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  “Oh, I think we should go for a full-sized kitchen,” Martha Maude insisted as she turned Jo’s diagram so she could see it better. “Any group who’d hold a family gathering there would want to be able to cook.”

  “I agree,” Bishop Jeremiah said as he stood behind Gabe to look at the diagram. “We might have to check health department rules for compliance on that, but I can already smell the cinnamon rolls and imagine folks sitting and chatting over their coffee. Most likely, it’ll be a place for husbands to gather while their wives spend their money in the shops!”

  Laughter filled the bishop’s kitchen as Gabe pointed to a section of the floor plan. “I want the two spots in this corner for Flaud Furniture,” he said. “I’ll fill out my rental form right now.”

  “I think your kitchen should be right here across from the main entry, Jo,” Molly put in, pointing to the spot. “It’ll be centrally located that way, close to where you want to serve refreshments—”

  “And the restrooms could be in this tack storage area that sticks out from the back of the building,” Glenn suggested. “Close enough to share the water pipes and drainage system the kitchen would need, yet separate from the eating area.”

  “Pencil that in!” Jo said. “These are great ideas!”

  “Jah, they are,” Gabe agreed enthusiastically. “Dat’s been talking about this place a lot the past few days, so I’ll convince him that we should provide some basic tables and chairs for this central area. It’ll be gut advertisement for us, after all.”

  “And if you build them, we know they’ll be top-notch,” Jo said.

  Lydianne pointed to the words Jo had carefully written at the top of the diagram. “Is this what you think we should call our new shops—The Marketplace at Morning Star?”

  “Or just The Marketplace, for short.” Jo glanced at the folks around the table to gauge their reactions. “Maybe somebody else has a better idea—”

  “It has a nice ring to it,” Marietta said as her slender face lit up with a big smile. “The Marketplace.”

  “Simple, but it states our case,” Gabe chimed in with a nod.

  “I like it!” Glenn put in. “How about if I build signs to mount on the front and the side of the building that faces the road, as well as one to post on the fence—assuming we plan to keep that slat fence and the gate.”

  Everyone got quiet, thinking.

  “Well, it’ll take some doing to replace the missing slats and paint that long stretch of fence,” Bishop Jeremiah said. “But we need a way to keep folks off the property during the week when the shops aren’t open.”

  “Jah, and if it’s kept the place secure for the Clementi family these past few years, it’ll probably work for us,” Gabe added. “I say we include the fence renovation with the stable work.”

  “I’m gut with that,” Jo agreed. “And I think we should open at nine and close at five. It’ll give us time to set up our shops beforehand, and we’ll still have the evening to take care of things at home before Sunday comes.”

  “And we agree to have Glenn make the signs?” the bishop asked.

  As everyone nodded, Jo felt a real sense of accomplishment. Their committee members were already working well together, and the church leaders were solidly behind this new venture. Glenn, Gabe, Martha Maude, and Molly were filling out rental agreements for their stalls, so Jo reached for a blank form, too.

  When she realized how quiet Regina had been—and noticed some papers sticking out of her folder—Jo gently elbowed her redheaded friend. “Have you spoken with your artist friend, Regina?” she asked as she looked around the table. “Has anyone thought of other potential shopkeepers we should invite?”

  Regina opened the plain brown folder. “He—he sent along a few samples, and he says it’s okay if you don’t think his paintings will fit in, what with the rest of the shops carrying Amish products—”

  “Ooh, look at this little squirrel with his cheeks full of food!” Marietta interrupted gleefully. She reached for the painting on top of the pile. “He looks so real, you can just feel how silky his fur is!”

  “I like this picture of the old broken-down barn in the field of wildflowers,” Martha Maude put in, leaning forward for a closer look. “The warmth of that sunny spring day comes right off the page.”

  Within moments every person at the table had snatched up a painting. Jo was immediately attracted to a pair of cardinals in a snow-frosted cedar tree. “What kind of paintings are these?” she asked. “The details are so distinct, yet some of the colors blur together.”

