A Promise for Miriam

by Vannetta Chapman

  “One day, before you know it, you will be wanting to catch a boy’s heart. I don’t mean the one that beats inside. I mean the one that flutters when you see someone special.” Laura pulled in another shaky breath. “Baking helps in the area with boys and men.”

  Grace glanced at Sadie, and they both began to giggle.

  “Go on now. I saw that you were headed toward the auction animals. Go and see how they look.”

  They started to skip away, but then Grace remembered the lonely look.

  “Wait for me,” she whispered to Sadie. Running back to the preacher’s mom, she hugged her gently, as softly as she would hug Stanley if he were big enough to get her arms around. “We’ll be praying for you every night.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she was gone.

  They went over to the barn and watched the animals for a while. There were two bulls, several cows, and even a couple of horses. Someone had donated some pigs, and a donkey stood in a stall at the very end of the barn. He came to the door that was half open, and the girls found a crate to stand on so they could bend over and touch his nose.

  “I’d love to have a donkey,” Grace admitted.

  “Ask your dat.”

  “I don’t think we could afford it. Not right now, anyway.”

  After they had looked at the animals, they decided to go and check out the other auction items. The second barn wasn’t as big as the first, but it smelled better. Long tables were set up in it, like the ones they used for dinner at church meetings. On the first row of tables were baskets of every size and shape. They had sheets of paper beside them where people wrote down the price they were willing to pay. Every hour someone picked up the sheet and called out who the winner was.

  The same was true for the hand-stitched pot holders and table runners. Once the persons picked up the items they had bid on, new items were put out and it started all over again.

  The most amazing thing in the second barn was the clothesline strung down one aisle. When they came to it, Grace stepped closer to Sadie and linked her fingers with her. “I’ve never seen so many quilts on a line before.”

  “Ya. I heard my mamm say they are the reason the Englischers are here. They could bring in more money than the animals.”

  “These are amazing. Can we walk through them?”

  “Sure. We just have to be careful not to touch. We wouldn’t want to dirty them.”

  Grace counted a dozen in all. Each had a number clipped next to it, but no sheet of paper.

  “They will be auctioned before the noon meal,” Hannah explained as she walked up behind them.

  The girls turned around and each gave her a giant hug.

  “I remember mammi Sarah quilting like this,” Grace said. “Mammi Erma did too, but I don’t think I could ever do it.”

  “Of course you can, Grace. It’s just a matter of practice.” Hannah walked the girls to one of the quilts at the end of the line and showed them a mistake in the stitching on the border.

  “How did you find that?” Sadie asked. “I would never have seen it.”

  “My mamm and I made this one. Those were my stitches when we began. I wanted to pull them out, but she wouldn’t let me. She said imperfections are important too, and that I’d be able to see how much I’d improved if I left them.”

  Grace heard Hannah’s words. She even understood what she’d said, though she’d have to talk to her dat about the imperfection thing. There was one thing she knew for certain. She was going to have to ask Abigail about giving her quilting lessons.

  Cooking was great and all, but you did the work and then someone ate it. What did you have to show for the hours in the kitchen?

  Quilting, now there was something that would last.

  “I’d best go help with the baskets. You girls have fun.”

  Sadie and Grace watched her leave and then turned round in a circle.

  “I guess we’ve seen it all,” Sadie said. “What do you want to do now?”

  “Where are the boys?” Grace asked. “I haven’t seen any of them from school, but I’ve seen most of the girls.”

  “They’re in the old barn playing ball.”

  “Hannah has three barns?”

  “Ya, but the old one, it has a hole in the roof. Wanna go watch the ball game?”

  “Okay. But I’d like to be back in time to see who gets the donkey.” Still holding hands, they swung their arms as they hurried out of the barn with crafts and across a small pasture to a crumbling structure. It reminded Grace of their barn before the men had come and helped her dad fix it up and make it better. It reminded Grace of some of the pictures she’d drawn when they had first come to Wisconsin, pictures she’d labeled Sad Barn and Droopy House—only the barn didn’t look sad anymore, and the house now felt like home.

