FROM AMISH NANNY TO BRIDE?

After her sweetheart’s betrayal, Ruthy Mummert leaves behind the small-town gossip of her Amish community for the first opportunity she can find: a housekeeper position in faraway LaGrange County, Indiana. Ruthy didn’t realize the job meant caring for ten children—and for their handsome widowed father.

To Levi Zook’s mind, Ruthy is too young and too pretty to be anyone’s housekeeper. A marriage of convenience will protect her reputation and give his children the security they dearly need. But it could also give them the courage to grasp a new chance at happiness—if Ruthy is willing to risk her wounded heart once more.

“Why, Levi Zook? Why do you need me to stay? Why would you marry me to keep me from leaving?”

What could he tell her? He liked her, but more than that, he needed her to keep his family together. He cast about in his mind for reasons—what could he say that would convince her?

“I… Well, there’s Eliza. She still wants me to send Nellie and Nancy to her.”

“It would break their hearts to leave you.”

Levi nodded. “With you here, they have a mother, do you see?”

Ruth turned back to the stove, her shoulders slumped. “Ja, I see. That’s a good reason, I suppose.”

A thrill of hope ran through Levi. Would she agree to be his wife?

“We would make a good family—you and I…”

“And the children.”

“Ja, of course.” Levi sighed. This conversation wasn’t going the way he had wanted it to, not

at all. Why couldn’t he tell her how she made him feel?

JAN DREXLER

A recent graduate from Homeschool Mom-hood, Jan Drexler devotes her time to the voices in her head who have been clamoring for attention during the past few decades. Instead of declining Latin nouns and reviewing rhetorical devices, her days are now spent at the computer, where she gives her characters free rein.

She lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her husband of thirty years, their four adult children, an extremely furry Husky, and Maggie, the cat who thinks she’s a dog. If she isn’t sitting at her computer living the lives of her characters, she’s probably hiking in the Hills or the Badlands, enjoying the spectacular scenery.

A Mother for His Children

Jan Drexler

www.millsandboon.co.uk

And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

—Mark 11:25

For my aunts: Martha, Waneta and Nancy.

You taught me what a joy it would be to have sisters!

And with special thanks to Dawn Field, DVM, who was willing to discuss the details of calves and cows over lunch.

Soli Deo Gloria

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Shipshewana, Indiana

January, 1937

“She’s old. Dat said so.”

“Ja. Old and mean.”

“Old and mean, and she has a big nose.”

Levi Zook gave his four younger boys a meaningful glare before David could add to the list. “We don’t know what she looks like, but she sounded nice enough in her letters.”

The notes Levi had exchanged with his new housekeeper from Lancaster County had been all business, but the letter of recommendation he received from the bishop in Bird-in-Hand had held the description he hoped for. The bishop had used words like competent, faithful and dedicated, all qualities he welcomed in a housekeeper. He could picture her in his mind: slightly plump, eager to please, gray hair and a face lined with comfortable wrinkles. A grandmotherly type who could teach his daughters the way to keep house.

His youngest son, five-year-old Sam, bounced on his toes in anticipation when he heard the train blow its whistle at the edge of town. Clouds of steam rose in the air above the stark, black tree limbs as the train slowed. All four boys pressed forward to be the first to see the engine as it rounded the last curve before arriving at the Shipshewana depot.

A good half foot taller than the crowd of people on the platform, Levi watched the train rumble over the crossing at Morton Street. Three passenger cars followed the tender. Behind them, freight car doors slid open as furtive figures jumped from the train to disappear between the grain elevator and Smith’s machine shop. Hobos. Tramps. Even on such a frozen day as this. Levi hunched his shoulders at the thought of how cold those men must be as they searched for food and shelter for the night. He doubted if any of them would make it as far as his farm. In weather like this, the men looked for handouts or jobs closer to town.

The squeal of metal grinding on metal brought him back to the passenger cars. He ducked to see into the windows, but all he could see were Englischer faces. No Amish bonnet.

Jesse tugged at Levi’s sleeve as he pointed a mittened hand toward the last of the passenger cars.

“Is that her, Dat?”

A tall Amish woman appeared in the doorway of the far train car. Levi watched as she scanned the crowded platform. Could this be her? Ne, she was much too young. She couldn’t be very far into her twenties. Her blue eyes met his, then passed him by before she stepped off the train and onto the platform.

Levi continued watching each person alight from the train until no more appeared. There were no other Amish women, certainly not the middle-aged spinster he was expecting.

“She’s the only one left, Dat. Could she be the one?”

The lone Amish woman stood in the middle of the platform with a suitcase at her feet as the people around her made their way to waiting automobiles, trucks and wagons.

“I don’t think so, Sam.” Levi looked at the young woman again. She glanced their way once, her face uncertain. She looked a bit lost, as if she had been expecting someone to meet her. Meanwhile, Ruth Mummert, the housekeeper he was expecting, had never shown up. Had they miscommunicated? Did he have the date of her arrival wrong?

“That isn’t her.” James turned his back on the train and the lone figure on the platform. “She’s too pretty.”

“Well, boys, we can’t stand here all day. We’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

David nodded his head at the young woman. “Should we give her a ride?”

“Ja, son.” Levi herded the boys in the direction of the woman, now standing with her back to them, her eyes on his big family buggy with Champ tied to the rail. “We can’t leave her here by herself.”

The woman turned to watch him as they approached, her blue eyes deep within the shadows of her black bonnet flashing with hope before dismissing him by turning her head away again.

“Can we help you?” Levi’s question brought those eyes back to his. “Can we give you a ride somewhere?”

“I was expecting someone to meet me at the train....” Her accent betrayed her eastern home.

“We were meeting someone, too,” Sam said.

Levi laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder to remind him to let his elders speak. “Who were you meeting? I probably know where they live and can take you there.”

The young woman’s cheeks were red with the cold. Levi wanted to hurry her into his buggy, where the foot warmer was waiting for them. “I was supposed to meet Levi Zook, but he hasn’t shown up. Do you know him?”

“I should know him. I’m Levi Zook. You aren’t Ruth Mummert, are you?” This young, beautiful woman couldn’t be the spinster he had been writing to.

“Ja, Ruth Mummert.” She nodded, eyeing him. “But you’re not the Levi Zook who has hired me to be his housekeeper. He’s a much older man than you.”

The boys stifled giggles while Levi pulled his glove off and dug in his pocket for her latest letter.

“I am Levi Zook.” He held the paper out to her. “Here’s your letter accepting the job as my housekeeper and telling me which train you’d be on.”

She took the letter from his hand and unfolded it, nodding quickly when she saw the handwriting.

“It looks like I assumed wrong, Levi Zook.” She smiled at him as she folded the paper again and gave it to him. “But now that’s cleared up and I’m sure we won’t have any other misunderstandings.”

Levi’s return smile faded as she turned to greet the boys. What would she say when she met the rest of his children? In all their correspondence, he had never mentioned how many children he had, and she had never asked. He scratched his beard. He had never asked about her age or circumstances, either. Wasn’t she too young for this job? She couldn’t have the experience he had hoped for. They had both made assumptions, but she was here now, and he might as well give her a try.

“We should start for home. Our buggy is over here.” Levi leaned down to take her bag and led the way, the boys following. Before giving her a hand into the seat, Levi felt the warming pan on the floor. He’d need to replenish it before starting the trip home.

“I’ll just take this into the station and get some fresh coals. Make yourself comfortable and I’ll be right back.”

Ruth Mummert made a quick nod at his words, but the glance she gave him was unsure, as if she already regretted her decision to take the job. And then the uncertainty was gone, replaced by a quick smile. When she discovered the extent of the job he had hired her for, would she smile and call that a “misunderstanding,” too?

* * *

Ruthy climbed into the front seat of the strange-looking black buggy. The ones at home had gray covers—just one of many differences she would have to adjust to, she decided. Gathering her shawl closely around her, she buried her chin in its folds. Indiana was colder than the winter weather she had left at home in Bird-in-Hand.

She peered out the front window of the buggy at the man walking into the train station with the warming pan. Levi Zook wasn’t what she had been expecting. When he described himself as a widower and said his daughter had been caring for him since her mother died, she had assumed he would be nearly her father’s age, but this man looked closer to thirty than sixty.

The boys were a surprise. Her mind skirted around the glaring omission in Levi Zook’s letter. He had mentioned that he expected her to care for his children, but he never said how many children he had. What did it matter? How many could he have? Five, maybe six? After growing up with three brothers, Ruthy knew how to handle boys. Washing muddy trousers and feeding hungry, growing young men was nothing new to her. And then there was his daughter, Waneta. So one girl to help out, at least.

The back door of the buggy opened and the biggest boy jumped into the middle seat, and then two of his brothers followed. They all wore identical dark coats and navy blue knit caps.

“I got here first, David. Let me sit by James.”

“Ne, I want to sit in the middle.”

“Sam, you sit up front with her.”

“Ne, ne, I don’t want to!” This last cry came from the smallest of the boys, still standing on the buggy step.

Ruthy turned her face toward the front of the buggy, trying to stay out of the squabble. They made the buggy sway as they pushed at each other, like a bunch of half-grown puppies.

So these were Levi Zook’s children. Mam had urged her to learn more about her position before traveling all this distance, but staying another day in Bird-in-Hand was out of the question. How could she stay there after what Elam and Laurette had done?

“Boys, you know where to sit.” Levi’s deep voice broke through the noise. “Stop this arguing, now. Jesse, move over so David can sit in his own place.”

Levi slid the warming pan across the floor of the buggy and Ruthy tucked her feet up to it. The January air had a bite to it, even in the shelter of the buggy, and she craved the heat that seeped through the leather shoes to her toes.

“But Dat, I don’t want to sit by her.” The littlest boy still stood on the buggy step, his face glaring at Ruthy as she turned to smile at him.

“If you sit between your daed and me, you’ll be able to share the warming pan.”

Ruthy knew her words had struck gold when she heard the envious groan from one of the boys behind her. The young boy heard it, too, and his face lit up.

“Can I really?”

“Ja, for sure.” Ruthy tucked her skirt in close as he scrambled onto the seat next to her. She glanced up to see Levi Zook giving her a grateful look. It seemed her job was starting out well so far.

As the buggy jolted over the railroad tracks, Ruthy smiled at the boy next to her.

“You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“I’m Sam. I’m five years old, and I like cows.” The words burst out of him as if he had been holding them in all day. “And that’s James. He’s eleven and doesn’t like girls. David is nine and likes school. And that’s Jesse. He’s seven.” He nodded toward the backseat as he introduced his brothers. “And at home...”

