Mother For His Children, A

by Drexler, Jan

  “Ja, and dinner is in the oven. I thought we’d take a bit of a sit-down before getting the rest of the meal together.”

  “That sounds wonderful-gut.” Waneta took her cup to the table, and Ruthy joined her on the bench facing the windows.

  Snow covered the barnyard, but bright sunshine made the farm look like a wonderland.

  “Such a beautiful day, with that blue sky, ne?” Ruthy took a sip of her cocoa.

  “Ja.” Waneta turned her cup in her hands. “Ruthy, do you mind if I ask a question?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Did you ever have a boy who...well, who wanted to spend time with you?”

  Elam. Ruthy’s heart clenched. Would she ever be able to think of him without remembering his betrayal?

  “I did. Once.” More than once. Elam had courted her for eight years.

  “Did you feel like you could fly?” Waneta’s voice was wistful as she gazed out the window, her chin on her hand.

  “Ach, ja. Like I could fly over the clouds!” Ruthy laughed as she said it. She could remember those feelings, if she put the last year out of her mind. “And just why do you ask?”

  Waneta’s face reddened. “No reason, just...”

  “Just that you enjoyed a certain young man’s visit Saturday?”

  “It was wonderful-gut, wasn’t it? Did you see how he played with the little boys so sweetly, and talked to Dat about farming....” Waneta sighed. “Do you think Dat likes him?”

  “Ja, for sure he does.”

  “He didn’t look too happy when Reuben was here.”

  “Well, think about how he’s feeling. Say he has a sweet heifer calf he’s raised—bottle-feeding it, giving it the softest hay for its bed, protecting it from all kinds of weather. How would he feel if another farmer came by and asked him to sell that heifer calf? What would he do?”

  “I’m no heifer calf, Ruthy,” Waneta said, but she smiled. “He’d want to know if the farmer would give the calf a good home. If he’d feed her well and keep her safe.”

  “Ja, for sure he would. Would he do any less for his daughter?”

  “Ne, he wouldn’t.”

  “Your dat loves you, and he won’t feel right about any young man who comes to visit his daughters. It’s Reuben’s job to change his mind. If Reuben is the wise young man I think he is, we’ll be seeing a lot more of him in the next few months.”

  “Is that what your young man did with your dat?”

  “Ach, ja. Elam was at our house so often Mam set a place at table for him just like he was one of the family.” He was part of the family....

  “What happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why didn’t you marry him?”

  Ruthy felt her mouth quivering even though she tried to keep a smile on her face. “He decided he’d rather marry someone else.” She stood quickly and took their empty mugs to the sink. “That’s the way it happens sometimes.”

  “Perhaps you’ll meet someone else. Someone here in Indiana.” Waneta followed her to the sink to wash the dishes from their cocoa.

  “I don’t think so.” Ruthy steadied her voice. “Sometimes God calls a woman to help others rather than have their own homes. That’s why God brought me here, don’t you think? This is the work He has for me.”

  Waneta dried the cups in silence while Ruthy scrubbed the pan she had heated the cocoa in.

  “How do you know?” Waneta dried the pan while Ruthy took the perfectly brown loaves out of the oven. “Perhaps He brought you here to meet the husband He has for you.”

  Stomping boots in the porch told Ruthy the boys and Levi were coming in for their dinner. She hurried to open the quarts of beans to heat up, but her mind was still on Waneta’s comment. Ellie and Annie had mentioned the same thing—that perhaps God had brought her here to find the husband He had for her.

  She glanced up just as Levi Zook came in the door, laughing at something Elias had said, his face ruddy from the cold February air. When he saw her watching him, his laughter changed to a smile. A warm smile of greeting, just for her.

  * * *

  Levi sorted through the letters he had picked up at the post office in Emma when he took the children to school, letting Ruthy and Waneta set the table around him.

