Sarah's Garden (12 page)

“Yeah . . . I guess it’s all over . . .
Englisch
, Amish, whatever.”

“So what will you do about this sun bear?”

He swiveled to look at her. “What?”

“Are you going to pray about it? I’ll pray with you.”

“No, I’m not going to pray about it . . . I’m angry!”

“That’s why you should pray.”

He frowned at her, but she held his eyes steadily.

“Don’t tell me, Miss King, that you never get angry, and don’t you dare cite ‘righteous indignation’ to me. Don’t tell me you don’t have moments when you’d just like to grab ahold of someone and rattle them until . . .”

“I’m having one now,” she replied sweetly.

He stared at her, then burst into laughter, shaking his head. “You never cease to amaze me.”

She bent her head at the compliment and he rose to walk near her chair. “I can’t ruffle your feathers with all of my fool blustering, and all you need to do is give a gentle word and you turn me inside out. Why is that?” He reached one long finger down to trace the warm curve of her cheek, and she resisted the urge to turn her face into his hand.

“Are you asking me or yourself?” she said instead, allowing him to lift her chin until she met his gaze.

“I don’t think I know,” he said hoarsely. Gone was the anger in his eyes, but the intensity was still there, blue-gold and blazing. She bit her soft bottom lip.

“You have the sun in your eyes, Dr. Williams.”

“Do I, Miss King?” He bent his long back and lowered his head until his face was bare inches from her own. “You have the earth in yours.”

She watched his heavy lashes drift downward as he moved closer still. She forgot to breathe for a moment, then jumped when the blaring of a horn from a passing car broke the moment. Teenagers shrilled and whistled and the doctor straightened, walking to the top step of the stand, his back to her.

Sarah tried to get her heart to settle and realized where she was—in broad daylight, nearly kissing an
Englischer
. Why, anyone could have gone past! She rose anxiously to adjust some jars of jam.

“I think I’ll walk on a bit and talk to your father about Becker’s. He . . . ah . . . might have some more answers for me.”

“Yes, of course.” She didn’t turn and let out a deep, tense breath when she heard his footsteps go down the stairs and head out onto the rocky lane that led to the farm. It seemed that no matter what her intentions were when she met with the doctor, she always ended up weakening her resolve within minutes of being in his company. She blindly turned the jam jars once more and was relieved when the brisk trotting of a horse warned her that a customer was coming. Mrs. Loder turned in to the stand, and Sarah drew a breath and prepared to greet her neighbor.

G
rant could see Luke King as he knocked on the clear glass of his front door. The younger man was becoming more and more of a fixture at Grant’s home and had a keen and natural knack for understanding animals and their care. Indeed, it was through Luke that Grant found most of his calls, and the Amish community was becoming receptive to seeing the
Englischer
and the young Amishman come riding across the fields together in the red sports car. The
Ordnung
, or the unspoken rules that governed the community as determined by the local bishop, allowed for an Amish person to ride in a car if invited, so long as it was for a good purpose and destination and not for pleasure. An Amish youth or adult may not own an automobile; however, Grant could tell by the way Luke ’s eyes would stray to the dashboard and all of its finer points that the rides were a treat for him, albeit a cautious one.

Grant opened the door, expecting a routine call. Instead, Luke removed his straw hat and twisted it between his hands.

“What’s wrong?”

“I hear tell that the only beast Mr. Becker is missing from his business is a woodchuck. I might know where there is one.”

Grant frowned, knowing his friend was saying something important but not quite sure what. Miss King must have told her brother about the sun bear, but what was this about a woodchuck?

“Will you come in?”

Nee
. . . but you could come out a bit.” “

“All right.” Grant stepped out onto the porch. He was amazed to see the other three King brothers and their father standing on his front lawn. They all looked solemn, and Grant had a sudden image of himself bending to steal a kiss from Miss King. Was there to be some old-fashioned retribution from her family? He felt his neck grow cold at the thought. Then he noticed the large wooden crate with air holes drilled in it in the back of the family’s wagon, and his imagination ran wild.

“Gentlemen, from what I can gather . . . you have a . . . woodchuck in that crate?”

Mr. King shook his head and stroked his gray beard in apparent thought. “
Nee
, the crate is empty, for now.” They laughed among themselves, and Grant straightened his spine.

