A Season for Tending (10 page)

Rhoda continued working the berry patch. Leah’s despair worried her. A great deal. But what could she do about her concerns—meddle in someone else’s life? A rig pulled into her driveway. She wiped her brow and headed for the buggy.

A beardless man about her age was tying his horse to the hitching post as she approached. He turned toward her with a harsh look on his handsome face, but it faded. “You must be the woman Leah told me about on the phone.”

“Rhoda Byler.” She extended her hand. “And you must be Samuel.”

He removed his hat, revealing silky, straight blond hair. “I apologize for my sister’s behavior, Mrs. Byler.”

Her heart jolted a bit. Amish men didn’t use titles like Mr. or Mrs. when talking to other Amish, but she figured he was aiming to be especially polite. His assumption that she was married annoyed her a lot more than finding a rogue teenager in her berry patch. At twenty-two years old, she was starting to be considered an old maid by the Amish community. It was so absurd she could launch into an hour’s sermon on the topic. The Amish who didn’t know her assumed she was married; those who did know her speculated that her strange ways drove off suitors or that God was so angry with her He’d taken away the blessing of marriage.

“Please, call me Rhoda.”

“I hope my sister hasn’t caused you too much trouble.” He spoke through gritted teeth, and she felt sorry for Leah.

“Not at all. I’ve enjoyed her company.”

“Really?” The disbelief on his face said more than his lone word had.

“And she helped me with my work.”

“My sister? Leah?” His effort to be polite didn’t hide his agitation or his skepticism that his sister was a good worker.

“Ya.”

He crumpled the brim of the hat in his hand. “Well, I’m glad you made her pay for her irresponsible behavior. I assure you, she’ll receive the proper consequences at home as well.”

Rhoda cringed. “I wasn’t trying to punish her.” She wasn’t a parent—and probably never would be. Being the eighth of nine children, she’d seldom been in a position to instruct a sibling, but his viewpoint of chores and punishment going hand in hand was ridiculous.

“It doesn’t matter. If she worked, she took it as discipline.”

It didn’t matter?
His tone concerned her, and she didn’t like the idea of Leah facing his anger once they were alone in the rig. Rhoda had to soften his irritation toward his sister. “We all do stupid things sometimes. Especially when we’re young.” She stepped under the shade of a nearby oak tree. “Whatever she did to land here will fade with time, but your reaction as her older sibling will remain with her forever.” Rhoda turned on the spigot at the side of the house and rinsed her hands, hoping he didn’t realize that she was speaking from personal experience.

“Good. I hope it does.”

She turned off the water and stood up straight. “Do you? Even if that means it’ll haunt you as well as her?”

“The only thing that will ever haunt me is my sister’s ridiculous behavior. She knows better than to follow her wants and feelings.”

“If everyone who knew better always made the right decisions, we’d all be saints, wouldn’t we? And I’m not. Are you?”

Samuel frowned, looking less patient by the moment. “I’d like to take my sister home now.”

“She’s resting in my bedroom.” An idea came to her, but it’d require inviting him to stay longer. She didn’t want to spend more time with this gruff man, but if she could convince him not to be rough on Leah, she’d at least feel as if she’d done what she could for the girl. “Do you have any interest in horticulture?”

“Excuse me?” Samuel clearly bristled.

“Horticulture. Plant cultivation.”

“I know what it is, but your question came out of nowhere.”

“Sorry, I tend to do that. I thought if you had any interest in the topic, you might like to see my berry patch before you leave.”

She thought she detected a little curiosity, so she went across the driveway, expecting him to follow her, which he did. She went to the white picket fence and opened the gate.

“How large a tract of land do you have?”

It was his first question void of frustration.

“A little over an acre. I take care of most everything myself, from planting all the way to canning and selling. I have a hired helper who comes a couple of evenings a week and on Saturdays. His specialty is getting the canned goods packaged and to the stores.”

“When do you find time to tend to your family?” His brown eyes studied her, full of inquisitiveness. And honesty. He didn’t have enough information yet to form a complete opinion, but that was his goal—to know, to decide who she was or wasn’t. She could feel that and see it in his eyes.

