3

Everyone thought that because Katrina Stoltzfus was the oldest in the family, she was a plucky girl, but in truth, she wasn’t as confident as everyone assumed. In fact, she had the temperament of a turtle. Whatever dread, fright, or bump appeared in her path, she wanted nothing more than to drop in her tracks and hide. That’s what she was doing now, at Thelma’s. Hiding. Under the guise of helping Thelma.

Thelma’s shoulder was in a sling, and it was unfortunate that it was her right arm, but the woman had more energy than men half her age.

Take now, for example.

Thelma was walking the perimeter of her property—over a mile long—something she did every morning, rain or shine. She strode along the barn, the greenhouse, and the henhouse, checking the hens to make sure the pen hadn’t been raided overnight. She eyed the fences and rounded the beehives, then headed back along the vegetable garden. “Keeps me healthy and vibrant,” she told Katrina, and offered her a standing invitation to come along.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Katrina had said, but she doubted it. She was profoundly exhausted, as if she’d had the stomach flu for a week or hauled hay for three days straight. Like she could sleep for two solid days. She wondered if she should go see the doctor and have her anemia tested, like her father had been encouraging her to do. She felt just like she did after the accident when she had lost so much blood. It took weeks before she felt as if she had some get-up-and-go again.

No, it took John’s arrival into her life to bring her energy back. And now he was gone and so was her get-up-and-go. She knew she was depressed. Not sad, not blue or wistful, not filled with regrets or the fury of a scorned woman, but truly down-and-out depressed.

A breeze came through the window, fluttering a faded curtain so threadbare that it was hardly cloth anymore. Katrina watched it sail up, up, up and fall back, the light pouring through it, tiny holes showing along the hem. The movement made her dizzy, and she closed her eyes.

What must it be like for Thelma to walk the same mile path, day in and day out? At some point, wouldn’t she stop seeing it? She could guess Thelma’s response, knowing her as she did. Thelma would say that God had made her a steward of this particular patch of land, and it was her privilege to care for it well until the day the Lord had in mind for her to toddle off this mossy earth.

Moss. What a strange “crop.” Yet in a way, Katrina thought it was pretty resourceful of Thelma to think of it. She and Elmo had lived on this hilltop all their married life. They’d had one son, who had died before he was twenty. Elmo had a harness repair business that ended when he passed unexpectedly. Thelma didn’t want to move—she loved this hill and its beautiful views—and had to figure out some kind of livelihood. So . . . moss gathering, growing, and selling it was.

In a way, a good way, Katrina envied Thelma. She was a woman who faced facts: She was a widow left without resources, she needed to find a way to earn a living or go live with her nephew, and she loved her land. She knew who she was and what she wanted out of life. Katrina envied her faith too. Rock solid. So unlike her own faith that seemed as wispy and insubstantial as that threadbare curtain on the window.

Katrina knew she had always been considered to be a little restless. Scatterbrained. Her mother used to call her capricious, which sounded a little better. Countless half-done projects at home bore witness to that. A half-finished quilt, an almost finished crocheted afghan, a pile of barely begun knitted scarfs. She started things with great enthusiasm, which quickly wore off. She dabbled at different jobs but nothing held her interest for long. Usually, she ended up back at work in her father’s store.

She wondered why her father had seemed concerned about Thelma’s new farmhand. There wasn’t anything particularly threatening about Andy Miller, at least nothing she could put her finger on, and she was looking for a reason, something, to dislike about him. So far, she found nothing. If anything, he was very mother-hen-ish toward Thelma. At supper last night, he encouraged her to eat more, rest more, to let him worry about the moss fields. And that it was high time, he thought, to get a good dog to do the fence checking and keep the moss free of marauding raccoons.

Dogs. Dogs! She sat up in bed. Yesterday, Katrina had left a telephone message for John, boldly and quickly, asking if he happened to have any border collies available—she knew he did, he always did—because someone in her church needed one right away. She felt proud of the way her voice sounded on the machine. Short and to the point.

Surely John must have gotten her phone message by now. Maybe he’d already answered back! Maybe his voice was just waiting for her on that machine in the shanty. “Yes, Katrina,” she could hear him say in his beautiful baritone voice. “I’ve got a dog waiting for you. My heart is waiting for you too.”

