The Tempted Soul (5 page)

“
Ja
,” she said. “You’ve put in a day’s work. A meal is included, and you didn’t eat lunch.” His lips twitched at her schoolmarm tone, but what else was she to say?

“
Denki
, but Mamm will have dinner for me when I get back.”

“There’s enough for two or three here. I’m so used to cooking for two I didn’t think to cut it down.” She’d made pork hash from the roast the other day, and rice and baked squash, plus the usual accompaniments of beet pickles, bread and jam, and a taste of the fresh applesauce.

“Then maybe we can have the leftovers for lunch tom
orrow
.”

She nearly took a step backward in shock. “Tomorrow is Sunday.”

Lifting his hat with the back of one hand, he scratched his head. “Is it? So it is. Time flies.”

Goodness. How could he forget? Church Sunday was the lynchpin around which their days revolved. On Saturdays you got ready for it, on Mondays you washed clothes after it, and the other days you sewed and baked so you wouldn’t have to do those things on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Maybe men thought of time differently. This one did, at least.

“Monday, then,” he said easily.

“Monday is wash day.”

“You can’t dry apples on wash day?”

“I can take them in out of the drying boxes in the evening if I have time, but doing the wash takes a woman all day. There are sheets and towels and the clothes from Sunday, and aprons from during the week, and—”

“All right, all right.” He held up his hands, grinning, as though he were warding off a dozen tasks flying at him.

Hmph. They were her tasks, and did he see her flinching?

“I’ll come Tuesday, then, after I get my chores done at Hill’s.”

“Fine.” Tuesday was sewing day, and she had hardly any of it to do. “Apple day it is, then. See you at church, Joshua.”

“Oh, you will.” Settling his hat, he left, and a few minutes later she heard the crunch and jingle of wagon and harness in the lane.

At last.

Carrie pulled her oldest bib apron off the hook on the back of the door. Now that the sun had gone down, the chickens had mostly put themselves to bed in the coop. This was her favorite time of the day. She didn’t get the opportunity very often, because meals often interfered, but when Melvin was away, she indulged herself.

A rickety wooden chair too shabby to leave where company could see it stood inside the coop near the roosts. When she sat, Dinah jumped up in her lap and settled there. Carrie was sure she would just sleep the whole night through with the happy certainty that her human would act as her pillow all night. It never happened, of course, but the hen would cuddle down as though this time it might.

Carrie held her, and before long Lizzie-bit jumped on her shoulder. Then Rhoda jumped up to occupy the other knee. Lizzie’s feathers warmed her neck, and the relaxed feet of the two in her lap told her they were content and secure.

Such a gift.

She was often happy, but contentment—complete acceptance of God’s will for her and satisfaction in her place—often seemed as far out of her reach as a straw hat snatched away by the wind.

Inwardly, she shook her head at herself, but her heart didn’t seem to be paying attention.

Why me, Lord? Why are some women given children by the dozen, and I must make do with my birds? I love my birds, and I thank You for them, but please, might I not have even one child to bring up in Your ways and Your love?

Her prayer winged its way through the ceiling and up into the sky, but there was no answer, only the gentle breathing all around her.

C
hurch the next day was held at Carrie’s parents’ place, which meant a drive of four miles. Melvin’s weekend away with Brian and Boyd had been carefully scheduled, taking into account the fact that church could have been at the farm of any one of them. She had a feeling that, once they knew of the cabinet show’s date, a discreet word may have been dropped in Bishop Daniel’s ear so that he would not announce any of their places as being next in the rotation.

With two dozen families in the district, everyone came up at least once a year, but that didn’t mean a little jiggling of the bimonthly schedule didn’t happen now and again. Twice a year was Communion Sunday, the most important day of the church year, when the service lasted all day and included the passing of the bread and the cup, and the foot washing in the afternoon. Leading up to that were several weeks of preparation. Two weeks from now was New Birth Sunday, when baptisms were performed, and two weeks after that would be Council Meeting. This was the time to prepare for Communion Sunday two weeks later. It was important for the unity of the church that everyone made sure they were in harmony with their neighbors, to the point that if you had a problem with someone, you had better get it straightened out before you confessed in public that you were ready to take Comm
union
.

After the sermon on the shepherd was over and everyone was filing out of the big shed where Daed kept the farming equipment during every other week of the year, Carrie made her way into the kitchen to give her mother and sisters a hand with the lunch.

Miriam King gave her a quick hug and waved at the food on the counters. “The boys will have set up the tables in the shed by now. Can you carry those loaves of bread over? One to a table, and jam and peanut-butter spread too.”

Mamm had been serving exactly this lunch for as long as Carrie had been alive. It varied some with the seasons, but the cold cuts for making sandwiches were as predictable as daylight.

