A Beau For Katie

“I imagine you’ll be wanting dinner at noon,” she said to Freeman, careful not to look directly at his face and into those striking golden eyes. “Do the doctors have you on a special diet?”

“Oatmeal,” he said testily. “I’ve been eating a lot of oatmeal.”

Katie cut her eyes at him. “Odd thing for a sickbed.”

“I’m not sick.”

“Ya, you said that.” She opened the refrigerator and grimaced. “I hope the milk and eggs are fresh.”

“And why wouldn’t they be?”

“If they are, they would be the only thing in that refrigerator that is. It looks as if a bowl of baked beans died in there. The butter is covered in toast crumbs and it looks like there’s a hunk of dried up cheese in the back.” She wrinkled her nose. “Pretty pitiful fare.”

“Spare me your humor.” Freeman shut his eyes. “Just cook something other than oatmeal or chicken noodle soup. Anything else. My grandmother has served me so much chicken soup it’s a wonder I’m not clucking.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She closed the refrigerator door, thinking of the cut-up chicken that Sara had insisted they bring in a cooler. Chicken soup had been one of her options, since she’d known that Freeman was confined to bed and recovering from a bad accident. But she could just as well fry up the chicken with some dumplings. Providing, of course, that there weren’t weevils in the flour bin. She’d have to take stock of the pantry and freezer, if Freeman even had a freezer or a flour bin. If they expected her to cook three decent meals a day, she’d have to have the groceries to do it.

She decided that cleaning the refrigerator took precedence over the sticky floor; she’d just sweep now and mop later. Once that was done, she decided she’d better do something about the state of the kitchen table. The tablecloth was stained and could definitely use a washing. Someone had washed dishes that morning and left them on the sideboard to dry, but dirty cups, bowls and silverware littered a side table next to Freeman’s bed. A kitchen seemed an odd place for a sick man to have his bed, but she could understand that he might want to be in the center of the home rather than tucked away upstairs alone. And it could be that the bathroom was downstairs. She hadn’t been hired for nursing, but, if she knew men, doubtless the sheets could stand laundering.

“That wasn’t kind of you,” she remarked as she cleared the table and stripped away the soiled tablecloth. “Chastising your uncle when he wanted to show me his string game. You should show more respect for your elders.”

Freeman opened one eye. “He’s blind, not slipping in his mind. Cat’s cradle is for kinner. It was him I was thinking of. I wanted to save him embarrassment if you assumed—”

“I hope my mother taught me better than that,” Katie interrupted. “I try not to form opinions of people at first glance or to judge them.” He didn’t answer, and she turned her back to him as she scrubbed the wooden tabletop clean enough to eat off. She would look for a fresh tablecloth, but if none were available, this would suffice until she could do the laundry.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Freeman said. He exhaled loudly. “I didn’t know you were coming—didn’t know any housekeeper was coming. It was my uncle’s idea.”

“I see.” Katie moved on to the refrigerator. The milk container seemed clean and the milk smelled good so she put that on the table with whatever else seemed salvageable. The rest went directly into a bucket to be disposed of. “It’s been a good while since anyone did this,” she observed.

“It’s not something that I can manage with my leg in a cast.”

“Six months, I’d guess, since this refrigerator has had a good scrub. You don’t need a housekeeper, you need a half dozen of them if you expect me to get this kitchen in shape today.”

“It’s not that bad.” He pushed up on his elbows. “Neither Uncle Jehu nor I have gotten sick from the food.”

“By the grace of God.” The butter went into the bucket, followed by a wilted bunch of beets and a sad tomato. “Do you have a garden?”

Freeman mumbled something about weeds, and she rolled her eyes. Sara’s garden was overflowing with produce. She’d bring corn and the makings of a salad tomorrow. A drawer contained butter still in its store wrapping. The date was good, so that went to the table. “Is there anything you’re not supposed to eat?” she asked.

“Oatmeal and chicken soup.”

She smiled. He was funny; she’d give him that. “So you mentioned.”

A few changes of water, a little elbow grease and the refrigerator was empty and clean. Katie started moving items from the table, thinking she’d run outside and get the chicken to let it sit in salted water.

“Butter goes on the middle shelf,” Freeman instructed.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Not where it says butter?” She pointed to the designated bin in the door with the word printed across it.

