First Light in Morning Star Page 5

  The storekeeper’s handshake was firm. “Happy you’ve come to us again to keep your school up and running, Jeremiah,” he said with the hint of a grin. “We’ll see how long your new teacher keeps her position before, um, somebody talks her into getting hitched, jah?”

  As Justin returned to the store, Jeremiah’s jaw dropped. Were his inclinations that obvious, to a man he saw only once in a while?

  Can Lydianne read me like a book, as well? Does she suspect my feelings for her?

  He quickly unhitched his mare, shaking his head at that stray thought. What feelings? It wasn’t as though I could’ve ignored her presence or refused to talk to her. Ordinary conversation about school business—that’s all it was!

  Even so, as he directed his horse toward the county highway, Jeremiah was grinning like a kid who’d just won a prize at the county fair. He was about to spend time helping Lydianne put away books.

  No big deal, so don’t make it into one.

  Jeremiah couldn’t help tingling with anticipation. No one else would be around the schoolhouse or The Marketplace, so nobody would know they were there.

  Especially Glenn and my mother.

  * * *

  Late on Monday afternoon, Lydianne approached the schoolhouse feeling a bit apprehensive. Morning Star’s rush hour traffic was a noisy blend of cars and pickups, as well as horses clip-clopping along the shoulders of the road, until she turned onto the deserted grounds around The Marketplace. The white schoolhouse sat farther down the lane, not far from a narrow band of woods. As she drove past the large red stable that housed the shops, she saw how the window boxes of colorful flowers glowed in the sun’s rays. She wondered if Pete could add some window boxes to the schoolhouse to brighten its exterior walls.

  Flowers are the least of your concerns, she reminded herself as she pulled up to the school’s hitching rail. Bishop Jeremiah’s mare grazed in the pasture near the pole barn where his rig sat, as though he planned to stay awhile. The schoolhouse windows and main door were open to allow air circulation, yet Lydianne felt too warm already.

  Was it proper for her to be out here alone with Bishop Jeremiah?

  She laughed at such a notion—laughed at herself for feeling so nervous. The bishop was the leader of their church district, the man to whom members of the congregation entrusted their very souls. Besides, Jeremiah Shetler had to be nearly forty, and probably considered her very young and inexperienced. He was open and friendly, dedicated to the children she would teach—not a fellow who would risk his reputation, or hers, by engaging in improper behavior just because nobody else was watching.

  In his sermons, Bishop Jeremiah often reminded them that God was watching, after all. God would know exactly what went on in the schoolhouse, and Lydianne reminded herself that it was her responsibility to act accordingly. She was Morning Star’s new teacher, not a young woman making a play for the bishop just because the opportunity had presented itself.

  Tell yourself that the next time he gazes at you with his bottomless brown eyes. Something’s changed, and he sees you differently now. Anybody can see that.

  Firm in her resolve, Lydianne hopped down from her rig and wrapped her arms around one of the big boxes of materials she’d chosen. When she entered the schoolroom, Bishop Jeremiah immediately stopped unpacking textbooks.

  “Let me—you should’ve told me you had these bulky boxes to—”

  The bishop’s words stopped short as his arms shot around the sides of the box, gently trapping hers beneath them.

  “Um, how about if we set this on the table?” Lydianne suggested, nodding toward the one nearest the door. “You can let go, if you want. It’s not heavy.”

  “Okay—sorry,” he mumbled as he released her.

  Bishop Jeremiah sounded as nervous as she felt. Had Lydianne’s circumstances—her secret past—been different, maybe it would’ve been all right if he seemed as aware of her as she was of him. She sincerely liked him, but she knew better than to appear interested in his attention. “I suppose you could bring in those other boxes—”

  “I’m on it,” he blurted, immediately heading outside.

  After she set the box on the table, she went over to the textbooks he’d been unpacking. Lydianne selected two copies of each one, and she was carrying them to her big desk in the front when Bishop Jeremiah came inside again.

  “You’re sure we have enough that I can keep copies of these at home?” she asked when he returned with the final box.

