by Emma Miller
Feeling bold, he reached out and grabbed her hand. “Yet. You haven’t agreed to marry me yet.”
They took a good five steps before she pulled her hand from his, and the minute she did, he missed it. He missed the warmth of her touch, the strength of her grip.
“Come on,” he said in a playful voice. “You like me. You pretend you don’t but you do.”
She laughed and looked at him, then quickly looked away. Like her sisters and mother, she was dressed in black today, except for the crisp white apron she wore over her long-sleeved dress. While wearing all black to church wasn’t a tradition in Kent County, apparently it had been where they’d come from. And though some women might have looked severe in the dark dress, his Lovey looked just as beautiful to him as she did in his favorite blue dress.
“Admit it,” he cajoled, tapping her hand, but not being so bold again as to take it. “You’re already half in love with me.”
She pushed his hand away. “Behave yourself,” she warned. “It’s Sunday. You ought to know better.”
He quickened his pace, then turned and began to walk backward in front of her along the path that was obviously well used by the Grubers and their neighbors. “I know you’re coming Saturday for Sam’s birthday supper, but what day can I see you before that?”
“I’ve got a busy week.”
“Not too busy to see your beau, I hope?”
She pursed her lips but didn’t correct his statement that he was her beau, which made his heart skip a beat.
“Your strap will be ready Tuesday,” she told him. “If I’m working at the harness shop, I suppose you’ll see me then.”
“Okay, I’ll be there right after morning chores on Tuesday.” He continued to walk backward. “I’m taking Grossmammi to Byler’s to shop on Wednesday. She wants to get a few things to make a cake for Sam. He wants a blue cake with blue icing so I sure hope they have plenty of blue food coloring. You want to ride with us? We’re going to get ice cream after. You wouldn’t believe how big an ice cream cone you can get at Byler’s for two dollars.”
She cut her eyes at him. “Why are you always trying to bribe me with ice cream?”
He opened his arms wide, enjoying their banter. “Because everyone loves ice cream!”
She shook her head as if that was foolishness. “Sam will be thirteen. That’s a big birthday,” she mused.
“It is, but you didn’t answer my question. Want to go with us Wednesday?”
Lovey stopped suddenly, her brow creased. “Marshall, why are you doing this?” she asked.
He stood in front of her. “What?”
“This.” She motioned between them. “Because...because you could have any single girl we know.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Any girl in the county, according to Ginger.”
“But I don’t want any girl,” he told her, trying to control an urge to put his arm around her shoulders. It wasn’t really fitting, especially unchaperoned and, as she had pointed out, on a Sunday. He squeezed her hand tightly. “I want you, Lovey.”
She studied him. “But why?”
The look on her face told him she wasn’t digging for compliments the way some young women did. She honestly wanted to know why he liked her. And honestly didn’t see herself the way he saw her, which he found upsetting. In his eyes, any man in the county would be blessed to have her as his wife.
“Hmm.” He slipped her hand through his arm and they fell into step side by side. “Let me see...because you’re smart and—”
“I’m not smart,” she interrupted.
He stopped. “Ne, you asked a question, now let me answer you,” he chided gently.
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.
They were standing along the Grubers’ fence line near a clump of wild Queen Anne’s lace. Stepping off the path, he snapped off three white, lacy blooms and offered them to her. “For you.”
She accepted them, but he could tell she was trying not to smile.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Then she went on quickly, “You know these aren’t native to North America. Colonists brought them here from their flower gardens in Europe and they grow like weeds now.” She pressed her hand to one rosy cheek and then the other. “I don’t know why I’m going on like this. You don’t care about such things, flowers and such.”
“Actually, I enjoy learning about anything I don’t know about and I didn’t know that they were once cultivated.” He thought for a moment. “But they can’t be weeds because I wouldn’t pick weeds for you. Unless you wanted weeds,” he teased.
