by Jo Ann Brown
She recognized the pattern she’d seen in other foster kids. They’d shared stories about how they disrupted a placement on purpose. Even then, she’d understood what they hadn’t said. When they had no control over their lives, being pulled from one foster home to another and maybe sent home to live with one parent for a while before being dropped back into the system, they’d decided to grab what control they could. They were determined to make sure the placement didn’t work, pushing their foster parents to the edge and past it with their antics. One girl she’d shared a room with for a couple of nights had put it succinctly, “I got rid of them before they got rid of me.”
However, he hung on every word Jeremiah spoke. She wondered if Parker had been close to a father figure in Korea. According to the reports Whitney had left for Mercy, Parker hadn’t transferred that respect to Mr. Kenton.
Yet the child admired Jeremiah and hopped to obey any request he made. She should be grateful the boy heeded one of them. Asking Jeremiah to step in made her uncomfortable because each time was a reminder that sometime, hopefully in the near future, one of them would have the farm and the other must leave.
But she knew it was more than that. She looked forward to every time Jeremiah came to the house or she ran into him in the yard. He’d had dinner and supper with them every day since Parker’s arrival, and he’d lingered into the evening. His calm presence stopped arguments between the two children before they got heated.
“No, I don’t see him,” Mercy replied when the boy repeated the question. Louder this time. “He’s smart enough not to work outside in a storm.”
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“No.” She ignored the regret that erupted in her at the simple answer.
“Why not?”
“He’s Amish, and we’re not.” It was the easiest explanation to give the boy.
How could she explain to a nine-year-old about the feelings she didn’t understand herself? The very thought of spending time with Jeremiah made her smile. When his hand brushed hers, even inadvertently, her heart thumped like hail on a roof. His kindness with the children touched her soul, for she couldn’t help thinking of how Graham hadn’t even wanted to discuss having a family. While Jeremiah spent time with Sunni and Parker, making them want to like him, Graham had barely tolerated her daughter.
But there was something else, something indefinable that drew her to him like a child to a cookie jar.
“You aren’t Amish?” Parker asked, again interrupting her thoughts. “You wear a funny hat, too.”
“It’s my prayer covering.” She put the last pot on the drainer and reached to let the water out of the sink. “The Bible asks women to cover their heads when they pray. As I pray throughout the day, I don’t have to worry about my head being uncovered when I do.”
“If you’re not Amish, what are you?” He paused for a moment, then asked, “What’s Amish?”
Mercy gave him a very brief answer, knowing, as a child who’d never encountered plain people, he wouldn’t be able to handle too much information at once.
“Hey!” he shouted in the middle of her explanation. “There’s Jeremiah.” He rushed to the window that gave him the best view of the barn. “What’s he doing?”
Mercy walked to stand behind him. Wiping her hands on a towel, she peered through the storm that didn’t seem in a hurry to abate.
Across the yard, Jeremiah was bending over a tractor parked by the barn. She’d been surprised when he drove it out of the barn until he explained he didn’t plan to use it in the fields. Instead, he wanted to use the tractor’s engine as a power source.
“It looks as if he’s fixing the stationary engine that runs the milking machines in the barn,” she said.
Parker wore an unexpected smile. “I like helping with milking. It’s fun, but I wish Jeremiah had different cows.”
“What kind of cows?”
“His cows give white milk. I like chocolate milk.”
She drew her bottom lip between her teeth so she didn’t laugh.
“Don’t you?” the boy demanded.
“Certainly I like chocolate milk.”
“So why doesn’t he get chocolate milk cows?”
“You’ll have to check with him.” Putting the towel on the counter by the sink, she said, “You can ask him tonight.”
“I will!”
As the boy went to the table to finish his hot cocoa, Mercy remained by the window. She watched Jeremiah’s easy, economical motions as he got the tractor’s engine running. When he came inside, she’d make sure she had something warm for him to drink. She couldn’t wait to tell him about chocolate milk cows.
It had been the longest conversation she’d had with Parker without him copping an attitude on her. She hoped it would be the first of many.
* * *
When Parker appeared in the barn, looking furtively over his shoulder, Jeremiah guessed the boy had snuck out of the house. He considered sending Parker back, but Mercy would know to look first in the barn if she wanted to find the boy.
She was having a rough time with her foster kind. Was Parker missing his adoptive mamm so much he was determined not to let Mercy get close? Or was he mad at the whole world? Jeremiah tried to put himself in the kind’s shoes. To be yanked out of what he thought was his forever home was enough to give the boy a reason to distrust everyone.
“I didn’t expect you to come out in the storm,” Jeremiah said as he bent to clean a cow’s udder before he attached the portable milking machine.
“You’re doing your chores, so I’m here to do mine.” He picked up the shovel, no longer skittish around the cows. “Besides, it’s boring being stuck in the house. All they want to do is read or rip off wallpaper.”
With a nod, Jeremiah wished Parker would show Mercy some respect. He couldn’t force the boy to do so. All he could do was be a gut role model for how a man treated a woman.
