the stack of patchwork-quilt-style placemats she was shipping. “I’m just waiting for the man God wants for me.”
“And you’ll know him how?” She rested one hand on her hip. “Will this man knock on your door?”
Ellen frowned and added another layer of brown paper to the box before adding eight cloth napkins.
“My marriage to Mose was arranged by my uncle, and it worked out well for both of us.” Dinah tilted her head to one side in a way she had about her when she was trying to convey some meaning that she didn’t want to state outright. “We each had a few burrs that needed rubbing off by time and trial and error, but we started with respect and a common need. I wanted a home and marriage with a man of my faith, and Mose needed sons to help on his farm.”
Ellen nodded. She’d heard this story more than once, how Dinah and Mose had married after only meeting twice, and how she’d left Ohio to come to Lancaster County with him. The marriage had lasted thirty-four years, and Dinah had given him four sons and three daughters. Most lived nearby, and any of her children would have welcomed Dinah into their home. But she liked her independence and chose to live alone here in the apartment in Honeysuckle, and earn a living helping with the craft shop.
“I was an orphan without land or dowry,” Dinah continued, fiddling with the doll’s black bonnet. “And few ever called me fair of face. But I was strong, and God had given me health and ambition. I knew that I could learn to love the man I married. Mose was no looker, either, but he owned fifty acres of rich ground and was a respected farrier. Together, with the help of neighbors, we built a house with our own hands and backs.”
“And were you happy?”
Dinah smiled, a little sadly. “Jah, we were very happy together. Mose was an able provider and he worked hard. Respect became friendship and then partnership, and...somewhere along the way, we fell in love.” She tapped the shelf with her hand. “So my point of this long story is that Mose didn’t come knocking on my door. Our marriage was more or less arranged.”
Ellen sighed and smoothed the denim blue napkins. “But it sounds so much like a business transaction—Simeon deciding that his sons need wives and then telling them who they should court. Me living next door, so I’m the nearest solution. If one of them wanted to walk out with me, why didn’t he say so, instead of waiting for their father to make the suggestion?”
Ellen sank onto a three-legged wooden stool carved and painted with a pattern of intertwined hearts and vines. She glanced around the room, thinking as she always did, how much she loved this old building. It had started life nearly two hundred years earlier as a private home and had been in turn a tavern, a general store, a bakery and now Beachey’s Craft Shop.
“Maybe you should have married when you had the chance.”
“I wasn’t ready,” she said. “And you know there were other reasons, things we couldn’t work out.”
“With Neziah, you mean?” Dinah passed.
Ellen nodded. She was as shocked by Simeon’s idea that she should consider Neziah again, as she was by the whole idea that he should tell her or his boys who they should marry.
“That was years ago, girl. You were hardly out of your teens, and as hardheaded as Neziah. Are you certain you’re not looking for someone that you’ve dreamed up in your head, a make-believe man instead of a flesh-and-blood one?” The sleigh bells over the front door jingled, indicating a visitor.
Ellen rose.
Dinah waved her away. “I’ll see to her. You finish up packaging those orders. Then you might put the kettle on. If it’s pondering you need, there’s nothing like a cup of tea to make the studying on it easier.”
“Maybe,” Ellen conceded.
Dinah shrugged. “One thing you can be glad of.”
“What’s that?”
“That old goat Simeon wasn’t asking to court you himself.” She rolled her eyes. “Thirty-odd years difference between you or not, he wouldn’t be the first old man looking for a fine young wife.”
“Dinah!” she admonished. “How could you say such a thing?”
Dinah chuckled. “I said it, but you can’t tell me you weren’t thinking it.”
“I suppose Simeon is a good catch, though a little too old for me.” Ellen glanced up, smiling mischievously. “Maybe you’re the one who should think about courting one of the Shetler bachelors.”
Dinah laughed as she walked away. “Maybe I should.”
That afternoon Ellen walked her scooter up the steep driveway to her house. “Start each day as you mean to go,” her father always said. And today surely proved that wisdom. She hadn’t reached the craft shop until past her usual hour that morning, and now she was late arriving home. She left the scooter in the shed in a place where the chickens wouldn’t roost on it, and hurried toward the kitchen door.
Ellen had left chicken potpie for supper. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the days that she closed the store at five, she and her parents usually had their main meal together when she got home. It was after six now, though. She hoped they hadn’t waited for her.
Ellen had been delayed because of a mix-up with the customer orders that Dinah had packed and mailed a week earlier. The reproduction spinning wheel that had been intended for Mrs. McIver in Maine had gone instead to Mrs. Chou in New Jersey. And the baby quilt in the log cabin pattern and an Amish baby doll Mrs. Chou had been expecting had gone to Mrs. McIver. Mrs. Chou had taken the mistake with good humor when Ellen had called her from the store’s phone. Mrs. McIver hadn’t been so understanding, but Ellen had been able to calm her by promising to have the spinning wheel shipped overnight as soon as she received it back from Mrs. Chou.
Dinah felt terrible about the mix-up; unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time she’d made a mistake shipping an order. Dinah was a lovely woman, but other than her charming way with tourists who came into the shop, her shopkeeper’s skills were not the best. After two years behind the counter, she still struggled running credit cards, the cash register continually gave her a fit and Ellen had given up trying to get her to make the bank deposits. But Dinah needed the income, and since the fire, it had been comforting to have someone living in the apartment upstairs. So, in spite of the disadvantages of having Dinah as an employee, Ellen and her father agreed to keep her as long as she was willing to work for them.
As Ellen climbed the back steps to her parents’ house, voices drifted through the screen door, alerting her that they had visitors. And since they were speaking in Deitsch, they had to be Amish. But who would be stopping by at suppertime?
Ellen walked into the kitchen to find Simeon Shetler, his two sons and his two grandsons seated around the big table. The evening meal was about to be served.
Ellen covered her surprise with a smile. “Simeon. Micah. Neziah. How nice to see you.” The table was set for eight, so clearly the Shetlers had been expected. Had her mother invited them for supper and forgotten to mention it? It was entirely possible; there were many things that slipped Mary Beachey’s mind these days.
Of course, there was the distinct possibility that plans to have dinner together had been made after her conversation with Simeon this morning. Ellen’s cheeks grew warm. Surely Micah and Neziah weren’t here to—
The brothers got to their feet as Ellen entered the kitchen, and she saw that they were both wearing white shirts and black vests and trousers, their go-to-worship attire—which meant that the visit was a formal one. For them, not their father. Simeon wore his customary blue work shirt and blue denim trousers.
It appeared that the two younger Shetler men had come courting.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything,