Based on historical characters and events, A Gathering of Finches tells the story of a turn-of-the-century Oregon coastal couple and the consequences of their choices, as seen through the eyes of the wife, her sister, and her Indian maid. Along the way, the reader will discover reasons to trust that money and possessions can't buy happiness or forgiveness, nor permit us to escape the consequences of our choices. The story emphasizes the message that real meaning is found in the relationships we nurture and in living our lives in obedience to God. Jane Kirkpatrick is an Oregon author whose work includes the three novels Love to Water My Soul, A Sweetness to the Soul, and Homestead. A Sweetness to the Soul earned the author and publisher the Wrangler Award from the Western Heritage Center as the "Outstanding Western Novel of 1995." Her award-winning essays have appeared in over fifty magazines and newspapers across the country. She is a clinical social worker, speaker, and teacher. Jane and her husband, Jerry, live on a remote ranch in Eastern Oregon. A Gathering of Finches is the third book in her compelling historical novel series. Prologue I remember that first wit-litz with my Coos Indian maid in the autumn of 1899. Sea gulls screeched against the threatened squall as the wind pushed at our wedge-split canoe breaking choppy water on Oregon’s South Slough. As morning sank into afternoon, pileated woodpeckers cackled and flirted with Douglas firs marching like silent warriors down steep banks to sand. I remember that crossing-over, that wit-litz. Loaded with people and baskets of berries and bread, the shallow crafts took us from shore to shore and just one mule ride short of the Pacific. The scent of oil burned to smooth and widen the cedar crafts lingered on my fingers and my linen skirt. We could have crossed on the rickety bridge north of Valino Island. It still stood then. But such a journey lacked the proper adventure. Adventure ought never be thwarted. Adventure and novelty, change and variety, that’s what kept boredom at bay, and any price paid proved worth it, even when it bordered on the foolish, even when it circled the insane. I never imagined Lottie and I would share a friendship, a finished woman and her employee. But we did, though I sensed even then how those brown Miluk eyes judged my lavender love. She might have called it self-indulgent if she’d known the word and I had bothered to ask. I called it a grand love, passionate and providing, despite its being fringed with suffering and anguish … perhaps because it was. So much had happened: the lies, the choices whose consequences now skipped before me like flat stones on ponds. I saw no need to face them, barely gave them a fleeting glance. I sought an invitation to avoid them instead, to celebrate my independence, my intention formed separately from the family and faith I’d been born to. The wit-litz and my friends gave me that chance. “Harder, Lottie!” I shouted over my shoulder. I heard her wheeze as she dug her paddle deeper, maneuvering us around nasty snags. We led the competition by only a canoe length. The double-pointed cedar dugout swooshed against the tidewaters splashing salt spray onto my face and wilting the plume of my hat that drooped now over my eyes. I pushed my lower lip out and blew air to watch the feather flutter. Covered baskets seeping the aroma of fresh bread sat like clusters of lily pads beyond my knees toward the prow. “A going-over place,” Lottie shouted from behind me, her voice crisp above sea gulls’ screeching. “Mmm. My people call it wit-litz. Wit-litz .” “What’s that?” I turned enough to see her and the other canoes piercing the distance between us like well-shot arrows. “Crossing over,” she said. “We’re surely doing that!” I said, turning back. The little sound that preceded some of her words reminded me of a hummingbird quietly announcing its arrival. She said something more, but the slap of water and wind drowned her out. I twisted again to hear her, and when I did, a gust pulled at the plume and ripped it and the hat from the roll of hair piled atop my head. I gasped as I grabbed for the hat and missed. The violet felt and feather took flight like a frightened bird, twisted and rose, then plunged and sank. I swallowed hard as the current sucked it under, leaving behind empty space. Something seemed familiar in the motion. It wasn’t that I needed that hat. I had a dozen others and could buy a dozen more. It wasn’t much of a fashion accessory at all. But the pearl hatpin I thought would hold it to my head carried meaning for me and was something that, though not needed, had been wanted. “Oh, misery,” I said. Lottie back-paddled with the oar now, her muscles brown and bulging as she turned us toward the hat’s resting place. “No!” I said. “Keep going! They’ll beat us!” We were the lead canoe by only half a length now. Five more filled with family, some friends, and