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Harvest House Publishers - S. Eicher Jerry

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141 pages

English

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Bestselling Amish fiction author Jerry S. Eicher (nearly half a million copies sold) returns with the first book in another of his delightful and compelling series.Here is the touching story of an awakening young Amish girl, Katie Raber, who finds she wants more from life than to be known as simply "Emma Raber's daughter."Emma has refused to remarry since Katie's daett died soon after she was born. And in an effort to keep Katie home, Emma has forbidden her from participating in the rumspringa tradition.When widower Jesse Mast calls for Mamm's hand in marriage, Katie hopes to move into a new phase of life and leave the old "Emma Raber's daughter" behind. But Emma is having none of it, and Katie must consider abandoning all hope of ever changing her mamm's bitterness or of ever having popular Ben Yoder notice her. Out of sheer frustration, she begins attending nearby Mennonite youth gatherings.Sparks fly when Jesse's children object fiercely to the attentions their daett is paying to Emma Raber. And widowed Ruth Hochstetler makes her own move for Jesse Mast's hand.Book one in the Emma Raber's Daughter series.

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Romance

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Publié par	Harvest House Publishers
Date de parution	01 février 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780736952521
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0480€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Cover photos Chris Garborg
Cover design by Garborg Design Works, Savage, Minnesota
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
KATIE OPENS HER HEART
Copyright 2013 by Jerry S. Eicher
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eicher, Jerry S.
Katie opens her heart / Jerry S. Eicher.
p. cm. - (Emma Raber s daughter; bk. 1)
ISBN 978-0-7369-5251-4 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-5252-1 (eBook)
1. Young women-Fiction. 2. Mothers and daughters-Fiction. 3. Conflict of generations-Fiction. 4. Amish-Fiction. 5. Mennonites-Fiction. I. Title.
PS3605.I34K386 2013
813 .6-dc23
2012026142
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
About Jerry Eicher
Discussion Questions
Chapter One
The early morning sun was rising over the well-kept farms of Delaware s Amish country as Katie Raber drove her buggy toward Byler s Store near Dover to begin her day s work. She squinted when she spotted an approaching buggy in the distance. The horse had its neck arched high in the air. Katie didn t have to think long before she decided who was coming toward her. Ben Stoll would be holding the reins. It was his buggy. She was sure of that. Ben was one of the best-looking Amish boys around. Blessed was any girl who was invited to ride with him in his buggy-something Katie figured she would never experience. Ben was without a doubt the catch among the community s Amish young men. A cloud crossed the sun, and Katie held the buggy lines tight as she kept her eyes glued on the approaching buggy. Perhaps she could catch a glimpse of Ben this morning. That was all she could hope for. He was from another world. Ben never spoke to her, and she only saw him at the Sunday meetings and the Amish youth gatherings Mamm allowed her to attend. There he would be laughing and talking with someone else-someone more suited to his taste than plain Katie, the out-of-step daughter of the odd widow Emma Raber. Katie could walk right under Ben Stoll s nose, and he wouldn t even know a shadow had gone by.
Yah , she was Emma Raber s daughter. That s how most people in the community thought of her. She even thought of herself that way-just an extension of her mamm. Mamm was nice enough, and Emma really loved her. So, nee , she wasn t really complaining. But sometimes her mamm did unusual things, and that made Katie seem so well, weird to the other young adults in the Amish community. For one thing, there would be no rumspringa for Katie. Everyone else she knew among the Delaware Amish would have their time to run around and try out the ways of the world. But not Katie. Emma Raber wouldn t even consider such a thing for her daughter. And the Amish youth gatherings she was allowed to attend were few and far between. Mamm was suspicious of even those. Too much socializing, she had said.
She could live without rumspringa . Or without Ben Stoll, for that matter. So what, Katie told herself, it might even be best for her if Ben were unobtainable. He might not be all that wunderbah if she ever got to know him. Katie sighed. These were desperate excuses, and she knew it, but lately Mamm s restrictions were becoming harder and harder to bear. She was only trying to make herself feel better. Ben was wunderbah . Even her friend Arlene Miller wasn t above stealing a glance at Ben-and that with her boyfriend, Nelson Graber, sitting right across from her at the Sunday night hymn singings!
