she closed the door hard and hurried into the sitting room.
She found a seat between Dinah and Anna and located her own sewing kit. It seemed that everyone there was talking at once. Miriam was passing out squares of cloth, and young and old were busy threading needles.
“Dinah has suggested that we hold the end-of-year school picnic early,” Mam said. “She has another idea to help pay for the building repairs.”
“We could invite the other Amish churches,” Dinah explained, “and have a pie auction for the men. Each unmarried woman will bake her favorite pie and donate it, and the bachelors will bid on them.”
“And whoever buys a pie gets to eat lunch with the girl who made it,” Johanna explained. “They do it at the Cedar Hill Church in Nebraska where Dinah’s cousin lives. And they always make lots of money.”
Ruth tried to look interested in the plans, but she couldn’t really concentrate. She kept thinking about what Eli had said. He said she was pretty. No one had ever told her she was pretty. Did he mean it? Why did she care?
Then she thought about what Aunt Alma had said about the letter she’d received. Could it be true? Could Eli have gotten a girl in the family way? Sometimes even Plain youth strayed from Amish beliefs, but such mistakes were rare. She’d never heard of any Plain couple who’d failed to marry if there was a babe coming. If Eli had gotten a girl pregnant, he’d be married now, living in Belleville, wouldn’t he?
“Ruth.” Dinah nudged her and motioned to Hannah. “Your mam wants something from the carriage.”
Ruth looked up.
“That old section of quilt in the black bag,” Mam said. “The one with my great-grandmother’s sunflower pattern. I think we left it under the buggy seat.” She glanced back at Lydia. “It’s not in the best of shape, but it’s so pretty, I’ve always kept it.”
Ruth nodded and rose, then hesitated. What if Eli Lapp was still out there? She didn’t want to see him. Couldn’t. Not after the way he’d teased her…not after the way she’d talked to him.
But there was no way to refuse her mother, not without giving her a reason, and right now the idea of that was more frightening than the idea of coming nose to nose with Eli again.
Forcing herself to move, Ruth picked her way through the closely seated women. As she reached the door, she contemplated what she would do if Eli was still standing outside near the kitchen door. Not that she was afraid of him. She’d simply ignore him. He could grin foolishly at her if he wanted to, but if he got no reaction from her, he’d soon leave her alone. The Yoder girls didn’t associate with boys like him.
Immediately, a flood of confusion washed through her. Was she as lacking in grace as Aunt Martha? Was she judging Eli and finding him guilty, simply on gossip? What if the whole story was wrong? In her eagerness to share, Aunt Alma didn’t always get the details right. What if Eli was innocent of any crime other than riding an ugly motor scooter and coming to Delaware to work in his uncle’s chair shop?
And he’d said she was pretty. She smiled, in spite of herself.
Her heartbeat quickened as she opened the back door and descended the wooden kitchen steps to the yard, eyeing the lilac bushes. There was no sign of Eli there. Near the barn, several small boys chased each other in a game of tag, but there was no sign of the Belleville boy there either. If she could just find her horse and the courting buggy in the dark, amid a sea of black buggies, she could grab the quilt square and hurry back into the house.
Irwin stepped out of the corncrib and walked out into the muddy yard. “Looking for your carriage?”
Irwin was very Plain, even for an Amish, so Plain that he stood out among the other boys. His trousers were too high on skinny ankles; the corners of his mouth were red and crusted, and his narrow shoulders sagged with the weight of a man six times his age. He looked as though he could do with a few good meals and a haircut.
Her mother’s words about being quick to judge echoed in her ears. Was she judging both Irwin and Eli unfairly? Would she be just like her Aunt Martha in ten years?
“I did like you said,” Irwin volunteered. “You said your horse was easy spooked, so I unhitched him and turned him into an empty stall in the barn. Your buggy is in the barn, too.”
It was more words than she’d ever heard Irwin offer at one time. And putting Blackie in the barn was a kind thing to do. “Thank you,” she said, smiling at him. Maybe Mam was right; maybe there was more to this boy than anyone saw at first glance.
He tilted his head and reverted to his usual soft stammer. “Sure,” he said, then walked away.
Raindrops spattered her face and arms as she hurried to the barn. Inside, a single lantern hung from a big cross-beam. Dat’s buggy was where Irwin had said it would be, standing alone in the center of the aisle between the box stalls. Blackie raised his head and nickered. Ruth went to him and rubbed his head, noting that a big bucket of fresh water hung from one corner post, and someone had tossed hay into the manger. “Good boy,” she murmured.
“Me or him?”
The voice from inside the buggy startled her. Eli Lapp. Again.
She sucked in a breath and made an effort to hold back the sharp retort that rose to her lips. “Are you still here?” she asked, her voice far too breathy for either of them to believe she was entirely composed.
He chuckled, a deep sound of amusement that made her stomach flip over. “Maybe I hoped you’d come out here looking for me.”
She stared at him. “Why would I do that?”
He grinned. “Tell the truth. You did, didn’t you?”
“Ne. N-not for you. Mam asked me to fetch something from the carriage.”
She hadn’t been able to see him clearly in the shadows outside the house, but she could see him now. Eli was wearing Plain clothes tonight, black trousers, blue shirt, straw hat, but he was still fancy. He was chewing a piece of hay, and it gave him a rakish look.
Hochmut, she thought. But she couldn’t deny that she found him handsome, so handsome that she could feel it in the pit of her stomach. Was this temptation? The kind Uncle Reuben talked about in his sermons sometimes?
“Be a shame to waste a courting buggy,” he said. “A Kishacoquillas buggy, if I’m not mistaken.” He offered her his hand. “Why don’t you come up and tell me about it?”
She tucked her hands behind her back. “I just need the bag from under the seat. There’s a piece of an old quilt in it. My sister wanted us to bring it for the pattern.” Now she was rambling. She wanted to leave Mam’s bag and run back to the house to the safety of the women’s chatter.
“Still scared?” He was teasing her again.
“Of what?”
“Me?” He held out his hand seeming to dare her.
She would not get into the buggy with him. It was a bad idea, a decision that could only…But somehow, without realizing how or why, she found herself clasping his hand. It was warm and calloused, a strong hand, and nothing at all like the familiar hands of her sisters.
The next thing she knew, she was perched on the seat beside him.
“See,” he said, grinning at her. “I come in peace.”
“You…you,” she sputtered. “I don’t like you one bit.”
He laughed. “Oh, yes, you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come looking for me. Or gotten into the buggy.” He looked down. “And you wouldn’t still be holding my hand.”
Ruth jerked her hand from his, mortified. It wasn’t that she meant to let him hold her hand; he just had her so confused.
She fumbled under the seat for Mam’s bag. Eli’s all-too-warm leg rested innocently against hers,