  “Yup. I ordered several extras, because over the next few years we’ll have more scholars,” he replied. “I’ll put your teacher’s editions and the workbooks right here on this back desk.”

  Nodding, Lydianne busied herself standing a complete set of the textbooks on edge at the left side of her big wooden desk. It felt wonderful to accomplish the first task of preparing for the new school year. She would bring her favorite bookends from home—a ceramic dog and cat the kids would enjoy—but it seemed like a good idea to return for more setting up when she could do it alone.

  “Which of the bookshelves do you want to store these texts in?” Bishop Jeremiah asked.

  Lydianne paused, hoping she didn’t sound picky. “How about if we put a copy of each beginner book on the small desks in front,” she suggested. “We can arrange the older scholars’ books on this shelf near the white board, and I’ll figure out what each of them needs when they arrive the first day. Let’s leave those back bookshelves empty to be the library.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Lydianne allowed her guest a wide berth as she carried the other materials to a table near the front of the classroom. It would be perfectly proper to ask the tall, able-bodied bishop to mount the print and cursive alphabet posters above the white board, yet she wanted to do that herself. The schoolroom would feel like her second home if she put things in place the way she wanted them.

  “Justin included a couple catalogs of books at various reading levels, suitable for Plain student libraries,” he remarked as he emptied one of the boxes. “I’ll put them here on this back desk—and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  She sighed, sorry their exchange felt so stilted . . . sorry she couldn’t respond to the attraction she felt for Bishop Jeremiah. It was one of the many opportunities she hadn’t known she’d be forfeiting on that lovely, romantic afternoon when she and Aden had—

  No gut will come of recalling the special way you loved Aden, or regretting the beautiful baby you made with him. Move on.

  “How about if I take these sturdy boxes downstairs?” the bishop asked. “You never know when they might come in handy.”

  Lydianne nodded. “That’ll be fine. Denki so much for your help today.”

  His smile reflected the same sense of regret she was feeling—and perhaps the loneliness that filled her soul, as well. “You’re welcome. I’ll be on my way now.”

  His footsteps echoed in the stairwell. A few minutes later the door closed downstairs, and he crossed the lawn to the corral. He drove away with a parting glance at the schoolhouse door.

  Lydianne sighed as she watched him. Was it her imagination, or did the bishop feel as wistfully disappointed as she did?

  She gathered her books and catalogs and drove home. As much as she loved her small yellow house, nestled among blooming blue hydrangeas and shaded by large old trees, she was acutely aware of how quiet the place was because she lived there all alone.

  Chapter Five

  Wednesday morning, as Lydianne and Regina were settling into their work in the furniture factory’s staining room, the door opened. Gabe Flaud, Martin’s son and the shop foreman, smiled at them as he entered. Two familiar young women followed him in, taking in the room with curious gazes.

  “Mary Frances and Nettie have agreed to try their hand at being stainers,” Gabe said, nodding at the sisters. “They’ve started work today so you two ladies can show them the ropes before you leave us on Friday.”

  “What a great idea!” Ly
dianne nodded encouragingly at the two Umbles, who were daughters of the Flauds’ longtime cabinetmaker, Elmer. The sisters were in their late teens and wore their honey-brown hair pulled up beneath dark blue kerchiefs. “It’s not a difficult job, but it requires some concentration and careful attention to your brush strokes.”

  “Jah, the biggest challenge is preventing drips—and brushing away stray rivulets of stain before they set and start to dry,” Regina put in as she went to a cabinet at the back of the room. “Let’s get you each a new brush and a container to hold some stain. You can start on these small tables after you’ve watched us for a bit.”

  “You’re in gut hands, girls,” Gabe said to the Umble sisters. “Watch how Regina and Lydianne work and ask them all the questions you can think of.”

  Lydianne couldn’t miss the playful wink Gabe flashed at Regina, his fiancée, before leaving the small room. She sighed to herself. Lydianne knew she could never marry, but she envied her redheaded friend’s happiness.

