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Ridge school had so few scholars this term. Had he not been paying attention to the affairs of his hometown? Or had his woodworking projects kept him so busy he just hadn’t thought about the school and its students? He and his brothers spent a lot of time on the road, installing cabinets and delivering the furniture they built in their shop . . . and as bachelors, he and Aaron had no direct connection to the school these days.
    Better change your tune if you’re thinkin’ a woman like Mary will be interested. She needs a solid, invested type of fellow, not somebody who can’t see the forest beyond his own little trees.
    And where had that thought come from? Mary Kauffman was attractive, for sure, but her roots were in Bowling Green. Maybe Sol had it right—maybe he and his sibs and Mary would soon be heading back to her family, so it would be a waste of time to cultivate any interest in her. If Ben had gone to the expense of adding an annex to his barn, that was his miscalculation, wasn’t it?
    Seth laughed, at himself mostly. It seemed the birth of Emmanuel had set the world spinning in a whole new direction—just as it had centuries ago.

C HAPTER 3
    Mary gazed at her baby as he fed at her breast. At six weeks, he looked plump and happy, with dewy skin and crystal-blue eyes that watched her intently as he suckled. Sometimes it was a comfort, seeing this boy’s resemblance to his dat , and at other times it tore out her heart. While she and Sol and Lucy had found a haven here in the Hooleys’ dawdi haus , they still had to deal with their life in Bowling Green. Someday soon, she would be able to return to the farm—Elmer’s place, half a mile down the road from her parents’ home and surrounded by other members of the Kauffman family—and she would have to make a life for herself and three children.
    But how would that happen? Now that she had more kids than hands, no income, and no one to tend the farm or the livestock, how would she get her little family through the winter, much less the years ahead?
    It’s Elmer’s family , she reminded herself. His kids, his farm . . . and he left me behind to tend them all.
    â€œYou, I can handle, Emmanuel,” Mary murmured in a choked voice. “But how long can I live off the generosity of the Hooleys? I hate to think of moving back to Mamm and Dat’s . . . or moving in with one of Elmer’s brothers, but I see no other—”
    â€œUh-oh.”
    Mary raised her head, listening. With Sol going to school during the day, and Miriam and Ben working at their shops across the road, she and Lucy were alone here at the house with the baby. The gurgling of the toilet told her the little girl had used the bathroom—again. Or was she playing in there?
    â€œLucy?” Mary called over her shoulder. “Is everything all right?”
    No answer.
    â€œLucy?” Mary repeated more insistently. While the little girl was quiet and well-behaved, she also knew that while Emmanuel nursed, Mary wouldn’t be moving from the rocking chair. Lucy had a tendency to explore other parts of Ben and Miriam’s house then—natural curiosity for a five-year-old without any playmates. Or was it?
    Did all girls that age slink around like cats? Had Lucy been so removed and secretive with her own mother, or had losing one parent and then the other made her more withdrawn? Children were such a mystery. Mary had done her best to embrace Elmer’s grieving son and daughter after she’d married him, but she’d been the youngest in her family and she’d had so little experience around kids.
    Maybe Mamm and Dat were right. Maybe I should’ve looked before I leaped, thought twice about hitching up with an older fellow whose kids needed a keeper.
    Mary glanced up as Lucy entered the bedroom. “I asked you a question,” she said as the girl skirted the rocking chair and avoided eye contact.