She took the basket of loaves and went back to the shed. There, the boys had rearranged the benches and set up tables, and from cubbyholes in the wagon, taken out the eating utensils. All three of the Grohl girls—Esther, Marianne, and Sarah—paced the rows of tables, with knives, forks, and spoons going down first, then plates. Lydia Zook, who was in the same buddy bunch as Sarah, brought up the rear with the cups. With everyone working together, it took less than ten minutes to set the tables for sixty people.

Then Carrie was free to begin slicing bread at each table so that people could make sandwiches. Platters of cold cuts bloomed around her as her sisters brought in food, and the single girls arranged the potluck offerings around the main part of the meal.

In less than half an hour after Bishop Daniel had blessed and dismissed them from the service, he was standing at the front of the room again, looking out over the tables of the seated congregation and raising his hand for silence so that they might say grace.

Afterward, as they began to eat, Carrie’s sister Naomi leaned back over the aisle and nudged her so that she looked over her shoulder. “Mamm wants to talk to you after cleanup.”

“What about?” Her mother was a pretty easygoing person. Nothing seemed to faze her, whether it was getting the place ready for a wedding or giving an unexpected guest their s
upper
.

“I don’t know. She just said that if I saw you, to tell you.”

Carrie nodded and let herself be drawn back into conversation with the women on either side of her, both of whom wanted to know the same thing. “Where is Melvin today? Is he sick?”

Illness and absence were the only two reasons a person might miss church—and even then, he would do everything he could to avoid the latter. If it was your week for church, it was absolutely unthinkable for you or any member of your family to be away. It simply didn’t happen. The Kingdom came first, no matter what your other plans might be—unless you were in the hospital and couldn’t help it.

“He and Brian and Boyd have gone down to Philadelphia for a cabinetmaker’s trade show,” she answered. She didn’t mind saying so to Ellie King Byler—she was one of her cousins and the pragmatic sort. She took what you said at face value and didn’t go adding to or subtracting from it like some. “They’ll be back by Wednesday, late.”

Ellie nodded, satisfied. “Melvin will enjoy talking to folks down there.”

“And maybe selling the pallet shop’s services.”

“It takes a special person to be able to do that.” Ellie shook her head. “I have enough trouble asking for the right size at the shoe store.”

“You should go to the shoe warehouse on the county highway,” Carrie advised her. “The Mennonite girls there know exactly what we’re looking for, and don’t make you feel funny for wanting black lace-up oxfords instead of pink stilettos with butterflies on them.”

Ellie snickered into her glass of water. Carrie figured that would tickle her. She’d married into a real conservative family whose idea of a radical change was making a dress out of blue fabric instead of dark green.

Cleanup always seemed to take longer than the preparation and eating of the meal…much like canning and drying food, she supposed. But eventually the hubbub of clattering dishes and packing up leftovers was done, the bench wagon loaded up with its burden, and its driver rolled out of the yard to take it to the farm of one of Old Joe Yoder’s grandsons, whose turn it would be two weeks from now.

Mamm met Carrie in the kitchen doorway. “Let’s go for a walk,
Liewi
.”

She hesitated for half a second, then fell in step with her mother as they crossed the yard, heading for the same place they’d been walking since Carrie was a toddler—the copse of shady maples and elms tucked into a fold of the fields.

“I suppose this is where I learned to like my nature rambles,” she said, lifting her face to the autumn sun. “I always liked going on walks with you.”

“I should be back at the house being a good hostess,” Mamm said. “But Naomi knows where everything is, so if someone needs something, she can find it. Besides, that girl likes nothing more than to chatter with folks, and with all the young girls around to look after her
Kinner
, she doesn’t have to keep after them every minute of the afternoon.”

Carrie looked away. Five
Kinner
. Naomi was the perfect Amish wife and mother. If Carrie didn’t love her so dearly, she would look at her and despair.

“So what would make you come out with me and abandon the ladies in the sitting room?”

Mamm gave her a sideways look and chewed on the inside of her cheek. Carrie felt the first stirrings of alarm.

“Mamm? What’s wrong? What news have you had?”

Her mother snorted. “News. That’s one way of putting it, when your bishop’s wife stops in to tell you that a single man has been seen calling on her married daughter not once, but twice in the same week. That was news, let me tell you.”

A giggle burst out of Carrie’s mouth before she could stop it. “Is that all? Mamm, Melvin hired Joshua Steiner to help around the place while he’s away. Everything is fine.”

“Is it?” It was less a question than a statement.

“He’s been out in the orchard picking apples. I’m using the drying racks Daed made you. We’ve done nearly a hundred pounds already.”

“I don’t like you using the word ‘we’ about someone who isn’t Melvin,
Liewi
.”

“All right, then. The hired man and I did nearly a hundred pounds.”

“Does he have to help while Melvin’s gone?”

“It wouldn’t make much sense to have his help while Melvin is there to do it.” She sounded as puzzled as she felt. “What’s wrong, Mamm?”

