Esther nodded. "I remember." The two started walking again.
"I'm so glad you and Jessie aren't together," said Esther, quietly.
Jacob stopped walking. "You are?"
"Oh, Jacob of course I am! You've been honest with me, so now I'll have to be honest with you. I am sorry I didn't realize it sooner, Jacob, but I'm in love with you, too."
He dropped the weed and ran a hand through his hair, grinning down on Esther. "Are you sure?"
Esther smiled shyly up at him. "Jah, I am. I'm sorry it took me so long to know myself better."
Jacob and Esther now threw themselves onto the ground by the side of the creek, sunlight pressing into their bare faces and hands. It was pleasant to sit here, to know that everything was working out for the best. Esther sighed. Only minutes ago she was sitting by Hannah in the familye buggy, crying at the thought of losing Jacob. Now she sat by his side, blissfully happy. Jacob talked away, and the sound reminded Esther of the bubbling creek, cool and pleasant to listen to. It did not matter what he said. It just mattered that he said it, and that Esther was the one who was there to listen.
"Amos is in for a surprise," he was saying.
"My mudder too," replied Esther, quietly. She knew Amos wouldn't mind, and she already suspected he had eyes for her schweschder, Martha. A bird fluttered onto a nearby branch, hooting happily as the sun rose in the sky. "Noah and Hannah are in for a surprise too," Esther added, "although unlike my mudder, I'm sure they'll find this surprise a nice one."
The situation was coming to a close neatly. Amos would no longer be held as a suitable husband for Esther, her mudder would no longer bother her, and she may now marry a man who was kind and compassionate and hard working. She could not wait to tell Martha and Rebecca. She knew they would tease her endlessly, but now Esther would have Jacob by her side, to laugh with her at their friendly teasing from now until forever.
The End
Book 3. The Narrow Way .
Matthew 7:13-14.
Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Chapter 1 .
After a morning of goodbyes, tears, and shuffling boxes, Martha Miller tossed her new house keys on her bed and searched through the apartment. The space was large and bright, with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living area. There was plenty of room for all her treasures: even more when you considered that Martha had no treasures. With her footsteps echoing over the polished wooden floors, Martha moved to the refrigerator in search of a celebratory lunch. She found a block of moldy cheese and half a can of whipped cream, and though the meal was a far cry from the lemonade and meat pies of her childhood celebrations, Martha sat on the floor and nibbled the edges of the cheese, feeling the stir of adventure in her heart.
Her housemate, Sheryl Garner, an Englischer who took the second and far larger bedroom, was working the whole afternoon. On the four occasions they had met, Sheryl struck Martha as a nice, although softly rebellious, Englischer girl. She had short hair that was pink on the ends, a nose ring, and lipstick so bright it would put the sun to shame. She had given Martha the keys that morning and told her to get comfortable. She also mentioned that tomorrow they would go shopping. Martha stopped nibbling on the cheese and looked down at her plain dress. She could wear the clothes of an Englischer now, the jeans and the shirts with the funny slogans, and although she felt a childlike glee at the very idea, she would miss the security of her simple dresses, her prayer kapp and bonnet, and her woolen cloak. She wondered what she might buy with the money stashed in the bottom of her purse.
Martha wanted to have a chocolate business, and she had started by selling her treats at the local farmers' markets. She had made enough from the venture to live in this strange new world for two months, although she really needed to find a job as soon as possible. Now she wondered who might take an Amish girl with little experience in jobs common with the Englisch. She was a very good cook, having taken after her talented mother in that department, although jobs like that were likely hard to find, and she was not qualified for anything else. Martha sighed. She was too busy thinking on the clothes, the chocolate business, and her job, that it was a second before she realized that someone was opening a window in the living room.
Martha froze as she listened to the person climb through the window, land on the floor, and start to move through the living room, only to collide with the sofa and fill the room with a string of curses. From her spot on the floor near the fridge, she could not see if it was her new housemate, although Martha suspected that Sheryl would use the front door. Panic set into her heart and sweat started to dapple her forehead.
"Anyone home?" The stranger's voice, a mann's, and very deep, echoed through the apartment. "I'm just grabbing the cups I left here last weekend, and then I'll get out of your hair."
Martha furrowed her brow. Did she have time to scuttle back to her bedroom, lock the door, and hide until the mann left? Before she had time to consider the idea properly, the mann stepped into the kitchen. He was young, with dark hair and large brown eyes, ripped jeans, and a shirt emblazoned with a guitar. Martha swallowed.
"You're not Sheryl." The mann stared down at the strange girl eating moldy cheese on the kitchen floor. "Unless you are Sheryl and I'm still extremely drunk."
"Nee. No, I'm Martha."
"Hello, Martha the mouse," he replied, holding out a hand. Although she hesitated for a moment, unsure about touching the hand of a strange Englischer boy, she relented and allowed him to help her off the floor. "I'm Gary. Sorry if I gave you a fright. I just live upstairs. Sheryl and I are friends. How long have you known her?"
"Not long." Martha quickly placed the cheese back in the fridge. The thought of anyone, let alone a young man with tousled hair and sleepy eyes, catching her sitting on the floor and eating made her shiver. "I'm renting the second room. This is actually my first day here. I only just now moved in."
