by Jan Drexler
She slowed when she reached the corner of their barn and paused to catch her breath. Sadie would not understand why she was so upset, and that could make the day end up like a buggy with a wobbly wheel. She and Ida Mae had discovered that keeping their lives calm and peaceful was the key to helping Sadie get through the day without becoming confused or anxious.
Once her breathing slowed, she went into the house. She followed the sound of humming through the kitchen and into the sewing room. Ida Mae sat in the rocking chair, putting the last stitches on a quilt block.
She looked up when Mary stepped into the room. “What has you all flustered?”
Mary pressed cool hands to her hot cheeks. “Does it show so much?” When Ida Mae nodded, she plopped onto the other rocking chair. “Where is Sadie?”
“Lying down for a while. She might be sleeping.”
“We have a problem.”
Ida Mae laid her sewing in her lap. “What kind of problem?”
“Samuel says that field behind the barn isn’t Sadie’s.”
“Whose is it then? Sadie is sure it’s part of her farm.”
Mary shook her head. “Samuel thinks it is his, and he has this notion that it’s his job to take care of us. Something about his grossdawdi. He says he won’t help us at all.”
Ida Mae picked her sewing up again. “How is he going to take care of us if he doesn’t help us?”
Mary pushed her foot against the floorboards, sending the chair into an agitated rocking. “That isn’t what I meant. He isn’t going to help us move the fence because he says the cornfield is his. He wants us to give Schmetterling back to the Troyers and stop trying to support ourselves.” Mary got up and paced to the end of the room and back. “If I didn’t know better, I would think he regards us as two more of his sisters, under his thumb and at his beck and call.”
Ida Mae laid the finished quilt block on a pile of other blocks on the table and picked up two small triangles to stitch together.
“And if I didn’t know better,” she said, threading her needle, “I would say he thinks of you as much more than another sister.”
Mary spun on her heel to face her sister. “What did you say?”
“Shh. Don’t wake Sadie.” Ida Mae twisted the thread around her needle to make a knot. “I think he’s in love with you.”
Mary sank into the rocking chair again, shaking her head. “He can’t be.”
“You haven’t seen the way he looks at you.” Ida Mae took five tiny stitches in her seam and pulled the thread through. “And I’ve seen the looks you give him.”
“I don’t give him looks.”
“You might not think so, but you do.”
“But...” Mary bit her lower lip, then went on. “You know that I am never going to marry anyone. How can I? No man wants a woman with my...past...for his wife.” She bit her lip again to keep the welling tears from falling.
“So you’re not denying that you have feelings for him.”
Mary slouched back in the chair and rocked it gently. A swaying branch outside the window caught her eye. She didn’t want to think about her feelings for Samuel. She wanted things to go on the way they had been. When did life get so difficult?
“All right. I think I like him.” She rocked her chair harder. “At least I do when he isn’t being so...so...”
“...much like a man?” Ida Mae grinned at her.
The grin swept Mary’s melancholy mood away and she smiled back. “Even so, I’m never getting married.”
“Martin Troyer would marry you, even if he knew...what happened. It wouldn’t matter to him.”
Mary shuddered at the thought of being married to Martin. The thought of his hands holding hers, of being alone with him... Dark clouds swirled and she took a deep breath. “I can never, never marry Martin. He wouldn’t be...patient, or tender or thoughtful. He only thinks about himself.”
“And you know this from one short picnic?”
With a nod, Mary leaned forward in her chair. “You have seen how he treats Peter. If he can be so thoughtless and selfish with his brother, how do you think he would treat a wife?” She leaned back and rocked again. “Any woman married to him would be little more than a slave.”
Ida Mae looked up from her sewing. “I’m so glad we don’t have to go on another picnic with them.”
“Are you sure you want to refuse Peter so quickly?”
Ida Mae threw a scrap of cloth across the space between them as Mary covered her mouth to keep a burst of laughter from escaping. Then she looked at Ida Mae’s red cheeks and couldn’t help it. They both giggled with hissing whispers.
“Don’t wake up Sadie!”
Ida Mae laughed. “I...I’m...not the one...who’s making all the noise.” She glanced at Mary and the giggles started again.
“We have to tell Martin and Peter that there will be no more picnics,” Mary said when she finally caught her breath.
“You’ll have to do it.” Ida Mae’s face was bright pink from laughing.
“Why me?”
“Because if I tell Peter, it won’t do any good. Martin will never pay attention to what he says.”
Mary nodded. “Martin won’t listen to either of you. But what makes you think he’ll be any different with me?”
“You’re strong and stubborn. You’ll make him listen.”
“I’m not sure being stubborn will be enough.” Mary sighed and laid her head against the back of the chair. “Do you think we should give back the cow?”
“After Sadie already named her? I don’t think we’ll be able to.”
Mary rocked while Ida Mae sewed in silence for a few minutes. The sound of a buggy horse clip-clopping on the road drifted in the open windows. The trotting horse slowed, then stopped.
