Читать книгу The Amish Suitor - Jo Brown Ann - Страница 13

Chapter Two

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.”

“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?”

Someone talk to you.

“Who?”

The little boy pointed in the direction they’d come.

Eli’s next question went unasked when he saw Miriam standing behind him, about ten feet away. By herself. Her friends were putting food on the tables set in the grass. Knowing he shouldn’t be paying attention to such details, he couldn’t help noticing how Miriam’s dress was the exact green of her eyes. Her white kapp glistened as light sifted through the heart-shaped top, and her apron of the same shade seemed to glow in the sunshine.

She said something as she walked toward the buggy.

He assumed it was a greeting because she gave him a polite smile.

“I know Caleb wants us to work together,” he said.

She blinked, and he guessed she’d expected him to chat about the weather or the church service before getting to the subject of the school. She couldn’t know how difficult it was for him to make small talk.

“Ja,” she said.

So far, so good.

“Miriam, I want to say danki for what you did at the store.”

“You already...”

He hoped she’d said something about him previously thanking her for helping Kyle.

“It means a lot to me for someone to come to my nephew’s defense as you did.”

“...little boy, and he...nothing wrong.” He was surprised when Miriam peered past him and into the buggy.

“Looking for something?” he asked. Too loudly, he realized when she winced.

After four years he should be used to that reaction from people when his voice rose with the strength of his emotions. He wasn’t.

“I was...no matter.”

Or at least that was what he thought she said as she stepped aside as Kyle jumped out of the buggy and gave her a big grin. Her expression grew uncertain and wary.

Of his nephew? Why?

Unsure how to ask that, he said, “I don’t know if Caleb told you my nephew is living with me. His name is Kyle. He’ll be one of your scholars. School starts next week, ain’t so?”

When she forced a smile, it looked as if her brittle expression could shatter. She seemed to shrink into herself, acting as if she were allergic to Kyle and him.

He thought again about how she’d jumped to his nephew’s defense at the grocery store. Why had she changed from that assertive woman—too assertive, many would say, for a plain woman—to a meek kitten who acted afraid of her own shadow?

“If you want to play ball with the kinder for a few minutes, Kyle,” he said, “go ahead. Just come when I call you.”

Kyle punched the air and ran off to join a trio of other boys and two girls near his age.

Knowing he should keep an eye on his nephew, though there were plenty of adults around, Eli couldn’t stop his gaze from shifting toward Miriam again and again. She stared at Kyle and the other kinder as if they were a nest of mice about to invade her home.

Shock rushed through him. Why would Miriam Hartz agree to teach the settlement’s kinder if she didn’t like kids? Hadn’t Caleb told him that she’d been a teacher in Pennsylvania? He had missed something, something her brother said or she did. No Amish woman who stood up for a little boy as she had displayed such an undeniable distaste for kinder. Why had she cringed away from Kyle?

As she noticed him appraising her, she said something he didn’t hear and hurried toward the house and her friends. He’d better figure out her odd actions if there was any chance of Miriam and him working together successfully. He wished he knew where to begin looking for an explanation for her peculiar behavior.