“Just how much do you know about sewing clothes?” Martha chastised him. “As fine as your leather stitching is, I have yet to see you make your own britches, my dear bu.”
Trina’s gratitude for the woman surged. It was obvious Seth wouldn’t contend with Martha. He set his hat on his head and buttoned his wool coat.
“The buwe’s chore for the day is to rid the front yard of sticks,” he instructed Trina. “And they must lie down for an hour in the afternoon, whether they sleep or not.”
“Don’t worry,” Martha said, answering for Trina. “I’ll fill Trina in on everything she needs to know. Now, since you were so worried about being late, you’d better skedaddle.”
After the door closed behind Seth, Trina released her breath. In her experience as a teacher, the parents were often more difficult to manage than the preschoolers were. I should tell Seth that’s one way the Englisch and the Amish are alike, she thought, chuckling to herself.
* * *
Because Seth was in a hurry, he’d forgotten to put on his gloves so he blew on his fingers as he walked to town. He could have taken the buggy, but that would have meant leaving his shop several times a day to make sure the horse was watered, fed and dry—and it looked like rain. Or snow. It was difficult to tell at this time of year.
Besides, he liked the walk and the shop was only about a mile and a half away. He used the time to mentally prepare for work and ask the Lord to guide him in his interactions with the customers, especially the Englisch ones. When Seth moved from Ohio to Willow Creek, all the stores on Main Street were taken. He’d made it his goal to one day open a shop there, because that’s where most of the Englisch customers and tourists came through town. While he had a healthy business selling harnesses and other horse leatherworks to the Amish, the Englisch had little need for such items. Instead, they wanted custom-designed purses, belts and wallets, and they wanted them at their convenience.
Since the workshop at his home was slightly off the beaten path, Seth had recognized that, in order to increase business, he had to meet his customers’ needs—or their preferences—and he watched and waited for one of the Amish business owners to relinquish their prime real estate on Main Street. When one of the bigger spaces recently opened up, Seth jumped at the chance to lease it. It was a stretch for him financially, but the space was so big it allowed him to have a workshop in the back in addition to the storefront where he could display and sell his wares. He figured in time the sales would be worth the initial investment.
Now that I’m paying Trina to watch the buwe, I’ll have an added expense I hadn’t counted on until school lets out, he thought.
As he contemplated his sons’ care, Seth asked the Lord to watch over Trina as she cared for the boys. Once again he second-guessed his decision to hire her. Martha seemed to think highly of Trina, but then, his grandmother had an unusual gift for making people feel welcome and needed—that’s how Seth felt when he moved in with the boys, who were only newborns at the time. What would he have done without Martha’s help? He supposed the least he could do now was make more of an effort to show a modicum of hospitality toward Trina, since Martha had shown an abundance toward him.
He was so lost in thought that when he arrived at his shop, he was startled to find three Englisch women standing on the doorstep, peeking through the window into the store. In his experience, the Englisch customers tended to be more impatient than the Amish. It seemed to him Englischers were often in a rush and they expected others to be in a rush, too, whereas Seth felt if he couldn’t do a job both quickly and well, he’d rather do it well than quickly.
“We were afraid you were closed for the day!” one of them said.
“Neh, just for the first ten minutes,” Seth replied with a grin as he keyed into the shop. He found humor often kept him from becoming too stressed and his customers appreciated it, too. Especially the Englisch ones, who often seemed taken aback initially, as if they were under the impression the Amish were humorless dullards. But they usually ended up smiling back.
Sure enough, the women giggled as Seth held the door open for them. Soon after, a few more customers trickled in. Seth noticed one of them discreetly lifting a cell phone and he knew he was being photographed. He had half a mind to post a sign forbidding cell phones and cameras in the store, but he decided if people weren’t going to voluntarily respect his beliefs and privacy, it was useless to try to make them do so.
By the end of the day he was relieved to walk home and when he went through the door, the boys bounded into the kitchen to greet him as they usually did.
“Guess what, Daed,” Tanner said. “Trina taught us an Englisch song.”
“And we had lots and lots of vegetation for dinner,” Timothy claimed.
“You mean vegetables,” Seth corrected him.
“Neh, it was vegetation.”
Just then Trina entered the room and said above the boys’ heads, “Hungerich bucks need a lot of vegetation to stay strong.”
Ah, so that was it. Seth had to smile. He and Martha had a difficult time getting the boys to eat any vegetables except potatoes and corn. If Trina had been able to get the boys to eat more greens by appealing to their interest in animals, that was terrific. But he drew the line at teaching them Englisch songs.
“Buwe, please go into the other room while I talk to Trina,” he said. After they scampered away, he asked Trina how her day went.
“It was gut,” she said. He noticed she was using Deitsch words more frequently already. “The buwe picked up the sticks in the front yard and half the sticks on the west side of the house, too. They sure have a lot of energy.”
Seth nodded before getting to the point. “They said you taught them an Englisch song. May I hear it?”
He saw a look of confusion pass over Trina’s face before her cheeks broke into a blush. He regretted embarrassing her, but he had to be sure the boys weren’t being taught songs about superheroes or other ideas that were contrary to Amish beliefs.
“It’s more like a poem than a song. At least it was the way I presented it,” she said and her usually mellifluous voice was marked with defiance.
“All the same, I’d like to hear it.”
Trina exhaled audibly and then began, “One, two, buckle my shoe...” She continued reciting the verse until she got to the number ten, at which point she said, “That’s as high as we went. I was trying to teach them how to count while they were doing yard work.”
“I see,” Seth said. He’d been taught that same verse as a child and he felt as foolish as he’d obviously made Trina feel. Still, he wasn’t sorry he asked her to tell him how the song went. “We didn’t have time this morning to discuss what kinds of activities are appropriate for Amish kinner, so I just wanted to be sure—”
“There you are, Seth,” Martha interrupted from the doorway. “It smells like supper is about ready, isn’t it, Trina?”
Trina peeked inside the oven. “Jah, it’s bubbling,” she confirmed, removing the pan from the rack and setting the chicken-and-cheese casserole on a hot pad on the table. “You should let it cool a bit before you eat it. And don’t forget the asparagus. It’s steaming on the back burner.”
“I thought you were going to stay for supper. You know we made plenty,” Martha said.
So much for demonstrating hospitality; Seth knew he was the reason Trina changed her mind about supping with them. “Jah¸ you should stay,” he echoed.
“Denki, but I need to be on my way. I’ll arrive a few minutes early tomorrow, Seth, so we’ll have plenty of time to review