Courting Ruth (13 page)

“It’s addressed to Eli. Give it to him.”

“Look at it! That’s her name, isn’t it?”

Eli dropped the sandpaper and stood up, the chair leg still in his hand. He walked toward the front room, but stopped when his uncle walked back into the shop.

“Mail for you.” Roman held out a letter. “Fannie should have given it to you Saturday when you got home from the picnic.”

Eli took the envelope. In the left corner, a name was printed clearly in blue ink. Hazel had written to him, and the return address was a town in Virginia. Shocked, he looked up at Roman.

The older man’s face was creased with concern, but his gaze held no judgment. “It was wrong of Fannie to keep your mail from you. You’ll want to read it in private. The work can wait a few minutes.”

Eli nodded. He took the letter outside into the backyard and sat down on a bale of straw. His heart was beating fast. He hadn’t thought he’d hear from Hazel. He’d worried about her and wondered how she was, but he hadn’t expected this—not after the way they’d parted.

He turned the envelope over in his hand. It couldn’t have weighed more than half an ounce, but it felt as heavy as if it were made of cement. Guilt settled over him, and the events of that night at the bonfire came rushing back to haunt him. Catching his lower lip between his teeth, he slowly opened the letter.

There was a page and a half, printed from a computer. Only the signature was handwritten. He read through it twice and sat there for a while trying to decide what to do. He closed his eyes. The sun was warm on his face, and the air smelled of green growing things. From the yard, he heard the bleat of a goat and the flapping sound of clothes drying on a line. Yesterday, when he was listening to the hymns, he’d felt a peace inside. Now he searched for that quiet peace.

After a quarter of an hour, he rose and went to find Roman.

His uncle had returned to strapping the chair parts so that the glue would dry properly. Eli held out the folded pages of the letter.

“Why should I read that?” Roman concentrated on the buckle he was tightening. “It is your business.”

“Aunt Fannie is right. I live in your house, and I’m part of your family. You should know what it says. Please.” Eli held it out for him and this time Roman took it.

Eli’s uncle went to the bench for his spectacles, blew the sawdust off them, and then wiped them on his blue cotton shirt. He read the letter slowly. When he had finished, he nodded, and handed the letter back. “I see,” he said. “And what will you do about this?”

“I don’t know. Think about it, I guess.”

“And pray,” Roman advised. “It’s always best.”

Eli was cleaning up his work space when Ruth entered by the back door. He turned and surprise showed on his face. He smiled. “Ruth.”

“Eli.” She glanced around, hoping Roman wasn’t here. As she’d walked down the road, she’d thought about what she would say, of just how she would explain the confusion about the pie. Now that she was here with him, she felt just as tongue-tied as ever. Her palms felt damp, and it seemed stuffy in the shop. “I need to talk to you. In private.”

“Something I’ve done wrong?”

She shook her head. “
Ne
. Something I’ve done wrong.”

“Okay.” He led her back outside, around the corner of the shop to Fannie’s grape arbor. There was a wooden bench there, and he waved her to the seat.

“I’d just as soon stand,” she said, feeling more anxious by the moment. She just wanted to get this over with.

He hooked his thumbs into his thin red suspenders and stood arms akimbo, waiting.

Heat flashed under her skin. She stared down at her new black sneakers. She’d been ashamed to walk down the road in bare feet, for fear some English would see her and make fun, but now she felt that that might have been
Hochmut
—that she might have worn the new shoes to show off for Eli. She twisted her hands in her apron. “I wanted to…”

“What is it, Ruth?”

“The pie,” she blurted. “It wasn’t mine. I didn’t bake it. It was Anna’s.”

He laughed. “Whoever made it, it was good.”

She looked up at him. “
Ne,
you don’t understand. I let everyone think that it was mine. I took credit for my sister’s baking. I deceived—”

“Wicked,” he agreed, but he was still shaking with amusement.

“This is serious. Stop laughing at me.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Do you think I care who made the pie?”

“You should. You paid for it. And if you’d gotten mine—the one I made, you would—”

“Wait. Let me get this straight.” He dropped onto the high-backed bench and motioned for her to sit beside him. When she didn’t immediately do so, he rolled his eyes. “Sit,” he commanded.

Ruth exhaled softly and obeyed, taking care to keep a distance between them. “I didn’t mean to take credit for Anna’s baking. I made my own pie, but I think Anna switched it.”

“So…it wasn’t your fault? You didn’t know?”

“I knew after we opened the basket. When I saw it. But I didn’t say anything. I let you go on believing that it was mine.” She lowered her gaze. “I think a part of me wanted you to think I could bake a pie that pretty.”

