The Amish Baby Finds a Home Read online

  Gideon gazed down at the little bu. When the boppli spotted him, he grinned and waved the rattle harder.

  “I know. Eli hasn’t returned my call.” He sighed and shook his head. “I was hoping the mudder would come back. Every time the shop door opened I prayed it was his mudder coming for her boppli.”

  “I wondered if she was watching us and saw me bring him down here to my shop. I spent some time standing at the window looking out at people walking past,” she told him. “I was hoping one of them would be the mudder and she would tell me she’d come for him.”

  She reached into her pocket and held out the ticket. “I found this in the bottom of the diaper bag. It looks like the mudder came here on a bus from Ohio. Do you know anyone who lives in Ohio?”

  He frowned. “I have an aenti in Middlefield. My mother’s there visiting her now.”

  She smiled when the boppli tossed the rattle down, and she picked it up to shake it for him. “Gideon, maybe we need to call the police.”

  “Nee! We can’t call the police!” he said quickly.

  She studied him for a long moment. “Because you think like I do that he’s Eli’s.”

  “I don’t know. But like you said, if we call the police they’ll take him to Child Welfare Services, and if he’s Eli’s then he’ll have trouble getting him back.”

  She glanced at the clock. “Liz will be here soon. We should decide what to do before she gets here.”

  He sighed heavily. “I don’t know what to do. The whole time you had him, I kept wondering what I’d do if you called me for help. I don’t know how to take care of a boppli.”

  “And I do because I’m a woman?” she asked with a touch of asperity.

  “Nee, but women do get more experience with kinner, don’t you think?”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I don’t know what to do.”

  “Well, I guess we have to take him home until we figure it out. Or until the mudder shows up.”

  “But whose home?”

  As if sensing the tension in the room the boppli began to cry. Hannah picked him up and walked him around the shop. “It’s allrecht, little man. We will take care of you.” She looked at Gideon. “Won’t we?”

  He nodded. “We will.”

  A van horn honked outside the shop. Hannah put John in his basket and popped his pacifier in his mouth when he fussed. “Going for a ride,” she told him. “It’ll be fun.”

  She didn’t blame him for not being happy at being put in his basket. It was likely he had ridden in it for hours on the bus.

  Gideon gathered up her things and walked with her out to the van.

  “Well, well, who do we have here?” Liz, their Englisch driver, asked with a big grin when Gideon slid the van door open.

  “This is John, a friend’s baby,” Hannah told her. “We don’t have a car seat.”

  “No problem. I keep one in the back of the van for my little passengers.”

  Soon John was buckled safely in the car seat between Hannah and Gideon, and the basket was safely stored in the back.

  They were the first passengers Liz picked up in the afternoon. As the van filled with other Amish going home from work, they were the object of a lot of curiosity. Hannah kept her answers brief. She was grateful when Gideon interrupted Ada, who wanted to know who Hannah’s friend was, and distracted her with a question about her shop.

  Hannah’s house was the third stop on the way home. Gideon stepped out and helped her with her things after she got herself and the boppli out. “I’ll be right over,” he whispered as he handed her the diaper bag, her purse, and her lunch tote. He prayed this would prevent fellow passengers from talking about the boppli. Gossip could race through the Amish grapevine faster than the internet.

  He climbed back in, rode the short distance to his house, and waited for the van to drive out of sight before he walked to Hannah’s house.

  By the time he arrived at her house she had removed her sweater and that of the boppli and was seated at the kitchen table feeding John as he sat in an infant carrier.

  “Where’d that come from?” he asked, gesturing at it.

  “We have a few boppli things here since my schweschder’s visit.”

  John greeted him with a wide grin smeared with strained orange carrots. He shoved his fist in his mouth then held it out to Gideon.

  “I think he wants you to have a taste,” Hannah teased.

  “Danki, John, but I’m not hungerich.”

  “Nee?” Hannah asked him as she offered John another spoon of carrots.