  “These are watercolors,” Regina explained. “None of them are framed, so he wasn’t sure folks would be as inclined to buy them—”

  “Frames are a matter of personal taste,” Glenn put in. “And his pictures might be easier to display without frames on them.”

  “And you could offer frames in your shop, Glenn,” Gabe pointed out quickly.

  Regina was nodding, yet she seemed doubtful. “Is it all right if he’s English, then? Do you think the preachers will object—especially if all the shop spaces fill up and we have to turn away Plain shopkeepers?”

  Bishop Jeremiah considered this question as he looked over everyone’s shoulders to study each painting in turn. “Your friend paints nature scenes—renderings of God’s creation,” he summarized softly. “We still have several spaces open, so I’d like to give him a chance. I suspect customers will have the same immediate reaction to his paintings that we’ve had.”

  “Me too,” Jo agreed. “Why not take a rental form, Regina? If he needs time to decide, that’s all right. That said, we need to figure out a date when we’ll be open for business. Any idea how much time the renovation might take?”

  Bishop Jeremiah chuckled. “If we set a date, Pete—and whoever else helps—will have a reason to get moving on the work.” He went to the wall calendar and flipped its pages. “June first is a Saturday. If the congregation votes yes on Sunday, May fifth, can we be ready in about a month?”

  “We should make the most of the summertime, when we’ll have more daylight hours,” Gabe replied. “If we wait too long to open, we might lose our momentum—”

  “And it’ll mean Pete has to apply himself right off the bat,” the bishop remarked as he glanced out the front window. He smiled at Jo. “As for where he’ll live, would you and your mamm consider renting him your dawdi haus? I know you have tourist traffic in the summertime—”

  “No! Mamm will fry my hide if I agree to that,” Jo blurted.

  The kitchen got quiet, as though folks were startled by the tone of her immediate response.

  Bishop Jeremiah nodded. “I didn’t want your mamm to think I’d passed her over with my offer of paying Pete’s rent through the summer,” he said. “But I can understand why she wouldn’t think of him as the ideal tenant.”

  Marietta and Molly were looking at each other, communicating without the need for words in that special way twins had.

  “Would it be proper for Pete to stay in one of our dawdi hauses?” Marietta asked.

  “Mamm had a second one built to allow for the renters we get during the mud sales and auctions,” Molly reminded everyone, “but sometimes—”

  “It would be nice if one of them was bringing in a steady income this summer,” Marietta finished. “As long as Pete understands that we only provide breakfast—”

  “And we won’t be cleaning his room every day, like in a motel,” Molly put in firmly, “but we’ll change his sheets once a week.”

  “—I’d be all right with him staying at our place,” Marietta continued. “He’ll be out working, after all. It’s not as though he’ll be underfoot while we’re busy in our noodle shed each day.”

  The bishop nodded. “I’m fine with everything you’ve said, ladies, and I appreciate your willingness to help me out. We’ll settle up before you leave, all right?”

  The twins nodded together, and Jo chuckled as she got back to filling out her rental agreement form. The Helfi
ngs’ conversations reminded her of playing a game of leapfrog, and their innate understanding of each other’s ideas amazed her.

  Martha Maude signed her form with a flourish and put it in the center of the table. “What if I post notices on the bulletin boards of Plain stores, asking for more shopkeepers and letting folks know about our new marketplace?” she offered. “I’d wait until the vote at church is official, of course, but meanwhile I could be writing out the note cards.”

  “I think we should have the Bylers print out some posters about our opening, too,” Gabe put in. “We want our advertising to look professional, so English shoppers take us seriously. Maybe you could put those around in May, when we’re sure the stable will be ready on time.”

  Folks were nodding, finishing their forms—and taking a last look at the delightful paintings Regina was gathering up.

  “We’ve covered a lot of ground, even if Pete apparently couldn’t join us today,” Bishop Jeremiah said. “Shall we meet next Wednesday, same time, to check our progress before I conduct a vote the following Sunday? I predict we’ll get a lot of enthusiastic response when folks around Morning Star see what we’ve cooked up for this property.”

