A Plain Love Song by Kelly Irvin

Author:Kelly Irvin [Irvin, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9780736954990
Google: HX2KAwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00K8BGEHE
Goodreads: 22209787
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
Published: 2014-07-02T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Adah set a quart jar of bread and butter pickles on the shelf next to three more just like it. She adjusted each one so the hand-drawn labels were even. Emma had done a nice job with the labels, but it was the contents of the jars that drew the customers to the New Hope Combination Store. They seemed to love those pickles. Just as they loved Edna’s peach jam and Mudder’s chow-chow. The canned goods sold the best. That and the hand-sewn goods.

Humming, she picked up a feather duster and began to dust the row of wooden toys and handmade dolls. Funny the things the Englisch folks in New Hope would buy. It was a good thing too, a good source of income for the Plain families, still struggling to make ends meet on their farms, even after three years in their new home.

A tune worked its way into her brain. She flipped the feather duster in time to the melody. Words floated along on the notes. Nee. Nee. No songs. Please, Gott, no songs. Songs only caused her trouble. Great trouble. Trouble with Matthew. Trouble with the deacon. Trouble with God.

The work was easy. Too easy. It didn’t occupy her mind or wear her out. It gave her too much time to think about things. Like Matthew, who hadn’t spoken to her since that day after the prayer service. Or Jackson, whom she hadn’t seen since she quit cleaning houses. One, then the other. Which one? She knew what was right. Why did she have such a hard time doing it? Trying to stifle the thoughts, she hummed louder.

“What song is that?”

Adah jumped. She’d forgotten Emma sat at the table working on the ledgers. She shut her mouth. The song didn’t have a name. It didn’t have words. It kept flitting around her head, waiting for her to write it, waiting for her to sing it and play it.

Not happening. She was through with all that. The tune reminded her of Clayton Star’s music. A lot of country, a little bit of rock and roll. A touch of something else with the fiddle and the electric guitar playing a twosome that seemed mournful, yet playful.

She sighed and turned to Emma, who sat at the window, sun spilling in on her, making her fair skin fairer and her blond hair peeking from her prayer kapp blonder. “I don’t know. It’s just some notes to pass the time.”

“You can hum. I don’t mind.” Emma dropped her pencil, leaned back in her chair, and stretched her arms over her head. “I didn’t recognize the tune.”

Emma wasn’t much for music. Her job consisted of keeping track of every sale so that the families who had money coming to them received their fair share. Turned out the former schoolteacher had a penchant for addition and subtraction. Adah’s worst subject.

If Emma only knew how different they were. “It’s nothing. Just noise.”

“You’re bored, aren’t you?” Emma picked up the pencil again and twirled it in her fingers.

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