“How was the train ride?” Levi Zook interrupted, his face red as he concentrated on driving the horse through the town traffic.

“It was long, but comfortable.” Ruthy glanced out the window. The roads were smooth with packed snow. “How far is your farm from here?”

“We’re about six miles from Shipshewana, down in Eden Township.”

“It’s the biggest farm around,” Sam said, and then his pink cheeks reddened even more and he ducked his head into the collar of his coat. “I mean, it’s plenty large for our family.”

Levi cleared his throat, drawing Ruthy’s attention away from Sam’s boasting words. “I hope the arrangements I mentioned in the letter are to your liking.”

“Ach, ja,” Ruthy said. “There’s a Dawdi Haus I’ll be living in?”

“Ja. It’s attached to the main house, and there’s a passageway in between. It’s handy to the kitchen and cellar.”

Ruthy shivered as the horse trotted swiftly down the snow-covered road. The farm fields were January bare, with flat expanses of snow between the fence rows. As the buggy grew colder, she drew her shawl closer to her neck. Even the boys in the back fell into silence in the frigid air.

By the time Levi turned onto a farm lane, the coals in the warming pan had lost all their heat. Sam pressed against his daed to keep warm, but Ruthy looked up the lane, anxious to get the first glimpse of her new home. The house was large, with additions made over the years like train cars, and the little Dawdi Haus a tacked-on caboose following behind. Smoke poured from a chimney at the end of the house closest to the Dawdi Haus, a sign someone was home. Levi pulled up to the back door.

“Sam, take Ruth in to the kitchen while the boys and I take care of the chores.” Levi looked over Sam’s head at her, with an apologetic look in his brown eyes. “We’ll be in for supper.”

Ruthy nodded, looking forward to getting into the warm kitchen. The look in her employer’s eyes mystified her, though. Why would he feel bad for leaving her alone with little Sam?

She climbed down from the buggy and took her suitcase from the back, then followed Sam to the door. The back porch was enclosed, with a wash bench along the outer wall, hooks for coats on the wall next to the kitchen door and planks to hold muddy boots off the floor below. Warmth seeped into the porch through the closed kitchen door and Ruthy unwrapped her winter shawl as Sam hung his coat on a hook.

The door opened to welcome them in, and a young girl smiled shyly at Ruthy.

“Nellie, close the door!”

Ruthy stepped into the kitchen quickly as the girl, about eight years old, obeyed the voice of an older girl who stood with her back to Ruthy as she removed a loaf of bread from the oven. It must be Waneta, the oldest. Four boys and two girls? So, Levi Zook had six children she was to care for? She should have asked more about the children in her letters.

“Hallo,” the older girl said as she closed the oven door. “You must be Ruth. I’m Waneta.”

“It’s good to meet you,” Ruthy said, smiling at her. The heat of the oven had given Waneta’s face a pretty flush.

“You’ve had a long journey, and I’m sure you want to get settled. Martha built a fire in the Dawdi Haus when she went to make up your bed, so it should be warm in there for you by now.”

“Martha? I must have heard wrong. I thought I heard you call your sister ‘Nellie.’”

Waneta laughed and hugged the little girl. “This is Nellie. Martha is the twelve-year-old sister.”

Seven children? Ruthy grasped her satchel closer, her lips pressed together. Seven children would be a challenge, but she could do it. She had always enjoyed large families. She followed Sam through the kitchen door leading to the chilly passageway between the two houses. Windows on both sides made it feel large and open, but sheltered from the weather.

She followed Sam into the house, where a girl sat in a chair, a book open in her lap. She looked up with startled eyes as Sam opened the door.

He looked up at Ruthy with disgust. “Martha’s always reading when she’s supposed to be working.”

Ruthy smiled at Sam and glanced at Martha. “I like to read, too. It’s hard to put a book down when there are chores to be done, isn’t it?”

“Ja, for sure.” Martha’s sweet smile warmed the room. “Dat said we should leave you be so you can settle in today.” The girl looked at Ruthy’s suitcase. “Or I could help you unpack...”

“I’d love your company, but don’t you think Waneta needs your help?”

Martha’s face told her she had guessed right, and Sam tugged at his sister’s hand. “Come on, Martha. ’Neta’s going to be mad if you don’t help her instead of mooning around.”

“I’ll see you later, all right?” Ruthy gave Martha a smile as the girl followed Sam back into the main house.

Ruthy closed the door behind them, looking around her new home. The front sitting room was cozy, with two chairs and a small side table. It would be a comfortable place to sit in the evenings while she worked on her sewing.

At this thought Ruthy sank into the rocking chair. Sewing for seven children? And their father? First thing tomorrow she would need to start in on taking inventory and planning for their summer clothes. Although Sam’s trousers seemed pretty short—she may need to make sure they had enough winter clothes first. Why hadn’t Levi Zook told her how many children he had in his letter?

And why hadn’t she followed Mam’s advice and asked before making this trip?

She knew why. Even if he had told her the size of the job, she would have come anyway. Any excuse to get away from Lancaster County and the gossip. If she had to suffer the sight of her Elam with Laurette Mast one more time...

Ruthy bit her lip. Ne, not Laurette Mast. She was Laurette Nafziger now—Elam’s Laurette.

Well, nothing would get done if she sat here wasting time. She went into the bedroom to put her clothes away. The bed had three quilts layered on it, with an extra one folded across the end of the bed. At least she would sleep warm.

Smoothing the quilt beneath her hand, Ruthy felt the empty silence of the little house. Her own quiet, empty house.

For sure this was the future God had waiting for her. Life as a maidle, forever unmarried, caring for other people’s houses and families. It wouldn’t be a bad life, giving herself in service to others.

Ruthy’s eyes stung. Ne, not a bad life, but not at all what she had dreamed of during the eight years Elam had courted her. The life she had planned was at Elam’s side, raising his children, building their future together. She rubbed her hands together, working some warmth into them. Her bony hands, too large for a woman. No wonder Elam had turned from her to pretty, petite Laurette.

Ruthy knew what she looked like in Elam’s eyes. She was too tall, too thin, her mouth too wide. Even though she tried to shrink down when she was near him, he must have felt small next to her. No man wanted a wife who towered over him.

Ja, a maidle. That’s what she would always be.

And if she wasn’t careful, she’d sink into that trap of self-pity she had tried to leave behind.

Work—hard work—was what she needed, and it looked like she had found it. Well, first things first. Unpack and then out to the main house to help Waneta with the afternoon chores. There were nine mouths to feed, and that meant there was no time for lazing around, even as exhausted as she felt.

At the sound of a knock on her door, Ruthy opened it to find a little girl on the other side.

“Hallo. Nellie, right?”

The girl giggled. “Ne, I’m Nancy. Nellie is my twin sister.”

Eight children? This was really too much. Levi Zook should have told her.

Nancy’s cheeks were rosy and chapped.

“Have you been outside in this cold?”

“Ja, I was helping Elias with the chickens, but when Dat and the boys came home he didn’t need me anymore.”

A cold knot tightened in Ruthy’s stomach.

“Nancy, who is Elias?”

“My oldest brother. He and Waneta are twins just like Nellie and I are twins.”

Ruthy gripped the door, watching the eight-year-old bounce on her toes as she spoke. She counted up in her head. Nine. Nine children. She smiled at Nancy, the innocent bearer of this shocking news.

“Where is your daed now?”

“In the buggy shed. Do you want me to get him for you?”

“Ne, denki. I think I’ll go out and see the buggy shed myself.”

Ruthy closed the door of the Dawdi Haus and headed through the short breezeway to the kitchen, with Nancy following. Waneta nodded a hello to her as she peeled potatoes, the noise of the children’s voices making it impossible to say anything more. As Ruthy opened the door to the back porch, she kept Nancy from coming with her.

“I want to speak to your daed alone.”

Nancy nodded as she closed the door, and then she twitched her winter shawl from the hook and threw it around her shoulders as she barreled out the door. Five boys were throwing snowballs at each other in the yard as she passed. Would she ever remember their names? As she reached the door of the buggy shed at the side of the barn she stopped with her hand on the latch, trembling. Five boys? Sam was inside the house. She turned to the boys in the yard again, counting. There was James, David and Jesse, the three she had met in town, and two older boys with them. One of them had to be Elias, the oldest brother, but who was the other big one?

Just then one of the boys shouted to him, “Hah, Nathan, you missed me again!”

Biting back her anger, she swung open the door of the shed and stepped in, face-to-face with Levi Zook as he rose from wiping the buggy wheels with a rag. He loomed over her in the confines of the room, suddenly dark as she shut the door on the bright midafternoon sunshine. But for all his size, his eyes were the gentlest she had ever seen, with lines that crinkled when he smiled at her.

A snowball hit the outside of the shed with a thud, bringing Ruthy back to the anger that had propelled her in here. She opened her mouth to speak, but Levi Zook only bent down to wipe the wheel hub again.

* * *

“Levi Zook, just how many children do you have?”

Levi gave the freshly greased wheel hub a final wipe with his rag before he looked into the face of the furious young woman. He knew this confrontation was coming—he had been dreading it ever since before Christmas, when she had agreed to take the job. He should have told her, but he hadn’t wanted to risk her turning down the job. If Ruth weren’t here, Eliza would be sure to take the younger girls to live with her as she had insisted she’d do ever since Salome died a year ago.

“Only ten.” He stumbled over his words as her face paled and she reached out to the wall for support. “But they’re gut children and they won’t be a bother to you.”

“Only ten? You didn’t think you should tell me this before I accepted your job?”

Levi rubbed his hand across his face and through his beard, sighing. “Ja. I should have told you.”

She stared at him, her mouth twitching. Was she going to break out into tears? He wouldn’t blame her if she insisted on going back to Lancaster County, but then what would he do? Finding a wife who would take on ten children wasn’t as easy as he thought it might be when he first started looking. He pushed up the front of his broad-brimmed hat and rubbed his forehead. Tension made his head ache.

All the single women he knew were either much too young or they had better offers than he could give them. Hiring a housekeeper was the only alternative he could think of to keep his family together. This situation had to work, but how could he make her stay?

Ruth covered her mouth with her hand, turning away from him. When she glanced back he could see she was laughing. Laughing at him?

“I’m sorry,” she said, her laughter bubbling up so that she could hardly breathe. “Ach, Levi Zook, you should see yourself. You just wiped grease all over your face.”

Levi pulled his hand away from his face. She was right. It was covered with black grease. He wiped at his face with his rag, but Ruth stopped him.

