Summer baseball after suppertime was an ongoing tradition for Nathaniel and the children. Young ones not yet in school and older children who managed to finish their chores gathered after the evening meal to play. For early June, the weather had finally turned warm enough to allow them to play outside without their lips turning blue.
Baseball was Nathaniel’s favorite game, and some of the children were really getting good at it. His heart felt so light, he thought he might break into song right there on the field. But, no, he’d leave the singing to the only person he cared to hear, the delightful girl who had a greater claim on him than ever before. He thought his heart would burst out of his chest at the mere thought of Kate, the way it pounded until it ached with the pain and longing of not being with her. Was it too early to see Dat to bed?
He handed the ball to freckle-faced Johnny Herschberger. “I’ve got to go now. Thanks for letting me play.”
“Did your mamm call you?” a boy named Thomas said.
“No, but look,” Nathaniel said, pointing to the back of his house in the distance. “She’s lit the lantern in the window. That means it’s time for me to go home.”
“But you are old,” Thomas said. “Do you still have to obey your mamm?”
“Always honor your fater and your mutter, Thomas. Then you will live long on the earth.”
Amos ran to Nathaniel from first base. “Hit one far!” he yelled.
“I must go now.”
“Just one more?” Thomas said.
“Just one more! Just one more!” the children chanted as they gathered around Nathaniel and looked up expectantly.
Nathaniel gave in. “Who will pitch to me?”
“I will,” Reddy volunteered.
“All right.” Nathaniel sent three bigger boys out over the pasture fence and scooted the rest of the children behind him. He directed Reddy Samuel to pitch from farther back. “I don’t want to hurt anybody,” he said.
Samuel’s first pitch came right down the middle of the plate, and Nathaniel put all his power into the swing. The ball careened off the bat with tremendous force, whizzed past the boys waiting to catch it in deep outfield, and flew over two fences before coming to rest just feet away from the Millers’ back gate.
The children whooped and hollered and acted like the colossal hit was the most exciting thing that had happened to them in their entire lives.
“Did you see how far that went?” Amos yelled.
“That’s the best one he ever did,” Mary said.
The boys charged with fetching the baseball raced each other to retrieve it and then dashed back to the ball field, raising the ball like a trophy.
Nathaniel handed the bat to Thomas before saying, “I’ll come tomorrow night if I can” and jogging home.
Smiling to himself, Nathaniel tapped his boots on the back step to clear away the dirt and went inside the house. After the refreshing evening air, the heat in the kitchen was stifling.
“Ach, Nathaniel, you stink to high heaven,” said his mother when she got close.
“It’s fresh air mixed with hard-earned sweat,” he said sweetly as he chased Mamm around the room trying to catch her for a hug.
Mamm moved away from him and protested loudly. “You smell like Dat used to when he came in from the fields at night, especially in the spring. I wouldn’t let him near me until he sponged off his whole body.”
“I better go clean up, then,” Nathaniel said cheerfully, “or I’ll never get a wife.”
“Maybe would you put Dat to bed first?”
“Jah, Dat first, bath second, finding a wife third,” he said.
Someone knocked on the back door. “Speaking of finding a wife,” Mamm said, smiling at a private joke.
Nathaniel opened the door to Ada Weaver and Sarah Schwartz. They both smiled coyly and batted their eyes in unison.
“Sarah, Ada, come in, come in,” Mamm said, trying to act surprised but not fooling Nathaniel. “What brings you here so late?”
Ada pushed Sarah in front of her. “This is the first time I could get away from those bothersome children. Ach, to have the life of any other woman, without five boys to vex me all day long.” She marched into the house and put a basket on the table. “My very bones are tired.” She arched her back and massaged her shoulders for a few moments. “Albert jumped off the wagon and bumped his head; then Giddy broke two jars of apricots all over my clean kitchen floor and Lee cut his foot on the glass. That’s my life, one mess right after the other.”
“Oh, poor Lee,” Mamm said.
“I’m glad to have such a thoughtful sister as Sarah. She is always a great help to me,” Ada said.
