by Emma Miller
Eli? Caleb’s mind went blank. “N...ne. He didn’t.”
“Yesterday. He was supposed to tell you that I...” She shrugged. “Fannie sent me. Fannie Byler. She said you needed someone to...”
He couldn’t remember Eli or anyone mentioning sending another girl. Certainly not the Yoder girl. “They sent you?”
Rebecca’s small fists rested on her shapely hips. “You’re not still angry about Friday night?” Her smile became a chuckle.
“I’m not angry,” he protested. “But you’re...you’re too...too...” He was going to say young, but he knew she was at least twenty-one. Maybe twenty-two. Old enough to have her own child. “Inexperienced. Amelia is... Can be...difficult. She—” What he was trying to say was lost in the sound of Fritzy gagging. He groaned out loud. The ham Amelia had given him was far too rich for the dog’s stomach. “Outside!” Caleb yelled. “If you’re going to be sick, do it outside!” He pushed past Rebecca and dashed through the small utility room to throw open the back door.
Not quite in time.
Fritzy made it out of the kitchen but lost it on the cement floor in front of the washing machine. “Out!” Caleb repeated. Sheepishly, the dog bounded out into the yard, where he proceeded to run in circles and snap at the raindrops. Now that his stomach had yielded up the large plate of ham, Fritzy was obviously cured.
Caleb returned to the kitchen to deal with Rebecca Yoder. “You have to go,” he said.
“Ne,” she replied, smiling again. “You have to go. Roman and Eli will be waiting for you. There’s a big truck there already. Eli said yesterday they were expecting your saws this morning.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You don’t?” She slowly scanned the kitchen. “It looks to me as if that’s exactly what you do need.” She tapped her lips with a slender finger. “I know what the other girls said, about why they quit. I know what they said about Amelia and about you.”
“About me?” The trouble was with his daughter. What fault could those young women have found in his behavior? He hadn’t done or said anything—
“They said you are abrupt and hard to please.” She sounded...amused.
“I am not!”
“Dat!”
Caleb turned toward the sound of Amelia’s voice. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, still in her wet and muddy nightgown, her face streaked with tears. In one hand she held a pair of scissors, and in the other, a large section of her long, dark hair.
“Amelia?” He grabbed the scissors. “What have you done?”
“I’ll tend to her,” Rebecca assured him without the least bit of concern in her voice. She walked calmly over to Amelia, as if little girls cut their hair every day. “This is women’s work. Isn’t it, Amelia?” She looked down at the little girl.
Amelia looked up at her, obviously unsure what to think.
Caleb hesitated. He couldn’t just walk out and leave his daughter with this girl, could he? What if that only made things worse?
“I’ll be here just as a trial,” Rebecca said. “A week. If we don’t suit, then you can find someone else.”
Caleb didn’t know what to say. He really didn’t have a choice, did he? The men would be waiting for him. “A week? Ya.” He nodded, on firmer ground again. He wouldn’t be that far away. It might be easier to let this young woman try and fail than to argue with her. “Just a week,” he repeated. He looked at Amelia. “Dat has to go to work,” he said. “This... Rebecca will look after you...and help you tidy up your breakfast.” He looked around the kitchen and shuddered inwardly. “I hope you are made of sterner stuff than the past two girls,” he said to Rebecca.
“We’ll see,” Rebecca answered as she gathered the still-weeping child in her arms. “Breakfast and clean clothing for Amelia...and two boots for you are a start, wouldn’t you agree?”
* * *
The strenuous task of unloading the heavy saws and woodworking equipment took all of Caleb’s concentration for three hours. But when the truck pulled away and he was left alone to organize the tools in his area partitioned off in Roman’s shop, his thoughts returned to Rebecca and his daughter. What if he’d been so eager to get out of the house and to his tools that he’d left Amelia with someone unsuited to the task? What if Amelia disliked Rebecca or was fearful of her? What if Amelia had been so bad that Rebecca had walked out and left the child alone?
