Abby Finds Her Calling (41 page)

The April sun warmed his face and the breeze tousled his hair. Matt breathed deeply. He smelled the “roast” made with chicken and stuffing, and the creamed celery that were about to be served for the noon feast… heard the bleating of his sheep grazing in the pasture… saw his grandmother Treva Lambright walking toward her glass greenhouse, where long tables had been set up for the traditional Old Amish wedding meal… and smiled. He saw many smiles on the faces of family and friends from here in Cedar Creek, Missouri, who had come from such far-flung places as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana.

His parents, Sam and Barbara Lambright, mingled among their many guests, looking happier than he’d seen them in a long while. Aunt Zanna was his dat’s youngest sister, and she had given them all quite a shock last fall when she walked away from marrying James Graber, their lifelong friend from across the road, because she was carrying Jonny Ropp’s baby. Now that little Harley had arrived and Jonny had joined the church and reconciled with his parents, all was well. Family ties among the Ropps had been restored, and that was what mattered most.

Matt chuckled as he noticed James breaking away from the crowd, loosening the collar of his white shirt as though he, too, couldn’t wait to get back into everyday clothing. Aunt Abby had made their new black trousers, vests, and white shirts, but—as perfectly as they fit—most fellows weren’t keen on wearing their collars fastened any longer than they had to. It was good to see James smiling and seeming to enjoy the wedding festivities, considering how Aunt Zanna had forsaken him.

“Well, Matt, you look all dressed and ready for a wedding yourself,” James teased. He nodded toward the identical twins, Martha and Mary Coblentz, in their blue newehocker dresses. “From what I could tell during the service,” he said in a low voice, “Martha was sitting mighty close to you, Matt, like she was figuring you’d ask her to sit with you at supper tonight or to take her home from a singing sometime soon.”

Matt let out a short laugh as he leaned against the pasture fence. “Any fellow who wants to get serious about Mary or Martha had better have a partner picked out for her twin, because one girl is never without the other. And see there how they’re talking a mile a minute at the same time?” he remarked, pointing in the Coblentz girls’ direction. “They’re never quiet except during church! All that chitchat could wear on a man’s ears—you know it?”

Still smiling, James gazed around the crowd again. “Well, Jonny Ropp’s sister, Becky, doesn’t have a fellow that I know of. There seem
to be plenty of unattached girls here from out of town, too, if none of the local ones suit you.”

Truth be told, during the wedding service Matt had been studying the single girls from his bench up front, because lately he’d been thinking he was ready to live somewhere other than his lifelong home, with someone other than his parents, his grandmother, and his three sisters. At twenty-two, with an established flock of sheep and some money in the bank, he was ready to move beyond rumspringa—his “running around” years—into a more satisfying life with a special someone… if only he could find her.

“And Emma was gawking at you all during the wedding,” James confided. “My sister doesn’t talk about marriage much, as busy as she is with our parents, but I suspect she’s sweet on you, Matt. Or, at least when she bakes brownies, more of them seem to end up on your side of the road than on our table at home.”

“Emma?” Matt shrugged, searching for a polite way to state his case. While he’d known James and Emma Graber all his life—and he knew she had brought him all those brownies, still warm from the oven, to win his affection—their parents were part of the reason Aunt Zanna hadn’t married James last fall. Merle Graber was getting awfully hard of hearing and forgetful, which provoked his wife, Eunice, to fuss at him in a screechy, irritating voice. “What with living across the road from her, and Emma’s being at our house so much while she and Aunt Abby were growing up,” he murmured, “she seems more like one of my sisters than a potential girlfriend—you know?”

“Jah, that can happen,” James murmured with a wry smile. “Sometimes we overlook someone who’s been standing right in front of us for years, even though the connection is obvious to other folks.”

And what did James mean by that? Matt was in too fine a mood to pursue such a deep topic on this wedding afternoon, so he searched for something else to talk about. “Would you look at that?” he said, gesturing toward the crowd beneath the trees. “Aunt
Zanna’s holding little Harley, swaying from side to side as though she’s rocked him all her life. Who ever thought she would take to raising a baby and making braided rugs? I didn’t see that coming at all.”

