The Bridge of Peace

by Cindy Woodsmall

  Deciding Mandy had the best head on her shoulders, she turned to her. “Can you drive my rig to Ephraim’s place by yourself? He’s got the closest phone. Tell him Elmer has fallen off a swing and may have broken his arm.”

  Upon hearing those words, Elmer started crying harder. Lena placed her hand on his head, comforting him. If he’d done as she’d said, he’d be at his desk safe and sound right now.

  “Ya, I think so.”

  Lena moved in front of Mandy. “I need you to drive careful and deliberate. This isn’t an emergency, but we need an Englischer driver and Elmer’s parents so he can be taken to the doc in Shippensburg. Can you be very, very careful?”

  She nodded.

  “Jacob, hitch my horse to its rig, and then come directly inside. Is that clear?”

  “Ya.” Jacob’s wide eyes told her he’d do exactly as she’d just demanded.

  With her arm around Elmer, she guided him toward the schoolhouse.

  No matter how she handled the next couple of hours, she’d hear from upset parents. If not tonight, then at the school board meeting next Tuesday. She’d have to explain these incidents and her actions.

  And all she wanted to do was work with her students and teach, not be second-guessed by the parents.

  Dwayne laughed so hard he almost choked on his dinner as Peter finished telling about the dead cat and Elmer getting hurt.

  “That girl is sorely lacking in what it takes to be a good teacher.” His Mamm pointed a finger at him. “But what happened to those children isn’t funny, Dwayne.” Mamm held a plate out to him, offering him more pot roast.

  Dwayne slapped his brother on the back. “Does serve her right, though, don’t it?”

  Peter shrugged. “It’s not like cats matter no way. They fill up the barns like mice and rats, and we shoot ’em, but I did feel a little bad for Marilyn. She’s terrified people are going to throw her in a dark hole if she dies.”

  No one said a word. Dwayne finished his meal and shoved his chair back from the table. “Don’t be such a wuss, Peter. What do you care how anybody feels? Set a goal—like getting even with that teacher—and enjoy hitting the target. It’s that easy.”

  “Dwayne,” Mamm corrected, “watch your language, and we don’t want to get even with her. I’d like to see her step down and get somebody in there who knows what she’s doing. It’s just like at our last Amish school. The teacher has no quality to her. That’s all.”

  Daed pushed his empty plate away and propped his forearms on the table. “Now your mother was a great teacher in her day.”

  “Ya.” Dwayne stood, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “So we’ve heard.” Unwilling to listen to any more stories about when his mother taught some twenty-five years ago, he walked out the back door and straight to the barn. At the back, under stacks of baled hay, he removed a Hot-Shot—his brand-new electric-current cattle prod. If that teacher thought a dead cat and a broken swing were problems, she hadn’t driven a horse after it’d been on the receiving end of a Hot-Shot all night.

  Thirteen

  Deborah turned another page in the magazine, reading a true account of a family using a portion of their farm for a pumpkin patch. The aroma of shoofly pies and Amish bread pudding filled the kitchen as she waited on them to finish baking. Their commercial-sized oven had six shelves, all filled with pies, and their family-sized oven had the bread pudding.

  Based on what she’d read, she and Ada could not do this venture alone, not even with Cara’s help. “According to this article, we’ll need a lookout tower of some sort.”

  From her position at the sink washing dishes, Ada glanced over her shoulder at Deborah. “A lookout tower?”

  “Ya, it’s a structure built in the middle of the cornfield maze. One of us can climb it to see the people inside the maze. If someone gets stuck, we can have a visual of them to send someone else in to lead them out, or we can give directions through a bullhorn. If you’re selling baked goods and I have to go in to get them, who will come lead me out?”

  Thoughts of all it’d take to set up a pumpkin patch kept running through her head. Unfortunately, she hadn’t yet managed to secure use of the cornfield. She’d gone to the owner’s house on Monday and Tuesday, but no one answered the door or appeared to be home. She’d had the same result this morning and intended to return again this evening, just like the other two days. Maybe they were on vacation.

