Brightest and Best

by Newport, Olivia

  Finally, dizzy with the truth she must speak, Margaret pulled away.

  “I have to tell you something,” she said.

  His hand on her waist, he sought her mouth again, but she stepped back, her knees weak.

  “It’s important,” she said. Her words raced. “I took the Amish mothers to the Wayfarers Home for Children. I didn’t think it was right to keep them apart, and I went to their farms to pick them up and drive them over there.”

  He put a finger on her lips. “I can forgive that.”

  Margaret took another step back. She had not asked for his forgiveness. In fact, she felt no need for repentance. Her lips parted in preparation of saying so when the thrash in the bushes made them both turn their heads.

  Margaret bent to lift the lantern on the ground beside them. Gray lunged toward the noise. Someone had stumbled and fallen into the overgrown hydrangea bush and was now flailing in a foiled attempt to find the way out. Gray reached into the shadowed mass with one long arm.

  “Braden!” Gray said as he pulled the intruder into the light of Margaret’s lantern.

  Margaret’s eyes rolled to the flour sack Braden gripped in one fist. This time she did not hesitate to snatch it away from him and pull it open.

  “These things belong to Lindy,” she said. She tipped the open end toward Gray.

  Gray pulled the lapels of his brother’s jacket. “What are you doing with someone else’s property?”

  “What is it to you?” Braden’s eyes flashed. “The Amish are no friends of yours, either.”

  “Whatever happened in the past,” Gray said, his jaw barely moving, “there is no call for this.”

  “If Lindy Lehman had married our farmhand, he never would have run out on me.”

  “That’s water under the bridge,” Gray said.

  “I’m just paying her back for ruining my life. I could still be on the farm instead of selling for half what it was worth.”

  “You could have hired another hand, but you’re so mean no one wanted to work for you.”

  “Do you mean to tell me this is all over some old grudge?” Margaret twisted the top of the flour sack closed. “I’m going in to telephone the sheriff’s department.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Saturday’s quilting bee had even more children underfoot than usual. None of the mothers whose children had been away wanted them farther than the women could call. Even Seth, Tobias, and the Mast boys were there on the Glick farm with instructions not to wander off. Fortunately for the older boys, a creek ran through the Glick property, and as long as they could stand the brisk temperatures, Ella was certain they would occupy themselves. If they got cold, they could retreat to the barn and find something to do there. Hans Byler, though, was required to remain at his mother’s side in her place around the quilting frame that filled most of the room. He leaned against his mother with one hand on her back. Under ordinary circumstances, he might have been whispering in her ear that he wanted to go play with the bigger boys, but Ella was fairly certain that the six-year-old was right where he wanted to be.

  “They’re not required to ride the bus,” Mrs. Mast said. “They’re only required to be in school.”

  “It’s a long way to walk.” Mrs. Hershberger held up a needle to the light to find its eye with her strand of white thread.

  “My boys are old enough to take a buggy on their own,” Mrs. Mast said. “They would have room for others.”

  Gertie sat on a chair between Ella and Miriam with a square of fabric on which to practice her stitching. Hans was nearby. The stair-step Hershberger children dotted the room. Perhaps the kinner ought not hear this discussion.

  “Isaiah said he is going to take ours himself,” Mrs. Borntrager said.

  Gideon had said the same thing—either he or James would transport the three Wittmer children. Tobias had handled his first two days in the consolidated school well. The teachers had given him a long list of assignments to get him caught up to the other pupils. Gideon still hoped it would only be a matter of a few weeks before the Amish would be in their own school.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Miriam said, for which Ella was grateful.

  “We have a wedding coming up.” Mrs. King’s eyes twinkled. “Less than a month to go.”

  Mrs. Hershberger smiled behind one hand. “Shh. We aren’t supposed to know until the banns are published in church.”

