by Jerry Eicher
“Looks like we were cut out of the action before it began.” Emmanuel acted offended. “That’s not fair.”
“Marcus deserves a chance on this one,” someone said. “Don’t you think?”
The comment was greeted with more laughter, as the line of men began to move towards the house. Marcus hung back from the still-chuckling men. Bishop Mullet led the way towards the house, his head bowed. The kidding and laughter faded.
Marcus tried to turn his thoughts towards the upcoming sermons, and what the Lord might speak to his heart, but the vision of Mary walking beside Lavina as they moved towards the house wouldn’t go away. Even with Mary’s bonnet pulled low over her forehead, and her black shawl tight around her shoulders, Mary’s beauty had been evident to everyone. Cousin Emmanuel had been correct. He had been staring at the front door long after Mary and Lavina had disappeared inside.
The women had already taken their seats, and Mary kept her eyes on the floor while the men entered the house. They filed in and sat down across from the women’s benches. Mary waited until the ministers had left for their usual Sunday morning meeting upstairs before she snuck a glance at the men’s section of the room. There were a dozen or so seated on the singles bench. A burly young farmer met her glance and grinned. Mary managed a weak smile in return. He was probably decent and hardworking, and would make some woman very happy, but that woman wasn’t her.
Mary put her head down again, but noticed the girl seated beside her smiling across the room. Love was clearly in the air this morning, but she could wait. There was great happiness in teaching school, and she was content.
Mary focused on the songbook and joined in the singing with her whole heart.
Marcus’s gaze drifted over to where Mary was seated in the women’s section. The ministers had been upstairs for their Sunday morning meeting for over twenty minutes. He had resisted a glance in Mary’s direction for what seemed like hours.
Mary had her gaze fixed on the songbook, but her beauty beamed back at him. He blinked twice. Mary had a lingering smile on her face, as if she had been looking at someone, which hadn’t been him. So Mary was indeed giving her attentions to some man from the community. He shouldn’t care. That was how things should be progressing. Still—Marcus glanced sideways quickly, to see which of the men still wore a ghost of a smile.
Cousin Emmanuel clearly did. He didn’t have his head down either, but was boldly looking in Mary’s direction. Wasn’t he a bit young for Mary? Marcus took a deep breath. He shouldn’t be surprised after Emmanuel’s teasing out by the barn this morning. Those words must have been a cover for Emmanuel’s own interest. Well, more power to the man. Another man had once again beaten him to a woman’s heart. He hadn’t been trying this time, but the pain still stung, even if Mary was unsuited for him.
Marcus returned his attentions to the songbook and focused on the words. No one said that life made sense. Dat’s passing should have shown him that.
Across the room, Mary felt Marcus’s gaze linger on her. She had been lost in the song until she became conscious of his gaze. Should she look up and give him a glare? Let Marcus know that his opinions were not welcome? What was the man criticizing her about this morning? The way she sang? Perhaps how she held the songbook? Or the color of her dress, which was probably too bold for him? Any number of things, no doubt.
Mary waited until Marcus looked away before she lifted her gaze again. She studied his face out of the corner of her eye. He was, without doubt, the most handsome man on the unmarried men’s bench. That was the infuriating thing about Marcus. Critical men should be ugly, but this one wasn’t.
Mary’s gaze drifted down the bench of men. Why didn’t the Lord allow her heart to open towards a man? None of the men sitting beside Marcus impressed her, which raised the question, what would a suitable man for her look like? Mary didn’t know. She had never seen one. It was like waiting for lightning to strike, but wasn’t that how love arrived? She didn’t know for certain. Her sisters back home appeared to have made their choices for perfectly practical reasons, but there was more to their choices than they admitted. The glow of love in her sisters’ eyes had betrayed that fact.
“He’ll be such a goot provider for our family,” Esther had declared the first time Levi had taken her home on a date.
“I just fit him, that’s all,” Lois had said about her outing.
Phoebe had done a little better. “Albert is the most handsome man in the community. Why shouldn’t I date him?”
