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.”