Chapter 2
Elijah Miller’s stricken expression sent a flaming arrow straight to Bonnie Yoder’s heart.
She angled her rollator between him and the door to keep him from making a run for it.
“That box looks heavy.”
She gentled her voice, talking to him the way her father used to talk to the stray cats he fed scraps to on the back porch after supper on frigid winter nights.
The thought of her father’s kindness didn’t hurt as much as it would’ve only a few months earlier.
“Why don’t you set it on the table over there where we have the craft classes?”
His head bent as if studying the box’s contents, Elijah didn’t move.
Okay, that was okay.
Bonnie waved at Hannah Plank, her part-timer, who’d been straightening and dusting merchandise on the displays by the floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of the shop.
“Hannah, can you handle the cash register while I talk with Elijah?”
Hannah’s big grin signaled her delight at the added responsibility.
The seventeen-year-old had worked at the shop for about six months, mostly cleaning or helping customers and artisans carry packages.
“No problem.”
With only one customer, an English lady from nearby Nathalie, in the store, she was probably right.
“Danki.
Just call out if you have any questions.”
Taking advantage of an aisle made extra wide to accommodate wheelchairs, Bonnie passed Elijah and took the lead past displays of leather goods, jewelry, birdhouses, candles, soaps, ceramics, pottery, paintings, scarves, totes, baskets, and handmade greeting cards, all created by area artisans.
Then bookshelves filled with books written by Plain authors and even some Amish romance novels written by English authors followed.
Bonnie and her co-owners did their best to give local and regional artisans, specifically ones with disabilities, a place to sell their wares.
If Elijah noticed the carefully curated displays, he didn’t say anything.
Bonnie’s earliest memories of him were of a boy who rarely spoke and never raised his hand in class.
If his older brothers hadn’t insisted on including him in games during recess and after church, he probably would’ve sat them out.
He was too shy to ask to join in.
Big brothers Toby and Jason also took care of anyone who dared to pick on a Miller kid.
They were a close-knit family.
A person always knew when she was seeing a Miller boy, too, because they were all cut from the same cloth: tall, lean, blond hair, blue eyes, and dimples.
Elijah was shorter and slighter but still had the trademark dimples and sky-blue eyes.
If he knew he was a handsome man, he surely didn’t show it.
What made a child in a family of boisterous, loud, outgoing kids so painfully shy? Maybe it was exactly that.
He couldn’t compete.
Bonnie had no way of knowing.
She was an only child who often longed for a noisy bunch of siblings, especially a sister.
It never happened, much to her parents’ sadness.
“Not Gott’s plan,”
Bonnie’s mother had always said.
Instead His plan somehow involved allowing their only child to be born with a rare disease called type 3 spinal muscular atrophy, or SMA3 for short.
Now wasn’t the time to noodle the nature of that unfairness or the others that seemed to follow.
Like her dad slipping away, his heart giving out while he slept after a hard day’s work at a barn raising almost two years earlier.
“Two or three times a week and every Saturday, we offer customers the chance to learn some of the crafts represented by our artisans.”
Maybe her prattle would help Elijah relax and keep her mind off what couldn’t be helped.
“Last week Sophia led a class in watercolors.
Even though it’s not tourist season yet, we had ten ladies participate.
All English, mostly from around Lee’s Gulch.
I call that a success.”
Sophia Hershberger was one of Homespun Handicrafts’ three co-owners.
She’d been in a buggy accident at age eleven that resulted in paralysis of her legs.
She used a wheelchair to get around.
A talented artist, she created greeting cards, postcards, and small framed paintings that regularly sold out.
Bonnie glanced back to make sure Elijah still followed.
He did, along with Slowpoke, who panted as if he’d been chasing a possum across an open field.
He surely felt his owner’s nerves and wanted to make sure no one gave Elijah a hard time.
Such a good dog.
Bonnie stopped at one of the long wooden tables used for the classes.
After locking the brakes on her rollator, she balanced herself with one hand and used her other one to quickly move aside skeins of yarn, knitting needles, sewing kits stuffed with embroidery threads in bright colors, needles, tomato-shaped pin cushions, and small scissors.
