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He said it so sweetly that she sighed and looked at the lima bean in her hand. “No, I suppose it’s not too much to ask, so I will walk out with them,” she said softly. “But I’ll tell you now—” she pointed with the empty hull at him “—I’ll only truly consider Micah, not Neziah.”
“Don’t be foolish. You cared for Neziah once. You came close to marrying him.”
She tightened her mouth. “That was a long time ago,” she said. “Marrying Neziah would have been a mistake. We were—are—too different. He isn’t the husband for me, and I’m certainly not the wife for him.” Memories she hadn’t stirred up in years came back to her, and she felt her heart trip. Things had been so complicated with Neziah, and she had been so young. “I’d feel trapped in a marriage with him.”
“Then you’re wise to refuse him.” He leaned closer to her. “But you are open to being courted by Micah?”
She nodded. “Jah. If you think I should do that, I will.”
“And you don’t think it’s being unfair to Neziah to allow him to believe you’re considering his suit?”
“Honestly, Dat, I think he went along with Simeon’s idea just to please his father. I bet he’s trying to figure out at this very moment how to get out of this.”
“Then we will put this all in God’s hands,” her father said. “He’s never failed to be there when we need Him. It pleases me that you are willing to walk out with the Shetler boys, and I will place my hopes and prayers on the best solution for all of us.”
She nodded, her heart suddenly lighter. “I’ll put my trust in Him,” she agreed. And for the first time in years, she allowed herself to think of a different life than she had thought hers would be...one that included a husband, a baby and new possibilities.
* * *
“I’m hungry,” Joel said in Deitsch as Neziah lifted him out of the bathtub and wrapped him in an oversize white towel.
“Jah, me, too,” Asa agreed in Deitsch. “I want milk and cookies. Can we have milk and cookies, Dat?”
“English,” Neziah reminded them. “Bath time is English. Remember? Soon Joel will go to school, and the other children will speak English. You wouldn’t want them to call him a woodenhead, would you?” Asa wriggled out of his grasp and retreated to the far end of the claw-footed porcelain tub. “Come back here, you pollywog.” He captured the escapee and stood him beside his brother. It always surprised him how close they were in size, even though Asa was nearly two years younger. Neziah wrapped his younger son in a clean blue towel and sat him on the closed toilet seat.
The bathroom was large and plain with a white tile floor, white fixtures and white walls and window shutters. Neziah wondered if his boys ever realized how lucky they were not to have to use an outhouse as he had for much of his childhood. He hadn’t minded the spiders and the occasional mouse or bat as much as he had the cold on winter nights. He smiled. This modern bathroom with its deep sink, corner shower and propane heater was a great improvement. The Amish elders might be slow to change, but they did make some concessions to the twenty-first century, and bathrooms, in his opinion, were at the top of the list.
“My tummy hurts,” Joel said in English, sticking out his lower lip. “I have hungry.”
“After the big dinner and all the pie you ate at the Beacheys?” Neziah chuckled. “I don’t think so. You’ll have to wait for breakfast.”
Joel’s face contorted into a full-blown pout, and Asa chimed in. “Me hungry, too.”
“Bed and prayers.” Neziah whisked off the towels and tugged cotton nightshirts over two bobbing heads. “Brush your teeth now, and maybe we’ll have time for a little Family Life before lights out.” Family Life was one of the few publications that came to the house, and Neziah made a practice of reading short stories or poems that he thought his sons might like at bedtime.
“But we’re hungry,” Joel whined, retreating to the Deitsch dialect. “My belly hurts a lot.”
“Then cookies and milk will only make it worse,” Neziah pronounced. He scooped up Asa and draped him laughing over his shoulder and took Joel’s hand. “Bed. Now.” Joel allowed himself to be tugged along reluctantly to the bedroom and the double bed the boys shared. Neziah deposited Asa between the sheets then reached down for Joel.
“Read,” Asa reminded. He pulled the sheet up to his chin and dug his stuffed dog out from under his pillow while Joel wormed his way over his brother and curled up on top of the light cotton blanket and sheet.
A breeze blew through the curtainless windows on the north side of the bedroom. Like the bathroom, this was a sparse chamber: the bed, a bookcase, a table and two chairs. There were no dressers. The boys’ clothing was all hung inside the single, small closet. Neziah pulled up a chair, lit the propane lamp and together they shared a short prayer. Then he took the latest copy of Family Life magazine from the table. He’d read to Joel and Asa every night since their mother had died. It was something she’d always done with the children, and although he wasn’t as much at ease with reading aloud as Betty had been, he felt it was the right thing to do.