“They take care of me. Not that I require much other than food on the table at mealtime.”

He angled his head, looking confused. If her goal hadn’t been to relieve the tension in him so he’d feel kinder toward Leah, she wouldn’t answer his question. What right did he have to determine if she lined up with
his
ideals of being righteous?

“I live with my parents.”

“Oh.” He seemed relieved that her husband wasn’t cooking while she spent her days working the berry patch. “My family has an apple orchard. We—”

“Really?” Finally neutral ground, a topic they could chat about. “My great-great-
Mammi
used to have ten or so apple trees about where the barn sits now, from what I can tell by her diaries. It wasn’t an orchard, mind you, but she created some of the best recipes for apple goods you can imagine. She baked while her little ones slept, and she set up a roadside stand on her property to sell her goods while the children played outside.”

“So it’s in your blood.”

“It is. Yours too, I imagine.”

“Feels like it drives me rather than the other way around. But I love it.”

She soaked in the sense of comradeship on this topic, surprised at how pleasant it was to speak to another fruit grower. “I’m sure your family has some great apple recipes.”

“Ya.” He looked a little unsure. “They’re good, but it’d be interesting to see the ones your great-great-Mammi left behind.” Without any doubt he meant what he said, and she realized that’s who he was. He said too much at times, but when he spoke, it came from his heart. He had a lot less pretense than most, and she could see the value in it. She imagined his honest ways butted strongly against Leah’s sneaking around.

“I’d show you the recipes now if I knew where to find them.” Her brothers had boxed up a ton of things while trying to make room for Steven and his family to move in with them a few years ago. They’d stored all the items somewhere, and she’d yet to find Mammi Byler’s recipes. She’d have to start looking again.

Samuel walked the rows, studying her plants. “Our orchard has had some good years and some not so good, but your plants are hanging thick with fruit.”

“Denki. God’s blessed this patch of ground so much that it almost keeps me too busy. Fourteen-hour days, six days a week.”

“Every year?”

“Ya.”

“What’s your secret?”

Rhoda never discussed her methods with strangers. No one ever asked, and she didn’t want to raise additional speculations if people found the idea of putting fish guts in the soil weird. Before she answered him, she wanted to know something. “Does Leah help with the work in the orchard?”

“No. We don’t need that kind of help.”

“What kind? A girl’s?”

His eyes searched hers before he started down the row of raspberry trellises,
gingerly touching the ripe fruit. Behind his bristly exterior she saw someone who enjoyed working the land and bringing things to life as much as she did, and her heart murmured with excitement. Leah seemed fragmented and confused about life, but Samuel appeared whole and focused. Maybe a little misguided when it came to his sister, and he probably saw life as distinctly black and white, right and wrong, but she suspected he was dedicated and loyal. And painfully honest, the one trait she admired above all others.

“If you’ll help me pick some berries, I’ll let you in on some of my secrets.”

His half grin told her she had his attention. “You’ve got a deal.”

“Have you ever picked blueberries?”

“My fruit-picking experience is limited to apples.”

She led him to the patch and handed him a small metal bucket. “Hold this under a bush with one hand, and with the other hand cup a ripe bunch and gently rub them with your fingers. The ripe berries will drop into your bucket, and the unripe ones will remain attached to the bush.”

He tackled the task with the eagerness of a little boy learning to play catch.

She grabbed another bucket and worked alongside him. “I put some rather unusual things in my compost.”

“Such as?”

“Well, fish for one thing.”

“Real fish, not fertilizer with fish in it?”

“The real thing.”

“Makes sense, I guess. Native Americans were doing that generations ago. Where do you get the fish?”

“I tried catching them in the local lakes, but I couldn’t stand the thought of killing them myself. So I struck a deal with the local market that sells my canned goods. They give me fish that are past their sell date, and I bring them the first canned goods of the harvest. That has provided me a greater variety of fish, and with a little trial and error, I’ve figured out which fish work best.”

