“Sorry about the dog,” Seth said. “He’s been kicked out of three obedience schools.”
Miriam willed her racing heart to slow down. “He’s cute.”
Seth grimaced. “Only if you are fond of nails and pokey things. Please, come in.”
Miriam walked into the Lambright house for the first time in her life. Neither she nor Seth thought it necessary to comment on the occasion.
“I chose the fabric I want,” Priscilla said, taking Miriam’s hand and leading her into the kitchen. “It’s pink and purple. And with flowers.”
Seth’s stepmother, Ellie, sat on her haunches, scrubbing a table leg. Ellie had come from Ohio to marry Seth’s fater a few years ago, but Miriam knew almost nothing else about her. Miriam scolded herself again. She hadn’t taken interest in any of the Lambrights.
Ellie popped up the minute she saw Miriam. “Why, Miriam Bontrager, how nice to see you. You were not here at church two weeks ago. Was everything all right?”
“Callie came down with a fever, and I stayed home to care for him.” She glanced at Seth. “I most surely would have come if I could have. Mamm told me the sermon lifted her heart, and she said you made delicious cookies for the dinner afterward.”
Ellie beamed. “Oh my, I never had so many people in my house. I wish you could have seen. I scrubbed and waxed this floor till it shown like a mirror, and then the men tramped the dirt in on their boots. But my walls shone clean and the whole room smelled of Pine-Sol.”
Miriam nodded. “I’m sure it was a wonder to behold.”
“Trying to keep this house clean with five messy children can send anyone to an early grave. It’s a task, I’ll tell you that.”
Miriam smiled to herself. She wasn’t the only one trying too hard. “You do a fine job. This home is cleanliness itself.”
Ellie wiped her hands on a dish towel. “I’m glad you’ve come for a visit. Sit down and have a cup of coffee. Special blend.”
Miriam motioned to Priscilla, who stood patiently waiting for Ellie to stop talking. “That would be lovely, but we should get started.”
“On what?”
“I’ve come to help Priscilla make a quilt for her doll.”
Ellie’s smile faded. “Oh. Well, I would have helped her myself, but keeping house is a constant job.”
“I know it is,” Miriam said. “My mamm barely has time to breathe most days.”
“Priscilla,” Ellie said, turning on her stepdaughter, “it was very rude of you to ask Miriam to make you a quilt when she has so many other things to do. That old burp rag works fine for a blanket.”
Out of the corners of her eye, Miriam saw Seth tighten his jaw muscles.
“I asked Priscilla if I could help her make a quilt,” Miriam said. “I’ve always wanted to make a doll blanket. It is no trouble at all.”
Seth unclenched his fists and fixed his eyes on Miriam.
“Where is the sewing machine, Priscilla?”
“Upstairs in Laura’s room.”
Ellie waved her hand in dismissal. “That old thing? It is very slow. I told Abbie we need a new one, but he doesn’t listen to me. The men don’t have to make school clothes for the children, so they don’t care what we go through to sew a decent stitch.”
“An old machine is fun. They are built so sturdy.” Miriam hoped Ellie didn’t mind being contradicted. She bent over to Priscilla. “I thought we could do a Nine-Patch.”
“What is a Nine-Patch?” Priscilla asked.
“I will draw you a picture. Ellie, would you like to come up with us? We can visit while we sew.”
Priscilla shook her head slightly and stared at Miriam with pursed lips. Miriam returned her gaze. Had she said something wrong?
“I’d like to, but I must get these scuff marks off the table legs where certain people keep scraping their shoes even though I tell them not to.”
Priscilla’s smile returned. “I will show you Laura’s room.”
Ellie sighed. “Don’t blame me if it’s a mess up there. Laura’s room is a pigsty, and I refuse to be her maid.”
Seth took the sewing basket from Miriam. “Cum, I will show you.”
As soon as they started up the steep steps, the dog came out of nowhere, stood at the bottom of the stairs, and resumed barking.
