Читать книгу Hannah's Courtship - Emma Miller - Страница 11

Chapter Three

Albert pulled into the long driveway that led through the trees to his nephew John’s new log-cabin-style home. He glanced at his watch as he pulled into a spot in front of the porch. He was right on time.

He’d had a good day, considering that he’d had less sleep last night than usual; by the time he’d returned from the Yoder farm, it had been after two in the morning. Not that he minded. As a matter of fact, he’d enjoyed the little adventure. Of course, he was concerned for Hannah’s daughter and her friend. Thankfully, everyone was safe. No harm done.

And his day had turned out to be an easy one. Besides the four routine calls for immunizations, he’d stitched up a pig’s snout, and done a physical examination on a nice-looking colt. With the new vet that he and his nephew had hired tending to the small-animal portion of the practice, he was free to spend his time where his heart was, with large-animal cases: cows, horses, pigs, sheep and goats.

John and his wife, Grace, stepped out onto the porch and waved. Albert felt a rush of pride. He’d never fathered a child, but John was as close to being a son as a man could ask for. And the wife he’d chosen, Grace Yoder, had come to the marriage with a bright-eyed little boy who had eased his way into Albert’s heart.

Albert walked around the truck, opened the passenger door and let his dog out. From the floor, he took a bag containing a junior-size pair of binoculars he’d found while poking around in his attic. They had been John’s when he’d been around Dakota’s age, and he thought the boy might like them.

“Come in, Uncle Albert,” Grace called. “Supper’s ready. My spaghetti and Johanna’s yeast rolls. Your favorite.” She led them into the house and the dog trotted behind them. “She sent them home with me when I went to pick up ’Kota.”

“Where is the little rascal?” Albert looked around. “I brought him these.” He held out the binoculars.

“He’s not here,” Grace explained. “Johanna invited him to stay overnight with Jonah, and I couldn’t pry him away.”

“He’ll be sorry he missed you. But I know he’ll love these. I remember when Gramps bought the binoculars for me,” John said, taking them from Albert and peering through them. “The two of us used to go bird-watching on Sundays after church.”

“I’ll just finish up in the kitchen,” Grace said with a smile. “You two catch up on vet talk.” She hurried away, auburn ponytail swinging behind her.

Albert grinned at John. “I like that girl more every time I see her. You picked a winner. I’m just going to wash up.” He pointed toward the half bath in the hall.

John bent to pat the dog’s head. “I did, didn’t I?” he said. “Grace has made me happy, really happy.”

Albert paused at the bathroom door. “You’d have to be crazy if you weren’t happy, with her and ’Kota.”

Albert entered the small room, switched on the light and closed the door behind him. Funny, he thought as he soaped his hands, how much life there seemed to be inside the walls of this house. He looked into the round mirror. “Love inside these walls,” he murmured half under his breath. For days, he’d been looking forward to sharing this evening meal with the three of them. Home was pretty lonely without Pop there now, just him and old Blue and the two cats that had somehow wormed their way into the family.

Blue had been a hard-luck case just like the cats, and had turned out to be one of the best snap decisions he’d ever made. Not a lot of people wanted a three-legged coon hound that couldn’t hunt anymore, but he and Blue suited each other just fine. Without Blue... Albert sighed. Dogs had short lives, compared to humans, but most folks couldn’t help getting deeply attached to them, and he’d be the first to admit he was guilty.

Grace was still in the kitchen when he joined John at the long pine table in the dining room. As she had predicted, they each had stories of the day’s patients and their owners to share. Albert settled into a chair, took a sip from the glass of iced tea John had given him and studied the spacious room.

The log walls, the heavy log beams and wood floors gave the place a real flavor, and Grace and John had furnished it with a mixture of vintage pieces, such as a beautiful refinished icebox and a scarred church pew, mixed with a few antiques. Nothing was fancy. So far as he knew, the young couple didn’t own a television. Other than the laptop, which lay on a maple desk in the living room, and electricity, the house could have been from another century.

“So what’s this I hear about you coming to the Yoders’ rescue last night?” John asked.

“Amish telegraph?” Albert asked with a chuckle.

John laughed. “Johanna told Grace. I can’t imagine Susanna and David King out on the road at night with a pony. It’s a wonder something worse didn’t happen to them.”

Albert leaned back in the chair. “I came along at the right time. Whoever ran them into that ditch kept going. But it might teach those kids a lesson and keep them out of worse trouble.”