  Ella carefully poked her needle through the block she was quilting. Mrs. Hershberger was right, according to tradition, and Ella usually shied away from being the center of attention. Maybe her wedding memories would always include the shadow cast over her engagement by the new education laws, but she hoped not.

  Rachel laughed heartily aloud, a sound Ella had not heard for weeks. “Of course the banns will be published,” she said, “but it’s time to buckle down and get the house ready, so it will hardly be a secret what’s going on.”

  From there the conversation turned to the usual tasks of preparing a home for a wedding—moving the furniture, scrubbing down the floors, arranging the food. Ella listened but said little. Everyone seemed relieved to be talking about something normal.

  Ella pulled her needle up through the layers of backing, batting, and quilt top and turned to glance at Gertie.

  The girl’s chair was empty.

  “Miriam,” Ella said, “where did Gertie go?”

  They both looked around.

  “I’m surprised she sat still as long as she did,” Miriam said.

  Ella pushed the end of her needle into the quilt to mark her spot. “I’m going to find her.”

  Gertie might have gone outside, and she didn’t want the child playing alone along the frigid creek. Instead, she found Gertie swinging her feet below the kitchen table while the tip of her tongue poked through one corner of her mouth. Gertie was bent over a sheet of paper, pushing a thick pencil.

  “Gertie, did you get into Mrs. Glick’s things?” Ella sat down across from Gertie.

  “It was on the table,” Gertie said. She stilled her hands in her lap.

  Gently, Ella slid the paper away from Gertie. “You should have asked if you needed something.”

  “It’s just a list for the mercantile,” Gertie said, “and everything was crossed off.”

  Ella didn’t see the mercantile list on the back side of the sheet. She saw only a meticulous rendering of the quilt pattern the women were working on in the other room. Ella knew little about art, but she had studied enough drawings of birds to recognize a close likeness when she saw one. The detail. The shading. The proportions.

  It seemed to Ella to be as close to the real thing as one might hope for, apart from a photograph that an English might take.

  “Are you going to show it to Daed?” Anxiety crossed Gertie’s face.

  Ella licked her lips. She wasn’t sure. Gideon would not be pleased, but she was on the brink of marrying him. Keeping secrets about his children hardly seemed the right thing to do.

  The kitchen door opened, and Rachel bustled in. “I’ve got to go. Mrs. Byler is not at all well. I’m going to take her home.”

  Ella stood up. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No need,” Rachel said. “I’ll just make sure she gets home and come back. There’s plenty of quilting yet to do.”

  Rachel left, and Ella turned to Gertie. “Let’s go back and help with the quilt.” She folded the drawing in half and tucked it under the bib of her apron.

  “It’s the flu the soldiers have been bringing home from Europe, now that the war has finished,” Mrs. Mast said as Ella took her place around the quilt frame.

  Ella thought of finding Lindy hot and clammy a few days earlier. James had been to see Lindy and assured Ella she was mending. If Mrs. Byler had the flu, how many others would fall to it? A quilting bee had seemed like an innocent return to Amish friendship after the tension of the last few weeks. Now Ella was not so sure.

  Gideon hardly knew what to think. His six-year-old daughter
had created a stunning drawing of a traditional Amish quilt pattern. As a boy, he had slept under one very similar that his own mother had stitched.

  “It’s like a picture in a library book,” Ella said.

  The children were upstairs. The girls were supposed to be sleeping, and Tobias working on school assignments. James and Miriam had just withdrawn to the dawdihaus. Soon Gideon would tell Tobias that he was taking Ella home.

  Only a few more weeks, she told herself, and no one would have to fret about how she would get home on a night heavy with winter air. She would already be home. Right here in this kitchen, with her husband beside her. Then they could talk all night if they wanted to.

  “She has a gift, Gideon,” Ella said.

  “It’s not the kind of gift our people are used to,” he said. “It’s the kind of gift that may lead to pride in what she has done—something that others cannot do.”

  “But it’s beautiful, just as the quilt itself is beautiful,” Ella said. “How is it so different?”

