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The Reverend frowned, "I guess you encouraged that young cowboy, Rusty, to kiss and fondle my daughter."
"Your daughter is still young, and that young man is in love with her. He's saving his money to make a life for them, I forget, your new to our ways out here, aren't you Reverend? We all work hard, to keep what we have, we love hard too. But love is never shameful Reverend. I do encourage that sir. You want your daughter to be an old maid spinster so you can have a cook and housekeeper forever?" Lance asked loudly. "Or do you want her to be happy and have a home of her own someday?"
"That is not your concern."
"Seems we're both butting in where we shouldn't."
The others heard and for a moment the silence was deafening.
"That's uncalled for!" The Reverend sent him a scowling glance.
"Perhaps it was. But I'm a cowboy too, and damned proud of it. I know God, Reverend, I see and hear him every day out on that prairie. I talk to him daily, I pray for rain, I pray for good river crossings, and I pray none of my men get hurt doing their job. So, I'm well acquainted with him Reverend, and not once have I ever considered being in love something bad. That boy loves your daughter, truly, and you better pray they get married soon, because if you don't let her, she'll run off and do it, and she won't love you for making her do it that way. Thanks for the food and the sermon, good day to you sir." He got up took Trudy by the arm and they got in the wagon and left. The boys mounted up with them and left too, shaking their heads at the Reverend.
Rusty rode up to the wagon,
"You didn't have to say all that for me!"
"Yes, I did son, he's forgotten what love all is about and it's time he remembered. And it was time someone reminded him."
"Thanks boss!" Rusty's voice became graveled with tears and he went back with the others.
"That speech of yours choked me up a little too. But I can't believe you said it in front of everyone there."
"Why not, I know all of them and they know me. I told you my dad married my mom after only knowing her two weeks?" He looked at Trudy and smiled.
"Yes."
"Well, don't think he didn't pay for a long time from her parents because they ran off and got married. He had hell for a good five years and then one day he just hauled off and hit her father when he was giving him a hard time about it. The man never said a bad word about him after that."
"In other words, standing up for something is better than being silent, or passive." She asked him.
"That's about the size of it."
"I hope the Reverend will forgive you in time." She chuckled. "Forgive us both."
"He will, he's God-fearing. I'm not partial to him anyways, too much a stickler for rules."
She chuckled.
Chapter Thirteen
Late that afternoon, some of the boys and Lance and Trudy gathered on the front porch while Chico played the harmonica and Lance accompanied him on the guitar.
When they played "Aura Lee" Lance sang while Rusty played the guitar and Chico played his harmonica.
Trudy felt goose-bumps run along her arms and a tear formed in her eye.
When the song ended, he looked at her, "You like that song?"
"Very much, it's so sad."
"I think it was written to comfort men during the war." He told her.
"I had an Uncle that died in that war. I remember mama talking about him. It was her brother and she was very close to him. She said he used to write home telling her how bloody it was and how he wished it was over. He wasn't in the battles, he was an assistant to a doctor, and he saw the boys after the battles. He said letters from home was the only thing that took his mind off it. She'd read his letters with such gusto even after all those years, and then she would cry afterwards. Many times, she put me to bed, and she'd sit by my side and reread his letter, with tears streaming down her face."
"He never made it home?"
"No, he was helping carry a wounded man to the doctor's tent, when a cannon went off. There wasn't enough of him left to bury. It broke my mother's heart. She kept his letters all her life, reading them and rereading them. She'd read them to me when I couldn't go to sleep at night." She sighed.
