“Does it say where they’re departing from?”
Joseph skimmed the paper. As he read and mumbled the words, Rebekah looked around. A woman draped in rags with her arm around a small child scuttled up to a barrel on the corner of one of the dirt streets. Without so much as a look toward her or any of the other well-dressed people on the street, the woman dug her hand into the barrel and began scoop mushy, half-eaten food into her mouth. The child began to whine and tug on the woman’s rags, but a handful of mushy food from the woman quieted him.
Rebekah gasped. “Did you see that? The woman and the child?” She pointed into the throng of people. “Nobody even stopped to help them!”
Joseph shook his head. “No. No mention of the ship they’re taking in this paper anywhere. As a matter of fact, it says—”
“It’s starting to rain,” Peter muttered. “Come on, let’s get out of the middle of everything and under some kind of cover.” He looked around, shielding his eyes. “Goodness me, not even one tree in sight to take cover under.”
Though nobody was listening to anybody else, Joseph continued. “They are specifically not telling anyone what ship they are leaving on, until tomorrow’s edition!” He slapped the newspaper, freshly cooled, closed. “Feels like they’re just trying to get another of our dimes!”
Peter, with one hand on her back and the other on Joseph’s, shoved them through the people, now rushing to get out of the soupy drizzle. “Come on, let’s get under some shelter!” In their haste, they dashed right passed the woman and child, who had nowhere to do. At least, nowhere more important than the rubbish bin that was providing them their fill of food.
Rebekah’s jaw dropped. What’s happening to my family? We are all here together, in close quarters, talking, but not to each other. And certainly not hearing each other. It’s like we are living three separate lives, right here together. What has the English world done to us already? “How can anyone live like this?”
***
Rebekah stood in the overhanging doorway as the rain drizzled on, not fully raining and certainly not dry, looking out at the city that had yet to impress her. The woman and child still ate from the trash barrel, not thirty feet in front of them. If they were back in Gasthof Village, at least three families would have invited them in to sup with them by now. “So why haven’t we?”
Joseph’s body was turned toward Rebekah in their crammed in space, with Peter on the other side of her. “Why haven’t we what, Rebekah?”
Her quilting bag clutched to her middle, she steeled her jaw. “Peter, how much money do we have left?”
“Enough, I suppose.” He shifted his body, then shook his head. “I can’t rightly get to my wallet right now, being all cramped in this place and all, or I’d count it out and give you an exact amount.”
“Look in front of us.”
Finally, Joseph and Peter looked, at the plight that Rebekah spotted that was playing out right before them.
“Surely we can afford a meal for that family.” Rebekah poked her head out into the street. “There must be a restaurant or diner of some sort around here.”
“Too bad we didn’t bring one of your famous cinnamon cakes,” Joseph whispered into her hair. “Then we wouldn’t have to find someone else to cook for us. I must say, the food on this journey so far has been quite disappointing.”
Peter nodded in agreement as he scanned the street and read the signs of the shops.
Joseph thought for a moment before leaning in close and dropping his voice to a whisper. “I do hope you’ll be making several for our wedding celebration.”
Rebekah’s eyes widened. His warm breath on her ear and neck brought a skip to her heart. “Not much longer now.”
“December 3,” Joseph agreed.
“I’m glad we think with the same mind on matters such as these,” Rebekah said, cutting her eyes to the woman and child. “Those matters are the most important.”
“Did Jesus not give the Great Commandment, above all else, love each other as I have loved you?” Joseph stepped out into the drizzle. “Not many folks around here seem to be living that one, now are they?”
Rebekah followed him, craning her neck to study the street signs. No restaurant near here? That is odd. “No. No they don’t seem to.” Rebekah started over to the woman. “Perhaps they haven’t been properly shown how. After all, faith without works is dead, is it not?”
Peter stepped quickly to meet his sister’s stride. “Good thinking. We may as well do what we Amish do best and leave it better than we found it.”
Rebekah glanced up at Peter, catching his double entendre. We Amish. Despite the poor sleep she’d gotten and the less-than-ideal conditions at present, her face softened into a sincere smile. “Yes. What we do best.”
