Lydia had almost gone to help, but before she’d made it out the door of cabin five, he’d swung his leg over the limb and shimmied his way down the tree.
Humph.
Ervin wouldn’t have been able to do that, but then Ervin wouldn’t have been trimming ash trees in May when the ground was too soft from rain to properly hold the ladder.
Truth was, Ervin hadn’t trimmed a tree since Lydia had come to work for him, but that wasn’t the point. The giant white ash was beyond beautiful, especially in the fall when its leaves turned golden. Had Aaron Troyer thought of that when he took his saw to it?
Doubtful.
He was too busy taking his frustration out on every living thing in his path. He’d made it to cabin three when Lydia dropped her mop and marched over to where he stood with his garden shears.
“Don’t even think about cutting down that speckled alder.”
“It’s taken over the entire east wall. You can’t see out the window at all.”
“Birds nest there.”
“I’m more concerned that guests nest inside the cabin than whether birds nest in this bush. Guests won’t if they walk up to a cabin that looks like this because they can barely find the door with all the shrubs, vines, and tree branches covering the place.”
Lydia moved in front of the seven-foot shrub and shook her cleaning rag at him, forgetting for a moment he was her boss and she needed her job. “You chopped down almost all of the juniper in front of cabin two. There won’t be an eastern bluebird or cedar waxwing in it now.”
“Move out of my way, Lydia.”
“I won’t.”
Aaron shook his head, removed his hat, and wiped at the sweat beading on his forehead. When he replaced his hat he was smiling, but there was nothing pleasant about it. In fact, his expression was absolutely grim.
She’d last seen that sort of look on the baseball field, and it was indicative of a dare if she remembered correctly.
“I thought Amish women were submissive.”
“I thought Amish men were levelheaded.” She refused to look away from his dark brown eyes. So what if they reminded her of one of the pups her father used to raise? He apparently had no more sense than the beagles did.
“It’s only a bush.” He waved the garden shears at her.
“They’re all only bushes, but together they make up the riverbank and the area where the animals come.” Lydia took a step toward him, her hands coming out and encompassing the entire plot of land as if she could fold it into her apron and hold it to herself. As if she could protect it somehow.
“Together they make up this little haven Ervin loved. If you mow them all down we’re just another motel like the Englischers own.”
“But maybe a profitable one!” Aaron’s voice rose in some effort to overcome her reasoning. “Maybe one that has automobiles in the parking lot and paying customers!”
Lydia opened her mouth to answer him. She had the perfect retort ready, but she snapped it back just in time. She finally noticed Gabe, David, and Seth approaching. No doubt they had heard Aaron shouting.
How much had they seen and heard? She and Aaron remained less than a foot from each other. Aaron had been hollering and waving his garden shears. Lydia was still red faced with her hands on her hips.
“Sorry. We didn’t mean to interrupt.” David nodded at them both.
“Guess we didn’t hear you drive up,” Aaron muttered.
Gabe shrugged, combing his beard down with his fingers. To Lydia he looked as if he were trying to comb a smile off his face. She wondered if he somehow thought this was funny, because it wasn’t. Destroying an animal’s habitat was a serious offense.
“Aaron, this is David King, my wife’s bruder, and his son Seth.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Aaron’s face was still red, but Lydia noticed he’d loosened his grip on the garden shears.
“I suppose you both know Lydia?”
“Ya,” David nodded. “How are you?”
“Gut.” The word slipped from Lydia’s lips before she realized what a lie it was. She was actually horrible! Her apron was filthy from cleaning, and she could feel her hair slipping loose beneath her kapp. Young Seth was looking at her as if she had crawled out from under one of the cabins.
All of that didn’t matter as much as working around Aaron Troyer. He was making her narrisch! Maybe they could take him back to the bus stop, where he could catch a ride all the way back to Indiana.
Instead of asking if they would be willing to return her boss, she yanked her apron down straight, tugged her kapp into place, and folded her arms. Best to glare at the river. Better than meet Aaron’s gaze.
“We thought we’d stop by to see if we could lend a hand,” David said. “Gabe explained you’d come to see to Ervin’s things.”
“True, but I believe we have it under control.”
Lydia didn’t even try to keep the exasperated expression from crossing her face. Seth must have seen it because he snorted. When his father gave him a pointed look, he crammed his hands into his pockets. Gabe seemed to be the one person enjoying himself.
“Ya, I can see that.” David said, glancing back at the branches and leaves littering the walkway between the first three cabins.
Gabe stepped forward, reached up and pulled at a branch of the speckled alder that was caught in the roof’s eave. “Truth is, we can’t plant our crops yet. The ground’s still too muddy. I came to town looking for something to do.”
“And my fraa decided we were underfoot.” David hooked a thumb under his suspenders. “We were planning on offering to help anyway, but she sort of…”
“Sent us over today.” Seth finished up for his father, a smile crossing his face for the first time since they had arrived.
Aaron glanced from Gabe to David. “You’re saying I’d be doing you a favor to let you stay and work the rest of the day?”
“Ya. Pretty much, that’s true.” David actually sounded eager. “All the work around my place is done.”
“Same at mine,” Gabe admitted.
