LITMIR.BIZ

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society where most widows depended on fathers or sons to provide for them.

      Katie narrowed her gaze on the matchmaker. Sara didn’t have the pale Germanic skin of most Amish; she was half African American, with a coffee-colored complexion and dark, textured hair. Katie knew Sara’s heritage because she’d asked her the first time they’d met. “How do I know that you’re not trying to match me with Freeman Kemp?” she asked. “Because if you are, I’ll tell you right off, it’s a hopeless cause. He’s one man I’d never consider for a husband.”

      Katie and Freeman had clashed when they were volunteering as helpers at a wedding the previous November. She’d been in charge of one of the work parties, and she’d made a suggestion about the way the men were loading chairs into the church wagon. Freeman had taken affront and had behaved immaturely, stalking off to sulk while the other men continued to work. It hadn’t been an argument exactly, but it was clear that although her way was far more sensible, Freeman was offended by being told what to do by a woman. Katie couldn’t have cared less. Growing up with older brothers, she’d learned early to speak up for herself, and if Freeman disliked her because of her refusal to be submissive, that was his problem.

      Sara arched one dark brow and sighed. “Poor Freeman is laid up in bed with a broken femur. He hasn’t asked me to find him a wife, and if he did discover he needed one this week, I doubt you’re in any danger of him running you down and dragging you before the bishop.” She shrugged. “It’s because of his injury that he needs a housekeeper. You have no need for concern about your reputation, if that’s your worry. Freeman’s grandmother lives right next to him in the little house. She’s in and out of Freeman’s place all day long, and she’ll provide the chaperoning the elders expect.”

      “That’s not what worries me,” Katie muttered. Sara was just like her: she never minced words. “I just don’t want any misunderstandings. Freeman Kemp is one of those men all the single girls moon over. You know, him being so good-looking and so well-to-do.” She nodded in the direction of the mill and surrounding property, the farmhouse and little grossmama haus where his grandmother lived. “I wouldn’t want him to think that I’m one of them.”

      Sara laid a small brown hand on the dashboard of Katie’s buggy. “If you’re intimidated by Freeman, I’m sure I can get someone else to take the job. I wouldn’t want to force you to do anything that made you feel uncomfortable.”

      “I’m not intimidated by him.” Katie sat up a little straighter, tightened the reins in her hands and gazed ahead at the farmhouse. “Certainly not.” She was probably making too much of a small incident. Freeman had made a remark about her bossiness to a friend of her brother’s not long after the wedding incident, but he’d probably forgotten all about the unpleasantness by now.

      “Good.” Sara patted Katie’s knee. “Then there’s no reason to keep them waiting any longer. The sooner you start, the sooner you can put the house in order.”

      * * *

      “Well, Uncle Jehu, if you hired a housekeeper without my say-so, you can just un-hire her.” Freeman lay propped up on pillows in a daybed against the kitchen wall. “We need a strange woman rattling around here about as much as I need another broken leg.”

      “Now, boy, calm yourself,” the older man said quietly in Deitsch. His arthritis-gnarled fingers moved, twisting a cord in a continuous game of cat’s cradle, forming one shape after another. “It’s only temporary. A younger pair of willing hands might bring some order to this mess we call a house.”

      Freeman glanced away. His uncle meant no insult. Calling him boy was a term of affection, but Freeman felt it was demeaning sometimes. He was thirty-five years old and he’d been running the family mill since he was twenty. Everyone in their Amish community accepted him as a grown man and head of this house, but because he’d never married, his uncle still thought of him as a stripling.

      Uncle Jehu gestured with his chin in the general direction of the kitchen sink where Freeman’s grandmother stood washing their breakfast dishes. “No insult meant to you, Ivy.”

      Freeman’s paternal grandmother bobbed her head in agreement. “None taken. I said from the start when I came to live here I wouldn’t be anyone’s housekeeper. I’ve plenty of chores to keep me busy at my own place, not to mention waiting on customers at the mill. And what with my arthritis, I can’t do it all.” She eyed her grandson, sitting up in the bed, his leg cast from ankle to upper thigh, resting in a cradle of homemade quilts. “Jehu’s right, Freeman. This house can stand a good cleaning. There are more cobwebs in this kitchen than the hayloft.”

      “You think I don’t see them?” Freeman swallowed his rising impatience and forced himself not to raise his voice. “As soon as I get this cast off, I’ll redd it all up. I did fine before I broke my leg, didn’t I?” He still felt like a fool, breaking his leg the way he did. Anyone who’d been raised around farm animals should have known to take care and get a friend to lend a hand. He’d just been too sure of himself, and his own pride had gotten the better of him.

      Ivy shook a soapy finger at him. “Stop fussing and make the best of it.” She dipped a coffee cup in rinse water and stacked it in the drainer. “Maybe the Lord put this hurdle in your path to make you take stock of your own shortcomings. You’ve a good heart. You’re always eager to help others, but you’ve never had the grace to accept help when you need it.” She drew her mouth into a tight purse and nodded. “Jehu’s already arranged the girl’s hire for two weeks.”

      “And she’s coming this morning,” his uncle said as he twisted the string into a particularly intricate pattern. “So accept it gracefully and make her welcome.”

      A motor vehicle horn beeped from the parking lot.

      “Another customer,” Grossmama declared, quickly drying her hands on a dishtowel. “We’re going to have another busy one at the mill. Didn’t I say that buying those muslin bags with Kemp’s printed on them and advertising would pay off? The Englishers drive from all over the state to get our stone-ground bread flour.” Retrieving her black bonnet from the table, she put it on over her prayer kapp, and bustled out the door.

      “With a housekeeper, we might get something to eat other than oatmeal,” Uncle Jehu offered his nephew by way of consolation.

      “I heard that!” his grandmother called back through the screen door. “Nothing wrong with oatmeal. I eat it every day, and I’ve never been sick a day in my life.”

      “Never sick a day in her life,” his uncle repeated under his breath.

      Freeman couldn’t help chuckling. He was as tired of oatmeal as Uncle Jehu. There was nothing wrong with his grandmother’s oatmeal. It was tasty and filling, but after eating it every morning since he was discharged from the hospital, he longed for pork sausage, bacon, over-easy eggs and home fries. And he was tired of her chicken noodle soup that they ate for dinner and supper most days, unless a neighbor was kind enough to drop by with a meal. “A few more days and I’ll be up and about,” he told his uncle. “I can take over the cooking, like I used to.”

      His uncle scoffed. “Unless you want to end up back in the hospital, you’ll follow doctor’s orders. A broken thighbone’s a serious thing. In the meantime, the house is getting away from us, and so is the laundry.” He shook his head. “It’s a good thing I’m blind. Otherwise I would have been ashamed to go to church in a shirt that’s been worn three Sundays and not been washed and ironed.”

      “No. Housekeeper,” Freeman repeated firmly, emphasizing each syllable.

      Jehu’s terrier, Tip, leaped off the bed and ran barking to the door.

      “Too late.” Uncle Jehu broke into a self-satisfied grin. “Sounds like a buggy coming. Must be Sara Yoder and her girl now.”

      “You should send her back. We don’t need her,” Freeman protested, but only half-heartedly. He knew the battle was lost. He wouldn’t hurt the poor girl’s feelings by sending her away now that she was here. He would have to make the best of it.

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