The Amish Suitor

“Here is our home now,” Sarah said in her prim tone. “We’ve got to remember that.”

Miriam wished Sarah would stop acting as if the twins were kinder. Maybe being around kids all the time, as Sarah was in her job as a nanny, made her speak so. Sarah needed to lighten up. Just as, Miriam reminded herself, she needed to.

“What shall we do for our next outing?” Annie’s eyes twinkled. “We can be an older girls’ club and have fun as the youth groups do.”

Sarah nodded. “Ja, but I don’t like calling ourselves ‘the older girls’ club.’”

“How about if we become a ‘women’s club’?” Leanna asked.

Annie shook her head. “Those are for married women. We aren’t married. We’re... What’s the term? Not old maid. No. There’s another one.”

“Spinster.” Miriam smiled. “Why don’t we call ourselves the Harmony Creek Spinsters’ Club? After all, a spinster is someone who helps take care of a home for her siblings and parents, which is what we do.”

“I like it,” Sarah said.

Leanna grinned as Annie jumped in with, “I like it, too. We’ll be the Harmony Creek Spinsters’ Club, and we can take turns choosing fun things to do together.”

“Until we get married.” Leanna wore a dreamy look. She was a romantic and devoured romance novel after romance novel.

Miriam wanted to warn her not to be so eager to make a match, but how could she when she’d been glancing out the window every few seconds, looking for a glimpse of the Troyer buggy? I’m concerned if the little boy is all right.

She chided herself for telling herself lies. She needed to listen to the advice she would have liked to offer Leanna. A desperation to get married could lead to dreadful mistakes. It was better to trust God’s timing. Maybe if she’d done that, she wouldn’t have jumped to accept the proposal of a man who’d seemed more interested, in retrospect, in having her raise his kind than anything else.

But no matter. She wasn’t going to make such a mistake again.

Chapter Two (#ucc0a5fe9-4d2d-5b55-a3dc-66a2bf29eb85)

Kyle tugged on Eli’s sleeve, trying to get his attention.

His nephew had been doing that for the past ten minutes while their buggy headed north along the main road that ran through the center of the village. They’d passed several fallow farms and newer houses on smaller lots.

Pulling his gaze from the road, he glanced at the little boy. Kyle swung his arm toward the horse, arching his brows.

Where are we going?

Eli sighed. He and the little boy, his only living relative, had developed their own sign language after the accident that killed his nephew’s parents. Kyle had been a boppli, so for him, Eli’s hearing loss was a normal part of his life. However, Eli doubted he’d get used to it himself. Hours of prayers, railing at God for the deaths of his brother and sister-in-law, had given him no insight into why the accident had to happen. Nor had pleading or bargaining. He didn’t understand why the retaining wall his brother was building had collapsed.

What had Eli missed? He’d pointed out places where Milan needed to strengthen the wall, and his brother said he’d done as Eli suggested. Eli was a carpenter, unlike his brother, who’d seldom thought of anything other than his dairy herd.

Guilt rose within him like a river of fire. In retrospect, maybe he hadn’t been as focused on the wall as he should have been. The day of the wall’s tragic failure, too many of his thoughts had been about how he’d ask Betty Ann that evening to be his bride. He hadn’t been sure she’d accept his proposal because he’d noticed her eyeing a couple of other guys, so nerves had plagued him. Distracted, he must have missed what brought the wall down on them.

When Kyle yanked on his sleeve, Eli wondered how long he’d been lost in thought.

“Let’s go home,” Eli said, checking the road before he made a U-turn.

The little boy frowned. Kyle probably thought his onkel had parted company with his mind.

And maybe Eli had because he’d driven out of his way to avoid having to see Miriam and her companions when their van zoomed past the buggy. It wasn’t as if she’d strike up a conversation then. His efforts to avoid talking with his new neighbors had been successful so far, but church was the day after tomorrow. He couldn’t avoid them there, though the Leit in Delaware had become accustomed to him and Kyle leaving right after the service and before the meal was served.

He wouldn’t skip the gathering to worship together, but he dreaded seeing people bend toward each other to whisper as he passed. As if he were blind as well as almost deaf. More than once, he’d been tempted to shout that they could yell, and he wouldn’t hear everything they were saying. He also hated the pitying looks aimed in his direction. Each one was a reminder of the expression Betty Ann had worn the first time she came to the hospital to see him after the accident. The first and only time she’d visited him there.

Would Miriam Hartz look at him the same way? The idea that such a lovely woman, who’d stepped in to defend a little boy she didn’t know, would regard him as a victim of sorry circumstances twisted his stomach.

He was glad when Kyle demanded his attention again by pointing out sheep in a field they passed. He didn’t want to think about seeing sympathy in Miriam’s eyes.

God, give me strength.

He hoped this prayer would be answered before Sunday.

* * *

“Got a minute?”

On Saturday afternoon, Miriam looked up from her sewing machine.

Her brother walked into the barn that served as their home while he worked to make the farmhouse livable. The pipes in the house had frozen, and water spread through it, ruining floors and walls.

The barn was a single open space. Upon their arrival, she and Caleb had strung a web of ropes halfway to the rafters. Hanging quilts on the ropes had created rooms, including the private spaces where they slept. She’d placed rag rugs on the uneven floorboards to protect their feet from splinters. A propane camp stove allowed her to cook, and a soapstone trough became their kitchen sink. She and Caleb missed cakes, bread, cookies and everything else prepared in an oven. He’d picked out the double ovens he intended to put in the house. Until then, it was rough living, but with the doors and windows open, including the ones at either end of the loft, the space was comfortable at last. She’d thought they might become human icicles during the coldest days of the winter.

Turning off the sewing machine that got its power from a car battery, she made sure the half-finished purple dress was folded before she stood.

“What do you need, Caleb?” she asked.

“A favor.” He sat at the table in the center of the open area. “Please hear me out before you give me an answer.”

“Of course.” She slid onto the bench facing him.

“I received a letter yesterday from the local school district. They’d written it at the request of the state education department.”

She clasped her fingers together on the table. “Why?”

“They’re concerned our kinder haven’t attended school the minimum days for the school year.”

“Mercy Bamberger has been homeschooling her two, and Nina Zook taught her four kinder.”

“But there are four other families with kinder in our settlement. The state insists they attend the minimum number of school days.”

“Do they have a suggestion of how we should do that?” Her brows lowered as she said, “If we’d had a school here, by now our scholars would be done so they can work on their families’ farms.”

“They suggested—and the local school superintendent, Mr. Steele, agreed—we hold school here for the next four weeks. That would take us to the middle of July, so the older scholars would be available to help with the harvest. At the end of the term, the kinder would be tested to make sure they’d learned what’s mandatory for their ages.”

She leaned toward him. “I thought our schools were independent of interference from Englischers.”

“They are, but as you know, the kinder need to attend for a minimum number of days.” He gave her a small smile. “I’m sure I can talk Mr. Steele into not having the testing, as long as I assure him the scholars will be in school for four weeks.”

“That sounds like a gut idea. We’ve got about ten kinder of school age, I’d guess.”

“Nothing you can’t handle.”