A Summer Amish Courtship (Love Inspired) Page 4

  “So the schoolteacher had to bring him home this time?” Daniel intoned as he carried a stack of dirty dishes to the sink. “Because of his behavior?”

  June had taken her position at the sink to wash. It was a chore she could still do well, and she liked it. Abigail had taken over most of the cooking, but she let her mother wash dishes, understanding that it was important that she still contribute to the household.

  “Wasn’t there a problem last week?” Abigail’s father pressed when she didn’t respond.

  Abigail carried the leftover biscuits, covered in a clean dishtowel, to the pie safe. “Jamie told me he didn’t know Elsie was inside when he started rocking the outhouse.”

  Daniel left the stack of dirty dishes on the counter and went back to gather more. “You believe him?”

  Abigail hesitated as she tried to puzzle out her thoughts. She had caught Jamie in a few fibs from time to time, but she didn’t want to believe he’d intentionally risk injuring someone and then lie to cover it up. Ethan believed Jamie had known the little girl was inside, which would mean Jamie had lied. Abigail didn’t think Ethan would make up such a thing...which meant her son had told them an untruth. She had to face it.

  “He’s having a hard time, Dat. He misses his home, his friends. He still misses his dat.”

  “But didn’t you tell me he was having trouble in school before you moved here? Not getting along with the other children, not doing his lessons. Wasn’t that one of the reasons why you decided not to stay in Wisconsin until the end of the school year?”

  Abigail closed the pie safe and just stood there for a moment. Her stomach was in knots. She’d barely eaten. She didn’t know what to say to her father. She didn’t know what to do to help her son. She turned slowly to face him. “It’s a hard age.”

  “He could have hurt that girl.”

  Abigail took a handful of dirty eating utensils from her father’s hand. “I understand that. And I’m going to talk to him.”

  Her father stood there looking down at her. She knew he had more to say on the matter, but thankfully, he didn’t. Instead, he said quietly, “I want to help you, daughter. I want to help Jamie. He’s the only grandson I have.”

  “I know you do.” She squeezed his arm. “Why don’t you go out and finish up your chores. Mam and I can take care of the dishes.” She shrugged. “Maybe take Jamie fishing in the pond for a little while? He loves fishing with you.”

  Daniel nodded. “I can do that.” He turned to go, then back to her. “But you know this isn’t just going to right itself on its own, don’t you? It’s only going to get worse. Something has to change. You keep doing the same thing and it doesn’t work, you have to change your approach.”

  “I’ll talk to him, Dat.” Abigail bit down on her lower lip. “And I’ll think on it. Figure out what I need to do differently.” Her thoughts immediately returned to her conversation with Ethan. He’d threatened to expel Jamie. She couldn’t let that happen. Schooling was too necessary, and she knew she couldn’t teach him at home, not with the house and her mother to deal with.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, listening to her father’s footsteps as he left the kitchen. She had been feeling overwhelmed for weeks. She had hoped that being here would make things easier for her and Jamie. She’d thought a change of scenery might help Jamie at school, but obviously, she’d been wrong. Her first impulse had been to blame the schoolteacher, but now she felt bad. He was just doing his job. And she’d lashed out at him. She’d raised her voice.

  And now she owed him an apology. She just wasn’t sure how to go about it.

  Chapter Three

  It turned out that the opportunity to speak to Ethan presented itself quickly enough. The following afternoon, Abigail was visited by Karl Lapp whose property adjoined her father’s. He’d caught Jamie, who’d been on his way home from school, trying to “ride” one of his cows. One about to give birth. She’d made Jamie apologize to Karl and then as punishment, she told her son she would be walking him to and from school for the rest of the week.

  “You can’t walk me to the door,” Jamie whined the next morning as he and Abigail turned into the driveway to the white clapboard schoolhouse. “The kids will see you. They’ll make fun of me.”

