First Light in Morning Star Read online

  “Jah, my girls are, too,” Preacher Clarence put in with a nod. He gazed at her in that stern, purposeful way he had as he phrased his next remark. “I think, after having Teacher Elam all their lives, my Lucy and Linda are looking forward to a change. If you take up teaching, however, I’m wondering if you’ll need to quit managing the finances at The Marketplace. What are your thoughts on that?”

  Lydianne had anticipated this question, because the Amish shops she and her maidel friends had organized last May had become hugely successful since they’d opened on the first of June, and business showed no sign of slowing down as summer came to an end. “I don’t run a shop, and The Marketplace is only open on Saturdays,” she reminded him. “My accounting duties are very flexible, schedule-wise, so I don’t expect them to interfere with my teaching. If they do, however, I’ll turn the bookkeeping over to Jo Fussner, who’s the other main manager.

  “My scholars will always come first,” she added emphatically. “I realize that because this is my first year of teaching, I’ll need time to prepare lessons, create class projects, and maintain the classroom. I have no qualms at all about giving up my responsibilities at the new shops, if I need to.”

  As the other men nodded, Glenn Detweiler, who ran a woodworking shop at The Marketplace—and who’d lost his wife over the summer—came out of the silent isolation that had enveloped him of late. “We have no other applicants, so I think we should offer Lydianne the position,” he blurted. “Gutness knows my Billy Jay needs a caring, compassionate woman in his life. He’s been lost without his mamm.”

  Lydianne was startled by Glenn’s wistful remark—and so were the men seated around her. Martin’s flummoxed expression suggested that Glenn had eclipsed the school board’s prearranged plan for the interview by saying outright that they should offer her the job. He glanced around the circle of men and then gazed at Lydianne.

  “If you’ll step outside for a moment, we’ll discuss Glenn’s suggestion,” Martin said diplomatically. “But if there are any other questions—or if you have questions for us—we’ll address those first, of course.”

  Lydianne rose immediately, not wanting to distract the board with questions just for the sake of asking something. Except for differences in their personalities, Amish teachers had been conducting classes the same way for decades—and even the textbooks hadn’t changed from one generation to the next. The men watched her go, as though they had no further need to hear her philosophies on education or her plans for handling situations in the classroom.

  As she stepped outside and off the front stoop, she welcomed the breeze and the chance to collect her thoughts. Had anyone else interpreted Glenn’s remark as a bid for Lydianne’s personal attention . . . a hint that he might consider her as much of a candidate for Billy Jay’s new mamm as for his teacher?

  She wasn’t sure how to handle that possibility. Glenn Detweiler was a nice fellow—and with his full head of black hair and the matching beard that framed his face, Lydianne considered him attractive, too. No one questioned his devotion to seven-year-old Billy Jay or his infant son, Levi, either, but the idea of stepping in to replace Dorcas as the mother of his two sons intimidated Lydianne far more than taking on the challenges of becoming the district’s new schoolteacher.

  The school board surely won’t encourage such a relationship, either, Lydianne reasoned as she strolled toward the pole barn to check on her horse. They’ll want their new teacher to commit to the classroom at least for an entire school year.

  “Hey there, Polly,” she murmured, reaching into her apron pocket for a sugar cube. “How do you like this pole barn? You’ll be spending more time here—and out in that nice pasture—if I get this job. You might like that better than hanging around home all by yourself, ain’t so? I’m thinking several of the older kids will drive to school each day.”

  As the mare nuzzled the cube from her hand, Lydianne turned at the sound of footsteps. Bishop Jeremiah was walking toward her, his wide smile suggesting positive news.

  “We’ve reached our decision,” he announced. “Not that you had any competition.”

  Lydianne chuckled, controlling the rush of joy that made her want to whoop out loud. “I suspect Glenn’s remark caught a few of you board members off guard.”

  The bishop nodded. “He’s not been himself lately, and understandably so,” he remarked as she moved into step beside him for their return to the schoolhouse. “It’ll do Billy Jay a world of gut to engross himself in school rather than spending his days with his grandparents while Glenn’s working in his woodshop. I suspect Elva, his mammi, clucks over him like a hen when she’s not focused on baby Levi.”