Grace came to the table with individual bowls of garden salad. “Susanna’s never done anything like that before. I’ve never known her to get into any kind of trouble. She’s such a sweet girl.”

“You think it’s serious, David and Susanna?” John asked Grace. “They seem to spend a lot of time together.”

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“It worries Hannah,” Albert said. “We got to talk some when we walked David back to his house. You’ve got to admire Hannah for the job she’s done with your sister. It can’t have been easy. David’s parents, too. From what I’ve seen of him, he seems like a good boy. But Hannah’s alone. She’s had to go through all this dating and courtship stuff with all of her girls all by herself since Jonas passed away.”

A timer went off in the kitchen. “That’s the pasta,” Grace explained. “Supper’s coming up as soon as I can drain them.”

“Is the buggy a total loss?” John asked.

Albert shook his head. “No, not at all. A new axle should fix it good as new. Hannah was fortunate in that, too.”

“That’s great,” John sipped his tea. “Buggies are expensive, and I know the family thinks a lot of that one. Grace said her father brought it from Pennsylvania when he was courting Hannah.”

Grace returned with plates of spaghetti, meatballs and sauce, and John jumped up to bring in the bread and butter. Everyone took their seats, they bowed their heads for a silent grace, Amish-style, and then they began to enjoy the delicious meal. It seemed that all three of them had had a good day. Grace had scored well on a test at the community college where she was studying to be a vet tech, and John had successfully delivered a litter of four healthy Cavalier King Charles Spaniels by caesarean section.

As they finished supper, Albert remembered the box of cookies he’d picked up at the German bakery. “Wait right here,” he said. “I brought dessert. It won’t take a moment to fetch it.”

“We won’t be able to walk away from the table,” Grace teased.

“Then you can just roll me out of the house.” Albert got out of his chair. “But I’ll bounce down the steps with a grin on my face.”

“Uncle Albert, I’ll get them.” Grace put her hand on his shoulder as she passed him. “You sit. I forgot to pick up the mail, and I have to walk right past your truck. Come on, Blue,” she called to the dog. “Want to take a walk?”

John refilled Albert’s glass, Albert sat down again and John shared a joke Milly had told him. Albert laughed so hard he almost choked on his iced tea.

“You’re in a good mood tonight,” John said thoughtfully. “We’ve been worried about you since Gramps died. You really haven’t seemed like yourself.”

“It’s not easy losing your father. He had his health problems, and I know he was right with his salvation. But I do miss him every day.”

“I miss him, too,” John agreed. “Without him—without the two of you—I wouldn’t be where I am today. I’d never have gotten through school if—”

“Now, none of that,” Albert said, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “You would have found your way.” Still, John’s admission warmed him inside. “You’re right, though. I have been down in the dumps. Maybe some of it is realizing that when the older generation passes on, I’m suddenly at the top of the hill looking down.”

John laughed. “You’re what, Uncle Albert? Fifty-five? That’s hardly over the hill.”

“Fifty-six in July.” Albert grimaced. “Sound like I’m eighty-five sometimes, don’t I? I should be around Dakota more. Kids keep you young.”

John leaned forward. “Have you ever thought about moving in with us? We could build a whole basement suite and even put in a minikitchen, if you don’t want to eat with us regularly.”

Albert laid his hand over John’s. “I have thought about it. I really appreciate the offer, but you and Grace need time and space to build your own family.”

John nodded. “You’re sure?”

Albert nodded.

“Well, if you ever change your mind, the offer stands. We’d love to have you here, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a built-in babysitter.” They both laughed.

“I’ll manage on my own just fine,” Albert assured him.

“I know you will. I just worry. Maybe you need a hobby. Something to occupy your time when you’re not working.” John met Albert’s gaze. “Because you can’t just work, go to church and come here for dinner once a week. You need something more.”

“Like what? Playing golf? Jet skiing?”

Again they laughed, because while many men his age might take up either, they weren’t and never would be choices Albert would make.

Grace and Blue returned to the house, and then they enjoyed the cookies. It was eight forty-five when Albert drove away. As he turned onto the blacktop, he glanced back at the house. John was right. He had been happier tonight than he’d been since before Pop’s health had taken a turn for the worse. It didn’t pay for a man to brood on what he didn’t have. Maybe John was right; maybe he needed a hobby. He needed something, but that something wasn’t moving in with John’s family.

He had his work: hard, stressful and challenging. He had friends, John, Grace and Dakota, as well as a great staff. He had his faith, so why did he feel that something was lacking in his life? Was it something—or someone? Maybe fifty-five wasn’t over the hill. If he put his mind to it, maybe he could find a way to be happier every day.

