by Sarah Price
The ball sailed through the air and hit her in the shoulder.
“Point!” someone called on the other team.
Returning her attention to the game, Drusilla rubbed her shoulder as she hurried to retrieve the ball. She didn’t understand why Caleb unnerved her so much. It wasn’t that she liked him, she told herself. After all, she only met him briefly on two occasions. Still, there was something about his presence that commanded her interest. Mayhaps more. It wasn’t just that he was tall and rather handsome, even if he did need a haircut. The way he carried himself, she thought. Perhaps that was what intrigued her. He didn’t seem like other young men: quiet, aloof, and unapproachable. No, Caleb Lapp was just the opposite. And the very fact that he was so different is what had caught her attention in the first place.
Oh dear, she thought. Mayhaps I am attracted to him!
“Watch out!”
For the second time, the volley ball came in her direction. With attention diverted, Drusilla quickly looked up and, without even thinking, reached up to punch at the ball before it hit her again. It popped over the net and landed flat on the ground and the members of her side cheered.
“Well done, Dru!”
Several other people complimented her on the great return, but she focused only on the word ‘Dru'. Had Caleb actually called her that? Only her cousins and sometimes her family called her ’Dru’. She glanced over her shoulder at him and saw that he was already paying attention to the volleyball game, not her.
I am ferhoodled! she thought, the feeling of butterflies invading her stomach.
After the volleyball game ended, Drusilla hurried back to Naomi and Miriam who were still sitting at the picnic table. Edna, Jane, and two other young women were busy setting up a folding table with lemonade and pretzels. Drusilla sat down next to Miriam, avoiding Naomi’s inquisitive stare.
“Warm out,” she said, fanning herself with her hand.
“Not really,” Naomi responded. “Mayhaps that flush on your cheeks isn’t from playing volleyball?”
Drusilla frowned and shot Naomi a look. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Um huh.”
Miriam shuffled through her stationery pages. “Spring is known to be the season of love,” she said.
Shocked not just by Miriam’s words, but that she spoke at all, Drusilla shook her head. “Stop that, both of you!” She lowered her voice so that no one else could overhear. “Please.”
As if to accentuate Naomi and Miriam’s point, Caleb walked over to their small group, two cups of lemonade in his hands. He handed one to a speechless Drusilla. “How are you girls doing today?” he asked, directing his attention to her cousins.
“Quite well,” Naomi replied happily, the smirk returning to her face. She glanced at Drusilla and smiled. “Quite well indeed.”
He looked up at the sky. With the sun setting, it was growing darker out by the minute. “Must be getting on eight o’clock, I reckon.” He scratched at the back of his neck as if contemplating something. “Reckon we best get going, then, Drusilla,” he said. “Seeing that it’s a long drive to your farm.” When the three women stared at him, speechless at his announcement, he shrugged and explained, “A debt paid is the only kind of debt to have, wouldn’t you agree? Best collect that twelve dollars she owes me…” He paused, glancing at her and giving her a wink. “Plus tax.”
Horrified at his public announcement, Drusilla refused to look at her cousins. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Edna and Jane watching them, but she refused to acknowledge their bemusement. Instead, she quietly stood up and, lifting her chin in the air, she walked behind Caleb as he led her toward the long line of buggies along the driveway.
During the past two years, Drusilla had attended many youth singings and gatherings. But she had never ridden home with a young man. Normally, she would arrive and depart with her cousins. It wasn’t that some of the young men weren’t interested in asking her home. In fact, she knew that Benjamin Stoltzfus made cow eyes at her. Thankfully, he never gathered the nerve to ask her to ride home in his buggy. However, none of the Riehl women were all too keen on courting a young man yet. They were having too much fun just being young and carefree.
Now, however, Caleb Lapp was either extremely smitten by Drusilla, a fact that he had no qualms making public knowledge, or he was horribly preoccupied with people owing him small amounts of money, even for an Amish man.
