by Naomi Niles
“It’s a lot like Iowa there, Gwyne. We have Amish communities there, too. It’s the ideal farming land.” My God, was he actually being supportive? Was this was having someone’s interest at heart all about?
“I know… I’ve been reading about it. Just stay put and I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Want me to come out when I get a break?” His voice was filled with emotion and hurt. I knew I would feel the same way if the situation was reversed. We both knew this felt like a good-bye, and I had to let him think that for a painful interlude so that he would stay away.
“No. I’d rather not. It would be too hard to say goodbye a second time. Just keep busy and this time will pass quickly.” As much as I hated to say this, if he saw my condition, he’d step in and I’d lose my options.
He sounded hesitant, but he knew me well enough to know that I’d made up my mind.
“I’ll miss you,” he said simply and disconnected the line. I knew he was on the verge of very un-masculine tears and didn’t want me to hear it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The paper had placed me in the home of the Troyers, an Amish man and his granddaughter who paralleled my own life to a certain extent. Katie was his granddaughter and unmarried, having lost her own mother in childbirth. Nevertheless, it was a fairly peaceful community of moderate Amish views. Jacob Troyer was in advanced years and I knew when I met him that he was wise and well-respected in the community. There was a deference paid him and it put me in mind of the way the firefighters treated my own dad.
They welcomed me with gentle smiles and nods, Jacob saying he was honored that we would look to his values and faith as a role model for a community in upstate New York. While I sensed that an outsider was unusual to take in, I hoped I could be as unobtrusive as possible so as not to offend them.
I should have left my own clothes at home as Katie immediately escorted me to what would be my bedroom and there was a dress, apron, bonnet, and underthings of a true Amish woman. I felt at peace putting them on; it felt like a relief from so much that I’d left behind.
I’d read about the Amish while in school and thought they were a curious culture. Now, here I was, living in their midst and with a baby complicating the matter. I instantly picked up on the reverence and respect of their ways; it was obvious in their body language and actions. It was an unexpectedly pleasant change from the big city pace. Once again, I considered the higher power that gave me this timely opportunity.
Settling in took little time because the Troyers lived sparsely and their days seemed to be filled with little more than a succession of physical work designed to keep them isolated from the world at large. Their farm was fully operational and it was not only their work, but the source of income and food. I was struck by the vulnerability of it; there were no layers of people milling about—no fire trucks or police directing traffic jams. They simply didn’t have traffic. I felt innocent—more than they were, because I’d never considered what life was like outside the big city. It seemed I was about to learn far more about life.
It was spring and that meant storms in the Midwest. I noted through the window as I dressed that one was, indeed, approaching. I hurried to finish with the large buttons and joined Katie outside the kitchen door in the main yard.
As it turned out, it was a day that would change many lives and perhaps that was why the storm looked so fierce. Katie’s sweet, blue eyes were worriedly focused on the western sky as the boiling, charcoal clouds quickly obscured the afternoon sun. I could see her fearful stance as I approached her.
The Troyers evidently grew a great deal of corn as the young plants could be seen extending over the gentle rise of their fields. The corn had sprouted heartily, its stalks furiously waving away the storm in the rising wind. It threatened the order and bountiful peace of this bucolic community spread upon the sun-bathed and fertile fields of northern Indiana. It struck me that corn was not something that came in a can, but a support of daily lives here. Should something happen that their crop didn’t mature, they stood to lose painfully. I knew the Amish tended to help one another, but shuddered to think that something like that approaching storm could take out an entire community in one swipe.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Katie called for Jacob who, it appeared, must have gone to the dairy barn to carry out some chores.
He emerged at her summons, wiping his brow with a handkerchief as the humidity of the afternoon had turned the air, which was already unbearably hot for that time of year, into a steamy, bovine-fragrant damp cloud. He followed Katie’s pointing finger and frowned as he saw what would be soon descending upon them. A growl of thunder warned that the Troyers should see to their livestock, and quickly. I felt their alarm and as the daughter of a firefighter, I was called upon to act and help them.
Jacob motioned to his granddaughter and I to tend to the opened windows of the house and the freshly washed laundry hanging upon its lines while he hurried to finish milking and bring the horses under cover.
The wind was wrapping Katie’s skirt about her ankles, making it difficult to walk. It was necessary for her to lean forward into the wind to reach the clothes. Two of her caps had already escaped their pins and were tumbling across the grass into the flowerbed next to the kitchen garden. Katie frowned, knowing she would have to let them go in the rapidly-approaching maelstrom. I motioned to her to continue and went after them myself. I could feel the excitement rising in the coming storm and this was unlike anything I’d experienced in the city.
She quickly snapped the remaining articles from the clothesline, not bothering to fold or even set them into the basket. Arms loaded, she headed for the house with its recently painted exterior. It stood starkly white against the darkening sky, as if to proclaim its right to remain standing.
Just as we were about to enter the side door, a black buggy appeared. Passing in front of the house, the reigns smartly snapping in the wind as an Amish man was furiously trying to beat the storm. He tipped his hand from the brim of his hat. Katie nodded, her arms full and besides, apparently it would be unseemly to wave.
