Family Blessings

His silence was unusual so she glanced up and saw him studying her, a half frown on his forehead and a half smile on his lips. “You do surprise me, Pleasant,” he said and then the smile won and blossomed into a full-fledged grin. “End of the week then.”

And the man actually winked at her as he pushed himself to his feet and left her standing there, a pan of unbaked egg bread half in and half out of the oven.

Jeremiah sat at his desk and watched the Obermeier boy painting the porch column. He was meticulous in the work, going back over a section that did not meet his standards for perfection. Jeremiah remembered his own painstaking attention to detail in the years he’d spent living with his father’s brother. For him it had come from knowing that if he failed to do a job to the exacting standards his uncle had set for him, he would have to do it again or worse, he would be punished.

Had Rolf’s father been a man like Jeremiah’s uncle? Did that explain the boy’s reticence?

“Maybe the kid’s just shy,” Jeremiah muttered as he pushed his chair away from the desk. He had to stop seeing his uncle in every adult and himself in every quiet child. He took down his hat from the wooden peg near the door and went outside. “Good job,” he said.

Rolf stepped away for a moment and surveyed his work. “Missed a spot,” he muttered and bent to cover it before turning his attention to the next side of the square column.

“How’s school?” Jeremiah sat on the edge of the porch.

“Gut.” Rolf lapsed naturally into the Pennsylvania Dutch that Jeremiah assumed was most often spoken at home.

“What are you studying?”

Sticking with his native tongue, Rolf listed the subjects. “Arithmetic, history, geography.”

“Your classes are conducted in English?” Jeremiah assumed this might be the case since it was a common way to prepare young people for dealing with those outside the Amish community.

“Ja.”

“Does your mother use English at home?”

The paintbrush faltered for a moment. “My stepmother does—yes.”

Jeremiah considered the correction. Did it mean that Rolf resented Pleasant or simply that he felt a loyalty to his own mother? “I was about your age when my father died. Tougher on you, I expect, losing both your parents.”

This time, Rolf looked at him as if trying to decide where this conversation might be headed. “Mama is good to us,” he murmured, his tone slightly defensive.

Jeremiah let the silence settle around them for a long moment. “Do you like ice cream, Rolf?”

“Ja.”

“Me, too. I’ve been working on a new flavor. How about tasting it for me and telling me what you think?”

Rolf continued his long brush strokes. “I should ask permission first.”

Jeremiah covered a smile by glancing away toward the bakery. “That’s probably best. Your sister’s helping out at the bakery, is she?”

Rolf nodded. “After school she watches my brothers until Mama gets everything ready for tomorrow’s baking, then we all go home together.”

“Well, then the way I see it we’ve got ourselves a bunch of tasters. You finish up there and go get your mama and sister and brothers while I go get dishes and spoons and the ice cream.”

“You want me to bring them over here?” The kid’s eyes widened.

“Well, sure. I mean that’s where the ice cream is.”

Rolf’s hand shook slightly as he returned to his painting, now going over an area he’d covered adequately.

“Or I could go over and get the others while you clean up here. Looks to me like you’ve finished.” Without waiting for the boy’s reply he headed for the kitchen entrance to the bakery.

Through the open door he could hear the lively chatter of the twins and the clatter of the large metal pans and bowls that Pleasant used for making the breads and rolls she baked each morning. As he got closer, he could hear the low murmur of voices—Pleasant’s and the girl’s. Bettina, he reminded himself.

“Hello?” he called as much to give fair warning of his approach as to deliver a greeting.

Two pairs of small feet padded across the bakery floor at a run while everything else went silent.

“Well, hello there,” he said when the twins lined up at the door and stared out at him. “Is your mother here?”

“Is there a problem, Herr Troyer?” Pleasant glanced anxiously past him to where Rolf was cleaning the paintbrush.

Now why would she automatically assume that?

Jeremiah thought. “Actually, I’ve come to ask another favor.”

She waited, wiping her hands on the dish towel she held while the twins glanced from him to her and back to him.

“If we can be of help,” Pleasant said, “we’re more than …”

“I have this new flavor of ice cream I’ve concocted—vanilla with bits of mango mixed in. I wondered if you and the children might taste it for me and give me your honest opinion.”

