Centennial

by James A. Michener

  The four younger brothers, each with the stamp of Mennonite upbringing, took their places at the two sides of the long table. Their mother, now in her sixties, sat at the end nearest the stove so that she could attend to such cooking as continued during the meal, and at the other sat the oldest brother, Mahlon, a dark and gloomy man in his thirties, feeling the responsibility for this family now that the father was dead.

  When the six were seated, they bowed their heads for grace while Mahlon reviewed the evil state of the world and asked for forgiveness for such sins as his four younger brothers had committed during the interval since dinner: “We are mindful of the fact that Brother Levi has been spending his afternoons on Hell Street, consorting in taverns and making acquaintances with the devil. Guide him to halt this infamous behavior and direct him to attend to his proper obligations.” Levi flushed and could feel the others looking at him from beneath lowered foreheads.

  Mahlon had a long list of matters he desired God to take notice of, and at the end he repeated the rubric which had guided this family for the past hundred and fifty years: “Help us so to live in Thy light that our name shall be respectable in all its doings.” From the five listeners rose a fervent “Amen.”

  It was curious that this supper table contained only one woman. Each of The Five Zendts, as they were called in Lancaster, was of marriageable age and each could be considered a catch. Many farm girls watched the Zendts, especially the four oldest; there was some talk that young Levi was not too stable.

  But the Zendt family had always married late, when the stormy passions of youth had been suppressed and when the family as a whole had time to study contiguous farms to ascertain which had desirable fields that might accompany the girl of the family when she married. The Zendt farm had started with sixty acres in 1701 and now contained somewhat over three hundred, and you didn’t augment a farm that way by marrying the first girl who came along when you were twenty. You did it by patient acquisition, and if fate determined that you must marry a girl who lived in another part of the county, you sold off her dowry immediately and bought land touching yours. In 1844 there was no better farm in Lancaster County than the Zendts’, and with five marriageable sons, by 1854 it ought to be much better.

  Mahlon, at thirty-three, had begun slowly to focus upon a certain girl who was likely to receive a substantial amount of land when her father died. He hadn’t divulged his decision to anyone yet, least of all to the girl, because a man didn’t want to rush into these things, but he kept his eye on her.

  Tomorrow was Friday, the last of the three big days around which the Mennonite week revolved: Sunday for worship; Tuesday and Friday for market. At the conclusion of supper Levi shoved back his chair, saying brusquely, “I’m goin’ out to see the souse,” and when he was safely gone Mahlon told his brothers, “We must all watch Levi. He’s getting feisty.” The three other Zendts agreed. In their earlier days each of them had gone feisty at some time or other, had wanted to smoke tobacco, or taste beer at taverns along Hell Street, or ogle the girls, but each had suppressed these urges and had stuck to butchering. It was clear that now they would have to guide Levi through this dangerous period.

  Out in the yard he lit a lantern and walked stolidly across the frozen snow to the small red building. Kicking open the door, he surveyed his little kingdom and found it in good order. The sausage machine was clean and placed against the wall. Six baskets of white sausage links were lined up and waiting. The twenty large flat scrapple pans were stacked, each filled nearly to the brim with a grayish delicacy hidden beneath a protecting layer of rich yellow fat. It, too, was ready. It was the souse that needed attention, and when he saw it still on the stove, he knew that he should have worked that afternoon instead of wandering down to Hell Street to watch the wagoners roar in.

  Levi liked souse better than any of the other products he made, and he devoted extra attention to preparing it. Throughout the Lancaster area it was said, “For souse, Levi Zendt.”

  He went to the stove and dipped a long-handled ladle into the simmering pot. The thirty-six pigs’ feet looked done. He picked up a bone from the ladle, and the well-cooked meat slid off.

  “Good!” he said.

