Читать книгу Loving Isaac - Rebecca Kertz - Страница 12

Chapter Four

Monday and Tuesday went by quickly as Ellen did her regular chores, including washing clothes and hanging the laundry on the line to dry. Wednesday morning she and Mam headed to Katie’s house for their monthly quilting bee. It was a glorious day. The sun was bright in a clear azure sky and the spring blossoms looked pretty in the Amish and English yards they passed. Ellen wondered if she’d see Isaac today and decided that she wouldn’t let the prospect bother her. Odds were that he would be out working with Samuel in the fields or with Jedidiah for Matt Rhoades, who had recently started his own construction company. In any event, even if she did see Isaac this morning, it wouldn’t be for long. There was no reason for her to feel anxious or nervous. He had helped her last week, she had thanked him politely and she was fine. It wasn’t as if she were in danger of falling for him again. The only reason they’d spent time in each other’s company was that the circumstances of her accident had forced it upon them.

“How many do you think will come today?” she asked her mother.

“About ten, I suppose, as usual, with the exception of Martha.”

Ellen smiled as she thought of the baby quilt they would be working on today. It wasn’t large enough for a double bed. With the ten women working on it, the quilt would be completed in no time.

“Mam, don’t you think it’s going to be a bit crowded around the quilt rack if ten women show up?”

Her mother frowned as she maneuvered the buggy into a turn. “Hadn’t given it any thought.”

“If there are too many, I can do something else.”

“Nay. Katie would rather have you stay than some of the others.”

Driving past, Ellen waved to Annie Zook as she exited Whittier’s Store. The young woman’s face lit up as she acknowledged Ellen’s wave with her own. She had EJ, her son, and her baby daughter, Susanna, with her.

“Are you coming to quilting?” Ellen called as Mam slowed the buggy and steered toward the right to allow a number of cars to pass by safely.

“Ja, I’ll be there after I get these little ones home,” Annie answered. “Mam said she’d stay back to watch them today.”

“Why not bring them?” Ellen suggested. “Won’t Hannah be there?”

“Ja, and Daniel,” Annie said, referring to her brother-in-law. “I’ll talk with Mam.”

Once the roadway was clear, her mother drove back onto the road and continued on.

Ellen smiled as she glanced back to see Annie put her children into the buggy. “She looks happy,” she murmured.

Mam flashed a smile. “Ja, she is. Jacob has been gut for her, and I’m glad she finally understood that. He’s loved her since he was a young boy.”

Ellen raised her eyebrows. “He has?”

“Ja, and he nearly gave up. Annie fell for Jedidiah and Jacob thought that he didn’t have a chance with her. Later, after Jed found Sarah, Jake hoped for another chance.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Katie and Miriam, although Miriam wasn’t keen on it at first.”

Ellen reached up to straighten her kapp. “Why not?”

“That was right after Horseshoe Joe had his accident. She wanted someone who was financially able to take care of Annie. Someone like Ike King.”

Ellen shuddered. “He was too old for her.” She thought of Martha. “He was too old for Martha, too, but she married him anyway. She genuinely cared for him, didn’t she?” She studied her mother to gauge her reaction.

“I believe she did.” Mam’s lips firmed. “’Tis too bad he passed on, but it must have been God’s plan. I’ve never seen her as happy with Ike as she is now with Eli.”

Ellen had to agree. She’d never seen such joy in Martha’s brown eyes during the year she’d been married to Ike. Still, she was sorry that Ike had passed on. He’d been a nice man and Amos King’s younger brother. And he’d been wonderful to Martha. They had all taken comfort that Ike was in the Lord’s hands and thus resided with Him in heaven.

There were two buggies in Katie’s barnyard as Mam pulled in and parked. No one was in the yard as they climbed out and retrieved the food dishes they’d made to share with the other women. She had made lima beans in tomato sauce and lemon chiffon cake. Mam had made chocolate brownies and macaroni salad. There would be plenty to eat today, more than enough to share with any of the male Lapp family members who might come in for lunch.

For a moment, Ellen’s thoughts dwelled on Isaac Lapp. She wasn’t alarmed that she’d thought of him; after all, this was his home.

Katie’s door opened immediately after Mam knocked. Ellen felt her heart skip a bit as she caught a quick glance at the man who stood there. Isaac. The image of Isaac flittered away and she realized that it wasn’t Isaac waiting patiently for them to enter. It was Joseph, the youngest brother. He was the spitting image of his older brother until she looked closer and saw the difference in eye color and the shape of his mouth. Joseph had younger, less mature features. Still, he was a handsome boy and would one day become an extremely attractive man.

