Читать книгу Their Pretend Amish Courtship - Patricia Davids - Страница 13
Оглавление“I’m glad that’s over with.” Noah held out his hand to help Fannie into his open buggy after the singing that evening.
“So am I.” Fannie ignored his hand and climbed in by herself. “Did you see everyone staring at me when I first came in? I almost turned and ran.”
“Now that you mention it, I can’t think of the last time I saw you at a young people’s gathering.”
“They’re a waste of time if you aren’t shopping for a potential spouse.”
“Not everyone is looking to marry. A lot of us just want to have fun.”
“The boys are there for fun. The girls are all looking for someone to marry. I noticed plenty of them eyeing you. Especially the bishop’s visiting nieces. In the future, could you at least act as if you are interested in me?”
“Maybe I’m not that good of an actor,” he snapped.
“Work on it or this will be pointless.” She scooted as far away from him as she could get without falling out the other side of his buggy.
She was right to rebuke him. He had neglected her, but a group of his friends had wanted to talk baseball. He got caught up in the conversation until it was almost time to go home. That’s when he noticed Fannie sitting beside her sister and her sister’s beau, and recalled why she was there. He’d spent the last half hour sitting beside Fannie but mostly talking to Hiram as Fannie fumed. He knew the buggy ride home was going to be a rough one.
Deciding he should smooth the troubled waters with a compliment or two, he climbed in beside her. “I noticed during the singing tonight that Gott has given you a fine voice.”
“Danki. You have a pleasant voice, too.” She stared straight ahead with her arms clasped tight across her middle. Was she nervous? It wasn’t as if it was a real date.
“You don’t have to hang off the side. I don’t bite.”
“I do,” she quipped, but she relented and inched a little closer.
“Do you want to drive?” He offered her the reins.
She looked at him then. “Why?”
“I’m just asking. I know you’re almost as good a driver as I am.”
She sat up straight and planted her hands on her hips. “Almost as good?”
He flinched at her offended tone. That had been the wrong choice of words. So much for smoother waters. “Do you want to drive or not?”
“All right.” She accepted the reins and neatly turned Willy to head out of John Miller’s yard. It was after ten o’clock, and the other couples and singles were already gone.
Noah propped his feet on the dash rail and crossed his hands behind his head. “Willy has a tendency to drift to the left.”
“I see that.” She corrected the horse’s line and stopped him at the highway, where John Miller’s lane intersected it at the top of a steep hill. When she was sure the way was clear, she eased Willy out onto the blacktop.
At the bottom of the hill, a hundred yards away, the road ended in a T. Beyond the roadway the tree-lined river slipped silently through the farmland. Fannie turned Willy onto the road that skirted the riverbank. Breaks in the trees occasionally gave Noah a glimpse of moonlight rippling on the water’s surface.
He studied Fannie’s face as she sat beside him. A soft wind fluttered the ribbons of her kapp and tugged at the curls she tried so hard to confine. She held the reins with confidence, as he knew she would. He’d seen her helping her father train horses to pull buggies since she was knee-high. “Nice night for a drive.”
“I reckon. Driving at night makes me nervous.”
So the unflappable Fannie had a weakness. “Why?”
“I’m always afraid a car will come up behind me too fast and run into me.”
“It happens. We can’t know when Gott will test our faith with such a trial. Do you want me to take over?”
“Nee. I must overcome this fear.”
He worried about the tremor in her voice. She really was scared—but determined. “What do you think of Willy?” he asked, to take her mind off her apprehension.
“He’s a sweet goer. Nice smooth gait. A high stepper but not absurdly high. He has a soft mouth and responds to a light touch on the reins. He’s a goot gaul.”
“And you said I wouldn’t know a good horse if I tripped over one.”
She sent him a sidelong glance, but seemed to consider her words for a change. “Sometimes my mouth says things before my brain can stop it. Forgive me.”
An olive branch? He gladly accepted it. “You are forgiven. I’ve been known to speak rashly, too.”
“Sadly, that seems to be all we have in common.”
“We both like horses.”
A hint of a smile lifted one corner of her mouth. “There is that.”
“I’m sure we’ll find other things we can agree on by the end of the month. I’ll try if you will.”
“I reckon there’s no harm in trying. At least you aren’t as boring as Hiram. I don’t know how my sister stands him.”
“It might be uncharitable of me, but I have to agree. He is a boring fellow. If you don’t love pigs, there’s no point in striking up a conversation with him.”
She giggled and Noah relaxed. The drive wasn’t so bad after that. It wasn’t long before the fence that marked her lane came into view up ahead. She turned Willy neatly into her driveway and pulled him to a stop in front of her house. The building was dark except for a dim light glowing in the kitchen window.
She handed Noah the reins. “Would you like to come in?”