  He lifted the kettle from the stove and with great skill extracted all the white bones of the hogs’ feet, being careful to leave in the gristle, for that was what made Zendt souse so delectable. He then returned the kettle of hog meat to the fire, tossing in six pounds of the best lean pork, well chopped, and six hogs’ tongues, also chopped. Throwing two chunks of wood into the stove, he allowed the mixture to cook while he prepared the broth which gave the souse its taste.

  Extracting stock from the bubbling kettle, he poured it into a large crock to which he added twelve cups of the sourest cider vinegar the area could provide. “That’ll make ’em pucker,” he said. He then added twelve tablespoons of salt to give the souse a bite, three teaspoons of pepper to make it snap, and a handful of cloves and cinnamon bark to make it sweet. He placed the crock on the back of the stove, keeping it warm rather than hot. Twice he tasted it, smacking his lips over the acrid bite the vinegar and salt imparted, but he crushed two more cloves to give it better balance.

  He now laid out twelve souse pans and placed in each of them round disks of the sourest Lancaster pickles and here and there a single small slice of pickled carrot. Then like an artist he adjusted various items to produce a more pleasing design.

  After a few minutes he took the kettle of bubbling meat from the fire and with tongs began fishing out the larger pieces of meat, arranging them among the pickles and carrots in the bottom of the pans. It was here that Zendt souse achieved its visual distinction, because the meat came in two colors, white chunks from the fatty parts, red meat from the lean; he kept the two in balance, working rapidly, pulling up smaller and smaller pieces and distributing them evenly.

  Finally, when little meat was left, he tipped the crock forward and strained the broth through a sieve, which removed the cloves and bits of cinnamon bark.

  “Good!” he grunted.

  With care he ladled the broth into the pans of meat, and he had calculated so neatly that when the last pan was filled, the kettle was empty. Before he had finished cleaning up, the gelatin from the hogs’ feet had begun to set. By morning the souse would be shimmering hard, filled with tender pork and chewy gristle, clean and sour-tasting.

  Links of sausage, pans of scrapple, flats of souse, that’s what the people of Lancaster expected from the five Zendts and that’s what they got.

  When he left the red building he poked his lantern into the small black building, where a flood of acrid smoke greeted him. Covering his nose, he looked up at the rafters where great sausage links hung suspended, brown from the penetrating hickory fumes. They looked just right, but nevertheless he squeezed an end to satisfy himself. It was hard and firm, with just a little grease running out. He smelled it. A strong aroma of burnt hickory, one of the most enticing smells in the world, reassured him.

  “It’s ready,” he announced to his brothers as he rejoined them.

  “We expected it to be,” Mahlon said. He had the Bible open and now asked his four brothers and his mother to join him in their nightly prayer. This being Thursday night, he intoned: “And help us, O Lord, to be honest men tomorrow and to give good measure and to behave ourselves as Thou wouldst have us, and may no one who comes to us feel cheated or robbed or in any way set upon.” It was a prayer his father had uttered when the boys were young, and his father before him.

  Closing the Bible reverently, he said, “Breakfast at three, Momma,” and the five Zendts went to bed.

  Friday for Levi was a day of joy. It was the end of the week and people coming to the market were apt to be in a happy mood, and the Stoltzfus bakery ... In bed he hugged himself. He could visualize the double stall of the Stoltzfus bakery.

  At three the heavy bell rang and the five boys came down to the hearty breakfast their mother had started preparing at two. Scra
pple and sausage, a little smoked bacon and some pig’s liver and fried chicken, eighteen fried eggs with slabs of ham, some good German bread and two kinds of fruit pie, dried apple and canned cherry, and quarts of milk ... that was the market-day breakfast for the Zendts.

  After morning prayers they all crammed themselves full, for their work was hard and generated tremendous appetites, and when they had pushed themselves away from the table Mahlon said, “I see that Levi’s sleigh isn’t loaded yet.”

  “I was waitin’ for the souse to harden,” Levi said.

  “If it had been made on time, it would be hardened, yet,” Mahlon snapped.