“There must be a clean cloth here somewhere,” she said between gasps. She sorted through the rags on the workbench and found a folded scrap at the bottom of the pile.

“Denki.” Levi took the rag and wiped his nose and forehead. His beard would have to wait. What must she think of him? He must have looked like some schoolboy the way he kept spreading the grease around. He tried to wipe his hands clean and waited for her to stop laughing. Could he live with a woman who laughed at him, no matter how her eyes danced in the dim light of the shed?

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the children earlier. I meant to, but I just didn’t know how to do it in a letter.”

“So you thought you’d let me figure it out as I met them.”

“For sure, I didn’t plan it that way.”

She pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. Her laughter still showed in the smile she gave him.

Levi turned the rag to find another clean spot and rubbed at his cheek. “I wouldn’t blame you if you decided not to stay. I shouldn’t have kept this from you.”

Glancing out the small window, she watched the boys playing in the yard. She chewed her bottom lip while he waited, and then she turned to face him. “You need me, Levi Zook, and your children need me. Waneta has been trying to run the house all on her own?”

He nodded and rubbed at the grease still covering his hands. “Ja, but it’s too much work for her at times.” At times? It was too much work for her all the time, even with Martha’s help. She needed a woman to guide her and teach her the things Salome hadn’t been able to during the years she had been ill.

Levi looked up to see Ruth regarding him with those blue eyes. She was nearly as tall as he was, and she held his gaze with a half smile. Her anger had disappeared quicker than ice melted on a summer day.

“You don’t need to worry about me running away from a little work, but please tell me you aren’t hiding more children in the hayloft.”

“Ne, no more surprises.”

“We’ll start fresh then, now that I know what to expect.”

As she went back to the house, Levi watched her through the open door. Ruth Mummert was enough of a surprise all by herself.

Chapter Two

“Martha, get in here and help me this minute!”

Waneta’s strident voice reached Ruthy, even in the back bedroom of the Dawdi Haus, and she sat up on the bed. The room was rosy and dim with the glow of the setting sun. She must have fallen asleep.

She hadn’t realized how tired she’d been after the long train ride, but her short nap had been anything but restful. Even this far away from Bird-in-Hand, Elam dominated her thoughts and intruded on her sleep. She pushed him away as Waneta’s voice carried through the house again.

“Martha!”

The poor girl sounded at her wits’ end. Ruthy bent down to slip her feet into her shoes. Levi Zook had told her to take it easy this afternoon, but it was nearly suppertime and certainly Waneta could use some help.

Ruthy repinned her kapp and went into the kitchen of the main house. Chaos reigned. The two little girls chased each other around the big table with flatware in their hands, their laughter high and shrill. Sam scraped a chair across the wooden floor to a counter where a cake waited to be frosted. Waneta struggled to pull a roasting pan from the oven, her hair falling around her face and her kapp limp and nearly falling off.

Seizing a towel from the counter, Ruthy grabbed one end of the roaster.

“Waneta, this ham smells wonderful-gut.” Together, they lifted the roaster onto the counter next to the stove and Waneta closed the oven door with a bang.

“Denki, but you’re supposed to be resting. Dat said you’d be tired from your long trip.”

“I’ve rested enough, and you look like you could use some help.”

“Ja, for sure I can, but you shouldn’t have to help with your own welcome supper.”

“Never mind that. Just let me help.”

Waneta’s brown eyes startled wide and she dashed around Ruthy. “Sam! You know better than that! Look what you’ve done to the cake!”

Ruthy turned to see Sam holding a chunk of unfrosted cake in his hand. Her smile froze on her face. If this was the way Levi Zook raised his children, he needed her more than he thought. It was time for her to start earning her money.

A vision of her elementary school teacher, Mrs. Studer, flashed into her mind. The Englisch woman had ruled a classroom full of forty-five children from first through eighth grades with a calm voice and a no-nonsense approach to rules. Ruthy had loved her. What would Mrs. Studer do with this mess if she were here?

Stepping to the table, Ruthy caught each of the eight-year-old twins by the arm as they ran past her. “What are the two of you supposed to be doing?”

Their flushed faces looked into hers, and then they both glanced at Waneta.

“We’re setting the table,” one of them said, grinning at Ruthy. When Ruthy kept her face stern, the grin vanished.

“Then you should be setting the table, shouldn’t you? Games like this should be saved for outdoors.”

The girl who had spoken nodded her head. Ruthy turned to her twin sister, ready to scold both of them, but the tears in the girl’s eyes stopped her words. She was so much more sensitive than her sister. How different could twins be?

“You will need to help me with your names for a while. I know one of you is Nellie, right?” The silent twin nodded her head and she turned back to the more daring girl. “So you’re Nancy.”

“You’re right.” The girl grinned again, her blue eyes sparkling.

“Nancy, you go ahead and finish putting the flatware on the table and Nellie can get the plates.”

Nellie went to a cupboard near the sink and opened it, revealing a generous stack of white plates. Such a tender child in this boisterous family seemed out of place. Ruthy turned her attention back to Sam, who was sitting on the chair next to the decimated cake, calmly eating the piece he had stolen. Waneta glanced at Ruthy as she opened a jar of pickled beets and gave her a quick smile. At least one person approved of the way she was handling things so far.

Ruthy knelt next to the little boy.

“Are you enjoying that cake?”

Sam nodded and grinned at her. His blue eyes were full of mischief, but his sweet smile made her long to give him a hug.

She couldn’t give in to that! This boy was a little thief who needed to be taught a lesson.

“It would taste better with frosting on it, wouldn’t it?”

“Ja,” Sam said between bites. “’Neta makes the best frosting.”

“It’s too bad you won’t get any, then.”

Sam stopped, the cake halfway to his mouth for another bite. “Why won’t I get any?”

Ruthy rose and took a spoonful of frosting from the nearby bowl. “You’re eating your cake now instead of after supper. So when the rest of us have our pieces with frosting, you won’t be able to have any.” She started frosting the untouched layer of cake and exchanged a glance with Waneta. The girl gave her a grateful smile.

“If I give it back, will you put frosting on it?” Sam held out his remaining chunk of cake.

“Will you promise to leave desserts alone until after the meals from now on?”

Sam stared at the cake, considering. Then he nodded. “I’ll try.”

“All right then.” Ruthy got a plate from the cupboard and Sam deposited his cake on it. “I’ll frost this piece just for you.” Sam slid down from the chair and headed into the front room.

“Denki,” Waneta whispered. “Dat always complains about pieces missing from the cakes, but I don’t know how to stop him.”

“I have a brother who tried the same thing when he was Sam’s age. Mam made him give up his desserts for a month when he didn’t stop.”

Waneta giggled. “You’ll have to threaten Sam with that. Nothing I say will make him behave.”

Ruthy set the broken cake layer on top of the first one and spread it with another dollop of frosting. Dessert wouldn’t be pretty, but from the way Sam liked his sister’s cake, she could tell it would still taste good.

“Do you always make the meals by yourself?”

Waneta drained a pot full of cooked potatoes. “Usually. Martha is supposed to help me, but she always disappears just when I need her.”

Ruthy tried to remember who Martha was, then placed her. The girl with her nose in a book in the Dawdi Haus earlier. Levi Zook needed more than a housekeeper—that man needed someone to take his younger girls in hand. He had been right when he said this task was too big for Waneta.

While Waneta piled slices of ham on a platter and filled the table with green beans, carrots, bread and pickles, Ruthy mashed the potatoes. Waneta sent Nancy to the back porch to ring the dinner bell, and soon the kitchen was full of children finding their places on the long benches that sat along the sides of the big table. Levi Zook came into the kitchen last, combing his fingers through his beard. Once he took his seat at the head of the table, Ruthy took the only place left, on the end opposite Levi Zook.

Every eye at the table was focused on her and she felt her face grow hot. Had she done something wrong? Were they waiting for her to do something?

“She’s sitting in Mam’s chair,” said one of the older boys.

Ruthy started to rise. She wasn’t here to take their mam’s place.

“It’s all right Nathan,” Levi said. “Ruth, that is your place at the table for now.” Levi looked at the boy who had spoken and the older brother sitting next to him. “Your mam is gone. We will not make her place at the table a shrine.”

Both boys lowered their eyes, their necks red. Ach, ja, they missed their mam. It would take some time for them to get used to Ruthy being here.

Levi cleared his throat. “Let’s pray.”

Ruthy bowed her head and silently began reciting her mealtime prayer in her head. Before she was done she heard the distinct clink of Levi’s fork against his plate. Was that his signal the prayer was over? She raised her eyes to see him staring at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

How did he feel about her sitting in his dead wife’s chair? However he felt, Levi Zook needed her.

* * *

As soon as Levi had come into the kitchen for supper he could feel the change. The bustling kitchen, normally noisy and chaotic, had an undergirding of order Levi hadn’t seen since before Sam was born.

And now the reason for that difference was sitting at the opposite end of the long table from him. Ruth sat at the foot of his table as if she had always done so, accepting the dishes of food passed to her and helping Sam cut the meat on his plate. She smiled at each of the children as she spoke to them, introducing herself to Nathan and Elias, who had been outside since she arrived, and asking about each of the children’s favorite foods.

The sound of her voice was a balm that soothed a festering need. When Salome died a year ago, a light had gone out in his home, but now the small flame of a woman’s influence was sputtering to life again.

Levi speared a chunk of ham and swirled it in his mashed potatoes before bringing it to his mouth with a satisfied sigh. He had done a good thing when he put that notice in The Budget, no matter what his sister, Eliza, said. His children needed a woman’s touch, that’s all, and they belonged at home. Farming them out to relatives wouldn’t be good for them at all.

He took another bite of ham and potatoes, and then reached for his glass of milk. Eleven pairs of eyes followed every movement, and he became aware that silence had descended on the table. He glanced at Ruth, and found her staring at him.

Levi finished chewing, and then took a swallow from his glass. His children looked expectant, except Sam, who looked down at his plate when Levi’s gaze reached the far end of the table. Ruth’s expression hadn’t changed.

“Did you hear me, Levi Zook?”

Her hair glowed like gold in the light from the kerosene lamp above the table. Had she said something to him?

“Ne, Ruth, I didn’t hear you.”

“I said Sam seems to be at loose ends here in the house all day. I asked when you will take him out to do barn chores with you.”

His face grew hot as Ruth kept her gaze on him. She hadn’t been here more than a few hours, and already she was telling him how to raise his son?

Ja, well, she was right, it was time for Sam to join him in the barn. It was another thing he had neglected in the last year. Shame threatened, but irritation quickly squelched it. He should have taken this action sooner, but no woman was going to dictate how he raised his children.