He scowled. “We like it on the middle shelf.”

“But it will stay fresher in the butter bin.” She smiled sweetly, left the butter in the door and went back to the table for the milk.

A scratching at the screen door caught her attention and she went to see what was making the noise. When she opened the door, the small brown-and-white rat terrier that Ivy had let out darted in, sniffed her once and then made a beeline for Freeman’s bed. “Cute dog.”

“His name is Tip.” The terrier bounced onto a stool and then leaped the rest of the way onto the bed. He curled under Freeman’s hand and butted it with his head until Freeman scratched behind the dog’s ears.

Katie watched him cuddle the little terrier. Freeman couldn’t be all bad if the dog liked him.

She filled the kettle with water and put it on the gas range. She’d seen that there was ice. She’d make iced tea to go with dinner. And if there was going to be chicken and dumplings, she would need to find the proper size pot and give that a good scrub, as well. She planned the menu in her head. Besides the chicken dumplings, she’d have green beans and pickled beets, both canned and carried from Sara’s pantry, possibly biscuits and something sweet to top it all off. She’d have to check that weed-choked garden to see if there was something ripe that she could use.

“What are you making for dinner?” Freeman asked.

Oatmeal, she wanted to say. But she resisted. It was going to be a long two weeks in Freeman Kemp’s company. “I’m not sure yet,” she answered sweetly. “It will be a surprise to us both.”

“Wonderful,” Freeman said dryly. “I can’t wait.”

Katie swallowed the mirth that rose in her throat. Her employer’s nephew might not be the cheeriest companion but at least she wouldn’t be bored. Sara had warned her that working in Freeman’s house would be a challenge. And there was nothing she liked better.

Chapter Two

Freeman watched Jehu reach for another biscuit. It was evening and the air was noticeably cooler in the house than it had been in the heat of the afternoon. Being cooped up in the house was making Freeman stir-crazy as it was; the heat seemed to add to his irritability. Thinking back on the day, he hoped he hadn’t been too ill-tempered with Katie. He didn’t mean to be short with people; it was just his situation that made him crabby. That and the radiating pain in his leg.

Jehu and Ivy were seated at the kitchen table eating leftovers from the midday meal that Katie had cooked. He was lying in his bed, but Katie and Jehu had moved it closer to the table for the noon meal so that he could more easily be included in the conversations, and no one had bothered to push the bed back against the wall. Katie hadn’t stayed to have supper with them, though he’d almost hoped she would. It was nice to have someone else to talk to besides his uncle and grandmother. Before Katie left to return to Sara Yoder’s, where she was staying, she’d heated up the leftovers, carried them to the table and made him a tray.

“Good biscuits.” Jehu felt around for the pint jar of strawberry jam Katie had brought them from her own pantry.

“I thought you must think they were,” Ivy remarked. “Since that’s your third.”

Jehu smiled and nodded. “They are. Aren’t they, Freeman?”

“Mmm,” Freeman agreed. It was hard to talk with his mouth full. Nodding, he used the rest of his biscuit to sop up the chicken gravy remaining on his plate. He couldn’t remember when anything had tasted so good as the meal Katie had served them this afternoon and he was now enjoying it all over again. The green beans were crisp and fresh, and the chicken and dumplings were exactly like those he remembered his mother making. His grossmama Ivy had always been dear to him, but no one had ever called her a great cook.

“She’s done a marvel on this kitchen,” his grandmother pronounced. “She’s managed to find the kitchen table under the crumbs and I can walk on this floor without hearing the sand grit under my feet.” She looked at Freeman. “We should have got her in here the week you got crushed by that cow.”

“It was a bull,” Freeman reminded her.

She lifted one shoulder in a not convinced gesture. “Not a full grown one.”

“Nine hundred pounds, at least.” Freeman reached for his coffee. It tasted better than what he usually made. Katie’s work, again.

“Pleasant girl, don’t you think?” his uncle remarked. For a man who couldn’t see, Uncle Jehu had no trouble feeding himself. Somehow, he could eat and drink without getting crumbs in his beard or spots on his clothing. He’d always been a tidy person, almost dapper, if a Plain man could be called dapper. He liked his shirts clean and he wouldn’t wear his socks more than once without them being washed. “That Katie Byler.”

