Chapter Nine

“Did you think of David as competition for Levi’s attention?” Julia asked.

Even though the Amish chose not to compete, Miriam had to examine what Julia was suggesting. She truly had wanted Levi and David’s business to succeed, because Levi was so excited about it—but had she resented that it pulled him away from her? He was both a farmer and a logger, and liked spending time with his best friend.

But she was already shaking her head. “No. I was busy, too, working for Daad then, helping Mamm, quilting.” That left her back where she’d started, asking herself whether there was a reason she’d been reluctant to truly see David that had nothing to do with Levi. “What I can’t understand now is why I never looked around. I was. . . .” She groped for a word.

“Fixated on Levi?”

Miriam didn’t know the English word, but guessed it was close enough. “From the time I was just a girl. There was never anyone else for me.”

A crinkle now on her usually smooth forehead, Julia asked, “Was it just you? Or was it him, too?”

“He took other girls home in his buggy after singings before I was old enough to start my rumspringa. Older girls I knew talked, the way everyone does. I was so scared. What if he got serious about one of them? I wanted desperately to grow up faster.”

Her sister-in-law laughed at that. “You weren’t alone. I doubt there’s a teenager who hasn’t felt like that. Becoming an adult, able to make your own decisions, being respected, seems so far away and so desirable.”

“We don’t think so much about making our own decisions, being bound by the Ordnung and by our parents and the bishop, but the rest . . . ja.” Her youngest brother, Elam, had carried himself differently from the time he was able to buy his own farm and not feel as if Daad, especially, still saw him as a boy, one who wouldn’t settle to anything.

As for herself . . . Miriam thought she’d been an adult from the moment she was told that Levi was dead. Tragedy, she’d seen, often had that effect. But then she frowned. “What did you mean, asking if Levi was as fixed on me as I was on him? Is that the right word?”

“Fixated. I suppose I was wondering whether he was jealous when you spent time with anyone else, if he expected all your attention. Sometimes men are . . . possessive. That might explain . . .”

Julia kept talking, but Miriam heard only the first part before shock squeezed her rib cage until she couldn’t draw a breath.

Was Levi like that? Later, for certain sure, but that was her fault. When they first started courting, how could he have had any doubt that she loved him? She’d spent years trailing after him like a stray puppy unswayed by any attempt to discourage the devotion.

After, when her relationship with him soured, was he being possessive, or just not liking how she acted? Miriam wasn’t positive she understood how Julia meant the word possessive, either, but she thought it had to do with not wanting to share. That would have fit her more than him, she knew immediately.

Shame swept her, even as she pushed back. She might have been jealous if Levi had had a good friend who was female, but of his business partner? No. She’d been proud of him for going into business with David—not just an older boy, but a man—the two of them doing well, even though Esther had discouraged him at every turn. He was to accept his father’s legacy, not run around like a foolish boy doing such dangerous work!

Esther was right, Miriam thought sadly. If only Levi had been content to farm . . .

But she knew better. God had needed him. His faithful understood that they must accept a loss while rejoicing that the loved one was with their Savior in heaven. The time of Levi’s death was in His hands, not theirs. It could have happened in any of a thousand ways, as she’d reminded David. Levi’s own father had died doing farm work, no different than the work he did every day. Levi could have been trampled by a horse as his own daad was.

“Are you all right?”

Hearing the gentle voice, Miriam resurfaced. “Ach, I’m sorry! Sometimes I get lost, not knowing what I should feel!”

“I’m happy to hear anything you want to tell me,” her friend said, but not as if she meant to be pushy.

She heard herself say, “Levi never minded me working or joining friends or family to can produce or quilt or clean. With his daad gone, his life was busy, as was mine.”

No, she had to believe he had questioned her so sharply because of her own mistakes, not because of any wrongness in him. Having been friends for so long, she knew him through and through, and he knew her.

As he should have known her.

But she came to the same troubling conclusion she always did. If Levi had thought she was flirtatious with men, it had to have been her fault.

She threw up her hands. “Ach, the strangeness of having David return will wear off. I might hardly have noticed him if he weren’t right next door to us so I see him more often than every other Sunday.”

“Once he has made his confession and been accepted into the church again, all the unmarried women will be dropping off baked goods and surrounding him at gatherings. You may hardly see him then.”

Miriam disliked that idea intensely.

“Oh, here come some customers.” Julia bounced to her feet and switched to English to greet the older couple. “You’ve been thinking about that rocking chair?”