Strangely, the practice, which he’d begun out of a sense of duty, had become the highlight of his day. No matter how tired he was, spending a few moments quietly with his sons brought him deep contentment. Asa, in particular, seemed to enjoy the poetry as much as Neziah did. It wasn’t something that Neziah would have willingly admitted to anyone, but he found the sounds of the rhyming words pleasing. Joel preferred the stories, the longer the better, but Neziah suspected that it was simply a way of delaying bedtime.
Tonight, Neziah chose a short and funny poem about a squirrel that stored up nuts for winter and when he had finished it he said, “Sleep well,” as he bent to rest a hand lightly on each small head. Joel’s hair was light and feathery; Asa’s thick and curly. “God keep you both,” he murmured.
“Dat?”
“Jah, Joel, what is it? No more about cookies tonight.”
“Nay, Dat. I was wondering. Is Ellen going to be our new mutter?”
Neziah was surprised by the question; he had wondered how much his sons had understood from the conversations he and Micah had had with their father and later at the Beacheys’ table. Apparently, they’d caught the gist of it. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. He made it a point never to be dishonest with his children, not even for their own good. “Maybe. Would you like that?”
“Grossdaddi said she might marry you,” Joel said, avoiding the question.
“Jah, and...and Uncle Micah, too,” Asa supplied.
Neziah chuckled. “A woman can only marry one man, and a man only one woman. Ellen might marry me or your uncle Micah, or she might not marry either of us.” Neziah slid the chair back under the table and retrieved a crayon from the floor. It was almost too dark to see, and he wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t stepped on it. “Good night, boys.”
“But will she?” Joel persisted.
He stopped in the doorway and turned back to his boys. “We’ll have to wait and see. If she marries your uncle Micah, she’ll be your aunt.”
Joel wrinkled his little nose. “Is that like a mutter?”
A lump rose in Neziah’s throat. Joel had been so small when his mother died, and Asa only an infant. Neither of them could remember what it was like to have a mother. Neziah felt a faint wave of guilt. Had he been selfish in waiting so long to remarry? His sons deserved a mother; everyone in Honeysuckle thought so. But would Ellen be right for them? For him?
“Ellen makes good pie,” Joel said.
Asa yawned. “I like pie.”
“Ellen does make good pie,” Neziah conceded. “Now, no more talking. Time for sleep.” Pretending not to hear the muted whispers behind him, Neziah made his way out of the boys’ room and down the stairs. He didn’t need a light. He knew the way by heart.
He continued on through the house, past the closed door to the parlor, where a thin crack of light told him that his father was still awake reading the Bible or working on correspondence as part of his duties as a church elder. He walked through the kitchen and outside, making his way to the old brick well that stood near the back porch. The windmill and a series of gears, pipes and a holding tank delivered water to the house and bathroom, but the coldest water came from the deep well. Neziah unlatched the hook and slid aside the wooden cover. With some effort, an overhead pulley, a rope and a wooden bucket rewarded him with an icy drink of water scooped out with an aluminum cup that was fastened to the iron frame.
Neziah leaned against the old brick and savored the water. This was another habit of his. Every night, if it wasn’t raining, sleeting or snowing, he’d come out to the well and draw up fresh water. He liked the sensation of the liquid, the rough texture of the bricks and the familiar curves of the bucket and cup. He’d always loved the well. It was a good place to think.
He was still standing there, one hand steadying the bucket, when he heard the rhythmic sound of a stone skipping across water. Instantly, he knew what it was. He finished his water, hung the cup back on the hook and walked across the yard, past the grapevines. At the edge of the small pond in the side yard, he spotted the outline of a figure. The figure tossed something just so and again Neziah heard the familiar splash, splash, splash of a rock skipping across water.
“Only three. Can’t you do better than that?” he called, walking toward his brother.
“It’s not about how many hops. I’m practicing my technique,” Micah explained.
“Ah.” By the light of the rising moon, Neziah picked up a stone from the water’s edge and slid it back and forth over his fingertips, judging its shape and weight. A good rock had to be flat and oval and just the right weight. “Your spin’s still not right.”
“My spin is fine.” Micah picked up another rock, crouched and threw it.
Four skips.
“You should try standing up to start...like this.” Neziah lifted his hand above his head, his wrist cocked, and then swung down and out in one smooth movement. The stone hit the water and skipped one, two, three, four, five times before disappearing beneath the surface.
“Okay, that was just practice. Best two out of three tries,” Micah challenged, picking up another rock.
