The Fiddler (11 page)

M
ichael found Joanna Kurtz in the far corner of the barn, filling the water troughs. Her blue eyes lit up immediately when she spotted him with Amelia.

“
Willkumm
!” Joanna called cheerily, her willowy form nearly as tall as Michael’s own. Her wheat-colored hair was neatly pulled back, and she was wearing a plum-colored dress and matching apron with black work boots.

“I’d like you to meet someone,” Michael said, smiling. “Joanna, this is Amelia Devries . . . a new friend of mine.”

“
Wie geht’s
—ach, I meant to say, how are you?” Joanna wiped both hands on her apron and put out her hand.

“Just fine,” replied Amelia, shaking her hand and smiling. “Nice to meet you.”

Joanna looked at Michael, then back at Amelia. “Goodness, but you remind me of someone.”

Michael nodded. “Doesn’t she, though?”

“Well, I hope that’s a good thing,” Amelia said, still smiling.

“It’s your dark hair, for sure,” Joanna said. She then turned to look at Michael. “She kinda looks like your niece.”

He agreed, not wanting to embarrass Amelia further. “Would ya like to show Amelia round the farm for a little while?”

“I’d love to!” Joanna brushed her brow with the back of her hand. “
Kumme,
Amelia—and what a perty name, by the way! I can show ya a-plenty, if you’d like.” Joanna peered over her shoulder at Michael and seemed to indicate he could scram. Such mischief she was!

“All right, then.” He shook his head and gave her a grin. “I know when to take a hint.”

Amelia looked his way, and what he saw in her face both delighted him and put dread into his soul. “I’ll return for you in a bit, how’s that?” He said it to Amelia, but it was Joanna who answered, saying that it was just fine if Amelia stayed around for as long as she wanted to.

Making his way out to the road, Michael glanced back at the barnyard and saw Joanna and Amelia there with a few of the new goats. And just then, Amelia raised her head and smiled, then waved to him.

It was a simple gesture, for certain, yet . . . to think an English girl like Amelia could make his heart pound nearly out of its rib cage.

What the world?

———

Amelia liked Joanna immediately. She liked the way Joanna smiled and kept drawing her in, eager to share the four corners of her farming life.

“Honestly, our baby goats tend to shy away from most folk,” Joanna said, a glint of sweetness in her blue eyes. “But they sure aren’t skittish round you.”

“Well, I did pet one of the calves earlier,” Amelia admitted. “Maybe the goats picked up the farm scent. Could that be?”

“Maybe so. But it’s a rare thing for ’em to take so to a stranger. You must be an animal lover, jah?”

“I grew up with a couple adorable cats—both golden tabbies.”

“Ah, then . . . see?”

“But goats? I’ve never spent much time around them.”

Joanna studied her. “I take it this is your first visit to an Amish farm.”

“Actually
any
farm in years,” Amelia replied.

“Well, I daresay you’re doin’ fine.”

“Thanks.” Amelia smiled to herself as Joanna led her next to a hen house, where they had to stoop to go inside.

“Cozy little place, jah?”

Amelia looked at the two rows of nests stacked on top of each other. “Just big enough for chickens, right?”

“You’d think so, but my Kurtz great-great-grandparents lived here with their first wee babe . . . came down from New York.”

“Really?”

“Jah, while they finished building the main farmhouse.” Joanna motioned toward the spacious farmhouse across the yard. “That was many years ago.”

“How long did they stick it out?” asked Amelia. “ I mean . . .” she began again, suddenly chagrined.

“No, no, that’s all right.” Joanna perused the area. “I agree it’s awful close in here. But they stayed six weeks, till they could move into part of the new house.”

Amelia was doubtful that such tight quarters could offer enough space for a couple, let alone a family with a baby.

“I was so startled by Mamma’s tellin’, first time I heard it, I sat right down and wrote a story called ‘The Chicken Shed
Haus
.’ ” Joanna’s eyes grew wide and the pink in her cheeks turned distinctly red. “I mean . . . ya didn’t hear none of that from me, all right?”

Amelia nodded and wondered why Joanna was anxious to cover up what she’d said. “So you’re a writer?”

Joanna’s eyes bored into her, and Amelia was taken aback by the peculiar, almost horrified look on the young woman’s pretty face. “Ach, I don’t know what got into me,” Joanna said, looking over her shoulder nervously. “I never should’ve—”

“Aren’t you allowed to write stories?”

Joanna shook her head forlornly. “You won’t tell, will ya? You’re friends with Michael, ain’t?”

Amelia considered the strange way she and Michael had met and realized they had secrets of their own. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Joanna broke into a relieved smile. “I felt sure you were trustworthy by your eyes,” she said.

Amelia blushed. And the more minutes that ticked by, the more she felt a curious kinship with Joanna. Their worlds couldn’t be more different. Yet she felt as if she and Joanna were on equal footing.

A short time later they strolled across the backyard and into the large farmhouse. The smell of freshly baked bread filled the kitchen as Joanna introduced Amelia to her middle-aged mother, Rhoda, and a neighbor, Rachel Stoltzfus. The plump, blue-eyed women were dressed nearly exactly like Joanna, only in gray dresses and black aprons as they sat and peeled potatoes for the noon meal. They were polite yet reserved, and Amelia hoped they weren’t concerned about the worldly girl standing in the safe haven of Rhoda Kurtz’s kitchen.

“It’s nice to meet both of you,” Amelia said.

The women smiled shyly, but neither offered her hand, soiled as they were from the chore.

