With Winter's First Frost

by Kelly Irvin

  “Ben has other things on his mind right now.”

  “All the more reason to keep things spic-and-span for him.”

  “Rosalie likes the birds.” Zechariah might not know about much, but he did know about birds. Their colors brightened the landscape, and they sang happy songs that made folks feel better. Even in the dead of winter, birds brought solace that could only be provided by God’s natural beauty. “They’ll brighten Rosalie’s day when she comes home.”

  “Maybe so.” Elijah, stubborn as dandelion weeds, always wanted the last word. He was determined to have it. “But it’s Ben’s yard.”

  Ben’s yard. Ben’s house. Ben’s wife. Ben’s children.

  Zechariah missed the days when he could call a place his own.

  His place would always be a welcoming home for birds.

  EIGHT

  THE CHALLENGE OF SHOPPING WITH SMALL CHILDREN seemed to have grown with the years. Or maybe Laura’s age contributed to her discomfort. She switched Delia from one aching hip to the other. Despite a bitter cold December wind that impeded her forward progress, sweat dampened her face. Delia fought taking a nap at home but decided to pass out in the buggy just as they reached Jamesport city limits.

  A bright afternoon sun did nothing to take the icy nip from the air. Even so, Samuel dawdled along behind her, stopping to look at every person, rock, trash can, and bench. In a nod to good parenting, he kept his gloved hands behind his back when they entered the Sweet Notions Store. Not that the bundles of broadcloth, poplin, denim, muslin, and wool held much interest for a five-year-old. The rack of snaps, fasteners, and spools of thread in many sizes and a multitude of colors did seem to call his name.

  “Stay with me, Samuel.” Laura cocked her head toward the bolts of black denim. “We need material to make you some new pants. Yours are getting to be high-waders.”

  “High-waders.” He giggled. “I can cross the creek.”

  “Too cold.” She studied the signs. Delia needed dresses too. Laura could handle a treadle machine long enough to make small dresses and pants. Fewer tasks for Rosalie to accomplish while trying to heal and take care of two new babies. Ben said she was in less pain now. The boplin had started to gain weight in the four days since their headlong dash into a new world. “The broadcloth is on sale for twoforty-nine a yard. Poplin is two-sixty-nine. Denim is more expensive.”

  Looking wise beyond his years, Samuel nodded. “Daed says we have to be careful with our pennies.”

  “Your daed’s right.”

  She moved down the aisle, stopping to look at pretty crepe—far too expensive. Familiar voices rose a few rows over. “She’s staying there at the house with Zechariah while Ben is at the hospital with Rosalie.”

  “The kinner are there, but still. They’re so old that no one thinks anything untoward is going on. Besides, Zechariah is meaner than a one-eyed, mangy, starving coyote.”

  Mabel Plank and Jolene Mast. Laura had delivered babies for both of them. She cleared her throat. Both women jumped and looked over their shoulders. Mabel’s face reddened, but Jolene simply smiled. “Laura! You have your hands full today. Can I hold Delia for you while you pick out your material?”

  All the better to pump Laura for more information about the goings-on at the Stutzman house. Laura shook her head. “She’s tuckered out. I’m trying not to wake her.”

  “You should’ve brought the stroller.” Jolene tutted and shook one index finger at Laura. “You’re out of practice. I know Rosalie has one. She’ll need a double now. How is she? How are those new babies?”

  A Plain community was only as immune to the grapevine as its strongest vine. “Ben stopped by yesterday for a few minutes. At that time she was doing a little better. The twins are healthy.”

  “That’s a blessing.” Mabel patted Samuel’s hat. He skooched closer to Laura and grabbed her apron with semigrubby, plump fingers. “You’ll be wanting to get back home, what with everything that’s going on with Tamara.”

  “What do you mean?” The question slipped out before Laura could lasso it. She didn’t want to feed the vines—especially when it came to her grandchildren. “I’ll be at Ben’s until his fraa is able to care for the boplin herself. It’ll be at least a month, maybe six weeks.”

