An Amish Courtship

Chapter Two

Monday morning dawned with the promise of a hot, sticky day ahead. On the way back to the house with the basket of eggs, Mary stopped by the garden to look for some early peas to go with their noon dinner. Noticing some stray lettuce seedlings among the beans, she bent to pull them out, but then saw how many there were. It was as if Sadie had planted the beans and lettuce in the same row.

She left the lettuce where it was and picked a couple handfuls of peas from the vines in front of her for lunch. Continuing on to the house, she paused at the sink in the back porch to wash up. The others were in the kitchen fixing breakfast.

“I want to ask Judith about the knitting pattern she brought over yesterday evening if the girls come this week,” Ida Mae was saying.

Mary set the peas on the counter. “What is the pattern?”

“It’s for stockings that you knit from the toe up, rather than the top down. I’ve never seen one like it. I was trying to figure out how it works last night, but it’s beyond me.”

“Margaret used to make stockings like that,” Aunt Sadie said. She sat at the table, paring potatoes. “Margaret Lapp, Judith and Esther’s mother. I have a pair of stockings she made. I’ll show them to you...” Her voice trailed off as she dropped her knife on the table and started to rise.

Mary put a hand on her shoulder. “You can show us after breakfast. There’s no hurry.”

Aunt Sadie sank back down into her chair. “Ja. No hurry.” She sat with her hands in her lap, a frown creasing her brow.

“What’s wrong?”

The older woman startled and looked at Mary. “What was I doing?”

“You were peeling potatoes.”

Aunt Sadie looked at the paring knife and potatoes on the table, her face vague. Then her brow cleared. “Ach, ja. The potatoes.”

Mary glanced at Ida Mae. This wasn’t the first time they had needed to remind Aunt Sadie of what she had been doing. In the six days since they had arrived, small lapses in their aunt’s memory had been frequent. Perhaps their older relative did need them to take care of her, even if she wasn’t ready to admit it.

They finished fixing breakfast in silence, each of them caught up in their own thoughts. As Mary scrambled the eggs, Ida Mae fried the potatoes and onions, the aroma filling the little kitchen.

Mary hoped the move to Indiana would be the healing balm her sister needed. The death of Ida Mae’s young, handsome beau in a farming accident six weeks ago had been a terrible thing, and even though Ida Mae had put on a brave face this morning, grief still shadowed her eyes.

At least Ida Mae’s tragedy gave Mary an excuse whenever someone questioned her own pale face and shadowed eyes. No one needed to know the real reason for her own grief, even her closest sister.

Mary set the table, laying the spoons next to the plates, carefully lining them up next to the knives. One by one she set them down, her fingers lingering on the smooth handles. She missed, ne, she craved Ida Mae’s cheerfulness. She relied on her sister to keep things going, to keep Mary’s mind off the past.

Soon, though, Ida Mae would move on. She would meet a young man, get married, have a family of children and be happy again. The same dream that Mary had shared with her sister for so many years.

She blinked back tears as she straightened the fork she had just laid on the table. Ida Mae would see her hopes fulfilled, but not Mary. She laid another fork on the table. That dream belonged to an innocent girl with dreams of the future, and she had left that girl in Ohio.

* * *

The sun was already above the tops of the trees as Samuel walked to the barn. As he shoved the big sliding door open, he scanned the building’s dusty interior, filled with equipment and clutter from days gone by. How would that Mary Hochstetter see Daed’s barn? Thinking about her coffee-brown eyes, so much like Mamm’s, pulled at something deep inside, something that reminded him of another time and another place.

A week, years ago, when he and his brother, Bram, had been sent to Grossdawdi’s farm in Eden Township. He must have been four or five years old. Grossmutti’s kitchen had been a wonder of cinnamon and apples and as much food as he could eat. Grossdawdi’s brown eyes crinkled when he smiled, and he had smiled often. The barn had been a wonderful place to play, with hay piled in the lofty mow.

Samuel relaxed against the doorframe, remembering Grossdawdi’s patient hands teaching him how to rub oil into the gleaming leather harnesses. His hand cupping Samuel’s head and pulling him close in the only hug he remembered.

He had never seen the old couple again, but he hadn’t forgotten the peace that had reigned in their home. And one quiet glance of Mary’s eyes had brought it all back.

Daed’s barn had never been as orderly as Grossdawdi’s, even now when it was nearly empty. There hadn’t been enough horses to fill the stalls since before Daed had passed on. Their driving mare spent her days in the meadow, too ornery for the girls to handle by themselves.

Samuel walked over to her stall and peered out the open side door to where the mare stood, one hip cocked and head down, drowsing in the afternoon sun as she swished flies with her tail.

Daed had left the barn a mess when he passed away two years ago. Broken harnesses still sat in a moldy pile in the corner and the unused stalls were knee deep in old straw. They had never been cleaned out when the work horses had been sold to pay off Daed’s debts. The cow was gone, too, and the bank barn’s lower level was empty except for the mash cooker.