Only Albert really wasn’t that handsome, so where did the stars in Phoebe’s eyes come from? There was more to love than a handsome man. By that standard, her heart should be beating at a rapid pace this morning.
Mary settled her gaze back on her songbook. If Marcus’s character matched his good looks, she might be tempted, but she knew better. Who knew what demands and expectations Marcus would lay on a wife? Well, she would not be the one to find out.
Marcus kept his eyes on his songbook until the line of ministers returned from their morning meeting upstairs. The singing stopped mid-stanza once they were seated, and Bishop Mullet stood for the first sermon.
“Dearly beloved,” Bishop Mullet began, “join me this beautiful morning in praise and thanksgiving to our great Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ. We are saved, washed with His precious blood, and called to a life of obedience to His will. Let our minds stir with thoughts of His sufferings on the cross, and the great sacrifice he made in coming to live and walk amongst us.”
Marcus listened as the sermon continued. He glanced briefly at Mary again, who was also intently listening. That was good behavior for the community’s new schoolteacher, but here he was critiquing her again. Why did he care about Mary’s behavior? He hoped Cousin Emmanuel took Mary on a date tonight. Maybe he could stop thinking about her once the woman climbed into another man’s buggy.
CHAPTER 7
ON MONDAY MORNING, MARY WIPED THE LAST BREAKFAST DISH dry. Lavina stood beside her, having just pulled the plug on the soapy dishwater. A mini vortex formed at the bottom of the sink, and Mary stood transfixed, the dish towel loose in her hand. The water’s antics going down the drain had fascinated her since childhood.
“You really should have gone to the schoolhouse ten minutes ago,” Lavina told her, with a worried look.
Mary smiled. “I’m on time, and I wanted to help with the dishes.”
She waited as the last of the water disappeared.
“Always the schoolteacher,” Lavina observed, with an understanding look.
“I hope.” A thrill ran up Mary’s back. She was a two-year veteran of school teaching, and yet she felt as excited as she had on her very first day of teaching back home.
Leon looked up from his cup of coffee at the kitchen table. “We wish you the best. May the Lord grant you great grace.”
“Oh, He will,” Mary replied. “But you can pray for me just the same, if you think of it.”
“We certainly will,” they said together as she grabbed her satchel waiting by the front door to dash outside.
In spite of Lavina’s worries, the hour was still early. She had wanted to spend quality time with the old couple who had opened their home to her. This would be her morning routine, following the same pattern, and yet she knew the days would shift with the seasons. On the walk to the schoolhouse, there would be beautiful fall sunrises, like the one currently painted in the sky, followed by cloudy mornings, when rain would threaten, and perhaps even early morning thunderstorms when an umbrella would be needed. The snow would fly eventually, arriving with a brisk cold, which would invigorate the mind. Snowflakes would drift down through the air. There would be still mornings when the white fallen crystals lay thick, the roads yet unplowed. Her boots would crunch in the snow, the world a white expanse of stillness, broken by the distant snort of a horse hitched to an Amish buggy out early on the roads.
Mary’s thoughts broke from her reverie when the Yoders’ barn door swung open in the dis
tance. Marcus’s lengthy frame appeared. He paused when he caught sight of her. Marcus pushed his hat back and stared. Did the man not know that she could see him? The least he could do was wave, or better yet enjoy the beautiful sunrise, instead of gawking in her direction.
Not a single man from the community had requested a date from her on Sunday. Not even Emmanuel Esh, who had made a point of speaking with her after the church service. She supposed that the whole community was conspiring to set Marcus up with her, despite the fact that he didn’t like her one bit. It was rather irritating. Not that she would have accepted a date, but to have the possibility removed altogether wasn’t quite fair. Even the chairman of the school board was in on this scheme to match her up with Marcus. Why else had Elmer asked him to pick her up at the bus station?
Well! They would have to learn otherwise. Marcus might be the community’s favorite son, but they were clearly not the right match. If Marcus wasn’t going to make this clear to the others, she would have to.