“For the next three months, Carol is teaching classes twice a week in crochet, embroidery, and knitting.
We have a ton of women signed up.
It always interests me to see trends that bring back crafts that were once skills all women were expected to have.
So many of them remember their grandmas and great-grandmas making quilts or embroidering dresser scarves and knitting mittens and shawls.
Most of them can’t darn a sock or reattach a button.”
Carol Knepp, the shop’s third co-owner, was born with a mild form of spina bifida that she never let slow her down.
She handled her crutches like extensions of her body.
A person should pray for anyone who got in her way, but when it came to their customers who wanted to learn to sew, Carol had an unending wealth of patience.
The kind of patience a person needed to coax a shy person from his shell.
Her co-owners loved what they called “helping the underdog.”
Elijah definitely fell in that category.
“Sophia and Carol will be here in a bit.
They come in later and stay later so we can have extended store hours.”
Bonnie patted the table.
“You can set your box right here.”
Elijah obliged.
Bonnie restrained herself from peeking.
Elijah’s mother, Elizabeth, and his sisters always talked about how talented he was, but Bonnie had never seen his work.
Unless they were a member of the Millers’ massive extended family, most people hadn’t.
Instead, she inhaled the enticing scent of fresh coffee and cocked her head toward the nearby coffee and pastry bar. “Would you like some kaffi? We have cinnamon rolls and banana-nut muffins if you’re interested.”
The complimentary offerings kept browsing customers in the store longer, which frequently led to more sales.
Elijah rubbed his clean-shaven face with both hands.
His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Nee, but danki.”
Likely he was too nervous to think about food or drink.
“Maybe later, after we’re done with business.
I don’t know about you, but I could drink kaffi all day long.
I do, in fact.
My mamm baked the pastries so I can vouch for them being mighty tasty.”
Elijah heaved a breath.
A little less tense now? Bonnie tapped on the box.
“I’d loved to see what you’ve brought us. May I?”
Elijah nodded.
Slowpoke woofed in obvious agreement.
“Wunderbarr.”
It was hard to know where to start.
Elijah had filled it with handmade flannel bags.
One contained a set of miniature farm animals, all painstakingly painted in realistic colors.
Another held forest animals.
Deer, raccoon, fox, rabbits, frogs, squirrels, and a wolf, all whittled by hand. A third featured zoo animals. “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.”
Bonnie bestowed her most encouraging smile on him.
“These are beautiful.
Almost too beautiful to let kinner play with them.”
“Nee. Toys.”
Elijah touched the rooster with an oversized red crest.
“For kinner to have fun.”
Now he was talking.
Bonnie nodded.
They would make an arresting display next to the dolls, stuffed animals, and puppets she and her friend Opal Plank created—when Opal, who was married and had a baby now, had time.
The usual pesky envy twinged in Bonnie’s chest.
Smaller than it had been when Opal confided that she and David would marry. Hard work kept the ugly envy at bay.
Focus on the shop.
The shop gave Plain folks like herself, with disabilities, a way to earn their keep when traditional Plain tasks couldn’t be accomplished.
More importantly it gave them a sense of self-worth, a sense that they contributed just as their abled family members did.
Elijah didn’t have a physical disability, but his shy nature might be considered a disability by his family of outgoing auctioneers if it kept him from fulfilling their expectations that he, too, be an auctioneer.
Maybe he never wanted that life.
Maybe his craft fulfilled him.
“We’ve been wanting to expand our toy section.
These beauties will make great birthday and Christmas presents.”
Bonnie smoothed her fingers over a horse pull toy and admired its regal bearing.
“Even the Englischer shoppers will want them so they can display ‘Amish-made’ knickknacks in their homes next to their quilt wall hangings.
You do beautiful work.”
“Danki.”
He ducked his head, making it hard to see his face under his straw hat.
After a second, he reached into the box and pulled out a sheet of paper.
Without looking at her directly, he held it out.
“Lots to choose from.”
Indeed.
“Yo-yos, tic-tac-toe games, Noah’s ark with two dozen animals, wooden tractor and wagon, alphabet boards, a barn with farm animals, a corral with horses, a wooden piggy bank.”
