As she promised, my mother took me shopping, and I ran to my room afterward and emptied the clothes into a colorful mound on the bed. I reached for the blue jeans first, thinking of the way my friends and I used to point when we saw English girls in town wearing what we had thought of as boys’ clothes. In the fitting room I had found that the jeans didn’t slip on easily; I had to maneuver my way into them. I enjoyed the way the jeans hugged my legs, but I was surprised at the stiffness of the material. When my mother noticed me tugging at the waistband, she smiled. “Blue jeans feel more comfortable after they’ve been washed a few times,” she said. Looking in the mirror, I saw myself in trousers for the first time.

Now in my room, I felt the richness of this new wardrobe. In addition to the jeans, there were cottony soft shirts, each in a different color or pattern, blouses that buttoned from the collar to the hem, a pair of khaki pants, and two pairs of shorts. There were also new shoes—a pair of sandals and a pair of blue sneakers. Seeing all of the new clothes laid out on the bed, I thought of the day in town when Kate and I had secretly bought a copy of Seventeen magazine and paged through the pictures of long, thin girls painted delicately so that their eyelashes glittered and their cheeks glowed. I remembered trying, with Kate, to pose like the girls in the pictures, with a hand on a hip, a haughty head-toss, a pouty expression.

I spent some time arranging the clothes into different outfits—the lacy pink shirt with the khaki pants, the blue striped T-shirt with the jeans. The clothes on my bed didn’t quite look like what we had seen in the magazine, but they were my clothes. And when I wore them I would look like a new version of me, not like every other girl in the district.

It was a busy week. On Thursday I helped my mother prepare for Stranger Night, realizing it would be a long while before I would be doing this work again. As I served the visitors I was almost giddy with the thought that in just three days I would be living in their world. I worked at the inn each day, saying good-bye to Jenny and Mr. Allen after my Saturday shift.

That night, our family and friends gathered at the house to say good-bye and to wish me luck on my journey. My mother and Margaret were in the kitchen slicing cake and pouring coffee, but I didn’t have to help. I was the guest of honor.

When Mary and Sally arrived, I brought them up to my room, where I had displayed all of my new English clothes on the bed. They squealed and giggled, fingering the fabrics and holding the shorts in front of them to see how much bare leg they would reveal.

We all marveled at the buttons that fastened the pants and that marched down the front of the blouses in neat rows. We had always spoken of buttons in hushed whispers, as we did telephones and dancing and other mysteries of the English world. Now I would be wearing them every day.

Back downstairs with the rest of the guests, I received hugs and stories and words of advice about living among the English. Uncle Ike warned me to keep my money in a safe place, and Aunt Miriam, her face bitter, said, “Remember that even in the fancy world, you’re still plain.”

I nodded politely. It was just like Uncle Ike to be thinking about money and Aunt Miriam to give me a stern send-off. Thankfully, a hand slipped into mine, and I looked up to see Kate. “So, I guess I’ll be missing you after all,” she said. I squeezed her hand. Annie appeared at Kate’s side, and the three of us threaded our way through the crowd to the back porch and settled ourselves on the porch swing, with me in the middle. I pushed my foot against the floorboards, and the swing swayed gently in response.

“I’ll write to you both and tell you all about it.”

“Be sure and write about all those Yankee boys,” Annie said, her brown eyes widening.

I breathed in the sweetness of the summer night and the warmth of my friends on either side of me. “I don’t think I’ll be meeting any boys,” I said. “There are only small children at the house where I’ll be staying.”

“You never know,” said Annie. “I have a cousin who met a

Yankee boy and fell in love with him. She came back home and asked for permission to marry him.”

“What happened?” I asked. “Did she get permission?”

“No,” said Annie, her voice hushed. “She was shunned.”

The swing stopped its quiet movement, and I sucked in my breath. The air was always colder when shunning was mentioned. I didn’t personally know anyone who had been shunned, but we’d all heard the stories of names blotted out of family bibles and letters thrown away unopened. Kate looked down, probably thinking about William. He hadn’t been shunned because he had never been baptized. Shunning was reserved for adult members of the order who had broken the baptism promise. Instead, William had left freely, of his own accord. But I’m sure that to Kate it felt the same.

“I still can’t believe that your parents are letting you go,” she said, changing the subject. “Mine won’t even let me wear blue jeans.”

At that moment, heavy footsteps rumbled up the back stairs. I squinted up in the glare of the setting sun as Daniel approached the porch swing. “Hello girls,” he said, taking off his hat. “From the number of buggies parked out front, I’d say that Eliza is having quite a send-off party.”