“Hallo, Joseph,” she greeted after Mam had gone in first.

“Ellen.” He nodded. “My mudder and the others are in the gathering room.” He glanced down at the food in her arms and finally smiled. “You’ve brought lemon cake.”

“Ja.” She stepped past him and waited while he closed the door. “You like lemon chiffon cake.”

“Ja.” His smile became a grin. “Looking forward to midday meal today.” He stared at her cake plate. “I can take that for you.”

“Oll recht.” She handed him the cake plate and Joseph disappeared into the back kitchen area. She heard someone coming down the steps from upstairs and looked up, expecting to see Katie or Hannah, her daughter. She froze. It was Isaac.

“Hallo, Ellen,” he greeted as he approached. He narrowed his eyes as he studied her face. “Your forehead’s turned a light shade of purple. Is it sore?”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

She sighed. “A little.”

“How is your cheek? Can you smile yet without grimacing?” he teased. “Or does it still hurt?”

“What are you doing here, Isaac?” she said stiffly. She wasn’t in the mood for his teasing or his questions about her health. “I thought you’d be working.”

“Disappointed?”

She stared at him, wishing he would leave.

“I’m going to work soon. We’ve been waiting for the plumber to finish. Matt’s picking Daniel and me up on his way to the job site.” He glanced toward the staircase. “Daniel! Matt’s going to be here any minute.”

“Don’t let me keep you,” Ellen said tartly, and Isaac looked at her with an odd little smile.

“Ellen?” Mam called as she reappeared, peeking her head from a doorway. “We’re ready to start. You’ll want to get a good seat.”

“Coming!” She turned back to Isaac. “Have a gut day at work, Isaac,” she said, trying to be more polite.

Joseph returned from the kitchen. “I hid the cake in the back room,” he confided with a grin.

“Gut thinking, Joseph,” Ellen said with a chuckle. Isaac arched an eyebrow in question. “Lemon chiffon cake,” she explained. “Apparently, it’s your bruder’s favorite. He’s protecting his fair share.”

Eager to escape, she left him to join her mother in the gathering room, where Katie Lapp and several other women were seated around the quilting rack. She didn’t know how long it would be before Matt Rhoades picked up Isaac and Daniel. Ellen tried not to think about Isaac at all as she greeted the other ladies in the room.

“Over here, Ellen.” Katie gestured toward a seat between her and Mam. “I’m glad you’ve come.”

“I enjoy quilting.”

Mae King, who lived across the road, sat directly in front of her. On either side of Mae were her married daughters, Charlotte Peachy, who’d married their deacon, and Nancy Zook, who’d married Annie’s brother Josiah. Ellen was pleased to see these young women, who were always pleasant and fun. She was disappointed that Elizabeth and her mother weren’t here. She’d hoped to have a few private words with her friend about their outing on Saturday. She didn’t know if Elizabeth’s parents had agreed to let her friend go.

The six of them chatted for a while, and Katie offered them iced or hot tea. Ellen chose the iced tea, as the gleaming iced tea pitcher sitting on the table looked inviting as well as refreshing, and since it was a glorious day and the windows were open, it seemed the best choice.

“We saw Annie on our way over,” she told Katie. “Coming out of Whittier’s. Said she was going home to drop off EJ and Susanna and then she’d be here.”

“Miriam offered to watch them,” Katie said. “I wish they’d all come. Hannah is here to care for them—and Joseph.”

Ellen felt her face turn red. “I’m glad you said that. I’m afraid I may have overstepped when I suggested the same thing.” She felt relieved as she saw pleasure come to Katie’s expression. “I thought that Daniel would be here. I didn’t think of Joseph.”

“He’s certainly a grown-up young man,” Mam commented. “How old is he now?”

“Eleven.”

Ellen shook her head in wonder. Would he continue to look exactly like Isaac when he got older?

Elizabeth and her mother arrived to join the quilting bee gathering, and moments later Miriam Zook came with Annie and her two children.

“You’ve brought them,” Katie gushed. “Gut.”

“I didn’t think about Hannah and Daniel,” Annie admitted. “And I wanted to spend the day with my mudder, too.”

Miriam glanced fondly at her daughter. “Are Hannah and Daniel here?”

