When there was a lull, Anna asked how Emmie was doing, and Gabe said she was carrying her dolly around everywhere, the doll dressed in Anna’s handiwork. He added that she’d also taken the doll with her to Aendi Barbara’s before he left to come for Anna. “I didn’t tell Emmie that I would be seein’ you.”

Anna didn’t have to wonder why not—he was clearly interested in getting to know her better. She tried to smile but felt she’d made a mistake in coming. What am I doing with Gabe? she thought, watching as the cornfields seemed to fly by.

Yet she hadn’t been able to tear herself away from his company, so she was at once miserable and happy.

What’s my heart telling me?

There were countless people at the Harvest Days Festival, tourists and locals alike. Anna was impressed by the colorful autumn decorations everywhere—large wicker baskets of ornamental corn, tiered shocks of cornstalks, pumpkins to decorate for the children—and live music, craft demonstrations, horse-drawn hayrides, and apple butter and cider making, too.

She and Gabe stopped to observe a sheep-shearing exhibit, then watched as previously washed and carded wool was spun into yarn on a spinning wheel, and next, turned into the beginnings of a shawl. Anna told Gabe that her Mammi Eliza had been bequeathed a similar spinning wheel from her grandmother, “my great-great-grandmother,” she said.

“Is it still in the family?” Gabe asked, the look on his face showing keen interest.

“It’s stored in my sister’s attic.”

“None of your womenfolk use it?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Maybe you could learn . . . since you seem interested.” He motioned toward the spinning wheel.

“Maybe I will.” She laughed, following him to an indoor exhibit that focused on eighteenth-century life in Lancaster County.

They watched an Amish blacksmith at work, and Anna realized this was really nothing new for Gabe, presuming that he visited the smithy quite often, given he owned at least one road horse.

“I helped our Amish smithy one summer when I was a teenager out in Indiana, where I grew up,” Gabe told her as they watched. “My parents still live in Elkhart County.”

“Do your siblings live there, as well?” She hoped she wasn’t being too nosy.

“All six brothers and their families, jah.” Gabe glanced at her. “Ya prob’ly wonder how I ended up here in Strasburg even though my Mamm married an Indiana Amishman.”

She nodded, hoping he might share that.

Gabe told her that his mother was originally from Strasburg but met his father at an Amish youth convention in Indiana. Then Gabe explained that he had been invited here to help Emily’s father on their farm before he’d ever met her. “I answered a request in The Budget, actually. And”—he paused for a moment—“after I met Emily, I knew that God had brought me here.”