The Amish Bride (2 page)

“You’re what, Ellen? Two and thirty?”

“Thirty-three,” she said softly.

“
Jah
, thirty-three. Almost three years younger than my Neziah.” He fixed her with a level gaze. “You should have married long ago, girl. You should be a mother with a home of your own.”

“My parents...” she mumbled. “They’ve needed help, and—”

“Your devotion to your mother and father is admirable,” he interrupted. “But in time, they’ll both be gathered to the Lord, and you’ll be left alone. And if you wait too long, you’ll have no children to care for you in your old age.”

Her mouth went dry. What Simeon was saying was true. A truth she tried not to think about. It wasn’t that she hadn’t once dreamed of having a husband and children, simply that the time had never been right and the right man had never asked her. She’d had her courting days once, but her father had gotten ill and then there was the fire...and the years had simply gotten away from her. She believed that God had a plan for her, but her life seemed whole and happy as it was. If she never married, would it be such a tragedy?

“I’ve long prayed over my own sons’ dilemma,” Simeon confided as he loosened the reins and flicked them over Butterscotch’s back to urge him on faster. “Neither one is married now, and both would be the happier if they were. So I’ve prayed and waited for an answer, and it seems to me that the Lord has made clear to me what must be done.”

Ellen turned to him. “He has?”

Simeon turned the full force of his winning smile on her. “You should marry one of them.” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “It makes perfect sense. My land and your father’s are side by side. Most of his is wooded with fine old hardwood, and we make our living by the lumber mill. I’ve known you since you were a babe in arms, and there’s no young woman I’d more willingly welcome into our family.”

She, who never was at a loss for words, was almost speechless. “I...” She stopped and started again. She couldn’t help but stare at Simeon. “You think I should marry Neziah or Micah?”

“Not only think it, but am certain of it. I already told them both at breakfast this morning.” He narrowed his gaze. “Now I expect you to be honest with me, Ellen. Do you have any objection to either of them for reason of character or religious faith?”

She shook her head as the images of handsome, young, blond Micah and serious, dark-haired Neziah rose in her mind’s eye. “
Nay
, of course not. They’re both men of solid faith, but—”

“Goot,”
he pronounced, “because I don’t know which the Lord intends for you. I’ve told both of my sons that I expect each of them to pay court to you and make a match as soon as may be decently arranged. The choice between them will be yours, Ellen. Steady Neziah and his children or my rascally, young Micah.” He gazed out over the pony with a sly smile. “And I care not which one you take.”

* * *

It was an hour later at the craft store when Ellen was finally able to share her morning adventure with Dinah Plank, the widow who helped in the shop and lived in the apartment upstairs. Dinah, a plump, five-foot-nothing whirlwind of gray-haired energy, was a dear friend, and Ellen valued her opinion.

“So, Simeon came right out and told you that you should marry one of his sons?” Dinah paused in rearranging the display of organic cotton baby clothing and looked at her intently through wire-framed eyeglasses. “Acting as his sons’ go-between, is he?”

“So it seems.” Ellen stood with an empty cardboard box under each arm. She had two orders to pack for mailing, and she wanted to get them ready for UPS.

“What did you tell him?” The older woman shook out a tiny white infant’s cap and carefully brushed the wrinkles out of it. Light poured in through the nine-paned windows, laying patterns of sunlight across the wide-plank floor of the display room and bouncing off the whitewashed plaster walls.

“Nothing, really. I was so surprised, I didn’t know what to say.” She put the mailing boxes on the counter and reached underneath for a couple of pieces of brown-paper wrapping. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. They’ve been such
goot
neighbors, and of course, my
dat
and Simeon are fast friends.”

“You think Simeon has already said something to your father?”

“I can’t imagine he did.” She lined the first cardboard box with two pieces of brown paper. “
Dat
would have certainly said something.”

Dinah propped up a cloth Amish doll, sewn in the old-fashioned way, without facial features. The doll was dressed for Sunday services with a black bonnet and cape, long black stockings and conservative leather shoes. “Well, you’re not averse to marrying, are you?”

