A Love Letter from Along a Storied Trail

Graphic by Susan Snodgrass

“To love at all is to be vulnerable.” ~C.S.Lewis

One of my favorite secondary characters in Along a Storied Trail is definitely Perdita Sweet or Aunt Perdy as most of the mountain people in the story called her even if as she said, she wasn’t an aunt to any of them. She was as prickly as a cockleburr and seemed to enjoy being contrary, especially to the main character, Tansy. She knew hard times, many losses, and even in the story she suffered some more losses. But as contrary as Aunt Perdy was, she also loved the Lord and depended on him even in the worst of times.

Graphic by Susan Snodgrass

She also had a secret love she nursed through the years and once upon a time had even written him a love letter. If you haven’t read the book yet, this excerpt isn’t a spoiler even though the letter surfaces late in the story.

Perdita turned a few more pages in the Bible and found the letter she’d stuck there years ago. She gingerly unfolded it. The paper was old. She’d written it after her ma died. Hiram was a widower by then, losing his pretty little Mary Ellen some while before.

Even now it turned Perdita’s face red to read her words.

Dear Hiram.

I do know how much you surely must be grieving Mary Ellen. I know how you carry her in your heart. I’ve been praying that the Lord will send you comfort. And it seems he’s spoke to me to offer to be that comfort.

I know you haven’t never had loving feelings for me, but we’ve had some friendly years of getting along. I think we could move those friendly feelings a little deeper if you were to be willing. I ain’t a bad cook and I keep a fair house. I’m even right fond of horses since I know that’s your business aim. I read the Bible regular and I know we could have some good talks about what the Lord intends for us to see in those verses.

I figure it ain’t no use both of us sitting by our lonesome in two different houses when we could be proper company for one another.

Respectfully yours, Perdita.

She looked up from her words on the paper at the fire. Could be time to pitch it in the flames. She’d considered doing that so many times. More times than she ever considered actually sending it to Hiram. Some things a woman just shouldn’t do and one of those was to beg a man to marry her. 

Perdita Sweet was one of a kind. As she told that nosy reporter in the story, that just because her name was sweet didn’t mean she was.

If you’ve read Along a Storied Trail, I thank you. If you haven’t, I hope you’ll give the story a try.

Did you like getting to know Aunt Perdy in the story or if you haven’t met her on the pages of my book yet, do you think you’d like to get to know her better?

Wishing you a blessed Valentine’s Day with love coming at you from every direction and especially from the Lord above.

(Many thanks to Susan Snodgrass for the great graphics.)