  Ruthy moved back and forth as if he didn’t exist, but he was aware of each movement she made. As the weeks passed, he appreciated her more than he thought possible. She cooked well, managed the housework without any complaint, worked well with the girls and treated the children like they were her own. But he wouldn’t let his thoughts go any further.

  He opened the bill from the feed store, but the paper could have been a blank sheet. His attention was captured by the efficient woman who leaned around him to place a casserole on the table. She had made herself a kapp that fit in with the ones the women in Eden Township wore, and had changed the tucks and folds of her dress also. He hadn’t expected her to live according to the Ordnung here.

  Was she happy? He didn’t dare watch her closely enough to find out, but it seemed so.

  “Ruthy,” Sam said, sliding along the bench to make room for her, “sit by me.”

  “Ja, Sam.” She smiled at him and let her hand rest on his head as she passed. “As soon as the food is all taken up, I’ll sit next to you like I always do at dinner.”

  Levi stared at the bill, watching the numbers on the paper double and move sideways until the whole thing was a blur. Sam had liked Ruthy from the beginning, but he had caught the look in the boy’s eyes as Ruth had caressed him. The five-year-old loved her.

  And why not? Why shouldn’t he love the woman who cooked for him and cared for him, and took the time to look at his drawings and listen to his constant stories?

  He shoved the bill back into the envelope and leafed through the other envelopes.

  “Ruth, there’s a letter here for you.”

  “For me? I’ve been waiting for a letter from Mam.” Ruth dried her hands on her apron then reached to take it from him. When she glanced at the address her smile faded and she tucked it into her waistband.

  “Is it from your mam?” Waneta asked as she set a plate of bread on the table.

  “Ne. I’ll read it later. It’s time for dinner now.”

  Levi tried to keep his mind on his prayer, but the look on Ruth’s face as she tucked that letter away wouldn’t leave his mind. Instead of thanking God for his food, he found himself praying for Ruth. Whatever was in the letter, she wasn’t looking forward to reading it.

  “Moolah is nearly ready to calve, Dat,” said Elias when the prayer ended. “She’s been pretty restless all morning.”

  “You put her in the calving stall?”

  “Not yet, but I will after dinner.”

  “I want to watch when she has her baby,” Sam said, his mouth full of bread. “Can I, Dat?”

  “It won’t be this afternoon, son. You can watch when it happens, unless it’s in the middle of the night.”

  Ruth put a spoonful of green beans on Sam’s plate and took some for herself. “Will she be all right?”

  “Moolah? Ach, ja. She’s had several calves already, and never has trouble with the birth.” Levi took a piece of bread from the plate as it was passed and reached for the rhubarb preserves. “Did you want to watch, too?”

  Ruth reddened as he waited for her answer. She hadn’t been to the barn since her first day when she had confronted him about the children. The weather had kept all the girls inside the last couple of weeks.

  “I helped my dat with the calving at home, and I thought I could help with Moolah if you needed me.”

  Levi thought of the long hours spent in the barn waiting for a calf to come. Salome would never come to the barn to watch a calving, and that had been fine. Women belonge
d in the house with the children, not sitting with him in the barn during the long hours of the night. He shifted in his chair as he had a sudden vision of sitting alone with this woman, talking together the way he and his sisters used to when they lived at home. What a good companion she would make.... But ne, she was his housekeeper, nothing more.

  “I don’t think I’ll need the help.” He didn’t look at her at he spoke, but he could tell his words had hurt her.

  She turned from him to Sam. “What did you do to help your daed this morning?”

  As Sam launched into a long tale of the chores he had helped with, Levi remembered it had been Ruth’s idea for Sam to start learning to chore in the first place. Ach, and she had been right. He took another bite of casserole as he turned this thought over in his mind. She had an instinct for what the children needed. Even with the older boys. She treated them as men, not just boys who needed the same care their little brothers did.

  Levi let his gaze rest on her as she listened to Sam talk. She nodded as he explained how to feed the cows, her face interested, although this must be old news to her. She smiled often, he realized. Some might say her mouth was too wide, but he thought it added to her beauty.