Indoors, Katie dropped the garments onto the beautiful, oak dining table and ran up the stairs to close the windows in the small, but cozy bedrooms I’d peeked into before coming downstairs earlier. Coming back down, she looked out and saw Daddy, as I’d also come to think of him, pulling one of the horses by the reins into the barn. The horse, who Katie told me was named Maizie, was upset and balking. She told me this was a bad sign because Maizie was one of their calmest animals and that she was Daddy’s favorite to use with the buggy on Sunday afternoons. I could tell she was self-conscious when she explained that when the English were in the area, out for Sunday drives, they often slowed to stare. Their cars sometimes startled the other horses, but Maizie was cool-tempered. From her hurried explanations, I had gathered that English was how the Amish community referred to as anyone not born and raised in their community.
Katie quickly saw to the other opened windows before we stepped out onto the porch and she began pushing the rockers tightly up against the house exterior. I helped her as she hurriedly moved the flower planters beneath the chairs, I supposed to help their blossoms survive the wind. “God is serious,” she told me. This much was becoming exceedingly clear.
Back inside, an horrific howl had begun and the glass in the windows protested as hail began to beat upon their panes. Katie and I peered out of the kitchen window and saw the barn doors standing open. Daddy was nowhere in sight and Katie shivered as she worried aloud that something was very wrong. Suddenly, and with no thought for her own safety, Katie grabbed the laundry basket and, holding it over her head to protect herself from the onslaught of hail, ran for the barn. I grabbed a thick towel and followed her. We could hear Maizie’s frantic cries over the noise of the wind—something that scared us even more.
A bucket tumbled across the yard and struck Katie in the ankle, causing her to fall. The laundry basket was also blown from her grasp, and now
she seemed stunned and unable to move her right ankle. I ran to her side but Katie had closed her eyes, apparently believing that God’s will had come to them. She began to softly sing one of their hymns, as if she might please God if she were about to go home. I couldn’t get her to budge, no matter how loudly I screamed. I finally tried to drag her but was worried for my baby. I hunkered down beside her and waited for the worst.
Her eyes tightly closed, as I listened, Katie began to sing a little louder, as if ensuring that God might hear her prayer. The wind grated our soft cheeks with a sheet of sand and tiny pebbles and Katie threw her arm upward over her face to protect herself. Her ankle had to be sending throbbing pain but she appeared in her religious fervor to no longer feel it. Even as I felt the fury of the storm overcoming us both, I could only marvel at the obvious reverence and comfort her religion gave her.
It came as some surprise when I suddenly felt the wind shift direction and lessen slightly. Katie lifted her arm away and ventured a peek, first at me, and then at the figure who stood next to us. A man’s face was looking concernedly down into hers and he was barely inches away. He was the Amish man I recognized driving by and whose name I later came to know as Mark Miller. He bent and lifted her, carrying her to set her inside, on the barn’s wooden, plank floor as I followed. As we watched, he turned and ran for the doors, pulling them shut and sliding the locking board into place.
Mark turned and looked at us then, but Maizie was kicking the stall behind her and Katie’s attention turned to the shrieking horse. I saw a look of horror pass her face and looked to find what she was seeing. I could see Daddy’s boot extending from within Maizie’s stall, and it was not moving. Katie screamed softly and pointed and Mark flew past her to the stall.
He bent and we could not hear what he was saying above the wind, but his tone was comforting and sad. Mark kneeled and was leaning forward.
“Daddy!” Katie cried. She tried to stand, but the pain in her ankle must have said otherwise and the best she could do was to drag herself with her arms closer to the stall. I went to help her and what we saw there would forever remain imprinted in my memory.
Daddy was unquestionably dead, his head distorted and red with blood. Katie screamed as she recognized that Daddy had obviously been the victim of Maizie’s frightened hooves, the stall small and confining.
Mark looked about and spotted an old, threadbare quilt lying over a sawhorse. He retrieved it and placed it over Jacob’s still body and then, placing his hands beneath Jacob, managed to drag him out of reach of Maizie’s crazed hoofs.
Katie had begun to cry and I wrapped myself around her. Mark, realizing that Jacob was beyond his help, moved to Katie, putting his arm over her sobbing shoulder to comfort her as well. It obviously hurt him to see her suffering and he seemed to feel helpless but respectful of the power of his God in that moment. His head tilted upward as he mouthed what I imagined was a prayer for Jacob. I knew I was witnessing a pure love and a testimony to a faith I’d never experienced.
They stayed like that, Mark crouched and comforting Katie as the storm threw anything it could lift against the barn walls at us. Mark said that the barn would hold, its structure strongly built by the Amish craftsmen using the knowledge that had been handed down through the generations. He explained to me that in the local community were carpenters and it was at this moment that I felt gratitude for their knowledge.
When the fury finally abated, Mark patted Katie’s shoulder one last time and then stood with apparent resolve to begin the journey of recovery. He lifted the locking board, but when he pushed against the barn doors, they would not budge. He muttered aloud that something must be blocking them from the outside.
