A Simple Autumn: A Seasons of Lancaster Novel (7 page)

“Jonah?” He felt a hand on his arm. His sister Mary sat down beside him. “Can’t you
just tell her you’re sweet on her?” she asked.

Jonah sat upright, staring at his sister. “I was hoping no one noticed.”

“I always knew you were sweet on someone,” she said. “I didn’t know who until tonight.”

“Can you keep quiet about it?”

“Sure. Gossip is a sin. But, Jonah, this is Annie we’re talking about. She’s like
a sister to me, and you know her well.”

“Ya.” Maybe he knew her too well. “All those years we played together as kids … ice-skating
and horseback riding. Singing around a bonfire and picking apples. Sometimes I wonder
if she thinks of me as a brother.”

“Just talk to her.”

“No,” he answered flatly. “I’ve felt this way for a long time, but I don’t have the
gift of gab she has. I can’t say the first word to her, even about the simplest things
like the weather.”

Mary nodded sympathetically. “You’ve always been the Quiet One.”

He winced, as if burned by the old nickname.

“Well, I think you and Annie would make a very good couple.”

“Didn’t you hear her just now? She hates me.”

“She’s upset. And acting stubborn as a mule, if you ask me.”

“Stubborn or not … she doesn’t see me as a beau.” He drew in a breath, forcing himself
to face the truth. “She probably never will.”

“Maybe she just needs a little push.” Mary touched his arm. “I could drop a few hints.”

“Don’t say anything,” Jonah warned.

“I won’t give you up. But I am going to say something about her fit of temper. It’s
not like Annie to be so downright mean.”

“She’s just upset because she got hurt,” he said.

“Even so, that’s no excuse for snapping at you that way.”

“She’s upset,” he said. “I can forgive her.”

“Dear Jonah.” Mary squinted at him, shaking her head. “There you go sticking up for
her again.” She squeezed his arm. “You’ve got it bad.”

That was the truth. Leave it to Mary to hit the nail on the head.

And sometimes the truth was a very heavy hammer.

W
hat were those fellas saying to Emma?

Gabe King twisted away from his cousins Ben and Abe King to get a look. Emma was over
by the line of buggies, talking with David Fisher and Ruben Zook. Both boys were older
than Gabe, and neither one of them had a steady girl.

They’d better not set their sights on Emma
, Gabe thought as he leaned against the cart of hay that the horses were feeding from,
to get a better view of what was going on outside the barn.

People were starting to leave the singing. Adam and Remy were pulling out in a buggy.
Lizzy Mast was climbing into an open carriage with Amos Lapp.

“Now, that’s a new one—Amos and Lizzy,” Ben said, scraping a toe through the dirt.
“But I don’t think it will last.”

“Are you feeling bad because she’s not riding home with you?” Abe teased his brother.

“I didn’t even ask her!” Ben protested.

Abe shrugged. “Your loss.”

As his cousins teased each other, Gabe shot another look back at Emma. Still there.
He wanted to leave, but he didn’t want to get too far ahead of Emma. He would have
to pull off to the side of the road ahead and wait for her, and it wouldn’t do to
have everyone from the singing pass him by, stopping to ask if he was okay.

If only they could leave together like a normal couple. But no … he had to be dating
the schoolteacher, a girl who was stern about her reputation. “I have to be a model
for my students,” she always said. They had to court in secret. Sometimes Gabe wondered
why he didn’t go for a normal girl who worked on the family farm, scraping honeycomb
or baking pies.

What would Emma do if one of them asked if she wanted a ride home? There was a good
chance of that. With her bright eyes and smooth skin, Emma Lapp was a beauty, and
she had a smart way about her. And not just smart like a roomful of books. Emma saw
the light burning inside other people. She had a quick way of figuring out the things
a student could do well. She helped build up the good aspects of a person.

No one could make a person warm up inside the way that Emma did. Gabe understood why
fellas gathered around her at singings. They were on her like honeybees on a flower,
and he didn’t like that one bit.

