“See!” she announced, turning to him. “Whose boppli is that?”
Gideon came to an abrupt halt beside her and gawked at it, looking shocked.
The boppli stared up at them and wiggled in its basket. And then it beamed a smile at them, revealing dimples in its cheeks.
Chapter Two
I’m checking the restroom. Maybe the mudder is in there.” But Gideon wondered who would leave their boppli out here instead of taking it with her.
“Gut idea. I hadn’t thought of that.”
Gideon hurried to the back of the shop but found the door to the bathroom standing open. The adjoining break room was empty as well, but a diaper bag sat in the middle of the table. He picked it up and carried it back to where he’d left Hannah, praying he’d imagined there was an abandoned boppli in his shop.
But there it was, staring up at Hannah with wide blue eyes from its basket on the floor.
“This can’t be happening!” He set the bag down, shoved his hand in his hair, and frowned.
The boppli jerked its head, looked up at him, and began crying.
“Ssh! Don’t cry, lieb!” Hannah bent and unstrapped the boppli and lifted it into her arms. “Gideon didn’t mean to frighten you.” She looked at him as she rocked it gently. “Did you?”
“Nee, of course not,” he said in a quieter voice. “But what am I supposed to do with it?”
“Him,” she said. “I think it’s a boy. See?” She turned the boppli to show him the pale blue cotton shirt.
The boppli began fussing again. Hannah rocked it and spoke to it quietly, and it settled down again.
“Look in the diaper bag and see if there’s a bottle. I think he’s hungerich.”
He dug into it and found a zippered insulated bag that held several bottles. And then his hand touched a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and read, “This is your sohn, John. It’s your turn to care for our boppli for a while. I’ll be in touch.”
Appalled, he looked at Hannah. “This is not my kind. I swear it.”
She gave him a long stare. “Then there’s only one other person who can be his dat. You know who that is.”
He shook his head.
“Gideon. Think.” She held the boppli out to him and he jumped back, holding up his hands in defense. “Just look.”
He stared intently at the boppli’s face. “You think it’s Eli’s,” he said slowly. “How can that be?”
“I don’t know. We need to ask him.”
“I’ll call him.” He got out his cell phone and frowned when the call went to voice mail. “Eli, it’s Gideon. Call me as soon as you get this.”
He turned to Hannah. “He’s at a horse auction today. He stopped in earlier on his way to say he wouldn’t be back until late tonight.”
The boppli began crying again. “We need to feed him,” Hannah said. “We don’t know when he last ate.”
He held out the bottle to her and she just looked at him.
“Gideon, you don’t give a boppli a cold bottle,” she chided and shook her head. “Here.” She held out the boppli.
He backed away, terrified, as if she were trying to hand him a bomb. “I can’t hold him!”
“Schur you can,” she told him firmly, stepping forward and putting the kind in Gideon’s arms. “I’ll be right back with his bottle.”
Gideon stared down at the boppli in his arms. His was a small family. His mudder had borne twins and then never had other kinner. Knowing how ragged he and Eli had run her—especially Eli—he thought that had probably been best.
He walked over to the stool behind the counter and sat down. The more he looked at the boppli the more he saw the resemblance. Hannah had seen it almost immediately. He couldn’t wait to talk to Eli.
“Who is your daedi?” he asked the kind in a low voice, not wanting to alarm him again. “And where is your mudder? Why would she leave you with me?”
The boppli stared up at him with big blue eyes, his cheeks wet with tears.
His lips trembled, so Gideon rocked him gently as he’d watched Hannah do. “She’ll be back in just a minute.”
“Here we go,” Hannah said as she came back and held out the bottle. The boppli immediately became excited, waving his hands and making a cooing noise.
“Here, let me give him to you so you can feed him,” he said.
“Nee, he’s comfortable,” she told him firmly and handed him the bottle. “You can do this.”
The boppli reached for the bottle, so Gideon guided it to his mouth and watched the tiny hands latch onto it. Gideon felt panic rising up his throat. “Don’t leave me with him,” he begged.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“How old do you think he is?” he asked, looking up at her.
“Maybe six months. It’s hard to tell with the way they grow sometimes. But my schweschder has a boppli about this size, and he just turned six months.”
“You know, he doesn’t just look like Eli,” Hannah mused. “He reminds me of someone else, too—the way he tilts his head and looks at us. But I can’t think who.”
The bell over the shop door jingled as an Englisch woman walked in. She took one look at them and smiled. “Oh, my, what an adorable baby!” she cried.
Startled, the boppli let go of the bottle nipple and jerked his head to look at her. Milk dribbled onto his chin. He grinned at the woman as she approached making cooing noises.
“How old is he?” she asked as she leaned on the counter to admire him.
They exchanged looks. “Six months,” Hannah said quickly.
“So nice that you can bring your baby to work with you,” the woman gushed. She glanced around at the shelves. “Imagine what fun he’ll have when he gets older and he can play with all these toys!”
