she said, changing the conversation to a safer subject.
After they had eaten, Miriam offered to help Charley unload the hay, but he suggested she finish cleaning up breakfast dishes with her sisters. A load of hay was nothing to him, he said as he went out the door, giving Susanna a wink.
“What did I tell you?” Ruth said when the girls were alone in the kitchen. “People are beginning to talk about you and John Hartman, seeing you at the sale together every week. He’s definitely sweet on you, even Charley noticed.”
“I don’t see him at Spence’s every week,” Miriam argued.
Ruth lifted an eyebrow.
“So he likes to stop for lunch there on Fridays,” Miriam said.
“And visit with you,” Ruth said. “I’m telling you, he likes you and it’s plain enough that Charley saw it.”
“That’s just Charley. You know how he is.” Miriam gestured with her hand. “He’s…protective of us.”
“Of you,” Anna said softly.
“Of all of us,” Miriam insisted. “I haven’t done anything wrong and neither has John, so enough about it already.” She went into the bathroom and quickly braided her hair, pinned it up and covered it with a clean kapp.
When she came back into the kitchen, Anna was washing dishes and Susanna was drying them. Ruth was grating cabbage for the noon meal. “I’ve got outside chores to do so I’m going to go on out if you don’t need me in here,” Miriam said.
Ruth concentrated on the growing pile of shredded cabbage.
Miriam wasn’t fooled. “What? Why do you have that look on your face? You don’t believe me? John is a friend, nothing more. Can’t I have a friend?”
“Of course you can,” Ruth replied. “Just don’t do anything to worry Mam. She has enough on her mind. Johanna—” She stopped, as if having second thoughts about what she was going to say.
“What about Johanna?” Miriam didn’t think her sister Johanna had been herself lately. Johanna lived down the road with her husband and two small children, but sometimes they didn’t see her for a week at a time and that concerned Miriam. When she was first married, Johanna had been up to the house almost every day. Miriam knew her sister had more responsibilities since the babies had come along, but she sometimes got the impression Johanna was hiding something. “Are Jonah and the baby well?”
“Everyone is fine,” Anna said.
“Later,” Ruth promised, glancing meaningfully at Susanna. “I’ll tell you all I know, later.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” Miriam said. She thought about Johanna while she fed and watered the laying hens and the pigs. If no one was sick, what could the problem be? And why hadn’t Mam said anything to her about it? Once she’d finished up with the animals, she went to the barn to give Charley a hand.
Dat had rigged a tackle to a crossbeam and they used the system of ropes and pulleys to hoist the heavy hay bales up into the loft. It was hard work, but with two of them, it went quick enough. They talked about all sorts of things, nothing important, just what was going on in their lives: Ruth and Eli’s wedding, harvesting crops, the next youth gathering.
After sending the last bale up, Miriam walked to the foot of the loft ladder. Charley stood above her, hat off, wiping the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. “I’m coming up,” she said.
He moved back and offered his hand when she reached the top rung. She took it, climbed up into the shadowy loft and looked around at the neat stacks of hay. It smelled heavenly. It was quiet here, the only sounds the cooing of pigeons and Charley’s breathing. Charley squeezed her fingers in his and she suddenly realized he was still holding her hand, or she was holding his; she wasn’t quite sure which it was.
She quickly tucked her hand behind her back and averted her gaze, as a small thrill of excitement passed through her.
“Miriam,” he began.
She backed toward the ladder. “I just wanted to see the hay,” she stammered, feeling all off-kilter. She didn’t know why but she felt like she needed to get away from Charley, like she needed to catch her breath. “I’ve got things to do.”
“What you two doin’ up there?” Susanna called up the ladder. “Can I come up?”
“Ne! I’m coming down,” Miriam answered, descending the ladder so fast that her hands barely touched the rungs.
Charley followed her. He jumped off the ladder when he was three feet off the ground and landed beside her with a solid thunk.
“I came to see how Molly is.” Susanna looked at Miriam and then at Charley. “Something wrong?”
Miriam felt her cheeks grow warm. “Ne.” She brushed hay from her apron, feeling completely flustered and not knowing why. She’d held Charley’s hand plenty of times before. What made this time different? She could still feel the strength of his grip and wondered if this feeling of bubbly warmth that reached from her belly to the tips of her toes was temptation. No wonder handholding by unmarried couples was frowned upon by the elders.
“Ne,” Charley repeated. “Nothing wrong.” But he was looking at Miriam strangely.
Something had changed between them in those few seconds up in the hayloft and Miriam wasn’t sure what. She could hear it in Charley’s voice. She could feel it in her chest, the way her heart was beating a little faster than it should be.
Susanna was still watching her carefully. “Anna said to tell you to cut greens if you go in the garden and not to forget to meet Mam.”
The three stood there, looking at each other.
“Guess I should be going,” Charley finally said, awkwardly looking down at his feet.
“Thanks again for bringing the hay, Charley. I can always count on you.” Miriam dared a quick look into his eyes. “You’re like the brother I never had.”
“That’s me. Good old Charley.” He sounded upset with her and she had no idea why.
“Don’t be silly.” She tapped his shoulder playfully. “You’re a lifesaver. You kept me from drowning in the creek, didn’t you?”
“In the creek? Right, like you needed saving.” He laughed, and she laughed with him, easing the tension of the moment.
They walked out of the barn, side by side with Susanna trailing after them, and crossed the yard to the well. Charley drew up a bucket of water, and all three drank deeply from the dipper. Then he went back to the barn to guide the team and wagon down the passageway and out the far doors. By the time he’d turned his horses around and driven out of the yard, Miriam had almost stopped feeling as though she’d somehow let him down. Almost…
Later, in the buggy on the way to the orchard with her mother, Miriam had wanted to tell her about the strange moment in the hayloft with Charley. In a large family, even a loving one, time alone with parents was special. Miriam was a grown woman, but Mam had a way of listening without judging and giving sound advice without seeming to. Miriam