The woman laughed. “Two of them, actually.”

Miriam quietly cleaned up the last of the trash left from lunch, threw it away, and started for the front door.

“One thing before you go,” Julia called after her, speaking again in Deitsh. “I’m told Susanna and Sam Fisher have a litter of puppies ready to go to homes. Luke thought David might be interested. Will you let him know if you see him before we do?”

That wasn’t likely, but Miriam cast a smile and a “Denke” over her shoulder before dashing out the door.

Worrying about her own eagerness as she hurried down the sidewalk, she decided it might be better if David found out about the puppies from someone else, as he was bound to do.

Miriam had always especially liked the Fishers’ dogs, though, so friendly. The puppies would go fast, once word got out. She felt sure Daad and Luke wouldn’t mind stopping at a neighbor’s, just for a minute.

---

*   *   *

David had been grooming his two-year-old gelding after working him in the flat area that would be the arena, when the whir of buggy wheels and the steady clop, clop of hooves announced a visitor. He turned his head. The Bowmans again; he recognized that high-stepping black horse.

A surge of anticipation startled him. He’d looked forward to seeing Miriam again, finding out if what he’d told her made any difference in how she saw him. He hadn’t expected to have a chance to see her so soon.

As the visitors swept closer, he felt the gelding shift. Too late—the jumpy young fool bucked, a back hoof grazing the side of David’s leg. He leaped back, dropping the currycomb, then grabbed the halter and pulled the chestnut’s head up. A horse had to be able to lower his head to buck. His hooves kept shifting restlessly, but under David’s tight grip and stern look, he subsided at last.

Shaking his head at his own foolishness in allowing himself to be distracted, David unclipped the lead rope and led him in a semicircle to face the newcomers, hoping they didn’t notice his own limp. He saw Luke’s grin immediately and Julia’s concern.

So much for his dignity.

Miriam scrambled out of the back on one side and rushed forward. “Are you hurt?”

“Nothing serious. My fault. I got careless and took my eyes off this jumpy horse when I shouldn’t have.” Hadn’t he just told Miriam that the risk of getting hurt helped him keep his attention on his work? Maybe he’d needed a sharp reminder.

He could tell she didn’t believe him, but she asked, “What’s his name?”

“I haven’t given him one yet. The man I bought him from called him Robin, which I don’t like.”

“Well . . .” She surveyed the bright chestnut of his coat. “He is red. If not that, have you thought of names?”

“Sure I have. Aesel is at the top of my list. Or Doppick might be good.”

Still in the buggy, Luke laughed out loud. David thought Eli, in the back seat, might be laughing, too. Miriam’s eyes danced, but she also gave him a reproving look. “Those are awful names.”

“Maybe Doppick.” Except the gelding had been smart enough to get the best of him, if only briefly, which meant he wasn’t dumb. Aesel—jackass—though, he thought might be fitting.

“Copper,” she suggested. “Or . . . or you could name him for your onkel.”

“You don’t think that would be an insult to a good man?”

Now her laugh, a ripple of merriment, rang out. He’d always loved that laugh.

“If you hope to sell him,” she said, pretending to be stern, “you’d better come up with a good name.”

He chuckled, too. “Let me turn him out.” Even after the work they’d done, once David led him into the pasture and unclipped the rope, the horse galloped away, throwing in a buck here and there, twisting in midair. The other two horses raised their heads to gaze at him in mild bemusement.

David dropped the latch on the gate and limped back to the Bowmans. “What can I do for you?”

Julia smiled at him from her seat in the open front of the buggy. “I heard about some puppies ready for homes. Miriam says they’ll go fast, since the parents are such good dogs. Do you know Sam Fisher? His wife Susanna is a quilter, a friend of mine and Miriam’s.”

“Sam.” He couldn’t quite place the man, but . . . “Maybe forty?”

Eli leaned forward. “Ja, that’s right. Sam makes windmills. You may remember that. Their place is across Tompkin’s Creek. With a buggy, you can take the covered bridge. Otherwise, you need to go through town.”

“They’re in Bishop Ropp’s district, then?”

“Ja, since we split in two after growing too much, but you should remember them from before.”

“I do remember windmills,” he agreed, “and maybe Sam, but not his wife. Will you tell me how to find them?”

Eli said, “What we were thinking is that you might have dinner with us, then go see the puppies after. Julia thinks Abby would enjoy going along. With such a big buggy, Luke is glad to drive, ain’t so?”

