The Beekeeper's Son (The Amish of Bee County Book 1) (8 page)

Sighing in exasperation with her own inability to think of anything else, she tried to tune into the lively conversation that bounced around the kitchen among her daughters, Eve, Susan, Esther King, Naomi Glick, Frannie, Theresa King, the other cousins, and a few other women whom Abigail had met at the Sunday service. They apparently were discussing if and when another trip to town would be made. Abigail had yet to see the tiny town of Beeville. According to Eve, there wasn’t much to see.

“I need to get flour and baking soda.” Eve snapped green beans with an efficiency born of years of practice. “And to buy material. The boys are growing so fast I can’t keep up. Their pants look like high waders.”

“Same with Caleb,” Leila added. “Hazel’s growing like a weed too.”

“Don’t you sound like the mudder.” Eve chuckled and handed the girl another pan of sliced cucumbers. “I know young men around here who are chomping at the bit to take fraas.”

“No rush. She’s barely eighteen.” Abigail intervened, her hands tightening on the tongs. What was the hurry? Her daughters had time. Just as she had time. She wouldn’t hurry them into something any more than she herself needed to hurry. No matter what Stephen thought. “It’s important that we settle in and take some time to get to know everyone.”

“I thought you were anxious for us to find husbands.” Rebekah held up a tomato. “This one is mushy. I think it’s too far gone to use.”

Susan took the tomato and studied it. “I can salvage half of it. No waste around here.”

The tomatoes looked good to Abigail. It amazed her what they were able to grow in this inhospitable climate. “I do want
you to find the proper young man, but that takes time. You’ll be going to the singings here and the frolics. You have time.”

Time might not help. There were so few families in this district and only a limited number of young men. Dread and doubt clasped hands in Abigail’s belly. Not only was she in a precarious position of having to marry before being sure of Stephen, but her girls might very well have trouble as well.

Gott’s will. Gott’s plan.

She turned to check the steaming tomatoes. Time to fill the jars. She adjusted the funnel and ladled tomatoes into the first hot jar, leaving a scant half inch at the top. “Who wants to get rid of the air bubbles?”

The change of topic seemed to lay to rest the sudden pause in conversation. Deborah hopped to her feet, leaving the cucumbers and onions she was thinly slicing for bread-and-butter pickles on the table, and joined Abigail. “I’ll do it.”

Abigail picked up a washrag, ready to wipe the rims after Deborah pushed out the air bubbles. “Leila, you follow behind with the lids and the bands. We’ll get an assembly line going.”

“What about the honey jars?”

Mordecai King’s deep, graveled voice filled the room. He stood in the doorway, a large box in his arms filled with wooden frames covered with something white and waxy. A bee crawled along his sleeve, then zoomed across the room toward the back door, its buzzing loud in the sudden silence.

“Mordecai!” Susan stood and began moving pots and pans and baskets of produce from the prep table. “I told you I had the canning frolic today.”

“So you did.” He deposited the box on the table as if it weighed nothing. “But these frames are about to burst. They’re almost as
good as the ones Phineas brought in the other day. The frolic will have to include honey. Just add a few rows of the honey jars. Esther put the labels on last night.”

“It’ll be a tight squeeze, but we’ll manage.” Susan frowned, her upturned nose wrinkling They looked so much alike in the face, but there the similarity ended. Mordecai was tall and muscled whereas his sister was short and round. “I’m sure Abigail and the girls will find it interesting.”

“Ach, just because you think bees are the best thing since kaffi doesn’t mean everyone else is fascinated with them.” Esther set her bowl of cucumber slices on the counter and folded her arms in front of her, the picture of a mother scolding a child. “You’re looking to get a taste of Aenti’s fresh lemonade, that’s what I’m thinking.”

“I
am
a bit parched.”

“I’ll get it.” Abigail dropped the washrag on the counter, hustled to grab a clean glass, and poured the lukewarm lemonade. It sloshed over the side and ran down on her fingers. She handed it to him, feeling silly that she’d rushed and, moreover, that he could see that she had. The proof was in the sticky. “There you go.”

Mordecai gulped down most of the liquid, then glanced around the kitchen as if taking stock of his audience. “You Lantz girls haven’t seen how we harvest the honey, then?”

A chorus of “nees” followed the question.

