A Simple Autumn: A Seasons of Lancaster Novel (18 page)

“I must have hit that rock.” Gabe looked down at the ground where he’d fallen. “Or
the branch there.” Suddenly he felt a pinch in the tender area.

“Does that hurt?” Ben asked.

“Ya. Don’t touch it.”

“Okay. I think you’ll live.” Ben stepped around to face him. “You want to go home?”

“No.” Gabe wiped his muddy hands on his pants. “As long as I can hold on to the grips,
I’m here to ride.”

I
can’t wait until Gabe sees me in this dress
.

The crisp, dark fabric, so unlike the gem-toned everyday dresses Amish girls wore,
made Emma feel like a woman.

Mysterious and pretty.

She twirled, watching the skirt lift ever so slightly.

Her sister stood before her, trying to finish her task. “I can’t pin the apron if
you’re going to keep spinning like a weather vane. But I’m glad you like it.”

“This is the most wonderful surprise I’ve ever had,” Emma said as she smoothed the
black organdy gown over her hips. Emma had been asking around to borrow a black dress
for her baptism, but the only one she’d found was small for her, and she had worried
that it wasn’t modest enough. “Too much leg,” Fanny had said in agreement.

She had been thinking about tacking a new skirt on when Elsie had brought out this
brand-new dress. It was a surprise gift, sewn by her sister’s own hands. There were
still some edges to be turned, but it covered her legs and fit her nicely.

“I can’t believe you put this together without me knowing.”

Elsie removed the straight pins from between her lips to say, “I wanted to surprise
you.”

“You did. Denki.” Emma stooped down to give her sister a warm hug. “But how did you
find the money for the fabric?” Even with Emma’s teaching job and the shop, money
was tight in their household. The store hadn’t been doing so well in the last year.

“It wasn’t so much. We sell the material, so I got the wholesale price. And I made
a little extra last week from selling two cases of those lavender soaps that Mary
Zook makes.”

“What do you think?” Emma held out her arms.

Elsie stepped back for a better look. “It’s a very good fit.”

“You have a good eye for sewing projects,” Emma told her sister. “I wish you would
come to the next quilting bee with me. You’d enjoy it, and folks are always asking
about you.”

“But I’m always busy with the shop.” Elsie handed her the material they’d cut for
the apron and Emma held it to her waist. “How’s that?”

Elsie squinted thoughtfully as she pinned two of the corners. “Be glad that our Order
has us wear colors. Black isn’t so good for you.”

“It’s a serious color for a serious occasion,” Emma said as she smoothed down an edge
of the apron.

“If you’ll hold still, I’ll pin the hem for you.” Elsie took the pincushion and got
down on her knees. “We’ll keep it plenty long, in case one of our sisters ends up
being taller than you,” Elsie said.

“And what about you?” Emma asked. “You’ll want to wear this when you get baptized.”

Elsie folded over a section of the hem. “I’ll borrow something from a short person
like me. For me to wear this dress, there’d be too much sewing. Like trying to turn
a chicken into a pig. At the end of the day, there’d be too many feathers flying.”

Emma was looking forward to next week. The baptism was one of
the things she had always watched with longing as a girl. It was a serious vow, the
promise to obey the Ordnung for the rest of your life. But it was also an important
crossing to the next part of her life. She was ready to cross over this bridge and
become a member of the Amish community. She had been raised to be a good Amish woman,
and she had always tried to make her life an example of good behavior for her students.

“You’re such a big help,” Fanny always told her when Emma helped with the chores or
corralled her younger siblings for their mother. Good-natured Fanny had come along
when Emma had worried that her dat might die of loneliness after their mother’s death.
And though it had felt a little odd watching her dat marry, Emma had welcomed Fanny
into the house. Fanny and Tom had two children of their own now, and Emma had been
glad to help with the household chores as each baby came along. Emma had always found
joy in putting the kitchen in order, tidying up the bedrooms, sweeping and scrubbing.
When she was little Mamm had taught her how to mend things, and she had whiled away
many happy evenings mending clothes from the family’s sewing bag.

Emma liked order. She engaged her scholars to help her keep the classroom tidy, and
supplies of paper, pencils, and erasers were arranged in neat rows in her desk drawers.
Order made sense to her, and she didn’t understand how folks could think straight
when their home was a tangled mess.

Once, while walking in Halfway, she had passed a parked automobile that was piled
high with … things. Stacks of old newspapers, clothes, and shoes. Crumpled trash bags
from fast-food restaurants. A tattered sweater, a tennis racket, and a torn book.
Emma had stared at the car in alarm, wondering how that poor person could bear to
be near such clutter.

Although the Amish way was to keep a tidy household, Emma
knew her strict sense of order wasn’t shared by everyone. Folks like Gabe King saw
things differently.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, imagining Gabe’s arms around her. She
and Gabe were so different, but there was no denying the strong attraction between
them. Emma crossed her arms and ran her fingers along the edges of the stark white
cape pinned over her dress.

Her new dress for the baptism.

How she wished Gabe had taken the classes with the ministers. Now he would have to
wait another year to be baptized. Which meant that he wouldn’t be allowed to marry
in the Amish faith this year.

Another year to wait …

It would have been wonderful if Gabe was getting baptized in the group with her, but
all the wishing in the world wouldn’t make it so. Gabe said he wasn’t ready, and most
Amish folk respected a young person’s choice to wait … as long as it was clear that
he would eventually come around.

“Isn’t it too bad that Gabe had to be with his family today?” Elsie pinned the back
of the dress.

Emma smiled. “How did you know I was thinking of Gabe?”

“Aren’t you always thinking of Gabe?” Elsie teased.

“Only … most of the time,” Emma admitted.

