Courting Ruth (4 page)

Ruth gritted her teeth. She had to learn to be more patient. Like Mam. She wanted to be more patient; it was just that sometimes Aunt Martha made it difficult.

“And me being the wife of the minister, well, that makes it my duty, as well…” Martha took a deep breath and pointed a plump finger at Mam. “Hannah, your household is out of control.” She scowled at Ruth. “And you’re partly to blame.”

Ruth bit her bottom lip to keep from speaking up. It did no good with Aunt Martha, not when she was like this. It was better just to keep quiet, listen and hope the tirade passed quickly.

“And I’m not the only one to have noticed,” Martha went on. “Reuben was just saying to me the other day that it’s unseemly for you, Hannah, to be teaching school like an unmarried girl.”

“I’m sorry my teaching troubles you,” Mam said. “But our school needs a teacher, and I’m qualified.”

“The school board and the bishop approved Mam’s appointment,” Ruth put in. “And her salary helps to support our family.”

Martha frowned. “Your mother should have remarried by now. Then it wouldn’t be necessary for her to work.”

“It’s only been two years, Martha. Jonas…”

“Two years and seven months, sister. By custom, it’s time you put away your mourning and accepted another husband. If you had a God-fearing man in your house, your girls wouldn’t be acting inappropriately.”

“Inappropriately?” Mam’s brows arched. “How have they behaved inappropriately? Lately?” she clarified, spunk in her voice.

“Today. At Spence’s.”

“Eli Lapp was there,” Ruth explained quickly. “He bought ice cream for Susanna and Miriam.”

Aunt Martha eyes widened with great exaggeration. “So this is the first you’ve heard of it, Hannah? Miriam made a show of herself with that wild Belleville boy. She rode on his motorcycle in front of everyone. With her skirts up and her
Kapp
flying off her head. Her arms were around his waist. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Really?” Mam asked.

Ruth noticed Lydia and Aunt Martha’s younger sister, Aunt Alma, peering into the kitchen. Lydia’s cheeks took on a rosy hue. “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to—”

“Ne,”
Mam said. “There’s nothing to hide. Martha was telling me that my tomboy daughter was riding behind Roman’s nephew on a motorcycle at Spence’s today.”

“Scooter,” Ruth corrected gently, feeling she had to defend her sister, even though she didn’t really want to defend Eli. “It wasn’t really a motorcycle. It was a motor scooter—”

“Scooter? Cycle? It doesn’t matter what the loud English machine is called,” Aunt Martha declared. “It’s unseemly for a young girl like my niece to make such a spectacle of herself.” She glared at Ruth. “Or for her older sister to allow it.”

Mam chuckled. “It would be just like Miriam to take a ride on the machine, wouldn’t it?” She shook her head. “But it’s not so bad, is it? She’s not joined the church yet. It’s natural for her to dabble with the world…just as
we
did once.” A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as if she knew some secret about Aunt Martha that Ruth and the others didn’t.

“It’s wrong,” Aunt Martha argued, her cheeks turning red. “You’ve been far too lenient with your daughters.”

“Mam is a good mother and a good role model,” Ruth said.

“You hold your tongue, young woman,” Aunt Martha fussed. “This would never have happened if my brother was alive.”

“
Ne
. Probably not,” Mam said. “And I agree that a motor scooter is dangerous, especially without a helmet. I’ll speak with Miriam about it.”

“You don’t understand the danger of situations like these,” Aunt Martha went on. “Of what people will say. How could you? You weren’t born Plain.”

“What does Mam being born Mennonite have to do with—”

Mam silenced Ruth with a wave of her hand. Once Mam’s temper was set off, she could handle Aunt Martha, and Mam’s amusement had definitely faded.

“Martha, you should mind the sharpness of your tongue. I don’t think my being born Mennonite has anything to do with my daughter taking a ride on an old motorbike, and I don’t think your brother, my husband, would approve of such talk. None of us should be too quick to pass judgment on Eli Lapp. He’s
rumspringa
and a visitor among us. How can we condemn what his church and family allows?”

“I suppose you believe Ruth is right, too.” Martha planted her hands on her broad hips. “In allowing Miriam to do such a thing.”

“Ruth is a sensible girl,” Hannah pointed out. “She’d never let her sisters come to harm. I trust her judgment.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t this time.” Aunt Alma, a shorter and paler reflection of Aunt Martha, hustled up to stand beside her sister. “I had a letter just yesterday from our cousin in Belleville about this Lapp boy. It’s worse than we first thought.”

“Tell them, Alma. I think it’s for the best we all know what’s what,” Aunt Martha prodded.

Aunt Alma needed no further encouragement. “Rumor has it that Eli’s family sent him away because he got a girl in the family way and refused to marry her.”

