A Home for Lydia (The Pebble Creek Amish Series) (12 page)

Aaron was more than a little surprised when Gabe showed up, and with friends! Of course, he had seen his share of barn raisings in his life, even helped in quite a few.

But he wasn’t working on barns. He was working on cabins.

And they didn’t need raising. If anything, they could use leveling.

That was exhaustion and frustration talking. He knew the cabins weren’t as bad as he was making them out to be. As they chopped away Lydia’s precious speckled alder, plus Virginia creeper, trumpet honeysuckle, and poison ivy—yes, poison ivy—he could see that the cabins were well constructed.

The shutters might be falling off, but he supposed Wisconsin winters could do that to a window shutter.

No, the reason for his foul mood could be traced back to two females. One didn’t quite reach his waist and had eyes that looked at him with such trust. He still had the picture she’d drawn in his pocket. The other he barely knew, but she was family nonetheless. What fouled his mood was the knowledge that he was responsible for them both, for them and for the other four girls in Ervin’s family.

He had thought he could show up, settle his
onkel
’s things, and return to his own life unchanged.

He had thought it would take only a few days.

Aaron was finding that life was not following the plan he had envisioned. Life was unpredictable, and he was not pleased about it. That his young cousin thought he had arms big enough to solve the problems and a head large enough to hold the answers did nothing to ease his worries.

So he attacked the winterberry vines which had grown up to entangle itself along the wall of cabin ten.

“Might want to leave some of that.” Gabe eased himself onto the porch steps. “The grapes will attract all sorts of waterfowl this summer and even game birds come winter.”

Aaron breathed a silent prayer for patience, sighed, and joined Gabe on the step. He stared at both of his palms.

“I’ve been working fulltime in the fields since I escaped the schoolhouse. I never had blisters like this before.”

“It’s different work than plowing,” Gabe acknowledged.

“I prefer the plowing.”

Gabe didn’t speak immediately. Aaron had known the man less than twenty-four hours, but he was already learning his ways. Apparently slow, measured responses and a healthy sense of humor were two of them.

“
Ya
. I can tell.”

“Why would my
onkel
allow this place to become so overgrown? He might as well have called them the Plain Cabins in the Jungle. How would he have expected
Englischers
to want to stay here? Why would they want to stay here?” The questions which had circled round and round in his mind exploded out like a fireworks display during a Fourth of July celebration.

Instead of attempting to answer them, Gabe turned so that his back rested against the square post of the porch and studied him.

“Even I can see why the cabins weren’t making money, and I know nothing about running a business.” Aaron busted open the
blister in the middle of his palm, frowning as he probed the raw skin beneath.

“So you plan on staying long enough to turn the cabins around?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Sure. Everyone has a choice.”

Aaron thought on that, staring out over the grounds. The sun was heading westward. Seth was dragging all that they had cut toward the far end of the property, making a large brush pile. David was standing near the water’s edge, talking to Lydia. It was the first time he’d seen her when she wasn’t working or hollering at him.

She cared about the cabins, that much was plain. No doubt she cared about his
onkel
’s family as well.

And there was the rub. He wasn’t without feelings, but he didn’t want to carry the weight of so many on his shoulders. He wanted to go back to the acreage he had already bought seed for, back to fields he had already planned and marked out how he was going to plant. Half of the job was already finished because they hadn’t had the rains Wisconsin had endured.

If he stayed here, chances were he wouldn’t see those crops harvested, because what needed to be done…

What needed to be done and be done properly would take several months, at least.

But the alternative would be to let his
aenti
and his nieces depend on the charity of the church. Which was fine if they needed it.

His father had sent him so they wouldn’t need it.

He stared at the raw center of his hand, at the place that would be sore for a week now. He should have left it alone instead of picking at it. So many times he knew what to do, but he chose wrong. Maybe this once, he would choose right.

So he looked sideways at Gabe and nodded. “
Ya
, I’m staying.”

“Let’s go talk to David and Lydia, if you’re ready to lay out what you have in mind.” Gabe stood and stretched. “Because as soon as our fields dry out, you’re going to lose most of your day labor.”

Aaron and Gabe walked back toward the office in the late
afternoon sunshine. Clouds were still covering a fair amount of the sky. They would have more rain before morning, but Aaron was optimistic for the first time since he’d arrived. Maybe it was knowing he wasn’t working alone. Or maybe it was knowing he’d finally made a decision.

His
grossdaddi
was fond of saying, “No dream comes true until you wake up and go to work.” The cabins along Pebble Creek weren’t his dream, but they were his
onkel
’s. Perhaps by respecting them, by making them profitable again, he would be able to move through this part of his life—move back to where he belonged. And the best way back was to “wake up and go to work.”

Already the restlessness worrying his insides was beginning to ease. The answer was in the work. It always had been.

