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Thursday started out as a normal day for Katie Chupp. As always, she left home just before sunrise, heading toward the small town located not far from her family's farm.
Katie was eager to get to work, where she would create the most delicious breads, cakes, cookies, and assorted pastries that could be found in Abbott Creek.
When she arrived at The Sweet Shop, it was dark inside. Katie pulled out her key, unlocked the door and stepped inside. After locking the door behind her, she turned on the overhead lights and headed to the kitchen. Comfortable with her daily routine, she went to work, pulling out the ingredients she needed to make nine-grain bread.
Using the large, commercial mixer, she was careful to add everything in the correct order, watching until the dough pulled away from the hooks enough to begin the next step. Then she changed the setting so it would knead the dough until it was ready to knead by hand. She was thankful that the professional mixer did such a gut job and that it spared her much time, but the dough still required a human touch to prepare properly.
Sticking to her routine, she knew precisely what to do. Many mornings found her praying or singing as her hands flattened and pounded dough for one of a dozen breads she baked daily.
Soon she was scraping the dough from the large bowl and working it with her hands on the large countertop. As she squeezed and pressed the dough, flipping the large mound over and repeating her motions again and again, her mind wandered and she thought about how different it was making bread at The Sweet Shop than it was when she baked bread at home.
When making bread for her family, she did every step by hand, mixing and kneading the dough by hand from the very beginning.
Even with so many growing buwes, their family rarely used more than ten loaves of bread in any given week. At the bakery, she made two dozen loaves each morning of each type of bread they sold and that was in addition to what had been specially ordered by customers.
Katie carefully separated out bunches of dough, weighing each one before settling them into a loaf pan. After covering the pans with a clean cloth and then setting them aside to let the dough rise, she moved to a nearby counter to mix up the ingredients for snicker-doodles, one of her favorite desserts.
Four dozen cookies were soon baking in the oven, filling the bakery with a delicious, spicy aroma.
Pausing for a moment, she left the kitchen area and made her way to the front of the bakery. The sun was just making an appearance, turning the dark sky to a beautiful pink as it rose slowly toward the sky.
Looking at the clear, blue heavens, Katie could not help thinking that the day might seem a bit too normal. It had been several months since her last adventure—and almost a year since that fateful day when she had arrived at work, only to discover that the bakery had been ransacked.
Many of the breads and pastries, along with some of the customer orders that had already been prepared, had been missing—leaving a huge mess to be dealt with.
But today the sun was rising over the Abbott Creek community, clear and brilliant. Soon the sky would be a beautiful shade of blue. The bakery would open and customers would be arriving to buy delicious, fresh breads and desserts.
Katie would stay in the kitchen most of the morning—measuring, mixing, shaping, baking and frosting dozens of pastries and cookies. After all the prep work was done, she would start to work on orders taken during the morning.
Katie typically spent her working hours in the kitchen baking delicious treat to keep the bakery cases filled. In between that work, she would work on filling any special orders.
Every day was much the same. Customers came in to order their favorites—or to place special orders. Then those same customers would come back the following day to pick up their orders. And it would start all over again.
Some might think her job boring, but she enjoyed the routine. She knew what to expect each day—and if she wanted variety, there was plenty of that with the orders they received from customers.
Of course, there is also the adventure that comes with each mystery that somehow seems to find me, she thought with some amusement.
Katie was soon back in the kitchen, pulling the snicker-doodles out of the oven.
Dear Gott, danki for giving me such a wunderbaar job. I cannot think of anything I would rather be doing.
A few minutes later, Freida showed up. Freida helped with the baking when Katie had more work than she could manage; otherwise her job was waiting on customers when the bakery opened.
More often than not, she came early to visit with Katie. And she always asked the same thing day after day...
“Don’t you ever get tired of doing the same old thing, Katie? Don’t you ever wish something different would happen around here?”
Katie laughed before answering her freind. “Nee. I cannot think of anything I enjoy more than baking.”
“And just what is so funny, Katie Chupp?” Freida asked with a hand on one hip and a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth.
“Ach, I was thinking just before you arrived how some people might find what we do boring, but there is much about it that changes constantly”. Katie pulled another sheet of cookies from the oven before going on.
“Besides, I can remember a morning when something different happened—a morning that was more frightening than anything I have ever known. Even though everything turned out fine, I still remember how scary it was at the time.”
“But Katie, it wasn’t so bad—not really. And because of it, you met Travis. I think he’s a bit in lieb with you. It’s too bad that’s he’s an Englischer. The two of you make such a cute couple.”
“Freida, do not tease me about such a thing. Travis is not in lieb with me. We are just freinden. That’s all.”
“You are not fooling me, Katie Chupp. I know what is what. You can deny it all you want, but I know you have feelings for him—and him for you.”
“Ach, Freida. We cannot—I cannot—have feelings for him. You know this is what has to be. Even if I wanted—”
“Aha! I knew it.” Freida was practically shouting.
“I cannot have feelings for an Englischer. I can not. I will not. And that is that. And I do not want to speak of it further.”
With that, Katie turned and left the room to return to her baking. No one could have missed the sad expression on her face before she disappeared into the kitchen, especially Freida, who knew Katie so well.