She jumped out of bed, dressed in a flash, and dashed down to the phone shanty.

The morning wind brought the mulchy odor of wet earth into the kitchen to mix with the smells of hot starch and steam. Ruthie’s eyebrows were knit together in a frown as she ironed her prayer covering, the iron hissing as it glided over the dampened cambric cap. She had added so much starch that David thought he could hear it crackle.

So many times over the years he had watched Ruthie like this, from afar. He wondered what thoughts were running through her fourteen-year-old mind to make her look so serious. Such a somber child. Of all his daughters, Ruthie was the one who most resembled his wife, Anna. It was more than the same strawberry blonde hair and green eyes with the thick dark lashes and the high cheekbones. Her laugh, especially, was the sound of her mother’s. But when had he last heard her laugh?

Because Ruthie had Anna’s fair and delicate looks, people always assumed on meeting her that that she would have a mild, amiable way about her, but they were wrong. She had always been a girl who guarded her thoughts, who didn’t reveal herself much, but when she did, it was worth the wait. Anna used to say that getting Ruthie to talk took an investment of time.

Once, Ruthie was silent for an entire buggy ride to and from town, and as they pulled into the driveway, she asked Anna, “Mom, have you ever had something happen . . . done some small thing and it ended up changing your life?”

Anna had reported the conversation to David, stunned by the question from a then-twelve-year-old child. She said she didn’t even know how to respond. What could Ruthie be referring to? The twins ran out to meet them at the buggy and the moment passed. Anna told David that she was going to try to find out what Ruthie meant, if it took her all summer and dozens of buggy rides . . . but the next week, it was too late. A small, everyday thing had occurred—Anna had gone to pick up a daughter in the rain—and the buggy was rear-ended by a truck. Anna was gone, and their lives were changed.

But that was then, and this was now. And today was the first day of school.

David walked his daughters down the road to the new schoolhouse. Ruthie had her nose in a book, eleven-year-old Molly was eating an apple, twins Lydie and Emily were about to explode with nervous excitement. He was in a hurry to drop the girls off at school so that he could get over to see Hank Lapp before the day got away from him, like Jesse had. The boy left to go fishing with Jimmy Fisher before David rose from bed.

Birdy was waiting on the schoolhouse steps, eager and anxious, watering flowerpots with a clay pitcher. “Good morning, girls. You’re the first to arrive. The first to see the brand-new schoolhouse. So you can be the first to choose your cubby and hook.”

Wise woman, David thought. Even Ruthie showed a spark of interest with that kind of welcome. She strode toward the schoolhouse door and her three sisters followed behind her, like a duck and her ducklings.

David felt apprehensive over the whole notion of Birdy being tapped to teach. For one thing, she had never taught school a day in her life. For another, it would take only one awkward mishap to make a laughingstock of her among the big boys, with Luke Schrock as the ringleader. He was their neighbor at the Inn at Eagle Hill, and David had enough interactions with Luke to know he was tough enough to drive a nail through a butterfly. If he could find a way to brand Birdy as ridiculous, it would be a long year ahead with Luke leading the clump of older boys.

But . . . whatever his concerns, it was too late now.

“Hello, David. A day like this is so good, don’t you find it so?”

David took in the view of the hills in the distance, the diffuse light of the cloudy day. “Yes. I suppose you’re right. I was so busy getting the girls ready for school that I hadn’t noticed.”

Birdy sent him a sympathetic look . . . or was it pity? She had probably read Hank’s letter too. Did everyone pity him? Good grief, did his life look that pitiable?

“Well, you obviously did a fine job. You’re the first to arrive and your lovely daughters look fresh as daisies.”

How did a person stay so cheerful all the time? David realized he had never seen Birdy without a smile on her face, a ready laugh. What a happy thing she was, all that shine to her. It was almost as if she sensed he was thinking about her, because her cheeks reddened and she abruptly returned to watering the plants but ended up knocking over a pot of marigolds on the first step. The little yellow flowers tumbled out on the ground. “Oh, clumsy me. So sorry!”