  Regina’s freckled face turned a becoming shade of pink as she watched Gabe leave. “Truth be told, we’re happy you girls have applied for these jobs. We believe women are much more patient and meticulous than men when it comes to staining.”

  “And we’d advise you to pick out a couple of your oldest, most faded dresses and wear them all the time,” Lydianne said, gesturing at the multi-colored smears of stain on her shabby gray dress.

  “Figure on having permanently stained cuticles, too,” Regina put in as she held up her hands for the girls to see. “You can clean your hands ’til the cows come home—and it’s not a gut idea to use brush cleaner on your skin, so we use borax soap. As you can see, however, I wear my work wherever I go. I’m hoping the stains will be gone in time for my wedding.”

  Nettie eagerly grasped her new brush, watching closely as Lydianne poured a small amount of oak stain into the two containers. At eighteen, she was short and stocky, like her dat, while Mary Frances was a little taller and a year older. “How do you know what color you’re supposed to use? Looks like you’ve got a lot of big cans of stain in your cabinet.”

  Lydianne pointed to the order form that was stuck to the corkboard on the cabinet door. “When an order’s pieces are all complete and sanded, one of the men sets them in here with a form like this,” she explained. “It tells you exactly what pieces are included, what type of stain to use—”

  “As well as when the furniture is supposed to be shipped out,” Regina continued. “Depending upon how humid it is, you need to allow at least a couple of days for stain and varnish to dry.”

  “It’s noisy in here because we always have the exhaust fan running,” Lydianne said, pointing to the large fan in the building’s exterior wall. “But if we left the door open, sawdust and other stray particles from the shop would drift in and stick to the stain. Then the finish would be speckled and imperfect, and we’d have to sand the piece down and start all over.”

  “Just like when you paint a wall, you begin at the top,” Regina said as she deftly brushed stain across the left edge of the bench top she was working on. “You start high and work low on a piece of furniture.”

  Mary Frances watched closely, nodding. “We do all the painting around home,” she remarked. “That’s partly because Mamm won’t climb a ladder—”

  “And Dat doesn’t put down a drop cloth or pay attention to where the paint’s dripping,” Nettie joined in.

  “He also painted the windows shut up in Mamm’s sewing room, so now she won’t let him near a paintbrush,” Mary Frances put in with a chuckle. “We think he did it on purpose, because he really hates to paint.”

  The small room filled with their laughter. As the morning went by, Lydianne felt confident that the Umble sisters would do their very best to produce the top-quality finishing that Martin Flaud demanded—even if it might take them a while to work up to the production speed she and Regina had reached.

  * * *

  When Martin came into the staining room Friday morning to observe the Umble sisters’ progress, he studied the end tables and chairs they had completed. Lydianne thought his smile might be hiding a secret as he exchanged pleasantries with the four of them, until he finally cleared his throat.

  “You ladies have insisted you don’t want any fuss or even a special lunch before you leave us,” he said in a voice that quavered a little. He gazed at Lydianne and Regina as he pulled two envelopes from his pocket. “I want you to know again how much I’ve appreciated your fine workmanship, and I wish you both the best in the new lives you’ll soon be taking on.

  “Here are your final checks—and I’m turning you loose early,” Martin continued as he handed them out. He was keeping his voice light, but his eyes held the telltale shine of sentimental tears. “Neither of you has missed much work over the past few years, so you deserve extra time off today.”

  Lydianne’s eyes widened. “Well, denki, Martin! I surely wasn’t expecting—”

  “Gee, if Lydianne didn’t make out these paychecks, who did?” Regina teased as she accepted hers.

  Martin laughed. “That would be me,” he replied. “Before Lydianne started keeping our books, I was the payroll clerk—so now I hope I can keep the factory solvent as I take up that role again. Now scoot on out of here before we get all sentimental about your leaving.”

  “Put your brushes in the cleaning jar, and we’ll take care of them later,” Mary Frances offered as she waved them off.

  Nettie nodded, her smile accentuated by little speckles of stain on her chin. “You’ve been patient teachers, and we’ll do our best to keep up your gut work and the shop’s reputation.”

