An Amish Holiday Courtship Read online

  She sighed. Joe was late to pick her up and take her home.

  Molly ran to the steps and dropped the stick at Ginger’s feet. When Ginger didn’t pick it up, the dog gave a subdued woof.

  Ginger scratched the shaggy black-and-white dog’s head. “Go away. I don’t want to play anymore.”

  The dog put one paw and then the other on the bottom step, pushing the stick closer. Ginger remembered when Eli had found the dog as a puppy in a cardboard box in the parking lot of Byler’s store. Abandoned. Eli had brought it home, bottle-fed the pup goat’s milk and named her Molly when he knew she was going to make it. She was such a well-behaved dog that Ginger wondered if Molly sensed what a good life she had on the Kutz farm and wanted to express her appreciation.

  Molly whined and pushed the stick at Ginger again.

  Ginger laughed. “All right. Just once more.” She tossed the stick, and the dog took off as the screen door opened and closed behind her.

  It was Andrew, Eli’s middle son. He was a sweet, thoughtful boy with a mop of reddish-blond hair and a pair of round wire-frame glasses that made him look older than his seven-going-on-eight years. “Dat says you should come back inside,” he said in Pennsylvania Deitsch.

  “I’m waiting for my ride home,” she explained.

  Molly raced up to the steps again, stick in her mouth, and Andrew accepted it from her and threw it hard. It landed on the far side of the driveway, and the dog took off after it.

  “Getting cold out,” Andrew said, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, something his father often did. “It’s warm in the kitchen.”

  Ginger smiled up at him from her perch on the top step. “I’m fine. I’m sure Joe will be here any minute. He’s in charge of a lot of men. He can’t just quit at four like your dat.” This was the second time Joe had been late that week. When he’d been late last time, he’d spent the entire ride home explaining to her how central he was to his uncle’s entire construction business. Still, she felt as if she was making an excuse for Joe when she said it aloud.

  The boy wandered back into the house. A minute later, the screen door opened and closed shut again.

  “I sent Andrew out to get you.”

  Ginger looked up to see Eli. He had washed his face as he did every day after he returned home from work, and she could see that his hair was damp at the temples. It was an auburn color, darker than her sister Bay’s or Tara’s red hair, and he kept it well trimmed. She liked that. “Joe’s running late. A problem at one of the job sites, I’m sure,” she said.

  Eli slid his hands into his pants pockets and gazed out at the barnyard.

  It was a small farm, maybe twenty-five acres, with a neat little two-story square bungalow with a wide porch along the driveway side. The yard comprised a series of standard Amish outbuildings: a dairy barn, a lean-to shed for farm equipment, a windmill, a chicken house and a woodshed. Everything was painted, neat and orderly. What was interesting to Ginger about the property was that unlike most Amish houses, which were painted white, his was a spruce green. Not Plain, but not too fancy, either.

  Ginger pressed her lips together. She didn’t often wish for Englisher conveniences, but it was times like this that she almost wished she had a cell phone. Then Joe could have let her know he was going to be late. That he’d gotten held up. Most Amish families in Hickory Grove had a cell phone these days. However, they were only used for emergencies, or when someone worked for Englishers and had to check in with their boss. Her mother and stepfather didn’t have a cell at their house because there was a phone in the harness shop.

  “Starting to rain again,” Eli remarked. “Might turn to sleet. Why don’t you wait inside with us?”

  She tightened her heavy cloak around her. She was getting cold. And she was disappointed that Joe was late again. It would be dark soon. She watched Molly for a moment. The dog had grown bored with the game of fetch and was now digging at the base of a big silver maple tree that, in the summer, shaded the porch. She gazed up at Eli.

  He tipped his head in the direction of the back door. “Come on,” he coaxed. “You can wait inside for him where it’s warm as easily as you can sit out here in the cold.”

  He had a gentle way about him. A calmness that made Ginger feel like... Like everything was going to be all right. Always.

  “Lizzy just woke up and she was disappointed you were gone,” Eli continued. “She’d be tickled to see you.”

