A Mother For His Children

Just then one of the boys shouted to him, “Hah, Nathan, you missed me again!”

Biting back her anger, she swung open the door of the shed and stepped in, face-to-face with Levi Zook as he rose from wiping the buggy wheels with a rag. He loomed over her in the confines of the room, suddenly dark as she shut the door on the bright midafternoon sunshine. But for all his size, his eyes were the gentlest she had ever seen, with lines that crinkled when he smiled at her.

A snowball hit the outside of the shed with a thud, bringing Ruthy back to the anger that had propelled her in here. She opened her mouth to speak, but Levi Zook only bent down to wipe the wheel hub again.

* * *

“Levi Zook, just how many children do you have?”

Levi gave the freshly greased wheel hub a final wipe with his rag before he looked into the face of the furious young woman. He knew this confrontation was coming—he had been dreading it ever since before Christmas, when she had agreed to take the job. He should have told her, but he hadn’t wanted to risk her turning down the job. If Ruth weren’t here, Eliza would be sure to take the younger girls to live with her as she had insisted she’d do ever since Salome died a year ago.

“Only ten.” He stumbled over his words as her face paled and she reached out to the wall for support. “But they’re gut children and they won’t be a bother to you.”

“Only ten? You didn’t think you should tell me this before I accepted your job?”

Levi rubbed his hand across his face and through his beard, sighing. “Ja. I should have told you.”

She stared at him, her mouth twitching. Was she going to break out into tears? He wouldn’t blame her if she insisted on going back to Lancaster County, but then what would he do? Finding a wife who would take on ten children wasn’t as easy as he thought it might be when he first started looking. He pushed up the front of his broad-brimmed hat and rubbed his forehead. Tension made his head ache.

All the single women he knew were either much too young or they had better offers than he could give them. Hiring a housekeeper was the only alternative he could think of to keep his family together. This situation had to work, but how could he make her stay?

Ruth covered her mouth with her hand, turning away from him. When she glanced back he could see she was laughing. Laughing at him?

“I’m sorry,” she said, her laughter bubbling up so that she could hardly breathe. “Ach, Levi Zook, you should see yourself. You just wiped grease all over your face.”

Levi pulled his hand away from his face. She was right. It was covered with black grease. He wiped at his face with his rag, but Ruth stopped him.

“There must be a clean cloth here somewhere,” she said between gasps. She sorted through the rags on the workbench and found a folded scrap at the bottom of the pile.

“Denki.” Levi took the rag and wiped his nose and forehead. His beard would have to wait. What must she think of him? He must have looked like some schoolboy the way he kept spreading the grease around. He tried to wipe his hands clean and waited for her to stop laughing. Could he live with a woman who laughed at him, no matter how her eyes danced in the dim light of the shed?

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the children earlier. I meant to, but I just didn’t know how to do it in a letter.”

“So you thought you’d let me figure it out as I met them.”

“For sure, I didn’t plan it that way.”

She pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. Her laughter still showed in the smile she gave him.

Levi turned the rag to find another clean spot and rubbed at his cheek. “I wouldn’t blame you if you decided not to stay. I shouldn’t have kept this from you.”

Glancing out the small window, she watched the boys playing in the yard. She chewed her bottom lip while he waited, and then she turned to face him. “You need me, Levi Zook, and your children need me. Waneta has been trying to run the house all on her own?”

He nodded and rubbed at the grease still covering his hands. “Ja, but it’s too much work for her at times.” At times? It was too much work for her all the time, even with Martha’s help. She needed a woman to guide her and teach her the things Salome hadn’t been able to during the years she had been ill.

Levi looked up to see Ruth regarding him with those blue eyes. She was nearly as tall as he was, and she held his gaze with a half smile. Her anger had disappeared quicker than ice melted on a summer day.

“You don’t need to worry about me running away from a little work, but please tell me you aren’t hiding more children in the hayloft.”

“Ne, no more surprises.”

“We’ll start fresh then, now that I know what to expect.”

As she went back to the house, Levi watched her through the open door. Ruth Mummert was enough of a surprise all by herself.