The boppli grabbed at the bottle and began sucking again now that the attention was off him.
“You’re such a lovely young family.”
Gideon felt a flush stealing up his neck.
“Can I help you with anything in particular?” Hannah offered quickly, as if sensing his embarrassment.
“I’ll just browse if you don’t mind. I have several young nieces and nephews, so when I’m in a toy shop I like to look for gifts.” She walked over to the dollhouses in the display window. “This is my first time in this shop.”
“Of course. You just let me know if I can answer any questions,” Hannah said. “Gideon here makes all of the toys.”
She waited until the woman wandered away then leaned over the counter. “Gideon, what if the mudder doesn’t show up?”
Fear struck Gideon. “You think we should call the police?”
“If we do, they’ll give him to Child Welfare Services. Then if it’s Eli’s he might have trouble getting him back.”
Gideon sighed and shook his head. “You’re right.”
She walked to the shop window, looked out, then returned to the counter. After she glanced around to make sure the woman wasn’t in hearing range, she leaned close again. “It’s going to be interesting to see what Eli has to say when he comes home.”
He nodded. “I can’t wait.”
The boppli drained the last of the bottle and let the nipple slip from his slack lips as he dozed off.
Hannah walked around the counter to take the bottle and set it down. Then she lifted the kind from his arms. As she did Gideon’s hand brushed her arm and their gazes locked. She blushed and walked around to take a seat on the stool in front of the counter.
“Found some lovely toys,” the woman who’d been browsing said as she placed the things she’d chosen on the counter.
Gideon rang up the purchases and handed the woman the bag. “Thank you for shopping with us.”
“It was my pleasure,” she said. She smiled at the baby. “You enjoy him. Time goes so fast, he’ll be grown before you know it.”
Hannah turned to Gideon as soon as the woman left the shop. “I need to get back to the shop.”
“You can’t leave me with
him!”
“You could put him back in his basket.”
“And what if he wakes up again?”
She bit her lip. “All right, I’ll take him back to my shop. He can take a nap in the crib I keep for when my schweschder helps out at the shop.”
“Danki, Hannah!”
He sounded so relieved she couldn’t help smiling. “Get his diaper bag.”
When he returned with it she slid it over one arm along with her lunch tote.
“You didn’t get to eat your lunch.”
“I can eat at the shop.”
“I’ll walk you down.” He stood on legs that felt weak.
“I can manage, danki.”
“I’ll see you at closing then, then?”
“You will,” she said definitely. “Be thinking what you’re going to do if the mudder doesn’t show up.”
He swallowed hard as he watched her walk out and down the sidewalk. He’d be doing nothing else but thinking.
* * *
Hannah’s shop was just a short stroll from Gideon’s. When she entered, she realized she should have spent the time coming up with what she was going to tell Katie Ann about the boppli in her arms.
The woman stared at her as she stepped inside and headed toward the crib in the corner.
“Who is that?” Katie Ann wanted to know as Hannah lay the boppli down in the crib and then began poking in the diaper bag.
“Hmm?” she said, playing for time as she pulled out a fresh diaper and a box of wipes. Her faith didn’t believe in lies and prevarications, but the situation wasn’t one where she could simply offer an explanation.
“This is John,” she told Katie Ann as she bent over the crib. “Isn’t he darling?”
The boppli smiled up at them sleepily.
“Whose boppli is it?”
“A friend’s. I ran into her at Gideon’s and offered to babysit so she could do some shopping.”
Hannah glanced up and looked pointedly at the clock on the wall. “Time for you to go. You said you had an appointment with the loan officer at the bank about the bakery.”
“Ya, but—” Clearly torn, Katie Ann looked at the clock, then sighed. “I can reschedule and stay if you need me.”
“We’ll be fine. He’s going to take a nap. And that appointment is important.” Hannah knew Katie Ann had been planning on opening her own bakery for some time.
Katie Ann went to the back of the shop and got her sweater and purse. “You’re schur you don’t want me to stay?”
Hannah tucked a blanket around the boppli and looked up with a smile. “He didn’t even wake up when I put him in his crib.”
“Well then, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Katie Ann said as she walked to the front door and left.
Two women strolled in, regular customers, so she walked over to say hello and see how she could help them.
“Well, so who’s this?” one woman asked as she stopped near the crib. “It’s not yours, Hannah.”
“Sssh,” the other woman hissed. “Don’t wake the baby.”
“I’m just babysitting for a friend,” Hannah said. “I got some new fabric in since you last visited. Let me show it to you.”
What had she gotten herself into? she wondered. It felt like she’d had nonstop questions since she’d brought the boppli back to her shop.
The two bought several yards of new fabric each and left shortly afterward. Hannah was grateful for a lull.
After they left she sat in the chair beside the crib and watched the boppli sleep. It was so peaceful watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest, to see the flutter of eyelashes as he dreamed.
How innocent he looked, she thought. Sadness swept over her. How could a mudder just leave her kind? How did she know he would be cared for properly? Had she lingered nearby to make schur someone else didn’t pick it up and walk off with it?
