Eb glanced at the ceiling and stared at it for a moment. “Honest to Pete, never forgot ’bout her . . . not to say I wasn’t devoted to my wife, Miriam,” Eb added, looking now at Gabe. “There’s just something ’bout one’s first love. . . .”

Anna thought of Gabe just then; his first love had gone to be with the Lord.

Eb kept studying Anna, not concealing his scrutiny in the least. “You must be somehow related to Eliza, then.”

Anna nodded, delighted to be talking to this man who had once meant so much to her beloved Mammi. “I’m her granddaughter.” She didn’t say that Eliza was no longer living. One thing at a time . . .

“Well, what do ya know.” Eb shook his head and looked over at Gabe like he was in a daze. “I have to say, I never expected this.”

Glancing at Gabe, Anna removed the letter from her purse.

“Anna has somethin’ mighty special to show ya, Dawdi,” Gabe said, giving Anna courage with a thoughtful smile.

“Go right ahead, young lady.” Eb turned in his rocker just a bit, leaning his head to look at her through the upper part of his spectacles.

“I believe I’ve found what might’ve been the last letter you wrote to my Mammi,” Anna said, handing it to him. “One she probably never read.”

Eb looked baffled. “Ach, are ya sure?”

For a moment, he studied it and held it out away from him, peering down through his bifocals. Then after a time, he shook his head and handed it back to Anna. “I always thought Eliza read it and was offended by it . . . ran away. According to the grapevine, she left town with her parents.”

Anna didn’t go into the details of how she had discovered the letter in the stone wall, seeing how Eb was trying to wrap his mind around this.

“Guess Eliza never got it.” Eb still looked confused. “And all that time, I thought it was me suggestin’ to leave my church for hers that scared her off.”

“I really don’t know what made her return home. Mammi was always rather tight-lipped about that summer here.” Anna added that she could ask her mother about it if he’d like.

“Ach, no need,” Eb said, waving it off. He sat there rocking now, his eyes closed as though suddenly weary. After a time, he opened them and looked Anna’s way again. “How’d ya come to know ’bout the stone wall?”

She had wondered if he might ask and told him that Mammi Eliza had first mentioned it when Anna told her that she was coming to live in Strasburg. “At the time, Mammi’s memory wasn’t too reliable, but there were moments when it was clear. After that, whenever I spoke of Strasburg, she’d try to talk about a stone wall, even though none of it really seemed to make sense to my family.”