Ruth’s chest tightened, and she suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t want hear any more, but she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t walk away.

“So!” Aunt Martha cried, seeming almost pleased with the awful accusation. “Is that the kind of young man we want to welcome into our community?”

Eli moved deeper into the shadows of the lilac bush that grew outside the Beachys’ kitchen window. He could see Ruth standing very still near the sink, a drying towel in her slender hands. There were other women in the room, but Eli paid no attention to them; he saw no one but Ruth. Light from a kerosene lantern illuminated the planes of her heart-shaped face and glinted off the strands of red-gold hair that escaped from her
Kapp
. She was a beautiful girl. No, a beautiful woman.

He wished he’d gotten here sooner, wished he’d thought sooner of bringing the hand drill that Roman had promised to loan Norman. If he’d walked faster across the fields, maybe he would have had been in the yard in time to take Ruth’s horse when she and her family had arrived. Then he would have had the opportunity to speak a few words with her.

It was obvious that Ruth Yoder didn’t think too much of him, which was a new experience for him. Back home, girls and their mothers and their aunties usually liked him a lot, sometimes too much. He supposed it was his bad luck to be born with his dat’s features. Too pretty for a man, they’d always called him, too fair of face to be properly Plain. Truth was, Dat’s face had gotten him in plenty of trouble…as it had his son.

This was one time Eli would have liked his looks to be an asset. He’d taken one look at that mane of tumbled auburn hair in the school yard, and his heart had swelled in his chest, beating as if he’d run a mile. There was something about Ruth Yoder, something about the curve of her lips and her stubborn little chin that got to him in a way no other girl had ever done.

But Ruth Yoder was a religious girl, the kind he’d always steered clear of, the kind of girl he knew would have no interest in him. So why had he walked two miles through the rain tonight to catch sight of her?

As much as he hated to admit it, he knew the answer. He’d been lightning-struck by a red-headed girl with soot on her nose and fire in her eyes.

M
ore white
Kapps
and curious faces appeared in the archway leading to the sitting room. The women all stared at Ruth, her mother, Aunt Martha and Aunt Alma. Fortunately, Lydia came to the rescue. Bouncing a wailing infant on her shoulder, she pushed through the crowd and raised her strident voice above little Henry’s cries. “Shouldn’t we get to work on the quilt?”

“Ya,”
Mam agreed, nodding. “We have much to do.” She linked her arm through Aunt Martha’s. “Come, sit by me, sister. Your stitches are so neat that I find myself inspired just watching you.”

Aunt Martha’s beady eyes narrowed in suspicion, but Mam’s genuine smile weakened her fortitude. “All right, if you want. I never meant harm, you know, Hannah. We have to look out for each other.”

Aunt Alma nodded vigorously. “
Ya,
we must. You are our dear brother’s wife.”

“It is hard to be a mother,” Aunt Martha added. “Harder still to be a mother without the strong guidance of a husband.”

Several others agreed and apprehensive expressions gave way to general good humor. Whatever the women had heard would soon make the rounds, but Ruth knew that her mother was liked and appreciated in the community. Mam would not come out the worst in this.

“Ruth, could you pull the kitchen shades for me?”

Johanna, who’d come into the kitchen as the others were filing into the sitting room, winked at Ruth as she crossed to the window to help. “What was that all about?” she whispered. “What’s Miriam done now?”

Ruth bit back a chuckle. “I’m in hot water, too. And Mam.”

Her sister made a tsk-tsk sound with her tongue and both broke into suppressed giggles. “For shame,” Johanna admonished.

“Johanna!” Lydia called from the next room. “We can’t start until you assign squares.”

“Go on,” Ruth urged. “I’ll get the shades.”

As Johanna left the room, Ruth turned back to the bank of windows that lined the wall, assuring plenty of light in the big kitchen even in winter. No curtains covered the wide glass panes, just spartan white shades. There was nothing to hide, but drawing the shades after dark was a custom strictly held to in the Amish community.

As Ruth reached for the last blind, she noticed movement near Lydia’s lilac bushes outside the window. At first, she assumed it must be one of the children. But the figure was too tall and broad-shouldered to be a child. She paused, drawing close to the window for a better look, cupping her hands around her eyes to cut down on the glare reflected from light inside the kitchen.

To her surprise, a man stepped out from behind the lilacs almost directly in front of her. Light from the window shone on his face as he turned toward her, and she realized she was almost nose to nose with Eli Lapp.

Ruth jerked back, heart pounding as though she’d been racing Miriam to the orchard. What was he doing there, spying on the women? Was he some kind of pervert? She grabbed hold of the shade and yanked it down, but not before she caught a glimpse of his expression. He was grinning at her!

Cheeks burning, she marched across the kitchen and flung open the back door. “What are you doing out here?” she demanded. “Watching you.”

