by Jan Drexler
After dinner, Bethany took Mari upstairs to bed while Andrew strolled out to the front porch. On the north side of the house, the porch was shaded until evening, when the setting sun would peek under the low-hanging eaves. The afternoon was quiet, with insects buzzing in the long grass. He was nearly asleep in his chair when Bethany came out to the porch.
“You should go upstairs if you’re going to sleep.” She sat on the porch swing.
“I can’t do that. I always get cranky if I try to sleep during the day.”
“What do you call what you were doing just now?”
“Resting my eyes. That’s all.”
“I’m still worried about that prowler I heard last night.” She pushed against the porch floor with her toes, setting the swing in motion. The familiar creak sounded like home as much as the spring on the screen door. “Is there anything missing from the barn or outbuildings? Could he be trying to get into the house?”
“We don’t have anything a thief would want to steal.” Andrew had considered that possibility. “And why would he come back? He’s been here at least twice, maybe more times.”
“And then there’s Jenny.”
Andrew thought about Jenny’s reaction to the man last night. She had acted like she knew him. “It couldn’t be one of the Smiths, could it?”
“Eugene Smith is a good neighbor, and a friend of Daed’s.”
“How many are in the family?”
“Joe is the youngest. He’s good friends with John. Then there are three older boys, I think. Sam is married, but Will and Trey still live at home.”
Andrew tapped his foot. If one of the Smiths was the prowler, that would explain why Jenny didn’t think they were a threat. “How well do you know them?”
“As well as any other Englischers. Daed knows them better than I do. I see Mrs. Smith at the store in Shipshewana sometimes.” Bethany leaned toward him. “You can’t think the prowler is one of the Smiths.”
“Why not?”
“They’re good people. They wouldn’t think of bothering us.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Andrew pushed his suspicions away as he yawned. “But we need to find out who it is and what he wants. I’d keep watch again tonight, but I’ll be plowing as long as the moonlight holds.”
“When will you sleep?”
“I’ll catch a few hours before dawn, and maybe I’ll rest my eyes a bit now.”
“Then I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to work on my sewing. And since you’ll be working late tonight, I’ll do the chores for you in the morning. I know Dinah needs to be milked at four o’clock no matter what time you go to bed.”
As Bethany passed by him to go into the house, she patted his shoulder. Andrew felt a smile form. It was a nice gesture, and just like Bethany to do it.
He laid his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. After their prickly start, it seemed that this marriage might be pleasant after all. Even if they didn’t share love, they could be friends, just like they always had. Bethany had been a big part of his life as long as he could remember, and it felt good to think she would remain next to him into the future. He still missed Lily, but having Bethany around eased the pain a little bit.
He tried to remember Lily’s face, her smile, the way she greeted him in the morning, but as he drifted into sleep, he couldn’t tell if the face he saw was Lily’s or Bethany’s.
* * *
As far as Bethany could tell, the prowler didn’t show up during the night. She milked Dinah and fed the horses and the chicks. The little things were covered with an ugly combination of feathers and down, but they would become pretty with time, and start laying in a few months, too. Until then, they still relied on Daed’s hens for their eggs.
“What are your plans for today?” Rose asked while they ate their breakfast.
“I’m going to borrow Daed’s buggy and go visit Lovina. On Sunday she told me someone gave her clothes for her little girl, but they’re too big for Rachel and she thought we could use them for Mari.”
“Will you take Mari?”
“For sure. I’d love the company, and she can play with Rachel.”
Rose sipped her coffee. “I thought I’d make dinner for Jonah and the boys, and work in their garden. The weeds are taking over.”
“I’m glad you cook for them so often,” Bethany said. “I think they might starve if you didn’t.”
Rose chuckled. “Your brothers are terrible cooks, that’s for sure. But Jonah has a few recipes he does well.”
“Like scrambled eggs.”
“And hotcakes,” Rose said.
“If it was up to him, they’d have hotcakes every morning for breakfast.”
Rose laughed at that and Bethany joined in.
Mari looked at both of them. “I like hotcakes. Are they funny?”
Rose wiped her eyes as Bethany said, “Only when Datti Jonah makes them.”
Later in the morning, as Bethany drove to Lovina’s house, she realized that she and Rose had gotten along very well that morning. Had Rose changed? Or had she changed? Maybe both.
“Where are we going?” Mari asked. She stood on the floor in front of the seat, watching Melba, Daed’s buggy horse, trot along the road.
“We’re going to my friend’s house. She has a little girl a little younger than you.”
Mari climbed on the seat next to Bethany. “Will she be my friend?”
“For sure, she will. You will remember her when you see her. She’s a nice little girl.”
“Does she like cows?”
Bethany laughed. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”
As they turned in the farm lane, Lovina was in the garden while Rachel played in the nearby yard.
“Hallo, Bethany.” Lovina put down her hoe and came toward her. “I’m glad you stopped by. The clothes are in the house, but can you stay for a bit? Or do you have to get home?”