He had known Emma Lapp since her family moved here. He’d been in the third grade when
she came to the one-room schoolhouse for the first time, with a tooth missing from
her smile and a quiet manner. Back then Emma and her brother Caleb didn’t get much
attention because their sister Elsie took it all. The small girl had a very big personality
that made the other children want to play with her.

But that first day he had watched Emma as she finished her work in the blink of an
eye. A smart one. But instead of showing off to the teacher, she had turned to help
Sadie with her arithmetic.

He had seen that she was good at heart, but he’d always thought she was too prim for
the likes of him. She would be lost in a book, while Gabe would be looking out the
window, longing to be home to do real work like cleaning the horses’ hooves or mending
the fence.

When he thought about it, it was surprising that he and Emma had gotten together at
all. For Gabe, math was for keeping records on the milk cows. And reading and writing?
He’d learned just enough to manage the farm if he needed to. But for Emma, every day
was about words and arithmetic problems and teaching children to read from the primer.

There couldn’t be two more different people under Gott’s big heaven. Even so, she
was the one girl who stuck in his mind.

It was his parents’ death that had brought them close.

It had happened during a cold spell in winter; those short, dark days when everyone
wants to sleep more. Even the cows.

A local man they trusted had turned on Levi and Esther King, killed them just like
that. Gabe didn’t like to think on those days much. The grief that fell over his family
was like a winter that refused to end, a coat of sadness heavy on the whole community.

Through it all, Gabe remembered Emma there, her brown hair pulled back neatly under
her kapp, her eyes shining silver as the moon during their darkest hours. She had
stood with the children in the cemetery as the simple funeral prayers had been said.
She had visited the house, bringing a covered dish and showering Leah and Susie and
Ruthie with attention. She had been especially good with Simon, talking to him even
when the terrible memories stole his voice and sent him sleepwalking through the house
at night like a verhuddelt person.

And when Simon wanted to believe that bears had killed their parents because it made
more sense than the terrible truth, Emma had bought him a book about bears. “So he
can have the facts,” she’d
said. Sometimes the things she said made her sound wise like Mammi Nell instead of
a young girl not yet nineteen.

“We best get going,” Abe said, drawing Gabe back to the present. Abe untied his horse
from the cart of hay that had been nearly emptied by the grazing animals. At singings
most couples tied their horse up to graze and left it hitched to the buggy because
it was too hard to hitch up a buggy in the dark.

Ben tipped his head closer to Gabe’s face. “You’re daydreaming. Thinking about the
need for speed?”

“What? No.” Gabe saw that Emma and the guys were gone, and his pulse beat a little
faster. Had she taken a ride? No … she wouldn’t have. But where was she?

Ben checked the harness on his horse. “Are you going to stick around here and hold
up that fence post all night?”

Gabe pushed away from the fence and found his buggy. “I’m right behind you.” He turned
on the boom box and a song filled the night. “Born in the USA!” the man’s voice crooned.

“Nice.” Ben tipped his hat back, listening for a moment. “Just mind you don’t wake
up the Eichers’ cows.”

Gabe smiled, turning down the volume. “Or the Eichers,” he said under his breath.
He waited until Ben rolled down the lane.
Let the others go first, so they won’t see me stopping
.

At last, the lane was clear and only a few stray buggies were left behind. Gabe turned
off the music—not wanting to call attention to their secret meeting. He signaled Mercury
and they started in a slow trot so that Gabe could watch for Emma on the side of the
road.

In the pitch-black night, lit only by scattered stars, he felt that pulse of tension.
It wasn’t safe for a young girl to be walking alone in the dark, especially with all
these buggies passing her by. He had learned the terrible things that could happen
along the side of a road. Sure, Amish youth walked and scootered these country roads
all the time, often after dark.

But thinking of Emma out here alone reminded Gabe of the dangers the night held. He
wanted her by his side. Safe in his arms.

A dark form by the side of the road made hope leap in his chest, but it turned out
to be nothing more than a lonely tree.

“Emma,” he called desperately. “Where are you?”

A
nnie shivered and tugged her sweater closed as Dapple pulled the open carriage away
from the singing. The night was dark, but ahead of them a line of half a dozen red
triangles seemed to float up the hill: the warning reflectors on the backs of buggies.

