A Simple Vow Read Online Free PDF Page B

baby bottles—not much, considering she had two babies to look after. Molly had probably been too ill to sew for them, and not able to nurse them because of her cancer.
    What a heartache that must’ve been for Molly—and for Will as he watched her weaken and die. Edith sighed. So much about Will’s situation and these children was a sorrowful mystery.
    I’m watching out for your best interests, Daughter. You entered into this agreement without considering the long-term consequences.
    Edith frowned as her father’s words taunted her. Dat was right about her tendency to nurture hopeless souls and underdogs, but wasn’t that what the Bible urged Christians to do? What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? The verse from Micah had been one of the earliest Edith had committed to memory—the watchword of her faith. Even as a child she’d rescued little birds that had fallen from their nests and had bottle-fed baby rabbits and deer after their mothers had been hit in the road.
    Edith sighed. What future would these poor motherless children face if she didn’t care for them? She had to find a way around Dat’s refusal to keep them in the house . . . in her life. Already her heart swelled with love as she gazed at Leroy and Louisa.
    The clatter of footsteps downstairs alerted her to her sisters’ arrival, and she hurried down the hallway. “Shh!” Edith insisted as she leaned over the stairway railing. “I just got the babies to sleep!”
    Loretta and Rosalyn’s faces were alight with news—and secrets—when they looked up at her. “Where’s Dat?” Loretta asked in a loud whisper.
    Edith pointed downward, indicating the workshop in the basement.
    “ Gut —you’ll never guess what’s happened!” her middle sister continued as the two girls removed their shoes.
    “ Jah , Andy from down the road—the nurse fellow who runs the clinic—had to leave the wedding feast to fetch some guy Bishop Tom’s wife found on the roadside,” Rosalyn went on after she and Loretta had tiptoed up the stairs in their stocking feet. “Nobody knows why he’s here—”
    “But Jerusalem Gingerich was telling everyone he was thrown from the biggest black horse she’s ever seen—”
    Edith’s breath caught as she followed her sisters into their room.
    “—and then we saw him getting out of Andy’s clinic wagon on our way home,” Rosalyn went on in a low voice. “Luke Hooley was telling the fellow he could stay at their place until he’s recovered enough to travel.”
    “Oh, Asa,” Edith whimpered before she could stop herself.
    Her sisters’ eyebrows rose. “How do you know him, Edith?” Loretta demanded playfully. “We just caught enough of a glimpse to see that he was tall, dark, and—”
    “Mighty handsome,” Rosalyn finished.
    Edith’s throat had gotten so tight she couldn’t get the words out. Her heart was pounding so loudly she could hardly hear herself speak. “That’s the man who was arguing with Will about the babies. The one who asked me to take care of them until he came back.”
    Loretta’s playful expression sobered as she crossed her arms. “And you’re already head-over-heels for him, ain’t so?” she demanded. “Edith, we don’t know this man from Adam. What if he recovers enough to go home and he doesn’t intend to come back?”
    “He looks to be somewhat older than we are, so he’s surely got a home and a job somewhere else—and maybe a wife,” Rosalyn pointed out quietly. “What we don’t know about him—”
    “What we don’t know can’t hurt us, because those babies aren’t staying here.”
    The three sisters turned to find their father in the doorway, sternly shaking his head. Edith’s face went hot. How had Dat known to come upstairs, to catch them in this whispered conversation? She knew better than to ask, or to protest his ultimatum.
    Dat cleared his throat. “If this man was thrown from his horse