Chapter Two

“Martha, get in here and help me this minute!”

Waneta’s strident voice reached Ruthy, even in the back bedroom of the Dawdi Haus, and she sat up on the bed. The room was rosy and dim with the glow of the setting sun. She must have fallen asleep.

She hadn’t realized how tired she’d been after the long train ride, but her short nap had been anything but restful. Even this far away from Bird-in-Hand, Elam dominated her thoughts and intruded on her sleep. She pushed him away as Waneta’s voice carried through the house again.

“Martha!”

The poor girl sounded at her wits’ end. Ruthy bent down to slip her feet into her shoes. Levi Zook had told her to take it easy this afternoon, but it was nearly suppertime and certainly Waneta could use some help.

Ruthy repinned her kapp and went into the kitchen of the main house. Chaos reigned. The two little girls chased each other around the big table with flatware in their hands, their laughter high and shrill. Sam scraped a chair across the wooden floor to a counter where a cake waited to be frosted. Waneta struggled to pull a roasting pan from the oven, her hair falling around her face and her kapp limp and nearly falling off.

Seizing a towel from the counter, Ruthy grabbed one end of the roaster.

“Waneta, this ham smells wonderful-gut.” Together, they lifted the roaster onto the counter next to the stove and Waneta closed the oven door with a bang.

“Denki, but you’re supposed to be resting. Dat said you’d be tired from your long trip.”

“I’ve rested enough, and you look like you could use some help.”

“Ja, for sure I can, but you shouldn’t have to help with your own welcome supper.”

“Never mind that. Just let me help.”

Waneta’s brown eyes startled wide and she dashed around Ruthy. “Sam! You know better than that! Look what you’ve done to the cake!”

Ruthy turned to see Sam holding a chunk of unfrosted cake in his hand. Her smile froze on her face. If this was the way Levi Zook raised his children, he needed her more than he thought. It was time for her to start earning her money.

A vision of her elementary school teacher, Mrs. Studer, flashed into her mind. The Englisch woman had ruled a classroom full of forty-five children from first through eighth grades with a calm voice and a no-nonsense approach to rules. Ruthy had loved her. What would Mrs. Studer do with this mess if she were here?

Stepping to the table, Ruthy caught each of the eight-year-old twins by the arm as they ran past her. “What are the two of you supposed to be doing?”

Their flushed faces looked into hers, and then they both glanced at Waneta.

“We’re setting the table,” one of them said, grinning at Ruthy. When Ruthy kept her face stern, the grin vanished.

“Then you should be setting the table, shouldn’t you? Games like this should be saved for outdoors.”

The girl who had spoken nodded her head. Ruthy turned to her twin sister, ready to scold both of them, but the tears in the girl’s eyes stopped her words. She was so much more sensitive than her sister. How different could twins be?

“You will need to help me with your names for a while. I know one of you is Nellie, right?” The silent twin nodded her head and she turned back to the more daring girl. “So you’re Nancy.”

“You’re right.” The girl grinned again, her blue eyes sparkling.

“Nancy, you go ahead and finish putting the flatware on the table and Nellie can get the plates.”

Nellie went to a cupboard near the sink and opened it, revealing a generous stack of white plates. Such a tender child in this boisterous family seemed out of place. Ruthy turned her attention back to Sam, who was sitting on the chair next to the decimated cake, calmly eating the piece he had stolen. Waneta glanced at Ruthy as she opened a jar of pickled beets and gave her a quick smile. At least one person approved of the way she was handling things so far.

Ruthy knelt next to the little boy.

“Are you enjoying that cake?”

Sam nodded and grinned at her. His blue eyes were full of mischief, but his sweet smile made her long to give him a hug.

She couldn’t give in to that! This boy was a little thief who needed to be taught a lesson.

“It would taste better with frosting on it, wouldn’t it?”

“Ja,” Sam said between bites. “’Neta makes the best frosting.”

“It’s too bad you won’t get any, then.”

Sam stopped, the cake halfway to his mouth for another bite. “Why won’t I get any?”