“Ya,” Freeman agreed. The food was certainly a welcome relief from his grandmother’s chicken soup, and the kitchen did look better clean, but there was such a thing as overdoing the praise. He wiggled, trying to get in a more comfortable position. He’d had an itch somewhere near the top of his knee, but it was under the heavy cast and he couldn’t scratch it. Even when he wasn’t in pain there was a dull ache, but he’d just about gotten used to that. It was the itch that was driving him crazy.

“A hard-working girl who can cook like that will make someone a fine wife,” Jehu remarked.

“I was thinking the same thing.” Ivy wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin; Katie had found a whole pile of them in one of the cupboards. “Girls like that get snapped up fast. And she’s pleasant-looking. Don’t you think so, Freeman?”

“What was that?” He’d heard what she said, but didn’t really feel comfortable commenting on a woman’s looks. Besides, he had a pretty good idea where this conversation was going. They had it all the time, and no matter how often he told Jehu and Ivy he wasn’t looking for a wife, they continued looking for him.

“Pretty. I said Katie was pretty. Or hadn’t you noticed?” She glanced at Uncle Jehu and chuckled. He gave a small sound of amusement as he spooned out the last of the dumplings from the bowl on the table onto his plate, without spilling a drop.

“I thought she might be, just by the sound of her voice,” Uncle Jehu said. “You can tell a lot about a person from their voice. Wonder if she’s walking out with anybody?”

“Sara says not.” His grandmother eyed the blackberry cobbler on the table. There was nearly half of the baking dish left, plenty for the three of them to enjoy.

Freeman’s mouth watered thinking about it. Katie had made it with cinnamon and nutmeg and just the right amount of sugar. Too many women used more sugar than was needed in desserts and hid the taste of the fruit with sweetness.

“This coffee could use a little warming up.” Freeman lifted his mug. “I don’t want to put anyone to any trouble, but...”

“It won’t kill you to drink it like it is,” his grossmama told him. “Too much hot coffee’s not good for broken bones. Raises the heat in the body. Cool’s best. Keeps your temperature steady.”

Freeman swallowed the rest of his coffee. There was no use in asking Uncle Jehu to warm up his coffee. He’d just side with Ivy. He usually did, Freeman thought, feeling his grumpiness coming on again. The itch on his leg remained persistent, and he wondered if he could run something down inside the cast to scratch it without causing any harm.

“Freeman could do a lot worse,” Uncle Jehu went on. “He’s not getting any younger.”

“Than Katie?” Ivy pursed her mouth. “You’re right, Jehu. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself. She’d fit in well here. And it’s long past time—”

“Don’t talk about me as though I’m not here,” Freeman interrupted. “And I’m not courting Katie Byler.”

“And what’s wrong with her?” Grossmama demanded, turning to him. “She seems a fine possibility to me.”

“Absolutely not,” Freeman protested, pushing his tray away. “And if this is something you’ve schemed up with Sara Yoder, you can forget it. Katie may make a great wife for someone else, but not for me.”

* * *

Katie tossed a handful of weeds into a bucket. “Freeman wasn’t as bad as I expected,” she answered when Sara asked her how her day had gone. She, Sara and two of the young women who lived at Sara’s had come into the vegetable garden after supper to catch up on the weeding. Ellie and Mari had started at the opposite end of the long rows of lima beans, while she and Sara had taken this end, giving the two of them an opportunity to talk privately.

Sara grinned. “I knew you could handle him.”

Both she and Sara were barefooted and wearing a headscarf and their oldest dress. The warm soil felt good under Katie’s feet. She loved the scents of rich earth and the cheery chorus of birdsong that seemed present in any well-tended garden.

“I think he’d be a good match for someone.” Sara used her trowel to chop the sprigs of grass and work up the soil around the base of the lima bean plants. “What with the mill and the farm, he’s well set up to provide for a family.”

Katie rolled her eyes. “I don’t know about that. Any woman who takes Freeman Kemp for a husband is asking for trouble. The man thinks he knows everything. Even when he doesn’t. He tried to tell me how to scrub the floor. Can you imagine? And the man doesn’t know where butter goes in the refrigerator. And when I tell him the truth of the matter, he gets all cross.”

Sara added another handful of weeds to the bucket. They would go into the chicken yard and the scavenging hens would make quick work of them. Nothing ever went to waste on an Amish farm. “Men naturally think they know the best way to do things,” she said. “But the wisest of them learn to think before they speak when it comes to women’s chores.”

