A Man For Honor

“That the hat you were wearing?” She frowned, looking up at him. “Doesn’t look much like a gunslinger’s hat. Or a rodeo rider’s.”

“Ne.”

She had a sense of humor, this perky little matchmaker. He liked her. Better yet, he had the strongest feeling that he could trust her in what might be the biggest step of his life.

Sara chuckled. “Englishers. Mistook your church hat for a cowboy hat, I suppose, and thought you were a cowboy.”

“Ya. Someone who isn’t familiar with our people.”

She nodded. “I can see that. Better for you that it doesn’t say Amish. Better for us.”

“Maybe so,” he said.

“I know so.” Her eyes lit with mischief. “But good of you to save the Englishers from the accident. They are God’s children, too.”

“I didn’t want the fuss. Anybody would have done what I did.”

“But according to the newspaper, you’re the one who took charge. Who kept his head, did what needed to be done and kept the unconscious bus driver from drowning. Not everyone would have the courage to do that.” She paused and then went on. “There’ll be questions we’ll have to answer from our neighbors, but if you don’t wear snakeskin boots, rope cows or sign autographs, the talk will pass and people will find something else to gossip about.”

“I hope so.”

She reached over and patted his arm reassuringly. “If you didn’t want your photograph taken, there’s no reason to feel guilty about it. Any of our people with sense will come to realize it.” She gathered the reins again and clicked to the mule. And as they pulled out onto the street again, she said, “One question for you. The widow, Honor King, will she look favorably on your suit?”

“I doubt it,” he admitted, gazing out at the road ahead. “She returns my letters unopened.”

* * *

Two days later, Luke and Sara drove west from her house in Seven Poplars. Eventually, they passed a millpond and mill, and then went another two miles down a winding country road to a farm that sat far back off the blacktop.

“I don’t know what her husband, Silas, was thinking to buy so far from other Amish families,” Sara mused. “I haven’t been here to Honor’s home, because she lives out of our church district, but Freeman and Katie at the mill are her nearest Amish neighbors. It must be difficult for Honor since her husband passed away, being so isolated.” She turned her mule into the driveway. “Atch,” she muttered. “Look at this mud. I hope we don’t get stuck in the ruts.” The lane, lined on either side by sagging fence rails and overgrown barbed wire, was filled with puddles.

“If we do, I’ll dig us out,” Luke promised, adjusting the shrunken hat that barely fitted on his head anymore. Now that they were almost to Honor’s home, he was nervous. What if she refused to let him walk through her doorway? What if he’d sold everything he owned, turned his life upside down and moved to Delaware just to find that she’d have nothing to do with him?

Honor’s farmhouse was a rambling, two-story frame structure with tall brick chimneys at either end. Behind and to the sides, loomed several barns, sheds and outbuildings. A derelict windmill, missing more than half its blades, leaned precariously over the narrow entrance to the farmyard.

“I’d have to agree with what you told me yesterday, Sara. She needs a handyman,” Luke said, sliding his door open so he could get a better look. He’d heard that Honor’s husband had purchased a big farm in western Kent County, near the Maryland state line. But no one had told him that the property was in such bad shape.

How could a woman alone with four children possibly manage such a farm? How could she care for her family? Why had Silas brought his young bride here? Fixing up this place would have been a huge undertaking for a healthy man, not to mention one who’d suffered from a chronic disease since he was born.

The wind shifted and the intermittent rain dampened Luke’s trousers and wet his face. He pulled the brim of his hat low to shield his eyes as the mule plodded on up the drive, laying her ears back against the rain and splashing through the puddles. As the buggy neared the farmhouse, Luke noticed missing shingles on the roof and a broken window on the second floor. His chest tightened and he felt an overwhelming need to do whatever he could to help Honor, regardless of how she received him.

As they passed between the gateposts that marked the entrance to the farmyard, Luke could hear the rusty mechanism of the windmill creak and grind. The gate, or what remained of it, sagged, one end on the ground and overgrown with weeds and what looked like poison ivy.

“If I’d known things were this bad here, I would have asked Caleb to organize a work frolic to clean this place up,” Sara observed. “Caleb’s our young preacher, married one of the Yoder girls. You know Hannah Yoder? Her daughters are all married now, have families of their own.”