He started to help clean up but remembered knocking heads recently with her at the house and thought better of it. “Birdy, before I go, I wanted to give you a tip about how to know which twin is which. Emily has—”

“Oh, but I know,” she said, scooping up soil to repot the marigold. “A little scar near her eyebrow. Lydie’s front two teeth are missing and she speaks with a whistle.”

“Yes,” David said, surprised and impressed. “Yes, that’s it exactly.” A sound of children’s shouts approaching from different directions made him look around. “Sounds of the thundering herd, soon to arrive. I’ll be off, then.” He stepped off the porch and watched as running children converged on the schoolhouse. “You’ll have your hands full with this mob.”

“Dad! Wait!”

David jerked his head around to see Molly standing at the open door of the schoolhouse, a look of sheer panic on her face. “You forgot to make our lunches!”

After a quick return trip home to pack and then deliver four lunches back to the schoolhouse, David hurried over to Windmill Farms to find Hank waiting at the end of the driveway with a fishing pole in his hand. “Any chance you’re headed to Blue Lake Pond to meet up with Jimmy and Jesse?”

“I am!”

“I think they’ve already gone.”

“Dadgummit! Did they go without me? They were supposed to come get me at seven.”

“They might’ve, and kept on going. It’s half past eight.”

Hank took out his pocket watch and shook it, then peered at the watch face. “Blast. Musta broke again.”

“Hank, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Hank went still. “If it’s about the Budget letter, I only put it in there because the girls at the store, they’ve been talking about how much you need a woman.”

Good grief! How mortifying. David lifted a hand to stop his defense. The least said about that Budget letter, the better. “That’s not why I’ve come to see you. I need a favor.”

“But that’s exactly what I was trying to do for you! A favor.” Hank’s eyes looked hurt. At least, the good eye did.

“I know your intentions were good, Hank, but the next time you feel an inclination to try your hand at matchmaking, please stop yourself.” He leaned his back on the fence and folded his arms across his chest. “My son Jesse returned from Ohio a few days ago. He’s a bright boy. Probably too smart for his own good. Gets bored very quickly. He needs a challenge and farm work causes his mind to yawn and sneak off elsewhere.”

David wouldn’t tell Jesse that, but he empathized. The drip-by-drip sameness of farming never appealed to him, either. He preferred running a store to plowing a field, but that was because he wanted to be around people. Now Jesse, he didn’t have that same inclination. He was just as bored stocking shelves as he was milking a cow. “It seems to me that buggy repairs might challenge Jesse. You know, fixing things. I was hoping you might be willing to take him on, as an apprentice. Like I said, he’s very bright, an astute learner. And it seems like you have more than enough work to keep you busy.”

It was well known that any buggy repair would take twice as long as Hank predicted, but some of that had to do with his fondness for fishing. David was watching Hank as he spoke, trying to gauge his reaction, but the old man had his head bowed, spinning his worn straw hat in his hands. David knew what the risks were for himself and for his son—Hank wasn’t given much respect in the church and David would be criticized for letting his son be an apprentice to wild-eyed Hank, but that was the very thing that made him a good choice for Jesse. Hank might be the only person in Stoney Ridge who understood the need to give Jesse a margin of grace. That is, if his son didn’t thoroughly exasperate him first.

“You have the patience Jesse needs in a teacher, Hank, and the good humor. I’ll be candid with you. Jesse tends to wear people out. Always has. He can talk his way out of anything and make you think it was your idea. I can’t blame his character flaws on Anna’s passing—he’s been a handful since the day he was born. Raising him has been like trying to rein in a runaway horse. He’s got a slippery work ethic and can find a shortcut out of any hard labor. Oozes away like a barn cat. He lacks . . . purpose. But he can be good help if you can keep his mind on it. And he’s got a good heart. He’s at the stage where he’s less than a man but starting to be something more than a boy. It pains me to say so, Hank, but I don’t seem to be able to help him become the man he’s meant to be. But you . . . I think you might have what it takes.”

David ran out of things to say and still, there was no visible reaction from Hank. Maybe this was a terrible idea. He waited, dreading the prospect of trying to find another solution for Jesse.

Finally, Hank looked at David with tears rimming his eyes. He bobbed his head in almost schoolboyish fashion, evidently not trusting his voice. Clearing his throat, he said, “I’ll teach your boy everything I know.”