It was the best ending to a terrible day that Miriam could ask for, and by the time John had finished his second slice of apple pie, she was sure that he had enjoyed his meal with them as much as they’d enjoyed his company.
Later, after she and John and Ruth and Eli had inspected the horses, John drove away in his pickup. He had one final house call before calling it a day. Eli left as well, wanting to clean the chair shop for his uncle. That left Miriam and Ruth to do the milking. Irwin drove the cows in and offered to help, but Miriam sent him off to see if Mam needed anything. Irwin was shaping up to be a good gardener, but he didn’t know the first thing about milking and usually ended up getting kicked by a cow or spilling a bucket of milk.
Miriam looked forward to this time of day. She and Ruth had always been close friends and soon Ruth would be in her own home with her own cow to milk. Miriam would miss her. She loved her twin Anna dearly; she loved all her sisters, but Ruth was the kind of big sister she could talk to about anything. Of course there were some nights when Miriam might have preferred to milk alone.
“You know he’s sweet on you,” Ruth said. She was milking a black-and-white Holstein cow named Bossy in the next stall. Ruth had her head pushed into Bossy’s sagging middle and two streams of milk hissed into her bucket in a steady rhythm.
“Who likes me?” Miriam stopped a few feet from Bossy’s tail, her empty bucket in one hand and a three-legged milking stool in the other. She’d tied a scarf over her kapp to keep it clean and pushed back her sleeves.
“Charley. He’s going to make someone a fine husband.”
“I know he is. It’s just not going to be me.” Miriam sighed and walked to the next stall where Polly, a brown Jersey, waited patiently, chewing her cud. “And I’m tired of you and Anna trying to make something of it that isn’t.”
“You like the cute vet better?”
Polly swished her tail and Miriam pushed it out of the way as she placed her stool on the cement floor and sat down. “John?”
“Was there another cute vet at supper?”
“He came because we needed him. It’s his job.”
“Ya, but you like him.” Ruth’s voice was muffled by the cow’s belly. “Admit it.”
Miriam took a soapy cloth and carefully washed Polly’s bag. The cow swished her tail again. Miriam dropped the cloth into the washbasin and took hold of one teat. She squeezed and pulled gently and milk squirted into the bucket. “First Charley, then John.”
“He’s Mennonite,” Ruth said.
“I know he’s Mennonite.”
“But you think he’s cute.”
Miriam wished her sister was standing close enough to squirt with a spray of milk. Once Ruth started, there was no stopping her. “Mam invited him to dinner, not me.”
“But you like him. Better than Charley.”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t,” she said. “But if you say another word about boys tonight, I’ll dump this bucket of milk over your head.”
It was dusk by the time John got back to the house that was both office and home for him, his grandfather and Uncle Albert. John completed his paperwork, refilled his portable medicine chest and went upstairs to shower. Once he’d changed into clean clothing, he wandered out onto the side porch where the two older men sat with their feet propped up on the rail, sipping tall glasses of lemonade. As always, the three shared the day’s incidents. When his grandfather asked, John began telling them about the accident at the Yoder farm.
The third time John mentioned Miriam’s name, his uncle Albert asked him if he was sweet on her. John shrugged and took a big sip of lemonade.
“She’s Old Order Amish,” his grandfather said.
“I know that,” John replied.
“Miriam, is she one of the twins?” his uncle asked.
“I think so.”
“The big one or the little one?”
“The little one.”
“Pretty as a picture,” Uncle Albert observed.
“Yeah,” John admitted, getting up and attempting a quick escape into the house before they pressed the issue any further.
Truth be told, he was sweet on Miriam Yoder and he was pretty certain she liked him. And it wasn’t just her looks or the physical chemistry between them that attracted him. She was easy to talk to and shared his love of animals. Although he always knew he would marry and have children someday, John hadn’t seriously dated since his final year of vet school, when his girlfriend of three years had broken up with him. Alyssa, the daughter of a Baptist minister, had broken his heart and after that he had filled in what little spare time he had with family. It had been so long that he had forgotten what it felt like to be so strongly attracted to a woman. The fact that Miriam was Amish complicated the matter even further.
His grandfather chuckled. “He’s sweet on her.”
“Good luck with that,” Uncle Albert said. “I’ve heard those Yoder girls can be a handful.”
John paused in the doorway and looked back. “Sometimes,” he said softly, “a handful is just the kind of woman a man is looking for.”
Chapter Three
Miriam and Anna were just setting the table for breakfast the following morning when they heard the sound of a wagon rumbling up their lane. Miriam, who’d showered after morning chores, snatched a kerchief off the peg and covered her damp hair before going to the kitchen door. “It’s Charley,” she called back as she walked out onto the porch. He reined in his father’s team at the hitching rail near the back steps.
“Morning.” The wagon was piled high with bales of hay.
“You’re up and about early,” she said, tucking as much of her hair out of sight as possible. Wet strands tumbled down her back, and she gave up trying to hide them. After all, it was only Charley.
“Where are you off to?” Behind her, Jeremiah yipped and hopped up and down with excitement. “Hush, hush,” she said to the dog. “Irwin! Call him. He’ll frighten Charley’s team.”
Irwin opened the screen door and scooped up the little animal. “Morning, Charley,” he said.
Charley climbed down from the wagon. “I’m coming here,” he said as he tied the horses to the hitching rail. “Here.”
“What?” she asked. Curious, Irwin followed her down the porch steps into the yard, the whining dog in his arms.
Charley laughed. “You wanted to know where I was going, didn’t you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t understand. We didn’t buy any hay from your father.”
“Ne.” He grinned at her. “But you lost a lot of your load in the creek. My Dat and Samuel and your uncle Reuben wanted
