Grasping Buttercup’s rope, Lark led her toward the barn, the oxen thankfully following. Starbright stamped and whinnied as she led them in. With the livestock under shelter, she shut the chickens in their coop. If only this barn had a full four sides. But how sturdy was a sod building—any building—against a tornado?
A thud outside, then heavy splatting all around. Lark stared out at the prairie. Hail—huge white hailstones falling everywhere, as big as peaches, flattening the grass.
It was now or never. Shielding her head with her arms, she ran for the root cellar. Lilac held the door open for her, and Lark dove inside.
She slammed the cellar cover shut, plunging them into darkness.
Forsythia huddled in the root cellar, crammed between Lilac and Del amid the sacks of potatoes and turnips, and tried to pray. Mikael fussed in her arms, rubbing his face against her shoulder. Poor baby, he needed a change and a feeding—his nap had been disrupted twice. But there was nothing she could do about that now.
And here she’d been nervous about the possibility of seeing the doctor at the celebration tonight, where there was to be dancing. How quickly life could change.
Where was Adam right now? Lark had said the twister looked to be heading straight for town. Where would he and Jesse go? They had no root cellar, she was certain of that. Panic rose in her throat, and she closed her eyes against it. Please, Lord, watch over them. There’s nothing we can do until the storm passes. I will trust and not be afraid. She repeated the words, running them through her head to keep the crushing horror at bay.
Overhead, the storm roared like the freight train that had passed right by them when they visited Columbus. She’d never heard wind like this. The pressure in the air made her jaw ache. Lark clutched the door handle to keep the door from being lifted open by the wind.
“I’m scared,” Robbie whimpered on the other side of Lilac. “My ears hurt. I want to get out.”
Mikael screamed and kept on screaming.
“Me too.” Sofie started to cry.
Forsythia clutched the baby’s head against her shoulder with her other hand over his outside ear, then reached to touch the little boy’s knee in the darkness. “We can’t get out yet, Robbie boy. We need to stay in here where it’s safe.”
“But it doesn’t feel safe, Mama Sythia.”
Despite the circumstances, her heart warmed as it always did at hearing the name for her he had come up with one day. “I know, dear one. I don’t like the awful sound either.” Lord, show me what to say. “Did you know that in the dark and shadows can actually be a very safe place to be?” She spoke directly into his ear so he could hear her.
Robbie sniffled. “They can?”
“There’s a psalm that talks about it.” Forsythia shifted, rubbing Mikael’s back as he settled against her shoulder. “‘He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High . . .’” Her throat tightened too much for her to speak above the roar of the storm.
“‘. . . shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty,’” Lark supplied. “‘I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.’”
The clamping in Forsythia’s chest eased. There in the darkness, her sisters picked up the familiar psalm.
“‘He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.’”
Forsythia joined in again. “‘For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.’” Thank you, Ma, for making us learn these words by heart.
They finished the psalm in unison.
“So you see, Robbie? God’s shadow is a very safe place to be.”
“Is this God’s shadow?” His voice was small.
Del chuckled. “I suppose every place can be in God’s shadow, if we stay close to Him.”
They stayed in the cellar for what seemed like an hour, though it was probably half that. At last Lark shifted in the darkness.
“It sounds like it has passed. I’ll check.” She pushed open the door, and they all blinked in the sudden light. Lark climbed out, stretched, and surveyed the landscape.
“It’s gone. You all can come out.”
Forsythia handed Mikael up to Lark and stumbled out, her legs stiff and numb.
Behind her, Del and Lilac emerged with Sofie and Robbie. Mikael blinked on Lark’s shoulder, round-eyed and seeming to have forgotten his stomach and diaper.
“Looks like it completely missed us, other than the hail.” Lark blew out a long breath. “Thank you, Lord.”
Still, chunks of sod from the barn and new addition had fallen in from the hail. And part of the fence around the pasture lay scattered like sticks in a children’s game. Glistening hailstones littered the grass. Robbie and Sofie ran about picking them up, fascinated, then dropping the stones when their hands grew too cold.
“I’ll do the milking now, while we can.” Lark shivered. The wind was turning cold. “Lilac and Del, would you feed the animals? Sythia, get the children inside.”
Forsythia shepherded Sofie and Robbie into the soddy. The warm darkness inside wrapped around them like a mother’s embrace. She laid Mikael in his cradle so she could light a lamp and set it on the table, its glow lighting the checkered tablecloth and showing the neat bedstead covered with a cheery quilt, the filled cupboards and shelves lining the walls. How quickly this had become home. How quickly they could have lost it. Thank you, Father.
Mikael kicked and wailed in his cradle, not at all pleased at being deposited there without anything in his
