My Dear Sally,

If you are reading this, I’m gone on to whatever eternity God has planned for me. Don’t weep for me, but be happy that I’ve had a long life and a happy one for the past near forty years. I’ve lived exactly the way I wanted, and God blessed me with a dear friend like you, and now a little friend in Holly Anderson. I’ve gone back into all the births and deaths recorded in my grandmother Mayer’s Bible and found that she and I are very distant cousins. That’s the only thing that I like about having Mayer blood in me.

This cabin and everything in it are yours. Do with it what you will. Give it to the historical museum if you want. The money in the coffee cans lined up on the mantel is to be given to Lily to use for Holly’s education. I always wanted to go to school and maybe even on to college to study, but my father wouldn’t allow it. In his eyes, a girl was to be a wife and a mother. If I couldn’t do what I wanted, then I refused to be what he wanted me to be.

The rest of the things I want done are in the first letter that I gave to you. Please tell Holly that the days I spent with her were special to me, too. My mama cat and kittens belong to her, and if Mack will let Dusty live out the rest of his life out there with the goats, I’m sure the old boy would like that. Also, the two steers I’m raising for next winter’s beef can go with Mack. Anyone who can catch the chickens and ducks can have them.

Live your lives to the fullest, and the way you want.

Sincerely,

Johanna Hayes Mayer

Sally laid that single sheet of paper to the side and picked up the first one. “She says in this one that when she dies, I am to call the funeral home. She’s already picked out her casket, which is a plain wooden box like her mother was buried in, and that they have their orders already. She is to be taken to the cemetery from here in her old wagon, and if Dusty is still alive, he is to pull the wagon. If not, then I’m to make arrangements for another mule, but not a horse, to do the job. She does not want to be embalmed, and she’d like to be buried beside her mother at sunset on the day after her death if the ground isn’t too hard or wet for the gravediggers to get her space ready. She only wants one song sung, and that’s to be ‘I’ll Fly Away.’ The headstone is already in place at the Comfort cemetery right beside her mama, but I’m to let the people know that it’s time to put her death date on it.” She pulled her phone from her pocket. “I’ll call the funeral home right now.”

“Do you think they can get things arranged by tomorrow evening?” Mack asked.

“I sure hope so,” Sally said, and then talked to the funeral-home director. “He says they will be out here in fifteen minutes and that we probably should leave while they take care of things.”

“Can we just stay until they get here?” Holly asked. “I don’t want her to be lonely.”

“Of course we can,” Mack answered. “Maybe we could use that box over there in the corner to put the cat and kittens in while we’re waiting.”

“And gather up those coffee cans and put them in another box,” Sally said. “You might as well take them on home with you, too, since that’s what she wanted.”

“I’ll hitch up the trailer and come get those two calves out there in the corral this afternoon,” Mack said.

“It’s sad,” Holly sniffled. “Everything that she loved, her whole life and everything she loved, is all over and gone in just a day or two.”

Mack laid his spare hand on Holly’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It’s a lesson to us to live every day like it was our last.”

Holly patted his hand and then stood up. “I can’t believe she was our cousin, or that she’s giving her cats to us. That’s so sweet. I didn’t know her long, but I’m going to miss her so much.”

Mack let go of Lily’s hand and helped the kids get the mama cat and her three babies into the cardboard box. As he and Braden took the box outside, the undertaker came into the house. He’d taken care of both Lily’s parents, and he nodded solemnly at her.

“This will be an unusual one, but we’ll do our best to abide by her wishes. Her wooden casket is out there in the hearse, and we’ll get her into it. She told me that Sally and your family are the only ones to be at the private burial service, and that once she is in the casket, we are to shut it and not open it again,” he said. “Do you want to change any of that?”

Sally and Lily both shook their heads. “Do whatever she wanted.”

“I called Mr. Stewart on the way over here. He’ll be here tomorrow afternoon with his old mule to pull the wagon to the cemetery. The service will be at six thirty. I think that’s about sunset at this time of year. Do you want to tell her goodbye one more time before we get started?” he asked.

Mack came back and picked up the box that had about a dozen old metal coffee cans packed inside it. “Are we about ready to go?”

Holly went to the bed, leaned down, and kissed Granny Hayes on the forehead. “Goodbye, Granny. I loved you, and I should have told you so,” she said, and then turned around and, with a fresh batch of tears running down her cheeks, left the cabin.

Sally, Lily, and Mack fell in behind her, and the solemn little parade crossed the porch. “Shall we stop by the—” Mack started and then shook his head. “We have the cats. We’ll have to go home and come back.”

“I’ll call in a couple of pizzas, some pasta, and breadsticks on the way, pick it up, and bring it all to the house,” Lily said. “Holly and Braden aren’t going to want to leave those cats alone today.”

“While they’re getting the pizza ready, I’ll dash into the Dollar Store and get litter, a pan to put it in, and a small bag of food,” Sally said.

Thank God for cats, Lily thought several times that afternoon. Holly informed them that Mama Cat really was the mother cat’s name, and then she and Braden discussed what they’d name the other three all afternoon. Every so often Holly would sigh and dab her eyes, but for the most part, she took Granny Hayes’s death better than Lily had thought she would. Neither of the kids asked about the coffee cans, which seemed strange to Lily, but then what was money when they had three frisky kittens in the house?

Sally left in the middle of the afternoon to make some phone calls about the chickens and ducks, and Mack hitched up the trailer to go get the Angus steers. By evening they were in their new home in the pasture on the north side of the lane, and the goats were all in the one on the south side.

The whole day seemed surreal that evening, but it got even stranger when Lily and Mack opened the box with the coffee cans. She figured they’d be full of change—dimes, nickels, and maybe some quarters—but each can was filled with neatly rolled hundred-dollar bills. Twenty bills to each roll. Ten rolls to each can.

Lily tried to do the math in her head. Seven times $20,000 was mind-boggling. The total was well over $100,000, and Granny Hayes had kept it in her cabin. Right there on the shelf, where anyone could have broken in and stolen it. Where had she gotten that kind of money, anyway? She certainly didn’t make that much selling earrings, scarves, and shawls.

“I’d say that Holly’s college fund just took one giant step forward,” Mack said.