Marcus was waving now, and Mary limply lifted her hand. She concentrated on the sunrise. The Lord was with her, and had written His encouragement large in the sky this morning. Mary kept her head high and marched on towards the schoolhouse. She reached for the knob when she arrived, to find the door unlocked. Inside, a wave of warmth from the woodstove swept over Mary. Who had lit the fire in the stove?
Marcus must have come early to make sure the place was warm before she arrived. He was the janitor, but she hadn’t expected this level of service. Back home she had lit the kindling in the stove herself. Was this what she could expect every morning? Surely Marcus wasn’t doing this in an attempt to win her affections? She shook the thought from her head. Clearly, her affections were the last thing on Marcus’s mind. He was just a hardworking man, the way everyone said he was. Well, good for him. People were complicated, she thought. It was entirely possible for a man to be good-looking and hardworking while still being obnoxiously critical and arrogant.
Across the fields, Marcus strolled through the barn to finish his chores. He had been up to the schoolhouse well before dawn, since he didn’t know Mary’s schedule. The last thing he had wanted was for Mary to assume he would time his duties with her appearance each school day morning. He would treat Mary no differently than he had Susie last year, and the year before that. Susie had figured out his schedule, even if she rarely saw him, and thanked him often on Sunday afternoons when they passed each other in the yard after the services. Mary wouldn’t be thanking him, but that was okay.
Mary was different from Susie in so many ways. He had made a big mistake when he picked Mary up at the bus station. But maybe things wouldn’t have gone much better between them if he hadn’t. What would have happened if he had seen Mary at church yesterday for the first time, without the knowledge he had gained on that buggy ride? What conclusions would he have drawn? Where would his heart have gone if he had not known about Mary’s shimmering suitcase and flighty, annoying ways?
He might have asked her for a real date. What a mess that would have been. Mary might have accepted his offer, since she wouldn’t have known anything about him, either. He would have driven her home from Robert Troyer’s place on Sunday evening, instead of from the bus station the week before. Soon enough he would have discovered her materialistic ways and arrogant questioning of everything. What a mess that would have been, to break up with the community’s pretty new schoolteacher. No one would have blamed Mary, and he wouldn’t have either, but the explanations people would have wanted from him would have done great damage to everyone. Mary might make some man happy, but he wouldn’t be saddled with a woman who demanded all the finest things and who flaunted her finery to the community. He had been raised to appreciate modesty and contentment in a woman, characteristics that were decidedly absent from Mary.
Better that things turned out this way! How like the Lord to work out good things, even from a man’s mistakes. Marcus tried to whistle a tune, a merry little jingle that danced in his head. Where had he heard that song?
Mose stuck his head out of a horse stall to grumble, “What are you so cheerful about this early in the morning?”
“Nothing,” he muttered, and cut the whistle mid-jingle. The unfinished part darted and banged around in his head, and begged for expression.
Mose peered suspiciously down the hallway, towards the barn door. “Did you just come from that way?”
Marcus didn’t answer, continuing onward.
Mose snorted. “The man just saw Mary.”
In a way, but not like you think, he almost said, but Mose wouldn’t believe him.
An hour later, Mary stood at the schoolhouse door, ready to greet the first buggy. She had heard the steady clip-clop in the distance. The horse appeared a moment later, trotting along with its head held high. She waved, expecting the buggy door to slide open and the faces of several of her students to appear as they waved back at her.
Instead, Elmer opened the door and shouted, “Goot morning, Mary. The Lord has given us a blessed day, indeed.”
“Yah, He has,” Mary hollered back, walking happily towards the buggy.
Lucille opened her arms when Mary arrived at the buggy, and gave her a hug. “We’re here, and you are looking goot this morning.”
“I’m ready for the school day to start,” Mary chirped.
Elmer offered his hand in greeting. “I hope things are still going well for you.”
“Yah, certainly.” Mary shook his hand. “Thanks so much for coming out this morning. Lucille said you would come, but I had not expected you to arrive before anyone else did.”
