The Amish Seamstress by Mindy Starns Clark

and gone on to live into her early sixties. I wasn’t sure exactly when she died, but I knew it was before Mamm was married and long before I was born. How fascinating now to see the receipt for the cost of her birth.
    We kept going. Things soon grew tedious again, but I finally perked up when I came upon an old report card from 1943. It was made from heavy paper, but instead of being preprinted, all of the lines had been drawn with a pencil and probably a ruler. The ink of the lines and the grades was faded, but some of it was still readable. I couldn’t quite make out the name at the top, though I did see that it contained mostly C’s and D’s.
    â€œAny idea whose report card this was?” I asked, handing it over to Verna.
    She took a long look, her eyes growing moist even as she smiled. “Judging by the grades, this belonged to my younger brother, Raymond,” shesaid, then she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “He was smart but hated school. It bored him to death.”
    Verna began telling a story about Raymond, and I kept going as she talked, placing the card in the keeper pile and moving on to the next scrap of paper.
    We continued, breaking for lunch, and then worked for another hour afterward, until it was time for Verna to rest and for me to be on my way. There were a few more inches of papers to go, but I couldn’t help but assume they would all be from the wrong period. So far there hadn’t been anything prior to the early 1900s, and definitely nothing about the Paxton Boys or the Conestoga Indian Massacre.
    I tried to hide my frustration, but I’d never been very good at pretending, and I’m afraid Verna picked up on my feelings. “Don’t fret, dear. We simply started in the wrong place,” she said. “We’ll soon figure out which box holds the papers from the 1700s.”
    I nodded, giving her a smile. As I put on my cape and grabbed my handwork bag, that I hadn’t even opened, Verna promised to have Carl carry the remaining boxes from her room before I returned.
    â€œIt’s in there somewhere. Don’t you worry,” she said.
    Feeling encouraged, I told her goodbye and that I would see her in the morning. On the way home, as I mulled over what we’d found, I realized I’d hardly thought about Zed all day. Spending time with Verna really was the best thing for me, even if her old family papers had been a bit disappointing so far.
    When I arrived the next day, three more boxes lined the area in front of the couch. My trepidation from the day before was gone, and in its place was only enthusiasm. Clapping my hands together, I said, “This is like Christmas!” It wasn’t that we had lavish celebrations, but it was one of our most anticipated days of the year—and this moment was every bit as exciting as that.
    Verna sat in her regular place, a wide grin on her sweet face. “I think first we should do a quick inventory of each box and decide where to start. Judging by the dates of all of yesterday’s papers, I have a feeling this stuffmay be grouped somewhat by time period. Perhaps one of these holds mostly older fare.”
    I quickly hung up my cape. This time I hadn’t bothered to bring my handwork. I’d worked late the night before to make up for the lost time yesterday and planned on doing the same tonight.
    Two of these boxes were made from wood like the first one, but the other was just cardboard. I opened it first, suspecting its contents would be more recent. I held up a copy of the Budget . “Hmm…1983.”
    Verna laughed. “Goodness, why would I have saved that?”
    She probably had a good reason at the time. The next item was an old pattern for an apron, and then there was one for a kapp .
    We worked our way down another inch or two, and then finally Verna said, “Push that box aside. We don’t need to bother with it.”
    I agreed and did as I was told,