“So now you’ve come to straighten it all out?”

She nodded.

He turned toward her and caught her hands in his. “All right, you’ve told me. Your conscience should be clear. Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“I don’t know. I was already embarrassed by all the attention. I didn’t want Charley to find out. He would have made everything worse.”

“And this has worried you since the picnic?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed. “I’m an awful pie baker. But I’m an honest person.”

“The most honest I’ve ever known,” he said. She tried to pull out of his grasp, but his big hands held hers tightly.

“Don’t make fun of me. What I did was wrong.”

“Are you sorry?”

“Of course, I am.” She looked at him. “Why would I come here to tell you, if I wasn’t sorry?”

“And you won’t do it again?”

“Never!”

“Then it’s over, Ruth. You’ve nothing more to be ashamed of.”

“I don’t want you to think bad of me.”

“I could never do that.” He slid closer to her. “There’s something—”

“Ruth!”

Ruth’s heart sank as her mother came around the end of the grape arbor.

“What goes on here?” Mam folded her arms over her chest and glared at them. “The two of you have some explaining to do.”

“I
t’s not what you think,” Eli said, letting go of Ruth’s hand and getting to his feet.

Mam glared at him. “You don’t know what I think. My daughters aren’t fast girls. You may do things differently in Belleville, but here holding hands is for couples who have publicly stated their intention to marry.”

“We weren’t…” Ruth began.

“I have eyes to see,” Mam said. “Being alone together like this is unseemly.” She paused and continued in a softer voice. “You know that there is already talk about you, Eli. It’s not fair to Ruth for you to endanger her reputation.”

Ruth heard Eli’s temper flare. “We weren’t doing anything wrong.”

Mam looked back toward the shop. “Samuel’s buggy is in front. It’s best if you come with me, Ruth.”

“It’s the middle of a school day. Why are you even here?” Ruth demanded. Eli was right. They hadn’t done anything wrong. Why did her mother have to assume the worst? And how had she known where to find them? Why was she looking? “Did Anna tell you I was coming to the shop?”

“You mean, am I spying on you?”

Mam’s hazel eyes took on the glint of polished pewter, and Ruth’s heart sank.

“Why would you think such a thing?” Mam’s tone barely masked her hurt feelings. “When have I
ever
spied on you?”

“It’s my fault,” Eli said. “Don’t blame Ruth. There was a misunderstanding and we were talking and…”

Mam silenced him with a raised palm. “Eli, please. It’s best if Ruth and I discuss this in private.”

“Mam!” she protested. “Don’t make more of this than—”

“The children are on their noon break,” her mother cut in. “Elmer has an abscessed tooth, and Lydia asked me to call our dentist. I borrowed Samuel’s horse and buggy to save time coming to use the phone.” Lines at the corners of her eyes deepened. “I didn’t know you were here until I arrived and Fannie told me where to find you, thinking I knew you were here.”

Eli frowned and gestured. “Great. Now here comes Roman.”

Ruth heard the scrape of gravel and turned to see the older man striding down the path, followed by his two yapping rat terriers. She glanced back at Eli and said softly, “I’d best go.”

He nodded. “We’ll talk later.”

“Eli?” Roman brushed sawdust off his worn leather apron as he approached. “Is there something?” He looked from Eli to Mam as the yipping little dogs darted past him. “Quiet!” he ordered. The brown and white terriers leaped up, stub tails wagging. “Get down, I say. Behave.” His cheeks reddened. “Fannie spoils them.”

“The dogs are fine.” Mam leaned to pet one and then the other. “No treats today,” she told the terriers.

“I thought there might be…” Roman tugged at his beard and glanced at Eli “…a problem here.”

“Mam came to use the phone,” Ruth explained. “I’m riding back to the school with her.” She averted her gaze as she hurried past Roman. It was bad enough that Mam had embarrassed her in front of Eli. She didn’t want to drag his aunt and uncle into it.

As she walked to the buggy behind her mother, feeling like a chastised child, she felt Eli’s gaze on her back. She wanted to turn back, to try to make things right with him, but she didn’t. Maybe because she was afraid, afraid of what she might say. What she might not ever be able to say.

The two women disappeared around the side of the chair shop. For a moment, Roman and Eli looked at each other without speaking, and then Eli said, “We were talking and Hannah came along. She didn’t think us sitting alone here looked proper. But we needed to talk.” He scuffed the ground with his boot. “You know, about things.”

