CHAPTER 43: BROOKS MAKES AN OFFER
In spring Brooks asked Josiah whether he would consider supervising a second stable on the north road.
The position included more responsibility and a larger wage, but it would keep him away from Miriam’s house several nights each week.
Josiah thanked him and asked for time to decide.
He spent the evening discussing the offer with Ruth and Miriam.
Ruth said the increased income could help Mercy continue her schooling.
Miriam observed that the work would also reduce the hours Josiah could give to the family search network.
Josiah felt guilty for considering either choice.
He had spent years imagining freedom as the chance to make decisions without being ordered.
Now he struggled because several good obligations competed for the same hours.
Miriam asked what he would want if no one needed anything from him.
Josiah admitted that he wanted to own a small stable one day.
He liked working with horses and training younger workers to recognize injuries before they became serious.
Ruth told him that a dream did not become selfish merely because it belonged to him.
The next morning Josiah proposed a different arrangement to Brooks.
He would supervise the second stable three days each week while training an assistant for the remaining shifts.
Brooks objected that the schedule sounded inconvenient.
Josiah explained how consistent procedures could reduce mistakes and keep animals in better condition.
He offered a trial period with written responsibilities for both workers.
Brooks eventually accepted.
The new position brought a little more money and gave Josiah experience managing accounts.
He began studying feed costs and the price of harness repairs in the evenings.
Mercy asked whether she could help keep the records.
He gave her a notebook and asked her to calculate the cost of oats for three horses over seven days.
She made several mistakes before reaching the correct answer.
Josiah praised her persistence rather than pretending the arithmetic had been easy.
He remembered Elias using numbers to erase families from his books.
He was determined to teach Mercy that figures could also be used to account honestly for the work people performed.
CHAPTER 44: THE UNFINISHED WITNESS
Samuel Reed received notice that a witness from the Oakwood trust proceedings had changed his account.
The man, a former estate clerk, now claimed that several copied pages had been altered after leaving the plantation.
The allegation threatened to discredit information Abel had preserved.
Samuel explained that the witness had offered no clear evidence identifying which pages were supposedly changed.
Nevertheless, the claim could cause attorneys and record keepers to distrust the entire collection.
Josiah reviewed the copies in his possession and compared the dates against letters written before the dispute became public.
He found that several family relationships appeared in independent sources from different years.
Ruth suggested obtaining statements from people who remembered the births and marriages directly.
Samuel warned that recollections could vary and that frightened witnesses might hesitate to speak.
Josiah agreed that every statement should identify what the person knew firsthand and what they had heard from others.
They prepared a list of questions without suggesting answers.
Miriam helped by explaining how people sometimes remembered seasons through births, storms, and harvests rather than calendar dates.
The responses arrived gradually.
One woman remembered a child’s birth during the year a nearby bridge washed away.
Another remembered a marriage because the couple had shared their wedding bread with neighbors.
The recollections did not settle every discrepancy.
They established that important portions of Abel’s records reflected memories preserved long before the financial proceedings.
Samuel submitted the material as corroborating evidence, while carefully noting its limits.
The former clerk did not retract his allegation immediately.
Under questioning, however, he admitted that he had not personally examined the originals since leaving Oakwood.
His claim lost much of its force.
Josiah felt relief but little desire to celebrate.
He understood how easily the suffering recorded in the pages could be pushed aside by an argument about paper.
Ruth told him that a careful response had protected more than Abel’s reputation.
It had preserved a path for families who might someday use those names to find one another.