Sarah gave Nathaniel a demure smile. He thought she was very pretty. Not as lovely as Kate, of course, but better looking than most of the girls her age. But if she turned out to be anything like her sister in temperament, Nathaniel couldn’t muster even the slightest interest in her despite his mamm’s scheming. He hated to disappoint her, but Mamm’s plots and ploys to involve him with other girls were pointless. Nothing could possibly take his attention from Kate.
Ada pulled a piece of fabric out of the basket. “I’ve come for some help with this quilt binding. It’s so adorable when it’s cut on the bias, and I don’t quite understand how to do that.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Mamm said. “I’ll draw out the cuts on some paper.” Mamm went to the drawer and pulled out paper along with the scissors and tape. “Nathaniel, why don’t you show Sarah the cradle you are building for Mary’s baby while I do this?”
“Let me show her another time, Mamm. I’ve got to get Dat down to bed yet.”
“That can wait a few minutes.”
Nathaniel didn’t want to hurt Sarah’s feelings since he knew why she had come, but he did want to nip everybody’s hopes in the bud. “Another time, Mamm. I want to get to Kate’s before it’s too late.”
Nathaniel caught the crestfallen look on his mother’s face and saw Ada’s irritation. But Sarah had turned her face away, so her expression, if there was one, was hidden.
“Very well,” Mamm said in surrender, but Nathaniel could see her quickly formulating another plan.
Without waiting to discover what the plan was, Nathaniel tromped into the bedroom to take care of Dat.
* * * * *
Dat sat in his room in the wheelchair, gazing out the window. Mamm had bathed him earlier, and his hair was still damp.
“You see our game?” Nathaniel said, pushing his dat to the side of the bed.
His dat replied with a barely audible grunt.
“Jah, you taught me everything I know.”
Nathaniel knelt down and removed Dat’s slippers, replacing them with a fleecy pair of socks. Dat seemed unusually agitated, nodding his head back and forth and letting out the drawn-out moan he used when things were out of sorts. Nathaniel sat on the bed and stroked his dat’s hand and hummed a familiar tune. He only sang for his dat.
The effect was almost immediate. Dat calmed down and glued his eyes to Nathaniel’s face.
“You should hear Kate sing,” Nathaniel said. “You would feel like you had bathed in the waters of Bethesda. Kate has the most beautiful voice. She says the Met people are interested in hearing her sing. The Met is an opera company in New York. Kate says they are very important. I am so proud of her.” He tried to ignore the yawning pit in his stomach.
The subtle change in Dat’s expression did not escape Nathaniel’s notice. “Okay, I am not especially excited that the Met people want to hear Kate sing,” Nathaniel said wryly, “but I am attempting to be supportive of Kate’s choices.”
The nagging doubt knocked his confidence down a notch as he pulled back the covers and lifted Dat into bed. “Is the pillow gute?”
Nathaniel moved the wheelchair to the wall and pulled up a chair. “There is a girl in the kitchen Mamm wants me to marry.”
Dat moved his eyes upward.
“Jah, she means well, but I love Kate. Mamm will not ac
cept that.” Nathaniel took his father’s hand. “I want you to meet Kate, but I am afraid to bring her home. She senses the hostility from Mamm. I wish Mamm would try to understand.”
Dat slowly nodded, and Nathaniel could almost hear his voice. “As the Lord wills,” Dat would have said.
Nathaniel smiled sadly as he watched Dat settle onto his pillow. With his slowly wasting body, he seemed to disappear beneath the covers. “As the Lord wills,” Nathaniel said as he picked up the Bible from the table next to the bed and began reading quietly.
“‘I am the resurrection, and the life. He who believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’”
While he read, he stroked Dat’s head until the older man fell asleep.
When Dat’s breathing became steady and relaxed, Nathaniel stood up, placed the Bible back on the table, and gave his father a light kiss on the forehead.
* * * * *
After cleaning up, Nathaniel went into the kitchen to tell Mamm goodbye before heading to Kate’s. He hoped he had taken long enough that Sarah and Ada had given up waiting and gone home.
