by Sarah Price
Sadie had to force the words from her mouth. Yet, her lips were dry and she felt queasy. Swallowing, she tried to moisten her lips and speak. “I…I…”
The woman on the other end of the phone sounded as if she was used to this hesitation. With a smile in her voice, she said, “What is it, dear? You can speak to me.”
“I need to see a doctor,” Sadie blurted out, wiping the tear that threatened to fall from her eye. “And right away!”
Book Two
Part One
God said, “Learn from my Son
Meekness of heart,
Without which you will fail.
Through patience and reproach in all suffering,
Take up your cross, and follow after me.”
The cross and yoke, My Lord,
I do not want to avoid,
But I beseech you exceedingly
For the strength of patience, because it is
Not with me to always stand fast.
Ausbund, Song 66 Verse 5-6
Blessed are the meek:
for they shall inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5 KJV
The Kitchen
Leah sighed as she sank into her rocking chair and covered her eyes with her hands. For a few moments, she let her bare feet push the chair back and forth, the rhythmic motion immediately beginning to have a calming effect on her. It had been a long day, of that there was no doubt: long and tedious, chock-full of tension, problems, and heartache.
It had started with more quarreling at the bakery, which really shouldn’t surprise her anymore, she pondered. It was just one short week until Mary’s wedding and three weeks before the big convention. Stress levels were at an all time high, that was for sure and certain. Not to mention that Susie was hosting the g’may’s church service at her home on Sunday.
Leah shook her head. It would take the help of all four sisters, and Esther as well, to scrub that house from top to bottom after work on Thursday and Friday. Leah rolled her eyes at the thought. Who was she kidding? Saturday, too! There would be no rest for the remainder of the week in order to help their sister have a clean house to welcome the rest of the church district to worship on Sunday.
And that also meant more baking! Fresh bread and pies were definitely most expected from their part, in order to feed the g’may after the service. Sadie had offered to make cup cheese, a favorite for many who loved to dip salted pretzels into the gooey cheese or spread it on bread. While that wasn’t for Leah, she knew that it would be a welcomed treat during fellowship.
Despite the seriousness of all those problems, they paled in comparison to another one: Tobias.
“Mamm!”
Leah looked up and forced a smile at ten-year-old Sarah. The little girl had changed into her nightgown and was ready to say goodnight to her mamm, all without being asked. She suspected that Sadie had something to do with the kinner being especially quiet that evening. As always, Sadie seemed to read Leah’s mind and do what needed to be done in order to help when things were stressful.
“You washed behind those ears, ja?” Leah asked as she put her hands on the little girl’s shoulders, twisting and turning her teasingly as if inspecting her.
Sarah nodded her head, missing the teasing tone in her mamm’s voice. “Oh ja,” she said. “And Amos did, too! I saw him.”
“Did not!” came the boisterous voice as Sarah’s twin, came storming down the stairs. “Whatever she said, I didn’t do it, Mamm”
Leah and Sarah blinked at his announcement, watching as he crossed the room and stood before them, hands on his hips and a fierce look on his face. Leah glanced at her daughter and, when their eyes met, they burst out laughing.
“What is it now?” Amos demanded.
“Mayhaps you’ll think twice before barging in on a conversation,” Leah scolded gently. “Your sister was telling me that you washed behind your ears already. But since you say you didn’t, you best be going back upstairs and do it proper now!”
The stunned look on Amos’ face almost caused Leah to laugh out loud again. He made a face and kicked at the linoleum, a sheepish expression making him appear humble and embarrassed. “Aw shucks,” he mumbled and turned around, heading back upstairs to do as his mamm had said.
Small blessings, Leah thought. Wasn’t it what that Englische woman, Lisa Ann, had said at the store earlier? Count your small blessings for God always provides!
Earlier that Day
Whoopie Pie Place
Papers were spread across the desk, the surface barely visible. Leah removed her glasses to rub her eyes. It was already eight in the morning and she felt as though there was not enough coffee in the world that could help her have the energy to get through the day.
