by Jan Drexler
“Have you met the new man from Ohio?” Susan broke pieces of cornbread into her soup. “Isn’t he the best-looking man you’ve ever seen? And so tall!”
Naomi shifted slightly. “I met him yesterday. His farm joins ours on the north side.”
Susan’s brow lifted. “Is that right? He came by to visit with your daed?”
“I went to his clearing to fetch Davey.”
Susan’s brow lifted even higher. The Gingerich family had come to Indiana from Wayne County, Ohio, at the end of the winter, and Naomi hadn’t been able to get to know Susan very well yet. Her family had settled in the western part of the community, near Rock Creek, in Elkhart County. Naomi felt her cheeks heat as Susan prepared to ask the question that new folks always posed whenever Davey was mentioned.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you.” Susan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “What happened to Davey’s father?”
Naomi covered her irritation with a spoonful of soup. As she ate that spoonful, and the next, she wondered what would happen if she told Susan something that would send gossiping tongues wagging. But she couldn’t lie. Davey’s story wasn’t anything she was ashamed of.
“Davey’s parents were killed in a storm when he was little. Our family took him in, and I became his mother.”
As she blew on her next spoonful of the thick bean soup, she glanced at Susan’s face. A frown passed quickly before the other girl recovered.
“That’s a terrible thing for him. It must be hard for you, though, to have to care for such an active boy. Were you and his real mother close friends?”
Naomi ignored the slight. As far as she was concerned, her adoption of Davey made her his real mother, even if she hadn’t given birth to him. “They were strangers to us. We found Davey hiding in his family’s cabin after it had been destroyed by a fierce storm.” Naomi’s stomach wrenched as it always did when the memories of that day surfaced. How they had found Davey’s parents and baby sister in the wrecked cabin, and Davey hiding in the fireplace. From the moment she had taken him into her arms and her heart, Davey had been her son. It was a feeling she had never been able to explain.
“How long have you and your family lived in Indiana?” Susan smiled at her, friendly now that Davey’s background had passed inspection.
“We moved from Somerset County three years ago.”
“Somerset County? In Pennsylvania? Most of the folks who live in our part of the district are from Ohio.”
Naomi took a piece of cornbread from the plate that was being passed down the table. “And most of this part of the district was settled by families from Pennsylvania. Folks like to settle near their friends and family.”
“I suppose so.” Susan looked toward the barnyard where the men had gathered to talk. “I wonder why Cap Stoltzfus chose to buy land in this part of the district. After all, he’s from Ohio too.”
“Did you know him when you lived there?”
Susan shook her head. “He must be from Holmes County. There are some pretty tradition-minded folks down by Walnut Creek, and we never had much to do with them.”
When Susan turned to say something to the woman sitting on the other side of her, Naomi stood, taking her empty soup bowl and Susan’s to be washed. She didn’t want to hear about the distance between the two parts of the Indiana church district. The folks in Holmes and Wayne Counties in Ohio were in different districts, but they were still Amish. Susan wasn’t the first person she had heard who talked as if there was some kind of wall between the two Ohio counties. If they weren’t careful, the same kind of division could happen here.
After the dishes were clean, Naomi found her sister, Mattie Yoder, and their friend, Hannah Bender. Hannah scooted over on their bench so Naomi could sit between them and threaded her arm through hers.
“We don’t get to see each other as much as we did in the winter, since we’ve been so busy planting the gardens and all.” Hannah squeezed Naomi’s arm. “What have you been doing lately?”
“The same things you have been, for sure. Getting the garden ready, cleaning out the potato hole—”
“Now you sound like Jenny Smith.” Mattie laughed as she said it. Jenny lived on the farm south of Mattie and Jacob. Her father had been one of the first pioneers in the area fifteen years before and was one of their few non-Amish neighbors. “She always calls their root cellar a potato hole.”
