Prayer Chest A Story of Hope

CHAPTER 1 Easter Day, 1883 It was a moment filled with hope, the moment Daniel was born. "Not one Hutchinson man has made it to middle age," Joseph whispered into the ear of his sleeping newborn son, "yet." Many Hutchinsons married, some started families, all worked the farm, but none made it further than a few years past their twentyfirst birthday. Everyone in the small Long Island town whispered under their breath that it was God's will. Some shuddered, saying it was a curse or the evil eye. Others insisted it was simply plain, old bad luck. No explanation made sense because the Hutchinsons were the best kind of people you'd ever want to meet. There was nothing they would not do for you, and everyone in town had a story to tell about a good deed done for them by a Hutchinson. But for all their good deeds, in the end, the Hutchinsons could not keep their boys out of harm's way. On the day Daniel was born, all of his ancestors' unfulfilled dreams shifted onto him. The accumulated hopes of generations were laid upon his innocent shoulders before he had taken the first drink of his mother's milk. Maybe with him the spell would be broken, and the Hutchinson men would live into old age. Joseph Hutchinson was counting on it. "You have a lot to live up to, Daniel," he said rocking his son in his arms, if indeed he was to live at all. Joseph's father died at twentyfive years of age. It was a straightforward fall off a horse that should have given him nothing more than some scratches and a good story to tell the children at the noon meal. "There's no reason for the fall to have taken his life," the doctor had said. But there it was, he was a Hutchinson, and his time had come. Ten years later, Joseph inherited the farm from his mother, who had worked so hard to keep it afloat by herself that it was probably more the cause of her fatal illness than the "weak heart" the doctor blamed. Plain and simple, she was worn out. A week after laying his mother to a welldeserved rest, Joseph took over right where she had left off. He quickly learned that he would not be working the farm; the farm would be working him. "You had better be strong." Joseph addressed the baby he cradled protectively in his arms, his firstborn son whom he had helped his wife, Miriam, birth twelve hours earlier. *** Miriam had not recognized the labor pains that grew worse over the course of the afternoon. She shrugged them off as a bellyache from a bowl of oatmeal too hastily eaten at sunrise. After all, the baby wasn't due for a month. Moreover, she was preoccupied with her work in the field. Farmwork was exacting; everything was precisely timed in preparation for the harvest. Neither she nor Joseph could afford to take an afternoon off as the land hardly provided enough for them to make it through the year. It was for this reason that Miriam's mother had pleaded with her not to marry this boy. Miriam could recite their argument by heart... "I don't mean to meddle, sweetheart, but if you ask me" "But I haven't asked you, Momma," Miriam sighed. "Honey, Joseph's prospects are dim," she lowered her voice lest she be overheard, "and he's cursed. All the Hutchinson men are. Everyone knows it." "I don't care about everyone." Miriam was convinced that her love was strong enough to save him from the Hutchinson fate. "Nothing matters but that I love him." "IGold, August is the author of 'Prayer Chest A Story of Hope', published 2007 under ISBN 9780385520232 and ISBN 0385520239.