“Sam will join me in the barn when I’m ready for him to, and not a moment sooner.”

Ruth’s face reddened as her eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to speak, but Sam’s voice piped up. “I’m ready now, Dat. Jesse has been helping you since he was little, and I’m almost as big as him.”

Levi glanced at Jesse. At seven years old, he still wasn’t much bigger than his little brother. He hunched his shoulders around his slight frame as if he wanted to slink away from the table. He hated being the center of attention.

Jesse had been helping in the barn for a couple of years already, but he still needed a lot of help and training with his chores, which took time. With Sam there, it would take even more time away from his own work, but on the other hand, the two smaller boys could help each other.

She was right.

But he would take himself behind the woodshed for a thrashing before he gave in to this woman now. This was his family and he would have the final say in how his children were raised.

He stood up, his chair scraping against the wooden floor. “I’m going out to finish the chores.”

He grabbed his hat from the hook by the back door and stormed through the porch, snagging his coat from the wall as he went.

The meal had started out so well, before she interfered. Levi stopped beside the chicken coop, taking a deep breath of the frigid January air. Before she made a simple suggestion.

He reached into the pockets of his coat for his gloves and pulled them on, turning to face the house. Light from the kitchen windows gave a warm glow to the snow of the barnyard, pulling his gaze back to the table he had just left. He could see the shadowy forms of his children through the white curtains and their voices drifted to him in the still night. Elias’s deep bass chuckle rumbled through the higher pitches of the other children’s laughter.

Pride had forced him out here into the dark, but he was right, wasn’t he? He was the man in this house, not some upstart woman who comes in and tries to take over.

A woman he had invited. A woman he was paying to run his house for him.

What bothered him most was that she was right. It was past time for him to bring Sam along as he worked. Next year his youngest son would start school, and he would have missed his opportunity to start him out right.

Cold forced him away from the golden glow of the kitchen window and into the cowshed. He lit the lantern and checked on Moolah, the tall, bony Holstein. She was his best milker and due to drop a calf in a few weeks. She blinked an eye at him and chewed her cud. She was nice and comfortable tonight.

Levi went through the cowshed and into the main barn. The constant rustling in the vast haymow above him was interrupted by a thump and a squeak as one of the barn cats ended a successful hunt. A moment of silence, and then the rustling started again as the mice resumed their endless quest for food. He opened the door of the workshop and hung the lantern on its hook. He had been sharpening knives before the supper bell rang, and he might as well finish the job now.

He picked up one of the kitchen knives and tested its blade with his thumb. Taking the whetstone, he started the circular motion that would bring back the fine, sharp edge. From the workbench he could see the kitchen window. Movement behind the curtains told him the girls were clearing the table. Before long the children would bring out the projects they were working on during their Christmas vacation from school. This was the time of the evening when he enjoyed sitting close by, reading The Budget or a farm magazine, ready to answer any questions they had.

In the days before he lost Salome, she would sit in the rocking chair he had placed in the kitchen for her, knitting or mending, and enjoying their family. He could see her now, if he closed his eyes to the tools and workbench surrounding him. His Salome, rocking softly in her chair, and the gentle smile she kept on her face in spite of the pain.

The pain that had been her constant burden during those last months. Pain so horrible, that when she died, he had wept as much from thankfulness that she had been released, as from grief that he had lost her.

Levi pulled his mind away from the memories. Salome was free of pain now, safe and secure in the Blessed Land.

The knife lay loose in his hand, forgotten. He turned the blade over, working the other side.

He had taken her presence for granted, he knew that. From the time he first met her when they were children, he had thought Salome would always be with him. His partner in life, and together in their old age. But it wasn’t to be. God saw fit to let him carry on alone.

And alone he would stay, it seemed. He had exhausted the eligible women in the district and beyond, and not one of them would agree to be his wife. He had settled for the next best thing—a housekeeper.

And God provided Ruth. He had expected an older woman, but Ruth seemed capable and she was already making friends with the children. And at least now his family was safe from his interfering sister.

* * *

As the door slammed behind Levi Zook, Ruthy’s stomach turned. Ach, she had spoken before thinking again! As the father, he was the only one who had the say in how Sam was raised, not her. He certainly wouldn’t want her meddling, especially her first day here.

The children’s laughter broke into her thoughts as Elias told a joke and Ruthy smiled along with them. Surely they would have noticed their daed’s mood when he left the house? But it didn’t seem like they thought anything unusual had happened. Perhaps Levi acted like this quite often.

She bit her lip at the sudden thought that perhaps his mood had nothing to do with her. He had recently lost his wife, and he was probably still in mourning for her.

That must be the problem. She must be more understanding of the poor man.

After supper and dishes were done, the children brought books, sewing projects and knitting needles and gathered back at the table under the bright light.

“What do you have planned for tomorrow?” Ruthy gave the dishrag a final rinse as Waneta set the last plates in the cupboard.

“Whatever has to be done.” Waneta leaned against the counter with a sigh. “There’s always work waiting, isn’t there?”

“Do you follow a schedule?”

“Mam did, but I don’t know how she did it. I try to do laundry on Monday, the way she did, but then everyone runs out of clothes after only a few days, and I have to do laundry again. Then there aren’t enough dirty clothes to wash on the next Monday....” Waneta’s words faltered and she sent a pleading look at Ruthy.

“It sounds like all you need is some organization.” Ruthy silently thanked her mother for teaching her to run an orderly home. She would certainly need all those skills now. “Let’s sit down and make a list of what needs to be done.”

As she and Waneta planned their week, Ruthy worked to keep her rising impatience out of her voice. Levi Zook’s wife had only been gone a year, but from what Waneta told her, she had been bearing the heaviest load of the housekeeping for several years. Her father had expected entirely too much from this young girl.

When Levi and Elias came into the back porch just as the clock was striking eight o’clock, stomping the snow off their boots on the wood floor, Ruthy rose to make her way to the Dawdi Haus.

“We’ll start on the mending tomorrow, right after we redd up the house in the morning.”

Waneta gave her a grateful smile. “That sounds wonderful-gut. It’s so much better to have everything planned out, isn’t it?”

“We’ll tackle things one day at a time for now, and then on Monday we’ll put together a schedule for the week.” Ruthy patted the girl’s arm. “And don’t be in any hurry to get up in the morning. I’ll get breakfast started, and you can come down to help when the others do.”

Waneta’s smile broke into a big grin at that, and Ruthy slipped through the door into the passageway just as the door from the porch burst open. She had intruded on this family enough for one day.

Closing the door of her Dawdi Haus, Ruthy lit the lamp on the table in her front room. After building up the fire in the small stove, she hunted out the yarn and knitting needles she had brought with her. Keeping this family in stockings would keep her needles busy every evening.

The rocking chair creaked in the quiet room as she cast on the stitches she needed to make the first of a pair of men’s stockings. Her mind drifted back to Lancaster County, to the home she had left behind. Mam would be knitting tonight, while Daed read aloud from The Budget. The thought brought tears to her eyes and she laid her needles down. Why had God called her to leave her home and come here? Soon Daed and Mam would be saying their evening prayer before they went up to bed, and she wouldn’t be in the family circle.

She brushed away the tears and resumed working on the stocking. As she rocked and knitted, she recited the prayer she had heard every night of her life, hearing Daed’s voice in her memory.

When she finished, Ruthy let the stocking drop in her lap again and gazed at the empty room around her. Of all the things she had considered about choosing to follow God’s call to be a maidle and to serve Him by working in strangers’ homes, she had never considered this solitude. The clock ticking on the wall struck the half hour, the single chime echoing in the silent room. Years of empty, silent evenings stretched before her.

Without a family of her own, she would always be only that single note.

* * *

“She isn’t Mam,” Nellie said as she snuggled next to Levi on the sofa.

“Ne, she isn’t Mam.” Levi held his daughter tightly as he kissed the top of her head.

“I like her,” Waneta said. “She was a big help with supper and afterwards.”

Levi took in the faces of the other children as they gathered in the front room for their usual before-bedtime talk. When Salome was alive, this had been the time when he had led his family in evening prayers, but he hadn’t had the heart to resume them since she had left him with their children to raise alone.

“What do you think, Elias?” Levi turned to his oldest son, only sixteen and already finding ways to spend time away from the family. He was serious about some girl and spent every Saturday evening out with his courting buggy.

Elias rubbed the back of his neck, his chin rough with young whiskers. “She’s all right. She’s just keeping house, right? You haven’t brought her here to marry her or anything, have you?”

“Ne. I only hired her to be our housekeeper and help with the girls.”

“Well, then,” said Nathan, “she can stay. Anything so we don’t have to eat Waneta’s cooking anymore.” He grinned and ducked away as Waneta aimed a playful slap at his head.

“She can’t stay. She’s mean.” Sam shifted on Levi’s lap, where Levi thought he had been sleeping.

“You only think she’s mean because she wouldn’t let you eat cake before supper.” Nancy was snuggled against one side of him the way her twin, Nellie, was snuggled against the other.

“You shouldn’t eat cake before supper anyway.” Martha was lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, always the dreamer.

Levi stood up, lifting Sam in his arms. “Come now, it’s time for bed.”

James and David finished their game of checkers while the others filed up the stairway. Jesse didn’t move from the corner of the sofa, where his head leaned against the padded arm as he snored softly. Levi smiled. He’d carry Sam up to the bed the two little ones shared and then come back down for Jesse. At least both boys were still small enough for him to carry.

After tucking the two boys into their bed and saying good-night to each of the others, Levi steeled himself for the late-night visit to check the barn. Braving the bitter cold one more time was necessary if he was going to be able to rest peacefully tonight.

He crossed the big front room to the kitchen door in his stocking feet, following a path of light across the dark floor. Someone had left the lamp burning in the kitchen. It was a waste of good lamp oil when he was scraping for cash to pay his new housekeeper.

At the doorway, he stopped. She was in the kitchen, her back to him, wearing a white flannel nightgown. The lamp from the Dawdi Haus burned on the counter next to her, its gentle flicker mingling with the sound of her voice humming a tune in the quiet room. Her golden hair trailed down her back in a thick braid as she worked with the dough trough, setting the sponge for tomorrow’s bread.

Levi’s mouth went dry as he stared at the lustrous rope. Salome’s hair had been beautiful, brown and fine, falling down her back like silky water when she brushed it out, but that had been before her illness caused her hair to become dry and brittle. It had been a long time—too long—since he had run his hands through a woman’s hair.

