Finding Mercy. Karen Harper

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      4

      IT HAD RAINED some overnight. Ella had heard the patter on her roof, a gentle rain, but she still hadn’t slept well. Her first night in her new house…the car accident…and Andrew. Then too, when she’d drifted off, she’d dreamed she’d seen a huge glowing animal eye, watching her from the blackness.

      She shook her head to pull herself back to the here and now. “I guess you can tell which are weeds, ya?” she asked Andrew as they surveyed her lavender from the bottom of the hill after a hearty breakfast with the family. Daad and the boys had set out for the fields already. Mamm and Grossmamm had headed into town in the family buggy to help Mrs. Lantz with wedding preparations. For now, it was just the two of them.

      “Of course, I can tell the flowers from the weeds,” he said, sounding a bit annoyed. Maybe he had not slept well either on his first night in a new place, in her old room. “It’s just going to be a question of getting to them since the lavender’s so tall and I’ve got to manage this crutch.”

      “If I don’t keep after them, they’ll be taller than the crop, though part of the height is because I have to build up the beds with crushed limestone and ground oyster shells.”

      “No kidding?” He turned to her instead of surveying the plants. “Where do you get oyster shells around here?”

      “At the mill that has chicken feed. They use ground shells as grit in the feed. I’ll need to buggy there later to get some more, if you want to go along. It will look funny, though, with the man just sitting there and the woman handling the reins. One of the boys should teach you.”

      “Or you could show me while we drive.”

      “While we buggy,” she corrected him. “Like we say, ‘He buggied over to see me.’ Even in English, you’ve got to learn some of the talk.”

      “So,” he said, frowning and looking around again, “you’ve got quite a cottage industry going here.”

      “Ya, and now I’ve got the cottage for it. I’m going to turn the house into a workroom and store instead of just delivering things here and there.”

      “Instead of buggying things here and there, you mean,” he said with a grin, then sobered again. “Your fledgling enterprise impresses me. You know, only two-thirds of small businesses survive their first two years and fewer than half make it to four years, but growth is the answer. With the right packaging, branding and promotion—financing too—your Lavender Plain Products could really turn into something with expanding market opportunities. Your dad could do the same for his honey and the honeycomb he sells on the side.”

      “Our businesses already are something,” she said, hands on her hips. “In your other life, did you own a company that sold something?”

      “Not exactly. So, tell me more about the lavender. I take it with all the mulching, the roots don’t like water.”

      “Right. The saying is, ‘Lavender does not like to get its feet wet.’”

      His eyes lit and, thinking he must like the way she’d put that, she smiled back. They stayed that way a bit too long, as if they were suspended at the bottom of the hill, lulled by the buzz of the bees, the scent of the flower, like in a dream.

      “I was just thinking,” he said, “the lavender’s mistress doesn’t like to get her feet wet either. You wouldn’t come near that pond last night. So no wonder lavender grows so beautifully for a beautiful gardener and in Eden County, no less.”

      Her stomach did a funny flip-flop. A worldly compliment. And he’d called her mistress. Should she explain that her people only valued inner beauty? Her family had one mirror in the whole house and that was turned to the wall and mostly unused. But she said, “Sadly, there was a serpent in the Garden of Eden. Besides, I think of myself more as a farmer, of an important crop too. Lavender does lots of things, all good.”

      “It smells great, that’s for sure. I didn’t mean to imply you haven’t done a good job with all this.” They started up the hill to where she’d left off with her weeding yesterday. The two tin plates she’d left hanging up the hill were knocking together in the breeze. For sure, one of those must be what had made the reflection she saw last night after the sheriff left.

      “Lavender does more than smell good,” she told him, suddenly anxious to keep their conversation on her work and not herself. He kept stealing glimpses at her. “It can be used in recipes too, all kinds of yummy things like muffins, jellies and jams, chocolate, breads, teas and honeys. I plan to hire some friends to make those products to sell when I get the store going.”

      He was frowning now at some inward thought. What had she said to set him off? She wished she could read his moods.

      “You won’t believe this,” Andrew said, “but I had a lavender-infused drink not long ago.”

      “Of course, I believe it. Lemonade?”

      “Actually, a martini.”

      “Oh. Liquor. I couldn’t go worldly with my sales. You have a lot to learn about us and our ways.”

      “I want to, so I’ll get busy here. The bees won’t sting me, will they?”

      “Not if you let them be themselves and don’t try to take over what they do best.”

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