Second Chance Proposal

by Anna Schmidt

  “You had thought that one day you might become the teacher.” Lydia finished the thought for her. “I would not leave my position, Bettina.”

  “But if you and John Amman married and had children...”

  “We would still need my income and, besides, we have known for some time, Bettina, that the school’s future was precarious at best.”

  “But I had planned...Caleb and I had...” She stopped speaking again, this time shoving her fist against her lips as if to stem any further admissions.

  It was well-known that Caleb Harnischer was intent on marrying Bettina one day. In so many ways the young couple reminded Lydia of herself and John when they were that age. So filled with plans for the future they were. And, just as with John and Lydia, it did not occur to this young couple that God might have other plans for their lives. She could only hope that neither of them would make a decision as John had that would separate them for eight long years.

  “It will all work out,” she promised Bettina. “You must simply trust that God will send you in the right direction even as he is guiding the elders regarding the school. Besides, it is not forever. In time the population will grow again and there will be children in need of schooling and the school will be reopened.”

  “But I have heard that they plan to tear it down and use the land for other purposes,” Bettina protested,

  Lydia had heard the same thing. “Then when the time comes the elders will build another school.”

  Bettina made a face. “But by then...”

  “Shh. God will show us the way. We may not always see His path clearly, but in the end...”

  Bettina’s face brightened. “Just like He did for you and John Amman, you mean.”

  “That’s right. Just like that.”

  But as she watched Bettina climb the stairs to care for the crying baby, she could not help worrying about Caleb and her niece. They might face a great deal of heartache before they found their way together, if that was God’s intent for them at all.

  Outside she heard the crunch of buggy wheels on crushed shell and the muffled snort of a horse. Levi had come at last. It was time to put aside any worries she had about the school and give all of her attention to the happy task of planning her wedding.

  Chapter Twelve

  As the days passed leading up to Sunday services and the bishop’s announcement of their wedding, nothing could dampen Lydia’s good mood. Not the closing of the school—the news public now. Not even her previous concerns about John taking orders from outsiders. For if Lydia had suffered doubts about John attracting Englisch customers, such doubts were soon put to rest as word spread of his gift for making fine furniture. Besides, as Greta repeatedly reminded her, Luke served many in the Sarasota community with no ill effects. Thanks to Luke, John now had half-a-dozen small orders in addition to the china cabinet for the doctor’s wife.

  Even his uncle, as well as Hilda Yoder, came around to seeing the benefit of John’s growing business. Hardly a customer who came to place an order with John left town without purchasing something from the hardware store or crossing the street to browse the wares of the dry-goods store. And if Lydia had worried that Josef Bontrager might not like the fact that John was in competition with him, she needn’t have. One Sunday after services, as they all enjoyed the communal meal, Josef had approached John.

  “I saw the cabinet you are building for Dr. Benson’s wife,” he said. “It reminded me that I have a supply of wood in my barn that I have no use for. I need the room that it’s taking up, so if it is something you could use...”

  John was on his feet immediately. “I’ll stop by and have a look at it, but I would pay you...”

  Josef held up his hands. “You would be doing me a favor, John Amman. Managing my land holdings and farm takes all my time these days. I am out of practice with crafting furniture and it would be good to see the wood put to some use.”

  “I’ll come tomorrow evening if that suits,” John said.

  “That’ll do nicely,” Josef replied, and walked back to the table where his wife and her parents sat.

  “So looks like you’re to be the resident woodworker,” Luke said after Josef left.

  John grinned. “Life is sehr gut,” he said. “I’ll have to think about a place to store the lumber, though.”

  “You can use the stables for now,” Luke offered. “Not that much call for livery services these days. There’s plenty of room.”

  Lydia didn’t know when she had felt so certain that God’s plan was playing out exactly as He had intended. How could she ever have doubted it? It was true that most of the orders were for small things—caning a chair seat, building a small side table or a simple bookcase. But over time John’s business would grow. Times were clearly getting better. They might struggle in the beginning, especially after the school closed, but for the first time since John’s return she realized that she was clear of any doubt that he might leave again. He had found his place in Celery Fields.

  With the joy of a future she had only dared dream of in her heart, she scrubbed the iron skillet. Just after breakfast John had gone to make a delivery with Roger and after that he would go to Sarasota to call on a prospective customer. Lydia intended to finish scouring the skillet before settling in to prepare the lessons she would teach the following day. A knock at the front door interrupted her work.

  “Coming,” she called out as she set the pan aside. Using her apron, she wiped her hands, reddened now by the hot water, and made her way down the hall. She could not imagine who of her neighbors might be calling at this time of day. Besides, anyone she knew would surely have come to the kitchen door.

  A stranger waited patiently on her front porch, Englisch by his dress. He was a short, stocky man who looked, given his tan linen suit and soft straw hat, as if he had done well in the world. He carried a walking stick and was looking around when Lydia reached the door. “May I help you?”

