Chapter Seven
At the end of the day, Hannah flopped onto the small bed and looked at the others.
She had been walking all day, and she was now well and truly footsore.
She didn’t regret a single step, though.
After all that she’d seen, she wanted to see more.
The farm itself had been quite interesting to learn about.
Perhaps that was because she was studying to help animals.
Whatever the case, she was glad that her friends had considered including her in choosing the destinations.
“Well, how was the day in the community, Hannah?” Jasmine was the first to break the silence. “We’re dying to know what you think.”
“Well, I’m not entirely sure what I want to do now,” Hannah replied.
“It’s been so much fun to see how they live, and to at least learn a little bit about the Amish culture.
” She managed a small smile. “Elias has a farm. I didn’t expect to find that here, but I’m glad I did.
It gave me a better context for what I’ve been learning in class. It’s been a learning experience.”
“And with learning that you have a cousin here?”
“That is just as I expected,” Hannah confirmed with a little laugh.
“We’d had it narrowed down to a couple of different communities based on the mailing address on the letters, but I’m glad that Dad gave me all of that information.
I didn’t get a name, though. I think he wanted to see if I could find him on my own that way. ”
“Dinner!” John’s voice beyond the door interrupted their conversation.
They all walked downstairs to find John and Olivia ready for dinner, with the table set for six instead of just two.
No mention had been made of children living in the home, and Hannah was just glad that they had space for the four of them to stay.
On the matter of children, Hannah did not overlook the fact that they had four beds already set up in the room they were staying in.
“Thank you for making dinner,” Hannah said.
“Of course. I can’t let any of you go hungry,” Olivia teased. “Kumm, take a seat. I hope you all like potato soup.”
“It smells delicious, Olivia,” Jasmine said.
“Ditto that,” Patricia said.
“I’ve not had a good potato soup in years,” Wendy added as they all sat down.
It didn’t take them long to fill their bowls with soup.
While Hannah wasn’t sure that soup was a summer meal, she couldn’t deny that it smelled amazing.
Perhaps she would be amazed by the way it tasted.
She wasn’t usually a fan of soup, but she supposed it might just have been because it had never really been a part of her parents’ menu.
The dinner table was silent as everyone ate.
It felt less like a comfortable silence and more like a silence that fell upon them because no one knew what to say.
Hannah had a million questions to ask, but she wasn’t sure how much her friends would want to hear about the Amish life.
She supposed it didn’t matter. They were here, so in some capacity, they would be hearing about this lifestyle.
“Well, Olivia, what have you learned about our guests today?” John broke the silence.
“Not much. Hannah here went out with Elias pretty much all day long, and everyone else had a relaxed day,” Olivia shared. “I’d love to hear more about how you concluded that the answers you sought were here, though, Hannah.”
“Well, my father decided that he’d give me the address that he was getting these letters from, as we couldn’t make heads or tails of it on our own,” Hannah shared.
“I plugged it into the GPS because I thought that would at least get me something. It got me to the nearest town. After a little internet research, I found that there were only two communities near that town. When Patricia and the group here invited me to join them on this trip, we decided to book a hotel in town and see how it played out. There was a chance we could be entirely wrong, but we wanted to see what we could find on our own.”
“A little ingenuity there, huh?” John asked with a smile. “Well, I’m glad to see that your ingenuity brought you here. I’ve tried to talk your daed into at least coming to see what life is like here for himself, but he says that he’s more than happy in London.”
“That sounds like Dad, honestly,” Hannah said with a bit of a laugh.
“He was shocked to hear I wanted to study here in the States. It was partially because of the tuition costs, but also partially because I hadn’t talked about wanting to go abroad before telling him I’d been accepted into the university here.
” She shrugged. “I suppose anything can be a surprise if you haven’t been paying enough attention. ”
“And the rest of you? How do you know Hannah?” John asked.
“We’re all roommates in the dorm at college,” Patricia said.
“She got in on scholarship, so the dorm’s all been paid for thanks to that.
We’ve quite enjoyed having her there with us, and when we heard that she couldn’t afford to go home for the summer…
well, it was obvious that we had to find a way to make allowances to get her on this trip with us instead of leaving her at the dorm alone for the summer. ”
John nodded slowly.
“Never lose these friends, Hannah. They truly care for you,” he said as if it were some new revelation. “A gut friendship is harder to kumm by than religion these days.”
That was something new.