by Sarah Price
It wasn’t as if she had much of a choice. Drusilla held back her smile, knowing that wherever the one went, the other followed and, as usual, it was Naomi taking the lead. Drusilla often teased them that they’d most likely marry brothers in a double ceremony. Neither sister took offense…nor did they disagree. Their silence to her jest spoke volumes to Drusilla that this particular possibility most likely had been already discussed between the two of them.
Chapter Two
“What do you mean I can’t go?”
Hannah stood in the center of the kitchen, her arms crossed and a scowl upon her face. Having heard about the barn-raising, Hannah was already up and dressed in her brown work dress with the frayed hem. She even wore her black sneakers, which should have been the first indicator that something was wrong: Hannah never wore shoes if it could be helped.
“Since you heard what I said,” Esther replied, “then I reckon you understood what I meant and I don’t need to explain myself.” Standing at the kitchen counter, her back to Hannah, she concentrated on slicing a freshly baked loaf of bread. Carefully, she laid each piece onto a round plate before carrying it to the table. She set the plate down and looked up at her daughter. “What I don’t understand, however, is why you would question me, Hannah.”
“Maem…!”
Drusilla watched the scene unfold from the top of the basement stairs. Her mother had sent her down to the cellar to fetch several glass jars of pickled cauliflower and their last bag of potatoes to bring to the barn raising. When she first had heard Hannah coming down the stairs, Drusilla had paused, knowing exactly what to expect from her younger sister: rebellion. Being left out of attending a barn raising was not about to sit well with Hannah.
Elsie sat on the floor, playing with her two smaller brothers. She looked up and stared, first at Hannah and then at her mother. “I want to go to the barn raising, too!”
“Now don’t you start,” Esther warned.
The door to the mudroom opened and both father and son walked in, pausing to kick the dirt from their work boots and to wash their hands in the sink. Immediately, Hannah stopped complaining and busied herself with setting the table for breakfast. Drusilla could tell from the expression on her face that her sister was still mulling over the perceived injustice done to her. But, with the sound of her father in the next room, Hannah knew better than to continue the argument.
As soon as the faucet stopped running, Amos entered the room, wiping his hands on a dishtowel and immediately sat down at the head of the table. Drusilla noticed that he looked tired, dark circles under his eyes. She couldn’t help but wonder why, for she knew that he went to bed early enough to get at least seven hours of sleep. Something must be weighing awful heavy on his mind, she reckoned.
“Smells right gut in here,” he said, trying to sound jovial. Despite looking tired, Amos sounded cheerful enough to Drusilla. She watched him with a curious eye, wondering if his chipper tone was real or if he was covering up something that he felt ill-suited for the children to know. “And, with a long day ahead of us, we’re going to need as much energy as possible.”
A frown still on her face, Hannah sat down and glowered at her plate. Daniel sat next to Amos while the three younger children hurried down the stairs and assumed their places at the table. As usual, Drusilla and Esther finished placing the dishes and were the last to sit, Esther at the other end of the table and Drusilla on the end of the bench next to her.
Without saying a word, everyone bowed their heads in unison and said a silent prayer, thanking the good Lord for the food set before them. When Drusilla finished, she peeked across the table at Hannah and suppressed a smile when she noticed that she was still pouting.
The silent prayer ended and Amos cleared his throat, reaching across his plate for the bowl filled with pan fried potatoes and onions. Immediately, the others began reaching for bowls and plates filled with food, serving themselves before passing these to their left. Soon, each plate was covered with scrambled eggs, scrapple, potatoes, and toasted bread made fresh that morning. For the first few minutes, everyone remained silent, the only noise being the scraping of forks against the plates as they ate.
Finally, Amos broke the silence. “Don’t know what time we’ll be back from the barn raising,” he said, looking pointedly at Esther. “I’ll need Hannah to oversee Henry and Elam with the milking after school. And check in on my maem. Daed said she wasn’t feeling well.”
