by Naomi King
Matt watched this little drama unfold while pouring milk over his cobbler. He wasn’t one for listening to girlish notions and wedding plans…but then, he’d certainly had Rosemary Yutzy on his mind all morning while he’d been cleaning up. He had called Titus’s place earlier today, hoping she would answer the phone—but maybe their shanty was too far from the house for her to hear it ring. He’d called a second time, just in case she had been on her way down the lane or out planting in the garden.
Phoebe was blushing, nodding at them all. “Jah, Owen finally popped the question during the supper. We were keepin’ quiet until we decided on a date.”
“Well, congratulations!” Aunt Abby exclaimed. “You two have been looking cozy for quite some time now.”
“You and James looked mighty cozy at supper, too, Aunt Abby,” Gail piped up. “Do tell!”
Abby’s face turned pink as she helped herself to the cobbler. “Puh! James and I were saying how we remembered when most of you young folks were born,” she protested. “And we were grateful that Zanna didn’t pair us up with guests from out of town.”
Matt watched a smile bloom on his mother’s face as the news of Phoebe’s engagement sank in. “So this means you and Owen will be taking your instruction to join the church soon,” she said, nodding at her eldest daughter in approval. “Unless I miss my guess, we might see several young people in Cedar Creek get hitched in the next year or so. That can only make us a stronger community, especially if we can keep our families close.”
Still focused on his dessert, Matt was taking in all this talk…especially his mother’s views on joining the church and staying around town to raise a family. Everyone hereabouts considered it a miracle that Jonny and Gideon Ropp had returned to Cedar Creek after the way they’d left their dat’s dairy farm a few years ago to start other businesses outside the Amish community. It was mostly Zanna’s doing, Jonny had confessed, that he realized he needed to live closer to his parents again and that he should give up his cars, his motorcycle, and his driving business to support his young family in a way that honored the Ordnung.
And what does this mean for you, if Rosemary lives clear over past Queen City?
Matt wasn’t sure why that question had popped into his mind. After all, he’d met Rosemary only yesterday—and he had gotten better acquainted with Titus and Katie than he had with the young widow who clung to memories of her husband.
But maybe it was the way Rosemary had devoted herself to her man and was now taking care of Joe’s father and Beth Ann that appealed to Matt. Sure, he had noticed Rosemary’s pretty skin and he had already imagined how long and soft her glossy brown hair would be when she unpinned it, but he wanted to spend time just talking with her, getting to know her, too. She seemed to be just the right height and size, and more than once yesterday he had wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her. He imagined himself as the man who could coax a smile back to her face.
And when had he ever considered such notions before?
When laughter erupted at the table, Matt blinked and looked around him. His dat and mamm, his two sisters, Aunt Abby, and his grandmother were all looking at him as though they’d said something funny and he’d been so lost in his thoughts of Rosemary that he’d missed it.
“Matt’s mind is miiiles away,” Phoebe teased.
“Jah, about as far from here as it is to Queen City.” Gail giggled over her first bite of cobbler. “Katie was pretty excited about meeting your dogs, Matt.”
“Too bad Rosemary didn’t feel the same way,” Phoebe joined in. “And poor Emma’s probably wondering if you even knew she was sitting beside you, the way you kept gawking out the window.”
Matt’s face went hot. He hadn’t intended to ignore Emma. She’d brought him a lot of brownies lately, as though she liked him a lot, but why should he pretend he had special feelings for her? “I didn’t mean to make her feel bad,” he mumbled, “but it wasn’t my doing that she got paired up with me. Why do I suspect you girls and Ruthie had a hand in making out Zanna’s list of matches?”
“We men don’t stand a chance, outnumbered by women the way we are,” his dat remarked with a shake of his head. “I haven’t seen a wedding supper yet where girls didn’t get their hopes up and their feelings hurt. We all have to learn how to handle disappointment.”
For a few moments everyone ate in silence. Matt had the urge to excuse himself to see to his sheep chores, as he didn’t care much for having his romantic notions discussed by all the women in his family. But if he left now, his sisters would only tease him more.