“Here we go,” Caleb said, stopping in front of his buggy.
Drusilla stopped walking and stared at the open-topped buggy, the very one that she had commented on less than two hours before, when they had arrived. Not only was it a brand new courting buggy, it was a top-of-the-line buggy at that. She noticed the front panel was made of real wood and had been polished until it shone. The red velvet seat looked as if no one had ever sat upon it. And, in place of the two battery-operated lights normally located on the sides of the door openings, there were hooks with lanterns instead. She noticed that he still had battery-operated lights, however, as required by the law.
“That’s your buggy?” she heard herself say, and immediately wished she hadn’t so heavily emphasized the word ‘your’.
He reached under the front seat and pulled out his straw hat. “Ja,” he said as he untied the horse from the hitching line. “Why?”
“It's very fancy.”
“It’s an investment,” Caleb responded, a casual tone in his voice. “Investment in my future, ja?”
She blushed and looked away from him.
Chuckling to himself, he stood at the right side of the buggy. “Go on now, Dru,” he said. “Get on in so we can get moving.”
Obediently, she stepped up and sat down on the left side of the seat, feeling too obvious and squished next to him when he joined her. Their thighs touched and she tried to move further away from him, another action that appeared to humor him.
She’d never ridden in an open-topped buggy and the wind blowing in her face as the horse moved down the driveway toward the road felt liberating. Deliberately open so that people could see who was riding in them, courting buggies left nothing to the imagination on purpose. While it declared a young man’s intentions, it also hindered any speculation of inappropriate behavior during their time spent alone in the buggy.
Rather than encourage the horse to trot down Beechdale Road, Caleb appeared to deliberately hold back, forcing it to walk instead.
“I thought you said your horse is a pacer,” Drusilla said, daring to glance at him.
He stared straight ahead, the rim of his straw hat shielding his eyes. “Sure is,” he replied.
“Seems to be going mighty slow, then” she commented.
“Right again.”
Along the backroads, they were sure to pass other Amish people. And the closer they traveled to her home, the more likely that a neighbor or a relative might spot her riding beside this young man who lived on Monterey. While she wondered about his motives, his silence did not indicate any interest in her other than the return of the twelve dollars (and tax!) that she owed him. Realizing that she felt mildly disappointed, but also a bit relieved, she settled down and started to relax, focusing on the scenery instead of Caleb.
When he turned off North Ronks Road onto Irishtown Road, she leaned forward. “Oh, you don’t want to travel this way, Caleb. It’s the long way!”
“I know that,” he replied, his voice calm and flat.
“What?” She simply couldn’t understand this man. Why would he deliberately travel slow and take the longer route? Clearly he wasn’t interested in her; otherwise he would talk to her. “You’re just a bundle of contradictions, Caleb Lapp!”
He tilted his head and looked at her from the corner of his eyes. “You think?”
“Oh ja, I do.” She crossed her arms over her chest, knowing that he had just intentionally added an additional ten minutes to their journey. At this point, all she wanted was to get home. She’d give him his money and stick
to her vow to not socialize north of Route 340 anymore. Clearly that was his territory. “And what were you doing at a youth gathering anyway?” she asked. “Most of those people were barely twenty!”
When he laughed, the hearty laughter caught her off-guard.
“That wasn’t meant to be funny.”
He held the reins in one hand and reached into his front pocket with another. Withdrawing a slip of paper, he handed it to her.
At once, she recognized the paper and she gasped. It was the paper Edna had given to her at the vegetable market. “PLEASE COME NEXT SATURDAY” her friend had written across the top with the address of the Glicks house neatly jotted down underneath it. She remembered looking for her mother’s envelope, the one with the money in it, and taking Edna’s paper out of her pocket. She must have left it on the counter and he thought she invited him.
“Oh help!” she whispered, neatly folding the paper into a small square and clutching it tightly.
“Um hum.” That was all that he said.