For two hours, she had been trying to create a schedule for managing the production of the two big orders. The way she figured it, they would need to borrow several additional bread pans and baking sheets for the whoopie pies and the loaves of bread. She knew that the g’may would help them by lending whatever was needed but she sure didn’t like borrowing from others.
She had created a baking schedule depending heavily upon the cooperation of Susie and Lydia, as well as the assistance of Leah’s kinner and Tobias. It would require almost round-the-clock work to fulfill the orders and she wasn’t certain how Susie’s Merv would feel about that. In fact, she wasn’t certain how Merv felt about anything anymore.
They hadn’t talked about their conversation from the previous week, the one in which Susie had revealed her secret of having to live with Merv’s constant anger and criticism toward her. Yet, all the time, Leah thought about what her schwester had shared with her. Oftentimes, she wondered how she would have handled a similar situation, had her own husband, Thomas, behaved in such a non-Christian way. Yet, Leah kept concluding that she did not have any answers. There was no way that she could begin to imagine her marriage in any other light than perfect. Oh, she knew that there were days she wanted to put her hand on her hip and give Thomas that look. But those days were rare…far and few between. There had never been a time with a cross word spoken from their lips. It just wasn’t something that they did.
With a big sigh, she tried to focus, once again, on the scattered papers and her lists. She didn’t have a lot of time as she was taking Tobias to that doctor appointment in another hour. Glancing at the clock, she shook her head, that overwhelming feeling of stress building up inside of her chest. Doctors appointments, helping Susie clean her house for church Sunday, working at the store, tending to her own chores…it was too much to think about today!
“You all right, Leah?”
She turned her head and smiled at Sadie. “Just worried about Tobias,” she admitted. Then, gesturing toward the desk, she added, “and all of this. I can barely figure out how we are going to fulfill these orders!”
Sadie walked around the counter and stood behind Leah, peering over her head. She placed her hand on Leah’s shoulder to steady herself for a long, drawn out and silent moment. “Oh help,” she finally muttered. “This all looks so complicated!”
Leah frowned. That didn’t help her any. “Mayhaps I should call and tell the convention that we just can’t do it,” she said, taking off her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Nee, nee!” Sadie quickly cried out. “We can do this, Leah. I know we can.” She leaned over and pointed to one of the pieces of paper. “Look, it’s not that hard. We already have twenty baking sheets. The oven holds eight pans at a time, ja? That means we can make seven batches an hour in this oven. We can use the house oven for another four and Esther’s, too. That’s fourteen batches an hour!”
A big sigh escaped Leah’s lips. “That’s 140 batches in a ten hour day, Sadie, with no interruptions or issues.” She sighed and tapped her finger on the table as she craned her neck to look at her sister. “As if that would be possible on a regular day! We need 500 batches and the woman said they had to be fresh.”
Sadie chewed on her fingern
ail, deep in thought for a few seconds. “Mayhaps the Mennonite Church might let us use their ovens for a few days,” she offered as a solution. “That would double our numbers!”
A gasp escaped Leah’s lips. Of course! The Mennonites! Their g’may was particularly close to one of the local churches. In fact, many former Amish joined the Mennonite church when they decided not to go through with the baptism. There was always some distant relative to be found at the nearby Mennonite Church.
But would it work? Furiously, Leah began to scribble on the paper and began to list names of family members that would have to help. With a team of three people at both locations, it could be done. “If Esther were to help…” she began. “That might work out…”
Sadie beamed at the realization that she might have presented a good solution to the logistics problem.
“Ach!” Leah groaned. “The bread. They wanted four hundred loaves of bread!”
Another dilemma.
“We normally bake twenty loaves during the week,” she said, thinking out loud. “Fifty for weekends. I can’t see how we could squeeze in that much bread.”