  This was ridiculous. He didn’t need to be staring at his housekeeper and thinking about her looks. He turned to his meal, concentrating on each bite. If he let Ruth take a place in his thoughts, then who knows where they would lead? John Stoltzfus hadn’t said it outright, but it was plain that a young woman living here could appear wrong. There was nothing to worry about—they were conducting themselves properly—but if he let his thoughts stray, the wrong actions could follow right on their heels.

  * * *

  Ruthy didn’t have a chance to look at her letter until after the dinner dishes were washed and Waneta went out to check the drying laundry. She sat in the small wooden rocking chair in the kitchen, left there from the days when Levi’s wife had been ill and needed to sit often during the day.

  She put her feet up on the footstool and pulled the envelope from her waistband. She had recognized the handwriting immediately. How many letters had she and Laurette exchanged over the years?

  The familiar rounded script brought tears to Ruthy’s eyes. She missed her mam and daed, but Laurette had been her dearest friend. She hadn’t spoken or written to Laurette since that day in September when Elam told her they were getting married. Her beau and her best friend.

  What did Laurette have to say now? What could she say? She and Elam were wed and expecting their first child. The man who should have been Ruthy’s husband, the child that should have been hers.

  Ruthy pulled a hairpin from her kapp and inserted it in the envelope flap, but hesitated. What did Laurette have to say that she couldn’t have said last fall? Or worse yet, what if the letter were only full of news of Laurette and Elam’s life together, sharing every detail of her life just as all her letters had through the years?

  Ruthy smoothed the envelope on her lap. Ever since Laurette’s mam had died when they were both eight, Laurette had been more of a sister to her than a friend. Living just down the road, it was easy for her to drop by their house whenever she grew tired of her daed’s company.

  Laurette had known how much Ruthy loved Elam, but had still accepted his invitation to ride with him the night Ruthy had missed the Singing because of a cold.

  After that, Laurette had told her about her new beau, her first ever, but had never told Ruthy the boy’s name. Meanwhile, days went by with Elam making excuses not to see her—and all the time he and Laurette...

  Ruthy covered the envelope with her hand and set the chair rocking with one foot. Would she forgive Laurette if she asked?

  How could she? Laurette had stolen Ruthy’s only chance to be a wife and have a family. She would live as a maidle her entire life, like Aunt Ella, Daed’s sister, moving from one family’s house to another, only staying until she wasn’t wanted or needed anymore, and then traveling on to the next house.

  Just like she would stay at Levi Zook’s house only as long as she was needed.

  Leaning her head back against the edge of the chair, Ruthy closed her eyes, worn out by the morning’s work. Life was easier at home, for sure, with only three people in the house, but as much as she missed her home, this house was so pleasant to work in. It would be a sad day when Levi married and didn’t need her anymore.

  Ruthy let her imagination see Levi Zook’s new wife in the kitchen, sitting in her chair at table, talking with the children, laying her hand on Levi’s shoulder as she placed his coffee cup on the table in front of him...imagining the feel of Levi’s broad shoulders under his cotton shirts, his smile as he turned his warm brown eyes to catch hers, his soft denki meant for her ears alone...

  Ruthy’s eyes flew open. Where had that thought come from? What was she thinking of? The man practically ignored her, for heaven’s sake. He never spoke directly to her unless she asked him a question, avoided looking in her direction whenever they were in the same room together and spent most of his time in the barn. In the evenings, if she joined the family in the front room, it was because one of the children insisted, not him. As far as she could tell, he didn’t even like her, let alone have the kind of feelings that would cause him to look into her eyes.

  Ruthy pushed the letter back into her waistband and rose from the chair, glancing out the window toward the barn as she did. Ach, why did her thoughts always stray to him? She was nothing more to him than...than a cow who provided the milk his family needed.

  Pulling the mixing bowl from the cupboard, Ruthy scooped an egg-sized lump of lard and a cup of sugar into it. Making a batch of oatmeal cookies would get her mind off Laurette and the life she had left behind in Pennsylvania.