  “We’ll be able to hear the auctioneers. Don’t worry. They talk fast and very loud. They use some kind of microphone-thing that makes me want to cover my ears.”

  “Who’s the auctioneer?”

  “There are several, but my dat is one.” Sadie started laughing again, and then Grace started laughing. They were both laughing as they walked around the corner of the old barn, which is probably why they didn’t hear the hollering at first.

  Chapter 42

  Miriam tried to control her temper as she stared at Aden Schmucker.

  His face had turned as red as honey crisp apples in the fall, so there was no doubt she’d heard him correctly.

  “Why would your father be discussing me?”

  “I’m sure he—”

  “Tell me why your dat would be discussing my personal life!”

  “I wasn’t there, Miriam.”

  “You weren’t there. Yet you’re certain I was the subject of conversation. That my personal life was the subject of conversation not once, but twice!”

  “If you look at it that way, I suppose—yes, you’re correct.”

  Miriam wanted to scream. She wanted to pick up something, anything, and chuck it at him. Unfortunately, at that very moment she saw the edge of two black kapps peek around the corner of the barn and then draw back.

  Stepping closer to Aden, she whispered fiercely, “Don’t move.”

  Then she stormed around the corner of the barn. Sadie and Grace were standing with their backs against the old barn wall, their eyes as wide as half dollars.

  “Girls.”

  They both nodded in greeting but didn’t say a word.

  “Awfully cold morning.”

  “Ya,” Grace said.

  “It is,” Sadie offered.

  They stared at her as if she were wearing three kapps instead of one. It wasn’t as though they had never heard her raise her voice before. She’d shouted only a few days ago when she’d opened the janitor’s closet and a family—an entire family—of mice had run out toward her.

  “Why don’t you both go on inside the barn? I expect you’re looking for the other kinner.”

  “Ya, we were.” Sadie scooted past her, holding fast to Grace’s hand.

  Grace looked back once and then disappeared into the barn.

  Miriam pulled in a deep breath, resolved to count to ten and made it to three, and she then turned back around and stormed toward Aden.

  “All right. I asked you about this because Gabe has been acting a bit strange around me. If I had the time, and if I didn’t have a pounding headache at this moment—”

  Aden stepped toward her, but she held up her hand and stopped any forward progress. “I would go and find him and perhaps your dat also and we could straighten this out. But because I’m scheduled to help with the luncheon, there’s no time for that.”

  “I can see you’re upset, Miriam, but dat meant no harm by it.” Aden stepped back when she didn’t speak. He was a clean shaven, nice-looking young man, but she was having trouble letting go of her anger in this situation. “When I came home yesterday, he said that perhaps I should ask again if you’d like to go to the singing with me next week. That I should
catch a ride home again if you would.”

  “And you said—”

  “That you’d turned me down before, and I didn’t expect a different answer.”

  Miriam felt a small twinge of sympathy, but she squashed it. “And he said—”

  “That this time might be different, seeing as he’d had a talk with Gabriel.”

  Miriam paced back and forth in front of the barn. Her toes were nearly numb and she could see that Aden was miserable. Usually confident, he was out of his element with this conversation, but that was too bad.

  How dare they talk about her this way! And to think Clemens Schmucker had told Gabe—

  “You’re sure your dat told him I wouldn’t consider courting a relative of a student?”

  Aden took off his hat and rubbed at the back of his head.

  “Say it, Aden. We’re going to freeze out here and there’s nowhere else for privacy.”

  “It’s only that it’s not just my dat who has heard you say such things. You have said such things, Miriam. You’ve said it to several men in the district. It’s common knowledge.”

  She glared at him a moment and then turned to stare out over the fallow fields. “I may have, but a woman has the right to change her mind, especially when…”

  “When you’ve had a change of heart? Is that what you were about to say?” Aden’s voice was low and solemn.

