by Adina Senft
“Ja, and I’ve been patient. Come on, now. Tell me.”
“It’s not that big a thing, Pris. I just wanted your opinion about something.”
“About whether you’re going back to Colorado?” There. It was out. The thing she wanted to know the most and wanted to happen the least.
“Would you be upset if I did? I made good money out there.”
“Money isn’t everything. It’s not worth being away from your family and friends, is it?”
“Neh, not really. Not for good. I don’t think I’ll be going back. Me and Dat had a long talk the other night.”
When he fell silent, Pris wasn’t sure if he was collecting his thoughts or simply didn’t want to go any further. So she waited.
“I got his opinion, so now I want yours. Do you think I’d make a good herbal doc?”
This was so not what she’d expected him to say that it took her a second to recover. “An herbalist? Like a Dokterfraa, like Sarah?”
He chuckled, a whiffle of air through his nose. “Not Fraa, exactly, but ja, to do like she does.”
“Where would you find the time?” was the first thing out of her mouth. “You have to go out and find the plants and then make things out of them, chopping and boiling and whatnot. You have to go to classes with Ruth Lehman. And get books and study. How would you do all that and get the crops in—never mind weeding and fertilizing and harvesting them?”
She heard the soft rustle of his clothes as he shifted. “That’s part of what I talked over with Dat. He listened for a good long time. Longer than I expected he would.”
“He wasn’t too happy, then.”
Joe’s fingers tightened on Priscilla’s, then eased off as though he realized what he was doing. “More surprised that it even entered my head, I guess. I could see him holding back a lot—he’s always wanted me and Jake to take over when he and Mamm got too old to farm. It’s been kind of hard to see Jake going off the rails this summer while I’ve been gone, and then to have me come back and want to do something that a woman does…”
Pris made a rude noise. “Herbs aren’t something that just women do. Lots of men powwow. And Sarah told me there was an Amish man—in Indiana, maybe?—who was so famous as a healer that Englisch folks would come to see him from as far away as California.”
Joe thought this over. “So what do you think?”
Without hesitation, she said, “I think it’s hard on your dad. I also think you have time to do what it’s your place to do, which is to obey your dad, and to pray about it, so you can obey der Herr. Look at Sarah—she didn’t start her work until just this year, when her boys were grown. You’re still only eighteen.”
“I know. Dat said much the same thing. But it’s still on my mind. Do you think I should talk it over with Sarah?”
He must be serious about this. So she would be equally serious. “Ja, I do. She was pretty happy about the way you handled that horse stepping on Simon’s foot. She’d be able to tell you what it’s like. You might have to plant a big garden like hers and have to look after that, too—or your wife will. Better make sure you find a woman with a green thumb.”
“Do you have a green thumb?” His voice held a smile.
“Neh, you’ll have to wait for my sister Saranne. She has a row of little pots all along the windowsill in her room, full of plants she thinks won’t survive the winter. I keep telling her God has been looking after the plants since the beginning of time, but she’s convinced she has to help in case He misses these ones.”
“Well, maybe I could manage with a girl who just has a normal-colored thumb.”
“Maybe you might have to,” she said primly. “Come on, we’d best get home or Mamm will be worried.”
“All right.” He found the reins with unerring ease in the dark, and turned the buggy back toward the road.
They traveled the few hundred yards to the Mast lane in a companionable silence. Pris had never felt this sense of humility and gladness before—being a young man’s confidante (second only to his father) on a matter as important as how he would make his living was a completely new experience. It made her feel like a grown-up. As though her opinion mattered to a young man who had done more than most of the boys around Willow Creek—and who still felt responsible enough to come home and do the right thing by the ones he cared about.
“Do you want to come with me to see Sarah?” Joe asked her as he pulled up in the Mast yard.
“I don’t want to interfere,” she said a little uncertainly. “But it would be interesting.”
“You’re pretty close to her, and you might think of things to ask that I wouldn’t.”
“All right, then, if you think I’d be useful.”
