by Sarah Price
Ella couldn’t help but wonder why she had never found out where the money was being donated. Surely it was an important cause, for the entire town seemed more than willing to contribute.
Standing behind a large oak tree, she peeked around it to watch. She had missed the very beginning of the auction, but from the looks of it, the deacon had only just begun selling the treats from the unmarried women’s table.
Miriam stood near a table. Next to it were two benches, and as Ella leaned forward, squinting her eyes, she saw that seated upon them were all of the unmarried Amish women in Echo Creek. Each woman wore her best Sunday dress, and of course, Drusilla and Anna wore their new dresses in the fancy fabric that made them stand out among the others.
Surely that was what Linda had planned all along.
“Now, who will bid on this pie?” the deacon called out. Behind him, Miriam held up the pie so that everyone could see it. “Looks like a delicious peach pie! And we all know how sweet the Echo Creek peaches are at this time of year!”
Several young men began bidding on the pie, and the deacon reminded everyone that this was for charity, encouraging them to bid even higher.
When it was finished, Abram Riehl won the prize for fifteen dollars.
“And that pie was made by . . .” The deacon paused, his eyes scanning the crowd.
Ella suspected that Rose Grimm had made that pie, and she found herself breathlessly waiting for the deacon to announce the baker.
“. . . Johanna Miller!”
Ella smiled to herself. Timothy Miller’s younger sister. Of course, she thought. They had quite the orchard of peach trees on their property. At just sixteen, this was Johanna’s first year on rumschpringe. Now she’d have something fun to remember: sitting with Abram Riehl as he ate a piece of her peach pie.
The next item was a buttermilk pound cake, and that fetched eleven dollars. While the auction was exciting, Ella found herself enjoying trying to guess who had baked which item and laughing whenever she was wrong.
What fun! she thought, only wishing that she, too, could have participated. But Linda would be furious if she knew that Ella was watching. And Ella wasn’t about to chance stoking her wrath, not after what had happened that evening. She had never known her to be so spiteful. Thankfully, Ella had escaped, but if her stepmother would go to such an extreme to keep her away from the charity auction, Ella was worried about what else she was capable of doing.
For the next hour, pie after pie was auctioned off. Slowly, the line of young women seated upon the pine bench dwindled until there were only two women remaining: Drusilla and Anna.
Miriam reached for something on the table that Ella couldn’t see. When the deacon’s wife turned back around, Ella saw it was her basket.
Ella almost gasped at the realization that Hannes would know that one of the desserts in the basket was hers. And yet, she wasn’t there to share it with him if he won the bid.
Removing the two cakes and one pie, Miriam set them on the table. Then, she grabbed the first cake and handed a slip of paper to her husband.
“Ah, a lazy-daisy oatmeal cake!” The deacon glanced over at the almost-empty bench where just Drusilla and Anna sat. “I suspect we know which household baked this cake, but not which of these fine, upstanding young women!”
Drusilla lowered her eyes, attempting to look coy, while Anna stared at the ground, clearly indicating that it was not she who had baked it. Neither one of them was aware that several people chuckled at the name of the cake.
“For the last bids, we won’t tell who baked them until the auction is over!”
Several people in the audience laughed and nodded, clearly agreeing with the deacon’s decision.
“Now, who will start the bid on this lazy-daisy oatmeal cake? Shall we start with five dollars? Five dollars? Anyone?”
Timothy Miller raised his hand. “Five dollars. Right here, Deacon!”
“That’s a wunderbarr start!” The deacon looked pleased. “Anyone for six dollars? Six? Do I hear six?”
There was a long moment of silence. And then a hand raised.
“I’ll bid six.”
Ella glanced over and tried to make out who had bid. But all she saw was the back of a straw hat.
“Seven!” cried out Timothy.
“Eight!”
“Ten!” Timothy countered.
“Twenty! I’ll bid twenty dollars!”
