Hope Chest (26 page)

Silas gave a quick nod and opened the front door. “I hope Abe knows how lucky he is,” he called over his shoulder.

Rachel slowly shook her head. “Now what in the world did he mean by that? Surely Silas doesn’t think Abe and I are courting.” Of course, she hadn’t bothered to tell him that she’d turned down Abe’s offer to escort her to the taffy pull. But then, he hadn’t asked.

Rachel moved over to the window and watched with a heavy heart as Silas drove out of sight. She glanced at the dishes he’d said were too high-priced and wondered if he had considered buying them, maybe as a gift for his aunt’s birthday.

“Guess I should lower the price some.” Rachel felt moisture on her cheeks. She had been trying so hard to be hopeful and keep praising God, but after seeing Silas again, she realized that her hopes had been for nothing. He obviously had no interest in her. Rachel wondered if God even cared about her. Hadn’t He been listening to her prayers and praises all these months? Didn’t He realize how much her heart ached to be loved by Silas?

***

As Joseph finished up his chores in the barn, he kept going to the door and checking to see if Pauline’s buggy had shown up at the greenhouse yet. Ever since that day when he’d seen Anna at the restaurant, he’d been stewing over things, and he thought he might feel better if he talked to Pauline about it. She’d been understanding and willing to listen the last time he’d discussed Anna with her, and she had been full of good advice. Only trouble was he still hadn’t found it in his heart to forgive his sister for leaving home and going English on them. It still pained him to think of Anna dressed in fancy clothes and wearing her hair cut short, and the idea of her and Reuben living in the fancy English world gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Joseph peered out the barn door one more time and was happy to see Pauline’s buggy coming up the driveway. He slipped out the door and ran toward the greenhouse. Pauline was just getting out of her buggy when he arrived.

“Guder mariye, Joe.” She offered him a friendly smile. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too.” He motioned toward her buggy. “Could we sit in there awhile and talk, or do you have to get into the greenhouse right away?”

“I’m a little earlier than usual, so I have a few minutes to spare.”

“Great.” He opened the door on the side of the buggy closest to her and helped her inside. Then he went around and took a seat on the other side.

“Is something troubling you, Joe?” she asked. “You look upset.”

He grunted. “I saw her the other day.”

“Who?”

“Anna.”

“Did she come to your place for a visit?”

“No. I ran into her at the restaurant in Lancaster where she works as a waitress.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Fine, as far as I could tell, but she doesn’t look like Anna anymore.”

“You mean because she’s not wearing Plain clothes?”

“That, and she’s cut her hair real short.” Joseph gritted his teeth and gripped the buggy seat so tightly that his fingers ached.

“I’ll bet she did look quite different.”

Joseph sat staring straight ahead.

Pauline reached over and touched his arm. “Did seeing Anna that way make you feel sad?”

“Not sad, really. More mad, I’d have to say.” He grimaced. “I could hardly stand to see my sister looking that way, and since I’m not supposed to do any business with a shunned member of the church, I walked out without letting her wait on me.”

Pauline offered him a sympathetic smile. “I thought you were going to forgive Anna and move on with things.”

“I can’t go against the church and do business with her.”

“I’m not suggesting that.” She paused a moment and flicked her tongue across her lower lip. “I just think you need to forgive Anna for hurting your family and treat her kindly when you do see her.”

Joseph shrugged. “Probably won’t be for some time, ’cause I’m not likely to go back to that restaurant again.”

“She might come here for a visit, though.”

“Not if Dad has anything to say about it.”

“He’s still angry, too?”

He nodded. “I think it would take something big for him to let Anna come home to see any of us.”

“Big, like what?”

“Like a death in the family or something.”

Pauline shook her head. “Let’s hope there’s nothing like that on the horizon.” She reached over and took hold of Joseph’s hand. “I’ve been praying for you, Joe. Praying for all your family.”

He smiled and squeezed her fingers. “Danki. I appreciate that.”

CHAPTER 23

For the next few days, snow poured from the sky like powdered sugar, but by Saturday morning, the weather had improved some. So Rachel convinced Joseph to hitch up the sleigh and drive her to the variety store in Paradise. It was the second week of December, but there was still a chance that people would be looking for things to give as Christmas presents. She’d finally sold some towels and a few pot holders from her hope chest to a couple of customers who’d come into the greenhouse, but she needed to get rid of the dishes, the kerosene lamp, and the tablecloth.

Thomas Benner was more than happy to take Rachel’s things in on consignment, although he did mention that they would have had a better chance of selling if she’d brought them in a few weeks earlier. Rachel sure didn’t need that reminder. She wished she’d never started filling her hope chest.

By the time Rachel left the store and found Joseph, who’d gone looking for something to give Pauline for Christmas, snow was beginning to fall again.

“We’d best be gettin’ on home,” Joseph said, looking up at the sky. “If this keeps up, the roads could get mighty slippery. I wouldn’t want some car to go sliding into our sleigh.”

“You’re right; we should leave now.” Rachel climbed into the sleigh and reached under the seat to withdraw an old quilt, which she wrapped snugly around the lower half of her body. “Brr ... it’s turning cold again.”

Joseph picked up the reins and got the horse moving. “Jah, it sure is.”

Rachel glanced over at her brother. He seemed to be off in some other world.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure. Why do you ask?”

“You seem kind of pensive today.”

“I was just thinking about something Pauline told me the other day.”

“Oh? What was that?”

He shrugged. “She’s been giving me some advice lately.”

“What kind of advice? Or would you rather not say?”

“I don’t mind saying. It might feel good to talk more about it.”

“More about what?”

“The way I’ve been feeling about Anna going English.”