“It’s the least we can do.” Elmer grabbed the bridle of his horse. “I’ll tie him up and be right inside.”
With Lucille by her side, Mary led the way back to the schoolhouse.
“So how are things going at Lavina’s place?” Lucille inquired.
“Awesome. It couldn’t be better.”
“You’re happy then?”
“So far,” Mary chuckled. “I didn’t meet everyone yesterday, but I’m sure the children are well brought up. The community is lovely.”
Lucille nodded. “It is. Did you perhaps receive a special invitation yesterday evening? Elmer and I were so happy when Marcus agreed to pick you up at the bus station.”
Mary struggled to speak. She was sure these people were well-meaning, but my goodness, they were relentless!
Lucille smiled, obviously drawing the wrong conclusion. “Marcus isn’t very open to girls, so you can count yourself privileged indeed.”
“There was no special invitation.” Mary got the words out. “But Marcus’s gesture of driving me home from the bus station was an honor.”
“So, nothing happened last evening? What is wrong with that man?”
“I do not think we are well suited for each other,” Mary managed, determined to be as blunt as possible and put a stop to this nonsense.
Lucille smiled. “You’ll have to be patient with Marcus. Or was he rude?”
“Oh, nothing like that.”
Lucille patted Mary’s arm. “Things will work then, I’m sure, and here’s Elmer now.” Lucille turned to greet her husband as they entered the schoolhouse. “Looks like Mary has the place ready to go.”
Elmer was looking around. “I think she does, but we expected that of Mary. She came with very high recommendations.”
Mary blushed and turned away. Another buggy had pulled into the schoolyard. “Looks like my first students are here.” Mary hurried outside. Elmer and Lucille followed more slowly, to remain at the doorstep while she crossed the yard to greet the arriving children.
“Goot morning, Gerald.” She helped the youngest down the buggy step. “How are you doing this fine morning?”
“Goot,” he said, smiling shyly up at her.
“And how are you doing?” Mary turned her attentions to the two older girls who had climbed down from the buggy.
“We’re doing great,” Laura, the older one, a
nswered for both of them. “Sarah and I have been looking forward to the start of a new school year. My last, of course.”
Mary gave them both a hug. “I am so glad that I have the honor of teaching your last year of school. Let me help you unhitch the buggy.”
They didn’t object, while Gerald ran off towards the schoolhouse, his lunch bucket in his hand.
“Gerald wants to get on the softball field quickly,” Sarah offered in explanation. “He loves softball. Do you play?”
Mary unfastened a tug before she answered. “I’ll be out on the field each day that I can. I don’t often hit home runs, but I enjoy the game.”
Happy smiles filled their faces.
“Same here,” Laura told her, “but Gerald has been looking forward to his first year of school the whole summer, and especially playing softball.”
“We’ll have to make this a happy year for him, then.”
“You are very pretty.” Sarah peered up at her. “Even more so than you were on Sunday.”
Mary laughed. “And so are you. Shall we go up to the schoolhouse?”
Sarah nodded and retrieved her lunch pail from the buggy. They walked hand in hand up the slight incline, while Laura went to leave their horse in the small barn behind the schoolhouse.
Marcus drove his wagon team out of the back barn door to begin his day’s work in the fields. He couldn’t resist a glance towards the schoolhouse. There was Elmer’s buggy in the yard, which wasn’t a surprise. Elmer was the kind of hands-on chairman who would attend a new teacher’s first day of school. Susie hadn’t warranted that level of attention, but Susie had grown up in the community and knew everyone before she started teaching.
Marcus hung on to the team’s reins. There was Mary walking toward the schoolhouse, holding a young girl’s hand. They appeared deep in conversation and were laughing together. He could tell from the way Mary threw back her head. A warm circle grew around his heart, quite unexpectedly, but Marcus squashed the emotion. Mary was the community’s schoolteacher, and that was the end of the story when it came to his affections. The Lord had allowed him to see Mary’s unsuitability on the way home from the bus station. If the Lord had not been gracious towards him, how would he know to resist the woman’s charms?