Amish Country Box Set: Restless Hearts\The Doctor's Blessing\Courting Ruth (51 page)

“When did you talk to Miriam? Certainly not at church.”

“I’m not much for church. Not lately.”

He had stayed away from church services yesterday because he had wanted to make sure he didn’t see her. No, that wasn’t true. He probably would have stayed away just the same. He didn’t feel at ease at a worship service anymore. He couldn’t see where he would ever be the type of man God would want. He had considered going, had gone so far as to ask Aunt Fannie to iron his good shirt and trousers, but in the end, he’d just stuffed them back in the drawer and gone off to the Dover Mall on his scooter. Instead of worship, he’d spent his afternoon feeding tokens
into a video game box. His father would have been proud of him…a chip off the old ice block.

“I heard you were
rumspringa
. I suppose you like English ways.”

“Some. Maybe.”

“I suppose you drink beer,” she accused.

“
Ne
. I don’t drink alcohol. I never have.” He never understood why anyone would want to drink a substance that made them angry or foolish or made them act as they never would have sober. He looked into Ruth’s warm brown eyes, and for just a second, he saw a flash of compassion.

“I didn’t mean to accuse you,” she said in a gentler voice. “It’s just that I know it goes on. I hear lots of
rumspringa
boys do.”

“Girls, too,” he admitted. “But not me. When I was eight, my older brother was riding in a car with some guys who were drinking. He was killed in an accident. I never thought it was something I wanted to do.” He swallowed hard. Why had he told her that? He rarely felt comfortable sharing his feelings. It wasn’t something a man did…not something he did.

She stopped and faced him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Her tone was suddenly tender, her voice sweet.

He nodded, too full of emotion to answer for a long moment, then he said, “Free, my brother, was funny, and he used to take me fishing sometimes.”

“It’s hard to lose someone you love.” She started toward home again. “My dat died two years ago. I miss him every day.”

Somehow Eli sensed that everything had changed between them. He was walking beside her, and they weren’t arguing. They were just talking like friends, talking as though he’d known her his whole life.

“My dat died, too, when I was young. I don’t remember
much about him, just him laughing and me jumping out of the hayloft into his arms.” He hesitated. “Mam never talked about him much.”

“Did your mother remarry? My aunts are urging Mam to, but I don’t think she’s ready.”

“My stepfather, Joseph, is my father’s second cousin. He married my mother when I was four, but I never thought of him as a father, just Joseph. He already had his own sons. He never liked Free and me much, and he was strict.”

Ruth reached down to pluck a wild daisy from an open space beside the path. She brushed the flower petals over her lips and asked, “Is your mother happy with him? Is he a good man?”

“Joseph is a hard worker. He provides for her.” He shrugged. “I never asked Mam if she was happy. In my family, you don’t talk about private things.”

She nodded. “My dat was different than a lot of men I know. He laughed when he was happy, shouted when he was mad and wasn’t ashamed to shed a tear when our old collie died. He used to talk to us about everything.”

“He must have been a special man. I wish I could have known him,” Eli said. Uncle Roman was the closest he’d ever had to a father figure, and because of the distance, he hadn’t seen too much of him until he’d been invited to live with them and work at the shop. “I think my uncle Roman is a little like that,” he admitted. “It seems like he’s a man who talks.”

“
Ya,
we all love Roman.” She smiled at him with her eyes. “Roman says you’re talented with your hands. Your stepfather must have taught you woodworking—”

“
Ne
. My grandfather taught me his trade. I was apprenticed to him after my brother died. Mam had a new baby and I went to live with my grandparents. It was better for Mam that way.” He paused for a second. “Enough talk
about me.” Eli’s mood changed swiftly. Their conversation was becoming too intimate, and he wasn’t comfortable. He forced a grin. “Why doesn’t a girl your age have a steady beau?”

“That’s a rude question.”

“I just wondered. I mean, you’re pretty, smart, and I hear you aren’t afraid to make a sharp deal with the English tourists at Spence’s.”

“Miriam talks too much.”

He laughed. “She does talk a lot.” Not three days ago, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t have anything more to do with Ruth Yoder. And here he was, walking her home with an armload of schoolbooks like some grass-green boy too baby-faced to shave. And saying things he’d never said to another girl.