The kitchen door opened and Susie walked out, her apron covered with smudges of flour and shortening. She stopped short when she saw her two sisters huddled over the desk. “Wie gehts?” Placing one hand on each of her sisters’ shoulders, she leaned over and quickly assessed the information on the piece of paper. “Ah, the bread,” she surmised. With a simple nod of her head, she quickly added, “Ask the women of the g’may to each make fifteen loaves and pay them for their efforts.” She patted both sisters’ shoulders, leaving white flour marks on their dresses, and walked away.
It took a moment for Leah and Sadie to think about what Susie had suggested. Then, they looked at each other and grinned.
“Brilliant,” Leah whispered.
“Ask the g’may to help!” Sadie said, repeating Susie’s suggestion with a look of wonder on her face. “That’s a right wunderbaar idea!”
Leah shut her eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks to God for helping her see the solution. This would mean she would neither have to order extra dry goods for the bread nor hire extra workers to make it. If they lost a little profit, it was well worth it in order to fulfill the order and her obligations.
Standing up from behind her desk, she looked around at all the clutter and sighed. She disliked disorganization, both physical and mental. With her hands on her hips, she glanced over at Sadie. “Vell, I reckon I’ve done all I can with this mess for now!” She pushed her chair under the desk, the feet making a scratching sound against the wood floor. “Best go round up Tobias for this doctor appointment,” she added, glancing at the clock. “Driver will be here soon.”
Sadie leaned against the counter, watching her oldest sister with a quizzical look on her face. Leah could tell that she wanted to say or ask something but was contemplating just how to do so. Rather than question her outright, Leah began to hunt under the side counter for her purse. Her knees cracked when she bent down and she had to steady herself against the sides before she could reach into the darkness of the lower shelf for her bag.
Sadie took a deep breath. “Last I saw, Tobias was in the back field picking the last of the ground cherries with Jacob,” she offered. “Didn’t look none to happy about it either.”
Setting her bag on the counter, Leah began to ruffle through it, making certain she had enough cash to pay the driver and the doctor. “Ja, I bet,” she said, laughing. “Reckon he’ll be right happy when we bake up those ground cherry pies, though!”
A smile crossed Sadie’s face. She didn’t need to speak for Leah to know what she was thinking: Ground cherry pies had been everyone’s favorite in the Miller household. It was a tradition that Leah and Jacob had passed down to their own kinner. She sure hoped that they had enough ground cherries from this year’s harvest to make enough pies to appease the sweet tooth that ran rampant among the kinner in both families.
“I sure hope they picked a good selection of ground cherries,” Sadie said, looking off into the distance. But it was clear that her mind was elsewhere.
Leah watched, wondering what she was really thinking. “As do our autumn customers,” she said. Then, with a short laugh, she reached out and touched Sadie’s arm. “Remember that one tourist last year? Oh, she was a funny one!” Her laughter rang deeper now as she remembered. “Why, the look on her face when she asked what a ground cherry was! That was priceless, for sure and certain!”
“Oh ja!” Even Sadie smiled at that memory. Englische tourists were always wondering in amazement at some of the things that the Amish did. “Why, she thought we had made it up!”
Leah gave a soft tsk, tsk with her tongue and shook her head. “Not knowing ground cherries! Can you ever imagine?”
“Guess the Englische don’t realize that they don’t know everything after all, ain’t so?”
They both laughed at Sadie’s teasing comment, although there was a lot of truth behind her statement. Despite their heavy reliance on technology for living, the Englische tourists often seemed to feel as if it were the Amish who were backward, not them! It was something that caused many Amish in their church district to shake their heads in wonder. Processed food? Daycare? Internet? All of those things took away from the family working together and creating a strong bond that would last generations. In fact, those types of things separated the family, isolating each member in their own world where the individual was at the center, not the collective community or family.
Nee, Leah thought. That’s not for me.