His parents, Jacob and Ana, lived in the grossdawdihaus that was attached to the main house. Every day, Jacob arose at four o’clock to help his son and grandson with the morning chores. Despite being eighty-five years old, Jacob Riehl remained as active as could be. It was his wife, Ana, who seemed to be sickly and frail. While she blamed a sore back for her inactivity, the rest of the family knew it was actually her weight that was hindering her mobility. Years ago, doctors had warned her that she should lose the extra weight, but Ana hadn’t listened. Her labored breathing when she even tried to walk anywhere concerned Amos and Esther, especially since Ana refused to see a doctor anymore.
“What time’s the driver coming, Daed?” Daniel asked, his mouth partially full of food.
“Reckon he should be here in…” Amos glanced at the clock on the wall. “…oh, ‘bout fifteen minutes or so. Need to stop next door to pick up your cousins and old man Wilmer. He stopped by yesterday and said he wants to come along to help, too.”
“Oh Daed!” Hannah cried out, not able to sit silent for one more minute. Drusilla knew that it was her last ditch effort to plead her case. “I don’t see why I can’t go, too! It’s not fair!”
Drusilla bit her lip and glanced at her mother, knowing that Hannah’s insolence might have just crossed a line in the dirt. But Esther ate her food, calm and unshaken by Hannah’s disrespect toward her.
“Now Hannah,” Amos started, his words slow and deliberate. “You know you have school and your maem will need your help this afternoon.” He plunged his fork into the scrambled eggs, but paused before he lifted it to his mouth. He looked down the table at his daughter. With his skin browned from working outside and his graying beard that hung well passed the second button of his white shirt, he appeared austere and stern, even though Drusilla knew him to be just the opposite. “And I happen to know that your maem told you as much earlier. So I don’t want to hear another word about it, ja?”
And with that, the matter of Hannah attending the barn raising was settled.
Esther sighed and rubbed at her enlarged stomach.
“The boppli kicking, Maem?” Drusilla asked. She loved babies and found herself anxiously awaiting the arrival of her newest sibling. She didn’t care whether it was a boy or girl. She just wanted to hold a sweet smelling bundle of joy in her arms, to play with its fingers and toes, and to smother it with hugs and kisses.
“Ja, reckon its restless,” Esther said, smiling at her eldest daughter. “Not much room in there anymore.”
Henry snickered and Elam mumbled, “That’s for sure and certain.” Neither one of them remembered when Elsie was born; Henry had only been four years old and Elam two at the time. But this particular child’s birth would be remembered by all.
“Elam!”
As usual, Daniel spoke up, always the one that insisted on protecting the women of the family, especially his mother and Drusilla. At sixteen, Daniel had just started his rumschpringe and felt that he had more freedom to speak his mind. Like Hannah, he, too, straddled a similar fence; the only difference was that he straddled it while being part of the Amish both by birth and through his stated intent to take the kneeling vow at some point. Rebellion was not a word associated with him.
Just last autumn, Drusilla had accepted her baptism into the church. Most young adults waited until they were married to take their kneeling vow. Drusilla, however, did not. Her love for God and her desire to deny worldliness were so great that, last spring, she spoke to the bishop about her intentions as soon as she learned that a new inst
ructional class was to start. As the first of the Riehl children to accept the baptism, both Esther and Amos could barely suppress their joy at her decision, although several of her friends (including her cousins) had questioned her about giving up her rumschpringe so early and so eagerly.
Now the family waited for Daniel’s decision. Like Drusilla, the question was not whether or not he would take the kneeling vow, but, rather, when. Daniel cared nothing for worldly goods or experiences. Unlike most young men, he certainly would not wait until he was ready to get married. If Drusilla was asked to speculate, she would have answered that Daniel would request his private talk with the bishop shortly after he turned eighteen, too. As for her younger siblings, Drusilla highly doubted any of them would be so eager to leave behind their exploration of the world.
“Drusilla, you sure you want to wear your new dress to the raising?”