  She knew he deserved an answer, but she didn’t turn back to him. She didn’t need to because she could tell he’d walked up behind her. Instead of answering, she asked another question of her own. “Tell me the truth, Aden. Did you move away so I would consider courting you?”

  “Partially, yes. But there was more. My dat has a heavy hand in his dealings. I never had a rumspringa, and I’ve had no urge to try Englisch things, but there is a different Amish way, Miriam. Life does not have to be as hard as it is here. Just a few miles to the north and east, where I’m working, is a district that is more liberal.”

  “And is liberal always better?” She turned now and looked him full in the face.

  “Is it always worse?”

  “I don’t know.”

  It seemed they had nothing else to say, but as they began to walk back toward the house where she would help prepare the luncheon, she reached out and touched his arm.

  “I apologize if I’ve hurt your feelings in any way, Aden.”

  He smiled then, and she saw the boy she had played baseball with behind the very schoolhouse where she now taught. “I bounce back easily.”

  “I would appreciate it if conversations about me included me.”

  “Ya, that seems fair.”

  Gabe had been trying to have a private word with Miriam all day. It was almost as if she was avoiding him, which was ridiculous. There was no reason for her to do so.

  The benefit for Laura Kiems seemed to have gone very well. Her medical expenses for the heart surgery would be high, but Gabe had heard Eli say they had raised more than half of what she would be required to have not just for the surgery, but also for the medicines and recovery. The other half had already been set back, so her immediate needs were taken care of.

  The same had been true when Hope was sick. It had been a huge burden off his shoulders, not to worry about the financial end of things. It did his heart good to see this community pull together in the same way. Many things were different between Indiana Amish and Wisconsin Amish, but much was the same.

  Grace was nearly out of breath as she ran up to his side, conspicuously alone. No Sadie? They had been together every time he’d seen his daughter since they had arrived.

  “Miriam and some man were having a fight earlier,” Grace whispered as they made their way toward the animal barn.

  “What’s that?” Gabe forced his voice to remain neutral.

  “A fight. She was hollering at him.”

  “Grace, were you listening in on someone else’s conversation?”

  “Nope. We didn’t hear nothing.”

  “Anything.”

  “Huh?”

  “You didn’t hear anything.”

  “We didn’t. How did you know that?”

  Gabe sighed. “Why are you telling me this, sweetie?”

  “Because I thought she looked sad or maybe mad. I’m worried about her.”

  “Your teacher’s a big girl. I think she’ll be all right.” Gabe wanted to ask whom Miriam was fighting with, but he didn’t know how to ask without sending Grace the wrong message.

  “That was him. That man there.”

  At least she didn’t point at Aden Schmucker as he walked ahead of them into the barn. Tugging on Gabe’s hand, she instantly changed the subject. “All of the animals are gone, dat. All except one. Sadie saved a place for me up front. They are about to auction the donkey.”

  “Let’s go watch, then,” he said, following her inside. “Should be fun.”

  “Can we bid? Please?”

  “The last thing we need is a donkey.”

  “He’s so soft and sweet.”

  “Do you remember your grossdaddi’s donkey? That animal was nothing but trouble.”

  “And his name is Gus.”

  “I’m not doing it, Grace Ann. We can’t afford another animal, and I probably wouldn’t buy it if we could.”

  “But dat–”

  As they approached the auction area, Gabe saw several things at once. Joshua King was standing behind the auctioneer stand. Miriam and Esther were standing to the right of the stand. The donkey was to the left, and holding the lead rope was young John Stutzman. Still in eighth grade, the boy was all arms and legs.

  What caught his attention, though, other than Miriam, were the ten stacks of wood spaced out and set in front of the auctioneer’s podium. Next to each block of wood was an ax.

  “I’d take care of Gus,” Grace added. “I would see to his feeding.”

