by Naomi King
“And I really should be at home whenever James and Abby leave for their weekend visits,” Emma pointed out. “Dat had a little spell yesterday afternoon. Woke up from a nap, and it took him a while to recall that Mamm wasn’t there, and that the newlyweds have moved into his bedroom upstairs.”
“That’s bound to happen, after so many changes in his routine,” Sam murmured. “You’ve got a lot on your mind, Emma. How about if we have you come in early like this, on weekday mornings, and before you go home for dinner at noon, we’ll decide whether you need to—or want to—come back each day? I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed so soon after your mamm’s passing.”
Emma swallowed the lump that threatened to rise into her throat. “That’s kind of you, Sam.”
“Well, it’s also the way Vernon suggested we do things while you’re in mourning,” he replied. “It’s not proper for you to be working amongst the customers, especially with so many English coming in for holiday shopping. I hope I’ll get some responses to my help-wanted ads, so we’ll have more sales help soon.”
“Me, too,” Gail added as she began scooping rolled oats into gallon-size plastic bags. “Even with Grandma helping, we’re stretched pretty thin.”
Emma nodded. “Jah, it’ll take more than one person to replace Abby.”
“So she’s told me,” Sam said with a laugh. “But that’s my problem, and I’m glad you’re here to be part of the solution, Emma. The Ordnung has its rules about women working for a gut reason, and Cedar Creek’s a better church district all around if we abide by them.” He stood up and stretched, glancing at the wall clock. “I’ll leave you to your book work now. You know where to find me if you have questions.”
When Sam and Eddie left the workroom, Emma chatted with Gail for a moment before she turned back to the ledger. Some of the entries had been made in Abby’s neat, distinct printing, and some were in Sam’s smaller script. She was in good company, keeping the accounts for this well-respected family business. I hope my best work will be gut enough, Emma thought as she found the oldest cash register tape. It dated back to early last week, before Sam had closed the store to officiate at Mamm’s funeral, so she had a lot of days to catch up on.
She was feeling useful, and she was helping Sam after he’d done so much for her family of late. That was something to be thankful for as she faced this first winter and the holidays without her mother.
Better days are surely ahead, she told herself as she began to tap the calculator’s keys.
Chapter Fifteen
“Everybody tucked in?” Jerome asked as he peered into his rig. It was the Saturday of the second quilting frolic, and he’d left Bloomingdale before daylight to fetch Eddie and the Grabers. “Extra blankets are in the bin under the seats, if anybody needs one.”
“Eddie and I are gut to go!” Merle replied from the back. “What with the newlyweds off on another gift visit this weekend, I’m happy to be running the roads, too.”
“And I’m glad to get off the ladder for a couple days,” Eddie joined in. “I lost track of the cans of paint I went through this week, but the upstairs of the mercantile’s nearly done.”
“That’s a huge job,” Jerome remarked as he climbed into the driver’s side. “I bet Sam’s happy to have you sprucing up his store.”
The teenager chuckled. “Sam’s busier than all get-out now that Abby’s not there,” he quipped. “All the Christmas stuff’s coming in and getting snatched up practically before he and Gail can put it on the shelves. I’m glad I’m just painting instead of helping them run that place.”
As he clucked at his mules, Jerome smiled over at Emma. She met his gaze for a moment, yet she seemed withdrawn . . . paler than usual, all wrapped up in her black winter coat and bonnet. “Whatever’s in that pot you brought along smells awfully gut,” he said.
Emma shrugged. “Nothing special. Chili.”
“The pan’ll be licked clean, then. Our bunch can go through a lot of chili,” Jerome replied. “Everybody’s real excited about you and your dat spending the day with us. Vera and Lizzie set up the long table last night, and the first quilt’s already in the frame. The little girls made sugar cookies with Jemima yesterday, too. Does Abby have any idea what you and your dat’re doing today?”
“Nope.”
Jerome listened as Merle chatted with Eddie about who-all he’d met in the mercantile as he painted. What would it take to get Emma out of her shell? “How’s it going, having Abby and James living there now?”