“Rosemary’s a very nice young woman,” Aunt Abby finally said. “I really enjoyed getting to know her and Beth Ann. It’s not an easy row to hoe, living with Titus after his wife and son have died,” she pointed out. “I suspect Rosemary’s having a tougher time of it than she lets on.”
“And from what I could tell while she was putting Katie down for a nap,” Barbara joined in, “Rosemary needs time to figure out what comes next. She and Joe had bought a piece of land between her mamm’s place and Titus’s, and they were having plans drawn up for their new home when Joe died. She has a lot on her mind right now.”
Rosemary owned a piece of land? Matt considered this as he scraped the last of the sweet raspberry filling from his bowl. What if she planned to go ahead and build that house? Did that mean she intended to live out her life as a widow, raising Katie in Queen City?
It was awfully soon to be wondering about such details, since he’d only exchanged a few words with her yesterday, hardly the basis for making any long-range plans. And her response to him had been anything but encouraging. Maybe he should take the hint and forget about her…
But Matt couldn’t get her pretty face out of his mind. Despite the way she had laughed and played with Katie, he had sensed a deep loneliness in her…a need for the same warmth and caring she was so good at giving to others but didn’t know how to accept for herself.
The sound of dishes being stacked brought him out of his thoughts. “Guess I’d better see to my bottle babies,” he said, referring to twin lambs whose mother had died. “And I need to figure out which wagon to use for hauling those two yearlings over to Titus.”
As Matt stepped into the afternoon sunlight, he smiled at the perfect springtime day. Robins were hopping in the yard, gathering dried grass for nests, while overhead he heard wrens warbling. A thick border of bright red and yellow tulips swayed in the breeze in front of the house, and as he walked toward the sheep barn, his horse, Cecil, nickered at him from the corral. It would soon be time to sharpen the blades on the rotary mower and clip the lawn—just as it was almost time to wean this crop of spring lambs from their mothers.
Even as his flock’s needs were foremost on his mind, Matt glanced at the phone shanty by the road and headed in that direction first. Maybe Titus had left him a message. He had a feeling the fellow from Queen City wouldn’t let much time get by before he prepared a place for his two new rams…and just maybe he would phone the Yutzy place again. It was silly, hoping to hear Rosemary’s voice, yet Matt grinned. He was twenty-two and he’d lived happily at home all his life, but maybe it was time to change that situation.
His heart skittered when he saw the red message light blinking on the phone. He slipped into the small white building and sat in the old wooden chair at the table supplied with a notepad and pens. He reminded himself that customers might have left orders for the Cedar Creek Mercantile, Treva’s Greenhouse, Graber Custom Carriages—or someone might have called any of the Lambrights or the Grabers. Yet in his heart, he hoped…
Matt pushed the Play button. Sure enough, the first two messages were for James Graber from companies in Kansas City and Orlando, inquiring about his prices for special touring carriages. A lady had called from Clearwater to see if his dat had any bulk pectin in the mercantile for making jelly from the grape juice she’d kept in her deep freeze over the winter.
Then a familiar voice came on with a chuckle. �
��This is for Matt Lambright, and this is Titus Yutzy calling from Queen City,” he said as Matt listened eagerly. “I’m gonna ask you to keep those two young rams for now, son—”
Matt’s hopes plummeted. What had made Titus change his mind when he had sounded so excited about the exchange yesterday?
“—on account of how I’m thinking to move to Cedar Creek. With my kids scattered around, it’ll put me closer to my brother, Ezra, you see,” the old farmer continued. “Will you ask around town and find out if any land’s up for sale? The sooner I know about this, the sooner I can make my plans.”
Matt stared at the phone, his thoughts spinning wildly. If Titus moved to Cedar Creek—if, indeed, there was a place for him to move to—would Rosemary come along? Or would she build that house she and Joe had been planning and stay behind?
He replayed the message, hanging on every word, and then he stepped out of the phone shanty. The CLOSED FOR WEDDING sign still hung inside the front door of the mercantile, so Matt went around to the back door. Through the workroom he hurried, fighting a grin as he looked around the store’s huge main room. His father sat at the checkout counter, bent intently over the order he was filling out.