  Gabe pushed through the crowd until he stood beside Eli, who turned and grinned at him.

  “The entry fee is twenty dollars, folks,” Joshua called from the auctioneer’s stand. “This is the last event of the day. The last chance to contribute to the benefit and work off some of the desserts you ate.”

  Good-natured laughter mixed with the chatter.

  Eli opened his wallet, pulled out a twenty, walked forward, and dropped it in a black hat that had been turned over for receiving entry fees. Then he walked to a block of wood and picked up the ax.

  “We have our first competitor. Are you young men going to let Eli have it?”

  Again laughter.

  “I’d even clean out his stall,” Grace said, tugging on his arm.

  “Remember, not only will the winner take home this lovely donkey donated by Clemens Schmucker—”

  “I promise.” Grace moved in front of him and put her hands on his suspenders.

  “You’ll also win dinner at the schoolhouse, cooked by my dochder, Miriam, and Esther Schrocks.”

  “Please…”

  Aden stepped forward and dropped money in the hat, and then he picked the spot next to Eli.

  “What’s wrong, Grace?” Sadie asked.

  “I want that donkey, and my dat won’t even look at him.”

  Four other men stepped forward, followed by two gentlemen Eli’s age. Now there were two spots left.

  “Not to mention, you’ll be providing the schoolhouse with enough chopped wood to see the children through the winter.” Again, laughter rippled through the crowd.

  “Why did your dat say you can’t have the donkey?” Sadie asked.

  “He hates them.”

  “Oh.”

  Gabe heard Grace and Sadie discuss the donkey. He heard Joshua explain the competition. Neither affected him much.

  Then Miriam turned and glanced at him. She had been speaking to Esther, but when she turned, found him in the crowd, and smiled, Gabe groaned. He was sunk. Those gray eyes could ask him to plant a field of roses instead of hay, and he would do it.

  “So he doesn’t like donkey
s. I don’t like vegetables much, but I eat them,” Grace said.

  “Ya, and I don’t like baths in winter, either. I wonder if donkeys need baths.” Sadie hopped so she could get a better look of what was happening up front.

  Gabe only had eyes for Miriam.

  Another contestant walked to the front, or rather was pushed there by his family.

  Gabe reached for his wallet, pulled out a twenty, and put it in Grace’s hand. “Go place that in the hat for me.”

  Kissing her on top of the head, he reached the last open spot, the spot next to Aden Schmucker, as Joshua turned back toward the microphone. “Looks like we’re ready to begin, folks. Ten fine men and two hundred dollars for Laura Kiem’s medical fund. Feel free to add some to the hat if you haven’t contributed today because you’re about to see some wonderful entertainment.”

  Chapter 43

  Miriam watched Gabe walk to the front of the room and pick up the ax.

  What had just happened?

  She’d been talking to Esther, and when she’d turned back toward the people in the barn, he’d been staring at her. And not just at her, but into her. The look he’d given her had nearly pulled the breath out of her chest.

  Then he’d handed Grace his entry money and walked up to the last open spot.

  “Whom should we root for?” Esther teased.

  “Hush.”

  “I’m just saying that if you have a favorite, I could whisper a quick prayer.”

  Miriam gave her assistant teacher the most withering scowl she had, but Esther only smiled and nodded back toward the men.

  “Bishop Beiler,” Joshua said, “you helped me count the wood in each stack. Is that correct?”

  “Ya. Correct.” Beiler didn’t seem completely at ease with the competition they were having. Miriam supposed he was allowing it because it was for a good cause. Surely there was no harm in splitting wood. It wasn’t as if the winner would receive a ribbon.

  Joshua addressed the men. “I’ll count to three and then you may begin. Pick up your axes, and on my mark—one, two, three!”

  The sound of chopping wood filled the air.

  Miriam had watched her father and her brothers chop wood hundreds of times. Never before had it caused her heart to race. Never had it caused her palms to sweat so that she had to wipe them on her apron.