Seth furrowed his brow. “The good news is that Pookie does not climb stairs except in extreme emergencies.”
At the top of the stairs, they turned down a hall where a set of ladder stairs with a rope handrail led to the attic door. Priscilla went in front of Miriam.
Seth followed her. “Careful. I’m right behind you if you slip.”
Priscilla threw open the door and revealed a light-filled room with a large window shaped like an upside-down V. A small coal stove stood in the corner atop four cinder blocks, and a sewing machine sat next to it. The walls were bright white and bare except for a certificate tacked at the head of the bed. “CASHTON HIGH SCHOOL, 4.0 GPA,” it read.
Laura stood by her bed sorting through fabric in a box. She looked up and smiled tentatively. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Miriam said.
Laura motioned to the sewing machine. “Seth carried it up. By himself. Without dropping it.”
Seth put Miriam’s sewing basket on the bed. “I’ll be going now. Have a gute time.”
Laura looked as uncomfortable as Miriam felt. Seth was the one person who could keep them from sinking into an awkward silence.
“Stay and keep us company,” Laura said. “Why do you have to run off so soon?”
Seth’s eyes danced in amusement. “Because I’ve got to get to my horses, and a quilting bee is no place for a man.”
“Oh, posh,” Laura said.
Seth reached out and cupped his hand around Miriam’s elbow. “Thank you for coming here. You’ll never know how grateful I am.”
“No thanks necessary,” Miriam said.
“You’ll never know.”
He bounded down the stairs, leaving Miriam to make conversation with someone she hadn’t ever made an effort to know. Her discomfort stuck in her throat like a dry piece of bread.
Miriam looked from one sister to the next then pointed to the pile of fabric on Laura’s bed. “Is all this your fabric?”
Laura waved in the direction of two other boxes sitting in the corner. “And that. My mamm loved to quilt. She collected scraps and bought some at auctions.”
“These is what I want for mine,” Priscilla said, holding up a pink piece and a purple piece and a floral print that incorporated both colors.
Miriam opened her sewing basket and pulled out a small notebook and a pen. She drew a big square on the page and filled it in with three rows and three columns of smaller squares. Nine squares altogether.
“This is what a Nine-Patch square looks like,” she said, showing Priscilla her drawing. “A big Nine-Patch quilt would be several of these smaller Nine-Patches sewn together. I am making one like this for a friend. But for your quilt, I think we should do nine squares. It will be just the right size for Lady Dancing.”
Priscilla jumped up and down and clapped her hands. “Jah, that is esactly what I want.”
Miriam pulled out her tape measure, and Priscilla decided how big she wanted the quilt. Then the three of them marked the fabric and cut out squares.
“Now cum, Priscilla, and I will show you how to use the machine,” Miriam said.
Priscilla cheerfully hopped into the chair, too young to be intimidated by something new. Miriam regarded the machine, which looked old enough to be considered an authentic antique. Most of the gold paint on the letters on the front of the machine had worn off, and there was even a large scratch through the last letter, but Miriam could still read the word “DAMASCUS,” regardless.
Miriam pointed to the pedal. “Put both feet there.” Priscilla had to sit on the edge of her seat and stretch her legs, but she could reach the pedal.
“First, put the presser foot down and turn the handwheel, like this. No
w slowly press down with your toes and relax and then press down with your heels.”
Priscilla giggled as the machine clicked and the needle moved in rhythm with her feet.
“A little slower. There you go. You want to go slow enough that your stitches will be straight.”
Once Priscilla got the hang of the movement, Miriam threaded the machine and then took a scrap of fabric and placed it under the presser foot. “Practice on this.”
She showed Priscilla how to turn the wheel to move the needle into the fabric. “Now move your feet up and down like I showed you.”
Priscilla worked the pedal, and the needle bobbed up and down through the fabric, leaving a crooked line of tiny stitches behind it.
“Gute, Priscilla. Now practice guiding the fabric through the machine to make a straight line. Use the line on the plate under the fabric to help you. And be careful of your fingers. I sewed right through mine once.”
