by Adina Senft
Her mother snorted. “News. That’s one way of putting it, when your bishop’s wife stops in to tell you that a single man has been seen calling on her married daughter not once, but twice in the same week. That was news, let me tell you.”
A giggle burst out of Carrie’s mouth before she could stop it. “Is that all? Mamm, Melvin hired Joshua Steiner to help around the place while he’s away. Everything is fine.”
“Is it?” It was less a question than a statement.
“He’s been out in the orchard picking apples. I’m using the drying racks Daed made you. We’ve done nearly a hundred pounds already.”
“I don’t like you using the word ‘we’ about someone who isn’t Melvin, Liewi.”
“All right, then. The hired man and I did nearly a hundred pounds.”
“Does he have to help while Melvin’s gone?”
“It wouldn’t make much sense to have his help while Melvin is there to do it.” She sounded as puzzled as she felt. “What’s wrong, Mamm?”
Miriam kicked a stone, then headed down the slope toward the thick stand of trees as though it were a refuge. Carrie had to pick up her pace to keep up with her. “It’s just that…I suppose I don’t much like having to explain my daughter’s business to Mary Lapp, especially when I don’t know anything about it.”
Gossip is a plague. “I’m sure she thought she was doing the right thing, looking out for me. She is Melvin’s aunt, after all.”
“Aunt or not, if it had been any man but Joshua Steiner, she would have driven on by and never thought to mention it.”
That was true, and there was no saying it wasn’t. “Joshua is interested in someone else, Mamm.” Otherwise, why would he have brought up Lydia Zook’s name? She was awfully young, but stranger matches had been made. “In any case, he’s changed.”
“Not according to the rest of the Steiners.”
“They shouldn’t be holding grudges.”
“I agree with you. But maybe it’s less a grudge than a kind of watchful caution.”
“So is that what you’re asking me out for a walk for? To urge me to watchful caution?”
“I don’t know.” Miriam leaned on an elm and crossed her arms. “I suppose I just wanted to find out what was going on. I know full well no man in the world can compete with Melvin in your eyes.”
Carrie wrapped her in a hug, crossed arms and all, then released her. “You’re right. My man hired Joshua to help me, and that’s all there is to it. Anyone who thinks anything else is going on needs to do a bit of praying, that’s all.”
“I don’t know if Mary actually thinks that. She was more concerned about how it looked.”
“It looks as innocent as it is, Mamm, and you can tell her so the next time she drives by.”
“You might need to tell her yourself. I don’t think she and Daniel have left yet.”
“I’d rather behave as though the thought would never occur to me. It should never have occurred to her, either.”
“Don’t go getting offended, Docher.”
“I’m not.” And she wasn’t. There was nothing for gossip to get its teeth into. “Mamm, look. The penny plants have dried. Help me pick some for the wreath I’m making for Susan’s birthday.”
They spent a peaceful few minutes gathering up the stalks of flat, dry seedpods that shivered on their stems like coins.
But Miriam wasn’t finished yet. As they walked back to the home place over the hill, she said, as though their conversation had not been interrupted, “It’s good he’s doing the outside work, then. That’s where he belongs.”
Not inside with you, Carrie heard as clearly as though she’d said it.
If she said once more that Miriam didn’t have to worry, she would sound like she was protesting too much. So Carrie said nothing.
Actions spoke louder than words. Everyone knew that.
* * *
Dear Melvin and Carrie,
I just finished baking ten pumpkin pies for Simon to take to the girls’ stall at the farmers’ market. Who would have thought I’d still be getting up at three to do the baking? Lucky thing it’s only once a month, and they always sell out of my pies, even at ten dollars apiece. Imagine paying that much for something you could do so easily yourself!
I hope you two are well. Everyone is fine down here. Simon says you’ll be coming for a visit, Melvin. That will be nice, though I’m not so sure being apart from your wife is a good idea. I’m not going to get grandchildren that way unless you plan to do it by mail.