  She paused before cracking an egg against the side of the bowl. Ja, and off that Levi Zook, too. She hit the egg against the rim of the bowl with one hand, cracking it open as her mam had taught her. Another egg followed the first, and then Ruthy started beating the lard and eggs together with a wooden spoon.

  What would Mam think of Levi Zook? She would compare him to Elam, of course. Where Elam was a boy, Levi Zook was a bear. Where Elam’s blue eyes grew soft and dreamy as he gazed at her, Levi’s brown eyes were sharp, avoiding hers whenever he could. Where Elam teased girls until they cried, Levi gathered his little daughters onto his lap and tickled them with his beard. Where Elam had betrayed her...what would Levi have done?

  Ruthy’s spoon slowed in the bowl, the eggs, lard and sugar beaten into a creamy yellow mass.

  A man like Levi Zook would never betray anyone.

  Chapter Ten

  Moolah’s first bellow stopped Levi’s feet on the stairs. After a day full of unending work, he was ready to fall into his bed, but the day wasn’t over yet. He had just tucked the little boys into their bed and given each of his girls a kiss. It was time for his last check on the barn, but Moolah’s second mournful cry warned him this could be a long night.

  The cow had been safe in the calving pen and seemed calm as he and the boys did the evening chores. Her labor hadn’t started yet, but that had been almost four hours ago.

  “Dat,” said Elias from the top of the stairs, “do you want me to go out to check on Moolah?”

  “Ne, son, you go on to bed. I’ll go see if she needs anything.”

  Levi heard another bellow as he went through the kitchen to the back door. She sounded alarmed at something. He shoved his arms into his coat and grabbed his hat. The path to the barn led through snow at least two feet deep, but it was well-packed. The stars shining on the white world gave him all the light he needed as he hurried through the frigid night to the warm cowshed.

  Lighting the lantern kept on a nail by the door, he walked past the sleepy cows to the calving stall. Moolah was standing in the far corner with her head down and back hunched. He turned the lantern toward her
head and she stared at him with white-ringed eyes.

  “Moolah, good girl,” he murmured to her, opening the gate to the stall and walking toward her. She shied from his approach, moving to the next corner with a halting step. “Ach, Moolah, what trouble have you gotten yourself into?”

  She let him approach and he ran his hand along her side, feeling the muscles of her abdomen tighten as a contraction gripped the Holstein. Moolah humped her back and kicked, bellowing again in her pain. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

  He ran his hands over her distended stomach, trying to feel the calf through the unyielding wall of flesh. Every other time Moolah had calved, the little one had been born easily and quickly and Moolah hadn’t seemed to notice the discomfort.

  She moved to the other corner of the pen again, her steps halting. She nearly lay down on the straw bed, but then struggled back to her feet.

  Levi knew what had to be done. He had seen his father reach inside the cow’s birth canal to assess the problem in a difficult calving, but he had never done it himself. His hands, so strong when handling his team of six Percherons, were too large to attempt what Moolah needed without causing more pain than what she was going through now.

  Scratching at his beard, he watched as Moolah suffered through another futile contraction. He had to rely on Elias, he had no choice. The boy’s hands were small enough, but could he talk his son through the job when neither of them really knew what they were doing? He had to take the risk. Without this calf, without Moolah, his family would suffer.

  “She’s having trouble, ne?”

  The woman’s voice startled Levi. Ruth opened the gate and slid into the stall beside him.

  “Ja, she’s in trouble.”

  Ruth looked at him, her blue eyes nearly black in the dim stall. “If the calf is turned wrong, they’ll both die.”

  “I know. I was just going to get Elias to help.”

  “Has he ever done this before?”

  “Ne, but I can’t do it. I’m afraid I’d hurt her.”

  Ruth looked at his beefy hand holding the lantern above his head. The light shone on her face, casting a golden light on her flushed cheeks. “I’ve helped my daed deliver calves many times. I can try.”