An Amish Kitchen, page 2
“Ya, he was here.”
“Fine figure of a man.”
Fern didn’t reply; she did not want to contradict, nor could she in truth. She loved her grandmother. Esther Zook had taken her and raised her when both her parents had died from influenza when Fern was five. The old woman had been a balm to Fern’s heart and flagging spirits when she longed for the gentle laughter and love she remembered from her mamm and daed. And through the years, as her mammi’s arthritis had worsened, Fern had learned the ways of plants and general first aid, following in her grandmother’s footsteps as a healer to her people. Of course the more serious cases always were sent to Dr. Knepp, an Englisch physician who was widely embraced by the community, but the Zook women were kept quite busy nonetheless.
Fern put the jar of peppermint sticks back on the counter, a flash of Abram Fisher’s handsome grin coming to her mind. She turned determinedly to her grandmother.
“What would you like for supper?”
“Ach, anything you want that’s cool from the garden. I’m not a bit hungry, to tell the truth.”
Fern moved to cover the soft-veined hand of the older woman and frowned in concern. “Are you all right? Is there anything I can do?”
Her grandmother sank into a rocker. “To cure old age? Nee. Derr Herr has His own cure for that. But to aid my heart, you might take a basket of those cherry tomatoes from the kitchen garden over to the Fisher kinner. Boys always love them, and we’ve been blessed with more than a few this year.”
Fern bit back her frustration. “I’m sure the Fishers have plenty of tomatoes.”
Her grandmother held up a wrinkled hand. “I spoke with Martha before she left for Ohio; she said her cherry tomatoes had caught the blight.”
Fern closed her eyes against the image of knocking on Abram Fisher’s door. She had no problem running something next door if she knew he was in the fields, but to go now, right after he’d been here, would look like she was chasing him. Still, she could say she also wanted to double-check on Mary . . .
“Ach, all right. I’ll take the tomatoes over.”
Her grandmother smiled, all gentle wrinkles and kind blue eyes. She reached out to pat Fern’s hand. “Gut girl.”
Abram watched Mary dash across the family’s kitchen, a fistful of blueberries in hand and a smile on her rosy cheeks. He leaned back in a chair and felt like he’d suddenly aged in one afternoon; his baby sister had scared him half to death. And then it had not been the old woman who had answered his call for help, but the quick-mouthed Deborah, nee, Fern. He decided his momentary musings on the girl were because she was helping Mary. Besides, he didn’t like her way of fixing things—she was too practical and straightforward for a woman. Not that he’d really been noticing in that much detail. He said a brief silent prayer of thanks for Mary’s health and added the hope that he’d not have to be seeing Fern Zook again anytime soon for her services.
“She’s nice . . . and has a quick mind,” Matthew said, lifting his head from his book where he sat at the kitchen table.
“Hmm? Who?” Abram asked.
“Fern Zook.”
“Ya,” Mark chimed in, his pug nose in Abram’s face for a second. “Mebbe you should maaarry her.”
Abram made a feint swat at him, and the boy laughed.
Mary stopped running about for a moment. “What’s maaarry mean?” she asked.
“Death,” Mark quipped.
Mary’s lip began to quiver. “Like my puppy died?”
“Close your mouth,” Abram said to his younger bruder and held out his arms to Mary. “Kumme here, sweetheart.”
She came readily and nestled herself on his lap. “What is it really, Abram? I don’t want my kitty to die.”
“Nee . . . of course not. Married is—like Mamm and Daed. Two people love each other, and then there’s a wedding and they start a life together. That’s all.”
“That’s a lot,” Matthew said.
“Ya, well . . .” Abram brushed a strand of hair from his sister’s forehead.
“Are you gonna do that with Fern Zook, Abram?” Mary asked, peering intently into his eyes.
He laughed. “Nee . . . married is not for your old bruder. I’ll wait around someday till you marry, okay? But not until you’re at least thirty-five.”
“Thirty-five?” Luke laughed from where he sat eating the last of Mamm’s molasses cookies. “That’s too old. You gotta marry after rumschpringe, ya?”
