The Amish Suitor

“Me?” she managed to choke out past her shock.

He didn’t look at her as he said, “I sort of volunteered you because nobody else in the settlement has been a teacher.”

“What about Mercy or Nina?”

“Mercy has her hands full with her foster son, and Nina is going to have her new boppli any day. You’re our best choice to oversee the school.”

Like everything else her brother did or said, it made complete sense.

But teaching? Kinder who’d be put into her care for six hours each day? She stared at him. How could Caleb ask such a thing of her? She’d come to Harmony Creek to escape the murmured accusations she couldn’t be trusted with kinder.

“It’s for only four weeks, Miriam,” he said. “By the time school starts in the fall, Nina has said she’ll take over until we can find a teen girl to teach. Just four weeks.”

“All right, I’ll do it.” What else could she say? She had to help keep the new settlement from getting off on the wrong foot with their Englisch neighbors.

“And I need you to do one other thing for me.”

“I thought you said one favor.”

“I guess I should have said one at a time.”

She laughed with him. As hard as Caleb was working to make the settlement a success, he must be learning, at last, that he couldn’t do it all himself. Though he continued to try.

“We’re having a school built, so we’ll be ready to go in the fall,” he said. “It’ll be between our farm and Jeremiah Stoltzfus’s. There’s a level piece of ground with not too many trees that will be perfect. We’ve hired a carpenter.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“He’s never built a school before, and you know what’s needed.”

“Our schools are pretty much the same.”

“Ja, the ones in Lancaster County are. But schools in Indiana sometimes have two rooms and two teachers.”

“Is that what you’re planning on here?”

He shook his head. “The majority of our families are from Pennsylvania, so we’re building what we’re used to.” His cheeky grin returned. “And one room is cheaper than two.”

“True.” She couldn’t believe she’d agreed to be responsible for almost a dozen kinder.

“Will you work with him on the project?”

“Of course.”

“Gut.” He pushed himself to his feet, came around the table and gave her a quick hug.

“Who’s going to build the school?”

“Eli Troyer.” Her face must have betrayed her shock, because Caleb added, “I know it’ll be a challenge to work with him.”

She hadn’t mentioned yesterday’s incident at the grocery store to Caleb, because she’d been so busy she’d forgotten until after her bedtime prayers. “His nephew—”

“Shouldn’t be around more than any other kid.”

Hating the sympathy in her brother’s voice, Miriam loved him at the same time for worrying about her. He did understand. She’d wondered whether Caleb would have invited her to join him in northern New York if circumstances in Pennsylvania had been different.

“Having kids around seems to be a given.” She was shocked at the bitterness in her voice. She wasn’t angry with her brother, but she was dubious of being in charge of the scholars. What if one of them got hurt?

Caleb’s face lengthened with dismay. “If you don’t want to—”

“I said I would, and I will.”

“Danki. We should have the school done before the month is over. This weekend we’re going to get the walls up and the roof on. Eli will cut in the windows and doors and finish the interior.” This time her brother misjudged her hesitation because he went on, “I realize Eli has trouble hearing. I speak slowly, and he gets most of what I’m saying.”

She thought of how his nephew seemed to be helping him comprehend what was being said. “How bad is his hearing? Really?”

Caleb shrugged. “Enough to be frustrating to him, I’d guess.”

With a wave, her brother left.

She stared after him. If he’d told her first that she’d be working with a man who had a kind the same age as Ralph Fisher, would she have agreed to assist with the school? She wasn’t sure.

* * *

Eli was paying more attention to Miriam than he was to their temporary bishop Wayne Flaud, who’d come to oversee the service at the farm owned by the Kuhns brothers. How had Miriam reacted when Caleb told her that she’d be working with him? Had she been as astonished as he’d been?

Those were questions he couldn’t get answered unless he asked her. He wouldn’t put her in an embarrassing situation.

She was as lovely as he’d recalled over and over during the past two days. Her eyes weren’t sparking as they had when she’d defended his nephew. Seated with the other young women who’d been at the grocery store, she looked at her clasped hands or the bishop who spoke at one end of the benches that faced each other. He could re-create her eyes’ rich green shade. Even while sitting, she towered over the women around her. He was amazed such a tall woman could be so graceful in every motion.

And, when he’d thought nobody would notice, he’d been watching her every motion since she’d stepped out of her brother’s buggy.

The bishop’s voice, raised as he asked everyone to pray, intruded into Eli’s thoughts. As he moved to kneel, facing the bench where he’d been perched, his eyes cut to her again.

He got caught, because his gaze connected with hers. For a single heartbeat before she turned to kneel. It’d been enough for him to confirm she’d been surprised by her brother’s suggestion they work together. He didn’t see dismay, though.

Lord, please make this collaboration a gut one so the work we do together is a reflection of the hopes of this settlement.

Keeping his prayers focused on the future was the best way to avoid thinking about the past and another pretty woman who’d dumped him like yesterday’s trash. He glanced at his nephew beside him. He owed his brother and sister-in-law a huge debt for failing to protect them, and he intended to repay it, in part, by raising their son as they would have wanted.

Eli kept reminding himself of that obligation as the service came to an end. He needed to make a comfortable home for the little boy and earn a living to put food on their table. Once he finished, he’d look for more work.

As he’d done in Delaware, he made an excuse to avoid staying for the meal. If he met his neighbors one by one, he’d be able to get to know them well enough to guess what they were saying. In a crowd of almost thirty people, picking out individual voices and words was impossible.

Kyle looked disappointed as he glanced at the other kinder, but he didn’t protest.

Eli draped an arm over his nephew’s shoulders, surprised again at how much the little boy had grown in the past year. He’d inherited the Troyer height, and if he kept shooting up as he was, he’d be taller than Eli by the time he was a teenager. When they reached their buggy and Kyle climbed in, the little boy leaned forward and grabbed onto the sleeve of Eli’s black mutze coat.

Astonished, Eli asked, “What is it?”