With another cackle, Vernon said, “There’s always Ada the Cow. She’d be happy to date you no matter what you did.”
Amos joined in Vernon’s joke. “She’s that desperate, isn’t she? I might just do that.”
“That’s cruel,” Matthias said. “Ada isn’t anything like that.”
“You don’t think so?” Amos grinned. “Then why does she bring in special cookies for us? You’ve seen her stumbling over her own big feet, that sappy smile on her face.”
Matthias’s heart pounded. “Maybe she’s just trying to be nice.”
“Nice?” Amos drained his cup and threw it in the trash. “Maybe I’ll ask her on a date. Just for a lark before Susie comes home. She would say yes so fast that you would think I offered her a pile of gold.”
Leroy came in the door that led to the driveway, stomping snow off his feet. “Good morning, boys. Are we ready to get to work? We have deliveries to make today, and we got several new orders over the weekend to start on.”
As Amos stood, he leaned close to Matthias. “I’m right about Ada. If I get around to asking her out, she’ll jump at the chance.”
Leroy walked over and handed a sheaf of papers to Amos. “Here are the deliveries. One of them is the clock with the stained-glass cardinals, so be careful handling that one. I don’t want it broken.” He turned to Matthias. “Amos and Vernon can handle the deliveries. I want you to start on the orders. How are you doing on the table you’ve been working on?”
Matthias led him over to his workbench and showed him the progress he had made on Saturday. “They are all shaped, and I started sanding them this morning.”
Picking up one of the legs, Leroy looked closely at the curved shape and the inlay. “That’s fine work. I hate to interrupt your progress, but these new orders need to be done in time for Christmas, and that’s only a little more than a week away. I have them in my office.”
By the time Leroy had gone over the new orders, Matthias knew his time would be filled. There were several orders for the Lazy Susans folks liked to use in the center of their dining tables. There were also a few requests for what Leroy called “TV trays,” although Matthias had no idea why someone would want a special tray for their television.
“You’ll have to ask Rose or Ada to show you the sample we have in the showroom,” Leroy said. “We try to keep several on hand, but they all sold on Saturday. The display sample is the last one left.”
Matthias went into the store first, glad for an opportunity to warn Ada about Amos’s idea to ask her out. As he walked down the short hallway, he tried to figure out how to approach the subject. How did you tell someone that if the guy did ask her out, it was only to prove how desperate he thought she was?
Ada was at the bakery display, filling the trays with cookies.
“Any broken cookies today?” He grinned, feeling a little foolish. He always felt foolish when he didn’t know what to say.
She gave him one of her beautiful smiles. “For sure.” She picked up a frosted sugar cookie shaped like a wreath and handed it to him. “It isn’t broken, but it’s a bit crooked. It turned out as an oval instead of a circle.”
He took a bite of the cookie, delaying what he had to say as long as possible.
“Leroy sent me in to look at something he called a TV tray. Do you know what he means?”
“We have one in the showroom. I’ll show it to you as soon as I’m done here.”
Ada finished filling the cookie tray, then led the way through the opening to the other building. Furniture filled the space, separated into different sections. She walked past the dining tables and hutches to an area filled with desks, chairs, and smaller tables for use in a living room.
“This is it,” she said, stopping at a little table shaped like the letter C. “It’s for folks to use while they’re sitting in a recliner or other living room chair. The base slides under the edge of the chair so that the top can be over their lap.” She carried it to a mission-style chair and ottoman. “Try it out.”
Matthias sat in the chair and Ada pushed the little table close. He ran his hand over the top. It was small. Hardly bigger than a magazine or newspaper.
“What do you put on it? You couldn’t work on it or use it to put a puzzle together.”
Ada giggled. “Englischers like to eat while they watch television. They say the tables are perfect to hold their cup of coffee or a plate.”
Matthias got up from the chair and picked the little thing up. Leroy had handed him order sheets for eight of these, but as he looked at the simple construction, he knew he could easily make twenty by next Saturday while working on his other projects at the same time.
From the far end of the building, he could hear Rose humming a tune. If he was going to talk to Ada about Amos, he needed to do it now.
He cleared his throat. “Can I take this sample back to the workshop?”
Ada nodded. “You’ll need it for a pattern.”
“Leroy gave me the plans with all the measurements, but I want to make sure I put it together correctly.”
He glanced toward the end of the showroom where Rose was dusting bedroom sets. “I need to tell you something about Amos.”
Ada turned pink. “What about him? He isn’t still sick, is he?”
Matthias shook his head. “He told me he might ask you out, but—” He stopped speaking. Ada’s face was a mixture of pain and happiness, and the pink had turned to bright red.
“When?” Her breath came in gasps. “Did he say when?”
“Soon. But, Ada, don’t go out with