  Ginger rose, looked in the direction of the road once more, then followed Eli into the house. The fragrant smell of the roast beef she’d left in the oven hit her the moment she stepped into the mudroom. She removed her coat and bonnet, stepped out of her rubber boots and into the spare slippers she kept there now. At first, she had thought it odd that Eli didn’t allow shoes inside his house, but now she liked the idea. It kept the floors so much cleaner that she was thinking maybe once she and Joe were married, she’d establish the same rule in her home. She’d set a bench in the mudroom just like Eli had, and when Joe came home from work, he could sit on the bench, remove his barn boots and slip into a pair of cozy slippers she would make for him.

  The daydream made her smile.

  “Ginger!” Lizzy cried the moment Ginger stepped into the kitchen. “I thought you was gone.” The little girl was seated at one end of the kitchen table with a basket of fabric scraps and buttons. She was sewing little bits of fabric together the way Ginger had shown her, the same way Ginger’s mother had taught her a very long time ago. “Look, it’sh me.” She held up a rectangle of fabric two inches tall with a yellow button sewn on for a head.

  “It is!” Ginger agreed.

  On the far end of the kitchen table was a brightly colored tin Chinese checkers board, all set for two players. Andrew was leaning against the table, playing with an old hinge he’d found outside.

  “You want to play?” Ginger asked him, pointing at the game.

  Andrew made a face. “Nah.”

  “You like Chinese checkers?” Eli asked Ginger, looking surprised.

  “I love it.”

  “I’ll play you then. I love the game, too. I know it’s simple. More of a child’s game, but—” He shrugged. He was standing at the stove, stirring the succotash Ginger had put on. “I played it with my dat many a night, even when I was no longer a boy.”

  “I used to play with my dat all the time, too.” The memory made her smile. He’d been gone five years now. “We took turns playing him, my sisters and me. No one could beat him but me. Though that didn’t happen often,” she admitted.

  “I was always pretty good myself.” He walked toward the table, drying his hands on a dish towel. “Let’s see if I can beat you.”

  She glanced at the stove. “The roast should be ready in half an hour or so. The potatoes should—”

  “Just turned them on,” he said, sliding into the chair at the head of the table where the board was set up. He tapped the chair to his right. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  Eli smiled at Ginger across the round, colorful tin board that looked old and well loved. Bought new, the game board sometimes contained pegs instead of marbles. This one was marbles—red and green—set up in triangles across from each other. “You go first.”

  She took the chair. She had been on the verge of falling into a sour mood due to Joe’s tardiness, but now she was smiling. “You sure you want to play me? You won’t be embarrassed in front of your daughter, will you?” She indicated Lizzy, who was engrossed with her sewing.

  He made a face at Ginger. “Why would I be embarrassed?”

  She laughed. “When I beat you.” And then she took her turn.

  Ginger didn’t beat Eli on the first game, but she did the second. They laughed and chatted while playing, taking turns getting up to check the potatoes and the succotash bubbling on the stove. Eli told her a funny story about one of the boys, sixteen years o
ld and new to the building crew, who had played a practical joke on the father, who was also on the crew. The boy had opened their lunch boxes and passed his father a sandwich made with chocolate chip cookies between the slices of bread instead of meat and cheese. The joke had been on the boy because his father had eaten every bite, remarking how good the sandwich was. And Ginger had told Eli about her twin sister, Bay’s growing greenhouse and garden shop business. Bay had started it with Benjamin’s son Joshua, and even though there were other greenhouses in the area, their customers were increasing each week. They were planning to have a Christmas shop this year selling fresh-picked greenery and homemade wreaths and garlands, and were even going to give a workshop on how to make a fresh wreath.

  “We should play again,” Eli dared when they finished the second game and were tied.

  “Supper is ready.” She pointed to the stove. The roast was resting on the stovetop. They’d prepared the potatoes together between turns at the game board. Eli had mashed; she had added just the right amount of buttermilk and salt.

  “Supper can wait,” Eli told Ginger. He glanced at Lizzy, still sitting at the other end of the table, busy with her scraps of fabric.

  “The children are hungry,” Ginger argued.