“Zanna’s a gut mother.” James nodded his approval, even if he looked a little wistful. “I wish her and Jonny all the best. It was God’s doing, the way they worked everything out, and I hope God will reveal His plan for
me
sometime, too.”

Matt sighed, wishing he would have picked a better topic to talk about. “I’m sorry I brought it up. This can’t be an easy day for you.”

“It’s all right, Matt. Everything’s happened the way it was supposed to,” James insisted as he turned toward the pasture. “Now that she and Jonny have tied the knot, I can move on, too, you see.”

As the two of them leaned on the wooden gate to look out over the pastures behind the farmhouse, James gestured toward the clusters of fluffy white ewes and lambs that dotted the rolling green hills. “Looks like you’ve done right well for yourself, Matt,” he said. “Something tells me you’re better at keeping a flock than you’d be at storekeeping. Or maybe your dat didn’t want you going in with him to run the mercantile.”

Matt acknowledged James’s candor with a grin: the Cedar Creek Mercantile had been in the Lambright family for generations, so most folks would have expected Sam Lambright to pass the business down to him, as the only son. “I never thought much about running the store,” he replied. “Abby has her Stitch in Time sewing shop up in the loft, so she helps Dat quite a lot—knows as much about the inventory and ordering as he does. And my sisters, Phoebe and Gail, have always been better at keeping the shelves straightened and making out the orders than I would ever be.”

He drank in the satisfying sight of his sheep on the lush hillsides. “You know how it is,” he continued in a thoughtful tone. “One business rarely brings in enough to pay for a large family. Just as there’s not enough income from your dat’s farm for you to support a wife and
children, we Lambrights can’t all be storekeepers. And it’s not like my dat has time to farm his land while he’s running the mercantile, so it’s a gut thing for all of us that I can raise sheep in the pastures and grow enough hay and grain to feed them and our horses, too.”

“Jah, you’ve got that right. I apprenticed right out of school with Pete Beachey to make carriages because I was a lot more interested in running the roads than I was in raising crops,” James said with a chuckle. “Then Pete retired. There’s always a need for buggies and wagons amongst the People, so I’m busy enough that it’s gut I’ve got Noah Coblentz as an apprentice now.” He gazed out over the rolling pastures, bright green with a fresh spring crop of grass. “It’s mighty pretty here, with all those redbud and dogwood trees blooming along the creek. Looks like you had a real gut crop of lambs, too. Lots of little ones standing beside their mamms.”

“Jah, the flock’s going strong.” Matt raised a hand to signal for his two border collies, Panda and Pearl. “Lois Yutzy was telling me that her husband’s brother, Titus, raises sheep over past Queen City and he might be looking to trade some breeding stock. He’s supposed to be here for the wedding today, but I haven’t had a chance to look for him.”

“You’ve got a big crowd here, for sure and for certain.” James leaned down to rumple the ears of the two black and white dogs that had raced up to them from the pasture. “And you two pups are dressed up just like the rest of us, ain’t so? Always in your Sunday black and white,” he teased.

Folks often complimented Matt’s border collies, which were not only well-disciplined flock dogs but also eager to be friends with anyone who would pat them and scratch behind their ears. “Pearl will sit there all day if you keep rubbing her neck that way,” Matt said as he watched the white-faced dog close her eyes in ecstasy.

When Panda stood at attention, Matt followed the dog’s intense gaze and spotted a toddler coming toward them. She wore no kapp, and was still young enough for her pale blond pigtails to be braided
and pulled back. Her airy white pinafore drifted above her pink dress with every determined step she took. The little girl was focused on the two dogs, grinning and saying, “Puppy! Puppy!” as she approached them.

“Panda is the puppy with the black rings around his eyes,” Matt said, smiling to encourage her, “and the one with the white head is Pearl.”

The little girl stopped. She studied Matt and James for a moment, her expression serious until Panda let out a little
woof
. When she giggled, Matt crouched down to her level.

“If you stand real still,” he told her, “Pearl and Panda will let you pet them. They love kids and they’ll be your gut friends.”

When the toddler put a finger in her mouth, Matt thought she was the most adorable child he’d ever seen. James stopped stroking Pearl so the dog could focus on their little visitor, and then both border collies took a few steps forward before sitting down, as though they understood that a child this young could be easily frightened or knocked over. The girl slowly extended a hand toward Pearl and then laughed in delight when the dog licked her fingers. Panda, not wanting to be left out, nuzzled her other hand.