Lamplight glowed around Ruth’s white gown with an ethereal light. When she reached up into the cupboard, that golden braid swung across her back, pulling a moan from him that he strangled with a cough. At the noise she turned around.

“Levi Zook! I thought you had all gone to bed.” She backed away, even though the entire kitchen stretched between them. “I forgot to set the sponge for tomorrow’s bread....” Then her eyes narrowed as she focused on his feet. “Why are you walking around in just your stockings?”

She sounded like his mother. “I’m going out to check the barn before I go to bed like I always do. Don’t worry, I’ll put my boots on before I go outdoors.”

Ruth put one hand on her hip and pointed a wooden spoon at his feet with the other. “You’ll put holes in your stockings if you don’t wear something over them.”

Levi gritted his teeth, but he fought to keep his words even. “I won’t wear my boots in the house.”

“Don’t you have slippers?” She cocked her head to one side, facing him down the way he did his Percheron gelding.

“Ne, I don’t. But at least I’m not walking around barefoot on a freezing night.”

Her face blanched as she looked down at her bare toes below the hem of her nightgown. She reached her hand up to where her kapp should be and blood rushed to her cheeks. “Ach, I forgot... You must think... I’m so sorry...” She dropped the spoon on the counter and fled through the door to the Dawdi Haus.

Levi stared at the door she slammed behind her, his mind filled with the image of her flowing white gown and that trailing braid. Taking a deep breath, he rubbed his hands over his eyes then smoothed his beard. This wasn’t what he had bargained for when he set out to hire a housekeeper.

Chapter Three

Levi reached out with one hand to turn off the alarm before it could ring. Four o’clock and time to get up.

He pushed himself to the edge of the half-empty bed with a groan. Nights were short enough when he slept through them, but he had fought to get even a few hours’ sleep last night. Every time he closed his eyes, the sight of that tall, willowy form with the golden braid taunted him. He rubbed his face with both hands and paused with his eyes covered, capturing the vision again before the day’s work stole it from him.

Would it be wrong to think she might welcome his attention?

Levi combed his fingers through his beard. The last time he approached a woman... His face grew hot when he remembered how Ellie Miller, in front of everyone at the barn raising last summer, had refused his request to court her. He should never have mentioned it in the middle of a crowd of onlookers, but Eliza had cornered him that very morning and insisted he either marry or send Nellie and Nancy to live with her in Middlebury. He had been desperate.

He still was. But desperate enough to risk a rejection from his housekeeper?

Making a marriage wasn’t what he had intended when he set out to hire a housekeeper, but then, he also hadn’t intended to hire someone so eligible. He was crazy to think she’d even look at an old man like him.

Or maybe it wasn’t so crazy. A lot of men married girls younger than they were, and made good marriages, too. His own grossdawdi had two wives, marrying his grossmutti only months after his first wife had died in childbirth.

And then he had gone on to have twelve more children with his second wife.

At this thought Levi pushed himself out of bed. He paused to check the weather, pulling up the shade to look through the window at the bright stars and white fields, ghostly gray in the moonlight. His farm, his dat’s farm, his grossdawdi’s farm. The cabin his grossdawdi built in 1845 was just out of sight in the woodlot. But this farm meant nothing compared to his family. He’d do anything to keep them together.

Anything, including keeping Ruth Mummert on as his housekeeper. Would Eliza think her too young and inexperienced to take over the housekeeping? From the way supper went last night, she seemed competent enough.

But could he keep her around, having her become part of the family and a substitute mother for the younger ones? What would the other church members think of such a young woman in his home?

He should send her back to Lancaster County. He could spend ten minutes listing all the reasons why she wasn’t right for the job. She was too young, too outspoken, too bossy....

He let the shade fall back in place and turned to his dresser. Ruth Mummert...what was he going to do with her? He couldn’t let her go home. Not now. He had to make her fit in, become part of the family. A hired hand, a helper. Eliza and everyone else would see how wonderful-gut she was with the children and how well she handled herself in the kitchen.

And when it came right down to it, he didn’t want to send her away.

Picking up his razor, he paused, and then turned to the small chest at the foot of his bed. Salome’s chest. What would she think of Ruth Mummert? They’d get along fine, wouldn’t they? Salome would welcome her as a sister, a helper. He turned back to the mirror, ready to shave his upper lip, when he saw the scowl on his face. Why did he think of Salome at a time like this?

Ach, when didn’t he think of her?

He gave his upper lip a quick shave, the tiny shaving mirror reflecting his tired eyes. Old eyes. Levi swished the razor in the cold water and wiped it on the towel. Turning away from the mirror, he pulled on his work clothes, stretching his suspenders up over his shoulders and padding out of his bedroom.

The big house had been built before Dat was born, and the upper floor had been added to the house several years later to accommodate the growing family. Levi often thought of Grossdawdi in these quiet mornings as he climbed the worn treads of the stairway. His only memory of him was a blurred image, and he was surprised he remembered that much since Dawdi had died while Levi was still in dresses.

He stopped at the first bedroom and knocked on the door frame. “Elias, Nathan, it’s time to get up.” Then crossing the hall, he knocked on the opposite room. “James, David, it’s morning.” He waited until he heard them stirring before heading back down the stairs.

The kitchen was warm even though the fire lay quiet and dormant in the stove. He shook down the ashes and laid kindling on the glowing coals, each movement automatic. He blew the fire to life, fed it with more kindling and then set two split logs on top to keep it going. Waneta would be down soon. She always woke when she heard him in the kitchen.

What would he have done without Waneta when Salome died? Even though she was only fifteen at the time, his oldest daughter had stepped into her mother’s role without hesitation.

There were a few burned biscuits at first, for sure, but she learned quickly. Too quickly. She acted too much like an old married woman at times. He rarely saw her smile as she went about her work, and she was often short-tempered with her brothers and sisters.

Well, with Ruth Mummert here now, Waneta would be able to join the other youth at the Singings and enjoy herself for once. Maybe she’d even notice Reuben Stoltzfus trying to catch her eye at Sunday meetings.

“Mornin’, Dat.” Elias mumbled the greeting, but the other boys were silent as they jostled their sleepy way out to the back porch for their boots and coats. As crisp and clear as the stars were this morning, they’d all be wide-awake and half-frozen by the time they reached the barn.

Levi glanced at the Dawdi Haus door as he followed the boys. It was just an accident that he had seen Ruth in her night clothes. It was a mistake, nothing more, and he’d make sure it was never repeated.

* * *

Ruthy stood at the door of the Dawdi Haus.

“It was just a mistake. A terrible, horrible mistake.” For the third time since she had woken up, she repeated the words to herself, but she still didn’t want to touch the doorknob.

The look on Levi Zook’s face the night before made her cheeks burn. He had been amused by her shameful appearance, without her kapp or even stockings. Every time she looked at him she would remember those brown eyes and the laughing crinkles around them. She could kick herself for being so careless.

But how could she face him—how could she face the children after this?

She must. Somehow she must go back into the kitchen. She had heard Levi go out to do chores, so this was her chance to do her work without him around. By the time he got back from choring, the rest of the children would be awake and she wouldn’t have to face him alone.

Checking her kapp and smoothing her apron, she took a deep breath and then forced herself to open the door, pass through the short hall between the houses and walk into the kitchen. As she lit the kerosene lamp, she looked for the mess she had left behind when she fled the kitchen last night, but there was no sign of it. The sourdough sponge rested in its bowl under a clean towel, the counter was wiped clean and even the wooden spoon she had used was washed and put away.

She leaned her hands on the counter, ashamed and mortified. Levi had to have been the one to clean up after her. What must he think of her? Not only had she paraded in front of him dressed only in her nightgown, but she had also left her work for him to finish. She wouldn’t be surprised if he sent her back to Lancaster County that morning.

Never mind. Even if her first day was her last one, she had work to do. It was four-thirty already and the men would be hungry when they came in from choring.

Putting more wood in the stove, Ruthy turned the sourdough onto the bread board and started kneading it, adding flour as she worked. She went through the breakfast menu in her mind. What did this family eat? Eggs, potatoes and biscuits were what Mam would be fixing this morning, and Waneta had mentioned sausage last night. She’d make just that.

As she started the sausage frying, the children started showing up one by one and the predawn quiet was broken. Waneta and Martha said soft “good mornings” as they tied on their aprons, Martha throwing on a shawl to go out to the chickens.

“Dat likes oatmeal with breakfast. Did you start any?” Waneta asked as she started peeling potatoes with quick efficiency.

“Ach, ne, I didn’t, but it’s too late now. I should have started it last night.”

“Don’t worry. Dat bought this quick-cooking kind. It only takes one minute.”

Ruthy took the round box of instant oatmeal from the shelf and read the cooking directions. Only one minute? It would probably end up tasting like wallpaper paste. Real oats were going on her shopping list. She measured the oat flakes and water into a pan and set it on the hot stove.

When Martha returned with a pail full of eggs, Waneta started breaking them into a large bowl to scramble. Ruthy put the sausage patties on a plate in the oven to keep them warm and turned the peeled and sliced potatoes into the frying pan. Her stomach growled as the wet potatoes hit the hot grease with a burst of hearty fragrance.

“When Mam was here, we’d have pie for breakfast,” Martha said as she leaned toward the stove and inhaled the scent of the frying potatoes.

“Well, Mam isn’t here, is she?” Waneta grunted as she beat the eggs. She must have broken three dozen into the bowl. “I have enough to do without making pies, too.”

“I’d make them if I knew how,” Martha said as she got a dozen plates from the cupboard.

“I’ll teach you,” Ruthy said as she mixed biscuit dough. “What kind of pie is your favorite?”

“Anything. Apple, sugar cream, peach...”

“Do you like shoofly?”

Martha gave Ruthy a puzzled look. “Shoofly? I’ve never heard of it.”

“I have,” Waneta said as she poured the beaten eggs into another pan. “Grossmutti said she ate it when she was a girl in Lancaster County, but she never had the recipe.”

“I have a recipe for it. It’s my mam’s favorite. We can make one this afternoon and have it for supper.” Ruthy slid the pan of biscuits into the hot oven and then turned the potatoes one more time. She moved the pan to the back of the stove. They were done perfectly.

“Martha,” Waneta said, “make sure the little ones are up. Breakfast is almost ready.” She stirred the eggs one more time, and then moved the pan of oatmeal away from the heat.

“Let’s see,” Ruthy said, “we have sausage, eggs, potatoes, oatmeal, biscuits, canned peaches... Is that everything?”

“You made the coffee, didn’t you?” Waneta looked up from stirring the eggs, her eyes wide.

