LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      Spring had painted the Missouri countryside with a palette of vibrant greens and gentle pastels only God Himself could have created. The pastures were lush with new grass, and the dogwood and redbud trees added splashes of pink, cream, and fuchsia to the untamed landscape. Jo Fussner and her four maidel friends were on their usual afternoon walk on a visiting Sunday, soaking up the midday sunshine. An occasional car passed as they strolled alongside the county highway, but otherwise, Morning Star seemed to be nodding off for its Sunday nap.

      As they reached the edge of town, Jo gazed at a dilapidated white stable that sat back from the road, surrounded by a few acres of land. The plank fence around it was also in a sorry state of disrepair. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen horses in the pasture, or any sign of the English folks who owned it. The harsh winter hadn’t done the stable any favors, and Jo thought the place looked sadder than usual as the April breeze riffled some of its loose shingles.

      The wooden sign posted on the fence alongside the gate startled her. “Did you know this place was for sale?” Jo blurted. “I haven’t seen this sign before.”

      “Me, neither,” Molly Helfing replied. She glanced at her rail-thin twin sister, Marietta, who was recovering from chemo treatments. “Last I knew, that Clementi fellow who owned this property died in the nursing home—”

      “And his kids have been squabbling over the estate,” Marietta put in. Despite the spring day’s warmth, she pulled her black cloak more closely around her. “I still haven’t figured out how the English can bear to put their parents in places like the senior center. It seems so cruel, separating older folks from their families.”

      “Jah, Mamm exasperates me, but I could never shut her away in a care facility—especially now that Dat’s passed on,” Jo agreed. An idea was spinning in her head—an adventurous, totally impractical idea—as she gazed at the long white stable with its peeling paint and missing boards. Her longtime friends would think she was ferhoodled, yet her imagination was running wild with possibilities.

      “The kids must’ve decided to sell the place rather than keep it in the family,” redheaded Regina Miller remarked. “I can’t think it’ll bring much, though, run-down as it is.”

      “Anybody who bought it would have to invest a lot of money to make it usable as a stable again. And replacing the slat fence would cost another small fortune,” Lydianne Christner said with a shake of her head. “Folks around town have been hoping the family will just tear this eyesore down—”

      “But wouldn’t it make a great place for some shops?” Jo blurted out. “You Helfings could sell your homemade noodles, and Mamm and I would have more space to display our bakery stuff and our summer produce—and we could get other local folks to rent spaces, and—and it’s on the main highway! Think of how much more business we’d attract here than we do at the roadside stands in our yards.”

      Her friends stared at her as though she’d sprouted a second head.

      Molly’s brow puckered. “How could we run a store on this side of town—”

      “—while we were making our noodles in our shop at home?” Marietta finished doubtfully.

      Regina appeared more positive, yet she shook her head. “Would Bishop Jeremiah allow that? He’s always preaching about how we should keep our businesses to a manageable size. When some of our men have talked of expanding their shops, he’s reminded them that bigger isn’t better.”

      “Are you talking about us running such a place?” Lydianne asked with a frown. “How would we pay for the property, much less the repairs it needs?”

      “And what makes you think a handful of maidels could manage a bunch of shops?” Marietta chimed in again.

      Jo planted her fists on her hips, grinning despite her friends’ very reasonable objections. “What makes you think we couldn’t?” she challenged. “We manage quite well without husbands, ain’t so? We’ve been supporting ourselves for years, so we certainly have the smarts to keep a joint business afloat—especially since Lydianne’s a bookkeeper. I think it would be great fun to run a marketplace!”

      “Puh! Your mamm would never go along with that!” Regina teased.

      “Jah, I can already see Drusilla shaking a finger at you,” Molly agreed as she shook her own finger. “And I can just hear her saying, ‘No gut will ever come of such an outrageous idea, Josephine Fussner! Who ever heard of unhitched women doing such a thing?’”

      Jo laughed along with her friends at Molly’s imitation of her widowed mother. “You’ve got her pegged,” she said, even as she gazed wistfully at the stable. The weather vane on the center cupola had lost its rooster, and enough boards were missing that she could see daylight on the structure’s other side. Even so, she could imagine the building glowing with fresh paint. She could hear the voices of shoppers who’d be delighted to discover the products Plain folks from the Morning Star area would display in their tidy open booths.

      “We’ve got our homes and our work—not to mention the Gut Lord and our church family to sustain us—and we get by just fine,” she continued in a voice that tightened with unanticipated emotion. “But haven’t you ever wanted to do something just for the fun of it? Something new? Whatever happened to sayings like ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way’—and Bible verses like ‘With God, all things are possible’ and ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’?”

      Her friends got quiet. The four of them stood beside her in a line along the fence, gazing at the forlorn stable and the pasture covered with clumps of green weeds, yellow dandelions, and the occasional pile of dried horse manure.

      Regina finally broke the silence. “You’re really serious about this.”

      After a few more moments of contemplation, Lydianne squeezed Jo’s shoulder. “I can see how opening shops might be fun, but—”

      “It sounds crazy and impossibly expensive,” Jo admitted, “and it would take an incredible amount of carpentry work and elbow grease and commitment and organization, but I just thought... ”

      As her voice trailed off into a frustrated sigh, Jo gazed at the long barn with the three cupolas along the top of its roof. “Without a house on the property, I can’t think many folks will want to buy this place. It would be such a shame to tear the stable down—”

      “We know plenty of men who could fix it up,” Regina said, “but why would they want to?”

      “—and maybe it’s just me,” Jo continued softly, “but come springtime, when Mother Nature puts on her pretty, fresh colors, I wish I could take on a whole new appearance, too—like the rebirth Bishop Jeremiah preached about on Easter Sunday. When I turned thirty last year, I accepted that I’ll never have a husband or kids, but some days I long for something different. Something more. You know?”

      Her four closest friends did know. For one reason or another, each woman believed marriage wasn’t an option for her. Jo didn’t regret her unwed state, yet the way Marietta sighed when Molly hugged her angular shoulders, and Regina gazed into the

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