Ruthy rose and took a spoonful of frosting from the nearby bowl. “You’re eating your cake now instead of after supper. So when the rest of us have our pieces with frosting, you won’t be able to have any.” She started frosting the untouched layer of cake and exchanged a glance with Waneta. The girl gave her a grateful smile.

“If I give it back, will you put frosting on it?” Sam held out his remaining chunk of cake.

“Will you promise to leave desserts alone until after the meals from now on?”

Sam stared at the cake, considering. Then he nodded. “I’ll try.”

“All right then.” Ruthy got a plate from the cupboard and Sam deposited his cake on it. “I’ll frost this piece just for you.” Sam slid down from the chair and headed into the front room.

“Denki,” Waneta whispered. “Dat always complains about pieces missing from the cakes, but I don’t know how to stop him.”

“I have a brother who tried the same thing when he was Sam’s age. Mam made him give up his desserts for a month when he didn’t stop.”

Waneta giggled. “You’ll have to threaten Sam with that. Nothing I say will make him behave.”

Ruthy set the broken cake layer on top of the first one and spread it with another dollop of frosting. Dessert wouldn’t be pretty, but from the way Sam liked his sister’s cake, she could tell it would still taste good.

“Do you always make the meals by yourself?”

Waneta drained a pot full of cooked potatoes. “Usually. Martha is supposed to help me, but she always disappears just when I need her.”

Ruthy tried to remember who Martha was, then placed her. The girl with her nose in a book in the Dawdi Haus earlier. Levi Zook needed more than a housekeeper—that man needed someone to take his younger girls in hand. He had been right when he said this task was too big for Waneta.

While Waneta piled slices of ham on a platter and filled the table with green beans, carrots, bread and pickles, Ruthy mashed the potatoes. Waneta sent Nancy to the back porch to ring the dinner bell, and soon the kitchen was full of children finding their places on the long benches that sat along the sides of the big table. Levi Zook came into the kitchen last, combing his fingers through his beard. Once he took his seat at the head of the table, Ruthy took the only place left, on the end opposite Levi Zook.

Every eye at the table was focused on her and she felt her face grow hot. Had she done something wrong? Were they waiting for her to do something?

“She’s sitting in Mam’s chair,” said one of the older boys.

Ruthy started to rise. She wasn’t here to take their mam’s place.

“It’s all right Nathan,” Levi said. “Ruth, that is your place at the table for now.” Levi looked at the boy who had spoken and the older brother sitting next to him. “Your mam is gone. We will not make her place at the table a shrine.”

Both boys lowered their eyes, their necks red. Ach, ja, they missed their mam. It would take some time for them to get used to Ruthy being here.

Levi cleared his throat. “Let’s pray.”

Ruthy bowed her head and silently began reciting her mealtime prayer in her head. Before she was done she heard the distinct clink of Levi’s fork against his plate. Was that his signal the prayer was over? She raised her eyes to see him staring at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

How did he feel about her sitting in his dead wife’s chair? However he felt, Levi Zook needed her.

* * *

As soon as Levi had come into the kitchen for supper he could feel the change. The bustling kitchen, normally noisy and chaotic, had an undergirding of order Levi hadn’t seen since before Sam was born.

And now the reason for that difference was sitting at the opposite end of the long table from him. Ruth sat at the foot of his table as if she had always done so, accepting the dishes of food passed to her and helping Sam cut the meat on his plate. She smiled at each of the children as she spoke to them, introducing herself to Nathan and Elias, who had been outside since she arrived, and asking about each of the children’s favorite foods.

The sound of her voice was a balm that soothed a festering need. When Salome died a year ago, a light had gone out in his home, but now the small flame of a woman’s influence was sputtering to life again.

Levi speared a chunk of ham and swirled it in his mashed potatoes before bringing it to his mouth with a satisfied sigh. He had done a good thing when he put that notice in The Budget, no matter what his sister, Eliza, said. His children needed a woman’s touch, that’s all, and they belonged at home. Farming them out to relatives wouldn’t be good for them at all.

He took another bite of ham and potatoes, and then reached for his glass of milk. Eleven pairs of eyes followed every movement, and he became aware that silence had descended on the table. He glanced at Ruth, and found her staring at him.