“Fine.”
Was Emma missing her mamm today? Or was she resentful about the way Amanda and Merle had gotten her out of the house against her will? Maybe a different topic . . .
“I took Amanda’s dishes over to Sam’s before I came to your place—the set of sixteen he and Vernon ordered, with serving pieces,” Jerome went on. “I think Abby and James will like Amanda’s new pottery style. The way the cobalt glaze seeps from the edges into the rusty brown centers makes every piece a little different.”
Emma’s eyes rose. “We’ve got plenty of dishes—but I’m sure Amanda’s are really pretty,” she added quickly.
Now there was a comment he wouldn’t share with Amanda, because his aunt had truly enjoyed crafting that set of dishes. As they rolled down the county highway, Jerome hoped Emma’s mood wouldn’t spoil the other girls’ fun today. For the rest of the trip he chatted with the two fellows behind him—mostly about the potential girlfriends Eddie was meeting on the job, while Merle gave his wry commentary about their families and personalities.
While Eddie and her dat were chatting, Emma yawned and then glanced over at Jerome. “I’m sorry I got snippy,” she murmured. “I’m kind of tired because I, um, worked in the mercantile every day this week.”
When a little grin flickered on her lips, Jerome grabbed her hand. “And how did that go? If you were on your feet all those hours, no wonder you’re worn out.”
“I worked in the back room, updating Sam’s ledger,” Emma clarified. “And I bagged some baking supplies so Gail could restock the shelves. Sam’s showing me how to make out orders now. My mind’s still spinning with all this new information after I go to bed, but one of these days I’ll get back to sleeping like I should.”
Jerome’s heartbeat sped up. Emma did look like she could use some more rest, yet she seemed a lot happier than she’d been the last time he saw her. “Gut for you,” he murmured as he steered the mule up the lane toward Amanda’s house. “When you’re ready to tell me more about your new job, I want to hear all about it.”
When they arrived at the Brubaker place, Wags greeted them with boisterous barking. Simon and the twins rushed outside to grab Merle by the hands. Vera and Lizzie exclaimed over seeing Emma as Amanda held the door open for everyone.
“Ach, we’ve been so busy getting the fabric and food ready, I had no idea it was snowing,” she said as she peered outside. “Gut thing Wyman’s elevator foundation got poured this past week.”
Jerome let everyone else precede him inside, and then he spoke near Amanda’s ear. “Emma’s got some big news, but I’ll let her share it,” he murmured. “And don’t be surprised if she curls up for a nap later today.”
“At least she still wanted to come,” Amanda replied as their guests hung up their coats. “Emma can let Vera and Lizzie do the talking and just sew along with us if she’s tired. But would you look at her dat!”
Jerome had to laugh. Merle had scooped Alice Ann up to his shoulder while Simon and the twins led him eagerly to the corner of the front room, where the card table was set up for playing Chutes and Ladders.
“I’m gonna be red!” Dora crowed.
“I’m yellow,” Cora chimed in as the two little girls shared a chair.
“I wuv pink,” Alice Ann chirped as Merle sat down and settled her in his lap.
Merle’s face was lit up like a Christmas candle.
He kissed the toddler’s cheek. “That leaves the green and blue markers for us guys, Simon,” he said. “You pick.”
“Green means go, so that’s gotta be me!” the boy replied. “I’ll be climbing all the ladders and skipping all the chutes, so the game’s already in my pocket.”
“If you’re so sure I’m going to lose, you’d better have a little mercy and let me make the first move,” Merle teased as he spun the spinner.
Amanda chuckled fondly as she watched them from the kitchen. “He can be the grandfather they never had, ain’t so?”
“He’s the perfect man for that job,” Jerome agreed. “Abby and James’s kids will never lack for attention, either, as long as he’s around.” He watched Jemima add the last of her chopped vegetables to a soup pot, inhaling the aroma of the bread she’d baked that morning. “I’ll stay out of you ladies’ way now, or you might put a needle and thread into my hands—and that would make for a disastrous quilt.”
