to get in a more comfortable position. He’d had an itch somewhere near the top of his knee, but it was under the heavy cast and he couldn’t scratch it. Even when he wasn’t in pain there was a dull ache, but he’d just about gotten used to that. It was the itch that was driving him crazy.
“A hard-working girl who can cook like that will make someone a fine wife,” Jehu remarked.
“I was thinking the same thing.” Ivy wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin; Katie had found a whole pile of them in one of the cupboards. “Girls like that get snapped up fast. And she’s pleasant-looking. Don’t you think so, Freeman?”
“What was that?” He’d heard what she said, but didn’t really feel comfortable commenting on a woman’s looks. Besides, he had a pretty good idea where this conversation was going. They had it all the time, and no matter how often he told Jehu and Ivy he wasn’t looking for a wife, they continued looking for him.
“Pretty. I said Katie was pretty. Or hadn’t you noticed?” She glanced at Uncle Jehu and chuckled. He gave a small sound of amusement as he spooned out the last of the dumplings from the bowl on the table onto his plate, without spilling a drop.
“I thought she might be, just by the sound of her voice,” Uncle Jehu said. “You can tell a lot about a person from their voice. Wonder if she’s walking out with anybody?”
“Sara says not.” His grandmother eyed the blackberry cobbler on the table. There was nearly half of the baking dish left, plenty for the three of them to enjoy.
Freeman’s mouth watered thinking about it. Katie had made it with cinnamon and nutmeg and just the right amount of sugar. Too many women used more sugar than was needed in desserts and hid the taste of the fruit with sweetness.
“This coffee could use a little warming up.” Freeman lifted his mug. “I don’t want to put anyone to any trouble, but...”
“It won’t kill you to drink it like it is,” his grossmama told him. “Too much hot coffee’s not good for broken bones. Raises the heat in the body. Cool’s best. Keeps your temperature steady.”
Freeman swallowed the rest of his coffee. There was no use in asking Uncle Jehu to warm up his coffee. He’d just side with Ivy. He usually did, Freeman thought, feeling his grumpiness coming on again. The itch on his leg remained persistent, and he wondered if he could run something down inside the cast to scratch it without causing any harm.
“Freeman could do a lot worse,” Uncle Jehu went on. “He’s not getting any younger.”
“Than Katie?” Ivy pursed her mouth. “You’re right, Jehu. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself. She’d fit in well here. And it’s long past time—”
“Don’t talk about me as though I’m not here,” Freeman interrupted. “And I’m not courting Katie Byler.”
“And what’s wrong with her?” Grossmama demanded, turning to him. “She seems a fine possibility to me.”
“Absolutely not,” Freeman protested, pushing his tray away. “And if this is something you’ve schemed up with Sara Yoder, you can forget it. Katie may make a great wife for someone else, but not for me.”
* * *
Katie tossed a handful of weeds into a bucket. “Freeman wasn’t as bad as I expected,” she answered when Sara asked her how her day had gone. She, Sara and two of the young women who lived at Sara’s had come into the vegetable garden after supper to catch up on the weeding. Ellie and Mari had started at the opposite end of the long rows of lima beans, while she and Sara had taken this end, giving the two of them an opportunity to talk privately.
Sara grinned. “I knew you could handle him.”
Both she and Sara were barefooted and wearing a headscarf and their oldest dress. The warm soil felt good under Katie’s feet. She loved the scents of rich earth and the cheery chorus of birdsong that seemed present in any well-tended garden.
“I think he’d be a good match for someone.” Sara used her trowel to chop the sprigs of grass and work up the soil around the base of the lima bean plants. “What with the mill and the farm, he’s well set up to provide for a family.”
Katie rolled her eyes. “I don’t know about that. Any woman who takes Freeman Kemp for a husband is asking for trouble. The man thinks he knows everything. Even when he doesn’t. He tried to tell me how to scrub the floor. Can you imagine? And the man doesn’t know where butter goes in the refrigerator. And when I tell him the truth of the matter, he gets all cross.”
Sara added another handful of weeds to the bucket. They would go into the chicken yard and the scavenging hens would make quick work of them. Nothing ever went to waste on an Amish farm. “Men naturally think they know the best way to do things,” she said. “But the wisest of them learn to think before they speak when it comes to women’s chores.”
“I guess no one ever told Freeman that.” Katie tugged at a particularly stubborn pigweed. It came away with a spray of dirt, and she shook it off and added it to the pile. Sara’s garden was as tidy as her house, row after row of green peppers, sweet corn, beets, squash and onions. Heavy posts set into the ground made a sturdy support for the wires that supported lima bean vines. Lima beans were one of Katie’s favorite vegetables and they were the concern this evening. A summer garden that wasn’t worked regularly soon became a tangle of weeds and a haven for bothersome insects.
“Does Freeman seem to be in a lot of pain? Ivy told me the break was a bad one. If he’s irritable, that could be the reason,” Sara suggested.
“Hard to judge how much pain a person is in.” Katie pulled the weed bucket closer to them as they moved down the row. “I think he’s more bored from having to stay in bed than anything else. I know it would drive me to distraction if I couldn’t be up doing.”
“Jehu is nice, though, isn’t he?”
“He is. He was very welcoming. He told me not to pay any mind to Freeman’s grumpiness. He’s an amazing man, really. He knows his way all over that farm, doesn’t need a bit of help. I think Freeman said he can see shadows. But you’d never know Jehu was blind the way he moves.”
Sara tossed a weed in the bucket. “My cousin Hannah told me that he was a skilled leather worker for years. He still works for the harness shop down his way. Pieces he can stitch from memory.”
“It’s such a shame that he lost his sight,” Katie said.
Sara paused in her weeding and gave Katie a thoughtful look. “It is, but God’s will is not always for us to understand. All we can do is accept it and try to make the best of the blessings we have.”
From the far end of the rows, Mari and Ellie began to sing “Amazing Grace.” Ellie, a little person not more than four feet tall, had a sweet, clear soprano voice, while Mari’s rich and powerful alto blended perfectly. Katie smiled, enjoying the sound of their voices in the fading light of the warm evening.
“I had a letter today from Uriah Lambright’s aunt.” Sara straightened up and rubbed the small of her back. “She says that the family is eager for you to come and visit. Have you given any more thought to considering him?”
“Evening,” came a deep male voice.
The
