by Jan Drexler
As he reached the table filled with sandwiches, John Stoltzfus thrust a plate toward him. “Glad to see you here tonight, Guy.”
Guy nodded at the older man, the father of Benjamin and Reuben. John had always welcomed him whenever he was in the Amish community.
“Denki.” Guy switched to English. “Thank you for hosting the Singing.”
“Of course.” John spoke in English, too. “You know that whoever hosts the morning church services also hosts the Youth Singing in the evening.”
“All the same, thanks.” Guy took a thick sandwich spread with ground ham and then one with egg salad.
“Don’t miss the pie,” John said. “Elizabeth makes the best pumpkin pies.”
“I know.” Guy slid a piece of pie onto his plate, then moved around the table to stand next to John, out of the way. John’s wife, Elizabeth, was the best cook he knew of, other than Verna. “I’ll probably have seconds if there are any pieces left.”
John grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll keep one back for you, if you’d like. Although you look like the Masts’ table has been agreeing with you.”
Guy nodded as he took a bite of the ham sandwich. He had worked for David Mast every summer since he was nine, and those summers had filled his winter dreams with memories of Verna’s delicious cooking. When he turned eighteen last year and could no longer live at the Orphan’s Home, David had offered him a regular job, including room and board. He had jumped at the offer.
“Verna’s cooking is a sight better than—” Guy stopped. He didn’t need to remind John or the others in the kitchen of where he had lived most of his life. “Her cooking is delicious.”
The short refreshment break was nearly over, and while Guy finished his first piece of pie, the kitchen emptied as the others drifted back into the front room. John cut a second helping of pie for him, and Guy couldn’t refuse.
“How are things going? David speaks highly of your help on the farm.”
Guy raised his eyebrows as he swallowed a bite of pie. “You wouldn’t know it to hear him some days. It seems I can’t do anything right.”
Especially yesterday. He had driven the wagon too close to the corner of the shed and had spent the rest of the afternoon whitewashing the scraped siding.
John grinned. “I’m sure my boys think that about me, sometimes.” He shrugged. “But how else will you learn to be a good farmer?”
Guy stared at the plate in his hand. Is that what David was doing? Teaching him to be a farmer?
“I’m not sure that’s what I want.”
John scraped the last crumbs of his pie into a pile with the back of his fork. “Don’t be too quick to decide. Ask for God’s direction.”
Guy nodded. “Sure.” Ask God. That’s what Verna would tell him.
“Meanwhile, soak up all you can from David’s teaching. You never know when those skills will come in handy, whether you stay on the farm or not.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Guy took his plate to the sink. He didn’t know how long he’d be living with the Masts. David had never said anything about him staying on past this year. But then, he never had the other years, either.
“David loves you like a son. You know that, don’t you?”
Guy glanced at John as he went back into the front room to join the Singing again. He had gone over this time and again in his head, ever since the first summer he had stayed with the Masts. David and Verna seemed to like him, but after all these years, they had never adopted him, and he knew why. He wasn’t Amish. He wasn’t good enough for them.
* * *
Judith leaned away from Luke until her back touched the wall. His hand rested next to her head as he loomed over her. She had to look up at an uncomfortable angle to see his face, but it was worth it. Luke Kaufman was one of the cutest boys she had ever seen and popular with the other fellows.
“How long will you be staying with Matthew’s family?” Luke’s blue eyes held hers in a steady gaze as he took a sip of punch.
“Quite a while. At least until the twins are a few years old, I think.”
He glanced away as a girl’s laughter rose above the conversations in the room, then focused back on her.
“Did you leave a lot of friends behind in Shipshewana?”
Judith shook her head. She and Esther hadn’t done much socializing before their brother Samuel got married.
Luke leaned even closer. “Not even a boyfriend?”
“Ne, no boyfriend.” Judith felt her cheeks flush hot. Were all boys this bold?
“Then you’ll have to let me be your first beau.” He smiled, but his eyes smoldered. “I’ll take you home from the Singing tonight.”
Judith pressed her lips together to keep from giggling. Luke leaned even closer to her, making her even more nervous, but she couldn’t move away with the wall right behind her. “You must already have a girl you’re interested in.” She turned her punch glass in her hands, not daring to take a drink. She was shaking so much inside that she would spill the punch down the front of her dress, for sure.
He shrugged. Even his shrugs were smooth and self-assured.
“No girl to speak of.” He lifted one of her Kapp strings with his finger. “Not now.”
She couldn’t stop the nervous giggle from escaping again. “Then, there was a girl?”
“No one special.” Luke breathed the words as he leaned even closer. He smelled of soap and something else that Judith couldn’t identify. Something smoky and bitter. His gaze slid from her eyes to her mouth and her stomach flipped over.
Someone clapped their hands to get everyone’s attention. “It’s time to take your seats.” Reuben Stoltzfus’s voice carried over the rest of the sounds in the room, but Luke didn’t move.
“Let me take you home tonight. Meet me at the end of the lane.”