“
Nay.
Of course not.” She reached for the stack of patchwork-quilt-style placemats she was shipping. “I’m just waiting for the man God wants for me.”

“And you’ll know him how?” She rested one hand on her hip. “Will this man knock on your door?”

Ellen frowned and added another layer of brown paper to the box before adding eight cloth napkins.

“My marriage to Mose was arranged by my uncle, and it worked out well for both of us.” Dinah tilted her head to one side in a way she had about her when she was trying to convey some meaning that she didn’t want to state outright. “We each had a few burrs that needed rubbing off by time and trial and error, but we started with respect and a common need. I wanted a home and marriage with a man of my faith, and Mose needed sons to help on his farm.”

Ellen nodded. She’d heard this story more than once, how Dinah and Mose had married after only meeting twice, and how she’d left Ohio to come to Lancaster County with him. The marriage had lasted thirty-four years, and Dinah had given him four sons and three daughters. Most lived nearby, and any of her children would have welcomed Dinah into their home. But she liked her independence and chose to live alone here in the apartment in Honeysuckle, and earn a living helping with the craft shop.

“I was an orphan without land or dowry,” Dinah continued, fiddling with the doll’s black bonnet. “And few ever called me fair of face. But I was strong, and God had given me health and ambition. I knew that I could learn to love the man I married. Mose was no looker, either, but he owned fifty acres of rich ground and was a respected farrier. Together, with the help of neighbors, we built a house with our own hands and backs.”

“And were you happy?”

Dinah smiled, a little sadly. “
Jah
, we
were
very happy together. Mose was an able provider and he worked hard. Respect became friendship and then partnership, and...somewhere along the way, we fell in love.” She tapped the shelf with her hand. “So my point of this long story is that Mose didn’t come knocking on my door. Our marriage was more or less arranged.”

Ellen sighed and smoothed the denim blue napkins. “But it sounds so much like a business transaction—Simeon deciding that his sons need wives and then telling them who they should court. Me living next door, so I’m the nearest solution. If one of them wanted to walk out with me, why didn’t he say so, instead of waiting for their father to make the suggestion?”

Ellen sank onto a three-legged wooden stool carved and painted with a pattern of intertwined hearts and vines. She glanced around the room, thinking as she always did, how much she loved this old building. It had started life nearly two hundred years earlier as a private home and had been in turn a tavern, a general store, a bakery and now Beachey’s Craft Shop.

“Maybe you should have married when you had the chance.”

“I wasn’t ready,” she said. “And you know there were other reasons, things we couldn’t work out.”

“With Neziah, you mean?” Dinah passed.

Ellen nodded. She was as shocked by Simeon’s idea that she should consider Neziah again, as she was by the whole idea that he should tell her or his boys who they should marry.

“That was years ago, girl. You were hardly out of your teens, and as hardheaded as Neziah. Are you certain you’re not looking for someone that you’ve dreamed up in your head, a make-believe man instead of a flesh-and-blood one?” The sleigh bells over the front door jingled, indicating a visitor.

Ellen rose.

Dinah waved her away. “I’ll see to her. You finish up packaging those orders. Then you might put the kettle on. If it’s pondering you need, there’s nothing like a cup of tea to make the studying on it easier.”

“Maybe,” Ellen conceded.

Dinah shrugged. “One thing you can be glad of.”

“What’s that?”

“That old goat Simeon wasn’t asking to court you himself.” She rolled her eyes. “Thirty-odd years difference between you or not, he wouldn’t be the first old man looking for a fine young wife.”

“Dinah!” she admonished. “How could you say such a thing?”

Dinah chuckled. “I said it, but you can’t tell me you weren’t thinking it.”

“I suppose Simeon
is
a good catch, though a little too old for me.” Ellen glanced up, smiling mischievously. “Maybe
you’re
the one who should think about courting one of the Shetler bachelors.”

Dinah laughed as she walked away. “Maybe I should.”