Ida Mae put her sewing on the table. “Someone is here.”
She went to the back door while Mary stayed sitting in the rocker.
Voices drifting from the kitchen told her that their visitor was Effie Hopplestadt calling on Sadie. Since the season had turned to early summer, the weekly quiltings had ended until after the garden produce was stored away in the fall. But Sadie’s friends still dropped in on her regularly.
Sadie must have heard Effie come in, because her voice joined the others, but Mary still sat and rocked. She should get up and greet Effie, but her mind kept going back to Ida Mae’s comment that Samuel was in love with her.
Mary closed her eyes. Samuel wasn’t in love with her. If he was, he wouldn’t have argued with her the way he had this morning. But if someone had to be in love with her, he wouldn’t be a bad choice. Much better than Martin Troyer. That man caused her thoughts to go down dark paths.
Samuel, though... Even if they did argue, she still looked forward to talking to him every day.
A smile crept its way onto her face as she gazed out the window. Ja, she looked forward to seeing him again.
* * *
Samuel’s mood worsened as the sun sped toward noon. After Mary left, he climbed the tower and unfastened the wind wheel from the shaft, lowering it with a rope until it laid on the ground in three pieces. Then he worked at the bolts holding the gearbox to the platform until they finally came loose and the gearbox was ready to follow the wind wheel to the ground. He tied the rope firmly and lowered it, bracing himself on the ladder.
Only then did he let himself look toward Sadie’s farm, but Mary wasn’t coming back to apologize.
“Leave it to her to find a way to ruin the cornfield,” he said to Tilly as he climbed down the ladder. “She’ll probably move the fence herself, and get hurt in the process.”
His feet touched the ground and Tilly’s ears swiveled back and forth.
Samuel untied the gearbox from the rope, lifted it and started toward the barn.
&n
bsp; “Don’t look at me that way, Tilly-girl. I know you’re on her side.”
He glanced back once to see Tilly standing with her hip cocked and her ears swiveled toward her tail. Ja, those women stuck together.
Once the gearbox was on the work bench, Samuel spent the rest of the morning dismantling the gears and shafts and cleaning the old grease off the mechanism. Kerosene helped dissolve the gummy residue and he soon had the pieces apart and cleaned.
After dinner, he got his grease pot and started putting the machine back together.
“Hello, Samuel.”
Samuel turned to see Preacher Jonas.
“Esther told me you were working in the barn cellar.”
“Good afternoon and welcome.”
Samuel grabbed a rag to clean his hands but Jonas stopped him.
“Don’t let me keep you from your work.” He stepped closer to see what Samuel was doing. “I didn’t know you could repair machines like this.”
Samuel held a bolt up to the light to check the size. “I’ve never tried before. But the windmill hasn’t worked for years and I thought it was worth seeing what was wrong with it.” He set a gear in place and tightened the bolt.
Jonas watched as Samuel placed another gear so that it interlocked with the first one. Cleaned and with fresh grease, the pieces went together easily.
“Where did you learn how to do that?”
“Rebuild a gearbox?” Samuel shrugged. “I just remember where the pieces go.” He set the shaft in place and turned the mechanism. “It looks like it’s working.” He tightened a couple of the bolts and spun the shaft. The gears moved like clockwork.
He picked it up and started toward the mill tower. “I could use your help.”
“For sure. What can I do?”
“I’ll climb up with the rope while you tie the gearbox and wheel pieces to the other end. Then I’ll be able to haul them up as I need them, without having to climb up and down this tower.”
Jonas helped as Samuel reassembled the windmill mechanism and reattached the wheel. He climbed down the tower and released the brake, and both men watched as the mill turned into the wind and picked up speed.
“You’re certain you’ve never fixed a windmill before?” Jonas asked.
“I’ve never fixed any machine before.”
“You seem to have a knack for it. That would have taken me a week of fruitless toil, and then it still wouldn’t run.”
Samuel’s chest warmed at the other man’s words. Praise for a job well done. He had never heard anyone say anything like that before. Not to him.
He cleared his throat and wiped the grease off his hands. “You didn’t make the trip over here to help me with a little chore.”
Jonas was still watching the mill turn in the wind. “I came to tell you that your name won’t come up at the council meeting. Your accuser will be repenting instead. It turns out that he was spreading a tale to get attention for himself.”
“Who?”
“Peter Troyer.” The older man looked at Samuel as he said the name. “Don’t harbor hard feelings toward him. He is truly repentant for the trouble he caused.”
Samuel waited for the roar in his ears and the pounding in his head that always signaled that his temper was flaring, but it didn’t come. Instead, he saw Peter’s face in his mind, a little bit homely and perpetually sad.
“I’m not angry with him. But I feel sorry for the man. He is always in his brother’s shadow.” Samuel rubbed at a stubborn grease spot on his left palm. He knew what it was like to live in someone’s shadow, never seen for who he was. Always judged by someone else’s actions.