Meanwhile, Joanna reached for a piece of fruit from the bowl in the middle of the table mounded with fleshy red and green grapes. Amelia had never seen such a large bowl. Joanna urged her to take some, too, as did Rhoda, who nodded when she looked up from her work. Amelia thanked them and plucked off only a few, noticing that the neighbor woman seemed ill at ease.

Because of me?
Amelia wondered.

Thankfully, Joanna led the way upstairs to her room. There, she explained that her mother and Rachel rarely interacted with English folk. “They’ve been sheltered more than many of the women in Hickory Hollow. Others work outside the house at quilting shops over in Intercourse Village and at Central Market in downtown Lancaster.”

“Well, I’m grateful to them for letting me visit you,” Amelia said as she took in the room—a double bed with a headboard and footboard, as well as a small square bedside table and a large multicolored braided rug between the bed and the dresser. There was a cane-back chair under each of the two tall windows, and a hope chest at the foot of the bed. Amelia went to peer more closely at the lovely quilt on the bed. “This is so beautiful,” she said.

“Quilted and hemmed in a single day,” Joanna said.

Amelia admired the tiny hand stitches. “How many quilters does it require to do it so fast?”

“Oh, ten to twelve.”

“Impressive.”

“We work as a group—like very close friends.”

Friends . . .
Amelia sighed, wishing for more time to develop closer relationships with her own existing acquaintances.
What would that be like?

A large rag doll on one of the cane-backed chairs caught her eye. The faceless doll was dressed in a blue dress with a white see-through apron and white head covering. “What a cute doll,” she said, going over to look at it.

“She’s my little bride doll,” Joanna was quick to explain.

“How can you tell she’s a bride?” Amelia asked curiously.

“Ah, well, Amish brides typically dress this way on their wedding day.” Joanna motioned toward the chairs. “Please take a seat, Amelia. You can move the doll if ya like.”

“Thanks,” Amelia said, feeling as comfortable with Joanna as she had with Michael. “What is it about the Amish?” she blurted before realizing what she’d said.

“What do ya mean?”

“I feel so content here.”

“Ya know, now that you mention it, I know other Englischers who say that.” Joanna knelt on the floor beside the hope chest.

So it’s not just me. . . .

Amelia thought of Michael again and was relieved Joanna had mentioned this, because it seemed to explain the strange attraction Amelia had initially had to him. And here she’d thought she might actually be a little infatuated with an Amishman. How absurd!
We haven’t even known each other a full day.

Joanna opened the lid to her cedar hope chest and removed an assortment of embroidered pieces that had been arranged and folded neatly inside. “These are just waiting for the day when I’ll set up housekeeping,” she whispered, then blushed as she caught herself. “You think I’m
bapplich
, ain’t so?”

“You’re not too talkative at all.” Amelia grinned.

Joanna leaned her head back. “Talkative I am—if not a blabbermouth.” Then, as if just registering what Amelia had said, Joanna asked, “Wait a minute, do you know Deitsch?”

“A tiny bit.” Amelia told her quickly about her summers in Ohio Amish country with her grandparents.

“You must miss going there. Do ya?”

“Yes . . . very much.” Amelia nodded. “And I miss my grandparents, too.”

They talked awhile about Joanna’s own two sets of
Grosseldre
. “Mamma’s parents live in the
Dawdi Haus
next door, and
Dat
’s live neighbors to Abe and Rachel Stoltzfus . . . but within walkin’ distance. We look after them, ya know.”

“I wish mine had lived closer to us all those years,” Amelia said.

Joanna agreed. “Jah, ’tis a joy, for sure.”

Amelia nodded, knowing she’d missed a lot by living so far from her mother’s parents. Thankfully, her paternal grandparents were still alive, though she had never been as close to them.
Why not?
Amelia wondered, wishing to remedy that.

She’d only just arrived, yet visiting Hickory Hollow was already beginning to stir up a myriad of memories.

“Well, what’s this?” Lillianne Hostetler’s hand flew to her mouth. She was out weeding her flower beds when she spotted Michael walking up the road, coming this way. She tensed up immediately, swallowing hard. Just yesterday he’d taken a week’s worth of food to wherever he’d rushed off to. Was her son returning already?

Oh goodness, she surely hoped so. With all of her heart she did. And she promised herself she would not question what had caused Michael to come back this soon. Watching him walk toward the house now, with such confidence, threw her off beam. She ought to look for Paul to alert him. “Glory be!” she said as she left the hand trowel on the ground and got up.

She dashed around the side of the house, past the old well pump and the clotheslines. She found Paul in the stable, grooming one of the driving horses. His light brown hair was oily from the heat and humidity, and there was a piece of a cornstalk stuck to the back of his shirt. “Paul . . . Paul,” she said, quite out of breath. “Remember what the bishop said to do if Michael returned?”

He frowned and paused, brush in his hand. “What’s all your fluster for, Lily?”

“Our boy’s a-comin’—just saw Michael walking up the lane,” she told him. “We must welcome him back.” She caught her breath and waved her hankie to cool herself.

By the look of consternation on her husband’s face, Lillianne could tell the bishop’s recent admonition was still fresh in his mind.

Paul gave her a practiced frown and turned back to his work. “I’ll do my best.”

Without delay, she began to pray silently as she made her way toward the house.
O
Gott,
help my husband give it his all.
Then, realizing what she’d prayed, Lillianne changed her mind.
No, I mean help Paul soften his tongue, dear Lord. . . .