Chapter Two

T
hat afternoon Ellen walked her scooter up the steep driveway to her house. “Start each day as you mean to go,” her father always said. And today surely proved that wisdom. She hadn’t reached the craft shop until past her usual hour that morning, and now she was late arriving home. She left the scooter in the shed in a place where the chickens wouldn’t roost on it, and hurried toward the kitchen door.

Ellen had left chicken potpie for supper. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the days that she closed the store at five, she and her parents usually had their main meal together when she got home. It was after six now, though. She hoped they hadn’t waited for her.

Ellen had been delayed because of a mix-up with the customer orders that Dinah had packed and mailed a week earlier. The reproduction spinning wheel that had been intended for Mrs. McIver in Maine had gone instead to Mrs. Chou in New Jersey. And the baby quilt in the log cabin pattern and an Amish baby doll Mrs. Chou had been expecting had gone to Mrs. McIver. Mrs. Chou had taken the mistake with good humor when Ellen had called her from the store’s phone. Mrs. McIver hadn’t been so understanding, but Ellen had been able to calm her by promising to have the spinning wheel shipped overnight as soon as she received it back from Mrs. Chou.

Dinah felt terrible about the mix-up; unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time she’d made a mistake shipping an order. Dinah was a lovely woman, but other than her charming way with tourists who came into the shop, her shopkeeper’s skills were not the best. After two years behind the counter, she still struggled running credit cards, the cash register continually gave her a fit and Ellen had given up trying to get her to make the bank deposits. But Dinah needed the income, and since the fire, it had been comforting to have someone living in the apartment upstairs. So, in spite of the disadvantages of having Dinah as an employee, Ellen and her father agreed to keep her as long as she was willing to work for them.

As Ellen climbed the back steps to her parents’ house, voices drifted through the screen door, alerting her that they had visitors. And since they were speaking in Deitsch, they had to be Amish.
But who would be stopping by at suppertime?

Ellen walked into the kitchen to find Simeon Shetler, his two sons and his two grandsons seated around the big table. The evening meal was about to be served.

Ellen covered her surprise with a smile. “Simeon. Micah. Neziah. How nice to see you.” The table was set for eight, so clearly the Shetlers had been expected. Had her mother invited them for supper and forgotten to mention it? It was entirely possible; there were many things that slipped Mary Beachey’s mind these days.

Of course, there was the distinct possibility that plans to have dinner together had been made
after
her conversation with Simeon this morning. Ellen’s cheeks grew warm. Surely Micah and Neziah weren’t here to—

The brothers got to their feet as Ellen entered the kitchen, and she saw that they were both wearing white shirts and black vests and trousers, their go-to-worship attire—which meant that the visit was a formal one. For them, not their father. Simeon wore his customary blue work shirt and blue denim trousers.

It appeared that the two younger Shetler men had come courting.

She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing clever came to her, so she looked at her father. Surely there had been a misunderstanding or miscommunication with the Shetlers. Surely her father would have wanted to talk in private with Ellen about Simeon’s proposition before inviting them all to sit down together to talk about it.

John Beachey met his daughter’s gaze and nodded. He knew her all too well. He knew just what she was thinking. “
Jah
, Ellen. We’ve talked, Simeon and I.”

“You have?” she managed.

“We have, and we’re in agreement. It’s time you were married, and who better than one of the fine sons of our good neighbor. A neighbor, who,” he reminded pointedly, “helped us out so much when we had the fire.”

The fire,
Ellen thought
. That weighty debt: rarely mentioned but always remembered.

How many years ago had it been now? Seven or eight? The suspicious fire, probably caused by teenaged mischief makers, had started at the back of the store and quickly spread through the old kitchen and up through the ceiling into the second floor. Quick-thinking neighbors had smelled smoke and seen flames, and the valiant efforts of a local fire company had prevented the whole building from being a loss. But smoke and water had destroyed all of the contents of the shop, leaving them with no means of support and no money to rebuild. Simeon had showed up early the next day with a volunteer work force from the community to help. He’d provided cash from his own pocket for expenses, lumber from his mill and his sons’ services to provide the skilled carpentry to restore the shop. Over the years, her father had been able to repay Simeon’s interest-free loan, but they owed the Shetlers more than words could ever express.