“Where’s your mamm?” Matt asked softly, glancing toward the crowd of people who were now making their way toward his grandmother’s greenhouse for the wedding feast.

“Can’t say as I saw this little one during the church service,” James remarked as he, too, scanned the group of guests. “We have several kids here today. Maybe she and her parents are Ropp cousins who came from out East.”

The girl seemed unconcerned about her mamm and dat’s whereabouts. She was still running her fingers along the dogs’ silky faces and ears, her expression rapt as Panda and Pearl patiently allowed her to touch them.

Then Matt heard a woman cry out, “Katie!” as she broke through the crowd that was moseying toward the greenhouse. He stood up.
She was dressed all in black, from her kapp to her shoes, yet her melodic laughter and her wide-eyed, playful expression made his heart pound.

“Katie!” she exclaimed again as she broke into a run. “This game of hide-and-seek has gotten out of hand. I’ve been looking everywhere and— Oh, punkin, be careful around those strange dogs!”

“Panda and Pearl love little kids,” Matt assured her as he placed his hands on the dogs’ heads to steady them: they had been so engrossed in Katie’s attention, he didn’t want them barking and scaring the little girl as a reaction to her mother’s noisy approach. An impish grin lit Katie’s face and she tottered away as though she thought running from her mamm would be another fun game to play.

James scooped the escaping child into his arms, chuckling. “Jah, she’s been in gut company here,” he said. “No harm done. We wouldn’t have let her go into the pasture or down the lane, you see.”

The young woman opened her arms to take her child. “I can’t turn my back for two seconds or she runs off,” she explained breathlessly. “I was just talking to Aunt Lois and suddenly realized Katie was gone and—”

“Lois Yutzy?” Matt inquired. Now that she had come this close, the woman looked younger than her black clothing had led him to believe. She had smooth, flawless cheeks and eyes as green as the leaves on the trees that grew along Cedar Creek. Her sleek brown hair was pulled neatly away from a center part, tucked beneath her kapp, which seemed far too harsh for such a fresh complexion. She was surely too young to be a widow. “I’m Matt Lambright, by the way. Zanna’s nephew.”

“And I’m James Graber.”

“And I thank you for catching my little runaway. Katie’s a handful.” The young woman hugged her daughter, rocking her playfully as she planted loud, exaggerated kisses on her cheek. Katie giggled and wrapped her chubby arms around her mamm’s neck, happy to be where she belonged.

The sight of mother and child clutched at Matt’s heart, and he suddenly had a hard time making conversation. This woman must have been seated in the rear pews, back among the younger women attending the wedding service, because he hadn’t seen her before. If Lois Yutsy was indeed her aunt, she could be related to Lois’s brother—Titus was his name—who raised sheep in Queen City…

Lois and Ezra Yutzy had kin scattered all over northern Missouri, but Matt was sure he’d never laid eyes on her. He would have remembered her pretty face—no doubt about that.

“I—I didn’t catch your name,” Matt said.

She smiled shyly, her face half hidden by Katie’s pink dress and white pinafore. “It doesn’t matter,” she murmured. “I’m not from around here.” She turned then and strode quickly back toward the throng of folks heading into the greenhouse for the meal.

“But it does matter,” Matt murmured as he gazed after her. Why hadn’t she told him who she was? After the playful way she’d chased after Katie, he couldn’t believe she was standoffish or unfriendly. Was she shy about being around folks she didn’t know? Or modest because she was a widow?

“That was odd,” James remarked. “We’ll have to look around during dinner. From the corner table up on the dais, you’ll be able to see who she comes in with.”

Matt nodded as they began to walk toward the greenhouse. Through its big glass windows he could see the long tables draped in white where guests were taking their seats. He got a glimpse of the tall white wedding cake, too. But all he could think about was the young woman who had appeared so mysteriously to fetch her child without revealing who she was.

“Jah,” Matt murmured, “if Lois Yutzy’s her aunt, I’m going to find old Ezra straightaway… and ask him where he’s been hiding his niece all these years.”