An Amish Courtship. Jan Drexler

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СКАЧАТЬ for sure.” Ellie’s smile was relaxed and welcoming. “Their brother Bram is my husband, but I’ve never met the girls.” She stuck her needle in the quilt and half rose from her seat. “Did they come with you? Are they outside?”

      “They’re talking with Annie. Samuel is there, too.”

      Ellie sat back in her chair. “Samuel came?”

      “He said he had some business here in Eden Township, so he drove us down here this morning.”

      A little boy, about two years old, crawled out from under the quilting frame and pulled on Ellie’s skirt. “Memmie, I’m thirsty.”

      Ellie cupped his head in her hand, a worried frown on her face. “Ja, Danny. We’ll go to the kitchen and get a drink.” She smiled at Mary, her brows still knit. “I’m so glad to meet you, Mary, and I hope we’ll be able to get to know each other better.”

      She took the little boy by the hand and led him into the kitchen as Mary made her way to the chair next to Sadie and Ida Mae. For the first time, she wondered what business Samuel had in Eden Township. Whatever it was, it had Ellie worried.

      * * *

      Samuel let Tilly choose her own pace as he set off down the road toward Bram’s farm. Annie’s welcome had bolstered his courage enough to ask for directions to their brother’s home, but when he saw Bram’s wife peering at them through Annie’s kitchen window, doubts began to crowd in again.

      Meeting Bram wouldn’t be as easy as seeing Annie again. His sister had always been quick to forgive and easy to talk to. Bram had never been easy to deal with.

      Samuel stopped at a crossroad. Annie had said he would turn right after he passed over the creek, and he could see the wandering line of trees and bushes that marked the creek’s progress through the fields ahead. Only one more mile before he turned onto Bram’s road. When he clucked to Tilly, she shook her head and started off at a brisk trot.

      He and Bram had never enjoyed the kind of brotherly love he saw in other families. Daed had pushed at them, and Samuel could hear his voice now. “Bram can do it. Why can’t you?”

      And then Bram would look at him with his superior, big-brother look that would spike Samuel’s temper.

      Whether it was pitching hay down from the loft or hauling buckets of slop for the hogs, Bram had always done it better, faster, easier.

      Even after Bram had abandoned the family, Daed had kept goading at Samuel, pushing him to be the man Bram was.

      But he wasn’t Bram. He didn’t leave. He had stayed and absorbed the brunt of Daed’s anger right until the end.

      Samuel fingered the reins. Why hadn’t he left? He could have followed Bram, but he shied away from the accusing voice in his head that said he had been too cowardly to strike out on his own. His eyes stung and he rubbed at them. He wasn’t a coward. He was the good son. The one who had stayed home. But Mamm had still died.

      Tilly trotted across the culvert over the stream and the next crossroad was in sight. A quarter mile west, Annie had said. His stomach churned with something. Anger? Resentment? Or was he only nervous?

      Samuel pulled Tilly to a stop at the corner. He didn’t have to turn. He could continue down this road, find a spot to rest until it was time to pick up the girls again and face Bram another day.

      But he was done with putting things off. That’s the way Daed would have handled this. He would have ignored Bram, pretended he didn’t exist to punish him for taking off to Chicago all those years ago. If he was going to come out from his daed’s shadow, he needed to face Bram.

      Make amends.

      He turned the corner and headed west, keeping Tilly’s pace to a slow trot, even though she shook her head in protest. Samuel kept the reins tight, holding her in. He wanted time.

      The farm was on the left after he crossed another little creek. A Dawdi Haus nestled in the grass near the creek, with a flower garden in the front. The main house stood on a rise near it, and a white barn sat at the back of the lane. A field next to the lane was planted with corn, and the stalks stood nearly a foot high. A team of four matching Belgian horses grazed in the pasture beyond the barn.

      Samuel pulled Tilly to a halt in the road. The horses in the pasture meant that Bram was at home, not out in the fields. He fought the urge to keep driving down the road and turned Tilly into the lane. Someone had seen him coming. An old man watched him from the porch of the Dawdi Haus, but Samuel followed the sound of metal hammering on metal that rang from the barn.

      He halted Tilly near the barn door and climbed out of the buggy. The ringing continued. He tied the horse to the rail alongside the barn. No break in the rhythmic hammering from inside.

      Looking around, Samuel spied the old man, who had walked up to the main house and stood on the front porch. He lifted his hand in a wave and Samuel returned the gesture. There was no alternative now except to face Bram. Wiping his hands on his trousers, he walked into the barn.

      Just inside the door, he stopped to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. Bram was at the end of the main bay, working on a plow, his back to the door. A boy stood next to him. The seven-year-old held his hands over his ears to block out the noise, but leaned as close to Bram as he could, fascinated by the work.

      Bram stopped hammering and bent down to inspect his work. “You see here, Johnny,” he said as he pointed, “that was the piece that had come loose. But now it’s fastened in good and tight and should work fine.”

      Samuel walked toward them and the boy saw him.

      “Daed, someone’s here.”

      Bram straightened and turned, a welcoming smile on his face until he saw who it was.

      “Samuel.” His voice held a note of surprise.

      “Hello, Bram.”

      Bram pulled off his gloves and laid one hand on the boy’s shoulder without taking his gaze away from Samuel. “Johnny, we’re done here. Why don’t you go see if your grossdawdi needs any help?”

      Johnny ran out the back door of the barn and Bram stepped closer.

      “I didn’t expect to see you.”

      Samuel tried to smile. “Annie told me where you live.”

      “You’ve been to Annie’s?”

      “I brought Judith and Esther to her house for the quilting this morning, and I thought I’d stop and see how you were doing.”

      Bram stared at him. “If I remember right, when I stopped by the farm last year you told me that I didn’t belong there, and you didn’t want to see me again.”

      Samuel took a step back. Ja, for sure, he remembered that day. Bram had been all slicked up in a gabardine suit. An Englischer through and through.

      “You didn’t look like you wanted to stay.”

      Bram stepped closer. “You didn’t even let me go to the house to see the girls.”

      Samuel СКАЧАТЬ