by Adina Senft
“But you don’t know what it is?” Pris asked.
Benny turned to her eagerly, as if he was happy that she’d noticed him taking up space on their porch steps. “Neh, it could’ve been anything. But one of these days they’ll think up something good and everyone will want one, and then me and Leon can have a new buggy.”
“Seems to me you’d get there sooner if you put in some long days in those fields of yours,” Isaiah Mast observed. “Better to depend on the crops God brings out of the earth than on the efforts of man with machinery.”
“That’s true,” Benny allowed, “but Dat and Crist, they want to do good for the Gmee. Some of these things have worked—the solar panels on the roof work real well.”
“I hear all the money from last fall’s potato harvest went for those panels.”
Which might be why everyone on the Peachey farm was extra skinny now.
Benny nodded. “But they save on gas for the generator. It keeps going up, but the price of sunlight stays the same.” He grinned at his own joke. “Say, Pris, want to go for a drive?”
Any boy but Benny would have found a way to ask quietly, privately, at a get-together or after singing or any other place but on the front porch, right in front of a girl’s parents. Priscilla waited half a second for Dat to tell him that no daughter of his was going anywhere with him, but when there was no sound except for Saranne upstairs, laughing at something Katie had said, she realized she was going to have to do this herself.
“I can’t, Benny. I have the rest of my chores to do yet tonight.”
“Ain’t got ’em done yet? It’s near dark.”
“I worked yesterday and I have to work tomorrow, but I still have to do my share at home.” When was Dat going to conclude that she wasn’t about to get into any more trouble? She thought he might relax about his rule after the Parkers had given her such a hard time, but he hadn’t. There was always hope, though…which was why she didn’t pull against the traces very often.
“Another day, then? Say, Sunday afternoon after church? We could go for a drive. Leon could ask your friend Rosanne.”
“Leon’s a bit old for Rosanne,” Mamm finally put in. “Isn’t he close to twenty?”
“Neh, only eighteen. He’s too shy to do anything by himself, but if we double dated, it would be okay.”
Priscilla had had enough.
“Benny Peachey, I’ve told you before that I’m writing to Joe. That means I don’t go for rides with other boys behind his back.”
“You could write and tell him if you want. I’ve known Joe all his life—he’s a Woodpecker same as you and me. He won’t mind.”
“I would mind.” Did she really have to say this in front of her parents? No, she couldn’t. “Benny, let’s go for a walk in the orchard and get a few things straight.”
Another grin, nearly as bright in the twilight as the first flickers of the fireflies dancing over the lawn. “You’re a pushy one, ain’t you?”
She didn’t dignify this with a reply, merely got out of the swing, smoothed down her dress, and walked down the steps right past him.
“Thanks for the cookies and lemonade, Lillian,” he said to Mamm, and wished Dat good night as if he and Priscilla were going into town for an ice cream and wouldn’t be back until midnight.
Boys, honestly.
The grass was soft under her bare feet as she crossed the lawn and made her way under the branches of the apple trees. To one side, she heard the soft murmurs of the chickens as they roosted up for the night in their shed, jostling for space and insisting that the pecking order be observed, even in sleep. The air was soft, still humid but cooling now that the sun had gone down.
It was the perfect evening for a walk. What a shame Joe and Simon were a thousand miles away, and all she had to share this beautiful evening with was Benny Peachey, who wouldn’t recognize romance if it fell on his head like a windfall apple.
Not that she wanted him getting ideas along that line.
“Nice evening,” he said, catching up to her with his long-legged stride.
She didn’t waste time on pleasantries. “Benny, I’m not going to date you. I’ve told you time and again that I’m writing to Joe, and it’s just too bad of you not to listen to me.”
“I ain’t planning to kiss you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
As if she’d ever allow it in a million years! “Why did you tell Englisch Henry Byler we were courting, then?”
“Aw, I was just trying to get your goat. I can see you’re stuck on Joe.”
She stopped dead in the grass and put her hands on her hips in exasperation. “Then what did you come over here for, pretending it was for me? Dat is probably wondering what on earth is going on.”
To her surprise, the bravado fell away and he reached up with both hands to grip an overhanging branch, as if he planned to lift up his feet and swing on it like a monkey. But instead, he just hung on, stretching his arms. “I don’t have any girl friends, you know.”
“I can see why, if you tell everyone you pass on the sidewalk that you’re courting them.”
“Neh, I mean friends who are girls. To talk about things with. To ask things of.”
That took the wind out of her sails good and proper. “What things? Can’t you ask your Mamm?”
“She wouldn’t understand. And maybe she’d even get mad.” The bravado and humor had leached out of his voice, and in the dusk it sounded uncertain. Young.
Did he have a crush on one of her friends? Did he want to know if someone in her buddy bunch liked him back? But why would that make his mother upset?
“Why don’t you tell me,” she suggested at last, mystified.
After a few seconds, he said, “There’s someone—what if—what would you do if someone was thinking about doing something…and other people thought it was the right thing, but you thought it was wrong? Would you speak up? If it was none of your business but you still had feelings about it?”
