The cousins looked at each other, astounded by that information. “But the Quakers dress like you do.”
Rose looked down at her plum-colored dress and black apron. “Not really.” Her hand went to her head. “I suppose they do wear bonnets. The Quakers and the Amish share some beliefs, like pacifism, but very little else.”
The two cousins were astounded. “Where should we go to learn about the Quakers? Our great-great-great-grandfather was a whaling captain. Ebenezer Folger was his name.”
“Then . . . Nantucket Island, I suppose.”
And so the two lady cousins left. The guest flat was, once again, empty.
Tomorrow, Rose would need to go talk to the deacon about the pile of unpaid bills that were stacking up on her desk. More bills than money.
She had hoped that she might have that pigpen plowed and extra vegetables already planted to sell at a roadside stand this summer, but David Stoltzfus hadn’t gotten back to it after he was interrupted on the day the nearly-falling-down barn had fallen down, and she didn’t feel comfortable asking him after their awkward conversation earlier today.
Rose and David happened to be picking up their mail from the mailbox at the same time and he walked across the road. She could tell at once that he had something on his mind to say to her.
“Jesse is going to go stay with my sister, Peter’s mother, and her husband for the summer. They need a little extra help on the farm and Jesse, well, he’s been . . . missing his mother quite a lot. More than I realized. Seems he needs more than I can give him right now. It’s hard, you know . . .” David took his hat off, turning it in his hands. “Rose, we don’t know each other well, but I can see that you love God and you love children. It seems like we are both in a similar situation, needing a spouse, needing a parent for our children.”
She looked at him, puzzled.
“The problem is, I don’t quite know . . . where I stand.”
She still couldn’t understand what he was trying to say.
“I’m aware, you see, that you are very friendly with Galen King . . . but I don’t know how . . .”
Now she had a sense of where he was going.
“You see, I don’t want to be foolish and hope that you might be interested in me, if there’s something . . . so I hoped you might tell me what you think. I’ve grown very fond of you, Anna, and I hoped you might be growing fond of me too.”
“I am.” And she was. But her name wasn’t Anna.
“Would you consider me?” He looked so hopeful and eager, and almost dreading her reply.
“David,” she said gently, “how long ago did your wife pass?”
“It’ll be a year on July 9th.”
“You must have loved her very much.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.” He looked at his hat in his hands.
“Do you have any idea how many times you have called me Anna?”
He looked at her, horrified. “I’m so sorry. I . . . didn’t realize.”
“Don’t be. You’re still grieving for her. You need time.” She looked across Eagle Hill’s front yard to see Galen working a new horse in the round training pen near his barn. She was flooded with a vague sense of loss. “Yes,” she said softly, “there is something between Galen and me.”
David nodded silently, fingering the brim of his hat as if anxious to put it back on. His glance lifted. “Thank you, Rose, for not making me feel like a fool. You’re a very special woman.” He turned and walked back up the driveway.
That night, Rose tossed and turned, thinking over that conversation with David. She dangled her hand over the edge of the bed to touch the dog’s head and stared out the windows at the stars. Suddenly there was a streak across the sky in a flash of light. Seeing a shooting star always made her feel honored, as if God had staged a show just for her. “O the mighty works of the heavens,” she whispered. Galen always said that whenever they were outside at night.
Uninvited thoughts of Galen came to Rose at the oddest moments. She’d be pinning up her long hair and would remember him in his barn, running his fingers through a horse’s mane to draw out the tangles. She’d be sitting in church, watching the women take turns holding baby Sarah, and she’d remember the tender way he’d held the baby on the porch swing. She’d fill her coffee cup in the morning and remember the way he’d worked so patiently with Luke and Sammy despite how exasperating those two could be.
She sorely missed him.
It had become a schoolhouse tradition, started years ago by Jimmy Fisher. On the last day of school, before the families arrived for the end-of-year program, the eighth graders carved their names in the oak tree that sheltered the schoolhouse with its canopy. The younger students, who would have to return to school after the summer, looked on enviously. The boys had brought pocketknives and were busy digging into the wood of the old tree.