“I don’t want no rumschpringe. Girls are yucky—’cept Mamm and Mary,” John muttered, then he looked anxiously to his big brother. “Is that okay, Abram?”
Abram nodded at the eight-year-old boy. John was nervous at times, unsure of himself, but anxious to please. “You can have it or not . . . any way you want,” Abram assured him, setting Mary back down to run around.
But his brother’s question got Abram thinking back to his own rumschpringe. Women had been for then—when he was seventeen, eighteen . . . playing at kissing and never meaning any of it beyond the passing pleasure of the moment. Nee . . . he’d seen the difficulties that friends had faced upon marrying, the tight-lipped responses to his teasing comments about married life, and he wanted none of it. His best friend, Joe, had married right out of the chute and now looked about twice his age, with two kinner born and another on the way . . . It was enough responsibility to break a man. Nee. The land was Abram’s wife, his soul. He understood the soil and the seasons each in turn; there was struggle but never strife, and adding a woman to his life would without a doubt bring more than trouble.
He blinked, then jumped from his chair as Mary tripped over her own feet and fell across the floor, slamming her head against the stove in her descent. Just then someone knocked on the door.
“Rest and ice . . . and a visit to Dr. Knepp if she should start to throw up or lose consciousness in the next few hours or even days.”
Fern watched Abram nod as he pressed the ice wrapped in a towel on Mary’s forehead while the little girl squirmed in his lap. Fern glanced around the messy kitchen and then at the boys devouring the cherry tomatoes and wondered if Abram Fisher was actually capable of caring for five children for a month’s time. She knew probably a dozen women in the community who’d give their right eye for the privilege of helping him, but she sensed that asking for help was not one of his normal activities.
She said a silent prayer that he might receive her words well, then cleared her throat. “Uh . . . Abram, it seems like you might benefit from a bit of help here and there. I would be glad to—”
“We’re fine,” he interrupted.
“I want Mamm,” Mary wailed.
“Shhh,” he soothed in his deep voice, bouncing Mary on his knee. He turned to Fern. “What can I do for you to pay for this?”
Fern had to stop and think. Although he’d pressed a few dollars in her hand for the sunburn treatment, the community at large knew that the Zooks, being women alone, preferred work in exchange for their services. She glanced into his blue eyes and wondered what he’d do if she asked for a kiss in return payment. She smiled at the absurd thought and caught his quick frown.
“What are you thinking?”
What was wrong with her? It was probably being so close to him that set her pulse racing. Later, when she was back home, she’d feel more like herself. Fern shook her head and grasped at the first thought that came to mind. “A ladder.”
“What?”
“We need a new ladder. So I can clean the upper windows outside that I didn’t get to this spring.”
“I’ll do the windows,” Abram said with a look of surprise on his handsome face.
“Why?” Fern asked, then flushed. Perhaps he thought that she was too big and clumsy to accomplish such a task.
“I don’t want you—I—it’s dangerous, that’s all.”
Abram couldn’t help but notice how green her eyes were as they widened at his words or the way her pretty mouth formed a soft expression of surprise. She probably thought he was narrisch about the ladder. He was confused himself at his concern. She’d probably done the windows a dozen times over and then some.
“Abram, can me and Luke go outside and play?” Mark hollered above his sister’s cries, an innocent expression on his face.
Abram kept jogging Mary on his knee and eyed his brother dispassionately. “Ya, but no creek, no bees, snakes, or spiders— no trouble, all right?”
“Ya, ya!” Mark yelled. He brushed past Fern with Luke in tow and hit the screen door running.
Abram waited as Mary wore herself out crying and settled for sniffling against his shirt. He took a brief glance around his mamm’s normally neat kitchen and realized he hadn’t even thought about supper or getting the cucumbers that were running riot in the kitchen garden . . . and then there was the washing. Still, his pride won out. He’d assured his parents that he could take care of things, and he would. He didn’t want Fern Zook and her soft mouth telling him what or how to do things.
