“I’m not sure there’s much difference between the two where you are concerned,” he called after her. He struggled to his feet. Grace was still sitting with Meeka, but she was watching him. He gestured for her to come on. She jumped up and ran to him. He wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Help us get these silly sheep and their amazing shepherdess back to the barn.”
Ruth spun around to look at him. Did he really think she was amazing?
Grace took his hand. He sank to his heels to gaze into her eyes. “I’m sorry we didn’t find your mother.” His voice cracked, and Ruth’s heart ached for him.
“It’s okay.” Grace seemed to realize he needed reassurance. “Gott is watching over her. She’ll come and get me soon. I’m kind of hungry. Can I have something to eat?”
“Once we get home.”
“Home?” She looked at him with an eager light in her eyes. “Are we going home?”
“I meant as soon as we get back to Ruth’s house.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “Okay. Can I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”
“I think I can handle that.” He stood and walked over to discourage one of the sheep from turning in the wrong direction. The ewes seemed to get the idea and began plodding toward the barn. Ruth came along behind them using her stick as an occasional prod. Together the three of them managed to get the sheep back with the rest of the flock in the corral. Meeka stayed beside Grace the entire way.
As they headed toward the house, Grace suddenly jogged ahead of them. “Don’t forget to leave those muddy boots on the porch and wash up,” Ruth said as Grace started up the steps.
“Okay.”
When Grace went inside Owen turned to Ruth. “I want to apologize for falling apart back there.”
“Did you? I didn’t notice.” Ruth looked him in the eyes. “I want to apologize for being mean.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in half a grin. “Now you’re being kind again. I appreciate the reminder about why I’m here. And just so you know, I don’t think you’re mean. I sincerely apologize.”
“Apology accepted. I knew you were upset and for some reason you were blaming yourself for things you had no control over. All I did was give you a reason to get up. Sometimes that’s all a person needs.”
“Blaming myself seemed easier than accepting it is Gott’s will. It just seems so unfair.”
“We’re not promised a fair life on this earth. We endure what we must and cherish that which is goot knowing our stay here is but a stepping-stone to eternal happiness. Faith requires that we admit Gott is in control and we are not. And now I am preaching, which is not what I meant to do.”
“I will take your words to heart. I will also try my best not to make more work for you.”
“I believe that.” And she did. Until now she had been afraid he would disappear when she needed him the most. Maybe this time would be different. She would give him the benefit of the doubt. “Until Ernest and Faron leave I don’t want you to worry about helping me. I think Grace is the one who needs your support the most.”
“I wish I could do more for her. I believe the sheriff is doing all he can, but I can’t help thinking that somewhere Grace’s extended family is wondering what happened to her and to her mother. Somebody must be missing them. Someone has to be looking for them but maybe they don’t know where to look.”
“This mystery will be the talk of our community for ages. Everyone will be mentioning the story in their letters to their relatives far and wide. Word will spread. We have to hope word spreads to the right people.”
She climbed the steps of the porch as she considered how they could spread the word to other Amish communities faster. She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. If she wrote an article about Grace and the Amish newspaper The Diary published it, then Amish and Englisch people around the country would learn about this lost child and her missing mother in a week or two.
That was exactly what she would do. She’d send a copy to the Amish Family Life Magazine, too. She could get it in the morning mail.
Inside the house she found Grace already seated at the table. She held up both palms. “I washed my hands and face.”
Ruth grinned at her. “I believe we are going to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a snack. Do you want to help me make them?”
“Sure.” Grace started to wiggle off her chair.
Owen held up one hand. “Wait. I said I could manage this. Grace and I will make sandwiches. Ruth, you may take a seat at the table, rest your knee and supervise.”
Ruth chuckled, took a seat and folded her arms across her chest, waiting to see how well Owen managed an energetic three-year-old armed with strawberry jelly, peanut butter and a table knife. “Gladly.”
“I’ll get the bread.” Grace hopped off her chair. The loaf was on the counter and within her reach. The bread hadn’t been sliced. She frowned at it and then opened the drawer containing Ruth’s cooking utensils. She pulled out an enormous knife meant for chopping vegetables, not slicing bread.
Ruth started to caution her, but Owen was quicker. “Oh, that’s not the right kind of knife, Grace.”
“It’s not?” She held it out to him point-first.
“Lay it on the countertop. Be careful. It’s very sharp.”
She did as he asked and he quickly moved the knife out of her reach. He opened the drawer and withdrew a serrated bread knife. “This is the kind of knife that’s best for slicing a loaf of bread.” He glanced at Ruth from the corner of his eye. “It’s also good for filleting fish and for trimming small tree branches if you don’t have a saw.”
Ruth couldn’t let that go. “Nee, it’s not. That might be true for someone else’s bread knife but not for mine.”
He gave her a stern look. “I thought you were supervising only.”
“Correcting bad information is supervising.”
He chuckled and turned back to Grace. “Now we need a cutting board. Why don’t you bring a chair over here so you can reach the countertop?”
