Harvest of Blessings by Charlotte Hubbard Page B

sold very well to English shoppers. No two of her pieces were alike, but as she created her three-dimensional hangings she repeated the themes and scenes that her customers bought most often.
    Nora grabbed a notepad from the kitchen. Barefoot girl in a garden , she scribbled. Another washday clothesline. Scenes from Willow Ridge—dairy farm/cows, mill on the river . Instinct told her she’d just purchased the right fabrics to begin a couple of these projects, which suddenly felt much more pressing—and much more fun—than unpacking the boxes that were still stacked in some of her rooms.
    A confident knock on the front door brought Nora out of her artistic musings. Oh, just leave me alone , she thought with a sigh—until she caught a glimpse of a straw hat and a graying beard through the glass panel in the entryway. Her visitor wasn’t Hiram or any of the Hooley brothers, so as she opened the front door she reminded herself to be patient and polite.
    “Tom Hostetler,” she said as a kindly smile lit his weathered face. “I hope you’ve not come to warn me of any wrongdoing, after I’ve only been in town a couple of days.”
    That was a presumptuous, smart-aleck thing to say to the bishop , her conscience warned as she held the screen door open for him.
    Tom studied her for a moment. “My reputation precedes me,” he replied with a chuckle. “Truth be told, I’ve come with an apology and an invitation—and a loaf of Miriam’s bread, baked just this morning,” he added as he offered her a white paper bakery sack.
    “I’d be silly not to accept any of those,” Nora replied as she took the solid, round loaf. “I didn’t mean to sound offensive or—”
    “No offense taken, Nora.” The bishop paused in the entryway to gaze into the kitchen and the living room. Then he focused on her, his eyes clear and direct. “I wanted to say how sorry I am for the way your dat treated ya yesterday. It took a lot of courage to approach him after all these years—and to that end, I’m hopin’ you’ll join your mamm and Lizzie at my place tomorrow afternoon to talk things out.”
    Nora blinked. This bishop’s energy was so different from Hiram Knepp’s that she sensed Willow Ridge had entered a new era . . . perhaps an atmosphere of cooperation rather than condemnation. “Will Millie be there?”
    “I’m hopin’ she will, jah . I’ve asked her to come.”
    Nodding, Nora tried to keep up with her racing thoughts. “Will Dat be there? And Atlee?”
    “I’ve expressed my opinion that their presence would be beneficial,” Tom replied earnestly. “With those fellas, the old sayin’ of leadin’ the horse to water applies.”
    “You can’t make them drink,” Nora agreed with a sigh. Tom’s simple, homespun philosophy was no threat to her. He was trying to make things right, in compassionate ways that were foreign to her father and brother. “Speaking of a drink, can I pour you some iced tea? It’s awfully warm today.”
    “That sounds real refreshing. Denki , Nora.”
    She gestured toward the living room with an apologetic chuckle. “Feel free to move stuff so you can sit down. I’ll be back in a few.”
    As Nora carried the bread to the kitchen, she opened the bag enough to inhale its grainy-sweet fragrance—and realized she was easing back into the local dialect. Years had passed since she’d said in a few, but she knew better than to assume that talking the Amish talk would lead to walking that straight-and-narrow path required by their faith—and Tom was now a witness to the artist she’d become. Nora paused in the doorway to assess his reaction to her hangings before joining him with their glasses of tea.
    “These are like nothin’ I’ve ever seen,” he murmured as he stepped closer to touch a hanging of a courting boy and girl seated on a bench. “Who’d think to put real suspenders on a fella, and part of a straw hat—and a real kapp on the girl? Most pieces just show those things as