Using the locking board as a battering ram, he tried to break through, without success. Returning to Katie’s weeping body, he said, “Katie, the door, it is blocked from the outside. I will go up into the loft and see if I can get out through the hay window. Stay here and try not to cry. I will find us help.” He only delivered me a brief look.
As I watched, Mark ascended the wooden ladder leading to the hayloft and climbed over the heat-steamed bales until he reached the window at the far wall. He pushed against it and it turned out this was actually doors as well. They swung open and I left Katie long enough to carefully scale the ladder and join him.
All about us was utter destruction, save for the house; it stood tall and proud against the landscape of flattened fields of corn. The kitchen garden looked as if trounced by a herd of animals, tomatoes hurled against the house, which now looked as if it, too, were bleeding. Trees were uprooted and lay over the yard and across the road. His buggy had blown over and lay against the barn doors, which accounted for the resistance he had found in opening them. His horse was nowhere to be seen and he began praying aloud that the animal had managed to pull loose and find shelter.
I leaned forward and watched as Mark leapt forward from the window, grabbing the rope that was suspended from the overhead pulley, and slid to the ground. He stood for a long moment, assessing his situation and considering what he could do. I reasoned that the buggy was too heavy for him to right alone, and he began to whistle for his horse. To our immense relief, the animal appeared shortly, looking ragged, but unhurt. The harness still in place, the reins loose at its side.
At least the leather reins appeared strong. Working feverishly, Mark rigged a sort of cable with them, fastening them to the chassis of the buggy and finally managing to right it. Once done, he moved his horse into position and connected the harness once again, this time pulling the buggy away from the barn doors.
He could now easily open the doors and I went back down the ladder and joined Katie. He picked her up and carefully carried her into the house as I followed, laying her upon the bed in Jacob’s lower floor bedroom.
“Stay here and do not move, Katie. I will go for help. Sleep if you can; it will help the pain,” he urged and quickly went outdoors. He looked to me and I silently nodded, understanding his plea. There would be no way to navigate a roadway likely blocked with fallen trees unless he rode the horse, so he set about this immediately.
Katie crossed her arms upon her chest and softly sang hymns to keep herself calm. Although I had only just arrived, I tried to comfort her and urged her not to think about her beloved Daddy, whose body, I knew, at that moment lay in the barn beneath an old quilt.
Now her grandfather was gone and Katie was alone. With her God’s help, I would look after her.
Chapter Thirty
Everywhere you looked, there was devastation and there was no shortage of people who came to stare. English loved to drive through the community to gather tidbits out of curiosity and share them with their friends over coffee. That day, more so than normally, they were completely and utterly in the way.
Katie lay patiently, waiting for Mark to return, and tried very hard not to think about Daddy. The afternoon had turned to evening and there was a steady, soft rain tapping for our attention at the windows. She told me she thought about the livestock to feed, the cows to be milked, and most of all, Daddy’s body lying alone in the dark barn. Although she was visibly trying very hard not to, she could not help but have tears coating her cheeks. I could tell she was coming to terms with the idea that she was all alone.
Katie was worried and to pass the time until help arrived, told me about the children she taught in a two-room schoolhouse not terribly far from Daddy’s farm. There were about thirty students spread among the eight grades, and except for an occasional helping hand from some of the older students, she was responsible for them all. I voiced my amazement at that workload and she said quietly, “The elders do not place a high value on the English type of education. I do the best I can because I’m the only one to help the students.” She went on to explain that she knew God had a plan for each and every one of them, but she hoped He would not need anyone other than Daddy from their community. Daddy, it seemed, had led a solid, representational life and would be granted all that G
od would have waiting for him.
There was a commotion outdoors from somewhere in the dark and we heard Mark’s voice. He was quietly, but firmly, giving instructions to others to put Daddy’s body into one of the carriages so that it could be transported to the funeral home for embalming. We could hear the voices of men in response and soon there was a knock at her door, and then it opened.
“Katie?” called a woman’s voice. The figure came into the room bearing a lighted lamp that she set upon a table. Katie saw her and explained that it was Mark’s sister, Anna, and behind Anna was Frau Miller, her mother. Katie quickly introduced us. The women made clucking noises with their tongues and muttered a few blessings as they saw Katie’s condition and my torn and filthy state. Frau Miller held a basket over her arm; she set it down at the foot of Katie’s bed and began pulling out supplies she had brought with her.
“Anna, bring the light closer and light the lamps,” she said in an authoritative voice. I learned later that she was the wife of an elder and accustomed to getting her way: a highly respected member of the community.
Anna did as she was told and I could see the glow as lamps that sat throughout the sparsely furnished downstairs rooms were lighted. Frau Miller quietly and efficiently examined Katie’s ankle and pronounced it not broken. “It will take some time for the healing,” she said in the voice that I knew was never questioned. Katie nodded and closed her eyes in a tearful acceptance.
Frau Miller left the room to draw water into a pan and returned to bathe Katie’s foot, as well as the rest of her. She ordered me to bathe as well, which I did quickly from the same pan of water. She then left and soon returned with a black dress for Katie. Once Katie was dressed, she drew the quilts up to Katie’s chin for modesty and nodded to Anna, who went to the kitchen door and told Mark and the others they could come in then.