Every time he thought about trying to bring order to the chaos, Samuel felt like he was drowning in memories and past sins. Soon after Daed’s funeral, he had started clearing out the old, moldy harnesses and had found one of the bottles Daed kept stashed away. The smell brought back sickening scenes of Daed trying to hide the bottles from him with clumsy motions. When he found another stash among the straw in one of the empty box stalls, he had given up. Let the old barn keep its secrets.

Walking on to the horse’s stall, he stopped at the stack of hay on the barn floor and pulled out a forkful. The mare poked her head into her stall, her feet planted firmly in the dried mud in the doorway between her pasture and the dim barn, watching Samuel. Her ears pricked forward as Samuel thumped the fork on the side of her manger to dump the hay off, but she didn’t move. The horse was right to be suspicious. Samuel had never been overly kind to the beast. He had never been cruel, but had only followed Daed’s example.

Daed hadn’t taken much time with the horses, using them until they were worn out and then buying new ones, and Samuel had always expected to do the same. He had never thought much about it until he saw the sleek horses in the pasture at meeting yesterday. His horse had looked sickly compared to them, and men judged a farmer’s abilities by the condition of his stock. Anyone looking at his poor mare would know what the rest of his farm was like without even having to see it. They would know how he had been neglecting his legacy.

Samuel pulled the carrot he had brought from the root cellar out of his waistband. Daed had bought the mare cheap at a farm sale the year before he died. She had been strong enough, but with Daed’s lack of care, she had never become the sleek, healthy animal the other men at church kept.

He turned the carrot over in his hand. Daed’s horse, Daed’s problem. Except that Daed wasn’t here anymore. Like everything else around the farm, the horse was his responsibility now whether he liked it or not.

“Hey there.” Samuel kept his voice soft, and the mare’s ears swiveled toward him. “Look what I have for you.”

He broke the carrot in half and her head went up at the crisp snap. She stretched her neck toward him and took one step into the barn. He opened the gate and let himself into her stall.

“Come on, girl.” He should give her a name, something Daed would never do. Searching his memory of other horse names, he decided on one. “Come on, Brownie.”

Not much of a name. He stretched the carrot out toward her, wiggling it between his fingers. She took another step forward.

“You’ll like this carrot.” He tried another name. “Come on, Mabel.”

She snorted.

“All right then. Tilly.”

She swiveled her ears back and then forward again.

“Have a carrot, Tilly.” The name fit. He took a step toward her. “Come on, Tilly-girl. You’ll like it.”

He held the carrot half on his outstretched hand and she picked it up, lipping it into her mouth. She stood, crunching the carrot as he grasped her halter. He gave her the other half.

She pulled wisps of hay from her manger as he brushed her lightly. She needed more than just grass to live on if he wanted her to become the kind of horse the other farmers kept. Sadie kept oats on hand and gave Chester a measured amount every day, rather than the hit-or-miss rations he gave Tilly. Sadie’s horse thrived on her care.

So he would need to buy oats for the mare. Samuel held up the old brush, inspecting the matted and bent bristles. And he needed to buy a new brush. And a currycomb.

Taking care of this horse was going to cost money.

When Tilly finished her hay, he turned her out into the pasture again and grabbed the manure fork. He hauled forkfuls of soiled straw out to the pasture and started a pile. Somewhere in the past he remembered a manure pile in this spot. Mamm had used the soiled bedding on her garden after it had mellowed over the winter.

By the time he finished emptying the stall and spreading it with the last of the clean straw he had on hand, it was time for breakfast. The aroma of bacon frying pulled him to the house.

The girls didn’t look up when he walked into the kitchen after washing up on the back porch.

“Good morning.” Samuel broke the silence, and Esther stared at him in surprise. He didn’t blame her. When had he ever greeted her in the morning?

Judith placed a bowl of scrambled eggs on the table with a smile. “Good morning, Samuel.”

He started to reach for the platter of bacon, then remembered. He waited for Judith and Esther to take their seats, and then bowed his head for the silent prayer.

He had never prayed during this time, but had always let his mind wander while he waited for Daed’s signal to eat. But this morning, as the aroma of the bacon teased his hunger, he felt a nudge of guilt. Did his sisters pray during this moment of silence?

After the right amount of time had passed, Samuel cleared his throat just as Daed had always done, and reached for the bacon.

“Some coffee, Samuel?” Esther stood at his elbow with the coffee pot.

Samuel nodded, his mouth full. She poured his coffee and then her own and Judith’s. Her wrists, sticking out too far from the sleeves of her faded dress, were thin. The hollow places under her cheekbones were shadowed and gray.

Esther had been keeping house for him since Annie got married and before that had taken on her share of the work, just as Judith did now. Her brow was creased, as if she wore a perpetual frown at the young age of twenty-one. He had never noticed that before.