  Abigail drew her heavy cloak closer. Even though the grass was beginning to turn green and the trees to blossom, it was still chilly in the mornings. She lifted her face to feel the morning sun, enjoying its heat and the promise of a new day. The sunshine brought her hope, hope that her mother would have a good day mentally, that Jamie’s behavior would improve and that she wouldn’t feel quite so lonely in the world. Certainly, she had her mother and father and son, and she was thankful for them. But there was an ache in her heart where her husband, Egan, had once been. She still missed him every day. Mourned him every day.

  “Mam?” Jamie tugged at his mother’s cloak, getting her attention. “Did you hear what I said? Someone’s going to see you.”

  “We’re early enough that I doubt it. Unless I want them to see me,” she added looking at him sternly, hoping he would read it as a warning. She shifted the basket she carried on her arm. Inside was a peace offering of sorts for the schoolmaster. “Unless Karl catches you on one of his cows again. Then I might decide to come to school with you every day. I’ll sit beside you and help you with your lessons.”

  “Please, no,” Jamie groaned. “I won’t do it again.” He kicked a piece of gravel in the driveway. “I was just bored is all. It’s a long walk home. That’s why I went to look at the cows.”

  “It wasn’t the looking that got you into trouble.” When he didn’t say anything, she went on. “You know how I feel about saying you’re bored. There’s always work you can do around the house. And it’s a mile from here home so I don’t want to hear it. When I was your age, I walked four miles to school each day. Then four miles home.” She hooked her thumb over her back.

  “No one here walks. All the kids have a push scooter,” he complained.

  “Not everyone has a scooter,” she countered. The gravel crunched under her sneakers. “I see boys and girls walking past our place on the way to school every morning.”

  He bounced up and down on the toes of his boots. He was growing so fast that she’d had to buy them new just before they left Wisconsin. Being her only child, and having no family nearby, there were no hand-me-downs. Everything had to be made or bought new.

  “But I want a scooter.”

  “Don’t whine, sohn. You’re not a boppli anymore. And maybe you can have one. When your behavior is better.” She walked up the steps to open the door to the schoolhouse. “When you’re doing better with your lessons.”

  He stood at the bottom of the stairs to the schoolhouse and looked up at her. “You’re not coming inside, are you?” he groaned.

  “I am.” She walked through the doorway and into the small coatroom. One long wall was lined with hooks for coats and bonnets and such, the other with windows. “I need to talk to your teacher for a minute.” She handed Jamie his lunch pail.

  “It goes up there.” He pointed at shelves built on the wall across from the entrance.

  “Then you should probably put it there.” She eyed him in a way that she hoped would be reprimanding, and he scuffed his feet across the floor toward the shelving. She tapped on the inner door that led into the one-room schoolhouse and opened it.

  Ethan didn’t glance up from a large wooden desk at the far end of the room. The schoolhouse looked little different than the one she’d attended as a girl back in Wisconsin. The single room was square with plenty of windows on the opposite walls so they would get a good breeze in the warmer months. A large woodstove with a stovepipe going up through the roof in the center of the room was cold but would put out plenty of heat in the winter. There was the teacher’s desk at the head of the room with a green chalkboard behind it. The remainder of the space was filled with wooden desks and chairs. The only difference she saw from her school days was that instead of lining the desks and chairs in rows facing the blackboard, the desks were pushed together to form groups. Some had as many as eight desks together, some had as few as two.

  Abigail halted a few steps inside the door. The schoolmaster still hadn’t looked up at her so she could study him unnoticed. Her mother kept calling him the handsome schoolteacher, which annoyed her because...well, because he annoyed her. But also because she did find him handsome in a married schoolteacher way.

  She cleared her throat.

  He looked up. “Abigail.” He didn’t smile.

  She pressed her lips together having second thoughts about coming there. About preparing the lunch for him she carried in her basket. She’d made it because Jamie had told her, in passing, that most days his teacher didn’t get to eat his lunch. He was always giving it to a student for one reason or another. Jamie told her that the previous day, Mary Fisher had left hers at home on her kitchen table. Mary had eaten the teacher’s pork chop sandwich, his potato chips and peach cobbler. He’d had water from the pump outside.