“Dat!” Matt called out as he strode past the shelves lined with bags of bulk flour and yellow cornmeal. “Do you know of any farms for sale hereabouts? Is anything posted on the bulletin board?”
His father looked up, raising his thick eyebrows. “Does this mean you’re looking for a place of your own?” he asked, only half teasing.
“Not anytime soon.” Matt stopped at the counter, careful not to scatter his dat’s inventory lists. He laughed, still in disbelief at what he’d heard over the phone. “Titus just called me, asking about property so he can move back to Cedar Creek. Says he wants to be closer to his brother,” he explained. “Since all the news gets talked about here at the store, I figured you might’ve heard if anybody was looking to sell out.”
His father considered this for a moment. “There was a time last December, while we were rebuilding the Ropp house, when some of us wondered whether Rudy’s family would decide not to move back there because they’d lost their savings in the fire,” he replied. “But right now I don’t know of anybody turning loose of land. Most of it gets passed down rather than going up for sale.”
Matt nodded, thinking. If Titus moved his flock here, they might be able to share some of the chores, like shearing, or lower some of their expenses by buying larger quantities of veterinary supplies or feed supplements. Titus would certainly bring Beth Ann with him, so maybe…maybe Rosemary would come along, too. That possibility inspired Matt to pursue even the remotest chance that somebody might sell off a parcel of land.
As he glanced through the front windows, where he could see the Grabers’ front porch, Matt got an idea. “What with Carl Byler farming a gut bit of the Graber place, now that Merle can’t handle that sort of work, do you suppose Merle might sell some of his property?”
His dat pushed up his rimless reading glasses. “Carl farms a lot of Paul Bontrager’s acreage right next to the Grabers, too,” he replied as he thought about it. “But be careful, son. Talk to James real quiet-like, when Merle and Eunice aren’t around, or you’ll get them all upset. And we wouldn’t want Preacher Paul hearing rumors that somebody wanted to buy him out,” Sam remarked. “We can’t forget that those families depend on the income from the crops Carl raises for them, either.”
Matt nodded, already envisioning what a perfect arrangement it would be if Titus could pasture his flock right across the road. He was fighting a smile, imagining he was already courting Rosemary…
“Another consideration,” his father said, “is that Titus’ll need a house. I can’t see him as the sort to build a new place at his age.”
Matt sighed. “Jah, there’s that. I’ll think about it before I say anything.”
He returned to the sheep lot. As he refilled the wooden creep feeder at the pasture gate with finely ground grain for the new lambs, to get them accustomed to solid food before he weaned them from their mothers, Matt tried to remain objective about Titus’s request…reminding himself that Rosemary might have different ideas altogether from Titus when it came to moving away from her home. Even so, as he gazed across the county blacktop toward the Graber acreage, separated from Preacher Paul’s cornfields by only a wire fence, he could envision sheep grazing there. Such a conversion would mean feeding Titus’s sheep more processed rations—or pasturing them here, with his own flock—until those cropland acres across the road could be plowed and replanted with pasture grasses. It would require some sturdy new livestock fencing, too, which wasn’t cheap.
But it could be done.
His dat was right, though: while Titus would willingly invest in the changes required to keep his sheep, building a house was a far-fetched proposition for a fellow of that age who didn’t have a wife. Even with a daughter to raise and Rosemary looking after him, Titus wasn’t the sort to spend any more than he had to on a place to live…Matt had heard of displaced Amish families living in trailers or manufactured homes, but that idea went against the grain here in Cedar Creek. His dat and other folks had donated lumber and supplies, and local carpenters had built Rudy and Adah Ropp’s new house in less than a month—in freezing December weather—because they believed in helping each other live in real homes, which fostered permanent roots.
Matt filled the bucket feeder, equipped with two big nipples, and watched his orphaned twin lambs suck their milk. He rubbed his dogs’ ears, smiling at them. “All this thinking isn’t doing one bit of gut—for me, or for Titus, either,” he murmured as Pearl and Panda leaned into the strokes he was giving them. “You pups take care of the flock while I go across the road. I won’t have any answers unless I ask some questions, will I?”