One of the terriers nipped playfully at the hem of Roman’s black pants, and he shook it off. “Did you tell her about the letter?”

Eli worked his jaw but didn’t respond.

“It’s right that they should know.”

“Hazel wrote to me. It’s not a matter to be gossiped about.”

“
Ne,
but you need to tell Ruth. If you’re familiar enough with each other to sit on the bench alone together, you’re familiar enough that she needs to know.” He paused. “And around here, what concerns one of us, concerns all.” Roman slipped his thumbs under his black suspenders. “Fannie’s worked herself up pretty well over it. That letter.”

“Did you tell her what Hazel said?” Eli’s gaze searched his uncle’s face.

“Not my place.” Roman was quiet again for a moment and then went on. “If you’ve a mind to settle here—and you know you’re welcome in our home—you need to make peace with your mother. It’s the only way to make things right…to think about starting your own family.”

Eli understood what he was talking about. If he had any thoughts whatsoever of making a home and a life with Ruth, he needed to tell her what had happened with Hazel. But why should he have to? Why couldn’t Ruth take him for the person he was today? Not back then, back there.

“Then there’s the matter of the church,” Roman said.

Eli tightened his fingers into fists at his sides. “You mean I’d have to join if I want any chance with Ruth.”

“It’s your choice, joining the church or not. You have to decide for yourself what you want from this world,” he said, obviously feeling awkward. “But I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I didn’t tell you it’s what I wish for you…what I’ve prayed for.”

Eli was surprised that his uncle would say these personal things to him. This wasn’t the kind of thing Plain people talked about, especially men, and he knew it had to be difficult for his uncle. But Roman had always been a little different. His grandfather had called him weak, but he wasn’t. Eli wished he had the inner strength Roman possessed.

“I think you’d find peace,” Roman added.

“You don’t know how I’ve struggled over it. I don’t know what to do.” Eli couldn’t look Roman in the eyes any longer. “I’m not certain if I belong in the church or in the outside world. I’m not certain where I belong.”

“Hard to know when you’ve been uprooted the way you were. Kind of like seedlings that have been transplanted. They get confused sometimes, growing one direction, then the other.” Roman looked off in the distance. A blue jay cackled. “Your
grand
was a hard man, not just on you, but on himself. I always thought your mother should have kept you at home with her. You’d have gotten used to a stepfather. Joseph would have been fair with you.”

Eli shrugged. “Maybe it was best they sent me away. They say I’m like my dat. Maybe I’m his son, more than hers. Headed for a bad end.”

Roman grimaced. “I’ve heard that said, but I don’t believe it. I knew your father, Eli. There was a lot of good in him. If he’d lived, I think he would have come back to us…to his family and his faith.”

A lump rose in Eli’s throat, and he didn’t answer, afraid his voice would crack. He wasn’t exactly embarrassed by his emotion, but it wasn’t something one man shared with another.

“You hear what I’m saying?” Roman’s own voice filled with feeling, surprising Eli. “
I knew him.
And I don’t see the bad side of him in you.” He looked in the direction the two women had gone. “Just be sure you don’t take a path that’s not yours. And don’t take along somebody else with you. You’re better than that.”

Eli knew he was talking about Ruth. “I care about her. A lot. I’d do nothing to hurt her.”

Roman walked away, the dogs trailing him. “Then see you don’t.”

“Why did you have to say anything about marriage?” Ruth agonized aloud when she and her mother were alone in the buggy. She sat up straight and gripped the leathers in both hands as a pickup truck pulling a boat whizzed past them on the road. “And why did you mention the gossip about him? It’s not like you to be uncharitable.”

“And it’s unlike you to be caught holding hands with a boy in Fannie’s grape arbor,” Mam returned. “Fannie saw the two of you. What must she think?”

No other traffic was in sight, and Ruth used the break to cross the intersection onto the quieter road that led to the school.

Mam’s chin went up, and she planted both black leather shoes together on the floorboard. “There’s something you need to know for your own good. Eli had a letter from the girl.”

Ruth’s stomach turned over. She didn’t know what to say.

“You know who I mean,” her mother continued. “The girl who accused him.”

“A letter from her doesn’t mean that Eli’s guilty of anything wrong.” But it
could
mean that they still cared for each other, Ruth thought. Or it could mean she was trying to start trouble for him again. Now, here in Seven Poplars. “I suppose Fannie told you about the letter.”

“She did but not to hurt Eli or you. She wanted to protect you, to keep you from being harmed.”