“Hannah is,” Katie said. “And Joseph. I don’t think he’ll mind watching EJ.” She got up and left the room, then returned with her daughter and son.

“EJ!” Joseph exclaimed, his eyes lighting up with pleasure. “Would you like to go out and play?” He shot a look to his sister-in-law, who nodded. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go see the animals in the barn.”

Hannah was more than happy to stay with Susanna. She spread a quilt on the floor not far from the women and sat, setting the baby next to her.

Conversation started to buzz as the women threaded their needles and got to work.

“Alta’s not here?” Elizabeth’s mother asked.

“She’s not coming today,” Miriam said. Alta Hershberger, the resident busybody, was her sister-in-law, although Alta’s husband, Miriam’s younger brother John, had passed on when their two daughters were nine and ten. “She said she needed to go to market with Mary.”

Annie glanced at her mother with raised eyebrows but didn’t comment.

The women stitched for a couple hours before Katie stood. “Let’s eat.”

Mae King and Miriam got up to help their hostess with the food. Ellen started to rise to join them, but Katie waved her to her seat. “Sit. We’ll manage.”

The work on the quilt was progressing nicely. The stitches were neat and even. Ellen knew the women hoped to get most of it done today.

Elizabeth’s mother rose with Mam and the two went into the kitchen to help the others. Ellen slid over to the seat next to Elizabeth.

“Are you allowed to go on Saturday?”

Elizabeth frowned. “Nay. Dat said I wasn’t ready.” She sighed dramatically. “What does he mean by that? I’m old enough.”

Ellen stifled her disappointment. She didn’t want to make her friend feel worse. “Maybe we can try again in a couple of months.” She really wanted to visit the clinic, not that she’d said anything about it to her friend.

Ellen changed the subject and the girls chatted briefly about their siblings. Soon the women had the food ready, and following Elizabeth, she went to grab a plate. After eating lunch, the women went back to work and finished up at three thirty. There’d been no sign of Isaac or Daniel, who apparently had both gone to work with their older brother Jedidiah and Matt Rhoades.

Ellen felt immense relief when she and her mother headed home. She’d spent a large part of the day at the Samuel Lapp farm and had made it without encountering Isaac more than once. She hadn’t realized that she’d been tense and worried about it until after she and her mother had climbed into their buggy and left.

Why should I care whether or not I see Isaac Lapp? She was over him. Completely. She’d moved on. But the memory of her past feelings for him lingered.

She turned her thoughts to the clinic. She didn’t want to wait months until she visited the clinic, especially since her father had agreed to let her go. There must be someone who would be allowed to go. What about Barbara Zook? She’d have to think about it. Barbara was slightly older than her. There were other girls her age in her community. She had to think of one she could trust with her desire to work for the Westmore Clinic.

* * *

Isaac took off his black-banded straw hat and ran a hand through his light brown hair. It had been a good workday but he was tired. He glanced over at his younger brother Daniel and felt his lips curve upward. He wasn’t as tired as Daniel. This was Daniel’s first job on a construction site, and while he did hard work on the farm, he was clearly exhausted from the unaccustomed manual labor.

“Ready to go?” he asked his brother.

To his surprise, Daniel grinned at him. “Gut day, ja?”

Isaac stared at him, feeling astonished. “You like the work.”

“Ja. Feels gut to see what you’ve accomplished in a day.” Daniel glanced at the house that was currently under construction.

They had put together and set into place all the walls of the first floor of a house. It would be a large dwelling. The first floor alone was probably two thousand square feet. Isaac didn’t know what the upper level would entail yet, but he was sure when the structure was done, it would be massive.

“Nice job,” Matt Rhoades said as he approached with their older brother Jed.

Isaac gave a silent nod but Daniel was more effusive. “We got a lot done today.”

Matt looked pleased by the boy’s obvious enjoyment. Dark haired with dark eyes and a quick smile, the contractor was a favorite Englisher among their Amish community. “Ready to return tomorrow?”

Daniel nodded vigorously, and Isaac couldn’t help but chuckle at the boy’s enthusiasm.

“We should make sure that Dat doesn’t need us on the farm tomorrow.” Isaac watched Daniel’s face fall. “I doubt he does, though.” He made a decision, hoping that his father would agree. “We’ll be here,” he told Matt. “Eight o’clock sharp, as usual. Let’s go home, Daniel.”