Neziah smiled. The two of them had been competitive for as long as he could remember, mostly because of Micah, he liked to think. To Micah, everything was a game. But the truth be told, though, Neziah had a small competitive streak himself. Or maybe it just bugged him that his little brother was so good at everything. Nothing ever came hard to Micah.
“Best score of three,” Neziah agreed. He leaned over to find three perfect rocks. “How was fishing with Ellen?”
“Great.”
Neziah could just make out Micah’s face; he was grinning ear to ear. “And Ellen really is agreeable to marrying one of us?”
Neziah saw Micah shrug in the darkness as he picked up a stone, ran his fingers over it and rejected it. “It makes sense, and she’s a sensible woman. Or haven’t you noticed that?”
“You’re not usually so quick to seize on one of Vadder’s ideas.” Finding a near-perfect stone, Neziah passed it to his left hand for safekeeping.
“He’s right. It’s past time I married. I look at you with your two boys and...” Micah turned to Neziah, casually tossing a stone into the air and catching it. “You know what I think of them. Scamps or not, it’s time I had a few of my own. And for that I need a wife. Why not Ellen?”
“She’s older than you.”
Micah laughed. “That’s what she said. Wasn’t our mutter older than our vadder?”
“A year, I think, but there’s more than that between you and Ellen.”
“If it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother you, brother.” Micah stared at Neziah for a moment. The grin came again. “Not having second thoughts, are you? Wishing you hadn’t called things off when you did?”
“Of course not,” Neziah said a little too quickly. “We walked out together, that’s true, but there were differences that we couldn’t seem to...” He sighed and stood at the edge of the water. “Your turn.”
Micah squatted down. “If my courting Ellen is a problem for you, now’s the time to speak up. I like her, but I won’t let a woman come between us. Not even Ellen.” He let go of his first stone. “Yes!” he cheered when it hopped five times.
“Dat’s idea is that she choose between us. I agreed to it, same as you.” Neziah tossed his stone and it skipped five times. “I just don’t want you to hurt her, Micah. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Micah tossed his next stone. Three skips. He didn’t cheer. “Sounds like you’ve made up your mind to step aside.”
Neziah skipped his second stone. Five again. “I didn’t say that.” He didn’t like it when people put words in his mouth.
Micah prepared to toss his final stone, taking his time to glance at the water and get himself into position. “So you do still have feelings for her?” He let the stone fly...five skips.
Neziah thought about it for a minute and realized that as much as he would like to deny it, he couldn’t. He raised his hand high over his head, the rock just right between his fingers. “We didn’t break up because we didn’t care for each other. It was because we weren’t sure that we were suited to be the best partners. Marriage is for life, and some differences can loom large as years pass.” He let the rock go, spinning it just right...six skips. “I win,” he declared.
Micah turned to Neziah, his tone teasing. “So what you’re saying, brother, is that you’re in?”
“I’m in,” Neziah admitted.
“And no hard feelings if she picks me?” Micah opened his arms wide. “Because you know I’m hard for the girls to resist.”
“Why would there be any hard feelings?” Neziah asked and then glanced away. He loved his brother, always had, but he wondered, as the words came out of his mouth, how he would feel seeing Ellen marry him. “It’s her choice.”
“Goot. Contest on. And may the best Shetler bring home the bride!” Micah snatched up another stone. “Now come on. One more time. Best out of five stones.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_b7097b1e-f95f-5091-a1e0-56893a8943b5)
Ellen pushed her scooter into the yard and scanned the road below. Immediately, she caught sight of a horse and buggy coming from the direction of town. It was Micah. He reined in the gelding and waited. Suspecting that she’d been ambushed, Ellen smiled and walked down the hill toward him.
As she approached the buggy, she saw Micah grinning at her. She knew the expression. He hadn’t changed much since he was a mischievous boy. He knew that she hadn’t been expecting him to be here this morning, and he looked delighted to have surprised her. “You’re right on time today,” he called.
“Good morning, Micah.” She wasn’t sure if the tingling she felt in her chest was pleasure or aggravation. She felt as though everyone around her was trying to manage her, and she liked to make her own decisions. Was this how it was going to be—Micah popping up everywhere, grinning?
“Good morning.”
“Did you come to see my dat?” she asked, pretending innocence, but certain Micah had come to see her, probably to offer to drive her to the shop. “He’s in his workshop.” She stood there a few yards from the buggy. “We had the fish for breakfast this morning. Delicious. Thanks for letting me keep them.”
