Читать книгу Family Blessings - Anna Schmidt - Страница 10

Pleasant had underestimated the amount of time she would have to devote to creating the ice cream cone recipe. In spite of the fact that the bakery’s business had dwindled to the basics—breads, rolls and the occasional pie or dozen cookies—she was still busy from dawn to well after dusk. Merle’s house was a large one and required constant cleaning to keep it presentable. With four growing children there was a great deal of washing and ironing to be done on top of the cooking she did at home and the upkeep of the kitchen garden she relied upon for fresh produce to feed herself and the children.

Then there was the celery farm itself. Over the years, Merle had acquired a great deal of land—land that needed to be plowed and planted and harvested. Land that this past spring had barely produced a saleable crop and that now in the fall was nowhere near ready to be planted. After her husband’s death, Pleasant had turned the management of the farm over to her brother-in-law. Hilda’s husband, Moses, was a shy, quiet man—nothing like Hilda. But he had a head for business and managed the farm as well as his dry goods store with an expertise that set Pleasant’s mind at ease. Still, he would not make a decision without first consulting with her and Rolf. For as she explained to Jeremiah, the farm was Rolf’s future, in spite of his father’s doubts that he would ever amount to anything as a farmer or businessman. She worried about Rolf. Merle’s constant badgering of the boy had taken its toll, and of all the children, he had been the hardest to bring closer. Whenever she tried to show her appreciation for some chore he had done without being asked or commented on his high marks in school, his dark eyes flickered with doubt and distrust.

It had been a week since Jeremiah Troyer had stopped at the bakery and asked to interview the boy for a job in his ice cream shop and Pleasant had been unable to forget the look that had crossed Rolf’s face when she’d turned down the offer. Just before he’d lowered his eyes to study his bare feet, she had seen a look of such disappointment come over his features and there had been a flicker of something else. For one instant he had looked so much like his father.

Memories of the rage that had sometimes hardened Merle’s gaze came to mind now as Pleasant rolled out dough and plaited it into braids for the egg bread she was making. She paused, her flour-covered hands frozen for an instant as the thought hit her. What if Jeremiah had been right? What if Rolf turned out to be as bitter and resentful as his father had been? Could such things be passed from father to son like the color of eyes or hair? Or was it possible that circumstances might guide the boy in that direction? Certainly Merle’s resentment had begun early in life and in spite of his success in business and the love he had shared with his first wife, he had remained until the day of his death a man who looked at the world with hostility and ill will.

“Well, not Rolf,” Pleasant huffed as she returned to her task. “Not my son.”

But how to set the boy on a different path?

She wiped her forehead with the back of one hand and blew out a breath of weariness and frustration. How, indeed, heavenly Father?

She walked to the open back door of the bakery, hoping to catch a breeze before she had to face the hot ovens again. Next door she saw Jeremiah Troyer replacing a wooden column that supported the extended roof of his shop. She thought about the Sunday when he had easily lifted two of the heavy wooden benches used for church services—one under each arm. She continued to observe him as he fitted the column in place and anchored it, drawing one long nail after another from between his lips and pounding them in until the column was locked in place.

Who would teach Rolf such things? Her father? Perhaps. But he was getting on in years. He tended to leave the heavy chores to the carpenter, Josef Bontrager, who was always willing to help because it gave him an excuse to see Greta. She thought about the way Jeremiah’s ready smile and easy laughter were so different from Merle’s personality. Might it be enough to simply expose Rolf to this different breed of man? To let him see that not all men were like his father had been? That there were other ways he might decide to go?

Without realizing that she had done so, Pleasant opened the screen door and stepped outside. Jeremiah gave the porch post a final test for steadiness and turned when he heard the squeak of the screen door. The hammer he’d used in one hand, he raised the other hand to his hat and tipped his head in her direction. “Pleasant.” He acknowledged her with a quizzical smile as he squinted against the morning sun. “Was there something I could do for you?”

Flustered to find herself outside and engaged in this exchange with him, Pleasant reverted to her usual defense. She thinned her lips and frowned. “Not at all,” she replied. “The ovens give off such heat. I just needed a breath of fresh air.”

Jeremiah nodded and turned back to his work. He set down the hammer and picked up a broom. Meticulously, he rounded up the wood shavings and sawdust left from shaping the porch column to match its mate.

“You know if you’d like, Rolf could paint that column for you when he comes home from school later,” she called.

