was embarrassed that your brother Luke saw us. I regretted my behavior afterward, and I have told you I was sorry.”
“Not half as sorry as I was,” he snapped back. “That glass of punch you poured on me was cold.”
She was sorry that evening ended so badly. It had been a nice kiss. Her first.
She and Noah had slipped outside for a breath of fresh air near the end of a Christmas cookie exchange at his parent’s house the winter before last. She had been curious to find out what it would be like to be kissed by him. Things had been going well in his mother’s garden until Luke came by. When Noah tried for a second kiss after his brother walked away, she had been so flustered that she upended a glass of cold strawberry punch in his lap.
“That was ages ago. Are you going to berate me again or are you going to help me?” Fannie demanded.
He leaned over the pony’s back, his expression dead serious. “Find some other gullible fellow.”
Her temper flared and she didn’t try to quell it. “Oh! You’re just plain mean. See if I ever help you out of a jam. You were my last hope, Noah Bowman. If I wasn’t Amish I might actually hate you for this, but I have to say I forgive you. Have fun meeting all your prospective brides this summer.” She spun on her heel and mounted her horse.
“If I’m your last hope, Fannie Erb, that says more about you than it does about me,” he called out as she turned Trinket around.
She nudged her mare into a gallop and blinked back tears. She didn’t want him to see how deeply disappointed she was.
Now what was she going to do?
Noah regretted his parting comment as he watched Fannie ride away. She didn’t have many friends. She was more at ease around horses than people. Her reputation as a hothead was to blame but he knew there wasn’t any real harm in her. Her last bobby pin came loose as she rode off. Her kapp fluttered to the ground in the driveway.
Willy raised his head and neighed loudly. He clearly wanted the pretty, golden-chestnut mare with the blond mane to come back.
“Don’t be taken in by good looks, Willy. A sweet disposition lasts far longer than a pretty face. I don’t care what Fannie says—Mamm isn’t in a hurry to see me wed.”
He walked out and picked up Fannie’s kapp. At the sound of a wagon approaching, he stuffed it into his back pocket. His cousins Paul and Mark Bowman drove in from the hayfield with a load of bales stacked shoulder high on a trailer pulled by Noah’s father’s gray Percheron draft horses. The chug-chug sound of the gas-powered bailer could be heard in the distance where Noah’s father was pulling it with a four-horse hitch. Noah’s brothers Samuel and Timothy were hooking the bales from the back of the machine and stacking them on a second trailer.
“Who was that?” Mark asked.
“Fannie Erb.” Noah watched her set her horse at the stone wall bordering her family’s lane. Trinket sailed over it easily.
“She rides well,” Paul said with a touch of admiration in his voice.
“She does,” Noah admitted.
“What did she want?” Mark asked.
Noah shook his head at the absurdness of her idea. “She’s looking for a beau. Are you interested?”
Mark shook his head. “Nee, I’m not. I have a girlfriend back home.”
His brother Paul nudged him with an elbow. “A man can go to an auction without buying a horse. It doesn’t hurt to look and see what’s out there.”
Mark and Paul had come from Bird-In-Hand, Pennsylvania, to stay with Noah’s family and apprentice with Noah’s father in the family’s woodworking business. The shop was closed for a few days until the Bowmans had their hay in, and Noah was glad for the extra help.
Mark scowled at his brother. “A man who doesn’t need a horse but goes to the auction anyway is wasting a day Gott has given him. You know what they say about idle hands.”
“I won’t suffer from idle hands today—today—today. I’ll have the blisters—blisters—blisters to prove it,” Paul called out in a singsong voice. The fast-talking young man was learning to become an auctioneer.
Mark maneuvered the hay wagon next to the front of the barn. The wide hayloft door was open above them, with a bale elevator positioned in the center of it. Noah pulled the cord on the elevator’s gas-powered engine. It sprang to life, and the conveyer belt began to move upward. Noah glanced toward the house and saw his brother Joshua jogging toward them. Noah sat on the belt and rode up to the hayloft. Joshua came up the same way and the two men waited for the bales their cousins unloaded.
After stacking the first thirty-five bales deep in the recesses of the hayloft, Noah and Joshua moved to the open loft door to wait for the next trailer load to come in from the field.
Joshua fanned his face with his straw hat and then mopped his sweaty brow with his handkerchief. “It’s going to be another hot one.”
The interior of the barn loft would be roasting by late afternoon, even with the doors open. Noah pulled off his ball cap and reached into his back pocket for his handkerchief, but pulled out Fannie’s kapp instead.
The silly goose. Did she really think he would agree to court her at a moment’s notice? Only she could come up with such a far-fetched scheme. He tucked her kapp back in his pocket and wiped his face with his sleeve, determined to stop thinking about her.
He leaned out of the loft to see how close the second wagon was to being full. “Looks like I’ll have time to finish putting a new horseshoe on Hank before they get here. We have some pony-size shoes, don’t we?”
Joshua nodded. “On the wall in the tack room. I had John Miller make a full set for Hank right after I brought him home.”
“Goot.”
“I can take care of him later,” Joshua offered.
“Checking the horses’ feet is my job. I only have Hank and Ginger left.”
“What does Ginger need?”
“I noticed she was limping out in the pasture. I haven’t had a chance to see why.”
“I can take care of her. I know you want to have your work done before you head to your ball game.”
“Danki, bruder.”
“You can return the favor some other time. I’m looking forward to your game next weekend. It should be a goot one. Walter Osborn can knock the hide off a baseball when he connects.”
Walter was an English neighbor and volunteer fire fighter. Part of his job was to gather the Amish volunteers in the area and deliver them to the fire station when the call went out. He was also a good friend of Noah’s.
“Walter is the best catcher in the league and our power hitter. If we can get into the state tournament,