“Okay.” She grabbed a chair, slid it across the floor and climbed onto it. “Now what?”
“Before we start preparing any meal we need to gather our ingredients. What do we need?”
“The peanut butter and the jelly, silly.”
“Right.” He withdrew them from the cabinet and set them on the counter. “Don’t we need a plate to put them on?”
“Nope. I hold mine in my hand.”
“Let’s be polite and put Ruth’s on a plate.”
Grace looked over her shoulder at Ruth. “Do you want your sandwich on a plate?”
“Ja, a small plate will be fine.”
Grace shrugged. “Okay, but it just makes more dishes to wash.”
Ruth chuckled. “I’m supervising. I won’t have to wash dishes. I believe Owen volunteered for that task.”
“Washing dishes is for women to do,” Grace declared.
“Not always,” Owen said. “Men can wash dishes, too. A man without a wife washes his own dishes and cooks his own meals.”
Grace cocked her head sideways as she looked at him. “Why doesn’t he just get a wife?”
He leaned down and tweaked her nose. “Because no woman in her right mind would have him. Are we making lunch or not?”
“We are. Cut the bread for me.”
He sliced the loaf and handed her the first two pieces. “Here you go. What’s next?”
“I need a knife to spread the peanut butter.”
He opened the flatware drawer and handed her a table knife. She stuck it into the jar of peanut butter and pulled out a large glob. She spread it quickly on the bread and then reached for the jelly. She tried to pull out an equally large dollop of jelly but most of it fell off the knife. She looked down at the floor. “Oops. I dropped some.”
Ruth covered her mou
th to stifle her laughter. The jelly had landed on the toe of Owen’s shoe. He didn’t seem to notice as he showed Grace how to take a smaller amount and spread it on the bread. When she put the two slices together, he held up both hands. “You did it.”
Grace grinned. “I need more bread, please.”
The sandwiches were messy, overfilled with jelly but still edible. Grace had jelly on her dress and a smear of peanut butter on her sleeve. Owen wound up with only one glob of jelly on his shoe; the rest of his clothes were unscathed.
He was surprisingly good with the child. Ruth had learned more about him by watching him instruct Grace with gentleness, humor, a healthy dose of self-restraint and praise. She was growing increasingly attached to Owen and to Grace even though she knew both would leave her life before long. How could she guard her heart when she wasn’t aware until now that Owen was somehow working his way past the wall she had built to keep him out? She couldn’t face another loss.
One answer was to spend less time with him. She rose from the table. “I’d better get going if I’m to join the search parties at Ernest’s home.”
“Grace and I can drive you over there.” He started to get his coat.
“Nee,” she said quickly, stopping him in his tracks. “I’d rather go by myself,” she finished lamely. She needed to spend less time with him, not more, but she couldn’t tell him that.
A look of disappointment flashed across his face. “I understand.”
Did he? Had he somehow guessed her feelings toward him had softened? She prayed that wasn’t the case. She wanted to be his friend. Nothing more. She grabbed her coat and hurried out the door.
CHAPTER TEN
RUTH’S CHILDREN AND Ernest reported another full day of searching had turned up nothing new. Owen had no reason to remain at Ruth’s for another night. He and Grace returned to Ernest’s farm that evening. Grace sat on the worn sofa, looking forlorn and worried.
Ernest opened the oven door and peered inside. “We are not going to have to worry about cooking for a day or two. The women have left us a couple of casseroles. Do you prefer chicken or tuna?”
Owen sat down beside Grace. “Which do you like better? Chicken or tuna?”
“Tuna,” she answered in a tiny voice.
“Tuna it is,” Ernest said from the kitchen doorway. “I’ll put the other one in the freezer.”
Owen tipped his head to better see her face. “What’s the matter, Grace?”
“Where is the safe place here?”
“The whole house is a safe place for you. You don’t need to hide when you are here.”
She looked around. “It’s too big. A safe place is small.”
He straightened her kapp. “We aren’t going to play that game while we are staying with Onkel Ernest. Okay?”
She nodded, but she didn’t look convinced.
They ate their supper in silence. When they were finished, Owen fixed a cot for her in his bedroom. He stepped out while she changed into a nightgown that Ruth had given her. When Grace called him back, he saw the gown was too big for her.
He had her turn around while he took the pins out of her braids and let her hair down. He found a hairbrush and smoothed out the ripples, then he plaited her hair into a single braid and tied the end with an elastic band Ruth had supplied.
Ernest watch them from the doorway. “Where did you learn to braid hair?”
Owen smiled. “I used to work on a horse farm where the owner’s daughter taught me how to braid manes and tails.”
“Owen, can Meeka sleep in here?” Grace asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
Ernest slipped his hands in his pockets. “Meeka has work to do. She must protect the sheep from the coyotes and other predators. Most of her important work is done at night.”
“I’m sure she will be around in the morning because she knows you are here,” Owen said to reassure the child.
“I miss my mamm an awful lot.”
“I know you do. Let’s talk to Gott about her.” He knelt beside Grace as she said her prayers and asked the Lord to bring her mamm home soon.