“Dat has me and Jake bringing in the potatoes this week, but as soon as I can, I’ll come over and we can go, maybe in a couple of days.”
Though the main light was still on in the yard, shining right in the windscreen of the buggy, he still reached around her shoulders to pull her close. “And you know what? You’re more than useful. I like being with you. There must be a better word for it than that.”
But when he kissed her, his mouth soft and warm on hers, words fled Priscilla’s head altogether.
Chapter 13
Henry had come over to the Rose Arbor Inn early Saturday morning and eaten a farewell breakfast with Ginny’s family. Ginny cooked a big breakfast for her guests nearly every day between May and September, but when it was family, Henry could see, it wasn’t business. It was an act of love for her to feed the people she cared about.
Just like Sarah did with her herbs—not only because she had to make a living, but also because she cared about the people who came to her. It was her way of showing love to the Gmee and also extending it to people outside.
People like him.
Were all women like this, or just the two that had come into his life so unexpectedly since he’d moved here? And what was he doing thinking about Sarah when Ginny was offering him one more croissant stuffed with Brie and cranberries?
“I’ll have it for supper,” he told her, wrapping it in his paper napkin. “After frittata, sausage, fruit salad, and these, I can’t even face the thought of lunch.”
“My girl sure knows how to cook,” Donnée said with satisfaction.
“And everyone in these parts knows it,” Henry added. Even the coffee tasted amazing, and he’d seen her make it himself exactly the way everyone else did. But that could have been because he used instant coffee these days, with a pot of hot water on the stove. If he wanted the real thing, either he’d find the time to have the house wired for electricity, or he’d find the money to buy one of those fancy glass drip affairs that would do the job.
When Ginny began to clear the table, he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward her suite beyond the kitchen. “I’ll do it. You go finish what you need to do.”
He was just drying the last of the dishes when she came out, pulling a rollaway suitcase, her wool coat over her arm. Her eyes widened. “Henry, don’t tell me you spent all this time washing the dishes by hand?”
The saucepan went into its place on the triple-shelved lazy Susan under the counter. “I did. Wasn’t I supposed to?”
She laughed, shaking her head. “You are so Amish sometimes. They invented this thing called a dishwasher, you know. It lives right there.” She pointed, her eyes dancing, and he had to laugh at himself, too.
“I never even thought of it. I’m so used to doing up my own—and I’ve never lived in a place that was fancy enough to have one, not even my apartment in Denver.”
“I’ll teach you how to use it when I get back. But in the meantime, here’s a thank-you for treating my china so well.” She kissed him soundly on the mouth, to the point that he didn’t hear her father come in the back door after taking the first of their suitcases out.
“PDAs,” Rafe said cheerfully. “Come on, you two. If we don’t hit the road, the stores will all be closed by the time we get
there.”
“Daddy, we’re talking about an hour’s drive, for goodness’ sake. Go away and let me say good-bye to my man.”
Henry held her close and, not for the first time, thanked his lucky stars that she’d come into his life, bringing laughter and optimism and great food and a family he was really beginning to like. “I don’t deserve you,” he murmured into the black spirals of her hair, held back this morning by an orange bandanna with little black cats on it in celebration of the month of Hallowe’en. At least, that’s what she’d said. But orange looked great on her.
“No, you don’t,” she agreed pertly. “No man deserves a woman—we just tolerate you all because of the way you improve the scenery.”
“Is that going on a T-shirt?” He touched the tip of her nose with his.
“It should, huh? They sell, you know. After Sarah came up with the idea about putting your mugs in the rooms, I thought, why not hang one or two of my T-shirts in the closets? And it only costs the time to design them—I do everything else over the Internet. But that one will have to wait until I get back. I’m gonna find me a wedding dress!” She spun out of his arms with a smacking kiss. “See you Tuesday. Be good.”
He put the luggage belonging to both her and Venezia in her car, and waved the two vehicles off from the little parking lot.