The twins did not wait for her reply, but opened the screen door and burst out onto the back porch of the bakery seemingly ready to follow him anywhere as long as he held to his promise of ice cream.

“Boys,” Pleasant chided, then turned her attention back to Jeremiah. “I thought we had agreed on the end of the week. There is no possible way that I will have anything ready by …”

“You’d be doing me a great favor,” Jeremiah continued as if her protests had nothing to do with the topic at hand. “While you’re developing the cone recipe, don’t forget that I need to be working on special flavors for the ice cream. We can’t just offer the standard flavors, after all. Besides, I tend to be far too lenient when it comes to my own tastes for flavors.”

Bettina had joined Pleasant on the porch and she was smiling up at him. “What other flavors have you invented, Herr Troyer?” she asked.

Jeremiah removed his hat and scratched his head for a moment. “Well, let’s see now, there was the time I thought maybe there might be a market for frog’s leg chocolate.”

All three children giggled and miracle of miracles, he was pretty sure that Pleasant was fighting a smile.

“You made that up,” Bettina said.

“You’re right. I did. But I actually did think about adding prunes to vanilla once.” He made a face that had the twins convulsing with laughter. “So you see I’m not always the best judge when it comes to these things.”

“I wouldn’t want to spoil the children’s supper,” Pleasant hedged.

Jeremiah shrugged. “My guess is that you were planning to give them dessert with supper?”

“Well, yes, but …”

“So what if they have dessert first?”

Her mouth worked as she tried to find an answer to this unorthodox logic. “I … without the promise of …”

“They might not finish their peas and carrots?” Jeremiah guessed and Pleasant nodded. He frowned as he studied each child in turn. “Rolf, come over here a minute, would you?”

The boy’s bare feet sent puffs of sandy dust flying as he ran across the dry dirt yard. “Yes, sir?”

“Am I to understand that sometimes you children have to be coaxed to finish your vegetables?”

Rolf and Bettina nodded. The twins studied the ground. Jeremiah sighed.

“So you see, Herr Troyer, ice cream at this hour …”

All four children looked up at her, their eyes wide with protest as they realized they were about to lose this opportunity. “But Mama, if we promised?” Bettina pleaded.

Pleasant folded her arms across her chest and studied each child. “No. There have just been too many times …”

Jeremiah was almost as disappointed as the children were. He didn’t know why it meant so much to him but it did. “Your mother is right,” he began.

“Unless,” Pleasant interrupted, “Herr Troyer would agree to come for supper and bring some of his ice cream along for dessert.”

The children whooped with delight at what they clearly considered an acceptable solution.

Pleasant was watching him though. “You do like vegetables, do you not, Herr Troyer?”

“What kind?” he asked and hoped the answer would be green beans or perhaps carrots.

“Brussels sprouts,” Pleasant replied and he knew that the look of disgust that had flickered over his face for an instant was exactly what made her smile. “May we expect you at five-thirty then?”

Chapter Five

Have I completely lost my mind? Pleasant thought as Jeremiah walked back to his shop, whistling a nameless tune. But she put the thought aside as the children clamored around her.

“Ice cream! Ice cream!” the twins chanted as they marched up and down the small porch.

“He said I did fine work,” Rolf reported shyly, his eyes still following Jeremiah until the shopkeeper disappeared inside his back door.

“I don’t think he likes Brussels sprouts though,” Bettina mused. “Did you see the look on his face? Maybe we should have the beans, after all.”

“We’re having the sprouts,” Pleasant said. “And speaking of supper, we need to get home. Boys, stop that marching and go along home with your sister. Rolf, would you stay and help me finish closing up for the day?”

“Yes, Mama,” all four children chorused and then they grinned up at her, their eyes shining with anticipation.

“And stop at your grandfather’s, Bettina. Ask him and Greta and Lydia to join us for supper.”

Bettina squealed and held hands with the twins as the three of them ran down the dusty road. “It’s like a party,” Pleasant heard her say.

“Would you like to see the job I did for Herr Troyer?” Rolf asked as he helped Pleasant finish putting away the pans and bowls and scrub the counters.

