Arms of Love (24 page)

I
would not alarm
Fater
,” Lena whispered to Ruth on Tuesday in the early morning light of the kitchen. John stood nearby, tapping an idle foot and balancing a long rifle with ease between his hands.

“Well, ye alarm me, that’s what, luv!”

“Shhhh,” Lena said, snatching up her basket and tying the strings beneath her straw hat. “Ruth, please, you know we need sewing supplies if we are to make your dresses. John and I can be to town and back in a few hours. John found out yesterday that Timothy Stolzfus can give us a ride on his wagon while he goes to fetch some hides from the tannery. We will buy our few things and walk back before the sun is high overhead. And John will take the gun.”

Ruth shook her head. “If ye’ve a mind to do it, I cannot stop a body. But I know how short coin is around here. Since we will be sewin’ fer me, you’ll be taking my coin.” She raised a warning finger as Lena opened her mouth to protest. “And not a word . . . I saved a bit from the fire, and ye’ll take it or I’ll drop two kettles on the floor and have your father out here in the curl of a cat’s tail.”

Ruth had bustled to the small shelf where her belongings were kept. Lena watched her gather a few coins together, and then she came and pressed them into her hand. Then she approached John, who frowned but did not look away. “I may not be anything near as good as yer mother was to you, John, but I was young once myself and enjoyed a good licorice pull. Take this coin and buy a treat for yerself.”

For a long moment Lena feared her
bruder
would refuse, but then he shifted the gun and took the coin with a brief dip of his head and a mumbled thanks. Ruth smiled.

“All right, go on with ye both then. I’ll keep yer father’s mind from worryin’ if I can.”

Lena slipped out with a grateful smile, followed by John, just in time to catch the passing wagon, which was piled high with the hides of many animals, the results of a winter’s trapping. Lena disliked the woodsy smell, but gamely let her legs dangle next to her brother’s out of the back of the wagon. The day was hot but beautiful, and she enjoyed looking at the trail in the woods disappearing then turning on itself as the wagon progressed. It seemed they were in Lancaster in no time, and she thanked their distant neighbor with a curtsy and a bow of her head.

She had to hustle John away from the various shops where he was wont to wander, but she had a short list and made her way through the crowds with a brisk step. They arrived at one of the many dry goods shops in Lancaster, and she agreed that John might be permitted to wait outside so long as he did not slip off somewhere.

“I mean it, John. You be right here. I will only take a few minutes.”

John rolled his eyes at her but gave an obedient nod.

Once inside the shop, Lena was overwhelmed by the number of items and the cavalcade of scents. She had not been in such a place since she was a child and
Fater
had taken them on a trip to town. Now she gazed surreptitiously around at the shelves full of china, pottery, textiles, wooden ware, brass, and all sorts of sundries.

She passed a display featuring fine soaps, scents, and powders, labeled from around the colonies. She was surprised to see products being sold for men’s grooming as well, in addition to men’s hats in strange shapes and materials.

In spite of her good intentions, her eye was drawn by a glass counter revealing jewelry, mirrors, bottles, ribbon, decorations, and other necessary means for making a woman fashionable. Then she saw ready-made clothes for men and women, which seemed very strange to her considering that all she wore had been made by hand at home. But there were stockings, shifts, shirts, gowns, short gowns, petticoats, and so much more.

She thought about John when she saw books and materials on watercolors, penmanship, and art. She looked at candles in decorative holders and picked up something labeled a “sachet,” which really seemed to her a fancy word for naturally dried herbs and spices stuffed into small burlap bags. She was considering how she might make such delicate things herself at home when she realized that two women, fashionably if oddly hatted, were studying her simple garb and head covering.

“A farm girl,” one woman hissed, wearing what looked like a powdered meringue cookie on her head.

“We had a hired girl like her . . . Amish . . . stole my best string of pearls,” her beribboned companion said a bit overloud.

Lena flushed. She clung a bit harder to her basket and turned her back on the two women, instead moving to the textile counter where a middle-aged man with a great mustache gazed at her with a cheery smile and warm eyes.

“Hello, miss. Havin’ a sale on tobacco cloth. Makes right nice curtains and valances, if you like.”

Lena shook her head. “No, thank you,” she murmured. “We do not make window dressings and the like.”

The shopkeeper smiled. “That so? Say, you’re Aim-ish, right?”

Lena nodded, wondering if she would be met with the same derision as the two female customers had offered her, but the man went on in a pleasant manner.

“Well, then, what can I help you with today?”

She studied the textiles available behind the man. Of course, some of the cotton and linen wefts and warps she could have made herself at home, but she had precious little time for weaving, and Ruth needed clothing now. She decided on a fine tow fabric in black that seemed to match one of her mother’s dresses and a bit of
dobbelstein
, a checkered blue and white, for an apron; there was no need for Ruth to dress like an Amish woman.