  Everyone agreed as they rose from their chairs. The aromas of chicken and cheese reminded Jo to take Margaret’s casserole from the oven. “Here’s your dinner, Bishop,” she said as she set the steaming glass pan on a trivet. “Be sure to thank your mamm again for tolerating us as we talked everything through.”

  “Denki to all of you for your ideas and your enthusiasm,” Bishop Jeremiah called out to everyone. “We’re off to a fine start.”

  Jo agreed wholeheartedly. She couldn’t help smiling as she descended the porch stairs. It was sprinkling, and Mamm would be pleased that her garden was receiving God’s gut rain. Jo decided not to mention that she’d saved them from Pete Shetler’s presence in their dawdi haus all summer. It was best to enjoy her mother’s rare good mood without bringing up any extraneous details.

  Chapter Four

  Thursday morning, Regina was applying walnut stain to a hutch, a large table and its eight leaves, and the twelve chairs that went with it. As she focused on keeping her brush strokes smooth and even across the table’s top, her thoughts buzzed like bees. After hearing her friends’ exuberant admiration of her paintings, she was floating on clouds of euphoria.

  Yet her heart thudded heavily. Displaying her watercolors at The Marketplace would shift her private sin to a public one. Not only would she still be defying the rules of the Old Order—she’d be lying to Bishop Jeremiah and her closest friends about who’d painted those pictures.

  Lord, I’m in a bad place, she prayed as she worked. You really should give me an unmistakable sign—like that proverbial thunderbolt coming through the roof—that I’m on the wrong road with selling my paintings, before I get myself into deeper—

  “That’s a mighty serious expression on your face, Red. Are you finding flaws in the table you’re staining?”

  Regina blinked, raising her wet brush from the table’s surface. How long had Gabe been watching her?

  “No, no—just lost in thought,” she stammered. She was suddenly aware of the dark walnut stain lining her fingernails, and her faded gray dress, and the brown kerchief she wore at the factory so she wouldn’t splatter stain on her white kapps. “This is going to be quite a nice roomful of furniture when it’s done.”

  “It’s for a family in St. Louis,” Gabe remarked as he assessed her progress. “You’re such a patient and thorough finisher, Red. It was a gut decision when Dat and I hired you—and then Lydianne—for this job.”

  Regina sucked in her breath, unaccustomed to such praise. “I—I’m happy to have the work,” she admitted. “Cooking and keeping house were never my callings, I’m afraid.”

  When Gabe chuckled, dimples came out to play on either side of his clean-shaven face. “Seems we’ll have a new calling when The Marketplace opens. I wasn’t too fired up about it at first, but now I think that renovated stable will bring a breath of fresh air to Morning Star. And on that note, what do you think about these tables and chairs for Jo’s refreshment area?”

  Even though the designs were very basic, Gabe’s sketches were precise and refined—as artistic in their way as her watercolor paintings. “I like them,” she replied. “They’re simple and compact.”

  “And they fold up, so we can pull extras from the storage area when we need them—like for those family gatherings Martha Maude mentioned,” Gabe explained. “Dat was so taken with the idea of renting the stable for events, he thought Flaud Furniture should provide several of these tables and chairs as a contribution to the community’s new venture—with our business cards attached for some advertisement, of course.”

  “That’s a generous gesture,” Regina said.

  Gabe nodded. “I suspect my parents are looking ahead to a family wedding, thinking it’ll be easier to host the dinner in that big stable instead of at home. Well, carry on, Red.”

  As suddenly as he’d appeared, Gabe strode away. For a moment Regina stood in a daze, wondering what had just happened. Martin’s son was a hardworking shop foreman, but when had he ever complimented her work or asked her opinion about anything? She’d worked in the Flaud factory for nearly ten years, and Gabe hadn’t seemed to know she existed.

  As Regina resumed her work on the dining room set, however, she wondered about what Gabe had said. His sisters, Kate and Lorena, were too young to be dating. If Delores and Martin Flaud anticipated a wedding in the near future, did that mean Gabe was courting a young woman who lived somewhere else?