She didn’t know how to apologize. Clearly he now understood the mistake. Or did he? If not, he must think her to be a very brazen young woman and that was not a reputation that she wanted. Quickly she turned to face him. “That was an accident, Caleb. Edna Glick gave me that paper. I’m ever so sorry that I left it on the counter and you went there thinking…” She paused. “Oh you must think I’m the worst type of girl! And I’m not, Caleb. I would never do something so forward!”
He greeted her words with silence.
Flustered, she faced forward again. She prayed that Caleb hadn’t shown that note to Jane. No wonder Jane appeared so amused. Certainly she thought Drusilla fancied her brother! And, by now, everyone would be talking about her note and how unabashed she was.
Right before the train tracks, he turned onto Harvest Road, another detour that added time onto their journey. She remained silent and stared to the left, looking at the farms and wishing, yet again, that she was anywhere but beside Caleb. She just wanted to go home, dash upstairs, and bury her head under her pillow. Without doubt, she told herself, she would remain stuck to the house for at least two weeks so that this embarrassing moment could be properly mourned.
To her surprise, however, after they rounded the bend in the road, he slowed the horse down even more until finally it was stopped on the side of the road.
“Drusilla,” he said, still looking ahead. “While I doubt there is any sin in letting you continue thinking I went to the Glicks under the presumption that you invited me, there is little fun in watching you suffer.” He turned toward her, his eyes meeting hers. “But I did go there with the intention of bringing you home.”
“I…I don’t understand,” she managed to say.
The corner of his mouth lifted, just enough so that she knew he was trying not to smile. “That’s what I find so intriguing about you, Drusilla. And I’d like to come calling on you to learn more about what you do and don’t understand.” He lifted an eyebrow and paused as if giving her a moment to let his words sink in. “I don’t think I can be any clearer than that.”
She averted her eyes, unable to meet his gaze. It was too uncomfortable, especially since they were sitting so close to one another. “I…I reckon you couldn’t,” she whispered.
“And that’s all you have to say?” He waited until she stole a peek at him. “Nothing else?”
“I don’t know what I”m supposed to say,” she said a bit louder. “No one ever asked to come calling on me.”
He laughed again. “Gut! And let’s keep it that way! Now, just tell me that it’s acceptable to you, which, from the blush on your cheeks, I’m taking for a yes.”
Unsure where to look, she glanced anywhere but at him. The fact that she had to respond? To consent to his request? No one had ever told her that this was how it worked. Hesitantly, she nodded her head and, when he still didn’t say anything, she said, “That would be right fine, Caleb…I reckon.”
Still chuckling, he started the horse again by clicking his tongue and gently slapping the reins on its back. “You... reckon? Ja vell, I’ll accept that, Drusilla Riehl. Now, why don’t I show you what this pacer can do, eh?” Again, he clicked his tongue and the horse began to trot. “Hang on, Dru.”
As the horse began pacing, using its lateral legs alternately and picking up speed, she jolted to the side and reached out to grab his arm. Once she steadied herself, she clung to the arm rail on her left and kept her right hand on her lap. The buggy moved at a more rapid pace, the back hips of the horse rising and falling in cadence as it sped. When Caleb loosened the reins, just a touch, the horse seemed to stretch its neck and picked up its pace even more. The smoothness of this new gait, with the left legs moving together and opposite the right legs, created a level ride, faster and more fluid than a trot.
“Oh!” she gasped. “I’ve always admired the pacers, but I’ve never ridden behind one!” She couldn’t believe the difference in the ride. “It’s so lovely!”
He kept his eyes on the road but smiled.
For the rest of the ride to her parents’ farm, Caleb kept the horse at this speed and Drusilla found herself starting to relax in his company. After all, she had just agreed to get to know him better. Despite her moments of embarrassment and the way he confused her, she couldn’t deny that agreeing to have Caleb Lapp call on her presented a surprising change for the spring, one that she both looked forward to and felt apprehensive about. She had been nudged out of her comfort zone. But spring was not only a time for renewal. It was also a time for discovery as well, she thought, and, like Barbara had said that day at the store, sometimes the journey was more interesting than the destination.
