“Well, there’s a lady who used to come by every Saturday, and she’d include my clothes in her Monday wash. But then I started helping Ellen next door on wash day, and we just did our wash together.”
“Helping Ellen with the wash...how?” Arden asked. Because that was decidedly a woman’s chore, and he had trouble imagining his grandfather doing it.
“Well...just helping. I carry the basket, and she feeds the clothes into the wringer washer. And she’ll hand me wet clothes, and I’ll put them on the line. Then we bring it all back in together. It doesn’t take as long for her with another set of hands. But then her granddaughter arrived, and we couldn’t very well carry on like that, could we?”
“So who does it for you now?” Arden asked.
“Sarai.”
That beautiful woman who eyed him as if she were weighing him on her own personal scales was the one to do his grandfather’s laundry. It was more appropriate than his arrangement with Ellen, but he still wasn’t sure he liked it.
Arden tried to sound neutral. “Right. Well, it’s a lot of work for one woman to do, I imagine.”
“She’s a great help to Ellen. A great help. Besides, I pitch in, too.”
“Yah?” Arden asked.
“I have a man who brings me steaks, and I always share with Ellen and Sarai,” Dawdie said. “I don’t eat that much anymore at my age. I can only eat half a steak on a good day. And I’ve helped Ellen sort out her horse tack more times than I can count. We’re neighbors. We help each other.”
“I’m not suggesting that you are a burden on anyone, Dawdie, but you’re getting older, and we’re your family. It’s only right you come be with us,” Arden said.
That was what his daet had been saying, and Aunt Hazel, and Uncle Herm, and everyone else in the family who’d settled out in Ohio. It was time. He was their father, and it was time to come be together as was proper.
“I raised your daet in this very house, you know,” Dawdie said. He pointed across the table. “He used to sit at the corner of the table between his sister and brother, right there. That was his spot. The kinner used to like to play tricks on me when I came home for dinner, and they’d scoot around and change chairs and giggle as if it was the biggest joke.” Dawdie chuckled. “And your mammi always saved me a chicken leg. Always. She’d bring the platter to the table, and she’d take the leg and put it on my plate and say, ‘That’s for Daet.’”
Dawdie smiled and looked around the room as if he could almost see those giggling kinner and his lovely wife... He fell silent. Then he took a bite of oatmeal.
“You love this house,” Arden said quietly.
“Yah. I do. But I love you all, too. There are memories here of a different time, when I was Daet, and everyone was so excited when I came home. My wife was beautiful, and my children always had too much energy, and it seemed like we’d be like that forever.”
Arden wasn’t sure how to answer. He’d heard some friends talk about their young children in a similar way, but Arden didn’t have a wife and children. Not yet. He’d changed his mind about the kind of woman he wanted, and he was no longer sure about how to win over a girl like that. They ate in silence for a couple of minutes, and Arden dished himself up a second bowl.
“You have grandchildren in Ohio,” Arden pointed out. Arden was one of them.
“Yah, that I do. I love seeing you, too, Arden. But leaving the house that has been home since I was a newly married man...that’s harder than you think. You’ll understand when you get married and have some little ones of your own.” Dawdie put his spoon down. “Whatever happened with that young lady you were spending time with? Your parents thought it might be serious.”
It had been serious. He’d started to prepare his family for an engagement announcement.
“Mary.” Arden felt his throat tighten. “It didn’t work out.”
“Why not?”
“She wanted a richer man than I am,” Arden said. When she’d figured out how tight his finances were, she’d cooled off.
“Richer?” Dawdie made a face. “You’ve got a good job.”
“Yah, and she was very close to agreeing to marry me. It was almost set. Then someone’s nephew from Pennsylvania here came to visit, and she was suddenly very busy. She had no time for me. They announced their engagement in a matter of weeks.”
“Oh, Arden...” Dawdie sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was like that.”
Arden wasn’t sure what to say, and he turned his attention to eating again.
“Are you looking for a wife?” Dawdie asked. “Because we have a matchmaker here now. Adel Draschel, whose husband Mark died—do you remember them?”
“Yah,” he replied. “He was a deacon.”
“Yah, well, she remarried—Jacob Knussli—and she’s been standing as matchmaker for a while now. She’s had some good success. If you want me to introduce you—”
“No, Dawdie. I’m not here to find a wife. I’m here to bring you home,” Arden said with a wry smile. “I will find a wife, but I have to figure out how to find the right kind of girl first. That’s the hard part.”
“It is, I agree.” His grandfather pushed himself to his feet and carried his bowl to the sink. He leaned forward to look out the back window and frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Arden asked.
“The wind really did some damage next door,” Moe said. “I can’t see too well from here, but it looks like one coop is missing a roof!”
“What?” Arden stood up and went to the window next to his grandfather. He leaned forward to get a better look, and his grandfather was right. The stable next door was missing shingles, too, and there were limbs and leaves and even what looked like a large sheet of plastic strewed across the yard. “They got the worst of it.”
“Poor Ellen,” Moe said softly. “She obviously can’t do all that herself. We’ll have to go over and help.”
“Yah...” Arden couldn’t see any other way around it, either. But there was a wriggle of worry in his gut, too. Sarai had all but informed him that she was going to do her best to set up the old people.
How vulnerable was his grandfather to this sort of thing? He’d need to be protected so that he could come home and be with his family. Those rambunctious children who used to surround his table were all grown now, with kinner of their own. And they needed Dawdie Moe in their lives, too.
“Dawdie, of course we’ll help, but—” Arden began.
“But?” Dawdie turned, suddenly filled with more energy. “But what?”