“I hope that you will tell him that you forgive him after he repents in front of the church.”
Samuel nodded and Jonas watched the mill again.
“I wonder if you’d do something else for me.”
“For sure.”
“Some of the others in the community have windmills that are giving them problems. Vernon Hershberger for one. His mill creaks and groans with every turn, but with his broken leg, he can’t hope to climb the tower to fix it. There are other older members, too, who could use the help of someone who knows what he’s doing. Would you consider going around to the different farms? Give a hand to whoever needs it?”
Samuel shrugged. “That shouldn’t be any trouble. I’ll go over to Vernon’s in the morning and see what’s going on there.”
That put a smile on Jonas’s face. “You know, the Samuel Lapp of a few months ago would have found some excuse to stay home.”
“The Samuel Lapp of a few months ago didn’t know he had anything to offer.” Samuel grinned back. “Anything I can do to help, I’d like to.”
Jonas clapped him on the shoulder before he started back toward his buggy. “Someone has been having a good influence on you. You should keep spending time with her.”
Samuel’s grin widened. Perhaps he would invite Mary to go to the Hershbergers’ with him tomorrow. That would help them get past their disagreement about the fence.
* * *
On Tuesday morning Samuel pulled into Sadie’s drive. Those puppies were back in his stomach, rolling over each other as they tried to fight their way out. He laid a hand on his waist to try to quiet them down, but then Mary came from the henhouse with a basket of eggs and they started all over again. She blushed when she saw him but continued to the house without a greeting.
Samuel climbed down from the buggy and met Mary at the door, opening it for her.
“Mary, I—”
She walked into the house without even looking at him. Sadie peered out the open door from her seat at the table and beckoned him into the kitchen. When he shook his head, she came out onto the porch, closing the kitchen door behind her.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I was going to talk to Mary, but she doesn’t seem to want to see me.”
“You’re going to let a little thing like that stop you from talking to her?”
Samuel shrugged. “What can I do? She just walked right by without even looking at me.”
“You need to go after her. Don’t let her treat you like that.”
He grinned. “This is your niece we’re talking about, not some misbehaving horse.”
Sadie’s eyes twinkled. “You go after her. She wants to see you, but she’s afraid for some reason.”
“Probably because I yelled at her yesterday.”
The elderly woman patted his arm. “So the two of you had a disagreement. That won’t stop you.” She turned to go back into the house.
“Stop me from what?”
But she continued into the kitchen as if she hadn’t heard him. He had no choice but to follow her.
Ida Mae was washing dishes, but Mary was nowhere to be seen. The basket of eggs sat on the kitchen table.
“Good morning, Samuel,” Ida Mae said. “Do you want me to find Mary for you?”
His teeth ground together, but he couldn’t decide if he should get angry or not. “If you just point out the way she went, I’ll go find her.”
Ida Mae grinned. “Back there,” she tilted her head down the short hallway off the kitchen. “She went into the sewing room.”
Samuel hung his hat on the hook by the door and headed that way. As he passed Sadie’s seat at the table, she smiled and sipped her coffee.
The room was airy and bright. A table for cutting fabric was in the center, and near the window were two rocking chairs. Mary stood at one of the windows as if she was waiting for him.
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” Samuel stopped, cautious. “You walked right past me as if I wasn’t there.”
“I won’t talk to you until you apologize.”
Samuel put his hands on his hips and stared at the floor.
One...two...three...
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Mary stepped across the room toward him. “You stop counting and apologize to me.”
He gritted his teeth. Four...five...
“Well?”
Bah! Women!
“I apologize for...” Samuel scratched his head. “What am I apologizing for?”
“For being pigheaded and not helping us move the fence so Schmetterling could have the larger pasture she needs.”
Samuel met her eyes. Instead of the stormy anger he expected, she was almost smiling.
“You didn’t move that fence on your own, did you? Because if you let that cow destroy my corn—”
“There is no need to get upset. We haven’t moved any fences. Not yet.”
The light coming in the window made her face glow as she turned toward him. She was beautiful.
“Samuel, are you going to apologize or not? That’s why you came over here, isn’t it?”
She had him so turned around he was surprised he could remember his own name.
“I’m going over to Vernon Hershberger’s to repair his windmill. I thought you might want to come along.”
“Why would I want to go watch you look at a windmill?” Her toe started tapping. “Especially since you haven’t apologized to me yet.”
Samuel stifled a groan. A noise from the kitchen sounded like Sadie laughing.
“All right, all right. I apologize for...” He raised his eyebrows at her.
“For refusing to help me move the fence.”
His eyebrows went down. “I apologize for making you angry so that you stormed off.” His own toe started twitching. “Now, will you come with me or not?”
She crossed her arms and looked out the window. Her cheeks became pinker by the minute. Her profile was perfect, with her nose turning up a bit at the tip. He could watch her all morning.
“I need to go into Shipshewana today to sell the eggs we’ve collected.”
“We can go to Shipshewana, too. We’ll make a day of it.”