Time to get busy with the washing.
Love from your
Mamm Miller
At one thirty on Tuesday, Carrie put the finishing touches on a whimsical cake she’d made for the quilting frolic. She’d rolled out royal frosting so that the surface was smooth, and then cut out shapes of birds and leaves for the top. A few brushes of food coloring and beet juice, and she had a funny little picture of a bird family in the red leaves of a maple tree—a father bird, a mother, two little birds, and a baby. She hoped Emma would like it, even if birds didn’t hatch babies in the fall.
She deserved a little whimsy. It would take the sting out of the letter from Melvin’s mother, who never failed to bring up the subject of children. She could be writing about a train trip to Timbuktu and would still manage to work it in somewhere.
The crunch of wheels on the gravel in the lane told her one of them was here much earlier than usual. Maybe she had news and couldn’t wait to share it. Carrie dashed out onto the porch and pulled up as though someone had yanked hard on her reins.
Joshua climbed down from his buggy and raised his eyebrows in surprise when he saw her. “Going somewhere?”
“Nei, I thought you were someone else. Amelia and Emma and I meet every Tuesday afternoon for quilting. Today we’re meeting here.”
“What about the apples?”
She sucked in a long breath. How vergesslich she was! She’d told him to come Tuesday and then promptly forgotten all about it, what with Melvin away, the letter, and the anticipation of being with her friends again. Since her household was the quietest, they would use the big frame she had set up in the spare room, and every frolic would be here until they finished the stitching. She couldn’t miss stretching out their quilt on the frame and taking those first few stitches this afternoon for the sake of a few dried apples.
“You can still pick the apples,” she said. “The two Spartans are next—they’re loaded. I can start peeling and slicing when the girls leave. Amelia has to be home at four when her boys come in from school.”
“Oh, I see,” he said in a tone that many would have mistaken for jovial. “I’ll be working while you’re inside having fun with your friends?”
The fourth of five children, Carrie had always been sensitive to tones of voice that might tell her what actions or words would not. “My husband did hire you to work,” she said finally, hoping she didn’t sound too ungracious.
“I know that.” His tone told her he didn’t much appreciate having the obvious pointed out to him. “I was looking forward to seeing you. You’re like the gravy that helps both the liver and the onions go down.”
“Thanks a lot,” she said before she thought. “Which is this job, the liver or the onions?”
“Definitely the onions. The liver keeps body and soul together, over there at Hill’s. I’m doing this because a man asked me for help and I had it in my power to give it to him.”
Carrie could recognize the guilt treatment when she saw it. Aleta Miller only had an eighth-grade education like the rest of them, but she had a college degree in guilt.
“And we appreciate it,” she said. “If you’d rather not pick apples, the paint for the sheds is in the barn. The brushes, too, and some drop cloths.”
“Denki.” Then he grinned, as though it was all water off a duck’s back. “I’ll manage with no company and nothing to eat.”
If she went in to fix him something, the girls would be here before she was fin
ished—and he might cut into the cake before Emma could see her happy little message. “You haven’t eaten anything I’ve offered you so far. I didn’t think of it.”
“That seems to be my fate with women,” he said, dropping his smile and his gaze to fiddle with his horse’s reins as though he didn’t know whether to tie up or not.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Joshua. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. If you want something to eat, I have bread and jam and…and apples. Just don’t touch the cake. That’s for Emma.”
“And what is Emma doing for you that she deserves a cake?”
“It’s not what she can do for me, it’s what I can do for her.”
“A gut Amish woman, doing for her friends.” The needle of sarcasm was back under the smile. “I told Mamm you’d invited me last time, that you expected me to eat here.”
Could anyone be more aggravating? “I don’t have a company dinner planned. You’ll have to take—” She stopped.
It’s good he’s doing the outside work. That’s where he belongs.
“Take what?”