Naomi laughed with her. “Jenny’s way of talking is so funny, I find myself using her phrases instead of our own. Besides, when the only vegetables in the root cellar are potatoes, we might as well call it a potato hole.”
Hannah turned to Mattie. “Did Jacob give you the carrot seeds I sent over? They will be a fine addition to our gardens this spring.”
As Mattie and Hannah continued discussing their gardens, Naomi’s attention was drawn to her mamm, sitting on a bench across the room with Annalise Yoder, Hannah’s mother. Annalise was holding her granddaughter, Hannah’s new baby, born just two months earlier. The baby lay in her grandmother’s arms with her face turned slightly, fast asleep. Mamm held her four-month-old granddaughter, Isaac and Emma’s Dorcas. The two grandmothers chatted quietly, content to let the babies sleep. Annalise kept one eye on the group of children playing in the yard, where her twelve-year-old daughter, Margli, and some of the other girls were supervising the little children. Annalise’s three-year-old twins, Gideon and Rachael, were among them.
If Mattie felt left out when the young mothers of the community discussed diapers and feedings, she never showed it. She and Jacob had been married for more than two years now and hadn’t been blessed with any little ones yet. Naomi felt the pain of her own empty arms as she grew older and no man considered her a good companion for marriage, or even friendship. Even with Davey to care for, she still couldn’t completely resign herself to never giving him a father, or brothers and sisters, even though she knew it would probably never happen. If she felt this way, how must Mattie feel as the months and years passed by?
2
By Wednesday, Cap had felled another half-dozen trees. Trimmed and cut to a uniform length, the logs lay in the center of the clearing, waiting to be built into a cabin. But before starting on the walls, he needed to put the footings in place. He pounded a stick into the soft ground to mark the first corner and started pacing off the front wall.
“How is the cabin coming?”
He looked toward the road. Christian Yoder had hailed him, and with him was a man who Cap didn’t remember seeing at the Sabbath meeting. Pulling off his work gloves, he headed toward the road to greet his visitors.
“Good day, Brother Christian. What brings you in my direction?”
“This is Shem Fischer, newly moved to our area. He wanted to meet the folks in our corner of the settlement.”
Shem Fischer? Cap felt the blood drain from his face as he looked at the other man. It had been nearly twenty years since he had last seen Shem, but yes, this man could be the same one.
Shem didn’t seem to recognize him as Christian introduced them. He had a pleasant smile on his face as he acknowledged Cap with a nod. “This is your clearing?” Shem’s close-set blue eyes darted from the logs to the stumps, and then to the wagon. “You live here alone?”
Cap’s gut twisted. Shem must recognize him, or at least his name. Cap had been Shem’s favorite target when they were boys in Ohio. He could still hear the bully’s voice, singsonging his name, tattling to the teacher for the mischief Shem himself had caused. But the other man ignored him, as if he had no reason to think they had once been boyhood enemies. As if this wasn’t the same Shem Fischer at all.
“Ja,” Cap said, determined to play the same game. “I’m alone here.”
“And yet you’re building a house, for just one man.”
The condescending tone, the eyes flicking, meeting his for just an instant, the shadow of that familiar grin passing over his face before it disappeared. This was the same boy, now grown into a man.
“There is not
hing wrong with building a cabin for myself.”
Christian looked from Shem to Cap, his brows knitted. “Shem has just moved to our settlement from Canada.”
Shem smiled at Christian. “I heard this new community is growing and there was a need for more ministers.”
“You’re not a preacher.” Cap meant for his words to be a question and flinched at the accusation he heard in his own statement. But the Shem he knew had been the farthest thing an Amish boy could be from a minister of the church.
Shem’s smile grew wider. “I am a minister, Cap.” He stressed the name and Cap heard echoes of the old schoolyard in Holmes County. “I was ordained nearly three years ago.”
Cap met Shem’s eyes and held them. A minute passed. Two.
Shem gave up the challenge and dropped his gaze. “Brother Christian, there are other families in this area?”
“The Schrocks are next.”
