Chapter 13
Miri used her evenings to set the kitchen to rights. Tom’s family had done a hasty but thorough cleaning of the house before the funeral, which Miri very much appreciated. She hadn’t even thought to thoroughly deep clean anything while she’d helped Tom. She felt a little foolish for that now.
Tom had been using only the minimum of pots, pans, and utensils, but the cupboards were filled with a mishmash of dishes, cake tins, casserole dishes, and Tupperware containers.
Everything needed a good washing, and so Miri filled the sink and washed the contents of one shelf at a time, drying the items and stacking them on the kitchen table to take stock of what was there and where it should be stored.
She started with the baking dishes, muffin tins, and plastic bowls, and by the third evening of washing and sorting, she discovered a small though incomplete collection of pretty dishes—seven dinner plates, five salad plates, a creamer and sugar bowl, but no teapot.
It seemed to be what was left from Loretta’s wedding china.
It felt strange to be in this house all alone.
She slept in a spare bedroom upstairs—one with a single bed and a window that allowed in a generous amount of light.
The Yoders hadn’t come to go through Tom’s bedroom for the rest of his personal things yet, and until they did, Miri didn’t feel comfortable using that room.
Although Moses had gone upstairs and gotten his grandfather’s worn German Bible.
Miri wasn’t sure why they hadn’t come yet.
Maybe they didn’t want to face her. Maybe they were working on getting the farm back, so carrying Tom’s items back and forth was pointless in their eyes.
She wished she knew. The house remained full to overflowing with reminders of Tom’s life and his personal effects.
A little over two weeks had passed since she first moved in, and while the house didn’t feel like hers yet, the land did.
She woke up before dawn and listened to the crickets outside her window and the first faint chirps of songbirds rousing as the sky lightened toward the sunrise.
She loved that feeling of standing outside on the lawn, cool morning wind ruffling her dress and dew clinging to each blade of grass.
She felt so full of gratitude in those quiet moments that she could have burst.
On Visiting Sunday, Miri went home to her parents’ place after her chores were complete, and her aunts and uncles came by, but the conversation was all about Tom Yoder’s will.
The tension was high, like the feeling of electricity in the air when a thunderstorm was coming.
Miri slipped out of the house to get some space, and one of her uncles was already outside, smoking a cigarette.
“I heard that Moses Yoder is helping you with chores,” her uncle said.
“Yah, he is.” She wasn’t sure what else to say on the matter.
“Be careful of him, Miri. I’m serious. The Yoders want that farm back.”
“He’s not a bully, though. He’s just helping me.”
“He might just try and sweet-talk you right out of it.”
“Sweet-talk me how?” she asked with a short laugh.
“He may very well try and marry you,” he replied, putting the butt out in the gravel with the toe of his boot. “There’s more than one way to get land back, you know.”
Somehow, that had not occurred to her yet. Would Moses want to marry her just to get the farm back? That seemed pretty extreme. A lifetime with someone for land? But she knew Moses well enough to be sure that he had too much integrity for that. Another man, perhaps. Not Moses.
When the extended family had left, Miri broached the subject of asking her cousin Susanna to come help with housework for a second time. The first time she’d brought it up, they hadn’t given her an answer, and this time, she hoped that her parents would see the sense in it.
“I do need the extra help,” Miri said.
“Then bring your cousin Simon.”
“I don’t want Simon running the farm. I want to run it. What I need is someone to cook and take care of the house.”
“I don’t know about that,” Daet said. “We’ll have to think about the right solution, but I’m not sure that would look right. A woman running the farm and a girl running the house.”
“We’d be girls together, at least,” Miri said. “No impropriety.”
“Still . . .” Her father shook his head. “We’ll have to think on this, Miri. But I don’t reckon that’s the solution here.”
As Miri’s mamm gathered some baking and jars of preserves for her to take back to the farm, Miri suddenly saw why Tom appreciated these gifts of food so much.
When someone had to feed themselves and run a farm, there wasn’t much time left over for anything else, and while Miri still thought that bringing Susanna in would be the perfect solution, her father was right that it couldn’t be forever.
Susanna would want to find a man and get married, and keeping house for Miri might not be the best way for her to do that.
