The Amish Teacher's Gift Read online

He pulled the rabbit from his mouth and beamed. So she’d gotten his message right, but she still hadn’t interpreted the meaning. Perhaps rather than his daed, he was here with his mamm. Then it would make sense. She’d noted two or three Amish women in the crowds, but why would any mother leave her child alone by the road?

  She signed, Mamm where?

  His face forlorn, he signed, Mamm gone.

  Then his eyes welled with tears. They spilled down his cheeks, and he scrubbed at the wetness with his fists.

  Ada reached out and embraced him. He cuddled close and sobbed against her shoulder. Poor baby. Something was terribly wrong, and she needed to find out what it was. Maybe his fits were his way of releasing pent-up emotion.

  This morning, humming had soothed him, so Ada began a hymn. His sobs quieted, and he pressed his head tightly against her chest. She inhaled deeply with each breath so he’d feel a strong vibration. After a few moments, he reached up shyly and touched her kapp, then released a long, shuddery sigh.

  Ada had no idea what had caused the cloudburst, and she still had no idea where his parents were. She was positive they weren’t gone, but they did not seem to be here, and she couldn’t leave Nathan by the side of the road. She told herself she remembered his address from the school records because he was the only student she didn’t already know, but her cheeks burned. In truth, she’d been trying to find out more about his daed. The house was about four miles down the road from them. Ada would take Nathan there.

  After Nathan had calmed, Ada pointed to her buggy and signed the word for go and pointed to herself, followed by a question mark.

  He must have understood because he nodded. When she set him on his feet and stood, he again clasped her hand. A warm feeling flowed through her. She might not have had a successful day of teaching, but she’d made a heartfelt connection with one of her scholars. And that was a huge success.

  Chapter Eight

  A block away from where Ada and Nathan stood hand in hand, one of the men directing people around the overturned truck handed his sign to a new worker and started toward them.

  “Hey, lady,” he yelled as he approached.

  Nathan had been smiling up at Ada, but when she tensed, he turned his head and followed her gaze. His hand tightened on hers, and Ada wished she could reassure him, but the man’s puffed-out chest and belligerent yell made her edgy.

  He waved toward her buggy. “You can’t block the shoulder that way. Look at the traffic. It’ll only get worse once the schools and early factory shifts let out.”

  Though Ada tried to keep her voice steady, it had a slight tremor. “We were just leaving.”

  Growing even redder in the face, the man pointed at Nathan, who shivered and stepped back until he was partly hidden by her skirt. Ada squeezed his hand, hoping to calm his fears.

  “Lady, that kid is too little to be out here alone. I don’t know what you people are thinking. And why isn’t he wearing one of those safety vests like the others do?”

  “He was in a buggy.”

  “Don’t lie. I saw him standing over here by himself.”

  “I’m sorry. There was a mixup and…”

  The man talked right over her. “Anyone coulda kidnapped him.” He shook his head. “Crazy the way you let kids wander around like that.”

  “We trust that whatever happens is God’s will.”

  “So it’s God’s will to let your kids get kidnapped? Like those three kids in the pony cart that was by here earlier?”

  Three children in a pony cart rang alarm bells in Ada’s mind. Could they have been her siblings? “What did they look like?”

  “Hair about the color of yours. The girls had blue dresses and some white thingies tied on their heads.” He swished a hand around his head.

  Her sisters had on white kerchiefs and blue dresses, but so did many girls their age. Still, if Amish children had been kidnapped, she needed to help.

  “Two girls and boy not much bigger than him.” The man jerked a finger in Nathan’s direction.

  Nathan backed up, and Ada wanted to hide him behind her and hold her arms out to the sides to shield him from danger. But Nathan was clinging so tightly to her hand, she couldn’t let go.

  “The one driving couldn’ta been more than eight or nine,” he continued. “That beats all, her driving on a main road like this.”

  The worries Ada had pushed aside earlier returned in full force. Sadie was ten, but she was small for her age. “So why do you think they were kidnapped?”

