by Tamar Myers
Mose sighed deeply, and by doing so, informed me that he, for one, had not shied away from the scrapple at breakfast. “Again with the piddles. But I was thinking, yah?”
“As we all must from time to time.”
“Perhaps it is more like the wooden duck.”
“In that case me thinkest thou meanest the Trojan horse.”
Mose scowled. It was the first time I’d ever seen him angry, and I immediately felt guilty. Me and my big mouth. But really, when you think about it, my flapping lips have got to be inherited from whomever birthed me, and so are not really my fault. Perhaps the woman from whose loins I slithered was a carnival caller. That would certainly explain a great deal.
“Magdalena, I do not speak of horses, but the ducks that hunters set on our ponds.”
“Ah, decoys!”
“Yah, the same. I think perhaps the not so good cow has been brought all this way from North Dakota so that we do not look so closely at the good cow.”
This time, I chewed my cud before speaking. “Yes, but this competition is supposed to be at a high level. Surely the Dorfman twins don’t think they can win with an entry that doesn’t meet objective criteria.”
“Is it possible they do not intend to win, only to sell the cow?”
“Ha! An interesting theory. But you would think they could find a buyer back home for the buxom bovine.”
“Not for this baby,” a voice behind me said.
I whirled, and found myself staring down into the flyaway eyebrows of Harmon Dorfman.
12
“Howdy-do, Miss Yoder,” Harmon said, and tipped a straw hat. He grinned.
“I’ll let you know when my heart stops racing.”
“And you must be an aye-mish man,” Harmon said and extended a beefy paw to Mose.
“Yah, I am Amish.”
“We have youse in North Dakota too. Best-looking farms I ever seen. Same thing here. Tell me, how many bushels of corn do youse get to an acre?”
“Okay, it’s stopped racing,” I said. “Do you often sneak up on people?”
“No, ma’am. Of course, I don’t get me much chance, on account of Harry and I don’t get out very much.”
“I thought your brother was married.”
“Oh he is, but she run back to her family after two weeks. So far he ain’t seen fit to go after her.”
“How long has it been?”
“Five years come July.”
Mose shook his head in bewilderment. Although he’s had to interact with us English his entire adult life, he still finds our ways strange. Funny, but I used to exclude myself from the category English, coming as I did from a Mennonite family that descended from Amish forebears. But that was then and this is now, as my pseudo-stepdaughter, Alison, says.
Now that I was no longer of the blood, but the unwanted offspring of a carnival caller—hmm, my biological mama might not have been the caller. She could just as well have been the bearded lady, or the amazing snake woman. What’s more, short of a DNA test, I had no proof who my papa was either. For all I knew, he could have been a count from Liechtenstein who’d done the extracurricular mattress mambo with a housemaid, who then handed me off to a passing carnival. Did that, perchance, make me a countess?
“Miss Yoder? Miss Yoder! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine as the bearded lady’s nose hair, and you may call me Countess Yoder-Rosen of Liechtenstein.”
“Ach,” Mose said. The poor man was, however, used to my flights of fancy.
“Miss Yoder, if you don’t mind me saying, you’re a hoot.”
“Owl accept that as a compliment. Tell me, Mr. Dorfman, why have you hauled this unremarkable cow all the way from North Dakota?”
“Because Cindy Sue—that’s her name—ain’t unremarkable, on account of the other one, Cora Beth, is her clone.”
“Excuse me?”
“Youse know what a clone is, Miss Yoder, right?”
“I read newspapers, Mr. Dorfman, as well as the Bible.” A clone! Perhaps that applied to me. Okay, so scientists had yet to clone a human forty-eight years ago—at least not one that we know of—but it was possible the government had been working on it secretly. After all, if we really knew everything that the government has been up to, it would boggle our minds to the point that we’d all go insane.