Shem started down the road, but Christian held back. “Is there something between you and Preacher Shem?”
Cap found his head shaking in the negative. “I don’t think so. We knew each other as boys, but that was a long time ago.”
Christian looked past him to the pile of logs in the center of the clearing. “It looks like you’re ready to start raising the walls. Jacob and I will be over to help you first thing tomorrow morning. Josef also. I’ll pass the word along to the Schrocks.”
Cap’s tense muscles relaxed. “I appreciate the help. Everything will be ready.”
“Ja, for sure.” Christian patted his shoulder and then followed Shem down the road.
Cap watched them go. Shem Fischer a minister? He shook his head. There was no telling how that had happened. People changed. But something in the set of Shem’s shoulders and the look in his eyes said Shem’s change hadn’t been for the better.
Resuming his work, Cap walked back to the stake and started pacing off the wall again. He counted twenty steps, then drove a second stake into the ground. He stepped off the remaining walls, ending up at his original mark. After stringing a line from stake to stake to mark the walls, he measured the corners with his framing square.
Stepping back from the outline he had made of his cabin, the corners looked true, but when he measured, the rectangle was off-kilter. Cap sighed and wiped his sleeve across his forehead. Daed had always told him not to trust his eye but the tools, and he had been right. To his own judgment, the cabin outline was perfect.
Cap looked down the road. Christian and Shem had disappeared around the bend. Could he trust his own judgment where Shem was concerned? Probably not. His view could be just as skewed as the cabin walls he had outlined.
“Cap!”
Davey’s call came from the deer path through the woods on the other side of the clearing. Shem Fischer left his thoughts as he turned to greet the boy’s headlong rush toward him.
“Good morning.” Beyond the boy, a quiet figure made her way through the trees, and Cap felt the corners of his mouth twitch toward a smile.
“We brought you some dinner.” Davey jumped over one stump, then perched on another one. “Memmi made a basket for you, since she said you would be working so hard that you wouldn’t take time for a decent meal.”
Cap looked past the boy, meeting Naomi’s flustered gaze as she wound her way through the tree stumps toward them. She dropped her eyes, but not before her face turned pink in a pretty blush.
“Hush, Davey. I only said that if we shared our dinner, he wouldn’t have to take time from his work to cook.”
“Whatever the reason, I appreciate it.” Cap reached for the basket Naomi carried. The scent of fresh bread wafted from under the cloth cover.
“You’ve made a lot of progress since I was here on Saturday.”
“Do you think so? I feel like I’m working too slowly. I need to get a garden planted soon, and the wheat.” Oats, too. And the root crops. The familiar knot of worry twisted in his chest. Work loomed over him everywhere he turned.
Naomi waved her hand toward the western edge of the clearing where Davey played the game of jumping from stump to stump. “For sure. The last time I was here, you were cutting that tree. Now you have gone at least ten feet farther west.”
She was right. From her perspective, he could see the larger slice he had taken out of the forest wall. “I finally have enough good logs to start building the cabin.”
Naomi stepped into the string rectangle. “You’ll need help.”
“Christian Yoder was just here, and he said he and Jacob would be here tomorrow morning.”
Her smile lit the clearing as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds. “I’m sure my daed will come too, and Henry. They’ll pass the word, and you’ll have more help than you can handle. I’ll tell Mamm, and we’ll get the noon meal organized. Your house will be built by tomorrow night.”
He studied her profile as she paced the length of his rectangle, measuring it. She looked so young. She and Davey’s father must have married when she was barely old enough. A prick to his conscience reminded him to avoid gossip, but he couldn’t help a rise of irritation. Had the father been someone who had wronged Naomi? But her family and the community seemed to accept both Naomi and Davey without reservation. Whatever the mystery was, the church had either forgiven the sin or overlooked it.
Then she glanced his way again, the smile still gracing her face. Her cast eye flickered toward him, and then away, but it was only a slight distraction to her beauty. Someday he would know her well enough to ask about Davey’s father. Until then he would enjoy the promise of friendship that her smile held.
