Landchester Amish Love: Ruth (Amish Romance) (Landchester Amish Love Series Book 2) by Esther Weaver

Chapter 1
    Ruth sighed, idly rearranging the tools in front of her. She couldn’t put it off forever. She would have to start joining in with the familye business and making crafts for the Amish Crafts and Furniture shop eventually. And eventually, it seemed, had come a lot sooner than she’d thought it would.
    It wasn’t that she didn’t know how , exactly. She’d spent hours with Sarah in here, learning how she did things. But Sarah was always the craftswoman, not Ruth, and in her heart Ruth had only ever joined in with her in order to spend more time with her schweschder . The actual making of the crafts was of little interest to her.
    She picked up a half-finished Amish faceless doll from the workbench. Perhaps it would be easier if she started with this. Sarah had begun it, so maybe, Ruth thought, if she finished what Sarah had left undone, it would feel like she was still here, working with her schweschder , talking and laughing like they used to do.
    Ruth sat with the doll, and began working. She pricked her finger, and let out a yelp, and threw it on the ground. She looked around, as though to check and make sure no one had seen her outburst. But of course, there was no one here. There would never be anyone here. She was stuck, doing these crafts alone, and that was all there was to it.
    She laid her head in her hands. She wasn’t crying. This was too long-term a problem for her to cry about it every time it upset her. But she turned it all over in her head again.
    It wasn’t that she wasn’t attractive. With her long, straight black hair, and her light grey eyes with just a touch of blue in them, Ruth had always felt rather well about her appearance. It never approached vanity, but she didn’t imagine herself so ugly that no mann would want to marry her, or have kinder with her.
    And that was what she wanted, in the end. A familye . Or at least, failing that, something where she could be with other people. She was quiet, maybe, but it was only with being around others that she could be quiet without being subjected to the loneliness that sometimes quiet would bring. If she got into the familye business, she knew, it would only ever be afternoons like this that she would be given. She would be shut in a room with tasks to complete, with no conversation. Perhaps the things she made would reach others, and would bring them joy. But she’d never see it!
    And yet, there weren’t other trades readily available. And even if there were, she didn’t want a trade. She imagined that by now she would be married, or at least engaged. She’d make a good fraa , she just knew it. She’d make a much better fraa and maemm than she would a doll maker, and it would make her happier.
    So what was she doing, instead, here with a doll and an empty room, and nothing but her frustration to keep her company.
    No, this wouldn’t do, Ruth thought. She was only just now beginning down this path, and it was already perfectly clear to her that it wouldn’t be good for her. And if other girls were able to find a mann then she should be able to do so, too.
    The time had come to think – to really think about what it was that she was doing wrong. And it wasn’t a hard problem to find. Ruth loved people, this much was true. She loved, more than anything, to listen to them. But she didn’t much like talking. Anything she had to say was already known to her. She gained nothing by talking. The point of being around other people was to listen to them, and learn about what they thought or what they had to say.
    And this had always been good, hadn’t it? Wasn’t it a virtue to listen and not talk? To be more interested in others than interested in others knowing about you? And yet, it had not served her well. She’d been in groups with boys, and group conversations. But since she never opened her mouth much, they never noticed her. It took someone taking an interest in her specifically for them to become her friend, and for them to hear