  “Not for baby carrots.” He pulled up a chair and watched her. “Something smells good and it isn’t carrots.”

  “I put together a chicken and broccoli rice casserole before work this morning. It’s in the oven. You’re welcome to stay for supper.”

  “Well, John, I’d say this is our lucky night.” He glanced around. “Where are your eldres?”

  “Daed is out of town on business. He’ll be back tomorrow evening. Mamm left me a note saying she’s staying at my aenti Miriam’s tonight. My aenti is feeling a little under the weather.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but it did save us from some awkward questions.”

  “Eli hasn’t called you back, has he?”

  “Nee. How did you know?”

  “You would have said so when you walked in.” She scraped out the last of the carrots. After John swallowed, she wiped his face with a damp washcloth. “Distract him for a moment while I warm his bottle.”

  “Distract? How?”

  She gave him a disbelieving look as she rose. “Are you saying you don’t know how to make a silly face at a boppli?”

  “Nee, of course not. I just wasn’t schur what you meant.” He made a silly face at John and got a gurgle of laughter, then made another and got more. “I guess I’ve felt off balance—helpless, really—all day since we got this little surprise.” He picked up the jar and studied it. “How many of these were in the bag?”

  “Six. We may need to get more supplies if his mudder’s not back in two or three days.”

  She got up and set the bottle in a pan of hot water to warm it, then checked the casserole in the oven. “Needs a few more minutes. Get John out of his carrier. His bottle’s nearly ready.”

  Gideon wanted to protest, to beg her to do it, but it didn’t seem right after all she was doing. He told himself John wasn’t a newborn and easily breakable. Still, he held his breath while he unstrapped the wiggly boppli and lifted him in his arms.

  “Sit and feed him his bottle while I finish supper,” she said briskly, handing the milk over to him.

  “He likes to hold it himself,” Gideon informed her as he sat at the table watching John. “Is that normal for his age?”

  “It is.” She warmed the contents of a jar of canned corn from the previous summer harvest and poured glasses of water.

  “That was fast,” Gideon said when John drained the bottle.

  “He’s a gut eater. Put him back in the carrier and he can keep us company while we eat.” She used pot holders to remove the casserole from the oven and set it on the table along with the bowl of corn, then got out dishes and silverware.

  “John, it’s too bad you had to have strained carrots,” Gideon told him as he sampled the casserole. “Hannah is a wunderbaar cook.”

  “And Gideon is a gut eater like you, John,” Hannah said. Then she blushed. “I didn’t mean that to sound like I believed he’s yours.”

  “I know you didn’t,” he reassured her.

  They were just finishing their meal when Gideon’s cell phone rang. He looked at the display then at Hannah. “It’s Eli.”

  “At last,” she said.

  Chapter Four

  You called?” Eli said and yawned in Gideon’s ear.

  “Hours ago. Why didn’t you call me back?”

  “I was busy. What do you want? I’ve had a long day. I want to go to bed.”

  Gideon
frowned. Eli sounded more than tired. His words were slurring. Gideon knew that when Eli went to a horse auction with his friend Naiman they sometimes indulged in a beer, which church rules said was verboten. The two had enjoyed it during their rumschpringe, and though they were baptized now Eli had admitted they occasionally had one while out of town.

  “We’ve had a long day, too. You need to come over to Hannah’s. Now.”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “No. Now, Eli.”

  “This better be important.” Eli broke the connection.

  Gideon sat there for a long moment staring at the phone before putting it down on the table. “He’s coming over.”

  “From what you said it didn’t sound like he wanted to.”

  “Nee.” He reached for her hand and looked deep into her eyes. “Hannah, I haven’t thanked you enough for believing me about John. And for helping me the way you have today. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  She squeezed his hand. “You have thanked me. And I wanted to help.” She glanced at John, who was looking around the room with avid interest. “Who wouldn’t want to help with a sweet little bu like this?”

  Just then, there was a rap on the door that startled John. He threw his hands up and his mouth trembled.

