“No, you don’t,” Thomas said, and he picked up a wooden switch and flicked it at the bird. The rooster backed off for the moment.
“Why is he mad?” Rue asked, accepting another egg to put in the bucket.
“Because he’s a rooster,” Thomas said. “And he wants to keep the hens to himself. He’s a jealous, feathery little fiend.”
“He needs a hug, maybe,” Rue said.
Thomas looked down at her, bewildered. “Rue, never hug a chicken, okay? That rooster will hurt you. He doesn’t want a hug.”
Rue didn’t look convinced of that, and he sighed. When they gathered the last of the eggs, including three that had been laid on the top of a beam, Thomas nodded toward the door.
“All right, let’s go out now,” Thomas said.
“Goodbye, Toby...” Rue said softly, and Thomas pulled the door tight shut behind them. The bright sunlight shone off Rue’s blond head and she hopped along next to him as he carried the bucket of eggs back toward the house.
When they got inside, Thomas lifted Rue up so that she could reach the sink, and with one hand he helped her soap up her hands, while he held her under his other arm, like a calf. When she was clean, he washed his own hands, then they dried them and headed into the kitchen.
Patience sat at the table, a mound of fabric in her lap that she was clipping some stray threads from. She lifted it and shook it out, and he saw a small pink cape dress. His heart gave a grateful squeeze.
“I see you brought us eggs,” Mammi said with a smile.
“It’s a lot of eggs,” Rue said.
“We have a lot of baking to do,” Mammi replied. “Cakes, and buns and bread and pies...”
“Can we share some with Toby?” Rue asked.
Mary and Patience both looked toward Thomas questioningly.
“She named the rooster,” he said helplessly.
“That ratty, ugly, nasty rooster?” Mary asked with a shake of her head.
“His name is Toby, and I love him,” Rue declared. “Don’t call him those things! Call him pretty and sweet... Call him Toby!”
“Come with me into the other room, Rue,” Patience said. “I’m going to get you into your new dress and you can show your daet.”
Patience took Rue’s hand and they headed down the hallway together.
“I think Toby needs to be hugged...” Rue’s little voice was saying as they disappeared into the laundry room.
Thomas rubbed his hands over his face, then shook his head. “She’s so—”
“English?” Mary asked, but her tone was full of humor.
“Yah,” he said. “She’s English. To the bone, it would seem.”
“I thought we were going to eat that rooster,” Mary said.
“I’m not sure we can now,” Thomas replied. “She decided she loved it sight unseen. I have no idea why.”
Mary chuckled. “Welcome to being a daet, Thomas. Your whole world goes upside down. And kinner seldom make perfect sense. They are confusing little bundles of personality and willfulness. Gott grows us more through parenting than He does through anything else.”
“Yah...” Thomas had heard the same thing repeated over and over again, but he was getting a firsthand view of exactly how true it was.
From the other room, he could hear Patience’s soft tones... It was different having her here—but it was different having Rue here, too. Suddenly this house full of bachelors had more female presence to even them out. But he found himself straining to hear one particular voice—the soft, reassuring tones of their schoolteacher.
Rue emerged into the kitchen again first, clad in that small pink dress that fit her perfectly. Her feet were bare, and her hair was tangled, and she looked up at Thomas irritably.
“Very nice,” Thomas said with a smile. “You look like an Amish girl now.”
“I’m not an Amish girl,” Rue replied.
Patience came up behind her, holding Rue’s folded sundress. Patience looked as cool and neat as a spring morning, except for one tendril of honey-blond hair that had come loose from her kapp and fell down the side of her face. There was something soothing about their new schoolteacher. She calmed him, at least.
“Will it do?” Patience asked.
“It’ll more than do,” Thomas said. “It’s perfect.”
Patience smiled at that, her own blue gaze meeting his for just a moment, before she seemed to feel the hair against her face and she tucked it back up under her kapp. Then she turned toward the table with the scraps of cloth, bits of thread and the open sewing box and started to clean up. Thomas’s gaze moved back to his little girl.
“Thank you for this, Patience,” he said quietly.
“Yah. You’re welcome. It’s no trouble,” she replied. “I’ll make another one tomorrow.”
But it wasn’t about the trouble, it was about the transformation. If this little wildcat could be made to look Amish, then it was a step in the right direction. Because while he couldn’t help the start she’d had in life, he could try to make up for it now.
Could he raise his daughter to become like this—an Amish woman who loved this life? Could he give his daughter a community, a place to belong and work that made her happy?
Maybe... But when he looked over at his daughter, she was looking down at her dress balefully.
“She looks very proper,” Thomas said. Not happy, but at least she looked Amish.
“I think she looks like you, Thomas,” Patience said, and then she moved past him toward the cloth scrap bag.
Hopefully that wasn’t a comment on his expression, because Rue looked about as sweet as that rooster outside right now. Rue needed more than genetics to help her settle in. She needed a new mother, and some brothers and sisters to nail her down. Because her link to her daet, as well-intentioned as he was, wouldn’t be nearly enough.
Chapter Five
The next day, Patience worked on a second dress for Rue