Jeremiah stacked his hands on the tip of the broom handle and leaned his chin on them as he studied her. “That would be appreciated,” he said.

Pleasant nodded and turned to go back inside the bakery’s kitchen. It’s a start, she thought.

“I could still use an assistant,” Jeremiah called and her step faltered. “Maybe we could see how painting the porch post works out and then …”

“My offer is simply that of a neighbor wishing to help another neighbor,” Pleasant said stiffly.

“Got that part,” Jeremiah said, moving closer, twirling the broom handle through his fingers and grinning. “But you’ll soon learn that I don’t give up easily, Pleasant.”

It was the second time he had used her given name that morning. It was as if he were testing her. She smiled sweetly, the way she had seen her half sister Greta smile when she was determined to have her way. “And in time you will learn, Herr Troyer, that I do not make decisions lightly and I will always do what I think is best for my children.”

She turned to leave but realized that he was propping the broom against the wall and intended to follow her inside.

“How’s the cone recipe coming?” he asked as he held the door for her and then followed her into the kitchen.

“I expect to have some samples for you to try by the end of the week,” she said. “They would best be tested with ice cream since the flavors will have to mingle.”

He nodded and took a seat on one of the stools that Gunther kept in the kitchen.

Make yourself at home, she thought, exasperated by his assumption that his presence was welcome.

“How about this? You let me know as soon as you have something that you think might work and I’ll make up three different flavors so we can try the various combinations. We can have a tasting party.”

She opened her mouth to refuse, but then thought, Why not? It would be a special treat for the children. “All right,” she replied, placing the braided egg loaves on pans.

His silence was unusual so she glanced up and saw him studying her, a half frown on his forehead and a half smile on his lips. “You do surprise me, Pleasant,” he said and then the smile won and blossomed into a full-fledged grin. “End of the week then.”

And the man actually winked at her as he pushed himself to his feet and left her standing there, a pan of unbaked egg bread half in and half out of the oven.

Jeremiah sat at his desk and watched the Obermeier boy painting the porch column. He was meticulous in the work, going back over a section that did not meet his standards for perfection. Jeremiah remembered his own painstaking attention to detail in the years he’d spent living with his father’s brother. For him it had come from knowing that if he failed to do a job to the exacting standards his uncle had set for him, he would have to do it again or worse, he would be punished.

Had Rolf’s father been a man like Jeremiah’s uncle? Did that explain the boy’s reticence?

“Maybe the kid’s just shy,” Jeremiah muttered as he pushed his chair away from the desk. He had to stop seeing his uncle in every adult and himself in every quiet child. He took down his hat from the wooden peg near the door and went outside. “Good job,” he said.

Rolf stepped away for a moment and surveyed his work. “Missed a spot,” he muttered and bent to cover it before turning his attention to the next side of the square column.

“How’s school?” Jeremiah sat on the edge of the porch.

“Gut.” Rolf lapsed naturally into the Pennsylvania Dutch that Jeremiah assumed was most often spoken at home.

“What are you studying?”

Sticking with his native tongue, Rolf listed the subjects. “Arithmetic, history, geography.”

“Your classes are conducted in English?” Jeremiah assumed this might be the case since it was a common way to prepare young people for dealing with those outside the Amish community.

“Ja.”

“Does your mother use English at home?”

The paintbrush faltered for a moment. “My stepmother does—yes.”

Jeremiah considered the correction. Did it mean that Rolf resented Pleasant or simply that he felt a loyalty to his own mother? “I was about your age when my father died. Tougher on you, I expect, losing both your parents.”

This time, Rolf looked at him as if trying to decide where this conversation might be headed. “Mama is good to us,” he murmured, his tone slightly defensive.

Jeremiah let the silence settle around them for a long moment. “Do you like ice cream, Rolf?”

“Ja.”

“Me, too. I’ve been working on a new flavor. How about tasting it for me and telling me what you think?”

Rolf continued his long brush strokes. “I should ask permission first.”

Jeremiah covered a smile by glancing away toward the bakery. “That’s probably best. Your sister’s helping out at the bakery, is she?”

Rolf nodded. “After school she watches my brothers until Mama gets everything ready for tomorrow’s baking, then we all go home together.”

“Well, then the way I see it we’ve got ourselves a bunch of tasters. You finish up there and go get your mama and sister and brothers while I go get dishes and spoons and the ice cream.”

