Accidentally Amish

by Olivia Newport

  Twenty-Three

  March 1738

  Jakob tapped the paper twice and looked at his daughter sternly. “You must practice your letters, Maria.”

  Maria twiddled the quill between her thumb and forefinger. “I don’t want to. I can’t do it without Mamm‘s songs.”

  Jakob had barely cleaned up from his half day at the tannery before Lisbetli latched onto him as she did every day. He shifted her now from one arm to the other. The toddler’s head remained tucked under his chin during the whole maneuver. “Mamm would want you to do your letters, Maria. How else will you learn to read?”

  “I don’t care about any stupid books!” Maria threw the quill down, spilling the inkwell in the process.

  “Maria!” Jakob righted the inkwell then lurched for a rag. The sudden motion made Lisbetli clutch his neck all the tighter and add a whimper to the commotion. Ink already soaked through the sheets of paper stacked on the table and dribbled off the edge before Jakob could slap the rag in place.

  Maria leaped away from the table. “It’s going to ruin my dress.”

  Jakob sighed and sat in a chair to sop up the mess.

  “No. No down,” Lisbetli protested, her predictable response to the possibility that he might want to put her down for a few minutes.

  Christian was gone to the livery to check on the horse, and the other girls were shopping for vegetables for the evening meal. Even if Barbara was home, Lisbetli would not release her father. She had been clinging to him for weeks, as if she was afraid he would disappear the way her mother had.

  Jakob reached out a hand toward Maria. “Get your capes. We will go for a walk. It’s not too cold out today. There is even a bit of sun.”

  “Where will we go?”

  Jakob shrugged. “It does not matter. But I am going to need some new ink.”

  Maria hung her head. “I’m sorry about the ink.”

  Jakob tipped Maria’s chin up and looked in her blue eyes. “I know you miss your mother. We all do.”

  They walked toward Market Street. Jakob scanned the pedestrian traffic every few yards, wondering if they would see the other girls. If Barbara managed to find beets, Maria’s mood was sure to improve. Maria walked ahead of Jakob for the most part, and he let her wander at will. Occasionally Lisbetli would lift her head and point at something, but by and large she was content to mold herself to her father’s chest as she had for the last two months.

  The stationer’s shop caught his eye, and he wondered why he had never noticed it before. It was in a row of narrow shops at the base of a three-story brick building close to the center square of town. He must have walked past it dozens of times. It was the laugh that caught his attention this time. The shop’s door was propped open to welcome the springlike weather—though the danger of frost was not over—and as he walked past, a woman’s lilting laughter lit the air.

  “Maria,” Jakob called as he slowed his steps and angled his head to look in the shop. Maria retraced a few steps and stood beside him.

  Jakob watched a young woman behind the oak counter use a large sheet of plain brown paper to wrap a purchase for a well-dressed gentleman. The laughter drifted off, but a broad grin still cracked her face. Her chatter bore the familiar accent of Jakob’s own birthplace in Bern, Switzerland. The customer seemed pleased with whatever he had said to elicit her convivial response as he tucked his package under his arm. Outside the shop, Jakob stepped clear of the doorway to allow him to pass.

  “Are we going in?” Maria asked.

  “Yes we are,” Jakob answered, though he had not known until that moment.

  Inside, the shop carried an assortment of writing papers, envelopes, inks, quills, and a few books.

  “May I help you?” the young woman asked.

  “I require a small packet of black ink powder, please.” Jakob shifted Lisbetli in his arms.

  “Your daughters are beautiful.” The young woman pulled a jar of ink powder from a low shelf and laid out a sheet of paper to fold into a packet.

  “This one is a little worn out these days.” Jakob stroked Lisbetli’s head.

  The woman reached toward Lisbetli with curled fingers. To Jakob’s shock, the little girl reached back, gripping the woman’s hand.

  “This is Lisbetli,” Jakob said.

  “So her given name must be Elizabeth.” The woman smiled at the toddler. “My name is Elizabeth, too. Elizabeth Kallen.”

  “She is Elisabetha,” Jakob said.