  Ada rinsed her hands and grabbed a dishtowel. “You’re saying that like it’s a joke, but you’re really worried about getting lost in that maze, aren’t you?”

  It surprised her how well Ada read her sometimes. “A little.” But the truth was, parts of her were terrified. Since Mahlon had left, she either felt grief or anxiety wadded up like a bale of hay smack in the middle of her chest most days. And she’d had enough.

  When she heard voices and an odd noise, Deborah went to the back door and peered out. Not seeing anyone, she turned back to Ada.

  Ada slung the dishtowel over her shoulder. “We’ll get the hang of all this. I just know we will.”

  Jonathan’s words ricocheted around inside her like one of those super bouncy balls her little brother bought from a vending machine in town. Then do it while you’re scared. She’d never heard such perfect words in her life.

  The buzzer went off. Deborah took the pies out of the oven and set them on a cooling rack. “There’s so much to do, and we’re six months behind before we even start. But I think our goal should be to do what we can this year—buy pumpkins to sell. Next year we’ll grow them and let people pick them off the vine. We’ll build a small maze if we can get use of the field and have a simple hayride—and really be ready for business next year. Do you agree?”

  “Absolutely. I just hope the permits I have for operating my home business will cover what we need for a pumpkin patch.”

  “Ya. Robbie’s taking me to the courthouse later this week.” She tilted her head, listening to voices that seemed to be getting closer and the rhythmic echo of something being whacked.

  Ada looked out a side window. “I think someone’s in the cornfield, cutting stalks.”

  Deborah grabbed her sweater and ran out the front of the house, across the yard, and down the side alley until it opened up into the cornfield. There appeared to be about two Plain Mennonite men and one woman and then ten or so Englischer teens, all either cutting cornstalks or gathering them and hauling them to a nearby truck.

  “Excuse me,” Deborah called while hurrying toward them.

  One of the men stopped cutting stalks. He looked about twenty-something and had dark brown hair. The woman passed an armload of stalks to a teen and then walked closer while dusting off her cape dress. Deborah hoped the right words would come to her by the time she stood directly in front of the man.

  When she reached him, she drew a few deep breaths and straightened her apron. “I … I’ve been trying to reach the owner of this field.”

  The man jabbed the end of his machete into the ground. “An Englischer gentleman by the name of Carl Gilbert owns the field, but we work with a teen mission out of Harrisburg, and we rent the pasture from him.”

  “I’m Deborah Mast. My … business partner and I moved into the house that adjoins this property nearly four months ago, and I was hoping to rent this field with the stalks still standing.”

  “Business partner?” he asked.

  “Ada. We bake goods for some local bakeries. But we hope to expand.”

  “Is she the older woman? And the man we see around here regularly, is he a partner too?”

  “You’ve seen us?”

  “I suppose a better question is, you haven’t seen us? We harvested a lot of corn throughout the summer.”

  He would’ve had to set off dynamite for Deborah to notice anything but her own pain and confusion since moving in. “We … I … have been distracted. I apologize if in my state I was rude in any way. The older woman is Ada. The man is my brother. He lives in Dry Lake, and the younger wo
man is his fiancée.”

  He pulled a work glove off his right hand and held it out. “Ray Yoder.”

  She shook his hand.

  “And this is my mother, Joan.” She had a pleasant smile as she nodded.

  “Hi.” Deborah returned the nod before focusing on Ray. “Any chance we could work something out?”

  “We use this plot each year to teach inner-city teens about planting and growing and reaping. We do everything by hand, and right now we need these stalks for various fall festival events.”

  “There must be two acres here,” Deborah defended. “Do you need all the stalks?”

  His lips pursed, showing what might be amusement. “What we don’t use, we sell to local churches and schools who need some fall festival decorations, and then that money goes for the mission. We do it each year, and it brings in decent money—for dried-up stalks, that is.”