Pleasant saw the worried look the boy gave her. His father had always insisted on inspecting any task assigned to the boy and more often than not he had found something not quite to his liking.

“You said that Herr Troyer was pleased with the work,” she reminded him.

“I know but Papa …”

“Your papa taught you well, Rolf,” Pleasant hurried to reassure him. “I can see from here that you did a fine job. If I didn’t know which was the newer post I wouldn’t be able to tell the new from the old. Now let’s finish up here and get home or our company will be there ahead of us.”

It was an exaggeration, of course, but it made Rolf smile and the boy seemed unusually relaxed later as the two of them walked past the other shops and then the celery fields and other homes to the end of the road.

“I like Herr Troyer,” Rolf murmured when they had almost reached their house. “He’s sort of like Herr Harnisher, Caleb’s father.”

The two men were nothing alike—at least outwardly. Levi was a good man but he tended to be quiet and reserved while Jeremiah Troyer seemed to delight in getting to know people of all ages and backgrounds. But Rolf had a point. The two men did share a nature that invited others—even children and strangers—to open their hearts to them, share confidences and let down their guard of the normal Amish tendency toward reserve.

Of course, her view of the ice cream maker was that he was a business associate of her father’s—nothing more. All right. He was also a neighbor and member of the congregation, but nothing more than that. Still, he had made Rolf glow with a pride of accomplishment that in spite of the Amish tendency to frown on such self-satisfaction, pleased her. Besides, until he was fully baptized and had joined the faith, Rolf was not yet truly Amish. He had been born of Amish parents but as a child he was not yet fully a member of the faith so a little pride was not a bad thing, she decided.

“Rolf, perhaps from time to time you could help Herr Troyer as he gets ready to open his shop. There’s a great deal to do I expect and after all …”

Rolf was looking up at her, his expression one of disbelief. “Do you mean it?” His voice quavered as if he didn’t dare give voice to his hope.

“Helping a newcomer to our community is what our people do as a matter of course, Rolf.”

The smile that split his face was his father’s smile—a smile she and the children had rarely seen. But she had only a second to bask in its radiance before the child threw his arms around her waist and hugged her, his hat sailing unheeded onto the ground. “Oh, thank you, Mama,” he said, his voice muffled against her apron.

She smoothed his hair and relished the warmth of his thin arms clutching her. “You’ll still have to manage your chores here and your schoolwork,” she reminded him. “And you’re to take no payment. These are good deeds—neighbor helping neighbor. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mama.” He looked up at her. “May I tell Bettina?”

“You may tell her that I have given permission for you to help Herr Troyer from time to time if he asks. This is not a job, Rolf.”

He had rescued his hat and dashed away almost before the last word left her lips and she watched him go, running into the house, calling out for his sister. At last, she thought, realizing that she had finally broken through to the last and most reticent of Merle’s children. And she had Jeremiah Troyer to thank for it.

It was pretty obvious that Pleasant had given him an extra large helping of the sprouts, Jeremiah thought as she handed him his plate. Her father sat at the head of the table, slicing a pot roast that smelled as good as it looked. He would place a slab on a plate from the stack in front of him and then pass it to Pleasant who would add potatoes and the dreaded green vegetable.

“Bread, Herr Troyer?” Bettina asked with a sweet smile. “Sometimes it helps take away the taste,” she confided in a low whisper when Pleasant’s attention was drawn to the twins who were busy jostling one another for more room at the crowded table.

Pleasant’s half sisters, Greta and Lydia, sat across from Jeremiah, eyeing him under the fan of their pale lashes. Rolf sat to one side of him and Bettina to the other. And once everyone was served Pleasant took her place opposite her father at the far end of the table.

“Shall we pray?” Gunther asked and in unison every head bowed and silence filled the room. Even the twins were quiet.

“Amen,” Gunther intoned after a long moment and the room erupted into the sounds of flatware on china, the twins’ chatter and water from a pitcher splashing into the empty glass that Gunther had just drained. “How are things coming along?” he asked, directing the question at Jeremiah.

“At the shop? Fine. Good.”

“How about your job at the ice plant?”