Miriam kicked a stone, then headed down the slope toward the thick stand of trees as though it were a refuge. Carrie had to pick up her pace to keep up with her. “It’s just that…I suppose I don’t much like having to explain my daughter’s business to Mary Lapp, especially when I don’t know anything about it.”

Gossip is a plague
. “I’m sure she thought she was doing the right thing, looking out for me. She is Melvin’s aunt, after all.”

“Aunt or not, if it had been any man but Joshua Steiner, she would have driven on by and never thought to mention it.”

That was true, and there was no saying it wasn’t. “Joshua is interested in someone else, Mamm.” Otherwise, why would he have brought up Lydia Zook’s name? She was awfully young, but stranger matches had been made. “In any case, he’s changed.”

“Not according to the rest of the Steiners.”

“They shouldn’t be holding grudges.”

“I agree with you. But maybe it’s less a grudge than a kind of watchful caution.”

“So is that what you’re asking me out for a walk for? To urge me to watchful caution?”

“I don’t know.” Miriam leaned on an elm and crossed her arms. “I suppose I just wanted to find out what was going on. I know full well no man in the world can compete with Melvin in your eyes.”

Carrie wrapped her in a hug, crossed arms and all, then released her. “You’re right. My man hired Joshua to help me, and that’s all there is to it. Anyone who thinks anything else is going on needs to do a bit of praying, that’s all.”

“I don’t know if Mary actually thinks that. She was more concerned about how it looked.”

“It looks as innocent as it is, Mamm, and you can tell her so the next time she drives by.”

“You might need to tell her yourself. I don’t think she and Daniel have left yet.”

“I’d rather behave as though the thought would never occur to me. It should never have occurred to her, either.”

“Don’t go getting offended,
Docher
.”

“I’m not.” And she wasn’t. There was nothing for gossip to get its teeth into. “Mamm, look. The penny plants have dried. Help me pick some for the wreath I’m making for Susan’s birthday.”

They spent a peaceful few minutes gathering up the stalks of flat, dry seedpods that shivered on their stems like coins.

But Miriam wasn’t finished yet. As they walked back to the home place over the hill, she said, as though their conversation had not been interrupted, “It’s good he’s doing the outside work, then. That’s where he belongs.”

Not inside with you
, Carrie heard as clearly as though she’d said it.

If she said once more that Miriam didn’t have to worry, she would sound like she was protesting too much. So Carrie said nothing.

Actions spoke louder than words. Everyone knew that.

At one thirty on Tuesday, Carrie put the finishing touches on a whimsical cake she’d made for the quilting frolic. She’d rolled out royal frosting so that the surface was smooth, and then cut out shapes of birds and leaves for the top. A few brushes of food coloring and beet juice, and she had a funny little picture of a bird family in the red leaves of a maple tree—a father bird, a mother, two little birds, and a baby. She hoped Emma would like it, even if birds didn’t hatch babies in the fall.

She deserved a little whimsy. It would take the sting out of the letter from Melvin’s mother, who never failed to bring up the subject of children. She could be writing about a train trip to Timbuktu and would still manage to work it in somewhere.

The crunch of wheels on the gravel in the lane told her one of them was here much earlier than usual. Maybe she had news and couldn’t wait to share it. Carrie dashed out onto the porch and pulled up as though someone had yanked hard on her reins.

Joshua climbed down from his buggy and raised his eyebrows in surprise when he saw her. “Going somewhere?”

“
Nei
, I thought you were someone else. Amelia and Emma and I meet every Tuesday afternoon for quilting. Today we’re meeting here.”

“What about the apples?”

She sucked in a long breath. How
vergesslich
she was! She’d told him to come Tuesday and then promptly forgotten all about it, what with Melvin away, the letter, and the anticipation of being with her friends again. Since her household was the quietest, they would use the big frame she had set up in the spare room, and every frolic would be here until they finished the stitching. She couldn’t miss stretching out their quilt on the frame and taking those first few stitches this afternoon for the sake of a few dried apples.

“You can still pick the apples,” she said. “The two Spartans are next—they’re loaded. I can start peeling and slicing when the girls leave. Amelia has to be home at four when her boys come in from school.”

“Oh, I see,” he said in a tone that many would have mistaken for jovial. “I’ll be working while you’re inside having fun with your friends?”

The fourth of five children, Carrie had always been sensitive to tones of voice that might tell her what actions or words would not. “My husband did hire you to work,” she said finally, hoping she didn’t sound too ungracious.

“I know that.” His tone told her he didn’t much appreciate having the obvious pointed out to him. “I was looking forward to seeing you. You’re like the gravy that helps both the liver and the onions go down.”

“Thanks a lot,” she said before she thought. “Which is this job, the liver or the onions?”

“Definitely the onions. The liver keeps body and soul together, over there at Hill’s. I’m doing this because a man asked me for help and I had it in my power to give it to him.”