by Jan Drexler
“Preacher William, Bishop Kaufman and I need to discuss this. But I hope you will do everything you can to make amends with Martin. You are brothers in Christ, and must act that way. I will say the same to Martin.”
Samuel shifted his feet. He was being asked to do more than just talk to Martin. He must support him in his work and find a way to be friends with the man. Must he even encourage Martin’s courtship of Mary, like a friend and brother would?
“Is something wrong?”
“There’s a girl...”
Jonas nodded. “I thought there might be when I saw the direction of Martin’s thoughts this morning.” He glanced at Samuel. “What are your feelings for Mary?”
“I don’t have feelings for her. I just want to make sure she’s happy, and safe, and that she marries someone better for her than Martin Troyer.”
Jonas laughed. “But you don’t have feelings for her.”
Samuel shook his head. He didn’t—couldn’t—harbor any feelings for any woman.
The preacher clapped him on the shoulder. “I hate to tell you the bad news, but it’s obvious to me that you are in love with her.”
“Love?” His voice turned into a growl. “I’m not in love with anyone. I just don’t want Mary to be hurt.”
Jonas grinned. “Maybe if you tell yourself that enough, you might believe it. But I think you’re wrong.” He leaned closer to Samuel. “Ask yourself this, then. How will you feel when you are at her wedding if you aren’t the groom?”
Samuel glared at him. This preacher had a knack for reading his mind.
* * *
Monday morning dawned with a glorious blue sky.
“A perfect day for laundry,” Sadie said. She stirred the tubful of white clothes with an old washing bat. Mary thought it was probably a hundred years old, as stained and warped as it was, yet Sadie wielded it like she was David fighting the giant laundry tasks.
Ida Mae ran an apron through the wringer and dropped it in the basket for Mary to hang on the line.
“It feels like it might get warm enough today to set out the tomato plants. What do you think, Mary?”
Before Mary could even think of an answer, a farm wagon turned into the lane. Her stomach sank when she saw Martin Troyer driving. Peter rode in the back of the wagon with a cow.
“Good morning!” Martin pulled his team to a stop and climbed into the wagon to help Peter. “We brought you a present.”
Mary and Ida Mae both stared as Peter and Martin unloaded the cow from the wagon. Martin handed the lead rope to Mary. Meanwhile, Sadie had come up behind them.
“That’s a cow,” she said.
The Jersey stared at Mary with huge brown eyes as she chewed her cud.
“It’s a cow,” Ida Mae said.
“Ja, for sure.” Martin grinned. “A cow.”
“Y-you said y-you could sell b-butter along with your eggs,” Peter said. He smiled as he watched Ida Mae.
“We thought you could put her to good use.” Martin said, petting the animal’s neck. “And the butter would bring in a good income, just like you said.”
Mary shook her head. “We can’t pay you for her.”
Martin grinned wider. “We don’t want to sell her. We’re giving her to you.” He glanced at his brother. “Right, Peter?”
The other man nodded, his eyes still on Ida Mae. “Ja, ja, ja. She’s a p-present.”
“Do you want us to help you get her settled? You have a stall for her, don’t you?”
Sadie took the rope from Mary. “We can put her in the second stall, and she can share Chester’s pasture.” The old woman started toward the barn, the cow following her.
Mary looked from Sadie’s retreating back to Ida Mae, who shrugged.
“We don’t know how to thank you,” she said. “But we really can’t take her—”
Peter climbed into the wagon and Martin followed him. “You have to take her. She’s yours.” He clucked to the team and turned them around in the space in front of the barn. He waved as the wagon passed the house on the way down the drive. “We’ll see you again soon. We’re looking forward to another picnic.”
Ida Mae slipped her arm through Mary’s as she stared at the retreating wagon. “What are we going to do now?”
“I guess we have a cow. We’ll have to ask Sadie if she has any milking equipment, because that cow will need to be milked this evening.”
They started toward the barn.
“Do you know anything about taking care of cows?” Ida Mae asked.
“I know as much as you do, and that’s from helping Daed do the milking. But beyond the day-to-day feeding and milking, I don’t know what to do with her.”
“She’ll need to be freshened sometime...”
Mary stopped her sister’s words as they entered the barn. “We’ll worry about that when the time comes.”
When the time came, they would need to find a bull. And then decide what to do with the calf. And then... Mary shook her head. One step at a time.
Sadie had let the cow into the stall next to Chester’s and was patting her nose. “Nice Schmetterling. Good Schmetterling.”
Mary and Ida Mae exchanged glances.
“Sadie,” Mary said, keeping her voice even, “why are you calling her a butterfly?”
Sadie grinned at the girls. “I know she isn’t a butterfly. I thought Schmetterling would be a nice name for her. Her eyelashes are so long, just like a butterfly’s wings.”
“I feel funny, accepting a gift like this from Martin and Peter,” Ida Mae said, stroking Schmetterling’s face. “We hardly know them.”
“You’ll get to know Peter, and then fall in love with him,” Mary said. “You know he wants to marry you, and that’s why he gave you the cow.”