“Mercy said there are cows that give chocolate milk,” Parker said a few minutes later. “How come you don’t have one?”
“Because I like strawberry milk better.” Without batting an eye, he pointed to a ruddy Jersey cow munching hay and ignoring them. “So that’s why I have a strawberry cow.”
Jeremiah fought not to laugh as Parker stared in astonishment. He’d been a lot younger than the boy when his own daed told him the same silly story about red cows giving strawberry milk. Most likely, he’d worn the same expression of disbelief and childish yearning to believe the story was true.
“You’re kidding,” Parker said.
“No. The milk these cows give can be made into chocolate milk and strawberry milk and cheese and other things.”
Understanding dawned on the boy’s face. “So cows are pretty important.”
“Ja.”
“And milking them is important?”
“Very important. They depend on us to care for them, and in return they give us milk to use.” He emptied the milker into a pail to carry it to the dairy tank. “We must heed what God told Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.”
“God?”
“Ja. God told them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. That means we need to take care of the animals and birds and fish that can’t take care of themselves.”
“Like cows?”
Jeremiah nodded. “Something every cowboy needs to know. You’re well on your way to becoming one if you want.”
Parker grinned. “Do I get a hat?”
Whipping off his black wool hat, Jeremiah set it on the boy’s head. “There you go.”
“This isn’t a cowboy hat.” He pulled it off with a disgusted frown.
“The very first cowboys wore hats very much like this one.”
&
nbsp; “Really?”
“Really.”
The boy set the hat back on his head, paying no attention to how it dropped onto his nose. “Let’s do the milking.”
“Said just like a cowboy.”
When Parker grinned, Jeremiah’s heart swelled with happiness. He’d been curious how his brothers could welcome kinder into their lives, though they weren’t the kinder’s biological daeds. They loved the youngsters as much as the bopplin born within their marriages. Admiring them, he’d wondered if he could open his heart so wide. He was beginning to believe he could.
Wide enough to let one naughty boy, one very opinionated little girl and one lovely woman into it.
If the situation with the farm was resolved... He might as well wish for stars to dance around the sun at noon.
But with You, all things are possible. That’s what Jesus taught, and what I believe. All things are possible, including finding a way out of the mess of who owns this farm. Even falling in love with the one woman standing in the way of me achieving that dream.
Jeremiah began to whistle as he carried the milk can to the dairy tank, happier than he’d been in longer than he could recall.
He was startled when he returned to clean the next cow and saw Mercy and Sunni walking into the barn.
Sunni rushed to him. “Can I help, too?”
He smiled. “Of course you can. The more hands to help the faster the job goes, but you need to ask your mamm.”
“Can I help, too?” Sunni asked.
Jeremiah grinned at the little girl’s excitement to have a chance to spend time with him and Parker. After putting up with her foster brother’s pranks and scathing comments, it was the first time since the boy’s arrival she’d asked to do something when Parker was involved.
“Certainly, eolin-i,” Mercy said, ruffling her daughter’s hair.
Parker stared at her. “I know what that means. It’s Korean.”
“I’m glad you remember your Korean.” She gave him the warm smile that lit up the recesses of Jeremiah’s heart, even when aimed at someone else. “Maybe you can teach Sunni the language. She wasn’t much more than a baby when she came here, so she’s lost most of what she knew.”
The boy’s lip curled, and Jeremiah knew he was about to say something rude. Before Parker could speak, Jeremiah said quietly, “A gut cowboy always helps those around him. He knows he may have to depend on others while tending the cows, so he lets others know they can depend on him.”
Parker looked at him, wide-eyed, then nodded. “I’ll try.”
“Thank you,” Mercy said. “Maybe you could help me learn, too.”
“You want me to teach you? But you’re a grown-up.”
“I’m a baby when it comes to learning Korean.”
The boy stared hastily at his boots, and Jeremiah would have gladly given Parker a penny—or a dollar—for his thoughts. Was Parker regretting his lack of respect toward Mercy when she treated him kindly? Or were her gentle ways tearing down the walls the boy had raised to protect himself from more hurt? Either way, Jeremiah hoped Parker realized how blessed he was to be in Mercy’s care.
“Jeremiah!” Sunni’s excited cry rang through the barn.
She was by the calf stall. The newest calves, four of them, had been delivered yesterday from the auction barn in Cambridge, about ten miles south. They bawled whenever he entered the barn, hoping to get his attention and something to eat.
Squatting next to Sunni, he smiled when she gazed up at him in awe.
“Look!” Her grin was almost too wide for her face. “He’s sucking my fingers!”
“She’s hoping for milk, and she thinks your fingers might have some because they don’t look much different to her than the cow’s teats.”
“You can’t tell a girl cow,” Parker taunted, “from a boy cow. You’re a stupid girl.”
“Enough,” Jeremiah said quietly, and the boy subsided. “You were saying, Sunni?”
Her nose wrinkled, but she hurried to ask, “When does one of the cows come over to feed them?”
“The calves don’t get to drink the milk from the cows. We do.”
“That’s not fair! She’s a baby cow. She should have first dibs.”
