The Amish Bride

“Served you right.”

“I guess. Neziah was tough. I didn’t think he would tell Vadder because Neziah wasn’t a tattletale, but he had ways of making me toe the line. It was enough to make me give up gambling for life.” He sighed dramatically. “My mother didn’t buy us store cakes often. Usually we had the ones she made. Those Little Debbie cakes were a big deal.”

“I suppose children do make mistakes. How old were you?”

“Let me see. Neziah was out of school and working in the sawmill. I must have been eleven. Teacher used to have you give us spelling tests, and you always gave us more than one chance to spell the word correctly.”

“You didn’t need an extra chance. You were the best speller in your grade.” It was strange to think that the rosy-cheeked boy in suspenders and bare feet she’d once known might now become her beau. Micah had always been a handful, never a bad kid, but always full of mischief. She’d always suspected that Micah had been the one who’d put a frog in her lunchbox when she was in the eighth grade.

“But I always liked you, Ellen. Even though the teacher called on you to be her helper, you never took advantage of it. You weren’t silly like most of the other girls. You don’t play games with people.”

She chuckled. “Don’t I? And who used to strike you out when we played softball at school?”

“Not those kinds of games,” he said as he maneuvered the horse to turn the buggy around. “You know what I mean. You always went out of your way to include the shy girls in your group. You were popular with the teacher and the other kids, but it didn’t make you stuck up.”

“I hope not.”

“Nay, you weren’t. If you had been, I’d have noticed.” He glanced at her. “You didn’t have any brothers or sisters. That’s unusual. A lot of people expected you to be spoiled, but you weren’t. It was something my vadder used to talk about, how much he admired your parents for being sensible raising you.”

“I was blessed with good parents,” she said softly. “And I think you were, too.”

“Jah, but I wish...” He trailed off and Ellen suspected that he was thinking of his mother, who’d died so tragically in that van accident, the same accident that had claimed the life of Neziah’s wife, Betty.

“That you hadn’t lost your mother.”

“True enough,” he said. “Dat never says much, but I know he still grieves for her.”

“We have to believe that she’s safe in the Lord’s hands.”

“We do,” Micah agreed. “I pity those who have no faith to hold them up in hard times. It must be bitter...not to know that.” His brow furrowed. “Easier by far for me, a man grown, to lose a mother than Neziah’s two boys. They need a mother’s hand, and if you pick one of us, I hope you’ll give them what they’re lacking.”

“I’d do my best,” she promised.

“And that’s all anyone can do, I suppose. Do your best.” He eased his horse to a halt at the end of the driveway. A car approached, and Micah held the lines firmly. “Easy. Good boy.” When the car passed, he said, “Walk on.” He flicked the leathers over the gelding’s back, and the horse started forward, first at a walk and then at a pace.

“You’ve done well with him,” she said as the buggy rolled swiftly along the blacktop. She had to admit to herself that she liked fast horses almost as much as Micah did. And it was plain to her that he’d taken a roughly broken saddle horse and worked with him until the animal showed amazing promise as a driving horse. When Micah had come home from the auction with the three-year-old last fall, his father and her own had expressed doubt that the gelding would ever make a reliable driver.

“He was bred to be a racehorse,” Ellen’s father had explained more than once. “Lots of standardbreds turn out to make good driving horses, but that animal was left a stallion too long. I wouldn’t trust him.”

As usual, her mother had echoed her father’s warning, but Ellen had kept her opinion to herself. Micah was known for having patience and a soft hand with horses. She’d secretly hoped that the dire predictions would turn out to be groundless. Flashy the black might be, but the horse Micah called Samson had intelligent eyes, and she’d seen no evidence of meanness around other animals. This was the first time she’d ridden in a buggy behind Samson, and it was too soon to pass judgment, but she thought the gelding seemed well suited to his owner.

“He has a sweet mouth,” Micah said. “Still a little nervous around motorcycles, but he’s young yet. I think he’ll be fine.”

“Worth a lot more than you paid for him,” she agreed. “If you wanted to sell him.”

“Which I don’t. I’m not fickle. When I commit to something or someone, I stick with it.”

Ellen didn’t answer. She felt safer when the conversation was confined to the horse or to other ordinary subjects, but she felt that Micah was straying from the shore into deeper water. She slid over on the seat a little, widening the distance between them so that she could brace her hand on the buggy frame. “Thanks for thinking of driving me in this morning,” she said. “It was kind of you.”

He raised his shoulders and let them fall. “I’m giving my good neighbor a ride to town. It isn’t as if we’re crying the banns for our wedding.”

He was right, and she felt a little foolish for making so much of his showing up in her lane this morning. Slowly, she nodded. “It’s just that it takes some getting used to, thinking of you as a...”

“A suitor?” He smiled and clicked to the horse. Samson quickened his pace. “I thought we’d settled that last night.”

“Did we, Micah?”

“I thought so.”

She tightened her grip on the edge of the seat. “But it doesn’t bother you that this was all your father’s idea?”

“Dat said that he thought that it came as an answer to his prayers. And maybe it did. We can’t say for sure how God tells us what He wants us to do, can we?”

She shook her head. “I guess not.”

“Maybe it was me who needed the nudge to see what was right in front of my eyes for years. I like you, Ellen. If it’s meant to be and we give it a chance, maybe...”

“Jah.” She sighed. “Maybe.” A bubble of happiness tickled her insides. Maybe Micah was right. Maybe he’d been right in front of her and she’d never really looked at him. The possibilities were intriguing.

“It is just a ride to town,” he reminded her. “No strings attached...unless you decide you want them.”

They exchanged a smile, and she closed her eyes and savored the sensation of the wind on her face. This was certainly cooler than she would have been pushing her scooter along the road. She found herself relaxing and enjoying the ride.

Micah, never at a loss for words, began to tell her about a pig that had escaped from Roland Yoder’s wagon. Roland, a butcher, was taking the animal to his brother’s place to be fattened for autumn, but as he was crossing the highway near Bird-In-Hand, a dog ran out at the buggy. The barking frightened the pig that then jumped over the rails and landed in the center of the road. Cars braked and horns honked. The pig ran back and forth causing a traffic jam.

Ellen smiled and waited for the punch line. Like his father, Simeon, Micah’s stories were usually funny, sometimes hilarious. But Micah abruptly broke off in midsentence and reined in the horse.

“Did you see that turtle?” he asked.

She glanced over her shoulder. “Turtle?”

“Jah, a box turtle. Just a little one, smaller than your fist.” He guided Samson onto the shoulder of the road. “Sit tight,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” Micah handed her the reins, climbed down off the seat and hurried back along the road. About thirty feet behind them, Ellen saw him cross to the center of the blacktop and pick up a round object. “Got him!” he proclaimed, holding the creature up for her to see. He carried the turtle to the far side of the road and put him down safely at the edge of the woods.

“That was a small one,” she agreed as Micah got back into the buggy. “You don’t usually see them on the roads by the first of September.” This wasn’t the first time Micah had shown compassion for a small animal. She remembered him catching a six-inch black snake in the school cloakroom. Some of the other boys had wanted him to snap its neck against the shed wall, but he’d faced down two sixth graders and marched the snake to a hedgerow where he released it in the brush.

“I always liked box turtles,” Micah said. “When we were young, Neziah and I always wanted to keep them as pets and train them to do tricks, but Dat wouldn’t let us. He always made us put them back exactly where we found them. He said they have their own territory, and if you move them out of it, they won’t rest until they get back to where they belong. A lot of them are run over by cars on the roads. I feel sorry for them, so I always take them across when I see one.” He arched an eyebrow. “You probably think it’s dumb.”