She was the one at fault here. She’d asked him to come and then forgotten about it. The least she could do was feed him for an afternoon’s work. “Take potluck. I can make a sausage-and-green-bean casserole. And we’ll have the rest of the cake. I won’t send it home with Emma if you’re staying.”
“I’ll look forward to that. I’ll just put my animal in the barn, then, and get started on those sheds. We’ll do apples tomorrow.”
He unhitched his horse and led it into the barn while Carrie went inside, her pleasure in her cake a little flattened now. It didn’t matter what it looked like with him here. Everything was open and honest, and every woman in the settlement had cooked for a cleaning frolic or a work party at some time or another. This was no different.
Emma and Amelia came together in the latter’s buggy, looking curiously at the extra buggy in the yard with its empty rails propped on the ground in front of it. Carrie said, “That’s Joshua Steiner’s. He’s painting the sheds today.”
As though he’d been waiting to be introduced, he came out of the barn with a can of paint, and waved a brush at them before rounding the corner. The two women followed Carrie into the house, the quilt rolled up like a carpet between them.
“Just leave it rolled up until you get your shawls off,” Carrie suggested. “I have a surprise for you in the kitchen.”
“Oh, look at this!” Emma clasped her hands to her chest in delight when she saw the cake, bending over it to take in every detail. “Did you do all this yourself?”
Carrie practically hugged herself. The light in Emma’s face was worth an early start this morning on all that icing. “Yes. It’s a family of weaverbirds, you see?”
Amelia laughed, her eyes sparkling as she leaned over the cake. “Only you would think of something like this. Surely you don’t mean for us to eat it, do you?”
“I sure hope you will. Most of it, anyway. I told Joshua he could have some for dessert tonight.”
“Carrie,” Emma said suddenly, “I want to ask you something.”
Oh dear. She shouldn’t have brought Joshua’s name into the conversation. Maybe Emma had been talking to Mary Lapp, too. “What?”
“Don’t look so dismayed. Though you might after I—what I mean to say is, will you make my wedding cake? I want one just like this, with the birds and the babies and leaves and everything. Grant will love it.”
“You make far nicer cakes than the bakery in town, Liewi,” Amelia said. “The one you made for my wedding was so pretty I wished I hadn’t wasted the money on a store-bought one.”
“I’ll buy you all the ingredients,” Emma went on. “All you’d have to do is make it.”
“Never mind,” Carrie said, touched to the core. “It will be my wedding gift to you. I’ll make the one for the Eck, and then plain sheet cakes for cutting in the kitchen.”
“I’ll help you,” Amelia said. “You’ll be baking for days otherwise.”
“We’ll all be baking for days,” Emma said. “I’m trying to keep it small, but with inviting the whole Gmee and our family, two hundred seems like just a starting point.”
“Getting nervous?” Amelia nudged her.
Emma bumped her back. “Not about getting married, not after waiting all this time. Just about planning the whole thing, and making sure it all gets done in time.”
Amelia slid an arm around her shoulders. “That’s what we’re here for. There’s no substitute for experience, and of course, you’ve got Karen.”
“Thank goodness,” Emma said seriously over Carrie’s giggle. “I mean it. She’s taking this on like Jonas Yoder takes on building a barn—everyone has their jobs to do, when to do them by, and what they’ll need to do them with. I’ve just dropped the reins and given her her head, because I’ll exhaust myself if I don’t.”
“Grant wouldn’t want that,” Carrie said slyly.
Now it was Emma’s turn to poke her. “None of that, you. I’m beginning to think I’ve been wrong all this time to overlook her gift for organization. The next time I get impatient with her, I’ll just remember her lists of what she’s going to need in the kitchen to feed my crowd, and button my lips.”
“Come on. Let’s get our quilt on its frame.” They trooped upstairs and, with the ends of the quilt secured, rolled them into the frame until the center section was the only part exposed as a work surface.
“Should we do the flower medallions first?” Amelia asked, tactfully giving Emma the choice of the first stitches.
