A Ready-Made Amish Family

At the same time Isaiah jumped to his feet and hurried around the table to where the youngsters stood together in a clump as if trying to protect themselves from an unseen monster. Their eyes were huge in their colorless faces.

“What is it?” Isaiah asked, leaning toward them. “What’s wrong?”

All four pointed at Clara. Shock riveted her. Were they insulted by her comment about the house becoming a disaster area in a day? No, they were barely more than toddlers. They didn’t care about the state of their house.

“No laugh,” said Nettie Mae around the end of her braid she’d stuck into her mouth again. She put her finger to her lips and regarded them with big, blue eyes. “Quiet and no laugh.”

“No laugh. Quiet.” Nancy pointed at Clara. “No laugh. Gotta be quiet.”

Clara listened in appalled disbelief. Isaiah’s face revealed he was as shocked as she was.

“Not laughing is hard,” Andrew lamented. “Really, really hard.”

“Squirrel funny, but no laugh,” added his twin, his words coming out in an odd mumble. Was he trying not to cry? “Really, really hard no laughing.”

“Really, really hard.” Nettie Mae’s lower lip wobbled, and a single tear slid down her plump cheek.

Clara gasped when Isaiah sat on the floor. He held out his arms, and the kinder piled onto his lap. But there was nothing joyous about them as they held onto him like leaves fighting not to be blown away by a storm wind.

“Tell me about the squirrel,” Isaiah said. “I like funny stories.”

Andrew shook his head, and his brother and sisters did, too. “No laughing. Be quiet.”

“Who told you to be quiet?”

“She did.” He pointed an accusatory finger at Clara.

When Isaiah frowned, she said, “I asked them—”

“It’s gut,” Andrew said. “What Clara told us. To be quiet when we sing so Jesus can hear what’s in our hearts.”

Again Isaiah’s pale brows rose, but his voice became calmer as he replied, “That is true. Clara was very kind to help you learn that. Has anyone else told you to be quiet?”

“You!” Nancy poked one side of his suspenders.

He tapped her nose and smiled. “I’ve told you that a lot, because you make more noise than a whole field of crows, but you don’t listen to me. You keep chattering away.”

The twins exchanged glances, and Clara couldn’t help wondering if they had some way to know what one another was thinking. She’d heard that twins seemed to be able to communicate without words, but had no idea if it was true.

“Tell me the story about the squirrel,” Isaiah urged. “Did he chatter, too?”

Four small bodies stiffened. Nettie Mae chewed frantically on her braid, and Nancy’s thumb popped into her mouth. The boys grabbed each other’s hand and shook their heads.

“No laughing,” Andrew whispered.

Clara squatted beside them and Isaiah. “Who told you that, Andrew?”

The little boy clamped his lips closed as his eyes grew glassy with tears. Beside him, his siblings’ lips quivered.

When Isaiah started to speak, she put her hand on his shoulder to halt him. She wasn’t sure if she was more astonished at her temerity or at the pulse of sensation rippling up her arm. She didn’t want to be attracted to her employer—or any man—until she had sorted out what to do with her life. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake of believing a man loved her and then being shown how wrong she was.

Pulling her hand back, she forced a smile. Now wasn’t the time to worry about herself. She needed to focus on the kinder. “Let’s have supper,” she urged. “It’ll taste better hot than cold.” She made shooing motions, and the twins clambered onto their chairs.

She started to stand but wobbled. When Isaiah put a steadying hand on her back, she almost jumped out of her skin at the thud of awareness slamming into her so hard that, for a moment, she thought she’d fallen on the hard floor. She jumped to her feet as the kinder had and edged away so he could stand without being too close to her.

He asked quietly, “Do you have any idea what’s going on with them?”

“You’d know better than I would. You’ve been around them their whole lives.”

Gritting his teeth so hard she could hear them grind, he said, “My guess is, sometime during the funeral or the days leading up to it, someone they respect enough to listen to must have told them laughing was wrong.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. You see how they don’t always listen to me, and they love me. I’ve got no idea who might have told them not to laugh.”

Why hadn’t she seen the truth for herself? But who could imagine four little kinder would believe they shouldn’t laugh again? When they’d become silent in the buggy, she’d known something was amiss.

But not this.

Putting her hand over her mouth before the sob bubbling up in her throat could escape, she turned away, not wanting them to see her reaction. “Kinder take everything at face value, so if someone told them not to laugh, they couldn’t guess it meant only at the...” She gulped back the rest of what she was going to say. She didn’t want to speak of their parents’ funeral and cause further distress. “How much do they know about what’s happened?”

He shrugged. “They attended the...the event.”

“Ja, I assumed that.” She was relieved he didn’t say funeral or the names of the deceased. It was further proof he cared deeply about the twins.

“Who can guess how much a young kind understands?” His mouth grew straight. “I’m an adult, and I find it hard to believe my friends are gone.”

“Are we going to eat?” called Andrew, again the spokesman for his siblings.

“Of course.” Hoping her smile didn’t look hideous, Clara slipped past Isaiah and went to get the casserole. “We don’t want supper to get cold, do we?”

She placed the casserole dish in the middle of the table. She reached to pull out an empty chair next to where the girls sat on red and blue booster seats, but moved to another at the sight of the stricken expressions on the twins’ faces. Nobody needed to explain the first chair was where their mamm used to sit.

Isaiah lifted Andrew out of his chair and moved him over one. Sitting between the two boys, he winked at them before bowing his head. Clara watched as the kinder folded their tiny hands on the table and lowered their eyes, as well. They had been well-taught by their parents. Looking from one to the next and at Isaiah, she closed her eyes and, after thanking God for their meal, prayed for Him to enter the Beachy twins’ hearts and ease their grief.

And Isaiah’s heart, too, she added when he cleared his throat to signal the time for silent grace was over.

The kinder dug into their meal with enthusiasm. Clara was sure it was delicious, because it’d smelled that way while heating. In her mouth, the meat and noodles tasted as dry and flavorless as the ashes on Isaiah’s forge would have. She saw Isaiah toying with his food as well before scraping it onto the boys’ plates when they asked for seconds.

He raised his eyes, and his gaze locked with hers across the table. In that instant, she knew what he was thinking. They needed to help the kinder. She agreed, but couldn’t ignore how uneasy she was that she and Isaiah were of a mind. It suggested a connection she wasn’t ready to make with a man again. She wasn’t sure when she would be.

Maybe never.

* * *

Isaiah smiled, hoping the youngsters wouldn’t guess he was forcing it. Kinder were experts at seeing through a ploy, so he tried to be honest with them. When Clara gave a slight nod, he hoped she shared his belief they had to help the twins laugh again.

He was astonished when she pushed back her chair and rose. She opened a cupboard and took down the chocolate cake Fannie Beiler had brought over yesterday. The Beilers lived next door to his mamm, and Fannie’s daughter Leah was married to his brother Ezra. He’d stashed the cake away so the kinder didn’t tease for it before they ate.