Once doubt had crept into his mind, Caleb began to worry in earnest. The thing to do, he decided as he slid a chisel into place on a rack, would be to walk back home and check on them. It wasn’t unreasonable that a father make certain that his new housekeeper was doing her job and watching over Amelia. It was still spitting rain, but what of it? And there was the matter of the blister on his heel, where his shoe had rubbed against his bare foot for the past few hours. Putting a Band-Aid on the blister made sense. He couldn’t afford to be laid up with an infection, not with the important contract to fulfill in the next thirty-eight days.
Caleb surveyed his new workbench and tables. This was a larger space than he’d had on his farm back in Idaho. Once everything was in place—drills, fretsaw, coping saws, hammers, mallets, sanders, planes, patterns and the big, gas-powered machinery—he could start work. Many of his tools were old, some handed down from his great-grandfather. The men in his family had always been craftsmen and had earned their living as cabinetmakers and builders of fine furniture. Only a few of his family’s personal antiques had survived the fire: a walnut Dutch cupboard carved with the date 1704, a small cherry spice cabinet, and an aus schteier kischt, a blanket chest painted with unicorns, hearts and flowers that would one day be part of Amelia’s bridal dowry.
A tickle at the back of Caleb’s throat made him swallow. He didn’t want to think of Amelia growing up and leaving him to be a wife. He knew it must be, but she was all he had and he wanted to keep her close by him for a long, long time. Impatient with his foolishness—worrying about her marriage when she had yet to learn her letters and still slept with her thumb in her mouth—he pushed away thoughts of Amelia as an adult. What should concern him was her safety right now. He’d abandoned her to the care of a girl barely out of her teens. For all he knew his daughter might be neglected. She could be sliding down the wet roof or swimming in the horse trough.
Slamming the pack of fine sandpaper down on the workbench, he turned and strode toward the door that led outside to the parking lot. He swung it open and nearly collided with Rebecca Yoder, who was just coming in. In her hands, she carried a Thermos, and just behind her was Amelia with his black lunchbox. They were both wearing rain slickers and boots. Caleb had no idea how they had found Amelia’s rain slicker. It had been missing for days.
Caleb sputtered his apologies and stepped out of their way. He could feel his face flaming, and once again, he couldn’t think of anything sensible to say to Rebecca. “I...I was on my way home,” he managed. “To see about Amelia.”
His daughter giggled. “I’m here, Dat. We brought your lunch.” She held up the big black lunchbox.
“And hot cider.” Rebecca raised the Thermos. “It’s such a raw day, Amelia thought you’d like something hot.”
“Not coffee,” Amelia said. “I hate coffee. But...but I like cider.”
“There’s a table with benches in the next room,” Rebecca suggested. “Eli and Roman eat lunch there when they don’t go home. I know Eli’s there.” She pointed toward a louvered door on the far side of the room.
“I helped cook your lunch,” his daughter proclaimed proudly. “I cooked the eggs. All by myself!”
“She did,” Rebecca agreed. “And she filled a jar with coleslaw. There’s some chicken corn soup and biscuits we made. But Amelia said you liked hard-boiled eggs.”
“With salt and pepper.” Amelia bounced up and down so hard that the lunchbox fell out of her hands.
Caleb stooped to pick it up.
“Ooh!” Amelia cried.
“It’s all right,” he assured her. “Nothing broken.” He followed Rebecca and a chattering Amelia into the lunchroom. He didn’t know what else to do. And as he did, he noticed that under her raincoat, Amelia looked surprisingly neat. Her face was so clean it was shiny and her hair was plaited into two tiny braids that peeked out from under an ironed kapp. Even the hem of her blue dress that showed under her slicker was pressed.
“What...what did you two do this morning?” he asked Amelia.
“We cleaned, Dat. And cooked. And I helped.” She nodded. “I did.”
No tears, no whining, no fussing. Amelia looked perfectly content.... More than content. He realized that she looked happy. He should have been pleased—he was pleased—but there was something unsettling about this young Yoder woman.
Rebecca stopped and glanced back over her shoulder at him. Her face was smooth and expressionless, but a dimple and the sparkle in her blue eyes made him suspect that she was finding this amusing. “Do you approve?”
