An Amish Garden

by Beth Wiseman

  He’d stood at the edge of the garden, praising her mem’s fine gardening skills—her neat rows, fine organization, and healthylooking plants. He’d seemed nice enough, but her mem was able to see behind the smile. Recognize his true motives.

  “He’s interested all right, interested in taking money from our family’s heritage,” Sadie’s mother had explained. “I do the work and he reaps the rewards. I don’t think so.”

  “He’s a nice man,” her dat had countered. “He brings you a few of his own seeds every time, does he not?”

  “Ja, but he has plenty to spare. You’re right when you say that he is a nice man. A nice Englischman.” Although most of Mr. Hostetler’s family was still Amish—including some of his children—he and his wife had left the Amish community. They carried on, talking to the Amish families in Pennsylvania Dutch, but no one fell for his kind ways. In addition to his seed company, he was also an assistant pastor in one of the Englisch churches. He’d walked away from their Amish traditions to more liberal thinking, and no one from their community let him get too comfortable with them, lest he think he could have a foot in both worlds.

  Sadie puffed up her cheeks and blew out a breath at the memory. Her mem had been so protective of those seeds, which made the plants she was growing in the neighbor’s greenhouse mean so much to her. She’d planted them all—down to the last one—since her sisters already had their own favorite store-bought seeds that they were using. Even though store-bought seeds were sterile and couldn’t be used year after year, they usually produced a bigger yield, which was important if you were raising a large family. Sadie was the one who would carry on the legacy, and she wanted to do whatever she could to help those tomatoes thrive.

  A knock sounded at the front door, and Sadie jumped. She stood and moved to the door at the same time she heard the back door open and then slam shut again. Isaiah and Noah ran into the house.

  “Who’s here?” Isaiah asked with wide eyes. The way he blinked quickly made her feel as if he already knew the answer.

  “I’m not sure. I was just going to find out.”

  Noah glanced around. “Where’s Mem?” He moved to the door ahead of Sadie, as if blocking her path.

  “Your mem is down the road.”

  The knock sounded again, louder, and Sadie placed a hand on her hip. “Are you going to let me pass?” She tapped her toe on the rag rug.

  Noah wrinkled his nose. “Maybe we should just have him come back when Mem’s here.”

  “Him? You know who’s here?”

  Noah shrugged and moved out of the way.

  Sadie hurried to the door and opened it. Her jaw dropped open when she noticed the handsome Amish bachelor standing there. His hat was in one hand and a laundry bag was in the other. The sleeve of a dirty work shirt hung out the top of the bag. He was smiling at her—not only with his lips but with his eyes. Her heart did a small flip in her chest.

  “Uh, hello,” she said breathlessly.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “You okay? You’re breathing like you were just in a race.”

  She took a deep breath, telling her heart to calm. “Oh, that, well.” She glanced over her shoulder at her cousins, who wore guilty looks on their faces. Then she turned back to Eli. “I’m sorry. I had to race Noah to the door. I’m not sure why, but he was determined not to open it unless my aunt was home.”

  “Well, yes, I did need to talk to her—your aunt. I heard that she takes in laundry, and I was wondering if I could bring mine once a week?”

  “Ja, she does—we do—I’d be happy to take it for you. We ask that you give us two days before picking it up.” Sadie reached her hand out.

  “Sure, that’s fine. Two days then. I have other things to wear until then.” He passed the bag over, and she had to use both hands to hold it. Sadie urged herself not to wince at the smell of dirty socks. Since she and her aunt traded off, Sadie made a mental note to take the baking in the morning rather than Eli’s laundry. “We’ll be sure to get this done. Have a gut night.”

  “Uh, you too.” Eli blinked once, and his lips turned down slightly. He turned away from the door, and Sadie wondered what was bothering him. Had she said something wrong?

  “No, wait!” The words shot from Isaiah’s mouth, and he sidled up to Sadie. “You can’t just let him leave like that. Mem always invites the bachelors in for dinner.”

  Suddenly, Sadie understood. This was a setup! She crossed her arms over her chest and took a step back. Then she glanced at Eli. He paused and turned back as if waiting to hear her response. She noted humor in his eyes as if he, too, was waiting to see how this would play out.