“I’ll be over tomorrow with a new ladder and get at those windows,” he said in a tone of dismissal.
“Danki. What are you reading, Matthew?”
She advanced into the kitchen, stepping over John’s cookie crumbs, and he watched his brother smile and push his glasses up on his thin nose as he showed her the book. Abram found himself studying the soft, white curve of her neck as she bent in profile over the table. A stray golden-brown strand of hair had escaped the back of her kapp and hung long and tempting against her shoulder. Her hair seemed like it was shot through with sunlight, and he wondered idly how it would look unbound . . .
Abram stood up, feeling irritable and restless, and set Mary down.
“Your hair’s down,” he said.
He felt the weight of the children’s gazes as Fern straightened.
“What?”
He frowned and gestured toward the single sunshiny strand. “I said your hair’s down.”
He watched her lift a self-conscious hand to her neck and catch the hair between her capable fingers. “Ach, I didn’t know.” Her face reddened in embarrassment.
Abram felt his petty irritability drain. He wanted to kick himself for making her feel bad. It was one silly strand of hair . . .
But Fern was already headed for the door. She stumbled over the small pile of wooden blocks that John had left on the floor and cried out as she started to fall. But Abram moved fast and caught her close with ease.
CHAPTER THREE
FERN HAD THE STRANGE SENSORY EXPERIENCE THAT SHE was weightless as she felt herself held against him, his arms solid as oak and the press of his long legs against the back of her skirt like mountain rock. Yet there was restraint present as well. She felt his quick intake of breath, and she herself breathed as if she’d just run across two plowed fields. Her heart hammered loudly in her ears.
“Are you all right?” His voice was low in her ear.
She remembered his comment about her hair and stiffened in his arms. “Of course. You may let me go . . . I wouldn’t want to offend you any further with my hair being down.”
Instead of removing his arms, Abram bent closer so that she could feel the brush of his own hair against her cheek. He laughed. “Hair like yours could never offend. I was being irritable, and I apologize.”
She sniffed, breathing in the strange male scent of him— like spices with a deeper musky undertone that did little to help her focus on the matter at hand.
“May I?” he asked, and she scrambled desperately for the response to a question she couldn’t recall.
“Are you going to kiss her?” Matthew asked eagerly.
Abram turned her in his arms as if she were light as thistledown, until they both faced the interested face of the boy at the table.
“Nee,” Abram breathed, then abruptly let her go.
Fern straightened her spine. “Nee, he most certainly is not. I must be leaving. A gut day to you.” She carefully marched over the pile of blocks on the floor and hit the screen door handle with force, feeling it give with a satisfying squeak that echoed behind her in the drifting silence of the Fisher kitchen.
Had he been about to kiss her? The thought teased around his brain like the water touching his wrists as he stuffed an extra shirt into the generator-powered clothes washer. The daylight was fading fast. His mamm would never have been caught doing wash at this hour, but Abram figured that the order of chores didn’t matter much with housework. He’d busied Matthew in setting the table for a supper of warmed-up stew that their mother had left in the freezer. Mark and Luke were nowhere to be found, as he might have expected, and John was struggling with some wooden clothespins in an attempt to hang up a sheet on the line Abram had lowered nearby.
He glanced sideways at Mary as she knelt in the shadowed grass, making a “house” for a toad he’d caught for her. He remembered his little sister’s expression of mingled delight and surprise when he’d caught Fern Zook close in the kitchen that afternoon. Mary’s little mouth had formed a gentle O, and he couldn’t help but think that Fern’s mouth had probably been in the same shape . . .
He shook his head and slammed the lid of the washer down. Mary looked up.
“Are you mad about somethin’, Abram?”
“Nee.” He wasn’t mad, but he sure was acting crazy. He told himself sternly that it was simply a passing phase or the result of not being in the surety of the fields for a few days.
He looked up as the rustling of cornstalks alerted him that someone was coming, cutting across his family’s field. His friend Joe Mast stepped lightly from between the waist-high stalks, a smile on his usually sober face.