I didn’t look at my friends, but I sensed that they were exchanging grinning glances. Kate was the first to get up. “Come on, Annie. Let’s go see all those English clothes that everyone’s talking about.” The porch swing swayed as Kate and Annie slipped back into the house.

“May I sit down?” asked Daniel. Silently, I moved to one side of the swing and felt it rock as Daniel lowered himself to sit beside me. His long legs stretched out in front of him, and his sturdy hands played with the brim of his hat.

A deep silence wrapped around us before he spoke. “Weren’t you going to say good-bye to me?”

James had gotten word to Daniel that I was leaving, but I hadn’t seen him myself. I knew we should discuss what it meant for us, but it was a conversation I wasn’t looking forward to. “I was planning to write to you after I got settled.” I forced myself to look directly into his eyes. Daniel’s eyes always made me think of summer leaves.

“You should have come to see me,” he said, his voice stern.

I tensed. “For permission?”

The swing jolted as Daniel sat forward, his hat tumbling to the floor. I looked away, feeling his irritation. The flowerpots on the windowsill needed watering. I would have to remind Ruthie to take care of them. Turning back to Daniel, I could see ridges in his coppery hair from where his hat had been.

“Not for permission,” he said. “To say good-bye properly. After our last conversation I thought I deserved that. On Sunday we were talking about courting. And now you’re leaving without even a word to me.”

A warm sensation crawled up my neck. I stared down at my lap. “You’re right,” I said. “I owed you that. I should have come to see you.”

“There’s something else,” he added, his voice gentler. I looked up. “I was worried that you might be running away.”

“Running away from what?”

Daniel stooped forward and picked up his hat. He stood, setting the swing to a slow movement, and turned to face me.

“From me.”

Just then, the back door opened, spilling a surge of guests onto the porch, and I was swept into a new series of hugs and farewells. I could see Daniel leaning against the porch railing, his arms folded across his chest. But then I lost sight of him as I was carried from one set of arms to another.

The crowd thinned out until Kate and Annie were the last ones to go. We were a tight ring of bonnets and aprons and damp cheeks as we clung together, our arms tangled around each other so that, for a moment, it was hard to tell whose arms were whose.

When we released each other, I wiped at my eyes. Annie ran toward her father’s buggy, calling a last good-bye over her shoulder. Kate stayed at my side for another moment, whispering, “Hurry, Eliza. Daniel’s leaving.”

Following Kate’s gaze, I saw that Daniel was walking to his buggy, taking long slow strides. “Wait, Daniel,” I called, following him across the grass to where his buggy was parked. He turned, a smile on his face that was tired and hopeful at the same time. “Now you’re the one who’s leaving without saying good-bye,” I said.

He reached quietly into his pocket and handed me a white handkerchief. I turned my back to him and pressed it to my eyes.

It had a lemony smell. “I was going to write to you when you got settled,” he said, his voice teasing. I turned to him, grinning shyly, and handed him the handkerchief. He returned it to his pocket.

“Actually, I wasn’t going to leave. I was just going to my buggy to get you something.”

He reached inside his carriage and pressed a small package into my hands. Gently tearing away the newspaper wrapping, I smiled at the wood carving nestled in my curved fingers.

“I made it,” Daniel said, but I already knew that. I recognized the gleaming finish, the soft curves. It was a small nest with a bird rising from it, wings spread and head turned to the side. The bird’s feathers were etched in tender lines, and the nest was a complex tangle of woven twigs. I cradled the carving, letting my fingertips roam across the different textures.

“I started to work on it the night of the barn raising, when you told me you wanted to go away.”

“I love it.” My words were a whispered gasp and Daniel leaned forward to hear them. Those days since the barn raising, when I had been angry with him for bringing Hannah to the party, he was making me this gift. I looked up into his face. “I’m going to take it with me.”

Daniel smiled. “Well, I should be going. I’m glad we had a chance to talk.”

“So am I.”

I waited for him to step away from me, toward his carriage, but instead he stepped closer to me. Before I could speak, he pressed his lips to mine. They felt cool and moist, their touch light and gentle, like the first drop of summer rain. Then just as quickly he stepped back. I touched my lips with the tips of my fingers.

“You’ll write to me?” he asked. I nodded, and Daniel climbed into his buggy. As he picked up the reins, he looked down at me. “Enjoy your journey, Eliza,” he said. “Then come back to your nest.”