LITMIR.BIZ

      Lucy had the sensation she was floating. She tried to convince herself it was because she’d made so much progress on her stitching, but that wasn’t the only reason. The truth was, she liked the idea of being courted, even if it was a false courtship. The experience of being outdoors at night beneath the stars was romantic in itself, and no man except her father had ever assisted her into and out of a buggy. She’d been missing out. If the attentiveness of a young man who wasn’t even a real suitor made her feel this blissful, how might she feel if the man truly liked her? Maybe when her stint with Nick was completed, she should accept Frederick as a suitor after all. She still couldn’t really picture it, but then she never imagined a buggy ride with Nick Burkholder could be so pleasant, either.

      “You’re home late,” Mildred commented. She and Katura were lounging across their beds, but they hadn’t yet turned off the lamp when Lucy entered the bedroom. “Where did you and Nick go?”

      “Oh, we went...out,” Lucy replied vaguely.

      Katura tossed her long, loose hair over her shoulder, clearly pretending to be indifferent. “Could you turn down the lamp, please?” she asked. “Some of us have to go to work in the morning.”

      It was a barb that ordinarily would have gotten Lucy’s goat. She worked just as hard as her stepsisters did to contribute to their family’s expenses, and she dared say she worked harder on keeping house. Furthermore, since Betty regularly visited her sister in Elmsville, most of the meal preparation fell to Lucy, too. But tonight she shrugged off the comment and dimmed the light as requested.

      The room was quiet and by the time she eased into her bed, Lucy thought her stepsisters had fallen asleep. But then Mildred urgently hissed, “Spill the beans already, Lucy. What did you and Nick do tonight?”

      A delicious vibration fluttered down Lucy’s spine as she said, “We went for a ride and we talked.”

      Katura snorted, belying her earlier indifference. “That doesn’t sound like very much schpass. Or very romantic.”

      “We also looked at the scars in the sty,” Lucy bashfully confided.

      “The scars in the sty? Don’t you mean the stars in the sky?” Katura shrieked. She and Mildred laughed uproariously and Lucy’s face felt scalding hot. She couldn’t account for the slip of her tongue, but now her stepsisters were going to think she was so smitten with Nick she couldn’t speak straight. “I must be overly tired,” she said by way of excuse, and quickly joined in with their laughter so they wouldn’t know how abashed she was by her mistake.

      After they quieted down, Mildred pried, “Did it seem like he wants to take you out again sometime?”

      “Jah. We’re getting together on Thursday night.”

      “That soon?” Katura sounded surprised. Then she added nonchalantly, “I suppose that’s all right, as long as he’s able to attend our caroling rehearsal on Friday night. We’re going out for pizza afterward.”

      It irritated Lucy that Katura acted as if she were granting permission for Nick to court her, but she didn’t want to say anything in her defense, lest she trip over her words again. So Lucy simply bade her stepsisters good-night and pulled her quilt up to her chin.

      She slept so soundly she realized upon waking she had missed another opportunity to prepare her father breakfast. And by the time Lucy was dressed, Katura and Mildred had already left for work, too. It must have been all that fresh air the night before—she never slept this late. Now she was going to have to hurry to make up for lost time. She had to complete a Christmas tree skirt she was custom designing for a customer from Schrock’s by this afternoon so she could drop it off at the shop on the way to the soup kitchen that evening.

      In the kitchen she discovered a note from Betty indicating she’d be spending the day with her indisposed sister again. She requested that Lucy prepare supper and instructed Mildred and Katura to sweep the floors and beat the rugs when they returned home. Lucy tried not to think ungracious thoughts, but preparing supper took longer than beating the rugs and sweeping the floors, especially since those tasks would be shared between the two sisters. Lucy didn’t usually mind doing housework—in fact, she preferred the house being neater and more organized than the others did—but today she desperately needed time to work on the tree skirt.

      Once she’d chopped vegetables and cubed the meat for stew, she put them in a pot to simmer throughout the day. Then she began making bread. In between kneading the dough, punching it down and allowing it to rise again, she embroidered the final touches on the tree skirt. With its array of pine trees and cardinals, church bells and candy canes, the design was exactly what the customer wanted, although it was too flashy for Lucy’s taste. She preferred the simplicity of white-on-white snowflakes or perhaps the accent of a sprig of holly here and there.

      Like their linens and curtains, the Amish tended to keep their house decorations simple, too, but Lucy relished the Christmas holiday season when she could place candles on the windowsills and arrange evergreen boughs on the mantel. It didn’t take much to make their home feel festive and Lucy couldn’t wait to begin adorning it on Saturday. Perhaps this year Katura and Mildred would help her. I’ll probably have to bribe them with cocoa and cookies though. Immediately she regretted her sour thought and she asked God to forgive her attitude.

      Mildred once asked Lucy if she got bored “sitting around embroidering all day,” but Lucy seldom did. Not only did she enjoy creating freehand designs, but she also used the time to pray. For example, as she worked on the Christmas tree skirt, she prayed that the family who ordered it would have a healthy, joyful, Christ-centered time of worship together.

      Then her mind drifted to Nick. Reflecting on his willingness to help repair the cabin for Christmas, she realized she wouldn’t have guessed he’d demonstrate such a selfless devotion to his Englisch friend. Thinking of him, she was tickled by a chill, and she rose to stoke the stove and check on the stew.

      By the time her stepmother and sisters came home, it was four o’clock. Her father returned at four thirty. He knew how important it was for Lucy to work at the soup kitchen, so he always made a point to return home by four thirty on Wednesdays, even if it meant he had to walk whenever his Englisch coworker was putting in overtime and couldn’t give him a lift home. This was one of those days.

      “Denki for walking home, Daed,” she told him after she’d dropped the skirt off at Schrock’s and they were on their way to the soup kitchen. She was perfectly capable of handling the buggy herself, but he insisted, so she let him. It was another cherished occasion when she could spend time with him alone.

      “What you do at the soup kitchen is important,” he said. “Just don’t let yourself get too run-down. Now that you’re...you’re socializing more, you might not have as much energy as you usually do.”

      Lucy caught her father’s profile in her peripheral vision. Although he used the term “socializing” instead of “courting,” she felt guilty. Grinning broadly, he appeared so pleased. “I’m not actually...” she began, but then she realized she couldn’t back out of her agreement with Nick. It meant so much to him—and to the Nelsons. “I’m not going to get too run-down, Daed.”

      “Gut. Because you deserve to enjoy yourself. And any young man—er, any young person who keeps company with such a smart, engaging maedel like you is very fortunate.”

      Lucy was touched by how careful her father was to avoid using Nick’s name, as well as by his endearing sentiments. She knew few men in Willow Creek besides her father would consider her to be engaging, but she appreciated his opinion all the same.

      At the church where the soup kitchen was located, Dan Ebersole was retrieving folding chairs from the closet near the back door where Lucy entered the building. Having recently moved from an Amish settlement in Ohio to nearby Elmsville and being reserved by nature, Dan didn’t have many friends,

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