Clara drew in a deep breath as she reached for Bella’s reins. The bay shook her mane, ready to get to their destination after the hour-long drive from the Ebersol farm south of Paradise Springs. Clara was eager to be gone, too. Every turn of the buggy wheels took her toward her future, though she had no idea what that would be. The decisions would be hers, not some man’s who made her a pledge, then broke it a few months later.
She had expected the little ones to fall asleep to the rhythmic song of the horse’s iron shoes on the road, but getting into the buggy seemed to have revived them. When she glanced at the twins, she discovered four pairs of bright blue eyes fixed on her.
“You got kinder?” asked Nancy.
“No,” she said, glad her black bonnet hid her face from them. Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to keep her smile from wavering at the innocent question.
She had thought she would have a husband and be starting a family by now, but the man who had asked her to be his wife had married someone else in Montana without having the courtesy of telling her until after she’d found out from the mutual friend who had introduced them. Lonnie had come from Montana to visit Paradise Springs, and he’d courted her. Fool that she was, she’d believed his professions of love. Worse, he’d waited until he was married to write to her and break off their betrothal.
“I like you,” said Nettie Mae, leaning her head against Clara’s arm.
“I like you, too.” Clara was touched by the kind’s words. They were what she needed.
“I got a boppli.” She chewed on the end of her right braid.
“Will you show her to me when we get to your house?” Clara started to reach to pull the braid out of the kind’s mouth as she asked another question about Nettie Mae’s doll, then stopped herself. There was time enough to help the youngster end a bad habit later. Chiding her wouldn’t be a gut way to start with these fragile kinder.
The little girl nodded.
“Me, too,” Nancy announced as she jumped to her feet.
Clara drew the horse to a walk, then looked at the excited little girl. “It’s important we sit when we’re riding in a buggy.”
“Why?” both boys asked at the same time.
Worried that speaking about the dangers on the road might upset the twins and remind them of how their parents had died in a truck accident, she devised an answer she hoped would satisfy them. “Well, you see my horse? Bella is working very, very hard, and we don’t want to make it more difficult for her by bouncing around too much in the carriage.”
“Oh,” said a quartet of awed voices.
“Like horse,” Nancy said, sitting on the front seat again. “Pretty horse.”
“Ja. Bella is a pretty horse.” She slapped the reins and steered the carriage along the twisting road, making sure she watched for any vehicles coming over a rise at a reckless speed.
When a squirrel bounced across the road in front of them, the kids were as fascinated as if they’d never seen one before. They chattered about where it might live and what it might eat and if they could have one for a pet.
“It’s easy to catch a squirrel,” Clara said. “Do you know how?”
“How?” asked Andrew, folding his arms on the top of the front seat.
“Climb a tree and pretend you’re a nut.” She waited for the kinder to laugh at the silly riddle, but they didn’t.
Instead they became silent. The boys sat on the rear seat, and the girls clasped hands as Nettie Mae again began to chew on the end of her braid.
What had happened? They were old enough to understand the punch line, and she’d expected them to giggle or maybe groan. Not this unsettling silence.
“Where Onkel Isaiah?” Nettie Mae asked.
“Want Onkel Isaiah,” whined her twin.
“We’re going home to make supper for him,” Clara said, keeping her tone upbeat.
“Onkel Isaiah make supper,” Nettie Mae insisted.
“She’s right,” Andrew added. “Onkel Isaiah said he’d make supper until Grossmammi and Grossdawdi get home from ’freeca.”
Glad Isaiah had explained the kinder’s grandparents were in Ghana, Clara was able to understand the boy’s “’freeca” meant Africa. She struggled to hold on to her smile as she said, “But I offered to make supper tonight. It’s nice to share chores sometimes, isn’t it? Your onkel and I will be sharing the work.”
“I’ll help,” crowed Andrew at the top of his lungs.
“Me, too!” shouted his twin.
Before Clara could ask them to lower their voices, Nettie Mae began to pout. “Me too little.”
“Nonsense,” Clara replied. “My grossmammi says God has work for all his kinder, no matter if they’re young or old.” She turned the buggy at a corner, following the directions Daniel Stoltzfus had given her. “Sometimes it means taking care of the beasts in the fields or making a nice home for our families. Other times, it’s letting Him know we love Him. We can sing a song for God. Do you know ‘Jesus Loves the Little Children’?”
“Ja!” they shouted.
She put her finger to her lips, but was relieved that they hadn’t withdrawn as they had when she told the joke. “Do you know sometimes Jesus hears the song best if we sing quietly?”
“Really?” asked Andrew.
Already she could tell he was the one who spoke for his siblings. She suspected he was also their leader when they got into mischief.
“Ja,” she answered. “Jesus listens to what’s in our hearts, so when we sing quietly, it helps Him hear our hearts’ voices.”
Singing along with the youngsters, she watched for the lane leading to the Beachys’ farm. Her hopes were high this job would be the perfect way for her to have time to decide what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. The kinder were easy to be around...as long as she kept them entertained. Their onkel would be busy with work, so she probably wouldn’t see him other than at meals.
Driving up the lane toward the large white house with its well-kept barns set behind it, she imagined the first day her parents found money from her in their mailbox. She planned to send her pay home to her parents. Perhaps even Daed would be pleased with her efforts and acknowledge she wasn’t a silly girl any longer. There was a first time for everything. Wasn’t that what the old adage said?
Clara kept the twins busy once they arrived at the Beachys’ house and had put Bella in a stall in the stable out back. The boys’ straw hats hung on pegs next to her bonnet by the door. The kitchen was a spacious room with cream walls and white cupboards. A large table was set near a bow window with a wunderbaar view of the dark pink blossoms ready to burst on the pair of crabapple trees. Every inch was covered with toys or stacks of dirty dishes.
When she asked the youngsters to pick up their toys and put them in the box in the front room, they kept her busy showing off their dolls and blocks and wooden animals and more trucks and tractors than she had guessed existed. She tried one more time to tell them a silly story, but again they became as silent as a moonless night.
What