Sarah, the young woman she’d met earlier, spied her right away. “You came!”
“Ja, thank you for letting me know about it.” Jane glanced at the young people milling about, chattering, laughing, roasting hot dogs over a pit fire.
“I’ll introduce you around, if you like,” offered Sarah.
“I’ll never remember everyone’s names,” warned Jane. “But please introduce me.”
What should have been a fun evening with new friends was anything but. Jane felt shy and awkward despite the support of Sarah and Rhoda, who took her under their wing.
“I feel like I’m sixteen instead of twenty-three,” she groused to Sarah as she sprawled on the lawn with her new friends, learning each of their stories. “Will I ever grow out of being awkward, do you suppose?”
“I’m sure it’s just because you’re in a new place,” soothed Rhoda. “You’ll fit in just fine when you have a chance to know more people. That’s why I think you should keep coming to singings and other youngie events. How else will you get to know anyone?”
“Ja, true...” Jane trailed off, thinking about Levy’s awkwardness while being in sole charge of the baby.
“Besides, we’re glad you’ve come.” Sarah spoke with such simple sincerity that Jane’s eyes felt hot. She loved the Amish sense of community.
“And it seems it was Gott’s will to find a job the moment I arrived too,” she replied. “Levy Struder—do you know him?—he’s taking care of his sister’s child. He hired me as the baby’s nanny.”
“Oh, Levy, he’s a gut man,” said Sarah.
“He seems a little old to be single. Why isn’t he married?” Jane asked, trying to keep her question casual.
“It all goes back to his sister,” Sarah answered, nibbling a cookie. “He practically raised her after their parents died, and when she left for her Rumspringa and didn’t come back, he took it very hard. I think he’s afraid he’ll mess up with everyone—a wife, his own children—so he never sought out the responsibility of a family. Which is pretty ironic, since he loves kids.”
“Yet he thinks he can raise little Mercy on his own,” observed Jane. “He refuses to give her to another family to raise.”
“He’s really eaten up by guilt over his sister,” said Sarah. “He can’t bear the thought of giving up his sister’s baby.”
“Did she...ah, was she not married?” asked Jane.
“I don’t know.” Rhoda looked troubled. “No one knows for sure, but why else would she give up her baby if she had a husband?”
“Well, I’ll do the best I can for the boppli, but I hope Levy remembers I’m just the nanny, not the baby’s mother.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s very busy running his business. Two businesses, actually. Plus the baby isn’t sleeping through the night. I could literally have the care of her for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and I don’t think it would be enough time for him. Each evening when I go home, I feel guilty for leaving Mercy to Levy. I think he’s scared to be in sole charge of her.”
“Did you have a hard time getting away to come to the barbecue tonight?” asked Rhoda.
“Ja. I mean, he didn’t argue with me, but he got an odd look on his face.” Jane mimicked Levy’s expression so accurately the other girls laughed.
“I hope you can keep coming to the youngie events.” Sarah looked around at the chattering groups of young people lit up by the flickering flames of the pit fire. “We have activities just about every week during the summer. A lot of people knew someone was coming to stay with your aunt and uncle, and we were anxious to get to know you.”
She felt a quiver of unease. It seemed her adolescent awkwardness had never left her. She’d never really cultivated the social graces, and now she had to plunge outside her comfort zone. Had she made a mistake to leave home where she knew everyone, to immerse herself with strangers?
Yet Rhoda was right. If she didn’t keep coming to these events, how else would she get to know anyone?
“It’s late.” Rhoda climbed to her feet and dusted off her dress. “It’s been so hot lately, so we work outside in the garden in the early morning. I’d best get home.”
Others were departing as well, carrying empty food containers and walking through the darkness toward their homes. Jane walked alone—it was something she was used to—and headed for her aunt and uncle’s house.
In a moment of insight, she realized why she’d cultivated being useful. It covered for her plain looks, her awkward social skills. Everyone needed a useful woman.
She had been useful back home in Jasper. She would be useful here in Grand Creek, too.
* * *
She had cause to regret her decision to be useful by the next morning.
She arrived at Levy’s to find the baby wailing in her bouncy seat on the porch. Levy was loading boxes and baskets of produce into the wagon, which was already hitched to the horse.
“She’s all yours,” he snapped, his face tense. “I’ve got a lot to do before we leave.”
Jane didn’t say a word. Levy’s anxiety had communicated itself to little Mercy, and the baby cried louder.
She picked up the infant and cradled her in her arms. “I’m here, hush now, hush...”
It took some time for the infant to calm down, and even then she was edgy and cranky. Jane stayed out of Levy’s way while he dashed around. Instead, she concentrated on packing what she needed for the baby: a diaper bag with bottles of formula, several changes of clothing and diapers, a light blanket, the sling, the padded basket used as a cradle and the bouncy seat. For herself and Levy, she packed a large lunch since she suspected he’d forgotten about food for himself.
Levy poked his head through the kitchen door. “Can you be ready in five minutes?”
“I’ll be ready.” Slipping the baby into the sling, Jane picked up the diaper bag and a food hamper and walked outside.
