Henry reached Kidron Road and turned north. He was looking for the turnoff to Nussbaum Road. That was the shortcut that took almost a mile off the trip into Dalton. The wind had picked up, and Henry could feel the car shake as the gusts struck. The snow was thick, and visibility was only about three hundred feet. Still, Henry wanted to get to Dalton before the worst of it hit, so he picked up speed. He leaned forward, peering through the window as the snow closed in. Visibility was decreasing.
He slowed down a bit. What was that ahead? Something in the road, but what? It was some black...Before he could finish the thought, the cow turned toward the car and into its path. Henry pulled the car to the right to swing around the animal and then jerked the wheel to the left.
The confused cow stood her ground as the car hit her in the hindquarters. She spun around and then staggered off up the road.
Henry tried to turn into the skid as he felt himself sliding off the road, but the big Buick lost traction, and the rear end began to swing around, guiding the car over the side of the road backward and into a ditch.
When the car settled, Henry took stock of himself and asked, “You okay, Missus Springer?”
“I think I twisted my neck,” Jerusha said. “But other than that I seem to be all in one piece.”
Henry climbed out of the car and went around to the back to look at the now-blown tires.
Then he made his way up the ditch and onto the road to see if he could find the cow. She lay in the ditch about fifty feet away, jerking in spasmodic death throes. He cursed under his breath and then walked back to the car and climbed into the front seat.
“We’re stuck good, ma’am,” he said. “I only got one spare tire, and both the back tires are blown. Don’t think I could get us out of this ditch even with both tires. We’re going to need a tow truck.”
“What’ll we do?” Jerusha asked.
“I know where we are,” Henry said. “That was one of old man Johnston’s cows—I can tell by the cut ear. That means we’re about four miles out of town. I think you should stay here and keep as warm as you can while I go for help. I got an extra blanket in the trunk, and you’re dressed pretty warm, so you should be okay.”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t just stay here, Henry?” asked Jerusha, her voice sounding a little frightened. “Surely someone will come by and see us.”
“No, ma’am,” he answered. “With the storm pickin’ up, there might not be anyone along here for a good while. Most people would take Highway 30 in this storm. Besides, the ditch is just deep enough to keep us out of view. I can make it into town well before dark and get somebody to come for you. You just wait here. I’ll be back in no time.”
Henry closed the door, went around to open the trunk, and pulled out the shipping company blanket he kept there. It was thin and dirty, but it was all he had. He closed the trunk and handed the blanket in through the back door to Jerusha. He tried to keep up a good front as he said, “Don’t worry none, Missus Springer. I’ll be back before you know it. I’m going right up to Nussbaum Road, over to the Township Highway, and then right into town. I’ll probably get picked up before I even get there. Just bundle up and don’t leave the car. I need to know you’ll be here when I get back.”
“Don’t worry, Henry,” Jerusha said. “I don’t think I’ll be going for a walk or anything.”
Jerusha managed a wan smile as Henry patted her on the arm. He handed her the car keys.
“If it gets really cold you can turn the car on for a few minutes. She’s got a good heater and she’ll warm up pretty quick. But don’t leave ’er on too long—five minutes at most. You don’t want to get carbon monoxide poisoning.”
He closed the car door and started off up the road to Dalton. The white snow closed in around the car, and in a few seconds Henry had disappeared. Jerusha sat still, staring into the gathering storm.
This is Your fault, Jerusha thought. You are still punishing me. What did I do to make You hate me so much?
Not far away lay another wrecked car, still on its roof, partway out onto the frozen pond. Inside the car lay the little girl. The seat cushion, some extra clothing, and a lone blanket that had piled up around her during the crash were all she had to keep her from the bitter cold. Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked out through the window of the upside-down car. She remembered the look on the bad man’s face as he sank beneath the water. He had stared right at her as he clutched the edge of the ice with one arm. Then the water had dragged him down, his open mouth filling with water as he choked out one last scream. Now she was alone in the storm, and there was only one person she wanted to comfort her, to hold her close...but that person was gone.
The girl stirred weakly and began to cry. “Mama, I’m cold,” she said. “I’m so cold...”
CHAPTER SIX
Apple Creek
JERUSHA SAT IN THE BACK of Henry’s car, wrapped in the thin blanket the boy had given her. She felt as if she had been sitting for hours, waiting for Henry to return. As time wore on, her thoughts crowded in on her. Reuben’s face was before her now, staring at her with that empty look that had filled his eyes on the day he went away after Jenna’s death. Jerusha closed her eyes and shook her head as she tried to keep her thoughts on her present situation.
She didn’t want to think about Reuben or Jenna or Apple Creek, but she couldn’t stop the thoughts. While she had been making the quilt she had been intent on her work, and her single-minded determination kept at bay the demons that wanted to devour her soul. She remembered the moment she had finished the quilt.
Always before, she had followed the Amish tradition of deliberately sewing a mistake into her quilts to avoid offending God with human perfection. But she hadn’t done that this time. This quilt was perfect, and she had made it. If that was a sin, then so be it.