“Coffee! How could I forget?”

Waneta shook her head and reached past her for the coffeepot. “Dat’s a bear without his coffee in the morning.”

Just what she needed, a bear.

The girls came into the kitchen, sleepy-eyed but dressed. Ruthy had them finish setting the table, then she glanced out the window and saw Levi and the older boys heading toward the house from the barn.

Waneta saw them, too. “Martha! Dat’s coming!” She directed her voice toward the stovepipe, and then saw Ruthy staring at her. “The stovepipe goes right up through the little boys’ room. She’s there getting them out of bed.”

Somehow, with Waneta and Martha’s help, breakfast was on the table before Levi Zook and the older boys finished taking off their boots and washing up on the back porch. The younger children slid into their seats, and the family took their places around the table. Ruthy didn’t look at Levi, but kept busy helping Sam sit straight on his end of the bench.

Silence fell, compelling Ruthy to risk looking at the stony face at the other end of the table. Waneta was right, he could be a bear in the morning. Last night forgotten, she stared back at him.

“Is there something you need, Levi Zook?”

“What happened to the coffee?”

Ruthy’s knees shook beneath the table. How dare he! Her first morning in a new kitchen, breakfast on the table on time, the children all awake and dressed and he questions her about coffee?

The coffeepot gurgling on the stove was the only sound as she kept her eyes locked on his.

“Your coffee will be ready after we thank the Father in heaven for our food.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ruthy saw Nellie look from her to her father, and back again. Jesse stared at her with an open mouth, and Nancy giggled.

David broke the stony silence. “Dat, can we eat now?”

Levi Zook didn’t answer, but lowered his head as a signal for the silent prayer. Ruthy closed her eyes, but her mind wasn’t on the food before them.

“Dear God, help me survive this day.”

* * *

Levi cast about in his mind for words to pray. Any words would do, but they were nowhere to be found. Making do with a quick Denki for this food, Levi raised his head and lifted his spoon. Every morning since his marriage the clink of his spoon in his coffee cup was the signal for his family to begin eating, but without a coffee cup he made do with a sharp rap against the edge of his plate.

Taking the platter of sausage, he shoveled four or five patties onto his plate, and then passed them to Waneta at the same time Elias passed the bowl of scrambled eggs to him. When Elias handed him an empty bowl with oatmeal clinging to the sides he looked at Waneta.

“Ja, for sure, Dat, there’s more on the stove to take up.”

She turned to get it, but Ruth took the empty bowl from Levi’s hands.

“You sit and eat. I’ll fill the bowl and get the coffee at the same time.”

Under the tantalizing breakfast smells of sausage and potatoes, Levi caught the scent of clean laundry as she turned from him to the stove. The slight nudge sent his memory whirling back to the night before, when this same woman stood in the shadowy kitchen in her long white nightgown.

“Dat,” Elias said, bumping his arm with the bowl, “take the potatoes.”

Levi took the bowl and passed it on to Waneta, his appetite gone. He picked up his fork, hesitating, watching both benches full of children’s heads down, focused on their meal.

“Here you are, Levi Zook.” She was at his left elbow, setting his coffee cup by his plate and handing him the dish of oatmeal.

He took it without a glance at her and spooned some into his waiting bowl. Perhaps if he didn’t look at her, didn’t speak to her, she would take her place as a welcome employee. Think of her as someone helping out on the farm. Think of her as a sister.

She sat at the end of the table again and leaned over to help Jesse cut his sausage patties, her golden hair, framed by her heart-shaped kapp, shone in the lamplight. He focused on his plate, shoveling tasteless food into his mouth. Even if he wasn’t hungry now, it was many hours before dinnertime.

His plate finally empty, he downed his coffee in three swallows, shuddering as the bitter drink poured down his throat. He had forgotten the cream and sugar, but it was too late to add it now. He wiped his beard with his napkin as he stood.

“Elias, I’m going to get started on the repairs for the plow. You come out when you’re done.”

“Ja, Dat,” Elias answered, “I’ll be out soon.”

“Dat,” Waneta asked, “what about your second cup of coffee?”

Levi kept his eyes on his shirt front as he brushed off crumbs that weren’t there. Anything to keep his eyes from straying to the other end of the table.

“I’ll have it later. Maybe you can bring it out to the barn, ja?” He patted her cheek and escaped to the back porch.

He sat on the bench, lacing his boots, the cold pressing him even in the sheltered area. Voices came to him through the door as the children finished their breakfasts. He leaned back against the wall, one boot in his hand, forgotten, as he listened. The words were indistinct, but one voice floated above the others in calm, even tones. Even as old as Waneta was, she didn’t have the gentle, womanly influence Ruth had brought into their home.

Levi thrust his foot into the well-worn leather of his second boot. It looked like bringing Ruth Mummert here was going to turn out to be just what his family needed.

* * *

The next Monday brought the beginning of the new school term. Once breakfast was finished, the children raced to get ready on time. Ruthy started clearing the table, but Waneta stopped her.

“Would you mind braiding the girls? I hate doing it, and they never look good for school.”

“Ja, sure I will.”

Braid the girls? As she went up the stairs to find the twins’ room, Ruthy’s mind flew back to when she and Laurette would braid each other’s hair after playing too wildly in the school yard. Laurette’s hair was so dark it was almost black, while Ruthy’s was blond with a stubborn curl to it. She had loved to twist and braid Laurette’s smooth hair.

But she didn’t have any time to brood over memories as she quickly tamed Nancy’s and Nellie’s tousled brown hair and braided them with deft hands ready to fit their kapps on. When she was done, Nellie and Nancy looked at each other, then to Ruthy, Nellie almost in tears.

“You didn’t do it right,” Nancy said.

Ruthy looked at the two girls, their silken hair twisted neatly away from their faces and two braids falling down their backs. “What do you mean?”

Nancy pointed to the side of Nellie’s face. “You twisted it. The girls will say that’s fancy. You have to do it right.”

Martha looked in the door. “Come, girls. It’s time to go.” She stepped into the room, staring at them. “What have you done to your hair?”

“I braided it the way I would have done at home,” Ruthy said. “I guess the style is different here.”

“Ja, if they went to school like this they’d be teased to no end.” Martha sat down on the bed and started undoing Nancy’s braid. “Here, you watch me, and then you’ll know how we do it.”

Ruthy watched as Martha’s fingers sped through Nancy’s hair. It wasn’t hard at all, just one more difference between home and this strange place. She finished braiding Nellie in time for them all to meet the school bus at the end of the lane.

After the scholars had left, Ruthy picked up a towel as Waneta shaved soap flakes into the dish pan.

“After we do our morning work, we need to get started on the laundry.” Ruthy filled a second dishpan with hot water from the stove’s reservoir. “You’ll have to show me how you do it.”

“It’s going to take all day.” Waneta’s voice was resigned.

Irritation at Levi Zook rose before Ruthy squelched it down. This girl had been carrying the full burden of running this house far too long, but now she could have some help.

“It will go twice as fast with two of us working, ja?”

“Ja.” Waneta’s voice sounded a little brighter with that thought. “And then what job gets done tomorrow?”

“My mam has a job for each day of the week, and all the work gets done in its own time. Tomorrow we’ll iron the clothes, Wednesday will be for mending. Thursday we’ll do the baking, Friday the marketing if we go to town, and Saturday, when all the scholars are at home, we’ll do the cleaning.”

“That sounds like what my mam did before she got sick. I remember cleaning the house every Saturday.”

“Was your mam ill for a long time before she passed on?” Ruthy hated to ask, but she was curious about this woman who had been Levi Zook’s wife and the mother to all these children.

“Ja, the illness started even before Sam came.” Waneta stared at the cooling dishwater, her hands resting on the edge of the pan. “There were lots of days she never got out of bed. After the baby came she just stayed there until she...”

“How old were you when Sam was born? Eleven?”

Waneta nodded, and then reached for the next stack of dishes. “I tried, but I could never keep house as well as Mam had before she got sick.”

“And your dat has never remarried?”

Waneta gave Ruthy a shaky smile. “Would you marry a man with ten children?”

“Why not? Children are a blessing.”

“Not everyone thinks so. Dat thought Ellie Miller would make a good mam for us, since she was a widow herself and her little ones needed a dat, but she married Bram Lapp last fall.”

“Maybe she just didn’t think it was God’s will.”

Waneta shook her head. “I’ve watched her with Bram, and I can tell they really love each other. She didn’t love Dat, that’s why she didn’t marry him. I’ve always wondered if she would have learned to love him if it hadn’t been for us children.”

Ruthy dried the next plate and stacked it with the others. Did love make any difference when it came to marriage? She had loved Elam, hadn’t she? But now that marriage would never happen.

Ne, love had nothing to do with it. Marriage was all about making promises and believing both you and your husband could keep them.

Ruthy picked a handful of spoons out of the rinse water and dried them one by one, dropping each one into the silverware drawer.

She had thought she could trust Elam, but his word hadn’t meant anything. She dropped the last spoon and closed the drawer with a shove.

Perhaps being a maidle wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

Chapter Four

Levi’s fork sliced through the crumbly topping and the gooey layer of molasses pudding. He hesitated before he put the bite of pie into his mouth, teasing Martha with his delay. The girl wiggled in her seat, her eyes glowing as she watched him. He took the triangle off his fork and chewed slowly, tasting the blend of molasses and the crumb topping.

“Mmm.” He closed his eyes and nodded. “Mmm, ja this is perfect. Even better than last week.” He opened his eyes to see Martha’s face blushing.

“Dat, it’s really good?”

“Martha, this is the best shoofly pie I’ve ever had.”

Martha turned to Ruth Mummert with a grin. “Then I guess we can serve everyone else, if Dat likes it.”

David reached for the pie plate. “I won’t complain if Martha turns out to be a pie baker. I could eat pie for every meal.”

“It was Ruthy’s recipe,” Martha said, her ears turning red at the praise. “She’s the one who taught me.”

“And Martha is an excellent student.” Ruth started clearing the supper dishes as the pie was passed. “She will be a wonderful-gut baker.”

Levi took another bite and savored the sweetness. Pie was the best end to a meal. Pie and coffee, he amended as he sipped the fresh cup Ruth put in front of him. He took his time to finish his dessert, listening to the conversations between the children. The girls discussed which kind of pie Martha should try next, while the big boys argued about who had won the game that afternoon. He couldn’t hear what the little boys at the end of the table were talking about, but they were deep in conversation.

