He enjoyed working with the animals and watching calves grow to heifers before having calves of their own. He kept the best milkers and sold the rest so he could buy more Brown Swiss cows to replace the black-and-white Holsteins his daed had preferred. The gray-brown Swiss breed was particularly docile and well-known for producing milk with the perfect amount of cream for making cheese.
He hoped, by late summer, to be able to set aside enough milk to begin making cheese to sell. That was when the milk was at its sweetest and creamiest. He might have some soft cheese ready to be served during the wedding season in November or December if one of his bachelor brothers decided to get married.
He squatted and removed the suction milking can from a cow. He patted her back before carrying the heavy can to the bulk tank. She never paused in eating from the serving of grain he’d measured out for her. Opening the can, he emptied the milk into the tank. He closed both up and hooked the milking can to the next cow after cleaning her udder, a process he repeated thirty-one times twice a day.
Usually he used the time to pray and to map out what tasks he needed to do either that day or the next. Tonight, his thoughts were in a commotion, flitting about like a flock of frightened birds flying up from a meadow. He had not been able to rein them in since his remarkable conversation with Leah.
Johnny was dead. He found that unbelievable. Leah had come back and brought Johnny’s kind with her. Even more unbelievable, though he had hoped for many years she would return to Paradise Springs.
Her mamm must be thrilled to have her and her niece home and devastated by Johnny’s death. How would Abram react? The old man had not spoken his twins’ names after they left. But Abram kept a lot to himself, and Ezra always wondered if Abram missed Leah and Johnny as much as the rest of his family did.
If his neighbor did not welcome his daughter and granddaughter home, would Leah leave again and, this time, never come back?
“Think of something else,” he muttered to himself as he continued the familiarly comforting process of milking.
“If you’re talking to the cows, you’re not going to get an answer,” came his brother Isaiah’s voice.
Ezra stood. Isaiah was less than a year younger than he was, and they were the closest among the seven Stoltzfus brothers. Isaiah had married Rose Mast the last week of December. He had been trying to grow his pale blond beard since then, but it remained patchy and uneven.
“If I got an answer,” he said, leaning his arms on the cow’s broad back, “I would need my head examined.”
“That might not be a bad idea under the circumstances.”
“Circumstances?”
Isaiah chuckled tersely. “Don’t play dumb with me. I know Leah Beiler’s reappearance in Paradise Springs must be throwing you for a loop. You two were really cozy before she left.”
“We were friends. We’d been friends for years.” Friends who shared one perfect kiss one perfect night. He wasn’t about to mention that to his brother.
Isaiah was already worried about him. Ezra could tell from the dullness in his brother’s eyes. Most of the time, they had a brightness that flickered in them like the freshly stirred coals in his smithy.
“Watch yourself,” Isaiah said, as always the most cautious one in their family. “She jumped the fence once with her brother. Who knows? She may decide to do so again.”
“I realize that.”
“Gut.”
“Gut,” Ezra agreed, even though it was the last word he would have used to describe the situation.
His brother was right. When a young person left—jumped the fence, as it was called—they might return...for a while. Few were baptized into their faith, and most of them eventually drifted away again after realizing they no longer felt as if they belonged with their family and onetime friends.
While he finished the milking with Isaiah’s help, they talked about when the crops should go in, early enough to get a second harvest but not so early the plants would be killed in a late frost. They talked about a new commission Isaiah had gotten at his smithy from an Englisch designer for a circular staircase. They talked about who might be chosen to become their next minister.
They talked about everything except the Beiler twins.
Ezra thanked his brother for his help as they turned the herd into the field as they always did after milking once spring arrived. Letting the cows graze in the pasture until nights got cold again instead of feeding them in the barn saved time and hay. When he followed Isaiah out of the barn and bade his brother a gut night, low clouds warned it would rain soon. The rest of his brothers were getting cleaned up at the outdoor pump before heading in for supper. Again, as they chatted about their day, everyone was careful not to talk about the Beilers, though he saw their curious looks in his direction.
As he washed his hands in the cold water, he couldn’t keep himself from glancing across the fields to where the Beilers’ house glowed with soft light in the thickening twilight. He jerked his gaze away. He should duck his head under the icy water and try to wash thoughts of Leah out of his brain.
Hadn’t he learned anything in the past ten years? Did he want to endure that grief and uncertainty again? No! Well, there was his answer. He needed to stop thinking about her.
The kitchen was busy as it was every night, but even more so tonight because Joshua and his three kinder were joining them for supper. Most nights they did. Sometimes, Joshua cooked at his house down the road, or his young daughter attempted to prepare a meal.
With the ease of a lifetime of habit, the family gathered at the table. Joshua, as the oldest son, sat where Daed once did while Mamm sat at the foot of the table, close to the stove. The rest of them chose the seats they’d used their whole lives, and Joshua’s younger son, Levi, claimed the chair across from Ezra, the chair where Isaiah had sat before he got married. Esther put two more baskets of rolls on the table, then took her seat next to Mamm. When Joshua bowed his head for silent prayer, the rest of them did as well.
Ezra knew he should be thanking God for the food in front of him, but all he could think of was his conversation with Leah and how he was going to have to get used to having her living across the fields again. He added a few hasty words of gratitude to his wandering prayer when Joshua cleared his throat to let them know grace was completed.
Bowls of potatoes and vegetables were passed around along with the platters of chicken and the baskets of rolls. Lost in his thoughts, Ezra didn’t pay much attention to anything until he heard Joshua say, “Johnny Beiler is dead.”
“Oh,” Mamm said with a sigh, “I prayed that poor boy would come to his senses and return to Paradise Springs. What about Leah?”
Amos lowered his fork to his plate. “She came into the market today and asked if I would be willing to display some of her quilts for sale.”
“What did you say?” asked Ezra, then wished he hadn’t when his whole family looked at him.
“I said ja, of course.” Amos frowned. “You know I always make room for any of our neighbors to sell their crafts. From what she said, she hopes to provide for her niece by selling quilts as she did when she was in Philadelphia.”
Joshua looked up. “I have room for a few at the buggy shop. You know how many Englisch tourists we get wandering in to see the shop, and they love quilts.”
“I will let her know.” Amos smiled. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”
“That is gut of you boys.” Then Mamm asked, as she glanced around the table, “How is Leah doing?”
As if on cue, a knock sounded on the kitchen door. When Deborah, Joshua’s youngest, ran to answer it, Ezra almost choked on his mouthful of chicken.
Leah