A Simple Faith: A Lancaster Crossroads Novel Read Free

images were forbidden by the Bible, and the bishop deemed that the images of Amish children violated that rule. Dat had gone and pulled all the Amish crafts from the shelves of their shop—including homemade jams and quilts, trivets and birdhouses.
    Just like that, the Country Store, once a popular stop for tourists in Lancaster County, had withered into nothing more than a corner convenience store providing folks with bottled water and candy bars.
    Such a sad, dusty store it had become.
    Not at all what Mamm would have wanted.
    Elsie had been just six years old when her mother died. A child, ya, but old enough to recognize her father’s heartbreak and his unease at running the shop. At the age of eight she’d started helping out in the store after school and on weekends. As soon as she’d finished her schooling, she’d become the full-time face of the Country Store, greeting tourists and Amish alike, creating decorative displays in the shop windows and bringing back Amish crafts like homemade soaps, heather, honey, and sock dolls.
    With each new product, Elsie had seen sales and profits increase, bringing in enough income to support their family. The CountryStore was on its way back, and Elsie was ready to take the next step—selling to vendors in Philadelphia.
    For that move, she needed to talk to Dat.
    She grabbed the broom and hurried down the stairs, eager to talk to her father at breakfast. If he could spare a day away from the work here, they could go to Philadelphia together and work everything out.
    The kitchen was warm and animated with the chatter from the gathering family … her loving family. After Mamm died it had been just the four of them—Dat, Caleb, Emma, and Elsie. Then, when Elsie was still a girl, Dat married Fanny Yoder, and now they were a family of seven. Amish families were usually large like that—lots of siblings and lots of love. But for Elsie, family mattered even more because of her lack of social life. To the rest of the world, she was an oddity—a tiny person with wide-spaced, pebbled teeth and misshapen ears. But here, she was just Elsie, a true helper, a caring sister and daughter.
    Heat from the woodstove cut through the chill that lingered in the rest of the house, reminding Elsie of the reason why the kitchen was her favorite place in the house. Food to feed the body and conversation to feed the soul.
    At the stove, her older sister, Emma, slid warm slices of ham onto a platter. Dear Emma took such good care of them all now that Fanny had to stay off her feet. Not a single strand of her brown hair was out of place, and her dress and apron were spotless—a good example for her young scholars at the schoolhouse. Emma taught the Amish children in Halfway, and Elsie admired her sister’s steady patience with the children who sometimes got out of hand.
    Dat sat down at the table opposite his wife, Fanny, who had her head bent over a bit of mending. Little Beth perched on her knees on a chair beside Dat, who was teaching her how to cut ham with a fork and knife.
    “The beds are made and the upstairs swept,” Elsie said, touching Fanny’s shoulder. Every day Elsie thanked Gott for bringing this good woman into their lives. There was no denying the undercurrent of excitement in the house, with Fanny expecting a little one soon. Pregnancy wasn’t something Amish folk talked about, especially not in public, but with Fanny’s high blood pressure, they’d had to take some measures to keep her resting.
    “Good.” Fanny tied off a knot and broke the thread with her hands. “After breakfast I’m going to have Beth help me. She needs to practice her stitches.”
    “And we’re going to have Will help us with the roof,” Dat said. “Caleb’s outside with him now.”
    “I’m here,” Caleb called from the mud porch. A moment later he lumbered in, all six feet of him. Elsie sometimes marveled that this young man who towered over her—a full three feet taller than she was—could