“That’s worked out better than I could have hoped,” Jeremiah said. “My employers are especially pleased with the number of orders for block ice that I’ve gotten from people living here in Celery Fields. That business had fallen off considerably once the Englisch started using refrigerators instead of ice boxes.”

Gunther nodded. “Ja. Better to buy from one of our own even if you are working for an Englisch company.”

“And the cones?” Jeremiah asked and Gunther looked down the table at his eldest daughter.

“I … that is …” Pleasant’s cheeks turned a most becoming shade of pink as every person at the table paused in midbite and looked her way. With an almost visible effort she composed herself and turned her attention to Jeremiah. “I apologize, Herr Troyer. We’ve had some extra orders at the bakery this week and …”

Gunther frowned. “When’s your opening?” he asked Jeremiah.

“I haven’t set a date yet. I was hoping to be open by the first of November.”

“Less than a week,” Gunther said to Pleasant.

“Plenty of time,” Jeremiah assured her and turned his attention to Lydia. “Fraulein Goodloe, I understand you are the schoolteacher for the community’s children.”

“Yes,” she replied with a shy smile. “I am blessed to have been chosen.”

Her sister Greta glanced at him and when Jeremiah smiled at her she almost choked on the food she was chewing.

Perhaps it would be safer if he concentrated on his own plate, empty now except for the pile of Brussels sprouts and the round roll that Bettina had urged him to try. He picked up his knife and fork and cut into a sprout, put half of it in his mouth and then followed that with a bite of the roll and chewed.

He was aware that Bettina was watching him and when he swallowed and repeated the process she whispered, “Told you so.”

“More pot roast, Jeremiah,” Gunther boomed.

“Thank you but, no. I have more than enough to finish here and I want to save room for ice cream.”

The twins started to speak up but Pleasant silenced them by pointing out the untouched vegetables on their plates. “Only those who clean their plates get ice cream,” she reminded them.

Jeremiah couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the boys. On the other hand, they only had two sprouts each to finish while he was still facing half a dozen. He squared his shoulders and picked up his fork. Slicing each sprout in half, he wolfed them down, chasing them from his mouth with the rest of the roll and gulps of cold water until there were only two left.

He glanced at the twins who immediately saw the challenge he was sending them. Pleasant had sliced their food into bite-sized pieces. Henry nudged Will and both boys grinned at Jeremiah and the race to finish first was on. Everyone except Gunther seemed to have caught on to the game. Rolf and Bettina sat forward, silently cheering their brothers to victory. Lydia and Greta glanced uneasily from Jeremiah to Pleasant, apparently waiting for her to say something. Instead, she slowly finished the last of her supper, as if unaware that anything was amiss. But Jeremiah saw her ease a bite of the vegetable that had been hidden under some gravy forward on Henry’s plate lest he miss it. The boys won and their victory was crowned by Gunther’s deep belch—the Amish man’s compliment to his wife or daughter for a good meal.

Pleasant stood and began removing plates that had been wiped so clean Jeremiah thought they would need only a minimum of scrubbing. Lydia, Greta and Bettina helped, making short work of clearing the table. Pleasant took small clear plates from an open shelf and handed them to Bettina. “We have Herr Troyer’s ice cream and your favorite pie, Papa.”

“Ah, shoo-fly pie.” Gunther sighed patting his ample stomach.

“We can have both?” Henry asked.

“Ice cream and pie?” Will chorused.

“A taste of ice cream,” Pleasant replied not looking at Jeremiah. “Remember, we are only giving our opinion to Herr Troyer.”

The twins nodded solemnly and waited for their sister to serve each person a dessert of a slice of still-warm, shoo-fly pie topped with a small mound of mango ice cream. Will shoveled the ice cream into his mouth then looked at Henry for his opinion.

“Well?” Jeremiah asked.

“I’m going to need another taste,” Henry announced.

“Me, too,” Will said.

“I agree. Seems to me if we’re to have any hope of coming out even between the pie and the ice cream we’re all going to need more,” Gunther said passing his plate forward.

Jeremiah took some ice cream and pie onto his fork and tasted it. He savored the mix of flavors. The cool subtle vanilla with the sweet bits of mango mingled with the molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger of the pie filling. “This is it,” he murmured, taking a second bite and imagining the flavors mixed with chocolate ice cream or butter pecan or … “This is the cone we need. Shoo-fly cones,” he announced.

