"Where do you find answers to the tough personal questions about life?"
Reviewed by Viki Ferrell
Posted March 18, 2012
Inspirational Amish
Return to the Amish community of Paradise, PA with this new
spin-off series from Barbara Cameron's "Quilts of Lancaster
County" series. You'll become reacquainted with some of her
old characters and meet delightful new ones, like Mary
Katherine. Mary Katherine has not yet become a member of the Amish
church and has not dated anyone with the thought of
marriage, although she is in her early twenties now. She's
always been different. She has a creative side of which her
father never approved and he also never failed to chide her
about it. She has a restless spirit and is not so sure she
might not be happier in the Englisch world. She works at her
grandmother's shop, Stitches in Time, where she spends as
much time as possible on her weaver's loom. Not many Amish
women weave, but it is Mary Katherine's passion, her escape
from the many questions that constantly emerge from her
thoughts about her life. Jacob Miller intends to change Mary Katherine's mind, at
least about dating. He's in town at the shop again today to
try to convince her to go to lunch with him. She makes it
very clear she is not interested,. But when Daniel walks up,
an old friend who has moved to Florida and returned to
Paradise on business, he talks Jacob and Mary Katherine into
going to lunch with him. Daniel is certainly a smooth
talker. As Jacob continues to pursue Mary Katherine, she softens a
bit. She agrees to have lunch or dinner on occasion, as a
friend, and sometimes in the company of her English friend,
Jamie. Jacob begins to feel more confident about
establishing a relationship with Mary Katherine until Daniel
returns to Paradise a second time and asks Mary Katherine
out. Word gets to Jacob, via the "Amish grapevine," and he
confronts Mary Katherine. She is appalled by his jealousy,
because she has done nothing wrong. The two argue and leave
the situation unsettled. Will Mary Katherine try to resolve
this issue with Jacob? Will she find who she is and stay in
the Amish community and join the Amish faith? HER RESTLESS HEART is a touching story about answering some
tough personal questions. It's a story about a young lady
who lacks self-esteem and is trying to find her place in her
family, her faith and in her community. This new Stitches in
Time series promises to be a winner. This is a charming
story -- don't miss it.
SUMMARY
Mary Katherine is caught between the traditions of her faith
and the pull of a different life. When Daniel, an Amish man
living in Florida, arrives and shares her restlessness, Mary
Katherine feels drawn to him and curious about the life he
leads away from Lancaster County. But her longtime friend Jacob has been in love with her for
years. He’s discouraged that she’s never viewed him as
anything but a friend and despairs that he is about to lose
Mary Katherine to this outsider. Will the conflicted Mary Katherine be lost to the Englisch
world, or to Daniel, who might take her away to Florida? Or
will she embrace her Amish faith and recognize Jacob as the
man she should marry and build a life with?
Excerpt1
A year ago, Mary Katherine wouldn't have imagined she'd
be here. Back then, she'd been helping her parents on the
family
farm and hating every minute of it.
Now, she stood at the front window of Stitches in Time,
her grandmother's shop, watching the Englischers moving
about on the sidewalks outside the shop in Paradise. Even
on vacation, they rushed about with purpose. She imagined
them checking off the places they'd visited: Drive by an
Amish farmhouse. Check. Buy a quilt and maybe some knitting
supplies to try making a sweater when I get back home.
Check.
She liked the last item. The shop had been busy all morn-
ing, but now, as people started getting hungry, they were
patronizing the restaurants that advertised authentic Amish
food and ticking off another item on their vacation
checklist. Shoofly pie. Amish pretzels. Chow-chow. Check.
"Don't you worry, they'll be back," Leah, her
grandmother, called out.
Smiling, Mary Katherine turned. "I know."
She wandered back to the center of the shop, set up like
the comfortable parlor of an Amish farmhouse. Chairs were
arranged in a circle around a quilting frame. Bolts of
fabric of every color and print imaginable were stacked on
shelves on several walls, spools of matching threads on
another.
And yarn. There were skeins and skeins of the stuff.
Mary Katherine loved running her hands over the fluffy
fibers, feel- ing the textures of cotton and wool and silk.
Some of the new yarns made from things like soybeans and
corn just didn't feel the same when you knitted them or
wove them into patterns— but some people made a fuss
over them because they used something natural plant-based
or more sustainable.
