“There. That should do it.” David straightened and wiped his hands on his trousers. “Remind your workers to clean out the sawdust from around the blade at the end of every day, so it doesn’t start building up.”
With a chuckle, Michael Miller settled his black wool hat on his head. “I do remind them. They tell me they forget.” He shook his head. “I’ll keep after them. We can’t work if our tools don’t.”
Closing his toolbox, David said, “I’m amazed you use power tools. I thought electricity was off-limits to you Amish.”
“No, it’s not off-limits. We choose not to connect our homes to the power grid but we use what we have to in order to get a job done.”
“I don’t understand why one’s okay and the other isn’t.”
His friend leaned against an idle skid steer. Crossing his arms in front of him, he smiled. “That confuses a lot of folks, but it’s simple. We want the focus in our homes to be on God and our families. Not television shows or the internet or whatever else is going on. The choices our ancestors made were intended to keep us more involved with each other and less caught up in the concerns of the rest of the world.”
He thought of how Mikayla spent each evening in her room, plugged into social media and distancing herself from him. Would it be different if they lived a plain life?
The thought startled him. As he listened to Michael explain the Amish used buggies because it also allowed them more time with family and close neighbors, he wondered if that was the reason his parents had left. They’d often traveled during their careers with the successful construction company his father had built from the ground up, leaving David with sitters when he was too young to be by himself. He’d assumed family was important to them, but he now began to wonder.
As he drove to Doris Blomgren’s house later, David couldn’t shake the questions from his head. Why had his parents abandoned everything they’d known to strike out on their own?
David had no answers and more questions to taunt him as he got out of his well-used red truck in front of Doris’s house. He wasn’t surprised to see Abby waiting by the front walk. He hoped she hadn’t been there long. Checking out the circular saw had taken longer than he’d planned.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said.
“You’re right on time,” she replied when he reached the sidewalk.
He glanced at his watch and saw that she was right. “The clock in the truck must be running fast.” He chuckled. “The only thing about that old piece of junk that is.”
“Shall we go inside? I’ve seen Doris peeking out the windows several times, so I know she’s eager to talk to us.”
“Lead the way.”
He followed her along the sidewalk and up the steps to the small front porch. There was nothing otherwise modest about the old house. Wings wandered in every possible direction and he wondered when each had been added to the original building. Three stories high, it was topped by a widow’s walk enclosed in glass.
Abby rang the bell and the door opened. Doris Blomgren was a bright sprite of a woman. Her pure white hair was braided and arranged in a coronet on her head. She wore a light pink shirtwaist dress with a garish print that belonged to a time more than sixty years ago. A Donna Reed type with a pearl necklace to match her earrings. With a smile that rearranged her wrinkles, she motioned for David and Abby to come in.
He kept his nose from wrinkling as the odors of old grease and fresh liniment hung in the air. It was the same smell that had filled the dawdi haus where his great-grandparents had lived during the earliest years of his childhood. He hadn’t liked it then, but now found himself realizing how much he’d missed it after his parents had taken him far away from their family’s home.
Odd how he’d forgotten about that until now. Every time he was with Abby, some aspect of his past seemed to sneak out from behind the walls he’d built around his memories. What bothered him was how many good memories he’d cast away along with the painful ones.
“No need for introductions,” Doris said as she ushered them into the hallway that separated the front two rooms. “I’ve seen you around town since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, David, and Abby and I talked a few days ago. And you know who I am. I’m the only one here older than the mountains.” Her laugh was a raspy chortle that invited him to join in.
He did, along with Abby, as they followed Doris into a crowded room that might once have been a dining room. A large table had been placed in the middle. Its legs appeared to be darkly stained maple, but the top was so covered with books and boxes and paper and stacks of other items he couldn’t guess if it’d been made from the same type of wood.
The rest of the room was as overloaded. Chairs that must have been used with the table were mixed in with a pair of rockers and two overstuffed recliners. The drapes were pulled, keeping out the sunshine, but he thought he saw photographs or maybe paintings on the wall. One door, propped open with a brick at the bottom, led into the kitchen, which was, he was shocked to see, neat. Other than a canister set and a microwave, nothing was on any of the glistening counters.
“Go ahead,” Doris said. “Say what everyone says.”
“What’s that?” David asked, edging between the table and one of the recliners so he could give Abby enough space to enter, too.