He took the last bite of pie as the girls rose to wash the dishes. Ja, with pie for supper life was gut. He had done a wonderful-gut thing when he brought Ruth Mummert here. If she could teach Martha to make pie, she could teach his girls everything else they needed to know. There would never be a reason to send any of his children away.

“Do you want some more coffee?” Ruth asked, appearing at his elbow with the coffeepot in hand.

“Ne, it will only keep me awake.”

“It would me, too.”

Levi let her take his empty plate and swallowed the last of his coffee. “Boys, you can start on your studying. Martha and the twins will join you when the dishes are done.”

“Dat,” said Jesse, “I need help with my arithmetic. I got all the problems wrong today.”

“I’ll help you. Bring your book in here.”

When Jesse brought his book, he opened the page and showed Levi where he was having difficulty. “It’s here, Dat. I added one plus one, but Miss Shrock said the answer was eleven, not two.”

Levi smiled. Ja, it was the same with all his children when they encountered adding ten and one for the first time. “Go in my bedroom and get a dime and the pennies off my dresser.”

Jesse brought them and Levi showed him how ten pennies turn into a dime. “Now, if I add one penny and one dime, what do I get?”

“Eleven cents.”

“Ja, gut. Now look at your arithmetic. If you add ten and one, what do you get?”

“Eleven?”

“Ja, that’s it. Now try the next one.”

While Jesse worked on his arithmetic problems, the girls joined them at the table, and Levi’s eyes strayed to Ruth. She was setting the sponge for tomorrow’s bread, her movements quick and practiced.

As he watched her, the memory of her tall, graceful form in the flowing white gown hit him with full force. How could he put it out of his mind? Or did he even want to? Her golden hair gleaming under her heart-shaped kapp, her efficient hands, his children content and well-fed, the worry lines disappearing from Waneta’s face... Ja, he had done right when he brought Ruth Mummert here.

“Dat, is this right?”

Jesse’s question brought him back to the present. As he looked over Jesse’s arithmetic paper, the reality of what he had been thinking hit him square in the jaw. Ruth Mummert wasn’t much older than his Waneta. A grown woman, ja, but still a young woman. A beautiful young woman. How long would she be working for him? The first Singing she attended, she’d have a flock of young men buzzing around her.

He glanced back at Ruth, noting how quickly she had brought the kitchen to order after feeding all twelve of them. After less than a week, she had settled into the role of housekeeper very easily. Not just housekeeper, he amended as he surveyed the row of heads around the table, his scholars busy with their evening studies. She was taking his daughters under her wing like an older sister.

Ruth took off her apron, and after hanging it on the hook next to the sink, came over to look at Nellie’s homework. Levi watched Nellie’s face light up when Ruth whispered in her ear and gave her shoulders a hug. He swallowed the lump rising in his throat.

Ne, not an older sister. More like an aunt or...

Ruth turned to Nancy and laid her hand on the girl’s shoulder as she leaned down to catch Nancy’s explanation of her homework.

Ne, not even an aunt. A mother. The mother he had been hoping to find for his children.

But wasn’t she too young to take on such a responsibility?

Levi turned back to Jesse’s paper as Ruth left the girls and walked toward him.

“I’ll say good-night now, Levi Zook, unless you have anything else you need me to do before morning.”

Levi glanced up at her, his mouth dry. Would his thoughts show on his face?

“Ne, denki.” He cleared his throat to stop the adolescent squeak that threatened to escape. “That was a fine meal.”

She blushed and lowered her eyes at his praise. “Your daughters were a wonderful-gut help. Good night.”

The kitchen table filled with children was silent as she closed the door to the Dawdi Haus.

“Dat,” Sam said, standing in the door of the front room with a drawing tablet in his hand, “why didn’t she stay with us?”

“Ruth works hard. She probably wanted to rest or write letters before she went to bed.”

Nellie, his quiet Nellie, said, “She could have stayed and written her letters here.”

“Tomorrow we’ll ask her to stay.”

But would she? Levi had the sudden urge to follow her, to ask her to stay tonight. But he sat, the final snick of the Dawdi Haus door latch echoing above the children’s voices.

* * *

Ruthy leaned back against the kitchen door before heading down the short hall to the Dawdi Haus. The kitchen had been cozy and warm, and the lantern hung over the table had enclosed them all within its light. The scholars bent to their studies, Waneta copying recipes, Elias and Nathan sharing sections of The Budget—they were a family, but not her family. From the table-flat farmland outside the window, to the stark stiffness of the girls’ kapps, to the flat tones of their words, every moment she spent with Levi Zook’s family showed her just how far from home she really was.

But this is where God wanted her to be, wasn’t it? And she was needed here. Even after this short time, she could see how much this family needed her help, especially the girls and little, lonely Sam. Several times during the day he would come to her and she would take quick breaks from her work to sit down and hold him on her lap while he chatted with her or showed her his drawings. His little-boy body had molded into hers, showing her how he missed the comfort of a mother’s arms.

They all missed their mother, even Elias and Waneta.

Ach, and she missed her own mother, even though they had only been parted a short time. But she could still write, and she knew she could visit whenever it was convenient. Her mam was only a train ride away.

With that thought she hurried into the Dawdi Haus and relit the fire in the stove. She retrieved her writing desk from the bedroom and sat at the little kitchen table, as close to the fire as she could get.

Putting the ink bottle on the side of the stove to warm it, Ruthy took out a sheet of paper and her pen, composing a letter to Mam in her head as she waited.

Her first week had gone well, she would write. Waneta was a sweet girl and a joy to work with. Martha had loved learning to make pies. Nellie had come to her wanting to learn to purl so she could knit a pair of stockings for her dat, but Ruthy had convinced her to start out with a blanket for her doll to practice the stitches. Nancy had come home from school yesterday with snow inside her boots, complaining that David had pushed her into the ditch on the way home. The boys... She didn’t know any of them very well yet, except Sam.

And then there was Levi. What would she tell Mam about Levi Zook?

Ruthy picked up the bottle of ink and shook it as she considered this problem. The ink was almost warm enough to use.

Levi hadn’t lied to her, but Mam and Dat would say he misled her by not telling her how many children he had. They would ask if she wanted to stay on, knowing he had kept that important information to himself.

She smiled to herself. Of course she was going to stay. Ten children seemed like such a large number...until she started getting to know them. Now that she had met them, had seen how much they all longed for a mother in their lives, she couldn’t bear to think of leaving them.

But... Ruthy shook the ink bottle again, and then brought it to the table and uncorked it. She filled her pen as she considered something that had been hovering at the back of her mind. What if there was something else Levi had forgotten to tell her?

What if he already had a new mother chosen for his children and he had only hired her so the house would be orderly and running well before his new wife came to live here? She wouldn’t be surprised. Just because he hadn’t been successful in courting that other woman Waneta had told her about didn’t mean he didn’t have his eye on someone else. A man like him wouldn’t stay single very long.

And if she got along well with the new wife, perhaps she would be asked to stay on. A new wife would need a helper, ja?

The clock’s ticking echoed in the silent room. It was a pipe dream at best. When Levi married again, she would have to move on. Find another position as a housekeeper, or a mother’s helper...

A tear fell, raising a spot on her paper. Ruthy quickly crumpled the sheet and threw it into the stove. She couldn’t send a letter home with a tearstain on it, could she?

Home. Would she ever know the sweetness of her own home again?

Chapter Five

Levi recognized Eliza’s sleigh as soon as she turned the corner half a mile away. Her feisty horse, Ginger, had a flashy step that matched Eliza’s own personality. She never did anything partway.

He poured the bucket of slop he was carrying into the pig’s trough and then went back out to the yard to wait for her. She slowed Ginger for the turn into the farm lane, but then the horse picked up speed again before he reached the barn. Levi caught the reins as the horse neared the buggy shed. How could he convince Eliza this horse was too much for her? Levi struggled to hold the horse still. He had never been able to convince his older sister of anything.

Eliza climbed down from the sleigh and looked him up and down. “Well, Levi, I guess you aren’t starving yet. Waneta must be doing a good job feeding you.”

“Ja, Waneta’s doing a fine job.”

His sister sniffed, looking from the barn to the house. “You’re all well? The whole family?”

“Ja, Eliza. We’re all well. And you?” Levi stroked Ginger’s neck. What was Eliza doing here? It was an eight-mile drive from her home near Middlebury, and it wasn’t like her to drive that far on a Thursday just to see if all the children were healthy.

“I’m well enough, considering. It isn’t easy living alone, you know.”

He didn’t know. He had never lived alone.

“I’ll take care of Ginger if you want to go on in the house. I’m sure there’s still coffee on the stove.”

Eliza moved closer to him, stepping around a clump of snow. “I heard you picked up a woman at the Shipshewana station last week.”

Levi sighed. Here it was. He had been wondering how to tell Eliza about his new housekeeper, but he should have known word would get to her.

“Ja, her name is Ruth Mummert. She’s our housekeeper.”

“A housekeeper? You’re spending good money on a housekeeper when you know very well I had everything arranged for you?”

That was just the problem. She had everything arranged, whether he liked it or not.

“Eliza, I want to keep my family together.”

“Humph.”

Ginger moved restlessly, reminding Levi the horse needed attending to after the long drive.

“Why don’t you go on in the house and meet Ruth? She’s been a wonderful-gut help to us already, and I think you’ll like her.”

Eliza turned her bulk toward the house, but then looked at Levi. “I’ll meet her, but I can’t promise I’ll like her. It seems like backward thinking to bring an outsider into your home while I’m here.”

Levi watched Eliza pick her way across the snowy barnyard to the house. At least Waneta was there to provide a buffer between Ruth and his sister. He started unhitching Ginger.

He’d better get inside as soon as he could.

* * *

“How many jars of chowchow?”

Waneta counted, bending down to see into the back recesses of the cellar shelves. “Twenty-four, and then there are ten jars of pickled cauliflower.”

Ruthy wrote the numbers down and glanced over the list. Green beans, navy beans, tomatoes, vegetable soup, plenty of pickled vegetables... “Is there any corn?”

Waneta searched through the jars. “Ne, no corn left.”

“What about fruit?”

Waneta moved to the next shelf. “Lots of prune plums.”

As she started counting, Sam clattered down the wooden steps.

“’Neta! Aunt Eliza’s here.”

“Ach, ne, not today!” Waneta stood so quickly her head bumped against the shelf above her. “Ruthy, is my kapp straight?” She dusted off her skirt and retied her apron.

“You look fine. Why don’t I finish counting the fruit while you go up to greet your auntie.”

Waneta laid her hand on Ruthy’s arm, her voice an urgent whisper. “Don’t make me face her alone!”

