Chapter 27
Miri sat at her cousin Amanda’s kitchen table, a plump, cream cheese–smothered cinnamon roll in front of her on a plate.
Outside the window, rain came down in a steady drizzle, the big storm having passed by a few minutes ago.
After she checked on her animals and the storm hit, Miri had been alone on the farm, and she’d never felt quite so lonesome before.
She blamed the downpour for her flip in mood, but she knew it went deeper.
She’d wanted this, hadn’t she? She’d wanted this place to herself—the farm of her own, the herd that belonged to her alone—but suddenly a Sunday afternoon without Moses’s steady company felt utterly unbearable.
She hadn’t expected to feel that way without him, and his words kept swimming through her mind.
Everything she’d thought about their growing friendship had been wrong.
So when the storm finally passed, Miri had tramped back outside, hitched up her buggy, and gone to the cousin she thought would understand her best.
Miri’s cousin Amanda was the strong one in the greater Schrock family—the “old maid” who had taken a risk and found a husband for herself without any help from anyone else.
Amanda had heard that Menno Weaver wanted a wife, and she’d marched out to his hog farm and offered him some of her best baking.
Cinnamon rolls, to be precise. Miri unwound a fluffy strip from her roll and pushed it into her mouth. It was the best she’d ever tasted. She had no doubt this very cinnamon roll recipe had made Menno start looking at Amanda differently.
Miri didn’t have those baking skills, though.
Miri might be considered too strong-personalitied and outdoorsy by most, and finding a match hadn’t happened for her either.
The man who had understood her best had been Tom Yoder—and he was elderly and not a romantic match at all.
Maybe she’d find a bachelor of her own with a heart of gold, but so far, she was just a tomboy with a farm on her hands, and she didn’t want to be constantly second-guessing whether a man was interested in her or her land.
“Maybe I can help you with some cleanup,” Miri said. “Hosting Service Sunday is a lot of work.”
“We got most of it done already,” Amanda said. She looked down at a crate near her chair that held a sleeping piglet inside. “This little guy has been keeping me busy, though. We always seem to have a runt or two that needs a bottle.”
“Farming is constant work,” Miri said.
“True enough.” Amanda cast her a smile. “Are you okay, though?”
“Not really.” Miri sighed. “I can’t talk to anyone else about this, but my mamm wants me to sign the land back over to the Yoders. It’s causing trouble in the community that Old Tom left it to me.”
“Sign it back?” Amanda shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that if I could help it. It’s yours. That’s a farm, Miri. Paid off and all yours. Do you know what that’s worth in terms of freedom?”
“I don’t want to sign it back,” Miri replied. “But people are starting to say I manipulated an old man into changing his will.”
“When did he change his will?” Amanda asked. “Are you sure it was connected?”
They chatted for a little bit about the will—the little that Miri knew—and how disappointed the Yoders were in Tom’s decision. It was the same problem that had been rolling around in Miri’s head ever since the reading of the will. And she hadn’t found any fresh insights yet.
“That isn’t what I came for, though,” Miri said.
“Nee?” Amanda took a bite of her own cinnamon roll and licked some cinnamon sugar off her lips. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Moses. He said he was helping out at the farm because the bishop asked him to, and he thought it would help him to make his peace with his grandfather’s choice. But I overheard something today at the service that I wasn’t supposed to hear.”
“What was it?”
And as the low afternoon sunlight broke through the clouds, Miri told her cousin all of it—the entire conversation she’d accidentally eavesdropped on.
“Moses is helping you in order to make you change your mind about keeping the farm?” Amanda breathed.
“That what’s it sounded like to me. And now I’ve got someone helping me on the farm who I can’t trust. He doesn’t want to see me succeed—he wants to take it out from under me.”
Amanda took another bite of her cinnamon roll. “What has it been like with him working there?”
“It’s been . . .” She ran the last few weeks over in her mind—the chores, the chatting, the growing understanding between them. “It’s been very nice, actually. He and I have gotten to know each other better, and I thought that we were getting to honestly like each other.”
“I remember when you used to race him when we were scholars,” Amanda said. “You two spent so much time competing that you almost seemed like friends. I dare say you got better grades just because you wanted to beat Moses Yoder.”
“And maybe I’m still competing,” Miri said. “His father said that as a woman I can’t keep up with the work, and I have half a mind to show him I can do it alone without that turncoat working with me.”
“Can you run the farm alone?” Amanda asked. “I mean, practically speaking, can you do it without help?”
“Run the farm?” Miri shrugged. “Yah. The problem is, I can’t keep the house up, keep myself fed, have time to sew new clothes . . .”
“You need a wife!” Amanda belted out a laugh.
“Almost!” Miri laughed, then she sobered. “There are a few jobs that are still too difficult for me. Slinging bales, for one, and wrestling down a yearling. Plus, if I so much as get a cold, I’ll be in trouble.”
“In other words, you do need help,” Amanda said.
“Menno ran this hog farm alone for a long while, but things had to slide. The house was a travesty when I married him and took things over. He had to choose what got his attention, and it was the pigs. One person can do a lot, but to properly run a farm? You need someone else.”