The wagon was loaded to capacity with the shelving, displays, chairs, tools, a scale and all the other accoutrements of a farmer’s market booth. Boxes and crates and baskets of produce bulged at the corners. He’d even stuffed two bales of straw into the side. Jane managed to wedge the food hamper and diaper bag in a tight corner.
“Here, I’ll hold the baby while you climb up.” Levy appeared from the barn, mopped his brow with a bandanna and took the baby while Jane scrambled onto the wagon seat. She leaned down and took Mercy and settled the baby back into the sling while Levy stepped up, took the reins and started the horse down the road.
“Sorry I was so busy. I overslept,” he apologized.
“Let me guess—Mercy was up during the night?”
“Ja. I meant to get up much earlier, I fell back asleep after feeding her, and the next thing I knew the sun was already up when I opened my eyes. I dashed around getting all the chores done, but I’m afraid I didn’t have much time to devote to the baby, except for feeding and diapering her.”
“Well, don’t worry about her for now. I’ll take care of her.” She thought about her conversation with Sarah and Rhoda last night at the barbecue, about Levy’s determination to keep the baby. Personally she thought the bishop was right and Levy should give Mercy to another family to raise. It was clearly too much for him to run his business and care for such a tiny infant.
But he’d already told her he didn’t want to give Mercy up without knowing if his sister would return. Plus he was a stubborn man. She looked down at the baby in the sling. The child’s eyes were heavy. After the anxious atmosphere of the morning, she seemed ready to sleep. Jane chose not to voice her doubts about Levy’s decision to keep Mercy. “I’m grateful for the work, and I enjoy caring for the boppli, however long the arrangement lasts.”
“Right now I’m too busy to think long-term. All I know is...” His voice trailed off.
Jane glanced at hi
m, then looked out at the scenery going by. She promised herself not to bring up his sister anymore. The subject was clearly too personal, too raw for him. He wouldn’t give up Mercy because doing so would be giving up on Mercy’s mother, his sister. That much was obvious.
“I’ll do my best to ease your burden,” she said instead. “I like caring for babies.”
“Danke.”
She lapsed into silence as Mercy fell asleep. Feeling the precious weight against her chest, her feelings toward the baby—already warm—altered. There were worse jobs than to act as a surrogate mother to this baby.
The farmer’s market was held in a shady park that took up nearly one entire city block in an otherwise quiet residential neighborhood. A section was fenced off for Amish horses and buggies, and the parking lot was for vendors only.
“Do customers have to park on the streets?” inquired Jane, looking around.
“Ja. The whole farmer’s market takes on an air of a festival every weekend. They even arrange for some children’s entertainment, clown shows and such.” Levy guided the horse through the parking area. “It’s a whole lot more popular than the size of the town suggests. I’m fortunate it’s so close by.”
A clatter of other wagons crowded the streets, and Amish families started setting up their own stalls and booths. Levy called out to a number of them.
“Hei, what a lot of vendors!” Jane exclaimed. The place was packed.
“Ja. You won’t believe the crowds that will come later,” Levy answered.
He pulled up by an empty space and climbed down from the wagon, then raised his arms for Mercy. Jane handed him the sleeping infant, then climbed down from the wagon and took the baby again. “What do you want me to do?”
“I have to figure out how to set up this new booth. While I work on that, can you unload boxes of produce? Or would that be too much while you’re holding the baby?” He seemed to be over his earlier dark mood.
He grinned at her, which made Jane catch her breath. Levy’s rare smiles transformed him from a rather grim man to an unnervingly handsome one. His dark blue eyes glinted in the dappled sunshine. To hide her reaction, she concentrated on slipping Mercy into the padded basket Levy used as a makeshift cradle without waking her. “Nein, unloading boxes shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll just make sure she’s safe in the shade by that tree.”
With Mercy sleeping in the basket, she deposited the diaper bag and food hamper nearby, then began unloading crates of produce while Levy figured out how to assemble his new booth.
The park was busy with vendors setting up. The scope of the market amazed her. Dozens of booths were being assembled. Not all were run by Amish families. She saw many Englisch farmers as well, setting out crates of tomatoes, corn, peppers and other vegetables and fruits. A few early shoppers wandered around, but most sellers weren’t quite ready to open for business yet. She received friendly nods and greetings from neighboring sellers.
“Here, can you hold this?” asked Levy. He indicated a pole. “I need to fasten these two pieces together. Ja, just like that.”
Jane helped balance various components while the booth took shape under Levy’s hands.
Finally he stepped back. “What do you think?”
“It looks gut!” she replied. “I don’t know what your previous booth looked like, but this seems spacious and welcoming.”
“Danke.” He began setting out baskets of tomatoes, propped up at an inviting angle on a display rack. “I think it will work out well.”
Jane began hauling boxes of produce over, but then Mercy woke up, so instead she grabbed one of the two folding chairs Levy had brought and set it next to the nearby tree. She found a bottle of formula in the diaper bag and settled in to feed the boppli.
“What’s that?” Levy pointed to the hamper next to the diaper bag.
“Lunch. And breakfast, for that matter.”