Judith found herself nodding, but then remembered her promise to Matthew and turned the nod to a shake.
“I can’t. Matthew said he was coming for me.”
“When he sees that you’ve already gone, he’ll understand.”
Judith shook her head again and ducked under Luke’s arm to head back to her seat. “Ne. Matthew said that he wanted to take me home this time.”
“I’ll get my way.” He tugged on the Kapp string again and gave her a heart-stopping smile. “Count on it.”
As Judith slid into her seat next to Hannah, the other girl grabbed her hand.
“I saw you talking to Luke. Did you like him?”
Judith glanced down the table toward Luke. He was laughing with the fellows sitting on either side of him. Their conversation during the break had been unsettling, but she wasn’t sure why. She hadn’t had much experience talking to boys.
“He is nice, I guess.”
Hannah squeezed her hand. “I knew you’d think so.”
Reuben called out the number for the first song, and the group had nearly finished it before Guy took his seat again. He looked in her direction, then at his songbook. Judith kept watching him. He stared at the book, but didn’t join in the singing.
The next song was a fun one. Each verse was about two people who had a hole in their bucket, and at the end it repeated the lines from all the previous verses. By the time they reached the twelfth verse, everyone was laughing so hard they couldn’t keep singing. Everyone except the young man across the table from her.
After the rollicking fun, someone suggested a quick break. Judith stayed in her seat this time, not wanting to be cornered by Luke again.
A few minutes later, a cup of punch appeared on the table in front of her. She looked up to see Guy smiling at her.
“Denki,” she said.
He made his way around the end of the table to his seat and took a drink of his punch. Judith leaned toward him, keeping her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear their
conversation.
“Why didn’t you sing with us?”
Guy rubbed the side of his nose. “I don’t talk Deitsch well, and I can’t read it.”
“So why did you come to the Singing?”
“I don’t know.” He looked miserable.
“You have a nice voice. I heard you humming along with us earlier.”
A shadow of a smile flashed at her. “Do you mind if we speak English?”
She switched languages, just as he had. “No.” She gave him a mock frown. “But you won’t improve your Deitsch if you don’t use it.” She laid her hands on the table and leaned closer to him. “Why don’t you know how to speak like us?”
“I wasn’t raised here—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the next song was announced. This one was a round, and it took concentration for Judith to keep up with her part. Half of her thoughts were on Guy, though. How could he not know Deitsch?
At ten o’clock, the singing was over. Luke and some of the other boys rushed out the door, but the girls stood in groups to chat. With a half hour to wait for Matthew, Judith started helping a few of the young people who were collecting the songbooks.
She had picked up a small stack when she met Guy coming around the other side of the table with his own hands full of books.
“I’ll take those for you,” he said.
Judith handed him the books she had gathered. “You’re speaking English again.”
Guy shrugged. “The Penn Dutch is too hard. Everyone here understands English, so why should I learn it?”
“You’d fit in with the other fellows better. Don’t you want that?”
“I’m not sure they want me around.”
“You should give it a try.” Judith stepped closer to him. “All you need is someone to teach you.”
He glanced around, then ducked his head toward her. “Could you teach me?”
He was serious, his eyes locked on hers, waiting for her answer.
“I’m not sure I’d be a very good teacher, but I could try.”
“Maybe we could get together this coming week?” He grinned. “If you can ever get away from those babies.”
Judith frowned. Did he dislike children that much? “Those babies are the reason I’m here, and I don’t want to get away from them.”
“C’mon, I was only teasing.” His cheeks turned red.
Judith grinned back at him. “I’m glad you were, because I love Annie’s children. All three of them.”
“So, when can we start the lessons?”
“I’ll have to check with Annie, first.”
He nodded and thumbed at the corners of the songbooks in his hand. “I saw you talking with Luke Kaufman earlier. Is he taking you home?”
If any boy was taking a girl home, it was supposed to be a secret, except for the girls who had steady beaus, like Waneta. Even Judith knew Reuben would be taking her home. But Guy looked at her with such intensity when he asked the question that she had to give him an answer.
“No.” She shook her head. “He asked, but Matthew is coming for me.”
“Whew,” Guy said. “I’m glad.”
He picked up a few more songbooks that someone had left on a chair and Judith followed him. If he was asking to take her home, he had a strange way of doing it.
“Why are you glad?”
“No reason.” He gave the books to Benjamin Stoltzfus, then turned back to Judith. “Except that maybe I can get a ride with you and Matthew?”
He wiggled his dark eyebrows up and down as he asked, and Judith found herself laughing at him.
“For sure, you can. Matthew will be here at ten thirty.” She glanced at the clock. “I had better get my bonnet and shawl. Meet you by the back door?”
“Yeah. I’ll wait for you there.”
As Judith went toward the kitchen, she glanced back. Guy had picked up the end of one of the benches, ready to help Benjamin carry it out to the church wagon. After talking with Luke at the break, she had been breathless and feeling a little bit like she was dabbling in deep, unknown waters. But that exchange with Guy...it had been more like talking to a friend she had known for a long time.