  Being invited to dinner was clearly what the bachelor hoped for and what Isaiah hoped for too.

  “Ja, she does invite some in.” Sadie tapped her lower lip with her fingertip. “But not all of them.” Sadie offered a slight smile and raised her voice for her cousins’ benefit. “Only the ones she likes. She doesn’t know Mr. Plank well, so I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I wished him a gut day . . .”

  “Sadie!” This time it was Rachel’s voice that called out. Sadie hadn’t realized the girl had followed her to the door and was standing next to her. “Mem says that we are to offer what we have to anyone who comes to the door.”

  Sadie noticed a slight smile on Eli’s face, so she continued in good humor. “Anyone?”

  Rachel enthusiastically nodded, her kapp strings bouncing. “Ja.”

  Sadie swung the door open wider. “Vell, I suppose that means you, Mr. Plank.”

  “Wunderbar, thank you. I’m so glad you came to that decision. I am hungry. And something smells gut. Chicken soup maybe?” He stepped in the door and then paused. Eli leaned down and spoke low so only Sadie could hear. “You don’t mind, do you—really?”

  “Ne. Not at all.” She glanced up and met his gaze. “My cousins are right. My aunt is always very welcoming.”

  “And you?” he asked a bit louder. “Are you always welcoming too, Sadie?”

  “I used to be.” Sadie sighed as she closed the door behind him. “My siblings used to say I attracted friends like flowers attracted bees.” She shrugged. “But that seems like ages ago. Now I . . .” Sadie halted her confession. What did she know about Mr. Plank? Was he trustworthy?

  “What, Sadie?” Eli waited, his green eyes peering down at hers. “What were you going to say?”

  “I was going to say . . . I’m sure that my aunt should be home any minute. You’re right, that chicken soup does smell good.” Sadie hurried to the kitchen, but not before she saw curiosity in Eli’s eyes for the second time that day.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was less than thirty minutes later when her aunt and uncle arrived home. Both seemed happy to meet Eli and have one of the new bachelors in the area joining them for dinner. Like Sadie expected, her aunt had returned with a nice bag of fabric and a smile.

  “Look, Sadie.” Aenti Linda showed her the colorful strips. “We can make a quilt together. Did I ever tell you that it was your mem who taught me how to quilt?”

  “Ja.” Sadie’s stomach sank, and she took the sack from her aunt’s arms. She wondered if the ache would ever lessen. “And I do think Mem would have loved this red gingham,” she managed to say.

  “Oh, and I was going to mention, Sadie, you better bring your plants in.” Her aunt lifted the lid from the soup. Steam and the wonderful aroma of dinner burst into the air. “Dinner can wait a few minutes. The wind is really picking up out there—a cold wind from the north—”

  “In?” Eli asked. “Do you have tomato plants hardening?”

  “Ja, did the kids tell you?” Sadie looked at him, surprised.

  “No, but that’s what Mem would be doing now. Can I help?” He moved toward the back door without waiting for her answer.

  “Ja, sure.”

  They hurried out the back door. The wind had indeed picked up. Eli hurried over to the trays of plants that once had been sitting in full sun and scooped them up. “And
where’s the greenhouse?”

  She bit her lower lip, hoping he didn’t drop them. Sadie reached out for the trays and then pulled her hands back. Trust him, Sadie. She’d already insulted him twice today. Surely the strong bachelor could carry a few trays of new sprouts to the greenhouse.

  “It’s, uh, over at the neighbor’s property. The owners went to stay with family in Arkansas for the winter and said I could use it.” She led the way.

  “That’s kind of them.” Eli followed her. “And from what I can tell of this place, it’s just what someone around these parts would do—share what they have with others.”

  She hurried down the worn path between the tall, thin lodgepole pines, making her way to the greenhouse. She opened the door and stepped inside. It was warm and the air was moist, a welcome change from the outside.

  He placed the seed tray on the shelf nearest the door. “This is a great greenhouse. Too bad it doesn’t have more plants growing inside of it.”

  “Ja, vell, I was worried about being too industrious. I’m not sure about the Montana soil, the growing conditions and such, but I had to plant my tomatoes. Filling two seed trays with these seeds has been a tradition that’s been passed on for a hundred years—maybe more.”

  Eli had a pensive look on his face, and she expected him to ask about her heirloom seeds. Instead, he glanced around and a smile crossed his face.

  “What if I helped you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I know it’s a short growing season in Montana, but most people around these parts don’t plant until Memorial Day anyway—or at least that’s what Edgar at the store said. If you want to pick out a few things that grow good in these parts—maybe zucchini, potatoes, carrots—I’ll buy the supplies for a deer fence. From what I’ve seen and heard, that’s important around here. Then I can come help once in a while—till, pull weeds . . .

  “You garden?” Sadie didn’t mean for the words to blurt out, but growing up Amish, she’d learned gardening was usually the chore of an Amish woman.

  His cheeks turned pink. “Well, I . . .” He ran his hand down the side of his face, and his words trailed off.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to sound rude.”

  “I know it’s not common, but our family runs a large vegetable farm back home. My father works with my mom’s dat—my opa—and they have quite a business. I grew up hearing talk of heirlooms and hybrids, of loam and types of soil. But if you’d rather not . . .”

  “I would. I’d like it . . . just as long as you don’t mind that my tomatoes get most of my attention. I really can’t tell you how special they are.” She tried to keep her voice from quivering as she said those last words, but it was no use.

  “Ja, of course.”

  And before he could say anything else, Sadie motioned him to the door. He stepped out and she followed him, shutting the door tight.

  “A garden is a way of showing that you believe in tomorrow,” she mumbled.

  “What was that?”

  She repeated it. “Oh, it’s just something that my mem used to say. An old proverb.”

  Eli chuckled. “Sometimes I wonder if my mem ever said anything that wasn’t a proverb.” He cleared his throat. “ ‘Pray for a good harvest but continue to hoe’—that’s another one.”

  “ ‘The best things in life aren’t things,’” she added, pointing her finger.

  Eli smiled. “And one of my favorites, ‘The dearest things in life are most near at hand.’ And that’s saying something for a man who’s lived in a half dozen or so locations in an equal number of years.” His gaze was intent on her, and Sadie looked away, glancing down at her feet as she stepped over a log. She could feel heat on her cheeks.

  Sadie hurried her footsteps. “I’m sure they’re wondering on us. I don’t want to keep dinner waiting.”

  Eli didn’t comment. He simply picked up his pace and stayed by her side.

  Uncle Melvin and Aenti Linda welcomed in Eli as if he was a longlost friend, and it wasn’t until they were all sitting around the dinner table, with her aunt ladling up chicken noodle soup, that Sadie realized that was exactly how her aunt and uncle saw him.

  After a silent prayer, her Uncle Melvin lifted his head and turned his attention to the bachelor. “Eli, it’s gut to have you for dinner. I’ve read your letters in The Budget.”

  The Budget? Sadie’s eyebrows furrowed.

  Eli shrugged. “Oh, it’s just nonsense mostly, but people seem to like the silly things I write about.”

  “I hope you don’t write about this meal.” Aenti Linda chuckled. “My homemade noodles turned out less flavorful than usual.”

  “Oh, I won’t. I have made it a point never to talk about food or conversation, lest people are afraid to invite me over.” Eli patted his stomach. “And because of that rule I’m well fed, which not every bachelor can say.” Eli took a spoonful of soup and smiled. “But if I were to write about it, I’d say this soup is delicious, the noodles especially.”

  A smile crossed her aunt’s face, and everything started to make sense. No wonder Eli was so good with words. They came from a scribe.

  “So, are you enjoying Montana?” her uncle asked.

  Eli nodded. “Ja, so different from Pinecraft, where I just came from. There the young Amish women wear flip-flops for shoes,” he said. “And there are no horses and buggies. Instead, everyone rides on bicycles, and they especially like to ride to the beach.”