“And the man helping me right now is trying to prove I can’t succeed,” Miri said. “I asked my parents about getting one of my teenaged cousins to come help me in the house, but they don’t like the idea. I think it’s a good solution, though.”
“Or . . . you could get married.”
“Do you suggest I dangle this farm out as a carrot?” Miri asked. She was already afraid Moses was planning to do just that, and it curdled her stomach.
“Yah.” Her cousin met her gaze with utter seriousness.
“Amanda, sometimes you are too practical.” Miri chuckled. “Besides, if I marry a man—and I mean, any man—then I can kiss goodbye working the farm.”
Amanda nodded. “All right, I do see your point. That’s exactly what would happen.”
“So I can’t just marry some man and share the work. If I want to run it myself, I have to run it myself, period. And I need to start taking the work over from Moses—even the heavy work. I can build up more muscle.”
Miri knew what she needed to do, but even still, she felt her throat closing off, and tears blurred her vision. Moses wasn’t there because he wanted to do the right thing. He wasn’t there to help. He was there to manipulate her out of this gift. The realization hurt.
“Miri?” Amanda put a hand over hers. “What is it?”
And all Miri could see in her mind’s eye was Moses’s warm smile, the way his joking started with a twitch at the corner of his lips.
“I thought he liked me.” Miri wiped a tear as it escaped her lashes.
“I’m sure he does—”
“I thought he . . . was starting to feel more for me,” Miri admitted. “That sounds silly, I know. I feel like an utter fool saying it out loud. Look at me, and look at him! Moses is handsome and charming. I’m not the kind of woman a man gives a second glance.”
“Did you sense a spark?” Amanda asked, and when Miri didn’t answer right away, she went on. “Because sometimes it can be hard to tell. I felt the same way with Menno. In fact, everyone else seemed to think he wasn’t very interested in me, but I felt the spark.”
“What does a spark feel like?” Miri asked.
“It’s a moment between you when you connect in a way that you don’t with anyone else. It’s a look or a touch or a way he holds your gaze. It’s . . . hard to describe.”
Like that moment on the steps when he’d caught her waist, and they’d both been a little breathless. Or like the times he looked down at her with that warmth in his eyes that she felt almost certain was special, just for her.
“Yah, I did feel that,” Miri said, her face growing hot.
Amanda smiled. “Good. I’m glad.”
“It doesn’t count if it’s all to trick me,” Miri said, shaking her head. “I thought he cared for and respected me, but he just wants the farm back. Even my uncle suggested he might sweet-talk me into marriage for the land.”
“A spark can’t be faked,” Amanda countered.
“Spark or no spark, he’s there with an ulterior motive.”
“Do you think he was lying about Bishop Hertzler asking him to help you?” Amanda asked.
Miri shook her head. “I don’t even know now. But I don’t see why he’d lie about that. It would be easy enough to check on it.”
“True,” Amanda agreed. “Unless he wasn’t lying.”
“I heard what I heard.”
“There is that.” Amanda compressed her lips thoughtfully. “Be careful, then. We women are too easily manipulated by our romantic hopes. If I weren’t pregnant, I’d come help you out for a few weeks.”
“And if you weren’t married,” Miri added. “I’m sure your husband would miss you.”
“He would.” Amanda smiled and looked toward the window with a fondness in her eyes, then she refocused on Miri’s face. “What can I do to help?”
What could anyone do to help? Miri had legally inherited a property that would fulfill her wildest dreams, and that inheritance set her against the Yoders. There was no way around the difficulty that placed her in.
“Nothing, really,” Miri said. “Listening was what I needed. And some baking would be very much appreciated.”
“Of course. I’m here for you, Miri,” Amanda said.
“And for what it’s worth, I don’t want you to lose this farm.
Old Tom wanted you to have it for a reason, and people should stop going against his last wishes.
If you think everyone wants you to give that land back, that’s not true.
I don’t, and neither does Tabitha. My daet thinks that Old Tom was right as rain in his head before he passed.
He said he was just as sharp and funny as he’d always been.
You don’t have the whole community against you. I promise you that.”
“Really?” Miri asked, relief coming into her heart like a cool breeze from the window. “Your daet said that?”
“He did.”
“I was starting to wonder if I’d missed something with Tom and if maybe I did do something wrong,” Miri said.
“Oh, Miri,” Amanda said. “I think it would take more than a decent soup and a clean kitchen to make a man change his whole will! He made a choice for a reason only he knew about, but you are not some sort of vixen.”
A vixen. The wording made Miri chuckle. “I’ve never been accused of that in my life.”
“Good.” Amanda grinned. “Now tell me about your herd.”
The rest of the visit was brighter, and while Miri chatted about the herd’s recovery and her plans for the farm, she started to feel more like herself again.
Her cousin was right—she hadn’t done anything wrong.
She’d done her duty—cared for Old Tom the best she could and chatted to him about his beloved herd.
Maybe Gott had repaid her for her hard work. But what kind of blessing would the land be with half the community convinced she’d stolen it out from under a good, Gott-fearing Amish family?
And worst of all, Moses, the man she’d thought was her friend, was working against her. She couldn’t lean on him or rely on him. She couldn’t open up, tell him what she really thought. No weakness. No vulnerability.
And apparently, no more of whatever had been blossoming between them.