“Mother!” I interjected, remembering why I was walking in the road in the first place, “What of father’s package?”
“The Beiler farm is on the way home,” she said. “If John will agree to walk you home, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind carrying a small package to your father on the way.”
“It would be an honor, Mrs. Gingerich,” he told her in response.
“John, you don’t know how grateful I am for your help with this. Tell Thomas that I said to pay you for helping me today.”
“I couldn’t, Mrs. Gingerich,” he answered, holding up his hands, palms out. “I was just doing what any good man would do.”
“Still, if you won’t take payment, we must thank you in some way,” she said, pressing the point.
“How about one of the apple pies that you sell in your bookstore?”
“Really? That’s all?”
“Well, maybe a meal for Mother and Father and the kids, and the pie for me.”
“I can do that, I think,” mother said, smiling.
Chapter Three
As reluctant as I was, I allowed John to take my arm around his shoulders. It was difficult, because he stood a full head and shoulders taller than me. Even though I was loathe to admit it, I was grateful for the help, because it meant that the dizziness that I was experiencing would not result in me landing face first in the dusty road that led home.
In this close proximity, I began to take in the more subtle aspects of his features, like his scent: wood chips and tobacco smoke.
“Do you smoke cigarettes?” I asked him.
“No, but the guys I work with do. That’s not to say that I don’t have a cigar every now and then. Why?”
“Because you smell like smoke.”
“Yeah…that’s one of the things that I despise about my job.”
“You don’t like your job?”
“No…I hate it.”
“You could have fooled me earlier.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” I said cautiously, “You seemed really close to those English men that you were in Father’s store with earlier.”
“Not really,” he said with a sigh. “Not that anybody notices. I am nice to them all, but close to them? No.”
“Really?”
“You know, Jenny, it is very easy to be confused with another type of man than what I really am. You’ve got to understand, it is hard to make money to support my family working only with Amish carpenters, so I have to get work outside our community. I wish…” he trailed off into silence.
“What do you wish?” I asked, stopping in the middle of the road.
“I wish that Father was well, so that I could stay here.”
“What do you mean?”
“In two week’s time,” he said, “I’ll be going driving for two hours to Lansing to help the company I work for to build some apartment complexes. I’ll be away from home for about two months.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, sincerely.
“It’s okay. My younger sister will make sure that Mother and Father are okay, but I’ll have to stay in a hotel that the company pays for.”
“So, I guess you’re going to leave her in charge?”
“No, my father is in charge, because it is his house. He is unable to leave the bed, but he is still the head of the household.”
“I understand,” I answered him.
“Yeah, well…I’d rather not talk about it.”
“You seem upset, John,” I said.
“Well, I’ve been the main provider for my family for the last seven years, and I don’t get the respect of a head of house.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I respect you.”
“Well, at least someone does,” he said, as we arrived at the Beiler farm. “Which one is your father?” he asked.
“That one,” I said, pointing toward him. “He is the really tall one working the plow.”
“Doesn’t your father run the bookstore?” John asked, “Why is he plowing a field?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Beiler have no children,” I said, “each of their kids died before the age of five, and so now, they have no one to help them to plow, plant, or harvest. They are older, and it’s hard on them. Father and a few other men help them to gain enough food to survive.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah…that’s one of the things that I love about our way of life,” I said. “Everyone pulls together to help those in need.”
“Yes, we’ve had many help us, as well,” John answered me quietly. “Well, I am going to go deliver your mother’s package, and I’ll be back shortly.”
“Okay,” I said, taking a seat on the ground beside the fence. John climbed over the fence expertly, and I watched his broad back and long, muscular arms sway as he sauntered over to my father. They stood close together for a few seconds, until John handed the package over. They continued talking for a couple more minutes, when John turned and began walking in my direction, accompanied by my father.
“Hello, Sparrow,” my father said, using his pet name for me. My sister was “chickadee.” He had given us both bird nicknames as young children.
“Hello, Father,” I responded.
“How are you feeling?”
“My head hurts, but I don’t want to complain,” I replied.
“From what young Mr. Yoder tells me, it could have been much, much worse, is that right?” he asked, turning to John.
“Yes sir,” he answered. “She could have been killed. Her head hit the walkway when I pulled her out of the road, but I daresay the pain in her head is slight when compared with the pain that she would have felt if she had been hit by that Englisher.”
“I tend to agree, John. You are walking her home, you say?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. Her sister will keep watch over her until my wife and I get home this afternoon.” Turning to me, he continued, “I want you to get in bed, and stay there until Mother or I get home,” he told me. “I don’t want you walking around the house with a hurting head, and hurt yourself further.”