  His smile showed brilliantly white teeth set off by the ruddy color of his skin. This was a man who had spent a good deal of time in the sun but not necessarily doing hard work. She could not help but notice that his hands, folded on top of the walking stick, featured clean fingernails polished to a high sheen. Behind him she saw a motorcar parked in front of the house and a uniformed driver waiting next to it.

  “Good day, ma’am,” he said, removing his hat in the gesture of respect for women common to outsiders. “I wonder if you might help me. My name is George Stevens and I am looking for an old friend of mine—John Amman?”

  Lydia felt a wave of panic sweep through her. George Stevens had been John’s business partner and whenever John spoke of the man it was always with admiration, even a certain nostalgia. Not now, Lydia silently prayed. Not when he’s finally come back to me.

  “I apologize for disturbing you at home,” George Stevens hastened to add. “We—my driver and I—tried several of the businesses, but they all seemed to have closed for the day. A boy sent me to the apartment above the livery, but also said if I didn’t find him there I should try coming here.”

  “John Amman is not here.” Lydia forced out the words.

  The stranger frowned as he glanced back toward the town and the setting sun. “I was certain that he told me...this is the town of Celery Fields, is it not?”

  She should not be explaining anything to this man—she should not even be speaking with him. She was relieved to see Luke coming up the path. “May I help you?” he asked politely as he positioned himself between the stranger and the still-closed screen door.

  George Stevens repeated his question. But it was clear that he was less sure of himself when facing Luke. It was as if he realized for the first time that he had left his world behind and was now standing in the midst of theirs. “I...John Amman and I were friends and business partners at one time. Unfortunately, the eco
nomy ended the business, but we parted as good friends and I had hoped...” The man was babbling to fill up the silence that Luke and Lydia greeted him with. It was an Englisch habit that Lydia had always found especially annoying.

  “John Amman will be in town tomorrow—at the hardware store,” Luke said. “We will let him know that you were here. Guten abend.” And with that he stepped inside the house and closed the inner door. He handed Lydia a basket. “Greta said you needed these things for the wedding supper.”

  “Yah. It could have waited until tomorrow, but I’m glad you came.”

  “Would you like me to stay until we’re sure he’s gone?”

  Outside, the motor of the car rumbled to life. “I think it is all fine now,” Lydia replied.

  “Gut. Then I will go.” He opened the door and stepped onto the porch, looking down the street to where the car was making a turn that would take George Stevens away from Celery Fields.

  “But, Luke, what if...” Lydia’s hands started to shake and she felt the sting of tears filling her eyes.

  Luke grasped her concern at once. “He’s not going to leave you a second time, Liddy,” Luke said softly. “No man could be so dumb.”

  “But...”

  “Do you not trust him, Liddy?”

  And there was the crux of it. She was certain of her love for John and of his for her. But John had once been drawn to that other world. Look where he was at this very moment, sitting with some Englischer hoping to get an order for a clock or piece of his furniture. Oh, why could he not be satisfied to wait for orders from his friends and neighbors in Celery Fields?

  “It’s not the same as before, Liddy,” Luke said as if reading her thoughts. “All of us trade from time to time with them. I could not have made it these last two years without their business. But my place is here with my own people, and so is John’s.”

  She took some comfort from Luke’s words. “You do know that were you ever to decide otherwise Greta would come after you,” she said, and smiled up at him.

  He grinned. “Yah. She keeps me in line, your sister.” Then his expression sobered. “You will tell John that his friend stopped by.”

  Lydia bristled. “Of course. I would not keep it from him.”

  “Then you will have your answer,” Luke said softly as he turned and headed for home.

  * * *

  John was just leaving his meeting with two men preparing to open a new restaurant on Main Street in downtown Sarasota. In his hand he held the order for the tables where patrons would be served. He had turned down their request for him to also build a bar. John was certain Lydia would draw the line at him making anything remotely associated with the sale of spirits. He already was concerned that she would object to his accepting the order to build the tables.

  The men had acquired the chairs they wanted and it was from the simple design of those chairs that they wanted John to design the two dozen tables. He could not wait to tell Liddy. With an order of this size he could afford to cut back his hours at the hardware store, giving him more time to work on his carpentry orders. His uncle would no doubt grumble something about him being unappreciative. But that would pass the moment John reminded him that fewer hours also meant less wages.

  He was crossing the main street, bustling even at this hour with traffic and people, when he had to jump out of the way of a long sleek Packard automobile coming toward him. The car braked and stopped just as John made it safely to the other side of the street. From the corner of his eye he saw a man get out.

  “John Amman? Is that you?”

  John turned and broke into a grin as he saw his friend and former business partner coming toward him. A wave of nostalgia for all the times, good and bad, that he had shared with his friend swept through John and propelled him forward. He walked straight into George’s bear hug.