Then Marshall tucked his hands behind his back, mostly so he wouldn’t be tempted to take her hand again, and they started down the path that would lead them to her stepfather’s farm. “Back to the one hundred reasons why I like you.”
“There can’t be a hundred,” she argued.
He eyed her and she clamped her mouth shut. He went on. “You’re smart and clever and witty. But not mean in your teasing.” He glanced at her. “And you’re kind. You’re a hard worker. A faithful woman, a woman of God who strives every day to please Him. You’re completely devoted to your family.” He met her gaze. “But not smothering. And pretty.”
“Marshall—”
“Ne, remember, you asked me.” He waggled his finger at her. “Now let me have my say.”
She gave a huff but was silent.
“You’re strong-minded. Some men don’t like that in a woman, but I’m used to stubborn women who say what they think. My mother was like that. And so is my grandmother.” He glanced at her. “I understand she had some questions for you today?”
Lovey smiled, and when she did, her whole face lit up. “Oh, she had questions for me, all right. Among other things, she wanted to know if I could make hasenpfeffer.”
“Hasenpfeffer?” He laughed. “I don’t even know what that is.” He grimaced. “Something with rabbit?”
“Ya. It’s a dish where you soak rabbit in vinegar for a day or so, add spices and onions and then fry it in butter.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like it much, so I had to tell her that while I could cook it, it isn’t something I prepare often.”
“That’s a good thing because I don’t like rabbit.”
He laughed and she laughed with him.
“I like chicken and dumplings, meat loaf, and I have to admit,” he added, “I like a good schnitz un knepp once in a while.”
“Pork and apple?” She pointed at him, using her hand that held the flowers. “That I can make. How do you feel about beef-and-potato pie?”
He nodded. “I like it. I also like apple pie, peach pie and especially strawberry-rhubarb pie.” At the end of the fence, they made their way around a small drainage pond. “But, Lovey, I don’t care what Grossmammi says, I eat just about anything. I’d eat rabbit if you made it for me.”
“Well, you’ve no fear of that,” she declared.
There was more laughter, then they fell into a comfortable silence, walking side by side, enjoying the heat of the late day sun on their faces, the call of a grackle and the hum of bees. It wasn’t until they reached a three-foot-high wooden stile that went over a hedgerow of poison ivy, thorns and wild roses between the Gruber and Miller properties that Lovey spoke again.
“How did you know?” She stepped away from him, lowering her arms to her sides, the flower he had given her still in her hand.
“How did I know what?”
“Those things. What makes you think they’re true?” She scrutinized him. “That day you came into Benjamin’s shop, why did you ask me to ride home with you from the softball game? You couldn’t have known anything about me.”
Marshall took his time to respond because he understood what she meant, and he also understood that he needed to choose his words wisely. She was just starting to relax with him. He wanted to take care he didn’t do an
ything to make her shy away from him like an untamed colt. “I can’t exactly explain it, Lovey, but the minute I saw you, I knew you were the woman who was meant to be my wife.” He opened his arms and let them fall. “Maybe God led me to Benjamin’s harness shop instead of Joe Troyer’s that day. I don’t know. I just know I was supposed to meet you. That we were supposed to walk out together. Those things about you?” He pointed at her. “I’ve learned those things, getting to know you.” He offered a lopsided grin. “And I’ve asked around. Your stepbrother had nice things to say about you. He admires you.”
“Who?” she demanded.
“Will. He and I have gotten to be good friends.”
“Will Miller should mind his own mending.” With her free hand, she grabbed a handful of the skirt of her black dress and started up the stile.
“Want some help getting over that? The rungs look wobbly,” he called up to her.
“I can manage a stile just fine.”
He stood back and waited his turn. “Will might have told me a few things about you, but I’ve been with you enough, Lovey. And I’ve watched you. I’ve seen what kind of woman you are. And you’re the kind of woman I want to marry.”
At the top of the stile, she turned to him and blurted, “Butter pecan.” Then started down the other side.