  “Very similar.” She reached across the counter and touched Lisbetli’s cheek. “Hello, Lisbetli.”

  “I am Jakob Byler.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Byler.”

  Lisbetli twisted in Jakob’s arms and reached toward Elizabeth Kallen with both arms.

  “Would you mind?” Elizabeth reached now with both of her own arms.

  Jakob gladly surrendered the child across the counter. Elizabeth Kallen propped Lisbetli on one hip and tickled her with a finger under the chin.

  “Do you have any books for children?” Jakob was not at all sure that the coins in his pocket would cover both the ink and a book—not to mention replacing the ruined paper still on the table beside the fireplace. Christian would not be happy to discover what his sister had done. Perhaps some of the sheets could be salvaged.

  “I believe we have some illustrated folktales and a primer or two.”

  “Perhaps we’ll look at a primer. Would you like that, Maria?” Jakob glanced up at Miss Kallen. “She is just learning her letters.”

  “Our books are all used,” Miss Kallen explained, “so I believe you will find the prices reasonable.”

  She carried Lisbetli around the end of the counter and led Maria to the bottom shelf of a rack on the back wall of the shop. Jakob stayed where he was, watching his daughters. Maria apparently had forgotten that she did not want to learn her letters and held a slim German primer as if it were gold. Lisbetli had a thumb in her mouth and looked thoroughly comfortable in Miss Kallen’s arms. Other than when Barbara twisted her baby sister from their father’s arms so he could go to work, this was the furthest Lisbetli had been from Jakob since Verona’s passing. Jakob used the moment to count his coins.

  When he heard the baby’s laughter, his eyes misted. Lisbetli hadn’t giggled in so long. She popped her thumb from her mouth and grinned at Miss Kallen.

  “We are moving to Irish Creek,” he heard Maria announce. “There is no school there, and my mother died.”

  “I’m sorry about your mother,” Miss Kallen said softly.

  Maria’s thin shoulders lifted and fell a few times before she continued, “I have to learn my lessons from my brother and sisters.”

  “I think you’re probably a very good student.”

  “My brother especially likes maps. Do you have maps?”

  “We get one every now and then.”

  “Try to find one with colors on it,” Maria said. “Christian loves the ones with colors.”

  “Perhaps I will set aside the next one I see for your brother. You can remind your father to stop in again.” Elizabeth Kallen glanced in Jakob’s direction, and he couldn’t subdue the upturn in his lips. Her tenderness with his children moved him more than he would have imagined.

  And then he took back the smile. He had no business smiling at a young woman in a shop.

  “We should go, Maria,” he said. “Your sisters will be wondering where we are. We will take the primer home with us.” He stepped toward Miss Kallen and reached for Lisbetli, freeing the woman’s hands to seal the packet of ink.

  When Jakob pushed open the door to their two small rooms, he found Barbara chopping onions and potatoes on one end of the table, and Christian scowling and scrubbing at ink stains at the other end. Anna sat on an upturned barrel near a window, staring out. Jakob supposed it did not much matter what was beyond the pane. These days she just stared for long stretches.

  “I copied over the list, Daed,” Christian said. “The old one was
getting too hard to read. But the ink is nearly gone.”

  “You’re an organized young man.” Jakob reached into his pocket for the powder and dropped it on the table. Christian would know what to do with it. Lisbetli was stuck to him again, but he carried the hope that she would recover her childhood in the kindnesses of people like Elizabeth Kallen.

  “I have three columns,” Christian continued. “One column tells us the supplies we already have, like axes and hammers and pots. The second column is a list of things we absolutely need before we go. I put the bellows there. We can’t go without those.”

  “When I get my wages next week, we’ll go see the blacksmith,” Jakob said.

  “And the third column are things we can get when we can afford them.”

  Jakob leaned over the table and glanced at his son’s lists, surprisingly neat and straight. The boy took the planning tasks so seriously that Jakob sometimes had to remind himself he was only nine.

  A knock made all their heads turn. Christian hopped off his stool and opened the door. Hans Zimmerman stepped inside. The two men exchanged a greeting by lifting their chins toward each other.