  “You haven’t heard?” Jolene’s saccharine tone matched her candied smile. “Tamara announced to her parents that she doesn’t plan to be baptized at Easter. Ava told me.”

  At twenty and an old married woman, Ava should know better than to speak out of turn about her family’s affairs. Her older sister’s decision to wait on baptism was a private matter. “If she’s not ready yet, then she should wait. Baptism isn’t something to be taken lightly.”

  “She’s twenty-two. She’s waited plenty, but now she’s decided against it.” Mabel volunteered this tidbit with great enthusiasm. “She wants to be a doctor. She told Ruby she got the idea from you.”

  Laura opened her mouth. Then closed it. A memory from the locked closet of her youth burst through the door. She’d been six when her sister was born. She held Mudder’s hand and patted her face with a damp washrag while the midwife coaxed the tiny baby from her mother’s warm womb. So sweet and little and lungs befitting an auctioneer.

  She’d known then she wanted to be a midwife. It wasn’t until four years later, when her brother came into the world only to leave minutes later without even a whisper of a cry that she’d been certain she would be more than a midwife. She would do more. She would help more.

  Midwives could only bring babies into the world. They couldn’t really save them or their mothers when something went truly wrong.

  She wanted every baby to live. Every mother to hold a healthy, crying, suckling, wiggling baby. She needed to become a doctor.

  Once, after a difficult birth ended with mother and baby son taken to the Chillicothe hospital by ambulance, she had sipped tea with shaking hands and told Tamara, then sixteen, this story.

  It hadn’t been her intention to influence her granddaughter in any way. It had simply been a shared moment from her past. Could Tamara have seen it differently? As an invitation to think about a different future for herself?

  Delia chose that moment to raise her head. She took one look at her surroundings and screeched, “Mudder, Mudder, I want Mudder.”

  “Shush, bopli, shush.” Glad to be called from the far, yet so vivid, past, Laura rubbed the girl’s back. “You’re fine. Mudder will be back before you know it.” She offered the two women her best frosty takeno-prisoners smile. “I better get the material I need and get her snack for her.”

  Aware of Mabel and Jolene watching her every move, Laura made quick work of her selections and paid. Samuel insisted on carrying a bag even though it weighed almost as much as his small body. They deposited them in the buggy, she tightened Delia’s wool jacket, and they walked the block to her second stop, The Book Apothecary.

  Tamara would not think of those days when she had held her secret tightly to her chest, knowing how it would hurt and shame her parents. Knowing she would no longer be able to see them. No Meidung because she hadn’t left the faith after baptism, but no marrying in the faith and raising a family close to her parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters.

  A person was either in the community of faith, or out of it. There was little gray between the black and the white.

  A lonely existence and not one Laura wanted for her sweet granddaughter. Truth be told, Tamara was her favorite. If one dared admit to such a thing. Laura loved all her grandchildren, but Tamara was so like her. So independent, yet so caring. So sure of what was right. She was an obedient child of God. How could she step away from her faith, her family, and her community?

  She couldn’t. Laura would convince her of that. She could nurture her own babies. She could deliver babies and apply her knowledge, albeit limited, to bringing those babies safely into the world. That’s what Plain women did.

  Plain women needed a little bit of help having their babies
. Tamara could be that help, and it would be enough until she had her own children to nurture. Her own husband.

  It had been enough for Laura.

  She had been determined it would be enough. Eli had made it so.

  That was the problem. Tamara needed her own Eli.

  Inside the bookstore’s blue-and-red-painted wooden double doors, co-owner Dottie Manchester waved from behind the counter where she took care of an English customer. Mary Katherine met them in the foyer, but she swept past Laura and made a beeline for Samuel. “Did you come to our story hour?”

  Samuel’s longing gaze went to the picture books that lined a low shelf under one window. A small wooden table and two chairs—they looked like Jennie’s husband Leo’s work—sat next to it. The Little Engine That Could, The Gruffalo, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Llama Llama Red Pajama, and a dozen more books lined the shelf. “Can I look at books?”