“Of course he is.” The tall auburn-haired woman smiled at her husband, who still held the reins in his hands.

Looking at Eli, David said, “Your wife keeps feeding me. She’ll start thinking it’s a mistake or I’ll never go away.”

Humor lit Miriam’s face. “Like a stray dog?”

“Deborah is happy because you have such a good appetite,” Eli said with a straight face. “You appreciate her cooking.”

Laughing, he conceded. This time, they waited while he went in the house, splashed water on his face, and changed his shirt. He checked his thigh, wincing at what would be a huge bruise, then took some painkillers in hopes he wouldn’t hobble pathetically for the rest of the evening.

He shook his head. In front of Miriam, he meant. Hochmut, that’s all it was, and wasted after he’d confessed to his problems.

Restoring his hat to his head, he rejoined them, following Miriam into the back seat. Roomy as this family buggy was, it was a tight squeeze. If she hadn’t been such a small woman, they wouldn’t have managed.

Talk was cheerful, the ride short. Rattled by being pressed up against her and guessing from Miriam’s blush that she was uncomfortable in the same way, he was glad when they reached the Bowmans’ and jumped out of the buggy quickly. Leaving Luke to click his tongue at Charlie and trot toward the barn, the others went into the house.

“Glad I am to have you!” Deborah exclaimed when David tried to apologize for surprising her again.

She urged him to sit in the same place that was his the previous time, beside Miriam again. Over dinner—potpie, the crust flaky and ready to melt in the mouth—Luke’s little girl heard about the plan to see a litter of puppies and became excited.

“Can I hold one?”

“I’m sure you can,” her daad said, dishing up a spoonful of applesauce onto her plate. “If any of them will stay still long enough.”

Her delight at the outing kept David from any guilt at keeping Luke and Julia from going home after dinner, which they must long to do when they’d worked hard all day. Making their daughter happy, though, was worth any extra tiredness.

He had been ready to rest weary muscles after a day of hard work himself, but this was a better dinner than anything he could have put together in his own kitchen, and he liked the company, too. Having been a loner for six years now, he felt a pang of uneasiness at how content he did feel here.

Miriam seemed quieter than usual while they ate, but not so much her family noticed. David stayed very conscious of her, picking at her food, her features as fine as the delicately cut blooms of a trout lily he remembered studying at eye level one lazy day when he was a boy, probably sneaking out on a chore. He’d done that so often, annoying both his parents.

Shaking off that memory, he reverted to thinking about Miriam. As pretty as she was, as friendly, he wondered how many fellows had tried to court her once she got past the shock of Levi’s death. He couldn’t ask without making her wonder why he was curious, and he wasn’t ready for that yet.

Julia and Miriam jumped up to help Deborah clear the table. Abby would have liked to join them, but Luke raised his eyebrows at her until she nibbled a few more bites of the apple cake that had completed the meal. Then she earnestly carried her own dishes to the sink.

David smiled, watching her. He tended to look away when kinder ran by, or if he saw a boppli looking over her mamm’s shoulder at him in that unnerving way they had. Knowing he might never have a family meant protecting himself. Yet Abby fascinated him, and he couldn’t lie to himself about why.

She looked like Miriam must have as a child. That curly blond hair revealed when she managed to “lose” her kapp—as seemed to frequently happen—eyes as brightly colored as the blooms on blue-eyed grass, even to the hint of purple, the fragility of the child’s bone structure, the occasional gravity of her stare, and the giggle when she couldn’t help herself.

The kind’s face wasn’t shaped quite like Miriam’s, not with that pointy chin and ears that stuck out just enough to make him think of those elves in the movies he’d seen when living among the Englisch—The Lord of the Rings, they were called. He’d thought them fun, except that evil had been so powerful, fought only by good people, not by God.

However his mind had been wandering, he heard Julia just fine when she said, “Miriam, you should come with us. It’ll be fun.”

“Oh, but—”

He wouldn’t press her, but he doubted she’d hold out long anyway.

---

*   *   *

The two women and Abby sat on the bottom step of the Fishers’ back porch, puppies clambering over them, tails swinging wildly. When a wet pink tongue reached her chin, Miriam giggled. Abby laughed nonstop as the plump, furry bodies squirmed and wrestled, tumbling to the ground before the determined puppies climbed right back up. They were delighted by all the attention.

The two men and Susanna Fisher watched in amusement.

“At last I know why it’s good to be tall,” Julia declared. “I don’t want a dog tongue in my mouth!”