“Where are your manners?” She ran her hand over her
Kapp
and then dropped it to her side, once again flustered by him. She’d caught him doing something wrong; why was she the one who felt foolish? “Did your mother never teach you better?” she demanded, trying to cover the awkwardness she felt with anger. “Why would you stare at me through a window?”

“You’re pretty when you’re cross. Did you know that?”

“You! You are impossible!”

“You should have talked to me when I came to your house,” he said, still grinning like a mule. “I just wanted to know if you were all right.”

“I’m fine. I told you that at the school. I’m not hurt.” She paused to catch her breath. “I thank you for checking on me, but—”

“How many sisters do you have?”

“How many sisters?” she repeated. She felt tongue-tied, awkward. She knew she must be as red as a beet. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to talking to boys. She had lots of friends who were boys: Dan, Charley, even Gideon, but none of them had ever made her so…so not like herself. “Why? Why do you ask me that?”

“Don’t you know how many sisters you have? It must be a lot.”

There was a broom standing beside the door. She wanted to pick it up and hit him with it. She’d never wanted to cause hurt to anyone before, but this…this Eli Lapp was impossible. She forced herself to speak calmly. “There is my older sister Johanna, the twins, Miriam and Anna. Anna met you at the door—”

“Aha. So you
were
listening. You told her to tell me to go away. You were afraid to talk to me,” he said.

“I was not. I was helping my mother put supper on the table. It was not the best time for a guest to arrive uninvited. And now you know I am fine. I have thanked you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “So you can leave me alone.”

Eli took a step closer. She could smell some kind of shaving lotion or maybe men’s perfume. Who could tell what he would wear? What he might do? But it smelled nice. Manly. “You didn’t answer my question.”

There he was making her feel dizzy again. “What question?”

“How many sisters you have,” he teased. “A teacher’s daughter, you should be good with math.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I know how many sisters I have. There are seven of us.”

“All redheads? I like redheads.”

Unconsciously, Ruth tucked a stray curl back under her
Kapp
. “That is none of your business. I’m going back inside, and you should go…go wherever your affairs take you.” She turned away.

“Do they have names, these other sisters? Are they all as pretty as you are?”

She spun back, quickly losing control of her patience again. “There’s Johanna, me, Anna, Miriam, Leah, Rebecca and Susanna. And they are all prettier than me.”

“I’d have to see that to believe it.”

Ruth opened her mouth, then closed it. Not knowing what else to say, she closed the door hard and hurried into the sitting room.

She found a seat between Dinah and Anna and located her own sewing kit. It seemed that everyone there was talking at once. Miriam was passing out squares of cloth, and young and old were busy threading needles.

“Dinah has suggested that we hold the end-of-year school picnic early,” Mam said. “She has another idea to help pay for the building repairs.”

“We could invite the other Amish churches,” Dinah explained, “and have a pie auction for the men. Each unmarried woman will bake her favorite pie and donate it, and the bachelors will bid on them.”

“And whoever buys a pie gets to eat lunch with the girl who made it,” Johanna explained. “They do it at the Cedar Hill Church in Nebraska where Dinah’s cousin lives. And they always make lots of money.”

Ruth tried to look interested in the plans, but she couldn’t really concentrate. She kept thinking about what Eli had said. He said she was pretty. No one had ever told her she was pretty. Did he mean it? Why did she care?

Then she thought about what Aunt Alma had said about the letter she’d received. Could it be true? Could Eli have gotten a girl in the family way? Sometimes even Plain youth strayed from Amish beliefs, but such mistakes were rare. She’d never heard of any Plain couple who’d failed to marry if there was a babe coming. If Eli had gotten a girl pregnant, he’d be married now, living in Belleville, wouldn’t he?

“Ruth.” Dinah nudged her and motioned to Hannah. “Your mam wants something from the carriage.”

Ruth looked up.

“That old section of quilt in the black bag,” Mam said. “The one with my great-grandmother’s sunflower pattern. I think we left it under the buggy seat.” She glanced back at Lydia. “It’s not in the best of shape, but it’s so pretty, I’ve always kept it.”

Ruth nodded and rose, then hesitated. What if Eli Lapp was still out there? She didn’t want to see him. Couldn’t. Not after the way he’d teased her…not after the way she’d talked to him.

But there was no way to refuse her mother, not without giving her a reason, and right now the idea of that was more frightening than the idea of coming nose to nose with Eli again.

Forcing herself to move, Ruth picked her way through the closely seated women. As she reached the door, she contemplated what she would do if Eli was still standing outside near the kitchen door. Not that she was afraid of him. She’d simply ignore him. He could grin foolishly at her if he wanted to, but if he got no reaction from her, he’d soon leave her alone. The Yoder girls didn’t associate with boys like him.

