Help me find the truth, Lord, she prayed as she put another stack of dishes in the sudsy water and began washing them. The youngsters wanted to help, but she had visions of water splashed everywhere. Instead, she made up a game, and they arranged boots by size beside the door. The weather might be warm, but a good spring rain would turn the yard into mud. It’d be a few weeks before they’d put winter boots away in the cellar.
As the twins debated which boot went where as if it were a matter of the greatest importance, Clara hid her smile and finished the dishes. She took the youngsters upstairs so she could see their rooms after she had swept and mopped the kitchen floor. Once it dried, her shoes wouldn’t stick to the wood on every step.
All the kinder slept in the same room. It was the breadth of the rear of the house, and she guessed from patches in the wood floor it once had been two rooms. Had their daed planned to put the wall up again once the twins were older? She silenced her sigh so she didn’t upset her charges. Not that they would have noticed. One after another tugged on her hand, urging her to come and see the dresser and the pegs on the wall where their clothes hung or to look out the windows, both with a view of the fields beyond the barns and a pond. By summer, the frogs living there would sing a lullaby each night to soothe them to sleep.
The sound of the mantel clock downstairs tolling the hour interrupted Andrew, who was eager for Clara to see his coloring book.
“Time to make supper,” she said.
“Me help!” Nancy and Nettie Mae cried at the same time.
“Everyone can help.” She led the way down the stairs, looking over her shoulder to make sure she was not going too fast for their short legs.
It wasn’t easy, but Clara found jobs for each kind with setting the table or helping her find the bread, as well as telling her where the pickles were stored in the cellar. The twins were excited when she uncovered a bright red oilcloth in the laundry room and spread it over the table. Using it under the youngsters’ plates would make cleaning up afterward simpler and quicker.
Once the twins were carrying spoons and plastic glasses to the table, she went to the refrigerator. As she’d expected, it was full of food brought by caring neighbors. She lifted out a large casserole pan. Peeling back one corner of the foil covering the dish, she discovered it was a mixture of tomato sauce, hamburger and noodles. She hoped the kinder and Isaiah would enjoy it. She was sure they would savor the chocolate cake she’d found in an upper cupboard. She lit the oven with matches from a nearby drawer, put the casserole in, set the timer and went to help the youngsters finish setting the table. Several glasses and two spoons hit the floor on the way to the table, but she rinsed them off and handed them back to the twin who’d been carrying them.
Soon a fragrant, spicy scent filled the kitchen. The casserole must contain salsa as well as tomato sauce. Her stomach growled, and the kids kept asking when supper would be served. She reminded them each time that they needed to wait for Onkel Isaiah. That satisfied them until they asked the same question thirty seconds later.
Hearing the unmistakable sounds of a horse-drawn buggy coming toward the house, Clara helped the kinder wash their hands. She scrubbed their faces clean before urging them to take their seats at the table. As the timer went off, she opened the oven and lifted out the casserole. She was putting it on top of the stove when the kitchen door opened and Isaiah walked in, the twins instantly surrounding him.
He started to speak, but a peculiar choked sound came out of him as he scanned the room as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. He set his straw hat on an empty peg next to her bonnet and strode past the long maple table where the twins again sat. He paused between the gas stove and the kitchen sink, turned to look in each direction before his gaze settled on her.
“Am I in the right house?” he asked.
She couldn’t help smiling in spite of her determination to keep Isaiah at arm’s length. As long as the only thing between them was business, everything should be fine. “I hope so, because this is where your brother said to go, and we’ve spent the past two hours here.”
He shook his head. “But there were dirty dishes everywhere when we left this afternoon, and my boots tried to cement themselves to the floor where the kinder had spilled food and milk.”
“I know.”
“How did you do all this in such a short time?” he asked as if he expected to see dirty dishes piled in a corner.
“Practice.” She smiled at the kinder. “And plenty of eager hands to help.”
He faced her, surprise in his eyes. “Those same hands make anything I try take two or three times longer than if I’d done the job by myself.”
“I know a few tricks.” She smiled. “I’m glad there are plastic glasses in the cupboard. Otherwise, I would have been sweeping up plenty of glass.”
“Ja. They sometimes confuse glasses with a volleyball.”
Her smile widened. “Wash up, and I’ll get the food on the table. It’ll be ready when you are.”
When he glanced at her in astonishment, heat rushed up her face. She was acting as if she belonged there. It wasn’t an impression she wanted to give him or anyone in Paradise Springs. As soon as he went into the bathroom, she busied herself getting milk from the refrigerator and filling each kind’s glass halfway. She needed to guard her words and remember she was the hired girl whose duties were to cook and clean and look after the kinder.
If Isaiah was bothered by what she’d said, he showed no sign when he walked into the kitchen. As he pulled out a chair, he said, “I’m amazed how fast you cleaned the kitchen. It took two of my sisters-in-law more than a day to set everything to order yesterday.”
“The kitchen was cleaned yesterday?” She halted with the casserole halfway between the stove and the table.
“Ja. They came over to help.”
Clara blurted, “You made such a mess in a single day?”
He arched a pale brow, and she laughed.
Sudden cries of dismay erupted from the twins, and Clara set the casserole on the stove. Had one of them gotten hurt? How? The shrieks threatened to freeze her blood right in her veins.
At the same time Isaiah jumped to his feet and hurried around the table to where the youngsters stood together in a clump as if trying to protect themselves from an unseen monster. Their eyes were huge in their colorless faces.
“What is it?” Isaiah asked, leaning toward them. “What’s wrong?”
All four pointed at Clara. Shock riveted her. Were they insulted by her comment about the house becoming a disaster area in a day? No, they were barely more than toddlers. They didn’t care about the state of their house.
“No laugh,” said Nettie Mae around the end of her braid she’d stuck into her mouth again. She put her finger to her lips and regarded them with big, blue eyes. “Quiet and no laugh.”
“No laugh. Quiet.” Nancy pointed at Clara. “No laugh. Gotta be quiet.”
Clara listened in appalled disbelief. Isaiah’s face revealed he was as shocked as she was.
“Not laughing is hard,” Andrew lamented. “Really, really hard.”
“Squirrel funny, but no laugh,” added his twin, his words coming out in an odd mumble. Was he trying not to cry? “Really, really hard no laughing.”
“Really, really hard.” Nettie Mae’s lower lip wobbled, and a single tear slid down her plump cheek.
Clara gasped when Isaiah sat on the floor. He held out his arms, and the kinder piled onto his lap. But there was nothing joyous about them as they held onto him like leaves fighting not to be blown away by a storm wind.
“Tell me about the squirrel,”