The Matchmaker (4 page)

With his freshly shaved face and bright blue eyes, Paul Esh brought a crisp liveliness to the gathering, and Emma was quick to introduce him to Hannah. When she lowered her eyes and blushed at his attention, a thought struck Emma in regard to the young woman’s social inadequacies and apparent shyness.

I can help her
, she thought.
The way Anna helped me
.

Her mind quickly worked, playing forward the different ways that she could repay Anna’s kindness and devotion toward her over the years. After all, Anna had taught her how to properly balance being a godly woman with her commitment to helping the community.
It is more blessed to give than receive
, had been the way that Emma was raised. After the fifteen years of sacrifice that Anna had made, raising her
onkel
’s
kinner
rather than her own, Emma had taken great satisfaction in seeing her happily married at last.

Now this newcomer to their community, obviously from a smaller and less cosmopolitan settlement of Amish, could benefit from Emma’s friendship and guidance. Emma could help Hannah adapt to the ways of the Lancaster
County Amish as well as possibly finding her too a suitable match . . . just as she had done with Anna!

With a new sense of purpose, Emma leaned forward and paid extra attention to every word that Hannah spoke and to her every interaction. She also observed how her guests interacted with the young woman, especially Paul Esh. The more Emma watched, the more convinced she was that her role in assimilating this newcomer into the community in order to ensure that Hannah was properly acclimated and accepted, and possibly even married, was meant to be.

Now that Anna was happily settled into her new life with Samuel, it was time for Emma to guide another young woman to a long life of wedded bliss. And by the end of the evening she was convinced that Hannah was the one that God intended for her to guide.

Chapter Two

E
MMA PULLED BACK
on the reins, a soft “whooooa” on her lips as she waited for the horse to slow down and stop in front of Gladys’s small ranch house. It was only a mile from the home she shared with her
daed
, but it was located on a much busier street. She waited patiently for Hannah to emerge from the front entrance, pausing to ensure that the door shut properly behind her before she crossed the small patch of grass and opened the buggy door.

“Gut mariye
, Emma!” Hannah practically sang as she climbed into the buggy.

In her pink dress and odd-shaped prayer
kapp
the young Amish woman from Ohio was, indeed, fair enough. There was an amusing spring to the seventeen-year-old’s step that spoke of youth on the verge of womanhood. Her dark eyes sparkled and her ruddy cheeks hinted at plenty of time spent outdoors. Emma wondered whether her new friend had worked on a farm in Ohio and made a mental note to inquire further about her life back home.

“All is
vell
today,
ja
?” Emma replied as she tugged gently at the reins for the horse to back up so that she could pull out of the horseshoe-shaped driveway.

“Right as rain,
ja
!”

There was something jovial about Hannah which confirmed Emma’s initial opinion of the young woman. Despite the four-year age difference between them and Hannah’s particular mannerisms, she would certainly do well as a replacement companion for Anna. Furthermore, Emma knew that her idea for arranging a match between Hannah and Paul would certainly cement her unofficial role as matchmaker in the
g’may
. The image of Gideon’s face when she, once again, could boast her success brought her much inner delight.

“I understand that you grew up in Ohio,” Emma began probing cautiously. “You must be missing your parents,
ja
?”

“Oh.” The simple word came out as a gasp and Hannah glanced away. She seemed to hesitate and clear her throat, reluctant to discuss the matter.

“Is something wrong?”

“Ja vell
,” Hannah began to reply, squirming ever so slightly in the buggy beside Emma. “I was raised by my
aendi
. Or, at least, I call her my
aendi
.” When she paused from speaking, Hannah glanced at Emma and saw that her new friend was frowning. “I never knew my parents,” she offered as an explanation.

Emma fought the urge to gasp at this news. How could anyone not know his or her parents? Despite the fact that her own
maem
had passed away to join Jesus in heaven while Emma was still a small girl, she at least had the memories of her
maem
from the first part of her youth. With her
daed
being so much older than her
maem
, she prayed her thanks to the Lord every morning and every evening for having permitted him to stay with her for as long as he already had.

“I see,” she finally managed to say, wondering whether they had died from disease or accident. The thought of any
other possibility never crossed her mind. “Most unusual circumstances, I imagine.”

Hannah shrugged her shoulders, obviously not as uncomfortable as Emma about her family background. Of course, having grown up under such a situation, it would not make her uncomfortable, at least not uncomfortable enough to provide further explanation to Emma.

“And your
aendi
?”

“Oh, she was a lovely woman.” A smile spread across Hannah’s face and she seemed to come to life. “I helped her serve dinner to guests and worked at market. We always met the most interesting people at her dinners.
Englische
women, mostly.” She laughed. “They so loved to have a true Amish meal. Isn’t that something? What we take for granted they seem to covet so!”

Emma laughed with her new friend. “We see the same curiosity among the tourists here too. I see there is not much difference between Holmes County and Lancaster County after all!”

“Oh, it’s different,” Hannah admitted. “I feel it is much more . . . ” She sought for the right word. “Proper.”

“Here?” The word squeaked out and Emma could barely contain herself. “Proper? In what way?”