He’d actually been thinking about taking up a hobby, of sorts. One of his elderly clients had been the one to plant the seed in his mind and had been generous enough to offer to help get him started. The idea definitely interested him. The thing was, he would need some help.

One person immediately came to mind.

But did he dare ask her?

* * *

Hannah let the school children out early on Friday. There were only a few full days left before the end-of-year picnic that marked the beginning of summer vacation. The English public schools ended in June, but Amish children were needed to help with spring planting. The Seven Poplars School began in September and closed at the end of April. Amish students had fewer vacation days during the year so that they could satisfy the state education requirements and still be finished early. For several of Hannah’s students, this, their eighth year, would be their last. They would go on to learn a trade and begin their vocational training.

This should have been her foster son, Irwin’s, final year of formal schooling, but she had yet to decide if he would be among the graduates. Irwin had never been a scholar. He’d come to her when he was twelve, already far behind his classmates, and each milestone in his education had been a hard-won goal. Hannah wasn’t satisfied with Irwin’s math skills or his reading comprehension, but she also worried that another year in the back of her classroom would make little difference. Irwin was tired of being shown up by younger students.

Hannah cared deeply about the orphaned boy. Although he had shown little natural ability at caring for animals or general farm work, Irwin had a good heart. She felt instinctively that he needed male guidance to help him develop the skills that would enable him to support himself and, someday, a family.

Hannah supposed that she’d done well enough for her daughters after her husband’s passing, but she was beginning to wonder if she would have been wiser to remarry, as everyone had urged her. Few widows in their forties remained single after the customary year of mourning. Maybe she’d been selfish and a little proud to think that she could fill Jonas’s shoes. What was the old saying? A woman might be the heart of the family, but the man was the head.

After the children had spilled out of the schoolhouse doors and run, walked or ridden their scooter push-bikes home, Hannah packed up to leave. There was plenty to do to prepare the school for the coming celebration, but the weather was so warm, the air so full of spring and the earth so green, Hannah couldn’t bear to remain cooped up inside another moment. This was her favorite time of the year, when new life sprang from every inch of field and forest, a time when she felt that anything was possible.

Whistling a spritely tune, a habit for which she had been chastised many times as a child, Hannah walked down the dirt lane, across a clearing and climbed the stile that marked the boundary between her son-in-law Samuel’s dairy farm and her own place. What would she do when she got home? Rebecca was at Miriam and Ruth’s place and wouldn’t be coming home for supper, and Irwin had gone off with his cousins, so it would be just her and Susanna.

When they’d parted after breakfast, Susanna had been unnaturally subdued, still unhappy about the punishment that Hannah had given her after the pizza escapade two days before. She’d forbidden Susanna from seeing David for an entire week.

Hannah had not, however, spoken to Susanna about her visit with David’s mother. In fact, she hadn’t spoken of it to anyone. Hannah couldn’t imagine what Sadie was thinking bringing up the idea of Susanna and David marrying. It was, of course, not possible. David would never learn a trade or how to farm; Susanna was unable to run a household. They certainly couldn’t be married.

Hannah pushed the whole idea from her mind, returning to thoughts of her pouting daughter. Susanna hadn’t been happy about the forced separation between her and David, but Hannah was determined to be firm. She couldn’t allow Susanna to do as she pleased. Her daughter’s judgment had been poor, and she had to suffer the consequences. Still, Hannah wasn’t angry with her, and she was determined to find something special and fun for the two of them to do together this afternoon.

* * *

“Ne, Mam. Going to Anna’s.” Susanna held up a book. “Naomi wants it.” She moved to the nearest bookshelf and began to straighten the books. “I will eat supper with Anna. She said.”

Hannah didn’t know whether to be amused or feel rebuffed. Susanna’s reply had been only mildly intoned, but her expression was a stubborn “So there, Mam!” It was clear to Hannah that her daughter was still out of sorts with her over the whole David King mishap and was determined to exert her independence. Somehow, in Susanna’s mind, sneaking out of the house and the accident with the buggy had been Hannah’s fault and not hers.

“I’m the li-bair-ian,” Susanna said. “I can’t stay here. Have to take the book to Naomi.”

Hannah folded her arms. “I see.” Clearly, what Grace had said recently was true. Susanna had always developed slower than her sisters, but at almost twenty-one, she had charged headlong into her own form of independence.

