His Amish Sweetheart Page 6

  “As long as it’s not growing green stuff.” Excitement blossomed in Jacob’s eyes.

  Nathaniel laughed and ruffled the boy’s hair. Jacob stiffened for a second, then relaxed with a smile.

  The poor kid! Did anyone treat him as a kind or did others think of him solely as his sad experiences? The boy needed a chance to be a boy. Nathaniel knew that with every inch of his being. After having his own parents, with their gut intentions, nearly deny him his own chance to be a kid, he didn’t want to see the same happen to another kind.

  He wasn’t going to let that occur. God had brought Jacob into his life for a reason, and it might be as simple as Nathaniel being able to offer him an escape, temporary though it might be, into a normal childhood. Reggie had given that to him. Now Nathaniel could do the same for Jacob.

  With a laugh, he said, “You’ve got to be tired after tidying up.”

  “A bit.”

  “Gut. Then you won’t be able to beat me to the kitchen door.” With no more warning, Nathaniel loped away.

  A moment passed, and he wondered if his attempt to get Jacob to play had failed. Then, with a whoop, the boy sped past him. Nathaniel lengthened his stride, but the kind reached the door before he could. Whirling to face him, Jacob pumped his arms in a victory dance.

  Nathaniel let him cheer for a few moments and didn’t remind him it wasn’t the Amish way to celebrate beating someone else. There was time enough for those lessons later. For now, Jacob needed to feel like a kid.

  “Well done.” He clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Next time, I’ll beat you.”

  “Don’t be so sure.” As Jacob smiled, his brown eyes were filled with humor instead of his usual lost expression.

  Nathaniel laughed, thinking how pleased Esther would be when he shared this moment with her tomorrow. He opened the door and ushered the boy into a kitchen that looked the same as it had the day he’d arrived from Indiana for his summer visit so many years ago. The kitchen was a large room, but filled to capacity with furniture, as the living room was. There were enough chairs of all shapes and sizes to host a Sunday church service. His grandparents had been fond of auctions, but he’d been astounded when he arrived to discover the house chock-full of furnishings.

  Nathaniel had stored many chairs and two dressers from the living room in an outbuilding, which was now full. He had to find other places to put the rest until there was a charity auction to which he could donate them. Until then he had to wend his way through an obstacle course of chairs every morning and night to reach the stairs.

  Jacob walked in and sniffed. “This place smells like Onkel Titus’s house.”

  “In what way?” He hoped something familiar would make the boy feel more at home.

  “Full of old stuff and dust.” He looked at Nathaniel. “Don’t grown-ups ever throw anything out?”

  He grinned. “Not my grandparents. My grossmammi saved the tabs from plastic bags. She always said, ‘Use it up, wear it out—’”

  “‘...make it do or do without,’” finished Jacob with an abrupt grin. “Onkel Titus says the same thing. A lot.” He glanced around. “Don’t you think they could get by with a lot less stuff?”

  “I know I could. If you can find an empty chair, bring it to the table while I make some sandwiches.”

  That brought a snort of something that might have been rusty laughter from the boy, but could have been disgust with the state of the house. Nathaniel didn’t look at Jacob to determine which. Getting the boy to smile was wunderbaar. As they had an impromptu supper, with Nathaniel eating two sandwiches and Jacob three, he let the boy take the lead in deciding the topics of conversation.

  There was only one. The alpacas. Jacob had more questions than Nathaniel could answer. Time after time, he had to reply that Jacob needed to ask Esther. The boy would nod, then ask another question. That continued while they got the alpacas ready for the night.

  Nathaniel hid his smile when he heard Jacob chatter like a regular kid. He thanked God for putting a love for alpacas in his grossmammi’s heart, so the creatures could touch a lonely boy’s. God’s methods were splendid, and Nathaniel sent up a grateful prayer as he walked with Jacob back to the house when their chores were done.