When she had come to the place where she normally would have sewn a mistake into the patchwork, she had paused. The quilt was stretched tightly on the frame, the beautiful silken fabric glowing in the last rays of light coming through her window. The effect was almost sublime in its perfection, and she had leaned back in her chair to admire her work.
She remembered how she had broken the last thread of the perfect quilt in defiance, and suddenly a weariness overcame her. Her head nodded as she sat wrapped against the cold in the back of Henry’s car. Her thoughts, once churning like the water in the millrace behind her father’s gristmill, began to still themselves. The days of planning and sewing and hating had taken their toll, and in the cold light of the gathering storm she remembered the days of her happiness...before.
The days of Jerusha’s childhood had been good days, filled with the comfort of a stable family and the practice of her faith. Her family was Old Order Amish, and she loved the ways of her people. The Hershbergers lived on one of the largest farms in Apple Creek. The family had been in America for more than two hundred years—since the Plain People accepted William Penn’s offer of religious freedom. Even before that, when the first Amish came to Pennsylvania from Switzerland in 1720, the Hershbergers were among them.
When the Amish moved west in the early 1800s, the Hershberger family had followed, arriving in the village of Apple Creek in 1857. The land was fertile and open, and it greatly suited the Amish folk and their agricultural skills. The Hershberger family had homesteaded a tract of land outside the village, and over the years they had purchased neighboring farms. Now they held more than two hundred acres of the most fertile land in the township, and Hershberger milk and cheese were renowned throughout Wayne County.
During her childhood, the rest of the nation was suffering through the Great Depression, and the Amish were not sheltered from the turmoil of those years. But the Amish were accustomed to doing more with less. The Hershberger family and their neighbors simply pulled inward and depended on each other, so Jerusha grew up in an atmosphere of love, self-sufficiency, and community. The Amish of Apple Creek remained an island of safety and prosperity in those troubled times.
Jerusha’s days were filled with the simple tasks of a farm girl—planting in the spring, tending the animals, and cooking for her father and brothers as they harvested the corn and wheat. She watched her grandmother and mother can and preserve the garden produce and put up the fruit for the winter. They filled the root cellar with potatoes, onions, and barrels of apples. Her father brought ice from the winter pond and packed it into the cold house, which was dug into the side of a hill behind the house. Then they prepared hams, chickens, and sides of beef and stored them away for the festive dinners and holiday celebrations that were the hallmarks of her youth.
Jerusha’s father was an Armendiener, a deacon, and she loved to sit quietly while he read from the Bible during the Sunday meetings. The scriptures came alive to her as he read, and his rich baritone voice soothed her and filled her with a certainty that the God her family served could only be a good and loving God.
When she was old enough, her father gave her the job of bringing home the milk cows every evening, a job she thoroughly enjoyed. Like most farm children, she liked being alone. In those days, before World War II, the fields around Apple Creek were open to the horizon, and there were many stands of trees with small creeks and ponds. Jerusha found great comfort in the simplicity of her life as she wandered through the fields and woods. Every so often she would hear the train chugging along the tracks to parts unknown, its mournful whistle seeming to warn of the dangers and sorrows of a complicated modern world.
At these times Jerusha would kneel down on the earth and touch the grass or stop by a cold clear brook and dip her hands in the water, feeling the coolness on her skin and letting her thoughts focus on the God who could create such beauty with a spoken word. She didn’t comprehend the deeper theological issues that surrounded her faith, nor did they really interest her. She only knew that at some time in the past, wise men had led her people away from the traps and pitfalls of a world that catered to men’s basest natures and distracted them from this God of wonders who revealed Himself to her in every wooded path and every spring flower.
Many days, after her chores were done, Jerusha found her way to the old red barn and climbed up the wooden rungs into the sweet-smelling hayloft. She would lie on her back in a soft mound of hay and fix her thoughts on the psalms and prayers that were the staple of her people’s life and daily work. Often she brought her family’s copy of the Ausbund, the ancient Amish hymnal, and read the lyrics to herself. There was no musical notation in the book, but the melodies had been passed down from generation to generation and were as familiar to her as the stars of the night sky. Her favorite was the Loblied, the praise song, which was sung every time the people gathered for church, and her sweet voice would lift in praise to her God. As she sang, she often felt that she was wrapped in God’s comforting arms. Often her father, passing by on his way to some part of the farm, would stop and listen as Jerusha’s clear soprano floated down out of the hayloft like a sweet angel voice singing the praises of God.
“Kumme, dochter, there is work to be done,” he would call up to her, yet the tone of his voice would let her know that he took comfort in a daughter so grounded in the faith.
Jerusha would climb down and walk with her father in silence. He did not often speak of tender things, but a gentle hand on her shoulder would fill her heart with acceptance and love.