When Hannah had turned their unused milk house into a lending library for the local Amish community, she’d suggested that Susanna become the librarian. She’d hoped the responsibility would give Susanna a sense of self-worth. Despite her struggles with the written word, Susanna had taken to the job with great enthusiasm. She could read only a little, and Hannah suspected that much of Susanna’s pleasure from the library came from arranging the books by color and requiring users to print their names and the borrowed titles in a large journal.

Susanna and the whole family enjoyed providing suitable books for their neighbors, adults and children alike. But what Hannah hadn’t expected was that David King would become an almost daily visitor to Susanna’s library, or that the two of them would spend so many hours in the small building laughing and talking together. Hannah was afraid that David was borrowing so many books as an excuse to see Susanna, something definitely against the rules for Amish young people of marriageable age. The trouble was, how did she put an end to an innocent friendship?

“You’re walking across the field, aren’t you?” Hannah asked, more as a reminder than a question. “You aren’t walking down the road?”

“Ya. The pasture. I can do it by myself.”

“Be home by seven. Ask one of the twins to walk back with you.”

“By myself, Mam.” Susanna threw her a look so much like her sister Johanna’s that Hannah smiled.

“All right. By yourself, but be careful, Susanna. No talking to strangers.”

Susanna giggled and folded her arms in a mirror image of Hannah. “No strangers in the pasture.”

Hannah sighed. “No, I suppose there aren’t. But be careful, just the same.” Feeling a little out of sorts with herself, Hannah left the library and went back into the house. There, she looked around for something out of place or something that needed doing, but all seemed in order.

The house echoed with emptiness. Chores done, floors scrubbed, dishes washed and put away. Susanna had been busy today, so busy that she’d left nothing for Hannah to do. And with all her children active in their own families, Hannah knew she should have been glad for the peace and quiet. No grandchildren running through the house, no slamming doors, no tracking mud through the kitchen, no supper to cook.

Of course, she would need some sort of supper for herself. Maybe she’d start something that she, Susanna, Rebecca and Irwin could have again tomorrow. Hannah wanted to begin setting out early vegetable plants in the garden, and she wouldn’t have time to prepare a big noon meal. She went to the refrigerator, but when she opened it, there was a pot of chicken and dumplings as well as a bowl of coleslaw. A note was propped in front. “Enjoy! Rice pudding on bottom shelf. Love, Johanna.”

Hannah sighed. Why did Johanna’s thoughtful deed add to her sense of restlessness? Maybe she should walk over to Ruth’s and see if she needed help with the twins. Or, perhaps she should check on the chickens to see if Susanna had remembered to gather the eggs. Taking a basket from a peg on the wall, Hannah went back into the yard.

She was halfway to the chicken house when she heard the sound of a motor vehicle. As she watched, a familiar truck came up the lane and into the yard. Albert pulled to a stop, rolled down the window and smiled.

“Afternoon, Hannah.”

“Afternoon, Albert.” She walked over to his truck, egg basket on her arm.

“Wondered how the pony was, if you noticed any swelling in his legs or any bruising?”

She shook her head. “Ne. The pony is fine, thanks be.”

“And Susanna? She’s no worse for the tumble?” He tugged at his ball cap and leaned out the window.

“Ne, Susanna’s good.” She chuckled. “Actually, she’s not behaving like herself. She’s always been the easiest of my children, but recently...” She spread her hands. “I know you don’t have children, but...”

“No, I don’t, but I think I should have. Sometimes, Hannah, I wonder if...”

“Ya?”

He removed his cap and squeezed the brim between his hands, then put it back on his head and tugged it tight. “You sure you don’t want me to check that pony out?”

“The pony’s fine.” First Susanna and now Albert. This was turning into the strangest afternoon, Hannah mused. She liked the man, found his company interesting and felt at ease with him, but she couldn’t imagine why he was acting so oddly.

It seemed almost as if Albert wanted to say something but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was like a father to Grace’s husband. Was there some trouble with Grace’s new family that she didn’t know about? Hannah’s eyes narrowed. And why was Albert so worried about Susanna? Was there more about Susanna and David than what he’d told her?

“If you’ve something to tell me,” she said. “It’s best you just say it instead of beating around the bush.”

Albert’s earnest face flushed.

Bingo, she thought. But she didn’t urge him further. If there was one thing that she’d learned from being a teacher, it was that silence often brought more confessions than demands did.

“There is something I wanted to ask you.”

“Ya, Albert. What is it?”

He leaned out the window. “Well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about...”

It was all she could do to keep from tapping her foot impatiently. “Yes, Albert?”

“Alpacas,” he said.