A Promise for Miriam (7 page)

“Miriam sent the basket,” Eli explained. “I offered to help Grace with it, but she assured me she could handle it.”

Gabe had noticed that Eli referred to Grace as if she spoke, and indeed it was as if Grace had her own language. Problem was, most people were too busy to catch on to it. The fact that the older gentleman took the time and had the patience to “hear” her softened Gabe’s attitude quite a bit. He’d refused the man’s offer for help twice already—once on the fences and another time on the barn.

He refused partly because he was determined he could do it on his own, and partly because he didn’t want to be indebted to anyone.

“Grace has a stubborn streak,” Gabe admitted, leaning against the door of the buggy. “She’d nearer fall over than ask for help carrying something.”

He reached down and took the basket from her, wondering what in the world the schoolteacher could have possibly sent home. Given the way they had parted on Sunday, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was a basket of rocks with a note telling him she’d been for an evening walk, spotted the pile, and thought of his brain. He smiled at the thought. It would serve him right.

“Guess today’s work went better, given that grin on your face.” Eli adjusted his coat—a not too subtle hint at how cold it was with the door open.

“Absolutely,” Gabe said. “I only had to chase the bull half the morning, and I didn’t fall off the barn’s roof once.”

Eli laughed. “If you change your mind about wanting some help, say the word.”

“Sure will.” Gabe was surprised to find he meant it. Not that he expected to ask for help, but if he ever did, Eli would be the man he’d want beside him. If he could trust Eli with his daughter, he could certainly trust him with a fence or a roof.

Waving as they walked away, he glanced down at Grace and wiggled his right eyebrow. “Basket, huh? Doesn’t feel like there’s a kitten in here. Don’t think anything’s squirming.”

She shook her head so hard her
kapp
strings circled back and forth.

“Not sure what it could be if it’s not a kitten. Maybe we should throw it over the fence to Snickers. She’d like a surprise.”

Grace nearly dropped her lunch box, and then she ran in front of him so she could turn and walk backward.

“What, you don’t want me to give our horse what’s in this basket? So it must be…food?”

The smile that spread across his daughter’s face told him he’d guessed right, though he couldn’t imagine what type of food Miriam might have sent. Poison popped into his mind, but he didn’t think he’d angered her that much.

Then again, the woman did seem to have a temper.

No, if he was honest with himself, it wasn’t anger he’d stirred in her. It was hurt. He’d set out to wound her, to convince her to back away from him and Grace, and he’d succeeded—at least for a few days.

Apparently, based on the size of the basket, she was back.

Miriam set aside the stack of English papers she was grading. They were interesting enough. She’d asked each student to write about their fondest Christmas memory. Even the youngest of her students had amusing stories, but when she reached Grace’s, her worries had consumed her once more.

My bestest Memory is being with my mamm and my dat before The
very Bad night
.

The words “very bad night” were written in tiny letters.

Mamm had sewed me a very pretty green dress. I sat on the couch between them in my dress, and knew I was the Luckiest girl in the world. Then dat Pretended he heard a Knock at the dooR. When he opened it, a small box Was there and it had my name on it. I opened the box and found a doll with a dress exactly like mine—same coloR, same style, even same kapP. I knew my mamm made it. I could tell the way her Eyes got all crinkly when I hugged her. That’s my Bestest memory.

P.S. I still Have that doll.

Miriam wandered over to the window. Darkness had fallen more than an hour ago, so there was little that she could see other than the quarter moon and a hint of her reflection in the pane of glass. She certainly couldn’t see any answers to the questions troubling her heart.

“It’s not as if he’s going to return the casserole dish and dump it on our doorstep tonight.” Esther glanced up from the quilt top she was nearly finished with. Somehow she’d managed to complete all her grading while Miriam had been worrying over Grace—over Gabe, if she were honest with herself.

“Of course he won’t. He’ll wait until morning when all the children can see him reject my cooking—”

“Our cooking.”

“
Our
cooking. What difference does it make?” Miriam flopped onto the couch, which separated their sitting area from the bedroom they shared. “It doesn’t matter who cooked it. The man is stubborn and determined not to accept help.”

“Remind me again why
we
cooked a delicious chicken casserole and sent it with Grace?”

Miriam didn’t answer at first, mesmerized as Esther’s needle quilted perfect stitches across the fabric. She had always been a good quilter, but her impending wedding added an urgency to her sewing. At least if the teachers were ever trapped in with a winter storm, they wouldn’t want for covers.

“Miriam? Hello?”

“
Ya
. I’m still here. Just unfocused a bit.”

“I’ll say. I’m usually the one losing the thread of the conversation.” Glancing up, Esther gave her a teasing smile. “I’m not letting you off the hook so easily. Explain to me why we sent food you think Gabe Miller won’t eat.”

Miriam waved Esther’s skepticism away with her hand even as she slipped off her shoes and pulled her feet up beside her on the couch. “You would have sent food too if you had seen how the man cooks. I actually thought there was a fire when I first walked into his house.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Yes. I guess his
mamm
never taught him how to cook.”

“He probably didn’t need to learn. His
fraa
cooked for them before…” Esther’s hands paused and she looked up, concern coloring her young features. “Do you know how long it’s been since Grace’s
mamm
passed?”

“No. I don’t believe he’s told anyone.”

“Do you think it has anything to do with Grace’s not talking?”

“I’ve no reason to believe it does. Certainly it is traumatic to lose a parent, but children do. I’ve never known it to steal one’s speech.”

“We had that boy last year who reverted to thumb-sucking.” Esther stared across the room. “It was always worse after lunch. As soon as one of us would start reading, he’d pop his thumb right into his mouth.”

