The Rescued Read Online Free

ain’t so?” Rebecca Fisher, Judith’s widowed cousin, set a warm pan of apple crisp on the table between Judith and their grandmother in her tidy kitchen.
    â€œAlways a happy time for the kinder. And for their mammis, too, I sometimes think.” Grossmammi smiled and began to dish up the apple crisp while Rebecca poured coffee.
    â€œPaul especially,” Judith said, thinking of her middle son’s excitement. “He’s been marking off the days on the calendar, trying to make school come faster.” She had brought Paul and Noah with her on this afternoon visit to her cousin, but Levi had wanted to stay home and help with some new fencing. Her kinder were outside now, engrossed in some game with Rebecca’s two.
    Judith had been delighted to find Grossmammi here when she arrived. Since Elizabeth Lapp had moved in with her son, Rebecca’s daad, on the farm next door to Rebecca’s place, they were seeing much more of her. And their grandmother seemed happier, too. Much as she’d hated to leave the house where she had spent all of her married life, it had become too much for her to care for, and Rebecca’s parents had been wonderful glad to have her with them.
    â€œFall is a time of new beginnings, just like spring is.” Grossmammi put cream into her coffee and then poured a bit over her apple crisp. “Especially for Rebecca and Matthew.” She sent a twinkling glance toward Rebecca.
    â€œFor sure?” Happiness bubbled up in Judith. “Have you and Matt set a date?”
    Rebecca nodded, her normally serene oval face glowing with happiness. “Don’t tell anyone,” she cautioned. “But we’re planning on the last Thursday in October for the wedding.”
    â€œAch, that’s wonderful gut news.” Judith rounded the table to hug her cousin. Along with their cousin Barbie, they were the only women in their generation of the Lapp family, and that made them as close as sisters in some ways. “See how wrong you were to think you’d never love again?”
    â€œI knew you’d tease me about that,” Rebecca said, returning the hug with a strong clasp. “At least you’re not as bad as Barbie. If she’s not teasing me, she’s kidding Matt, threatening to spill the beans to everyone.”
    â€œEveryone will know anyway,” Judith said. Sometimes she thought people in their close-knit Amish community knew too much about each other, but that was a part of being Amish. “Even though we’ll all pretend not to have noticed anything about the two of you right up to the Sunday the wedding is published in church.”
    The announcement of forthcoming weddings in worship was a high point in the Amish year, coming as it did after the fall communion. All the couples who were being married would be absent from church on publishing Sunday, staying home to have a quiet meal together. It was another of the many traditions that bound them as a community, like a coverlet tightly woven of many strands to make it warm and strong.
    â€œAt least by then the farm-stay visitors will be slowing down,” Rebecca said. “Once the weather turns, not many people will want to come. We’ll have plenty of time for our wedding visits.”
    Rebecca had reopened the house to Englisch visitors this summer, with help from Barbie and the rest of the family. It hadn’t been easy to do it without her husband, but Rebecca had surprised a lot of people by her strength. And now she would have a new husband to help her, too, come October.
    It was the custom for the newly married couple to spend the weekends after the wedding visiting family and friends together. The fact that Rebecca had been married before and had two kinder wouldn’t alter that tradition. Matt must be introduced to her family and friends as her spouse.
    â€œIf you need me to watch the children for you, or help with the wedding arrangements, or