It was ludicrous, of course, Pleasant thought later as she washed the last of the dessert plates and paid little attention to her half sisters chattering on about the handsome—and eligible—Jeremiah Troyer. The unique flavor of shoo-fly pie came from the pie filling, not the crust. How did he expect her to turn a pudding-like filling into something sturdy enough to hold ice cream? And yet the challenge had been there in the way his eyes had sought hers across the table.

But this was no game such as the one he had played with the twins to finish their vegetables. This was a business challenge, one that could mean the difference between a substantial increase in business for the bakery and none at all if Jeremiah decided to go elsewhere. She paused in her washing to gaze out the kitchen window. Although the sun had set, she knew that she was facing the fields—the empty barren fields, the fields that would not only yield little if any produce but would surely yield even less income.

The drought that was choking much of the country had not spared Florida and this season’s crops had been sparse indeed even for those who had been wise enough to plan for such contingencies. After the disastrous spring harvest, Moses Yoder had warned her that after paying the field hands there would be little left from the sale of the crops. Then over the unusually hot summer months, strong westerly winds combined with the drought to blow away a good portion of the soil. In fact, dust was so thick in the air that most people in the community had taken to keeping their windows closed in spite of the heat. It was either that or dust furnishings and wash floors daily. Others had managed to eke out a small harvest, but not Pleasant.

“Do you think he left a girlfriend back in Ohio?” Greta asked and it took a moment before Pleasant realized that the question had been directed at her.

“Who?”

Greta rolled her eyes. “Herr Troyer. Who have we been talking about since he and Papa left?”

“I have no idea,” Pleasant replied. And I have no time for girlish fantasies.

“Are you truly going to try and create a shoo-fly ice cream cone?” the more practical Lydia asked as she took the stack of dessert plates from Pleasant and placed them back on the shelf.

“Of course,” she snapped impatiently, exhausted by all the many problems she faced. But then she softened her tone and smiled at her half sister, the schoolmarm. “After all, that’s the assignment.”

Lydia gave her an uncertain smile. “You’ve taken on so much since Merle died, Pleasant. You need some help.”

“She needs a husband,” Greta said with all the certainty of one who was enough of a romantic to believe that any problem could be solved through marriage to the right man.

“Greta!” Lydia admonished, her voice a warning.

“I had a husband,” Pleasant reminded Greta, whose mouth had formed a perfect circle with the realization of what she’d just said.

“Oh, sister, I am so sorry.”

Pleasant accepted the apology with a wave of her hand. “It’s late and the evening was an interesting one. Your mind is on other matters.”

Greta grinned, her good spirits restored. “Like Jeremiah Troyer?” She sighed. “Did you see his eyes?”

Lydia heaved a sigh of resignation and wrapped her arm around her younger sister. “Herr Troyer is too old for you, Greta, so stop daydreaming about his eyes. Besides, what would Josef Bontrager say if he could hear you now?”

“Oh, I’m just having a little fun. Anyone could see that the only one of us Herr Troyer was looking at to-night was Pleasant,” she added with a mischievous smile.

Pleasant laughed. “Go home both of you. It’s late and I still have work to do.”

Long into the night she sat at the kitchen table scribbling notes as she tried to come up with the formula for creating a crisp cookie cone from a recipe for pie filling. When the rooster crowed at four, she startled awake and realized she’d fallen asleep at the table. She stretched and then pumped water into the kitchen sink to splash on her sleep-laden eyelids. She stirred the embers of the fire in the wood stove and set a pot of barley oats on top to simmer.

Bettina would finish making breakfast for her brothers, wash the dishes and get the twins to Hilda’s on her way to school. Meanwhile, Rolf would milk the cow, feed the chickens, collect the eggs and deliver them to the bakery on his way to school. As Pleasant let herself out of the house and started down the road to the silent and dark bakery, she thanked God for the blessing of these children. They might not be hers by birth, but they were hers by circumstance and not a dawn passed that she didn’t plead with God to show her the way to guide them properly.