Jesse Stoltzfus had been planning for weeks where he would put his name. Mim wished she could enjoy this moment the way the eighth grade boys did. They acted as if they were being set free from jail. She wasn’t sure what it would feel like to not go to school, ever again. She borrowed Luke’s knife and scratched out “M. S. was here.” She felt there was more to say, but she didn’t know what it was.
Danny told the class that he’d accepted the school board’s offer to teach another term, so he was no longer the permanent substitute teacher. Instead, he was the permanent teacher. But she wouldn’t be there next year. And Jesse was being sent off for the summer. Exiled, he told her, for being a bad influence on younger boys. He said it with that devilish grin of his, not looking at all sorry for his misdeeds, and she thought whoever decided to banish him—probably the deacon—was pretty smart. She wouldn’t miss Jesse Stoltzfus and his sticky-up hair and torrent of nonsense. Not one bit. All of Stoney Ridge could breathe a sigh of relief that he would be gone this summer.
She wondered if he’d be back in August or September.
After the barbecue lunch had been eaten, the softball game between the eighth graders and the sixth and seventh graders started off. Jesse didn’t want Mim to pitch to the sixth graders because they were too athletic, but he did let her pitch to the seventh graders because they were unusually uncoordinated. Then a boy tripped over his feet on the way to bat and twisted his ankle, so Danny stepped in to take his place at bat.
That was unfortunate, and Jesse Stoltzfus was beside himself at the unfairness of it all, but Mim was ready. She thought of all the crummy B- grades Danny Riehl had given her on her excellent essays this year, just to be mean and spiteful, and how often he treated her like she was just another student. She tried to remember the exact details of how to release the knuckleball. She wound her arm, flicked her wrist, released. The ball flew slow and Danny was ready for it—except it dropped unexpectedly at the last instant, and his bat met nothing but air.
Everyone looked at Mim, stunned. Why, she had thrown a strike at Danny Riehl! She would always be known as the girl who threw a knuckleball! She tried, without success, not to grin with delight.
An hour or so later, everyone packed up to head home. Luke and Sammy had started down the road when Mim remembered she had left her sweater in the schoolhouse and hurried back to get it. As she pulled open the door, she realized, with a heavy heart, this was the last time she would walk into the school.
Starting on Monday, she was going to take over Bethany’s two-days-a-week job at the Sisters’ House—organizing the rooms—because the deacon kept urging the sisters to prepare to host church one day. She would also be Ella’s companion when the sisters had to leave the house on their many errands. Ella had declined enough that the sisters needed someone to shadow her. What the old sisters didn’t know was, on Ella’s good days, she was dictating the story of her life to Mim. Ella might not remember what she had for breakfast that day, but she did recall every detail of her childhood in Stoney Ridge, nearly a century ago.
It was all Bethany’s handiwork—all except the dictation of Ella’s life part. That was
Mim’s brainchild. But the job switch—Bethany said she was tired of trying to keep those sisters organized and she wanted to work someplace where she’d meet more people. She applied for an opening at the Bent N’ Dent, available because Jesse wouldn’t be working there this summer. Privately—something Mim would never dare voice aloud—she wondered if her sister might have an interest in working at the Bent N’ Dent because Peter Stoltzfus worked there. For weeks now, Bethany had been very quick to offer to go on errands to the grocery store, when once she would have avoided it.
Danny was wiping down the chalkboard and turned when he heard the door open. The schoolhouse was empty. She yanked her sweater off the wall hook and started toward the door.
“Mim?”
She stopped and turned toward him. “Miriam. I want everyone to call me Miriam now.”
He walked down the aisle of the schoolhouse toward her. “You threw quite a pitch, Miriam. A perfect knuckleball.”
“But not the next pitch. You hit a double.”
He took a step toward her. “Miriam, the reason I gave you B’s instead of A’s on your English essays was because I believe you could have done better.”