“Fannie’s his aunt. She’s supposed to—”

“She thought I should know and that you should know. Fannie is a sweet woman. She’d never intentionally spread rumors and the letter wasn’t a rumor. It was real. She held it in her hands and read Hazel’s name on the envelope before turning it over to Roman, who gave it to Eli.”

Moisture clouded Ruth’s eyes, but she kept her gaze on the horse and the road ahead. “Do you know what happened to her? The girl? Her church didn’t shun her, did they?”

“
Ne,
but Martha says the girl ran away after the baby was born. No one knows where she is. Except Eli, maybe,” she added.

“She ran away with an infant?” Compassion flooded Ruth’s heart. “I can’t imagine. Her family must be so worried.”

“She didn’t take the baby, an older sister did. The sister and her husband live out west somewhere. They’d been married six years without being blessed with children. Martha said that it was Hazel’s idea to let them adopt the infant. The girl said she wasn’t ready to be a mother.”

Ruth had no answer for that. She couldn’t imagine giving birth to a child and not raising it. But considering the circumstances, perhaps the girl’s decision had been the right one. No one among the Plain people would hold a baby responsible for the mother’s mistake.

“So you see why Fannie thought you should know he’d heard from her.” Mam’s voice was gentle this time.

But Ruth didn’t want soft words. She felt all in turmoil inside: scared, angry. “Eli isn’t the type of boy who would get a girl in trouble and not marry her!”

“Ruth, Ruth, Ruth, what’s come over you?” Her mother stared at her, obviously not approving of her passionate outburst.

“Nothing. I simply refuse to believe such a thing about Eli.”

“So you
do
like him.”

“As a friend.”

“Sounds to me like
more
than a friend,” her mother said, shaking her head. “Daughter, I’m worried about you. You’re like an apron on the clothesline, flapping in the wind, one way and then the other.”

Ruth pulled hard on the right rein, guiding the gelding off the road and onto the grass shoulder before yanking the horse to a halt. The dapple gray stopped so quickly that the buggy swayed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that until Eli Lapp came to Seven Poplars, you knew your own mind. You said you knew what you wanted. You told me that you weren’t going to marry, that you would remain at home with me and Susanna. The past two weeks, you’ve lollygagged in the orchard with the boy, sat on the porch swing in the dark with him, and the two of you have been caught holding hands in the grape arbor.” She gestured outward with her hand. “Not to mention going to the movie or eating together at the school picnic. You say you’re not courting, but it looks like it to me.”

Ruth didn’t know what to say. How could she explain to Mam that she hadn’t intended to do any of those things with Eli? They’d just happened. How could she tell her how giddy he made her feel inside? She swallowed. “I don’t believe Eli would ever abandon his child. There must be more to the story.”

“Have you asked him?” Mam was angry. She never shouted like Aunt Martha, but the angrier she became, the lower her tone of voice.

Ruth slapped the reins over the horse’s back, and the buggy lurched forward. “I wouldn’t pry.” She glanced at her mother. “Aren’t you always telling us not to judge?”

“
Ya,
that I do say. So the Bible tells us. But it also speaks about children respecting their parents.”

Ruth nibbled at her lower lip as the horse broke into a trot. “Have I been disrespectful?”

“You just accused me of being uncharitable.”

“I didn’t mean it, not really. I’m sorry.”

Hannah sighed, sitting back on the buggy seat. “You have always been a good daughter, one your father would be proud of. But the time has come for you to make up your mind about what you want and follow that path. You need to think before you act. You need to set a good example for your sisters and the younger girls in the community.”

The horse’s hooves clicked rhythmically against the road. “We really weren’t doing anything wrong in the grape arbor,” Ruth said.

“An action doesn’t have to be wrong to give the appearance of mischief. What if it hadn’t been me who found the two of you, but your uncle Reuben or aunt Martha? Because we’re women alone, we have to guard our reputations even more than if your father was alive. Especially since I teach at the school.”

“You’re right. I didn’t think.” Shame flooded through Ruth. If people complained, they might think that Mam was at fault for not teaching her daughters proper behavior. The school board could decide not to renew her contract next year. “What do you want me to do, Mam?”

“I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“
Ya,
but what I want is not important. You’re old enough to make up your own mind what your life will be. You must decide. You aren’t like Miriam. You’ve joined the church.”

“I feel awful, Mam. We never argue. I don’t want to upset you.”

“And I don’t mean to be harsh with you, but it’s time you act like a grown woman.”

There was silence for a moment, except for the clippity-clop of the horse’s hooves, before Hannah spoke again. “Look into your heart, daughter. Your path will become clear.”