And if I was a clone, that would go a long way to explain the feeling I’ve always had that somewhere there is an identical twin just waiting to be reunited with me. But even if scientists could clone the human body, what about the soul? Would the new person have one? If not, would they still be human, or just look like one? And if the soul could be cloned, and the original person was “saved,” would the clone be saved as well? What if the pope was cloned, and his clone disagreed with him on theological issues? Who would be infallible?
“You sure don’t look very well, Miss Yoder.”
“Yah,” Mose said. “Magdalena, I think maybe you should sit down.”
“Sitting is for wusses. Continue, dear, with this cloning gibberish.”
“It’s not gibberish. You see, Harry has himself a biology degree from the University of North Dakota. When all this cloning stuff started happening, he took special notice, and studied up on it. Then one day, he and some of his buddies decided to try and clone a Holstein. The rest, as they say, is historic.”
“That would be ‘history,’ dear.”
“That’s what I’m telling youse.”
“Then why haven’t I heard about it before now?”
“’Cause it’s top secret, on account of this time the clone—that would be Cora Beth—turned out better than the original. I mean, see for yourself.”
“I see an exceptional cow and an average one. How am I supposed to tell which is which?”
“Um—well, I guess youse is gonna have to trust me on that one, Miss Yoder. But I don’t got no reason to lie to you. Anyway, as soon as word of this gets out, they’ll likely be a million scientists clamoring to test this baby. They’ll be lots of folks wanting to buy her too. At top dollar.”
“So that’s why you brought her all this way? To create a media sensation at my Holstein competition?”
“With all due respect, ma’am, I didn’t know it was your competition.”
“You know what I mean, and there’ll be nothing of the kind. This is an event the sole purpose of which is to select America’s best dairy cow; this is not a circus. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am. But could I bring my own reporter?”
“No clone, no press announcement.”
“But Miss Yoder—”
“Is this a legitimate question?”
But it was Mose’s hand that popped up. “Yah, Magdalena, I have a question.”
“Yes, Mose?”
“What does it mean, this clone?”
“It means—well, in a nutshell it means that scientists are trying to play God, and that in this case in particular, Harry and his buddies were able to take a microscopic piece of so-so Cindy Sue and turn it into the breathtaking Cora Beth.”
“Ach! Like at creation?”
“Pretty much.”
“Get behind me, Satan,” Mose said, and wisely fled the scene.
“Just so you know,” I said to Harmon Dorfman, “if fire and brimstone rain down on my farm, you’ll have to reimburse me.”
Hernia, Pennsylvania, is a charming little town—or so I’ve heard—set, as it is, in a valley between two wooded mountain ridges in southern Pennsylvania. It’s a nice place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit. After one has spent several hours staring at its inhabitants, there is nothing else for tourists to do. We have no movie theaters, no shopping malls, just a feed store and a dismal little grocery that sells outrageously priced products bearing expiration dates written in ancient Phoenician. The last is only a slight exaggeration.
We are a simple people, and although we tend to be conservative, we do not vote for the shedding of blood. Yes, we do have Baptists and Methodists in
our midst, but for the most part they have been tempered by their proximity to folks of the Amish and Mennonite faiths, both of which abide by pacifist principles.
Many people think that Mennonite and Amish are interchangeable terms, but they most certainly are not. The Mennonite Church began in the 1500s and was named after Menno Simons. A century later, the Amish Church, under the leadership of Jakob Ammann, broke away from the Mennonite Church, claiming it was too liberal. Both churches have undergone many changes over the centuries, but their relative differences remain.
The First Mennonite Church is the most liberal branch of the Plain People in Hernia and its environs. The most conservative is the Old Order Amish Church. Its members are the ones seen riding horses and buggies. Then there are the Black Bumper Amish, who are allowed to drive black cars just as long as the chrome is painted black. I belong to a conservative branch of the Mennonite Church, the one to which the Good Lord would belong if he were living on earth today. I drive and use electricity, but dress conservatively, like the Good Lord intended, and wear my braids neatly tucked beneath a white organza prayer cap. For the record, I do not consider myself better than anyone else in Hernia, not even the Presbyterians. I believe that in Heaven, we will all be together—except for some Baptists, who will have their own neighborhood.
