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