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    A Handful Of Love
    A Handful Of Love
    A Handful Of Love
    Ebook143 pages2 hours

    A Handful Of Love

    By Doreen Milstead

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    About this ebook

    Heading For Greener Pastures Along The Oregon Trail, is a Christian pioneer novella about one family’s journey to the West and about the hardships which had to overcome, such as a shortage of food and losing a wagon along the way, and many other trials and obstacles. Only their strong faith and love for God carried them through each day to their ritual of--after eating--gathering together and reading from the family bible. As they get towards the end of their journey, there’s a major decision that has to be made.

    Christian Lumberjack In The Old West, is a wonderful and emotional novella about one man’s journey into life, and the old west, when he goes to Oregon to become a lumberjack. His story is told through a contemporary woman, a librarian in New York who finds most of the man’s journal in the dusty reaches of the library basement. Through the pages of his story--one of inspiration and hope--he lives on and his words end up being a major factor in her own life, by convincing her to become both a better Christian, and a better human being.

    Falling For The Mysterious Stranger On The Boat - An upper class Victorian woman decides to take the plunge after being widowed and travels to her mail order husband in Texas, with only her dog and her maid at her side; but when she meets a mysterious stranger on board the ship her whole world is suddenly turned upside down.

    Far More Children Than Expected - When Ana signed up as a schoolteacher in California, she thought she was going to be working in a schoolhouse near Sacramento. Instead, it was a far more difficult task she would attempt to undertake.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSusan Hart
    Release dateJan 31, 2017
    ISBN9781370675074
    A Handful Of Love

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      Book preview

      A Handful Of Love - Doreen Milstead

      A Handful Of Love

      By

      Doreen Milstead

      Copyright 2017 Susan Hart

      Heading For Greener Pastures Along The Oregon Trail

      Christian Lumberjack In The Old West

      Falling For The Mysterious Stranger On The Boat

      Far More Children Than Expected

      Heading For Greener Pastures Along The Oregon Trail

      Synopsis: Heading For Greener Pastures Along The Oregon Trail, is a Christian pioneer novella about one family’s journey to the West and about the hardships which had to overcome such as a shortage of food and losing a wagon along the way, and many other trials and obstacles. Only their strong faith and love for God carried them through each day to their ritual of--after eating--gathering together and reading from the family bible. As they get towards the end of their journey, there’s a major decision to be made.

      Anna woke with a start. She groggily stared up at the fabric covering the wagon as she realized why she had woken so suddenly. The wagon had stopped. More than that, the wagon tilted at an odd angle with the right side leaning back and to the side. She began to move to a sitting position as she listened to people outside the wagon yelling.

      She looked down at her sleeping baby that was cradled in her right arm and sound asleep. Anna gently kissed her precious baby girl and gingerly placed her in the wicker basket next to her.

      At that moment, Mark stuck his face through the flap at the back of the wagon. He looked worried and gripped the wagon gate as though he were about to jump in. He paused when he saw Anna sitting up.

      Are you and the baby alright, Anna? he asked, his grip on the gate so tight his knuckles had turned white.

      Yes, said Anna, still waking up completely. I think so. She straightened her clothing and ran her hands over her hair to make sure it was still bound in its tight braid. She searched her husband’s face, noting the concern in his grey eyes and the worry in the wrinkles across his forehead.

      After all these years and with all the hardships they had faced, even now as he looked so worried, Anna could not still her heart’s quick beat as she observed him.

      What happened? she asked.

      Here, hand me the baby and get out of the wagon first, Mark replied.

      Anna heard the concern in Mark’s voice, so she quickly covered the baby and handed the baby in the bassinet to Mark. As she had gotten to her feet in a crouched stance and moved the baby to Mark, she had felt the wagon shift under her feet.

      It moved, but not the way she was accustomed to it moving. This time it moved, not back and forth on the wheels, but more to the side in which it was already leaning. Anna quickly realized the reason for Mark’s concern; the wagon was in danger of tipping over.

      Mark, with the baby and basket in hand, looked at Anna.

      Don’t move. Let me get help.

      Anna simply nodded and watched as Mark moved and disappeared from sight. She listened to the voices outside the wagon as they discussed the situation. As she listened, she shifted her weight to lean more to the left side of the wagon.

      She learned the wagon had lost one of its back wheels. Apparently, the wagon was on a leaning slope as it was, so with the wheel all but missing, the wagon was not just in danger of tipping; it was also in danger of flipping down the side of steep slope.

      As the voices outside continued to discuss the best way to handle the situation, Anna’s heartbeat sped up as the danger of the situation sank in.

      In an effort to keep calm, Anna began to pray:

      Dear Lord in Heaven,

      Please guide the men’s hands and thoughts as they decide how to help me out of this wagon. Please, Lord, if it be your will, please keep me safe. If it is my time to come Home, please guide and bless my family. Please guide Mark as he leads our family. Please guide Joseph, Manual, James, and William. Bless and guide our baby girl, Elizabeth, as she grows into a child and then a woman. Please bless Rosemary and her boys. Please….