  “It’ll be loaded,” Levi said briskly. He would not allow Mahlon to spoil his Friday.

  Harnessing his two gray-speckled horses, he brought his sleigh to the small red building and there he gently lifted the various pans and baskets, placing them just so in the sleigh. He then ran to the smokehouse and pulled down the long links of smoked sausage and scooped up four dozen fine smoked porkchops. These, too, he placed in the sleigh, then shouted, “Christian! Caspar! We’re off.”

  The three stout brothers drove their sleigh in behind the one containing Mahlon and Jacob, and the procession started down the family lane, beneath the fine trees planted by Grandfather Lucas, and out onto the turnpike leading to Lampeter and on to Lancaster. At the tollhouse a grumbling old man appeared to collect the two pennies, after which Levi whipped up his horses and the Zendt boys were on their way to market.

  As they drove down the silent white road they overtook other thrifty farmers on their way to market too. There were the Zuber brothers, noted for the vegetables they grew and the crocheted work their wives did. Coming down a lane west of Lampeter were the Mussers, the three women of the family in black dresses topped by delicate white caps of the filmiest net. They sold preserved goods, none better. The Schertzes and the Dinkelochers and the Eshelmans all fell into line, forming a caravan as rich as any that had ever crossed the sands of Persia, for they were taking to market the best that Lancaster County provided, and that had to be the best that the world produced at that time.

  Through the darkness they went. It would take more than two hours to reach the center of Lancaster and the prudent farmers did not hurry their horses; they had no desire to jostle their produce or bruise it.

  As day was beginning to break, the sleighs approached the town itself and entered the streets that soon would be filled with customers. But now they were still asleep and the sleighs passed the silent shops of Melchior Fordney, the gunsmith, Caspar Metzgar the tailor, Philip Schaum the tinsmith and George Doersch, who worked in leather and bound books. Everyone in Lancaster was known by the work he did. Even two gentlemen who slept late that day had their proper signs out: Thaddeus Stevens, attorney; James Buchanan, lawyer.

  Now the caravans began to break up. Smaller merchants, like the Musser women and the Eshelmans, who dealt in poultry, stopped before reaching the center of town and backed their sleighs against the open curb. There, along with scores of others from north and south, they would stand all day in the cold, selling to whoever came down the street.

  Important merchants, like Zendt the butcher and Stoltzfus the baker, would ignore the curb sites and proceed directly to a cavernous, exciting building, where they would spread their wares. Only the most prosperous could afford to pay the rent for indoor stall space, the established farmers from Rohrerstown and Landisville and Fertility.

  The five Zendts drove their two sleighs to the rear of the market, where the younger brothers began unloading while Mahlon and Christian hurried inside to arrange the stall in the clean, attractive way the Zendts had done for generations. The two brothers washed their hands and put on white coats; then they slipped on raffia wrist covers, and they were ready. With long-practiced skill they laid out the meats: the good steaks, the slabs of pork, the chopped beef, and inside a glass case the scrapple, golden yellow where the grease stood, rich meaty gray below, the sausage smoked or plain, and the trays of glistening souse.

  As Levi lugged in his trays, his eyes kept hopping over the double stand opposite the Zendt location. There Peter Stoltzfus was opening a family stall which had almost as long a history as the Zendts’. Three generations had created a reputation for fruit pies and stollen, lebkuchen and shoofly and the best crunchy bread in the area. Stoltzfus himself was laying out large trays of gingersnaps and sugar cookies, enticingly arranged, and he waved a greeting to Levi. “Spring’s comin’ yet,” he called.

  “Good mornin’, Mr. Stoltzfus,” Levi replied. He was not really interested in the baker, but he deemed it prudent to keep on good terms with him.