  Leading the boy upstairs—where there were yet more chairs—he smiled when Jacob yawned broadly. He opened a door across the hall from his own bedroom. It was a room he’d had some success in clearing out. In the closet were stairs leading to the attic, where he’d hoped there might be room to store furniture. However, like the rest of the house, it was already full.

  “Here’s where you’ll sleep.” Nathaniel was glad he’d kept the bed made so the room looked welcoming. He’d slept on the bed with its black and white and blue quilt the time he came to stay with his grandparents. Pegs on the wall waited for clothes, and a small table held the storybooks Nathaniel had read years ago. The single window gave a view of the pasture beyond the main barn.

  “I can see them!” crowed Jacob, rushing around the iron bed to peer out the window. “The alpacas! They’re right out there.”

  “They’ll be there until I move them to another pasture in a couple of weeks.”

  The boy whirled. “Why do you have to move them?” His tone suggested Nathaniel was doing that to be cruel to him and the animals.

  “If I don’t move them, they’ll be hungry.” He tried to keep his voice calm. The boy needed to learn that not everything was an attack on him, but how did you teach that to a kind who’d seen his parents cut down and killed by a car? “Once the alpacas eat the grass in that field, I must put them in another field so they can graze.”

  “Oh.” Jacob lowered his eyes.

  “But they’ll be right there in the morning. Why don’t you get ready for bed? I’ll put an extra toothbrush in the bathroom for you.”

  The boy nodded, his eyelids drooping. “Can we pray for my onkel first?”

  “Ja.” Nathaniel was actually relieved to hear him speak of Titus. The boy had said very little about his onkel since Esther left.

  Kneeling by the side of the bed along with Jacob, Nathaniel bowed his head over his folded hands. He listened as Jacob prayed for his onkel’s health and thanked God for letting him meet the alpacas. Nathaniel couldn’t help grinning when the boy finished his prayers with, “Make the alpacas like me, God, cuz I sure like them.”

  Nathaniel echoed Jacob’s amen and came to his feet. Telling the boy he’d be sleeping on the other side of the hall, he added that Jacob should call if he needed anything.

  An hour later, after he’d washed the few supper dishes and put them away, Nathaniel closed his Bible and placed it on a small table in the living room. The words had begun to swim in front of his eyes. He went upstairs and peeked into Jacob’s room. The boy was sprawled across the bed in a shaft of moonlight. He’d removed his shoes and socks but not his suspenders. One drooped around his right shoulder, and the other hung loose by his left hip. His shirt had pulled out of his trousers, revealing what looked like a long scar. A legacy of the accident that had taken his parents? He mumbled something in his sleep and turned over to bury his head in the pillow once more. Nathaniel wondered if the boy had nightmares while he slept or if that was the one time he could escape from the blows life had dealt him.

  Nathaniel slowly closed the door almost all the way. The evening had gone better than he’d dared to hope. He went into his own room. He left his door open a crack, too, so he’d hear if the boy got up or if someone came to the kitchen door.

  He went to the bedroom window and gazed out at the stars overhead. Was Esther looking at the same stars now? Was her heart heavy, as his was, with worries for Jacob and his onkel? Was she thinking of Nathaniel as he was of her? Since she’d fallen into his arms at the ball game he’d found it impossible to push her out of his thoughts. Not that he minded. Not a lot, anyhow, becaus
e it was fun to think of her sparkling eyes. It was delightful to recall how perfectly she’d fit against him.

  He shook the thought from his head. Remembering her softness and the sweet scent of her hair was foolish. No need to torment himself when holding her again would be wrong. He couldn’t ignore how much she loved being with kinder and how impossible it could be for him to give her kinder of her own. He needed to put an end to such thoughts now and concentrate on the one dream he had a chance of making come true: being a success on the farm so it didn’t have to be sold.

  * * *

  Esther had just arrived home from school when she heard the rattle of buggy wheels. She looked out the kitchen window in time to see Nathaniel drive into the yard. She went to greet him and Jacob. She hoped letting him skip school had been a gut idea.

