Rebekah nodded and let Joseph lead her, her arm around his shoulders. Acutely aware that she hadn’t bathed in several days, she prayed his sense of smell was dulled or at least that he didn’t care that she smelled like the sailors looked.
“Good morning,” the woman began in broken English. “Your wife, she hurt?”
“No, no,” Joseph began, flustered.
“Yes she is, I see it there.” The old woman pointed to Rebekah’s ankle. “Oh and face!”
“I fell. I’m Rebekah, and this is Joseph, my fiancé.”
“Not husband?”
Rebekah smiled. The old woman was not like any other English she’d seen. Something told her she was from a different country and may not understand what a fiancé is. “We will be married next month. Just not yet.”
“Oh, I see.” The little old woman smiled again and patted her chest. “Mrs. Cheng. I take care of you, okay?”
“I’ll be back soon. Joseph leaned in to kiss Rebekah’s forehead, but a sharp look from Mrs. Cheng stopped him.
“Not husband,” she said, flapping her apron at him. “Shoo.”
Rebekah sucked in her lower lip, and grimaced. “Ouch.”
“Come in, come sit.” Mrs. Cheng ushered Rebekah into her shop. There, on a table sat a machine. A half-finished dress hung from it. Her mouth fell open.
“I get you cold rag,” Mrs. Chang explained. “You!” She looked harshly at Rebekah. “Sit!”
“Yes ma’am.” Rebekah did as she was told, but didn’t take her eyes off of the splendid machine that made no sense. She grasped her quilting bag and held it as her ankle started to throb.
Mrs. Cheng was back, hobbling quicker than she looked to be able to. She held a rag in her hand, true to her word. “Prop it up,” she barked.
She pulled up a little stool and sat Rebekah’s foot on it. “Stay.”
Then, she went to work on Rebekah’s wounds, dabbing with the rag. She dabbed at her face first, then down to her knees, which she hadn’t realized were hurt until she began dabbing through her torn dress.
Rebekah gasped.
“Shh, shh.” Mrs. Cheng smiled up at her. “Mrs. Cheng make it all better.” When she got to the ankle, she laid the cool rag over it. Rebekah grasped the arms of the chair. “Ugh,” she groaned. She closed her eyes to keep from crying. Everything was beginning to hurt from that fall.
Mrs. Cheng took out a small tin from her apron. “Here, here.” Slowly, over all her cuts and scrapes, beginning with her busted lip, Mrs. Cheng began to dab the strong-smelling salve. The pain eased at once and the smell was somewhat soothing. Rebekah had never smelled it before, but the strong odor smelled like something that would be good for clearing chest colds, due to the fact that it seemed to grasp her nose and run to her lungs.
“Thank you,” Rebekah said as she doctored her ankle. “Thank you, Mrs. Cheng.”
“You welcome.”
“Would you mind dabbing a little onto my shoulder?”
Mrs. Cheng’s frown deepened. “When you hurt shoulder?”
“Before I—” Before Rebekah could explain, Mrs. Cheng had her sore shoulder exposed.
“I see, I see.” She scooped out a glob of the mystery salve and applied it to Rebekah’s shoulder. “Not broken.”
Rebekah exhaled. “Thank you.” Finally, her shoulder felt almost normal. “Mrs. Cheng?” She gestured to the machine. “What is that?”
“Sewing machine,” Mrs. Cheng said proudly. “I sew.”
Rebekah held up her bag. “I sew too.”
Mrs. Cheng’s eyes widened. “What you sew?”
“Well, I’m Amish...”
“Ah-mitch.” Mrs. Cheng tried the word, then shook her head. “What this?”
“Um,” Rebekah giggled a nervous giggle. “Well...we live on farms. Make our own clothes, and don’t usually have much contact with the English world.”
“Oh, I see.” Mrs. Cheng rubbed her chin. Rebekah guessed her age to be around seventy-five, though if she had been 105, that wouldn’t have surprised her either. “So Ah-mitch like Chinese. I see. Go ahead.”
“In Amish culture,” Rebekah took care to speak slowly out of consideration. Having been the outsider to the English, she knew how hard it was to understand them when they spoke too fast. “We sew our own wedding dresses.”
“Chinese too.”
“We don’t use machines or any help,” Rebekah added. “And Mrs. Cheng, I don’t sew very well.”
Mrs. Cheng nodded again. “You have dress now?”
Rebekah opened her bag. Before she could pull it out, Mrs. Cheng had her hands in her bag and the dress out, eyeing it. She smiled at the old woman, who obviously knew her stuff. “This wedding dress to marry dark hair boy? Joseph?”
“Yes ma’am. That’s right.”
“Hmm, okay.” She pointed to the collar. “What this?”
Rebekah shifted her ankle on the stool. The rag slid off. Mrs. Cheng had it picked up and put back on her ankle before she could bend down to get it. “Thank you, Mrs. Cheng.”
“What this fabric?”
A no-nonsense woman. I like her.
“A gentleman was kind to us at the train station that brought us here. He was a little old man and knew we were coming here from Indiana to find our friend, Katie—”
“A gentleman?” Mrs. Cheng furrowed her brow at Rebekah.
“Oh, he was the ticket master. He was a grandfather, and he was kind to Joseph, my brother Peter, and me. He allowed us to take shelter in the train station—”
Mrs. Cheng interrupted her again. “Okay. Sometimes men be nice to girl for wrong reason.”
“He was taking that fabric home so his wife could sew booties for their grandchildren.”
“See. I see.” She studied the dress with a frown. “And this? What this?”