The woman whirled as Rebekah, Peter, and Joseph approached. “I have a knife,” she warned in a thick, rolling accent. “And I’ll use it, I will.” Her trembling hand attempted to conceal the child behind her. “I’ve no money and no possessions. And the food in this bin is mine. Go find your own.”
Rebekah sucked in a breath. “You won’t need to use your knife on us, Miss.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Rebekah. Rebekah Stoll.”
The woman stared at her with large, distrusting eyes. She didn’t extend her hand, so Rebekah gently brought hers back to her middle and cupped it at her stomach.
“This here is my brother Peter Wagler.” Rebekah thought she caught a flicker of a grin pass over Peter’s face. At least, that’s how it looked from the corner of her eye.
“And this is my fiancé, Joseph Graber.” She stared at the woman’s face. She was young, probably not too much older than the lot of them. Bits of curly red hair peeked out from under the edges of the rag that covered her head and Rebekah could just make out a smattering of freckles across her dirt-streaked face. In another circumstance, she would be considered quite lovely by English standards.
“I’m very sorry for bothering you, but we are new to New York City.” Rebekah turned up her hand. “And of course, it started to rain the moment we arrived. Might you and your precious child be able to lead us to a nearby restaurant or diner?”
The woman’s face, a mess of distrusting lines, had almost melted into something akin to welcoming. But at Rebekah’s words, she drew back into herself. Her dark, red eyebrows knitted together over her pale eyes. “Kindness around here doesn’t come without a price. What ye be wantin’ from me in return?”
Rebekah didn’t miss a beat. “Actually, we would like to buy you two a meal at a diner. It would be our honor to take care of you.” Rebekah reached out both hands toward the woman. “Sometimes, doing a kindness is its own reward. But I understand. In the English world, there is always some sort of trickery involved, isn’t there?”
Moisture welled in the woman’s eyes. With jerky movements, she extended her arms and rested her hands in Rebekah’s. Both women shared a smile. “What is your name?”
“Patty. Patty O’Shaughnessy.”
“Patty, rest assured that we are not of this English place. We believe that we are here on God’s earth only for a short time. And in that time, we are supposed to take care of each other. To give without wanting to receive.”
Patty’s lower lip trembled. “I see. I am not of this place either.”
“Let’s find a place to sit down and share a meal.” Rebekah drew Patty closer to her, as young friends do. “Come, show us where to find good food.”
Joseph tipped his hat to Patty when she looked at him. “I told Rebekah she ought to have brought a bag full of cinnamon cakes with her, then we could sit down and share a meal with you right here!”
Patty’s voice and its strange accent dropped lower. “I thought you were starin’ at me to rob me.” She closed her eyes. A single tear tracked down each cheek, leaving a white streak in its wake. “Been robbed so many times. Of money and even more.”
“Come on then.” Rebekah’s voice was chipper. “Let’s take a meal together.”
Patty nodded. “This here is Noah. Me son.”
Rebekah smiled brightly at the boy who clung to his mother’s rags. His face was round, and his hair more brown than red. He, too, had freckles, but they and his complexion were a darker hue. Olive, under all the dirt, perhaps, unlike his mother’s porcelain. “Let me guess. Noah, you are named after the great Noah of the Old Testament. Who built the ark to save the animals from the flood. Am I right?”
His little face, moments before stoic and cold, shifted into one of a true toddler boy, all dimples and grins. He nodded.
“And,” Rebekah continued, “I am going to also guess that you are about three years old. Wait, three and a half.”
The boy’s wide eyes opened wider still. He didn’t answer, but gave another tiny nod.
“How’d ye be knowin’ that?” Patty’s voice was incredulous as Peter and Joseph, obviously hungry and ready to get out of the weather, started walking and, in doing so, began herding them down the street.
“I have a mess of younger brothers,” Rebekah laughed. “I actually had the honor of delivering my last sibling when my mother had complications.”
“And it was no wonder,” Joseph piped up. “He was only, what, thirteen, fourteen pounds?”