  The afternoon breeze was strengthening, and her apron undulated on top of her dress. Goose bumps rose along her bare arms. She hugged them to her as she rushed to the buggy.

  From it, she heard Jacob ask, “Isn’t this where Esther lives?”

  “Ja” came Nathaniel’s reply.

  “Why are we coming here? I thought we were going to Onkel Titus’s house?”

  “We are.”

  Esther kept her smile in place as a wave of sorrow flooded her. Never had she heard Jacob describe Titus’s house as his home. Did he see it as another temporary residence?

  Calling out a greeting, she pretended not to have heard the exchange. She gave Nathaniel and Jacob a quick appraisal. Both appeared fine, so she guessed their first day together had gone well. That was a great relief, because last night she’d felt guilty for letting Nathaniel take on the obligation of the boy. More than once, she’d considered driving over to his farm and bringing Jacob to her family’s house. She was glad to see it hadn’t been necessary. At least, not yet.

  “Any news about Titus’s tests?” Nathaniel asked.

  She shook her head, glad he’d selected those words that suggested the elderly man’s condition wasn’t too serious. “Nothing, and you know what they say.”

  “No news is good news?”

  “Exactly.” She motioned toward the bank barn. “Ezra put Gal and Sal on the upper floor. He wasn’t sure how they’d be around his cows.”

  “Is it all right if they stay here a little while longer? We’re on our way to Titus’s house to get some of Jacob’s clothes and other things.”

  Glancing at Jacob, who hadn’t said a word, she replied, “I’ll go with you, if you don’t mind.”

  “No, of course we don’t mind.”

  “Jacob?” she asked.

  The boy nodded with obvious reluctance.

  “Let me get my bonnet.” She hurried into the house. After letting Mamm know where she was going, she grabbed her black bonnet and her knitted shawl. She threw the shawl over her shoulders and went outside to discover Nathaniel had already turned the buggy toward the road.

  Jacob slid over, leaving her room by the door. As soon as she was seated and the buggy was moving, he began asking her questions about the alpacas. She was kept so busy answering his question that the trip, less than two miles long, was over before she realized it.

  The buggy rolled to a stop by a house whose weathered boards were a mosaic of peeling paint. The front porch had a definite tilt to the right, and Esther wondered if it remained connected to the house. Cardboard was set into one windowpane where the glass was missing. However, the yard was neat, and the remnants of a large garden out back had at least half a dozen pumpkins peeking from under large leaves.

  As they stepped from the buggy, Jacob ran ahead. Nathaniel motioned for Esther to wait for him to come around to her side.

  He chuckled quietly. “Blame those questions on me. Yesterday, Jacob asked me a lot of things I didn’t know about. I kept telling him to ask you the next time he saw you. I didn’t think he’d ask you all the questions at once.”

  “I’m glad to answer what I can, and I’m glad you’re here to hear as well, so I don’t need to explain them again to you.”

  He pressed his hand over his heart and struck the pose of a wounded man. “Oh, no! I didn’t realize I was supposed to be listening, too.”

  “You should know anytime you’re around a teacher there may be a test at the end.”

  He laughed again, harder this time, as they walked to the door where Jacob was waiting impatiently. When the boy motioned for them to follow him inside, Nathaniel’s laughter vanished along with Esther’s smile.

  The interior of the house was almost impassable. Boxes and bags were piled haphazardly from floor to ceiling. Esther stared at broken pieces of scooters, parts from Englisch cars and farming equipment mixed in with clothing and books and things she couldn’t identify. If there was any furniture beneath the heaps it was impossible to see.

  She guessed they were in the kitchen, but there were no signs of appliances or a sink. Odors that suggested food was rotting somewhere in the depths of the piles turned her stomach. She pushed the door open again, knowing she couldn’t reach a window, even if she knew where one was, to air out the house.

  “My room is this way.” Jacob gestured again for them to follow him as he threaded a path through the piles with the ease of much practice.

  Esther looked around in disbelief. Softly, so her words wouldn’t reach Jacob, she said, “I had no idea Titus Fisher was living this way.”

