Susannah knew it was useless to protest once Lydia had made up her mind. I’m going to have to see Peter every day at lunch, anyway. I might as well get used to it, she silently conceded as she opened the door and stepped outside into the crisp autumn air.
* * *
Peter and Benuel finished heaving the last of the barrels onto the buggy wagon. It was Peter’s turn to transport them to the potato house, where he’d unload them alone while Benuel would continue to help Conrad and Jacob pick in the fields. When Peter returned, he’d help pick, too. Once they had enough barrels to fill the buggy wagon again, they’d load it up together and then it would be Benuel’s turn to go to the potato house. Because he was aware that an injured worker could significantly derail the harvesting schedule, Marshall insisted the two men alternate their transportation responsibilities like this throughout the day. He wanted each of them to have an opportunity to rest their arm and back muscles as they rode home from the storage building.
As he was checking to make sure the barrels were secure, Peter happened to notice something move in his peripheral vision. He glanced up to see Susannah approaching from the direction of the house.
“Guder mariye,” she said when she reached them and they greeted her back. Her tone was polite but cool as she explained, “Lydia sent me to get potatoes for lunch.”
Since Peter was standing in the buggy wagon and he had easy access to the barrels, he extended his hand to take the basket from her. But Benuel intercepted it and hopped up into the bed of the wagon, too. “How many do you need?” he asked.
“That depends on how many you think you’ll eat. I’m making mashed potatoes for lunch.”
“In that case, I’ll fill it up.”
Marshall must have invited Benuel to eat with the familye, Peter thought. While he himself hadn’t expected to have lunch with them, it seemed strange that he’d be the only one who was excluded. No matter what Marshall thought of him, it just wasn’t the Amish way to leave one person out. It’s almost as if I’m being shunned, he thought. But then it occurred to him that perhaps Benuel had forgotten his cooler today.
Whistling as he chose the biggest potatoes, Benuel placed them in the basket and then jumped back down from the wagon right beside Susannah. “This should be enough for me. Did you bring another basket for the rest of the crew?” he joked.
She chuckled. “Neh, just the one. And a word to the wise—you’d better take as much as you want the first time the bowl is passed, because with Jacob and Conrad at the table, it won’t kumme around a second time.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Benuel grinned and presented her the basket. Was Peter mistaken or did he deliberately touch her fingers before he let go of its handle?
“Denki,” Susannah replied and quickly pivoted back toward the house.
Watching her go, Benuel remarked, “She might just be the prettiest maedel I’ve ever seen.”
Surprised to hear his coworker openly express a sentiment most Amish men would consider worldly, Peter replied, “She’s not a maedel—she’s a weibsmensch.”
“Jah, you can say that again,” Benuel said. “A very beautiful weibsmensch. Jacob and Conrad said she used to be on the plump side, but she sure isn’t now. Do you know if she’s got a suitor back in Maryland?”
Peter was so appalled by Benuel’s brazen references to Susannah’s appearance—to any woman’s appearance and especially to her figure—all he could think to do was correct Benuel, as he replied, “Delaware. She lives in Delaware.”
Benuel snickered. “Okay, does she have a suitor in Delaware, then?”
“How would I know?” Peter snapped. He climbed down from the wagon bed, strode around to the front of the buggy and pulled himself up onto the seat, ready to depart. But at the last second, he decided he couldn’t let Benuel’s remarks about Susannah go unaddressed. Over his shoulder, he cautioned, “You’d better not let Marshall hear you talking about Susannah like that. You might find yourself out of a job.”
“Denki for the tip,” Benuel called as Peter steered the horse toward the lane leading to the road. “I’ll make sure he’s not within earshot.”
Peter hadn’t really been suggesting Benuel should be careful Marshall didn’t hear him talking about Susannah—he’d been suggesting Benuel shouldn’t talk about Susannah at all. Especially not in such a boorish, superficial way.