  “Some man stopped them and motioned for them to follow him up the back road there. I was hoping they knew him, but these days, you never know. I kept an eye on him so I can describe him to the police in case they turn up missing.”

  A man? Stopping Sadie and Mary Elizabeth? Why would they follow a stranger? Maybe it wasn’t her sisters. But she should find out, just in case. “This man, what did he look like?”

  “The same as all the rest of you people. One of those hats”—he pointed to Nathan’s head—“and them suspender things.”

  So he was Amish. “You said you could describe him to the police.”

  “Sure can.” The man squared his shoulders. “But what’s it to you?”

  Ada would care no matter who it was, but it might be her siblings. “I think they’re my sisters and brother.”

  “And your mother just lets them run all over creation with no supervision?”

  Ada swallowed hard. “Mamm’s dead.”

  A brief flicker of sympathy flared in his eyes, and his voice was a bit less gruff when he answered. “The man was about yea tall”—he held his hand above his head about six feet off the ground—“and had a reddish beard that came to here.” He tapped the bottom of his neck.

  That sounded like Josiah. At least she hoped it was Josiah. But why would he take them up this road instead of the detour? “You sure they went this way?” She pointed to the back road off to the left.

  “Look, I need to get back to work, but yeah, that’s the way they went. If they’d gone through the detour, I might not of noticed. But that road dead ends in about a mile.”

  “I know,” Ada choked out.

  “I hope for your sake they’re OK, but if they turn up missing, just send the cops my way.”

  Ada nodded and hurried toward the buggy. Nathan kept up with her. When he climbed up beside the driver’s seat, Ada almost protested. What if he had one of his outbursts while she was driving? His daed always put him in the back. She didn’t have time to insist on that; she had to find out if her siblings were all right.

  The minute there was a gap in traffic, she turned left into the dead end. She and Nathan drove to the end of it without spotting any signs of the pony cart. She turned around and headed back. She wanted to stop at home before she dropped off Nathan to be sure her siblings were there. Perhaps the children the man had seen belonged to one of the farms on this road.

  She tried to calm herself with that thought, but other fears intruded. How well did she know Josiah after meeting him twice? What if he really had abandoned Nathan by the roadside and kidnapped her siblings? Yes, he was now part of their Amish community, but he’d been living in Ohio for years. What did they really know about him?

  * * *

  The second Silver was hooked up, Josiah yanked up the barn door, leapt into the buggy, and clucked to Silver. Once he backed out and turned her around, he urged her into a gallop, leaving the door open behind him. They flew down the driveway. The tractor trailer spill he’d seen earlier would likely be blocking the road, so he turned Silver toward the shortcut. The horse cooperated by going as swiftly as she could. But what if no one was at the school? Ada would make her rounds before locking the building, wouldn’t she? She’d notice Nathan unless he’d wandered off.

  As they raced toward the blocked crossroad, a sudden thought entered Josiah’s mind. When Sadie had stopped alongside the road, David had tried to tell him something. The word he’d spelled started with an N. And later he’
d signed corn and buggy. The small boy had kept pointing to the corn beside Josiah’s buggy. Had Nathan gotten out then?

  The corn had rippled. Josiah had assumed the truck rumbling past caused the disturbance, but what if it had been Nathan in the corn?

  Josiah slowed Silver’s furious pace to turn onto the road where the accident had occurred. They had moved the tractor trailer, but the crews were still cleaning the asphalt, and men were directing people around it and onto the detour. A slow but steady stream of traffic flowed in the direction he wanted to turn. Once he got out, he had to cross to the shoulder on the other side.

  Drumming the fingers of his free hand on his knee, he prayed for a break in traffic so he could pull out. While he waited, he scanned the cornfields, hoping to catch a glimpse of Nathan. One Amish family watched from the hill nearby, and Josiah caught a glimpse of a small boy about Nathan’s height partially hidden beside the mother, and his heart leapt. He stuck his head out the buggy window and craned his neck to see around her, and his spirits plummeted. Definitely not Nathan.