Mary Katherine thought it was a little strange to be
using vegetables you ate to make clothes but once she got
her hands on the yarns, she was impressed. Tourists were,
too. They used terms like "green" and "ecological" and
didn't mind spending a lot of money to buy them. And was it
so much different to use vegetables when people had been
taking oily, smelly wool from sheep and turning it into
garments for people—silk from silkworms—that
sort of thing?
"You have that look on your face again," her grandmother
said.
"What look?"
"That serious, thoughtful look of yours. Tell me what
you're thinking of."
"Working on my loom this afternoon."
"I figured you had itchy fingers." Her grandmother
smiled. She sighed. "I'm so glad you rescued me from
working at
the farm. And Dat not understanding about my weaving."
Leah nodded. "Some people need time to adjust."
Taking one of the chairs that was arranged in a circle
around the quilt her grandmother and Naomi worked on, Mary
Katherine propped her chin in her hand, her elbow on the
arm of the chair. "It'd be a lot easier if I knitted or
quilted."
Leah looked at her, obviously suppressing a smile. "You
have never liked ‘easy,' Mary Katherine." Laughing, she
nodded. "You're right."
Looking at Naomi and Anna, her cousins aged twenty and
twenty-three, was like looking into a mirror, thought Mary
Katherine. The three of them could have been sisters, not
cousins. They had a similar appearance—oval faces,
their hair center-parted and tucked back under snowy white
kapps, and slim figures. Naomi and Anna had even chosen
dresses of a similar color, one that reminded Mary
Katherine of morning glories. In her rush out the door,
Mary Katherine had grabbed the first available dress and
now felt drab and dowdy in the brown dress she'd chosen.
Yes, they looked much alike, the three of them.
Until Mary Katherine stood. She'd continued growing
after it seemed that everyone else had stopped. Now, at
5'8", she felt like a skinny beanpole next to her cousins.
She felt awkward next to the young men she'd gone to school
with. Although she knew it was wrong, there had been times
when she'd secretly wished that God had made her petite and
pretty like her cous- ins. And why had he chosen to give
her red hair and freckles? Didn't she have enough she
didn't like about her looks without that?
Like their looks, their personalities seemed similar
on the surface. The three of them appeared calm and
serene— especially Naomi. Anna tried to be, but it
didn't last long. She was too mischievous.
And herself? Serenity seemed hard these days. In the
past several years, Mary Katherine had been a little moody
but lately it seemed her moods were going up and down like
a road through rolling hills.
"Feeling restless?" Naomi asked, looking at her with con-
cern. Nimbly, she tied a knot, snipped the thread with a
scis- sors, then slid her needle into a pincushion. Anna
looked up from her knitting needles. "Mary Katherine was
born restless."
"I think I'll take a short walk."
"No," Leah said quickly, holding up a hand. "Let's eat
first, then you can take a walk. Otherwise you'll come
back and customers will be here for the afternoon rush and
you'll start helping and go hungry."
Mary Katherine was already mentally out the door, but
she nodded her agreement. "You're right, of course."
Leah was a tall, spare woman who didn't appear old
enough to be anyone's grandmother. Her face was smooth and
unlined, and there wasn't a trace of gray in her hair,
which she wore like her granddaughters.
"I made your favorite," Leah told Mary Katherine.
"Fried chicken? You made fried chicken? When did you
have time to do that?"
Nodding, Leah tucked away her sewing supplies, and
stood. "Before we came to work this morning. It didn't take
long." She turned to Naomi. "And I made your favorite."
Naomi had been picking up stray strands of yarn from the
wood floor. She looked up, her eyes bright. "Macaroni and
cheese?"
"Oatmeal and raisin cookies?" Anna wanted to know. When
her grandmother nodded, Anna set down her knitting needles
and stood. "Just how early did you get up? Are you having
trouble sleeping?"
"No earlier than usual," Leah replied cheerfully. "I
made the macaroni and cheese and the cookies last night.
But I don't need as much sleep as some other people I know."
"Can you blame me for sleeping in a little later?" Mary
Katherine asked. "After all of those years of helping with
farm chores? Besides, I was working on a design last
night." "Tell us all about it while we eat," Naomi said,
glancing at the clock. "We won't have long before customers
start coming in again."
"I worry about Grandmother," Anna whispered to Mary
Katherine as they walked to the back room. "She does too
much."
"She's always been like this." "Yes, but she's getting
older."
"Shh, don't be saying that around her!"
Leah turned. "Did somebody say something?"
"Anna said she's hungry," Mary Katherine said
quickly. "And wondering what favorite of hers you made.
After all, every- thing you make is Anna's favorite."
