The Wings of Morning Read Online Free PDF Page B

him.”
    Father’s brow creased sharply. “What do you mean so many?”
    “Well, a good number of the colony were there to welcome him back. All the leadership and the bishop as well. The children were all over him.”
    Lyyndaya felt a pang. So many there to greet her young man, to touch his hand, make him laugh, but not her. Papa was rubbing his hand over his mouth and beard at this news, no doubt worried that the Kurtz family might be looked upon in a bad light for not being there with the old families.
    “Well, but then you followed him back to the house?” Mama spoke up.
    “Yes, I followed him and his father. They invited me in and we chatted a bit about the warm weather and how hot that made the work at the forge. They asked after our dairy herd.”
    “
Ja, ja
,” said Papa impatiently, his rough, squat hands playing with the empty buttermilk glass.
    Ruth’s blue eyes snapped with an inner light. “I gave him the letter and he got up from the table and walked to the window to read it.”
    “And what did he say?” pressed Father.
    “He said—”
    “Did he write a note?” asked Mama looking worried, glancing at Lyyndaya.
    Ruth shook her head. “There is no note. He simply came to me, thanked me for bringing the letter, wished our family well, said he was making up several dozen horseshoes, if we needed any now was a good time to let him know, he’d be happy to serve us, and then—”
    Ruth hesitated and in a gesture just like Mama, bit on her lower lip.
    “And then what?” demanded Father.
    Ruth closed her eyes and let her words out with a deep rush of air. “And then he said, ‘Tell your father and mother, and Lyyndaya, that I am very sorry to have been a burden and a trouble to them. It was not my wish.’”
    Father spread his hands as Lyyndaya felt her throat and eyes burn. “That is all he said? Nothing more?”
    Ruth’s eyes flew open and the blue in them flamed. “What did you expect him to say? His mother is in the grave, we cut him out of our lives, cut him off from the girl he loves, all because he flies an aeroplane—you’d think he were a murderer the way we treat him!”
    Father rapped his knuckles on the tabletop. “That is enough, young lady—more than enough.”
    Ruth dropped her head and closed her eyes again. “I’m sorry, Papa. What’s done is done.” She looked at her mother. “It does not matter anyway. The women are all around him like hummingbirds at a flower. He will be courting one of them in no time. Anna Lapp, Katie Fisher, even Bishop Zook’s daughter, Emma—”
    “Emma?” asked Lyyndaya in a weak voice. Despite her faith of a few days before, she suddenly felt she had lost Jude forever, lost him to Emma and all the other young girls who had been dying to get their hands on him—all because her father and mother thought flying was a sin, an unholiness, a wrong in the eyes of God. The tears erupted. She pushed herself away from the table and fled up the stairs.
    “Lyyndy, please, wait!” called Papa. “We are not finished.”
    “Papa, she has heard enough,” Mama said. “Let her be.”
    “I wished to say I care for the young man. I do not hate him, Rebecca.”
    She placed a hand gently on his. “That is very good. That is very kind. But try to understand that your daughter is eighteen and a woman and in love and in great pain because of a decision we made, Amos.”
    Lyyndaya could hear them talking even with her face buried in her pillow. Then it was quiet and soon afterward the door to the room opened and Ruth sat on the bed beside her. She began to smooth Lyyndaya’s hair with her hand.
    “I’m sorry,” Ruth said, “I didn’t mean for it to be so rough. I didn’t want to see you hurt more than you already are. I just wanted Mama and Papa to realize how wonderful everyone in the colony thinks Jude is—everyone except them—and that it is you he loves. I know he does. But if they will not let you have him then a dozen other girls are eager