“I’m sure we’ll see you come time for dinner,” Jemima remarked from the stove.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Jerome passed through the front room, smiling at Vera, Lizzie, and Emma as they were choosing which colorful fabrics to cut for their second quilt. Then he paused beside the card table to observe the progress of the Chutes and Ladders game. When Alice Ann threw him a kiss, Jerome bussed the top of her blond head. He patted Wags, who was lying near the woodstove, and then went upstairs to work on some bookkeeping.
Jerome opened his ledger but didn’t focus on the figures. The quilting table was beneath his room, and because talk drifted up through the open grate in the floor along with the woodstove’s warmth, he heard the thrum of female conversation.
“You’ll never guess what I’ve done,” Emma spoke up during a brief lull. “I’m working in the back room of Sam’s store, doing his bookkeeping and bagging up baking supplies.”
When the other quilters exclaimed in surprise, Jerome chuckled. Everyone began asking Emma questions at the same time. She sounded more awake now and seemed tickled to be working—and he was pleased for her.
If she’s overcoming her shyness enough to work at the store, maybe she won’t be so skittish around me. But now that she’s got a regular job, it won’t be as easy to find time when she can go out, either.
He would find a way. Jerome considered himself pretty resourceful when it came to convincing young women to spend time with him, and Emma was certainly worth his best efforts.
When he heard laughter outside, he went to the window. Wyman was running errands this morning, so Pete and Eddie had decided to go deer hunting—this wooded Bloomingdale farm offered a better opportunity than they’d had in Clearwater. It was good to see the brothers walking side by side with their bows tucked under their arms. The vapor of their breath floated around their stocking-capped heads as they caught up with each other’s news after a week apart. No one else hunted on this property, so if they were quiet and watchful, they stood a good chance of getting a deer.
Jerome went downstairs for coffee—but mostly to steal a glance at Emma. She sat between Vera and Lizzie, carefully cutting a stack of fabric with a circular blade as she followed the lines of her paper pattern. Nibbling on a frosted sugar cookie in the kitchen, he watched the set of her jaw as she concentrated . . . the swift, efficient motion of her hands as she made each cut. Even clothed in black, Emma looked like a late-summer rose: her skin was dewy soft and pale pink, her lips were a delectable shade darker, and her eyebrows were an expressive brown.
Once again dreams of settling down and starting a family taunted him. Twice before he’d believed he’d found the right woman—and twice he’d walked away. Why was he now so drawn to Emma Graber? Was he interested in her as a potential mate, or only because her determination to deflect his attentions presented a new challenge?
Jerome resisted the urge to strike up a conversation with her. Without interrupting the hen party, he headed back upstairs with fresh coffee and another cookie. As he passed the quilting frame, he caught Aunt Amanda’s knowing wink: she and Jemima were hand stitching the quilt with the colorful flower baskets on it. Jerome immersed himself in updating his business records for a while . . . Then he heard the back door open, followed by the rapid thump of stocking feet on the stairway.
“Jerome, can you help us?” Pete called out breathlessly.
“Jah, Pete got a really nice deer!” Eddie’s cheeks were flushed with cold and excitement as the boys stood in the doorway. “We got it field dressed, but we need to haul it out of the woods.”
“Sounds a lot more interesting than this book work.” Jerome clapped Pete on the shoulder. “We can take it right over to the locker, and it’ll make some mighty fine eating this winter. See there? You’re putting food on the table without having to quit school for a job.”
Pete rolled his eyes. “Jah, well, I guess Dat and I had that discussion already.”
The boys shared the details of their hunting adventure with Merle, the kids, and the quilters while Jerome put on his heavy coat and boots. He kicked himself for bringing up the subject of Pete’s leaving school, but after they hitched a wagon to a draft mule and started across the snowy field toward the woods, Jerome got an idea.
“What if I paid you to take over the daily chores with my mares and donkeys?” he asked. “Now that the mule foals are here, I’ll have my hands full, so it would be gut if someone else tended—”
“Don’t go making up a new job, trying to humor me,” Pete interrupted brusquely. “Truth be told, I’m fed up with school because Teacher Dorcas and I don’t see eye to eye. Teacher Elsie was a pill, but I knew what I could get by with in Clearwater and . . . I’m just ready to be out of the schoolroom and doing something real.”