  Meanwhile, in other parts of the market scores of families were hauling in the myriad things that would soon be sold: large brown eggs, twelve cents a dozen; butter a deep yellow imprinted into blocks marked with flowers, nineteen cents a pound; apples of all varieties brought up from cold cellars, eighteen cents a peck; plucked chicken killed after midnight, twenty-four cents each; potatoes of the best variety, fifteen cents a peck; the largest turkeys, live and handsome, eighty-five cents; smaller turkeys, forty cents; lovely crocheted bedspreads, one dollar; a bucket of flowers grown indoors, twenty cents.

  At Stoltzfus the baker’s, prices were slightly higher than at lesser shops, because his reputation was the best: a large mince pie, eighteen cents; a loaf of dark German bread, heavy and crusty, eight cents; gingersnaps with a real bite, three for a penny; chewy black-walnut cookies, ten for twelve cents; a three-tiered cake with lemon icing, twenty-five cents. And with every purchase a smile and a repeated thank you.

  The Five Zendts kept their prices on the high side too. Their beef sold for five cents a pound, whereas at cheaper shops it could be bought for four or even three. Pork was a little higher, six cents a pound for unsmoked, seven cents for smoked, but it could be bought elsewhere for four cents. The three specialties that young Levi made were much prized by the Lancaster housewives: scrapple at five cents a pound, sausage at six, and a generous square of souse at four cents. On these prices the thrifty farmers of Lancaster County grew rich.

  It was three minutes to seven, and soon the market would be jammed with eager housewives. Levi, hauling in a keg of pickled pigs’ feet, looked across at the bakery, and to his dismay, only Peter Stoltzfus stood behind the polished counter. Then the drapes at the rear parted and she appeared.

  It was Rebecca Stoltzfus, eighteen years old and a dark, lovely girl. She had a breathtaking complexion and jet hair which she parted in the middle and wore in two braids over her shoulders. She had deep-set eyes and a firm chin. She wore a dark-brown blouse, pulled in tight at the waist, above a sweeping black skirt and black buttoned shoes. Like most Mennonite women, she wore a white apron and a lacy network cap with two strings hanging down over her shoulders; on hers the strings were white, signifying that she was not married. She had a distinct cupid’s-bow mouth which made her especially attractive, for it gave her the kind of pout that made men look twice. Her father appreciated the fact that in Rebecca he had an asset which would be perpetually helpful in his business, and he showed her off to best advantage.

  Levi, hoisting the keg of pigs’ feet into position, felt his mouth go dry. During the past week he had been thinking of little but the Stoltzfus girl; in reality she was even more delectable than in his dreams. He tried to nod, but she was preparing the counter for the rush that now descended upon it.

  The citizens of Lancaster swarmed into the market as if food were their sole preoccupation, which in a way it was, for no other region on earth ate as well as the Germans of this county. In the overloaded stalls they could find a hundred varieties of food from Kleinschmidt’s walnuts to Moyer’s apple butter to Hauser’s crisp celery, kept in the icehouse since last September. Special favorites were yellow noodles so thick you had to chew them and jars of crisp pickles.

  Levi Zendt helped his brothers haul in replacements as Mahlon and Christian handed out wrapped packages. A housewife from
Fertility stopped Levi and told him in a heavy German accent, “I always feel better when I buy from your brother Mahlon. He don’t use no air pump to make his meat look better’n it is. He sells chust as God made it.” She nodded her head knowingly at the stall of another merchant who had the habit of inserting a pump nozzle into his stale meat, injecting it with air to make it look firmer, then sealing the hole with tallow.

  “Mahlon wouldn’t do that,” Levi assured her.

  “I know,” she said warmly. She placed her hand on Levi’s and said, “God will look after honest men.” Levi thanked her and continued with his work.

  The Zendts did deal honestly. Strict Mahlon would see the business perish before he would pump air into meat or chop old beef and sell it as new. He tested his scales as carefully as St. Peter is supposed to test his when weighing souls, and if he threw in no added chunks, as some butchers did, he took none away either.