An Amish Gift Read Online Free

boy, let’s go.”
    Scout was already by her side, barking and jumping up and down in excitement at the sight of the leash. They set off at a brisk pace in the warm September morning. Jennie had always taken Scout for a long morning walk. Here, they went to the end of the street and turned back onto the main road so they could go past the beautiful fields of the Amish farms. She enjoyed the peace of the cows and horses scattered about, the dogs and chickens, the occasional passing buggy.
    “Could you live on a farm like these people?” she asked Scout, who trotted along beside her. “Nah, you’re not really a farm kind of dog.” She paused. “I
do
give you the benefit of the doubt, but you’ve never shown any interest.”
    As usual, she started out with the intention of walking fast enough to get her heart rate up, hoping it would help her shed those ten pounds she had been battling for as long as she could remember. Invariably, she would quickly get tired and give up on her resolution so she could enjoy the scenery. Now she slowed her pace, and Scout slowed as well.
    “So, when are the kids going to settle into school?” she asked him. “I figured they wouldn’t like it just on principle. Please tell me I’m right and they’ll stop hating it at some point.”
    Silence.
    “That’s true—it’s not as if I’m sending them to prison. These are perfectly nice schools. I only hope they find some friends. Even one friend each would be fine.”
    When the children had been little, she recalled, they’d had many friends, all those children in the neighborhood. She thought of them playing ball, riding bicycles along the narrow sidewalks. Tim had been born a year after she and Shep got married, and Willa two years after that, so, she calculated, she was remembering a time when Shep was probably done selling cars and had moved into selling insurance. They didn’t have much money, but they were able to manage. Despite the seeds of doubt, there had been plenty of promise in her husband’s career. How long had it taken them to realize that insurance wasn’t going to work out for him, either?
    It wasn’t as if he hadn’t worked hard at his jobs. He had. He was just ill suited to them. No one could blame him for that, considering they were practically handed to him after high school graduation. She thought about how eventful June of that year had been, the most exciting time of their life together. They had just gotten married and moved into a tiny one-bedroom apartment. Plus, everyone in town was only too happy to hire Shep Davis, hero of the school football team. He was the biggest deal to come along in many years. No job interviews or résumé writing for the star quarterback to bother with; local business owners made it clear they would welcome him with open arms. The job selling cars with Able Motors had seemed the most promising initially, with Leon Able arguing that, between his contacts and Shep’s celebrity, the sky was the limit. She had been so proud of her handsome young husband that first week, wearing a new suit, sitting behind his own deskin the showroom, surrounded by shining cars. Success had seemed inevitable.
    The problem was that no one had looked past his football-hero status to notice how shy he was around people he didn’t know well. People loved coming in to meet him, talking about his winning seasons and dozens of game-changing plays. For the first year, it was as Leon Able said, and sales were strong. Then it seemed that everyone who wanted to buy a car from the local celebrity had done so. Customers who didn’t know his story were polite when they saw the photos and awards Leon had prominently displayed, but that didn’t mean they wanted to take the next step of plunking down thousands of dollars for a car. Shep didn’t have any idea how to get them to take that next step, either. He did his best, but he was completely tongue-tied when it came to making small talk about anything other