  “Ethan.” She nodded, forcing a quick smile that came as fast as it went.

  He rose from his chair, setting a red ink pen on his desk. Her son disliked his red pen and the marks in the form of an X Ethan made on his math papers. “Where’s Jamie?” he asked.

  “Hiding, I think.” She nodded in the direction of the cloakroom.

  “From me?” He came around the big red oak desk that had to be fifty years old if not older.

  “From both of us, I think.”

  “You walked him to school. Because of the incident yesterday with Karl’s cows?” He leaned against th
e desk, crossing his arms over his chest. He had on the same clothes every Amish man in Kent County wore, denim trousers, suspenders and a long-sleeved colored shirt. His was a pale green, faded with years of laundering, but unblemished by rips or tears. On his feet, he wore a pair of black athletic sneakers.

  She glanced down at her own sneakers that were similar to his though hers were blue. “How did you hear? It was just yesterday.” She looked up at him.

  “Amish telegraph.” The corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. “That’s what my stepmother likes to call it. Let’s see...” He raised his thumb, counting. “Karl’s wife, Bitty, told Mary Fisher’s mother, Edna.” He held up his forefinger. “Who told my stepsister Lovey’s grandmother Lynita, who told Eunice Gruber.” He added two more fingers. “Who then told all of the women at the less-than-ten-items checkout register at Byler’s store.” He started counting on his other hand. “Who included my stepmother, Rosemary, and her friend Hannah Hartman.” He dropped both hands. “And Eunice, I have to warn you, has probably told every Amish woman in Hickory Grove by this morning. By tonight, I suspect the entire county will know. I give it a week to reach my great-aunt in Michigan.”

  Abigail, unable to help herself, chuckled. It had been the same way in Maple Shade, Wisconsin, where she’d come from. The women didn’t have telephones of course, but there was always gossip to be had. And it traveled fast. Sometimes the subject was the antics of a naughty boy or the details of someone’s cousin coming to visit after a betrothal breakup. But the good thing about the Amish telegraph was that the moment a member of the community was hurt or injured, or just needed a kind word, that was also shared, allowing the women to always be there for each other. And truth be told, the men gossiped, too; they were just less open about it.

  “Jamie won’t be riding anyone else’s cows,” Abigail told Ethan. “He’s promised. And as punishment, I’ll be walking him to and from school the rest of the week.”

  “Good thinking.” Ethan lifted an eyebrow, nodding in approval. “Nothing a boy his age hates more than having his mammi walk him to school.”

  They were both quiet for a moment. Awkwardly quiet. Then Abigail spoke up, her gaze fixed on the old floorboards. “I... I wanted to apologize for the other day. What I said about going to the school board about you. It’s only that... I was upset.” When Ethan didn’t respond, she glanced up at him.

  He was watching her. After another stretch of silence that seemed to go on for days rather than seconds, he said, “I understand. Parents. Children. It’s complicated.”

  The sound of children’s voices came from the cloakroom. Students were beginning to arrive, which was a relief because now that Abigail had made her apology, she didn’t have to stand here and talk to Ethan any longer. Just because she’d apologized didn’t mean she approved of the way he was handling Jamie. And she didn’t have time to dawdle anyway. She had chores waiting for her. It was Wednesday, which meant she had piles of dirty laundry to be washed and hung to dry on the line. She’d already hung a load of sheets and left the washer running. She had wet trousers and shirts waiting for her. “I... I packed a lunch for you.”

  “Lunch?” He looked at her questioningly. “I brought a lunch.”

  “I know, but... But Jamie said you don’t always get to eat it.” She handed him the basket, then, feeling embarrassed, took a step back. Who took lunch to their child’s teacher? “Chicken salad sandwich, a banana and a whoopie pie.” She took another step back. “I made the whoopie pies last night.”

