Pride over a gut first day filled her as she left the school, but she would keep that to herself. No sense in borrowing trouble in a new community.
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CHAPTER 4
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“How long has the buggy wheel been broken, Aenti?”
The older woman adjusted herself on the kitchen chair, her broken leg propped up on the chair beside her. She’d insisted on getting a walking cast so she could hobble around her small haus without any assistance. She held a potato with the hand of her arm that rested in a sling, while she peeled with her good hand. She was a tough old bird, determined not to let a broken leg and a sprained wrist keep her bed-ridden.
“It’s been like that since last spring, so, going on a year.”
Katie picked up another potato and began to peel. “Why haven’t you had it fixed?”
“I enjoy walking. It keeps me young. The school isn’t that far, and I don’t have much need to go anywhere else. When I do, I have friends that I go with. A woman my age doesn’t like going into town alone anyway.”
Katie looked up from her work. “I’m sure Mr. Miller would be happy to fix it for you. He’s offered his assistance if you should need anything. He offered again when I inquired about help from the church to fix the windows of the school. The wind blows right through them.”
Nettie looked up from her work. “I wouldn’t let that mann help me if he was the last Amish mann on earth.”
Katie put the last potato down and look up into the anger showing in her aenti’s eyes to be sure she heard her correctly. She wasn’t sure if she dared ask why, but she couldn’t resist.
“I know I haven’t seen much of you in the last few years, but haven’t you lived across from him for a long time?”
“Your daed moved away from this community when he met your mamm. I was the youngest of the seven children, and so I was still pretty young when he married. No one in the familye knew that I was once sweet on Hiram Miller.”
Katie leaned in closer as though she wouldn’t be able to hear her aenti otherwise. “What happened?”
Nettie cast her eyes downward, but Katie could still see the pain in her eyes.
“He married my best friend, Rachel. That’s what happened. The two of them were sneaking around behind my back, and then they announced their marriage real sudden-like. I was certain she was with child, but they didn’t have their first boppli until almost two years later. She passed away when her youngest was only ten years old. I was still not speaking to her at the time, and didn’t even know she was ill until it was too late.”
Katie gulped. “It’s not too late to patch things up with Mr. Miller.”
Her aenti looked up sharply, disgust twisting her expression. “It is too late! He has a familye—kinner and grandkinner. Why do you think I never let my own familye visit me here? I don’t want my own familye to see me like this, and I don’t want Hiram Miller being reminded of what I didn’t have because of what he did.”
Katie was unsure of what to say to her aenti. Was it possible the woman was still holding a grudge after all these years?
“His wife, Rachel, was my best friend,” Nettie continued. “And I never got to say goodbye to her.”
Katie cleared her throat, wondering how bold she could get with her aenti. “Mr. Miller seemed like he wants to make it up to you. I saw the same sadness in his eyes when he spoke of you as I see in yours now.”
Nettie tossed the half-peeled potato into the colander, seemingly disgusted at the difficulty she had with peeling it. “It is too late. I’ve spent my entire life being mad at the two of them for taking away what should have been mine, and I’m not about to stop now. Hiram Miller can keep his guilt to himself.”
Katie picked up the potato her aenti tossed aside and finished peeling it. “If you ask me, it sounds as though you’ve wasted your whole life over this grudge, and it’s time you started living.”
Nettie leered at her niece. “And I’ll thank you need to start minding your manners. I can send you packing back to Nappanee.”
Katie was beginning to understand why her familye hadn’t seen much of her aenti over the years, but she could also see the very real hurt in the eyes of this woman who was practically a stranger to her.
“If you sent me home, who would teach your students until you’re back on your feet?”
Tears welled up in Nettie’s eyes. “I wanted to keep teaching even after the accident, but the Elders thought it was best if I retired. The job will be up for grabs next year. I’ve got nothing left. My whole life is gone, and I’m an old shell waiting for my time to end on this earth.”
This was more serious than Katie thought. Her aenti was obviously depressed, and she needed to take drastic measures to bring her life back to life. It was even more obvious that the buggy was never fixed because her aenti hadn’t gone anywhere other than to school in a very long time. Katie was determined to change that.
“Well, you can’t get rid of me that easily, Aenti. I’m asking someone to help fix that buggy wheel. I can’t keep walking to school every day when there is a pack of wild dogs loose in the county.” She held her dress hem up to show Nettie. “They would have killed me if it weren’t for the saving grace of two new friends I met today.”
Nettie scrunched up her brow. “How did you manage to make friends while you were at school? And what does that have to do with stray dogs? I know the ones you’re talking about—they wouldn’t hurt a flea.”
“That’s what Caleb tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen.”
Nettie pursed her lips, anger welling up in her.
“Are you talking about Caleb Yoder?”
Katie could see the fire in her aenti’s eyes.
“Yes. He and his schweschder, Rachel, helped me this morning when I ran into the bakery. They’re very nice. Caleb gave me ride to school since the dogs wouldn’t leave. They wanted my lunch.”