Oops, I may have fibbed: try as I might, I can’t help feeling that I am a little bit better than Samuel Nevin Yoder, the owner of Yoder’s Corner Market. Sam is—or at least was, until certain recent disclosures—a first cousin of mine. We are the same age, which means I sat in front of him all through grammar school. Not only did Sam dip my braids in the inkwell on his desk, he often sat on my lunch bag, regularly passed gas loudly before pointing to me, and on at least three occasions clapped the chalk-filled erasers on my ears. It wasn’t until high school that I learned that Sam had done all these things because of a crush on me.
As early as our sophomore year in high school, Sam proposed marriage, urging me to elope with him to South Carolina, where kinship and age were both less of an issue. I hotly refused. In the intervening decades, Sam married a Methodist woman, Dorothy, and even became a Methodist himself, but his crush on me has never waned.
One might think that his feelings for me would result in a price break at his store, but then one would be wrong. As a result, shoddy merchandise aside, I almost never shop at Yoder’s Corner Market, but I do stop by regularly to get the scuttlebutt on the latest Hernia happenings. As mayor of this little burg, I see that as my duty.
The market’s front door has a string of sleigh bells attached to it. “Well, well,” Sam called out, in a voice so nasal one would have thought he was a native of Manhattan, “if it isn’t the blushing bride.”
“Good morning, Sam.”
“Honestly, Magdalena, you’re positively glowing. I haven’t seen a face that radiant since my Dorothy was a girl.”
“She had oily skin, dear—but it cleared up nicely, don’t you think?”
“Everywhere but on her back. So, what can I do you out of?”
“Not my money, that’s for sure. Sam, I suppose you heard about Doc.”
“Agnes Mishler called last night. Around ten, I think it was. If I get my hands around the son of a—”
His last word was muffled by the gasps of several Amish women who were shopping among the stacks. Just how they knew to anticipate it is beyond me. As for moi, I married a man from the Fallen Apple. Enough said.
I moved closer to my cousin, but not within kissing range. “What about your customers? Anything you’ve heard so far this morning that might raise a red flag?”
“You know I don’t gossip about my customers.”
The Amish women murmured their appreciation.
“If your lips were any looser,” I said, “the next time you sneezed, they’d fly right off your face.”
Not only did he take that as a compliment, but he had the nerve to grin. “Well, Connie Betz said she hoped Doc had a long recovery.”
“That way she can visit him in the hospital, and her husband won’t be any wiser.”
He looked crestfallen. “Is that so? How did you know they were an item?”
“They’re not an item, Sam. Connie keeps pursuing Doc, but he isn’t the least bit interested in her. Doc may be a Lothario, but he does set certain standards; married women is one of the places he draws the line.”
“Hmm.”
“Anything else?”
“Nah. You know as well as I do that Doc is everyone’s favorite old geezer. Almost makes me wish I was his age.”
“Trust me, dear, it isn’t just Doc’s age that makes him attractive to women.”
“Ouch, that hurt.”
“I’m referring to his cooking. Just because food is the way to a man’s heart, doesn’t mean women can’t be seduced by it as well. Besides, not only can Doc cook, but he knows how to make a woman feel waited on hand and foot.”
“Magdalena, are you smitten by him?”
“What? No! I am happily married—and glowing. You said so yourself.”
Sam had the temerity to look relieved. Apparently, the Babester didn’t count as competition, given that he was an outsider, and as such wasn’t likely to stick around.
“Yup,” he said, “you’re glowing like a jack-o’-lantern with two candles inside.”
“Thanks—I think. Sam, you wouldn’t happen to know of anyone who’d be qualified to judge the Holstein competition on a minute’s notice, would you?”
“You betcha.”
“Who?”
“You’re looking at his handsome mug.”
“You?”