“Wait until I see what my kitchen looks like,” he answered gruffly.
Amelia giggled. “I told you, Dat. We cleaned.”
Rebecca’s right eyebrow raised and her lips quivered with suppressed laughter. “A week’s trial,” she reminded him. “That’s all I agreed to. By then I should know if I want to work for you.”
Chapter Four
On Friday, Caleb left work a half hour early and started home. He’d finished the ornate Victorian oak bracket that he’d been fashioning all afternoon, and he didn’t want to begin a new piece so late in the day. Three years ago, he’d switched from building custom kitchen cabinets to the handcrafted corbels, finials and other architectural items that he sold to a restoration supply company in Boise. Englishers who fixed up old houses all over the country spent an exorbitant amount of money to replicate original wooden details. Not that Caleb wasn’t glad for the business, but he guessed his thrifty Swiss ancestors would be shocked at the expense of fancy things when plain would do.
He rarely left his workbench before five, but he was still uneasy leaving Amelia with the Yoder girl. Better to arrive early and check up on them. So far, Rebecca Yoder seemed capable, and he had to admit that his daughter liked her, but time would tell. Amelia sometimes went days without getting into real mischief. And then, it was Gertie, bar the door—meaning that his sweet little girl could stir up some real trouble.
The walk home from the shop took only a few minutes, but his new workshop was far enough from his house to be respectable. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been fitting for him to have an unmarried girl housekeeping and watching his daughter for him. He left in the morning when Rebecca arrived and she went home in the late afternoon when he returned from work. The schedule was working out nicely, and as much as he hated to admit it, it was nice to know that someone would be there in the house when he arrived home. A house could get lonely with just a man and his little girl.
When Caleb arrived home, Rebecca’s pony was pastured beside his driving horse, and the two-wheeled, open buggy that she’d ridden in this morning was waiting by the shed. A basket of green cooking apples, three small pumpkins and a woman’s sewing box filled the storage space at the rear of the buggy. As he crossed the yard toward the house, Caleb noticed that one of the kitchen windows stood open. Wonderful smells drifted out, becoming stronger as he let himself in through the back door into an enclosed porch that served as a laundry and utility room.
Fritzy greeted him, stump of a tail wagging, and Caleb paused to scratch the dog behind his ears. “I’m home,” he called. And then, to Fritzy, he murmured in Deitsch, “Good boy, good old Fritzy.”
Amelia’s delighted squeal rang out, and Caleb grinned, pleased that she was so happy to see him. But when he stepped into the kitchen, he discovered that his daughter’s attention was riveted on an aluminum colander hanging on the back of a chair.
“Again!” Amelia cried. “Let me try again!”
“Ne,” Rebecca said. “My turn now. You have to wait until it’s your turn.”
“One!” Amelia yelled.
Caleb watched, bewildered, as an object flew through the air to land in the colander.
“Two!” Into the colander.
“Three!”
A third one bounced off the back of the chair and slid across the floor to rest at his feet.
“You missed!” Amelia crowed. “My turn!”
“Vas ist das?” Caleb demanded, picking up what appeared to be a patchwork orange beanbag. “What’s going on?”
“Dat!” Amelia whirled around, flung herself across the room and leaped into his arms. “We’re playing a throwing game,” she exclaimed, somehow extracting the cloth beanbag from his hand and nearly whacking him in the eye with it as she climbed up to lock her arms around his neck. “At Fifer’s Orchard they had games and a straw maid and—”
“A maze,” Rebecca corrected. “A straw bale maze.”
“And a train,” Amelia shouted. “A little one. For kinder to ride on. And a pumpkin patch. You get on a wagon and a tractor pulls you—”
Caleb’s brow creased in a frown. “A train? You let Amelia ride on a toy train like the Englisher children?” His gaze fell on a large orange lollipop propped on the table. The candy was shaped like a pumpkin on a stick, wrapped in clear paper and tied with a ribbon. “And you bought her English sweets?” Caleb extricated himself from Amelia’s stranglehold, unwound her arms and lowered her gently to the floor. “Do you think that was wise?” he asked, picking up the lollipop and turning it over to frown at the jack-o’-lantern face painted on the back. “These things are not for Amish children.”