Admittedly, he could understand why Benuel found Susannah so attractive. Last summer, when Peter spotted her in church, he’d noticed her curly hair and fair, flawless skin, too. But it was her eyes had that made him go weak in the knees the first time they’d met. And it wasn’t just because they were a striking, golden shade of brown; it was also because of the openness and warmth he’d seen in them.
Now she can’t even bear to glance in my direction, he thought. Once again, he didn’t blame her for that, but it bothered him that someone as bold as Benuel was vying for her attention. His comment about Susannah’s weight was something he might have expected from an Englischer, not from a fellow Amish man. While it may have registered somewhere in the back of Peter’s mind that Susannah seemed thinner than she had last Christmas, he hadn’t given it a second thought until Benuel brought it to his attention again.
Maybe it was because he was too nervous in her presence to notice anything else, but the only thing that struck Peter as being different about Susannah’s appearance was how rigid her posture was. It troubled him to know he was the reason she was standing as if her spine were a steel rod.
But at least I didn’t say anything else dumm to upset her just now, he consoled himself. Of course, he hadn’t said anything at all, but even that was an improvement from the last couple of times they’d interacted.
Once he reached the potato house, which was built into the side of a hill, half underground, half above, Peter emptied the barrels into a chute. Then he stacked the empty containers in the back of the buggy wagon and returned to the farm. His stomach had been growling for the last hour, so he was relieved when he saw the other four men going toward the house. Must be time for our lunch break, he surmised. It turned out just as well that Benuel had been invited to eat inside the house; Peter didn’t want to have to listen to him make any more churlish remarks about Susannah while he was enjoying his own lunch.
After stabling the horse, he grabbed his cooler from his buggy and went to sit beneath a maple tree, leaning against its trunk. He closed his eyes to say grace and to pray for his mother’s energy to return. But he opened them again when someone gave the sole of his boot a tap. It was Marshall.
Oh, wunderbaar. He probably thinks I was sleeping on the job. Peter jumped to his feet. “Sorry. I thought everyone was inside taking a lunch break.”
“They are. And Lydia won’t let us eat until you join us, so c’mon.”
Peter understood: just as Susannah had made it clear it wasn’t her idea to come and get potatoes from him and Benuel, Marshall was making it clear that it wasn’t his idea to invite Peter to lunch. It was Lydia’s. Susannah wasn’t going to feel any more comfortable having Peter in the kitchen than he’d feel about being there, but he knew better than to insult Marshall’s wife by turning down the offer of a good hot meal. He picked up his cooler and raced after the old man, who had already strode halfway back to the porch.
* * *
“I found him sleeping beneath a tree,” Susannah’s grandfather announced when he came through the door, with Peter lagging behind him, holding a cooler in his hands.
“I—I was saying grace. I didn’t expect to be invited in for lunch. I brought my own,” he said apologetically, wiping his boots on the rug.
“There’s no invitation needed. It’s expected that we’ll all eat lunch together every day, so you can leave that cooler at home from now on,” Lydia said.
“Denki, that’s very kind of—”
“Quit yakking and go wash your hand
s. We’re hungerich,” Marshall interrupted him.
Susannah noticed the color rise in Peter’s cheeks. Groossdaadi is too grumpy sometimes. I’m not hallich Peter is going to be eating with us every day, but at least he has the gut manners to express his appreciation...and to wipe his boots, which no one else took the time to do. “The bathroom is on the right,” she told him, pointing down the hall.
After he returned and they’d said grace, the men dug in to their food with gusto. For several minutes, no one spoke because their mouths were too full. Then, as their eating slowed, Marshall commented that he was pleased the crop seemed abundant so far and Lydia remarked how good the potatoes tasted.
“Jah, but next time, you should make more,” Jacob told Susannah, scraping a spoon against the bottom of the serving dish to get every last trace of the white, creamy, mashed vegetable.
“Aren’t you going to leave any for Susannah? She hasn’t eaten yet,” Benuel reminded the teenager. Then he caught her eye and offered, “If I scoot over, there should be room for you to squeeze in here.”