“How are you at trimming shrubs?”
Lydia didn’t wait to hear their answer. One stubborn Amish man she might be able to outlast, but three men and a boy with an attitude? Not a chance. She trudged back toward the cabin she’d been mopping and satisfied herself with saying a prayer for the birds who would need to find new lodgings once their habitat had been chopped to the ground.
Aaron was more than a little surprised when Gabe showed up, and with friends! Of course, he had seen his share of barn raisings in his life, even helped in quite a few.
But he wasn’t working on barns. He was working on cabins.
And they didn’t need raising. If anything, they could use leveling.
That was exhaustion and frustration talking. He knew the cabins weren’t as bad as he was making them out to be. As they chopped away Lydia’s precious speckled alder, plus Virginia creeper, trumpet honeysuckle, and poison ivy—yes, poison ivy—he could see that the cabins were well constructed.
The shutters might be falling off, but he supposed Wisconsin winters could do that to a window shutter.
No, the reason for his foul mood could be traced back to two females. One didn’t quite reach his waist and had eyes that looked at him with such trust. He still had the picture she’d drawn in his pocket. The other he barely knew, but she was family nonetheless. What fouled his mood was the knowledge that he was responsible for them both, for them and for the other four girls in Ervin’s family.
He had thought he could show up, settle his onkel’s things, and return to his own life unchanged.
He had thought it would take only a few days.
Aaron was finding that life was not following the plan he had envisioned. Life was unpredictable, and he was not pleased about it. That his young cousin thought he had arms big enough to solve the problems and a head large enough to hold the answers did nothing to ease his worries.
So he attacked the winter
berry vines which had grown up to entangle itself along the wall of cabin ten.
“Might want to leave some of that.” Gabe eased himself onto the porch steps. “The grapes will attract all sorts of waterfowl this summer and even game birds come winter.”
Aaron breathed a silent prayer for patience, sighed, and joined Gabe on the step. He stared at both of his palms.
“I’ve been working fulltime in the fields since I escaped the schoolhouse. I never had blisters like this before.”
“It’s different work than plowing,” Gabe acknowledged.
“I prefer the plowing.”
Gabe didn’t speak immediately. Aaron had known the man less than twenty-four hours, but he was already learning his ways. Apparently slow, measured responses and a healthy sense of humor were two of them.
“Ya. I can tell.”
“Why would my onkel allow this place to become so overgrown? He might as well have called them the Plain Cabins in the Jungle. How would he have expected Englischers to want to stay here? Why would they want to stay here?” The questions which had circled round and round in his mind exploded out like a fireworks display during a Fourth of July celebration.
Instead of attempting to answer them, Gabe turned so that his back rested against the square post of the porch and studied him.
“Even I can see why the cabins weren’t making money, and I know nothing about running a business.” Aaron busted open the blister in the middle of his palm, frowning as he probed the raw skin beneath.
“So you plan on staying long enough to turn the cabins around?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Sure. Everyone has a choice.”
Aaron thought on that, staring out over the grounds. The sun was heading westward. Seth was dragging all that they had cut toward the far end of the property, making a large brush pile. David was standing near the water’s edge, talking to Lydia. It was the first time he’d seen her when she wasn’t working or hollering at him.
She cared about the cabins, that much was plain. No doubt she cared about his onkel’s family as well.
And there was the rub. He wasn’t without feelings, but he didn’t want to carry the weight of so many on his shoulders. He wanted to go back to the acreage he had already bought seed for, back to fields he had already planned and marked out how he was going to plant. Half of the job was already finished because they hadn’t had the rains Wisconsin had endured.
If he stayed here, chances were he wouldn’t see those crops harvested, because what needed to be done…
What needed to be done and be done properly would take several months, at least.
But the alternative would be to let his aenti and his nieces depend on the charity of the church. Which was fine if they needed it.
His father had sent him so they wouldn’t need it.
He stared at the raw center of his hand, at the place that would be sore for a week now. He should have left it alone instead of picking at it. So many times he knew what to do, but he chose wrong. Maybe this once, he would choose right.
So he looked sideways at Gabe and nodded. “Ya, I’m staying.”
“Let’s go talk to David and Lydia, if you’re ready to lay out what you have in mind.” Gabe stood and stretched. “Because as soon as our fields dry out, you’re going to lose most of your day labor.”
Aaron and Gabe walked back toward the office in the late afternoon sunshine. Clouds were still covering a fair amount of the sky. They would have more rain before morning, but Aaron was optimistic for the first time since he’d arrived. Maybe it was knowing he wasn’t working alone. Or maybe it was knowing he’d finally made a decision.
His grossdaddi was fond of saying, “No dream comes true until you wake up and go to work.” The cabins along Pebble Creek weren’t his dream, but they were his onkel’s. Perhaps by respecting them, by making them profitable again, he would be able to move through this part of his life—move back to where he belonged. And the best way back was to “wake up and go to work.”
Already the restlessness worrying his insides was beginning to ease. The answer was in the work. It always had been.
Work hard, turn a profit, and then he could go home.
Chapter 10
Miriam had readily agreed to Gabe’s plan to go back to the cabins on Saturday. Grace wasn’t so keen on the idea.