  “The women quilt for practicality,” Gideon said. “We need warmth.”

  “Then why don’t we just sew together squares of burlap?” Ella countered. “Couldn’t we stuff them with old copies of The Budget and be just as warm?”

  “The beauty in a quilt is a thanksgiving for God’s provision of our need,” Gideon said. He put a finger on the drawing. “This is a vain display.”

  “We hang quilts over racks,” Ella said, “or on walls. Even spreading a quilt on top of a bed is a way of displaying it. It’s all beauty that comes from God’s hand. Is it so wrong for Gertie to learn her own way of this same beauty?”

  Gideon scratched under his beard. “Last summer she was drawing in the dirt with a stick. Even then I could tell she saw more than other children. And then there was the picture from school.”

  “What picture?”

  Gideon left the room and returned a moment later with Gertie’s self-portrait. He laid it on the table beside the quilt drawing.

  “We must help her know what this means,” Ella said, looking from one drawing to the other. “If she grows up afraid of it, we may lose her.”

  Gideon took the hand Ella laid open on the table. “You are the mother’s heart my children need.”

  She smiled, and he leaned across the table to kiss her.

  “Now I must go check on Miriam,” Gideon said. “Then I’d better get you home.”

  With their coats buttoned up against the dropping temperatures, they walked together to the dawdihaus, where lamps still glowed within.

  James and Miriam were sipping tea in the sitting room. Miriam was sitting up, and her bright eyes greeted them. Ella exhaled relief. She had been afraid that the long day of quilting, which Miriam had refused to curtail, would have worn her out.

  “I trust Mrs. Byler will recover quickly,” Ella said.

  “I hope it’s not the influenza,” Miriam said. “It would be so much nicer if she is unwell because she is with child.”

  “Time will tell,” Ella said.

  “Speaking of influenza,” James said, “I wish we had word about Lindy. I’m going to town first thing Monday, as soon as the Sabbath is over.”

  “David would let us know if she took a turn for the worse,” Gideon said. Even without using a telephone number to call, a boy savvy enough to find a way to school in town right under his parents’ noses would find a way to send a message to Lindy’s family.

  James scrutinized Lindy’s movements on Monday. She hardly limped at all. The forced bed rest necessitated by the flu had probably been good for her injured ankle. And five days after Ella found her stricken with sudden illness, Lindy seemed determined—and able—to return to her routine. She poured coffee for both of them while she told the story of Margaret Simpson catching Braden Truesdale red-handed with a bag of wooden toys from Lindy’s workshop.

  “It’s as if he thought he was invincible,” Lindy said, “parading around the neighborhood like that a whole day after we discovered the items were missing.”

  “And the note?” James said.

  “It was handwritten,” Lindy said, “so it was easy enough to match up to Braden’s handwriting. Even Deputy Fremont managed to get a confession.”

  “But why?” James wanted to know.

  “Braden doesn’t like the Amish, and I’m the closest person he knows to the Amish.” Lindy added milk to her coffee.

  “Lindy,” James said. “I’m you’re onkel. I know when you’re not telling me everything.”

  Lindy stirred white milk into black coffee, her eyes set on the resulting caramel color.

  James waited.

  “I could have married, you know.”

  James would wait, no matter how slowly Lindy wanted to unfold the truth.

  “When Peter Kaufman was courting Rachel, I used to go riding with a young man named Ezekiel. His father had all sons and Ezekiel was the youngest. He had no land left to give Ezekiel, so Ezekiel looked for other work so he could save up a down payment on his own. He hired himself out to the Truesdale farm.”

  “Truesdale? A farm?”

  Lindy nodded. “Ezekiel worked there for years. Gray moved into town, and his parents died within months of each other. The truth is, Braden wasn’t much of a farmer. He just liked living out in the middle of nowhere all by himself. It was Ezekiel who kept the farm running.”