“You aren’t afraid of her, are you?”

Waneta’s gaze went to the ceiling as they both heard heavy footsteps in the kitchen above them. “I can never do anything right for her. I know she doesn’t like me.”

“I understand. I have an auntie like that, too.” Ruthy smiled at Waneta. “Come, we’ll face her together.”

Waneta led the way up the bare wooden steps, glancing back once to make sure Ruthy was following her.

“Go on, I’m right behind you.”

Ruthy smiled at Waneta’s back. She remembered hating to face her overbearing Aunt Trudy when she was a young teenager, so Waneta’s reaction didn’t surprise her. Aunts could be very particular about a girl’s behavior.

The woman waiting for them in the kitchen didn’t look anything like thin, pinched Aunt Trudy. Eliza stood in the middle of the floor, still wearing her woolen shawl and black bonnet, leaning heavily on a gnarled cane. Her expression was the same as Aunt Trudy’s, though, as she surveyed the spotless kitchen shelf. If she were looking for a fault with Ruthy’s housekeeping, she certainly wouldn’t find it in the kitchen.

“Aunt Eliza, you should sit down. Would you like some coffee?” Waneta hurried to the stove and moved the coffeepot to the front.

Eliza’s cane thumped as the woman turned to inspect Ruthy.

“So you’re the housekeeper my brother hired.” Eliza’s gaze took in everything from Ruthy’s heart-shaped kapp to her shoes, dusty from the cellar.

“Ja, I’m Ruth Mummert.”

“You’re from Lancaster County?”

“Ja.” Ruthy smiled. Eliza was gruff, but didn’t seem to be as scary as Waneta acted. Sam had disappeared into the front room.

“I once met a Mummert from Lancaster County.” Eliza let Ruthy take her shawl and untied her bonnet.

“You did? I wonder if they could be related to us.”

“I hope not.” Eliza sniffed and thumped toward the rocking chair in the corner. “They were Englisch.” She turned to Ruthy again, narrowing her eyes as she studied her. “You don’t have Englisch relatives, do you?”

Before Ruthy could think how to answer this, Eliza sank into the rocking chair with a groan.

“Here’s your coffee, Aunt Eliza.” Waneta handed the cup to her aunt. “And here’s the footstool.” She brought the small stool from its place next to the wall.

As Ruthy poured herself a cup of coffee, she watched Eliza lift her left foot onto the stool with one hand and lean back in the chair, her lips pinched together. Raising the cup to her mouth, she blew on the hot liquid before taking a sip.

“Waneta,” Ruthy said, sitting on the bench with her back to the table, “will you get a plate of cookies?” She took a sip of her own coffee, and watched Eliza’s face relax as her body eased into the chair. The older woman appeared to be in much pain, but no complaints escaped, except for her gruff demeanor.

“You need to know up front that I don’t approve of what my brother’s done.” Eliza took a cookie from the plate Waneta set on the small table next to her. “We could get along just fine without the expense of hiring someone from outside.”

Ruthy kept a smile on her face as Eliza paused to take a bite of her cookie. Did the woman have any idea the hurt her words caused? Without a family of her own, Ruthy would always be an outsider.

“I told him I would take the little girls to live with me.” Eliza spoke around her cookie, unaware of the crumbs that fell as she gestured. “Those two will never learn to be good wives, growing up without a mother as they are.”

A small sound escaped from Waneta, who was sitting next to Ruthy on the bench. Ruthy glanced at her, but the girl’s head was down, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

“I don’t think Levi Zook wants his girls to live away from him. Isn’t your house quite far?”

Eliza grunted and shifted her bulk in the chair. “Not so much. It’s only eight miles, and that’s close enough to visit several times a year.”

Waneta jumped up from the bench and went through the doorway to the front room. Ruthy heard her feet pounding on the stairway as she ran to her room and slammed the door behind her.

“Now, what’s wrong with her?” Eliza gazed through the doorway where Waneta had vanished.

“I don’t think she wants her sisters to live that far away.” Ruthy took another sip from her coffee, and then set the cup on the table behind her. Irritation at this woman’s callous behavior rose with each moment, and she didn’t want her shaky hand to betray her feelings.

“Humph.” Eliza took a bite of her cookie and inspected it as she chewed. “There’s nothing wrong with making sure those little girls have all the advantages a mother can give them.”

Ruthy clenched her hands together on her lap. “I’m sure Levi Zook has considered what his daughters need.” She lifted her chin, looking at Eliza. She was beginning to understand why Levi was so anxious for her to stay here. “This family suffered a loss when their mother passed on, and it wouldn’t help anyone to separate them now.”

Eliza deflated in her chair, the corners of her mouth quivering. “Ach, you’re right. I hadn’t thought of that.” With the bluster gone, Eliza was just a lonely old woman.

“Would you like more coffee?” Ruthy rose and went to the stove. Eliza wouldn’t want a stranger to be a witness to her emotions.

“Ja, denki.” Eliza sniffed, and the chair creaked as she shifted. By the time Ruthy refilled the two cups, Eliza was back to her old self. “You seem like a young thing to be taking on a job like this.”

“Not so young. I’ll be twenty-four this spring.”

“Twenty-four? Why aren’t you married?”

Ruthy flinched at Eliza’s blunt words, but the other woman took another cookie from the plate and tackled it with relish. If she hadn’t seen the vulnerable crack in Levi’s sister a few moments ago, she might have run out of the room the same way Waneta had. But the downturned corners of Eliza’s mouth revealed more than a demanding aunt who was used to riding roughshod over everyone around her. Something else made her very unhappy.

Ruthy considered this as she took another sip of her coffee. Eliza may be a lonely old woman, but that gave her no excuse to be cruel to her brother. Eliza wasn’t going to bully this family while Ruthy was around.

“If I wasn’t a maidle, I wouldn’t be able to help this family, would I?”

Eliza raised her chin and regarded Ruthy through narrowed eyes, but Ruthy pressed on.

“If I wasn’t around, your brother would need you to help, ja? Is that why you came today? To see if you could get me to run back to Lancaster County?”

The other woman’s eyes narrowed further, and then a sudden smile broke over her face.

“You’ve got spunk. I like that. Maybe you will work out here.”

Ruthy nearly dropped her cookie. Instead she brushed nonexistent crumbs off her lap. What was going on? A chuckle from the other woman made her look up.

“My dear girl, I’m not nearly as grumpy as everyone thinks I am.” She tapped her knee with one hand. “Arthritis keeps me from getting around as I like, and sometimes the pain is unbearable. I try not to complain, but I know I can be short-tempered. I also know I stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong at times, but I love my brother. He has a long row to hoe in front of him, and I was just trying to help.”

Pieces fell together like a quilt top as Eliza paused to take a sip of coffee. Levi’s crafty sister used her cranky attitude to get her own way, just as Laurette used her pretty face. Was this nothing more than concern for her brother and his family?

“Don’t think I’m soft, though.” Eliza’s sharp eyes peered at Ruthy over the rim of the cup. “Levi’s my little brother, and I’ll take care of him just as I always have.” She lowered the coffee cup to her lap and regarded Ruthy, her eyes narrowing. “You are much too young and pretty for this job, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

Eliza’s head tilted toward her. “We are to avoid the appearance of evil, but here you are, living in this house with a single man...”

Ruthy felt a cold lump turn in her stomach. “But I live in the Dawdi Haus. Surely that can’t be construed into anything wrong.”

“You know how people can talk, dear, and it only takes one comment to start rumors flying.”

Ruthy concentrated on brushing a crumb off her knee as Eliza took another sip of her coffee. The woman was right. Even if she and Levi Zook avoided each other, her presence in this home could appear improper to anyone in the community. But what could she do?

As the other woman finished off her cookie, Ruthy caught a hint of a smile on Eliza’s face, and the cold lump of dread turned to seething irritation. What a wily fox she was! Her attempt to bully hadn’t worked, so she had changed tactics and had almost succeeded. Levi’s sister didn’t know her at all. Daed had always said she was stubborn as a mule, and she would keep her heels dug in. Levi Zook had hired her to be his housekeeper, and that’s what she would be as long as he wanted her to stay.

Thumps and stamps from the porch told her Levi was coming in, so Ruthy rose to refill the plate of cookies and pour his coffee. How easily was he swayed by his sister?

* * *

Levi took a deep breath, his hand on the kitchen doorknob. He had put off facing Eliza for as long as he could, but now worry set in. Had she already succeeded in running off Ruth? Would he be searching for another housekeeper before the day was out?

Pushing the door open, he sought Ruth’s face first. She glanced at him from the stove, where she was pouring a cup of coffee, her face pinched. At least Eliza hadn’t reduced her to tears.

His sister, on the other hand, was settled into the rocking chair like a toad that had just snagged a fat moth. Whatever they had been talking about, it looked like he had come in just in time.

“Some coffee?” Ruth handed him a cup as she sat on the bench.

“Denki.” Levi sat on the bench beside her and took a sip from the steaming cup.

“We were just discussing your situation,” Eliza said.

“What situation is that?” Levi took a cookie from the plate Ruth had set on the table behind him and took a bite. A piecrust cookie, just like his mam had made. Ruth Mummert was full of surprises.

“A young girl, living in the same house as an unmarried man.” Eliza leaned the rocker forward. “You know how that will look to the community.”

Levi glanced at Ruth. Her face was growing red, but she tilted her chin up as she returned his look.

“I’ve done nothing against the Ordnung, sister. Ruth is no different than any other helper I might hire to work on the farm.” Levi kept his voice sure and strong, but at the back of his mind a whisper of doubt crept in. What would the ministers say about this situation? After all, it wasn’t what he had expected when he made the arrangement.

“I still think you should follow through on what we agreed.”

All doubt disappeared.

“We never agreed to anything, Eliza. I am the head of this family, and I would never agree to send any of the children away.”

Eliza drained her coffee cup and then looked at Levi. “You would if the ministers insisted.”

She was right, of course. If the ministers decided it would be best if the girls went to live with Eliza, he wouldn’t have any choice but to submit to their decision. He had hired Ruth Mummert to avoid this, but Eliza seemed intent on pursuing her plans. If only she had remarried when she had the chance twenty years ago, then she might have her own family and wouldn’t be so interested in taking his.

Eliza planted her cane in front of her and hauled herself to her feet.

“I must be getting back. Susie needs milking on time, you know.”

Ruth hurried to fetch Eliza’s bonnet and shawl from the hook by the door. “You’ll miss seeing the scholars. They’ll be home in another hour.”

“Ne, I can’t wait that long.”

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