Two
Ethan came out onto his front porch and stood with his hands on his hips as he scanned the yard for the missing children. How could they disappear so quickly? He couldn’t keep an eye on them every minute. How did mothers manage when they had half a dozen or more to keep track of every day?
He’d seen both Amos and Lily less than an hour ago. They had been playing on the swing set in the backyard until he sent them inside to clean their rooms. In the meanwhile, he’d gone out to care for his horses. Then he had been sidetracked by Faith Lapp and her pretty, shy friend Clara.
He called for Amos and Lily again but got no answer. Where should he search first? The barn? The henhouse? The creek? Where would a five-year-old and a four-year-old decide to go without telling him?
“Do you see them?” Micah asked as he came jogging around from the back of the house.
“Nee. Do you have any idea where they might be? Did they go with you to the Lapp farm?” He would send Micah back to the neighbors and enlist their aid if he couldn’t find the children soon.
Please, Lord, don’t let anything have happened to them.
“I went by myself. I didn’t want them tagging along,” Micah said.
“Are you sure they didn’t follow you?”
The boy shrugged. “I guess they could have, but I didn’t see them.”
“You go check the henhouse and the other outbuildings. I’ll check the barn. Maybe they’re playing up in the hayloft and can’t hear me calling.”
“I thought you wanted me to go to my room.”
Ethan scowled at his nephew in renewed annoyance. “After we find your brother and sister.”
“They’re probably just hiding from you.”
That took Ethan aback. “Why would they hide from me?”
“Because they like to play hide-and-seek.”
“Since when?”
“Since always. You just never pay attention to them.” Micah jumped off the porch and strode toward the henhouse.
Ethan raked a hand through his hair. The boy was right. He paid attention to his horses and to his work. He loved his brother’s children, but he didn’t know them. He headed toward the barn and prayed the two little ones hadn’t gone to the Lapp farm. He really did not want to face Faith and Clara again with more of his wayward children in tow.
* * *
Through the white painted latticework that bordered the porch, Clara watched Ethan enter the large red barn that stood fifty yards east of the house. The moment he was out of sight, she wiggled backward from beneath the porch. She motioned to the two children to come out, as well. “The game is over now. Your onkel is worried because he can’t find you. I want you both to wait for him on the porch steps.”
The little boy frowned and shook his head. “He didn’t say alle alle achts und frei.”
How could he call for everyone to come in because they were free? The poor man wasn’t aware that the game was on. How long would the pair have remained hidden? She didn’t want Ethan to find out. “I will say it. Alle alle achts und frei.”
“We won.” Lily beamed as she crawled out. She was covered with dirt and cobwebs. Her brother followed her in a similar state. Clara suspected that she looked the same.
“Ja, you won. You found the perfect hiding place.” Were these little ones scared of Ethan? Was that why they were hiding?
Clara brushed them off as best she could and glanced toward the barn. There was no sign of Ethan, but he could reappear at any moment. “Why were you hiding from your onkel?”
“’Cause we like to play hide-and-seek.”
“Why didn’t you tell him you were playing with him?”
“I told him I wanted to play hide-and-seek,” Amos said, but his gaze was on his bare toes.
“And what did he say?” she prompted.
“He said to clean our rooms,” he admitted.
“We did and then we hid,” Lily added with a grin.
Clara glanced toward the barn again. She had to get going. “Next time, you must make sure he knows he is playing the game before you hide.”
“We will,” Lily said with a nod.
Clara smiled at her. “Promise you’ll stay on the porch until your onkel returns?”
“We promise,” Amos said.
Lily nodded solemnly. “Will you come and play with us again?”
“Maybe, but today is our little secret, right? We won’t tell anyone about our hiding place.”
“We won’t tell,” Amos assured her.
“Danki.” Clara couldn’t waste any more time. After checking and not seeing Ethan or Micah, she scurried around the corner of the house and ran across the lawn into the cornfield. She pushed through the thick green leaves and between the stalks as she rushed on. Even when she reached the road, she didn’t slow down until she was a good half mile away from the farm.
A stitch in her side finally brought her to a halt. She looked back as she struggled to catch her breath. There was no sign of Ethan Gingerich. She was safe.
Grateful to escape from an extremely embarrassing situation of her own making without being discovered, she breathed a silent prayer of thanks. Just the thought of Ethan finding her lurking under his porch made her cringe. She wouldn’t have had to worry about keeping her dignity intact because she would have died of embarrassment on the spot.
It would have served her right to be found hiding like a mongrel dog. She had doubted the goodness of Ethan Gingerich. To do so was wrong and showed the weakness of her faith. It was something she strived to overcome with prayer, but she had a long way to go.
Not all men were like her uncle and the ruthless man he tried to make her marry. Ethan wasn’t cruel. He might not know how to handle the children, but he wasn’t unkind to them.
She glanced over her shoulder once more and began walking quickly toward her grandfather’s sheep farm. She hadn’t told the children her name. She had to pray they wouldn’t figure out who she was and tell Ethan about her actions. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to face him again for a long, long time.
* * *
When Ethan came out of the barn after checking every hiding place he could think of he saw Lily and Amos sitting on the front steps of the house. They were safe. He strode toward them, his relief quickly turning to frustration and annoyance. He had wasted a large part of his morning dealing with first one child and then the others.
He stopped in front of the steps and crossed his arms. “Where have you been? Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