  “So what happened?”

  Lindy looked down into her coffee. “He wanted to marry me. I said no. He moved to Kansas. I moved into town.”

  “And the farm?”

  Lindy shrugged. “Braden lived out there on his own, I guess. But he never found another man who would put up with his eccentric ways. Last year I heard that the farm sold to a young Amish couple from Illinois.”

  James folded his arms across his chest. “Braden must have known who you were.”

  “I don’t know why he would.”

  “I’m sure Ezekiel talked about you,” James theorized. “Braden knew your name. He blames you for losing his farm.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Of course it is. That doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  “But Onkel James, I never even met Braden Truesdale. I would not have known him if I met him on the street.”

  “That’s what he was counting on. When he moved into town, he discovered you were here. Everyone in town knows you and your crafts. It can’t have been hard to find out where you live, especially after David moved in. He still dresses Amish. Anyone could have followed him.”

  “I would never do anything to endanger David.” Lindy’s voice cracked. “He’s the closest thing I’ll ever have to a son of my own.”

  “I know.”

  “Even if you’re right, it’s over.” Lindy pushed her coffee away, untouched. “He’s not out there skulking anymore. I won’t need to look over my shoulder every time I leave the house.”

  “Where is Braden now?”

  “He spent a night in the jail in Seabury before being transferred to Chardon to see a judge. I suppose that will happen today or tomorrow. He already confessed, so it’s only a matter of what his sentence will be.”

  Braden deserved to be in jail for a long time. “Perhaps he will leave town when he gets out,” James said.

  “Margaret will certainly be watching out for him.”

  “She’s done so much for us,” James said.

  “It has cost her dearly. I don’t expect to see Gray around the neighborhood anymore. He may not be the unstable brother, but he’s no friend of the Amish, either.”

  James sipped coffee and then set the cup down carefully. “What have we done to offend them so?”

  Lindy shrugged. “Sometimes all it takes is being different.”

  James sat silently, looking over Lindy’s shoulder to the view outside her window.

  “One day we will forgive them for all they have done,” Lindy said softly. “Braden, Brownley, Fremont—all of them.”

  “You have a big hear
t,” James said.

  “I’m not so un-Amish that I don’t understand the power of forgiveness.”

  James pushed his cup away. “The important thing is that you are on your feet again. I promised to make deliveries.”

  “I have a few things that Braden didn’t find,” Lindy said. “But before you go, tell me how Aunti Miriam is.”

  “Good days and bad.” James stood and adjusted his hat. “I don’t like to leave her for too long. I’ll make the deliveries and then head back to the farm.”

  “There’s a meeting with the school board this afternoon.” Lindy set her coffee cup in the sink. “Will you be there?”

  “I’ll have to see.” James doubted he would leave Miriam on her own again that day.

  CHAPTER 39

  Margaret had not been invited to the late-afternoon meeting of the school board and representatives of the Amish families, but that was the least of her concerns. She closed up her classroom—still five pupils absent—and marched down to Main Street to the building where Mr. Brownley conducted such meetings. In the hall, she paused to compose herself before slipping into the room where the meeting was already in session.

  “This is a closed meeting,” a young man said.

  Margaret recognized him. He worked in Mr. Brownley’s office. He had popped up from a seat in the rear of the room where he had been taking notes on a yellow pad.

  She smiled pleasantly and said, “I believe I’ll stay.”

  “The men in this room are quite capable of conducting themselves without your assistance,” he said.

  Annoyance welled, but Margaret contained it.

  “I am an appointed member of the consolidation committee,” she said. Her official resignation letter was folded in an envelope in her satchel, but she had never submitted it. “I’m quite sure you know who I am, and I assure you I will not bite if you simply permit me to sit beside you.”

  Margaret lowered herself into a stiff-backed chair against the back wall. With a huff, the young man picked up his pad and began scribbling, no doubt documenting her unwelcome intrusion.