by Sarah Price
As for Lydia, she seemed to increasingly show up with a splitting headache, a stomach ache or some heart palpitations. There was never a day when Lydia did not have some kind of ailment or a reason to complain about working at the bakery. And it seemed to be getting worse with each new day. Indeed, Lydia’s constant complaints were taxing on Leah’s nerves, especially given how much she was giving up herself, without nary a complaint.
This morning was no different. Susie arrived late, completely out of breath and sweaty. It was quickly apparent that she had not come by horse and buggy. Instead, she had used a bicycle to travel the three-mile distance from her farm to the bakery. Leah frowned but kept her mouth shut. She wanted to ask why Susie’s husband hadn’t let her use the horse and buggy or, at least, driven his wife to the bakery. But she kept that question to herself.
As was to be expected, Lydia arrived complaining that she felt feverish (she wasn’t, though) and was shaking (no one else saw it). Leah acknowledged her sister’s fantasy ailments and saved the rolling of her eyes for when she turned back to the display where she was arranging the goods prior to opening the store for the public.
Yes, this morning was no different than any other. At least not as far as Susie and Lydia were concerned...
What was different this morning, however, was Sadie.
Sadie was the one person in their home that always approached each morning with a refreshing burst of energy and a smile. She never complained, willing to give the tasks at hand all that she had no matter what the circumstance or how busy she was. She never missed work, often accompanying Leah to the bakery to help her start the day’s baking and never left early.
This morning, however, was indeed, different. She complained that her side hurt and very sheepishly approached Leah to apologize and request the rest of the day in bed. This concerned Leah. This was not like Sadie at all. Leah made a mental note to go and check on her youngest sister during the first slow spell of the store.
At nine o’clock sharp, Leah flipped the sign on the front door, announcing that Whoopie Pie Place was now open for business. As usual, their first customer was Jenny Yoder. Whom else, Leah thought with a pleased smile. Jenny had come to their bakery several times a week for a dozen or so whoopie pies. The girls often wondered why she didn’t bake them herself since she needed so many. Now, if anyone had a right to complain about having too much to do, it was Jenny. Although she never did say one word about her busy life and was always seen wearing a pleasant smile on her face, Jenny could not mask the fact that having eleven children had to be a challenge.
“Gute mariye, Jenny! How are you this fine day?” Leah asked, genuinely happy to see her neighbor entering the store.
“Vell,” she began, leaning against the counter, her eyes roving through the display case as she looked over the fresh baked goods. “I have to confess that things have been a little hectic since David’s daed passed away.”
Leah cringed, kicking herself for having forgotten about the elder Yoder’s passing just the previous month. She had attended the funeral with Thomas, but, since Jenny was in a different church district, despite how close they lived, she hadn’t given much thought to the loss. “How is David’s mamm doing?”
Everyone knew that death was always hardest for the surviving spouse. Especially when people were married for so many years; death brought an empty hole to their family lives and abundant turmoil to the surviving spouse’s daily routine. However, Leah was immediately reminded of how difficult it had been on her and her siblings when the good Lord had called both of their parents’ home two years ago.
“She’s doing the best she can,” Jenny continued, shaking her head sadly. “Which reminds me, may I place an extra order for Friday? I will need a couple of your delicious strawberry pies. I’d make them myself but just do not have time before then. We‘re having an auction, you know: a Children and Grandchildren Auction, so the family can get what they want from Grossdaadi’s belongings on Saturday.”
Leah smiled. “Why, that’s a right gut idea, Jenny! I bet they will all love that.”
“Ja,” Jenny replied, a smile lighting up her face. “Shall be a right gut time. The kinner are most excited.” She hesitated for just a brief moment, the creases at the corner of her eyes deepening as she leaned forward as if about to share with Leah a forbidden secret. “Vell, except for my daughter’s little Noah. He informed his mamm that he didn’t want to go to the Children and Grandchildren auction because he didn’t want them to sell him.” Jenny spoke with a smile.
“Oh help!” Leah joined her, loving how Jenny was always so full of mirth and joy. It was contagious, that was for sure and certain. “Those kinner sure do come up with the cutest notions!”
“That they do,” Jenny replied, glancing over her shoulder at the tingling of the bell over the door. She smiled as another woman entered the bakery. “Now, about those pies, before you start getting crowded…”
After Jenny left and Leah assisted the next wave of customers, mostly local women who came early to avoid the rush of tourists, she remembered that she had yet to check the answering machine for messages. Most Amish church districts banned the use of phones in the homes. However, the church elders, bishops and pastors, knew very well that the Amish businesses could not survive without telephone communication.
Doing business strictly within the community was no longer an option; with the farmland disappearing, raw materials were becoming increasingly expensive, be they fruits and vegetables, seed and fertilizer to grow crops to feed the animals or even just wood to build their furniture. So most families who owned a store or a small manufacturing business had to rely more and more on the Englische customers to round up their income; and to do business with the Englische meant to be able to receive orders via the telephone. Not being able to do so would ultimately mean the demise of the business.