“Do you forget, oh my fair one, that I was raised on a dairy farm, just like you were? In fact, my pops was in charge of the breeding book for the tri-counties. He had me milking by the time I was four—and not with machines either. No sirree, Bob, my little hands were squeezing teats before they’d even picked up a pencil.”
That certainly explained a great deal; no wonder Dorothy Yoder walked around with a pained expression on her face. I shook my head vigorously to clear it of some very unpleasant images.
“But I did,” Sam insisted.
“The judges don’t get paid, you know.”
“Magdalena, what must you think of me? I wouldn’t be doing it for the money. Even a lowlife like me can want to give back to the community.”
“I’ve never called you a lowlife!”
“Then maybe it’s because you have your hair pulled back in that severe bun that I can read your mind.”
“Who knew it was in large print? But seriously, Sam, who will watch the store?”
“I’ll get Dorothy. She can bring chocolate-covered bonbons with her. I’ll drag in the couch from the back room and set up a little color TV here by the register. She won’t even notice the difference.”
“I need you tomorrow morning. Can you rent a forklift truck that soon?” In the twenty years she’s been married, Dorothy, bless her dear Methodist heart, has eaten her way from a size six to a special-made size sixty. Sam has had to install double doors throughout his house, but getting his wife from the house to another location always presents a challenge.
“I’ll manage. If I have to, since it’s downhill all the way, I’ll wrap her in bubble wrap and roll her.”
“Sam, that’s awful—still, it did work for the Taste of Hernia Festival last summer. And if I recall correctly, it was her idea.”
“Yup, the only bad part was that she had to wait two weeks before I could roll her back up. So, see you tomorrow?”
“Nine o’clock sharp. And bring your glasses.”
I waited patiently for two tourist-driven cars and the Gindlespergers’ buggy to pass before hoofing it over to pay my regards to young Chris.
13
The Hernia police station is directly across the street from Sam’s. While standing in the doorway of the grocery, one could literally throw a stale roll and hit a police officer as he, or she, exits the building. I’
m not advocating such behavior, mind you, but recalling those good times are the only decent memories I have of Melvin Stoltzfus, our erstwhile chief. Although the police station was my next order of business, the Devil had other plans for me.
Adjacent to Sam Yoder’s Corner Market is Hernia’s only public phone booth. For all the difference it would make, there may as well be a sign out front restricting its use to Amish only. We Mennonites have cell phones, but the Amish don’t even have landlines in their houses. For so-called “matters of importance,” they wait patiently in a queue for the opportunity to call other phone booths in distant Amish communities. To my knowledge, I, Magdalena Portulaca Yoder, am the only non-Amish person to have used the phone in the last ten years. But like I said, the Devil had my number now.
Of course, it wasn’t all my fault; although the Amish are long-suffering, I could see that Rebecca Bumgardner had used more than her fair share of minutes, as well as goodwill. This was evident in the body language of the others waiting in line, some of whom were asleep on their feet. When I saw Rebecca hang up and dial again, that’s when I listened to Lucifer. After five minutes or so, just as the loquacious Miss Bumgardner was fishing in her apron pocket for another phone number, I hit the speed dial on my cell. Since calls frequently come in to that phone, Rebecca answered as a matter of course.
“Hello?”
“Gut marriye,” I said in Dutch. I spoke as low as I could.
“Yah, gut marriye.”
Having all but exhausted my Amish vocabulary, I switched to King James English. “Rebecca Bumgardner, dost thou not know that selfishness is a sin?”
Rebecca’s first reaction was to look skyward. A solitary cloud was drifting slowly overhead. In a theology where Heaven is “up,” this phenomenon added a great deal to the atmosphere.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“I am who I am.”
“Ach!” The poor child—she is only fourteen, after all—nearly dropped the receiver. “Are you He?”
“Do I sound like a he?”
“Not so much.”
“Rats—I mean wrath. My wrath shall be visited upon teenage girls who hog the phone.”