The Postcard Read Online Free

climbed down from the wagon and tied the horse to the fence post, then proceeded to unload a large cherrywood desk.
    Home at last! she thought, reliving the recent weeks of haggling with the Mennonite dealer over the handcrafted piece. The minute she’d caught sight of the fine tambour desk on display at Emma’s Antique Shop she had coveted it, secretly claiming it for one of their newly refurbished guest quarters. She had thought of asking her son-in-law Jacob Yoder to make one, perhaps even suggest that he inspect the desk—see what he could do to replicate it. Something as old and quite nearly perfect didn’t often show up in shop windows. Such handsome items usually ended up at private estate sales and family auctions.
    Rumor had it that the rolltop desk had been in old Bishop Seth’s family, unearthed and in disrepair in his wife’s English nephew’s shed up near Reading. Someone at the store let it slip that the 1890s desk had been restored in recent years, though when Susanna pushed for more background information, she was met with vague responses. She soon discovered that it was next to impossible following up on former antique owners.
    Watching from the porch, Susanna held her breath as the men tilted, then lifted the enormous desk off the wagon. She could picture the space she’d set aside for its permanent new home. Upstairs in the southeast bedroom—newly painted and papered—ready for an overnight guest. All four of the other bedrooms had been completed in just a few short weeks after she and Benjamin had taken possession of the historic structure.
    The architectural mix of colonial red brick, typical white porch, and country green shutters was both quaint and attractive, made even more fetching by the gentle backdrop of nature: the apple orchard and mill stream beyond the house to the north, a pine grove to the south, as well as expansive side and front lawns. Relatives and friends had come to help fix up the place, and in a few weeks, the rambling two-story house had been ready for tourists.
    Sighing with sheer delight, she watched as Benjamin and his friend hauled the desk up the walkway lined with red and pink petunias. “It’s awful heavy, jah?” she called.
    Ben grunted his reply. It was obvious just how burdensome the ancient thing was, weighing down her robust man—her husband of nearly forty-five years.
    She hadn’t brought up the subject, but she figured Ben had encouraged her to purchase the desk as a sort of anniversary gift. “It’s not every day a find like this shows up at Emma’s—walks up the lane and into your house,” he’d said, with a twinkle in his eyes.
    She knew then he honestly wanted her to have it, and she was tickled pink. But then, Benjamin was like that, at least about special occasions. He, like many farmers, didn’t mind parting with a billfold of money, so long as it made his wife happy. And Susanna had never been one to desire much more than she already had, which, for an Amish farmer’s wife, was usually plenty, especially when it came to food, clothing, and a roof over their heads. Just not the worldly extras like fast cars, fancy clothes, and jewelry, like the modern English folk.
    She held the door open as the men hoisted their load past her and into the main entryway. Deciding not to observe the painstaking ascent to the upstairs bedroom, she made herself scarce, going into the kitchen to check on her dinner of roast chicken, pearl onions, carrots, and potatoes.
    When she was satisfied that the meal was well under way, she went and stood at the back door. Their new puppy, a golden-haired cocker spaniel, was waiting rather impatiently outside—as close as he could get to the screen door without touching it with his wet nose.
    “You’re just itchin’ to come in, ain’tcha?” she said, laughing as she pushed the screen door open just wide enough to let him scamper past. She shooed away the flies, thinking that she’d have to go around with her