Elsie’s embarrassed laughter died. She peeked through her fingers at the bishop, who stared semisternly at Levi.
“George wasn’t kidding when he warned me about you two.” The bishop had a twinkle in his eyes.
Levi muttered something that might have been “Sorry.” Except Elsie wasn’t sorry at all. They’d worked things out.
“I hope you talked—uh, communicated verbally—before it got physical.”
Her cheeks burned. At least they weren’t in the bedroom—oh, wait. They were. The hospital “bedroom.”
“We did—Wait. Thursday? This Thursday? As in before Christmas Thursday?” Panic filled Levi’s voice.
Come to think of it, she started to panic a bit, too, at the thought of a dress and the other things that go into a wedding and how her family didn’t have the money to feed that big of a crowd on such short notice.
“Is that a problem?” Both of Bishop Nathan’s eyebrows shot up.
“No. I mean, jah. I mean, the impossible deadline, which will be even more impossible if I have to stop work and get married.”
Elsie recalled the bare pantry at his house just a week ago. He did need every hour to work. And Amish weddings took forever. Sure, he loved her. But he couldn’t afford to miss a complete day of work unless he wanted to offend and lose a well-paying customer.
“Have to? Which is more important? Elsie or the deadline?”
“Elsie,” Levi said. He glanced at her and smiled.
“The deadline,” Elsie choked out. “He needs the money for Abigail.”
Bishop Nathan fixed his gaze on Levi, ignoring her. “Right. And since I know the quality of your work, and since you have made yourself available to others such as Luke for a pittance, and since you have been so kind to George and gave him the carved cat, I’ve taken the liberty of talking to Elsie’s daed in the waiting room. After the blizzard, the men of the community will gather at your home for a work frolic. With your permission, we’ll have an assembly line process, and if all goes as planned, your circus trains will be done, or mostly done, that evening.”
Daed and the other men would help?
She had nothing to worry about. Trust Gott. If He had the circus trains, He could handle a wedding.