  “Jah, being with other kids will surely brighten Billy Jay’s days,” Lydianne remarked. “He’ll have your nephew Stevie, who’s also starting school—”

  “And I’m glad he’ll have you, Lydianne,” the bishop said softly as they reached the schoolhouse door. “Glenn had that part right. Your sunny disposition and sense of purpose will do his boy a world of gut at this tough time in his young life.”

  As Bishop Jeremiah opened the door, she didn’t allow his compliment to go to her head—certainly not with Glenn and three other men watching them enter the classroom. Martin rose from his chair, as did the others.

  “Miss Christner, we’re pleased to offer you this teaching position,” he said as he grasped her hand. “If you need time to consider your answer—”

  “Oh, no, I’ll be happy to accept!” Lydianne interrupted gleefully. “Denki so much for considering my application. What I lack in experience, I’ll make up for with careful preparation and my love of learning. I won’t let you down.”

  “That thought never entered our heads,” the bishop put in. “And with Lorena Flaud and Clarence’s Lucy being in their final year of school—and with their sisters right behind them—you’ll have plenty of assistance as you teach the youngest ones the basics of reading and arithmetic. I anticipate a productive year for our scholars.”

  “I fully agree,” Martin said. “We can figure out when your last day at the furniture factory will be—”

  “And I’ll report for work as soon as I’ve been home to change my clothes,” Lydianne assured him.

  “Sometime soon, you can visit the bookstore on Bates Street to purchase the educational posters and supplies you’ll need,” Bishop Jeremiah suggested. “We’ve already ordered new textbooks and other teaching basics, because the ones in the old schoolhouse have served us for a number of years. It seems only fitting to start in our new building with fresh books and wall hangings.”

  “This is so exciting!” Lydianne said as she shook each man’s hand in turn. “Maybe this sounds silly, but I still love the smell of fresh packages of notebook paper and new bottles of glue, and the joy of opening a fresh box of crayons—thinking of all the drawings and reports and projects that lie ahead of us.”

  As she left the schoolhouse and drove down the road, Lydianne floated on a cloud of euphoria. After she turned off the main county highway to head for home, she paused at the sight of a little blond girl chasing a butterfly on the front lawn of Tim and Julia Nissley’s place. With the sunshine shimmering on her golden hair and upturned face, six-year-old Ella Nissley looked for all the world like a little angel. Her laughter rang out as she ran and reached eagerly for the butterfly, followed closely by a little brown puppy that yipped and yapped.

  Lydianne’s heart overflowed with a wave of emotions. Her dream had come true: she would now be Ella’s teacher. But she would have to be very, very careful. Ella was the apple of her adoptive parents’ eyes, and Lydianne had no intention of interfering with their happy family.

  No one else, including Tim and Julia, knew that Ella was the newborn baby Lydianne had given up when she’d been an unwed mother.

  Chapter Two

  On the following Saturday morning, Jeremiah stood slightly apart from the large crowd gathered in the field beyond The Marketplace, where the produce auction was in
full swing. His younger brother, Jude, stood on a flatbed truck with a microphone, caught up in the auctioneer chant that came as second nature to him—a speed and agility of speech that made Jeremiah’s head spin whenever he tried to follow exactly what Jude was saying at any given moment.

  “Sold!” Jude cried out. “Two bushel boxes of green beans at thirty-five dollars apiece! Next, we’ll be starting on the canning tomatoes, folks, and we’ve got some beauties today! This first lot comes from the Wengerds’ nursery, and you’ll not find any finer, firmer tomatoes than the ones our shopkeepers, Nelson and Michael, raise on their farm over by Queen City.”

  As Jude chatted up the potential buyers, the two Wengerd men were hefting sturdy boxes of deep red tomatoes onto the flatbed so folks could get a better look at them. Glenn Detweiler and Gabe Flaud were working nearby, shifting more boxes of fresh vegetables into place so the auction would continue without any downtime. Jeremiah watched the two younger men work as though they knew each other’s rhythms and moves well—because as lifelong friends and owners of shops in The Marketplace, they often helped during the auctions rather than remaining inside to run their shops.

