The Lay's had been traveling a while, still in Missouri, and still not knowing exactly where they were headed, but God knew.
"Sweetheart, can we stop a while?...We can have lunch, and start back up again." Arrah asked her husband. "There's a perfect spot!..." She pointed into the distance. "There's a creek over there, we can go swimming. The boys'll love that."
"All right...You boys want to go swimming?" Cage asks, looking back at them.
"Yeah!" They shouted. Well,...Graham and Leslie did, Drew just smiled really big, but even he wanted to go swimming.
Cage stopped the wagon as soon as they got to the creek. The boys jumped out the wagon, dressed down to their underclothes, and jumped right in. Since there was no one else around, Arrah changed into an old skirt and blouse and went swimming with them.
"Cage, come on in and join us!" Leslie said to his much older brother. Yes, even the two-year-old could swim, but then again,...he was in the more shallow part of the creek.
"No thanks, buddy...I'm fine." Cage said, sitting on the bank.
"Oh honey, don't be such a stick in the mud!...Even I'm swimming with the boys!...I'll drag you in with your clothes on if I have to!" Arrah laughed.
"Better try and catch me first!" Cage said, laughing.
"Ok boys,...let's get him!..." She says and they start chasing Cage all over the wide, open land. Finally, they catch him and tackle him to the ground, with Arrah, wet clothes and all, on top of him.
"Ok...ok I get it,...I get it!" He laughs, hands up in the air in mock surrender.
"Ready to go swimming now, honey!" She laughs, and kisses him.
"Sure." Cage smiled and he and his young wife walk down to the creek, holding hands. The boys started swimming again, splashing each other a couple of times. Cage grabbed Arrah around her middle and kissed her neck. "Hey sweetheart, I have something for you."
"What's that?" She smiles at him.
"Payback!" He laughs and dunks her underwater.
"You little devil!" She shrieked at him when she came back up out of the water, then Arrah tackles him and they both get plunged underwater together. When they both come back up, Cage plants a kiss on her lips and her hands wrap around the back of his neck. "You know I can never stay mad at you!" She laughs, kissing him. "I love you, Cage."
"I love you too, sweetheart." Cage says.
"I'm gonna go get changed now and get lunch ready." She says, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
"What are we having?"
"You'll see." She smiles.
"Something new, I'm guessing?"
"Yep,...something my Grandpa always made. Don't worry, you'll love it!" She says and walked back to wagon, changed into her dark brown skirt and light brown blouse, rolled up her sleeves to her elbows and put on her cream-colored apron, and she got in the back of the wagon to get some things for lunch. She grabbed some butter, cheese, some corned beef, a whole bunch of rye biscuits, and some utensils, and got out of the wagon.
"Boys!...C'mon were going to have lunch now!" She hollered and the boys came running.
"Do we haveta get changed or can we stay in these clothes, Arrah?" Graham asks, trying to get the water out of his ears.
"You can stay in those clothes." She chuckled. "I have to make your sandwiches anyway."
"Why?" asks Leslie.
"Because, there is a certain, special way you have to make them." She smiled and raised her eyebrows.
"How?...Show us please!" Graham said.
"Well first you take half of a rye biscuit, slather some butter on there, lay it on heavy. Then, you take your chesse, and lay that on really thick. Next, comes your corned beef, you'll want a real generous portion of that. Finally, take your other half of the rye biscuit and slather some more butter on there, just like you did your first one...And there you have the best sandwich ever!...Who wants to try one?"
Well, they all did. So she made each of them a sandwich. The boys took to them instantly! Cage even liked his. The boys went swimming again, and Cage, now dressed in dry clothes, sat on the bank with his wife.
"How did you like your sandwich, sweetheart?"
"It was wonderful...Almost as wonderful as you." He said, his arms around her and he kissed her neck.
Arrah laughed."Thanks Cage, you're comparing your wife to food!"
"Well, I said you're more wonderful." Cage said, smiling.
"How much more wonderful?" She asked, laying in his arms, and looking up at him.
"Too much to keep track of." He smiles. "I love you Arrah...I always will."
"I love you, Cage."
Arrah stays there wrapped in his strong arms.
"Promise me something, Cage." She says, closing her eyes.
"What?" He said.
"That we'll always go wherever God leads us."
"I promise." Cage smiles, and gave his wife a kiss on the lips.
After a while, Cage thought that they should pack up their things and head out again, so the boys got dressed into dry clothes. Everyone got into the wagon, and they set off again.
"All right Graham...What's 4 times 3?" Drew was helping Graham with his schoolwork. It wasn't going too well.
"Um...11!"
"No Graham...It's not 11." Drew told him.
"I've had enough of this!" He says, throwing his slate and slate pencil down on the wagon bed.
"Well don't get angry with me!...You're the one who got the answer wrong!"
"Drew, can't we work on history?...Or play that game where we make up a sentence?...That's way more fun!" Graham said.
"Ok, we'll play the sentence game, but afterward, its back to arithmetic."
"Fine." said Graham, but he wasn't sounding too happy about it.
"Ok Graham, you start it off." Drew said, handing him the slate and slate pencil.
'The purple cow'...Graham wrote on the slate.
Drew looked at what he wrote and laughed. "Graham, there's no such thing as a purple cow!"
"I know that!...I want to make it funny!" He laughs. "Let Leslie do one!"
"Ok Les, tell me what you want your part of the sentence to say." Leslie whispers into Drew's ear. Drew laughed and wrote it down on the slate. He said what they had so far. "The purple cow danced like a silly chicken..." All three boys burst out laughing.
"In a pink pinafore!" Graham added, laughing so hard, tears were coming to his hazel-colored eyes.
"How do you know what a pinnafore is?" Drew asked, laughing.
"Rose told me!" He laughed.
"The purple cow danced like a silly chicken in a pink pinnafore!" The boys yelled and laughed so hard their sides ached.
Arrah looked back at them like they were really strange, but then she laughed. "You silly, silly boys." She muttered.
Suddenly, Cage brought the wagon to a halt, and started to turn around.
"What's wrong? Did we forget something at the creek, Cage?" Graham asked.
"We're going back to Mansfield."
"What!" Arrah asked. You could hear the joy in her voice.
"You heard what I said!" Cage said, smiling at her. "We're going back...I have a feeling God wants us there." He said. He gently held his wife by her arms. "God wants us there Arrah...I just promised you we'd go wherever God led us...I think He's leading us there."
"Oh Cage!...I...I love you!" She says, hugging his neck, almost crying.
"C'mon, lets go...Yaaa!" Cage snaps the reins and yells a command at the two horses, David and Johnathan, and they obeyed went the direction they came from.
"Yay!" Graham and Leslie yell.
"Aren't you happy, Drew?" Leslie asked his brother.
"Of course I am, Les...I'm very happy...I''ll get to see Jenny again."
"I think he likes her." Graham said.
"So what if I do!" Drew asked, smiling. "She's a nice girl." On the way back to Mansfield, Drew kept finding himself day-dreaming about Jenny Wilder.