An Amish Winter by Amy Clipston

Author:Amy Clipston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2017-10-11T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Nothing like a good game of softball to get the blood circulating. Frannie hoped it would give her brain a jump start. Susan managed a blooper into center field over second baseman Hazel’s head. The six-year-old was so short it wouldn’t take much. Frannie hitched up her dress and raced for third. The kinner screamed for her to head for home. Why not? Her legs were strong and her lungs stronger. Sally Glick hurled the ball with a much better arm than most boys. It smacked into catcher Jacob King’s mitt seconds after Frannie crossed the plate, letting her momentum carry her toward the school porch.

“Woo-hoo! We win, we win!” she shouted in glee, even though she knew no one was keeping score. A fact that would’ve made Rocky crazy. She shooed the thought away. She hadn’t seen him since the auction. Aunt Abigail’s story of his rescue after the buggy accident had warmed Frannie’s heart, but she saw nothing in her aunt’s face to indicate she’d changed her mind about the man. Her aunt continued to try to invite Joseph to supper, even though he’d found a variety of excuses to turn her down. “Good hit, Teacher, good hit.”

Susan laughed and two-stepped away from the old rug that served as first base. “Too bad it’s time for recess to be over.”

“Nee, nee.”

The chorus of scholars’ voices couldn’t have been more in unison.

“One more batter, Teacher, one more,” Caleb called from his shortstop position. “Let Frannie hit again. She hits good.”

“She hits well or she’s a good hitter.” Ever the teacher, Susan corrected with firmness. She made the kinner practice their English at recess when she played games with them. They seemed to find it a good trade-off. Everyone wanted her on their team. “One more hitter, then it’s time for Englisch. We need to practice our grammar.”

“Let Sally hit. I’m old and tired.” Not old, but tired. Frannie hadn’t been sleeping much, and when she did, her dreams were filled with an aching sadness over unborn babies and people who were invariably lost to her. Her parents roamed the fields looking for her. Her little sister Hannah cried at the supper table, her hand patting the empty chair next to her. “Go on, it’s not fair. You know I’ll get a hit.”

Sally picked up the scarred wooden bat, leaving Frannie to slip down the makeshift first-base line to where Susan hopped on and off the base as spry as a kindergartner. Uncle Mordecai’s sister was a shorter, rounder version of her brother with the same dark-brown eyes and unruly black hair trying its best to escape from her kapp. Give her a beard and they’d be twins. The thought made Frannie giggle. She hadn’t giggled much lately.

“So what are you doing here?”

“Huh?” Frannie kept her gaze on pitcher Luke Hostetler, who kept peeking over his shoulder as if he expected thirty-something Susan to steal second base. “Aenti Abigail made an extra big batch of fry pies. She thought it would be a nice treat for the kinner so I offered to bring them over.

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