Setting down her fork, Drusilla looked down at the front of her dress. “I reckon there’s no reason not to,” she said. They had worked on the dress over the winter and Drusilla secretly wanted to wear it, just because it was new. It had been a long time since she had a new dress, especially one that was purple and had the cape on the front. Only young women who were baptized members of the church wore the capes. “I have to wear it some time, ja?”
Her mother smiled at her daughter’s logic. “Quite true.” She scraped the rest of her eggs off the plate with her spoon and looked up at Drusilla. “Just be careful.”
“I will, Maem.”
With the meal over and the sky beginning to lighten as the sun rose, Amos indicated that it was time for the after-prayer. With a driver picking them up, there wasn’t time to linger over a final cup of coffee. Once again, silence befell those seated around the table and every head bowed in silent prayer. For Drusilla, she thanked God for the food and added a special prayer for Hannah to behave in a kinder manner toward their mother.
The driver stopped at the end of the driveway. It was too narrow for his van to navigate, especially with the numerous buggies that already lined the sides. A few cars were parked along the way, too: Mennonite neighbors who also wanted to help the Lapps. The three young women hurried out of the open door and walked around the back of the van to open the back doors. Both Naomi and Drusilla reached inside for the baskets of food that their mothers had prepared as part of the dinner meal.
Miriam waited until they stepped backward before she closed the van doors. “Let’s go then, ja?”
Walking up the driveway, Drusilla listened to Naomi and Miriam gush about the barn raising. It was barely seven in the morning and already there was so much activity that it was hard to figure out what was happening. From past experience, Drusilla knew that Jonathan Lapp would have already pre-constructed the walls. That was something that would have taken place over the past few weeks By doing so, the volunteers on the barn raising day would be able to focus on the more tedious tasks such as floors, roofing, rafters and doors. From the looks of all the activity, Drusilla suspected that the men were getting ready to raise the first two walls.
The farmhouse sat back from the road and at a good distance from the location of the barn. Nearby were the remnants of the old barn and Drusilla could understand why the Lapps wanted to replace it. Since the farm was old, the original barn appeared small with numerous additions added onto it over the years. With the original structure damaged by the tree and the stone foundation crumbled, it was easier to rebuild than repair.
A man yelled something that Drusilla didn’t understand and, suddenly, she saw the first wall begin to rise, several men standing on both sides of the framing and pulling on long ropes, bringing the first wall upward while others helped by supporting the bottom, reinforcing them with their weight, so that it wouldn’t shift as the top lifted.
“Oh my!” Naomi gasped and reached out to grab Drusilla’s arm.
Her cousin’s reaction made her smile. It was, indeed, a breath-taking sight when the men lifted the frames of the barn. Everyone worked in unison, knowing exactly what to do without being told. More importantly, each one supporting more than just the frame of the building; they were supporting each other. Drusilla felt that she could sit there all day, just watching them work. For a moment, she felt a twinge of guilt as she thought about Hannah’s reaction to missing this amazing event.
The three young women paused, standing along the side of the driveway, watching as the second side began to lift into the air. That was when she noticed him, his straw hat tilted back over his head as he helped raise the side wall of the barn; her heart felt like it skipped a beat. He stood there for several minutes, his arms raised over his head as he held the framed wall in place while other men hurried to lean long two-by-fours against it to hold it in place.
His black work pants were already covered in sawdust and dirt. Unlike the other men, he did not have suspenders and the tails of his white shirt were untucked from his waistband. With tanned skin and broad shoulders, she easily identified him as a farmer. His concentration on the project, a serious expression on his face, told her that he was most likely in his twenties and already working on his own. Yet he grew no beard, an obvious indication that he was unmarried.
“Dru,” Miriam said, nudging her arm. “Let’s go.”
A light breeze caught his hat at just the right angle and blew it to the ground. His hair, a rich chocolate brown and full of wide curls, fell over his forehead. Drusilla could tell that, for the briefest of seconds, he contemplated reaching up his hand to brush them away. To do so, however, would put the wall at risk, so he remained standing, his arms lifted over his head and holding fast to the bare stud while teams of other men hurried to secure the wall.
