The Amish Suitor. Jo Ann Brown

the wall was safe. Miriam seemed so confident she could teach him. He didn’t want to disappoint her when she was going out of her way to help him.

      Kyle threw his arms around Miriam and gave her a big hug. He grinned, and Eli realized how eager the kind was to let someone else help Eli fill in the blanks.

      “You’ll have a gut time at school, ain’t so, buddy?” Eli asked, trying to cover his trepidation at losing Kyle’s help.

      Kyle tensed. No go. Go later.

      Eli knelt in front of his nephew. “You’ll be fine. You’re going to enjoy school.”

      When Miriam nodded and said something, Kyle looked dubious.

      The little boy shook his head. Stay together. Eli and Kyle. No go now.

      “You’ll be fine,” he repeated. “The day will go so quickly you won’t realize it because you’re having fun with learning and your new friends.”

      Kyle touched one ear, then the other.

      It took every sinew of strength Eli had not to flinch. That was a signal he hadn’t seen the little boy make often, but he knew what it meant. Kyle was scared something bad would happen, as it had to Eli and his parents.

      “It’ll be okay. Miriam will be watching over you so you don’t have to worry about getting hurt, ain’t so?”

      He raised his eyes toward her, expecting her to confirm his words. Instead, Miriam eased out of the little boy’s embrace, her smile gone. She said something, but Eli didn’t get a single word. She rushed away, vanishing into the barn where she lived with her brother.

      What had he said wrong? One minute she’d been working to convince Kyle that going to school was something he wanted to do. The next she was fleeing as if a rabid fox nipped at her heels. Was it the thought of being with the scholars? Again, Eli found himself wondering why anyone who was so uneasy around kinder was going to be the settlement’s teacher.

      He didn’t have time to figure it out. He needed to calm his nephew. “Looks like we’re both going to start school next week,” Eli said, patting him on the back.

      Kyle gave him a distracted nod and kept staring at the door Miriam had used. Why was he acting as oddly as she had?

      Had what Miriam said upset the little boy?

      “What did she say as she was leaving?” he asked as he tucked the page with the school drawing into his pocket. “Did you hear what she said?”

      He nodded.

      “What was it?”

      The little boy started to open his mouth, then clamped it closed. Shaking his head, he ran to the buggy and climbed in.

      Eli sighed. Kyle had heard something he didn’t want to repeat. It’d happened a few times before, and Eli had discovered how useless it was to badger the little boy again to help him understand. Kyle always found a way to avoid answering him.

      But Eli now did have one answer. He wasn’t going to come to regret his decision to let her teach him lipreading.

      He already did.