Harvest of Blessings by Charlotte Hubbard

said. Her eyebrows rose, questioning Nora.
    “It’s true that I’ve been living English—was married to an English man before he divorced me,” Nora admitted, watching for signs of Mary’s disapproval. “But during that time I got considerable experience in consignment shops. I’m a fiber artist—which is yet another difficult subject to discuss with my Amish family.”
    Mary looked puzzled, but then she giggled. “For a wee moment I thought ya made things out of bran flakes and beans,” she said as her cheeks grew pink. “Never you mind, Nora. Takes me a minute to catch on to new ideas.”
    Nora began to laugh along with Mary. To Plain women whose ways hadn’t changed much in the last century, the term fiber was dietary rather than a reference to fabric, yarns, and other needlework materials. She welcomed this moment of humor, sensing a barrier had come down between her and this middle-aged Mennonite lady.
    A slow smile lit Mary’s face. The hair tucked beneath her kapp was steely gray, and her dress of muted blue calico was pressed to perfection, yet Nora sensed this prim and proper shopkeeper might overlook some of Nora’s personal issues . . . or even help her with them.
    “Never let it be said that ya chose an easy path,” Mary remarked. “But a store like you’re dreamin’ of is more likely to happen now than it was even a few years ago. What with Miriam next door bein’ Amish, and we Schrocks bein’ Mennonite, and the owner of our building bein’ the nice English fella who raised Miriam’s daughter, Rebecca,” she added with a grin, “we’ve had some practice at gettin’ along with all sorts of folks. There’s a place for every soul and work for every hand, the way I see it.”
    Nora almost grabbed Mary in a hug—except the bell above the door jingled as a couple of English women entered the shop. “Thank you so much for saying that,” she whispered. “I’ll look around while you help these ladies. I hope we can talk more about my consignment store idea.”
    Her heart was thumping as she made her way to the shelves of quilting fabrics. Instinctively pulling out bolts of prints that would complete her hangings, Nora realized she had some catching up to do. Her tiny hometown had undergone several radical changes: the former bishop had been excommunicated, Preacher Tom had remarried after his first wife, Lettie, had run off, and the Lantz girl who’d been washed away in a flood-swollen river had returned to live here.
    There’s a place for every soul and work for every hand.
    Nora had been about eleven when toddler Rebecca had broken away from Miriam, who’d been hurrying her triplet daughters away from the rising river while calling out to her husband about an approaching storm. Miriam had lost the baby she’d been carrying, too. And after the local men had searched for Rebecca and decided the police were not to be notified, Miriam had grieved the lively little girl everyone believed was dead. Yet now Rebecca was waiting tables and assisting at the new clinic down the road.
    Rebecca came back after being raised English. She wears jeans and lives near her family and designs websites. Everyone loves her even though she’ll never become Amish. Maybe there’s hope for me.
    Nora piled her bolts of fabric on the cutting table and then grabbed a shopping basket. As she quickly selected tubes of fabric paint, skeins of cotton crochet thread, and some fat quarters from a bin of fabric remnants, she eased into her creative zone—that state of mind where she intuitively chose materials that appealed to her, without thinking too much about how she’d use them. It was this innate artistic ability that had given her a purpose, a focus, after she’d left Millie with Atlee and Lizzie. She’d blended the practical sewing skills Mamma had taught her with so many other techniques she’d picked up in craft classes, to create a lucrative hobby while Tanner had been traveling so much. More than once