"I know," said Gary, a lopsided grin spreading over his handsome face. "I'd have remembered you. Do you want me to grab some food from my apartment, or do mice only eat cheese?"
An hour later Martha sat across from Gary. On the table between them sat bowls of colorful Fruit Loops, toast, jam, scrambled eggs, and cups of orange juice. Martha had never eaten Fruit Loops before, and she felt her heart beating out a rhythm as the sugar roared through her system, although that might have been caused by the disheveled boy sitting across from her.
"So what's the go, Martha? What do you do?" asked Gary, buttering his toast.
"I want to start a chocolate business. What about you?"
"Right on," he said, looking up from his toast and grinning. "Myself? I'm in a band. I play the drums. We've got a real different sound you know. It's authentic. Nobody's in it for the fame or glory, man. It's all about the music."
Martha was struck by how different Englisch and Amish boys were. Sun filtered through the windows, throwing a halo of yellow light around the pale Gary. The boys she had grown up with, like the Hostetler bruders, worked on the farm with their father as soon as they were grown, their bodies browning in the sun. Martha's good friend, Moses Hostetler, the third oldest of the brothers, would make Gary look like a ghost. Martha's mind drifted to wonder what Moses was doing at this exact moment.
"What are you doing?" she asked suddenly, watching Gary cut his slices of toast into triangles.
"Cutting toast?"
"But why don't you cut it straight down the center?"
"Because I'm a rebel. You should check me out," Gary added, his mouth full of toast. "My band, I mean. You might like what you see." Then he glanced at his watch, slammed his fist on the table, and said, "Damn it. I'm late."
As he moved toward the window, Martha picked up the glass that Gary had toppled over and cried, "But what about all this food?"
"You keep it, little mous
e." Gary flung one leg over the windowsill and pulled himself onto the fire escape. Then he ducked his head back into the apartment. "I wouldn't want you to disappear before we've had a chance to get to know each other," he said with a wink, vanishing into the golden sunshine.
Martha sat once more, wondering if all Englisch boys climbed through windows and lived on Fruit Loops, or if Gary was just as unique among them as he would be among the bronzed bodies of the Hostetler brothers. For the first time in her life, the world was not full of chores and dusty, but fresh and full of curiosities. Martha picked up a new slice of bread, and cut it into triangles.
John 14:6.
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
Chapter 2 .
Martha paused outside the café, staring at the hand written Help Wanted sign in the window.
Help Wanted!
Short order cook to start immediately.
Must be well presented, qualified and experienced.
Apply within.
No timewasters need apply.
Martha could barely contain herself with excitement: here, finally, a job she could apply for. She was an excellent cook, used to preparing large amounts of food. She was well qualified, to be sure, and most certainly experienced, with all the cooking she had done for as long as she could remember.
Martha peered through the windows, trying to get a sense of the café. It appeared small, and the tables and chairs were all of wood. There were metal stools alongside a bar for the coffees. Martha's heart at once sank. I'm not a barista, she thought, chewing her lip. Still, the advertisement had not mentioned barista duties, so Martha thought there would be no harm in applying. What's the worst that could happen?
And so, with a deep breath to steady her nerves, and a silent prayer to Gott to ask for His blessing, Martha walked out of the bright sunlight and into the dim brown and green interior of the little café. A barista pointed her in the direction of a door at the back of the café, but as soon as she reached it, a smiling and plump woman burst out carrying two plates of omelets which she at once handed over to the waitress and then looked up at Martha.
"I'm here about the job," Martha said, noticing the woman's eyes light up at her words.
"Come with me."
The woman ushered Martha into a back room which appeared to double as a store room and a little office. "I'm Ava, and my husband Logan and I run this store. Our cook didn’t show up for work this morning and we just found out that she's getting a divorce and moving interstate." Ava sighed. "We had no idea, so it's caused us quite some trouble. You're qualified and experienced?"
Martha nodded.
Ava clasped her hands together in delight. "Can you start at once?"
Martha nodded again. "Yes, I can start right now. I can’t make coffee though," she said, worried about the consequences of that admission.
Ava waved her hand at her. "No matter, we have baristas; it’s a cook we don't have now. I need a cook, not a barista or a waitress. Now, we do breakfasts and lunches: sandwiches, pancakes, crepes, Belgian Waffles, eggs, omelets. Oh, can you do chicken corn chowder soup? What about creamed chipped beef or scrapple?"
"Oh, yes, I do those all the time," Martha said.
Ava beamed, and continued. "We also go through a lot of cakes and pies, and we have a strong passing tourist trade. Are you experienced with red velvet cake, pumpkin pie, apple dumplings, whoopie pies and Shoo-fly pies?"
"Yes, I make them all the time," Martha said, sending a quick prayer of thanks to Gott for finding her what seemed like the ideal position. And Sheryl had said that a job would be almost impossible to find, she thought.
