Free Rebecca's Choice by Jerry S. Eicher Page A

buggy came up the driveway.
    John rolled up the house plans. “I’ll take these upstairs. Be right back.”
    When he came back down, he found her seated on the couch in conversation with Isaac and Miriam. A few minutes later, he suggested they take a walk outside, an idea Rebecca agreed to easily. They stood to leave, and in the moment when Rebecca’s back was turned, John shook his head and mouthed the words, There’s nothing to it, in Isaac and Miriam’s direction. Their relieved smiles were a comfort to him.
    The warmth of the day was just enough to make the walk enjoyable. They walked across the pasture, as far as Isaac’s land went. The few beef cattle his father kept were in the other end of the field.
    At the barbed wire fence, John was tempted to cross it and try to get close enough to where they could see his place but decided against it. He had Rebecca with him.
    “You can see the place from the other hill,” he said. “Don’t think we’d better try crossing fences in our Sunday clothing.” John paused by the fence, his eyes gazing across the fields to a place where his house sat. He took her hand. A meadowlark lighted on a post two links down, and burst into song.
    “It’s special for us,” Rebecca said, and her eyes shone. “To the spring. To our future.”
    His fingers tightened on hers. He simply nodded, too full of emotion to dare say anything.

C HAPTER T EN
     

     
    R achel’s answer arrived on Monday with the mailman. It was justice done, she figured, since no one listened to her. Her pleas on Friday night at Ezra’s place had fallen on deaf ears. She might as well have talked to a fence post, she thought, as to her three brothers.
    Ezra had shown some interest, but Abe and Jonas laughed at her suggestions. Emma probably didn’t even have a will, they said, and if she did they really didn’t care. That Abe and Jonas were serious was enough of a shock to Rachel, but their refusal to even think of further research was the final insult.
    “Money,” Abe had said, with a dismissive wave of his hand, “it got no one any good. No day. Anyway.” Abe said that he really didn’t want to know what Emma had done. Now that she was gone, it was none of his concern.
    Rachel could see Reuben, seated beside her, nod his head in agreement. Such a reaction was what she expected out of him. It was Abe and Jonas who should have known better. They had been raised differently.
    She had told them they needed to find out what was in Emma’s will before they left for Missouri. There certainly had to be one, she assured them. They didn’t ask, and she omitted any reference as to how she might know this.
    Jonas joined in, making the point that their last expectations hadn’t turned out the best. Their father had left them with little of the inheritance they had waited for. It seemed to him, Jonas said, as if Da Hah just wanted them to forget the whole thing.
    “We got our hopes up so high last time,” he said. “We waited around for that money. I’m almost embarrassed to think of it now. It was a shame how money hungry we were. How we forgot much of our faith and all the church has taught us.”
    Reuben nodded steadily beside her, and Rachel’s temper flared. “It was our right,” she declared. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves—all of you—that you forgot that. It’s high time you acted like your father’s sons instead of a bunch of little whipped puppies, hiding away in dirt-poor Missouri. You know you could all use the money.”
    “She’s telling you good,” Ezra roared in laughter, but Rachel knew it was at her expense.
    “It’s time someone did,” Rachel retorted, but beside her Reuben didn’t nod anymore.
    “What’s your deacon of a husband think?” Abe asked. He rolled his eyes at Reuben.
    It was obvious to Rachel that Abe as well as the rest of them knew good and well what Reuben thought and just made fun of her.
    “I’m the Miller—not him,” she said, as if that was