“That I need to have a yard sale and get rid of this junk.”
“It doesn’t look like junk to me.” He lifted a basket from the table. “This is handwoven and it’s old. It’s got to be worth quite a bit of money.”
Doris smiled at him as if he were the most wonderful person on the planet. “That’s what I’ve told folks, but all they see is the mess. They don’t realize how long it took me and my husband to find these items.” She crooked a finger. “Come over to this corner. It’s where the sewing machine is.”
Abby stayed back while David followed the old woman toward the farthest corner. It was a tight squeeze between the furniture and the various items stacked everywhere. He put his hand on a pile of records that reached almost to his waist. The top one was the Beatles’ first album, and he wondered what other gems might be hiding in that mound.
“Here it is,” trilled Doris as she flung out her hand like a ringmaster in a tiny circus.
He peered through the dusk and made out the shape of a shadowed treadle machine. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to see it if he hadn’t known what he was searching for.
“Do you mind if I open the drapes, so I can get a good look at it?” he asked.
“They don’t open.” Doris gave him an embarrassed smile. “The gizmo that moves them in the track broke a few years ago.”
He smiled. “They come off their tracks pretty easily. I can check it and fix it for you, if you’d like.”
“Go ahead and look at it, but I warn you. It’s most likely broken. I gave it a big tug and I heard something snap.” She looked at Abby. “I’m not the most patient person in the world. You’d have thought years of teaching home ec would have taught me patience, but it seems to have done the opposite.”
“What’s home ec?” asked Abby.
“Home economics.” The elderly woman smiled. “What you Amish, my dear, learn from your mothers and grandmothers as children. How to run a household, how to cook, how to clean and how to sew.”
“There are classes for that in Englisch schools?”
“There were. I’m afraid the programs aren’t what they used to be.” Doris looked sad for a moment, but brightened. “What is? I’m not what I used to be, and neither is my old sewing machine. What do you think, young man? Do you think it can be fixed?”
“Anything can be fixed. All it takes is time and money.”
“I don’t have oodles of either.” She winked at him.
David looked at the sewing machine. He guessed Doris had been quite the flirt in her younger years. Then he corrected himself. He’d never heard a whisper of scandal about Doris or her late husband. More likely, as an older woman, she enjoyed the chance to act a bit shocking and watch how people reacted.
“Then we should get started, shouldn’t we?” He grabbed a handful of the brown drapes and gave a quick jerk.
A blizzard of dust exploded around him. As he coughed and sneezed almost at the same time, his eyes burned. He squinted and realized the drapes were green beneath the thick layers of dust. Waving the dust away, he started to speak, but kept sneezing.
When a tissue was pressed into his hand, he was thrilled to discover it was damp. He dabbed at his eyes, hoping to ease that discomfort first. As soon as he could open them without pain, he pulled out his own handkerchief and blew his nose.
Solicitude filled Abby’s voice. “Are you okay, David?”
“I will be.” He looked through watery eyes at Doris’s dismay. “You should have warned me your draperies were loaded.”
His teasing comment eased her distress and Doris laughed. “Look at him, Abby! That’s how he is going to look when he’s old.”
He understood when Abby slid past the piles of assorted items. When she warned him to put his hand up to his forehead, he did, and she reached up to brush dust from his hair. Bits of it drifted onto her kapp.
“Be careful. You’re just transferring it from me to you,” he said, flicking dust off the white organdy.
“Don’t worry. Everything is washable.”
He was captured anew by her pretty eyes. As the rest of the world vanished, he savored the invisible thread between them. He thought of how they’d stood so close before, and how on each occasion it seemed as if the stolen moment lasted a lifetime and at the same time sped past so fast he didn’t have a chance to grasp it.
The bridge between them collapsed when Doris called, “You’d better step out of the way, Abby, before he moves the other drape. There’s a bunch of dust on it, too, I’m sure.”
Blinking as if awaking from a sweet dream, Abby moved back from him. She bumped into the table and reached out to keep a half dozen metal pails from falling over. In the faint light, he could see how her cheeks had colored when Doris urged her to be careful.
“I’m sorry,” Abby said.
“Don’t apologize, my girl.” The old woman sighed. “I should have emptied this room long ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw out a single thing Arnie and I collected. This was his room, you know. The room where he displayed his favorite finds. After he retired and began attending auctions and flea markets almost every day, the room began to fill up. When I’m here with his special items, it’s almost as if I can believe he’s hiding behind one of the piles.” She waved her hand at them. “Listen to me. I sound like a silly, old woman.”