Marshall took the first step of the stile, taking care not to touch any of the poison ivy growing on both sides of the wooden rails. “Butter pecan?” he asked. “Butter pecan what?”
“That’s the kind of ice cream I want when we go to Byler’s on Wednesday,” she said from the other side of the hedgerow. “That’s my favorite.”
Marshall grinned because butter pecan was his favorite, too. “Would this be a good time to ask you again to marry me?” he called to her from the top as he watched the hem of her black dress sway as she walked away.
“No, it would not,” she answered, not looking back.
But he smiled, because he could tell she was smiling, too.
* * *
“You should sit,” Lovage said, taking a huge platter of fried chicken out of the basket her mother was holding. They had just arrived at Marshall’s for his little brother’s birthday supper, and the backyard where they would be eating was a confusion of guests arriving with baskets of food, squealing children, mothers settling babies and men unhitching their buggies.
“Put it next to the German potato salad and sourdough bread we brought,” Rosemary instructed. The serving table had been set out on a screened-in back porch, which was smart, Lovage thought, because flies were bad at this time of year, especially at dusk.
“Mam, you’ve been tired all day. I can do this. Go sit in the chair under that nice apple tree.” She pointed toward the orchard where Marshall, she presumed, had set up tables and chairs where everyone would eat. “Maybe put your feet up? One of the girls can fetch you a glass of water.”
“Mind your own self, daughter,” Rosemary said cheerfully, snitching a piece of crispy chicken skin that had fallen from the stoneware platter onto the table. She popped it in her mouth. “You should just get it over with and go say hello to your beau. Then you’ll relax.”
“I am relaxed and he’s not my...” Lovage didn’t finish her sentence because just talking about Marshall made her turn as red as a beet. “He’s busy hosting. He has guests. A lot of guests,” she said. The number of people there seemed overwhelming to Lovage. And not just from their church district, but others. There were to be sixty people coming.
“Look at all of this food,” Rosemary observed, gazing over the table that was covered with a cheery gingham cloth. Besides the chicken and potato salad and bread they’d brought to share, there was roast beef, schnitz un knepp, corn bread, green beans, kartoffle bolla, mashed potato casserole, buttered beets, stewed tomatoes, gravy, English peas with dumplings, and enough gravy to swim in. And then there was the dessert table set off to the side, which featured a homemade three-layer cake frosted with bright blue, fluffy icing, and then assorted cupcakes, brownies, fruit fritters and what looked like fig pudding. It seemed as if every woman who had been invited to the birthday celebration brought her finest dish, not out of pride, but wanting to share her best with her neighbors and family. “Of course, with this many people, it takes a lot of food to feed them.”
“How many people did he invite? Everyone in Kent County?” Lovage said under her breath, realizing she was nervous. When he had invited her and her family for Sam’s birthday, she’d assumed there would be supper around his kitchen table and a slice of cake afterward. That was how her family celebrated birthdays. She had no idea it would be such a large gathering. And seeing so many people, most she didn’t know, made her feel self-conscious. From the moment she got out of the buggy, she’d felt as if people were watching her. All because of Marshall’s foolishness in the barnyard after church the previous weekend, she was certain. Because the Amish did like to talk, and a new couple, real or otherwise, was food for gossip among men and women. Of course, she and Marshall fell under the category of “otherwise” because they weren’t even walking out.
Or were they?
“I think it’s nice to have a midsummer party,” Rosemary went on. “And I don’t think it’s everyone in Kent County or even Hickory Grove. Lettice and Noah from the end of our road have gone to Wisconsin to see their new granddaughters.” Rosemary laughed, taking a baking powder biscuit off a plate and nibbling on it. “Atch, daughter, go find Marshall and say hello. You went to all that trouble finishing up your new dress.” She indicated the pale blue dress Lovage had stayed up late the night before to finish. “Marshall will be pleased you wore it just for him.”
Lovage wanted to protest, but her mother was right, she had worn it just for Marshall. Because he liked her in blue and because the blue made her feel pretty, despite her tall, thin frame and gangly arms. Because he said she was pretty.