Work hard, turn a profit, and then he could go home.

Chapter 10

M
iriam had readily agreed to Gabe’s plan to go back to the cabins on Saturday. Grace wasn’t so keen on the idea.

“I usually stay home and play with Hunter on Saturdays.” Grace shifted from foot to foot, staring at the buggy.

“You can stay if you want.” Gabe winked at his wife over the top of Grace’s head.

“Stay?” Her voice squeaked up a notch. “Couldn’t we take Hunter with us?”

“Could, I suppose, but a pup might go chasing after something along the riverbank and become lost.”

Grace clutched her bag with drawing supplies closer. “Probably he won’t miss me.”

She glanced back toward the barn.

“There’s always tomorrow, Grace. You’ll have time to spend with him then.” Miriam remembered being a young girl, loving Saturdays, and having a dozen different ways she wanted to spend them.

“No church tomorrow!” Her daughter’s eyes lit up—and she did think of Grace as her daughter, every bit as much as Rachel. One by circumstances, the other by birth. Both were precious to her.

Grace bit back her smile. “’Course, I miss the church meeting on days there is no service.”

“I’m sure you do.” Miriam placed Rachel’s carrier on the backseat of the buggy. “We’ll be going to my parents’ for lunch. You can play with Hunter in the morning, after our Bible study, and you can see Pepper in the afternoon.”

“That settles it. I’m going.” Grace scooted into the back of the buggy.

Gabe held out his hand to help Miriam up. “Nice logic. Just like a schoolmarm.”

He squeezed her hand lightly before he let go and walked around the buggy to climb in on his side.

Miriam marveled at how Gabe’s touch still sent fireflies spinning through her stomach. She’d thought when they married that such feelings would pass with time, but so far they hadn’t.

And that was one less worry.

Gabe pulled down on his hat, smiled at her as if he could read her mind, and called out to Chance. The quarter horse set off at a steady trot down the lane.

The day was cool and beautiful. Though another half inch of rain had fallen during the night, the sun was shining brightly this morning.

“Think you’ll be able to plant next week?” Miriam asked.

“Maybe by midweek. If the sun will stay out.”

“The
Budget
says we’ll have dry weather soon,” Grace piped up.

“Oh, you’re reading the
Budget
now, are you?”

“I finished the book Miss Bena loaned me, and we’re only allowed one per week.”

Miriam tightened her lips over the retort that rose too easily to her mind. Gabe also remained silent.

Eventually the steady clopping of Chance calmed her anger, though she still couldn’t fathom why the teacher would want to limit a child’s reading to a single book a week. She needed to talk to Gabe about their signing up for a library card at the Cashton library. She’d never needed one before, but now it would be the best way to supplement Grace’s need for additional reading material. They certainly
didn’t have any extra income for purchasing books—not this year with all the repairs they had done around the farm.

The library, though. She should have thought of that sooner, especially as she was a teacher.

By the time they had reached the new development in Cashton with a large sign proclaiming Amish Anthem, she’d put her irritation toward Miss Bena behind her. The downtown area was surprisingly busy, but then it wasn’t often that they came into town on a Saturday.

“Lots of folks,” Grace said, peering out of the buggy.

“You stay close, Gracie. Wouldn’t want you getting lost.”

“Seriously,
dat
? There are like two roads. You can see from one end to the other.”

“Good point.” He continued to the end of the street and parked the buggy in the farthest lot, then tied Chance to a hitching post under the shade of a cottonwood tree.

“It was nice of Mr. Drake to provide so much parking for buggies,” Miriam said, waving at a few Amish families she knew who were also entering the lot.

“The way I heard it, Drake only wanted to have paved lots with small spaces for the
Englisch
cars.” Gabe pulled Rachel out of her carrier and handed her to Miriam, and then he reached back into the buggy for the quilted diaper bag.

Miriam nearly laughed when she didn’t have to remind him to bring it. They had all quickly learned not to take Rachel anywhere without spare clothes and supplies. She had a way of causing havoc before smiling her sweet smile.

“Did Mrs. Goodland insist on this lot?” Miriam asked. “The shade is
wunderbaar
for the horses, and the fact that it’s not paved is
gut
too.”

“Our village president had a hand in it as much as she could, or so the papers have reported,” Gabe said, guiding his family across the busy street. “I have a feeling the fact that the papers have followed
the development so closely also helped. The front page coverage did much to persuade Drake to be sensitive to local needs.”

“By ‘papers,’ do you mean—”

“
Ya
. Rae Caperton.”

“She never mentioned it to me. She rarely brings the paper when she stops by, unless there’s an article on crafting or teaching or farming she thinks we’d like to see.” Miriam reached up to tuck a stray hair into her
kapp
. “Rae is a special person, Gabe.”