“Ya, so I explained to her and I’d explain to you if you’d let me speak,” Rebecca said, a saucy tone to her voice. “We weren’t the only Amish there. And it was Bishop Atlee’s wife who bought the lollipop for her. I could hardly take it back and offend the woman. I told Amelia that she couldn’t have it unless you approved, and then only after her supper. I didn’t allow her to go into the Fall Festival area with the straw maze, the rides and the face painting. I told her that those things were fancy, not plain.”
“But...” he began.
Rebecca went on talking. “Amelia didn’t fuss when I told her no, and she helped me pick a basket of apples.” Rebecca flashed him a smile. “Three of those apples are baking with brown sugar in the oven. For after your evening meal or tomorrow’s breakfast.”
Caleb ran a finger under his collar. He could feel heat creeping up his throat and his cheeks were suddenly warm. Once again this red-haired Yoder girl was making him feel foolish in his own house. “So she didn’t ride the toy train?”
“A wagon, Dat.” Amelia tossed the orange beanbag into the air. “Rebecca said that we could...to pick pumpkins and apples.”
“To find the best ones,” Rebecca explained. “We had to go to the field, so we rode the tractor wagon. Otherwise we couldn’t have carried it all back.”
“Too heavy!” Amelia exclaimed, catching hold of his hand and tugging him toward the stove. “And we made a stew—in a pumpkin! For supper!” Amelia bounced and twirled, coming perilously near the stove. He caught her around the waist and scooped her up out of danger as she chattered on without a pause for breath. “I helped, Dat. Rebecca let me help.”
Caleb exhaled, definitely feeling outnumbered and outmatched. The good smells, he realized, were coming from the oven. A cast-iron skillet of golden-brown biscuits rested on the stovetop beside a saucepan of what could only be fresh applesauce. “Maybe I was too hasty,” he managed. “But the beanbags? The money I left in the sugar bowl was for groceries, not toys. The move from Idaho was expensive. I can’t afford to buy—”
“I stitched up the beanbags at home last night.”
/> Rebecca’s expression was innocent, but she couldn’t hide the light of amusement in her vivid blue eyes.
“From scraps,” she continued. “And I stuffed them with horse corn. So they aren’t really beanbags.”
“Corn bags!” Amelia giggled. “You have to play, Dat. It’s fun. You count, and you try to throw the bags into the coal-ander.”
“Colander.” Rebecca returned her attention to Caleb. “It’s educational. To teach the little ones to count in English. Mam has the same game at the school. The children love it.”
Caleb’s mouth tightened, and he grunted a reluctant assent. “If the toy is made and not bought, I suppose—”
“You try, Dat,” Amelia urged. “Rebecca can do it. It’s really hard to get them in the coal...colander.” She pushed an orange bag into his hand. “And you have to count,” she added in Deitsch. “In English!”
“I don’t have time to play with you now,” Caleb hedged. “The rabbits need—”
“We fed the bunnies,” Amelia said. “And gave them water.”
“And fresh straw,” Rebecca added. She moved to the stove and poured a mug of coffee. “But maybe you’re tired after such a long day at the shop.” She raised a russet eyebrow. “Sugar and cream?”
Caleb shook his head. “Black.”
“My father always liked his coffee black, too,” Rebecca murmured, “but I like mine with sugar and cream.” She held out the coffee. “I just made it fresh.”
“Please, Dat,” Amelia begged, tugging on his arm. “Just one game.”
His gaze met his daughter’s, and his resolve to have none of this silliness melted. Such a little thing to bring a smile to her face, he rationalized...and he had been away from her all day. “Three throws,” he agreed, “but then—”
“Yay!” Amelia cried. “Dat’s going to try.”
“You have to stand back by the window,” Rebecca instructed. “Underhand works better.”
With a sigh, Caleb took to the starting point and tossed all three beanbags into the colander on the first try, one after another.