“I guess no one ever told Freeman that.” Katie tugged at a particularly stubborn pigweed. It came away with a spray of dirt, and she shook it off and added it to the pile. Sara’s garden was as tidy as her house, row after row of green peppers, sweet corn, beets, squash and onions. Heavy posts set into the ground made a sturdy support for the wires that supported lima bean vines. Lima beans were one of Katie’s favorite vegetables and they were the concern this evening. A summer garden that wasn’t worked regularly soon became a tangle of weeds and a haven for bothersome insects.

“Does Freeman seem to be in a lot of pain? Ivy told me the break was a bad one. If he’s irritable, that could be the reason,” Sara suggested.

“Hard to judge how much pain a person is in.” Katie pulled the weed bucket closer to them as they moved down the row. “I think he’s more bored from having to stay in bed than anything else. I know it would drive me to distraction if I couldn’t be up doing.”

“Jehu is nice, though, isn’t he?”

“He is. He was very welcoming. He told me not to pay any mind to Freeman’s grumpiness. He’s an amazing man, really. He knows his way all over that farm, doesn’t need a bit of help. I think Freeman said he can see shadows. But you’d never know Jehu was blind the way he moves.”

Sara tossed a weed in the bucket. “My cousin Hannah told me that he was a skilled leather worker for years. He still works for the harness shop down his way. Pieces he can stitch from memory.”

“It’s such a shame that he lost his sight,” Katie said.

Sara paused in her weeding and gave Katie a thoughtful look. “It is, but God’s will is not always for us to understand. All we can do is accept it and try to make the best of the blessings we have.”

From the far end of the rows, Mari and Ellie began to sing “Amazing Grace.” Ellie, a little person not more than four feet tall, had a sweet, clear soprano voice, while Mari’s rich and powerful alto blended perfectly. Katie smiled, enjoying the sound of their voices in the fading light of the warm evening.

“I had a letter today from Uriah Lambright’s aunt.” Sara straightened up and rubbed the small of her back. “She says that the family is eager for you to come and visit. Have you given any more thought to considering him?”

“Evening,” came a deep male voice.

The four women looked in the direction of the garden gate.

“Ah, James.” Sara smiled at the Amish man in his midthirties who had just walked into the garden.

“Katie, do you know James?” Sara asked.

“We’ve met.” She nodded to him. “Evening to you too, James.”

James smiled at her and then turned his attention back to Sara. “Can I steal away some of your help?” he asked. “It’s such a nice evening, I thought maybe Mari would like to take a ride with me.”

Mari came toward them, blushing and brushing dirt from her skirt. Like Katie, Mari was barefoot with only a scarf for a head covering. “I wish you’d given me fair warning,” she said, smiling up at James. “I’m not fit to be seen. Can you wait long enough for me to make myself decent and see where Zachary is?”

Zachary was Mari’s son, a boy about nine years old. Mari and Zachary were staying with Sara while they made the transition from being English to becoming Amish again. Mari had been raised Amish, but had left the church as a teen and was now returning to the church.

James laughed and used two fingers to push his straw hat higher on his forehead. He was a tall, pleasant-looking man with a quick smile. “I’ll wait, but you look fine to me. If you’re going to change your clothes, you’d best be quick. Zachary’s already in the buggy, and he’s trying to convince me that we should go for ice cream.”

Mari glanced at Sara who made shooing motions. “Go on, go on,” Sara urged. “We can finish up here.”

“You’re sure?”

“Off with you before I change my mind and put James to work, too,” Sara teased.

James swung the gate wide open and Mari hurried to join him. The two walked off, already deep in conversation.

Katie watched them for a minute. She wasn’t jealous of Mari’s happiness, but she was wistful. Katie wanted to marry and have children, but she was beginning to fear it would never happen. She had always assumed God intended her for marriage and a family; it was what an Amish woman was born to. But what if He didn’t wish for her to marry?

With a sigh, Katie returned to her work and she and Sara continued weeding until they met Ellie halfway down the row. “You’re a fast worker,” she told Ellie, observing her work. The soil behind Ellie was as neat and clean as a picture in a garden magazine.