Katie wondered if all the girls were as taken with Ben as she was. She was aware of everything about him. She noticed when he wore a new black suit at communion time every spring. She noticed the way his buggy shone when the sun rays bounced off the sides at the Sunday meetings. The boy must spend hours waxing the black vinyl of his buggy, she thought. And most of all, she noticed the way Ben smiled when he was happy, which seemed like most of the time. What would it be like to be the kind of girl who made Ben smile that smile? Ha! Certainly a simple, plain soul like Emma Raber s daughter couldn t be such a girl ever .
Katie tried to look away from the fast-approaching buggy. She was way too fascinated with the boy. If Mamm knew her feelings, Katie knew she d be given a lecture the size of the state of Delaware and right at the kitchen table after supper. Yah, Mamm would not understand how she felt. Life had been hard for Mamm , especially when it came to men. Hadn t Daett passed away when Katie was still a young girl? The loss had been so painful for Mamm that she might never marry again.
The beat of horse hooves on pavement grew louder. Katie eased open her buggy door just enough to make sure that whoever was in the passing buggy could see it was her in case a greeting was forthcoming. With her hands on the reins, Katie held her breath as the buggy approached and passed without its buggy door opening even an inch. Katie saw the unmistakable outline of Ben s face through the small window. His hat was tight on his head, and his eyes were looking straight ahead. The moment passed in a flash without the smallest flicker of a hand wave through the window. And then the buggy was gone.
It was the sun in his eyes, Katie told herself. That s why Ben hadn t slid open the buggy door or bothered to wave. But she knew better. Ben wasn t being mean. No, she just wasn t worth the effort. He had greater and better things on his mind than paying attention to Emma Raber s odd daughter. Now if she were beautiful, or charming, or funny, or even talkative at the Sunday-night hymn singings, it might be different. With such qualities, perhaps her plainness could be overcome. But all that was a dream that would never come true. She couldn t be what she wasn t.
Perhaps she should settle for Joe Helmuth from down the road. Joe walked with a limp from a hay wagon accident when he was five. He would take over his daett s farm someday, but the scars from that long-ago day would never leave him. The problem was that Joe didn t pay Katie any attention either.
Well, at least thinking about Ben Stoll helped ease the pain a little, Katie decided. She was only Katie Raber, after all. The girl who could barely open her mouth without dumb words falling out all over each other. If she could only be more like the rest of the Amish girls in the community. But that could never be either, not with how Mamm felt about things.
Katie slapped the reins against her horse as her thoughts swirled through her mind. She couldn t remember much about Daett . He d been gone since she was three years old. She could remember happy times though. Going to the barn with him when they did the evening chores. But that was so long ago. If she only had a daett , Katie decided, life would be different. If Mamm married again, Katie figured both of them would be better accepted in the community and Mamm might change her ways. The most obvious possibility was widower Jesse Mast. And he d come calling on Mamm again just the other evening. Mamm hadn t said anything about the visit, but Jesse had surely spoken of marriage.
Yah, Mamm should marry again, Katie decided. Mamm s sorrow over losing her husband was still written on her face after all these years. Was it not high time things changed? Yah , and Katie would pray about the matter.
Da Hah must already be thinking the same thing if He was sending Mamm a suitor in the person of Jesse Mast. So why couldn t Mamm see this and accept Jesse s offer of marriage? Was she turning him down because he wasn t much to look at? Yah , he was a little rough around the edges. But it wasn t like Mamm to be so concerned with outward appearance. She went more by a person s kind heart than how he looked on the outside. Perhaps it was the fact that Jesse s frau , Millie, had died and left him with a family of five children. Was that why Mamm objected? She didn t want her household increased so dramatically?
Nee , Katie decided that couldn t be the reason either. Mamm didn t mind hard work. And if a large family was the problem, she should have been happy after turning down Jesse. Instead, Mamm had walked around the house with the lines on her face running deeper than ever. So why had she turned Jesse down? That was assuming Mamm had turned him down. The proposal of marriage was just a guess on Katie s part, but she was sure she was right. It couldn t have been anything else. The two had talked for a long time while sitting on the porch swing. Afterward, Jesse had stood in the yard for a