“Hiya, Joe!” Mary cried, then laughed as Joe swung her and the toad up into his gangly arms. He balanced her easily against one hip, called a greeting to John, then looked at Abram.
Abram felt it no light mistake on the Lord’s part that Joe should come round for a visit just when he was having addled thoughts about a woman. Joe was Abram’s unspoken cornerstone against marriage . . . and kissing, which for women had a funny way of leading to the idea of wedded bliss.
“How’s Emma?” Abram asked the question with purpose, wanting to see the familiar droop to his friend’s shoulders and the tightness around his mouth. Instead, Joe’s expression brightened considerably, and he jiggled Mary against his side.
“Emma’s right as rain, and the babe’s due any day now.”
“Uh-huh,” Abram grunted, knowing he was not being the best of friends, but unable to help himself. “Any day now—that’ll make three kinner.”
“Yep.” Joe grinned. “And I know you’re getting some practice with kids yourself since your folks are away. I came over to see if I could give you a hand.”
Abram stared at him. Joe worked two jobs—one as a hand on an Englisch dairy farm and then trying to keep his own cows going. He and Emma lived in a small house of little means and neither had parents to help out. Yet here Joe was, offering to help and looking as cheerful as fresh pie.
“Are you all right, Joe?” he asked before he could stop himself.
Joe jostled Mary and smiled wider at her giggles. “Who, me? Doin’ gut for once . . . Had a long talk with Emma one afternoon while her aenti watched the little ones. Realized we hadn’t made any time for just us, me and Em, in a long while. I figured out that I gotta have that with her, and then everything feels real calm and settled . . . like when we were first running around together.” He gave a sheepish shrug.
“Ach,” Abram mumbled, his friend’s words of intimacy piercing him to the quick. He’d based a lot of years of thinking on Joe’s silent communications that marriage was not such a great state of affairs. Now the man he’d thought terminally unhappy because he’d wed was giving him lessons in sustaining love. What could it mean?
Nothing, he told himself. It meant nothing. He was overworked, out of his mind with the kids, and generally not himself; that was all. Fern Zook and her loose honeyed hair was nothing more than a mirage . . . a distraction when what he really needed was to work out some sort of schedule and get things running well on the farm and with the kids. But he couldn’t accept Joe’s offer to help, not when his friend was so sincere in having found happiness despite his own workload. He smiled.
“Joe, we’ve known each other since we were kids. You know if I get into something that I can’t handle I’ll ask for help. Things are fine here—”
A high-pitched scream cut off his speech. Both men turned in alarm to the cornfield where the sound had echoed with eerie intensity. John ran over from the clothesline and took Mary’s hand as Joe eased her to the ground. The scream came again, then Abram saw smoke rising from the tops of the cornstalks, followed by a colored combustion of red and blue. Fireworks. He might have known . . . the Fourth of July had just passed, and the boys had probably gotten hold of some of the things from the Englisch boy they played with at times.
“Stay with Mary and John, will you, Joe? I’ll be right back.” He began to move through the field.
“Luke Fisher? Mark Samuel Fisher? When I get my hands on you, I’m going to tan both your—” He broke off as he came to a sudden clearing where the cornstalks had been trampled down. Mark was fooling with a sparkler and matches while Luke held his fingers to his mouth, jumping up and down.
Luke took one look at Abram, pulled his fingers out, and started to bawl.
“Ach, it’s just a little burn, Luke. Come on!” Mark said.
“Let me see your fingers,” Abram demanded.
Luke snuffled and held out his left hand. Abram frowned at the heavy blisters on the boy’s fingers. Great. Just great. Back to Fern Zook . . .
Three times in one day, he considered grimly as he hauled the boys along through the field . . . The girl would think he was either off in the head or plotting ways to see her. Either idea was enough to make him feel sick himself. He tightened his grip on his bruders’ collars as he marched them home through the cornstalks in the twilight.
CHAPTER FOUR