“Wish I’d been here to have some with you.” Blue eyes twinkling, Micah swung down lightly out of the buggy. He wasn’t a small man. He was muscular, with broad shoulders and long legs, but Ellen had always thought Micah moved easily, like a fine-blooded horse. Maybe it was because he liked playing ball. He’d always been more athletic than his brother, Neziah.
“Maybe not. I burned the last batch.”
“I doubt that,” he said laughing. “I’ve come to drive you into Honeysuckle.”
Unconsciously, she folded her arms, tightening her mouth into a thin line. If only he wasn’t so cute, she thought. It was so hard not to be flattered by Micah’s attention, but he got his way far too often because he was hard to resist. “No need to put yourself out. I’ve got my scooter.” She offered a half smile. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot of work to do today at the sawmill.”
He spread his hands in an endearing gesture. “No trouble at all. Dat needs turnip seeds. He’s a mind to put in a fall crop where we tore down the old shed. So I’ve got to drive right past your shop. It would be foolish for you to take the scooter when you could ride.”
She nodded. “I can see your point. But you can’t convince me that you’d drive all the way into town for turnip seeds so early on a workday.”
Micah chuckled and reached for her scooter. “I’ll put this in the back of the buggy so you’ll have a way home after work.”
She wasn’t letting Micah off so easily. “Tell the truth. This is all part of some scheme of yours, isn’t it?”
His smile broadened, showing even white teeth. One thing about the Shetler brothers, Ellen thought. They’d been fortunate enough to inherit their mother’s beautiful teeth. Neither Neziah nor Micah had ever had a cavity, while she had made regular trips to the dentist. If she did marry one of them, maybe their children would have good teeth. She almost laughed out loud at the thought. Was she really considering marriage prospects based on dentistry?
“Just giving a neighbor a lift into town.” Micah tucked her scooter under his arm. “But that brother of mine will be wishing he thought to come this morning. He can be slow at the start, but he likes a good competition as much as I do. He just doesn’t like to admit it.” Behind him, the black gelding shook his head and shifted impatiently. Like his owner, the spirited horse was happier when in motion.
“I’m not sure I like being part of a competition. And I haven’t said I’d ride in with you, have I?” she asked.
It was flattering to have Micah show up bright and early this morning, and she’d enjoyed herself on their fishing expedition the previous evening, but her quiet life was suddenly moving way too fast. Simeon had only mentioned this scheme to her the previous morning, and this would be the second time she and Micah had been alone together in less than twenty-four hours. And riding to town in his buggy would set tongues to wagging. This was a close community, and by nightfall people would be wondering if she and Micah were walking out together.
“Come on, won’t you ride into Honeysuckle with me?” Micah asked. “I’m already here. You might as well.” And for the first time this morning, behind the teasing, Ellen could see that it was important to him. He’d be hurt if she refused.
“I suppose you’re right,” she replied. “It’s going to be a warm day for September. Better I arrive looking fresh for my customers.”
“You look fine to me,” he said as he loaded the scooter into the back of the vehicle. “Is that a new dress you’re wearing? I like green on you. It makes your eyes green.”
“My eyes are just hazel,” she said as she climbed onto the front seat. “I wasn’t looking for you to give me compliments, but danki for saying so.”
“Didn’t suppose you were.” He slid onto the seat beside her and picked up the reins. “It’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you, Ellen. Your eyes aren’t always the same color. They change.”
“Change how?” She averted her gaze and brushed at the wrinkles in her apron. Was this what it would be like to court Micah, all compliments and blushing? Was this what she wanted, a woman of her age?
“Just, whatever color dress you wear, your eyes look different. It’s one of the things I remember about you from school. Thanks to your eyes, I ate Henry Chupp’s whoopie pies four days in a row.”
Puzzled, she stared at him. “How and why did you eat Henry’s dessert?”
“I bet him that he couldn’t guess the color of your eyes each day before you arrived and I could.” He grinned at her. “Your eyes were always the color of your dress, and you always wore the same color dress on the same day—green on Monday, blue on Tuesday, then the green again and then the blue. On Friday it was supposed to be a lavender dress, but that week you wore brown instead and ruined the whole thing.” He shrugged. “I told Henry your eyes were going to turn purple and I lost.”
Her eyes widened. Gambling was forbidden by the Ordnung, the rules most Amish communities lived by. “That was very wrong of you. We don’t bet on things, not horse races or what color a girl’s eyes will be.”
Micah grimaced. “I know. Neziah found out and threatened to tell Dat if I didn’t make it up to Henry. I had to give him my Little Debbie cakes for a whole week. My favorites. The ones with the sticky cream inside.”
