Chapter 364 – A Glimpse of the Future
As they closed up and made sure the doors were locked, Abigail stood at the front door looking out over Hope Valley as it was dark and quiet. Frank came and wrapped his arms around his wife and looked out at the dark street as well. The town was only illuminated by the almost full moon. It would be full later that week, but with the clear sky it gave plenty of light.
"What are you thinking about?" Frank asked.
"Just looking at how much the town has changed." Abigail said. "The last few years, there has been so much change. Not only a new name for the town, but all the people who have left and the many, many people who have come. I was just wondering what the future was going to be like. I know that we as a community will continue to grow and there will be more of those modern conveniences that the bigger cities have. But I don't ever want to lose that small town charm that is Hope Valley. There is something extra special about this town. It is …. I don't know that I have the words. I have experienced the worst losses of my life in this town and yet, I have also experienced the greatest joys that I could have imagined."
"I am forever grateful that you all accepted me to be the pastor here." Frank said. "It has changed my life in the most incredible ways. I was unsure when I was given the request letter to come out here. I thought this town needed more than I had to give. Then I was worried about being accepted because of my past."
"You know that I was standing in this exact spot the day you stepped off the stagecoach." Abigail said. "I saw you and wondered what had happened because I thought the new pastor had arrived the day before. Then I saw Jack come over to greet you and it was the first time I had seen him smile since he had come back from Hamilton. That was when I wanted to know who you were and what you had said to Jack to make him smile. I knew anyone that could make Jack smile after everything was a good man."
"Honestly." Frank said. "I don't remember what I said. I do remember he was surprised to see me. If I remember correctly, I stepped off the stagecoach in my black clerics like I wore today. That was why he had come over. He wanted to know why a second pastor had arrived."
"What do you think the future holds?" Abigail said.
"I don't know." Frank said. "But we will face it together."
"When you first came over here." Abigail said. "Be honest, were you looking for something more or were you truly just lonely and looking for a friend."
"Honestly." Frank said. "I was lonely and just wanted to meet the townspeople. Being where they gathered was the best way to do that. But it absolutely didn't take me long to fall in love with you. I also quickly realized that you were not ready for anything more than a friend. So that was what I offered. The fact that you rode, fished and shot only deepened the intrigue for me. I had never met another woman who was not only willing to do those things, but good at them."
"I learned because I needed to." Abigail said. "I never really enjoyed hunting or fishing until Noah. I always loved riding."
"Still." Frank said. "You were a puzzle to me from the beginning. You were warm and kind, welcoming to people. Yet there was a wall that was up and kept people out. I saw a few people sneak behind that wall. I saw you with Elizabeth and also Jack. I wondered how they got behind your walls because that was what I wanted. I wanted more than anything for you to open up so I could feel like I could open up to you. I watched you be the strong one for people, when you yourself had suffered such great loss. I wondered how you did it. This whole town intrigued me. I had never met people who had experienced so much loss and yet were not bitter and angry because of it. I watched the love of this town change people. I still don't understand what makes Hope Valley so different from other places, and I have been to many places all over this country and in the United States. I have never experienced anything like Hope Valley."
"I don't know." Abigail said. "I don't know what to say. After the mine disaster, I thought about leaving. There were a lot of people who did. Even after I had buried Noah and Peter, I wanted to leave, especially when Henry Gowen was making things difficult for the widows. But somewhere deep in my memories came my older brother's words – fight back."
Frank hugged Abigail tighter.
"Growing up." Abigail said. "The other children would pick on me. I was skinny and not really good at girly things. I would have rather been riding or reading a book. So I got teased a lot. One day when I was about ten, I went crying to my oldest brother who was about seventeen at the time. I cried how some of the other girls had taken my hair ribbons and always teased me. He knelt down and looked me right in the eye and said words I would never forget."
"What did he say?" Frank asked.
"He said." Abigail said.
She wiped a tear that had escaped.
"He said, 'That life wasn't fair, especially for people like us. That if I wanted anything in life I needed to fight for it.' He also said, 'Other people won't stop pushing me around until I fight back. Fighting back is the best way to stop a bully. They don't like people who fight back. Just make sure that you are smarter and work harder than them. It is the only way to win.'"
"Wow." Frank said. "Good advice. Not the way I would have put it, but still. What did he mean 'people like you'?"
"I grew up in one of the poorest sections of Acadia Mines in Nova Scotia." Abigail said. "While the town was bustling because of the iron ore mines, not everyone profited. We struggled even more as my father liked to drink and so did a few of my brothers."
"I think you told me." Frank said. "But how old were you when you left?"
"I was fifteen." Abigail said. "Noah was almost eighteen. He also wanted to get away from Acadia Mines. Our families didn't agree with us being together. My father wanted me to marry one of the mine superintendent's sons, but he wasn't a good man. He was also twenty-five. Noah said he was saving and was going to leave Nova Scotia for better opportunities in the west. It took over a year, but one day Noah came to me and said he had enough for both of us to leave. It might be hard for a time, but if we were committed to making it work, we would be fine."
"So you left?" Frank asked.
