“Sarai,” Moe said, folding his hands in front of him and fixing her with a tender look, “you are so young...”
“I know, but I’m not a fool, and I know what I see,” she said.
“My dear girl, I know how it looks. I’m older, wiser, more experienced... You think that I’d be an ideal husband because I’m mannerly. But, my dear girl, I’m old!”
“It’s just a number, Moe.”
“No, it’s a lot more than a number. It’s arthritis, wrinkles and about sixty years your senior. I have great-grandchildren your age. I’m flattered, Sarai. I truly am. Any man would be lucky indeed to marry you and set up a home. But I’m well past that age to be living the life a young woman like you would want to lead. I know this will be hard for you to hear...”
Wait. Something had gone wrong here, and it was Sarai’s turn to stare at Moe in shock. Arden’s shoulders were shaking with laughter, and he actually snorted into his hand! Did Moe think she was speaking for herself? She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, and Moe just kept on talking.
“You need a man your own age, Sarai. You need a man who will grow old with you, not an old man you’d be taking care of. I know that a man your age might scare you a little. They haven’t quite learned all their manners yet, have they?” Moe cast Arden a wry look. “But I only became the man I am in my late wife’s hands. You’ll love your own husband the same way, and when he’s my age, he’ll be just like me. But that takes many years together.”
“Moe—” she started.
“Now, Sarai, I can’t let you go on like this.” Moe reached out and took her hand in his own soft fingers. “Don’t say another word... I know you’ll find a man your own age. I’m sorry to turn you down like this. Your grandmother might be able to explain things better to you. But believe me when I tell you that I’m not the man for you.” He released her hand. “I’m truly sorry.”
Sarai stared at Moe in humiliated silence. She had done something very wrong here...
“Sarai, maybe you and I could go outside and talk?” Arden murmured at her side. She looked up at him in surprise. He must have come around the table without her noticing. He put a strong hand under her elbow and boosted her to her feet. His eyes twinkled with humor, and his lips twitched.
“Yah, okay,” she said weakly.
Sarai followed Arden to the door, and when she looked back, aghast, at Moe, he put a hand over his heart and bowed his head.
That sweet, gentle, kind old man who she was trying to set up with her grandmother thought she’d just proposed marriage to him!
And he’d turned her down flat...politely, but flat.
Chapter Ten
Arden grabbed Sarai’s hand and led her away from the house and straight across the yard toward the apple trees. Grass-scented air pulled him forward, and he refused to look back, lest he be forced to make eye contact with his grandfather. He’d never be able to do it and keep a straight face!
A bumblebee buzzed up from the grass and bounced against Arden’s pants, and a host of sparrows flapped up from a nearby copse of trees like a sheet, billowed and then flew off in a low, black streak across the farmland. It was a beautiful day to stroll, but Arden didn’t slow down. Sarai stumbled, but he tugged her past the apple trees with their low-hanging, rosy apples—not ripe yet, but they smelled tangy already—and into the knee-deep grass beyond them. Then Arden burst out laughing.
He couldn’t help himself! He was chuckling about the ridiculousness of the whole scene. Sarai and Moe had both been so intent on saying what they meant to say...and they just wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t help but laugh, because he knew no real feelings were at stake here, and both would be feeling very silly before the day was out.
Sarai just stared at him, stunned. Her cheeks were pale, and it would seem that what had happened hadn’t quite landed for her yet. But she looked so endearing that he squeezed her hand and stopped short of pulling her closer.
“Sarai, you are very sweet,” he said.
“I am?”
“And very earnest,” he said with another peal of laughter.
“What happened in there?” she asked, and he heard the wariness in her voice.
Okay, maybe time to stop joking.
“I don’t think you want to hear this,” he admitted.
“Want to or not, I’d better hear it...”
“Okay, then.” He caught her gaze and held it. “I think I’m right in saying you were trying to speak for your grandmother, not for yourself?”
“Of course! Wasn’t that clear?” she asked, shaking her head. “I’ve told you from the start, I want my mammi and your dawdie to see what they mean to each other.”
“No, it was not clear at all,” he said. “It sounded very much like you were telling him that you wanted to marry him yourself!”
Sarai blinked at him and shook her head. He nodded back.
“It really sounded like I wanted to marry your grandfather?” she gasped. “Even to you?”
“Yah. Very much so.”
“Oh, no!” Sarai pulled her hand out of his and rubbed her hands over her face. “I realized he wasn’t understanding me at the end, but I hoped it wasn’t my fault...”
“Well, he thinks he turned you down and broke your heart,” Arden said. “He also thinks I’m out here talking you out of wanting to marry a very old man.”
Color bloomed across her face, and she started to laugh then. “What have I done, Arden?”
“You’ve made an old man feel very young again, I can assure you of that,” he said with a low laugh. “In fact, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but every time you brought up marriage in front of my dawdie, it kind of sounded the same. Like you were telling him that you were thinking of him for your own husband.”
“How could I?” she demanded. “He’s a dawdie!”
“I know...but you didn’t really make that clear. You kept telling him how much he had to offer, how wonderful he was, how polite and how much you liked having him around...and most recently, how your family would be happy to help support the two of you.”
“Not the two of us, the two of them! I was trying to tell him that he should think of marrying my mammi, not me.”