Leaning one arm on the top of the stall, Jeremiah said, “It might not sound fair to you, but what I feed the calves provides more nutrition than cow milk. They’ll grow stronger much faster with milk replacer.” He motioned for Parker to join them. “Would you two like to feed them?”
Sunni cheered loudly enough so the calves jerked, staring at her with the whites of their eyes showing. Instantly, she began cooing as she tried to get them to come to her.
Parker was less enthusiastic. “You want both of us to feed them?”
“I’ll help you,” Jeremiah said, pretending he’d misunderstood that Parker didn’t want to share the task with his foster sister.
“I don’t need...” He shuffled his feet. “If you show me how to do it, I can handle baby cows.”
“I’m sure you can. You, too, Sunni. That’s why I asked you.” Straightening, he said, “C’mon. I’ll show you how I mix up the milk replacer, and we’ll fill the bottles.”
Within minutes the youngsters were holding the large bottles with both hands as the calves drained them so fast the milk replacer dribbled out of the sides of their mouths. Mercy took over the task of cleaning the udders before Jeremiah hooked on the milker. They worked in easy harmony as if they’d done the tasks together a hundred times before.
Mercy paused to check the kinder and help refill the bottles so the other two calves could have their turns. “Are you having fun?”
Jeremiah hoped Parker would reply, but Sunni did. She nodded with a grin that revealed her loose tooth. It was her first one, and the little girl was excited about it.
Jeremiah kept hoping that while they finished the milking and other chores, Parker would say something nice to Mercy.
Nothing.
When Mercy sent the kinder to the house through the early evening sunshine, Parker refused to go. A single glance from Jeremiah changed the boy’s mind, and he stalked out, his tightly fisted hands jammed into his coat pockets.
“Give him time,” Mercy said as she wrapped a scarf around her neck.
Jeremiah reached for the light switch. “I’m trying, but how much time does he need to realize you’re the best thing that could happen to him now?”
“Were you always grateful for what adults did for you? Surely you weren’t that well behaved.”
Closing the door behind them, he sighed as the cold scraped across his face. “I can’t remember the last time I felt like a naughty kid. Not even when I was a scholar.”
“That’s no surprise. Were you the good boy, the one your teacher could expect to be quiet and study hard?”
“Ja. Sadly, I was also the one my parents seldom had to scold, though I was surrounded by siblings who enjoyed pranks and jests.”
“Not sadly. It’s a credit to you that you were working hard for what you wanted, even when you were a child.”
“What about you? Were you the gut little girl?”
He was surprised when she faltered a moment before saying, “Eventually.”
Wanting to kick himself for forgetting she’d endured the same uncertainty and temporary homes Parker did, he wished he could see her face better in the dim light. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that, Mercy.”
“Why not? Having a wonderful childhood with siblings and two parents who were always there for you isn’t anything to be ashamed of. It’s something to celebrate.” She looked past him to the kinder who were almost to the house. “It’s what I’d hoped to offer Sunni here. A permanent home she knew would always be there for her.” Before he could reply, she waved aside his answer. “Enough of the dreary. Let’s enjoy spending time with the children
.”
He caught her gloved hand in his own. “And each other.”
“Yes, and with each other.” She smiled and squeezed his fingers as they swung their hands between them on the short walk to the barn.
Again, Jeremiah’s contentment was short-lived.
Sunni suddenly ran toward them. “Mommy! Mommy! We saw kittens. Can we bring them inside?”
“If you can find them,” Mercy said with a chuckle.
Ten minutes later two dejected kinder gave up the search. The kittens seemed to have disappeared.
“Barn cats are very, very skilled at hiding,” Mercy said to console them. “I used to play hide-and-seek with the kittens in the hayloft.” She laughed. “They always won.”
As she continued to tell the kinder about when she visited her grossdawdi, Jeremiah kept going toward the porch. But he couldn’t walk away from the truth.
Mercy’s connection to the farm was real and deep. Far deeper than his own.
Lord, if You’ve brought me here, I know You have a reason. And I also know Your reason can’t be to bring Mercy unhappiness. Look at her!
He watched as she spoke with the kinder. Parker was acting as if he didn’t need to listen, but he was as Mercy gave them ideas on how to lure the kittens to them tomorrow with fresh milk and calm voices and no quick motions.
She’s a warmhearted woman, Lord, and she’s eager to do whatever she can to help anyone else, even a young boy who challenges her at every turn and other kinder she’s never met. I don’t know what path You have given her to walk, but please don’t let it be filled with more hurt.
And please don’t let me cause that hurt.
Chapter Twelve
Jeremiah ran his hand along the planed log. Its smooth surface would make an excellent mantel. With a few imperfections left by the growth of the tree that once had stood on the farm, the log would be the exact complement to a fieldstone fireplace. Two days ago an Englischer renovating a house on the road between Salem and the Vermont border had stopped by, saying he’d heard Jeremiah was a woodworker. When Jeremiah had shown him the log, the man had been skeptical...until today. After seeing the work Jeremiah had done, he’d agreed to come back tomorrow so he could get the log and have it put in place right away.