“Well, what can I do to help you? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Luke spoke from beside him, slowly, as if to a child. “It seems that the only beast Mr. Becker, from Becker’s Beasts and Birds, is missing, is a woodchuck. We might know where to find one.”

“Am I . . . the woodchuck?” Grant whispered back, and all the men burst into hearty laughter.

Mr. King took a step up and poised below Grant. “No, son, you’re not a woodchuck; you’re a man. Didn’t anyone teach you this when you were studying veterinary science?”

Again the laughter, and Grant started to lose his temper, feeling like a fool.

“Look, I don’t understand . . . I think I’ll go back in to my dinner.”

“
Ach
, don’t lose your spirit now. We ’re just fooling with you. The truth is that Mr. Becker has been a sore on our community’s back, but it’s not our way to fight against his kind of mean-spiritedness. But I had a visit with our schoolteacher, Miss Lapp, and she explained that a sun bear might do well in a climate like Hawaii. Is that so?”

Grant stared at him. “Yes . . . Hawaii’s climate is similar to Malaysia.”

“
Gut
. And do you think there also might be zoos or other places that would take in a creature like a sun bear . . . or a woodchuck . . . if one were to appear on its doorstep?”

“I suppose. It is possible to airmail animals, but the rates are astronomical. What woodchuck?”

Mr. King smiled. “If you haven’t seen yet, Doctor, the women are gathered over across the way. They have it in mind to have a paint
vrolijk
this evening in your kitchen, with your permission, of course.”

Grant now noticed the group of capped women standing in the distance of the drive, with Miss King at the forefront of the group.

“A paint . . . frolic?”

“A frolic, a party or time of work and enjoyment. Would the Bustles mind, do you think?”

“Ah, no . . . Mr. Bustle ’s rented a car and they’ve gone for the weekend back to Philadelphia to visit family.”

“Do you mind, Doctor?”

“No . . . I don’t mind.”

Mr. King clapped his hands with a smile and waved over to the women. “We ’re going!” he called.

Grant saw the women start to move forward in a merry group, and Luke gestured for him to come along to the wagon.

“We ’re going? Where are we going?”

“To swap the woodchuck, just like you said, Doctor,” Mr. King exclaimed. “Surely you remember suggesting it?”

“I don’t . . . well . . . I don’t really get it.” He paused as Miss King and a horde of Amish women and girls passed by and started up the steps to his house. He met Sarah’s gaze for a moment, heard stray giggles, and still wondered if he were off to some Amish festooning of would-be kissers at the hour of sunset.

He found himself in the back of the wagon sitting with the brothers and the large crate between them. He realized upon closer inspection that the crate had a This Side Up stamp and was air-postage prepaid with an address of Hawaii Zoo on its label. The weight was 190 pounds. A little less than him, some more than a sun bear. He met Luke ’s gaze across the crate, and an idea began to stir in his head.

Across the secret furrows among the corn and wheat, they plowed on toward Becker’s, stirring up crickets and the earliest twinkling of lightning bugs. And in the quiet interior of the wagon, Grant compared his short-sleeved light blue polo and jeans to the dark pants, blue and aqua shirts, and suspenders of his fellow passengers and felt like he ’d fallen out of step with a time that was more dependable than his own. The King men were silent for the most part, eyes steady, only occasionally making a comment here and there to each other in rumbling Pennsylvania Dutch about the height of the field or the stray passing of a bird.

Grant decided to regain some of his footing. He knew the strict beliefs of the Amish to abstain from violence at any cost, but he couldn’t help feeling like he ’d been railroaded into something, and he figured he knew how to play cat and mouse as well as the next man.

“So are you going to shoot Becker?”

Mr. King gave a gratifying jerk to the reins and three pairs of eyes met his own with mixed shock and bewilderment.

“You know, maybe just in the leg, truss him up, put him in the crate, mail him to . . .” He peered closer at the label on the wooden box, fingering an air hole. “The Hawaii Zoo?”

Mr. King glanced back over his shoulder and his eyes met the doctor’s with a faint twinkle. “Was it not just awhile ago, Doctor, that you thought it might be you going in that crate?”

Grant shrugged. “Never can tell. One full crate ’s as good as another.”