Bonnie ran down the inventory list on which each item was meticulously described.
“And that’s just a start.
I see you have kinner’s furniture as well.
Did you bring any of those for me to see?”
Elijah’s head came up.
The beginnings of hope mixed with obvious surprise flitted across his face.
“I can get them if you really want to see them.
They’re not much.
I mean, I try to make them nice . . .”
“If they’re anything like what you’ve shown me so far, they’ll be just what I’ve been wanting.”
Bonnie popped the rollator’s brakes, wheeled around, and pointed it toward the door.
“I’ll come with you.”
“Nee, nee, I’ll bring them to you.”
“If you’re going to do business here at Homespun Handicrafts, the first thing you have to learn is not to treat us like we’re not able to do for ourselves.”
Bonnie silently berated herself.
She could’ve been more diplomatic about it, but this was her number-one pet peeve.
“I know you’re just trying to help, but the best thing you can do is ask if I need help first.
If I do, I’ll let you know.”
His face red as a candied apple, Elijah nodded jerkily.
“Is it all right if I get the door for you?”
“That would be great.”
She reached for her most conciliatory tone.
Mom was always telling her she was way too prickly.
Mom didn’t have everyone trying to wait on her hand and foot.
She probably wished she did sometimes.
“One day I’d love to install one of those doohickeys that opens the door automatically, when we can afford it.”
They had electricity in the store, but it was bare bones and needed to be upgraded.
They had to be careful not to overtax it.
First priority was keeping the air-conditioning working, which the English customers expected.
Ceiling fans weren’t enough during the summer months.
They wouldn’t browse if they were sweating, and if they didn’t browse, they didn’t buy. Plus the automatic door mechanisms were expensive themselves.
Slowpoke led the way to the buggy.
He hopped into the back as if he would do the show-and-tell himself.
He really was a good friend and business partner.
Bonnie hung back to give Elijah a chance to gather his thoughts.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
Elijah leaned into the buggy and pulled out an old-fashioned rocking horse with the ease of a man who did heavy lifting.
His biceps strained against his shirt’s faded blue cotton sleeves.
He set the horse on the sidewalk.
He nudged the head and set the horse rocking.
The woodworking was beautiful. Bonnie ran her hand over the padded leather-covered seat and examined the yarn mane and tail. “This is really nice. Beautiful work. Is it walnut?”
“Oak with a medium walnut stain.”
He ducked his head, his face darkening to a scarlet hue.
The man had a hard time taking a compliment.
“My schweschdre helped me with the yarn.
Josie and Sherri help with painting the animals too.
What they do, Sadie has to do, of course.”
Elijah’s sister Sadie was born with Down syndrome—not that she let that stand in her way.
“Opal Plank helps me with a lot of the fine sewing needed for my dolls and sock puppets and my stuffed animals.”
Bonnie’s fingers weren’t nimble enough for the fine work.
“It’s gut to have help, especially family.
They must be excited for you to start your own business.”
If that was what this was.
Someone as talented as Elijah could go a long way toward earning a living with his skills.
Bonnie studied his face.
His expression had gone wooden.
His calloused fingers smoothed the horse’s mane. “Some of them,”
he mumbled.
Some of them.
But not all.
Don’t you worry, Elijah, we’ll win them over.
In time.
Just as Bonnie had won over her parents when they’d objected to three young, single, Plain women, all with disabilities, opening their own business. It hadn’t been easy. But that was a story to be shared at another time. “What else did you bring?”
Next came a child-size table and four chairs.
Then a child’s footstool and a wagon big enough for two kids.
Followed by a child’s desk and chair.
And then a child-size push lawn mower with moving parts.
“This is wunderbarr. How fun.”
Bonnie rolled closer.
She gave the mower a gentle push.
The inner workings made a clink-clink as the barrel turned.
“English kinner will have fun with this too.”
They wouldn’t know what it was used for since their own parents likely used gas-powered or electric mowers.
Plain children didn’t have to wait long before they were enlisted to cut the yard with a real push mower.
“These will make great nostalgia pieces for older English shoppers.”