Before Lovina finished her sentence, Mari had climbed out of the buggy and was staring at Rachel.
“I don’t have to hurry home, and I’d love to visit.”
“Ellie and her children were here earlier, and Johnny helped me hoe for a few minutes,” Lovina said as she pointed to a hoe that had been dropped at the edge of the garden. “You can pick up where he left off.”
Bethany bent beside her friend as they worked their way along the rows of sweet corn. “Your garden looks good. Ours got a late start.”
“How are things going?” Lovina asked.
“We’re doing fine.” Bethany’s reply was automatic and too quick.
For sure, Lovina noticed. “Fine? Are you certain?”
“All newly married couples have trouble adjusting at first, don’t they?”
Lovina chopped at a weed in the dirt between the rows of corn. “What’s wrong?”
“Andrew is acting strangely and won’t tell me what’s bothering him.” Bethany cleared away a couple of dandelion plants and moved on to a sprig of grass. “Have you noticed any prowlers around your place?”
“Prowlers? Like tramps?”
“Maybe. Or possibly thieves.”
“Has anything been stolen?”
Bethany shook her head. “That’s what is strange about it. Andrew has even seen someone, and we’ve both heard something.”
Lovina leaned on her hoe. “What did you hear?”
“I thought I heard pebbles being thrown against a window.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Like someone trying to get your attention?”
“But it wasn’t my window, and it wasn’t Andrew’s. And I don’t want to ask Rose if she heard it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to worry her. If she can sleep through the prowler’s visits, then that is best.”
“You need to get a dog.”
“Andrew got one, but she doesn’t bark at night.”
“Then you need to get a dog that doesn’t like strangers.”
“She barks at everyone else who drives by. The only person she doesn’t bark at is Daed.”
“That is a puzzle.” Lovina went back to her hoeing, then stopped again. “What does Andrew say?”
Bethany faced her friend. “Not much, but sometimes I get the feeling he thinks I have something to do with it. What should I do?”
“If it was Noah and I, I would just ask him if he thought I was involved.” Lovina went back to her hoeing. “You know, a marriage is a partnership. You have to work together.”
“That’s what your mother said.”
Lovina grinned. “And she’s usually right.” She stopped to chop through a dandelion root. “But you have to work at it. Most men don’t like to talk much, and they don’t like to worry their wives with things they think they can handle on their own. Sometimes we need to bring up the subjects they won’t.”
“So I should ask him if he thinks I know the prowler?”
“It would be better than him being suspicious and doubting you.” Lovina laughed. “Listen to me talk. We know Andrew doesn’t have any reason to doubt you. And I know you two will fall in love before too long, right?”
Bethany’s face grew hot. “I don’t think so. He still loves his first wife. I don’t think he’ll ever love me.”
“Why?”
“I kissed him again.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing. He just turned away from me. He hasn’t mentioned it since.”
Lovina kept working until she reached the end of her row, then waited for Bethany to catch up. “You and Andrew need to be patient with each other for Mari’s sake and for your own happiness. He’ll come around.”
Bethany watched Mari and Rachel chase each other around a bush. “I’ll try, for Mari’s sake.”
Lovina started on the last row while Bethany walked next to her. “How are things going with Rose? Is she still making life difficult for you?”
“That’s the strangest thing,” Bethany said. “We had a pleasant conversation this morning. It has happened gradually, but when I think of how her comments were so hurtful a couple weeks ago, I’m surprised at the difference.”
“Maybe she is learning to like you now that she knows you better.”
“That could be it. Or maybe it’s because she’s found a way to make herself useful.” Bethany stopped to let a garter snake slither by in front of her as it fled from Lovina’s hoe. “She has taken my place at Daed’s house, in a way. She spends at least three days a week there, doing laundry, cooking for them, doing their mending, cleaning the house. Whatever needs to be done.”
Lovina paused, letting her hoe rest on the ground. “Anyone is more pleasant to be around when they’re busy and feeling appreciated.”
“Ja, but I miss seeing my brothers. Daed comes over a couple mornings a week. He says he misses me, and James came over one time, but I thought the others might need me, too.”
“Do you know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you might be a little jealous of Rose.”
Bethany crushed a dirt clod with her toe. “I thought she was jealous of me because Mari and I get along so well.”
“I’m sure that’s true, too.”
“I know what you’re going to say next.”
“What?” Lovina picked up her hoe and they started walking toward the garden shed.
“You’re going to tell me to be nice to Rose and Andrew so we have a happy and peaceful household.”
Lovina laughed. “That’s what my mother would tell you.”
Bethany smiled and linked her arm in Lovina’s. “And that’s why we’re such good friends. You let me talk and talk, and then you give me the best advice.”
* * *
Andrew slept later than he had for years and woke to a quiet house. He intended to let the horses rest today after working all night, so he got to work doing some odd jobs that had been piling up.