  Eli walked in but stopped abruptly when he saw Gideon and Hannah sitting there holding hands. “You didn’t call me over to tell me you two are engaged, did you?” he asked, looking put out. Then his gaze fell upon John. “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “Close the door, Eli.”

  Eli did as Gideon asked, then stood there gawking at John.

  John stared at Eli then Gideon. Then he looked at Eli again and frowned. He babbled as if to say, Two of you?

  “Someone left this boppli at the shop today,” Gideon told him. “Know anything about it?”

  “Why would you think that?” he asked indignantly.

  Hannah rose to rummage in the diaper bag on the counter. She pulled out the note, handed it to him, then backed away. “Sit down, Eli. I’ll get you some coffee.”

  Eli looked sheepish for a brief moment, probably realizing that he smelled like the beer he’d drunk while out of town. “Danki.” He then read the note and a gamut of emotions ran through his face. “He isn’t mine,” he finally said flatly. He put the note down on the table. “You can’t think he’s mine.”

  “Look at him, Eli,” Gideon told him. “He looks just like you.”

  “If he looks like me, he looks like you, too,” Eli pointed out.

  Gideon met his gaze steadily. “I know he’s not mine. Can you honestly say the same?”

  Hannah set a mug of coffee in front of Eli. “Gideon? Want some coffee?”

  He nodded. “Danki.”

  “I’m going to take John in the other room and change his diaper,” she told them. “Kumm, John, let’s get you changed and into a sleeper.” She unstrapped him and held out her arms. John giggled and leaned forward so she could scoop him up.

  “Look at him, Eli,” she said quietly. “You can’t deny what you see.” She touched John’s cheek and he grinned at her. The dimple in his left cheek deepened. Turning on her heel, she left the room.

  Gideon waited a moment before turning to Eli. “She’s been taking care of him most of the day.”

  Eli stared at the note in his hand. “What are we supposed to do?”

  “You mean what are you supposed to do?”

  “I’m not accepting that this is my boppli just because someone says he is.”

  “There are ways to prove it. When the mudder returns she can demand that you take a test.”

  Eli rubbed his hands over his face, then his hair. “What am I going to do?” he muttered. “I can’t take care of a boppli.”

  “We have to until the mudder shows up,” Gideon told him bluntly. “If we call the police they’ll have him sent to Child Welfare Services. Is that what you want?”

  “Nee— ya—” Eli stood so abruptly he knocked over his chair. “I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what to do.” He picked up the chair and sank into it. “What a mess.”

  Gideon rose and topped off Eli’s coffee. “Get some more of this in you and sober up.”

  “I only had one beer,” Eli muttered, but he drank the coffee. “I just didn’t eat much today at the auction. And I’m tired. We left before dawn.”

  Hannah walked back into the room and turned the flame on under the teakettle. “You’re welcome to some supper.”

  While her tone wasn’t the friendliest, it was her nature to take care of others. Eli looked up at her and smiled gratefully. “Danki, I would appreciate it. I’m sorry for the trouble this has caused you today.”

  She got a plate from the cupboard and scooped some chicken casserole and corn onto it, then placed it before him with a fork. “He’s a sweet boppli.” While the water heated she dug some cookies out of the cookie jar, spread them on a plate, and set it on the table. “Sorry there’s no pie,” she told Gideon.

  “This is great,” he said, taking a big bite out of a cookie.

  When the teakettle whistled she poured a mug of boiling water and sat at the table to dunk a tea bag in it. “I can take care of John tonight. We have a crib in my schweschder Linda’s room for when she visits with her boppli. He’s already sound asleep.”

  Hannah stirred a teaspoon of sugar into her cup, then sipped it as she studied Eli. “Hopefully the mudder will show up tomorrow. Then the two of you will need to talk and figure out what to do.”

  “And what if she doesn’t show up at all?” Eli asked as he pushed aside his empty plate. He watched Hannah and Gideon exchange a look. “You’ve thought of that, too.”

  “All day,” Gideon said.