Ida Mae’s mouth dropped open. “I’m not going to marry Peter. It’s Martin who wants to marry you. He brought the cow to you.”
Mary shook her head. “And I’m never going to marry Martin, no matter how many cows he brings us.”
“Then you need to make sure he knows that.”
“I’ve told him.” Mary shrugged. “He won’t listen to me.”
Sadie stroked the cow’s soft ears. “Those Troyers never listen to anyone. Once they have their minds made up, they’re going to get their way, unless someone steps in to stop them.”
Ida Mae groaned and covered her face with her hands. “Is there no way to get out of marrying them, then?”
“You won’t have any trouble with Peter,” Sadie said. “Martin is the hardheaded one. Once Mary has dissuaded him, Peter will follow.”
“How can we convince Martin?” Mary asked.
Sadie smiled, looking as crafty as a fox. “I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that. Meanwhile, we have a cow, and we need to take care of her.”
“Do you have anything like a milking pail? Or a stool?”
“I have all that in the cellar, in a box in the corner. I had a cow until a few years ago, and milked her every morning and evening. She was a fine cow, but not a Jersey like this one. Jerseys give rich milk, and we’ll be able to make a lot of butter to sell.”
Mary’s mind started churning. How much butter could she make from Schmetterling’s milk? If her milk was as rich as Sadie said, probably more than enough to pay for the cow’s keep. She scratched Schmetterling’s ears. She would have to find a way to thank Martin, without making him think it was time to start planning a wedding.
“Chester’s pasture is too small for both animals, though. Can we make it bigger?”
“Ach, ja.” Sadie gestured out the back door of the barn. “Abe gave me ten acres. All we need to do is move the fence back behind the barn. We can go all the way to the line of trees along the fence row back there, where it was before I sold m
y cow.” Sadie started out the side door of the barn. “Come along and I’ll show you.”
She led the way around Chester’s pasture to the far side, walking between the new chicken coop and fence. When she reached the corner fence post, she stopped.
“Who has been plowing back here?”
The space between the back fence and the tree line had been plowed in neat rows, and corn shoots were already growing in the black soil.
“Samuel said that Dale Yoder was going to plow a corn field for him. He must have thought this was part of Samuel’s farm.”
“We need to let Schmetterling graze. She needs a pasture.” Sadie’s brow puckered as she tried to think through the problem without success.
Mary gave her shoulders a quick hug. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll fence in the space and she can eat the corn shoots until the grass grows again.”
Ida Mae took Sadie’s arm and turned her back toward the house. “Let’s finish our laundry and get out the milking pail to use this evening. And Mary is right. We’ll just move the fence and use the field. Samuel probably doesn’t know that Dale planted it.”
Mary hung back as Ida Mae and Sadie walked toward the house. The corn shoots fluttered in the slight breeze. They would need to fence off about three acres on the end of the planted field that stretched from here to behind Samuel’s barn. Moving the fence wasn’t something the three of them could do on their own, but she could ask Samuel to help. They would have a good laugh over Dale’s mistake.
She hoped.
* * *
Samuel gave the pump handle one last push, sending a spurt of water into the watering trough. He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and leaned back against the fence post, looking up at the derelict water pump tower again. When the windmill had stopped working five or six years ago, Daed had left it where it stood. Winds had battered the mill blades and a few hung from the broken spokes.
If he could get the windmill going again, he’d save himself a lot of work.
Shoving his hat back on his head, he walked over to the sixteen-foot tower and pushed against it, then pulled on it. Steady as the day it was built, years before his time. He put a foot on the crossbar, hearing Daed’s voice in his head.
“You boys stay away from that tower. First thing you know, one of you will fall off and break your leg.”
Samuel grinned. Daed had been right. Bram had climbed up about ten feet before he missed his footing. He didn’t break his leg, but he was bruised and sore. Neither of them had said anything about the fall, though. Bram said that Daed’s punishment for disobedience would be worse than the bruises he already had.
Testing the steadiness of the tower once more, Samuel started the climb. Right about where Bram had fallen, rungs had been nailed to the vertical tower beams to form a ladder. The rest of the way up was easy, and he soon reached the top. He pried the cover off the gearbox. He had never seen how the mill worked, but it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Opening his knife, he pried away some of the old hard grease, crusted with dirt that had blown in over the years.
Reaching over to the vanes, Samuel tried moving the wheel, but the complex tangle of gears didn’t budge. It was frozen tight. The mill had worked once, though, and maybe he could get it working again. He scraped dirt and rust away from the nuts and bolts, checking for any damage. It looked like it only needed to be taken apart and cleaned. If he could get the gear mechanism down to the barn, he could do the job properly.
“Samuel!”
Mary was below him.
“What are you doing up there?”
“Checking to see if the windmill can be fixed.” He started down the ladder.
“Do you think you can do it?”
Her skirt swirled around her legs as the wind freshened, and she stood with one hand shading her eyes against the sun. He had never seen a prettier girl. He dropped to the ground and grinned at her.
“Well? Do you think you’ll be able to get it going?”
