Abby Finds Her Calling Read Online Free PDF

pumpkins, and potted mums of every color. Folks would inquire about the runaway bride out of concern, but their questions would take a toll on the family’s emotions.
    And what if we get no answers? What if she’s gone for good?
    Abby stood with a tired sigh. “Guess I’ll run some hot water, then,” she murmured to her nieces. “You girls grab the scrub brushesand we’ll redd up this kitchen for your mamm. The best cure for heartache is hard work, ain’t so?”
    Abby knocked on the door in Sam’s back hallway and then slipped inside the dawdi haus. This addition had been built on when her dat’s parents were aging, and Dat and Mamm had moved into it when Sam took over the store a few years ago. These rooms kept everybody close and cared for, on land the Lambrights had owned since her great-grandparents had come here from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to help start the Cedar Creek community. “Mamm, are you all right?” she whispered as she entered the bedroom.
    “I’m better now, jah.” Her mother sat in a rocking chair by the window. With only the moon for light and her silvery hair trailing down over her white nightgown, she resembled an angel. “Figured you’d come for a visit, Abby, so I waited up.”
    “I’m sorry Sam got so testy.”
    “He’s worried about Zanna. He has a tougher time showing it than the rest of us.” Mamm patted the edge of the bed, and when Abby sat down, they clasped hands. “Your dat was a tough one, too—on the outside,” her mother continued. “But Zanna knew he loved her. I believe she wouldn’t have run off had Leroy been here to talk to her.”
    “Jah, I’ve thought so, too.”
    “She might not have gotten engaged to James, either, truth be told.”
    Abby’s eyes widened. Where was
this
line of thought coming from?
    The rocker creaked when Mamm leaned closer so her voice wouldn’t carry through the walls. “Your dat and I hoped Zanna might wait a while to marry… have more running-around time for her rumspringa, after she stopped seeing the Ropp boy.”
    Abby recalled that difficult time. The whole town had discussed Jonny’s dramatic departure from his family and the church in a fancyred van. He’d broken all ties, never came around anymore. “But Zanna took her church instructions.”
    “Because your dat wanted to be sure she’d become a baptized member.”
    “And then she latched right onto James when he came calling on her,” Abby whispered bitterly. She was too tired to discuss this now, but Mamm would understand feelings she could share with no one else. “If Zanna wasn’t ready to settle down, why did she have to shatter his dreams by agreeing to marry him and then running off?”
    Mamm sighed and squeezed her hand. “She’s barely seventeen, Abby. Hardly a woman, much less ready to be a wife. I suspect she doesn’t know who she is yet, or what she wants to do with her life,” her mother explained. “James is a wonderful-gut man and I’m sorry he’s never spared you a second glance, Abby. I know you’ve always cared for him.”
    Abby swiped at sudden tears. This was foolishness, to dredge up feelings she’d thought she’d put to rest. “Sorry,” she whispered hoarsely. “I just have to keep believing God’s got different ideas for me—”
    “That’s why you took up your sewing, using your best talents to start up your own business—right there where you could help Sam run the store,” her mamm reassured her. “And it’s why your dat built you a little place across the lane, knowing that someday Matt would marry and have his family in this house, where his sheep and the gut pastureland are.” Mamm shook her head wistfully. “Sam might rant about how Leroy favored Zanna, but your dat looked ahead to what each of you kids would need… how you’d best follow your own paths yet be able to stay here, near the homeplace.”
    Abby nodded, her sadness stabbing her.
Why did you have to leave us so soon, Dat?
It was a question they’d