As he drove their wagon home, Isaac thought of the money he’d earned today, which was his, free and clear. Until this week, everything he’d made since the Whittier’s Store incident, he’d given to Bob Whittier to pay for the damages. The paint that had been splattered over the back of the building had ruined the siding. Since there was no match for the old color, all of it had been removed from the building and replaced. And Isaac had paid for it all—the material and the labor to install it—even though he wasn’t the one who had been responsible for the damage.

I may as well have been, he thought. Because he’d lied when he’d taken the blame. Nancy had begged him not to tell. Her brother, Brad, had instigated the act, and she’d pleaded with him. Isaac had arrived on the scene after the deed had been done, and as he’d stared at the damage with a sick feeling of dread, the police had pulled up to the building in their cruiser and everyone had scattered into the wind, except for Isaac. Sergeant Thomas Martin, the police officer who’d questioned him, was Rick Martin’s brother. Rick was a friend and neighbor, and because of Rick’s connection, the officer had called Bob Whittier rather than taking him to the station immediately. Bob had refused to press charges. The officer could have pressed charges himself, but he’d let Bob handle the situation himself. Bob Whittier had said that he’d forget about the incident if Isaac would pay for the damages. So for the next couple of years, Isaac had worked hard and paid Bob Whittier every cent he’d earned until the debt was paid. He’d given Bob the last payment owed with his last paycheck.

“Isaac,” Daniel said, pulling Isaac from his dark thoughts. “I did all right today, ja?”

Isaac nodded. “You did fine, Bruder.”

His brother appeared relieved. “Danki for getting me the job.”

He ran a weary hand across the back of his neck before he turned toward his brother. “You’re a gut worker. Matt asked if I knew anyone and I did—you. Jed agreed that you were the man for the job.”

Daniel looked pleased that both brothers had approved of him. “I appreciate it.”

Isaac studied him. Daniel wore a blue shirt, triblend denim pants and heavy work boots, just like he did. His straw hat sat crookedly on his head. There was a smudge of dirt across one cheek and sawdust on the shirtfront, but he looked happy and content and that was all that mattered. He wondered what his mother would say when she saw them. “We’d better clean up outside before we head into the house. Mam is bound to take one look at us and cry out. But you can’t work and stay clean, too, ja?”

“Ja,” Daniel agreed with a grin.

They headed toward the back of the house. As they passed an open window, Isaac heard his mother’s voice. “Isaac, Daniel—that you?”

“Ja, Mam,” they both answered.

“Just stopping to wash up at the pump.”

“Hannah,” he heard Mam call. “Get your bruders some soap and towels. They’re outside.”

Isaac heard his little sister murmur her assent as he pumped the handle that set forth a gush of water. “You first,” he told Daniel.

His younger brother reached in and cupped his hands full of cold water, then splashed his face and neck.”

Hannah appeared and handed him soap. Isaac stood by watching as Daniel lathered up his face, neck, arms and hands while Hannah hovered nearby, waiting with a towel. Meeting his little sister’s gaze, Isaac grinned at her.

Daniel finished up, and then Isaac took his turn. He washed up while his brother worked the pump and his sister looked on.

“You boys done yet?” Mam called out. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Coming,” Isaac replied.

As the three siblings approached the back door that led to the kitchen, Isaac put a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Did you have a gut day, Hannah?”

“Ja, I got to play with Susanna. Joseph helped with EJ.” She beamed up at him. “Annie came to Mam’s quilting bee today.”

Isaac nodded as he reached to open the door and waited for Daniel and Hannah to precede him. Hannah hung back as Daniel went in first. She seemed eager to talk about the day. “Ja, and Mae, Nancy and Charlotte came—so did Josie and Ellen,” she went on. “And Elizabeth and her mudder, too.”

“That’s nice,” he said. Isaac felt his belly warm at the mention of Ellen. Since her accident, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. Or was it because he was bothered that she’d seemed to go out of her way to avoid him since?

Mam was at the kitchen sink, washing dishes. She turned as they entered. “Gut.” She eyed him and Daniel, assessing their appearance. “You look clean enough,” she decided.

Isaac glanced at her with raised eyebrows. “You need us for something?”

She dried her hands on a tea towel and laid it to dry over the end of the dish rack. “Ja. I’d like you to carry my quilt frame upstairs. Martha may stop by at any time, and I don’t want her to see the baby quilt before it’s done and we’re ready to give it to her.”