The girls sounded eager, and Abigail found herself inching closer to the box with its treasure trove of frames from the hives.

Mordecai jerked his head toward the table. “You missed the good part. One of these days Phineas can take all y’all out to an apiary so you can see how we use smoke to calm the bees down and get the frames from the supers.”

“I think Deborah saw all she wanted of the bees the other day.” Frannie giggled. Deborah glared. “I mean, you know, getting stung—”

“I didn’t see anything.” Deborah craned her neck and peered over the side of the box. “I got stung before we reached the hive—the apiary or whatever—and then Phineas . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Phineas was a little peeved you upset the bees.” Mordecai finished her sentence. He snapped his suspenders as if for emphasis. “He told me. He’s protective of them like that. And it’s how we pay the bills.”

“It wasn’t intentional. Deborah and Frannie were collecting wild grapes for jam. We sell that to support our family.” The words sounded lame, even to Abigail as she said them. “And I think Deborah learned her lesson. Didn’t you?”

Deborah nodded as she crept closer to the table, her sisters crowding around her. The intensity in her oldest daughter’s face as her hand touched the edge of the box, a finger trailing down the side, surprised Abigail. It was the first time Deborah had seemed interested in anything in Bee County. “What are supers?”

“That’s where the bees make the honey.” Mordecai plucked a long serrated knife from a shelf and dipped it in the pan of water still boiling on the stove. “The supers are above the section where the queen bee lives. That way we can take out the frames without upsetting her.”

He proceeded to scrape the white wax into a plastic container. “We’ll use this beeswax to make candles and lip balm.”

He pointed at the openings now visible on the frame. “See, there’s the honey.”

“How do you get it out?” Rebekah raised her hand as if at school, then giggled. “Do you have to cook it or something?”

“We put the frames in an extractor and spin them.” He grinned as if this thought gave him great joy. “Do you and your schweschders want to help? It’s old hat to all these women. They’ve seen it hundreds of times.”

“I do, I do.” Hazel crawled out from under the table where she’d been sitting with her own pan of green beans, attempting to snap them the way Abigail had shown her. “I want honey.”

Mordecai laughed, a big, booming sound. “Well, that’s one thing we’ve got plenty of.”

Deborah, Leila, Rebekah, and Hazel crowded around the table while the others, true to Mordecai’s prediction, went back to chatting, finishing up the tomatoes, and starting on the pickles. Abigail longed to watch, but somehow it seemed as if she shouldn’t. Why, she couldn’t be sure. It was simply honey, after all.
Tomatoes.
Think tomatoes
. She couldn’t help it. She sneaked a glance now and again.

Mordecai removed all the wax from the frames and then set them in a huge pot he called an extractor. It had a handle that allowed him to spin the frames, flinging the honey against the sides of the pan so it pooled in the bottom.

As he worked, he talked to the girls in a tone that reminded Abigail of a schoolteacher. Had his life been different, had he not been born a Plain man, maybe he would’ve been a teacher. Instead, Susan had that job in the King family.

“Did you know bees have a stomach especially for honey?” He picked up Hazel from the floor and stood her on the chair so she could see. “That’s where they put the nectar when they collect it from the flowers. On one trip, they suck up so much nectar their stomachs weigh as much as they do.”

He stuck his hands out as if to mimic a huge belly and the
girls laughed. His gaze whipped toward Abigail. She whirled toward the counter. Lids made popping sounds.
Pop. Pop.
Good. Good, the first batch of tomatoes was setting up fine.

Mordecai’s soft chuckle told her he’d caught her watching him. “You know, worker bees only live about thirty-five days in the summer. That’s because they work themselves to death going back and forth to get the nectar and then flap their wings to help the extra water evaporate from the nectar once it’s in the hive. My point is, I don’t want to hear any of you complaining about having to work too hard. I’ve never seen a Plain child worked to death yet.”

Laughter followed this statement. Abigail couldn’t help herself and peeked again. Mordecai grinned. Her face flaming, she turned back to her rows of jars.

“How does the nectar get out of the bee’s belly?”

Deborah, ever the scholar with the most discerning mind, posed the question. Abigail waited, wanting an answer to that strange question herself.

“The hive bees suck it out with their tongues, mouth to mouth.”

“Ewww! Yuck. Gross!”