Ava stood up and rustled through a filing cabinet. "All right then. I'll give you a trial. Five days a week, weekdays only. Start is seventy thirty in the morning promptly, and end is at two thirty in the afternoon. Here's a slip of paper with rates of pay, and fill out this form" - she deposited the form and a pen in front of her - "and then I'll give you an apron, unless you want to go home and change and then come back?"
Martha looked down at her plain black pants and matching black blouse that Sheryl had insisted she borrow from her to wear for job searching. "No, that will be fine; I’ll start now."
Ava nodded. "Excellent."
Martha could scarcely believe her luck, although it wasn't luck, she reminded herself, but a blessing from Gott. Not only that, but her apartment was only a short walk from the café. Gott had truly blessed her.
After her first day at work, Martha hurried home, excited that Ava seemed pleased with her on her very first day in an actual job. She wished she could tell her daed, her mudder, and her schweschders, but for now her new house mate Sheryl would have to do. Martha approached the apartment building, thinking it was nothing like any building she'd been used to, with so many people living so closely together, and none of them related to each other. The old building looked somewhat tired and worn from the front, with peeling paint on the cream timber walls, but the brightly colored flower gardens certainly gave the place a cheerful appearance.
Martha was surprised that she was able to afford a room here, even a small second bedroom in a renovated apartment which likely originally had one large master bedroom and was renovated for the rental market, or so she suspected. Her bedroom was tiny, but Martha was thrilled that she had finally managed to find cheap accommodation. Sheryl said that Martha had been the only suitable person to answer the newspaper advertisement, although Martha couldn’t see how that was possible. Still, she was grateful, and this new job meant that her worries were now over. She would be able to work on her chocolate business at weekends, and even afford to set up it, at least in small stages. Plus Sheryl seemed nice, although they couldn’t be more different. Besides her bright hair, Sheryl always wore a great deal of makeup, short skirts, and had an awful lot of jewelry hanging off her.
When Martha hurried through the door and told Sheryl the happy news about her new job, Sheryl's mouth fell open. "To tell you the truth, I didn't think you'd be able to find anywhere to take you on. So, what, you're doing the cooking?"
"Yes." Martha beamed. "I don't have to make coffee, serve tables, or anything, just cook."
Sheryl nodded her approval. "That's amazing, well done. I'm surprised though, with you not qualified for anything."
Martha was puzzled. "But I'm qualified for cooking."
"You are?" Sheryl raised her eyebrows. "You have a certificate or something?"
Martha bit her lip. "Um, no, but I've done a lot of cooking for as long as I can remember."
Sheryl shrugged and handed Martha a mug of coffee. "Come and sit down. I don't mean to be a wet blanket or anything. I suppose they didn't ask for qualifications?"
Martha felt sick to the stomach. "The advertisement in the window said they wanted someone experienced and qualified, as far as I can remember." She sat down in the comfortable sofa opposite Sheryl.
"That means that they wanted you to have a certificate," Sheryl explained slowly.
Martha's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, I had no idea! What have I done?"
Sheryl waved her hands at her. "Look, don't worry about it. If they didn’t ask to see any qualifications, they won’t worry. Besides, you said they were desperate. So long as they're happy with your work, I don't think they'll care."
Martha sipped her coffee and thought for a moment. "I’ll have to tell them I don't have qualifications, though."
"Are you mad?" Sheryl's voice rose in horror. "You can't do that! You won't have a job if you do that. The main thing is that they’re happy with your work. It's not being dishonest; just don't tell them and hope they don’t ask to see any certificate or anything."
Martha nodded, and settled down to watch television with Sheryl. Her stomach was churning and her discomfort was due to several reasons. She felt she was in fact being dishonest for not declaring the fact to her employers that she had no qualifications. She had no idea
that they meant a certificate when she applied, but she did know now. She also was not comfortable watching so much television with Sheryl. Martha had been brought up to be busy every minute of the day, and sitting down doing nothing made her uneasy. Television had been a big novelty for the first few days, but now it just seemed a complete waste of time.
The reality of the Englisch world was just starting to sink in. On the one hand, it was different and exciting, but on the other hand, the Englischers seemed to waste a lot of time. On the downside, there was no community help or support. There was no going down to the barn to collect eggs or to milk the goat; one went to a store and bought such items. Sheryl certainly did not make her own clothes, and seemed to own more clothes than Martha had seen collectively in her lifetime. For her dinner, Sheryl always put packets of food in a microwave and they were cooked incredibly quickly. Martha did not think she would ever be able to use the microwave, although she adapted quickly to the electric oven.
Martha closed her eyes tightly during a particularly violent scene in Game of Thrones and sighed aloud. The Englischers sure are funny, she thought. They are in such a hurry all the time, but then they sit down for hours and watch TV and do nothing.
Romans 10:8-9.
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Chapter 3 .
“Oh no, not again.” Martha arrived with the bucket just in time. She placed the bucket on the floor under Esther’s face, and held back Esther’s hair. “That was a close one.”
Esther leaned her head back into the pillow.
“I brought a wet wash cloth for your head,” Martha added.
The Amish Millers Get Married BOXED SET Books 1-3 (Amish Romance Book Bundle: The Way Home, The Way Forward, The Narrow Way) (Boxed Set: Amish Millers Get Married) Page 17
