Read Online The Crossroad by Beverly Lewis - Free Book Online

courting buggy, the English girl from Reading had come along, filling in as a substitute teacher at the nearby one-room schoolhouse. It was Adele who’d caught Gabe’s attention back then. Hadn’t seemed fair, either.
    In the early days, she remembered trying her best to appear to be “normal” for Gabe’s sake. Whatever that was she didn’t know, ’cept what she observed in the folk who were of average or higher intelligence. She remembered practicing her speaking skills, gazing into the pond just south of her father’s barn, on a day with not a stitch of a breeze in the willows that circled the shining water. There, in the water, she’d seen a slight face and gray-blue eyes staring back, framed by her white netting Kapp atop her wheat-blond hair.
    She’d gone to study her reflection—since Mamma wasn’t all too happy ’bout mirror primping and such. While she knelt by the pond, she had asked herself one question after another, pretending to be her classmates, tryin’ her best to think up the answers. When she finally stod, she believed her practicing would pay off. And that summer it had, ’cause Gabe asked if she wanted to go fishing, and would she help him gather worms for some bait?
    She remembered having to push answers out of her mouth quick as she could that sunshiny day. “Jah, I’ll go with ya,” she’d said, scared he’d up and change his mind. “Betcha I can dig worms faster ’n you!”
    He’d taken her comment as a challenge, like most any eleven-year-old boy. So they’d spent one whole afternoon digging for fish bait, her hands wrist-deep in mud, grabbing hold of one slimy earthworm after another. ’Course, every bit of the mess and mud was worthwhile, sharin’ the day with the handsomest Amish boy on the face of God’s earth!
    A slice of chocolate pie and vanilla ice cream in hand, she scurried back to Rachel. Placing the dessert in front of her, Lavina thought how blessed she was to be getting better acquainted with a woman who resembled Gabe, not only in looks, but in temperament and deed. Why, it was downright uncanny, come to think of it. And here, with talk of Blue Johnny eager to pass his powwow doctoring gift—and the evil “black box”—to someone younger, well, it made her honestly wonder ’bout family ties, generational sins, and all. The very things Rachel’s cousin Esther had been sharing with Rachel by tape. Some of the things Rachel Yoder now believed.
    She touched Rachel’s shoulder gently. “Want some coffee … to go along with that second helpin’?”
    Rachel smiled her thanks. “Pie’s fine for now.”
    Lavina, still bending over, whispered, “Leah’s birthday song set me thinkin’….”
    “Oh?”
    “Tell you tomorrow … on the trip to see Adele.”
    “I won’t forget,” Rachel said, finding her fork. “What ’bout the snow? Is it still comin’ down hard?”
    Lavina turned to look out the window. Sure enough, the snow had begun to slow a bit. “Seems like the Lord above might be smilin’ down on us come tomorrow.”
    “He blesses us every day. Snow or no snow,” Rachel replied with a nod.
    Just then Annie came in carrying a picture she’d made of a snow-covered field with gray clouds overhead. Three birds in one corner of the sky. “Lookee here,” the little girl said. “I drew a wintertime picture. It’s for when Mamma can see.”
    The drawing reminded Lavina again of Gabe’s third-grade artwork. Along with his homemade cards, she’d saved his drawings, too, storing them away in the hand-hewn box to be cherished all her life.
    Rachel spoke up, “Jah, hang on to your drawing, Annie, dear. ’Cause I will see it someday. I truly believe I will.”
    Lavina couldn’t help but smile as Annie hugged her mamma’s neck. She felt the familiar twinge of sadness for all the little ones never born to her. “Come along, now, Annie,” she said. “Did ya get yourself a slice of your aunt Leah’s choc’late pie?”
    Grinning, Annie showed