“That must have hurt,” Laura said.
“Jah, my mamm made me get a tetanus shot.”
Laura groaned. “I can sympathize. I had to have about seven shots to get into school.”
Once Priscilla had sewn through her scrap, Miriam gave her a longer strip to practice on. Straight lines were the key.
Laura ran her hand over the pile of fabric on her bed. “Thank you for coming today. My mamm loved to quilt but never felt well enough to teach me. Not that I blame her. I could have learned if I hadn’t been so lazy.”
“You are going to college,” Miriam said. “I doubt you have a lazy bone in your body.”
Laura sat on her bed and pulled Miriam to sit by her. “You are uncomfortable around me, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Please don’t mind my frankness. I say what I think too often. But everybody acts nervous now that they know I’m jumping the fence.” She held up her hands as if to stop traffic. “Keep your children away from Laura Lambright. She will corrupt them.”
Priscilla giggled without taking her eyes from her sewing. “You are silly, Laura.”
Miriam looked at her hands. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want to be friends,” Laura said. “And I want you to know that I am a normal girl and you don’t have to be afraid of me.”
Miriam lifted her feet onto the bed and tucked her knees under her chin. “You think I’m afraid of you?”
“Maybe ‘uneasy’ is a better word—that you’d rather not associate with me. But it’s not just you. Most Amish behave that way toward me.”
“Seth says I act that way all the time.”
Laura howled with laughter. “Oh, my brother! His mouth gets him into trouble sometimes. Like me.”
Miriam took a deep breath. “I suppose I am uncomfortable around you because I don’t understand you. It wonders me why you want to leave us.”
“Most of the great religious wars were fought because people didn’t understand each other. They didn’t want to understand each other.”
“I want to understand.”
“I am done practicing,” Priscilla said, scooting back in her chair and swinging her legs.
Miriam inspected Priscilla’s stitches. Then she pinned two squares together and handed them to her. “Sew these together, making the seam this wide. Be careful with the pins. Do you think you can do that?”
Priscilla nodded. “I will go slow.”
Miriam watched over Priscilla’s shoulder while she sewed the pieces of fabric together. Priscilla sewed to the end, cut her thread, and held up the two squares now attached with a nice curvy seam. “It’s crooked.”
Miriam handed Priscilla two more squares. “Try again on these while I unpick.” Turning to Laura, she said, “I spend more time taking stitches out than I do putting them in.” She sat on the bed and pulled the seam ripper from her sewing kit. “Tell me about your decision to go to college. I want to understand.”
“My mother got sick—depressed, Seth says.” Laura leaned in and whispered, “After the baby.”
Miriam glanced at Priscilla. Laura was wise. Priscilla need never carry guilt for what happened to her mother.
“I spent a lot of time at Britny Engle’s house while Mamm lay in bed. Britny is Englisch. I first considered leaving the community because I loved television. It helped me to forget how bad things were at home.” Laura leaned back on her hands. “I don’t mean to offend you when I say this, but when Mamm died, I realized how isolated and insignificant her life had been. That’s what made her so unhappy in the first place. I didn’t want to end up like that.”
“But most Amish are very happy.”
“I know,” Laura said. “I’ve seen the studies. Happier than the general population. But I’m not happy in this way of life. And I knew five years ago that I wouldn’t be.”
“Was your mamm…was she unhappy with your dat?”
“Nae. Dat is easy to get along with. He is perfectly content with himself and everybody else. He couldn’t understand what was happening to Mamm, so he pretended nothing was wrong. Seth begged him more than once to get Mamm some help. Dat simply did not know what to do. The uncertainty paralyzed him.”
“It must have been terrible to lose your mother.”
Laura’s eyes grew moist. “It made everything worse. To know that she wanted to leave us—that was the deepest cut of all.” She looked away. “It took me a long time to forgive her for that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Seth disappeared for three days after she died and then didn’t say a word, not a word, to anyone for a month. He spent hours at the stable brushing the horses.”