“I think so,” Emma said. “If we do that, it will anchor the layers together evenly. Then we can stitch the diamonds in the plain squares, and leave the feathers on the borders for last, in case things shift around a little.”
“I’ll take this rose, then.” Carrie seated herself on one side, Emma the other, and Amelia took the middle, where the markings indicated a day lily would soon bloom.
Amelia threaded her needle with the accuracy of long experience, and began to load stitches on it. “What was that you said about Joshua having some of Emma’s cake, Carrie?”
She might have known that wouldn’t pass unnoticed. “He told his mother he’d be eating here today. I’ve invited him to stay before, but he didn’t want to worry her.”
“Just the two of you?” Emma’s tone was conversational as she stitched the long side of a daisy petal.
“Ja. And before you say anything, save your breath. Mamm has already said it.”
“I wasn’t going to say a word.” Emma kept her eyes on her work. “Especially if Miriam has already seeded that ground.”
“I don’t know what everyone is getting so worked up about,” Carrie said, her own frustration bubbling to the surface. “Melvin hired the man to do chores while he was gone. That’s it. From the way Mamm talked to me, you’d think I was in some kind of danger from him. But I’m not. I think he’s got eyes for someone else.”
“We all know you’re not,” Amelia said, her voice as soothing as lotion on a sunburn. “But you know how people are. The appearance of evil can be as damaging as the evil itself.”
“There is no evil. Or appearance. Or anything. There’s just dried apples and paint!”
“Did you have a lot of apples this year?” Emma nudged the topic in a different direction, and Carrie grasped the opportunity to get her emotions under control.
“Yes, the trees were loaded. It will be all I can do to finish picking before the first frost. And now the beets are ready to be pulled up, and I have to start on pickles soon.”
“If you like, I’ll stay tonight and give you a hand,” Emma said. “I can catch a ride home with Joshua afterward. We haven’t really talked much since the summer. It will be gut to catch up.”
Carrie wasn’t stupid—as the old folks might say, she could see through a grindstone when there was a hole in it. It was completely unnecessary for her friend to give up an evening playing Scrabble with Grant and his girls in or
der to stay and play chaperone for two people who hardly knew each other outside of Sundays.
On the other hand, there were all those apples and she only had one pair of hands. The thought of them made her happy, because she would have fruit through the winter.
“That would be wonderful gut,” she told Emma. “I would love the help, and as you say, Joshua goes right past your place on his way home.”
“Perfect. That’s settled, then.”
“I’ll drop in on Lena and let her know you’re staying for supper,” Amelia said.
It was unnecessary. Silly, even. But at the same time, Carrie couldn’t help but remember her Bible. A true friend sticketh closer than a brother.
Or a sister, as the case may be.
Chapter 6
Joshua looked a little taken aback when he came into the kitchen, shaking off his hands after washing them at the vegetable sink outside. “Emma,” he greeted her. “Waiting for Grant to pick you up?”
“Nei.” She turned from the counter, where she was slicing bread for supper. “Carrie needs a hand with those apples out on the porch, so I thought I’d stay and help this evening.”
“Is that so? Won’t Lena miss you?”
“When I’m out, Karen sends Maryann or Nathaniel to bring her to the big house for dinner. We eat over there a couple of times a week anyway. It’s nothing unusual.”
“What a gut friend you are.” He settled himself at the table, being careful not to take Melvin’s chair. Emma said nothing to this superfluous compliment, while the bread fell to the board in even slices.
“How are the sheds coming?” Carrie asked, setting two dishes of pickles on the table—dilly beans and tiny pearl onions.
“The equipment shed is scraped and ready for the first coat. The chicken house will have to wait, and I’ll alternate between apples and painting.”
“Melvin will appreciate your help on the barn.” Emma brought the bread to the table, and added the butter dish and a jar of plum jelly. “You might put out the word and make a work frolic of it.”