“Isaiah. I remember him very well. I wonder how they like their new district.”

Esther resumed her quilting. “I’m sure they like it fine. I’ve heard the northern districts have good farmland and lots of it. Your giving him paper to draw while we read—that was a smart idea.”

“It’s hard to suck your thumb while you’re busy.”

“And where did you find the book about thumb-sucking? What was the name of it?”

“The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Habit
, which was actually about nail-biting.”

“But he understood.”

“Yes, and I think it helped him to laugh about it.”

“Where did you find that book?” Esther glanced up at her.

“The librarian in Cashton recommended it. I was out of ideas, so I went and asked her.” Miriam ran her fingers through her hair, combing out the braid that had held it all day. “Books can sometimes help us find our way out of a corner we’ve walked into.”

“Maybe you could send a cookbook home with Grace. Then her father wouldn’t need our cooking.” Esther looked pleased she had thought of the idea, but something told Miriam that Gabe Miller would not take the time to read a book she sent with Grace.

Same as he hadn’t read the notes she’d sent the first week Grace had been in school, and that was before she’d made him angry.

“I shouldn’t have pushed so hard and so early. He probably does know what is best for his
dochder.
They needed time to adjust. How long have they been in our community? Less than a month? But I expected him to trust me with my new ideas.”

Esther didn’t say anything. Instead, she set aside her quilting, walked into the kitchen, and returned a few minutes later with two cups of hot herbal tea. Sitting next to Miriam on the couch, she handed her one.

After Miriam had taken a sip, which made her feel better, she said, “That’s it? That’s all you have for me? Hot tea?”

“No. But I thought I’d let you stew a little longer before I straightened you out.”

Miriam laughed for the first time all night.

“You’re a
gut
teacher, Miriam. You know that and I know that.”

“You are too—”

“Listen. Don’t talk.” Esther’s eyes danced in amusement over her cup as she took another sip of the fragrant brew. “I’m a fair teacher, and I know it. I enjoy working with the older kinner, and it’s been a
wunderbaar
thing for me until my time to marry. But it’s different with you.”

Esther tucked her feet underneath her. “You love your students as if they were your own. That’s why you pushed Grace and why you pushed her
dat.
He pushed back. So what? Let him lick his wounds. He’s a big man. He’ll be all right.”

Miriam studied her friend for a moment and realized again how much she would miss her next year. “You’re sure?”

“About which part?”

“All of it.”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure.” She set her empty cup of tea on the end table and then moved back to the rocker to resume quilting.

The night settled around them. Miriam picked up a book and began reading it. She’d almost put Gabe Miller from her mind when Esther started giggling.

“Something funny about that quilt?”

“I was trying to imagine how mad he was on Sunday.”

“Pretty mad. Face scrunched up, creases between the eyes, jaw clenched…you know the look.”

Esther quilted a few more stitches. “Any idea if he’s keeping pigs?”

“Pigs?”

“
Ya
. I was thinking if he’s still as angry as he was, he might be feeding our casserole to his pigs. Wouldn’t that be a sad use of our cooking? We try to do a good deed by sharing our dinner—using up the extra we were going to cook next week—and Gabe Miller feeds it to the pigs.”

“I don’t see why that’s so funny.”

“Maybe you could write a story about it.” Esther kept sewing and rocking. “Submit it to the
Budget.
And you could give it to Grace to illustrate. Who knows? It might be the thing to get her talking again.”

“I don’t believe they print fiction.”

“Your story could be the first, and it wouldn’t exactly be fiction.”

Miriam might be a good teacher, but she recognized a terrible idea when she heard one. Putting her and Gabe Miller’s fight into the
Budget
was not something she would be doing—even in fictional form. But Esther’s idea did start her thinking about Grace and ways she might coax the girl into talking.

Nothing that would anger Gabe of course. She wouldn’t want to repeat that encounter. Perhaps she could think of a way to motivate the little girl. She’d learned from experience that every child was inspired by something different. She’d already figured out that Grace was a teacher-pleaser. All she had to do now was come up with a way to combine her teacher-pleasing urge with what Miriam wanted—what deep down inside Gabe wanted.

Put those two things together, and the result might be a little girl’s beautiful voice.

Chapter 7

T
hree hours after she’d gone to bed, Miriam continued to toss and turn beneath the covers. She’d flopped back and forth so often she was sure she had the quilt wrapped completely around her like one of the ancient Egyptian mummies the older Stutzman boy had given a report on last week.

Her younger students enjoyed listening to the reports from Esther’s older students. Miriam knew it was partly a bit of hero worship—the younger boys looked up to the older boys, even though they were shy about admitting it. And the younger girls trusted the older children completely—both boys and girls. They made a nice, extended family in their little schoolhouse.

And like every family, they had their share of problems.

Staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, she forced herself to remain still and focus on a solution.

What was the problem, though?

Gabe Miller? Or Grace Miller?

An image of the young girl popped into her mind, and Miriam relaxed. Grace was a good student. She completed her assignments eagerly. She played well with other students.

Miriam tossed onto her right side.

Grace played well with other students, but not all students played well with Grace. There had been several times in the last two weeks that she had heard other children teasing her—heard and corrected them. The trouble was that she couldn’t always be present to defend Grace, and neither could Gabe.

Problem number one—Grace needed her voice so she could defend herself.

Miriam knew her students very well. The students who teased Grace weren’t bad children. Misguided perhaps, but not bad. They did what the young do in every species—Miriam had watched young bucks at play—they picked on the weak. She’d thought it was terrible when she’d watched a wounded yearling being harassed by other young bucks. She was fifteen years old at the time, and her father had asked her to keep him company as he studied the deer grazing in his oat patch a week before the start of hunting season.