Susannah was unnerved by his audacity; if she was going to sit at the table, she would have sat on the other side of Lydia, not next to Benuel. She’d found it awkward when he’d stood so close to her beside the buggy wagon and again when his hand had touched hers as she took the basket of potatoes from him. But she’d questioned whether he’d overstepped his boundaries accidentally or on purpose. Now that he’d suggested she should “squeeze in” next to him, she had no doubt he was behaving flirtatiously. And right in front of Lydia, too—what was he thinking? It was a good thing her grandfather had excused himself to the restroom.
“I don’t want potatoes and I don’t want to sit down next to you, either,” she replied curtly. Then, seeing Lydia lower her eyebrows disapprovingly at her, she added, “Denki, but I’ll eat later, after everyone has been served. Otherwise I’ll be jumping up and down throughout the meal to bring things to the table.”
“You mean like dessert?” Conrad hinted.
“I didn’t make dessert but I thought you might like this yogurt, since no one ate any at breakfast,” Susannah told him, placing the bowl on the table.
“There’s a reason no one ate any of it for breakfast,” Conrad muttered facetiously.
“It’s not that bad when you add honey to it,” his brother informed him, spooning a big swirl of honey into his bowl.
“I like yogurt. It’s kind of like custard,” Benuel said, but Susannah noticed he only took a small dollop.
“Jah, the consistency is the same. But the taste?” Lydia grimaced to demonstrate what she thought of it. Until Susannah started paying more attention to what she herself ate, she had never realized how finicky her stepgrandmother was about food.
“What taste? That stuff doesn’t have any taste.” Conrad’s remark caused Lydia and Jacob to chuckle.
Susannah couldn’t believe that they were making such a fuss over yogurt; it wasn’t as if she’d served them one of the appetizers she’d read about in the Englisch cookbooks, such as escargot or baby squid. She was just about to tell them she wouldn’t buy plain yogurt again if eating it was such a hardship, when Peter spoke up for the first time since sitting down at the table.
“I remember one time when I was a young bu and I complained that I disliked what we were having for supper. My mother said, ‘At this table, mouths may be used for eating, conversing or thanking the Lord for what He has provided us. Since you want to use your mouth to complain, you may go out into the barn and complain to the pig until we’re done eating our dessert.’” Peter licked his spoon and chuckled. “I didn’t make that mistake twice.”
His point taken, everyone laughed good-naturedly. As he plopped a second heaping spoonful of yogurt onto his dish, Susannah begrudgingly admitted to herself, Maybe having Peter around at lunchtime isn’t quite so baremlich, after all. At least he can have a gut influence on the others’ manners, which might make it easier for me to serve healthier food.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t glad when her grandfather returned to the room and told the men it was time for all of them to get back to work, including Peter, who hadn’t even finished eating his yogurt yet.
Chapter Four
On Thursday afternoon, when Lydia mentioned she was tired because her cast had interfered with her sleep the evening before, Susannah encouraged her to take a nap in the recliner. As she positioned a pillow beneath her stepgrandmother’s arm, trying to help her find a comfortable position, she felt a bit guilty because she knew she had an ulterior motive for convincing Lydia to rest: Susannah wanted to sneak in a walk before it started to rain.
All week, Lydia had found one excuse or the other to keep Susannah inside the house with her, whether it was that she needed Susannah to do some mending or to write a letter to Lydia’s sister, or simply to keep her company while she was drinking tea—and usually eating a snack—in the afternoon. Susannah didn’t mind helping her stepgrandmother with whatever she needed; after all, that was her purpose in coming to New Hope. And she understood why Lydia felt frustrated and restless. However, after four straight days of being with each other virtually all the time, except during her solo trip to the market, Susannah felt frustrated and restless, too.
Several times she’d invited Lydia to go for a walk with her, but her stepgrandmother usually came up with an excuse for why they should both stay inside instead. Once or twice, she’d convinced Lydia to sit on the porch swing while she cleaned the chicken coop or did a little yardwork nearby, but Susannah was itching to really stretch her legs.