As soon as he’d finished his chores, Matt headed for the Graber Custom Carriage shop, which sat closer to the road than the rambling white house where James, his sister Emma, and their parents lived. It was a relief to see that Emma wasn’t out working in the garden. He wasn’t eager to talk to her while he was on this mission for Titus. He entered the shop’s front door and then paused to look around.
The large, open work area was filled with a couple of farm wagons and an enclosed carriage in various stages of completion, while along the walls shelves and workbenches held the tools of James’s carriage-making trade. Noah Coblentz, who was now an apprentice here, waved at him from the bed of the wagon he was painting, while Perry Bontrager, the preacher’s son, stood at the rear of the other wagon, welding a wheel. The whine of a pneumatic saw filled the big room until Leon Mast spotted Matt and shut it off.
“Hey there, Matt,” he said with a grin that split his thick, dark beard. “Let me guess—you’ve come to order a courting buggy. After the way you were watching that gal from over Queen City way—”
“Nope, you guessed wrong, Leon.” Matt hoped the sudden heat in his face wouldn’t give away his embarrassment. Had every guest at Zanna’s wedding noticed the shine he’d taken to Rosemary? “I was hoping to have a word with James.”
“Other room,” Noah replied, pointing with his paintbrush. “He’s finishing another of those fancy-dancy carriages like a princess would ride in for a parade.”
“Jah. Denki.” Matt walked carefully around Perry’s sparks and smoke. He knocked playfully on the welder’s helmet and then made his way past the new carriage’s fiberglass body.
He hadn’t given it much thought, but Leon was on target with his remark about a courting buggy: most young Amish fellows looked forward to the day when they received a fine new rig, usually when they had a special young lady in mind to drive home from singings or for long rides on warm summer nights. Up to this point, Matt had been content to drive the buggy his dat had bought a few years back. If he ordered a courting buggy now, maybe—if he offered a bonus—James would complete it in time to escort Rosemary around Cedar Creek and the surrounding Missouri countryside this summer. And if s
he refused to see him, well…he would have a nice vehicle ready for when the right woman came along.
Matt stepped into the back room, which was almost as large as the one he’d come from, to see James stretching a piece of deep red leather over a curved seat section. Lately the carriage maker had received several orders for specialty vehicles from places all over the map—tourist attractions and theme parks, mostly—and James insisted on doing the intricate finishing work on these buggies himself while his employees built the wagons and carriages Plain folks had ordered. Matt stood quietly, watching, until James straightened to his full height.
“Gut afternoon to ya, James. I’ve got to say that’s the most colorful carriage I’ve ever seen,” Matt said with a chuckle.
“Jah, ‘colorful’ is a gut word for the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the way I understand it.” James brushed his hair back from his damp face. “But you haven’t seen the half of it. Along with this devil-red leather upholstery and the ebony trim, there’ll be a giant mask on the front and another on the back, all covered with faceted light bulbs in purple, green, and gold. They flash in patterns while another electrical current follows the lights around the outline of the mask. Chaser lights, they call them.”
Matt’s eyes widened. “And you know how to do all that electrical work?”
James chuckled and stepped down to the floor. “I tell the folks who order these carriages that I can produce whatever they want—and then I get a lot of on-the-job training,” he replied. “For what they pay me, it’s fun to tinker on new systems and make a rig look and handle better than they expect. The only thing I won’t build them is a horse to pull it.”
“So this one’s almost finished?” Matt walked around the gleaming vehicle, admiring the fine craftsmanship. A globe-shaped network of wiring formed a nearly invisible canopy that arched above the two passenger seats, which faced each other behind the open carriage’s driver’s seat.
“They tell me a Mardi Gras mask wouldn’t be complete without feathers, and they sent some big ones for me to use. I have to figure out how to attach them, though, along with some fake jewels.” James looked delighted with this project even if no Amish fellow would be seen driving it. “I’ll ask Abby to help with the trimming, as she’s handier with that than I am. She’s agreed to go for a test ride, too. Won’t that be something, rolling through Cedar Creek with all those flashing lights?”