“I’m sure whatever you come up with he’ll appreciate.”
Then she fiddled with one of the captured pieces. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to add a couple of little birthday traditions we have in my familye. But only if you think it would be okay.”
He sat back and folded his arms. “And what would those be?”
“In my familye we each make a homemade card for whoever’s birthday we’re celebrating. And also, before we cut the cake, each person hands over their card and says one thing they admire about the person whose birthday it is.”
That sounded like a step too far. “I don’t know…”
She didn’t let him finish. “Why not? Making a card isn’t difficult. It doesn’t have to be fancy or well drawn, just a festive drawing with the words happy birthday is enough. And surely you don’t have a problem coming up with something you admire about your little bruder to share?”
He straightened defensively at that. “Of course not. I’m just not sure about the time involved. As I said, this is a very busy time for me.”
Phoebe raised a brow at that. “This is something you should be able to do one evening after supper. Is that too much to ask?”
She was right. “Of course not. And it sounds like a gut idea.” It was more than a gut idea—he owed Jesse this and so much more. And there were so many things about his youngest bruder to appreciate, finding something to say shouldn’t be any trouble at all.
“Gut. I’ll pass it on to the others. This will be a wonderful nice celebration for Jesse.” She clasped her hands together in her excitement and unfortunately overset the board. “Ach. I’m so sorry.”
He stood and began putting away the pieces. “That’s okay, we spent more time talking than playing today. And it’s time for me to get back to the workshop.”
“Should I go with you now to work on that drawer?”
Seth had hoped Phoebe, with all she had to do to get the house ready for Jesse’s birthday and hosting the church service, would decide she didn’t have the time right now to work with him. He knew she meant well but if he had to stop and give her verbal directions constantly, how much help could she be?
Then again, this whole parceling out of the tasks had been her idea—it wouldn’t be fair for him to not give her an opportunity to participate. And he just couldn’t see doing something that would hurt her feelings.
When they entered the workshop a few minutes later he moved to the shelves where the fabric was stored and grabbed a bolt of the green velvet. “When someone orders a chess set, one of the few options they have is whether they want the drawer lined in red, blue, or green. Most customers want red but I occasionally get an order for blue or green.” He’d originally intended to just tape a note on the board as to what color she should use. He’d need to come up with a new plan now.
But she was a step ahead of him. “I saw some crayons in the house. I’ll pull those three colors from the box and you can color a slip of paper and place it in the drawer to indicate which fabric to use.”
“That’ll work.” He carried the fabric to a smaller worktable situated in the back of the shop. “This mark on the edge of the table is what I use to measure how much fabric I need to cut. And the fabric is twice as wide as what I need so I can get two squares from every length I cut.” He grabbed a pair of scissors to demonstrate but she held her hand out.
“Let me. I learn better by doing rather than just watching.”
He hesitated. The fabric was thick and expensive—he couldn’t really afford to have her mess up the measurement.
She seemed to read his mind. “Don’t worry. I’ve cut lots of fabric for quilts and my mamm wouldn’t have let me do it if I couldn’t be precise.”
Feeling a twinge of guilt for having made her feel she needed to reassure him, he placed the scissors in her hand and stepped back. As he watched, she cut the fabric with surprising speed and precision. Then she cut the piece she’d cut from the bolt in half.
“There.” She held the two squares out for him to see. Then she put a finger to her chin. “I’m thinking, when I have time between lining the storage drawers and doing my housework, I could pre-cut a stack of these so they’d be ready to go whenever needed.”
That made a lot of sense—he should have thought of it himself. Then again, he didn’t have any spare time between his tasks.
Shaking off that thought, he moved back to the main worktable and picked up the storage drawer. “If you look closer there’s an insert here in the bottom.”
She obliged by looking inside the drawer, her head dipping below his chin. He inhaled the scent of cinnamon and apples, saw the single wispy tendril escaping the crisp white folds of her kapp, heard her soft breaths as she studied the insert.
Then she looked up and placed her hands on the side of the box.
Her face was so close to his he could clearly see the individual flecks of gold in her brown eyes, and now their fingertips were touching.
“May I?” she asked.
Chapter 23
It took Seth a moment to realize she was asking to take the box from him. He quickly released it and took half a step back.
She tilted the box forward and slid out the bottom insert. Then she set the box aside and turned the insert this way and that, studying it.
She finally looked up. “So how do you attach the velvet to this tray?”
He gave his head a mental shake, uncomfortable with the direction his thoughts had taken. Trying to bring himself back to the present, he reached to take it from her but then remembered she wanted to do it all herself.
He cleared his throat and gestured to the velvet. “You fold over the fabric and glue it to the bottom.” He grabbed the bottle of glue and set it on the table in front of her. “The trick is not to pull it too tight—it has to be loose enough to allow the pieces to nestle inside their individual compartments.”
She nodded, her brow furrowed as she considered what he’d said. “All right. You talk me through each step of the process as I do it.”
As they worked together Seth noted how well she took directions and picked up on not only what they were doing but why it was being done a certain way.
When the tray was finally covered to his satisfaction he leaned back. “We’ll leave the tape in place so the fabric stays put while the glue dries. The last step is to draw an X on the bottom with the glue and then place it in the drawer with the section for the checkers at the front.”
She did as he directed then sat back with a smile. “That wasn’t so bad. Do we put the game pieces in now?”
“Jah, that’s the next step, but I can take care of it myself.”
She gave him one of those stern-schoolteacher looks. “Of course you can, but the point is, if you want to speed up your process, you should delegate such things.”