Levi finished chewing, and then took a swallow from his glass. His children looked expectant, except Sam, who looked down at his plate when Levi’s gaze reached the far end of the table. Ruth’s expression hadn’t changed.

“Did you hear me, Levi Zook?”

Her hair glowed like gold in the light from the kerosene lamp above the table. Had she said something to him?

“Ne, Ruth, I didn’t hear you.”

“I said Sam seems to be at loose ends here in the house all day. I asked when you will take him out to do barn chores with you.”

His face grew hot as Ruth kept her gaze on him. She hadn’t been here more than a few hours, and already she was telling him how to raise his son?

Ja, well, she was right, it was time for Sam to join him in the barn. It was another thing he had neglected in the last year. Shame threatened, but irritation quickly squelched it. He should have taken this action sooner, but no woman was going to dictate how he raised his children.

“Sam will join me in the barn when I’m ready for him to, and not a moment sooner.”

Ruth’s face reddened as her eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to speak, but Sam’s voice piped up. “I’m ready now, Dat. Jesse has been helping you since he was little, and I’m almost as big as him.”

Levi glanced at Jesse. At seven years old, he still wasn’t much bigger than his little brother. He hunched his shoulders around his slight frame as if he wanted to slink away from the table. He hated being the center of attention.

Jesse had been helping in the barn for a couple of years already, but he still needed a lot of help and training with his chores, which took time. With Sam there, it would take even more time away from his own work, but on the other hand, the two smaller boys could help each other.

She was right.

But he would take himself behind the woodshed for a thrashing before he gave in to this woman now. This was his family and he would have the final say in how his children were raised.

He stood up, his chair scraping against the wooden floor. “I’m going out to finish the chores.”

He grabbed his hat from the hook by the back door and stormed through the porch, snagging his coat from the wall as he went.

The meal had started out so well, before she interfered. Levi stopped beside the chicken coop, taking a deep breath of the frigid January air. Before she made a simple suggestion.

He reached into the pockets of his coat for his gloves and pulled them on, turning to face the house. Light from the kitchen windows gave a warm glow to the snow of the barnyard, pulling his gaze back to the table he had just left. He could see the shadowy forms of his children through the white curtains and their voices drifted to him in the still night. Elias’s deep bass chuckle rumbled through the higher pitches of the other children’s laughter.

Pride had forced him out here into the dark, but he was right, wasn’t he? He was the man in this house, not some upstart woman who comes in and tries to take over.

A woman he had invited. A woman he was paying to run his house for him.

What bothered him most was that she was right. It was past time for him to bring Sam along as he worked. Next year his youngest son would start school, and he would have missed his opportunity to start him out right.

Cold forced him away from the golden glow of the kitchen window and into the cowshed. He lit the lantern and checked on Moolah, the tall, bony Holstein. She was his best milker and due to drop a calf in a few weeks. She blinked an eye at him and chewed her cud. She was nice and comfortable tonight.

Levi went through the cowshed and into the main barn. The constant rustling in the vast haymow above him was interrupted by a thump and a squeak as one of the barn cats ended a successful hunt. A moment of silence, and then the rustling started again as the mice resumed their endless quest for food. He opened the door of the workshop and hung the lantern on its hook. He had been sharpening knives before the supper bell rang, and he might as well finish the job now.

He picked up one of the kitchen knives and tested its blade with his thumb. Taking the whetstone, he started the circular motion that would bring back the fine, sharp edge. From the workbench he could see the kitchen window. Movement behind the curtains told him the girls were clearing the table. Before long the children would bring out the projects they were working on during their Christmas vacation from school. This was the time of the evening when he enjoyed sitting close by, reading The Budget or a farm magazine, ready to answer any questions they had.

In the days before he lost Salome, she would sit in the rocking chair he had placed in the kitchen for her, knitting or mending, and enjoying their family. He could see her now, if he closed his eyes to the tools and workbench surrounding him. His Salome, rocking softly in her chair, and the gentle smile she kept on her face in spite of the pain.

