I’d make a gut teacher. She had done well in school, and she knew how to break down problems and find fun ways to make children remember what they’d learned. And she was ready. Her birthday was next month and she’d be nineteen. Her opportunity for teaching would be gone if it didn’t happen soon. She planned to approach the church elders this week about her filling the upcoming vacancy.
The sun slipped beneath a cloud, and she felt a sudden chill. She hugged herself with her arms. The sky was only partially cloudy. In a few moments the sun would resurface and warm her again.
“Charlie.”
She stiffened, recognizing his voice. She faced him. “Nate.” The shock of his appearance made her heart flutter. Ironically, she’d come here alone to seek refuge from the feelings he’d churned up inside her.
He leaned against the fence rail with only a few inches separating them. She became instantly aware of the heat his nearness generated. Something within her urged to flee from him; yet, she didn’t move.
She straightened her spine and stared. “What do you want, Nate? What are you doing here?”
“How’s your knee?” he asked, his eyes soft with concern.
She swallowed hard. “Fine. Your first aid helped.” She bit her lip. “Danki.”
He nodded with satisfaction. “You like to play ball.”
Charlie drew away, putting several more inches between them. “Ja, so?”
A tiny smile hovered on his lips. “You play well.”
“Then why were you trying to distract me?”
“My bruder was on the other team.”
She gaped at him for several seconds then laughed. She watched as his mouth curved into a grin before he joined in her laughter.
It felt good to laugh, yet strange to laugh with him. The fact that she liked the feeling made her stop laughing. Suddenly tense, she quieted and leaned against the fence and returned to her study of the horses.
They stood silently for a few moments. “What do you hope for, Charlie?” he asked. “In your life.”
She hesitated. “I like children. I’d like to teach.”
Clearly surprised, Nate raised his eyebrows. “You want to teach at our Happiness School?”
“Ja,” she whispered. “I know there are some members within our community who won’t think I’m good enough—”
“I believe you’d be an excellent teacher.”
“You do?”
“Ja, I do.” His gaze seemed intense as he studied her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You surprise me.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “I can help you.”
“Help me what?”
“Become a teacher. My father is deacon. I could speak with him.”
“Nay!” she gasped. “You mustn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want or deserve the job if I can’t earn it on my own.”
He shook his head as he watched her, as if he’d learned something new about her that stunned him.
“Charlie!”
She glanced back to see Ellie waving at her. “Time to head home. I’ve got to go,” she told Nate. “I—ah—danki again for helping me today.”
“You’re willkomm.”
“I’ll see you next Sunday,” she said.
Nate nodded without saying a word, and Charlie turned and hurried toward their buggy, where her family had gathered to leave.
Her heart hammered within her chest. Nate Peachy was a complex man, and she didn’t understand him. With one breath, he’d told her she’d be a good teacher, but then in the next, he’d proven that he didn’t believe it unless he stepped in to help. She sighed with sadness. If Nate felt this way, then there was every chance that no one would consider her seriously for the soon-to-be vacated teaching position. Maybe I’m being foolish to try.
When she was younger, her tendency to be impulsive frequently got her into trouble, but she was older and wiser now and she’d learned from her mistakes. She’d meant what she’d told Nate. If she couldn’t get the job on her own, then she didn’t want—or deserve—it.
As his family left for Indiana, Nate watched the hired car that carried them until the vehicle disappeared from sight. He turned toward the house and saw his brother on the front porch, gazing after the car as if he, too, was affected by their departure.
Nate strode toward the house and climbed the porch steps. “Ready to make hay?”
“How about some breakfast first?” Jacob suggested.
“Didn’t you eat earlier?”
“Nay, busy helping our sisters with their luggage.”
He smiled with amusement. “You, too? I helped Mam, Dat and Harley with theirs.”
The brothers headed inside for coffee and freshly baked muffins.
“I spoke with John King. His dat is lending us his hay mower for as long as we need it,” Jacob said as he finished up his coffee a while later.
“It will make the job easier.” He eyed his brother with approval. “Do we need to go get it?”
“Nay. John said he’d bring it by first thing. He should be here anytime now.”
Amos King, John’s father, was also his stepmother’s dat. He was a good man with a kind heart.
Nate washed the breakfast dishes while Jacob put the remaining muffins back in the pantry. The sound of horse hooves drew them outside to discover John King’s arrival with the mower.
After John left with his brother Joshua, Nate hitched his father’s two black Belgian horses to his dat’s equipment for his brother to use. He would mow the front field with Amos’s mower while Jacob started work at the back of the property.
It was a busy workday. By late afternoon they’d mowed just over a third of the hayfields. He and Jacob put away the mowers. They ate leftovers for dinner, before heading to the barn to make sure all of the animals were settled in for the night.
There was a definite new chill in the air when Nate arose the next morning. He dressed, made coffee and waited for his brother to rouse and join him. The kitchen filled with the rich scent of the perked brew as Jacob entered, looking sleepy-eyed with tousled hair.
“’Tis colder today. We’d best grab our woolen hats and jackets before we head out.”
Jacob nodded as he turned from the stove with a mug of coffee. “Think we’ll finish today?”
“We’ll be pushing it. Didn’t get much more than a third done yesterday.”
His brother agreed. “We can do it.”
Nate smiled. “We can try.” The mowed hay would be left to dry in the fields before they baled it.
“Let’s move,” Jacob said as he set his mug in the sink.
* * *
Charlie drove down the road toward Whittier’s Store. It was a chilly November morning,