  “We’re almost ready.” Hans straightened his hat. “We’ll be leaving in a few days.”

  Christian’s eyes moved to his father and widened. Jakob nodded. His son was full of questions, but he knew better than to enter the conversation uninvited.

  “There might yet be a blizzard.” Jakob laid a hand on the top of Lisbetli’s head.

  “As the Lord wills,” Hans replied, “but the Siebers have offered us shelter for the last of the winter. When the weather allows, we will begin clearing. We might still get a late spring garden in.”

  “I don’t suppose we’ll be far behind you. By Christian’s reckoning, we will soon be outfitted ourselves.”

  “Would you like some coffee, Mr. Zimmerman?” Barbara asked. “It’s fresh.”

  Zimmerman nodded. Jakob offered the best chair in the room to his friend and sat on a crate with Lisbetli in his lap.

  “Christian, what news do you have?” Zimmerman asked as Barbara handed him coffee.

  This was all the invitation Christian needed. He pulled his stack of papers out of his lap and reviewed the Byler progress in collecting homesteading supplies. Their wagon was stored with the man who kept their horse, and as they acquired items, Christian and Jakob secured them in the wagon. Christian had drawn his own scaled sketch of the farms emerging along Irish Creek: The Stehleys had arrived a few weeks ago and immediately claimed land west of the Bylers. Hans Sieber was to the south, and Hans Zimmerman to the west, beyond the black oak. Kauffmanns, Buerkis, Masts, and other familiar names had sprouted on Christian’s map.

  Jakob listened absently as Christian prattled on and Barbara cooked. The Amish community already on their farms would make sure each family had shelter as they arrived. Barns would go up quickly, followed by cabins. Although winter weather was still possible, more likely conditions would shift radically any day now. He should be excited to go—as excited as Christian. Jakob did look forward to being near Verona, but it would not be the same as being with her.

  Love again, my love.

  He was nearly fifty years old and moving to the wilderness with five children and a few other families. Where would I find another wife? he asked himself.

  Jakob struck a deal with the blacksmith for hoes and tongs and an anvil. From the dry goods store, he bought yards of ticking and hired a seamstress to sew it into mattress covers. Verona would have wanted to do it herself, but it was too much to ask of Barbara and Anna. They labored enough by candlelight over their own clothing, simple dark dresses and practical aprons. He consulted his daughters about supplies for the kitchen and slowly but surely put checkmarks next to each item on Christian’s list of essentials. Working less at the tannery, Jakob put his energy into filling the wagon and finding a second horse to help pull it over rugged terrain.

  And he did much of this with his youngest daughter’s arms around his thick neck. She seemed most soothed when he walked, so Jakob began to stroll in the late afternoons in weather that crept more certainly toward spring each day. Lisbetli would find enough solace to eat a good meal before falling onto her pallet exhausted. Unconsciously, his route settled into one that took him past the stationer’s, and he found his steps slowing on that block.

  One afternoon he heard the laughter again.

  Lisbetli lifted her head. Before Jakob realized what she intended, the little girl wriggled out of his arms and slid down his legs to the ground.

  She ran to Elizabeth Kallen, who squatted and opened her arms to receive the tiny, hurtling form.

  Jakob followed his daughter.

  Elizabeth smoothed loose hair and stood up with Lisbetli. “I was hoping you would come by.”

  Jakob’s heart sped up. She wanted to see him?

  “I have a map for your son,” she said.

  A map. For Christian. “How thoughtful of you.”

  “I understand it’s very similar to one that William Penn used,” Elizabeth explained. “I thought it might be of particular interest.”

  Jakob nodded. “I’m sure Christian will find it invaluable.”

  “I hope you will accept it as my gift.” She held out the map.

  Jakob’s fingers closed around the map, brushing hers. “I should not infringe on your profit.”

  She shook her head. “It is torn on one end. We would not be able to sell it, so I thought your son might as well have it.”

  Lisbetli laid a hand on Elizabeth’s face, and Elizabeth instinctively turned toward it and kissed the little palm.