I’ll take the clothes off the line and then I’ll walk down the lane to the mailbox and back again, but instead of stopping at the haus, I’ll continue toward the far, southern edge of Groossdaadi’s property. I can repeat the loop twice if I hurry, she schemed as she picked up the laundry basket and crept out onto the porch.
To her surprise, Susannah found Dorcas climbing the stairs. She set down the laundry basket so she could greet her friend with a hug. “It’s so gut to finally see you!” she exclaimed as they embraced.
“It’s wunderbaar to see you, too. But your shoulders feel so bony.” Dorcas stepped back and eyed her. “You’ve lost quite a bit of weight. Have you been ill?”
“Neh, I’m healthier than ever. I wrote that I’ve changed my eating habits and I feel a lot stronger and more energetic lately, remember?”
“I remember you writing that you’d made changes to your familye’s diet because of your daed’s diabetes, but you never said anything about losing weight yourself.” Dorcas frowned and smoothed her apron over her stomach, as if to push her round belly flatter, too.
“It didn’t seem like it was worth mentioning,” Susannah said dismissively. In fact, it would have felt boastful. “But I can’t wait to hear what’s new with you. Kumme, let’s walk to the mailbox and you can tell me what has been happening in your life since you last wrote.”
“Can’t we sit on the swing instead?”
Susannah had already descended the porch steps. “Lydia is inside taking a nap. I don’t want to disturb her.”
“I don’t know how we’d disturb her—the windows are closed and we’re not going to shout,” Dorcas grumbled, but she followed Susannah, anyway. As they walked down the long dirt driveway, Dorcas told her about her recent trip to Serenity Ridge to visit her aunt, uncle and cousins. “My gschwischderkind Hadassah is three years younger than I am and she told me she’s getting married this hochzich season. And my gschwischderkind Sarah is only seventeen and she’s already courting. At this rate, I’m going to be the spinster of the familye.”
“There are worse things in life than being single.”
“Jah, I know that. But, Gott willing, I still want to fall in love, get married and start a familye of my own. You do, too, don’t you?”
Susannah shrugged. “Not especially. Not anymore.”
“Really?” Dorcas glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow. “That’s a big change from when you and Peter were courting. You wrote that you could hardly wait to become a wife and a mamm. Don’t tell me you gave up your heart’s desire to be married just because one mann didn’t think you were a gut match for him.”
Neh, what I really gave up was my hope that any mann would love me unconditionally, for who I truly am, Susannah thought, but she didn’t express her feelings aloud. Even though she and Dorcas had become close confidantes, as well as pen pals, there were some heartaches Susannah couldn’t share with anyone else. Instead, she said, “Speaking of Peter, did you know he’s helping my groossdaadi and Lydia’s great-nephews harvest the potato crop?”
Dorcas abruptly stopped walking. “He is?”
“Jah. There’s another man on the crew, too. You might know him since he’s from Serenity Ridge. His name is Benuel Heiser.”
“Jah, I know him all right.” Dorcas lowered her voice even though they were the only ones on the lane and explained that her cousins had told her Benuel had only ended his rumspringa last April, even though he was twenty-four. He’d spent several years living among the Englisch before finally returning to his family and being baptized into the church. Apparently, he’d made quite a bit of money by partnering with a couple of Englischers in buying houses, remodeling them and then selling them at a higher price in several of Maine’s wealthier seaside vacation communities.
But after returning to New Hope for good, he’d made a commitment to work solely for Amish businesses as a way of completely cutting ties with his old Englisch lifestyle. Unfortunately, jobs within the small Serenity Ridge Amish community were difficult to come by, so Benuel took whatever work he could find. “I can understand why he’d help on your groossdaadi’s bauerei, but why would Peter join the crew when he has a business of his own to manage?”
An Unexpected Amish Harvest Page 5