“Gut! I completely forgot.” He smiled at a family who wandered by and stopped to examine the produce for sale.
“Does this farmer’s market have an official opening time?” Jane settled the baby more comfortably in the crook of her arm.
Levy waited until the potential customers moved on, then he dove into the food hamper, pulled out some biscuits and began eating. “I was so busy this morning I didn’t have time for breakfast. As for when it opens—it’s somewhat informal, though vendors are asked to finish unloading and move their cars and wagons by 9:00 a.m. We have to stay until five o’clock, though, by the rules.”
“Rules? Is it that structured?”
“Ja. We sign an agreement. I can understand why they have these rules, otherwise a vendor might depart early and leave a big gaping hole where his booth was. Good morning!” he added to a young mother with two children in tow.
Once Mercy was fed, Jane slipped the infant into the sling and helped Levy stock the booth, spreading out the fresh fruits and vegetables in beautiful eye-catching displays.
“Having you here is sure useful,” he murmured as the crowds grew thick. “It’s nice to have another pair of hands to help out.”
She flushed with pleasure, even at the term useful. “I’m still learning,” she warned him. “I’ve never worked with customers before.”
“Then you’re a natural. Keep it up.”
His praise was all she needed to redouble her efforts. Watching Levy sell his farm produce was a revelation to Jane. His booth was thronged almost from the beginning, and he easily outsold nearly every other vendor in the park. It was easy to see why. Unlike most Amish men, he was not reserved, but animated. He joked, he chatted, he bantered. She estimated half his customers were regulars, but several times she noticed people stopped at the booth because they wondered why it was so crowded.
And she knew it would have been extraordinarily difficult for him to function this way without someone watching Mercy.
Jane stayed busy too. When Mercy was quiet—either tucked in her sling or resting in the cradle basket—she helped weigh and bag produce, make change and restock the crates and baskets with fresh food. But she lacked Levy’s easy way with strangers, especially Englischers.
During a rare quiet moment, she collapsed on the chair. “How do you do it?” She gulped water from a jar. “You behave like you’ve had classes in salesmanship.”
“In a way I have.” He bit into a sandwich. “When I first started selling here, my booth was right next to an older man—an Englischer—who was retiring and moving to Florida. His name was Robert and he was wonderful with customers. He wasn’t pushy, he was friendly. I watched him and learned. It’s a little difficult for me—I’m not a salesman by nature—but this is how I make my living, and if I’m going to sell produce, I have to sell it in the very best way possible. It puts me way outside my comfort zone, for sure and certain. I’m grateful to Gott for putting my booth next to Robert’s. If I’d been anywhere else, I never would have watched him in action and seen how well he did.”
“Did he know you were watching him?”
“Of course. In fact, he spent the whole summer coaching me. He gave me pointers and tips for improving my sales. I’d never done anything like this before, so it was a steep learning curve. But I find it tiring. By the end of the day, I’m wiped out and need a whole week to recover.”
“I can understand that.” The crowds were hard for Jane to get used to as well. “I’m surprised this little town has so many people coming to its farmer’s market.”
“They advertise farther away, in many communities around here. I’ve had people tell me they drive an hour to get here so they can stock up on their week’s groceries. The success of this little market far surpasses the boundaries of the town, for sure and certain. The people who run the market know what they’re doing.”
Their brief respite ended when more people stopped by to browse the produce, and Levy’s booth stayed busy until late in
the afternoon.
“What did you do with Mercy last week?” she asked at one point, after the baby woke up from a nap and cried until Jane fed her again.
“The teenage youngie I hired watched her,” he admitted. “I didn’t have a choice. You can see how busy I am on market days. They’re $3.99 a pound,” he told a customer, smiling as he sold the last of his raspberries. “But having you here changes the whole dynamic, even with the boppli. I’m not nearly as stressed.”
Jane quivered. His gratitude seemed to hold a note of something more, something deeper than just recognition that she was a useful sales associate. Or was she imagining it?
The pressure of customer demands didn’t ease until just before the market was due to close. But Levy seemed in no hurry to break down and pack up any remaining inventory. “Always be the last to close,” he explained to Jane. “That’s another trick of the trade Robert taught me. You’d be surprised how many times people want to make one last purchase before they leave for the day.”
This proved true when not one, but three late customers cleaned out the rest of Levy’s tomatoes, corn and onions. Other booths were in a state of disassembly, but Levy’s little store was still open for business.
With the clock edging toward 5:30, a weary Jane laid Mercy in her cradle basket and helped Levy collect what small amount of produce remained unsold.
“I’ll go hitch up Maggie and get the wagon,” he said.
Left alone, she stacked what she could and repacked their food hamper. After a few minutes, Levy guided his horse and wagon nearby, and they began disassembling the booth components and loading them into the wagon.
Finally they started for home. “That was intense.” Jane sighed.
“Ja. I think it’s more intense because they only hold the farmer’s market on Saturdays. So many of their vendors are Amish and we won’t work on the Sabbath, and people know that, so everyone crowds in to make their purchases on that one day.”
Amish Baby Lessons Page 5