The pain that had been her constant burden during those last months. Pain so horrible, that when she died, he had wept as much from thankfulness that she had been released, as from grief that he had lost her.

Levi pulled his mind away from the memories. Salome was free of pain now, safe and secure in the Blessed Land.

The knife lay loose in his hand, forgotten. He turned the blade over, working the other side.

He had taken her presence for granted, he knew that. From the time he first met her when they were children, he had thought Salome would always be with him. His partner in life, and together in their old age. But it wasn’t to be. God saw fit to let him carry on alone.

And alone he would stay, it seemed. He had exhausted the eligible women in the district and beyond, and not one of them would agree to be his wife. He had settled for the next best thing—a housekeeper.

And God provided Ruth. He had expected an older woman, but Ruth seemed capable and she was already making friends with the children. And at least now his family was safe from his interfering sister.

* * *

As the door slammed behind Levi Zook, Ruthy’s stomach turned. Ach, she had spoken before thinking again! As the father, he was the only one who had the say in how Sam was raised, not her. He certainly wouldn’t want her meddling, especially her first day here.

The children’s laughter broke into her thoughts as Elias told a joke and Ruthy smiled along with them. Surely they would have noticed their daed’s mood when he left the house? But it didn’t seem like they thought anything unusual had happened. Perhaps Levi acted like this quite often.

She bit her lip at the sudden thought that perhaps his mood had nothing to do with her. He had recently lost his wife, and he was probably still in mourning for her.

That must be the problem. She must be more understanding of the poor man.

After supper and dishes were done, the children brought books, sewing projects and knitting needles and gathered back at the table under the bright light.

“What do you have planned for tomorrow?” Ruthy gave the dishrag a final rinse as Waneta set the last plates in the cupboard.

“Whatever has to be done.” Waneta leaned against the counter with a sigh. “There’s always work waiting, isn’t there?”

“Do you follow a schedule?”

“Mam did, but I don’t know how she did it. I try to do laundry on Monday, the way she did, but then everyone runs out of clothes after only a few days, and I have to do laundry again. Then there aren’t enough dirty clothes to wash on the next Monday....” Waneta’s words faltered and she sent a pleading look at Ruthy.

“It sounds like all you need is some organization.” Ruthy silently thanked her mother for teaching her to run an orderly home. She would certainly need all those skills now. “Let’s sit down and make a list of what needs to be done.”

As she and Waneta planned their week, Ruthy worked to keep her rising impatience out of her voice. Levi Zook’s wife had only been gone a year, but from what Waneta told her, she had been bearing the heaviest load of the housekeeping for several years. Her father had expected entirely too much from this young girl.

When Levi and Elias came into the back porch just as the clock was striking eight o’clock, stomping the snow off their boots on the wood floor, Ruthy rose to make her way to the Dawdi Haus.

“We’ll start on the mending tomorrow, right after we redd up the house in the morning.”

Waneta gave her a grateful smile. “That sounds wonderful-gut. It’s so much better to have everything planned out, isn’t it?”

“We’ll tackle things one day at a time for now, and then on Monday we’ll put together a schedule for the week.” Ruthy patted the girl’s arm. “And don’t be in any hurry to get up in the morning. I’ll get breakfast started, and you can come down to help when the others do.”

Waneta’s smile broke into a big grin at that, and Ruthy slipped through the door into the passageway just as the door from the porch burst open. She had intruded on this family enough for one day.

Closing the door of her Dawdi Haus, Ruthy lit the lamp on the table in her front room. After building up the fire in the small stove, she hunted out the yarn and knitting needles she had brought with her. Keeping this family in stockings would keep her needles busy every evening.

The rocking chair creaked in the quiet room as she cast on the stitches she needed to make the first of a pair of men’s stockings. Her mind drifted back to Lancaster County, to the home she had left behind. Mam would be knitting tonight, while Daed read aloud from The Budget. The thought brought tears to her eyes and she laid her needles down. Why had God called her to leave her home and come here? Soon Daed and Mam would be saying their evening prayer before they went up to bed, and she wouldn’t be in the family circle.