  Jakob’s heart cracked open.

  Jakob smoothed the quilt, one of Verona’s last, at the front of the wagon right behind the driver’s bench. He patted the pile. “Hop in, girls.” Christian would ride at his side, and the girls would have their comfortable corner, where Lisbetli and Maria could enjoy a small space to wiggle. Tied to the back of the wagon, a cow nosed around in vain for a patch of grass. With the children in the wagon, Jakob took one last look around the two rooms, making sure they left nothing behind that belonged to them and took nothing that belonged to the Quaker owners. Traveling with a loaded wagon and leading a cow would require several days to reach Irish Creek. Gear to make camp each night hung from the rim of the wagon.

  Jakob heaved himself onto the driver’s bench and took the reins from Christian. “Ready to see Irish Creek?”

  Christian nodded, his eyes wide in anticipation.

  A slender form appeared at the side of the road, and Jakob blinked twice before he believed his eyes. “Miss Kallen! What are you doing here?”

  “I suspected you were leaving today. I have something for Lisbetli.” She held out a small, soft doll with a carefully cross-stitched face.

  “You are too kind.”

  “May I give it to her?”

  “Of course.”

  Elizabeth approached and leaned over the side of the wagon. Lisbetli popped her thumb out of her mouth and wiggled her fingers in a wave. When Elizabeth placed the doll in her hands, Lisbetli giggled shyly and held it tightly.

  “Thank you, Miss Kallen.”

  “You’re most welcome, Mr. Byler.”

  Maria leaned over and inspected the doll. “But it has a face, Daed! Our dolls don’t have faces. It’s a graven image.”

  “I hope I have not caused offense.” Elizabeth laid one hand over her heart.

  “Of course not.” Jakob dared not offend her, either. “It is not our usual way for a doll to have a face, but Lisbetli loves it already.”

  Elizabeth looked crestfallen. “I have a lot to learn about the Amish ways.”

  “Christian,” Jakob said, “why don’t you thank Miss Kallen for the map she found for you?”

  “It is a wonderful map.” Christian bobbed his head sincerely. “Danke. Thank you very much for thinking of me.”

  “It was my pleasure.” She looked from son to father. “May your journey be safe,
Mr. Byler. You have my prayers.”

  “Thank you, Miss Kallen.”

  Elizabeth stepped back, and Jakob nudged the horses forward.

  He wanted to go, but she made him want to stay.

  Twenty-Four

  On Saturday morning, Annie sat cross-legged on her bed with a genealogy book on each side and her laptop straight in front of her. She looked from page to screen to page. Each source revealed twists on the spelling of family names and slightly different lists of descendants, but it all added up the same.

  Jakob Beyeler arrived in Philadelphia with an Amish wife and five children.

  His wife died.

  He married again and had five more children, but no records indicated that this second wife was Amish.

  Annie sank back against a stack of pillows. What a wrenching choice Jakob must have made. But somehow his older children remained Amish.

  As she traced through the generations in the book Franey and Eli had loaned her, Annie found their names. At the time the book was assembled, they had one child. Rufus. A descendant of Jakob’s first son, Christian Byler.

  And she found her own name easily enough in the book her mother unearthed from the basement. A descendant of Jakob’s second son, born to his second wife.

  Beyeler. Byler. Beiler. Biler. Even Boiler. No matter how the name was spelled, the dates and random bits of information matched. It was all one family line that traced back to Switzerland in the eighteenth century and a countercultural religious group who simply wanted to live in peace.

  Annie put her finger on Rufus’s name and imagined the line completed with the siblings who followed. Daniel. Matthew. Ruth. Joel. Lydia. Sophia. Jacob.

  She riffled the leaves of the bound book. Pages and pages of names and birth dates and death dates, each one a story. Most of them were gone from memory, but thick paper between plain brown covers collected the evidence of their existence. The pink-covered, spiral-bound book in which her own name appeared overlapped in the beginning with the record in the brown book. Quickly it diverged into a family line absorbed in mainstream culture and left behind increasingly distant relatives faithful to the Amish life.