She lowered her glance.
“Anyone who could write such fine prose, posing as Mrs. Miracle, should be writing dynamic essays.”
Her jaw dropped open. He knew about Mrs. Miracle? Did everybody know? Did the whole town? “Jesse told you.”
“Jesse? No. It seemed, well, sort of obvious. I guess I recognized your choice of words.” His eyes were troubled as he peered at her. “Mim . . . Miriam . . . is there something between you and Jesse Stoltzfus?”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” Two red streaks started to crawl up his cheeks. “What about it?”
“What about what?”
“Do you have something going on with Jesse?”
She looked down at her feet. “You took Katrina Stoltzfus home in your buggy.”
“She asked me to. She wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go home. I was leaving early because . . . well, because it was a clear night and at nine, Venus would be low in the west and Jupiter would be about halfway down to the west and Mars could be seen coming up in the east.”
Oh. “You act as if you don’t even see me. All year, that’s how you’ve acted.”
“I’ve always seen you.” His voice went from tenor to soprano in one crack and, visibly nervous, he poked his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “I wrote your name on the tree.”
Her chin jerked up. “You what?”
“I wrote DR + MS, very low down, near a root. I wrote it last year.”
“You never did!” She could feel her cheeks grow blotchy pink. Soon, she knew, they would deepen to an all-over heliotrope.
“Let’s go and see it,” he said. “As proof.”
And there it was, just as he had said.
Standing at the base of the tree, Mim and Danny looked at each other and looked away. A lot had been admitted.
Later that night, Mim tossed and turned as she lay in bed. Her sheets felt sticky. She tossed over, once, then twice, flipped her pillow to the cool side and shut her eyes. But she couldn’t sleep. And she couldn’t stop thinking of Jesse Stoltzfus.
In the middle of the night, Bethany woke to the sound of pebbles hitting her window. Groggily, she pulled herself out of bed and looked down at the yard. Jimmy Fisher was there, sending beams from a flashlight up to her bedroom.
She changed from her nightgown into a dress, wishing she could ignore him and crawl back into bed. “I’m just not sure if I’m in love with Jimmy Fisher anymore,” she said aloud, pinning her dress together. Her voice echoed in her head. It was true. She might not love Jimmy. She might, but she might not. It had happened without her knowing, for the love she carried around for him had gone and she hadn’t noticed it disappearing. It was only now that she became aware that it was missing. In fact, she hadn’t thought about Jimmy for two full days.
He greeted her with arms stretched out to engulf her, his eyes eager and bright.
Why was he here, in the middle of the night? Bethany wanted to know. “You’d better have a good reason.”
“Because I missed you,” he said simply. “I wanted to see you again.” He slipped his arms around her. “I don’t want you to feel I’m rushing you or demanding you give me an answer, but I was hoping by now you would be ready to say yes.”
Her heart didn’t race anymore, she didn’t try to find the right phrase, the best approach. She wasn’t eyeing him nervously in case his expression might change. She pressed him away by the arms. “No, Jimmy. I don’t have an answer for you. But if you insist on one now, I’d have to say no.”
His face went blank. “But . . . but . . . but why? You’ve been dropping hints to get married for months now. You’ve talked of nothing else.”
She stepped back. “I know, but I think I got tired of waiting and I slipped out of love with you.”
A pair of creases appeared between his eyebrows. “It’s that Peter Stoltzfus character, isn’t it? He’s been buzzing around you like a fly around honey.”
“What? My feelings for you have nothing to do with Peter Stoltzfus.”
He reached out to take her hand and laid it over his palm and ran his other hand over it, as if smoothing a curled page. “Is it possible that you might in time love me again?” He sounded hesitant, unsure. His face was an open book; he looked miserable and hopeful all at once.
Her resolve melted at the desperate look in his eyes. “I suppose anything is possible.” Then she turned quickly away from him, feeling unexpectedly sad. She slipped back into the house and was startled to find Rose in the rocking chair, feeding a bottle to Sarah.