Venezia hadn’t even tried to convince him one last time about appearing on Shunning Amish, for which he had to give her credit. Evidently even the greatest saleswoman in the world could see when a mark wasn’t having any, and it was time to back off.
He drove the two miles home, waving at his cousin Paul Byler and his wife, Barbara, on their way somewhere on a Saturday morning in their buggy. Then he turned in his own driveway, thinking about everything he needed to do today. The pottery he’d fired would be ready for glazing with the new mixture he’d prepared. He was anxious to see how it would work on that pumpkin pitcher. Even if it was too late for D.W. Frith to get it in their catalog, they’d still ordered one for their flagship store in time for Thanksgiving next month. But the color had to be perfect. He’d done a couple of test glazes on mugs, but the big test would be—
He stopped the car abruptly, realizing that the side of the yard where he usually parked was blocked by a sleek Jaguar XK and a vintage BMW.
Tourists, at this time of year? He sighed and got out of the car. Time to take down that ARTISAN sign at the end of his lane.
“Henry!” a familiar voice called from just inside the open barn doors, and Dave Petersen stepped outside.
Not for the first time when dealing with Dave, Henry felt a moment of mental vertigo. Had he forgotten an appointment? Was he supposed to be in New York, and when he didn’t show up, they’d sent Dave down to Pennsylvania to get him?
“Dave.” He shook hands, and as he did, another man stepped out from between the rolling doors leading into his studio.
“Henry, I’d like you to meet Matt Alvarez, from TNC. I believe you and he spoke last week.”
“You know perfectly well we did.” Politeness demanded a handshake, but his own didn’t have the feeling of welcome that Rafe’s did, or even Caleb’s. “Nice to meet you, Matt.”
“You’re probably wondering why we’re here and poking around in your barn,” Matt said with a smile that revealed teeth of a startling whiteness in his tanned face. The kind of whiteness very rarely found in nature.
“I am, in fact,” Henry said. “I can give you a proper tour, if you want. But I can’t give you what I suspect you came for.”
“I’ll settle for the tour.” The grin flashed again.
Henry had never been exposed to television people in his career—he’d only met the folks who had done the D.W. Frith video with him as its subject earlier in the year. Whatever he thought a producer was supposed to look like, Matt didn’t. He had on worn jeans and a plaid button-down shirt that had seen more time on the road than Henry ever had. But unless Frith was doing better than he thought, that Jag didn’t belong to Dave.
He showed them over the studio, making a point of showing Dave the pieces that would be shipping to New York in time for their Thanksgiving displays, and his sketches for the big matching set he would be doing for Christmas. And when they’d seen everything with the exception of the cartons of clay in the old horse stalls, he took them outside and walked them through the orchard. He’d be willing to talk apples until the cows came home if it meant avoiding the topic the two men were there for.
He was just reaching through the gnarled, uncared-for branches for a nice-looking stripy Gravenstein that the birds hadn’t discovered yet, when a flash of burgundy caught his eye through the branches.
“Hey, Henry,” Dave said at the same time, “there’s an Amish lady heading down the hill in this direction.”
“Better brace yourselves,” he muttered, but only Matt, who was standing closest to him, caught it. He moved out from under the tree into the grass and waved, and Sarah waved back.
“Henry,” she called, “I wanted to know how your—oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you had company.” She half turned away, her skirts billowing against her shins with the motion. “I’ll come back another time.”
“No, it’s all right. These folks won’t be staying long.” Dave and Matt exchanged a glance. “Sarah, this is Dave Petersen from D.W. Frith, and Matt Alvarez from TNC, that TV channel we were talking about the other day. Gentlemen, this is my next-door neighbor, Sarah Yoder.”
“You talked about it with an Amish person?” Dave blurted.
“Sure. Sarah’s a friend—almost a relative. Her sister-in-law is married to my cousin on the farm across the highway there. We talk about all kinds of things, including why people are so interested in the Amish—or ex-Amish, as the case may be.”