“Let me at least get you in a chair out of the sun,” Lovage fussed, slipping their handwoven basket under the table to fetch later. “And you should put your feet up. Your ankles were swollen last night. Benjamin told me.”
“Another one who should keep his thoughts to himself,” her mother responded good-naturedly.
“There you are!”
Lovage froze. She already knew that voice by heart.
“Ya, you, Lovey. I was looking for you.”
She looked over to see Marshall standing in his grandmother’s petunia bed, pressing his face to the screen. He was hatless, his dark hair wavy, and he was smiling a smile that warmed her to the tips of her toes and embarrassed her at the same time. He really had no shame, talking to her that way right in front of her mother.
“How are you at playing horseshoes?” he asked. “We’re getting together a game.”
“She’s excellent,” Rosemary said. “Better than Benjamin’s boys, except for Will maybe.” She made her way to the screen door. “Her father taught her. My Ethan was good at horseshoes. Once won a competition at a county fair when we were young.”
Lovage walked over to stand in front of Marshall, looking at him through the screen, not quite sure what to do with her hands. Just seeing him made her nervous, but also excited.
“Come on, Lovey,” he coaxed, pressing his fingertips to the screen. “Show me what you’re made of.”
Seeing his palm, she could almost feel it against hers. She flushed. “Where’s your hat?” It was unusual to see an Amish man outside without a hat. As unusual as seeing a woman without her prayer kapp.
“I don’t know.” He opened his arms wide. “I put it down somewhere. On a tree branch by the horseshoe pits. The new game’s about to start. Won’t you come?”
Lovage hesitated. She really wanted to play. She liked playing, but to play in front of his friends, in front of all the other young women looking for beaus, felt intimidating.
“Come on, Lovey,” Marshall cajol
ed softly.
Lovage took a deep breath. “Ya, I’ll play. But let me get Mam settled first.”
“I’ve got a perfect place for her to sit. Under my Asian pear tree.” He hurried to the porch door and offered his hand to Rosemary as she started down the steps. “Have you ever tasted an Asian pear, Rosemary? They’re like a cross between a pear and an apple. They don’t soften like pears so they store well in the root cellar. They won’t be ripe until September, but I’ll bring you some when they are.”
When Lovage reached the top step, he offered his hand to her, as well. She met his gaze, smiled and shook her head. Helping a middle-aged woman in the family make her way down steps was one thing. What was he thinking, trying to take her hand in front of everyone in Hickory Grove?
“Can’t blame a man for trying to hold a pretty girl’s hand every chance he gets,” he whispered to her as she reached the grass.
She shot him a look that she hoped warned him to behave himself, and then hurried to catch up with her mother. As the three of them crossed the yard, Lovage saw her neighbors watching them with interest. She put her head down, looped her arm through her mother’s and followed Marshall, embarrassed, but also strangely excited. Walking behind him, she couldn’t help but notice his broad shoulders and muscled arms beneath his pale blue shirt.
“You can sit right over here,” Marshall told Rosemary as they entered the orchard that ran directly off his side yard. Easily covering a third of an acre, the trees were well shaped and bursting with yet-unripe fruit, the spongy grass beneath their feet freshly cut. “Look, a chair just waiting for you,” he said, indicating one of two old-style webbed folding lawn chairs. “Plenty of shade here.”
Lovage looked up into the tree, unable to resist her curiosity. “What have you done to the branches?” she asked, staring up at brown paper lunch sacks tied with bailing twine all over them.
“This?” He tapped one of the bags over his head. “It’s how I protect the fruit. The bugs love these pears and I’m trying not to spray with chemicals if I can help it. I can’t take credit, though. It was my brother’s idea. See?” He tugged on one end of the string, pulled it free and then slipped the bag into his hand, revealing a green fruit about the size of a plum. “Keeps the bees and flies off the growing pears.”