How was she supposed to answer that? She fell back on what she knew to be true. “If something is the right thing, how can it be wrong?”
“Things can be right to some people, and wrong to other people. It depends where you’re standing, like whether the creek is running toward you or away from you depending on which way you’re looking.”
“Benny, just tell me what’s going on, otherwise I don’t know enough about it to help you. Is it one of the Woodpecker boys? Is he thinking about jumping the fence?”
In the twilight, his head jerked up, like a horse surprised by a gopher. “Jumping the fence? Neh, not that. At least, that I know of. It’s Englisch Henry.”
If she had been confused before, it was nothing to what she felt now. “Why should you be concerned with what Englisch Henry does? He’s not one of us anymore. He doesn’t have to follow the Ordnung. And besides, deciding that someone is doing something right or wrong is prideful. Who are you to judge him?”
She couldn’t see his face all that well, but the outline of his head against the last of the light in the sky bobbed up and down in agreement. “All that you say is right. But…well, I heard Sarah Yoder talking with Aendi Linda, and it seems Englisch Henry is engaged to your boss.”
It was a good thing she was leaning on the old Pink Lady’s trunk, or she might have fallen right over in surprise. “That’s not true. She would have told us.”
But would she? True, Ginny had been awfully happy lately. She was a cheery person to begin with, but Pris had never heard her singing over her breakfast pans until recently. Or doing her hair in pretty ways, with braids and things. But it didn’t follow that there was a man involved, did it? Couldn’t an Englisch woman sing and do her hair differently for no other reason than she felt like it?
But if Sarah said it was so, then it must be, mustn’t it?
“Maybe, maybe not. But if it is, and he moves off the farm to be with her, I’m afraid Aendi Linda and Uncle Crist would move there, and our family would be all in pieces, lik
e it was before Linda came.”
Pris said nothing, which was good, because Benny was rolling now, like a hay wagon gathering speed down a hill.
“Linda and Mamm are good friends. That’s not to say that Mamm and Dat don’t get along. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes it’s me and Leon’s fault, though. But since Crist married Linda, it’s just been better. We don’t have a lot, but it’s home, and I don’t want it to change.”
“There’s nothing wrong with them wanting a home of their own.”
“I don’t think they do. That’s the problem. I think that Sarah has been working on Aendi Linda, and now she’s thinking about it, and Uncle Crist will do anything in his power to make her smile. I’m afraid that if she goes to work on him, they’ll really do it.”
Priscilla tried to untangle all this and get to the bottom of what he really wanted from her. “So you think that while the Gmee would believe it’s right for them to move out, it isn’t really?”
“I don’t know what I think,” he admitted, his voice low. “That’s why I needed to talk to somebody. Leon’s no good for this stuff. If you need to bait a hook or fix something, he’s your man, but not for talking things over and trying to figure things out.”
Priscilla girded up her loins. “You want your aunt and uncle to be happy, don’t you? If it’s God’s will that they move out, and they obey Him, then they will be.”
“But maybe we won’t,” he said miserably. “How can it be God’s will for them to be happy and not the rest of the family?”
But figuring out God’s will was a task far greater than Priscilla could ask or think. “I don’t know. But Benny, this isn’t your business. Whether you think it’s right or wrong what Sarah’s doing, or what they’re doing, it’s got nothing to do with you. Just hoe your own row and don’t look over at anyone else.”
“But it’s our family.”
“And they’re married and church members and whatever is God’s will is what will happen.”
From his silence, Benny didn’t seem very satisfied with this for an answer, but Pris couldn’t imagine what other answer she could give.
“What if I talked to Henry, and asked him to bring Ginny to the farm instead?”
With a sigh, Priscilla said, “This is grown-ups’ business, and nobody will thank you for stomping into their row. You know what, Benny? You should be glad you don’t have a dad like mine. If he heard me talking this way, he’d give me even more chores to do, to keep my nose where it belonged. That’s my advice. Go back to the farm and find work. Do something to help your family with your hands instead of—of this.”
“Will you do something for me? Will you ask Ginny if it’s true that she and Henry are getting married?”
“She’ll tell me to mind my own business. They haven’t known each other but a couple of months.”
“You know old people. He probably wants someone to cook for him, and she probably wants a man around the place.”
Priscilla had never seen any evidence of Ginny wanting any such thing, but again, what did she know?
“If it comes up, I’ll ask. But if it doesn’t, I’ll mind my own business. And now I’m going back to the house. I’m making some pot holders for Mamm’s birthday and to sell at the Amish Market, and they won’t sew themselves.”
When they passed the porch, in the warm light from the lamp in the dining room Priscilla saw that Mamm and Dat were now rocking contentedly in the swing, Dat’s arm around Mamm’s shoulders. Marriage was a mystery. Her parents had sought God’s will for their lifelong partner, and He had shown them both the one person in the world that He had chosen. But presumably this work had gone on in Arlon and Ella’s lives, too.
Why, then, did Benny feel the family was “in pieces” without Linda’s influence? Should Arlon have married Linda? But she came from a different district altogether, so that didn’t make sense. God had arranged for her and Crist to meet, not her and Arlon.