  “I think I can match that money. I sure was hoping to build a maze—you know, with huge swatches missing all throughout it.”

  He scratched his head, looking thoughtful. “Yeah, I know what a maze is. You’re thinking we could use the stalks from those cutout places to meet our real needs, and then you’d pay us for our losses in sales.” He studied her. “How much you figure is reasonable to rent this cornfield?”

  “I … I have no clue, and I don’t actually have any money to pay you right now. But I will … at least I think I will, if you could … give me time.”

  “Now how can I turn down such a sure thing?” He suppressed a smile.

  “I know how I sound, and I might not sleep tonight for feeling like I made a fool of myself asking to rent this field, but my concept for running a pumpkin patch is solid—a maze, hayrides, pumpkins, and baked goods to sell.”

  Joan pulled up the sleeves of her sweater past her elbows. “You don’t sound foolish. A little inexperienced maybe.”

  Ray rubbed his chin and lower cheek, staring at the field. “Usually by this time I’ve arranged to have most of the stalks removed. It just hasn’t worked out this year. Even today we only have a few who qualify to use machetes, and we only have a few hours to work.” He made a clicking sound with his mouth. “I guess if you harvested the stalks from the swatches you clear and were willing to pay … after you’ve made your money from the pumpkin patch, I can rent this field to you for the difference in sales.”

  “The difference between what you sell this year and what you sell when you clear the whole field?”

  “Yes. My guess is that will be somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty dollars.”

  She liked his willingness to treat her like a businessperson and not a confused girl. “That sounds great to me, although I don’t have anything to base it on. Can I talk to Ada first?”

  “Sure.”

  Deborah’s heart beat a little faster. “Would you care to come inside and have a slice of pie and some coffee while I talk with her? Everyone can come in.”

  “That’s an invite we’d never turn down,” Ray said.

  As they followed her into Ada’s, she commanded herself to breathe. She’d just made a step in the right direction, and it’d paid off. Mahlon had broken her, but she’d begun to heal.

  The Amish health clinic buzzed with people. Grey rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm to the lab technician. She placed an elastic band around his bicep, swabbed the skin in front of his elbow, and pushed a needle into his arm.

  “You’ve got great veins,” the young woman said. “Your wife does too.”

  Grey looked to Elsie. Her faint smile reflected cautious optimism, and he winked at her. Whether they received good news or bad when the time came, they’d agreed to make changes so their daily lives could move out of the miserable stage. Marriage could be a lot of things and people still be able to make it work, but few survived living in gloom.

  The lab technician removed a tube full of his blood from the syringe part and placed another tube inside it. They’d taken three vials of blood from Elsie.

  Doctor Stone had set up this clinic because some leaders in Grey’s community had sought him out before he finished his internship. Most Amish shied away from doctors, tests, and hospitals, but because Dr. Stone had been willing to learn about the Plain community and respected them, the people were becoming more open to seeking medical help. Grey trusted the man’s opinion, but the doc had said little about their concerns. He’d asked a lot of questions and then focused on Elsie’s side of the family. He uncovered the main reason why her aunt probably had so many children with birth defects. Her aunt was the fourth generation in a row who’d married a relative. But he’d agreed that it’d be best to run tests and then talk. Every word he said seemed to remove some of Elsie’s fears and inject hope into her.

  After snapping the third vial in place, the lab tech loosened the elastic on Grey’s arm. “We’ll send this off to the lab. Did the nurse or doctor tell you that it’ll take about two months to get the results back for this type of test?”

  “Ya.”

  Two months. He and Elsie had to wait two months before they’d learn the truth—either she’d been wrong all this time, or they had some tough realities to face.

  “Okay.” The woman placed gauze on his arm and removed the needle before securing the gauze with tape. “You’re all done.”