No such luck.
They sat at the table with Mamm, intently studying the paper she folded and unfolded in her hand.
Mamm jumped up and quickly poured four cups of coffee. “Sit, sit, and have some coffee before you go,” she said. “Running after girls can wait a few minutes. I feel I don’t see you ever.”
Nathaniel tried to act agreeable to his mother’s request. He loved Mamm dearly, but the extra time spent with Dat and the fact that he hadn’t seen Kate for three days had heightened his anticipation of seeing her until the yearning hung about him like the smell of a potent herbal tea. His need to be close to Kate threatened to overwhelm every other part of his life. He had no desire to spend one more minute humoring Mamm in her yearning to marry him off to Sarah Schwartz, the bishop’s daughter. But there was more involved than his wishes.
Suppressing his irritation, Nathaniel pulled up a chair next to Mamm and as far away from Sarah as possible. Though he wouldn’t have stayed merely to satisfy Mamm in regards to Sarah, his instincts told him that Mamm could sense that she was no longer the most important person in his life—that in a way, she was losing him, probably had already lost him, and she needed the reassurance of his love more than ever.
Mamm handed him a large slab of white bread with a jar of jelly and a knife. He didn’t protest, just spread a healthy dollop of jelly onto the bread and started eating. Like Dat, Mamm seemed restless. Nathaniel would make her unhappy if he appeared to be in a hurry.
“The bread is wonderful-gute,” he said between mouthfuls.
“Sarah made it,” Mamm said.
“It is very, very gute, Sarah.”
Ada studied Nathaniel’s face while Sarah smiled but avoided his eyes. “She made it for you,” Ada said.
“For me?”
“I…feel bad about the trouble in La Crosse,” Sarah said.
“Jah,” Ada added. “Most people are feeling sorry for Kate, but it can’t be all pies and cakes for you, either.”
“You are very kind, Sarah, to make the bread, but it does not matter about me,” Nathaniel said, placing his half-eaten slice on the table.
“Of course it matters!” Ada insisted. “Kate dragged you into her troubles. We all saw how you suffered. Rumschpringe or no rumschpringe, had Aaron been Kate’s father, he would have given her the strap the day she started all this nonsense with that voice teacher. He would never have allowed the GED books or the graduation test. Nothing. Aaron has said many times that Solomon coddles her, gives in to her. He makes it too easy for her to break with our ways.”
Nathaniel placed his cup on the table and slowly wiped his hands on the napkin. “I will give thanks to the Lord tonight that I did not have such a father as Aaron,” he said quietly. “Cruelty should never be a substitute for good parenting.”
Ada widened her eyes, and she couldn’t have looked more horrified if he had slapped her.
Mamm thumped her fabric on the table. “Nathaniel, there is no need to be so sharp. Ada is only expressing an opinion.”
Nathaniel folded his arms and frowned at Ada. “I apologize. I do not mean to be rude.”
Sarah tried to pretend there was nothing out of the ordinary. “I think we know how to do the binding now, don’t you, Ada?”
Ada nodded curtly and quickly gathered fabric and paper into her basket.
Mamm’s eyes darted from Nathaniel to Ada. “You will come back if you have any questions?”
“Jah,” Sarah said. “I think we can manage.”
The sisters finished collecting things from the table, said their good-byes, and hurriedly slipped out the back door.
A disheartened sigh escaped from Mamm’s lips. “You didn’t have to ruin a pleasant conversation.”
“Pleasant for whom?”
“Ada goes rattling her tongue too much, but she doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“Is that what you call it, rattling her tongue? I will not sit by and let her say such things. God does not rule by force, but with persuasion and love. Regardless of what they think of Kate, Aaron and Ada have a warped perception of God’s dealings with His children.”
“She was referring very specifically to Kate, and you took offense for the whole world.”
“I took offense for Kate since you will not.”
“Why should I?”
“Mamm, how can I make you understand what a gute and worthy girl Kate is?”