  “Here we go, folks! Each box holds half a bushel of tomatoes,” Jude called out as he gazed out over the crowd of eager onlookers. “Once we establish the price for the first buyer, he or she can claim additional boxes for the same amount. Then we start again, until we’ve sold all the tomatoes. We’ll start the bidding at ten dollars,” he added as he held up a huge, red tomato for everyone to see.

  As Jude began to chant and interested buyers’ hands shot up, his nephew, Pete, and Michael Wengerd yelped from their spots on opposite ends of the flatbed, pointing at each bidder and keeping track of the rising price Jude was singing out.

  Wiping his forehead with his bandanna, Jeremiah slipped away from the auction and headed toward the rustic red stable that housed the shops. It did his heart good to see Pete actively engaged in the business being conducted, helping Jude. Their blond, muscular nephew had been on the slippery slope that led to nowhere, working the night shift with English fellows at the pet food factory near Higher Ground—and then blowing his pay at the pool hall until well past noon most days. After being in charge of renovating the stable into shops and then building the new schoolhouse, Pete seemed to be living a life of more purpose. Jeremiah knew better than to press his nephew about joining the church and settling down, but at least the chances of that happening seemed a lot better now than they had at the beginning of the summer.

  The air-conditioned stillness enveloped Jeremiah as he stepped inside The Marketplace, out of the bright sunshine. He paused, allowing his eyes to adjust to the muted light of the gas fixtures. Aromas of coffee and Jo Fussner’s fresh-baked goodies made his stomach rumble.

  He waved at Jude’s redheaded twins, Alice and Adeline, as they cleared dirty dishes and napkins from the tables in The Marketplace’s open central commons. It was good to see the girls working for Jo—and enjoying it immensely—after they’d gone through a patch of adolescent trouble when their dat had remarried. All in all, Jeremiah felt greatly satisfied about the direction the younger members of the Shetler family were headed these days. God had been good indeed, and the bishop was grateful that He’d helped Pete and the twins put their difficult times behind them.

  When he spotted the slender blonde in Glenn’s wood shop, Jeremiah’s heart thudded faster for a couple of beats. Ever since her interview on Monday, his thoughts had been filled with Lydianne—and he wasn’t sure why. She was an attractive woman, to be sure, but she was several years younger than he and of such a different temperament than his dear, deceased Priscilla, that he’d never given her a second thought as marriage material.

  There’s a lot we don’t know about Miss Christner, he mused as he found himself stepping in her direction. It had come as a complete surprise to hear that she’d lost a fiancé as well as her parents before she came to Morning Star—but where had she come from? She’d lived here about six years, so why didn’t he know more about her family?

  Jeremiah told himself this wasn’t the time or place to press the new teacher for answers, yet, as he watched Lydianne straightening the wooden toys on Glenn’s shelves, his curiosity prickled. She’d been covering Detweiler’s shop lately, because Glenn had missed some time at The Marketplace when his wife had fallen ill and then died after Levi’s birth had severely depleted her body. Was there more to their relationship than he’d imagined? Had Glenn’s outburst about his young son needing a woman in his life been a play for Lydianne’s sympathy—a bid for her affection?

  Jeremiah frowned as a totally different emotion overcame him. He suddenly didn’t want Lydianne to be interested in Glenn—and that revelation gave him pause.

  “Ah, Bishop, how are you?” Lydianne called out when she spotted him near the shop’s doorway. “How’s the produce auction going?”

  Jeremiah was happy to answer a question that had nothing to do with relationships—his, or Glenn’s. He reminded himself that Lydianne often acted as a floater, helping in the various shops when owners had a lot of customers, or when they needed to be away for a bit. Her presence in Detweiler’s shop didn’t necessarily mean she was interested in the young widower.