  “They’re not hungry. I bet they ate cookies all day.” He looked at his daughter. “Lizzy, you’re not hungry, are you?”

  The three-year-old looked up from her project. “Ya. I want potatoesh. I’m tired of shoup.”

  Ginger raised her brows at Eli as if to say “I told you so.”

  “Then you should eat with us, Ginger.” He got up from the table, taking the checkerboard with him. “And I won’t take no for an answer. You made enough roast beef for two suppers.”

  “The extra is for you to pack for lunch tomorrow.”

  “Still too much,” he noted. “I can’t eat an entire roast for lunch. I’d be napping away the afternoon instead of working.”

  Ginger chuckled as she checked the clock on the wall. Joe was almost two hours late. She glanced out the window. And it was dark now. She wasn’t sure what to do: start walking home, have something to eat and wait or—

  The unmistakable sound of hoofbeats and buggy wheels came from outside and was immediately joined by the sound of Molly barking.

  “He’s here! I best go.” Ginger leaped up from the chair and hurried to put on her boots and cloak. “It was fun to play checkers,” she called over her shoulder.

  Eli offered a quick smile and then turned to the stove. “Ya. See you tomorrow.”

  Something in the sound of his voice made her turn back to look at him. His gaze met hers, and he held it for a moment. The way he was looking at her made her feel strange. Strange but not uncomfortable. There was...a warmth in his gaze. “See you tomorrow,” she repeated. Then she hurried outside, putting a bright smile on her face. “Joe!” she called to him. Feeling somehow upended, she didn’t look back at the house, even though she knew Eli was standing in the doorway, watching her go.

  * * *

  On a Thursday just after noon, Ginger put the finishing touches on the wedding table called the eck, where her newly married friends Mary Lewis and Caleb Gruber would share their first meal as man and wife. It was the Amish tradition for a woman to marry in her parents’ home, but there were so many wedding guests, Mary’s family had transformed the family’s barn into a beautiful dining room. They had swept and scrubbed the cement floor until it was as clean as a kitchen floor. Then they had hung white bedsheets to hide the barn walls and stalls and they’d set up more than a dozen tables and covered them with fine tablecloths. Benches and chairs had been added to seat a hundred and fifty guests, and then the whole makeshift room had been transformed with white china and colored glass dishware, bales of straw, pumpkins and vases of fall grasses and leaves. Ginger and the other single girls had adorned the eck not just with miniature white and orange pumpkins and mums and marigolds, but also with paper hearts as well as vases of celery, which was an Amish tradition. And now that the wedding ceremony was over and Mary and Caleb were wed, the traditional dinner would be served.

  The ceremony had been typical for Kent County Old Order Amish with a three-hour morning church service. Preacher Barnabas, Caleb’s father, had given a long sermon based on the book of Tobit, which had always been one of Ginger’s favorite books of the Bible. The sermon was followed by hymns sung by wedding guests while Mary and Caleb met alone with the bishop for last-minute scriptural and personal words of wisdom. Then the couple had joined the congregation and made their vows, before friends and family, to care for each other and remain faithful until death parted them. The wedding ceremony ended with the couple and the guests kneeling for a final prayer led by Mary’s bishop. And now everyone was ready to celebrate with the wedding dinner, which would be followed by more singing, visiting, matchmaking and the bride and groom opening their gifts. The day would wrap up with a wedding supper for a smaller crowd.

  It was a big wedding with not only family and friends attending from Hickory Grove and Rose Valley, but from as far away as Kansas and Kentucky. With the ceremony complete, the women were now preparing to put on the midday meal. There would be roast chicken and beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, cabbage, dinner rolls, canned pears, canned peaches and Jell-O salads. And of course no Amish wedding dinner was complete without the traditional creamed celery dish.

  As Ginger put a finishing touch on a garland of wheat sheaves draped across the front of the eck, she spotted Joe. He was standing in a knot of young, unmarried men, all in their twenties. Her stepbrother Levi was among them. Levi, who was home visiting from Lancaster County, where he was serving an apprenticeship as a buggy maker, had stood up with Caleb during the wedding ceremony. He and Mary’s friend Alma, who also stood up with the couple, would join the newlyweds at the eck.

