She shook her head. “How on earth can that be?”

“Just is.” He glanced at her now, his blue eyes serious—yet she felt sure he was doing his best to hold in a chuckle.

“Okay, then, what’s my name?”

“Eliza,” he said with a gleeful lilt in his voice.

She wondered why she was still letting this cocky stranger pull the wagon and dominate the conversation. “Listen, if you know so much about me, it’s only fair I should know something ’bout you, too, jah?”

He couldn’t seem to keep a straight face. “Like what?”

“Do ya have a name of your own, just maybe?”

“They call me Eb at suppertime.”

“And what do they call ya other times?”

“It’s Eb then, too.”

“That’s not a name, though . . . it’s a nickname!” she said, rather enjoying this back and forth now, still looking for Cousin Nellie’s house to come into view.

“You’re right. It is short for somethin’.” He paused and grinned at her. “Ever hear of Ebenezer in the Bible?”

She nodded. “But that wasn’t a person.”

“Well, no. And how I got it, well . . . it’s a complicated story. If ya want, I might tell it to ya sometime, Eliza.”

She had to smile. Eb was unlike anyone she’d ever met. He seemed to have more gumption than even her older brother, who liked to nearly tease the life out of her.

“Okay, I don’t have to know,” she said, though she really wanted to, if only to keep talking with him.

“All right, then.”

They walked together without saying more. When she saw Nellie’s house, Eliza breathed a sigh tinged with a bit of disappointment, knowing she might never hear Eb’s story. “That’s the house up there,” she said, pointing toward the rise.

Eb chuckled. “I know Nellie Petersheim’s place like the back of my hand.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve worked for her husband, Yost, harvesting corn.”

So, there was a possibility she’d see Eb again. “Well, how ’bout that?”

He asked if she could find her way back to the widow Beiler’s place.

Now she was the one laughing. “I should hope so!” There were only four farms between Nellie’s and Joanna’s.

Eb pulled the wagon all the way up the rise, to the back door. “There you are.” He nodded. “Gut to meet ya, Eliza.”

She almost said “You too,” but stood there silently as Eb turned and headed back down the lane, resuming his quick stride and his whistling.

Chapter 13

Anna rose just after dawn Friday morning and slipped out of the house for a walk, replaying in her mind the meal with Mart at Miller’s. She felt fairly certain he was interested in her, and goodness, they had learned quite a lot about each other in the space of a single evening.