"It took a couple of days." Abigail said. "I tried to reason with my mother, but she wouldn't listen. She was afraid of my father as well. So I snuck the things I needed out of the house and stashed them in a hiding spot. About five days after Noah had first come to me telling me he had enough money, we left under the cover of darkness. We ended up in St John's. That was where we were married. Noah worked in the shipyard there for the winter and I was a chambermaid in one of the hotels. It was hard work and it was a hard winter. That spring, Noah saw an advertisement for coal miners in Alberta. Noah signed on to work for the company and we traveled to Anthracite. Which is up by Banff or was. I don't know if the town is still going. It was struggling when we left eleven years ago."
"So you came to Hope Valley in about nineteen hundred?" Frank asked.
"Yes." Abigail said. "We came to Coal Valley early in the year. Peter was about nine. Noah had left Lee mining because the conditions were horrendous and he knew it was a disaster waiting to happen. After trying to change things and being told if he didn't like it to find employment elsewhere, we left. Noah heard that Pacific Mining had better conditions, so we came here. While the conditions were better then they had been in Anthracite, it wasn't much better. We struggled for a while and then Noah was named the assistant superintendent and things got a bit better. They were even better after he was named superintendent. Or at least they were until Pacific Mining brought in Henry Gowen in the fall of nineteen o three. I don't want to talk about him because he will just drive my blood pressure through the roof."
"You don't have to talk about it." Frank said. "Thank you for sharing. What happened to your family?"
"My father and two of my brothers were killed in a mining accident." Abigail said. "After that, my mother moved to Halifax with my oldest brother. Then one day he just left and no one has heard from him again. It has probably been close to fifteen years since that happened. My mother still occasionally writes. She never understood why I left. I have written to her about you and Cody and Becky. She sent a note back saying it must be nice to have a husband and children. I wrote to her about this little one, but so far no word from her."
Frank kissed Abigail's head.
"I am sorry." He said.
"It is what it is." Abigail said. "That was the other part of why I didn't leave. I mean I could have gone to Union City. I have a cousin who lives there with her family. She works at the bank where her husband is an executive. We connected after I left home. When they made their way west, they just happened to end up within a day of me."
Frank hugged his wife tighter.
"But I have a family now." Abigail said. "It might not look like other families, but it includes the people who matter the most to me and that is what is important. Jack and Elizabeth became my family. Now I have you, Cody, Becky and little Harriet."
"And I love you for it." Frank said. "We might not have the most traditional family, but we do have one."
"Thank you for listening to me ramble." Abigail said. "Sometimes memories just creep up on a person. I came here to look at the moon and think about our daughter running and playing in the street with Amber and Andrew. Then all that other stuff came up."
"It is fine." Frank said. "I am not scared of your past. Knowing you love Noah and Peter doesn't mean you love me or the children less. There is room in your heart for all of us."
Abigail turned around and kissed her husband soundly. They stopped and both turned when they heard giggling. When they looked, no one was there.
"You heard that?" Frank asked.
"Clear as day." Abigail said.
They stood there for a moment and then as clear as if their children were in front of them, they both saw a group of about ten children, all about the same age dancing in the middle of the street.
"You see that?" Abigail asked.
"Yeah." Frank asked.
The children turned and waved to them. Then suddenly as they appeared, they were gone and there was nothing out on the street.
"We keep that to ourselves." Abigail said.
"Absolutely." Frank said. "But now I am curious who those children were. I could clearly see two were Amber and Andrew, but the rest."
"I don't know." Abigail said. "But I know Harriet was among them."
"I agree." Frank said.
Frank and Abigail looked out one more time, but were only met with moonlight. They headed up to their room thinking about the image they had seen. Had they just been given a glimpse of the future or was it their minds playing tricks on them. Little did they know that three of those children would be theirs. Four would be Jack and Elizabeth's and two were Wynn and Elizabeth Rose's boys. Little did Frank and Abigail know what was coming for them but Hope Valley in the next few years. There would be plenty of babies. When Frank prayed for the expectant mothers that morning at church services, he didn't know just how prophetic his words would be. There would be at least a dozen babies born in the first half of the coming year, including his own and Delaneys.
… … … …
Author's Note: That is all for this part of the story. Look for a new story and more adventures with our favorite people in the spring. I want/need to work on my other stories, but I promise, I will come back to this story and there will be many more adventures for the Thorntons, Delaneys and Hogans.
So I wasn't sure how to end this part of the story. Then I woke up at three am on New Years day with a vision as clear as day on how to end this part of Chalk Dust to Eternity. While there is much more to come, this part has to come to an end and I felt it was a perfect way to do. It gives up hope for the future and sets up lots of stories for our favorite people. While I have introduced a lot of new characters in this story, they have been needed to move the story along. There will be some that make appearances in the future.
Please leave a review or drop me a message if there was something that you felt I didn't address that needed to be addressed or maybe if there is a particular characters you want to see sooner rather then later in the next part. While I have an outline of what I want for the next part, I have not started writing as I want to focus on my other stories for the next couple of months.
Thank you to all of my loyal readers.