Nettie struggled to rise to her feet. Leaning over the table, the look of intimidation on her aenti’s face scared Katie.
“You will stay away from Rachel and Caleb. They are no gut. Do you hear me?”
Katie started to ask why, but Nettie shot her down.
“Those two are Hiram Miller’s grandkinner, and I won’t have my niece running around this community with the likes of that familye. And you had better remember that you are betrothed, and will give yourself a bad name in these parts if you’re seen taking a buggy ride from another mann.”
Katie couldn’t believe what she was hearing from her aenti. Her engagement was nothing less than a joke, and she was determined to find a way out of it while she was here. But the fact that she was now forbidden to see Caleb made him somehow even more appealing to her.
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CHAPTER 5
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Caleb pushed his horse just a little bit, hoping he could catch up with Katie before she turned down the road to the school. He’d seen the dogs almost a mile back tearing apart her lunch pail, and he wanted to be sure she was alright. When he pulled up alongside of her, she tipped her head in his direction. Pursing her lips, she swiped angrily at a tear that stained the side of her rosy cheek. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, but her pouty-mouth was enough to drive him to throwing himself into a pack of wolves to defend her.
Caleb pushed open the buggy door. “Get in. I’ll drive you the rest of the way.”
Katie shook her head, stubbornness tipping her jaw upward. “I don’t have much further to go. Besides, I’m not supposed to take rides from strangers.”
“I saw you running from the dogs and tried to catch up with you, but the snow is too deep for my old horse to trudge through. Besides, we aren’t strangers anymore since you took a ride from me yesterday, and you look cold. You’re shivering.”
Katie had to admit she was pretty cold, and her legs were sore from running in the slippery snow. She accepted the ride figuring there was
little to no chance of her aenti finding out.
“What are you doing out this way? There isn’t anything out here except the school.”
Caleb pointed to the supplies in the back of the buggy. “I came to fix the windows. Mei grossdaddi told me you needed someone to fix the whistling windows.”
Katie frowned. “I hope you didn’t come on my account.”
Caleb smiled. “Don’t flatter yourself. It’s my job. I fix things for people in the community.”
“Aren’t you still needed at your schweschder’s bakery?”
He nodded with a smile. Katie thought his smile could melt the icy chill from her.
“I still need to fix the leak in the roof of the porch, and make new doors for the display case, but those can wait a couple of hours. I figured I could take the morning and put up some plastic on the windows to keep out the wind.”
“I’d appreciate not shivering while I’m trying to teach. I brought an extra sweater, but I’m afraid I dropped it a ways back when the dogs attacked me and stole my lunch.”
Caleb reached under the buggy seat and pulled out her ragged, soaking sweater and held it out to her. “I tried to save it for you, but I’m afraid the smaller one thought it would make a nice chew-toy.”
Katie turned from it, scrunching up her nose.
Caleb put it back under the seat. “I didn’t figure you’d still want it with dog slobber in it, but I thought it was worth a chance. I’m sure if you washed it and sewed it a little, it would be gut as new.”
The corners of Katie’s mouth turned up slightly. “Or we could throw it in the fire at the school and burn it. I doubt I’ll wear it again.”
Caleb smirked. “Jah, but what sort of message would that send to your students?”
Katie drew a sincere look across her brow.
“The message that dog slobber will not be tolerated.”
“I may be wrong, but I think you will have a tough time convincing your students you’re a not a teacher to be messed with because of your zero tolerance policy for dog slobber.”
Katie sighed. “Maybe not, but it might make a gut ice-breaker. I’m afraid things did not go as well as I’d hoped with my students yesterday—especially since I got off on the wrong foot by being late the first day.”
Caleb steered his horse into the school yard and pulled back a little on the reins.
Katie opened the buggy door and quickly hopped out. “If I don’t hurry, I’ll be late again. Maybe today I’ll have to tell my students why. Denki for the ride—again. And for fixing the windows.”
Before Caleb had a chance to think of something amusing to say back to her, Katie was half-way across the school yard and running up the stairs. He could only assume all the students had already arrived since none were outside, and the stairs were freshly shoveled. Maybe she hadn’t been able to make a gut impression on her students, but she’d definitely made a memorable impression on him.
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CHAPTER 6
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Katie found it difficult to concentrate on her students while Caleb worked at each window. After he finished putting plastic on each window, he would come inside the building and stand near the wood stove to warm up. Each time, he seemed to linger longer and longer. Several times, she caught him watching her give a reading lesson to the younger kinner, and she wondered why he seemed so interested in her teaching. She couldn’t even be certain she had the attention of her students, but there was Caleb, watching her every move.
Feeling scrutinized, she found it hard to keep her mind on task. Several times she forgot what she was saying and stumbled over her words. Between Caleb and her students, she worried they would all think she was incapable of teaching. She was conflicted. Part of her wanted Caleb to leave so she could teach without mistakes, but having him near invigorated her senses in a way no other mann had.