  Like all of the weddings Ginger had attended, the ceremony had been solemn and beautiful in its simplicity. In his final comments, the bishop had emphasized the unbreakable holy bond created by marriage and the importance of this bond, not only to the couple but to the entire church community.

  Ginger stood there at the bride and groom’s table for a moment, hoping Joe would notice her. When he didn’t, she waved at him, trying inconspicuously to get his attention.

  Levi caught Ginger’s eye and knitted his eyebrows questioningly. It was apparent he didn’t approve of her behavior.

  Ginger returned her attention to the table, straightening the silverware and wondering what he knew about her and Joe. The previous night, when Levi had arrived home, their sister Tara had chewed his ear off, telling him all of the news in Hickory Grove, and Ginger was certain she had heard her name spoken. She hoped she would get a chance to talk to Levi alone before he returned to Lancaster on Saturday. Levi had dated quite a bit since he moved to Pennsylvania, so she was hoping he might have some advice to give her as to how to navigate her relationship with Joe. She didn’t want to be forward, but she also wanted to make it clear to Joe that she was a good girl and that her intention in dating him was to look toward a public courtship and then marriage.

  Ginger’s gaze fell on Joe, and she waved again. This time he saw her. She smiled the way she knew boys liked to be smiled at. Then she looked around to be sure her mother wasn’t watching her, because if she was, she’d have something to say about Ginger being too flirty. The day before, while baking noodle casseroles to bring to the wedding, her mother had made an offhand remark about how if a girl had to chase a boy, chances were, he didn’t want to be caught. She hadn’t said it directly to Ginger, but Ginger had known the comment was meant for her.

  Luckily, her mother was nowhere in sight. She was probably up at the house, helping Mary’s aunts prepare the wedding dinner. Ginger had offered to help in the kitchen, but the aunts had sent her and several other unmarried girls away, telling them this was the time to socialize with wedding guests. “Never know when ther
e might be another groom in the crowd,” Mary’s aunt Dorcas had said with a giggle.

  At last, Joe acknowledged Ginger with a nod. He said something to the other men in the group and then slowly made his way around two tables to where she was standing at the eck. He was dressed similarly to the other male wedding guests: black pants and shirtwaist; white, long sleeve shirt; and clean black shoes. But he was so handsome that he stood out among the Kent County boys like a glittering diamond in a sack of acorns.

  Standing in front of the eck, watching Joe walk toward her, Ginger thought dreamily of her own wedding and eck. She imagined sitting at the table beside Joe, sharing dinner, laughing with her guests and holding Joe’s hand under the table. Everyone would comment on how perfect they were for each other and what a handsome couple they made. She wondered how big a wedding it would be. Would they invite a lot of guests, or would they make it a quieter affair? Would they go straight to Lancaster to set up housekeeping at Joe’s house, or would they hire a van and go visiting, as many newlyweds did before setting up their home, staying with friends and relatives as far away as California or Canada?

  “Nice service,” Ginger said to Joe. “A hundred and fifty guests.”

  “Ya.” Joe took a toothpick from a tiny crock on the eck and thrust it between his teeth.

  Her first impulse was to chastise him. He wasn’t supposed to be taking things from the eck. It was bad manners. But she held her tongue, reminding herself that rules were different in Lancaster.

  Rather than looking at her, Joe’s gaze wandered over the crowd as he spoke. “Not as big as the weddings we have in Lancaster. Last year, we had four hundred for my sister Trudy’s wedding. We put up a kitchen tent to make all of the food.”

  “So you like a big wedding?” she asked, gazing up at him with a smile. He was freshly shaven, and if she didn’t know better, she would have thought she smelled cologne on him. Amish men and women didn’t wear colognes or perfumes. But that didn’t mean a young man, thinking himself still in his rumspringa, didn’t cross such a small line—especially one who hadn’t been baptized, like Joe. During a young man’s or woman’s rumspringa, parents and elders allowed a certain amount of freedom.