      Out of words to lift up in prayer, Anna left her unspoken prayers to the Holy Spirit she knew would intercede for her. Then, she turned her thoughts back to path that led them to where they were now.

      Three months earlier, Mark, Anna, their two youngest boys, along with their eldest boy Joseph and his family, and Mark’s brother William, had all arrived by wagon in St. Louis, Missouri. The entire family had been on the move for almost two years since leaving Germany.

      Each of them longed to finally find a place to settle down, to farm, to ranch, to grow and to prosper. America had seemed like such an incredible opportunity for a new life. So far, the new life had robbed them of almost all their earthly possessions. Some had been lost in a storm at sea. Some were lost to thieves while they were living in an immigrant camp outside Philadelphia.

      From there, they had gathered what little they had left and followed the Ohio River to St. Louis where they had been told golden opportunities waited for every man. Once they had finally arrived in St. Louis, they found themselves competing with every other immigrant for space and work.

      St. Louis was already a bustling frontier town. It was the last major settlement before heading to the mostly unknown west. Land and supplies were hard to come by and when they were available always went to those who had come prepared with plenty of money.

      Like in Philadelphia, immigrant families were forced into tent cities on the outskirts of town. Mark had quickly learned that land claims might start legally, but often ended in violent takeovers. The number of violent bar fights that rolled out into the streets, even during broad daylight, had Mark, William and Joseph all insist that Anna, Rosemary and the children stay in their tents and wagons away from the town itself.

      Each day, Mark, William, and Joseph had gone into town to find odd jobs. Each day, they only came back with enough food or money to last them a single day. After three weeks of seeing no hope for better jobs or any chance at land of their own, Mark had reluctantly walked into a bustling saloon in hopes of gleaning some information from the drunken candor of the men there.

      It was there that Mark learned of the wagon trains heading further west; so far west there were tales of another ocean, mountains so tall they got lost in the clouds and wilderness so wild only the bravest of men would be able to tame it.

      Places there called Oregon and California offered new hopes, lots of land ready for the claiming, and dreams of better lives. In those places, new settlements were popping up as fast as people got there. Those settlements needed all kinds of trades and skills. Since Mark, while a jack-of-all trades, was best as a blacksmith he knew this might be just what his family was looking for.

      He paid no attention to all the negative comments the men had made about the hardships of the journey out west. Instead, he felt hope and excitement building up in his heart.

      As he walked back to his family that evening, he prayed for the Lord’s guidance. Once the rest of the family heard what Mark had learned, they all prayed together and stayed awake long into the night discussing their thoughts.

      Finally, they decided to learn more about the wagon trains before making a final decision.

      Two weeks later, with Anna near to bursting with her fourth pregnancy, the entire family packed up their wagons and headed to Independence, Missouri where they met up with the next wagon train heading west. Mark, along with Joseph and William had been hired by the Trailmaster as hired guns in exchange for free passage with the wagon train.

      The Trailmaster, a scruffy, white-haired, old man who insisted they simply call him Jones, added that if the men did their job well they could earn additional gold once they reached their destination near Snake River.

      Two weeks after they started out on the wagon trail along with fifteen other wagons all full of families and belongings, Anna gave birth to their baby girl. Jones had insisted the train keep moving despite the cries of birth pains coming from Mark and Anna’s wagon.

      So Rosemary did the best she could in a cramped space to help Anna and the baby. Both women thanked God that this was Anna’s fourth baby, not her first, as the birth still left her completely exhausted.

      They could only imagine how much harder the birth would have been had it been Anna’s first.

      Anna snapped out of her reverie as Mark stuck his back in the back of the wagon.

      Anna, we have the wagon tied up with ropes on the left side to keep it from tipping down the slope of the ravine. I need to get you out so we can get the horses to pull it away from the edge. Can you come to me? Slowly, now…Slowly…

      Mark leaned into the wagon and stretched his hands out to his wife. He watched her as she ran her sweaty hands down the front of her apron and moved as far to the left as she could. Still in a crouch, for she was too tall to stand up in the wagon, she inched forward, holding her breath as she felt the wagon shudder under her shifting weight.

      She looked up and made eye contact with Mark. Keeping her eyes on his and letting his gentle voice guide her, she inched forward until his hands were able to grasp her around the waist. As if she weighed nothing at all, Mark quickly drew her from the back of the wagon and hopped off a crate they had placed there for him to reach in better.

      He held Anna close, drinking in the sweet smell of her hair and praying up a thank you to Heaven.

      Anna was the world to Mark. He had loved her from the moment he saw her nearly twenty-five years before. They had both been so young and so eager to be part of the New World with all it promised them for a new life. Anna was an orphan so nothing held Mark back or slowed him down when he told her his intentions to marry her.

      Neither of them had much to call their own, but they were both hard workers and knew as long as they had each other and shared a firm belief in God, nothing could hold them back. Anna had a fierce determination about her, even at sixteen.

      That determination only grew over time even as her family grew, even as her faith grew, and even as her love for Mark grew. Mark marveled at her resilience and her strength. Even now, on this wagon train of so many other families, he heard the other women folk whimper and complain about the trail, about the ride, about the menial tasks left to them as the men went

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