Wonderful Peace – Part 1

Good morning Friday Fiction Fans,

I was looking for a story to share this morning, and decided on another one from "The Lower Lights" only I discovered that I've never posted it on this blog! So, if you've never read the collection of stories in "The Lower Lights," you can read this story now. Well, part of it. ;) It will take a few weeks to get through the entire thing. This is a story I'd like to publish as a kindle book, along with "By Bus with Vickie" and just about every unpublished shorter story I've written. ;)

This story came to me after I saw a photo by my best friend of a skyline against a sunset. Only in the picture there was no church steeple. The rest of the story just came.

This has been a good week. I taught writing classes, wrote, planned out the timeline for the rest of "Hymns in the Hills" so maybe I can finish it. And just in case you were wondering, when I said plan, I don't mean everything. I simply jotted down the events that I knew were coming, put them in order so I wouldn't get mixed up, and figured out how many weeks I had left before the end of the story arrived.  Now I need to go write.

I did get the new cover for "The Lower Lights" designed. Thanks to Ryana Lynn and Lissa for volunteering to design one. I would have let either of you, but I accidentally designed it myself. ;) But there are other stories I'd be happy to have someone design covers for. (I'd love to get most of stories into kindle format, but don't have the time to design covers for them all, so if anyone needs practice, I'm open to that.)

Anyway, here are the two different covers:

 

The old cover 

 

The new cover

Anyway, here's your story for today. I hope you enjoy it.

Wonderful Peace

Part 1

    Pausing on the top of the rise, Arthur Fowler dropped his pack and sank down on top of it, gasping for breath. With trembling hand he pulled out a worn handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his face. His feet, his legs, especially his wounded right one, his back, all ached with the days of travel, and his throat felt parched with thirst.
    Noticing the darkening sky for the first time, Arthur looked up and caught his breath. The sun was barely above the treetops; a brilliant light nearly white. The sky around it was a glowing reddish-orange fading into a softer gold which then seemed to melt into the darker powder blue of the evening sky. The trees were black silhouettes while from among them, reaching up into the sky, black against the glories of the sun, rose a church steeple. Its top looking sharp and pointed; a landmark pointing the way home. Beside it a wispy trail of smoke rose and floated away on the cool evening breeze.
    “Does it come from the manse?” breathed Arthur, a catch in his voice. Everything grew blurry and he blinked back tears. Oh for a sight of that manse and those within! “Come on, Fowler, get going,” he chided himself, grasping his stout walking stick and rising with difficulty then slinging his pack onto his back once more. “I don’t have much farther to go, unless,— No,” he told himself fiercely, “They have to be there! They must. When I’m so close—” He left off thinking about anything except putting one aching, blistered foot after the other.
    The sun slipped down behind the church steeple and in the growing gloom of twilight Arthur stumbled over unseen rocks and tripped on broken branches. On he trudged, on towards that friendly smoke, on towards that steeple which had become only a faint shadow in the darkened sky. The trees loomed larger. Panting, coughing, gasping for breath, he wouldn’t give up. “I didn’t come this far to quit,” he thought grimly as his knees buckled, and he fell forward. “Even if I have to crawl the rest of the way!”
    After resting a moment, Arthur grasped his walking stick and pulled himself up once more. He leaned on it heavily as he continued his slow, weary way.
    At last he reached the edge of town. The street lights had been lit and shone brightly along the main road. Everything looked pretty much the same, the traveler noted, as it had a dozen years ago. All was quiet though lights glowed behind closed curtains in nearly every house he passed. The stores were nearly all shut up for the night, and Arthur halted before the little drug store.
    “What day is today?” he asked of the little old man who was just closing up.
    “Eh? What’s that? What day is it?” The man peered at him from under bushy eyebrows looking him up and down. “Been traveling, have you? A soldier?”
    “Yes to both.”
    “Come far?”
    Again Arthur nodded. “And today?”
    “Today? Oh, yes . . . I say, you must have been traveling far if you don’t know what day it is. Why young man, it’s Tuesday. Just two days after the Lord’s day and two days before the prayer meeting.”
    “Thank you,” Arthur started on but he hadn’t gotten more than a few steps when the old man’s voice made him stop.
    “I say, soldier, you look as though you ought to be in bed. Got any place to stay tonight? I think it’s going to get down right cold. If you need a place, you can stay with me. It might not be much but it’d sure beat sleeping outside tonight.”
    Arthur coughed. “I think I have a place. Thank you though.”
    “Well, if you should need a place after all, just come on over. I live just behind my shop here, two houses down on 3rd street.”
    Again Arthur nodded and started forward. He didn’t need told where Mr. Gann lived. He knew. He wanted to ask him about the folks in the manse, but somehow he just couldn’t.
    Turning the corner, Arthur could see the front of the church. He was almost there. The windows were dark but standing in front of the steps, the exhausted man looked up. He had to tip his head far back to see the top of the spire against the star studded sky. “It’s been so long,” he murmured, grasping his stick and starting on around the church to the manse behind it.
    There were lights on in the front room and he could smell the smoke from the chimney and knew a bright fire was blazing in the fireplace. He had made it, but as he wearily climbed the steps to the porch, he couldn’t help but wonder what reception he would be given. As he lifted a trembling hand to give a timid rap, a soft strain of music came to him from behind the closed door. Then in the quietness of the evening, a sweet voice was heard singing. Arthur froze, his hand uplifted, straining to listen.

“Far away in the depths of my spirit tonight
Rolls a melody sweeter than psalm;
In celestial-like strains it unceasingly falls
O’re my soul like an infinite calm.”

    And then the sweet voice was joined by another deeper one and together their voices blended in the soothing refrain:
“Peace! Peace! wonderful peace,
Coming down from the Father above;
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray,
In fathomless billows of love.”

    Arthur’s hand dropped to his side, and he leaned his weary head against the door frame while slow tears trickled down his dusty, pale cheeks. How often in years past he had heard that song sung by a voice as sweet as the one he now listened to.

Have you read "The Lower Lights"?

Do you want to try designing a cover for one of my stories?

Do you want more of this story?