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Stories from the Verse
Con Verse Lea
Chapter 75: Hastings 251
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 153
Lauren hadn’t tried to keep track of how many times she read and reread the first chapter of John, preparing for the next week’s meeting. It was several times a day. Sometimes Tommy would ask what she was reading, and the answer was almost always the first chapter of John, although she did look up a few references elsewhere that came to mind as plausibly related to it.
Of course, that was not all she did. She had forgotten that living off the land meant working every day--hunting or fishing, gathering firewood and maintaining the fire, cooking food, sometimes cleaning hides for canvases so as not to waste them. Plus there were constantly questions, people asking about this or that that they had read in their Bibles. She was glad that she had managed to read the whole thing more than once over the years, and decided that those two years in Bible college were not wasted, even though she didn’t always have answers to all the questions. Still, when she didn’t know she would tell the questioner that she would look into it and try to have an answer by the meeting. This increased her workload a bit, but mostly the questions were not that difficult, even familiar from her own studies over the decades.
Tommy was filling in the gaps, getting better at hunting and spear fishing and cooking, and would often take it upon herself to wash up after meals so the frying pan would be clean for next time. Lauren also noticed that the girl was doing a lot of Bible reading herself, although she didn’t ask any questions. It crossed her mind to wonder whether that meant she understood everything she was reading, or she didn’t recognize that she didn’t understand, or that she didn’t want to appear as if she didn’t. However, it would not be charitable to ask, and after all, with everyone else asking questions, Tommy certainly knew she could.
In one sense the week dragged on, the sameness of it causing each day to blur into the last; in another sense, it went swiftly. Lauren was surprised when Tommy asked her over dinner, “Are you ready for tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” she replied.
“The weekly meeting.”
Oh. That. Already.
“I guess as well as I’m going to be. I wish we had a refrigerator and could keep some of these leftovers overnight for breakfast.”
But then, remembering the long winter spent with Bob in the parakeet valley, she thought, be careful for what you wish.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #472: Versers Vanish. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