The first one was to satisfy his curiosity. What did the prowler do when he was here? Andrew had only heard noises, and then he had seen that figure walking toward the road from the far side of the house. Wild conjectures had gone through his head while he had been plowing the field last night, including the thought that they might not be alone on the farm. The place had sat empty for four years, and the woods to the east of the house might be a good place for bootleggers to use for a hideout. Or perhaps tramps had a camp there, far enough away from the house that they hadn’t noticed them.
Andrew walked around the house, going slowly and looking for any sign of an intruder. Jenny bounded ahead of him, stopping every few steps to snuffle at the ground. Andrew finally found a spot where it looked like someone had been standing. The lily-of-the-valley plants under Rose’s bedroom window were broken down in places, and some of the flowers had been ground into the dirt. Had someone been looking at Rose through the window? Or had they thought they might gain entrance into the house that way?
But if he stood where the prowler would have stood, the window was too high. The house was set on a hill, and on this side of the house, the foundation rose up three feet before the first floor of the house started. The bottom of the window was at least seven feet from the ground. Andrew couldn’t see any damage to the window frame, and the foundation of stones was covered with moss. If anyone had tried to get in by climbing up to the window or digging through the stone wall, there was no sign of it.
He continued to the front of the house but didn’t see any other evidence that anyone had been around. There were no tracks leading from the woods to the house, and even though he listened closely, the only sounds he heard came from Jonah’s farm across the road.
Later, he was replacing the rungs of the windmill ladder when Jenny started barking, alerting him to Dave driving up the lane in his spring wagon. Andrew climbed down, happy to take a break, and Jenny stopped barking. Instead, she circled the two men, tail wagging.
“Taking the day off today, Dave?”
Dave jumped down from the wagon seat. “Dorcas had a list of things she needed from town, so I thought I’d stop by to see if you or Bethany needed anything.”
“I can’t think of anything, but if you have a minute, I want to show you something.” Andrew led the way around the house. “We’ve had a nighttime prowler around the house, and I’d like to know what you think it might be.”
He stopped by Rose’s window and Dave leaned down to look at the footprints. “It’s a man, and he’s wearing boots. I can see the tread in this footprint.” Dave looked up at the window above them. “He couldn’t climb in there unless he had a ladder, and there’s no sign of anything like that. What room is that window in?”
“Rose’s bedroom.”
“Has she said anything about hearing something outside her window? She probably keeps it open at night.”
“Nothing, even though Bethany and I have both heard noises. And I saw the man the other night.”
“What about your dog? She barked loud enough to wake anybody when I drove up.”
“That’s the strangest thing. Jenny is a good watchdog, but she doesn’t bark at this prowler. When I saw him walking across the front yard, she walked right along with him. I think she would have followed him if he hadn’t told her to go back.”
“Where did you get the dog?”
“From the Smiths, Jonah’s neighbors to the east.”
Dave nodded. “I know the family. Their oldest son, Trey, is a little wild at times, but nothing more than drinking too much and making noise. I’ve never heard of him bothering anyone’s property.”
“Jenny wouldn’t bark at him, but anyone wanting to rob the place or something like that wouldn’t come around more than once.”
Andrew stared at the footprints as if they could reveal their secrets.
“Do you have any other ideas who it might be?”
“At first, I thought it might be a friend of Bethany’s.”
Dave frowned. “What kind of friend would come in the middle of the night?”
“You said you thought there was someone Bethany was fond of, and that’s why she turned down your marriage proposal.”
“That was just a feeling I had. I’ve never seen her with anyone.” Dave looked up at Rose’s window again. “If it had been someone visiting Bethany, then why was he outside Rose’s window?” They started walking back to Dave’s wagon. “Besides, Bethany is married to you now. You know you can trust her to stay true to her promise.”
Andrew nodded. He had come to the same conclusion.
“There’s one possibility you haven’t mentioned. Maybe someone is courting Rose is secret.”
“Rose? Being courted like a teenager?” Andrew laughed. “If there’s one thing I know about Rose, she isn’t going to get married again. She holds her husband up on a pedestal, even though it’s been ten years since he passed on.”
“You don’t think anyone else might turn her head?”
“Maybe if she was younger. But she’s too old for romance now, and too set in her ways.”
Dave paused before he climbed onto the wagon seat. “How are you and Bethany doing, other than dealing with this prowler?”
“Things are going well. In fact, it seems to be going better every week.”
“But?”
Andrew rubbed a bit of dried mud off the front wagon wheel. “I can’t remember what Lily looked like. I used to be able to close my eyes and see her in my memory, but now it’s Bethany’s face that I see. I don’t want to lose my memories.”
“Does Mari look like her?”
“For sure, she does. But Bethany does, too. I hadn’t realized how much Lily looked like Bethany until I came home and saw her again.”
“Then Lily must have been lovely, inside and out.”
Andrew nodded. “She was.”
“Did you ever think that you might have been attracted to Lily because she reminded you of Bethany?”