  “I don’t think anyone did other than his nephew.” Nathaniel’s mouth was a straight line as he walked after the boy.

  She hesitated, not wanting to be buried if a mountain of debris cascaded onto her. How could this house have become filled with garbage and useless items? Surely someone came to call on the old man once in a while. She needed to alert the bishop, because other elderly people who were alone might also be living in such deplorable conditions.

  Titus couldn’t come home to this. Isaiah had said the stroke was a bad one, and if the elderly man survived he would be in a wheelchair. The path from the kitchen was too narrow for one.

  Taking a deep breath, Esther plunged into the house. Her shawl brushed the sides of the stacks as she inched forward. How was Nathaniel managing? His shoulders were wider than her own. When she saw him ahead, sidling like a crab, she realized it was the only way he could move through the narrow space.

  “Having fun?” he asked as he waited for her to catch up with him.

  “Fun? Why would you say that?”

  He grinned. “It’s like being an explorer in another world. Who knows what lurks in these piles?”

  “Mice and squirrels, most likely. Maybe a rat or two. Cockroaches. Do I need to go on?”

  “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “Gone.”

  “I noticed.” His face was abruptly serious. Tilting his head and eyeing her as if trying to look within her heart, he said, “You used to see an adventure in everything around us. What happened?”

  She didn’t want to have this discussion with him, especially not now when Jacob should be their focus. She tried to push aside some of the stacked items so she could move past him. It was as useless as if she were shoving on a concrete wall.

  “Esther, tell me why you’ve changed.” His voice had dropped to a husky whisper that seemed to reach deep inside her and uncurl slowly as it peeled away her pretense.

  No! She wouldn’t reveal the humiliating truth of how she’d been so eager for adventure that she’d gotten involved with Alvin Lee. How could she explain she was supposed to be a respectable daughter and teacher, but she’d ridden in his buggy while he was racing it? What would Nathaniel think of her if he learned how she’d tossed aside common sense in the hope Alvin Lee would develop feelings for her?

  Because he reminded me of Nathaniel, who, I believed, was gone forever from my life.

  Astonishment fro
ze her. Could that be true? No, she had to be ferhoodled. If she wasn’t mixed-up, it had to be because she was distressed by the state of Titus’s house and knowing Jacob had been living here. That was why she wasn’t thinking straight. It had to be!

  Nathaniel was regarding her with curiosity because she hadn’t answered his question. She raised her chin slightly so she could meet his steady gaze.

  “What happened? I grew up,” she said before turning and shoving harder on the junk. Items fell on others, and it sounded as if several pieces of glass or china shattered. The path widened enough so she could squeeze past him without touching him. She kept going and didn’t look back.

  Chapter Six

  Esther followed Jacob up the stairs, which were stacked with boxes. She heard Nathaniel’s footsteps behind her but didn’t turn. She shouldn’t have spoken to him like that. It had been rude, and her reply was sure to create more questions. She didn’t need those.

  The upper hallway was as clogged with rubbish as the first floor. Each room they passed looked exactly like the rest of the house until Jacob opened a door and led them into a neat room.

  How often Mamm had chided her and her siblings throughout their childhoods to keep their rooms orderly! Mamm would have been delighted to see how well Jacob kept his room.

  Was it something he’d learned from his own mamm, or did he keep the clutter out of his room to have a refuge from his onkel’s overpowering collection? She blinked back tears. Either way, it was another sign of a kind who’d lost too much and was trying not to let his true feelings show.

  Speaking around the clog in her throat, she said, “The first things we’re going to need are some bags or a gut-sized box.”

  “I think I know where I can find a box.” Nathaniel grinned.

  Jacob stepped in front of him to keep him from leaving the room. The boy’s eyes were wide with horror. “No! You can’t use one of Onkel Titus’s boxes. Nobody touches anything in Onkel Titus’s house but Onkel Titus.”

  “Not even you?” asked Esther gently.