“I wanted him to come to dinner tonight. I think he and Dat will hit it off. They’re
both interested in farming and cows.”

Their dat had been raised on a dairy farm, and his stories of the farm always brought
a smile to his face. Emma sensed that he missed the dairy business, but he couldn’t
afford a dairy farm of his own, and when he married Mamm he came into her family’s
business with the shop in town.

“It would have been nice to have Gabe here,” Emma said, “but it’s
good that he’s spending time with his family. A man needs to put his family first.”

“That’s true. I guess I just don’t have your patience, Em. I want what I want when
I want it.”

Emma grinned down at her sister. Was there a heart more pure than Elsie’s? “Your honesty
is a virtue, but the bishop would remind you that you shouldn’t want too much. We
live on this earth, but not of it.”

“I know that.” Elsie shrugged. “I’m working on it.”

H
ow did it get to be so late?” Ben asked as they headed home, Mercury hitched to the
small gray carriage.

“That’s the only problem with dirt biking,” Gabe said. “Once you start, it’s very
hard to stop.”

“We’re late now,” Ben said. “Dinner is on the table already, and I’m sure that there’s
been some talk about the two of us being missing.”

Gabe squinted at the rain that left drops running down the windshield. They just needed
to come up with words that were truthful. “We’ll tell them we were off riding and
we lost track of time.” He turned to his cousin, who was frowning, his face in a sour
pucker. “What’s wrong with saying that? It’s true.”

“A half-truth. Besides, you can’t go in like that. There’s blood on your shirt and
your jacket’s torn. Mamm won’t even let you into the kitchen with so much mud on your
pants.”

Gabe growled. He was hungry for Betsy’s good cooking, but Ben was right. He couldn’t
arrive for dinner at their house looking like
this. “Why don’t we go to my house first? I’ll wash up and change clothes. You can
wash up, too.”

“That’ll make us even later.” Ben shook his head. “Blake said it’s after five. We
both have cows to milk.”

“Ya.” Gabe’s mood was turning as dark and gray as the weather. “What can we do? Sneak
into the barn?”

“You can drop me off at home. I’ll go straight to the barn. You’d better go home and
clean up that blood before your family gets back from visiting.”

It was a good plan. “Isn’t there some way I can get dinner from your mamm tonight?”

Ben shook his head. “Not unless you want to answer a hundred questions.”

“Mmm. I really want dinner, but I don’t like questions.” Gabe decided to drop Ben
off, then head home. When he arrived at the farm and pulled up beside the barn, he
was relieved to see two carriages still gone. He would have the house to himself for
now.

He stripped down to his underwear on the screened porch, but decided not to put his
clothes in the laundry bin. His jacket had a tear clear through the fabric. The top
of his shirt had a small hole, and it was covered in blood. He balled them up, carried
them upstairs, and stuffed them under his bed.

Inside the bathroom, he couldn’t see the wound in the clouded shaving mirror, but
the spot was still tender and a scab was forming. Grateful no one was home, he stepped
into the shower to get cleaned up.

Gabe was in the milking barn, leading Daisy to a stall, when he saw the gray carriage
through the wide barn door. The family was back.

He tied Daisy to the stanchion, then leaned under the cow to quickly clean her teats.
Then he attached the hoses and let the machine do the work.

Gabe straightened, ignoring the ache in his shoulder as he looked over the half-dozen
cows that were already hooked up to machines. This was a good plan. Adam would be
glad that Gabe had the milking going. That would keep him from being too mad about
Gabe missing Sunday dinner and visits with the family.

A few minutes later Adam came into the milking barn, with Ruthie and Simon trailing
behind him.

“We didn’t mean to stay that late,” Adam said, resting a hand on a steel post. “I
see you’ve started.”

“Ya. Once I knew I’d missed dinner, I figured I’d better get the milking going.”

Ruthie and Simon started tending to the cows. Simon lugged a six-gallon container
of milk to the big vat, while Ruthie released the hoses from another cow’s teats.

Adam gave the stalls a quick look. “Do you need my help?” he asked Gabe.

“The three of us can handle it.” The machines that Adam had recently installed had
cut milking time down a lot. The process that used to take thirty minutes by hand
now took only three minutes per cow. Such a difference!

“Then I’ll go split some firewood. We’re running low.” Adam headed out, patting Gerta
as he passed by. “And, Gabe, Betsy was worried about you. What happened to you and
Ben?”

“It’s a long story.”
And I don’t want to tell you all the details
, Gabe thought as he untied one of the cows from the stanchion and led her out of
the pen. He had put on a clean shirt and a black vest that covered his shoulder well.
“Ben and I got back too late and too wet to make it to dinner.”

“You know how important it is to have the family together,” Adam said.

“I do. And believe me, I was sorry to miss Betsy’s good cooking.”

Adam nodded. “It was good. Baked chicken.”

As soon as he was gone, Gabe breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t like having trouble
in the air, though sometimes he felt sure that a cloud hovered over his head. Now … he
just needed to find a way to fix his jacket.

Simon moved the cows that were finished out to pasture, and Gabe let a handful of
others in.

“Come on, find your places,” Gabe told them. “You do this every day and every night.”

Simon giggled. “I like to hear you talk to the cows. I think you talk to them more
than you talk to people.”

“I talk to people when I have something to say.” Gabe patted Brownie’s side. “I just
have a lot more to say to the cows. Especially when they don’t listen.”

“That’s most of the time.” Simon picked up a container of fresh milk and lugged it
down to the end of the barn. He was strong for a boy of nine, and a hard worker, too.
It had been good to see Simon come out of his shell these past few months.

Ruthie was working nearby. “We missed you at dinner,” she said. “Betsy was worried,
but Nate said you and Ben were just boys being boys.”

He brought the hoses over for her. “Nate’s right.”