Free The Rebel by Marta Perry Page B

took a deep breath. “I’m all right. Let’s go back in.”
    Mamm gave her a searching look. She seemed satisfied with what she saw, because she nodded. Together they went back to the quilting frame.
    Maybe Lovina had said something to the others while she’d been in the kitchen. In any event, the talk had left the subject of babies and turned to chatter about the community’s young people. That was an endless source of fascination as each rumspringa group began making the first tentative steps toward matching up with each other.
    Everyone had something to contribute, whether it was a rumor about who had taken whom home after a singing or who had coaxed his parents into a new courting buggy.
    â€œAll I can say is,” Lovina declared, “that some of those boys are more interested in buying a new buggy than in doing the courting that’s supposed to come with it.”
    â€œAch, don’t tell me that,” Mamm chided. “Didn’t your Sam talk his folks into a new buggy when the two of you started courting? And weren’t you pleased as could be to sit up beside him in that new rig?”
    Even Lovina chuckled at that, though her cheeks were pink.
    â€œWhy is it men are so fascinated by a new piece of equipment or a vehicle?” Elizabeth managed to sound normal. “If somebody gets a new cultivator, half the men in the church district will make an excuse to stop by so they can look at it.”
    â€œAnd the time they spend over a piece of equipment,” Jessie said. “You’d think it was the prettiest thing in the world instead of a farm tool.”
    Anna nudged her. “Not like us, when you came over to see the fabric I got when I went to that big new fabric store over toward Lancaster.”
    A ripple of laughter circled the quilting frame—the sound of women working together, laughing over the differences between the sexes just like women had been doing for countless generations. Elizabeth’s gaze swept from face to face, her love welling up. This had to be the best part of the day—to be here in her sister’s familiar front room, surrounded by the women who had been part of her life since before she was born.
    â€œWell, whatever you say, I still think men get excited about the silliest things,” Jessie said. “My Eli came home from the mill all upset because there’s talk again about the state building a big highway right across the county.”
    â€œIf it took some of the cars off the roads we use, that might be a gut thing,” Anna said. “Somebody near sideswiped our buggy on the way home from worship last week.”
    â€œEli says it would split the community in half,” Jessie said. “I didn’t understand it all, but it seems like we wouldn’t be able to get across the new road with horse and buggy. Imagine having to go miles out of your way to get to worship.”
    â€œAch, it will probably come to nothing in the end,” Lovinasaid. “That’s the way with a lot of the fancy plans the government makes.”
    â€œWell, and if they do, we’ll adjust.” Mamm’s voice was calm. “We always do, no matter how the Englisch world changes.”
    They all nodded, but Anna looked troubled. “Seems to me there’s more to be worried about with the farmland it would eat up. Like all those building projects. Progress, they call it, putting up houses and stores right on land that should be growing food to feed people.”
    Jessie nodded. “Eli says that, too. Eli says that if the price of farmland keeps going up the way it is, we might not be able to buy farms for our kinder when they’re grown.”
    Jessie was prone to quote Eli on any and every subject, as if he were the wisest man she knew. Elizabeth saw her sisters exchange glances and knew they were thinking the same thing she was—how did Eli get to be such an expert?
    â€œAch, I’m sure