I suddenly came to a halt and Elijah stopped short of running in to me.
“I guess things just started to overwhelm me a little. Everything is moving so fast. I’m growing up so fast—and my brother and sister are both married people now. Mitchell is gonna be a papa pretty soon. I wonder if he’s scared, you know?”
All my thoughts were coming out at once and I had to admit, I felt quite overwhelmed. Elijah held me tight and didn’t speak a word. He smoothed my hair and comforted me as I wept to release my feelings of stress. When I calmed down some, he lifted my chin to show me the smile on his face that seemed to be waiting for me all along.
“I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Elijah.”
“Do you remember that surprise I was telling you about?” he asked, his face beaming. “I was planning on waiting until it was finished so I could show you on our birthday, but I think you need to see it now. I’m not sure I can wait another five weeks to show you. We can go quickly and be back before anyone even misses us.”
I nodded and he led me to his courting buggy and unhitched Eli from it, offering me a boost on the horse. His strong arms cradled me as he mounted the horse behind me. With a click from Elijah, the horse set off trotting in the direction his owner steered him.
“So where are we going’? Is it far?”
“You’ll see, and it will be worth every bit of your anticipation,” he said.
We traveled the remainder of the journey without speaking as Elijah guided the horse down the lane that led to the far fields of the Zook’s property. As we reached the top of a hill, I surveyed the valley down below, until my eyes focused on a newly built house at the bottom of the hill. Elijah kept the horse trotting in the course that led to the house, and I was too afraid to think what I wanted to think. We stopped in front of the house, and Elijah jumped off the horse to assist me.
“Okay, you got me. Who lives here?”
I was almost afraid of the answer that Elijah was seemingly hesitant to offer.
“This, my love, is the house that I have been building for us to live in after we are married.”
“Uh…uh. You can’t be serious. This is totally righteous.”
“Is that a good thing?’
I shook my head and smiled. “This must have cost you a lot of bread. Are you sure this is for us?”
He smiled his answer, and I jumped into his arms, showering him with kisses. I held him for several minutes, while the reality sunk in.
“Well, come on. Don’t you want to see the inside?” he asked with excitement in his voice.
“Of course I do,” I laughed, wiping the tears from my eyes. “But where did you get the money to pay for all this?”
“I have been saving my money from the roadside stand where I sell my vegetables since I was nine years old.”
“Why did you spend it all on me?”
“Because I love you, my little wild flower. I saved the money for my future, and you are my future.”
Suddenly without warning, Elijah scooped me up in his arms and carried me up on the porch of the house.
“Let me down. Shouldn’t you wait ‘till we’re married first?”
“I can’t wait any longer. I’ve waited too long already, and you have to be carried in the house the first time you see it. Do you have any idea how tough it’s been keeping this from you?”
There seemed to be a slight amount of tension in his voice—enough to let me know how painful his unintended deception was. He continued to hold me, in spite of my constant protest. Into the house we went before he let me stand on my own two feet.
I surveyed the front room with hands held to my mouth in awe of its welcoming allure.
The beauty of the woodwork nearly took my breath away. It was apparent that this was truly a labor of love. It was a work of art, and my Elijah was its creator.
“Oh my! You’ve given me the most precious thing anyone has ever given me, except for God and Mamma and Daddy giving me my very life.”
I ran my hand along the solid oak banister of the stairway, admiring the smoothness of the glossy finish on the wood. I felt compelled to tour the upstairs first, so I walked up to the first landing and paused to invite Elijah to join me in exploring our new house together. Each room offered extraordinary little alcoves, and closets—much to my surprise. After skipping two rooms across from each other that were closed off, he led me into the master bedroom. Much to my delight and amazement, it had a full working bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a separate shower.
“Oh Elijah, how did you get your papa to agree to let us have a real bathroom?” I asked excitedly.
“We can talk about that later. Wait until you see the rest of the house. There are a lot more surprises in store for you downstairs.”
The rooms with the closed doors turned out to be additional bathrooms. Altogether, the upstairs had five bedrooms and three bathrooms. The front room contained homemade rocking chairs and tables with oil lamps seated neatly atop. When I asked Elijah, he confirmed that he and his father had made the beautiful pieces. The kitchen was filled with various sizes of missionary style cabinets, and before a large bay window, stood a table and eight chairs that matched the wood and style of the cupboards.
“Don’t tell me you made the cabinets and the table, too?” I questioned him.
“Jah. Homemade is so much nicer, don’t you think?”
“How did you ever have the time to do all this?”