“I don’t know what I would do without my mother.”
Laura gazed at Miriam. “Everyone treated us like lepers because of how she died.”
“Maybe they didn’t know what to say.”
“To be sure. Most people meant no harm,” Laura said. “But some still hold it against us. The looks and whispers behind the hands still sting, but we’ve endured worse, so we try to pay no never mind.”
Miriam felt her face get hot.
“I’m done with this one,” Priscilla said.
Miriam slid off the bed to the sewing machine, to examine Priscilla’s latest attempt. “Better. Here, let me show you. Put your hands flat like this and guide the fabric along this line. As slow as you can go. Try one more time while I unpick.”
“Believe me,” Laura whispered, “it would be worse if I were trying to work that machine.”
“You should try it,” Miriam said.
“I’d be useless.”
“What about a quilt for your room at college? We could whip something up using your mamm’s fabric.”
The shadow of a grin played at Laura’s lips. “You’d be unpicking for days.”
“It would be fun.”
Laura’s face bloomed into a full smile. “It would be nice to have something of my mamm’s at college. But I would need a lot of help.”
“Please, let me help. Quilting is my favorite thing to do.”
The machine fell silent. “Miriam,” said Priscilla, “I’m done. Is this good?”
Miriam went back to the sewing machine and examined Priscilla’s quilt blocks. Not a perfectly straight line, but definitely good enough.
“Jah, jah, wonderful-gute, Priscilla. Here is the next one.”
Priscilla sewed with determination while Laura ironed and Miriam unpicked seams. They soon had a beautiful square made up of nine smaller squares. And if all the corners didn’t match up exactly right, only Miriam noticed.
Miriam cut a piece of batting to fit the square and then chose a matching purple for the back. She showed Priscilla and Laura how to baste the top, the batting, and the bottom together, and then she stretched the small quilt into an embroidery hoop.
“Let me show you how to do the stitches,” Miriam said. She threaded a needle with quilter’s thread, showed Priscilla how to secure a knot, and made a stitch. “Go down and up, like this.” She
moved slowly, making sure Priscilla saw how she worked the needle to make tiny stitches, and then handed the hoop and quilt to Priscilla. “You try.”
Priscilla concentrated with all the energy of a six-year-old while she tried to copy Miriam’s technique.
When Miriam was satisfied that Scilla could do it on her own, she said, “You can work on your quilt any time of the day. Then I will come back and show you how to bind it.”
“When will it be done?” asked Priscilla, her eyes glued to the work of her hands.
“As quickly as you can stitch it.”
Holding firmly to the embroidery hoop, Priscilla jumped up and down. “I will go fast.”
Miriam gathered her supplies in her sewing basket. “Laura, decide what kind of quilt you want to make, and when I come back to help Priscilla with her binding, we can get started on yours.”
“I will.”
Miriam took hold of Laura’s arm. “Just so you know, I am not uneasy around you anymore.”
“And I’m not scared of you. But”—the corners of Laura’s mouth twitched upward—“I think Seth is.”
Chapter 9
Before suppertime, Miriam finished cutting the fabric for Ephraim’s Nine-Patch quilt. She stacked the three colors and neatly folded the scraps in her basket. Ephraim had better taste in colors than Miriam thought. The tan fabric he’d chosen grounded the bright red and yellow and would give the quilt a charming country look. Aunt Emma had recently taught her a new way to sew a Nine-Patch together, and Miriam looked forward to using it on Ephraim’s engagement quilt.
She arched her back and looked out the window. Susie was hanging the last of the day’s laundry on the line.
Miriam walked outside to help and put her arm around her sister. “Three more weeks, and you won’t have to do so much laundry.”
Susie didn’t even look at Miriam as she bent over and retrieved another pair of trousers from the basket. “They don’t have any children. I’ll be all alone with them in their big house.”
“But you can meet people at gmay and gatherings. You will have double the friends by the time you leave.”
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