Chapter Five
Two weeks passed before she saw Caleb again. This time, it was at the youth singing held in the evening after worship Sunday in her church district. Naomi and Miriam noticed him enter the barn where the young people were gathered to sing hymns, share refreshments, and enjoy each others’ company. It wasn’t unusual for a group of young people to show up from other church districts. It was, however, unusual for a solitary young man to arrive, especially when he was not acquainted with anyone in particular from the g’may. Anyone, but Drusilla, that is.
“Look what the wind just blew in,” Naomi quipped as she nudged Drusilla’s arm. “Reckon we’re escorting your bruder home without you again.”
Drusilla swatted at Naomi’s arm. “Stop that teasing,” she hissed.
But Naomi merely responded with a sly look on her face.
Miriam sighed and smiled in a dreamy sort of way. “I think it’s refreshingly romantic.”
At this, both Drusilla and Naomi rolled their eyes. Naomi went so far as to groan. “Romantic? Oh Miriam. Maybe we should forget our pact to marry bruders, ja?”
Sobering, Miriam frowned at her sister. “What’s wrong with romantic?”
“Romantic doesn’t milk the cows, plow the fields, or pay the bills, Miriam,” she snapped, surprisingly irritated at her sister. “Best clear those notions out of your head. I know you’ve been reading those trashy books.”
Miriam gasped. “They aren’t trashy!”
Putting her hand on her hips, Naomi stared her sister square in the face. “Oh ja? Then why do you hide them from Maem?”
“Romances,” Miriam said with a touch of acidity to her voice. “They are romance novels and you know it.”
But Naomi wouldn’t have any part of Naomi’s rebuttal. “Best thing you can do is what Maem says. Find yourself a good, solid, hardworking man who loves God over everything else. Then you make certain you can be friends. From that, the rest grows and you know it.”
Drusilla had never taken her cousin to be a romantic so Miriam’s comments had surprised her, probably just as much as they offended Naomi. Despite Caleb’s lack of discretion in taking Drusilla home from the Glicks’ house, she hadn’t confided in her cousins about what he had said on the drive home. That was private conversation, she reckoned. Amish youth courte
d under the cloak of secrecy for the very purpose of avoiding any bad feelings between a man and woman should a courtship end due to incompatibilities. Exercising prudence and discretion, even to friends and family, also helped to keep gossip at bay. No self-respecting, God worshiping Amish member of the g’may would indulge in discussing such private matters to others. No matter how hard they tried to pester Drusilla to tell them whether he wanted to court her or not, she stood firm to her principle that it was a matter of no concern to anyone but her and Caleb.
And then she hadn’t seen him in two weeks.
While she pretended that she wasn’t upset and spent long afternoons telling herself not to think about him, the truth was that she couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Courting was a new adventure for her and she wasn’t quite certain how it worked. Oh, she knew about the buggy rides home after youth events. Once or twice, she even overheard a few young women giggle to their friends about holding hands with their occasional escorts. But no one really discussed how courtships played out. Was he supposed to contact her during the week? Was she supposed to write him little letters on pretty stamped stationery? She just didn’t know and she wasn’t about to ask her mother. Privacy and composure were at the root of her Amish upbringing, after all.
But then, it was clear that Caleb knew what he was doing. As he stood in the doorway, peering at the gathering, he had spotted Drusilla. With that half-smile, half-smirk on his face, he walked through the crowd and headed in her direction. Several of the young women noticed him and, to Drusilla’s discomfort, watched him with forward curiosity. Had they noticed his strong presence and powerful charisma? She tried not to pay attention to the other young women, but she couldn’t help seeing them from the corner of her eyes. They were all watching him, and whispering behind his back.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said, a teasing tone to his voice and a sparkle to his eye.