Free Abram's Daughters 02 The Betrayal by Unknown Page A

Mary Ruth," Dottie greeted her at the front door.
    "Hullo," she replied. Stepping into the thoroughly modern front room, Mary Ruth felt such gladness to be here again. She had an uncanny connection to the larger world here. It was just as some of her older girlfriends had described their first visit to downtown Lancaster that unspeakable, somewhat delirious feeling of rumschpringe being allowed to experience something other than the society of the People . . . truly the only thing she knew.
    After she was offered a glass of lemonade, freshly squeezed just like Mamma's, Mary Ruth agreed to sweep and scrub both85
    the entry hall and the kitchen floors. "I'll even get down on nil fours like Mamma does at home," she told Dottie.
    Her employer appeared somewhat surprised, eyebrows arching as she smiled. "I can see I'm going to become very spoiled with you around, Mary Ruth."
    So she took extra care to reach far into all the corners and crevices, washing the floor by hand. When that chore was complete, she dusted the front room. Carefully removing knickknacks and magazines from the sofa tables, she hummed, enjoying herself far more than she'd ever dreamed possible In a worldly home, of all things. Except she'd seen an open Bible in both the kitchen and now here, on what Dottie culled the "coffee table." Interesting, to be sure.
    Moving upstairs, she couldn't help but think of the extra mi >ney she was going to earn. What a good idea to put it away Inr future schooling needs. Dat would have a fit when he put I wt > and two together and discovered what she was saving up for. Yet it wasn't as if she had sought out this work. The whole thing had fallen into her lap, thanks to Aunt Lizzie.
    Hannah, on the other hand, had appeared startled about this opportunity. "How will ya keep up with your homework once school starts?" she had asked Mary Ruth in the privacy i >l I heir bedroom last night.
    "Dottie Nolt wants me only two or three times a week. That's all."
    "Twice oughta keep the house clean enough, seems to me," Hannah replied.
    "Maybe so, but I want to please my first employer. I'll still have plenty of time to help Mamma at home."
    So, after talking it over with Mamma, Mary Ruth agreed
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    that if the job interfered with schoolwork, she'd ask Sadie to fill in for a while. But she doubted that would work, what with Sadie seeming to recoil at the sight of her own baby sister. Mary Ruth truly wondered about that.
    just now, going into the darling nursery, she stopped to admire a framed wall painting above the dresser a small boy with suntanned legs making chase after a lone orange-brown butterfly that appeared to be just out of reach. She'd seen bright-colored butterflies like that many times in the high meadow over near Blackbird Pond, out behind smithy Peachey's bank barn and blacksmith shop.
    The painting made her smile, and she set to work dusting the dresser thoroughly before moving on to the oak rocker, cleaning the rungs beneath. A peek at the empty crib let her know baby Carl was either cradled in his new mother's arms or tucked away for a nap in the wicker bassinet near the kitchen. Such a wondrous thing, these folk opening their home and their joyful hearts to an orphaned baby.
    Eager to complete her housekeeping chores in an acceptable manner, Mary Ruth attended to every detail. When the rocking chair was polished, she moved to the round lamp table nearby. To her surprise, there on the table lay yet another open Bible, same as the two downstairs. She saw that a verse from the Psalms was underlined in red As the hartpanteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
    Why so many copies of the Good Book in the house? she wondered. Was Dottie a follower of the Jehovah Lord? Were there Englishers who were also devout like the People? For sure and for certain, the idea of an open Bible in every room and in a fancy home was ever so curious.
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    Distracted and restless, Abram worked up a