The Revealing Read Online Free PDF

straightening tug and smoothed out the now wrinkled skirt of her apron.
    “I didn’t,” he said calmly, an ankle crossing a knee. “You were the one who was daydreaming and not watching where you were going.”
    Mim thrust her chin into the air. “Daydreaming? You were taking a nap without even worrying to see whose way you were in.”
    The boy shrugged. “I’m just passing the time, waiting for my sister,” he said, gesturing toward the Bent N’ Dent. “Enjoying the sun shining on my face.” He radiated mischief, amusement, and mockery too.
    “I’ve never seen you around Stoney Ridge.”
    He lunged to his feet. “My name is Jesse Stoltzfus.” He introduced himself expansively, as if his name alone should bring her pleasure. “Nor have I seen you before. A girl with eyes as gray as a raging storm cloud, cheeks like Georgia peaches, and hair as dark as a black-crowned night heron.”
    Mim stared at him. She felt a blush creep up, no matter how hard she tried to stop it. She knew her face was turning the color of red raspberries. For some inexplicable reason, out of her mouth spouted something her grandmother would say: “The lowly woman and the meek woman are really above all other women, above all other things.” She had just readthat very thing in her grandmother’s favorite book next to the Bible, A Young Woman’s Guide to Virtue , published in 1948 and still as relevant as ever. According to Mammi Vera, anyway.
    Jesse considered her words solemnly. “Then might I say, ‘Never have I seen a girl with such beautiful meekness’? Or perhaps ‘I am overwhelmed by your lowly spirited, meek-minded, lowly hearted, meek-looking humility, which meekly shines . . .’?”
    Mim was staring at him with her mouth open. She knew it and she couldn’t help it. It was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.
    Jesse Stoltzfus doffed his hat and flourished it before him as if he were going to sweep the floor. He had wiry hair that grew upward from his head. It was sticky-up hair. When he straightened, he said, “No doubt we shall meet again. The glow from your jubilant meekness will lead me to wherever you are. Also your stormy gray eyes.” He smiled as brightly as a full moon. “No doubt it was God’s plan that we meet today.”
    Mim thought God might have better things to do than to concern himself with a chance meeting in the parking lot of a grocery store. Jesse Stoltzfus winked at her and strode off, whistling, toward a buggy his sister, another redhead, was loading with boxes of food. The girl looked over at Mim and waved in a friendly way.
    Mim gave a halfhearted wave back to her and frowned at Jesse’s back. That boy, she decided, thought he was something . She watched their buggy leave the Bent N’ Dent and then she pulled a strand of hair out from under her black bonnet to look at it closely. Like a black-crowned night heron,he had said. It must be a bird, she thought, though she’d never seen one. Whatever it was, it had a crown as black as her hair, and she almost smiled as she skipped up the steps to the store. Almost.

    Rose hadn’t had a chance to talk to Galen since he’d asked to marry her. This morning, she caught sight of him striding across the yard and stopped what she was doing to watch him. She studied his familiar walk—the efficient steps, his long legs, the way one shoulder was a little lower than the other, the way he tapped his fingers against his thighs as he walked when he was puzzling over something.
    He spotted her and walked toward her, meeting her by the privet. His hat brim hid his eyes, but there was a slight smile to his lips. “I was going to come over today. I’ve got a little spare time and want to get working on Silver Queen’s training. It’s time she learned how to be a buggy horse.”
    Rose smiled. She knew that Galen King didn’t know the first thing about spare time. He worked. And worked and worked. Sunup to sundown, he never stopped. She knew he was