The Amish Bride Read Online Free PDF

with either of his sons when the little boys kicked up a commotion.
    “Me!” Asa and Joel both reached for the pie in the center of the table. “Me!” they cried in unison.
    “Me first!” Joel insisted.
    “
Nay!
Me!” Asa bellowed.
    “I knew you’d see it our way, Ellen,” Micah said above the voices of his nephews. He rose from his chair. “I was so sure you’d agree that I brought fishing poles. You always used to like fishing. Maybe you and me could wander down to the creek and see if we could catch a fish or two before dark.”
    Ellen looked at Micah, then the table of seated guests, flustered. “Go fishing? Now?”
    “Oh, go on, Ellen,” her father urged. “We can get our own pie and I’ll help your mother clean up the dishes.” He glanced at Micah. “Smart thinking. Best strike while the iron is hot, boy. Get the jump on Neziah and put your claim in first.”
    Mischief gleamed in Micah’s blue eyes. “It’ll get you out of here.” He motioned toward the back door. “Come on, Ellen. You know you want to. I’ll even bait the hook for you.”
    She cut her eyes at him. “As if I need the help. If I remember correctly, it was me who taught you how to tickle trout.”
    “She did,” Micah conceded to the others, then he returned his attention to her. “But I’ve learned a few things about fishing since then. You don’t stand a chance of catching the first fish or the most.”
    “Don’t I?” Ellen retorted. “Talk’s cheap but it never put fish on the table.” Still bantering with him, she took off her
kapp
, tied on her scarf and followed him out of the house.
    * * *
    Fifteen minutes later, Micah stepped out on a big willow that had fallen into the creek. The leaves had long since withered, but the trunk was strong. Barring a flood, the willow would provide a sturdy seat for fishermen for years. And the eddy in the curve of the bank was the best place to catch fish.
    He turned and offered Ellen his hand. “Don’t worry,” he said, “it’s safe enough.” He had both fishing poles in his free hand, while Ellen carried the can with the bait.
    The rocky stream was wide, the current gentle but steady as the water snaked through a wooded hollow that divided his father’s farm from her
dat
’s. When they were children, he, Neziah and Ellen had come here to fish often. Now, he sometimes brought his nephews, Joel and Asa, but Neziah didn’t have the time. Sometimes the fishing was good, and sometimes he went home with nothing more than an easy heart, but it didn’t matter. Micah thought there was often more of God’s peace to be found here in the quiet of wind and water and swaying trees than in the bishop’s sermons.
    “Thanks for asking me to come fishing, Micah,” Ellen said as she followed him cautiously out onto the wide trunk. “I needed to get out of there, and I couldn’t think of a way to make a clean getaway without offending anyone.”
    “Jah,”
Micah agreed. “I wanted to get away, too. Not from supper. That was great. But my
dat
. When he takes a crazy notion, he’s hard to rein in.”
    “So you think that’s what it is? His idea that you and Neziah should both court me, and that I would choose between you? It’s a
crazy
notion
?”
    The hairs on the back of Micah’s neck prickled, warning him that he’d almost made a big misstep, and not the kind that would land him in the creek. “
Nay
, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s a good idea, one I should have come up with a long time ago. Me and you walking out together, I mean, not you picking one of us. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. My
vadder
is right that I’ve been
rumspringa
too long. I didn’t want to discuss it back there, but I’ve been talking to the bishop about getting baptized. I’m ready to settle down, and a good woman is just what I need.”
    Ellen sat down on the log and dangled her legs over the edge. She was barefooted, and he couldn’t help noticing her slender, high-arched