She knew it was wrong for her to feel so strongly for Caleb when she was promised to another mann, but she couldn’t stop herself from having those feelings. Not when she felt more alive than she’d felt with Jessup. Her betrothed was too old for her, and she wasn’t ready to be a mamm to his kinner. She wanted kinner of her own. But the guilt she felt over those poor kinner not having a mamm had been one of the reasons that caused her to give in to her parents’ arrangement. It saddened her that her parents seemed so eager to have her out of their haus. Being the youngest of nine kinner, Katie often felt her parents were too old to be raising her. They already had twelve grandkinner, and she supposed they were looking forward to adding Jessup and his kinner to the familye—even if meant their dochder was miserable.
Even though Caleb’s constant watchful eyes were on her, the attention from him made her feel alive again. In seven short weeks, she would be back in her own community at the close of the school year, and that meant returning to her boring life with Jessup. In the meantime, she intended to enjoy Caleb’s attention toward her. It wasn’t hurting anything, and it would be the last fun she’d have before settling into her loveless marriage.
Katie reasoned with herself that if her parents were going to force her into a loveless marriage for the sake of keeping her from being underfoot any longer, then she was justified in her whimsical indulgence. Who would it hurt if she dreamed a little? No one could fault her for wanting something better for her future. Could they?
****
Caleb busied himself calking around the window casings from the inside of the building. It wasn’t enough to watch Katie’s lessons while he warmed himself by the fire. Every time he went back out to put plastic on the next window, he missed valuable information within her lesson—information that might finally help him to be able to read. He’d missed several of the letters she reviewed with her young students every time he had to return to the outdoors. Surely she would get suspicious if he spent too much time near the stove. He could tell his presence was making her uncomfortable, but he was more concerned with learning the letters and the sounds they made, than about the lovely teacher at the moment.
It was times like this that Caleb chided himself for not going to school. Right now, he wished his daed had forced him to go instead of letting him stay home and work the farm with him from the time he was a young buwe. Although a few of his cousins had also stayed home to work the farm with their daed, they also were fortunate to have a mamm to teach them to read and write. All Caleb knew how to do was add and subtract, and that was only what applied to farming. He’d never had a need to learn to read, but suddenly, in this sophisticated woman’s presence, he felt like a dummkopf.
There were a lot of things Caleb had missed out on by not having a mamm when he was growing up. Since she’d died giving birth to him, he’d never had the chance to become attached to her, but that didn’t mean he didn’t miss having her in his life. He remembered how excited he was when he got a new mamm after Abby’s mamm had married his daed. Even when Abby began to attend school, his daed didn’t press him to go with her. He’d gone a few times here and there just to get out of doing extra chores, but he’d found that he was too far behind to catch up. After that first year when their twin siblings were born, even Abby had left school, and the two of them lived their lives centered around their familye and the farm.
Caleb looked around at the students listening intently to their teacher, suddenly realizing what he’d missed out on the most—a normal childhood.
****
Katie’s eyes followed Caleb as he walked out the door of the school to put plastic on the last window. Maybe now she would be able to concentrate enough to teach her class without stumbling over ever word. With very little time before she would have to break for the lunch hour, she wanted to finish her lesson so she could move on to the math in the afternoon in keeping with her aenti’s schedule for her students.
After only a few minutes, her students became restless, and she knew a break was needed. She dismissed them, watching them scramble to the back room where a long table w
as set up for them to eat. In the warmer months, she figured they ate outside, but the snow would be around for another month at least. Occasionally, they wouldn’t have so much snow in March, but this winter season had been nothing but non-stop snow. Lost in thought, Katie didn’t even realize Caleb standing in front of her desk, wearing the sweetest smile.
“Would you like to share my lunch?”
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CHAPTER 7
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Katie was so stunned by Caleb’s offer that she stared at him for a small eternity.
Caleb cleared his throat. “I figured since those mutts stole your lunch this morning you might be hungry.”
Katie pushed her chin in the air. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want to put you out. You’ve worked very hard today.”
Why does she act so prideful? Or is it embarrassment? I don’t understand women.
Caleb handed her a treat from the bakery wrapped in pink tissue paper. “At least take the cookies my schweschder sent with me for you. When I told her I was weatherproofing the windows at the school today, she asked me to give them to you.”
Katie took the cookies. Truth be told, she was very hungry, and it would be a long afternoon with an empty stomach.
“Danki. I’ll have to stop by there on my way home and thank her.”
Caleb smiled. “I’m sure she would like that. Are you sure you don’t want some of my sandwich? It’s ham and cheese.”
Katie couldn’t resist ham and cheese; it was one of her favorites. She held out her hand and took the half sandwich from Caleb, wondering what he was thinking. He’d worked hard, and probably was very hungry himself. Yet here he was, sharing his lunch with her. Jessup wasn’t the kind of mann to do such a thing, was he? She’d never had the occasion to see. They’d eaten together during familye gatherings, but they sat separately. But here was Caleb pulling up one of the students chairs to sit with her at her desk. Her face heated, and she found it difficult to swallow the small bite of sandwich she’d already chewed to a soupy consistency. Her nerves prevented her from taking another bite.
Amish Winter of Promises: Book Four Page 2