The days of her young life invited a future that, while unknown, need not be feared, but rather welcomed. This life, uncomplicated and innocent, was all she knew, and it held her secure just as a mother’s tender arms hold a newborn. Time was not to be counted in hours and minutes, but rather in revelations and discoveries, in long dreamy summer days that never seemed to end and cold winter nights sitting by a warm fire, watching her mother and grandmother at the quilting frame.
And so it was that when she was ten years old her grandmother brought her into the dawdy house where she had lived since Grossdaadi’s death.
“Kumme, Jerusha,” she said, “it is time for you to learn to quilt. See here now, onest.” And she began to teach Jerusha.
“The first thing that needs to be done before any quilt is made is to decide which kind of design we will use,” she had said. “We must know in our heart what the quilt will look like when it is finished, because it can take anywhere from four hundred to six hundred hours to put together just one quilt. You can sew the most perfect stitch, but without a good design it means nothing. If the design is not pleasing to the eye from the start, that’s wasted time, and to waste time is to try God’s patience.”
Sitting at her grandmother’s side, she watched her sketch out what she called a “star” quilt. The design was beautiful but simple. First a starburst in the center, then eight branching pillars, surrounded by another circle. On the outside of the circle she drew more pillars that were set between the inner pillars with the outer circle separating them.
“On the tops of the pillars we will make flames of fire,” her grandmother said softly. “They will be just like the lampstand in der Heilige Platz, where God spoke to the high priest.”
Once the design was created, Jerusha watched as her grandmother cut the chosen pieces of fabric into perfectly matching parts.
“If the quilt is going to be even and symmetrical, the pieces must be true,” she said.
She let Jerusha try her hand, and even on her first try Jerusha cut the pieces straight and perfect.
“Ja, das is gut,” Grandmother said. “You will be a fine quilt maker, my girl.”
Once the pieces were cut correctly, Grandmother pieced them together with pinpoint accuracy.
“If the quilt is not aligned properly, even in just one small part, the whole thing will look off balance and might pucker,” she had said. “If the design is to be even and pleasing to the eye, each individual piece of fabric must be stitched together just right in order for it to fit together properly. You must trust your own eye and sewing skills for measurement and accuracy. It is a gift not every quilter has.”
Over the following days as Grossmudder began to patiently open the quilting way to Jerusha, the girl felt something growing in her—the absolute certainty that God had given her an eye and a gift for this work. As her grandmother pieced together the layers of fabric, she allowed Jerusha to help her stitch them together. First, she placed the patterned top piece on a layer of batting, and then sewed the whole design to a black backing piece. Then, with the quilt stretched tightly on the quilting frame, Jerusha began to learn the even, beautiful stitch of the quilter.
“Dummel dich net,” her grandmother would say. “Take your time, don’t hurry.”
Once, when her mind wandered while she was stitching a piece, she made a mistake and went past the place where she should have stopped.
“Halt ei, sell geht su weit!” her grandmother exclaimed. “You have gone too far. You must concentrate on what you are doing, my girl.”
Jerusha had watched with downcast eyes and a flame burning in her cheeks as her grandmother carefully removed the errant stitches.
“Never hurry, always pay attention, and do the work as unto the Lord,” she told Jerusha in her gentle voice. “You have been given a way to give back to the Lord, as He has given to you. This is a special gift not everyone is given. But to whom much is given, much is required. You must always give back to God from the gift He has given you. And there are dangers along the way. If you become a good quilter, it is quite possible for you to become prideful, thinking that somehow you are more special than others. That is why we put a small mistake in the quilt before we finish. This is so we do not make God angry with us for being too proud.”
Jerusha did not understand until many years later why she felt the small twinge of fear, the first she had ever felt, when her grandmother spoke those words.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Deep Roots
THE NEXT FEW YEARS flew by for Jerusha. She had found her calling as a quilter, and within a year she was sewing whole sections of her grandmother�
�s quilts on her own. Her stitch was fine, almost invisible, and while most quilters would put seventy thousand stitches in a quilt, Jerusha sewed more than ninety thousand stitches into her first complete quilt.
“Ja, your stitch is so small and even,” her grandmother said as she looked over Jerusha’s first quilt. “It is as though you’ve been quilting all your life.”
Grandmother Hannah also helped Jerusha with her schooling, which allowed Jerusha to spend more time at home working on the quilts. Her grandmother was careful to see that she did her chores and helped around the house as all the Hershberger children did, but when the moment came each day to sit down at the quilting frame, Jerusha lost herself in the work.
One day when they were working on a new design together, Jerusha asked, “Grandmother, has our family always lived in Apple Creek?”
“We have been in Apple Creek almost a hundred years.”
“How did our family come to Apple Creek?”
Hannah paused and looked at Jerusha over her reading glasses, which she wore down on her nose. Then she put down her work, and taking Jerusha by the hand, she led her to a small chest in the next room. Hannah opened the chest and took out two books. She held up the first. It was titled The Martyr’s Mirror.
A Quilt for Jenna Page 3