A Bride for Donnigan (30 page)
“So God took the bad people away. Like the big earthquake that swallowed them up. Yes—they were killed. That was the way God could be sure that they wouldn’t—wouldn’t spread their evil—their bad to others.
“You see—God didn’t really kill the bad people because He hated them and was in a temper. Oh, He hated the sinful things they did—the way they lived. But God destroyed them so that they wouldn’t destroy others—so that others wouldn’t learn to be bad, too.”
He looked at the little faces before him. Sean sat listening carefully, seeming to take in every word. Fiona listened with her head tipped to one side, her fingers twisting in the folds of her dress, her toes wiggling impatiently in the worn boots. Brenna sat quietly, one arm cradling her doll. She appeared to be listening, but Donnigan wondered if Brenna, the little dreamer, might silently be humming a little tune to her baby.
Eamon stirred restlessly. His eyes were not on his father’s face. He was watching a spider that crawled up the outside of the window. Donnigan prayed inwardly that Eamon might have heard more of his words than he had let on.
Timothy, at three, wiggled and listened by turn, seemingly catching a word here and there that interested him, then turning his attention back to the small hole in the knee of his pants.
Their baby Rachel, sitting on her mother’s lap, paid little attention to her father’s words, though she was intent on studying his face.
Six children—all different—all in need of heaven
, thought Donnigan.
God, help me to get them there.
Eamon continued to be their “tester.” Often they heard the same defense: “You didn’t tell me not to.”
When he cut all the tops off the early spring carrots to feed the bush rabbits in the woods along the creek, when he cropped baby Rachel’s silky curls with Kathleen’s sewing scissors, when he threw a hen off the barn roof to see if she could fly, when he left the poor pony out in the pasture blindfolded to test if she could see in the dark. At all of these times, and many more, Eamon would shrug his shoulders with the same answer: “You never told me not to.”
How could their minds possibly keep ahead of the young boy’s?
Timothy, on the other hand, was cheery and cooperative. He followed along after his older siblings, grinning at their accomplishments, clapping at their exploits, seemingly thinking that everything they did was terribly right and brilliant.
Kathleen rejoiced in the small boy. He was such a delightful change from the rambunctious, ever-pressing Eamon. No challenging, no arguments, no talking back.
But Donnigan watched his small son and felt concern. Kathleen could not understand his worry. “He’s so easygoing and pleasant. All the others dote on him.”
“That’s just the point,” replied Donnigan. “He might get the idea that’s what life’s about. Pleasing others. Being fussed over. You can’t always please others, you know. Sometimes you have to take a stand for what is right. You have to be one person against the crowd. Timothy is too quick to try to please. Too quick to do whatever he is urged to do. No. I’m thinking that boy might take more wisdom to raise than we think.”
Rachel, dear little dark-curled Rachel, began by being a happy, docile baby, seemingly content to watch the actions of the older children. Kathleen was quite surprised to discover when Rachel reached about eighteen months that her independence took a nasty turn.
“I do it!” she would scream and insist on doing her own thing—her own way. Though usually happy if left on her own, she was stubborn and difficult to discipline.
“Why didn’t I stop at five?” Kathleen asked herself more than once. But inwardly she knew that she loved the baby dearly and couldn’t imagine life without her.
“We really should pray, too,” Donnigan told his little family as he closed the Bible one morning.
“What’s pray?” asked Fiona.
“Well, it’s—it’s—” began Donnigan.
“Talking to God,” said Kathleen to help him out.
“Then let’s,” said Brenna simply.
Donnigan felt ashamed. How could he tell his children that he didn’t know how to pray? Didn’t know the words—the procedure? Didn’t have any of the prayer books or hadn’t learned any of the prayers? Little did Donnigan realize that what he cried from the deepest recesses of his heart—many times every day—was prayer.
He was about to try to explain when Brenna spoke again. “I’ll talk to God,” she said simply.
“She does it all the time,” explained Fiona to her parents.
“But—” began Donnigan. He did not want his child to do anything sacrilegious.
“God,” said Brenna, folding her hands in her lap and looking heavenward, “we read all about you in the Book. Sometimes we under-stand—and sometimes we don’t.” She gave her shoulders a slight shrug. “I liked the story about Jesus making the bread grow. And Fiona liked the story about the lions with their mouths tied shut. And Sean—” She stopped and looked at her oldest brother. “What did you like, Sean?” she asked him.