  “Let’s not think that way,” Hannah told them firmly.

  Gideon rose and cleared the table. “I’ll wash and you dry,” he told Eli. “Hannah’s done enough today.”

  With the kitchen cleaned up it was time for them to head home. Eli thanked Hannah again for the meal and waited on the back porch while Gideon said goodbye to her. Then they climbed into the buggy and started home.

  Gideon looked at Eli, then stared at the road ahead and wondered what was going to happen next.

  * * *

  Hannah woke, not sure what had awakened her. Dawn light filtered in through the windows.

  She blinked and realized she wasn’t in her own room. And then she heard babbling noises. Sitting up, she saw the crib a few feet away and remembered she’d gone to sleep in her schweschder Linda’s old bedroom.

  The babbling turned to whimpers. Hannah slipped from the bed and went to lean over the crib. “Guder mariye, John. You slept all night! What a wunderbaar boppli you are!”

  He grinned up at her and waved his arms.

  “Let’s get a fresh diaper on you and get you some breakfast.”

  She wished she could be a fly on the wall and hear what the bruders were saying this morning. As she changed John’s diaper and replaced his onesie, she studied his cheerful face. He had such dark blue eyes and the sweetest grin.

  “You’re a charmer for schur,” she told him as he waved his fists and jabbered at her. “Are you trying to talk me into making you a big breakfast?”

  When she was done, she put him back in the crib. “I am going to change really quick,” she told him. She dressed as quickly as possible, then fixed her hair and pinned on a fresh kapp.

  “There!” she exclaimed as she leaned over the crib rail to pick him up. “You were such a gut boy and so patient.”

  She carried him downstairs and distracted him while she pulled a bottle from the refrigerator and set it in a pan to warm it. Bouncing him in her arms, she walked to the back door and opened it. “Look John, there’s a robin!”

  His eyes grew wide as he followed the path of the bird walking along the porch railing. By the time the bird flew off she figured the bottle was warm enough. She closed the door, plucked the bottle from the pan, and smiled as he ch
ortled his happiness at seeing it. His feeding schedule said he ate rice cereal in the morning, but he seemed too hungry to wait for her to fix it, so bottle first.

  She sat in a kitchen chair feeding him the bottle and gazed ruefully at the percolator sitting on the stovetop. She craved a cup of coffee as much as John did his bottle. With a sigh, she looked down at him. “This is what mudders do, John. They put beautiful bopplin like you first.”

  Then she frowned. How could his mudder have left him alone with his dat? How could she trust that Eli would take care of their boppli as he deserved to be?

  Well, hopefully today John’s mudder would show up and all would be explained. In the meantime she needed to get moving if she was to be ready when her ride came.

  John went into his carrier without complaint while she filled the percolator and set it on the stove, then made him a bowl of rice cereal. Once he was fed he watched her as she drank her coffee and ate a quick bowl of cornflakes. Then she packed her lunch, put John’s bottles in his diaper bag, and set them on the bench by the door with her shawl and his sweater.

  “There, ready.” She took a deep breath. With just minutes to spare.

  Then the kitchen door opened and her mudder walked in just as Hannah was ready to scoop everything up and head for the front door.

  “Well, well, what’s this?” Mary asked as she came to a dead stop.

  “This is John.” Hannah slung the diaper bag over her shoulder.

  “And where did John come from?” She bent to chuck him under the chin and John responded with a delighted squeal.

  “I’m watching him for a friend.”

  “What friend?”

  Hannah drained her coffee cup and set it in the sink. She’d have loved a second cup but there just wasn’t time. She picked up her purse, looped it crossbody, then grabbed the diaper bag and picked up John.

  “Hannah?”

  “Hmm? Sorry, Mamm, I’m running late.”

  Mary followed her to the front door. “Hannah, whose boppli is that?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said. “We’ll talk later.”

  “You’re taking him to work with you?”

  “Ya. My ride should be here any minute.” She opened the front door and walked out onto the porch hoping her mudder wouldn’t follow her.