“Got some linsey-woolsey on special sale,” the shopkeeper remarked as he cut her fabric choices with large shears and a deft air.

Lena considered. Linsey-woolsey had a linen warp and a woolen weft, a combination of fibers that produced a warm, durable cloth more often used for winter clothing. She thought a warm apron would not be amiss for Ruth, no matter how long she stayed with them, and bought two yards.

Back on the street with her wrapped packages, she realized that there was no sign of John and she sighed. After the goings-on in the shop with the unkind women, she simply wanted to get home and away from the crowds.

She allowed herself to drift past the next few shops, standing on tiptoe to see if she could catch a glimpse of her
bruder
. Then she remembered his behavior at their father’s trial and she felt a growing sense of alarm. Suppose John had found his town friend with the slingshot again? She turned back toward the store, unsure which way to search. A green parasol passed her line of vision and she felt herself hauled with ruthless suddenness away from the crowd and into the darkness of an alley. A large, dirty hand cut off her scream with brutal force . . .

“I still believe I might have gone after them,” Samuel Yoder remarked to Ruth as they stood in the burgeoning kitchen garden. He had told Ruth that he needed a few days more to get his strength back before setting to mulch the apple trees, and in the meantime, would help out in the kitchen garden.

Abigail was busily sowing onions, humming softly to herself as she kept the row even by using a long, thin board.

Ruth stepped lightly between rows of growing things. “No fretting now, Mr. Samuel. They’re probably on their way back right now.”

“I suppose you’re right. And please, you know me a little now, Ruth. I wish that you would call me Samuel.”

There was some unidentified current of warmth in his voice that caused Ruth to look up from the brassicas that she was pulling to chop and compost, but then she decided that she had imagined such a thing, as his back was already turned.

She watched him from the corner of her eye, noticing that he had an excellent hand among the plants. He was laying out the hay and buckets to force the sea kale and rhubarb in a manner she might have liked to try herself. She thought about the seed potatoes she’d seen on the back porch.

“I wonder if we might get the wee potatoes going in the same way you’re doing there,” she ventured and was rewarded by his gentle smile.

“An excellent idea. Abby, run and fill your apron with seed potatoes and we will try something a bit different with them.”

The child scampered off to obey, and Ruth suddenly felt nervous standing alone with the man. She cleared her throat. “I . . . uh . . . I must go and check on the babes inside.”

“Wait, please, Ruth.” He held up a hand and rose from his work among the buckets. “Lena told me of your losses . . . your husband and home. I just wanted to tell you how much I admire your strength of spirit and willingness to go on, and appreciate your love toward Faith.”

Ruth pursed her lips. “I thank ye, but what else is there but to ‘go on’? I’m thinking you must have lost a great deal yerself in a wife who helped you create all of this.” She made a sweeping gesture with her arm, then looked down at the ground, wondering if she’d said too much. Menfolks did not seem to talk about their lives as readily as women did.

Samuel smiled at her with a sad steadiness. “
Ya
, I miss Mary. But the Lord’s will allowed Faith . . . and you as well.”

“I would not have you be deceived, sir . . . Samuel. I get a mite mad at the Lord now and then for Him doing His will.”

To her surprise, he laughed, displaying even white teeth. “
Ach
, Ruth, you speak the truth that plagues all human souls. Do you think that simply because I accept the Lord’s will I do not grow angry or frustrated at His choices at times? I would not be flesh and blood if I did not.”

“I—I didn’t know,” she said in a soft voice. “I thought maybe the Amish were able to . . .”

“Have some will that was more than divine?
Nee
, Ruth, I am very much like you.”

His voice had lowered, and she felt him studying her. She had a sudden longing for a new comb or mobcap for her unruly hair.

But again he seemed to read her thoughts. “
Nee
, Ruth . . . It is not the outward adorning of a person that matters, but the heart inside. And you have a gentle heart that is—”

“I got the potatoes,
Fater
!” Abby called, tripping gaily over the dirt clods.

Ruth turned with Samuel to smile at the child. But as she made her way to the porch, she longed to know what it was he might else have said. Risking a glance back round, she saw him watching her. She flushed and hurried into the house, feeling as flighty as a young chick.

Chapter 21

N
ow ain’t this a ripe berry for the pickin’?”

Lena’s eyes swam with tears at the pain of the man’s grasp across her mouth. She began to pray for her attacker in quick, mentally breathless gasps, even as the man let a hand trail down her shoulder, tearing at her kerchief.

From far off she heard a woman’s scornful rejoinder. “Bruce . . . it’s one thing to rob a man, but takin’ a girl from the street is wrong, and I won’t stand here while you do it.”