Gideon Troyer unlocked the door to Gideon’s Toy Shop and stepped inside.
His heart always beat a little faster when he entered his shop and looked at all the shelves of wooden toys. His Englisch customers—especially the older ones—sometimes teared up when they picked up a car or truck or knelt and looked into the windows of a dollhouse. More than once, people told him that his toys reminded them of the ones they’d received and played with as children…times when kids played with real, quality toys.
He’d no sooner walked inside, put his lunchbox in the back room, and started a pot of coffee when he heard a knock. It was March and business here in Paradise, Pennsylvania, was brisk with tourists who loved to shop for Amish goods while they were on vacation. When they browsed his shop, they often bought birthday and Christmas gifts for the children and grandchildren in their lives.
But when he walked back to the front of the shop he found he didn’t have a customer. It was Hannah Stoltzfus, the owner of the quilt shop several doors down from his. And the woman he’d grown to love these past months.
He opened the door he always kept locked until he was ready to change the sign on it from Closed to Open.
“Guder mariye,” she said, smiling as she stepped inside. “I thought you might like a donut.” She held up a bag from the coffee shop nearby.
“I never turn down a donut.”
She smiled. “I know.” Her hazel eyes sparkled as she pulled off her knitted shawl, revealing a dress of a pale robin’s-egg blue that made her look like spring. Her face was oval with creamy skin and her dark blond hair was tucked neatly under her kapp. She was slender and petite, and her small size often brought out a protective feeling in him. But she was stronger than she looked and a hard worker. He’d learned she had an independent nature and didn’t want him to treat her as some delicate maedel.
“The coffee’s almost ready.”
They shared coffee each morning before they opened their shops. Sometimes she brought a treat; sometimes he did.
Gideon carried a stool from behind the counter and placed it in front of the counter for her and then went into the back room for coffee. When he returned, Hannah was perched on the stool, looking so fresh and pretty on a cold winter morning. He’d always thought she was the prettiest maedel at schul. Now that she had opened her own shop and it was doing well, she had a lovely air of quiet self-confidence about her.
When she’d stopped in at his store one day last year looking into renting the shop space a few doors down from his that he’d told her about, he hadn’t believed his good fortune. He’d been interested in her and had asked her to a few singings and other church events, but since he was only in the second year of owning his business he hadn’t been able to ask her out as often as he wanted to.
So these early morning coffee get-togethers were a time he cherished. He’d always heard that God set aside a mate for you, and he’d come to believe Hannah was his. He thought Hannah felt the same about him, and he was working up his courage to ask if that was true.
They chatted easily about their plans for their shops for the coming months, and all too soon they had to part. Gideon walked her to the door and after he said goodbye, he flipped the sign on the door to Open.
An older Englisch couple walked in a few minutes later. The man immediately moved to the shelf of wooden trains. “This reminds me of my childhood,” he said, lifting one to admire it. “We lived near railroad tracks and I ended up going to work for the railroad. Just retired a few years ago.”
His wife stopped beside him and gave him an indulgent smile. “Are you buying that for our grandson or yourself?”
He chuckled. “Maybe a little of both. These are the kind of toys that make you get off the sofa and play. Kids today sit around with electronics and never play, never use their imagination.”
They were all Gideon had played with as a kind, so he didn’t really know how to respond to statements like that. So he’d learned to just nod and smile and enjoy having something he’d made appreciated by someone who would take it home to play with their grossdochder or grosssohn.
The wife wandered off to the section that featured dollhouses and toys Gideon associated more with girls. While Amish dochders and fraas helped care for the farm animals and helped with field work when necessary, they still had more traditional roles than the Englisch and played with dolls and such.
“Oh, Henry, come look!” the woman called. She could be heard opening and closing doors on the biggest dollhouse he’d made. “Henry!”
“Women,” Henry muttered as he put the train down on the counter in front of Gideon. He ambled off to find out what his wife wanted.
Gideon heard a lot of murmured conversation as he took a toy he’d been working on over with him to place on a shelf. “I just finished that the other day,” he said, showing them how the walls inside could be moved to make the rooms larger or smaller. “We’re having a special Spring sale this week. Ten percent off purchases over $50.”