“A starlight tryst?” Rose asked with a smile.
“Not really. More like a starlight sayonara. I told Jimmy Fisher things were over between us.”
Rose looked up in surprise. “And are they?”
“I think so. He doesn’t seem to agree.” She sighed. “It seems as if our timing is always off. When he’s interested in me, I’m interested in someone else. When I’m finally interested in him, he’s distracted with his horse. Now I’m not interested in him anymore and he seems to think he’ll perish without me. I’m not sure we’ll ever both be on the same page at the same time. I just . . . I want someone who loves me, unreservedly. I don’t want to chase someone to the altar.” She took off her prayer cap and held the pins in her hands. “Do you think God concerns himself with love?”
“Of course. Of course he does. Look at the love story of Isaac and Rebekah in the Old Testament.”
“So . . . if it’s meant to be, it will happen?” She let the sentence hang there.
“In God’s timing. I’m confident of that.” Rose tucked Sarah into the Moses basket and covered her with the pink quilt that Naomi had made for her.
Bethany wished she had those kinds of certainties.
“Don’t give up on Jimmy Fisher quite yet. He’s making great strides in maturity. Think of where he was a year ago, when his chief delight in life was to set firecrackers off in Amos Lapp’s winter wheat to shoo the geese away.”
Bethany shrugged. “I hope you’re right.” She turned to head up the stairs.
“Bethany . . . sometime . . . I’d like to go with you to visit your mother.”
Bethany leaned against the doorjamb. “Are you sure, Rose? It’s not an easy visit.”
Rose nodded. “I’m sure. I’d like to meet the woman who gave life to you and Tobe. I’d like to thank her.”
Bethany smiled at her stepmother, and Rose smiled back.
There was a pain in Jimmy Fisher’s heart, although hearts were not supposed to hurt. Every day hearts went about their steady beat and no one gave them a second thought, until one day you felt a pain there. Standing next to Lodestar in the middle of the barn, brushing down his coat and mane like he did every afternoon, Jimmy pondered these deep thoughts.
His heart used to sing
at the thought of seeing Bethany. She was his Number One. She was his darling. Now, his heart had sunk to his shoes. Peter Stoltzfus was aiming to take his place in Bethany’s heart.
Jimmy felt weak, as if his legs didn’t want to move. He had never felt weak like this in all his life. He unhooked Lodestar from the ties and led him to his stall. In just a few weeks, the horse was making great gains. His ribs didn’t protrude as they had, his eyes were bright and lively, stubbles of hair were starting to grow in the bald spots on his rump. Best of all, he held his head high and pointed his ears forward.
The vet had told Jimmy there was no reason he couldn’t be a stud. “You have to remember,” Galen reminded Jimmy, “that you have no paperwork, no proof of pedigree, no evidence of Lodestar’s lineage, no stud registration.”
Jimmy, a born optimist, felt certain that Lodestar’s future offspring would test his mettle. “We’re back on track, Lodestar,” he told the horse as he latched his stall in four places, just in case he did get the notion to escape.
He stopped. Against all possibilities, Lodestar had been found. Against another impossibility, Jimmy was soon to retire from the chicken business. And Bethany had said there was a possibility that she might fall in love with him again. Jimmy loved possibilities.
He was going to win Bethany back. Oh yes he was.
23
Rose was taking fresh towels down to the guest flat when she noticed Galen and Luke in the empty pigpen, holding the reins to a horse that was pulling a plow to turn the sod. She stopped and watched. Galen was patiently teaching Luke how to plow in a straight line. If the horse veered off, Galen showed Luke how to bring it back into alignment with the other row. Their backs were to her, they didn’t see her standing there.
Tears stung her eyes. Despite how busy Galen was preparing his own farm for his sister’s wedding, despite how she had hurt him, he hadn’t changed. He still made time to help her.
Revealing, The (The Inn at Eagle Hill Book #3): A Novel Page 25