With a sigh, Leah slung the purse over her arm and headed toward the door. “Best go collect Tobias. He so hates these Doctor appointments. And I don’t want to be paying the driver for waiting for him.” She glanced at Sadie, noticing the sad look on her face. “Reckon I hate these appointments, too, truth be told. I had so prayed we were done with them. But, God’s will…”
She knew better than to question God’s will. She had been raised to accept His decisions in her life. Let us not pray for lighter burdens, her mamm used to say. But pray for stronger backs.
Looking out the screen door on the back of the bakery, Leah wiped her brow and exclaimed, “My, it’s going to be exceptionally hot today, ja? Indian summer.”
Before Leah could walk out the door, Sadie cleared her throat. “Leah, I’ve need for a ride today. I called Michelle but she said she had to take you and Tobias to Millersburg this afternoon. Would you mind if I rode along with you?”
“You need a ride to where, Sadie?” Leah was startled by the request. It wasn’t like Sadie to ask for such favors. “Is it a necessity? It’s your day to be here in the bakery. Lord knows we can’t leave Susie and Lydia alone for too long. They are likely to destroy the place, give all the whoopie pies away or worse yet, burn the place down trying to outdo each other on who can bake the best.”
Looking sheepishly, Sadie responded, “Oh ja. It’s a necessity. Need to meet someone at the hospital.” Hoping that Leah wouldn’t ask further, she left it at that. “Besides, it’s a slow day, ain’t so? Shelves are stocked and no buses scheduled until later this afternoon. We’ll be back by then, ja? And they can handle the in-between, ain’t so?”
Leah eyeballed her, wondering what was going on. However, she knew better than to pry. With a sigh, she acquiesced. “I reckon that’s fine, then,” she said. “But let Susie and Lydia know you will be gone.” She had her hand on the door, pausing for a moment before she looked over her shoulder and added, “And you tell them after I leave, so I don’t have to hear all their whining!”
Whatever was Sadie up to, of late? Her behavior had become most peculiar, Leah thought. Sick. Disappearing with her special friend. Locking herself in the bathroom. Sneaking into the store after hours. Oh help, she said to herself. Sure don’t need Sadie up to something. After all, Sadie was the one in the family whom never really gave her much to worry about. But, something was definitely up with her youngest schwester. That much
was evident in her chocolate brown eyes, no matter how innocent they usually appeared.
Walking toward the barn, Leah noticed Jacob and Tobias returning from the field. She smiled to herself, pleased that their return was just as she expected. That’s one thing the Amish were known for, promptness for their meals. She watched as they walked, side-by-side, so similar in stature and appearance. They were the only blue-eyed Miller babies, something that their mamm had always pointed out to the rest of the family. But Jacob had been so much older than Tobias that their bond was not one of brotherly bonding but more authoritative on the part of Jacob.
“Tobias” Leah called, lifting her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “It’s time to wash up now. Our ride will be here shortly.”
Even from a distance, she could see the expression on his face change from contentment to concern. “Where we going?” he said as he approached.
She pursed her lips and frowned. “You know we have a doctor’s appointment today.” She felt as though she was the messenger of bad news but they had discussed this just the previous evening.
“Appointment?” asked Jacob. “What appointment is that, Leah?”
“Tobias hasn’t been feeling well of late and I’ve arranged for him to see that specialist at the hospital this afternoon.” Leah responded. “Come on, now, Tobias. Go get cleaned up then.”
With his head hanging down and his shoulders slumped forward, he slowly moved his feet in the direction of the house. If her heart broke for his disappointment and apprehension, she knew that she, too, felt the same. Only it was her job to put on a brave face and make certain that he attended that appointment, regardless of the dread they both felt. Over the years, doctors had not delivered a whole lot of good news to Tobias Miller, that was for sure and certain.
When he finally disappeared into the house, Leah turned back to her other brother, somewhat surprised that he had also been watching Tobias. There was a disapproving look on his face, his brow wrinkled in deep creases. She didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking. If Tobias was going to the hospital to see a specialist, the rest of those ground cherries would have to be picked without his help. That meant Jacob had a long afternoon ahead of him, at least until the older kinner returned from school. And that thought did not please him.