The man patted his wife’s shoulder. “Honey, let’s get it for Amber. She’ll love it.”
She beamed. “You’re the best husband.”
Gideon carried it to the counter and rang it up along with the toy train the man had chosen. Then he locked his door and carried everything out to their car, which was parked a few spaces down from his shop. The big sale was a nice start to the morning.
He waved to Hannah when he saw her standing inside her shop near the big front display window. She beckoned him to come in, so he did.
“Sold the big dollhouse.”
“I knew you would. It turned out so nice.”
“Your display window looks so much better than mine,” he said, studying it.
“Danki. I’d be happy to help you with yours. Katie Ann is here today, so I can come by later.”
“That would be wunderbaar.”
Another opportunity to see her and get the benefit of her help as well. He usually just put a few things in the display window, but he didn’t have the gift for arranging one the way she did. He went back to his shop and worked on painting several smaller toys at the counter as customers came and went. He enjoyed working on them during shop hours. Some days when he had a lot of customers he didn’t get a lot done, but when business was slow it filled in the time.
And he’d discovered that customers enjoyed seeing that a real person made them—that he didn’t get them from some factory. Occasionally he got a male customer whose hobby was woodworking, and then it was great fun to compare notes on favorite types of wood and stains and such.
All in all he was glad that he’d chosen to open the shop, despite also having to help his twin bruder with the small farm they’d inherited when their dat died a few years before. Eli enjoyed farming, so he never begrudged doing much of the daily chores on his own, but lately Gideon sensed some unhappiness in him that his bruder denied. He and Eli shared what his mudder called the zwillingbopplin bond—the twin bond. So he’d sensed that Eli was unhappy even when Eli acted like nothing was wrong. Gideon wondered if it had anything to do with Emma Graber moving away. He knew Eli had been seeing her, and Eli had been moody after he came home the last time they’d been out together. The bell over the shop door interrupted his thoughts.
* * *
Hannah stopped in the doorway and blinked at the man sitting at the counter. He was staring at a paper in his hands, his dark eyebrows drawn together in a frown.
“Hi,” she said a little hesitantly.
He looked up and smiled.
For a minute there he had looked like Eli. She knew some had trouble knowing which twin was which, but she’d always known the difference. Schur, they were identical, with dark brown hair and eyes. But while Gideon had an open, friendly look about him, he was usually quieter than Eli, who tended to use his charm on maedels. But for months now Eli had been quieter, almost…broody the past months.
Ironically, some maedels liked that distant sort of manner. Once a friend of hers had happened on a copy of Wuthering Heights at the library and said Eli reminded her of Heathcliff. Well, Hannah had tried to read the novel to see what her friend meant, but she just didn’t like that sort of behavior. Seemed to her it was just a person who needed to lighten up. She smiled at the silly thought while Gideon stood and grinned at her, dimples appearing in his tanned cheeks. He wore a navy cotton shirt with his black broadcloth trousers and suspenders. Such a handsome, hardworking man, she mused. Her heart beat a little faster.
“You’re schur you have the time?” he asked.
She nodded. “You helped me so much setting up my shop. I’m glad there’s something I can do to help you.”
Gideon took the box she carried. “What’s all this?” he asked, looking inside as he set it down on the end of the counter.
“I had some decorations I thought you could use.” She pulled out a little wooden fireplace. “What do you think about making the window look like a living room where a kind just had his or her birthday party?” she said. “Like he or she got all the toys wished for.”
“I like it.”
He walked over to a shelf and found a number of wooden cars and trains, then watched as she set them about in front of the fireplace. It made her feel gut that he trusted her advice about the placement and the type of toy. She had him take one of the dollhouses he’d built and set it in the middle of the display, then she stepped back and narrowed her eyes, examining the finished look critically.
“Needs one more thing,” she said. “Be right back.”
She left his shop and hurried to hers, where she poked in the back room and found what she wanted. She returned carrying some birthday wrapping paper she kept for times when customers wanted gifts wrapped. She took several sheets and ripped and crumpled them, then scattered them about to look like they’d been torn from the toys.
“Perfect,” he said as he stood close to her to take it all in.
