Huckleberry Hill (27 page)

Moses had the power to seek for God’s will and do it. The power to go to Lia and prove himself to her.

He could think and act for himself instead of accepting the role of a victim. He’d played that part with Barbara. Never again would he excuse himself for someone else’s choices. He had his own choices to make.

His love for Lia almost overpowered his ability to think straight. He wouldn’t throw that love away simply because of a little discouragement from her. With every ounce of his strength, he would fight for her. He’d fight harder than he’d ever fought for anything in his life.

With more resolve than he had ever been able to muster with Barbara, Moses made up his mind.

And if he couldn’t make Lia love him, then he’d accept the pain as God’s will.

But at least he had to try.

By wildly swinging his crutches in front of him, Moses rushed to the barn for the horse. Once the horse was out of the stall, Moses abandoned his crutches and on one foot, hitched Sammy into place. He had no time to waste maneuvering with his clunking crutches.

As he leaped into his buggy, Rachel emerged from the house with her lips forced into that weird smile. She must not have been mad at him anymore. That girl could change moods faster than a bat could change directions in flight.

“Have you decided against going to Wautoma?” Rachel said sweetly.

Moses didn’t even look at her as he jiggled the reins and got Sammy going. “What I do is none of your business.”

Undeterred, Rachel kept her smile in place as she waved and yoo-hooed and chased the buggy halfway down the hill.

 

 

Anna and Felty stood on the porch and watched Moses practically race down the hill in his newfangled buggy. They grinned as Rachel jogged next to the buggy waving to Moses until he went too fast for her to keep up.

“Persistence is that girl’s best quality,” Anna said.

Felty put his arm around Anna. “Well, Annie Banannie, you got what you wanted. Moses is miserable. Absolutely miserable.”

Anna smiled smugly. “Of course he is. Nothing makes a man more miserable than thinking he’s lost a girl he should have married months ago.”

“And it’s all your doing.”

“Thank you for the compliment, but I can’t take all the credit. You allowed Lia to come live with us.”

“And now they’re both miserable.”

Anna patted Felty’s hand. “They love each other. Moses will put things right eventually. But I hope it doesn’t take him too long. I’d like to get rid of Rachel by maple syrup time.”

Chuckling softly, Felty hugged Anna tightly and gave her a big kiss. “Maple syrup time.”

They held each other and listened to the birds chatter in the trees as Rachel hiked back up the lane.

“Do you remember David Eicher’s daughter Lily?” Anna said.

“A sweet little girl, for sure.”

“Wouldn’t she be just the thing for our grandson Aden?”

Felty groaned and squeezed Anna tighter. “Don’t you start, Banannie. Don’t you start.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Perhaps the cumbersome cast was God’s way of telling Moses to take his time, to take action only after careful thought. The cast and scooter were certainly teaching him patience. He wanted to be by Lia’s side right now, immediately, flirting with her, gazing at her beautiful features, cajoling her into loving him.

Moses’s heart skipped a beat. The thought that she might never love him sent his heart plummetting to his toes. Moses shook his head. He wouldn’t bend his imagination in that direction. It only made him feel worse.

That’s why he’d brought his backpack. He might have to be in Wautoma for several months, because he wouldn’t leave without a fight. He’d do whatever it took to win Lia’s love.

Roy Polter carried Moses’s backpack to the Shetlers’ front porch while Moses hopped up the steps with his scooter.

“I’ll go make some deliveries and be back here in two hours,” Roy said.

“I don’t know if I’ll be going home tonight.”

“Will you be spending the night here?”

Moses surveyed his surroundings. Not another house in sight besides the Shetlers’ place. “If I’m not welcome here, I might find a nice field to camp in.”

Roy grimaced. “Let’s hope you don’t get rained on.”

“Rain’s the least of my worries.”

With the way Moses’s life seemed to be going, Lia’s dat would probably answer the door and refuse to let him see Lia. Then Moses would spend the next three months living under some bridge subsisting on berries and roots, waiting for a chance to catch a glimpse of the woman he loved.

He pictured himself sneaking around Lia’s house in the middle of the night and rapping on the windows until he found the one with Lia behind it. Moses smiled to himself. He remembered stealing around Mammi and Dawdi’s house and knocking on the bathroom window in hopes that Rachel wouldn’t see him. He wasn’t sure why he had picked the bathroom window that day, except that Rachel didn’t clean bathrooms, and Lia was more likely to be the one who discovered him.

Moses squared his shoulders and knocked on the door. No fear. Love gave him power to face whatever might come.

To Moses’s relief, not Lia’s dat, but a middle-aged woman, a remarkable copy of Rachel, answered the door. Sparse strands of gray mingled with her golden hair, and she stood even a little shorter than her youngest daughter. She wore a pale blue calf-length dress without a bertha. Her eyes, punctuated with shallow wrinkles, were Rachel’s, except that their lake blue depth revealed kindness instead of disdain.

