Faithful Unto Death

The Retrial

can’t hear you taking the Lord’s name in vain when you think I’m rattling the dishpan.” “Those fool Thackers,” growled Thomas. “Don’t they have any relatives to take them in? Look at that!” he grumped, ›apping his hand at the window. “That girl Lottie’s out there in the rain, wearing those tatty old oilskins, trying to stack those great big logs, while that fool boy Ralph’s trying to cut up that big old elm, in the dark, in the rain, without any light but a lantern hung under the eaves of that henhouse. If t’wasn’t so wet out there, like as not they’d burn up all their chickens.” “It’s what they deserve,” retorted Elizabeth Ann. “Those Thackers have brought nothing but scandal and dissension to Benzonia, for all their mother’s holier-than-thou airs.” Elizabeth had been one of the young women who’d felt the sting of Anna’s tongue more than once. “And don’t you go getting ideas about helping them, either. We’ve got enough on our plate without that.” She added an unnecessary stitch and scowled at it. “Here, where’re you going?” she said with exasperation. Thomas shrugged into his own oilskins, not much newer than Lottie ’s hand-me-downs that he’d just spoken of so contemptuously. “I don’t care what that hoity-toity minister says, you can’t tell me that it’s Christian for me to sit here in the dry while those children are over there working so hard to keep their poor little bit of farm and family together !” He strode out, snatching up the lantern from the kitchen table as he left, leaving Elizabeth Ann to stare after him, open-mouthed. The Retrial august 1896 the case against Henry Thacker had brought him to trial two months after the initial accusation was made; within three months of Anna’s death, Henry had been escorted to prison to begin his life sentence . The retrial, of‹cially requested on August 9, 1894, took two years to begin. Lottie yawned and looked at the clock, remembering how the minute hand had crept so everlastingly slowly on those Sunday afternoons . Now it had unaccountably raced ahead to nearly midnight, and she hadn’t ‹nished mending Roy’s shirt or even begun letting down the hem of her own best dress. Day after tomorrow they were to board the 200 train for Lansing, and they looked, Lottie thought, like a bunch of tramps. They had stayed so busy, all of them, making sure of having enough to eat and putting extra aside for the taxes. Butter, eggs, and cream they had sold in the town to the people who were willing to deal with them, and some of the fruit from the cherry tree. What with one thing and another, Ralph’s “bank” in the cigar box had mounted to $120, and nothing short of starvation or mortal illness, she knew, would be suf‹cient for him to withdraw from this. As she stitched, she mentally reviewed her list.Their train fares were already paid; Mr. Dodge had their tickets, he assured them. Mrs. Waters , in‹rm though she was becoming, would take Will and Josie in for the few days they would be away. Lottie knew they could never repay her for her many kindnesses to them. Lunch on the train: Lottie planned to use the last of the ›our in the barrel (have to add that to the grocery list, she thought) to make a batch of biscuits tomorrow evening. Split open and ‹lled with apple butter, they, along with a dozen hard-boiled eggs, would serve as lunch.They were to have their evening meals and breakfasts at the modest boardinghouse that Mr. Covell had found for them. She wished that Roy could wear one of Papa’s shirts, but Roy lacked Papa’s wide shoulders. She should have thought ahead. Now there was no time to cut one down. The one she was mending would never look as neat as she’d have liked. Her own dress, come to think of it, wasn’t much to look at either. Once it had been a handsome frock, dark gray, her ‹rst “young lady dress,” long enough to reach her boot tops. Mother had made it with generous seam allowances, as had been her wont, so that it could be ripped apart and “let out” as she grew...