When she straightened and found him staring at her she blushed. “Perfect,” he repeated as he stepped closer, his attention focused on her lips. She felt her heart race, and tension radiated between them. Her feelings for him had deepened over the past year. They were perfect for each other. She felt she’d learned how to be more patient and calm from him, and he’d relaxed and smiled more when they were together, so maybe she helped him not think about work and be so serious.
She hoped he would propose soon and tried to be patient waiting for him to do it. Marriage season was coming up. Couples would wed after the harvest ended. Twenty-four was a gut age to marry. Couples were waiting to marry later these days. After all, marriage was forever in their community.
He bent his head and then jumped back when the shop door opened and the bells jangled.
Two women walked in. “We just noticed your window and had to come in and tell you how cute it is,” one said.
“I just love the dollhouse,” the other woman told Gideon. “I had such fun playing with one when I was a little girl. I think all of us girls did.”
Her friend nodded and they chattered on about it. Hannah had never had a dollhouse when she was a kind. Her eldres wouldn’t have thought of giving her such a thing. They’d believed strongly in practical gifts, and besides, she was usually too busy doing chores around the house to play.
The women wandered around the shop, and Hannah heard them talking about what they found. When they returned to the front counter a few minutes later they each laid toys on the counter.
“I just love the cradle,” one said as she looked in her purse for her money.
“I thought I was finished shopping but the little red wagon is perfect to put my son’s presents in,” the other told Gideon. “I’m so glad we stopped in.”
“I’m glad you found something for your children,” he told her.
After the women left Gideon turned to Hannah. “Danki for your help,” he said.
“You’re wilkumm,” she told him as she lifted the box she’d brought over. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
She walked back to her shop and found Katie Ann looking a little frazzled as she stood at the cutting table unfolding a bolt of fabric.
“I was about to call you,” she admitted. “We suddenly got busy.”
“A bunch of us came on a bus from Harrisburg to shop,” one of the customers told them.
Hannah set the box under the counter and noticed a group of women walking by. She wondered if Gideon was going to get the benefit of the extra shoppers as well.
The morning was a whirl of activity as people streamed in and out of the shop, buying fabric and thread and craft kits. Some came in bearing bags printed with the names of Gideon’s shop and others along the street.
When lunchtime came, the customers took off to eat at the Amish restaurants.
“It was a gut morning,” Katie Ann said. She went into the back room and returned with Hannah’s lunch tote. “Go have lunch with Gideon. We won’t see any customers for at least an hour.”
Hannah started to protest, but Katie Ann was right. Things were often slow during the lunch hour.
“What about your lunch?”
“I brought a sandwich.”
“If you’re schur.”
“I’ll call you if we get busy again.”
Hannah grabbed her shawl, draped it around her shoulders, then picked up her tote and left.
She strolled over to Gideon’s shop. When she walked in he was wrapping up a wooden train and tucking it into a shopping bag for an older woman, so she wandered over to the display window and tweaked the placement of a toy.
She was still eyeing the display when she heard a boppli cry, a thin, indignant wail. She glanced around. Someone else must be in the shop. When she didn’t see anyone walk up from the back, she frowned. Maybe it had been her imagination. Or a toy. Nee, that didn’t make sense. Gideon didn’t have any toys that made noise.
She heard the cry again coming from the back of the store. Curious, she walked in that direction and nearly stumbled over a basket sitting on the floor. She stopped and stared down at it, her eyes widening. A boppli—perhaps five or six months old—looked up at her and waved its little hands.
Hannah glanced around for its mudder but there was no one around. She rushed up to Gideon who was closing his cash register.
“There’s a boppli in the back of the store.”
“A what?” he looked up at her, his attention clearly not on her.
“A boppli. Someone left a boppli in your store.”
He stood. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not! Kumm! See for yourself!”
But as she retraced her steps, she wondered if she’d imagined what she’d seen. Who would leave a boppli in a store?
Hannah heard the boppli cry again as she walked past the last of the display shelves and there it was.
“See!” she announced, turning to him. “Whose boppli is that?”
Gideon came to an abrupt halt beside her and gawked at it, looking shocked.
The boppli stared up at them and wiggled in its basket. And then it beamed a smile at them, revealing dimples in its cheeks.