What had made him tell Ruth about Free? He should have gotten over Free’s death a long time ago. Hadn’t his grandfather insisted he had gone to a better place, and only a selfish boy would want him back? But that was hard to accept then and still was now. Somehow, he felt he would never get over losing his brother, and that everything had started to go wrong, not when Dat had walked out, but the night Free had gone out joy-riding and never come back.

When they reached the stile at the fence line, Eli dared Ruth to jump and offered to catch her. He didn’t mean any harm, but he would have liked to have circled her small waist with his hands and to get close enough to smell the sweet shampoo she used on her hair.

But Ruth was having none of it. She scrambled down the steps and hurried on ahead of him. As they crossed the fence, the closeness between them seemed to evaporate. Now she was just an attractive girl, and he was just a stranger with a bad reputation.

“Oh, no!” Ruth cried. “The cows are out.”

Eli looked in the direction she was pointing. A heifer was trotting down the rows of ankle-high corn, snatching mouthfuls of newly sprouted field corn and munching for all she was worth. Ruth snatched off her apron and, waving it, ran toward the wayward animal.

“Shoo! Bossy! Get back!”

Eli placed the stack of books on a dry tuft of grass and dashed after her. Another cow, a black and white one wearing a bell around her neck, was just loping into the cornfield. And behind her, on a plow horse, came Ruth’s sister Miriam, riding astride, skirts up around her knees and
Kapp
flying off her head. A Shetland sheepdog ran after them barking.

Since Ruth seemed to have the heifer on the run, Eli turned to cut off another cow. Yet another cow, followed by a calf, appeared on the far side of the field. Eli waved to Miriam and pointed. “I’ll get this one!” he shouted. Miriam dug her bare heels into the horse’s sides and lumbered after the runaway mother and baby through the corn.

The three of them had rounded up the escapees and were just driving the four animals into the barnyard when Samuel Mast’s buggy came up the lane.

“Oh, no,” Ruth groaned. She dropped the broken cornstalk she’d been using as a switch and hastily tied on her apron and tucked the worst of the loose strands of flyaway hair under her
Kapp
. “It’s Samuel and my mother. We’re in trouble now.”

Miriam slid down off the horse and shook her lavender skirt over her ankles. “You’d better get away while you can,” she whispered to Eli.

Eli glanced from one sister to the other. “Me? What did I do? You were the one on the horse.” He pointed to Miriam, then hooked a thumb in Ruth’s direction. “And Ruth just helped to catch—”

Miriam wrinkled her nose and tsk-tsked. “I’m telling you, you should go. Hannah Yoder doesn’t lose her temper often, but when she does, no one is spared.”

Hannah was climbing unaided out of the buggy. She looked at the cows, then back at the three of them, took a book from Samuel and started toward them. Samuel frowned, clicked to his mare and sent her trotting back down the lane in less time than it took Ruth to close the pound gate.

“What is this?” Hannah demanded.

“The cows were in the corn,” Eli began. “We were just—”

“Thank you for your help. Come again another day, Eli Lapp,” she said, her tone clipped. “I wish to speak to my daughters about their behavior. And it is best if you leave us in private.”

He hesitated. “I left your books back in the field. I’ll just—”

“Ruth will fetch the books.” Hannah’s eyes flashed. “You will come for dinner on Sunday. It is not a church Sunday, and I’ve already invited your uncle Roman and aunt Fannie. Now, you can help best by leaving us.”

Eli felt his face flush. “They did nothing wrong.”

“It is not your place to decide,” Hannah retorted. “Your uncle was looking for you. Best you hurry back to the school. Now.”

Eli looked at Ruth, excited at the thought of having Sunday dinner with her, feeling guilty about abandoning her, but Hannah was obviously giving him no choice in either matter. “Sunday, then,” he said. “I’ll be here Sunday for dinner.” Abruptly, he turned on his heel and strode back toward the cornfield and the path that led to the school. Ruth’s mother might have the reputation of being a pleasant woman, but now…

Now, he wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of whatever she would have to say to her daughters.

“Mam,” Ruth started, as soon as Eli was out of earshot. “It’s not Miriam’s fault. She was alone here when the cows got loose.”

“Not exactly alone,” Miriam admitted. “Anna and Susanna are in the house, and Irwin was here.”

“Irwin?” Mam demanded. “Irwin? What was he doing here?”

“He came to talk to you. He thought you’d be home from school. He was helping me move the cows from the little pasture into the pound next to the barn, and…” She left her sentence unfinished.

“Where’s the boy now?” Mam rested both hands on her hips.

