Sarah's Garden by Kelly Long Read Free Book Online Page B

and an Englisch friend of his. Matthew was angry at me, at us, for his family’s leaving. He . . . they . . .” She faltered, and the doctor took up the story.
    “One of the boys forcibly tried to kiss your daughter. I gave them a good shaking and a warning not to come back around.”
    Father came around the end of the table and extended his hand to the doctor. “Then we must thank you, Doctor, for helping our Sarah. We must be vigilant of the Fisher boy.”
    “I’m glad I could help.” Dr. Williams returned the handshake.
    “Who are you anyway?” Grossmudder King inquired loudly from her chair.
    “ Ach ,” Father said with a harried look. “You must meet my mother and my sister.”
    The doctor went to shake hands while Sarah watched, wondering what her grandmother might say. She didn’t have long to wonder.
    The old woman gave the doctor an unceremonious poke in the knee with her cane. “Well, you’re tall, but Sarah should have been able to use her wits to manage the boys herself. I don’t believe that a woman needs rescuing.”
    “Unless it means marrying her,” Luke joked from the table and his brothers laughed.
    “In that case, Luke King,” Grossmudder said with her normal tartness, “it seems that you’ll never be in the position to rescue anyone.”
    Sarah threw a pleading glance at Mamm , who interceded. “Doctor, won’t you sit down to lunch with us? And Sarah, how about a cup of tea?”
    “I’m sorry,” the doctor said, his voice laced with humor. “I need to be going, but thank you just the same.” He nodded to the room at large and then to Sarah and made his way to the back door.
    “ Ach , don’t forget your peanut brittle,” Sarah called and hurried to him with the basket.
    He took it from her with a smile. “Thank you, Miss King.”
    She saw him out the door, then turned back to the kitchen.
    Father cleared his throat. “A good man. A good neighbor to us.”
    “ Jah ,” Samuel replied. “But we should have words with Matthew Fisher just the same.”
    Father stroked his beard. “We will see, but for now we must thank Der Herr that Sarah is well and ready to go back to the stand after lunch, jah , Sarah?”
    “Of course, Father.” So much for getting out of the work at the stand , Sarah thought ruefully.
    “I wanted some peanut brittle,” Grossmudder King complained. “Forgot to get it this morning. Now I suppose that Englischer walked off with the lot.”
    “It’s bad for your teeth, Mamm ,” Aunt Ruth objected.
    “When you’re eighty some years old and you want peanut brittle, Ruthie, don’t tell me that you won’t be having it! Why, the time was that I . . .”
    Sarah let the diatribe flow over her head and hastily swallowed a cup of tea, then she escaped back into the sunshine and the roadside stand.
    Later that night, in the cool comfort of her little bed, she thought about the peanut brittle she ’d made and smiled. God used it to help a neighbor, feed an enemy, and share with a friend. She pushed aside the doctor’s complimentary words from the afternoon about the fabrics, even though the wooden box was now tucked beneath her bed. As the stray pines whispered through her open window, she drifted off to sleep beneath the patchwork quilt Mamm had pieced for her as a child and thought of the doctor’s eyes and the colorful flick of a hummingbird as it darted across a golden blue sky.

C HAPTER 5
    G rant, poised with a flashlight, and Mr. Bustle stood ready on the top attic step. Seeing the bat colony hanging upside down in eerie repose was enough to give anyone the shivers, but Grant especially had problems with bats. Although he loved all animals, he ’d been bitten by a bat as a young boy and had never quite gotten over his fear of them. He ’d been helping to carry the groceries in at night from the back of the family’s station wagon and had gone back out alone to retrieve a candy bar he thought had fallen from the bag. He saw a shadowy lump on the