There was a collective gasp among the rest of those seated, and even Ella felt dismayed for the young man. She knew that the Millers were not a wealthy family. They raised sheep, and the mother spun it into wool. But selling that wool was their primary source of income. Timothy Miller couldn’t afford to bid more than twenty dollars.
Standing up, he faced his opponent. “You can’t jump that high!” Timothy looked back at the deacon with a desperate expression on his face. “Right, Deacon?”
The deacon shrugged. “No rules stating otherwise.”
“That’s not fair!”
But the deacon gave him a stern look. “It’s for charity, son. It’s not a marriage proposal.”
The people laughed and, red-faced, Timothy Miller sat down.
Drusilla, however, looked extremely pleased. It was clear to everyone it was the cake she had donated.
The deacon set down the cake and picked up the poor man’s cake. “Well, look at this! A poor man’s cake. Why, I haven’t had one of these since I was a boy!” He made a noise of approval. “Mmm-mmm! I’d reckon to bid on this myself if my fraa wouldn’t be upset.”
“I’ll make you a poor man’s cake, John, but you leave that one to the young men out there!” Miriam countered.
More laughter.
“Let’s start the bidding on this, the last cake, at ten dollars.”
A collective gasp could be heard from the spectators. None of the other items had started that high. Anna straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin proudly.
“Ten dollars? Anyone? It’s our last cake of the evening.” The deacon scanned the crowd. “Charity, people. Ten dollars?”
A hand raised. Joshua Esh. “I’ll bid ten dollars.”
Anna looked crestfallen. Joshua Esh was known to be slow-witted, sometimes stuttering for up to a minute before speaking a full sentence. Whenever Ella was at the store and Joshua came in, whoever else was working quickly disappeared. But Ella didn’t mind waiting patiently for Joshua to find his words. Everyone had their own individual quirks. Who was she to judge?
“Twelve dollars,” another voice called out. Immediately, a look of relief swept over Anna’s face.
Joshua looked nervous. “Th-th-thirteen!”
The color drained from Anna’s face.
“Fifteen.”
Ella’s heart ached for Joshua, who reached up and tugged at his collar. She hadn’t realized that Joshua was sweet on Anna, and that, too, made her heart heavy.
“S-s-s-sixt-t-t-een?” Joshua swallowed.
“Twenty-five dollars!”
The crowd turned around to see who had bid so high. They all stared in the same direction as before.
The deacon raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked back at Joshua. “You gonna go higher?”
He appeared defeated, his shoulders slumping and his eyes downcast, as he shook his head no.
Anna, however, had brightened at this unexpected turn of events. Not only had she dodged having to sit with Joshua Esh, but her cake had outbid her sister’s.
“There you have it, folks. The end of our auction—”
“Hold on there, John,” Miriam interrupted him. “There’s one more pie here.”
Surprised, John turned around as if he didn’t believe his wife. “Well, I’ll be!” He took the pie from his wife and looked at the piece of paper. “An apple crisp pie.” He flipped over the slip of paper. “And no name attached to it.” Confused, he stared into the crowd. “A mystery pie! How exciting.”
Ella pressed her lips together and clenched her fist. That was h
er pie, and she should have been seated up there on the pine bench. She should have been given the same opportunity as all of the other young women in Echo Creek. But Linda had stolen that special moment from her.
Several people in the audience looked around, their heads turning this way and that as they tried to figure out who had baked that pie.
“I reckon we’ll start the bid for this at five dollars.”
Several hands raised and the bidding quickly went to fifteen dollars. Just as the auction appeared to end, a voice interrupted the noise generated by the excited crowd.
“Fifty dollars!”
A moment of stunned silence was followed by a low murmuring. Suddenly, Ella realized who had bid on that dessert. And Anna’s and Drusilla’s.
Hannes.
She smiled to herself, a bittersweet kind of smile, for she understood what he had done. When he saw the basket that he had carried earlier in the day, he had bid on all three items, figuring that one of them was Ella’s. He had spent over one hundred dollars in order to sit with Ella and enjoy her pie. Unfortunately, he would also have to sit with Drusilla and Anna—a sacrifice he had made in order to have time with Ella.