“Yes, Father,” I answered.
“Thank you, John,” Father said as I stood to place my arm around John’s neck once more, “for protecting my little girl.”
This was the first time that I had ever heard my father refer to me as his ‘little girl,’ because he usually called me by my name, ‘sparrow,’ or ‘my daughter.’ His calling me that made me feel loved by him in the way that I normally understood Mother to feel about me.
It was a nice change of pace.
Chapter Four
After Father began walking back across the field, John helped me to position myself across his shoulders once more.
His scent was not the only thing that I had noticed earlier in our walk. Having slung my arm across his back so often since my brush with death, I had come to know very well how broad his back was. He was muscular, and I could feel each of his back muscles flex with every step, even though he was bent doubled over to allow me to continue holding him for support.
Those times that we stopped for me to rest on the journey home, he would stand and stretch his back out, loping with an easy grace that I must admit was extremely alluring. Seeing him without his English compatriots, he became just another shy Amish man who would not have been out of place at my family’s dinner table one Sunday after church.
As we sat under the shade of an oak-tree, our talk turned to what we desired out of life.
“Honestly,” he said after I asked his ambitions, “I want what most any man in our community wants. I want to marry, have some children, and live a life that is pleasing to God.”
“You don’t want anything else? Don’t you want to see more than just Indiana, or occasionally Michigan or Ohio? To maybe travel, and see the rest of the country?”
“Honestly, no,” he answered me. “I am happy with my simple life. I mean, I guess there is always the chance that I could travel. I have not yet been baptized
, so I am not held by the Ordnung, but I still feel as though I am tied to this place…to my family…to my home. You know?”
“Yeah, I do know.” I highly suspect that every Amish youth who is still in the age of rumspringa is considering if they will stay with our people. The problem with leaving our people is that if we join the English world, and we will be separated from salvation. Our teachers have made sure that we understand that the church is saved, and to be separate and apart from the church is to be separated from the grace of God. Plus, if we were to leave the community, we would be separated from our families, and have to live out our lives separated from them.
There are many of us, however, who would like to see what the English world really offers, and not just the parties with beer and cigarettes that we have all been to. Because we only go to school through the eighth grade, many of us feel that if we leave, we will not have the education or knowledge to make it in the English world.
After I rose from my rest and placed my arm around John’s shoulders once more, we continued walking toward my home. As we walked and continued with our conversation, I came to realize that I had judged him too harshly when I first saw him. In reality, I found him to be a gentle man, who was deeply passionate about his family and helping others. His desire to break away from the English even further was something that I completely understood, because their loud, brash ways were deeply offensive to me too.
“So why do you act like them?” I asked when he told me that they were some of the worst people to be around in a working environment.
“Act like them? What do you mean?”
“Earlier in the store…you seemed to get along with them perfectly.”
“I get along with them because I have too,” he answered. “I don’t stay around them because I want to or enjoy it. There is just no way that I can make as much money in our community, and Father’s medical bills are very expensive. I can’t watch my mother or the kids falter because of my own annoyances. Instead, I do my work quietly, and try to live as an example to them. I’ve already told you, I count a small number of them as friends, and they are the ones who are the most like us, except that they go to Baptist or Methodist churches instead of being Amish.”
“What are the rest of them like?” I asked.
“Loud. Disrespectful. Angry. Each of these would be good ways to describe them. The foreman (the one who is in charge of our work crew) swears all the time, and his language is vile and disgusting. Some of the things he talks about or looks are so revolting that I can’t even put words to them.”
“Really?” I asked, shocked at the blatant misdeeds of the English that John was describing to me.
“Yes. The couple of months ago, we were at a job site. He and some of the other men were laughing over a magazine, and he called to me, ‘hey, Amish boy! I bet you’ve never seen anything like this before! Come here, and let’s see!’ so I went over, and they were reading a magazine. On the cover was a dark skinned woman who was wearing almost nothing, with her arms covering her breasts. Try as I might, I’ve tried to get the image out of my mind, but I just can’t.”
“Did you look inside?”
“Yeah.”
“What was in there?”
“More of the same, except that the women weren’t covering up inside. Their breasts were exposed, they were posed provocatively, and their legs were spread to show their private areas.”
“I can see why it’s been hard to get that image out of your mind,” I said, trying to be a supportive friend.
“Yeah. It’s been hard…I’m ashamed to admit it, but I bought one of the magazines. I have it hidden in my bedroom.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, really…there is something that changes in me when I look at those pictures. I feel like a part of me dies inside, but I can’t help myself, and I’ve got to look at them.”
“Good thing you are still in your rumspringa,” I told him, trying to make light of the situation.
