Saving Gideon by Amy Lillard

Author:Amy Lillard [Lillard, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian General Fiction
ISBN: 9781433677250
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2012-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

9

The odor of fresh paint drifted in on the night breeze. It was a good smell, a kind of “new start” scent that said things were going to be different. After today, Avery really believed things were going to be different for Gideon.

She had been there three weeks and already his farm looked so different than it had when she’d first arrived. Besides the lack of snow.

Fields and gardens were planted, and flowers started to grow. The house was painted and clean. Now if she could do something about the state of his pasture. If only she could convince him to raise alpacas. Corn could only take him so far. He needed a sustainable crop. Surely, alpacas would provide that for him. They would give him something to care for, a reason and a purpose.

She used a piece of yarn to mark her place in the book on raising alpacas for fun and profit and set it on the table at the foot of the couch. She had learned that the piece of yarn, as well as the one she and Samuel had played with most of the afternoon, had come from Miriam’s loom.

Upon first learning this, Avery worried the others might take exception. But seeing the yarn again was like a trip down memory lane for the women. She’d learned a lot about Gideon’s late wife through them. Miriam King Fisher was gentle and unassuming—two things she herself was not. Miriam was a fine woman, and well-respected in her community. She worked hard to pull her weight and fulfill what was expected of her. She tended the house and the sheep, and ran her own loom to make yarn and wool goods to sell in the marketplace. She sounded wonderful, and Avery could understand why he missed her so.

A part of her, just a tiny part, was jealous. She knew Gideon had loved his wife, his grieving alone was testimony to that, and that Miriam was admired by his family. Avery wished she had a little of that for herself—the love of a good man and family. She had been young when her mother died, but not so young that she didn’t remember life with her. Though her mother was loving and caring, Avery couldn’t imagine her in Ruth Fisher’s shoes. Her mother just wasn’t that . . . motherly.

And Avery could never proclaim that her family was very close. Her father had a brother they hadn’t seen in years. Avery knew the two men talked regularly, but neither one carved time out of their schedules to visit the other. Her mother’s family lived in Fort Worth, and she only saw them at charity functions they had been mutually invited to attend.

But today . . . today had been amazing. She knew what her friends would think about this new crowd. They would assume the Amish were simple and uneducated, but Avery loved them. The ladies talked about canning and jellies, pickles and diapers. The men worked hard and ate heartily.

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