“Stop staring so,” Miriam whispered.
Just as Drusilla was about to look away, she noticed that he looked in their direction. Miriam and Naomi were waiting for her to start walking again, both of them facing her, their backs toward the rising frame of the barn. But it was clear, too clear, that Drusilla wasn’t looking at the barn but at the man. Embarrassed that he might have caught her, Drusilla shifted her attention back to her cousins. “I..I just love watching when the walls go up,” she explained quietly, knowing that should either of her cousins inspect her face, they’d see her cheeks turning crimson. “It’s so beautiful to see so many come together to help one family, ja?”
Miriam lifted her eyebrows and pursed her lips. There was a knowing look in her eyes, but she said nothing further.
Naomi, however, grabbed her arm and tugged gently. “Come on, then. We’ve work to do and this basket’s getting heavy.”
They continued walking toward the house and Drusilla fought the urge to look over her shoulder in his direction one more time. She wondered who he was, that tall young man with curly brown hair and the tattered straw hat. Certainly he lived closer to Monterey than to Gordonville, which would explain why she did not recognize him. With the exception of visiting family or going to market, Drusilla rarely traveled north of Route 340.
“Why, look what the wind blew in!”
Drusilla set her mother’s basket on the counter, pushing it aside to make room for Naomi’s. She smiled in the direction of the older woman who greeted them. It was her mother’s aunt and Drusilla felt shy in her presence. She hadn’t seen Martha in years, but she recognized her right away. Her thinning white hair and cherubic rosy cheeks framed her eyes, the same blue as Drusilla’s. Years ago, Martha often frequented the Riehls’ farm, bringing her older sister (and Esther’s mother) to visit. But, once Esther’s mother passed away, Martha’s visits became less and less frequent.
“Why, let me get a right gut look at the three of you!” Those blue eyes twinkled as she placed her wrinkled hands onto Drusilla’s shoulders. Shaking her head, she clucked her tongue and studied her great-niece. “It must have been just yesterday you were running around the yard chasing those kittens.” She laughed as she thought back on the memory. “Always loved those kittens, didn’t you now?”
&n
bsp; “That would be Elsie’s job these days,” Drusilla responded. “You remember Elsie?”
Mary Anna caught her breath. “Elsie? The boppli?”
This time, it was Drusilla who gave a little laugh. “She’s eight, almost nine years old now.”
“Oh help!” Martha withdrew her hands and placed one against her own cheek. “I reckon it wasn’t yesterday then…”
Drusilla glanced at her cousins. “Mayhaps you remember Miriam and Naomi? My cousins?”
Mary Anna studied them for a moment. When the hint of recognition escaped her, she shook her head. “Must be on your daed’s side, ja?”
Never the one to be shy, Naomi reached forward to shake the older woman’s hand. “That’s right,” she said. “Our daed’s Jacob Riehl.”
The oldest son in the family, Jacob was named after his father, but most of the family called him Jake so as not to confuse father and son. As the oldest son, and the second child to leave the farm, it wasn’t Jake who inherited it, but his younger brother, Amos. Their father, Jacob, however, had seen fit to purchase the neighboring farm back when land was still inexpensive and new Englische developments were scarce. While he had struggled to pay the loan, it had been worth it to provide a farm for his oldest son.
“Best get to working,” Drusilla said, noticing that the other women were hustling around the kitchen, each with a purpose as they prepared food for the men. The last thing Drusilla wanted was to appear lazy and unhelpful.
The first task assigned to the younger women was to set up the tables outside on the flat grassy yard behind the house. Two other young women joined them and, together, they set up folding tables and chairs so that the men could rest when they needed a break. Drusilla was glad to meet both of them, learning that one was Jane Lapp, the daughter of the Jonathan whose barn was being constructed. With blond hair and dark eyes, Jane was a pretty girl with a soft personality. Drusilla suspected that she was just a year or two younger, most likely having just started her rumschpringe.