  If Nathan wasn’t here, and it didn’t look like he was, he’d head to the school. But first he’d check the corn rows and ask the people who’d been gathered around the accident.

  The cars heading by slowed to a trickle. He waited impatiently for the last car to pass. As the tail end of that car passed him, Josiah nudged Silver around the corner. But down by the cleanup site, a worker flipped the sign from STOP to SLOW. Several drivers on the opposite side of the road revved their engines, and bumper to bumper, the cars inched forward. He’d never be able to cut through.

  Hastily, he pulled his buggy onto the shoulder. He tied up his horse, crossed to the center line, and waited anxiously for a gap between cars.

  Finally, a lady in a pale blue car slowed. People behind her laid on their horns, but she stopped and motioned for him to cross. With a grateful wave, he raced to the spot where he’d stopped earlier.

  Walking up and down the shoulder, he inspected the cornfield, hoping Nathan was hidden among the rows. A group of tourists leaned their heads out of their car windows and held up cell phones to snap pictures of him. He turned his back to the cameras as he checked for footprints and looked down each row.

  Finally, he came to a section that looked trampled. He followed the trail of crushed grasses and weeds between the corn rows for a few yards until it dead ended. If it had been Nathan, he’d come this far and turned around. Where had he gone from here?

  Josiah hurriedly checked the last few rows, but none had been disturbed. He’d ask some bystanders if they’d seen Nathan. People surely would have noticed a young boy wandering around on his own, especially if he’d been having one of his usual outbursts. The Amish family he’d spotted earlier must have gone inside, so he headed toward the road crew directing traffic and the few stragglers still watching the cleanup.

  As he jogged in that direction, the man holding the STOP sign shook a finger at him. “Hey, you the one that left that buggy there?” He flicked his head in the direction of Josiah’s buggy. “You’re blocking the shoulder.”

  “I just have a question.”

  Keeping his eyes on the stream of traffic coming from the opposite direction, the man shook his head. “Drivers have been sitting, waiting their turn. They’re impatient. They’ll run the buggies off the road.”

  He crossed the last few yards to the man whose frown had deepened to a glower. “I promise I’ll move it. I’m looking for my son. Did you see a little boy anywhere?” He held out a hand, not quite waist high. “He’s about this tall with blond hair.”

  “How can I keep track of all the kids when I need to direct traffic?”

  “I know you’re busy, but I just thought…”

  The man’s radio crackled, and an unintelligible voice spoke. He answered in a low growl. Then he glared at Josiah. “I have work to do.” He swiveled his head back to the traffic flowing in the opposite direction and counted the cars. “Three…four…red jeep,” he mumbled. “All clear.” He waited until the jeep had passed, then he flipped the sign to SLOW.

  The traffic in front of them lurched to a start. The first driver stepped on the gas and shot past them, shaking the sign.

  The sign man yelled after him. “Can’t you read? It says SLOW.” His jaw tensed, and he waved his hand up and down, trying to slow traffic speeding past. “Fools,” he spat out. Without taking his eyes off the cars, he grated, “You still here? Get that buggy outta the way.”

  “I will. But please, can you tell me if you’ve seen a small Amish boy with blond hair wandering around alone.”

  “Look,” the man said with gritted teeth, “can’t you see I’m too busy to look around?”

  “I see.” Josiah turned to go, but the worker called after him. “Hey, aren’t you the guy what took those little kids up the back road? Where are those kids now?”

  “At home where they belong.”

  The man took his eyes off the traffic and studied Josiah with narrowed eyes. “Your house or theirs?”

  “Theirs, of course.”

  Head tilted and eyes narrowed in an I-don’t-believe-you look, he said, “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “You don’t. But if I did anything to them, would I risk coming back here?”

  “Criminals often return to the scene of the crime. Any kids turn up missing around here, I’m giving your description to the cops.” A gleam in his eye, he said, “Better yet, I’ll just snap your picture.”

  Josiah held a hand in front of his face. “Please don’t. We don’t have our pictures taken.”

