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whom she’d seen walking through the wild flowers in the meadow while Naomi washed windows yesterday. The dear girl was often rushing out to Eden Road to check the mailbox. It was beginning to seem that, on any given day, Dottie’s youngest was in plain view. It was the oddest thing, considering all the work there was to be done with her Mamma gone.
    Here lately, Lily had been wandering up to the shared phone shanty on the property of the next Amish neighbor over from Esches’. Repeatedly so, in fact. Naomi wouldn’t have suspected anything amiss, except that personal calls were discouraged, so the frequency made her pause and wonder. A time or two, Naomi had actually spotted her twirling and singing, rare behavior for even Lily.
    The way I must’ve acted when I first started courting. Naomi recalled the rapturous feeling and thought Lily might have herself a secret beau. Naturally, most serious dating relationships were kept quiet around Eden Valley.
    Whatever the reason, Lily was running out to the phone shanty quite a lot, the family’s snow-white Eskimo spitz, Max, chasing after her. In fact, Naomi had seen Lily with their dog earlier this morning, before Eva’s candy shop opened for the day. Lily had practically skipped all the way back from the shanty to the stone wall running along one section of the road, across from Naomi’s mailbox. She’d sat there preening like a bluebird beneath the sky.
    Not wanting to second-guess why, Naomi placed her pies into the oven and went out to the utility room to put on a lightweight shawl. She opened the side door and stood on the porch for atime, breathing in the fragrance of dogwood and hyacinth. Why did it bother her to see Lily behaving so? Indeed, for a moment Lily had covered her mouth as if to silence laughter. Then, just that quickly, the girl’s shoulders slumped and she hung her head, looking for all the world like she’d lost her dearest friend.
    Naomi knew the older Esch girls had their hands full, given their household and gardening responsibilities—and that very busy candy store, too. Oh, goodness, Naomi wished her friend Dottie were still alive. If so, she would go straightaway there and talk heart-to-heart with her about Lily. But alas, that wasn’t possible, and Naomi hoped and prayed Frona and Eva might be able to rein in their sister as soon as possible.

Chapter Four

    E VA PICKED UP THE RED PLATE of peanut butter balls and carried it to the table, placing it smack-dab in the middle, minutes before Menno was expected to arrive. No more than what a caring younger sister should do, she thought. Yet she was unable to convince even herself that she was doing it for any other reason than to soften up her brother. If Menno needs softening. But certainly both Frona and Lily seemed to think their brother might require several of these yummy candies before they sat down to visit.
    â€œYou have a gift,” Sylvia Lantz had declared outright to Eva that morning in the shop. To think Sylvia would say such a thing, and then to have Josie agree so wholeheartedly, too—it was both heartening and embarrassing. And yet Eva had been told this back when she first started concocting sweets. Especially by her father, who was always quick to compliment.
    Eva loved to get up early in the morning and dream up new recipes, or sometimes she would make her confections for the next day after supper. Often she shivered with excitement as she took the very first bite, curious how her latest effort might turn out.
    â€”——
    Eva dashed to the cupboard for Mamma’s best white dessert plates, conscious of Menno’s horse and carriage clattering into the lane. She stacked them nearest their father’s former spot at the table. Where Menno will likely sit, she thought, recalling his last visit.
    That done, she headed for the back screen door and there spotted Frona by the rusted-out old pump, no longer in use. Lily was