So the elders had decreed that any Amish family with a business that needed to sell beyond the confines of the g’may was allowed to have a telephone, strictly for that very purpose or for dire emergencies. Although some of the younger Amish men, especially the young men entering their rumschpringe years, often stretched that rule a bit far by insisting that they now needed cell phones. While it was a necessity for the bakery to have a telephone with an answering machine, Leah knew that she neither wanted nor needed a cell phone. When she left the bakery, she anticipated her peace and quiet.
As Leah walked over to the register, she grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil before pressing the round button on the answering machine.
“Hello, this is Deborah from The Dalton Chamber of Commerce. I’d like to place an order with you. If you could call me at 555-9283 by noon on Monday, I would truly appreciate it.” Leah wrote the name and number down and wondered what it was that Deborah needed. She looked at the clock. It was only 9am and Englischers were later to rise than the Amish so she would have to try and remember to call her after the noon rush.
The rocking chairs out front were always the spot of choice for those who, after receiving their baked goods, often liked to sit and enjoy some of what they had purchased. Leah’s husband had made those rocking chairs and her oldest son had painted them white. Quickly, however, they had found out that the customers wanted to actually purchase them. Good quality chairs weren’t hard to find in Berlin but Thomas’ chairs seemed very popular. He’d even had an order for twenty chairs for a restaurant in North Carolina. Some were even custom ordered to fit from the smallest to the largest of tooshies.
After wiping off the evening dust that had settled on the porch chairs, watering the beautiful flowers that hung from the porch rafters and sweeping the floor from any debris, Leah sat down for a brief moment. There was a cool morning breeze and she took that moment to shut her eyes and simply enjoy being.
But it didn’t last long.
Her mind suddenly wandered to Tobias. Last night, he had been so sick. It reminded her far too much of when he was younger and going through his first
treatment. Still, she held hope that it was just a virus. After all, sister Sadie had looked a bit peaked herself, the previous evening.
But this morning, he had stated that he was feeling much better and even insisted on helping Thomas with the chores. He had struggled so before. Was it really only three years ago when he had first battled his sickness? Leah remembered the smile on her mother’s face the day the doctor had declared that Tobias was fine.
“Oh, the Lord has seen fit to allow me to keep Tobias a little longer,” her mother had declared. It was truly a right gut day in their family.
Bringing herself back to the moment, Leah arose to go inside to check on the kitchen and see if any help was needed. Upon entering the kitchen she could hear Susie and Lydia speaking. Thankfully it was a pleasant conversation and they had yet to start bickering. Hopefully, having to take over the slack of not having Sadie there would keep them both too busy to argue with each other. Leah began to take inventory and to refill the counter with the delicious baked goods. They didn’t keep a large variety of treats but what they did keep were good ones.
As she heard the bell on the door ring, she went to attend to the customers. “Good morning Mary, how are you this lovely day?”
“Quite well, danke!” she said with a smile on her face. “I’m quite well and would like to place an order please.”
Um hum, Leah thought, recognizing the gleam in Mary’s eye all too well. A wedding for sure and certain. “It must be a special order since you are just beaming from the core!”
The young woman giggled, the color flooding to her cheeks. “Indeed! I need 300 of your delicious whoopie pies for two weeks from Thursday. I so hope that’s not too short of a notice. We had anticipated making them ourselves but everything is just so time consuming and…well, we just love yours. Could you possibly be able to do that? It would mean a lot to me.”
Leah had watched Mary grow into such a beautiful young woman and now, as her anticipated marriage to Wilmer Weaver was approaching, she believed she was even more radiant. “Now Mary,” she began, a hand on her hip. “If you think I would miss making whoopie pies for your wedding, well, I have half a mind to chase you right out of this store!”
Mary laughed again, her eyes sparkling.
“Besides,” Leah continued. “The season is ending and we have no other large orders. I’m right honored that you asked us, truth be told!”
“Wonderful! I’ll let mamm know”.
After Mary left, the expected steady stream of customers began arriving. Time suddenly seemed to shift into fast forward. For almost two hours, there was not one moment to even take a breath. Around eleven o’clock when the customers slowed down for a couple of hours, Leah remembered to call that Deborah woman who had left her a message. Dialing the number, Leah tried to remember if she knew this Deborah but couldn’t quite place her.
“Hello?”
“This is Leah from Whoopie Pie Place returning your call. You left a message, I believe, last evening?” she said slowly into the receiver. She disliked talking on the phone. It felt strange to be speaking with someone so far away or, as was the case here, completely unknown. Leah much preferred speaking to people directly and in-person.
“Yes, I did call last evening. I would like to speak to you about an order. We have a convention being held at our local arena in Dalton. Apparently one of their vendors backed out without giving us enough notice, so the organizers have a last minute request.”
Interesting, Leah thought. She had heard about the event center in Dalton and even attended an auction there once, many years ago, with Thomas. They had bought a dresser and kitchen table. She knew that it was a large building that had the capacity to hold almost a thousand people, maybe more. “I see,” she heard herself say. “And what might that be, then?”