  Her boss’s wistful remarks had surprised her, but Lydianne didn’t question Martin’s motives. She and Regina slipped out of the staining room and exited the factory through the back door near the big exhaust fan without any of the men in the shop seeming to notice. The two of them quickly crossed the lawn, until they rounded the corner of the big metal factory building where none of the employees would see them.

  “Woo-hoo!” Lydianne cried out joyfully as she grabbed Regina’s hands. “I feel like a girl who just sneaked out of the schoolroom to play hooky—except we won’t be going back!”

  “I had no clue that Martin would let us go early!” Regina said as she began to bounce like a pogo stick.

  Lydianne joined her, feeling delightfully free as she hopped up and down. After a moment she stopped to peek inside her envelope—and then she gasped. “My stars! This is—well, Martin gave me quite a nice bonus. How about you?”

  Regina quickly pulled her check out and stared at it. “Who knew he’d be so generous?” she asked in amazement. “Not that long ago, I thought he was becoming a very difficult man to work for, what with his critical remarks—”

  “But he’s turned over a lot of new leaves since his heart problems were fixed—and since you and Gabe have gotten engaged,” Lydianne added emphatically. “I should probably use some of this money for dress fabric. I surely can’t wear my grubby old staining clothes in the classroom.”

  “It’s time I upgraded my wardrobe, too,” Regina agreed. “I won’t want to wear my factory dresses once I’m Gabe’s wife, after all. It’ll be nice to wear fresh clothes while I tend the house and embroider linens for my customers at The Marketplace.”

  Lydianne smiled at her best friend, feeling more buoyant than she had in months. What a gift it was to receive unexpected time off, along with extra pay! “What if we walk uptown to the fabric store and choose some colorful fabric right now—and then I’ll treat you to a pizza? It’s a big day for us, and before long I won’t be able to dilly-dally on a weekday, ain’t so?”

  “That’s right, Teacher Lydianne. Better enjoy being a free woman while you can.”

  “Puh! Same back at you, Miss Miller!” Lydianne teased as she slipped her arm through Regina’s. “Once you’re Mrs. Flaud, you’ll be answering to Gabe and keeping your household in order. I say we also deserve ice cream a
fter our pizza, ain’t so?”

  * * *

  That evening, Jeremiah closed his eyes as he sang the smooth, sustained bass line of “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” with several men from the congregation who’d gathered on his front porch. He looked forward to these weekly musical gatherings with his friends because they brought the weekdays to a satisfying conclusion with a sense of harmony that came as much from longtime friendships as from the songs Gabe chose for them to practice.

  As the last chord drifted on the breeze, Gabe made the cut-off sign with his hands. “I think we’ve got that one down,” he remarked with a nod. “What are your thoughts about doing a few of our songs at the Shetler reunion, middle of September, and then at the Flaud family gathering on the twenty-ninth?”

  “I think we should go for it!” Glenn piped up. “Who doesn’t enjoy listening to uplifting music that’s snappier than what we sing in church?”

  Jeremiah was pleased to hear Detweiler’s upbeat tone of voice and opinion. The young widower had become immersed in the songs they sang during these Friday night sessions, probably because they gave him a break from his woodshop work and the day-to-day routine with his little boys and his elderly parents.

  And Glenn had a point. It was hard to ponder problems while they were singing gospel harmonies and interesting rhythms. They learned their selections from songbooks that had full musical notation—which Gabe was adept at teaching them—and the gospel songs were a world apart from the ancient hymns written in the Ausbund, which were text on the pages arranged verse by verse, like poetry.

  “Delores has been hinting to some of the far-flung relatives that we fellows will be singing at the reunion,” Martin said.

  With a squeak of the screen door, Jeremiah’s mamm stepped out to the porch to refill their pitcher of lemonade. “I’m hoping you fellows will perform, too,” she put in. “Maybe we could take some time during those reunions to listen to your music, and then you could pass around song sheets and lead us in a sing-along! Everyone would enjoy that.”