“You think so?”
For the first time, Elijah seemed to forget his awkwardness.
“You’re really interested in selling them?”
“Of course we’re interested.
Do you know how consignment works?”
“I make the toys.
You sell them.
We split the proceeds.”
Simple as that.
“It’s a sixty-forty split.
Does that sound fair?”
“I get forty.
You get sixty.
That seems fair.”
“Nee, nee.
You get sixty.
We get forty.”
“Ah, ah.”
“Why don’t you bring them into the shop? Then we’ll fill out the paperwork.
It’s important to get everything in writing.”
The beginning of a smile blossomed into a full-fledged grin.
Her grip tightening on the rollator handles, Bonnie paused, suddenly breathless.
She racked her memories.
Surely she’d seen Elijah smile during their school years.
Maybe not. She would’ve remembered that knock-your-apron-off smile.
“I’m right behind you.”
Elijah blessedly didn’t seem to notice her sudden disorientation.
“Do you want me to get the door first?”
He learned quicker than most.
Bonnie settled the lawn mower on the rollator seat.
“Sure.
If you’ll put the doorstop in front of the door, I’ll get Hannah to help you bring in the other items.
She’ll show you where to put them in the storage area. Once that’s done, you and I can talk business. After we set the prices, she’ll help you create the inventory tags and attach them.”
“I would like to talk business.”
Elijah’s tone held undisguised surprise.
“Very much.”
“Gut.”
Bonnie trudged back inside.
Her brain wanted to run.
Her weak legs would never cooperate.
It was ridiculous to be so aware of a man like Elijah.
He was here on business. He wouldn’t think twice about a woman like her.
Disability made no difference to Plain folks when it came to family.
They loved every child, abled or disabled, equally.
But Plain men needed wives who could take care of the house, bake, sew clothes, plant and reap gardens, and take care of babies with little or no help.
The thought of babies brought with it the memory of Dr.
Newcomb’s question during her last appointment at the Center for Special Children.
A searing heat swept over Bonnie.
“Are you dating, Bonnie? As we’ve discussed before, there’s no reason you shouldn’t.”
Dr.
Newcomb had sat Bonnie down years earlier to explain that she could have romance, marry, and bear children.
Her life expectancy, praise God, was the same as any other woman’s.
Childbearing would be harder and might cause her muscle weakness to progress more quickly, but women with SMA did it.
Maybe English women with their electric appliances and bounty of conveniences, but how could a Plain woman with limited mobility cook, clean, bake, can, garden, and take care of children when she didn’t have the strength in her arms to pick up a baby, let alone carry him around or bathe him? Because of the titanium rods that guarded her spine against further progression of her scoliosis, she couldn’t bend over to pick up a toddler, even if she had the strength.
She couldn’t run after a wayward child who decided to toddle too close to the road or deep water.
She couldn’t keep him safe.
Dr.
Newcomb’s question had been salt in the wound.
As if to say, “What are you waiting for?”
Waiting for someone to ask me to take a buggy ride.
Waiting for someone to see past the rollator.
Waiting for someone to see beyond my limitations to my potential.
“Men see the rollator first.
Old ladies use walkers.
Not the kind of woman a man wants to court,”
Bonnie had told the doctor.
Her expression so full of kindness it hurt Bonnie’s heart, Dr.
Newcomb had patted Bonnie’s arm.
“Any man worth his salt will look past that rollator and see a beautiful, smart, funny, hardworking woman he’d be blessed to have as a wife.”
“Would he be blessed? The honest answer seems to be no, not really.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I’m not.
I’m trying to be realistic.”
Having pie-in-the-sky dreams didn’t help Bonnie.
It created longing, discontentment, and a peevish desire for things she couldn’t have.
Better to seek contentment and count blessings.
That was Mom talking in her ear.
Mom, who sought to be content in her new life as a widow.
Most of the time Bonnie tried to take a page from that same book.
She was happy with the life she’d carved out for herself.
She loved her store and her job.
But sometimes, like today, it hurt to think a kind, sweet man like Elijah wouldn’t give her a second thought.
To him, Bonnie was likely just business.