“I told him to go home,” Miriam answered.

“Mam, it was an accident that they got out,” Ruth said quickly. “She just thought she could get them in quick if she took the horse.”

“To have Samuel and that boy see my daughter riding astride a horse, bareback, no shoes, no stockings, like some…some English jockey?”

Mam didn’t get loud when she was angry, but her words cut like briars.

“I’m sorry, Mam,” Miriam said. “I won’t do it again.”

“Is this the first time you’ve ridden the horses?” Miriam sighed.

“Or the second?”

“Ne.”

Ruth reached for her sister’s hand. “Mam…don’t be angry.”

“You be quiet,” Mam said. “I’m not speaking to you. I’m speaking to your sister.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Isn’t it bad enough that I had to listen to your aunt
Martha chastise me in front of everyone at the quilting because you rode on Eli Lapp’s motorcycle?”

“Mam, that’s not fair,” Miriam protested. “It was just a ride and an ice-cream cone. And he bought one for Susanna, too. He’s nice, Mam. He didn’t mean any harm.”

“I’m at my wits’ end with you, Miriam. You are not a boy. You are a girl, a Plain girl.”

Miriam burst into tears and ran toward the house.

“Miriam,” Ruth called after her.

“You’re almost as much to blame as she is,” Mam said, turning on Ruth. “When you saw her on that horse, you should have told her to get down, not encouraged her.”

“I’m sorry, Mam.” Ruth met her mother’s gaze. “You’re right. I should have told her to get down the minute I saw her.”

Mam sighed, her face softening. “It’s only that I want my girls to be good women. Good Plain women.”

“I think we are, most of the time,” Ruth dared.

To Ruth’s surprise Mam smiled faintly. “I think you are, too. Now, come.” She headed toward the house. “There are chores to be done and Miriam’s dander to be smoothed.”

Ruth nodded. She could understand Mam’s concern for Miriam’s behavior, but she knew her sister, too. Miriam didn’t mean to break the rules about riding horses, showing her legs and losing her
Kapp
. She was just high-spirited. Inside, where it mattered most, Miriam’s soul was pure and truly Plain.

Hurrying to catch up with Mam, Ruth took hold of her hand. “Please don’t be upset with yourself. You were right and we were wrong. You’re the best mother in the world,” she said and meant every word. “Dat would be so proud of you.”

“I hope so,” Mam replied. “I worry about raising you girls…if I’m doing right.”

“You are,” Ruth assured her, but a small shiver of unease made goose bumps raise on her arms. Mam was the wisest woman she knew. If Mam didn’t always know the best thing to do, how could she ever hope to make the right choices?

Chapter Six

“I’
m not going,” Ruth said. “Anna and Miriam and Susanna can go without me.” She turned the handle on the butter churn as hard as she could. Already specks of yellow were showing in the thick, rich cream.

“Are your arms tired? I’ll help,” Anna offered. It was a rainy afternoon, and they were all gathered in the kitchen. Anna was pressing the wrinkles out of her starched
Kapp
as Susanna eagerly slathered generous gobs of marshmallow filling on her still-warm chocolate cookies and pressed them together, forming fat whoopie pies. Miriam’s sleeves were rolled up as she scoured the stovetop vigorously, while their mother sat at the table shelling peas.

“You should all go,” Mam advised. “Young people should be together and have fun.”

Ruth turned the crank harder. The butter was forming into chunks now. If there was one thing she could do, it was make beautiful, sweet butter. She loved the process, feeling the soft, squishy butter in her hands, adding just the right amount of salt and waiting to see if the blocks came out of Mam’s wheat-patterned mold in perfect shapes. Not everyone could make good butter. It was the only chore in the kitchen where she could outdo Anna, and she took
secret satisfaction in her gift. “I’m getting too old for singings,” she said, giving the handle another turn. “It’s for the younger girls and boys.”

“Nonsense,” Mam declared. “Samuel told me that tonight there will be wagons to take you to the homes where there are shut-ins. Your hymns will give them so much pleasure, and you know that God has given you a rare voice.”

Ruth unscrewed the lid on the churn and dumped the ball of butter into a clean cloth. “Making butter is messy,” she said, trying to change the subject. She did love to sing. Secretly, she wanted to go with the young people, but she was afraid. What if Eli was there? What would she say to him? What would he say to her? She sighed. She was probably making something out of nothing. If Eli was there, he probably wouldn’t even notice her with all the other girls there.