The Hotter You Burn. Gena Showalter

      With that thought she hurried into the Dawdi Haus and relit the fire in the stove. She retrieved her writing desk from the bedroom and sat at the little kitchen table, as close to the fire as she could get.

      Putting the ink bottle on the side of the stove to warm it, Ruthy took out a sheet of paper and her pen, composing a letter to Mam in her head as she waited.

      Her first week had gone well, she would write. Waneta was a sweet girl and a joy to work with. Martha had loved learning to make pies. Nellie had come to her wanting to learn to purl so she could knit a pair of stockings for her dat, but Ruthy had convinced her to start out with a blanket for her doll to practice the stitches. Nancy had come home from school yesterday with snow inside her boots, complaining that David had pushed her into the ditch on the way home. The boys... She didn’t know any of them very well yet, except Sam.

      And then there was Levi. What would she tell Mam about Levi Zook?

      Ruthy picked up the bottle of ink and shook it as she considered this problem. The ink was almost warm enough to use.

      Levi hadn’t lied to her, but Mam and Dat would say he misled her by not telling her how many children he had. They would ask if she wanted to stay on, knowing he had kept that important information to himself.

      She smiled to herself. Of course she was going to stay. Ten children seemed like such a large number...until she started getting to know them. Now that she had met them, had seen how much they all longed for a mother in their lives, she couldn’t bear to think of leaving them.

      But... Ruthy shook the ink bottle again, and then brought it to the table and uncorked it. She filled her pen as she considered something that had been hovering at the back of her mind. What if there was something else Levi had forgotten to tell her?

      What if he already had a new mother chosen for his children and he had only hired her so the house would be orderly and running well before his new wife came to live here? She wouldn’t be surprised. Just because he hadn’t been successful in courting that other woman Waneta had told her about didn’t mean he didn’t have his eye on someone else. A man like him wouldn’t stay single very long.

      And if she got along well with the new wife, perhaps she would be asked to stay on. A new wife would need a helper, ja?

      The clock’s ticking echoed in the silent room. It was a pipe dream at best. When Levi married again, she would have to move on. Find another position as a housekeeper, or a mother’s helper...

      A tear fell, raising a spot on her paper. Ruthy quickly crumpled the sheet and threw it into the stove. She couldn’t send a letter home with a tearstain on it, could she?

      Home. Would she ever know the sweetness of her own home again?