“Making things,” Sean said, his voice almost a whisper.
“And Sean likes how you made everything—like the animals. He likes the horses best. And—” Brenna stopped and looked around the circle. “Eamon likes the—the way you dead people.” Eamon wiggled, then grinned. It made him feel important to be talked about to God.
“And—Timothy likes—”
“The Three Bears,” called Timothy excitedly.
“That’s not the Bible,” said Fiona with chagrin. Timothy looked surprised at the put-down and lowered his face, his lip coming out.
“Timothy likes the bears you made,” Brenna changed it and Timothy lifted his face again, a grin replacing the pout.
Brenna cast one last glance around the room.
“And—Rachel likes—she’s still too little,” she explained to God, shaking her head.
Then she lifted her hands in front of her, looked around the room once more, shrugged her little shoulders and announced, “And that’s all.”
The prayer was over.
From then on, Donnigan encouraged his children to pray their own simple and original prayers.
Donnigan eventually knew the Bible well enough to know where to turn for the stories the children would understand—the stories that he thought they needed to know.
They had covered both the Old and the New Testaments a number of times. But Donnigan found himself flipping back to the New more and more often. The stories about the Son God sent to earth held fascination for him—and interested the children.
Kathleen hardly realized how much she had changed over the years she had spent with her family in studying the Bible. She no longer felt the same bitterness, the same resentment toward God, that she had when she had lost baby Taryn.
But when the letters came from Edmund wondering if “they would be kind enough to share the wealth that America had afforded,” Kathleen would rage inwardly, looking at the six children round her table that had to be fed and clothed. But she said nothing, and knew without asking that Donnigan always managed to find some way to send a bit of money from their meager savings.
Deep inside there was still an uneasiness in Kathleen. Why did she have to struggle so? Why did her temper still flare when things irked her? Why wasn’t she able to put the past behind her and forgive Madam? She believed the Book that Donnigan read each day. She even tried to live by it. So why didn’t God help her with her struggles?
Donnigan, too, had inner battles. He had never been troubled by deep anger. It simply was not his temperament. But there were other things that bothered him. He wondered if his offspring didn’t get some of their independence from their father. Donnigan always liked to be in charge—make the decisions for those in his care. Hadn’t he nearly smothered Kathleen in the first year of their marriage? Was he doing the same now with his children? No, surely not. It was important for them to have the right training. Donnigan felt strongly about it. It was the most important thing in the world to him. But was he doing it right? Doing all he could? He was sure in his heart that God really existed. Sure that the Bible held the truth. Why then didn’t he find peace for his own soul?
“I don’t understand it,” said Sean thoughtfully.
He and his father were excitedly surveying the new colt that had just made his appearance in the far pasture.
“Don’t understand what?” asked Donnigan, turning to the boy.
“If—God—creates everything—then why—why—how come animals keep making them? Who really makes them—the mothers or God?”
Donnigan smiled.
“God created all things—in the beginning,” Donnigan explained. “But when He did—He designed them special so that each thing—in all His creation—could reproduce itself. That is, could make a baby—of whatever it is. The pigs have pigs—the horses have horses.” He didn’t need to go on. Sean was a farm boy, he knew about reproduction.
“God still has a very real part in everything that is born. He is the ‘giver of life’ just like the Bible says, but He allows the parents to bring forth young. That’s how He made them. Remember those words God spoke in Genesis, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’? That’s what they mean.”
Sean nodded.
“That’s how life continues on,” Donnigan went on. “Animals, birds, fish, even plants, are still obeying God’s command. Are still reproducing. Why, I’m told that the drive to reproduce is even stronger than the drive to eat,” he went on frankly. “But without it—life would cease. The old would die off and there wouldn’t be any young—any new life—to take their place.”
Sean nodded again, willing to accept whatever his father told him. His eyes had not left the new foal.
“He looks like Black,” he said, turning Donnigan’s attention back to the new colt.
“Young often look like their fathers. Or mothers,” said Donnigan, nodding his head in agreement. “But sometimes they don’t. Guess the important thing—and sometimes the scary thing—is that they often act like their father—think like their father.”
Again Donnigan felt keenly his responsibility to his children.
A young gelding approached the new colt in curiosity and the mare tossed her head, bared her teeth, and flew at him, turning him aside and driving him away with nipping teeth and flashing hooves.