Little Amish Matchmaker Read Free

he was going to be sick.
    Sim’s face was whitish-green, his mouth hung open and he looked a lot like the bluegills did after you extracted the hook from their mouths and threw them on the green grass of the pond bank. Even his eyes were bulging.
    “What’s the matter?”
    Sim closed his mouth, then opened it, but no words came out.
    “Nothing can be that bad,” Isaac said over his shoulder as he went to fill a bucket for Sam.
    “Why in the world would I do something like that? In a thousand years she would never take me.”
    Isaac had no idea Sim was as spineless as that. Why couldn’t he just approach her and ask? If she said no, then that was that. No harm done. At least he had tried.
    “You think so?” is what Isaac said instead.
    “Yes.” Sim jerked his head up and down. “What would a girl like her want with … well, me? She’s way above my class.”
    That was stupid. “There is no such thing as class. Not for me and Calvin.”
    “Well, there is for me.” Sim reached out and tipped Isaac’s straw hat. “I live in the real world. I know when I have a chance and when I don’t.”
    Isaac bent over and picked up his hat, stuck it on top of his head, then smashed it down firmly. It felt right. That tight band around his head, just above his eyes, was a part of him, like breathing and laughing. His hat shaded the sun, kept angry bumblebees from attacking his hair, kept the rain and snow off, and if he wore it at a rakish angle, it made him look like an eighth-grader.
    “Did you ask God for her? The way Mam says?” Isaac asked.
    Sim dug in his pocket for his Barlow knife. He found it and flicked it open before bending to cut the baling twine around a bale of hay. “It’s not right to ask God for a million dollars or a mansion or something to make you happy.”
    “Who said?”
    Isaac leaned against the hand-hewn post, tipped back his straw hat, stuck a long piece of hay in his mouth and chewed solemnly.
    “But the thing is, you don’t know. If it’s God’s will for your life, he might consider it.”
    Sim shook his head, mumbled something.
    “What did you say?”
    “Nothing you’d understand.”
    “Are you coming to the Christmas program?” Isaac asked.
    “When is it?”
    Isaac shrugged. “You could offer to fix the front door before then.”
    “Look, Ikey, give it up. She’d—”
    “Stop calling me Ikey!”
    “She’d never consider me. She’s … just too … pretty and classy and awesome. Besides, she was dating Rube King.”
    Isaac lifted a finger, held it aloft. “Was! There’s the word. Was!”
    “Well, if she’d say yes, it would soon be a ‘was!’”
    Isaac knew defeat when he saw it, so he went to help Mam with the milking. He was cold and sleepy. He wished chores were finished so he could go indoors and curl up on the couch with his Christmas play.
    The cow stable was pungent, steamy and filled with the steady “chucka-chucka” sound of four, large, stainless-steel milkers extracting the milk from the sturdy, black and white Holsteins. His mother was bent beside a cow, wiping the udder with a purple cloth dipped in a disinfecting solution. She straightened with a grunt, smiled at him and asked if his chores were finished.
    “The chickens yet.”
    “You might need a snow shovel. It was drifting around the door this afternoon already.”
    Isaac nodded and then bent his head, prepared to meet the onslaught awaiting him the minute he opened the cow-stable door. It did no good. A gigantic puff of wind clutched his hat and sent it spinning off into the icy, whirling darkness. He felt his hair stand straight up, then whip to the left, twisting to the right. No use looking for his hat now. He had better take care of the chickens.
    Isaac’s heart sank when he saw the snowdrift. No way could he get into that chicken house without shoveling. He retraced his steps, found the shovel and met the cold head-on once more. His ears stung painfully as his hair tossed about wildly. This