Jerome recalled feeling that way, too. He also remembered when Lizzie had gone through a tough time changing schools, those first weeks after her family had moved to Clearwater. When they located the downed buck, however, they turned all their energy to hefting it into the wagon. On the way to the processing plant, the boys gave Jerome a moment-by-moment account of how they’d heard movement in the bushes and Pete had gotten in a perfect shot without having much time to take aim.
By the time they returned home, the snow was coming down in thick, flat flakes. Jerome sent Eddie and Pete inside to see if Jemima had left them something for lunch while he unhitched the mule. As he rolled the wagon back into place, he spotted the old sleigh that had belonged to Amanda’s first husband, his uncle Atlee. Could he convince Emma to go riding with him? The hills were covered in a perfect, pristine blanket of fresh powder . . .
Jerome set aside that happy thought. When Emma saw how the snow was coming down, she’d probably insist on heading home to Cedar Creek. Maybe some other time this winter he could talk her into taking that sleigh ride. In his mind’s eye, he saw the two of them snuggling together beneath the blankets, with only the clip-clop of hooves punctuating the silence of a perfect winter evening. He wanted to hold Emma close and kiss her, out where none of the kids would spot them and make a fuss.
Jerome sighed. Even though Emma seemed more confident now, he had a lot of persuading to do before that would ever happen.
* * *
Emma stood up to stretch, surprised at how quickly the day had passed. While she’d been engrossed in sewing, she’d felt closer to her mamm and more grateful for the Brubakers’ company than she’d anticipated. Lizzie had taken the kids outside to run off some energy, so she and Vera were clearing away fabric scraps and stacking their finished squares. Amanda and Jemima had gone to the kitchen to start supper.
“We made gut progress today,” Vera remarked. “Now that most of our nine-patch squares are sewn together, we’ll only need another day or two to finish this second quilt top.”
“I’m really glad I got to work it, too,” Emma replied. “I was ready to work with pretty colors after concentrating on columns of numbers a
ll week.”
After they stashed the table in a closet, Emma and Vera joined the others in the kitchen. As they began setting the table for supper, Emma watched her dat lifting pot lids and sniffing appreciatively while Jemima was nice enough not to scold him for it. Even though he hadn’t had a nap all day, he looked alert and very much at home.
“What’s this you’re fixing?” Dat asked. “When my mamm mixed cornmeal into boiling water, she was making up a batch of mush.”
“You guessed it, Merle,” Jemima replied as she briskly stirred the thick, yellow mixture. “I’ll put it in bread pans to set up in the fridge, and we’ll have fried mush for breakfast tomorrow.”
Dat looked like he might fall over in a fit of ecstasy. “Oh, but that takes me back to my childhood!” he said. “Eunice didn’t care for mush, so it’s been years since I had any. Apple butter’s my favorite topping, but syrup or honey or jelly is gut, too.”
“We’ve got every one of those things,” Jemima said with a laugh. “And unless I miss my guess, that snow’s getting deep enough that you folks might be here to share this mush with us tomorrow. I’ll stir up another batch, just in case.”
“Want to head out to the barn with us, Merle?” Jerome asked as he and Pete and Eddie went to the coat pegs. “I’ve got three little mules out there you’ll get a kick out of meeting while we do the horse chores.”
Emma saw how her father jumped at the chance to join those fellows, even though he had to borrow a pair of knee-high boots. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Dat in such high spirits—but then, why wouldn’t he be? The Brubakers were awfully good about including him in their activities.
As she gazed out the kitchen window, watching her dat walk toward the barn with the other fellows, Emma realized how much snow had accumulated. It was halfway up Dat’s boots and still coming down! “Oh my, we’d best get Jerome to take us home,” she remarked to the other women. “Does your county have a snowplow that clears the blacktop? If we’re ready to go after it passes your intersection—”