  Grabbing his jacket off the coatrack, Grey unrolled his sleeve. He and Elsie walked down the hallway and signed out. After he paid cash for the visit, they went out the back entrance to where he’d parked the buggy. So far the most important discovery they’d made over the last four days was the acknowledgement that they … actually, he needed a way to get from his plot of ground to hers. That whole concept felt very foggy right now, but it’d given him a clear goal … sort of. She’d admitted she couldn’t find it within herself to come to him—in any sense of what that might mean. But as they’d talked this week, she’d lowered a few of her walls and spoken more honestly than in the six previous years. If the blood work proved that she’d been right about their having a genetic issue, they would go to the bishop and ask for the right to use birth control. Grey had no idea what their chances were of getting permission, but what they most needed to happen between them had nothing to do with sex. He untied the reins from the hitching post, tossed them through the front open window of the buggy, and climbed inside. He accepted where they were as a couple, even where they might be years down the road.

  Acceptance of what couldn’t be changed was what couples did, wasn’t it?

  He drove down the side alley and waited until he could turn left. They rode through Shippensburg and kept going until they entered Dry Lake. He’d been so absorbed in his own thoughts, he’d not even tried to get her to talk.

  Ahead of them, at the Dry Lake Amish School, children were either getting into buggies or leaving on foot. Lennie stood on the steps, waving and speaking to parents as they picked up their children. He’d been told about the trouble happening at the school. A meeting had been called for next Tuesday, but he’d barely given it a thought. Disgruntled parents were the norm some years. Lennie knew that going in. The school board covered three Amish schools. He knew the goings-on in dozens of other Amish districts as well, and Lennie had more stamina for the difficult parts than any other teacher he’d heard of. But he hadn’t told Elsie about the scrapes happening under Lennie’s watch. He didn’t want her to doubt Lennie more than she already did.

  As they approached, the schoolyard cleared out, and Lennie went inside. He knew firsthand that the scholars under Lennie left the eighth grade better educated than most. She’d turn flips through a graveyard if she thought it would help those students learn a reading, writing, or math lesson.

  He looked to Elsie. “School’s out. And Ivan’s with Mamm. Do you want to drop by to talk to Lena now?”

  Elsie stiffened and then surprised him when she eased her hand over his and nodded.

  He pulled onto the graveled circular area and brought the rig to a stop.


  She pulled her hand away. “I … I really do want the tests to say I’ve been wrong.”

  “I know.” Grey got out of the buggy and tied the horse to the hitching post. “And I know you’re nervous about this, but I think it’ll do us both some good to get Lena’s opinion about Ivan.”

  As he looped the reins onto the post, Elsie climbed out of the carriage. Once on the steps of the schoolhouse, Grey opened the screen door for Elsie and walked in behind her.

  From behind her desk, Lennie stood.

  “Hey, Lennie. You got a few minutes?”

  “Ya. Kummet rei.” She stacked the papers up in front of her and slid them to the side.

  Grey grabbed a couple of foldout chairs that were resting against the back wall. “We came to talk to you about Ivan.”

  Lennie shook Elsie’s hand, welcoming her. But she and Grey went too far back for them to use any formalities. He leaned back in his chair and raised their questions about Ivan’s development. Lennie’s blue-green eyes reflected a lot of thoughts, but he knew she’d guard her words carefully.

  She folded her hands, looking more like a teacher than his closest friend’s kid sister. “When Ivan has been at my brother’s, I’ve spent time with the children, and we’ve played all sorts of games over the years, and I’ve never once thought he might be slow.” She angled her head, her sincerity shining through. “He’s quite introspective.”

  “What’s that mean?” Elsie asked.

  “He thinks a lot and talks only a little. He feels deeply, but he’s not one to share his thoughts or feelings easily. Basically he’s the opposite of me, which will keep him out of a lot of trouble in school, probably in life.” Lennie fidgeted with a pencil on her desk. “But don’t let his quietness give you the impression he’s not bright.”