  “Story hour first.” Mary Katherine pointed to another corner where she’d set up three rows of small wooden chairs in a horseshoe shape around a rocking chair. Most of the seats were already taken by preschool-age children, many of them Plain. Their mothers milled around in the back, chatting. Bess and Iris waved. “I’m reading Noah’s Ark today.”

  Clutching her doll to her chest, Delia wiggled. “Can I get down?”

  Her mind still muddled with the Tamara dilemma, Laura released Delia. The little girl followed her big brother to the story-hour gathering where they greeted Bess’s Joshua and Leyla and their other Plain friends in that enthusiastic yet shy way small children have.

  Enchanted by their sweet embraces, Laura glanced at the women who gathered like a flock of mother geese nearby. She had delivered many of them. Determined, she turned to Mary Katherine. “Do you have to start right this minute?”

  Mary Katherine glanced at the Dr. Seuss Cat-in-the-Hat clock near the front counter. “Two more minutes. We always have stragglers and I hate for them to miss the beginning of the story. But don’t run off. I need information from you.”

  “You too?” She told Mary Katherine about her encounter in the Sweet Notions Store, leaving out the part about Tamara wanting to be a doctor. “What is wrong with people? Do they not have enough of their own business to take care of?”

  A storm gathered in Mary Katherine’s plump face. “I’ll have a word with Mabel’s mother. We’re second cousins, you know.”

  Laura didn’t know, but it didn’t surprise her. Practically everyone was related somehow in their community. It could present a challenge when it came to courting. “When you submit your next report to The Budget, can you request a card party and fund-raising for Rosalie and Ben? He didn’t say a word, but I’m afraid their medical expenses will be catastrophic.”

  “I will as soon as I finish my shift today. The Gmay will help and the elders will spread the word to other Gmays as well.” Mary Katherine grabbed a dog-eared composition notebook from the counter, tugged a number two pencil with no eraser left from behind her right ear, and scribbled a note. “What about the babies? I want to include them in the report.”

  Laura recited the pertinent information. Mary Katherine scribbled it down. Two children began to squabble over a book of animals. “Got to go. The natives are restless.”

  “We have to talk after.” Laura needed Mary Katherine’s undivided attention and keen problem-solving techniques for her problem. “Just you and me.”

  “No problem.”

  Laura enjoyed the story hour almost as much as the children. Mary Katherine was a gifted storyteller. She did all the voices and the animal noises, then encouraged the children to join her.

  Afterward there was a flurry of book buying among the mothers. Even Bess splurged on the Noah’s Ark book that so entranced Joshua.

  “You look like you need a cup of kaffi.” Bess stuffed her receipt in her bag and scooped up Leyla before she could remove every book from the bottom shelf in the travel section. “Can I watch the boplin while you rest?”

  “That would be a lifesaver. Just for a few minutes. I have to get back and cook for Christopher and Zechariah after this.”

  “How is Zechariah doing?”

  “Suitably cantankerous for a man his age.”

  Bess chuckled and grabbed Delia’s hand before she helped herself to a plate of oatmeal-raisin cookies. “One or maybe half of one. You’re sweet enough as it is.”

  “She probably needs to go potty.”

  “Got it covered.”

  Leaving Bess to the all-encompassing task of keeping four toddlers from destroying the children’s section, Laura followed Mary Katherine behind the counter and into the back room.

  “Dottie delights in taking the money.” Mary Katherine plopped into a chair on wheels in front of a rolltop desk and scooted around to face Laura. She pointed to a second desk chair. “Take a load off and tell Aenti Mary Kay all about it.”

  “All about what?”

  “You look perturbed. There’s more to your story.”

  “It seems Tamara’s decision is my fault. Or so it’s been reported.”

  “You were baptized a hundred years ago. You never miss services. All your children were baptized. How could it be your fault?”

  “Mabel says Tamara wants to be a doctor and it was my idea.”

  “Was it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then?”

  “I encouraged her to consider being a midwife. Maybe that made her start thinking about what she could do with more learning about medicine.”

