A Season of Love Read Online Free Page A

center of the table before sitting next to Emma. After a silent prayer, she retrieved a piece of bread, sliced it, and slathered butter on it before handing it to Emma, who giggled with delight as she bit into it. Lindsay then filled a plate for Daniel Junior before looking at her uncle, who was cutting up his scrambled eggs.
    “ Aenti Rebecca looked gut this morning,” Lindsay said. “She seemed to have some color back, ya?”
    Her uncle nodded and lifted his cup of coffee. “ Ya , she does.”
    Lindsay scooped a pile of fluffy yellow eggs onto her plate and thought about the question that had haunted her through the night. She wanted to share it with her uncle, but she felt doubt nipping at her.
    Lindsay glanced at Daniel Junior, who bit into a hunk of bread and chewed with a grin on his face, his mouth open. “ Appeditlich , Lindsay.”
    “ Danki , but please chew with your mouth closed, Junior.” Looking back at her plate, Lindsay again considered talking to her uncle about her burning question: Should she talk to the bishop about joining the church? She met his curious eyes.
    “Is something bothering you, Lindsay?” Daniel asked. “You don’t seem like yourself this morning.”
    “I’ve been thinking about something,” Lindsay began as she placed her fork on her plate. “It kept me up most of the night.”
    Daniel looked sympathetic. “Do you want to talk about it?”
    She nodded. “I want to be baptized.”
    “Ach.” He looked surprised. “That’s a big decision. Are you certain?”
    “Oh yes. I’m positively certain.” She gripped her fork again. “I want to be baptized with mei freinden , though I know I’ve missed most of the classes. Do you think there’s a chance I could join them somehow?” She absently cut up her egg while she considered her options. “I can always join another district next year, but it would be even more special to be baptized with mei freinden this year.”
    Daniel set his coffee mug on the table and touched his beard. “You remember when your aenti Miriam was baptized, ya?”
    “Ya,” Lindsay said. “I do remember that. It was after she moved back here from Indiana. She started dating Onkel Timothy not too long after that.”
    “She received special permission from the bishop,” Daniel said. “Timothy told me she had to go talk to the bishop and explain why it meant so much for her to join the church.” He speared some potatoes with his fork. “Do you feel comfortable doing that?”
    “I don’t know.” Lindsay lifted her napkin and thought about Bishop Abner Chupp. “Bishop Chupp is a fair man, but he’s a little imposing.”
    “He’s really not imposing.” Daniel smiled. “He’s just a humble man like me. We’re all the same in God’s eyes.”
    “But you’re mei onkel. It’s easy to talk to you when I want to tell you something very personal and serious, like my decision to join the church.” Lindsay wiped her mouth. “ Aenti Miriam spoke to the bishop and explained she wanted to be baptized, and he allowed her to come to classes, right?”
    “That’s what Timothy told me,” Daniel said, before wiping his beard with his napkin. “I believe she met with the bishop during the week at different times to make up the discussionsshe’d missed, and she was baptized in the fall of that year with the rest of the group. Her father wasn’t well, and she wanted to be baptized as soon as she could in order to have him there with her.”
    Lindsay scooped some egg into her mouth and chewed while considering his words. She knew joining the church was what she wanted to do with her life, and she certainly could make time to see the bishop in order to complete the discussions she’d missed while she was in Virginia. “I can do that,” she said finally.
    “I think you can too,” Daniel said.
    “Brot!” Emma exclaimed, reaching for another piece of bread.
    “You want more brot ?” Lindsay asked, and Emma clapped her hands in response.