  “Whoopie pie?” He peeked beneath the cloth napkin that covered the basket. “I do love a homemade whoopie pie. My mother used to make a great one. She passed a few years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Abigail said softly. Mention of his mother immediately made her think of her own. She couldn’t imagine losing her. She knew it would happen someday, in God’s good time, but not when Abigail was still so young. Even with her mother’s memory issues and strange behavior, Abigail still learned from her every day. June King still had plenty to offer not just to her daughter, but to her husband, grandson and community.

  “My mother always said I had a sweet tooth.” Ethan grimaced. “I’ve had whoopie pies store-bought, but they’re just not the same as made from scratch.”

  “Well, I hope you enjoy it. The whoopie pie. The lunch. I’ll be back to walk Jamie home after school.”

  He held up the basket. “Thank you. I’ll return the basket.”

  She nodded, walking backward. “No hurry.” She pressed her lips together and then said, “I guess I’ll be seeing you every day this week. Twice a day.” Then, feeling more like one of the teen girls in the coatroom than a widowed mother, she turned and hurried out of the schoolroom. That afternoon, she promised herself, she’d wait for her son at the end of the driveway. She wouldn’t come inside. That way she wouldn’t have to talk to Ethan again. In fact, if her son would behave himself, she’d never have to speak to him again.

  * * *

  Ethan approached four girls seated together at their desks near the rear of the classroom. The students were talking quietly, but there was clearly a disagreement going on. The third and fourth graders were working together on identifying all of the states on a US map. It was their second day on the project. The previous day, the girls had done pretty well on the East and West Coast, but they had struggled in the Midwest.

  “Questions?” Ethan asked, leaning over to address ten-year-old Liz Fisher who had been the self-appointed leader of the group since school had begun in September.

  Because he was trying to teach so many students of different ages and abilities, Ethan had found it helpful to divide them by approximate grades and then by boys and girls. There were some activities where girls and boys worked together, but often there was more hair pulling and squealing than concentration on lessons, so he didn’t do it often. Usually this group of girls, as with most of the girls in the school, were self-sufficient once given an assignment. That gave him more time to work with the boys or his three eighth-grade boys who wouldn’t likely be returning to school the following September. Most Amish families took their children out at that age. The girls would work in the houses and gardens with their mothers and boys on their farms with their fathers. The boys sometimes even got jobs in construction. Ethan had been fortunate enough that his father had encouraged him to complete high school, which enabled him to be a schoolteacher.

  “Hannah says that’s New Mexico,” Liz said in Deitsch, pointing at the outline of New Mexico.

  “English, please,” Ethan told her. His policy was to always speak English, unless a child didn’t understand something and then he would switch to Pennsylvania Deitsch. It was his belief, and the school board’s, that one of his duties as the schoolmaster was to be sure all of the students spoke English well enough to function in the Englishers’ world.

  Liz switched to English. “I told her and told her it was Arizona, but she won’t let me write it in.” She pointed at the paper on Hannah Gruber’s desk. While Liz was currently leader of the four of them, Hannah had been making a move for the position for weeks.

  “What do you think, Mary?” Ethan asked, turning his attention to the younger student. Mary Kutz, a nine-year-old, was Hannah’s cousin.

  Mary nibbled on her lower lip and whispered something. The child was painfully shy.

  “What was that?” Ethan asked. His inclination was to lean closer to her, but he was working hard to encourage Mary Kutz to speak up. She was an excellent student; he’d seriously considered moving her up at Christmas to the fifth-and sixth-year group, but he was worried she would wilt amid that set of bossy girls. What Mary needed more was not to be promoted to a higher grade, but to find a healthy dose of confidence.

  Ethan waited for Mary to repeat what she’d said.

  “New Mexico,” she murmured with a slight lisp. She pointed to the correct state. “Arizona.” She indicated that state, then rattled off three more, touching with her finger each state that was yet to be identified. “Utah, Colorado, Kansas,” she said.