  “You’ve taught more than a few girls to be midwives in your time. They didn’t all rush out to be doctors.” Mary Katherine flung both hands in the air and raised her shoulders in her most elaborate shrug. “Tamara has a mind of her own. If she chooses this path, she chooses it alone. It’s not the only thing she’s shrugged off. I hear things. I’m The Budget scribe—”

  “Not the sort of thing you put in The Budget.”

  “Of course not.” Sarcasm dripped from Mary Katherine’s words. “As I was saying, I hear things. Cyrus, Solomon, and Freeman encouraged her to consider teaching—after she’s baptized. She dragged her feet about it. Ruby doesn’t want her working in town, because she seems drawn to that world. She took your advice and started following Rachel around, learning about midwifery.”

  Laura stifled a chuckle at her friend’s admission. She certainly did make it her business to hear things. “I hadn’t heard that.”

  “Maybe Rachel thought you would be sad you didn’t get to teach her your vocation.”

  “Not at all. But you’re right, lots of girls become midwives. I did.” Laura studied her hands. She had never told her closest friend about her dilemma as a young girl. She wanted to do more, but she hadn’t—praise God. “I didn’t leave the faith and try to become a doctor.”

  “Elijah Stutzman’s daughter’s baby girl died a few months ago.”

  “I know. That’s part of the reason Rosalie and Ben were more worried this time than they normally would be. Everyone in the family was concerned.”

  “Tamara wants to be a baby doctor so that doesn’t happen.”

  It happened to doctors too. Sometimes nothing could be done. A hard lesson for a young girl to learn. “She’s not so prideful that she thinks she can stop it all by her lonesome?”

  “Nee. But she wants to know more of the medicine and the science.”

  “Have you been talking to her?”

  “Nee. Evelyn came in looking for a present for her schweschder’s birthday.”

  Evelyn again. The woman had too much free time if she was spreading gossip far and wide.

  “Not gossip. Concern.” Mary Katherine had a way of knowing Laura’s thoughts that irked her. “She asked for prayers.”

  “That is something.” Laura rubbed her aching fingers, but to no avail. The cold and old age made pain her constant companion. “Have they talked to Freeman?”

  “Not yet. Freeman has been under the weather. Maybe you should talk to Tamara first. M
aybe it won’t be necessary to bother Freeman or Cyrus and Solomon with this.”

  Freeman’s father had passed the previous year. Since then, he’d been missing from a few church services as well. Even bishops had bouts of bad health on occasion. “Tamara’s as stubborn as a stump. She reminds me of Eli.”

  “She reminds me of you. She even looks like you when you were that age.”

  “Nee, she looks like Ruby at that age.”

  “Which is to say, like you.”

  Laura couldn’t contain a sigh. “I’m not sure when I’ll be able to see her.”

  “I’ll stop by Ruby’s on my way home and tell her to send that wayward girl your way.” Mary Katherine’s wrinkled face softened. “It’s not your fault. Kinner get ideas in their heads, especially in this day and age. There’s so much worldly influence bearing down on us from all sides.”

  “It’s our job to show them, through our teaching and our actions, the way they should go.”

  “But ultimately, it’s in Gott’s hands, not ours.” Mary Katherine sprang from her chair—there was no other word for her friend’s spry steps since marrying for the second time—and enveloped Laura in one of her famous hugs. When Mary Katherine hugged, a person knew she’d been hugged. “You know that as well as anyone.”

  Laura sucked in air. “I do. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “Now you sound like a crotchety old woman.”

  To match the crotchety old man at Ben’s.

  The errant thought knocked Laura back a mile. No match existed. Zechariah was grumpy. He didn’t like to talk. He didn’t like to play games with the kinner. He didn’t like her chili. He didn’t even eat the pumpkin cookies, her favorite.

  Yet, his glances were wistful.

  She was sure of it. Especially when she played checkers with Christopher.

  “What? You look like lightning just fried your hair.” Mary Katherine giggled the same happy giggle she’d had since they shared a hay bale at singings way back when. “Spill the beans, freind.”

  “Nothing. It’s nothing.” Laura hustled toward the door. “I better go rescue Bess. Delia puts everything—and I do mean everything—in her mouth. Especially when she hasn’t had her dinner.”