The first of the men arrived just before sunrise, while the sky still held on to the pearly gray of early morning. Cap stepped around the piles of logs to greet them.
“You’ve started already,” Christian said. He set his toolbox on the ground and shook Cap’s hand.
“I only pulled out the biggest logs to use as sills. There is still the whole cabin to build.”
Josef Bender and Jacob Yoder set their toolboxes on the ground near Christian’s and walked over to the outline Cap had made in the center of the clearing.
“You’ve planned a good-sized place,” Jacob said. “Not too large, but with plenty of room.”
“Your family will be joining you?” Josef asked.
His question brought the familiar twinge. “I’m a widower.” Cap turned away from the three men, toward the space where his cabin would soon stand. They were right. His cabin would be large enough for a family.
“I’m sorry,” Josef said, laying a hand on Cap’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“It’s all right. I’ve been alone enough years that I should be used to it.” But he wasn’t. Nothing he had tried filled the empty space in his life. Cap shrugged and put a smile on his face. “It’s light enough to work. Should we get started?”
“Eli and Henry Schrock are coming.” Christian indicated the men coming through the woods. The deer trail between the two farms had already widened to an easy path after only a few days of Davey’s daily use.
Eli and Henry carried a large coffeepot between them and set it near Cap’s breakfast fire.
“Lydia sent coffee.” Eli pulled a cup out of his toolbox and poured himself a cup. “She thought we’d need something to keep us going between now and dinner.” He glanced at Cap with a grin. “We can look forward to that dinner too. The meat was roasting before we left the house this morning.”
While the men drank their coffee, they planned the morning’s work. By the time the sun was climbing to its zenith, the walls were seven logs high. They had just raised the last log when Shem Fisher showed up.
“I heard you fellows were working on Cap’s cabin today.” He approached the half-built cabin. “I think I would have stopped at six logs.” He eyed the top of Cap’s hat, just even with the seventh log.
Cap tried to ignore the seething in his gut.
“It’s too bad you weren’t here to give your opin
ion earlier,” Josef said. He kept his expression solemn, but gave Cap a slow wink. “We could have used your help.”
Jacob hid a grin as he joined his brother-in-law. “I was thinking that we should go eight logs high. After all, we don’t want Cap to be hitting his head on the doorframe every time he enters the house.”
All of the men looked at Cap’s six-and-a-half-foot height, and chuckles broke out.
Just then Davey came running around the corner of the house, stopping short when he saw the men.
“Memmi is bringing dinner.” He was panting from his run through the woods. “Grossmutti says they need help carrying the pot.”
Cap happened to glance at Shem’s face as Davey ran off down the trail again, followed by Jacob and Josef.
Shem rubbed his chin, watching the boy. “His mother isn’t married, is she?”
Eli glanced at Christian before he answered. “Ne, my Naomi isn’t married.”
“Has she ever been married?”
Eli’s face reddened as dark as Cap was sure his own was. The Shem Fisher he knew was a troublemaker, and he sounded like he was fishing for something. Preacher or not, Cap didn’t trust the man.
“Ne,” Eli answered. “She has never been married.”
Shem’s eyebrows raised.
“She adopted the boy three years ago, after his parents died.”
Christian and Eli went to the water barrel to wash before dinner, but Shem looked toward the trail where Davey had disappeared, tapping his pursed lips with a forefinger.
Cap stepped closer to him, keeping his voice low. “You don’t believe Eli?”
Shem’s eyes swiveled toward Cap. “Does it matter what I believe? What matters is that the church must be pure. If what Brother Eli says is true, then that is well and good. But if the family is covering up some unrepentant sin, then the church must step in.”
He left Cap standing alone as Jacob and Josef came back, carrying a pot of soup and a platter with bread and ham on it. Lydia and Naomi followed them, each of them carrying two pies.