Susanna chuckled. “These are busy ones, that’s for certain sure. And friendly.”

David’s laugh caught Miriam’s eye, as always. When he first came home, he’d been so guarded, his gaze so bleak, she hadn’t been able to picture him this relaxed.

“You should be sitting here, not me,” she told him, shedding puppies so that she could stand. “How else will you decide which ones you want?”

When he asked if any of them were taken, Susanna said, “Not yet. They’re eight weeks today.”

Miriam saw him hesitate, probably knowing he’d lose his dignity the minute he had an armful of puppy, but he sat down anyway.

Moments later, his hat went flying, he had to grab a puppy that was trying to scramble over the top of Abby’s head, and his laugh became hearty.

“Six of them, and all cute,” Miriam said. “How many are male and how many female?”

“Three of each. We plan to have the mamm and daad fixed, since this was their third litter. That’s enough for her. This year, she seems tired of the puppies. I think she’ll be glad when they’re gone.”

“Well, six, after all. You have twins of your own, ain’t so?”

Susanna was the one to laugh this time. “Don’t remind me! When they were small, they hated baths so much. Getting one into the tub was hard enough! They were fast, and when they were slippery, too . . .” She shook her head. “Times three . . .”

All the women joined in a laugh, the men grinning.

David picked the puppies up one at a time, held them in midair with legs churning, and gazed into their eyes as if he thought he could read something deeper than the cheerful, active personalities all displayed.

“This one,” he said at last, cuddling a golden puppy to his chest and enduring the enthusiastic tongues swiping over his chin, “and the male that looks like her.”

When Susanna offered a bag of puppy food, David agreed to take the puppies tonight. The mamm dog, looking like a golden retriever, came to check on her offspring, touching noses with each, but seemed unconcerned when he lifted two of the puppies into the back seat.

Abby had already been told she couldn’t have a puppy until after the new boppli was born, but she sulked anyway until she realized everyone was ignoring her. Then she begged to sit in the back with her aenti Miriam. “Please can I?”

Miriam knew perfectly well she wasn’t the attraction. David said, “Why not?” As tiny as she was, they’d hardly notice the addition.

“I’m sorry,” David murmured a minute later, watching Miriam clutch a puppy to keep it from tumbling to the floor.

“Don’t be silly. This was fun, wasn’t it, Abby?”

“Uh-huh. Look!” she cried. “He wants to play tug-of-war.”

With the ribbons that dangled from her kapp. Miriam had to rescue them and hoped not only that the slime would wash off but that sharp puppy teeth hadn’t left any tiny holes.

A shadow fell over them, and Charlie’s hooves sounded hollow on the wooden boards of the covered bridge. The air felt cool, too, maybe because of the creek below. Moments later, they emerged back on the narrow paved road.

Miriam often found the movement of the buggy made her drowsy when she wasn’t the driver. No surprise that, when they’d barely turned out onto the paved road, both puppies fell asleep with the suddenness of the young of any species. She held one—the male, she thought—and the other lay across Abby, secured by one of David’s big hands. Seeing what she could only describe as tenderness on his face as he looked at the puppy and the little girl, Miriam felt a cramping in her chest. He’d be a good daad, especially patient because he remembered his own difficult childhood.

Quietly, she said, “Now you’ll have to name these two as well as the horse.”

He glanced up with no smile, but amusement in his eyes. “Ach, that’s not hard. What about Sam and Sue, for their human mamm and daad?”

Of course, it wasn’t that easy. Miriam’s suggestion that he name them for yellow flowers resulted in a lengthy debate that Julia took part in, too.

“One of them is a boy,” David complained, rolling his eyes at their many suggestions. At last, he shook his head. “Fine. Dandelion. That’s a flower.”

“Actually, Dandy might be a good name for the male,” Miriam suggested. “What do you think, Abby?”

Miriam’s niece bounced. “I like it.”

Julia contributed, “Maybe you had the right idea in the first place. Black-eyed Susan is a yellow flower. The girl could be Susan or Susie, both for the flower and for Susanna.”

He grinned. “Susie it is.”

“Susie and Dandy.” Abby’s lower lip puckered. “Can I see the puppies again?”

“Certain sure,” her mamm said. “When it’s a good time for David.”

Abby squeezed a sleeping puppy.

Miriam slanted a smile at David. “Now, there are some orange flowers . . .”

David shook his head. “Don’t push it.”

But she saw the humor glinting in his gray eyes and was satisfied.