“Do you, now?” Matt said, his face alive with interest. “Do the Amish folks ever wonder about that?”
“We don’t often have time to wonder what the Englisch think of us,” Sarah said shyly. “It is enough to be concerned about what God thinks of us.”
Matt clearly wasn’t about to be deterred into a philosophical discussion. “What’s the church’s stand on those who go outside and then talk about it publicly?”
“I don’t know. We don’t take stands on such things. I suppose they’re free to talk about it if they like.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Matt said, as smoothly as a knife through soft butter. “On camera?”
She gazed at him, and Henry waited. Then he saw the twinkle in her eyes as her brows rose slightly. “You’re as bad as my son Caleb, taking up my words to get what he wants. Except he only tries it once.”
“You haven’t said no, though.”
“No.” She smiled at him, the kind of smile a mother wears when she’s taken the measure of the opposition. “If I were to appear on your camera, that would be making a graven image, and those are not permitted.”
“Is that the reason,” Dave said on a note of discovery. “I always thought it was because the camera steals the soul or something.”
Sarah gazed at him, puzzled. “That isn’t possible, as any child would tell you. God decides what happens to our souls. That’s why the safest place for mine is in His hand.” She turned to Henry and handed him a glass pint jar, its lid screwed down on a glossy reddish-brown substance. “I made up the balm for you last night. Rub some in morning and evening, and keep bandages on the open wounds so dirt doesn’t get in.”
“Open wounds?” Dave’s eyes widened. “What have you been doing, sword fighting?”
Henry opened his free hand and showed him the Band-Aid strips on his fingers. “Turns out between the hard water and the clay, my skin dried out, and then when I put on latex gloves to protect my hands, I discovered I was allergic to latex.”
“Ouch.” Matt leaned in to see. “That’s gotta hurt.”
“Sarah made me a salve for it. She’s our local herbal healer.”
“In training,” Sarah put in. “Ruth is really the Dokter
fraa. I’m just helping her with some of her patients.”
While it was massively tempting to make Sarah the focus of the other men’s attention, Henry knew that would be the easy way out—and besides, Sarah didn’t deserve it. This was his battle to fight, and he just had to keep his wits about him and stick it out.
“Too bad you’re still in the church,” Matt said. “That would make a great episode—doctoring the exes with the plants growing in empty urban lots because they can’t afford healthcare or whatever.”
“What an imagination you have,” Sarah said, straight-faced, in a tone that could almost be admiring.
But Matt flushed. “Just thinking out loud. Filing it away for later.”
“I’ll leave you, Henry.” Sarah turned those long-lashed gray eyes back on him. “Please let me know how your skin reacts. I made it pretty strong, so if it hurts more than helps, I should adjust the mixture. I don’t want to add to your pain.”
“Thanks, Sarah. I will. What do I owe you?”
“I think perhaps…twenty dollars?”
After he’d bought gas, his wallet only had a couple of dollars in it. He needed to go to the bank. “I’ll bring it over to you after supper. Thanks.”
All three men watched her take the path back over the hill, where the last thing they saw was her white prayer Kapp floating for a moment against the bright October sky before it disappeared down the far slope.
“Nice lady,” Dave said. “She was in the video, wasn’t she? Long shot, working in the garden. Probably from the top of that hill.”
“Yes,” Henry said. “The crew were under strict instructions to show no faces or recognizable features.”
“The whole graven image thing,” Matt said, clearly having retained what Sarah had said. “But Henry, you make actual physical images of plants and gourds and stuff. How do you get around that?”
“I’m not Amish.” Pointing out the obvious always sounded a little blunt. “And they’re not images for worship—which is how an Amish person might see a family gathered around the TV, like an altar, with all their attention on it instead of each other or on God. My pieces are kitchen objects, meant for use. Even the Amish would make that distinction—Sarah has one of my early daffodil batter bowls and has no problem using it. I’ve been giving away the pieces that don’t quite come out the way I want them to, and the ladies around here are delighted.”