Anna poked Mary Katherine in the ribs but everyone
laughed because it was true. What was amazing was that no
matter how much Anna ate, she never gained weight.
Nodding, Leah continued toward the back room. "We'll
have it on the table in no time."
Anna grabbed Mary Katherine's arm, stopping her. "Shame
on you," she hissed. "You know it's wrong to lie." Then she
shook her head. "What am I saying? You've done so much
worse!"
"Me? I have not! I can't imagine what you're talking
about." Turning so that her grandmother wouldn't see, Anna
lifted
her fingers to her lips and mimed smoking a cigarette.
Mary Katherine blushed. "You've been spying on
me." "Food's ready!" Leah called.
"Don't you dare tell her!" Mary Katherine whispered.
Anna's eyes danced. "What will you give me if I don't?" She
stared at her cousin. "I don't have anything—"
"Your afternoon off," Anna said suddenly. "That's what
I'll take in trade." Before she could respond, Anna
hurried into the back room. Exasperated, Mary Katherine
could do nothing but fol- low her.
The minute they finished eating, Mary Katherine jumped
up and hurried over to wash her dishes. "I'll be right
back," she promised, tying her bonnet on the run as she
left the store.
Winter's chill was in the air. She shivered a little but
didn't want to go back for her shawl. She shrugged. Once
she got moving, she'd be warm enough.
She felt the curious stares as if she were being touched.
But that was okay. Mary Katherine was doing a lot of
star- ing of her own. She had a great deal of curiosity
about the Englisch and didn't mind admitting it.
She just hoped that her grandmother didn't know how
much she'd thought about becoming one of them, of not being
baptized into the Amish church.
As one of the tourists walked past, a pretty woman about
her own age, Mary Katherine wondered what it felt like
being covered in so little clothing. She suspected she'd
feel half- naked in that dress she'd heard called a
sundress. Although some of the tourists looked surprised
when she and her cous- ins wore bright colors, the fact was
that the Ordnung certainly didn't mandate black dresses.
Color had always been part of Mary Katherine's
world. She'd loved all the shades of blue because they
reminded her of the big blue bowl of the sky. Her father
had complained that she didn't get her chores done in a
timely manner because she was always walking around . . .
noticing. She noticed every- thing around her, absorbed the
colors and textures, and spent hours using them in her
designs that didn't look like the quilts and crafts other
Amish women created.
She paused at the display window of Stitches in Time. A
wedding ring quilt that Naomi had sewn was draped over a
quilt rack. Anna had knitted several darling little cupcake
hats for babies to protect their heads and ears from the
cold. And there was her own woven throw made of many
different fibers and textures and colors of burnt orange,
gold, brown, and green. All echoed the theme of fall, of
the weddings that would come with the cooling weather after
summer harvests.
And all were silent testament to Leah's belief in the
cre- ativity of her granddaughters, thought Mary Katherine
with a smile. The shop featured the traditional crafts
tourists might expect but also the new directions the
cousins came up with.
It was the best of both worlds Mary Katherine said to
her- self as she ventured out into the throng of tourists
lining the sidewalks.
Jacob saw Mary Katherine exit her grandmother's shop.
His timing was perfect because he'd heard from a secret
source what time they took a break to eat at the shop
during the day.
He watched her stop to gaze at the display window and
she smiled—the smile that had attracted him to her.
Oh, she was pretty with those big blue eyes and soft skin
with a blush of rose over her cheekbones. But her smile.
She hadn't always smiled like that. He started noticing
it just a few months ago, after the shop had opened. It was
as if she'd come to life. He'd passed by the shop one day a
couple of weeks ago and stopped to glance inside, and he'd
seen her working at her loom, a look of absorption on her
face, a quiet smile on her lips.
Something had moved in his chest then, a feeling he
hadn't had before. He'd resolved to figure this out.
He hadn't been in a rush to marry. It had been enough to
take over the family farm, to make sure he didn't undo all
the hard work that his daed had done to make it thrive. He
didn't feel pride that he'd continued its success. After
all, Plain peo- ple felt hochmut was wrong. In school, they
had often practiced writing the proverb, "Der Hochmut kummt
vor dem Fall." Pride goeth before the fall.
But the farm, its continuity, its legacy for the family
he wanted one day . . . that was important to him. To have
that family, he knew he'd have to find a fraa. It was
important to find the right one. After all, Plain people
married for life. So he'd looked around but he had taken
his time. He likened the process to a crop—you
prepared the ground, planted the right seed, nurtured it,
asked God's blessing, and then harvested at the right
moment.