Hannah shrugged. “It’s hard to say exactly.” Then, as if fearing she may have offended her new friend, she quickly added, “But I don’t mean it in a negative way.”

“Of course not.” Emma slowed the horse down at a stop sign, looking both ways before she crossed the intersection. Another buggy passed, going the opposite direction, and the driver, an older man, lifted his hand in greeting to the two young women.

“My
aendi
fell ill last spring. Now she’s in a nursing home
where she can be better cared for. That was why I came to Gladys’s. They were right
gut
friends, Gladys is almost like another
aendi
to me. So when she offered for me to stay here, I thought a change might be nice.”

“But you like Lancaster, then?”

Hannah smiled as she nodded her head. “Oh,
ja
! Very much. However . . . ” Her voice trailed off and the smile faded just a touch. “Besides you and Gladys, the only other people I know here are the Martins. Do you know them? They live on the south side of Route Thirty, you know. Near Strasburg.”

Strasburg? To Emma, that seemed so far away from where she lived in Lititz. “
Nee
, I don’t seem to know the family name.”

“They were originally from Ohio, you see. But moved here a few years back. When Elizabeth Martin heard that I was to come here, she invited me to stay at their farm for a few weeks. To visit, you know.”

Emma turned the buggy into the parking lot of the fabric store, located next to the Kitchen Kettle in the town of Intercourse. While the tourists tended to visit the cluttered stores of the shopping village, few ventured to the hidden treasure of the dry goods store next door. It was hidden by the hardware store and a well-kept secret among the Amish. “I’m sure that was nice to visit with an old friend. A great way to start your new life in Lancaster County.”

For the next hour they browsed through the rows of bolts of fabric, discussing the different colors and patterns while rubbing the cloth through their fingers to check the quality of the material. They ignored the few
Englische
tourists who walked past them, staring at the two Amish women while they shopped. To further isolate themselves, Emma began
speaking Pennsylvania Dutch so that the outsiders could not eavesdrop on their conversation. Hannah suppressed a giggle when Emma did that, and both of them had a laugh about it when they finally left the dry goods store, their arms laden with wrapped cloth.

“Do you mind if I run to the hardware store, Hannah?” Emma was putting the packages into the back of the buggy as she spoke to her friend. “My
daed
needs a new hinge for the stall door. I promised I’d pick it up today as Paul Esh volunteered to stop by later and fix it for us. The old one is barely hanging on!”

“Of course!”

Emma smiled at her friend. “He’s such a
gut
man, Paul Esh,” she started. “That was thoughtful of him to offer to fix the hinge. My
daed’s
hands don’t work so well anymore, you see.”

Hannah nodded her head in agreement. “He seemed most pleasant the other day at your
haus
.”

Together they crossed through the parking lot and entered the hardware store’s back door, avoiding the foot traffic along the main street of the town. “And a godly man, at that,” Emma was quick to add. “Why, I was visiting a sick elderly woman just a few weeks back, and just as I was about to leave, he showed up with a box full of canned peaches! Very thoughtful of him, ain’t so?”

“Ja
,
ja
!” This time Hannah seemed a bit more enthusiastic as she responded.

No sooner had they started walking down the center aisle than a young man almost bumped into them. He was a tall Amish man who wore dirty black pants and a white shirt that was missing one button. Emma had never seen him
before so she was quite surprised when Hannah greeted him with a smile.

“Ralph Martin! Whatever are you doing here?”

“Why, Hannah Souder!” He grinned in response to her greeting. “I thought you were staying in Lititz with Gladys! A pleasant surprise bumping into you, I must say.”

A hint of a giggle escaped Hannah’s lips and she blushed. “We only just came to town for quilting supplies.”

Emma frowned, looking first at her friend before turning her gaze to the man standing before them. He looked to be not much older than she was, but there was a weathered look to his face. Certainly he was a man who worked outdoors, and that most likely meant that he was a farmer. Yet she could not understand his disheveled appearance. To come to town in such a filthy outfit, she thought!

His eyes flickered toward Emma.

“Forgive me,” Hannah gushed. “Ralph, this is my friend Emma.”

He nodded his head in acknowledgment but paid no further attention to Emma. His eyes were large and wide, seeing only Hannah.

“Elizabeth will most certainly tell me to send her regards,” he said. “She has missed your company.”

“Danke
,” Hannah replied, her cheeks flushing under his constant stare, the change in color not going unnoticed by Emma.

“You are staying in the area then?”

The question was directed to Hannah, and Emma was beginning to realize that she was not a part of this conversation. Indeed, she felt like a voyeur, watching a scene unfold before her and, with it, the image vanished of Gideon’s
smiling face approving Emma’s match between Hannah and Paul.

She listened to the banter between Hannah and Ralph, a frown on her face as she saw the telltale signs on Hannah’s. Indeed, there was a connection between her friend and this young man, a connection that was not one sided but reciprocated by each. Politely Emma excused herself to hurry down the aisle, searching for the hinge that her
daed
needed. Her mind reeled as she realized that her plans for helping Hannah find favorable appeal in the eyes of Paul Esh might be compromised by this one chance meeting in the hardware store.