Monday morning, Miri was upstairs in her bright little bedroom, pinning her dress with her split skirt into place.
She’d already gone out to check on the sick cattle, and she’d gotten her dress filthy when one of the calves splattered her with mud and dung, so she’d been forced to come back and change.
Downstairs, she recognized Moses’s knock.
He always used the rhythm from the German nursery rhyme “Backe, backe, kuchen.”
“Come in!” she called, hurrying down the stairs, feeling around her kapp and pushing a hairpin deeper into her hair.
She heard Moses’s steps before she saw him, and when she emerged breathless into the kitchen, she found him standing in front of the table, looking down on the odd assortment of delicate dishes.
“I found those last night,” Miri said. “They must be your grandmother’s wedding china.”
“Yah.” He picked up a plate and held it almost reverently, then replaced it in the pile.
“I thought someone might want them,” Miri said. “Your sisters, maybe?”
“They probably will,” he said. “Danke for putting them aside. I can bring them home with me tonight.”
“Of course.”
Moses looked around the kitchen. “It’s starting to look different in here.”
“Just more organized,” she said.
He didn’t answer that, and she wondered if he resented the changes. But the cleaning and organizing had to be done. It wasn’t like the house could be a museum to the past, regardless of who lived in it now.
“Tabitha is coming by today to check the sick cattle,” Miri added. “I’m worried about Bitsy. I checked on her this morning, and she’s not doing well.”
Bitsy had been deteriorating over the last few days—getting more tired and eating less. The symptoms weren’t as bad anymore, but she didn’t seem to be rallying either.
“Where did you get Bitsy?” Moses asked.
“She was a bottle baby from my uncle’s farm.
” Miri grabbed her work apron and pulled it over her dress.
Then she picked up a pair of black stockings and pulled them on.
Bare feet in rubber boots only caused blisters.
“She was very tiny, and my uncle didn’t want to have to care for her, so we took her home with us and kept her in our stable with the horses, and I fed her myself.
When she got bigger, your dawdie said I could board her here in exchange for some baking. ”
“I remember that,” he said. “Your baking was—”
She shot him an annoyed look. “I have other talents.”
He grinned. “I know, I know. We came to visit Dawdie after you dropped off some biscuits that were like hockey pucks. Thankfully, you could muck out a stall like a pro.”
“I did my best,” she said, but she smiled at the memory. She really had done her best. “Thankfully, your dawdie saw that I was better at chores. The point is, I always paid back. I didn’t just accept the free board.”
“And the other two cattle?” he asked.
“M-1 is Daisy. And M-3, Brisket, is her calf. M-2 is Bitsy, and she’s my special favorite. She’s a sweetheart.”
Moses cast her a wry look. “You named him Brisket?”
“Just to remind myself why he’s here.” She winced. “I know that’s awful, but the cattle here are beef cattle. That’s their ultimate end. And I want to make some money off of Brisket.”
Brisket with his big eyes and his funny, playful personality.
“Be honest now,” he said. “Are you really going to sell Brisket at market?”
She thought for a moment, then sighed. “Probably not. I’ve learned my lesson about naming cattle. The cattle destined for market will just be numbered.”
Moses belted out a laugh. “You aren’t as tough as you look, Miri.”
“Do I look tough?” She eyed him uncertainly. She never knew how she looked to others. She knew she was different, though.
“Sometimes,” he said. “But that’s only because I know you, I guess.”
She smirked. “I prefer being called competent.”
His gaze softened, and he shrugged. “You are definitely competent. You’re good on a farm, Miri. Truly. You’ve got good instincts with cattle, and not everyone does.”
There was something in his voice that she liked when he called her competent.
Most women would like to be called sweet or pretty.
But Miri preferred to have her skills acknowledged, and she tucked that compliment away in her heart to go over later when she was alone tonight.
She didn’t receive compliments often enough that they could roll off her back like water on a duck.
But even if Moses had been her rival in school, he’d always acknowledged her as an equal.
That fact alone had fueled her very secret and very lengthy crush on him.
“We’d best get moving, though,” she said. “Daylight is wasting, and Tabitha will be here soon.”