“You want me to bring them over here?” The kid’s eyes widened.

“Well, sure. I mean that’s where the ice cream is.”

Rolf’s hand shook slightly as he returned to his painting, now going over an area he’d covered adequately.

“Or I could go over and get the others while you clean up here. Looks to me like you’ve finished.” Without waiting for the boy’s reply he headed for the kitchen entrance to the bakery.

Through the open door he could hear the lively chatter of the twins and the clatter of the large metal pans and bowls that Pleasant used for making the breads and rolls she baked each morning. As he got closer, he could hear the low murmur of voices—Pleasant’s and the girl’s. Bettina, he reminded himself.

“Hello?” he called as much to give fair warning of his approach as to deliver a greeting.

Two pairs of small feet padded across the bakery floor at a run while everything else went silent.

“Well, hello there,” he said when the twins lined up at the door and stared out at him. “Is your mother here?”

“Is there a problem, Herr Troyer?” Pleasant glanced anxiously past him to where Rolf was cleaning the paintbrush.

Now why would she automatically assume that?

Jeremiah thought. “Actually, I’ve come to ask another favor.”

She waited, wiping her hands on the dish towel she held while the twins glanced from him to her and back to him.

“If we can be of help,” Pleasant said, “we’re more than …”

“I have this new flavor of ice cream I’ve concocted—vanilla with bits of mango mixed in. I wondered if you and the children might taste it for me and give me your honest opinion.”

The twins did not wait for her reply, but opened the screen door and burst out onto the back porch of the bakery seemingly ready to follow him anywhere as long as he held to his promise of ice cream.

“Boys,” Pleasant chided, then turned her attention back to Jeremiah. “I thought we had agreed on the end of the week. There is no possible way that I will have anything ready by …”

“You’d be doing me a great favor,” Jeremiah continued as if her protests had nothing to do with the topic at hand. “While you’re developing the cone recipe, don’t forget that I need to be working on special flavors for the ice cream. We can’t just offer the standard flavors, after all. Besides, I tend to be far too lenient when it comes to my own tastes for flavors.”

Bettina had joined Pleasant on the porch and she was smiling up at him. “What other flavors have you invented, Herr Troyer?” she asked.

Jeremiah removed his hat and scratched his head for a moment. “Well, let’s see now, there was the time I thought maybe there might be a market for frog’s leg chocolate.”

All three children giggled and miracle of miracles, he was pretty sure that Pleasant was fighting a smile.

“You made that up,” Bettina said.

“You’re right. I did. But I actually did think about adding prunes to vanilla once.” He made a face that had the twins convulsing with laughter. “So you see I’m not always the best judge when it comes to these things.”

“I wouldn’t want to spoil the children’s supper,” Pleasant hedged.

Jeremiah shrugged. “My guess is that you were planning to give them dessert with supper?”

“Well, yes, but …”

“So what if they have dessert first?”

Her mouth worked as she tried to find an answer to this unorthodox logic. “I … without the promise of …”

“They might not finish their peas and carrots?” Jeremiah guessed and Pleasant nodded. He frowned as he studied each child in turn. “Rolf, come over here a minute, would you?”

The boy’s bare feet sent puffs of sandy dust flying as he ran across the dry dirt yard. “Yes, sir?”

“Am I to understand that sometimes you children have to be coaxed to finish your vegetables?”

Rolf and Bettina nodded. The twins studied the ground. Jeremiah sighed.

“So you see, Herr Troyer, ice cream at this hour …”

All four children looked up at her, their eyes wide with protest as they realized they were about to lose this opportunity. “But Mama, if we promised?” Bettina pleaded.

Pleasant folded her arms across her chest and studied each child. “No. There have just been too many times …”

Jeremiah was almost as disappointed as the children were. He didn’t know why it meant so much to him but it did. “Your mother is right,” he began.

“Unless,” Pleasant interrupted, “Herr Troyer would agree to come for supper and bring some of his ice cream along for dessert.”

The children whooped with delight at what they clearly considered an acceptable solution.

Pleasant was watching him though. “You do like vegetables, do you not, Herr Troyer?”

“What kind?” he asked and hoped the answer would be green beans or perhaps carrots.

“Brussels sprouts,” Pleasant replied and he knew that the look of disgust that had flickered over his face for an instant was exactly what made her smile. “May we expect you at five-thirty then?”