“Danke. I try.” Ellie’s face creased in a genuine smile. “I think the beans at the far end will be ready for picking by tomorrow afternoon.”

“If you can wait until after supper, I’d be glad to help you,” Katie offered. She liked picking limas, and gardening with other women was always easier than doing it alone. “Willing hands make the work go faster,” her mother always said.

“Great,” Ellie replied. “It won’t take long if we pick them together.”

Ellie was the first little person that Katie had ever known, but someone who obviously didn’t let her lack of height hinder her. Sara had explained privately that although Ellie had come to Seven Poplars to teach school, Sara had every hope of making a good marriage for her. Ellie was certainly pretty enough to have her choice of men to walk out with, with her blond hair, rosy cheeks, and sparkling blue eyes. Katie had liked her from the first, and she hoped that they might become good friends.

“All right,” Sara said, looking across the garden. “I think we’ve got time to do another row. But there are a lot of full pods on this row. I think we better get to them. Who wants to pick while the other two keep weeding?”

“You pick,” Katie told Sara. “I don’t mind weeding. It’s satisfying to see the results when I’m finished.”

“Ya,” Ellie said. “Good idea. I can weed, too.”

“All right,” Sara brushed the dirt off her hands. “It’s a bumper crop this summer. Just the right amount of rain, thank the Lord.”

“Let’s get to it,” Katie told Ellie. “Once it starts to get dark, the mosquitoes will come out, and we’ll be fair game, bug spray or no bug spray.”

Nodding agreement, Ellie and Katie began to pull weeds again while Sara sought out the plump lima bean pods amid the thick foliage. Conversation came easily to the three of them, and Katie found herself more at ease with Ellie with every passing minute. She was good company, making them double over with laughter at her tales of students. Katie hadn’t attended the Seven Poplars schoolhouse, but she’d been there several times for fund-raising events, and Ellie was such a good storyteller that she could picture each event as Ellie related it. Her own school, further south in the county, had been larger, with two rooms rather than one, but otherwise almost identical. Both schools were first through eighth grade and taught by young Amish women.

Sara soon filled her apron with limas and had to return to the house for a basket for them and a second bucket to hold the weeds. When she returned, she brought a quart jar of lemonade to share. Katie and Ellie stopped work long enough to enjoy it before taking up their task again.

“I had a letter from one of my former clients in Wisconsin,” Sara said when they’d reached midrow. “Dora Ann Hostetler.”

“Do you know her, Ellie?” Katie asked, remembering that Sara had told her that Ellie had come from Wisconsin, too.

Ellie slapped at a hovering horsefly and shook her head. “Ne, but Wisconsin’s a big state. A lot more Amish communities there than here.”

“Anyway,” Sara continued. “Dora Ann was a widow with three little girls. A plain woman, but steady, and with a good heart. I found just the man for her last year, a jolly widower with four young boys in need of a mother. She wrote to say that she and Marvin have a new baby boy. She also wanted me to know that her bishop will be visiting in Dover next month, and he’ll be preaching here in Seven Poplars. She likes him and assures me that he preaches a fine sermon.” She looked at Katie. “Will you be coming to church with us, or going home to your family’s church?”

Katie paused in her weeding. “I think I’d like to come with you while I’m here,” she said. Sara’s mention of the letter from her friend reminded her of the one that Sara had received from Uriah’s aunt. “You started to tell me earlier about the note from Uriah’s family,” she reminded.

“Yes, but...” Sara hesitated. “Would you rather discuss that in private?”

“Ne, I don’t mind.” Katie chuckled. “Actually, I’d like to hear Ellie’s opinion.”

Sara placed her basket, now nearly full of lima beans, on the ground. “Katie has an interested suitor,” she explained to Ellie. “A young man who used to be a neighbor to her family here in Kent County.”

“Uriah, his parents and brothers and sisters moved to Kentucky years ago,” Katie said as she tamped down the weeds in the bucket to make room for more. “Uriah is the oldest.”

“The family has a farm and a sawmill in Kentucky,” Sara added. She continued searching for ripe beans. “Uriah’s father made initial contact with me a few weeks ago about the possibility of making a match for his son with Katie.”

Katie threw Ellie a wry look. “It was the father who asked about me, mind you, not Uriah.”

Ellie sat back on her heels and glanced from Katie to Sara and back to Katie. “So you know Uriah from when you were younger?”