“Sit, please.” She waved a hand to the men and boys.

Having Simeon’s sons standing there grinning at her was unnerving. Or at least, handsome, blond-haired Micah was grinning at her. Neziah, always the most serious of the three Shetler men, had the expression of one with a painful tooth, about to see the dentist. He nodded and settled solidly in his chair.

The room positively crackled with awkwardness, and Ellen wished she were anywhere but there. She wished she could run outside, jump on her push scooter and escape down the drive. Everyone was looking at her, seeming to be waiting for her to say something.

Neziah’s son Joel, age five, came to her rescue. “Can we eat now,
Dat
?
I’m hungry.”

“
Jah
, I’m hungry, too,” the four-year-old, Asa, echoed.

The boys did not look hungry, although boys always were, Ellen supposed. Joel, especially, appeared as if he’d just rolled away from a harvest table. His chubby face was as round as a donut under a mop of unruly butter-yellow hair, hair the same color as his uncle Micah’s. Asa, with dark hair and a complexion like his father’s, was tall for his age and sturdy. Someone had made an effort to subdue their ragged bowl cuts and scrub their hands and faces, but they retained the look of plump little banty roosters who’d just lost a barnyard squabble and were missing a few feathers. Still, the boys had changed the focus from her and the looming courtship question back to ground she was far steadier on—the evening meal.

“We waited supper for you,” Ellen’s mother explained. “Come,
Dochter
, sit here across from Micah and Neziah.”

Ellen surveyed the table. There would be enough of a main dish for their company because she’d made the two potpies. She also saw that her mother had fried up a platter of crispy brown scrapple and brought out the remnants of a roasted turkey. “Let me open a jar of applesauce and some of those delicious beets you made this summer,
Mam
,” she suggested. As she turned toward the cupboard, she took off her good apron, which she wore at the shop, and grabbed a black work apron from a peg on the wall. “I’ll only be a moment,” she said. “I’m sure the boys like applesauce.” Tying the apron on, she retrieved the jar and carried it to the table.

“Do you have pie?” Joel called after her. “
Grossdaddi
promised we would have pie. He said you always got pie.”

“And cake,” Asa chimed in.

“Boys,” Neziah chided. “Mind your manners.”

“But
Grossdaddi
said,” Joel insisted.

Ellen went to the stove and scooped biscuits from a baking sheet and dropped them into a wooden bowl that had been passed down from a great-grandmother. They were still warm, so they must have just come from the oven.

Her mother rose to seek out a pint of chow-chow, and a quart of sweet pickles that they’d put up just a week ago. In no time, they were all seated, and Ellen’s father bowed his head for the silent prayer.

When Ellen looked up once prayer was over, Micah met her gaze, grinning. He seemed to be enjoying the whole uncomfortable situation. But as she started to pass the platters and bowls of food, she found herself smiling, as well. Having friends at the table was always a blessing. She might not have expected to find the Shetlers here this evening, but here they were, and she’d make the best of it. So what if they were there to talk about a possible courtship between her and one of the Shetler men? No one was going to
make
her marry anyone.

Shared meals were one of the joys of a Plain life, and it was impossible not to enjoy Simeon and Micah’s teasing banter. The children concentrated on devouring their supper, eating far more than Ellen would suppose small boys could consume. Unlike Micah, Neziah ate in silence, adding only an occasional
Jah
and a grunt or nod of agreement to the general conversation. Neziah had always been the quiet one, even as a child. How he could have such noisy and mischievous children, Ellen couldn’t imagine.

Simeon launched into a lengthy joke about a lost English tourist who stopped to ask an Amish farmer for directions to Lancaster. The story had bounced around the community for several years, but Simeon had a way of making each tall tale his own, and Ellen didn’t mind. At least when he was talking, she didn’t have to think of something to say to either of her would-be
suitors
.

Joel looked up from his plate, waved his fork and asked, “Now can we have pie?”

“Rooich,”
Micah cautioned, raising a finger to his lips.
Quiet.
He then pointed his finger in warning to keep Asa from chiming in.