But Ella wasn’t seated on the bench. Who, exactly, did he think he’d enjoy the pie with?
“Now, who made this mystery pie?” The deacon looked into the audience, his eyes crinkled up as he tried to identify the person. “Anyone?”
There was a brief pause, and then the unthinkable happened. Simultaneously, Drusilla and Anna stood up.
Drusilla’s “I did!” blended with Anna’s “Me.”
They both glared at each other. No one spoke; all eyes were on the two young women. The silence continued until, at last, Linda stood up, clasping her hands and giving a skittish laugh. “Now girls,” she said, walking toward them. “Let’s give credit where credit is due.”
A low murmur began to spread through the crowd, everyone talking about the strange turn of events. As Linda reached her daughters and turned to face the rest of the people gathered, Ella’s ears perked, eager to hear what her stepmother would say.
Placing her hands on her daughters’ shoulders, Linda stood between them. “You both made the pie, isn’t that right?”
Ella caught her breath. Once again, her stepmother had outright lied. And to everyone in the congregation, including the deacon and other church leaders. Her heart raced and she clenched her fists, wishing that she could shout out the truth. But she was too fearful of what would happen. Surely Linda would retaliate and behave in an even more awful way than she already had.
Meanwhile, both Drusilla and Anna continued arguing, each claiming that she was the sole baker of that pie.
Suddenly, a hush fell over the crowd as the man who’d bought the desserts stepped out of the shadows. As Ella had suspected, it was Hannes. He walked forward and took the pie before looking Linda directly in the eye.
“I’ll be anxious to try this one,” he said in a voice loud enough for Ella to hear even from where she stood behind the crowd. “It’s my favorite type of pie. Why, if it’s as good as it looks, I might just be inclined to marry the woman who baked it!”
Ella’s mouth dropped open as the rest of the people gasped. Linda’s eyes narrowed for a minute, and then, as if she had realized something important, they widened. “What a peculiar thing to say,” Linda replied lightly as she smiled at him. “But how fortunate for my dochders that they are both amazing bakers.”
Ella turned away and leaned against the tree. How on earth could this be happening? How could Hannes not realize the truth? Tears stung at the corners of her eyes, and she brushed them away with her fingers. She couldn’t stay there anymore. She needed to return home. Her heart broken, she ran down the dusty lane toward the small white house on the edge of town. The last thing Ella could stand was seeing Hannes seated between Drusilla and Anna, eating the treats that they claimed to have baked—but did not!—while they tried to win his heart and hand.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Good news at last!” Linda sang as she burst into the kitchen on Thursday evening. She practically floated across the floor, a smile on her face.
Unfortunately, the fact that Linda’s mood was joyous did nothing to improve Ella’s own mood.
Seated on the sofa—the very one where, just the week before, Miriam King had finished the two dresses worn by Drusilla and Anna to the charity event—Ella barely looked up. Instead, she kept her attention on the blanket that she was crocheting. Though it was too warm to crochet, Ella didn’t care. It kept her mind focused on anything other than the disastrous charity auction and how horrible her stepmother had been to her.
She knew that she had to forgive Linda and her stepdaughters. The Bible told her so. But Ella found it increasingly hard to do.
That previous Saturday night, Ella had slipped back into the house and disappeared into her bedroom. She had thrown herself onto the bed and cried into her pillow. Fortunately, Linda was so ecstatic over the events of the evening that she had forgotten all about Ella and the basement. So had Drusilla and Anna, who spent the next two days gushing about Hannes and their cakes. Each time either of the girls mentioned his name, Ella cringed and turned away, her heart aching with disappointment.
On more than one occasion, Ella was forced to listen in excruciating detail about Hannes sitting with the two sisters, tasting their cakes and the contested apple crisp pie. Drusilla repeatedly claimed victory over Anna, asserting that Hannes favored her over her sister. But, not to be outdone, Anna practically swooned when she remembered how complimentary he had been about her poor man’s cake.