“No,” said Abby as she edged over to Doris. “You sound like a woman who found the love of her life and knows how blessed she was.”
“You’re wise for such a young woman.” She patted Abby’s hand before adding, “Now, David, be careful with those drapes, so you don’t end up sneezing again.”
David heeded her warning. He drew aside the both sides with care and dropped the ends of the drapes over chairs to hold them open. The room brightened as the sunlight flowed through the window for the first time in what he guessed had been years. As he recalled, Arnie Blomgren had died around the time David was in fifth grade.
The sewing machine beside the window was dull with rust. The veneer on its case had been raised in several spots along the top, and one of the hinges on the top had lost two of its three screws, leaving the lid at an angle. The belt that should connect the treadle to the handwheel on the right side of the machine was lying in dusty black pieces on the floor. No needle was in place and the feeding mechanism set above the bobbin was as rusty as the table legs. However, the lettering for the manufacturer’s name was bright, not a hint of the paint missing.
“It can be repaired, can’t it?” the old woman asked. “It belonged to my grandmother first and then my mother and now me. I want to have it in working condition when I pass it along.”
“It needs a lot of work, but we have volunteers who want to help us with it.”
“Volunteers?” Doris scowled as she looked from him to Abby. “Exactly how many people are you planning to bring into my house?”
Abby saw David’s shock at the old woman’s abrupt, sharp question. When he sneezed again before he could answer, she jumped in. “Our volunteer youth group wants to do more than rebuild houses. They want to help others in town. I thought, after speaking with you, that the sewing machine might be the perfect project. It’ll teach them about something they may never have encountered before. However, having them here is up to you.”
Doris considered her words. “Will I be able to oversee them?”
“If you want to. It’ll be gut for them to work with other adults, and I’m sure you have a lot to teach them. Like I said, it’s up to you. If you don’t want others here, David and I will make sure your treadle machine is fixed. I do hope you’ll consider having the youth group involved.”
The old woman looked around the room and a slow smile emerged across her face. “This old house has been silent for too long. It might do it—and me—some good to have youthful voices in here.” She raised a single gnarled finger, wagging it first at Abby and then at David, who was struggling not to sneeze again. “They’ve got to be willing to learn what I can teach them.”
“Home ec classes?” Abby asked as David dashed tears from his watery eyes and inched away from the sewing machine to join her and Doris at the other end of the table. “Cooking and sewing?”
“You can teach them about cooking, but I don’t know many young people who understand how to sew on a button properly.”
“A gut lesson for you to teach them, ain’t so?” She glanced at David, urging him to join the conversation.
He gave her a quick nod. “That’s a lesson I could use, too, Doris.”
“Well, then, it’s settled.” The old woman led the way out of the crowded room into the entry hall.
Abby gasped when David stumbled into her. His arms wrapped around her and she fought to keep her knees from buckling. As swiftly as he’d grabbed her, he released her. His cheeks had become an attractive shade of red.
“Sorry,” he said as he looked at the rag rug on the floor. “I caught my foot on it.”
Doris tsk-tsked. “I thought I had that rug secured better. Wait a minute.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
Abby knelt by the rug. It was stuck to the floor on the far side, but was loose enough to catch David’s foot. “This is a tripping hazard.”
“What do you—” He halted his own question as Doris returned.
“Here.” She held out a roll of wide tape.
Abby recognized it as double-sided tape. She took the roll. “This should be only a temporary solution, Doris.” She glanced at the wall behind the old woman. “What do you say to hanging the rug on the wall? It’s way too pretty to be walked on.”
“On the wall? Nonsense! It’s an old rag rug I made out of even older rags. People would think I’m crazy if I hang that beat-up old rug on the wall like it was some fancy painting.” She waved her hand toward the rug. “Tape it down and it’ll stay in place.”
“Please think about moving it. If you trip...”
“I didn’t. Your young man did.”
Wanting to argue further, Abby knew she risked alienating Doris. “You know what? This rug is the perfect size to put beneath the sewing machine while we’re working on it. Don’t you think so?”
David started to answer but she motioned him to silence. The response had to come from Doris.
