too.”
“They’re not mine. They’re John’s. You can have one if you want.”
“Hey, you finally back?”
Sam turned to see John, still dressed in his t-shirt and pajama bottoms, leaning against the kitchen doorway. He yawned then rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Did you bring back food?”
“Do you think you deserve to eat it when you didn’t help?”
“I wasn’t feeling good.” His voice held a bit of a whine. He muttered a curse word as he banged his toe on a chair in the small kitchen.
Sam grabbed a soft drink for Peter and himself and slammed the door on the refrigerator. “Yeah, well, maybe next time you could party less on Friday night and help out on Saturday. I’m not making excuses for you again. And watch your language.”
He turned to Peter. “Let’s sit at the dining room table and go over the proposal.”
They settled at the small dinette table off the living room, and Peter spread out the papers he carried. “So, was Mary Elizabeth there at the farm today?”
“Yes, how’d you know?”
Peter popped the top on his soft drink. “I didn’t know for schur. I just remembered that you’d told me she’s there on Saturdays helping her sister while you help your bruder with the farm.”
“Yes, she was there today.”
Peter tapped his pencil on the table and regarded him thoughtfully. “If Leah hires us for the work it’s possible you’re going to come into contact with Mary Elizabeth even more. How are you going to feel about that?”
* * *
“Thanks for letting me come along today,” Rose Anna told Kate when she climbed into the back seat of her car the next day.
“You’re always welcome,” Kate told her. “The more the merrier.”
“Mary Elizabeth told me I’m never to tell anyone where the shelter’s located. So I won’t of course.”
“Thank you.”
Mary Elizabeth climbed into the front passenger seat and set the shopping bag she carried on the floor of the car. “Mamm said I could donate some of the quilting magazines we get. There are patterns in some of them for Christmas crafts.”
“Terrific! That’ll help a lot.” She glanced at Mary Elizabeth. “So how are the renovations going on Leah’s new shop?”
“She had Sam and Peter there the other day getting some measurements. I’m not sure when the work will start. She does seem to want to use them.”
“Not surprised. Sam built some bookcases for us. He did great work. Malcolm is a wonderful husband, but he’s not the best around the house. Last time he tried to put a new seat on the toilet he broke the toilet. Said the hinge wasn’t opening so he tapped it. With a metal hammer.”
Mary Elizabeth winced. “So he broke the plastic seat?”
“He cracked the base of the toilet. Do you know what a plumber charges to come out on the weekend?”
She tried not to laugh. “No, my daed is pretty handy.”
“I’d have teased him more, but I could see it embarrassed him. Men think they’re supposed to be good at stuff around the house.” She glanced at Mary Elizabeth as she turned into the driveway of the shelter. “It’s a guy thing.”
They were early, but as Mary Elizabeth climbed the stairs to the sewing room she could hear sewing machines whirring.
They walked in on a beehive of activity. Women sat at every machine, sewing. Others were cutting material at a table that had been set up. Several of the children sat coloring at a little table set someone had placed in the corner.
“Well, I see we have a lot of early birds,” Kate said, pausing just inside the room to grin.
“We’re all so excited to be sewing up things for Leah’s new shop,” Edna Mae said. “I’m making up some potholders out of the quilt blocks we’ve been doing.”
Mary Elizabeth went to an empty table, took the quilting magazines out of the shopping bag, and spread them out. “Kate, when you get a minute, look through some of these. I was thinking some of these holiday table runners would be quick to sew and sell for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They could be more affordable for shoppers than a quilt, too.”
Kate set her purse and tote bag down and walked over to flip through some of the magazines. “I think that’s a great idea. Ladies, could I have your attention for a moment?” She waited until the machines stopped and all eyes turned to her. “Mary Elizabeth brought quilting magazines in today. They have patterns for some things some of you might want to sew for Leah’s shop.”
Then she laughed as she had to move quickly out of the way when several of the women jumped up and rushed over to pick up a magazine and take it back to their seats.
“I thought this issue was a good one,” Mary Elizabeth said, flipping pages. “See, this fabric is a panel with holiday images and inspirational sayings about believing in hope and dreams and harmony and family and giving. Then you add some simple quilt blocks around it and you have a pretty wall hanging. You can also divide up the panels into smaller sections, make some small wall hangings.”
“We should order some of those fabric panels,” Kate said thoughtfully. “Let me go back to my friends who’ve donated money to the quilting class and I’ll see what I can get us.”
“We might have some more fabric we can donate.”
“And Leah said she’ll see what she can contribute. I think we’ll be fine.”
“You know what they say about quilters,” Mary Elizabeth said with a grin. “We can make a lot out of scraps.”
Kate rolled her eyes and groaned. “I can’t believe you said that.” She stared at Mary Elizabeth, looking serious. “Are you going to be okay going to Leah’s when Sam’s working there? I heard she’s hiring Sam and Peter to renovate the shop.”
“Wow, word gets around faster than the Amish grapevine. I hadn’t heard it was definite. They were doing up an estimate for her.”
“Leah and I talked last night.”
Mary Elizabeth shrugged and walked over to where she’d set her purse and tote bag down on a table.
“I don’t expect to see him that often. Besides, I bump into him sometimes at Lavina’s house. You have to expect such when you live in a small community.”
But she hadn’t seen so much of Sam in a long time . . . that is, until his bruder David had married Lavina and David’s bruders came to help with planting.
She was saved from more questions when Kate was called over to help one of the women with a problem with her sewing machine.
Rose Anna walked around seeming to enjoy what was going on—especially when she saw Ellie sewing on another little quilt for her doll. She crouched down and talked with the girl about her quilt for a few minutes before getting up and wandering around to admire the women working on their individual projects.
Mary Elizabeth did her own walking around to see if anyone needed help and then settled down into a chair at the front of the room next to Kate. She pulled a quilt she was working on from her tote and began sewing, but she found it hard to concentrate. She set the quilt down and just stared at the women sewing.
“Something wrong?”
She turned to Kate. “No, something’s right. Things are so different from the time I first came here. Some of the women looked depressed, nervous. Had bruises on their faces. The kids looked scared. Now everyone looks so happy, and the kids have lost that scared look.”
“Leah has them excited