“I did most of it while you were preoccupied with Nadine’s and Hannah’s wedding preparations. The rest, I did a little here and a little there. I’ve been working on it ever since your papa gave us permission to court. From that time on, marrying you was my focus for getting this done,” he confessed. “Besides, you know the men in the community helped—the house itself went up fast.”
I stood for a moment, staring at the reflection of the furniture in the shine of the hardwood floors.
“I can’t believe you put in wood floors. This is so beautiful.”
“All I did was picture the things you told me about that you loved so much about the house you grew up in, and I tried to add those things in the home you will be spending the rest of your life in,” he said as he leaned in behind me and rested his chin on my shoulder.
A smile crossed his face as he watched me admire his handiwork. I couldn’t help but praise him repeatedly for his talent in building our home. It almost made me feel glad that he had kept it from me because I may have gotten in his way and delayed him.
“Oh, this is so beautiful; I don’t ever want to leave! I wish we could move in right now.”
He shared my enthusiasm, and openly expressed his eagerness to be wed to me.
“How will I ever be able to go back to my small little space in my parent’s house, when I have this waiting for me?”
“You can come here any time you like. This is our home. While I’m finishing up the walls, maybe I could persuade you to make some curtains,” he smiled as he nudged me playfully. “Making curtains was the one thing papa and I couldn’t do. Mam offered, but I figured that was something you would want to do personally.”
“Thanks for thinking’ of me.”
I didn’t have anything else I could say. There was so much that I wanted to say, but I couldn’t. I simply didn’t have the words to express my feelings for what he had done for us—for our future.
“You don’t have to thank me. This is just as much your home as it is mine.”
I sunk my teeth into my lower lip. “Can I ask one thing?”
I was hesitant to ask, mostly because I feared his answer.
“What is it that you want to know?”
“Well,” I hesitated further. “I was wondering what all the bedrooms are for.”
“The bedrooms are for filling with the children we will have,” he said with a robust grin.
I hadn’t thought about children. I’d thought a lot about how they were made, but not so much about being pregna
nt, or being a mamma.
I swallowed a sudden burst of panic. “How many do you plan on having anyway?”
“At least six,” he said, laughing.
What did I get myself into?
“You're kidding, right?”
I felt a sudden difficulty in breathing.
“I think we should have as many as God intends to bless us with,” he said, putting on his humble grin. “All I did was build the amount of bedrooms I felt led to by the Lord.”
This answer I was willing to accept, although the thought of being responsible for six children left me feeling a little worried.
Shadows moved across the solid oak floors as the sun moved to the western horizon. It was getting late, and we’d missed a considerable amount of the wedding party. David and Hannah would surely have missed us by this late hour.
“We should get back,” I offered. I didn’t want to leave, but we were missing out on an important day for our friends.
“You’re right. We haven’t exactly been courteous to our friends,” he agreed. “Just one more room to see, then we can go.”
He flashed me a mischievous look as he took me by the hand.
Behind a set of French doors was the room he led me to. It was, in my opinion, the prettiest room in the house. I could understand why he’d saved it for the last one to be viewed. At the far end of the room stood a handsome fireplace, surrounded by bookcases on each side, reaching to the corners of the wall on both sides. The mantle was made of oak, as were the bookshelves. The main wall consisted of tall windows and two sets of French doors that led out to a brick patio. I twirled the skirting of my dress as I whirled around the large, open room.
“This is the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen! Thanks for building it for us.”
“I can’t wait until you’re Mrs. Zook, and this house is filled with the laughter of children,” he said.
I blushed slightly, but Elijah was too busy pulling me close to him to notice. He held me firmly and kissed me passionately. I kissed him back for several minutes with such fervor that he pulled me gently from him.
“If we’re not careful, we’re going to get ourselves into some trouble,” he said. “We need to be more rational—more mature than this. I enjoy holding you and kissing you so much that, sometimes, I don’t want to stop. Right now, though, I think we should stop because I’m feeling some strong urges to keep on holding you. I don’t want us to do anything that we should be waiting for until after we’re married. There’s plenty of time for that after we’re husband and wife.”
He was right, I knew. I was having some intense feelings of my own. In recent years, I’d learned through reading the scriptures, the importance of remaining a virgin until marriage. I had remained pure this long, and didn’t want to throw it all away in a moment of passion—especially with the man I intended to marry. I would be his for the rest of our lives and a few more months were not too long to wait.
Lord God, please help us to resist this temptation, I prayed silently. Give us strength to wait…. Before I could finish, Elijah held both of my hands in his and began to pray aloud.
“Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to love one another. We are grateful for your love for us. Help us to return that love to you by abstaining from a physical relationship until you bless our union with the covenant of marriage. Bless us with the strength to endure the time before our wedding, and keep our relationship strong and pure in you. In the mighty name of Jesus, Amen.”
“Amen,” I whispered through the lump that had formed in my throat.
His prayer had moved me to a higher level of love and respect for him. Knowing that Elijah loved me enough to keep our love pure until marriage made me love him all the more. Our purity was truly as important to him as it was to me—it was a sure sign that I would never doubt his love for me. It also gave me the desire to want to do things God’s way—not by my own selfish, fleshly ways.
“I love you so much more because of the tough test we just endured. I think we let the situation with the house go to our heads a little. We just got through our first crisis as a couple, and came out the victor,” he continued. “Let’s lift our chins and return to the party. After defeating temptation, I’m ready for some wholesome fun. That was mighty draining, but we did it.”
His voice reflected cheer and hope, which in turn, caused me to feel the same.
We clutched arms and left the house. The ride back to the Lapp’s house was quiet. There wasn’t anything else to be said, and I was content just to be in his company. When we arrived, everyone was too busy either playing a game, or talking in groups to notice us walking in the door—or so I thought. Nadine grabbed me almost immediately and pulled me away from Elijah to talk to me.
“Where have the two of you been all this time?” she asked harshly.
“Oh, Nadine,” I said excitedly, “you're not gonna believe what just happened. Elijah said he had a surprise for me, and guess what it was?”
“Oh, I dunno—a house,” she said, annoyance reflecting in her tone.
I scrunched my face into a frown. “How’d you know?”
“Benjamin helped him with some hauling of the wood and wall board from the hardware store in town. Dad and Mitchell helped with the roof.”
“You mean you knew all this time and you didn’t rat him out?”
“Nope. It was too important to Elijah that he get most of it done before he showed it to you. I thought he was gonna wait ‘till both of your birthdays to show it to you. How come he didn’t wait?”
“I was feeling a little down about being the only one not married besides Deborah. I guess the whole wedding situation made me feel a little overwhelmed. So, he thought it would cheer me up some. It isn’t finished yet, but it sure is beautiful. Have you seen it?”
“Yes, I saw it. You're a lucky woman.”
My mouth fell agape. “Did you just call me a woman?”
“Yeah, I did, but don’t let it go to your head,” Nadine said stubbornly.
I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m a woman.”
Nadine flashed me her most annoyed look. “Dream on.”
“Don’t be such a downer, Nadine.”
“And maybe you should stop being such a fake, Jane.”
I put my hands on my hips, ready to fight with my sister. “What do you mean by that?”
She put her hands on her hips and stepped into my personal space, but I held my ground.
“What do you think it means, Jane? It means you’re a big fat fake when you’re around Elijah.”
“No more than you are when you’re around Benjamin.”
“Only ‘cause I’m trying to hide our past from him.”
“I guess I do it to spare Elijah about our past too. But that just shows how grown up I am.”
“You’re right, Jane. I’m sorry. You’re definitely growing up to be a woman.”
I felt so happy that she’d recognized the fact that I’d grown up, that I gave her a big hug. The rest of it didn’t matter.
“How’re things in the Lapp home?” I asked when we let go of one another.
“Now that Hannah will be leaving to live in the Yoder house, it’s gonna be quiet with just Lydia left. Hannah and her younger sister used to get into a spat or two, now and then. The house will remain quiet for a little while because Benjamin and I decided that we would wait to try to have kids of our own for another couple a months—‘till after I turn eighteen.”
“Do you mind living in his parent’s house?” I asked cautiously.
“It’s a nice home, and his folks are happy to live in the Dawdi Haus. Besides, they’re hoping we can fill all the bedrooms with lots of children. Feel sorry for Hannah—she has to live with Deborah, unless we can get her married off to Matthew Beiler!”
We both laughed. It wasn’t kind, but we both knew that unless Deborah had a distraction, Hannah would have a tough time living with her new sister-in-law until they could get their own house built. I loo
ked across the room to spy on the new couple. They both seemed happy and talkative. Deborah caught me watching her and Matthew, and walked over to where Nadine and I were standing.
“Denki”, she said with a squeal. “Matthew said he likes me, and it’s a right gut thing because I like him, too. I’m so glad that you and my brother pushed us together. I think he’s going to ask to court me—he keeps hinting,” she said excitedly.
She was practically jumping up and down by this time, and I found myself joining in her excitement. I waved to Hannah across the room to come join us. When she walked over to us, I didn’t even let Deborah talk. Instead, I spoke on her behalf.
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