Both of them were convinced that Hannes was the most handsome of men, and each of them bragged that he most certainly had eyes only for her.
Ella could hardly bear listening to them.
At night, Ella had cried herself to sleep, emotionally wounded to think that Hannes could possibly shift his attention so easily. During the day, she stayed inside the house, not even caring if the garden grew weeds or the bird feeder was empty. She went about her chores, her head down and her shoulders feeling heavy. Whenever she felt depressed and disheartened, she tried to tell herself that anyone who was so shallow, so fickle with his affections, was not the right person for her.
But she still had a hard time believing it could possibly be true.
Even when she cleaned the kitchen, Ella tried to avoid thinking of him. The windowsill no longer held the crystal trinket that he had given her, having been removed by someone, probably one of her stepsisters. It had been a bittersweet moment when she had realized it was missing. But she counted it as a small blessing, for now she wouldn’t have to look at it and be reminded, yet again, of Hannes’s capricious behavior.
While she had never heard of anyone dying from a broken heart, she couldn’t help but wonder if she might be the first.
And still, she persevered.
Today, however, Drusilla and Anna were making life particularly hard for her. They had been sitting at the table, talking yet again about the past Saturday evening, when their mother had burst into the room.
“Did you hear me, Ella?”
Despite her feelings toward her stepmother, Ella remembered that she needed to show respect. God commanded it, even if her stepmother was not a kind person. She looked up at Linda with weary eyes that were puffy and red from all of the past sleepless nights that she had spent crying.
Irritated, Linda stood there, her hands on her hips, glowering at her. “You aren’t still brooding about last weekend, are you? After all, the basement did need cleaning! And you were not locked down there on purpose! Drusilla said it was an accident!”
Ella couldn’t believe her stepmother’s audacity. Ella knew Linda was more than aware that someone had sabotaged the basement by knocking over that bin of flour and throwing it all over the place. And they both knew that the door had been locked on purpose. Ella had witnessed too much cruelty and dishonesty from her stepmother over the course of th
e past few weeks to doubt that for a moment.
Setting down her crocheting, she forced herself to meet her stepmother’s gaze, too aware that both Drusilla and Anna were snickering about their mother’s comments. “What is it?” she asked.
“Oh, good!” Linda looked delighted that Ella had spoken at last. “Perhaps now you can finish with your sulking!”
“Sulking” wasn’t exactly how Ella would have put it. She was broken, perhaps, but not sulking. And who wouldn’t be broken after being locked in a basement and having her stepsisters claim her own pie as theirs when it had been purchased by the kindest man she’d ever known? To have sat there and pretended they had baked it while he ate it? No, she wasn’t sulking at all.
“What’s the good news?” Drusilla finally asked, which earned her a special smile from her mother.
Linda walked over to the table. “Those Clemens men sent word that they’ll be coming to town and wish to have supper here on Saturday evening.” Linda cast a smug look in Ella’s direction.
“Whatever for?” Anna asked, an eagerness about her that irritated Ella.
“Oh, Anna! Please.” Drusilla sniffed at her sister. “You know that Henry loved that pie. I’m sure he intends to court me, and that’s the reason they invited themselves over for supper!”
“Or me!” Anna puffed her chest and gave her sister a defiant look. “He thinks that I made the pie, too!”
Ella felt a lump form in her throat. It had been almost one week since the charity auction, and no one had seen hide nor hair of Hannes Clemens. She was certain that he had returned to Blue Springs and that would be the end of seeing him in Echo Creek. So she was both surprised and dismayed to hear that he would be returning. Even worse, he’d be having supper at their house. Ella would be forced to see him. If it was true that he had shifted his affections from her to Drusilla or Anna, she wasn’t certain she could sit in the same room with him!
“It doesn’t matter which one of you he courts, just that he court one of you!” Linda sounded irritated. “After all, he said that the pie was so good, he’d consider marrying the woman who baked it.”