“I thought you weren’t going to ask me in.”
“Another one of my mouth-before-brain moments.”
It was an accepted custom for an Amish girl to invite her date in for a visit, even though her parents would be in bed. The young man and woman were expected to be on their best behavior. They would talk or play board games until very late as they got to know each other.
“I don’t see Hiram’s buggy. Do you think he’s gone home already? I know he left with your sister.”
“He never stays long.”
Noah shrugged. “He’s an odd duck. Sure, I’d like to come in.”
“Really?” The look of shock on her face was priceless.
He hopped down, secured Willy and turned to help Fannie out of the buggy, but she was already standing on the ground. “You don’t have to come in, Noah. We can pretend you did.”
“I think we’ve done enough pretending for a while, don’t you?”
“I reckon you’re right.”
She led the way inside and closed the door quietly behind him. “I made some cinnamon-raisin biscuits this morning. Would you like one?”
“Sounds goot.”
“Do you want to sit in the living room or here in the kitchen?” She had her hands clenched tightly together.
“The normal place for a couple to visit is in the living room, but I like the kitchen better. It’s cozy.” He took a seat at the table.
She seemed to relax. “I agree. No point in trying for a normal courtship at this point.”
Moving to the cupboard, she removed two plates and placed two biscuits on his and one on hers. She sat down at the table and pushed his plate toward him. He wasn’t hungry, but he pulled off a small piece and ate it. The raisins were plump but the dough was tough.
“How is it?” she asked.
“It won’t choke me.”
She scowled and opened her mouth but he forestalled her. “Brain first, mouth second, Fannie.”
Her scowl faded and she blushed. “They aren’t my best.”
“They’re far better than anything I could make. I imagine cooking is like playing ball. It takes a lot of practice to get good enough to make it look easy.”
“Do you practice your pitching at home?”
“Some. I have to pester my brothers or my cousins to catch for me. They don’t always have time.”
“Have you always liked playing ball?”
“Are you kidding? What boy doesn’t? Don’t you remember all the recesses we spent playing softball at school?”
“I remember staying in to write I’m sorry for something or other on the blackboard a hundred times. I was always in trouble. I wasn’t any good at hitting the ball so I wasn’t picked for a team very often.”
“I used to get you in trouble a lot. I thought it was funny to see you get angry. Your face got so red. I’m sorry about that.”
She shrugged. “We were kids.”
“Still. It wasn’t kind of me.”
They talked about school for a while, sharing memories and funny stories from their childhood days. It surprised Noah that she recalled so many of his exploits. The Bowman boys were known for their adventuresome natures, but he wasn’t the wildest one.
“Luke was the worst of us,” Noah admitted. His brother had left the Amish and gotten into trouble with the English law over drugs, bringing shame to the family.
Fannie’s eyes filled with sympathy. “No one would know it now. He’s changed for the better.”
“Gott and Emma changed his heart.” Luke had become a devout member of the faithful, much to his family’s joy.
“Does your brother Timothy like teaching school? It’s unusual for a man to become a teacher.” She nibbled on the edge of her biscuit.
“He loves it, especially since his wife, Lillian, teaches there, as well. You heard the school is holding a frolic, didn’t you? The school board has decided to add a wing to the building for the upper classes that Timothy teaches. They are pouring the new foundation next week.”
“We heard about it. Mamm and Daed have said they will help.”
“That’s great. The more hands we have, the easier the work will be.”
She sighed heavily. “It’s odd to think about our school changing as much as it has.”
“You haven’t said you forgive me for teasing you the way I did back then.”
“I forgive you.” She looked at him from under lowered brows. “Just don’t do it again.”
He chuckled. “If you don’t throw stuff at me, I won’t call you carrottop, copperhead, fire-eater or ginger nut ever again.”
“Aw, thanks for nothing. Ginger nut? No one ever called me a ginger nut.”
“Did I miss that one when we were young?”
She plucked a raisin from her biscuit and tossed it toward him. He caught it in his open mouth and she giggled.
He sat up straighter. “I say you can’t do that again.”
“And I say I’m not going to spend time sweeping the kitchen floor after my failures. Besides, I think it’s time you went home.”
He checked the clock on the wall, surprised to see how late it was. “I reckon you’re right. Our team has a game next Saturday. Would you care to come and watch?”
“I can’t. We have our first competition at the Wayne’s County Fairgrounds that day. That’s if I’m not on my way to Florida. You can come watch us practice at Connie’s place on Tuesdays and Thursdays at six.”
“Are you sure I won’t be bored?”
“I doubt it. You appreciate good horses the same way I do.”
“I’m thinking not as much as you do. Our team, the Fire Eaters, practice on Wednesdays and Fridays at five o’clock over behind the fire station. You’re welcome to come watch us.”
She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Talk about boring.”