  Her cousins’ eyes grew wide as if Eli was speaking of something from a fairy tale. Eli told them that he’d been working down there, encouraging local stores to carry his grandfather’s seeds, until the draw of living in Montana to gain one’s resident hunting license lured him.

  “Of course, there’s a lot to see and do until hunting season. I’ll call it ‘researching’—the hiking, the fishing.” He chuckled. “And I was wondering, Sadie, if I could write more about your heirloom tomatoes? That’s a special thing.”

  “Ach.” She waved a hand and tried to hide her smile, but her insides warmed—heat moved from her chest to her limbs. “There isn’t much special about a tomato plant.”

  “Ja, there is, and I can’t wait to hear.”

  They chatted about other things, mostly just listening about what the kids had done at school that day, and after a while Sadie felt comfortable opening up. She glanced to her uncle and aunt. “I think we’d all agree that my mem was as proud of her tomatoes as she was her children.” Sadie laughed.

  “That’s an understatement, ja?” Uncle Melvin stroked his beard and lifted his gaze to the ceiling. “I was a lot younger than your mem, and sometimes she would babysit me. I remember once I didn’t latch the gate to the cow pasture after doing chores, and the cows got into the garden.” Uncle Melvin smiled and shook his head. “I heard the wails and thought she’d hit her foot with her hoe. Come to find out one cow had made his way into the garden. A few plants were trampled, but thankfully it wasn’t worse.”

  Sadie dipped a piece of her bread into her chicken noodle soup and then bit it off. She couldn’t help but grin.

  “Ja. That was Mem. In the spring and summer, that’s where I’d find her when I woke up in the mornings.” She picked up her spoon to take another bite but paused with it halfway to her mouth when another memory stirred. She set down her spoon and then tapped her chin. “I just thought of something I hadn’t thought about in a while. I must have been five or six and I came downstairs and was startled that Mem wasn’t feeling well. She tried to shrug it off, but I knew if she wasn’t in her garden with her tomatoes, then something was surely wrong, so I ran to the fields for Dat. Turns out her appendix had burst and the doctor said we got her to the hospital just in time.” She glanced to her uncle and noticed his quick nodding.

  “Ja, ja . . . I remember that.”

  Sadie picked up her spoon again. “I suppose my tomato plants mean so much because they’ve been passed down, sort of like our Amish heritage. I couldn’t imagine leaving
the Amish—who would do that? And I couldn’t imagine not having my tomatoes.”

  She glanced over at Eli. He shuffled in his chair as if he was sitting on a pile of dry pine needles. What made him so nervous? She noticed a general weariness about his shoulders, and she guessed his first day at Montana Log Works hadn’t been easy.

  With dinner finished, Aunt Linda and Rachel began clearing the table. Sadie turned to him. “You must be tired . . . after such a long day.”

  “Ja, I need to get home, especially since I have to be back at work bright and early.” He rose and the three kids trailed him to the door. “Thank you for dinner—”

  “Can we look for the bear tomorrow on the way to school?” Noah interrupted.

  Eli leaned over and placed his hands on his knees. “Actually, I think if we don’t look for him, we’re more likely to see him.”

  “Really?” Isaiah asked.

  “Ja.” Eli nodded. “So why don’t we do that? Why don’t we be on the lookout and then report in?”

  All the children, even Rachel, seemed to approve, and Sadie couldn’t help but smile.

  Eli turned to Sadie next. “And if it’s all right with you, I’ll come by tomorrow night and look at your garden plot. I’ll ask Edgar at the store what would work best for deer fencing.” He turned to Sadie’s aunt and uncle. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “No, not at all,” Uncle Melvin replied for them both. “It’s kind of you to make such an offer, but I can’t let you pay for it.” Uncle Melvin reached for his wallet.

  “How about I exchange laundry instead?” his aunt offered. “And you know, Eli, that you’re welcome at our table anytime you like.” Aunt Linda looked to Sadie and smiled as she said those words.

  “Both sound wonderful and worth any money, time, and effort I put into helping. And . . .” Eli cocked one eyebrow as he placed a hand on the doorknob. “And the greatest reward will be to place a slice of one of Sadie’s tomatoes on a bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich. How long do we have to wait?” He winked.