  “Definitely guilty. And now you’re back for more kids.”

  “No, I’m searching for my son. I think he got out of the buggy here when I stopped to help the girls.” Josiah tried to keep the panic from his voice, but he wasn’t successful.

  “To help the girls?” the man scoffed. “By taking them down a dead-end road?”

  “There’s a dirt path leading to the main road in town. It’s right behind Zook’s barn.” He gestured toward the farm in the distance. “We used the shortcut, and I made sure they got home safely.”

  The man still had a suspicious look in his eye. “Well, be warned. I aim to tell the cops about you if any kids turn up missing.”

  “So you didn’t see a little boy alone earlier?”

  “Only little boy hanging around here today belonged to an Amish mom. I gave her a lecture about leaving him alone up there.” He stabbed a finger toward the cornfield where Josiah had stopped earlier. “She left him there for at least a half hour.”

  “When was this?”

  The sign man flapped his hand. “Who knows? Maybe an hour ago, maybe less.”

  That’s when Nathan would have been here. Had someone taken him?

  Stepping forward and holding up his hand, the man twirled his sign to stop the flow of traffic. He turned to check the cars disappearing past the cleanup site and radioed a message. “You gotta go. You’re distracting me from my job. And your buggy’s in the way.”

  “Please, what did the woman look like?”

  “I noticed the horse first. All black with this white mark right here.” The man rubbed a circle on his forehead just below his hard hat.

  A black horse with a white patch? Ada had a horse like that. Had she passed and seen Nathan? She would have stopped if she’d realized he was alone.

  “Then she got out and…” The man waggled his eyebrows and leered. “Well, who cares about a horse after that? Even though she had on that crazy all-black getup you Amish wear, she was a looker.”

  Nausea built in Josiah’s stomach. If he was talking about Nathan’s teacher…She’d been wearing all black. The bishop had mentioned she was in mourning for her mamm. A picture of her standing in front of the classroom popped into his mind. And she definitely was pretty, but this man had no right to sully her purity like this. But as soon as he thought that, Josiah’s conscience bothered him. He had no right to judge this man, particula
rly when he’d been equally attracted to her.

  The disembodied voice on the radio startled him. The sign flipped again, and cars flowed by, but Josiah paid little attention to the honking horns and racing motors.

  So Ada—at least he hoped it was her—had picked up Nathan. How had she handled him? She was so small and slight. Even he had trouble wrestling his son into the buggy.

  “Wait,” Josiah said to the man. “How did she manage to get him into the buggy?”

  The man shrugged. “Same way as always, I guess. He climbed onto the seat.”

  “He wasn’t kicking and screaming?”

  The man gave him a funny look. “Nah, he was docile. Sort of shy, almost.”

  Maybe this man hadn’t seen Nathan after all. “The boy just went with her without fussing?”

  The road worker frowned at him. “Why wouldn’t he? She was his mom. Leastways, they both had the same blond hair.”

  Now that Josiah thought about it, Ada’s golden hair did match Nathan’s. And they both had some glints of red when the sunlight struck their hair. But he couldn’t imagine Nathan calmly getting into a buggy. Although, he had to admit, when he’d walked into the classroom earlier today, his son had been calm. But still…“My son’s usually, um, feisty.”

  “Nah, he was a good kid. He stood quietly watching the accident for a long time before his mom showed up.” The man lifted a finger, counted several cars behind Josiah, and then mumbled something into his radio.

  Josiah supposed the lights and trucks might have distracted Nathan. Actually, when he was alone in his room sometimes, he did play quietly or look at books. It was only when Josiah entered that he started throwing fits.

  The man waited until he’d let the ten cars past and stopped the traffic before turning to Josiah. “You sure he’s your son?” His leer returned. “Then that broad’s your wife, man? If so, you’re one lucky dude.”

  “No, no, Nathan’s not her son. He’s mine. She’s his teacher.” At least he hoped it was Ada and Nathan.

  “Boy, they didn’t have teachers like that back when I was in school. We got these shriveled-up old ladies…”