It had turned cold early that winter. “Some ice skating sure would be fun,” Aaron thought. He stared for a moment at his mother’s back. She was facing the kitchen sink, and he could see that a light snow was falling in the window just beyond where she was standing.
2 “Mother, I’ve finished all of my chores,” he began. “Would you mind if I ran over to the pond for a couple of hours to skate?
3 “May I go too?” George interrupted before she could answer. “You’ll just get in the way!” Aaron immediately protested.
4 “You may go if you take your brother along with you,” Margaret said as she continued working at the sink. “Are you sure that pond is frozen enough for skating?” she asked as an afterthought.
5 “It’s been cold for days,” Aaron assured her. “Well, make sure that you are home in time for dinner,” she warned. “We will,” Aaron and George promised simultaneously.
6 The boys quickly bundled up in their winter coats and draped their skates around their necks. Aaron was sixteen years old, and Georgie was just seven. “You’d better keep up,” Aaron warned his little brother over his shoulder.
7 In the next instant, they were racing across the field toward the woods and the waiting pond. Tom and Jim were already there when they arrived.
8 “Hey!” Tom exclaimed when he spotted the brothers. “This ice is great!” Jim shouted as he slid passed them. Aaron and George quickly sat down on a fallen log and slipped on their skates and joined their friends on the frozen pond.
9 “Watch this!” George proclaimed as the older boys chatted at the edge of the ice. With that, the little boy took off across the pond. “Be careful, Georgie, the ice is still a little thin over there,” Tom warned.
10 It was, however, already too late. They all heard the ice groaning and creaking, and then the dreadful splash. “Georgie!” Aaron screamed.
11 Without thinking, he dashed across the frozen pond to the place where his brother had just disappeared beneath the ice. He saw a hand and tried to grab it, but the ice gave way beneath him. Now he also found himself in the cold water. Nevertheless, he grabbed his little brother and pushed him upward and onto the solid ice.
12 Aaron, however, slid back below the ice. For a moment, he was disoriented. It looked as though there was an impenetrable ceiling over his head, and he couldn’t find the opening which had ushered him into this frigid, dark and watery world.
13 Tom and Jim had stood transfixed by the horror before them, but the spell was finally broken when George appeared again on the ice. They rushed to the other side of the pond and pulled George to safety. Then Tom grabbed a large branch which had fallen from one of the trees that surrounded the pond and began hitting the edge of the ice with it.
14 Aaron spotted the disturbance in the water overhead and swam in that direction. He had finally found the hole. When he broke the surface, he gasped for air and began coughing and sputtering.
15 “Grab the stick!” Tom screamed, and Aaron immediately latched on to it. Then Jim helped him pull Aaron over to the bank. Together, they drug him out of the water and laid him beside his younger brother. George had been shivering and watching in silence as they rescued his brother.
16 “I’m so cold,” he cried. “Run home and get some help,” Tom told Jim. “Right, my house is the closest,” Jim agreed. “Just hang on boys,” Tom told the brothers as Jim headed off through the woods. Aaron was still coughing and sputtering, and George was crying and shuddering.
17 It seemed like an eternity before Jim returned with his father and older brothers. “We’ve got to get them warm,” the older man quickly concluded. He hurriedly took his coat off and wrapped it around Aaron, and one of his sons did the same for George.
18 “You are Caleb’s boys, aren’t you?” he asked. “Yessss, ssssir,” Aaron managed in reply. They moved as quickly through the snow as they could. “Hurry,” the man urged. He knew that time was not on their side in the cold that was all around them.
19 When they made it back to the Haines’ home, Tom banged on the door and shouted for help. Margaret dropped the potatoes and the knife she had been using to peel them and quickly ran for the door. Even so, a look of horror enveloped her normally placid face when she saw her sons.
20 They were pale and blue and shivering uncontrollably. “They fell through the ice,” the man began. “Georgie fell in, and Aaron tried to save him,” Jim interrupted.
21 “Help me get them out of these wet clothes,” Margaret pleaded. “Could you build up the fire for me?” Margaret asked her neighbor. While he did that, she got some dry clothes, blankets and quilts for the boys.
22 Next, she constructed some pallets on the floor in front of the fireplace. “Lay them out here,” she commanded. When that was accomplished, she covered the boys up and thanked her neighbors for their assistance.
23 “Do you want me to go for Caleb?” the man asked. “No, he’ll be home shortly,” Margaret replied. “I would appreciate it, if you would go get Dr. Jackson,” she told him. “Of course, I’ll go right now,” he assured her.
24 “Come on boys,” he commanded his sons. “They don’t need you standin there gawking at them.”
25 A few hours later, Dr. Jackson had examined the boys. “They are going to need a lot of rest and prayers,” he told the worried parents. “The real danger is from all of the water in their lungs, and the chill which they caught from their exposure,” he explained. “We’ll just have to keep an eye on them for a few days and see what happens,” he finished.
26 Aaron was burning up with fever and rasping for breath a few days later. “This is what I was worried about,” the doctor told them when he emerged from the bedroom. “The boy has typhoid pneumonia,” he announced without fanfare. He was dead a few days later.
27 Thus, instead of preparing for Christmas, the Haines family was now preoccupied with the planning of a funeral and trying to nurse their youngest son back to health. Margaret stayed by the child’s bedside night and day. Caleb either paced around the house or spent his time in prayer.
28 Milton did his best to watch over his little sister and keep her occupied and quiet. Josephine played with her dolls and wondered what was happening to her family.
29 Finally, just four days after the dawn of a new year, Georgie also succumbed to the pneumonia that had taken his brother just before Christmas. “Aaron died trying to save his brother, but it was all for nothing!” Margaret sobbed.
30 Caleb was numb, but he wrapped his arms around his wife and tried to console her. “How does a family recover from a blow like this?” he wondered. They buried the boys together in the small but rapidly expanding cemetery on the edge of town.
31 Now these are the generations of Caleb Haines:
32 Caleb married Margaret Miller, and they had children together: Aaron, Milton, George, Josephine and Don.
33 Josephine Haines married first to Edward Bowen, but she eventually divorced him. Next, she married Clarence Westlake, and they had children together.
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