“Worthy? Because of her and what happened in La Crosse, you walked around this house so sad I feared you wouldn’t recover.”
“I recovered, Mamm. You did not need to worry.”
“It need never have happened. Life flowed so much more smoothly before she came back.”
“It breaks my heart to hear you talk that way, Mamm. It is true that I sank very low. But that cannot be Kate’s doing. Only my own.” Nathaniel fixed his gaze on his mother. “I am glad for what happened. The despair prepared my heart for the lesson God wanted to teach me. How could I understand my weaknesses if my strength had not been tested? How would I have known what I needed to learn?”
Mamm shook her head. “You are so very wise, my son. Like your father. You see so much gute in people that I cannot.”
“I see the gute in Kate that you will not.”
“I will not apologize for how I feel. The more time you spend with her, the more I worry that this will end badly for you. She has given you no promise, no sign that she will be here in September. You offer her everything and expect nothing in return and spend hours in your shop crafting that rocker she may never use. The time has come for her to make a choice. If she loves you, she should get off the fence and quit playing a game with your life.”
Nathaniel exhaled slowly. In his less charitable moments, such thoughts had crossed his mind. He had to admit that what was happening between Kate and him did sometimes seem like a futile chase. Did he appear like a stray cat, following after Kate for any morsel of food she might throw him? And did he care if that’s how everyone saw him, when being with Kate left him so deliriously happy? Was he a fool to stay on such a roller-coaster ride?
He cleared his throat and tried to sound matter-of-fact. “You can’t talk me out of loving her.”
Mamm lifted her chin slightly as she stood and cleared the cups from the table. “You love her?” she said, not looking at him.
“Jah.”
Mamm was quiet. All that could be heard was the tinkling of the cups in the sink as she washed them. “Then may the good Lord bless you.”
* * * * *
The fine sandpaper glided along the arm of the rocker like ice skates on a glassy lake. Kate would never get even the tiniest sliver from the rocker Nathaniel was making. Once he finished the first armrest, Nathaniel started sanding the other one, painstakingly shaping the piece of wood with finer and finer grains of sandpaper. After running his hand back and forth across the surface, he smooth
ed it and smoothed it again, caressing the beautiful wood until it almost shone.
Though always a detailed craftsman, Nathaniel had never spent more time or care on a piece of furniture before. He would see to it that every joint fit perfectly, every piece lined up flawlessly, and every surface felt as silky as Kate’s soft cheek against his calloused hands.
The meticulous work kept his mind off his doubts and his worst fears. What if Kate would never use his rocker?
What if she rejected his gift?
Chapter Sixteen
“We’d sure have a lot more peace and quiet around here if you’d stop that whistling,” Luke Miller said, holding his drill aloft like a torch. Luke, bishop of one of the districts in Apple Lake, was a short man with bushy eyebrows and a thick beard that made up for the disappearing hair on top.
The ten men in Nathaniel’s workshop were busily putting together an order for a customer in La Crosse. A cacophony of tools powered by the drive shaft echoed off the high aluminum ceiling along with Nathaniel’s whistling.
“Ach, was I doing it again? Sorry,” Nathaniel said.
“It would be bearable if you could carry a tune.”
The men within earshot laughed at Luke’s grumbling.
Nathaniel chuckled and shuffled through the invoices that constituted this month’s orders. “The windows are open and the diesel engine drowns out my music. Why are you complaining?”
“You’re so blamed cheerful all the time. Makes a man want to tear his hair out,” Luke said.
“If you had any.” Zeke Kauffman, Nathaniel’s oldest employee, laughed and clapped Luke on the shoulder.
“You’re a grump, Luke,” said Calvin. “Nathaniel’s trying to balance out your sour disposition.”
“His whistling makes me sourer.”
“Have some patience with the poor kid, Luke,” Zeke said. “She’s a mighty pretty girl.”
“Then why doesn’t he marry her and give us all some peace?”
“I am working on it,” Nathaniel said.
“If you ask me,” Luke said, “she is the one working on you.”
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