Again the elderly woman thought about the question before she nodded. “That makes sense. If oil drips on it while you’re getting the rust off, it won’t ruin anything important. I can always make another rug if this one gets stained.”
David pulled up the rug, leaving stickiness behind on the hardwood floor. He carried it into the overfilled room and lifted each corner of the treadle machine to put it beneath it.
Abby stood and took a step toward the kitchen. Doris halted her by saying, “Don’t worry. My cleaning lady will get the excess glue off the floor when she comes tomorrow.”
“And we’ll be back next week with the teens,” David said once he’d rejoined them in the hallway. “Is next Tuesday okay for you, Doris?”
“I should check my social calendar in case I’m entertaining the queen that afternoon.” With a guffaw, Doris added, “Next Tuesday is fine.”
Smiling as they bade the elderly woman goodbye, Abby went out with David. Neither of them spoke until they reached David’s truck, which was covered with dirt and salt stains from driving during the winter.
“It’s good to see,” David said with a hushed chuckle, “that age hasn’t slowed her down.”
“She’s a wunderbaar lady. Danki for agreeing to the project for the youth group.” She drew her coat around her. Would spring ever get to Evergreen Corners?
“Helping those who need us is a lesson these kids have already learned, but now they can learn that those older than them have special skills to teach them.” He looked past her to the house. “The sewing lessons will have to wait. The first thing the kids are going to have to do is move that stuff out of the dining room so we can get to the sewing machine.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to move the sewing machine into the other front room?”
“Easier, maybe, but I don’t know if, before it’s stabilized, it could endure that journey.”
She smiled. “You’ll figure out something, David. Challenges don’t seem to scare you, and I’ve got one for you.”
“What’s that?” He leaned his elbow on his truck.
“I’d like to get the kids involved in a special project before next week. What do you say to taking them on an outing on Saturday?”
“Where?”
“A hike.”
He pushed away from the truck, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You want to hike up a mountain now?”
“Why not? The snow is gone.”
“Here in the valley. There will be plenty of snow up at the top of the higher mountains.”
“I wasn’t thinking of a big mountain. More like a small one.” She pointed to the gap where the road ran east and west through the valley. “Like that one. I asked around and I was told that there was an easy trail that should be passable to the top.”
“That’s Quarry Mountain.” He put his hand up to shield his eyes. “It looks as if most of the snow is gone, but looks can be deceiving when it comes to mountains. The weather changes quickly up there.”
She sighed. He had a rebuttal for everything she suggested. “Maybe it’s a dumm idea. I thought it’d be fun for the kids. They’re pretty down after their latest run-ins with Hunter and his cronies.”
“It would be fun...in a few months.”
“When the bugs are out?”
He smiled. “Okay, you’ve got me on that one. The bugs can be nasty once the weather is warm. Even this time of year, we’d need to make sure the kids put on bug repellent. Ticks don’t take any time off.”
“We want to give the youth group some time away, and what better way is there to do that than to get them up on a mountain where they can spend time with nature and God? It’ll also give you a better chance to get to know the kids.”
“I know most of them.”
“True, but working together toward a common goal helps us see the truth about each other. It could be a lot of fun.” The wrong word, she knew, when his smile slipped. She kept her own in place. “It’ll also give you a chance to discover which kid has which skills that will be useful in fixing the sewing machine.”
And for you and me to be together for a day. She held her breath as she waited for him to reply, hoping he couldn’t discern the words she hadn’t spoken.
“We’ll give it a try...as long as the weather cooperates.” He opened the passenger door. “I know you Amish prefer horses and buggies, but can I give you a ride to the community center?”
“Ja,” she started to say. But as the image of the night when she hadn’t let Bert Fetter take her home in his buggy exploded into her mind, she made some trite excuse about needing to run an errand on her way to the community center.
It wasn’t a lie. She’d planned to stop at Pastor Hershey’s house soon to talk to him about other ideas she had for the youth group.
David’s eyes became hooded as he nodded. He closed the passenger door and walked around his truck. Getting in, he drove away without a wave.
She watched until the vehicle turned a corner. Then she began to walk toward the community center. A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold slid down her spine. Hadn’t God wanted her to avoid following her heart, which brought trouble to her and others? Shouldn’t it be second nature now to listen to common sense rather than what her heart yearned for?
It was becoming more obvious when she spent time with David that she hadn’t learned a single thing.