Deborah paused and Leah thought she heard some papers shuffling in the background. “It seems that they’d like to sell whoopie pies and fresh baked bread at one of the stands. They could be individually wrapped but would need to be freshly made for the event. Do you think you could fill this order?”
Sell whoopie pies? And fresh bread? That would be a bulk order, for sure and certain. Leah felt her palms begin to sweat in anticipation of the numbers. “What exactly do you have in mind?”
“Well, the Mennonite Community Convention is in four weeks and there will be almost two thousand pre-registered attendees. We usually count on double that for walk-ins.” More papers shuffled in the background. “At least a thousand whoopie pies and four hundred loaves of bread. That’s what we sold last year.”
Leah caught her breath at the numbers. She wasn’t sure what to say. Indeed, for the first time in a long time, she was speechless. Stunned. Two large orders in one day? Both needed within the next month? Quickly, she tried to calculate how many hands it would take to make that many whoopie pies and the bread. She’d have to outsource the bread; that was something she knew right away. As for the whoopie pies? She wouldn’t trust anyone to do that but her own family.
“I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” Leah said, surprised by how natural she sounded. She wondered if God would count that as a lie. “May I look at my order book and get back with you by the end of the day?” asked Leah, her words crisp and clear, almost spoken in the song-like manner that was so typical of the Amish.
“Yes, but I would need to know as soon as possible and I would also need to know the cost.”
After replacing the receiver and walking back into the kitchen of the bakery, Leah sat down in the closest chair. Her knees felt weak and she could only sit there, staring at the stainless steel pans hanging on the wall. Thirteen hundred whoopie pies? One thousand just for the convention! How on earth would they be able to make that many fresh whoopie pies? Part of her wanted to giggle with delight. That would be a five thousand dollar order, for certain! Oh, what they could all do with that money, she thought.
Her giddiness lasted but only a few short minutes as her thought process was interrupted by Susie and Lydia. The two sisters burst into the room, Susie trailing behind a furious Lydia, from the looks of it. Leah looked up, a frown instantly creasing her forehead.
“What do you mean that I don’t make as good a filling as yours?” Susie had all but screamed.
Lydia spun around to face her sister. She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin in the air. “It’s true,” she snapped. “On the days when I’m here alone, my whoopie pies fly off the shelf. Ask Leah! Wednesday is our busiest day of the week besides Saturday and that is the day that I’m here alone!”
“Oh hogwash!” Susie said, waving her hand at her sister. “That’s because the store is closed on Sunday through Tuesday!”
Lydia made a sour face at her sister. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Vell,” Susie replied, her tone suddenly full of superiority. “After waiting three days, they’ll eat just about anything as long as it remotely resembles a whoopie pie! Even a cow pie!”
Lydia caught her breath and was just about to retort when Leah stood up, slapping her hands against the tabletop.
“Girls!” she bellowed. “Stop the bickering! Please!”
Simultaneously, Lydia and Susie scowled at each other but, obediently, turned to face their oldest sister.
“We have to try harder to get along,” Leah said, lowering her voice. “Tension in the kitchen will help no one. It won’t sell pies either, I reckon. Both of you make wonderful whoopie pies. I wouldn’t put one over the other and, to do so, shows an awful lot of pride on your parts.” She paused for a minute, letting her words sink in. Both sisters lowered their eyes, knowing full well that pride was a sin and that they were both completely guilty of it.
“Now,” Leah continued. “We need to work together. I have just received two very large orders for thirteen hundred whoopie pies!” She leveled her gaze at both sisters. “I don’t think I need to tell you what that means for us, financially. But we can’t do it in such a short period of time if
you two are going to be bickering!”
More silence from Lydia and Susie. Leah knew from experience that silence from those two meant that she had definitely made her point.
“If you can agree to a cease fire, even if just for a few weeks, I will accept these jobs. They will be our last big orders until next spring so I’d sure hate to say no,” Leah added. And with that, she knew that they had all silently agreed. They would take these two big orders and get along during the process. The bakery would not disappoint their customers, that was for sure and certain!
Sadie
In the heat of the late morning, Sadie was thankful for the small breeze that was blowing through the open window as she laid in her room. She hadn’t gone back to the bakery this morning because she had felt poorly when she awoke. The best she could hope for was that she would feel better to take her ride with Manny that evening.
Manny Yoder.
She smiled at the thought of him with his mousy brown hair that curled over his ears and his big chocolate eyes that sparkled whenever the two of them were together. She had met him years before when they went to the same one-room schoolhouse. However, he was older and hadn’t paid much attention to Sadie. She was, after all, just a quiet young girl when he was already sixteen and taking a turn at his rumschpringe.
Oh, she had heard wild stories about many a young Amish boy who took advantage of those years between their sixteenth birthday and when they finally took the kneeling vow to join the church. But not so with Manny. He always remained in good standing with the church and the community. After he turned 16, he continued helping the elderly, visiting the infirm, and donating his time to help the destitute. In 2007, he had even joined the Mennonite Central Committee team to embark on a trip to New Orleans to help with rebuilding the community, two years after that horrid hurricane.