“I usually stay home and play with Hunter on Saturdays.” Grace shifted from foot to foot, staring at the buggy.
“You can stay if you want.” Gabe winked at his wife over the top of Grace’s head.
“Stay?” Her voice squeaked up a notch. “Couldn’t we take Hunter with us?”
“Could, I suppose, but a pup might go chasing after something along the riverbank and become lost.”
Grace clutched her bag with drawing supplies closer. “Probably he won’t miss me.”
She glanced back toward the barn.
“There’s always tomorrow, Grace. You’ll have time to spend with him then.” Miriam remembered being a young girl, loving Saturdays, and having a dozen different ways she wanted to spend them.
“No church tomorrow!” Her daughter’s eyes lit up—and she did think of Grace as her daughter, every bit as much as Rachel. One by circumstances, the other by birth. Both were precious to her.
Grace bit back her smile. “’Course, I miss the church meeting on days there is no service.”
“I’m sure you do.” Miriam placed Rachel’s carrier on the backseat of the buggy. “We’ll be going to my parents’ for lunch. You can play with Hunter in the morning, after our Bible study, and you can see Pepper in the afternoon.”
“That settles it. I’m going.” Grace scooted into the back of the buggy.
Gabe held out his hand to help Miriam up. “Nice logic. Just like a schoolmarm.”
He squeezed her hand lightly before he let go and walked around the buggy to climb in on his side.
Miriam marveled at how Gabe’s touch still sent fireflies spinning through her stomach. She’d thought when they married that such feelings would pass with time, but so far they hadn’t.
And that was one less worry.
Gabe pulled down on his hat, smiled at her as if he could read her mind, and called out to Chance. The quarter horse set off at a steady trot down the lane.
The day was cool and beautiful. Though another half inch of rain had fallen during the night, the sun was shining brightly this morning.
“Think you’ll be able to plant next week?” Miriam asked.
“Maybe by midweek. If the sun will stay out.”
“The Budget says we’ll have dry weather soon,” Grace piped up.
“Oh, you’re reading the Budget now, are you?”
“I finished the book Miss Bena loaned me, and we’re only allowed one per week.”
Miriam tightened her lips over the retort that rose too easily to her mind. Gabe also remained silent.
Eventually the steady clopping of Chance calmed her anger, though she still couldn’t fathom why the teacher would want to limit a child’s reading to a single book a week. She needed to talk to Gabe about their signing up for a library card at the Cashton library. She’d never needed one before, but now it would be the best way to supplement Grace’s need for additional reading material. They certainly didn’t have any extra income for purchasing books—not this year with all the repairs they had done around the farm.
The library, though. She should have thought of that sooner, especially as she was a teacher.
By the time they had reached the new development in Cashton with a large sign proclaiming Amish Anthem, she’d put her irritation toward Miss Bena behind her. The downtown area was surprisingly busy, but then it wasn’t often that they came into town on a Saturday.
“Lots of folks,” Grace said, peering out of the buggy.
“You stay close, Gracie. Wouldn’t want you getting lost.”
“Seriously, dat? There are like two roads. You can see from one end to the o
ther.”
“Good point.” He continued to the end of the street and parked the buggy in the farthest lot, then tied Chance to a hitching post under the shade of a cottonwood tree.
“It was nice of Mr. Drake to provide so much parking for buggies,” Miriam said, waving at a few Amish families she knew who were also entering the lot.
“The way I heard it, Drake only wanted to have paved lots with small spaces for the Englisch cars.” Gabe pulled Rachel out of her carrier and handed her to Miriam, and then he reached back into the buggy for the quilted diaper bag.
Miriam nearly laughed when she didn’t have to remind him to bring it. They had all quickly learned not to take Rachel anywhere without spare clothes and supplies. She had a way of causing havoc before smiling her sweet smile.
“Did Mrs. Goodland insist on this lot?” Miriam asked. “The shade is wunderbaar for the horses, and the fact that it’s not paved is gut too.”
“Our village president had a hand in it as much as she could, or so the papers have reported,” Gabe said, guiding his family across the busy street. “I have a feeling the fact that the papers have followed the development so closely also helped. The front page coverage did much to persuade Drake to be sensitive to local needs.”
“By ‘papers,’ do you mean—”
“Ya. Rae Caperton.”
“She never mentioned it to me. She rarely brings the paper when she stops by, unless there’s an article on crafting or teaching or farming she thinks we’d like to see.” Miriam reached up to tuck a stray hair into her kapp. “Rae is a special person, Gabe.”
“That she is. Gotte sent her to us, it seems.”
Miriam’s mind drifted back to the first time she’d met the young woman who was a news reporter for the Lacrosse Tribune. Her connection to the Amish was a strong one, and though her past included tragedy, God has used it to build a strong bridge to them. “I can’t believe we haven’t been here yet.”
“Why would we? Amish Anthem has only been open a few months.”
“And it isn’t as if we ever did plan on shopping here—it’s such a tourist attraction. I still can’t believe he actually built it, right in the middle of Cashton.”
A Home for Lydia (The Pebble Creek Amish Series) Page 7