Young Eli Thomas had always been the black sheep of his family. For one thing he got in the habit of attending church services. He had a tiny memory of someone he loved listening to preaching on the trail when he was just a baby - but at first it was the crowds of happy people and the songs they sang. Then when he sat quietly on the floor in the back of the building and listened to the preacher talk about God, he remembered the mama in the wagon train that liked to listen to talks about God.
The man who said the kind words about God noticed him, but he didn’t push him away. Eli was used to being pushed away, but the man smiled and said, “I am glad you are here.”
These were wonderful words for a boy to hear for the first time he could remember.
The mama from the wagon train was glad to see him and the children he played with liked to have him around, but this was the first time he heard the words.
And then there was the nice lady that turned out to be the wife of the man who talked about God. She asked him – actually asked him - to please come back.
It took time, but little by little they drew him into their hearts and their home. And, very un-obtrusively, they gave him clean and mended clothes to wear and school books he kept in their house when he wasn’t in school with them.
It took very little encouragement to get him to study hard and he did so well the preacher made arrangements for him to study the law with a friend of his in St. Louis, Missouri.
He had a new horse and was on his way east the morning Pearl decided she would have to run away.
The man who was supposed to have escorted him changed his mind and turned back for his home when it started raining so heavily.
Eli made the decision to go on alone rather than turn back himself. He would be alone but he was used to that and he was not going to miss this opportunity. His pastor/friend gave him a good horse and gear including a gun and he worked hard to convince his self he was earning it.
The steady slop, splatter, sloshing of the horse’s hoofs, the rain dripping from his hat and running down his shoulders, and the rainy haze in front of him all increased his resolve to go on as he rode north from Oregon City.
The trees on each side of the road sobbed with rain, the fern and moss drank the water in the wet dirt and continued to grow ever thicker increasing the plush carpet he rode on.
Eli looked at the swollen raging Columbia south of Fort Vancouver and the Cascade range to the east and turned east for the mountains. His horse picked her way carefully over the moss covered rocks and up the slippery incline to the foot of the high country.
The trees were growing thicker and as he rode the wet branches tried to sweep him from his horse’s back.
He saw a little girl riding alone just ahead and he urged his mare forward to see who it was.
Suddenly, what sounded like, a woman’s scream pierced the air and both horses reared and plunged forward, trying to rid themselves of the fear overwhelming them.
The little girl’s mare threw her rider but soon gained another. Its claws ripped at the saddle and its jaws reached for her throat. She fought wildly to free herself. Finally a shot rang out, and the weight dropped from her.
Eli returned the gun to its holster and looked around. The girl’s horse was standing some distance away shacking badly.
The child was nowhere in sight. Every nerve in Eli’s body was jumping but he forced his limbs to obey so he could retrieve the mare.
He retraced the steps of the panicked horse looking for signs of the little girl. When he finally found her, it was because of her groaning. She was arranged in a heap with her leg twisted under her. A curious deer watched for a few moments and then, with a graceful leap, disappeared into the woods. Eli dismounted and knelt by the child. “Hello,” he said gently. “Can you move?”
“Everything but my leg.” She groaned and turned over slightly so Eli could see her bloody leg, then she passed out.
Pearl was delirious most of the time while Eli worked to get the leg in line with the upper half of it and the flesh bound together. He bound two sticks to her leg to hold it together and straight, then he built a little shelter where he could have a fire to keep his precious charge warm.
Eli positioned Pearl as close to the fire as he could without burning her and covered her with as much of his own clothes as he could decently spare.
He sat by her little feet and bowed his head. “Lord, I know you work out everything in our lives so they will complement each other to make the result like a beautiful song for our hearts,” he said, working it out as he talked. “And I know that song is our own re-creation in your image. I also know you can heal this little girl’s leg or not, as you please, according to the wise council of your own will.”
He paused for a moment, then continued in a more positive note. “Well Lord, I don’t see how it would be your will – for your name to be glorified - by this little girl dying out here all alone and far away from her family and friends, so I am just trusting you to heal her. Thank you.”
Eli remembered what Jesus said about his people being able to do even greater wonders than Jesus did himself, while he was here on earth, because the Spirit of God was in each Christian with the power to work miracles.
He laid his hand on her leg and said, “Be healed,” with the determination to be the hands of God which would do everything to cooperate with that healing; all anyone could possibly do.
He stood up and started to gather branches to make a litter to carry his little charge home in.
The following morning Eli started out with Pearl on the litter. When he stopped, he cleaned the mud from his patient’s face and forced some broth between her lips. The mud splashed up all day until it covered her like a shroud. The canopy Eli had made protected her from the rain but nothing could keep the mud off of her – it splashed from the sides of the litter and came up between the weaving on the bottom.
Eli didn’t know the Lord was using this mud to draw out the poison and heal the leg. Late in the afternoon it stopped raining for a while but that evening it started up again in a steady drizzle.
Eli lived with the rain most of his life and slept in it more than once, so he leaned his head against a tree and sat on his saddle to get as much sleep as he could during the hours of darkness.
Early the next morning the rain stopped and the sun dried the mud. Pearl woke up and tried to scrape the dirt of her leg.
Eli’s young heart was warmed at the sight but he noticed the healing power of the mud so he said gently, “Leave it alone. It is drying the nasty stuff coming out of your leg.”
“What nasty stuff? What’s going on? Where am I? I want my Mother.”
The little girl seemed to have turned into an endless supply of questions that didn’t want answered but her lip was trembling and she tried to move and groaned again.
“Lie still please. You were thrown off of your horse and broke your leg. The bone came all of the way through and I am afraid that if you don’t be very still the bone will come back out. So please lie still. My name is Eli and I saw what happened and am trying to get you back to your mother.”
Pearl lay still. “Hello Eli,” she said docilely, “I’m running away.”
When Pearl finished telling him all about why she ran away he said, “It wasn’t a very smart thing to do. If I hadn’t been there when that panther jumped you, you would have made a nice bunch of cat food. My pastor friend says that it is always best to face our problems head on.”
Pearl didn’t argue. She forgot why it seemed so important for her to run away. “How did you get away from the cat?” Pearl asked.
“I shot it.”
“You have a gun?”
“You don’t think I would come all of this way out here without a gun do you? My pastor friend wouldn’t let me,” he said proudly. “What is your name anyway?”
“I’m Pearl Brook O’Riley and I live in Ferndale. Are we almost home?”
“We are almost to Oregon City. Ferndale is a little further on but we will go to the sheriff and see if we can borrow a wagon to get you to Ferndale. Then I have to go. I am going to St. Louis and get an education.”
“Is that where you were going when you shot the cat and saved my life? I shouldn’t think you would want to go all the way by yourself. I know it is a very long way to get an education because my cousin went to school in the east and it’s ever so far away. It will take him months and months to get home now.”
Pearl chattered all the rest of the way to Oregon City.
Eli listened to her and didn’t say much, but he realized she was one of Evelyn Brook’s children and he was enjoying hearing her talk of her family – the family that belonged to the mama from the wagon train. He felt very much like he was seeing why God had allowed this thing to work together in his life and the lives of the family of the mama he had fond dreams about ever since he was a baby.