The chorus from her girls filled the kitchen, followed by laughter from Eve and the other women. Abigail found herself smiling for the first time in days. Mordecai’s tone said he relished the telling of this little fact. Probably had repeated it many times. It was so like a man. Still smiling, Abigail picked up the wooden spoon and stirred the spicy vinegar concoction that would cover the cucumbers, onions, and red peppers that would become bread-and-butter pickles. At least they were learning something new. Even Deborah, who’d been morose at best since arriving in Bee County, seemed fascinated.

Susan slid in next to her. “Go on, go watch. I know you want to. I’ve had enough honey stories to last me a lifetime. I’ll take care of this.”

Wiping her hands, Abigail turned to watch as Mordecai flipped the frames and did the other side. “There you have it.” He opened the extractor and tipped it so the girls could see. “Smell that? What does it smell like?”

Deborah leaned forward, eyes closed, and took a big whiff. “Flowers.”

“Yep. The honey will always smell like whatever flowers the bees take the nectar from. Gott’s fragrance.”

Hazel attempted to stick a finger in the pot. Deborah grabbed her back just in time. Hazel wiggled, arms outstretched. “Want honey.”

Mordecai shook a finger at her. “We have to strain it first.” He made quick work of that step, demonstrating to the girls what to do, and then poured a small amount in a bowl and set it on the table. “Susan, we’re ready for your bread.”

The canning frolic temporarily on hold, Susan sliced thick hunks of white bread and covered it liberally with homemade butter supplied by Naomi Glick. The girls took turns letting Mordecai pour a dollop of honey on their slices. Abigail waited until last. His gaze didn’t quite meet hers as he ladled a spoonful in the center of her bread, golden, sweet-smelling, and thick. Why be shy now? Or maybe that was her own heart fluttering in her chest. Silliness. Pure silliness.

“Danki.” Her voice sounded high and silly in her ears. “For this.”

“It’s just honey. We have it running out our ears around here.” He smiled as if completely at ease, which only made the flutter in her heart turn to a gallop. “Some days we’re sick of it.”

“Not for the honey.” She glanced at the girls, busy stuffing bread in their grinning mouths, their hands and faces sticky. Even Deborah looked like the little girl she’d once been, back in Tennessee.

“For what, then?” His voice had turned gruff. “Sharing widely known, useless facts about bees?”

“For making them feel welcome. Giving them a little treat.”

“I moved here when I was a teenager.” He stuck his utensils in the tub with their dirty canning utensils and picked up the last of the frames to return it to the box. “I remember what it was like.”

“From Tennessee?”

“Jah. My family was one of the first.”

“You never thought to return?”

“Once I started raising bees, I found myself content.”

Abigail sank her teeth into her bread. The sweet honey oozed onto her tongue, the taste like spring in her mouth. “Mmmmm.”

“Nothing like fresh honey, is there?”

She nodded, her mouth full.

“We best be getting back to the house.” Eve spoke up from the chair she’d taken in the corner, a pan of green beans in her lap. “I need to see about supper for John and the boys.
Stephen
is coming out.”

The emphasis on Stephen’s name couldn’t have been an accident. “We still need to finish up the pickles and do the green beans.” Abigail cocked her head toward the rows of empty jars. “And help clean up. Plus, I reckon this honey has to be jarred.”

“The girls can do that.” Eve stood and made a shooing motion. “Hazel, Hannah, you come with us. Frannie, you and Deborah and Rebekah and Leila finish up here. Your mudder and I have work to do at the house.”

Something about Eve’s tone reminded Abigail of John that first night in the backyard. She’d only been talking to Mordecai, nothing more. Stephen might be a friend of theirs, but wasn’t Mordecai also? Still, she understood how they felt. She’d hurt Stephen once. She didn’t want to do it again.

Mordecai picked up his box. “I need to get these back out to the apiary.” He clomped toward the back door. Eve held it open for him, her expression sour. He glanced back. “You girls interested in any more lessons in beekeeping, let me know. Phineas is the real teacher when it comes to the hives. The bees calm right down for him. He hasn’t been stung in years.”

Abigail touched a drop of honey that had landed on the table. That was what this was about. Mordecai saw an opportunity for Phineas, one the boy would never take for himself. She studied her three girls. Rebekah was still too young, at sixteen. Leila, at eighteen, had been running around for two years and had never given any indication she had a special friend back in Tennessee.