“Knew Jonas Yoder well. He was good to me when I was growing up.”

“Jonas was like that,” Sara mused. “Hannah and I are cousins.”

Luke continued to study the farm. “You’ve never been here before?”

“Ne, I haven’t. She’s been to my place, though. I’d heard Honor doesn’t have church services here, but I always assumed it was due to Silas’s illness and then her struggle to carry on without him.”

Luke didn’t know how long Honor’s husband had been sick before he’d been carried off by a bout of pneumonia, but either he’d been sick a long time or he hadn’t attended to his duties. The state of things on this farm was a disgrace.

A child’s shriek caught his attention, and he glanced at the barn where a hayloft door hung open. Suddenly, a squirming bundle of energy cannonballed out of the loft, landed on a hay wagon heaped with wet straw and then vaulted off to land with a squeal of laughter in a mud puddle. Water splashed, ducks and chickens flew, squawking and quacking, in every direction, and a miniature donkey shied away from the building and added a shrill braying to the uproar.

The small figure climbed out of the puddle and shouted to someone in the loft. Luke thought the muddy creature must be a boy, because he was wearing trousers and a shirt, but couldn’t make out his face or the color of his hair because it was covered in mud.

“What are you doing?” Sara called to the child. “Does your mother know—”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence because a second squealing child leaped from the loft opening. He hit the heap of straw in the wagon and landed in the puddle with a satisfying splash and an even louder protest from the donkey. This child was shirtless and wearing only one shoe. When a third child appeared in the loft, this one the smallest of the three, Luke managed to leap out of the buggy and get to the wagon in time to catch him in midair.

This little one, in a baby’s gown, was bareheaded, with clumps of bright red-orange hair standing up like the bristles on a horse’s mane and oversize boots on the wrong feet. The rescued toddler began to wail. With a yell, the shirtless boy launched himself at Luke, fists and feet flying, and bit his knee.

“Let go of him!” the leader of the pack screamed in Deitsch. “Mam! A man is taking Elijah!”

Luke deposited Elijah safely on the ground. “Stop that!” he ordered in Deitsch, lifting his attacker into the air and tucking him under one arm.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Luke turned toward the back porch. A young woman appeared, a crying baby in her arms, wet hair hanging loose around her shoulders. “Let go of my son this minute!”

For a moment Luke stood there, stunned, the boy still flailing against his arm. Luke had been expecting to see a changed Honor, one weighed down by the grief of widowhood and aged by the birth of four children in six years, but he hadn’t been prepared for this bold beauty. He opened his mouth to answer, but as he did, a handful of mud struck him in the cheek.

“Put Justice down!” the biggest boy shouted as he scooped up a handful of mud and threw it at Luke. “You let my brother go!”

The little one did the same.

Luke spit mud and tried to wipe the muck out of his eyes, only succeeding in making it worse.

Sara, now out of the buggy, clapped her hands. “Kinner! Stop this at once! Inside with you. You’ll catch your deaths of ague.” She reached out for Justice, and Luke gladly handed him, still kicking and screaming, over to her.

Honor came down the steps, carefully stepping over a hole where a board was missing. “Sara? I didn’t realize—” She broke off. “You?” she said to Luke, raising her voice. “You dare to come here?”

He sucked in a deep breath. “Goot mariye, Honor. I know you weren’t expecting me, but—”

“But nothing,” Honor flung back. Red-haired Elijah’s cry became a shriek, and a dog ran out of the house and began to bark. Honor raised her voice further to be heard over the noise. “What are doing here, Luke?”

“Calm down,” he soothed, raising both hands, palms up, in an attempt to dampen the fire of her temper. “Hear me out, before—”

“There will be no hearing you out,” she said, interrupting him again. “You’re not welcome here, Luke Weaver.”

“Now, Honor—”

“Why did you bring him here, Sara?” Honor demanded.

To add to the confusion, the rainfall suddenly became a downpour. Sara looked up at the dark sky and then at Honor. “If you’ve any charity, I think we’d best get under your roof before we all drown,” she said.