Annie knew that most of those buggies were heading home with courting couples inside.

She shivered again. “It’s cold. A sure sign that fall is really here.”

“Where’s the blanket?” Hannah turned in the seat beside her, squirming to reach into
the back of the buggy. “Got it.” Hannah unfolded the blanket and tucked it over their
legs. “Is that better?”

“Much better. Denki.” The buggy in front of them turned off to the right at the fork
in the road. “There goes Mary and Five.”

Hannah pulled the blanket up to her chin as she turned to watch them. “But that’s
not the way to the Kings’ farm.”

“They’ll take the long way home,” Annie said. “Courting couples like to ride around
for a while. Gives them a chance to talk.”

“I wish I had a beau.” There was a sad note in Hannah’s voice.

“It will happen for you, Hannah. Sooner or later.”

“It’s already later.” Hannah sighed. “I’m eighteen and I’ve never courted anyone.
I’m sure to be an
Alt Maedel
.”

Annie laughed out loud. “You can’t be an old maid so young! You’re just beginning
to court. If you were an old maid, then tongues would surely be wagging about me,
with no prospects in sight and even older than you.”

“You heard them?” Hannah’s voice was a whimper nearly drowned out by the clip-clop
of horses’ hooves.

Annie’s jaw dropped. “You mean …” She’d been joking, but now the joke was on her.
Her good mood began to fade. Were people really talking about her because she didn’t
have a beau? “Do folks say I’m going to be an old maid?”

Hannah pressed her palms to her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have told you! I’m sorry. And
now I have to close my eyes for the bridge. It always scares me.” She lifted the rough
blanket and ducked her head underneath.

Hannah had always been afraid to go over the Halfway Mill Covered Bridge. The echoing
noises and darkness inside the wood structure had spooked her since she was a child.

“I’ll tell you when it’s over.” Annie had always found the old wooden bridge to be
comforting. The cozy wood overhead and the sound bouncing around made her feel like
she was attending a singing in a barn.

Tonight she was grateful to have a minute to sort through her thoughts. With her eyes
on Dapple’s bobbing head, she mulled over her childhood dreams. Maybe it was her fault
for pinning her hopes on Adam. They had never courted—not really—but she had spent
a lot of time with him. Mary King was her best friend, and in their younger years
the two girls had spent every spare moment with each other, playing games or running
the summer produce stand or baking cookies and pies.

Annie had always admired Mary’s brother Adam. From the time he was a boy he could
build things—birdhouses and boxes in the beginning, then cabinets and chairs. She
had liked his shiny black hair and had always wondered what was going on behind those
smoky brown eyes. Then came the time when Annie and Mary came upon Adam building a
hope chest in the woodshop.

“Are you going to sell it?” Mary had asked her older brother.

“I don’t want to,” Adam had answered. “I’d like to keep it.”

“What for?” Mary had asked.

“Maybe for the girl I marry.” At that moment Adam’s eyes had landed on Annie … and
she’d been sure he was talking about her.

That was the day Annie had started to plan. Annie loved planning, and she realized
if she married Adam, she and Mary could remain close friends forever.

But it was not to be.

The air grew light around them and echoes faded as they emerged from the covered bridge.
“You can come out now, scaredy-cat.”

Hannah’s face peeked out from the blanket. “I wish they would take the cover off that
bridge.”

“Tourists love it,” Annie said, still stuck on her worries. “Those girls who are talking
about me … What exactly are they saying?”

“One of the girls in the group getting baptized said—Oh, I don’t want to gossip, Annie.
I won’t tell you her name, but she said she hopes she doesn’t end up twenty years
old with no beau in sight.”

Annie’s cheeks blazed with embarrassment, a fire that no amount of wind could cool.
“No beau in sight … that much is true,” she admitted.

Hannah touched her arm. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, I’m glad you told me, even if the truth hurts.”

“Well, the best way to make them stop talking that way is to start courting someone.”

“I don’t know about that.” Annie swallowed over the lump in her throat. She couldn’t
think of a single young man in their district who she’d take a ride with. And certainly
there was no one she would kiss.