Ellen glanced at Neziah to see his reaction to his brother chastising his boys, but Neziah’s mouth was full of potpie and he seemed to be paying no mind. It was his third helping. She was glad she’d made two large pies, because the first dish was empty and the second held only a single slice.

Neziah suddenly began to cough and Micah slapped him on the back. Neziah reddened and turned away from the table. His brother handed him a glass of milk, and Neziah downed half of it before clearing his throat and wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Sorry,” he gasped, turning back to the table. “Chicken bone.”

Ellen blushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she said hastily. She’d been so certain that she’d gotten all the bones out of the chicken before adding it to the other ingredients.

“I may be a dumb country pig farmer,” Simeon said, delivering the punch line of his story, “but I’m not the one who’s lost.” He looked around, waiting for the reaction to his joke and wasn’t disappointed.

Her
mam
and
dat
laughed loudly.

“Jah,”
her mother agreed. “He wasn’t, was he? It was the fancy
Englisher
with the big car who was lost.”

Simeon slapped both hands on the table and roared with delight. “Told him, didn’t he?” Tears ran down his cheeks. “Lot of truth in that story, isn’t there?”

Ellen’s father nodded. “Lot of truth. Not many weeks pass that some tourist doesn’t stop in the craft shop to ask how to find Lancaster. And I say, you’re standing in it.”

“Course he means the town,” Ellen’s
mam
clarified. “Lancaster County’s one thing, the town is another.”

“Town of Lancaster’s got too many traffic lights and shopping centers for me.” Simeon wiped his cheeks with his napkin. “But I do love to laugh at them
Englishers
.”

Joel wiggled in his chair and whined. “I want my pie.
Grossdaddi
, you promised there’d be pie for dessert.”

Ellen eyed the two little boys. Asa and Joel were unusually demanding for Amish children; some might even say they were spoiled. And, to her way of thinking, Joel’s father allowed him perhaps too many sweets. He was a nice boy when he wasn’t whining, but if he got any chubbier, he’d never be able to keep up with the other kids when they ran and played. If he were her child, he’d eat more apples and fewer sugary treats. But, as her
mam
liked to say, people without kids always had the most opinions on how to raise them.

“Enough, boys!” Neziah said, clearly embarrassed by their behavior. “You’ll have to forgive my children. Living rough with us three men, they’re lacking in table manners.”

Micah chuckled.

Since he was still unmarried, he didn’t have a beard. The dimple on his chin made him even more attractive when he laughed. Ellen couldn’t imagine what he would want with her when half the girls in Lancaster County wished he’d ask to drive them home from a Sunday night singing.

“It’s more than table manners, I’d say,” Micah teased. “These boys are wild as rabbits and just as hard to herd when it comes time for bath or bed.”

“Which is why they need a mother’s hand,” Simeon pronounced. “And why we came to ask for your daughter in marriage, John.”

“To one of us,” Micah added. “Your choice, Ellen.” He chuckled again and punched his brother’s shoulder playfully. “Although, if she has her pick, Neziah’s starting this race a good furlong behind.”

Ellen glanced at Micah. Self-pride wasn’t an attribute prized by the Plain folk. Everyone knew that Micah was full of himself, but still, with his likeable manner, he seemed to be able to get away with it.

And to prove it, he winked at her and grinned. “Tell the bishop I said that, and he’ll have me on the boards in front of the church asking for forgiveness for my brash talk.”

“Micah! What will the John Beacheys think of you with your nonsense?” Simeon asked. “Be serious for once. Your brother is as good a candidate for marriage as you. And Ellen would be a good wife for him, as well.” He shrugged. “Either way, we’ll have a woman in the house to set it right and put my grandsons’ feet on the narrow path.”

Ellen frowned, not liking the sound of that. Did the Shetlers want her, or just some woman to wash, cook and look after the children? Maybe it was true that she was getting too old to be picky, but she wouldn’t allow herself to be taken advantage of.

She glanced at the plate of food she’d barely touched. She couldn’t believe they were all sitting there seriously talking about her marrying one of the Shetlers.