Priscilla held Benny’s horse’s head as he climbed into the buggy. This whole subject of courtship was a puzzle, for certain. At least she was feeling fairly settled about Joe. She had no idea if he was The One, but she was perfectly content to answer his letters and hear his news about the strange new world out West. As for Simon, she was well over him. She’d been concerned to hear about the horse stepping on him, and hoped that in his next letter Joe would tell her Simon was recovering, but her heart didn’t make that leap of anticipation at the sight of his name that had been her experience before.
Joe didn’t make her heart leap—or only a little anyway. It was his steadiness she appreciated. And he liked the sound of her voice in her letters. Which wasn’t even something she could control, and yet he still liked it.
It was nice to be liked just for being yourself.
“Well, good night, Pris,” Benny said, picking up the reins. “Denkes.”
“I don’t feel I helped much other than telling you what you already knew.”
“Sometimes that’s all a person needs to hear.”
“You’d be better off finding out what der Herr wants you to hear.”
“Ja, maybe. Tell Joe hey when you write next.”
“I will.”
“Tell him he’s a lucky fellow, and if he’s not careful, I’ll still steal you away.”
“I will not.”
Chuckling, Benny flapped the reins over the horse’s back and the ancient buggy with its peeling top heaved itself into motion.
Boys, honestly.
* * *
Dear Joe,
Thank you for your letter. It sounds as though you did real well doctoring Simon—I probably wouldn’t have kept my head nearly as well. How is he doing? I haven’t seen Sarah to ask her. Tell him hello from me and I hope he mends up quick.
I suppose you heard your cousin Henry on Sadie’s farm is engaged to my boss, Ginny Hochstetler. I didn’t hear that from her, but then, she’s not obliged to tell me her personal news. She sure seems happy lately, and I was talking to Benny Peachey and he says it’s true. He says to say hey, by the way. I always thought he was a harum-scarum kind of boy, but it seems he thinks about things, like whether something is right or wrong. I wish he’d think a little harder about helping out on the farm, him and Leon. I don’t know what they do all day but fish and swim and find girls to bother.
If you hear anything of him and me, it’s not true. I’m writing to you and that’s that.
We’ve been having real fine weather and the garden is going crazy. We even have tomatoes already. Dad has a healed-up ankle though that tells him when the weather is going to change, and he says it’s been bothering him. We’ll have to see which is right—Dad’s ankle or the back page in the paper!
I’m making pot holders with pieced fronts that look like chickens for my mother’s birthday. I made about a dozen extra because Evie Troyer said she could sell them at her stall at the Amish Market. I hope that’s true, and that Dad lets me keep the money. It will pay for paper and postage, ha ha.
I’ll let this do for now.
Your friend,
Priscilla
Chapter 27
The most exciting part of pottery, after creating a shape that satisfied his hands, was glazing it in a way that brought out its beauty and allowed light to give it that extra dimension that satisfied the eye as well.
Henry wondered if artistic philosophy might go over Eric’s head, but then said it anyway. Fellow artists needed to discuss what they loved about their craft, no matter at what stage they found themselves.
To his surprise, Eric nodded. “It’s the glaze that I look at first, and then the shape, and then I figure out what something is used for. Mom took us to a craft fair once and I spent the whole time talking to the potters about what makes brown, or blue, or that shiny stuff.”
“Shiny stuff?”
“Like when it rains and there’s oil on the puddles.”
“Ah,” Henry said. “That’s called iridescence, and it’s part of what I’m
using in my sky and water glaze.”
“Can I use it on my lantern?”
Here was a poser, where a man had to tread the fine line between using the resources at hand and using someone else’s creation to get credit for his own.
“Can you justify to the admissions panel that you conceived and mixed the glaze as well as applying it?”
Eric stopped peeking into the five-gallon buckets of minerals and mixtures that were neatly labeled and lined up under the workbench. “Would I have to do that?”
“Probably.”
The boy gazed into a bucket, but Henry got the impression he didn’t see the contents. “Dad’s not going to let me go, you know. He calls every night, and even when I tell him what we’re doing and how much I’m learning, all he cares about is if I’m being a pain in the neck to Sarah.”
“Nothing wrong with that. Are you?”
Eric made a face. “One false move and Caleb’s grandpa will take a pitchfork to me.”
“I doubt that very much. The Amish don’t believe in violence.”
“Then how come they spank their kids?”
“People have been spanking their kids for thousands of years. It’s only lately that it’s gotten political. But getting back to your dad, the way to show him you’re serious about the school is to show him you’ve changed. That you’re prepared to do what it takes—even if what it takes is boring stuff, like helping out around the house and making beds like you do at Sarah’s.”
Eric raised his eyebrows in an Are you kidding me? face. “Making beds is going to help me get into an art school? Ri-i-i-ght.”
“Making beds is going to show your parents you’re willing to work hard and make their investment worthwhile. That you’re not just sitting there with your hand out, expecting them to cough up the cash.”
“They have the cash.”
“Not the point.”
“But what if—” The sound of crunching wheels in the gravel stopped him, and he swiveled to see out the doors. “You’ve got a customer. In a big van.”