Hannah was in the bedroom, putting on her bonnet. Her black shawl was already wrapped around her shoulders.
“You’re ready to go home?” Judith asked, reaching for her own bonnet.
“Ja.” Hannah peered into a small, round shaving mirror fastened to the edge of the towel rack on the washstand, pinching her cheeks to bring some color into them. “Luke asked me to remind you that he’ll be waiting for you at the end of the lane.” She turned to Judith with a smile. “He has a brand-new courting buggy and can’t wait to try it out.”
“But I told him that Matthew was coming for me. I don’t need a ride.”
Hannah laughed. “No girl ever needs a ride!” She grasped Judith’s hand. “My brother is looking for a wife, and I have a feeling you’re just the girl he’s been waiting for. If you step carefully, you and I could be sisters before you know it.”
Judith withdrew her hand. “I’m not ready to be married. This is my first Singing, and I want to get to know other people before I settle down to one fellow.”
Hannah picked up a pair of mittens from the bed and pulled them on. “If Luke is set on you, there will be no changing his mind.”
“I’m still not going to let him take me home. Matthew asked to be the one to do it on my first night out, and I want to go home with him.” Judith found her own mittens tucked in the folds of her shawl. “Besides, Guy Hoover is going to ride with us.”
Hannah faced her. “Guy Hoover? You don’t want to get involved with him.”
“Why not?”
Hannah shook her head, her face set in a frown. “He isn’t one of us. Never has been, and he never will be. He’s an outsider.” She turned toward the door, then gave one last shot. “He doesn’t belong here.”
Judith’s fingers chilled as if she had plunged them into a snowdrift. Hannah’s animosity toward Guy was shocking, and not what she had expected from her new friend.
If Guy was an outsider, that explained why he didn’t know Deitsch. Judith tugged her mitten on. New friend or not, Hannah was wrong. She would do everything she could to help him feel welcome in the community.
Chapter Two
Spring was in the air on Tuesday morning as the weekend’s cold spell gave way to warmer breezes and fitful sunshine. Guy turned the team at the end of the field, then threw the lever to start the manure spreader’s gears as they made another pass. When David had given him this early-spring job of fertilizing the fields, Guy had chosen to do these acres first. Why? He grinned to himself as he drove the horses toward the fence on the other end. Because from here he could watch the Beacheys’ farmyard across the road.
He had only seen Judith once since the Singing two days ago. Just a glimpse, but he knew she was there. Ever since he had said goodbye to her when Matthew let him off at the end of the Mast lane that night, the only thing on his mind was to see her again.
Judith. Even her name sang in his mind.
He shook his head at himself, frowning. Why would he think he had a chance with her? The prettiest girl around, and new in the community, to boot. The boys were going to buzz around her like bees in a flower garden.
Guy turned the horses at the other end of the field and started back across. There, finally, he was rewarded with the sight of a figure in a blue dress and black shawl. She carried a basket and headed toward the chicken house. And disappeared. He hadn’t even seen her face, so he knew she hadn’t seen him.
After two more trips along the length of the field he saw her again. This time, she had let the shawl slip back from covering her head and held it loosely around her shoulders. She carried a basket full of eggs in her other hand as she picked her way along th
e wet path to the house. With her white Kapp gleaming in the bit of sunshine that had made its way through the cloud cover, she was a lovely sight. Blue eyes, he remembered. Dark blue and thoughtful. She dodged a mud puddle with a graceful step, hurried the rest of the way to the house and disappeared behind the closed door.
He stared at the door. Hannah Kaufman had brown eyes, full of laughter and beautiful. At least, he had thought so until he found out the laughter was at his expense. He had no business getting mixed up with an Amish girl, even though Judith seemed kinder and friendlier than Hannah. He didn’t belong here, and he wasn’t planning to stay. If Pa showed up—
“Guy! What in the world are you doing?”
Startled by David’s shout, Guy slammed back to reality. The horses had pulled the spreader off the straight track he thought they were on and were headed toward the barn.
“Sorry!” he called, and waved in David’s direction as he guided the horses back to the middle of the field. At least no one would notice his distraction, the way they would if he had been plowing. He shook his head as he thought about the ribbing he would have gotten if the crops had grown in crooked rows.
He finished the field and headed toward the barn to pick up another load of manure. Without a word, David met him at the manure pile and started shoveling. Guy joined him, eyeing his expression to gauge his mood.
David was a good boss, and had always been more than kind to him, but even David could get riled. He expected the best work from Guy, just as he expected it from himself. Mistakes were always fixed, sloth was never tolerated and attention to the task at hand was demanded. Guy had broken that last rule too often, and he waited for David’s reprimand.
It came when the spreader was filled and ready for the next field.
“You weren’t driving the team back there, they were driving you.” David leaned on his shovel, his gaze on the front acres. “What were you thinking about?”
Guy shot a glance toward the Beachey house. The first thing he had learned that summer when he was nine, his first summer with the Masts, was that David could always tell when he tried to skirt the truth.
“I saw that new girl come out of the house.”