always keep promises, Rose,” Mama told me evenly. “But I made a promise to look after you children, and I’ll be keepin’ it.”
“But he bought it to say he’d be coming back!”
“He bought it to say goodbye, Rose.”
I never saw Mama so strong as when she sold the ring. The five of us worked day and night to bring in the harvest that summer and fall. Made our payments. Settled our debts. When Christmas came again, there weren’t many presents, but there were enough. And there was enough joy in the house to let me know we were going to be all right.
Pa might have left us for gold, and I hoped he found it, but Mama was the strongest woman on God’s green earth.
And she kept her promise.
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