Such things took time.
Sometimes they even took perseverance. She had turned
him down when he'd approached her and asked her out.
He decided not to let that discourage him.
She turned from the window and began walking down the
sidewalk toward him. Look at her, he thought, walking with
that bounce to her step. Look at the way she glanced
around, taking in everything with such animation, such
curiosity.
He waited for some sign of recognition, but she hadn't
seen him yet. When they'd attended school, their teacher
had often gently chided her for staring out the classroom
window or doodling designs on a scrap of paper for the
weaving she loved.
Mary Katherine moved through the sea of Englisch
tourists on the sidewalk that parted for her when she
walked as the waters had for Moses. He watched how they
glanced at her the way she did them.
It was a mutual curiosity at its best.
He walked toward her, and when she stopped and blinked,
he grinned.
"Jacob! What are you doing here?"
"You make it sound like I never come to town." "I don't
remember ever seeing you do it."
"I needed some supplies, and things are slower now with
the harvest in. Have you eaten?" He'd found out from Anna
when they took their noontime break, but he figured it was
a good conversational device.
"Yes. We ate a little early at the shop."
He thought about that. Maybe he should have planned bet-
ter. "I see. Well, how about having supper with me tonight?"
"Did you come all the way into town to ask me out?"
Jacob drew himself up. "Yes."
"But I've told you before—"
"That you're not interested in going out." "Yes."
"But I haven't heard of you going out with anyone else."
She stared at him, oblivious of the people who streamed
around them on the sidewalk. "Who did you ask?"
Her direct stare was unnerving. His collar felt tight,
but he knew if he pulled it away from his neck he'd just
appear guilty. "I'd have heard."
"I'm not interested in dating, Jacob."
When she started past him, he put out his hand to stop
her. She looked down at his hand on her arm and then met
his gaze. "Is it you're not interested in dating or you're
not inter- ested in dating me?"
Her lips quirked. "I'm not interested in dating.
It's not you."
"I see."
She began walking again.
"Do you mind if I walk with you?"
"Schur." She glanced at him. "Can you keep up?"
He found himself grinning. She was different from other
young women he knew, more spirited and independent.
"Where are we going?"
She shrugged. "Nowhere in particular. I just needed to
get out and get some fresh air."
Stopping at a shop window, she studied its display of
tour- ist souvenirs. "Did you ever think about not staying
here? In Paradise?"
"Not stay here? Where would you go?"
She turned to look at him and shrugged. "I don't know.
It's a big world out there."
Jacob felt a chill race up his spine. "You can't mean
it," he said slowly. "You belong here."
"Do I?" she asked. Pensive, she stared at the people
passing. "Sometimes I'm not sure where I belong."
He took her shoulders and turned her to face the shop
win- dow. "This is where you belong," he told her.
She looked at the image of herself reflected in the
glass as he directed. He liked the way they looked together
in the reflection. She was a fine Amish woman, with a quiet
beauty he'd admired for some time. He'd known her in school
and, of course, they'd attended Sunday services and
singings and such through the years. He hadn't been in a
rush to get mar- ried, and he'd noticed she hadn't been,
either. Both of them had been working hard, he at his farm,
she in the shop she and her grandmother and cousins owned.
He began noticing her shortly after the shop opened for
business. There was a different air about her. She seemed
more confident, happier than she'd been before.
He reminded himself that she'd said she didn't date.
So why, he asked himself, was he trying again? Taking a
deep breath, he turned to her. "Mary Katherine—"
"Jacob!" a man called.
He turned and saw a man striding toward him, a newcomer
to the Plain community.
Though the man hailed him, his attention was clearly on
Mary Katherine. He held out his hand. "Daniel Kurtz," he
said. "Remember me?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Jacob saw Mary Katherine
turn to the man and eye him with interest.
"You live in Florida now."
"I do." He studied the shop. "So, this is yours?" "My
grandmother's. My cousins and I help her."
Daniel nodded. "Very enterprising." He glanced
around. "Is this the size of crowd you get this time of
year?"
Mary Katherine nodded. "After-Christmas sales bring them
out. But business slows down while people eat lunch."
"I came into town to pick up a few things and I'm
hungry. Have you two eaten?"
"I asked Mary Katherine but—" "We'll join you,"
she said quickly.
Jacob stared at her. But the two of them were already
walk- ing away. With an unexplained feeling of dread
washing over him, he followed them.
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