She looked up and smiled at him as if he were an old friend instead of a stranger.

Moses stuck out his hand. “Hullo. I am—”

“Jah, you are Moses Zimmerman. I would know you anywhere. You are as tall and handsome as they say. Please come in. You are very welcome in our home.”

She held the door open for him and Moses rolled into the front room, feeling more than a little anxious.

“My name is Eliza. I am Rachel’s mamm.” She motioned for him to sit, but he was too agitated to relax.

“Nae, denki. I can stand.”

“I heard how you broke your leg. Rachel wrote that she almost fainted.”

“So did I.” Despite his distress, Moses tried to appear easy and carefree, even if at any minute they kicked him out of the house.

“I suppose you are wanting to talk to my husband.”

Eliza’s eyes danced, and she seemed to burst with excitement. “Rachel wrote weeks ago to expect you.”

Moses squirmed. Spending a week on Barbara’s roller coaster would be more pleasant than this. Eliza thought he came here to ask her husband’s permission to marry Rachel. All three were about to be very disappointed.

He’d be tossed out by supper for sure.

“I came to see Lia. Is she home?” The inviting aroma of homemade bread wafted from the kitchen. Jah, Lia must be here.

Eliza’s countenance fell and a look of puzzlement flitted across her face. “Are you sure? I can go fetch Owen.”

“Nae, I’d like to talk to Lia.”

“Lia is out to the barn.” Still unsure, Eliza pointed to the back of the house. “You can go through the mudroom.”

“Denki,” Moses said, rolling his scooter awkwardly down the hall.

Eliza called after him. “Owen will be home from work in a few hours, but I will fetch him early for you.”

“No need,” Moses said.

“And you must stay for supper.”

Moses didn’t reply. If Lia rejected him, no one would want him to stay for supper, including himself.

 

 

Lia accidentally clanked the bucket of oats against a pole in the barn and spilled half its contents onto the cement floor. “Blast!” She seemed to be growing clumsier with every passing hour. Why couldn’t she snap out of her gloom?

She’d been home less than three days, and she moped around as if her life were the most tedious in the world. Why had she ever left Wautoma? Before she met Moses, she had been perfectly content to live her perfectly dull life.

Things in Wautoma carried on as if she had never gone away. Mamm gladly turned the meal preparation over to Lia, and all her regular chores waited for her. The only change was Rachel’s absence, so there was no talk of gatherings or singeons or potential husbands. Her mamm had spent all her enthusiasm on Rachel and never had an inkling that Lia might be interested in such things.

And Lia wasn’t interested. She loved Moses. Why spend time with any other boy?

Lia sighed as she brushed the fallen oats into a pile with her foot. Who else would think of her height as an advantage? Who else would buy her a book because he knew how pleased she would be? She remembered the pained but good-humored look on Moses’s face as he popped the first, then the second, and then the fifth of Lia’s scorching-hot meatballs into his mouth. She thought of his bright red scarf and the time they stood under the trees and he compared their heights. It had been then that Lia knew he was something special. A man to admire. A man she couldn’t help but love.

Moses, so unselfish and eager to make everyone happy, had struggled to be plain about his feelings for Rachel. He must have sensed that Lia was fond of him and didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Rachel had said as much.

Lia snatched the broom from the hook and swept the oats in earnest. She must convince Fater to let her study midwifing again. These menial tasks left her mind free to wander where she did not want it to go.

“What a gute sweeper you are!”

Lia heard that voice in her dreams every night. Try as she might, she couldn’t prevent her heart from leaping into her throat and her hands from shaking at the sight of him.

Moses smiled tentatively. She adored that smile as she adored Moses. Hopelessly, without reason, and forever.

Her lips curled automatically just being near him, and she swept with such vigor that the oats in her pile went flying in every direction. “I thought you didn’t like my sweeping.”

Gripping the handles of his scooter, Moses studied her face. “I have always loved the way you sweep. I wish you would come sweep at my house. It’s very dusty.”

He rolled farther into the barn on that clunky scooter with one wheel that squeaked. She couldn’t place the expression on his face. Fear? Uncertainty? Sheer panic?

Lia peered out the open barn door. “Is Rachel with you?”

Moses pressed his lips into a hard line. Had she said something to upset him? “Nae. I came to see you. You left while I was in Minneapolis. I didn’t get to say good-bye.”

Lia’s heart fluttered like a butterfly. “You came all this way to say good-bye?”

“I’d rather not say good-bye. I want you to come back to Huckleberry Hill.”

Sorrow pressed its heavy hand on her chest. “You don’t mean that, Moses. You know it is better if I am away.”