Mr. King slapped the reins. “Boys . . . the good doctor can give as well as he can get. You’d better be warned.”

Grant grinned at Luke, who frowned back, then ignored the gazes of the others as he pretended to study a passing hawk beginning a last nightly round.

In truth, he had no idea about how things would play out at Becker’s, but that just made life more interesting. He closed his eyes, letting the bump of the wagon lull him, and smiled as he thought about Miss King frolicking with paint in his kitchen.

W
hat color have you chosen, Sarah?” one of
Mamm
’s friends asked as the women trooped into the doctor’s kitchen. Since Sarah had organized the paint
vrolijk
, the women allowed her the privilege of choosing the color.

Sarah glanced around the kitchen. Mrs. Bustle had visibly done her very best to clean, but the dilapidated stove and the faded wallpaper drew all the heart from the room.

“Light blue,” Sarah replied, ignoring the desire to say that it matched the doctor’s eyes.

“Light blue?” Mrs. Loder questioned. “Are the
Englisch
used to a blue kitchen? I thought they might favor yellow or something else.”

“
Ach
, I’m sure it will be fine,”
Mamm
interjected, rolling up her sleeves. “We ’d better get started, though; I don’t expect it’ll take long up at Becker’s.”

The women laughed, sharing the joke, and then each began to work in earnest. Sarah smiled as she pulled down strips of flowered wallpaper; it was called a frolic for more than one reason. It was a grand opportunity to get together to help a neighbor, but it was also a time to joke and laugh together, to update one another on happenings at home, and to generally be merry as they worked.

They soon had the wallpaper down and bundled away and then set to cleaning the walls. Mrs. Loder,
Mamm
, and Sarah slid the heavy refrigerator, the only gleaming new piece of furniture in the room, out from the wall, being careful not to dislodge the electric plug from the outlet.

“There are hardwoods under this old linoleum. Wide fir, I believe,” Sarah said, bending over the cord in order to see where there was a gap between the wall base and the floor.

“Hmm . . . I wonder why the Fishers never uncovered them?” the bishop’s wife asked. “Maybe the wood’s warped.”

“We could find out,” Sarah announced and then glanced around at the group. “If—if you’d like.”

Mamm
laughed. “‘
Es fenschder muss mer nass mache fer es sauwer mache
’—One has to wet the window in order to clean it.”

The others agreed and helped heave the refrigerator and stove up by inches so that Sarah could slide out the old linoleum. A wide fir floor was indeed revealed, scratched but in hearty condition.

Sarah clasped her hands in glee and then complimented the women who already had one of the walls painted. The light blue was very Amish looking, but it brought serenity to the center of the house that she hoped Mrs. Bustle would like, as well as the doctor. Although, she worried, perhaps the
Englisch
did not consider the kitchen to be the heart of the home. She shrugged off her concerns and scrambled up a footstool to reach the white trim around the top of the walls. With a steady and artistic hand, she had a fresh coat on two walls within minutes. Then she skipped down to pass around cups of lemonade that
Mamm
had brought, and they all paused to savor the delicious sour-sweetness and to admire each other’s handiwork.

“Looks good so far,” Mrs. Loder remarked.

“
Jah
,” Sarah agreed, glad that she ’d been able to persuade
Mamm
to organize the frolic despite her reservations. “I just hope the doctor will
kumme
home happy.”

Mamm
gave her a sharp look. “If we want him to come home happy, we ’d best get back to work. There’s still a lot to do,” she chided. “We must do a
gut
job. ‘Whatever you do, do as for
Der Herr
.’”

T
he doctor was, in actuality, having rather a rough go of it. He’d found himself standing outside the ramshackle attraction of Becker’s Beasts and Birds, facing an irate Mr. Becker, with no true idea of what to say beyond a few awkward words.

The King men stood behind him in a quiet semicircle, seeming to blend in with the stillness of the land and the evening. Grant was back to feeling the fool and tried once more to speak to Mr. Becker.

“I’m here for the sun bear. I’m—we’re taking it out of here.”

Mr. Becker laughed. “You are, are you? Well, don’t expect those dolts behind you to help any. They don’t go in for fighting, and that leaves just me and you, Son. And I’d say that those woman’s hands of yours are in for some trouble.”