Free Summer Promise by Marianne Ellis Page A

she allowed many to take hold. She tended garden too well for that.
    Feeling better now that she had a definite purpose, Miriam closed up the farm stand and locked the back door behind her. She could see Sarah, a ways down the drive. She was pacing back and forth, speaking animatedly into the cell phone.
    That looks serious,
Miriam thought. Could there be trouble at Sarah’s job?
I don’t even really know what it is she does,
Miriam realized.
    Sarah was right. She
did
seem like a stranger.
    Is that what we feel like to her?
Miriam wondered. But what she really wanted to know was . . . did Daniel feel that way about Sarah?
    This was a possibility that Miriam had never considered before. The Sarah who was here, today, no longer matched the Sarah of Miriam’s memory, the one she conjured up in her mind’s eye. Did Daniel feel this way as well? If he did, would it bring him closer to Miriam, who was so close and so familiar? Or would the new Sarah seem even more interesting? Next to Sarah, would Miriam seem drab and dull?
    Suddenly, the sky seemed to darken as Miriam walked to her empty house alone.

Six

    M iriam was halfway to her house when she saw a small figure dashing toward her.
    â€œMiriam! Miriam!” an exuberant voice called.
    It was Daniel’s youngest brother, ten-year-old Matthew, pelting down the drive as fast as his bare feet could carry him. Unless Miriam missed her guess, he had run all the way from the Brennemann farm. Though both the Lapp and Brennemann farms had many acres to their names, the farmhouses had been set so as to be reasonably close together, the country equivalent of side by side. Family members could get from one farmhouse to the other by cutting across a great open meadow. There was no need to go all the way to the main road. But, like the farm stand and the Lapp farmhouse, the Lapp and Brennemann farmhouses were hidden from each other by the gently rolling hills that dominated the countryside.
    Miriam didn’t think she had ever met a boy who loved to run as much as Matthew Brennemann did. His mother, Amelia, always claimed it was because he was doing his best to catch up to his four older brothers. Considering that the twins, Jonas and Joshua, the next closest in age, were seventeen, Miriam didn’t think Matthew was going to slow down anytime soon.
    â€œHello, Matthew,” she said with a smile. She stopped walking, standing still in the center of the drive while Matthew ran a great circle around her. “Are you well?” she asked. “Is everything all right at the farm?”
    â€œ
Ja
,” Matthew panted.
    He completed one more circuit then skidded to a stop in front of Miriam, his chest rising and falling with his quick breaths in and out. He looked like he belonged on one of the postcards the
Englischers
were always asking to buy, Miriam thought. Matthew’s hair was as pale as corn silk. A smattering of freckles raced across his nose and cheekbones. In his dark pants, sky blue shirt, and dark suspenders, he was the perfect image of a Plain child.
    â€œMamm asks, will you and your sister please come to supper,” Matthew went on. “She’s making chicken and dumplings. They’re Daniel’s favorite, and mine, too, so you should say yes.”
    â€œOf course I will say yes,” Miriam replied with a smile. “And I’ll tell you a secret: Chicken and dumplings are my favorites, too.”
    â€œHooray!” Matthew shouted. As if her acceptance had been the secret signal for the start of the next race, Matthew began to run once more. He shot past Miriam, arms outstretched like airplane wings. He made a wide, banking turn before heading back across the fields toward home. “I will tell Mamm,” he called over his shoulder as he went by. “Don’t be late or all the dumplings will be gone!”
    â€œI will not be late,” Miriam called back.
    She turned and began to walk home briskly,