  “Look at you,” George said as he held John at arm’s length and took in the straw hat, shirt with no buttons, collar or cuffs, and homespun trousers held up by black suspenders. “I hardly recognized you.”

  “What are you doing here?” John asked, suddenly a little self-conscious to be standing in the middle of a busy sidewalk talking to someone who was not Amish.

  “I came to find you,” George replied. “Come have something to eat with me at the hotel. I’m staying there and word has it that they serve a fine shrimp dinner. It’ll be like old times.”

  Only it wouldn’t—couldn’t. John was not the man he had been when he and George had worked together. “I can’t,” he said. “It is not our way.”

  George blinked and studied him as if trying to decide whether or not John was teasing him. Back east they had often played practical jokes on each other. “I want to talk to you, John. There’s a new business opportunity that’s come my way.”

  John indicated a park bench in front of a business that had closed for the night. “We can sit here and talk,” he said.

  George motioned to his driver to leave without him and sat down next to John. He glanced up and down the street. “Things seem to be prospering here,” he said.

  “Times are better,” John agreed. “How are Bonnie and the children?”

  “They are fine.” A moment of awkward silence passed. “I met your Lydia,” George said.

  “How? Where?”

  “I went to Celery Fields and asked for you and eventually ended up at the house behind the livery. She’s lovely, John.”

  “We’re to be married in two weeks.”

  “Congratulations! That’s wonderful news.”

  The sun had set and before long it would be dark. The streets that had been so busy just minutes earlier were more deserted now. He should be getting back to Celery Fields, back to Liddy, but he was curious. George had come west to see him. “What is this business opportunity you have?”

  “How much do you folks keep up with world news, John?”

  You folks? There had been a time when George would not have thought to make such a distinction. “We hear some things,” John hedged. Once he had been very aware of all that was happening in the outside world. George had talked of nothing else.

  “There’s every possibility that war is coming to Europe,” George continued. “Several of the countries that allied themselves with the wrong side in the Great War now seem to think they got the short end of the stick in the peace. There’s a lot of unrest and political upheaval, especially in Germany.”

  “I do not understand what this has to do with your business opportunity.”

  “It has everything to do with it. The American government mostly wants to stay out of things, but on the other hand, they are concerned about our allies—England, France...”

  John did not understand where this was heading, but he could see that George was very excited. “Go on,” he encouraged, hoping that his friend would soon come to the point.

  “I—we if you want in—have been offered a government contract to build parts for submarines. They want us to reopen the factory and retool it for the work. The government will pay for everything—refurbishing the factory, raw materials, everything. In less than a month you’d recoup the losses you took when the market crashed, John.”

  “This is a good opportunity for you,” John said.

  “For us,” George corrected. “The government won’t just hand over the money. They’re going to need proof that we can do this. Without you to design the parts, there’s no chance of getting the contract. I can’t do it without you, John.”

  “I know nothing of submarines.”

  “You are a design wizard,” George said. “We have to figure out how to make the parts so that they can be mass-produced. That’s where you come in.”

  “I am to be married,” John reminded him.

  “Bring her east.”

  John fought a smile. It was all s
o easy for George. It had been that way when they worked together. For him obstacles simply did not exist, or if they did they were merely challenges to be overcome. “Our home is here with our own people,” he reminded his friend.

  George frowned. “Did I mention what the government is offering to pay us, John?” He named a figure that was more money than John had ever dreamed of earning. “With that kind of money you could work with me for a couple of years and then retire for good.”

  With that kind of money I could assure the future for Liddy and our children. For Gert and Roger Hadwell.

  “Talk to your Liddy about this, John. She seems to me to be a levelheaded young woman, one who would see the advantages for both of you.” George stood up and extended his hand to John.

  John also stood and accepted his friend’s handshake. “I will discuss it,” he promised.

  “I need your answer by tomorrow, John. The government doesn’t wait.”

  John nodded.

  “We’d have to get started right away.”

  “Before the wedding?”

  George chuckled. “Not that soon. Get yourself hitched, my friend. But I’ll need you out east by the end of the month at the latest.”

  All the way back to Celery Fields, John thought about the offer George had made him. It was true that in their business before, John’s role had been one of figuring things out—how best to design a piece of furniture so that it not only served its purpose but also looked good alone and with the other furnishings in the room.

  But this was different. This was designing parts, like for a clock. Like for a missile or bomb. The thought gave him pause. No one in Celery Fields would approve of him building anything connected with war. The Amish were a peace-loving people. They did not take part in war or anything to do with it. He snapped the reins, urging the team of horses into a trot. He needed to talk to Liddy. She would know what to do.

  * * *

  “You cannot seriously be considering this,” Liddy said after he explained everything to her. Her voice came out in little gasps as she struggled to catch her breath and force out the words. Her head was pounding and her heart was racing as she fought to suppress the image of her world falling apart yet again.