“Yeah, well,” he said, as we walked into the front yard of my parent’s farm house, “If I ever take the Ordnung, I’ll have to give all that up. No good, whole, Amish woman will want to marry me.
Chapter Five
There was something about John’s candor that caused me to feel incredibly attracted to him in that moment. His honesty about his struggles with the sins that we normally thought would be reserved for the English world made me feel something that I had never experienced before to that point. I could not say anything about it at that time, because my younger sister Lilith came running out of the house, and John began explaining who he was, why he was there, and why I was with him.
He helped me to my bedroom, where I sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Thank you, John,” I told him. For everything.”
“It’s not a problem,” he answered.
“Will I see you again?”
“Do you want to?” he asked, seemingly surprised…with maybe a note of excitement.
“Yes, I do,” I answered with a smile. “Maybe after my head has healed, I can thank you properly.”
“I’ll look forward to it. Well, I need to get home, our field needs plowing as well. It’s been a great pleasure speaking with you, Jenny,” he said, smiling, “Even if your head was hurting you the whole time. And it was a pleasure meeting you, Lilith.” And with that, he swooped out of the room, almost like he was running away from something or someone.
I spent the next week in bed, waiting for my head to quit hurting. My sister brought me meals in bed, and Father and Mother excused me from all my chores, which I really needed, because every time I stood up, I felt as if I was going to vomit, and Mother said that was because of the injury to my head.
Finally, after that first week, I was able to get up and move around on my own, some. After two weeks, I felt almost new, and was able to walk the apple pie that Mother made for John’s family over to their farm. When I knocked on the door of their house, his mother met me at the door.
“You must be Jenny!” she said, greeting me with a smile.
“Yes ma’am,” I answered, returning her smile easily.
“I must tell you, young lady, John has not been able to stop talking about you since the day he walked you home.”
“Well, he saved my life. Is he home?”
“Yes, he is planting in the north field. I daresay that you would like to see him?”
“Yes, that would be great.”
“Well, don’t let me keep you, dear,” she said. “Just follow the path that is to the left of our barn,” she said, indicating the large building that was near their house. “Follow that, and you will come to our north field. He is probably eating his lunch. I don’t know what we’d do without him,” she said affectionately.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling and waving as I walked toward their barn. The walk to the north field was not a long one, but was a rocky path that looked as if it had received quite a lot of use over the years. I had to go through a small copse of trees to reach the field, and though I could see an old donkey tied to an oak tree, there was no sign of John.
“John!” I yelled for him.
“Yes?” came his reply from my right.
“Where are you?” I yelled back, walking in the direction of his voice.
“Over here by the creek!” I walked for about one hundred yards when I found him, lounging in a relaxed pose on the banks of a small creek, a loaf of bread in his hand. “Jenny!” he said when he saw who I was, “I’ve been hoping that you would come to see me before I left.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes, after I finish the planting. Remember? I told you that I would be going to Lansing with the construction company that I work for. To build apartments. You do remember, right?” he asked, looking concerned.
“Yes, I remember,” I said, grasping on to the memory that was stored in the recesses of my mind from the time that I was injured.
“Okay,” he said with a quick exh
ale of relieved breath.
“So…why were you hoping that I would come to visit?”
“Well…” he began, “to be honest, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I left you at your farm two weeks ago.”
There it was. That floating sensation that I had been getting every time I thought about that walk home with him was back. Every time I considered him in my mind, I could find no fault with him, and to hear his blunt honesty about how he hasn’t been able to stop thinking of me only served to make the feeling stronger.
“Well?” he said, questioningly.
“Well what?”
“Well…aren’t you going to say something?”
“I—” I began, my voice catching in my throat. “I—can’t stop—thinking of you…either.”
“Really?” he asked softly, easing himself to his feet. “And what do you think of me?”
“I think that I can never really repay you for what you did for me.”
“Anything else?”
“I—I think that I…that I might have fallen in love with you.”
“Well…I know that I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said softly, taking my face in his large, calloused right hand. “I know that wherever you are, I want to be there, too. You are the only person that I have ever been able to be myself with, and you didn’t run away scared…I can’t help but love you.”
I looked into his amazingly blue eyes, trying to communicate without words everything that I was feeling in that moment…I still can’t quite explain the hunger that I felt.
Luckily, I didn’t have too…John kissed me, and we both fell into each other’s arms, there in the grass beside the creek in his family’s north field.
Chapter Six
I know that I should have felt guilty later because of what happened, but I didn’t. John left the next day, and I was caught up in the glow of passion that I felt for him. After our encounter beside the creek, he wanted to stay at home, but pressure from his family dictated that he would have to go to Lansing.
The Time Turner Page 7