The Amish Bride by Emma Miller

free to play on the sturdy swings, climbing walls and slides.
    Ellen and Neziah sat down at a picnic table while the two boys ran to explore the play area. For a few minutes they just sat and ate their ice cream and watched the boys. This was something she’d always found admirable in Neziah. He didn’t always feel as though he had to keep a conversation going. It was one of the things she remembered fondly from the days when they had courted. The two of them would often go for long stretches of time without speaking. But he had asked her there to talk. She wondered if she should start the conversation.
    Neziah pointed out a brown thrasher in the grass on the far side of the enclosed yard. “Bold, isn’t he?” He pointed to the little bird. “To be more concerned with what he can scratch out of the dirt than frightened of those two.” He indicated Asa and Joel, who’d devoured their ice cream cones and were now attempting to cross a narrow swinging bridge that led to a barn-red tree house at the top of the structure.
    “We have a pair of brown thrashers nesting in our orchard,” she answered. “I think they raised little ones this summer.” She’d always favored the rusty-brown birds with their long tails and bright eyes. Thrashers were in the mockingbird family and usually got along well with other species of backyard birds, unlike the grackles and cowbirds.
    Asa had successfully crossed the swaying bridge and was scampering ahead of Joel up the ladder to the small structure on stilts. Joel plopped down on the bridge and dangled his legs over the side of the wooden walkway. “Come on!” Asa yelled in
Deitsch
. Joel shouted back, but Ellen couldn’t make out what he’d said.
    Neziah finished his last bite of cone and wiped his hands on a napkin. “I’m glad you came for ice cream, Ellen. I wanted to talk to you. Alone.”
    “
Dat!
Dat!
Look at me!” Asa cried from the top of a sliding board.
    “I see you!” Neziah waved and looked back at Ellen. “Well, not
exactly
alone,” he said wryly. “I’m never alone.”
    Ellen popped the last bit of cone into her mouth.
    He slid a napkin to her. “I wanted to talk to you about this whole courting business. First, I want to apologize for my
vadder
’s—” He shook his head. “I don’t even know what to call it.”
    “You don’t have to apologize, Neziah.” She wiped her mouth and then her fingers, beginning to relax a little. He was being so kind. She didn’t know why she’d been nervous about talking with him about this. They weren’t kids anymore. They both knew what they wanted, and neither of them was going to be controlled by their parents. “My
vadder
was a part of it, too,” she told him. “I know our parents mean well, but sometimes it might be better if they didn’t get so...
involved
.”
    He smiled and looked down at his hands. “My father, and my brother for that matter, can sometimes border on being meddlesome, but this time I think our fathers might have a point.”
    Ellen had been watching Asa as he exited the tree house, sliding down a pole. She turned to look at Neziah, thinking she must have misheard him. “You think...” She just stared at him for a moment in confusion. Was he saying she
should
consider both him and Micah for a husband? That couldn’t have been what he meant. She could feel herself frowning. “You mean you think our fathers have a point in saying it’s time we each thought about getting married?”
    He met her gaze. He was the same Neziah she had once thought she was in love with, the same warm, dark eyes, but there was something different now. A confidence she hadn’t recalled seeing on his plain face.
    “Yes. And I think our fathers are right in saying that you and I, Ellen—” he covered her hand with his “—should consider courting again.”
    Ellen was so shocked, it was a wonder she didn’t fall off the picnic table bench. Again, all she could do was stare at him. This was the last thing on