The Amish Teacher's Dilemma and Healing Their Amish Hearts Patricia Davids (best self help books to read TXT) 📖

“Maddie isn’t good at keeping secrets. What is contained in this list?”

“I have kept it in my pocket to share with you if you’d care to read it?” she offered.

“It’s too dark. Tell me what they said.”

“It’s a well-thought-out list of requirements for your wife-to-be.”

“From Otto and Maddie? I can’t wait to hear it.”

“Oh, Harley added one requirement. She should be pretty.”

“At least Harley has my best interest at heart. What else?”

“She has to smell nice, be a good cook and not make them take a lot of baths.”

He chuckled. “That last requirement came from Otto, didn’t it?”

“It did. Oh, and she shouldn’t be old but fifty like me is acceptable.”

“Ouch, that had to hurt.”

“They are such amazing children. I haven’t been bored for a minute since I met them.” She sighed deeply and fell silent.

“You said you had something on your mind. Would it help to talk about it? I can listen and swing at the same time.”

She giggled. “I knew you were a man of many talents when I first laid eyes on you. Next, you will tell me you can walk and chew gum.”

“I’ve been able to do it for years. What’s troubling you, Teacher? Tell ole Onkel Willis.”

She stopped swinging and sat still. “I have a decision to make.”

He waited but she didn’t say anything else. He began turning himself around until the chains were tightened. When he picked his feet up he whirled rapidly as the chains unwound.

“Don’t you want to know what decision I have to make?” she asked.

“Only if you want to tell me.”

“Do you know what I did before I came here?”

“I know you didn’t teach school. You told me this was your first teaching job. If you want me to guess, I’ll start with the A’s. Were you an arrow maker?”

He heard her soft chuckle. “I lived with my brother and his wife and I took care of my grandparents. Grandmother was very frail. She was bedridden for most of the last five years.”

“She was blessed to have a granddaughter willing to care for her.”

“That’s what everyone said. ‘Isn’t it wonderful that Gene and Corrine have Eva to take care of the old folks? She is such a blessing to them. What would they do without her?’ When my grandparents passed away I suddenly found myself without a purpose. Do you know what that feels like?”

“I never gave it much thought. I believed my purpose was to beat hot iron into useful things.”

“And a fine purpose that is.”

“Is that what’s troubling you? That you don’t have a purpose now? What about teaching?”

“My sister-in-law’s mother has had a stroke and she is going to need someone to take care of her. My brother and his wife want me to return to Illinois and be that someone.”

“I see. Will you go?”

“I want to stay and teach school. Is that being selfish?”

“What if I said that I want you to stay?”

Chapter Ten

Eva turned to stare at Willis with her heart thudding rapidly. What was he implying? That he cared for her? Or was she reading something into his statement that he didn’t mean? They had only known each other a little more than a week although it felt as if she had known him longer. She wished she had gone out on more dates. Nothing she had read in her books prepared her for a moonlight conversation with a man she was beginning to care for.

“What I mean is that my brothers and sister like you and they would be upset if you left.” Willis ran his words together so quickly she almost laughed. “Particularly Maddie,” he added.

It was foolish to think he might have meant something else. He’d made it plain from the start that he wasn’t interested in dating or marriage.

“I would miss all of you terribly if I went back to Illinois.”

“Then don’t go.”

“Isn’t it my duty to return and do as my older brother wishes? He has taken the place of my father who died when I was fifteen. I lived in his household until I came here.”

“Then go back and be miserable.”

“What a terrible thing to say. What makes you think I’ll be miserable?”

He stood up and let the swing undulate on its own. “Because you sound like it will make you miserable to return. If your brother has truly replaced your father in your life, then he will understand that at some point you need to leave the nest. I see that you have two choices. Sit on your brother’s roost and squawk about your difficulties like a chicken or take off like a dove and look for your own nesting ground. Good night, Eva.”

She watched him walk away. “Good night, Willis. You’ve been extremely unhelpful.”

“That’s what friends are for,” he shot back.

She smiled as she watched him cross the road and enter his home. A man she could talk to without even mentioning books. Willis was a rare fellow indeed. He was turning out to be the best friend she had never had.

She would cherish that friendship and keep her girlish emotions in check. He didn’t want a romantic relationship. Nor did she. Letting him suspect she felt otherwise might destroy their wonderful camaraderie.

Maddie appeared at Eva’s door the next morning just before six o’clock. She cupped her hands around her eyes and pressed her face to the screen door. “Hello? Is anybody home?”

Eva walked out of the kitchen. “My, you are here early.”

“Willis is fixing oatmeal for breakfast. Bubble doesn’t like oatmeal so we came to see what you’re having.”

“I was about to fix some French toast. How does that sound?”

“Yummy.”

Danny strolled to the entryway and held open the door. “I have got to get me one of those.”

Maddie tipped her head to the side. “You want a bowl of oatmeal?”

“I want an imaginary friend who will check out what everyone is having for breakfast and take me to the best house.”

Maddie shook her head. “Bubble didn’t check with