A Promise for Miriam by Vannetta Chapman Read Free Book Online Page B

the window. Darkness had fallen more than an hour ago, so there was little that she could see other than the quarter moon and a hint of her reflection in the pane of glass. She certainly couldn’t see any answers to the questions troubling her heart.
    “It’s not as if he’s going to return the casserole dish and dump it on our doorstep tonight.” Esther glanced up from the quilt top she was nearly finished with. Somehow she’d managed to complete all her grading while Miriam had been worrying over Grace—over Gabe, if she were honest with herself.
    “Of course he won’t. He’ll wait until morning when all the children can see him reject my cooking—”
    “Our cooking.”
    “ Our cooking. What difference does it make?” Miriam flopped onto the couch, which separated their sitting area from the bedroom they shared. “It doesn’t matter who cooked it. The man is stubborn and determined not to accept help.”
    “Remind me again why we cooked a delicious chicken casserole and sent it with Grace?”
    Miriam didn’t answer at first, mesmerized as Esther’s needle quilted perfect stitches across the fabric. She had always been a good quilter, but her impending wedding added an urgency to her sewing. At least if the teachers were ever trapped in with a winter storm, they wouldn’t want for covers.
    “Miriam? Hello?”
    “ Ya . I’m still here. Just unfocused a bit.”
    “I’ll say. I’m usually the one losing the thread of the conversation.” Glancing up, Esther gave her a teasing smile. “I’m not letting you off the hook so easily. Explain to me why we sent food you think Gabe Miller won’t eat.”
    Miriam waved Esther’s skepticism away with her hand even as she slipped off her shoes and pulled her feet up beside her on the couch. “You would have sent food too if you had seen how the man cooks. I actually thought there was a fire when I first walked into his house.”
    “That bad, huh?”
    “Yes. I guess his mamm never taught him how to cook.”
    “He probably didn’t need to learn. His fraa cooked for them before…” Esther’s hands paused and she looked up, concern coloring her young features. “Do you know how long it’s been since Grace’s mamm passed?”
    “No. I don’t believe he’s told anyone.”
    “Do you think it has anything to do with Grace’s not talking?”
    “I’ve no reason to believe it does. Certainly it is traumatic to lose a parent, but children do. I’ve never known it to steal one’s speech.”
    “We had that boy last year who reverted to thumb-sucking.” Esther stared across the room. “It was always worse after lunch. As soon as one of us would start reading, he’d pop his thumb right into his mouth.”
    “Isaiah. I remember him very well. I wonder how they like their new district.”
    Esther resumed her quilting. “I’m sure they like it fine. I’ve heard the northern districts have good farmland and lots of it. Your giving him paper to draw while we read—that was a smart idea.”
    “It’s hard to suck your thumb while you’re busy.”
    “And where did you find the book about thumb-sucking? What was the name of it?”
    “The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Habit , which was actually about nail-biting.”
    “But he understood.”
    “Yes, and I think it helped him to laugh about it.”
    “Where did you find that book?” Esther glanced up at her.
    “The librarian in Cashton recommended it. I was out of ideas, so I went and asked her.” Miriam ran her fingers through her hair, combing out the braid that had held it all day. “Books can sometimes help us find our way out of a corner we’ve walked into.”
    “Maybe you could send a cookbook home with Grace. Then her father wouldn’t need our cooking.” Esther looked pleased she had thought of the idea, but something told Miriam that Gabe Miller would not take the time to read a book she sent with Grace.
    Same as he hadn’t read the notes she’d sent the first week Grace had been in