  “Jude’s out there selling beans and tomatoes and zucchinis—you name it—by the bushel boxfuls,” he replied with a smile. “And from what I can see, our crowd increases with each auction we hold. It’s been a real advantage to have the larger field this property provided us—not to mention the use of the restroom facilities behind the schoolhouse. I’m glad Pete talked us into building those with multiple stalls on each side—and flush toilets.”

  “And how’s Glenn doing out there? Maybe it’s my imagination, but he’s seemed a lot sadder lately. Really preoccupied,” Lydianne remarked.

  The sympathy in her voice ratcheted up Jeremiah’s envy—and why was that? Everyone in the church district was very concerned about how Glenn was managing to keep up with seven-year-old Billy Jay and dealing with a new baby, even though his parents lived with him. “He’s very busy, shifting boxes of produce,” he replied carefully. “I suspect he’s glad to have work that keeps him moving and engaged, rather than hanging around in his shop when there’s a lull in the customers. Grief gets more difficult when you have too much time to think about things.”

  Lydianne nodded, focusing her clear blue eyes on him. “I would imagine you know a lot about that, even though your Priscilla’s been gone for a few years now,” she said softly. “They say time heals all wounds, but some folks leave holes in our lives that we have no way to fill again after they pass.”

  Jeremiah blinked rapidly, his soul crying out with the reality that Lydianne had stated so succinctly. She knew about love and loss, after all, even if she’d never been married.

  “I suspect you can give Glenn exactly the kind of comfort and advice he’ll be needing, seeing’s how you’ve been down the same road,” she continued gently. “Folks who haven’t lost a spouse can try, but they don’t truly understand the long, lonely silences that haunt the one who survives.”

  The long, lonely silences that haunt the one who survives.

  Jeremiah drew in a long breath to steady his emotions. Somehow, Lydianne had just summed up his entire life since Priscilla’s unexpected passing. When he’d returned home from the emergency room without his wife, after an MRI had identified the ruptured brain aneurysm that killed her, it had been the silence in the house that had clawed like a crazed wild animal at his soul.

  He pulled himself from the past, searching for words that wouldn’t sound maudlin—or miserable. “You make a gut point, Lydianne,” he said in the firmest voice he could manage. “I should probably offer to spend time with him a couple evenings each week. What with his parents being elderly and his boys demanding a lot of attention, I doubt Glenn has anybody to share his troubles with.”

  And if he’s spending evenings with me, he won’t be with you, Lydianne.


  The thought, coming totally from out of the blue, startled Jeremiah. Why was he suddenly so determined to keep Glenn and Lydianne from becoming romantically involved? It was only natural—and extremely beneficial—when men and women paired up and lived in the matrimonial state God wanted for His children. Belonging to a warm, loving family was the greatest blessing anyone could ask for.

  Once again, he searched for a safer, less emotional subject to discuss. “Have you been to the bookstore yet to buy supplies for the schoolroom?” he asked. “When you go, be sure to put those items on the school board’s account. We certainly don’t expect you to pay for them out of your own pocket.”

  Lydianne’s face lit up like the summer sun. “I’m going Monday afternoon after I get off work at the factory,” she replied brightly. “I haven’t had a chance to shop yet, because I suspect Martin’s been finding more bookwork than usual—and assigning me more staining—now that he knows I’ll be leaving after this week.”

  Jeremiah chuckled. “The Flauds will miss you and your gut work,” he said. “And what with Regina leaving soon to marry Gabe, Martin will be hard pressed to replace the two of you ladies—especially because the company takes so many orders here at The Marketplace these days.”

  “Jah, each week when I review the accounts with Martin, he says he needs to hire one or two more carpenters as well as replacements for us stainers,” she agreed. “Who knows? He might talk to Pete—or Glenn—about signing on, even if they don’t want to work full-time. They’re both awfully gut with wood.”

  “They are,” Jeremiah agreed, suddenly needing to leave rather than to talk any more about Detweiler with this attractive young woman. “Well, have a gut day, Lydianne. I’ve got some errands to run and a few other folks to catch up with.”