Immediately, a flood of confusion washed through her. Was she as lacking in grace as Aunt Martha? Was she judging Eli and finding him guilty, simply on gossip? What if the whole story was wrong? In her eagerness to share, Aunt Alma didn’t always get the details right. What if Eli was innocent of any crime other than riding an ugly motor scooter and coming to Delaware to work in his uncle’s chair shop?

And he’d said she was pretty.
She smiled, in spite of herself.

Her heartbeat quickened as she opened the back door and descended the wooden kitchen steps to the yard, eyeing the lilac bushes. There was no sign of Eli there. Near the barn, several small boys chased each other in a game of tag, but there was no sign of the Belleville boy there either. If she could just find her horse and the courting buggy in the dark, amid a sea of black buggies, she could grab the quilt square and hurry back into the house.

Irwin stepped out of the corncrib and walked out into the muddy yard. “Looking for your carriage?”

Irwin was very Plain, even for an Amish, so Plain that he stood out among the other boys. His trousers were too high on skinny ankles; the corners of his mouth were red and crusted, and his narrow shoulders sagged with the weight of a man six times his age. He looked as though he could do with a few good meals and a haircut.

Her mother’s words about being quick to judge echoed in her ears. Was she judging both Irwin and Eli unfairly? Would she be just like her Aunt Martha in ten years?

“I did like you said,” Irwin volunteered. “You said your horse was easy spooked, so I unhitched him and turned him into an empty stall in the barn. Your buggy is in the barn, too.”

It was more words than she’d ever heard Irwin offer at one time. And putting Blackie in the barn was a kind thing to do. “Thank you,” she said, smiling at him. Maybe Mam was right; maybe there was more to this boy than anyone saw at first glance.

He tilted his head and reverted to his usual soft stammer. “Sure,” he said, then walked away.

Raindrops spattered her face and arms as she hurried to the barn. Inside, a single lantern hung from a big cross-beam. Dat’s buggy was where Irwin had said it would be, standing alone in the center of the aisle between the box stalls. Blackie raised his head and nickered. Ruth went to him and rubbed his head, noting that a big bucket of fresh water hung from one corner post, and someone had tossed hay into the manger. “Good boy,” she murmured.

“Me or him?”

The voice from inside the buggy startled her. Eli Lapp.
Again.

She sucked in a breath and made an effort to hold back the sharp retort that rose to her lips. “Are you still here?” she asked, her voice far too breathy for either of them to believe she was entirely composed.

He chuckled, a deep sound of amusement that made her stomach flip over. “Maybe I hoped you’d come out here looking for me.”

She stared at him. “Why would I do that?”

He grinned. “Tell the truth. You did, didn’t you?”

“
Ne
. N-not for you. Mam asked me to fetch something from the carriage.”

She hadn’t been able to see him clearly in the shadows outside the house, but she could see him now. Eli was wearing Plain clothes tonight, black trousers, blue shirt, straw hat, but he was still
fancy
. He was chewing a piece of hay, and it gave him a rakish look.

Hochmut,
she thought. But she couldn’t deny that she found him handsome, so handsome that she could feel it in the pit of her stomach. Was this temptation? The kind Uncle Reuben talked about in his sermons sometimes?

“Be a shame to waste a courting buggy,” he said. “A Kishacoquillas buggy, if I’m not mistaken.” He offered her his hand. “Why don’t you come up and tell me about it?”

She tucked her hands behind her back. “I just need the bag from under the seat. There’s a piece of an old quilt in it. My sister wanted us to bring it for the pattern.” Now she was rambling. She wanted to leave Mam’s bag and run back to the house to the safety of the women’s chatter.

“Still scared?” He was teasing her again.

“Of what?”

“Me?” He held out his hand seeming to dare her.

She would not get into the buggy with him. It was a bad idea, a decision that could only…But somehow, without realizing how or why, she found herself clasping his hand. It was warm and calloused, a strong hand, and nothing at all like the familiar hands of her sisters.

The next thing she knew, she was perched on the seat beside him.

“See,” he said, grinning at her. “I come in peace.”

“You…you,” she sputtered. “I don’t like you one bit.”

He laughed. “Oh, yes, you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come looking for me. Or gotten into the buggy.” He looked down. “And you wouldn’t still be holding my hand.”

Ruth jerked her hand from his, mortified. It wasn’t that she meant to let him hold her hand; he just had her so confused.

She fumbled under the seat for Mam’s bag. Eli’s all-too-warm leg rested innocently against hers, making her vividly aware of his strong body and broad shoulders. He smelled clean and all male. She’d always hated the stench of tobacco that clung to some men, but there was none of that about Eli. His hair and body were fresh, his old high-tops were polished to a shine, and the nails on his big hands were clean and cut straight across.