Heritage of Lancaster County 02 The Confession by Unknown Read Free Book Online

office suite. "You rang, sir?"
    "I did." Dylan leaned back all the way in his swivel chair, inhaling thoughtfully before speaking. "About the matter of
    hiring an additional housemaid."
    "Sir?"
    "Since you are to be in charge of interviewing applicants, I intend to trust your judgment implicitly." He studied the tall young man with the dark hair and determined jawline. Dylan's trust was well placed; the fellow had an uncanny ability to size up a person. "I suggest you get on with the business of hiring someone immediately." He swept a glance at the calendar.
    Fulton nodded, presenting an air of self-reliance. "Will there be anything else, sir?"
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    Dylan waved his hand as if to brush the issue from his mind. There were other matters to attend to--more urgent details to finalize and finesse. He dismissed the butler.
    Then, turning his chair at an angle, he unlocked the file drawer to his left and reached for a folder marked "Katie Iapp."
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    Mary 'n Katie. For always, they'd agreed once.
    How well Mary Stoltzfus remembered. She'd made the promise to her best friend, and 'twasn't anything she or anybody else could do now about breaking it. Katie was shunned, and from the looks of it, she'd gone away for good.
    And it was no wonder! Bishop John had made it quite clear the sinner was not to be spoken to--not even by her own family! The severest shunning in many years, the worst Mary had known since her earliest years of school. Unheard of for Lancaster County.
    The community as a whole had begun to rally, but only at a snail's pace. If the rest of the folk felt the way she did about Katie's leaving, she suspected it could take as long as months or even years to heal over the gaping wounds--long as nobody picked at the scabs.
    Mary opened the smallest drawer of her dresser, the only sizeable piece of furniture in the room besides her bed. By lantern light, she located the handwritten address of Katie's Mennonite relatives, Peter and Lydia Miller, the place where her friend had said she'd be staying when she'd come to say goodbye.
    "S'pose I could write her," she whispered into the dimly
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    lit bedroom, wondering what she would tell her dearest friend. Would she say she'd spent most of the week in bed, sick at heart and of body over Katie's leaving? Would she tell her how lonely it was in the community without her pea-in-a-pod best buddy?
    The more she dawdled over what to write, or if to write, the more prickly she felt. "Probably not a gut idea," she muttered to herself, got into bed, and sat there in the darkness, knees drawn up to her chest. Contact with a shunned person could result in that person being shunned, too. The very notion was enough to give a body a case of hives!
    An icy finger of fear tickled her spine, and she pulled the covers around her. Before undoing her hair knot, Mary rubbed her bare feet against the icy cold sheets, creating enough friction to warm them a bit. Then, loosening her hair and letting it fall over her back and shoulders, she slid under several of her mamma's heaviest quilts.
    She said her silent prayers, thinking about Katie being' just down the lane, probably cozy as a bear in hibernation, sleeping in her Mennonite cousin's modern house. Central heating and all ....
    Sometime in the night, with only a sliver of moonbeams to light the room, Mary awakened. For some reason her thoughts turned from Katie's predicament to Chicken Joe and that sweet talk of his.., how many Singings ago? After that, he'd up and quit her for pretty little Sarah Beiler.
    Puh! They'd probably be hitchin' up come next November during wedding season.
    The thought of such a thing near broke Mary's heart, but because she was one who wanted to do the right thing by a person, she'd never confronted the fella. Just let things be. Still, it seemed she might never meet someone to love her. Someone who wanted to marry a right plump wife who could cook, bake, and keep house to beat the band.
    She rolled over and stared across