Rachel noticed the wrinkles etched in her brother’s forehead. “How have you been feeling about the whole thing?”

“Not so good. Not good at all.”

“I don’t think any of us feels good about it, but it’s a fact we can’t change, so as Mom said after her last letter from Anna came, ‘We must accept Anna’s decision and quit brooding over it.’”

Joseph nodded. “Pauline said pretty much the same thing, only she took it a step further by telling me I needed to forgive Anna.”

“Pauline’s right about that. We all need to forgive Anna for leaving home the way she did—including Dad.”

“I’m workin’ on it,” Joseph mumbled.

“Glad to hear it.” Rachel smiled. “So, why don’t you tell me what you got Pauline for Christmas?”

He smiled, too, and his mood seemed to brighten. “I bought her a pair of gardening gloves and a book about flowers.”

“She should like that since she enjoys working in the greenhouse so much.”

Joseph nodded. “She’s sure changed a lot here of late, don’t you think?”

Rachel bit back the laughter bubbling in her throat. “I think you’ve been good for her.”

His dark eyebrows lifted. “You really think so?”

“I do.”

“Well, she’s been good for me, too.”

“She’s not worried about your age difference anymore?”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t seem to be.”

“And you’re okay with it?”

“Jah.”

“I’m glad.” At least things were going well for someone in Rachel’s family.

“Come spring, I’m thinking about asking her to marry me.” Joseph glanced over at Rachel. “Don’t you go sayin’ anything to anyone about it, though, you hear?”

“Oh, I won’t. It’s not my place to be doing the telling.”

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you and Silas.”

Rachel grimaced. “It wasn’t meant to be, that’s all. I just have to learn to be content with my life as it is. There’s no point in hoping for the impossible. Job in the Bible did, and look where it got him.”

“Think about it, Rachel. Through all Job’s trials, he never lost hope.” Joseph glanced over at her again and smiled. “In the end, God blessed Job with more than he’d lost.”

Rachel drew in a deep breath and released it quickly. “I guess you’re right, but it’s not always easy to have hope. Especially when things don’t go as we’d planned.”

“Life is full of twists and turns. It’s how we choose to deal with things that makes the difference in our attitudes. Take Silas, for example ... I saw him the other day and mentioned my encounter with Anna at the restaurant.”

“What’d he say?”

“He didn’t seem all that affected when I mentioned Anna’s name.”

“Well, what could he say, Joseph? Anna’s a married woman now, and there’s nothing Silas can do about it.” She sighed. “I’d been hoping that he might take an interest in me, but it doesn’t look like that will ever occur. Truth is, not much of anything I hope for ever seems to happen.”

“Our hope should be in the Lord, not in man or in our circumstances.”

Rachel stared straight ahead. She didn’t want to talk about Job, hope, or even God right now. She was too worried about the weather. The snow was coming down harder, and the road was completely covered. She watched the passing scenery, noting as they approached the one-room schoolhouse that the yard was empty. No Amish buggies. No scooters. No sign of any children or their teacher. “School must have been dismissed early today. Teacher Nancy probably thought it would be best to let the kinner go before the weather got any worse,” she commented.

“Jah, you’re probably right.”

They rode along in silence until a rescue vehicle sailed past, its red lights blinking off and on and the siren blaring like crazy.

“Must be an accident up ahead.” Joseph pulled back on the reins to slow the horse.

Rachel’s body tensed. She hated the thought of seeing an accident, and she prayed one of their Amish buggies wasn’t involved. So often, horse-drawn carriages had been damaged by cars that either didn’t see them or had been traveling too fast. Lots of Amish folks had been injured from collisions with those fast-moving English vehicles, too.

Their sleigh had just rounded the next bend when they saw the rescue truck stopped in the middle of the road. Flares threw light along the highway and on a dark blue, mid-sized car pulled off on the shoulder. Rescue workers bent over a small figure. Several Amish children clustered around, and the sheriff directed traffic.

“We’d better stop. It could be someone we know.” Joseph pulled the sleigh off the road; then he and Rachel jumped out.

They had only taken a few steps when a familiar voice called out, “Joseph! Rachel! Over here!”

Rachel glanced to her right. Elizabeth dashed across the slippery snow and nearly knocked Rachel off her feet when she grabbed her around the waist. “It’s Perry!” she panted. “He was hit by a car!”

CHAPTER 24

Rebekah had just put a pan of chicken in the oven to bake when she heard a car pull into the yard. She rolled her wheelchair across the floor and peered out the low kitchen window. The car that sat in the driveway belonged to Sheriff Andrews. The family had met him a couple of times when buggy accidents had happened near their home. The sheriff got out of his car, glanced around the yard as though he was looking for someone, then started for the house.

Rebekah was about to head for the door to see what he wanted, when she noticed a horse and sleigh come up the driveway, with Rachel in the driver’s seat and Elizabeth sitting in the seat beside her. Goose bumps erupted on Rebekah’s arms. Where were Joseph and Perry, and what had happened that had brought the sheriff to their place?

Just as the officer reached the back porch, Daniel came rushing out of the barn. He stopped at the sleigh a few minutes, apparently to speak to the girls, then hurried toward the house.

Rebekah maneuvered her wheelchair over to the door and opened it quickly. The sheriff stood on the porch with Daniel. Rachel and Elizabeth had gotten out of the sleigh and were running toward the house, as well.

“What is it?” Rebekah looked up at the sheriff, then over at Daniel. “What’s happened?”

Sheriff Andrews took a step toward her and bent down so he was eye level with her. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs. Beachy, but there’s been an accident on the road near your place, and I’m afraid your son’s been seriously injured.”