Not before he had met Mary. Tall and slim, Mary looked healthy and strong. Compared to her, Judith and Esther reminded him of last year’s dry weeds along the fence.

Samuel shifted in his chair, the eggs tasting like dust in his mouth. The sight of the bacon on his plate turned his stomach. A sudden vision filled his memory. Sitting at this same table, watching Daed fill his plate with food, leaving just enough for the rest of the family to share between them. Daed eating the last piece of bacon every morning. And Mamm at the other end of the table, her face as thin and gray as Esther’s, nibbling at a piece of toast.

Neither Judith nor Esther had taken any of the scrambled eggs but were eating toast with a bit of jam. Normally, Samuel would take two or three helpings of eggs and empty the platter of bacon. He pushed the bowl of eggs in their direction.

“I can’t eat all of this. You take some.”

Esther startled and looked at him, her eyes wide. “Did I fix too many eggs?”

He shook his head. “I’m just not as hungry this morning. You and Judith can eat them. Don’t let them go to waste.”

The girls glanced at each other, then Esther divided the last of the eggs between them. Judith dug in to hers eagerly.

“The bacon, too.” Samuel pushed the platter in their direction. He had already eaten half of what Esther had prepared.

He drank his coffee, the bitter liquid hitting his stomach with a burn. The girls did without decent food and clothes...but whenever he had extra cash, he bought whatever he thought he needed. He stared at Esther’s thin wrists. Just like Daed had done, he made his sisters make do with whatever was left over after he had taken what he wanted.

Samuel loosened his fingers carefully from his tight grip on the coffee cup. He had been so blind. No different from Daed.

“This afternoon I’ll take you girls to town.”

They exchanged looks.

“You don’t need to do that,” Esther said. “We don’t need anything.”

“I know you need groceries.”

“We have no money.”

“I’ll take one of the hogs to sell at the butcher.” Samuel drained his cup and rose from the table. “So make a list. I’m going over to Sadie’s this morning, and then we’ll head to town right after dinner.”

Samuel took the path that led from the back of the barn through the fence row to Sadie’s place. A well-worn path that he had traveled ever since he had been old enough to chore. Daed hadn’t cared whether Sadie’s chores were done or not, but Grossdawdi had drilled the habit of shouldering the responsibility into Bram and Samuel.

Grossdawdi Abe. Not the grossdawdi far away, Mamm’s parents, but Daed’s father. The old man had lived in the room off the kitchen for as long as Samuel could remember, until he became sick with fever fifteen years ago. Grossdawdi Abe had called Samuel and Bram into his room one afternoon when Daed was away.

“I want you boys to promise...” He had broken off, coughing, but then continued, “Promise me you’ll look after Sadie Beiler. You boys are big enough to remember. Make sure her chores are done.”

Then he had grasped Samuel’s wrist and pulled him close.

“Promise me.”

Samuel had nodded his promise. And he had kept his promise, even though Bram had forgotten. Every week, no matter what else happened, he was at Sadie’s farm to do the chores he couldn’t bring himself to do around Daed’s farm.

Choring on Daed’s farm brought too many memories to the surface, but when he worked on Sadie’s farm, he could feel Grossdawdi Abe’s approval. He did the chores for Grossdawdi, and for Sadie, and no one else.

Now that Sadie was elderly he made daily trips to her farm. Not to do the small chores that the old woman insisted on doing herself, but to make sure she was all right. Sadie was more frail and forgetful than she wanted to admit, so Samuel had taken it on himself to check the chickens after breakfast.

If the morning came when the eggs hadn’t been gathered, he’d be there to make sure the elderly woman was all right. So far that morning hadn’t come, but he still took the walk across the fields after breakfast each day. As far as he knew, Sadie had no clue that he made the daily visits.

On Mondays, though, she expected him to be there to clean the chicken coop and do some other heavy chores. She would meet him at the barn to visit for a few minutes before she went back to her work in the house and he went in to the barn. Those Monday morning talks were more than just idle chats with his neighbor. Sadie reminded him of better times, when Mamm was still alive. Before Daed became a slave to drink. Talking with her made him think that there were still peaceful and happy places in the world.

Today, as he rounded the corner of the woodlot, Sadie was nowhere to be seen. Mary was in the garden, attacking the weeds with a hoe.

“You don’t need to do that, you know.”

She jumped as he spoke, but relaxed when she recognized him.

“Good morning to you, too.” She straightened and gave him a smile. “And why don’t I need to weed the garden?”

“I do the heavy chores for Sadie. I always have.”

“But Ida Mae and I are here now, so we can take care of things.”

Samuel stared at her. He had to admit that there had been times when he had wished for someone else to take on the responsibility of watching out for Sadie, but now that Mary was offering, he didn’t want to let it go. He clenched his hand, as if he could keep a wisp of smoke from slipping through it.