“Ja, for sure.” Samuel wiped his greasy hands on his handkerchief and tucked it back in his waistband. “It’s dirty and the vanes need repairing, but I think I can do it.”
“It would sure help you keep the watering troughs full, wouldn’t it?”
He patted the tower. “It sure would.” Then he turned his attention to Mary. “What brings you here today?”
“We have a cow, and we need your help.”
Samuel had started walking with her toward the barn and his toolbox, but now turned and stared at her. “A cow? Why did you buy a cow?”
Her eyes shifted away from his. “We didn’t buy it. It was a gift.”
He could guess who the gift was from. “A gift? With strings attached?”
“I don’t think so.”
She answered so quickly that he could tell the possibility was on her mind.
“You should have refused to take her.”
“We tried.” Her gaze went from the cattle in the field to the windmill. “But they wouldn’t hear of it.”
“And ‘they’ are the Troyer brothers?”
Mary nodded and finally met his eyes. “Sadie thought we should keep her, since there’s no arguing with a Troyer, as she put it.”
Samuel started toward the barn again and Mary came after him.
“We’ll get a lot of good butter from her milk, and we’ll be able to sell it along with the eggs.”
“So you’re still determined to make this business idea of yours work?”
Her eyebrows went up. “For sure, and it’s working already. We’re paying back the money Mr. Holdeman loaned us for the lumber and supplies, and we’re making a bit extra, too. The chickens are doing well, and in a few months when the new chicks are grown, we’ll have even more eggs to sell.”
Samuel went to his workbench and opened the toolbox, but she followed him, moving around so she could see his face.
“I plan to go to the auction again tomorrow to buy more hens. Having the cow means that we’ll be able to support ourselves that much sooner.”
“You don’t need to do all that work. I can support both of our families. That’s the way Grossdawdi Abe wanted it, and that’s the way it will be.”
She stared at him, her lips pressed together. He found his gloves, put them in the toolbox and went back outside, the heavy wooden box bumping against his knee as he walked. She trotted behind him to keep up, but he didn’t shorten his stride. She wasn’t going to listen to reason.
“But I don’t want you to support us. Ida Mae and I can take care of Sadie on our own. We don’t need your help.”
Samuel had reached the base of the windmill tower, but at her words he turned back. “You need my help,” he said, pointing his finger and jabbing with every word, “and you’re going to accept my help. I can do this. I can take care of all of us.”
“I don’t want your help.” She spoke through gritted teeth.
A sudden thought almost made him laugh. “Then why did you come over here?”
Mary’s face grew red and she stamped one foot. “All right. I came to ask for your help. But as a neighbor, not...not as someone who has to take care of us.”
He turned around and leaned against the tower. “What do you need my help with?”
“We need a bigger pasture since we have both Chester and Schmetterling.”
“Who?”
“The cow. Sadie named her.” She swiped at a lock of hair that had escaped her kapp. “We need to move the fence to enlarge the pasture. It shouldn’t be too hard.”
Samuel set his toolbox on the ground. “And just where are you going to move the fence? The new chicken coop takes up the only space.”
“We want to use the back part of Sadie’s land. Dale planted corn there, but I’m sure it was a mistake. He must not know whe
re your land ends and Sadie’s begins.”
“There was no mistake.” Samuel rubbed the back of his neck. Grossdawdi Abe had handled the transfer of the land for Sadie’s use, but the deed was clear. The ten acres still belonged to the Lapps. Sadie must not have told Mary of the arrangement.
“You told him to plant corn on Sadie’s farm?”
“Actually, it isn’t Sadie’s land.”
Mary stared at him for a full minute, her eyes widening, then narrowing as she took this information in.
“Sadie said it is. It was her idea to move the fence to make a larger pasture.”
“You’re not going to ruin good acres of growing corn.”
She bit her lower lip. “I’ll admit, it isn’t the best pasture, but the grass will grow back.”
Samuel felt the pounding in his ears before he heard it. His fists flexed. There must be a way to solve this problem before he lost his temper completely. He sent a quick look up at the white clouds hanging in the deep blue sky. Count to ten. He could hear Mamm’s voice echoing from his memory. She would tell her boys to count whenever they started one of their many fights.
“One...two...three...”
He glanced at Mary, who was staring at him with her eyes wide. He forced the muscles in his face to relax into a more pleasant expression.
“Four...five...six...”
“What are you doing?”
“Counting to ten. Seven...eight...”
“Why?”
He clenched his teeth. “Because it’s better than yelling at you.”
“Why would you yell at me?”
“Because you aren’t listening to reason.” His voice rose and he finished counting. “Nine...ten.”
“Do you feel better?”
“Ja. I feel better.” His voice was a growl.
“Then you’ll help us move the fence?”
“Ne. I won’t help you move the fence!” He started counting again as she turned on her heel and walked away.
Chapter Twelve
After leaving Samuel in the barnyard, Mary stormed along the path leading to Sadie’s house. She had never met such an overbearing, stubborn, pigheaded man in her entire life. She knew men could be pushy and high-handed, but Samuel Lapp put all of them to shame.