He set down his bucket and stretched. “Interesting.” His relaxed expression put her at ease. “What else?”

He was business minded for sure, but he talked to her as an equal. She hadn’t expected that. “Herbs.”

He frowned. “Herbs?”

“I used to grow beds of them for seasoning food and for their medicinal qualities. One year I had more than I needed for everyday uses, so rather than letting them go to waste, I put them in the mulch. The next year my crops did a lot better. So I began experimenting by adding other things.”

“What other things?”

She nodded at his bucket, and he returned to picking blueberries. “I get hair clippings from the local barber shop. But animal hair works better.”

“Seriously?”

“And bee droppings have proven quite effective.”

He laughed. “How in the world do you get that?”

“By placing a mesh net below my uncle’s beehives.”

He scratched his jaw. “I bring at least twenty hives onto my property every pollination season, but I’ve never thought about using their droppings for anything.”

Rhoda watched him work as he mulled this over. She’d not had the privilege of knowing how fun it was to discuss her horticultural ideas with someone who understood and appreciated them—and didn’t consider them proof that she was off her rocker. “Animal urine does wonders as well.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I want to ask how you get that.”

She tossed a shriveled blueberry at him. “Strapping a bucket under a horse for a few hours provides a lot.”

He laughed, and she joined in. “So, animal urine, human hair, bee droppings … What, no eye of a lizard? Bat wings? Whiskers from a black cat?”

Her laughter stuck in her throat. How foolish she was to think that someone would see her as innovative rather than as simply odd. She dumped her half-full bucket into the basket and started to pick it up.

He stepped forward. “I’ll get that. Where to?”

His eyes indicated that he hadn’t meant to suggest she was doing anything
unnatural, nor did he realize he had. She motioned toward her workshop. “The cellar.”

They left the berry patch and were soon going down the steps to her underground room.

He set the basket on the counter. “Interesting place.” He looked around. “Tight quarters, though.”

“This is where I do most of my cleaning, packaging, and canning.”

“I think it’s admirable that you care so much about your harvest you’re willing to try new things. If I don’t have a better harvest this year than I did last year, I’ll be looking for horses to strap buckets to.”

His humor caught her off guard, and she broke into laughter while plucking stray stems off the berries. “Two springs ago it rained nearly every day during pollination season. I remember. My blackberries suffered the most.”

“Kept the bees from being able to pollinate, and then the ground was sopping wet for nearly two months. But we have a lot of tiny apples hanging on the trees this year.”

“That’s gut.”

“We don’t use compost; there’s too much ground to cover and no evidence it helps apple trees.” He walked to a long shelf of her canned goods and studied them. “But if I had a smaller orchard and thought those types of ingredients would make that much difference, I would try it—no matter how weird it sounds.”

“Not everyone would agree. Most folks are afraid of anything different.”

He picked up a jar of strawberry preserves and turned it in various directions, reading the label, looking through the glass, and tapping on the lid. “Do you mind if I ask what percentage of profit you make per jar?”

“Fifty percent.”

He whistled. “That’s remarkable. But you must get some curious responses when you ask people for hair clippings and day-old fish and buckets of horse urine.”

“ ‘Curious’ is putting it mildly.” She tossed a handful of stems into a bucket of compost.

He gestured at her shelves of canned goods and containers of fresh fruit. “But how can they argue when your harvest is that plentiful?”

He seemed taken with her tiny operation, but it felt sinful to enjoy someone’s admiration so much. Despite her initial impressions, maybe he wasn’t as judgmental as a lot of people.

Rhoda’s thoughts returned to the young girl who’d dropped into her life that morning. This might be her last chance to help her. “Leah hates herself.”

“What?” Confusion covered his face as if the idea of self-hatred were foreign to him.

“I don’t know for sure if that’s how she feels—she didn’t
tell
me—but it’s pretty obvious. I hope you won’t do or say anything that makes her feel worse about herself. I mean, that’s not useful for her or anyone else.”

“You want me to pat her on the back for this stunt she’s pulled?” Part of him appeared baffled, and part seemed determined to straighten out his sister.