“How many of your girls will be in school this year?” Patience asked.
Rue leaned against Patience’s side, and she smoothed a hand over the girl’s head.
“Three,” Susan replied. “This here is Bethany—she’s in seventh grade this year. She’s got baby Leora. And Rose is in the fourth grade. Dinah is just starting grade one.”
Dinah and Rose were the girls who had been weeding, and Dinah, the smaller of the two, wiped a stray tendril of auburn hair away from her face, leaving a streak of dirt behind.
“And let me see...” Susan turned to spy her fifth daughter munching on a muffin by the counter. “That is our little Ellen. She’s only five, so she starts school next year.”
Patience smiled at the girls. “I’m glad to meet you. This is Rue. She’s four.”
“Bethany, let me take the baby,” Susan said. “And you take Rue upstairs. Get those dresses from the back of the closet—the ones Dinah outgrew...”
Susan set about giving instructions to her girls, and Bethany took Rue’s hand and led her upstairs. The other girls followed, chattering away to Rue in German. Rue wouldn’t understand, but they’d figure that out eventually.
“Could you hold the baby for me?” Susan asked. “I’m going to get us some pie.”
Patience took the chubby baby girl with a smile, and overhead was the sound of laughter and giggling.
“Now that the kinner are out of the way, who is this little girl—Rue, you call her?” Susan asked.
Patience pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down, settling the baby on her lap. “He’s Thomas’s daughter, as he said. You’d know Thomas’s family better than I do—”
“His mamm—Rachel—she left us,” Susan said. “We know that, but she always was a little different. I’d heard that they’d converted in another community, then moved here. But you could tell—there was just something about them... They spoke English too well, for one. And their German was terrible. After Rachel left, Thomas left, too, for a while, then came back and got baptized. We had no idea there was an Englisher child.”
“Yes, well...” It wasn’t Patience’s place to talk about anything that personal. “She’s a sweet little girl. Her mamm died in a car accident, and she’s doing her best. But she’s a fish out of water out here. She’s still adjusting to our ways.”
Susan nodded sympathetically. “I’m sure she is. But she doesn’t speak German?”
“No,” Patience replied. “Not a word. Yet, at least. I’m sure her daet will teach her.”
“And she’s...wild and willful?” Susan pressed.
Patience knew what Susan was getting at. It was how they all seemed to see the Englisher kinner. And while Rue was Patience’s first Englisher child to get to know, she could already see that their assumptions weren’t completely true, either.
“She’s a little girl with a broken heart,” Patience said simply.
“Yah, of course.” Susan came to the table with two plates of shoofly pie. “I’m just...surprised by all of it. It’s a lot to take in. So... What about you, then? Where do you come from?”
“Beaufort,” Patience replied.
“And single, it seems?” Susan raised her eyebrows.
Patience laughed at that. “Yah. Very single.”
“We’ll see what we can do about that...” She took her baby back into her lap, then pressed a kiss against her head.
It wouldn’t be any use setting her up, though. It wasn’t that men her age weren’t interested in her upon first sight, but she couldn’t offer the family an Amish man yearned for. She wouldn’t explain this to Susan Smoker, though. The woman meant well, but Patience would have to find another way to live her life...focus on the ways she could contribute to her community. Teaching school was a valid option.
“Mamm!” Dinah appeared at the top of the stairs. “This girl only speaks English!”
“Yah,” Susan replied. “I know. See what clothes fit her, all the same.”
“And she wants to know where our TV is!” Dinah added.
Patience felt her own cheeks heat at that. “She’s still adjusting to our ways. She needs some time.”
“And some scripture, it would seem,” Susan said. “Was she raised believing in Gott?”
“I’m not sure,” Patience admitted.
“And she says—” Dinah started.
“Enough, Dinah!” Susan said. “Find her clothes, then come back down.”
“Yes, Mamm.” Dinah disappeared again.
Susan stared up at the staircase for a moment, then turned back to Patience with a tight smile.
“I hope this doesn’t reflect badly on our community as a whole,” Susan said. “We’re actually a very respectable bunch.”
Patience didn’t know how to answer that, except, this situation wasn’t quite so cut-and-dried. Thomas was going through a lot more struggle than they were giving him credit for—all of which he’d confided in her, and she couldn’t break his trust. Thomas had quickly become more than just a neighbor, she realized in a rush. He was truly a friend.
“Thomas thought you’d be a good influence,” Patience said, lowering her voice. “He needs support—he needs a way to raise her, and that involves a whole community. He sees your kinner, and he wants to do the same for his little girl.”
“Either we’ll be a good influence, or that child will be a bad one,” Susan said bluntly. “One or the other.”
Patience fell silent, and the girls came back down the stairs, bare feet slapping against wooden floorboards. Their hair was all wild, all except Bethany’s, who carried herself like a small adult already, with three dresses in her arms and a pair of girls’ running shoes. Susan brightened at the sight of them.
“That’s wonderful. That should get you started, Rue,” Susan said in English.
“Daddy will give me my clothes back after I’m good,” Rue said.
Susan looked over at Patience questioningly, and Patience felt her heart tug toward the little girl. After she was good... Did that mean she thought she was currently bad?
“Thomas took her Englisher clothes,” Patience explained. Thomas had meant well, but he’d been wrong there.
“Not forever!” Rue insisted. “He said he’s going to give them back, after I’m good for a bit. So I have to be good.”
“I don’t think they’re coming back,” Susan said in German.
Rue’s