She stood and looked out her window. What if the mudder had spied on them and seen her carry her kind to the shop? Would she come to see why Hannah had taken him? Hannah stood looking out the window but didn’t see anyone watching.
Restless, she roamed about, putting a few bolts from the cutting table back on their shelves, straightening items on display tables, and checking the boppli every few minutes.
Fortunately, a customer came in—an older woman who reminded Hannah a lot of her late maternal grossmudder. She browsed the selection of quilt and craft kits. Then she stopped abruptly and her eyes grew wide.
Turning, she stared at Hannah, her eyes wide. “Oh, my! There’s a baby in there.”
Hannah nodded and smiled. “I know.”
The woman chuckled. “Well, of course you do. He’s sleeping so soundly, I almost missed him,” she marveled. “How I wish I could sleep like that. I lie awake half the night and after I finally fall asleep I wake at the least little noise.”
She selected a quilt kit with a Christmas theme and walked to the counter. Hannah rang up the purchase, tucked it into one of the shop’s brown paper shopping bags, and tied the handles with a scrap of fabric.
The woman hesitated. “You know, I really should pick up a kit to make a crib quilt. I have a granddaughter who’s having a baby in March.”
Hannah set the bag aside. “Which one did you want?” she asked as they walked over to the shelf that held them.
“I think this kit with the multicolored blocks. It would be appropriate for a boy or a girl.” She stared down at the baby in the crib. “I just can’t believe that I’m going to have a great-grandchild. It’s my first.”
“How wonderful. You must be so excited.”
The woman nodded. “My husband’s happy as a clam in his workshop building a cradle for it.” She smiled at the boppli again. “Family’s so important, isn’t it?” she said, not bothering to wait for a reply as she waved and sailed out the door.
Hannah pulled out her lunch tote and ate her sandwich and drank her tea. She found herself thinking about what the woman had said. Oh, not the great-grandchild part. But having a familye. Her relationship with Gideon had grown so much this past year as she opened her shop and they’d spent more time with each other. She’d loved him for such a long time and sensed he felt the same for her, but he was a quiet man who moved slowly. Well, that was fine. It was one of the qualities she loved about him, so she could wait for him to ask her to marry him. She smiled wryly. Well, as long as he did it before the marriage season ended.
Gideon had talked about how he wanted to make schur that his shop was a success and hinted that it was important for a couple to start out with a stable foundation. He and his twin bruder shared the family farm but Eli did most of the farming, with occasional help from Gideon when he wasn’t at his shop.
She walked over to sit near the crib after her customer left. There was really no doubt in her mind that Gideon would be the first to marry. Eli had made it clear that he enjoyed being single. There was a time when she’d thought that he and Emma Graber were seeing each other, but then Emma moved away and Eli seemed like he was back to dating many maedels.
The boppli whimpered in his sleep, then shifted a little and slept on.
“Who are you, little boy?” she whispered. “Who is your mudder? Your dat?”
Her gaze was drawn to the diaper bag sitting on the table in front of her. Maybe there was a clue inside besides the note Gideon had found. She pulled out the insulated bag with the remaining bottles and put it on the table in front of her, which was used for quilting. Diapers followed, along with a box of wipes, shirts, a pacifier. Jars of strained baby food. A note about John’s feeding schedule.
She pushed her hand into the front pocket of the bag and there, at the bottom, her fingers encountered a small scrap of paper. She pulled it out and examined it. A piece of a bus ticket. The state listed was Ohio but the city was missing. She shoved her hand deeper in the pocket but there was no more of the ticket, just another pacifier. Thoughtful, she put the ticket in her apron pocket and returned the baby items to the bag.
“Hello there, sleepyhead,” she said smiling at him as he yawned and blinked at her owlishly.
She once again had the thought that there was something about the way he studied her, his head tilted a certain way, that reminded Hannah of someone. But she couldn’t think who.
She was struck by how sweet and easygoing he was. What would she have done if he cried for his mudder?
“Let’s change your diaper and go see Gideon,” she told him and set about the task. When she was finished she went into the back room to dispose of the diaper and wash her hands.
She got her shawl and purse and walked back to the front of the shop. Then she shook her head and got out her cell phone to call Gideon. The least he could do was walk down and help her cart everything out when their driver came to take them home.
And while they waited for Liz, they were going to talk.
A knock sounded on the door. She glanced over and saw Gideon standing there looking in at her.
She walked over and opened the door. “I was just going to call you.”
“I closed up a little early,” he said as he strode in. “How has the boppli been for you?”
“Gut. He slept the whole time.”
Gideon looked relieved. “I’m glad. I figured you’d have called if he cried or something.”
She just stared at him. “And what would you have done?”
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “But we’d have talked it over and come up with something together.”
Speaking of which…She took a deep breath. “Gideon, we need to talk about what we’re going to do with the boppli.”
Chapter Three
The Amish Baby Finds a Home Page 2
