suffered from a chronic disease since he was born.
The wind shifted and the intermittent rain dampened Luke’s trousers and wet his face. He pulled the brim of his hat low to shield his eyes as the mule plodded on up the drive, laying her ears back against the rain and splashing through the puddles. As the buggy neared the farmhouse, Luke noticed missing shingles on the roof and a broken window on the second floor. His chest tightened and he felt an overwhelming need to do whatever he could to help Honor, regardless of how she received him.
As they passed between the gateposts that marked the entrance to the farmyard, Luke could hear the rusty mechanism of the windmill creak and grind. The gate, or what remained of it, sagged, one end on the ground and overgrown with weeds and what looked like poison ivy.
“If I’d known things were this bad here, I would have asked Caleb to organize a work frolic to clean this place up,” Sara observed. “Caleb’s our young preacher, married one of the Yoder girls. You know Hannah Yoder? Her daughters are all married now, have families of their own.”
“Knew Jonas Yoder well. He was good to me when I was growing up.”
“Jonas was like that,” Sara mused. “Hannah and I are cousins.”
Luke continued to study the farm. “You’ve never been here before?”
“Ne, I haven’t. She’s been to my place, though. I’d heard Honor doesn’t have church services here, but I always assumed it was due to Silas’s illness and then her struggle to carry on without him.”
Luke didn’t know how long Honor’s husband had been sick before he’d been carried off by a bout of pneumonia, but either he’d been sick a long time or he hadn’t attended to his duties. The state of things on this farm was a disgrace.
A child’s shriek caught his attention, and he glanced at the barn where a hayloft door hung open. Suddenly, a squirming bundle of energy cannonballed out of the loft, landed on a hay wagon heaped with wet straw and then vaulted off to land with a squeal of laughter in a mud puddle. Water splashed, ducks and chickens flew, squawking and quacking, in every direction, and a miniature donkey shied away from the building and added a shrill braying to the uproar.
The small figure climbed out of the puddle and shouted to someone in the loft. Luke thought the muddy creature must be a boy, because he was wearing trousers and a shirt, but couldn’t make out his face or the color of his hair because it was covered in mud.
“What are you doing?” Sara called to the child. “Does your mother know—”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence because a second squealing child leaped from the loft opening. He hit the heap of straw in the wagon and landed in the puddle with a satisfying splash and an even louder protest from the donkey. This child was shirtless and wearing only one shoe. When a third child appeared in the loft, this one the smallest of the three, Luke managed to leap out of the buggy and get to the wagon in time to catch him in midair.
This little one, in a baby’s gown, was bareheaded, with clumps of bright red-orange hair standing up like the bristles on a horse’s mane and oversize boots on the wrong feet. The rescued toddler began to wail. With a yell, the shirtless boy launched himself at Luke, fists and feet flying, and bit his knee.
“Let go of him!” the leader of the pack screamed in Deitsch. “Mam! A man is taking Elijah!”
Luke deposited Elijah safely on the ground. “Stop that!” he ordered in Deitsch, lifting his attacker into the air and tucking him under one arm.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Luke turned toward the back porch. A young woman appeared, a crying baby in her arms, wet hair hanging loose around her shoulders. “Let go of my son this minute!”
For a moment Luke stood there, stunned, the boy still flailing against his arm. Luke had been expecting to see a changed Honor, one weighed down by the grief of widowhood and aged by the birth of four children in six years, but he hadn’t been prepared for this bold beauty. He opened his mouth to answer, but as he did, a handful of mud struck him in the cheek.
“Put Justice down!” the biggest boy shouted as he scooped up a handful of mud and threw it at Luke. “You let my brother go!”
The little one did the same.
Luke spit mud and tried to wipe the muck out of his eyes, only succeeding in making it worse.
Sara, now out of the buggy, clapped her hands. “Kinner! Stop this at once! Inside with you. You’ll catch your deaths of ague.” She reached out for Justice, and Luke gladly handed him, still kicking and screaming, over to her.
Honor came down the steps, carefully stepping over a hole where a board was missing. “Sara? I didn’t realize—” She broke off. “You?” she said to Luke, raising her voice. “You dare to come here?”
He sucked in a deep breath. “Goot mariye, Honor. I know you weren’t expecting me, but—”
“But nothing,” Honor flung back. Red-haired Elijah’s cry became a shriek, and a dog ran out of the house and began to bark. Honor raised her voice further to be heard over the noise. “What are doing here, Luke?”
“Calm down,” he soothed, raising both hands, palms up, in an attempt to dampen the fire of her temper. “Hear me out, before—”
“There will be no hearing you out,” she said, interrupting him again. “You’re not welcome here, Luke Weaver.”
“Now, Honor—”
“Why did you bring him here, Sara?” Honor demanded.
To add to the confusion, the rainfall suddenly became a downpour. Sara looked up at the dark sky and then at Honor. “If you’ve any charity, I think we’d best get under your roof before we all drown,” she said.
Honor grimaced and reached out for the child struggling in Sara’s arms. “Could you grab Elijah?” she asked the matchmaker. “Stop that, Justice,” she said, balancing her middle child on one hip and the baby against her shoulder. “Why are you half-dressed? Where’s Greta? And where’s your coat?” She glanced up. “Ya, come in, all of you. Elijah! Tanner!” She rolled her eyes. “You, too, Luke. Although it would serve you right if I did leave you out here to drown.”
Honor set Justice down on the top step and herded him and the other two boys into the narrow passageway that served as a place to hang coats, wash clothing and store buckets, kindling and fifty other items she didn’t want in her kitchen. “Watch your step,” she warned Sara. “The cat had kittens, and they’re constantly underfoot.”
Her late husband had disliked cats in the house. The thought that this was her house and she could do as she pleased now, in spite of what he thought, gave her a small gratification in the midst of the constant turmoil. “Tanner? Where’s Greta?” She glanced back at Sara who was setting Elijah on his feet. “Greta’s Silas’s niece. She helps me with the children and the housework.” She raised her free hand in a hopeless gesture. “She was supposed to be checking on the sheep. She must have taken the little ones outside with her.”
Kittens,