A shadow passed across Moses’s face. “Mammi gave me your letter.”

“I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable.” Lia stood up straight and gave Moses a relatively convincing smile. “But you need not worry. I am happy here, and I wish you all the best.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Rachel says I am making a fool of myself. I’m determined not to be a bother to you ever again.”

Moses scowled and scooted closer. She wished he wouldn’t. He smelled like newly oiled leather. Manly and irresistible. “You have never, ever, been a bother to me.”

“Why should you have to humor the troublesome older sister when it’s plain as day that you love Rachel?”

His scowl deepened until it looked to be permanently etched into his face. “Is it?”

Lia lowered her eyes and stared faithfully at her pile of oats. “I’d just be in the way.”

“Lia, look at me,” Moses said with a determined edge to his voice. “What makes you think I love Rachel?”

Lia met his gaze. That dimple on his left cheek momentarily distracted her. “You said something to my dat . . .” Best not bring that up. She shouldn’t have been eavesdropping. “You had your arms around each other after the picnic.”

“Her idea, not mine. She’s clever. Didn’t wear shoes to a picnic in the woods. She is your sister, and I knew I should help her. But if I had my way, I’d have left her to fend for herself.”

Lia refused to believe it. Once again, he was trying to make her feel better. “She said you tossed my pie on the floor because you were tired of the way I threw myself at you all the time.”

Moses lifted his hat, shoved his fingers through his hair, and growled. Actually growled. “You’ve lived with Rachel all her life and yet still believe the things that come out of her mouth? Lia, you’re smarter than that.”

A light went on in Lia’s head. “You . . . you didn’t throw my pie on the floor?”

“At this point, I think I would give my right arm for one of your pies. I am dying to taste one of your pies. Everybody in Bonduel has tasted one of your pies but me. Rachel saw how excited I was about it. She turned red as a beet and dumped it on the floor.”

Lia fell silent and tried to make sense of the world. “Do you love Rachel?”

Moses growled again. This time he sounded more exasperated than angry. “I’ve always tried to be plain with you, Lia. I told you before. I don’t even like your sister. You’re accustomed to everybody fawning over her and ignoring you, so I suppose I can understand how you came to believe that I liked her. But to be honest, I’m annoyed with you for jumping to that conclusion.”

“You are always annoyed,” Lia said cautiously, but church bells chimed inside her head and her feet wanted to do a happy dance right here in the barn. Moses didn’t love Rachel.

“Annoyed and insulted,” he continued. “Insulted to know that you don’t think very highly of my intelligence.” He shook his head. “For you to believe that I would pick a girl like Rachel . . .”

Lia put her hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle. “Her face turned red as a beet?”

Moses’s somber mood seemed to melt in the blink of an eye. He studied her as his eyes began to twinkle. “I’ve never seen the veins in her neck pop out like that before. Then she stomped on the pie for good measure and left a trail of berry juice all the way down the hall. Mammi made her clean it up.”

Lia truly pitied her sister. “Oh, poor girl. That wood soap chafes her hands.”

“She wore gloves.”

They laughed in unison. Moses got so carried away that he snorted and made Lia jump. That prompted the laughter to continue for another minute. Finally Lia cleared her throat. “We shouldn’t. It is uncharitable to make light of Rachel’s misfortunes.”

“Her misfortunes are of her own making.” Moses changed moods faster than the horse could swish her tail. “Can we sit?”

Lia looked around and retrieved the two milking stools. She tried to support Moses’s arm as he sat as carefully as he could. It was a long way down for him, and his knees bent awkwardly as he braced his foot and cast on the floor. A look of annoyance camped on his face. What else?

Lia sat facing Moses and wrapped her arms around her knees. Dread pulsed in every nerve. That look of annoyance often accompanied a declaration that he was not looking to marry. She braced herself for yet another rejection.

But why should it hurt? She had already accepted the fact that Moses was not interested.

He pulled an envelope from his pocket. “I want to talk about this letter you asked Mammi to give me.”

Lia couldn’t breathe. Jah, a rejection was coming. She remembered every word of that letter she’d written three days ago.

She had been too plain with her feelings in her good-bye note, and he wanted to deflate her hopes gently.

He fingered the folds of the envelope as he studied her face. “Lia, you have always been honest with me. Did you truly mean what you wrote?”

She didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, but he was right. She had always been honest with him. “Jah,” she said breathlessly, “I meant every word.”

Moses looked so unhappy, Lia wanted to weep for him. He slumped his shoulders and buried his face in his hands. “Is there nothing I can do?”

“What do you mean?”

He sat like that, perfectly still and silent, while Lia held her breath. He slowly reached over and took her scarred hand in both of his. “Lia, can you find it in your heart to give me a chance?”