When she was finished, she crawled into bed. “Do you think He heard me?”
“I know He did.” Owen tucked her in. “I hope you find sweet dreams waiting for you on the dreamland tree.”
He left the room and found his uncle seated in his chair by a small potbellied stove in the living room. While Ernest used propane for his appliances and heating, he claimed he enjoyed using the old-fashioned stove to keep the cold out of his bones without heating the whole house.
“What will you do with the child after I leave? We aren’t likely to find her mother alive if we find her at all.”
Owen sat on the arm of the sofa. “I know. Grace can stay with me. She seems to need me close at hand unless she is with Meeka. She will stay with Ruth for short periods of time, but I don’t think she’s ready to stay overnight without me.”
“I wonder what it is that makes her so attached to you?”
“Maybe it was because Meeka brought her to me. She seems to be more accepting of you today.”
“I knew she would come around. I’m a likable fellow. What will happen to her if we don’t locate her mother?”
“I have no idea.”
“How are you and Ruth getting along?”
Owen looked at his uncle sharply. The question seemed casual, but his uncle’s tone betrayed more than a passing interest.
“Like cats and dogs.”
Ernest frowned. “Still? I thought you would be over that by now.”
“Why are you giving it any thought at all?”
His uncle shrugged but there was a hint of rising color in his cheeks. “No reason, really. I like you. I like Ruth. I thought you could get along. Why don’t you try being nice to her?”
“I’m always nice to Ruth and her family.”
“I know that but sometimes women like to be singled out.”
“Singled out, how?” Owen had an idea where the conversation was heading but he was going to make his uncle spell it out.
“You know what I mean. Do something special for her or take her to eat at that restaurant over on the highway.”
Owen arched one eyebrow. “You want me to ask Ruth out on a date?”
Ernest cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. “I wasn’t suggesting that, but it’s a good idea.”
“That is a fib as big as any of your fish stories. Having me ask Ruth out is exactly what you were suggesting.”
“What’s so wrong with that? You are single. She’s a widow whose children will be leaving home soon.”
“Ruth wouldn’t go out with me if I was the last man on earth. And I don’t blame her. If you think for a minute that I could replace Nathan, you are narrisch.”
“Is it crazy to think that two people who liked each other years ago could like each other again? And you both liked each other.”
“It’s nutty to think that an old bachelor like you is trying to play matchmaker.”
Ernest dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “I might be old, but I still believe in love, especially when two people deserve each other.”
“If you want to play matchmaker for Ruth you have my blessing, but I’m not going to play the suitor.”
Ernest leaned back in his chair. “You wouldn’t mind if Ruth found someone new?”
Owen hesitated a moment too long. “Of course not.”
“Ha! That’s exactly what I thought. Who is telling a fib now?”
Owen ignored his uncle’s taunt. He didn’t have an answer because he didn’t know how he really felt. On one hand, he should be glad if Ruth found happiness with someone else. On the other hand, the idea didn’t sit well at all. He tried to imagine her being kissed by some other man and it made him ill. What kind of friend was he tu
rning out to be?
* * *
THE SEARCH RESUMED the next day. The sheriff and law enforcement officers met with the volunteers gathered at Ernest’s farm to continue sweeping areas that had been inaccessible due to the snow. A few of the young Amish men and women came on horseback. Their Englisch counterparts came in four-wheel drive pickups and off-road ATVs. The rapidly warming temperature was turning the pristine white landscape back to its drab winter brown, dotted with shrinking dirty snowdrifts, puddles and running water that filled the gullies and ditches.
Owen, Meeka and a subdued Grace walked to Ruth’s house as soon as the volunteers began arriving. It was only a quarter of a mile across the pasture while it was closer to a half mile if they stuck to the roads. Owen wondered if Grace was getting sick. He’d never seen her so sullen. “Don’t you feel good, liebchen?”
“Nee, I don’t.”
“What troubles you?”
“I don’t like it here anymore. Take me home. I want my mamm.”
“Many people are looking for her. They will find her. And then I’ll take you home.”
“I don’t think they are looking very hard.”
“I can go help them look if you will stay with Ruth.”
“Nee, don’t leave me.” She wrapped her arms around his leg and wouldn’t let go until he promised he would stay at Ruth’s farm.
Nothing he nor Ruth said could convince her that he would be back. She was tearful and angry throughout the morning, refusing to help with housework, play with any of the games or toys Ruth provided. At one point she ran to her “safe place” and refused to come out.
By midmorning Owen was ready to tear his hair out. He paced back and forth in the kitchen. “What has come over her? She’s so difficult today. She’s like a different child. Is it something I’ve done?”
“I’m surprised we haven’t seen this earlier,” Ruth said as she prepared a beef roast for supper. They were expecting the King family to join them.
He stopped his pacing. “You expected her to act like this?”
“Children often act out when they are grieving. She’s frightened. She can’t make sense of what’s going on. She doesn’t understand why her mother hasn’t come back. She isn’t old enough to have the faith she needs to face such difficulties the way you and I do.”
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