Free Sisters of the Quilt Trilogy by Cindy Woodsmall Page A

to singings, Luke had taken several girls home. But Mary was the only one he’d ever truly courted, the only one he made a point of seeing at times other than during a ride home from the gathering. Now they ducked her parents’ eyes and went out every chance they got.
    Her decision to marry him would mean she was ready to give up her time of extra freedoms and submit to the Ordnung , the written and unwritten rules of the People. Luke never doubted that she would give up those things. He just wasn’t confident she was ready to do so now. If they planned to marry next fall, Mary would have to start going through instruction by springtime.
    He’d chosen to be baptized into the church a year and a half ago. According to the Ordnung , he could only marry a baptized member.
    Luke pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and gave the leather seats one last cleaning.
    Sometimes, after an evening of a cappella hymns, Mary liked to try her hand at driving the buggy. He considered himself a liberal man, and he enjoyed occasionally letting her take the reins. His father would scowl at a woman driving when a man was in the buggy, but Luke saw things differently. When Mary grasped the reins, her greenish blue eyes reflected both excitement and insecurity. She even talked to the horse to get it to behave. Luke never conceded whether he thought the horse understood her. But Mary was awfully cute working her way through her fears and making the horse do her bidding. As the only girl among the ten siblings, Mary’d had little opportunity to drive a buggy at home.
    After tucking the bandanna into his pocket, he climbed into the buggy and sat on the leather seat. He stared at the house and thought about Hannah. Something was wrong with her, seriously wrong. She hadn’t been the same since the night she had fallen nearly a month ago. She barely ate, talked, or worked. Daed had even allowed her to stay home from church since the incident and to get out of the work gathering at the Millers’ yesterday.
    Worse than all that, Hannah had no spunk lately. Why, she hadn’t baked him a cake or even fetched him some cool water when he was working in the fields. He flicked the reins and clicked his tongue. Wunnerlich . That’s what it was. Strange .

    Too tormented to do any more work and too anxious to sleep, Hannah lay on her bed, listening for the sound of a horse’s hoofs, while daylight still streamed in her window. She felt a little sorry she hadn’t gone to the singing with Luke. Some fun time with Mary might have helped Hannah’s sanity return. But she was still waiting to hear from Paul. Her chest ached with worry that when Sarah returned, she might not have a letter with her.
    Thoughts of the letter from Zabeth came and went. Asking her parents about it was not an option. When Hannah was very young, they’d made their position clear: if a topic was approachable, they’d bring it up during mealtime. If they didn’t bring it up, their children weren’t to do so. But what if her parents had lost the letter and then forgotten it? Hannah sighed. That was silly. People didn’t just forget such important—
    She bolted upright.
    Paul’s gift! The small leather book. Hannah rubbed her forehead, desperate for a moment of clarity. Where was it? When had she last seen it?
    Feeling dizzy, she sprinted down the stairs, grasping the handrail firmly. “Mamm?” She hurried through the living room and into the kitchen. “Mamm?”
    “In the laundry room.”
    Barely recognizing her mother’s scratchy and tired voice, Hannah came to an abrupt halt when she arrived at the doorway. Huge stacks of dirty clothes were shoved into a corner, covered with a sheet. Clean, wet clothes sat in a pile in the large galvanized tub. “Why are you doing laundry this close to nightfall?”
    Her mother turned and smiled. “Oh, Hannah, it’s good to see you downstairs again.” Mamm looked about the room. “We aren’t managing things very well without you.”