  She’s probably very pretty, and a fine cook and seamstress, and most likely she comes from a family that’s well-off. What other kind of wife would Gabe want, after all?

  * * *

  Gabe focused for a moment before humming the pitch he heard in his head—which was not too high for the basses, and would also keep the tenors from becoming shrill during the song the men were practicing. On Friday nights, the fellows from church who enjoyed music often gathered at Bishop Jeremiah’s place to sing. As the group’s unofficial leader, Gabe usually suggested a few hymns from the Ausbund as warm-ups, then directed them in the finer points of harmonizing gospel songs.

  As he and Glenn Detweiler carried the melody of “I’ll Fly Away,” Gabe’s spirit soared. Everyone enjoyed this tune—which was much snappier than a hymn—and it was a joy to hear his father and Glenn’s dat, Reuben, pulsing along on the bass part that came in on the chorus. Bishop Jeremiah began to clap to the beat, and Deacon Saul joined in, and soon the front room rang with the song’s enthusiasm about leaving this earthly life behind for a heavenly home. As the tune ended, Gabe directed its slowing down and reveled in the four-part harmony that resonated so clear and sweet on the final note.

  “Jah, that’s how you sing that one!” Matthias Wagler called out when they’d finished. Matthias had relocated to Morning Star a little more than a year ago with his harness-making business—and then he’d married Rose, acquiring her little Gracie as a daughter. “Just think how folks in church would smile if we sang from the gospel songbook we men are using, instead of ancient German hymns.”

  “I think that’s a fine idea,” Gabe chimed in, already knowing what the church leaders’ response would be.

  Preacher Ammon raised his bushy eyebrows. “It’s one thing to sing some rousing tunes during a social time like this one,” he pointed out, “but quite another thing to cut loose during a worship service. Next thing you know, we’d be bringing in a piano—”

  “Or a pipe organ, like they’ve got at the Methodist church in town!” Deacon Saul teased. “We’d sound high and mighty then, ain’t so?”

  As the discussion continued around him, Gabe yearned for the chance to sing more progressive songs during church services—and to have instrumental accompaniment, as well—but in the Old Order, that would never happen. As it was, Preacher Clarence didn’t participate in the men’s Friday night song
fests, because he considered the newer gospel tunes too worldly and improper. He felt that music about God and His kingdom should remain respectful, reflecting the Lord’s majestic, omnipotent power.

  Gabe sighed inwardly. He wished their worship services could be more cheerful and uplifting—wished Old Order leaders would be more open to change. He didn’t want to believe the God he loved would deny the Amish their eternal salvation if they made a joyful noise instead of singing hymns more suited to a funeral.

  “So how’re plans for the stable renovation coming?” Deacon Saul asked. “How’d your organizational meeting go?”

  Bishop Jeremiah smiled. “We’re off to a fine start—don’t you think, Gabe?”

  Gabe came out of his woolgathering and nodded. “We’ve got several spaces spoken for already, and a wide variety of items to be offered for sale,” he replied. He decided not to mention the English watercolor artist until he’d submitted his rental application and fee.

  “I’m excited about the idea of using that space for big social events,” Gabe’s dat chimed in. “Morning Star doesn’t have anyplace for that now. I think a lot of English will want to rent it from us.”

  “And what’s Pete think of the idea, Jeremiah?” Preacher Ammon asked.

  The room fell silent. Unfortunately, the bishop’s best efforts to shepherd his nephew over the past few years hadn’t made Pete any more reliable.

  “He’ll be at our meeting on Wednesday,” Bishop Jeremiah stated firmly. “We’ve set our opening date for June first, and Pete knows what has to be accomplished by then. He’ll also be moving into one of the Helfing sisters’ dawdi hauses, so we’ll be able to keep a closer eye on him.”

  “Let’s hope he doesn’t wear out his welcome with Molly and Marietta before he completes the renovation,” Deacon Saul remarked.

  “Maybe he’ll hitch up with one of them,” Reuben blurted. When he burst out laughing, his belly strained against his shirt and black suspenders, and soon the others were chuckling at his unlikely idea as well.