by Sarah Price
The courting buggy lurched backwards and, still whistling, Caleb looked over his shoulder as he backed it up in order to move forward toward the road.
They rode in silence, the warm air from the summer evening brushing against her cheeks as she looked ahead, her eyes on the sunset ahead of her and her thoughts on the man seated beside her.
Chapter Three
“There’s a letter for you, Dru,” Hannah called out as she slipped through the open doorway. She wore a mischievous smile on her face as she slid the letter onto the counter. Before Henry, Elam, or Elsie could scramble over to peek at the envelope, Drusilla snatched the letter away from them and glanced down at the envelope before shoving it into the pocket in her black apron.
Esther sat in the rocking chair, holding baby Anna who sucked greedily at the bottle in her mouth. “Boys! Elsie! You leave your schwester be, now!”
“Who wrote to you, Drusilla?” Elam paid no attention to his mother.
“You heard Maem. Leave me alone with your nosy questions.”
“Bet it’s from a boy!” Elam made kissing noises and Henry started laughing.
Horrified, Drusilla clutched the letter and looked over her brothers’ heads at her mother. When their eyes met, Drusilla silently pleaded that her mother would help her by sending the younger ones away or giving her have some privacy.
“Drusilla, I think you best read that later,” her mother said, a stern look in her eyes. The dark circles under Esther’s eyes accentuated how tired she looked and, as such, her patience was just about at the end. Over the past few months, Drusilla had increasingly recognized how tired and short-tempered her mother had become. The lack of sleep and the constant noise from the baby seemed to push Esther over the edge. Drusilla did all that she could to help give her mother a break, often taking Ana outside or delegating chores to the other children who were, as luck would have it, constantly underfoot. Hannah’s misbehavior and lack of regard for Esther’s bidding was, most certainly, taxing her last nerve, especially since she had just turned fourteen and would be home-schooled for the next two years.
“Danke, Maem,” Drusilla whispered as she walked toward the door.
“In fact,” Esther said sharply to the other children, “I think the garden needs some weeding. Any volunteers?”
Almost simultaneously, Henry and Elam shouted “Not me!”
Just as the screen door shut behind her, Drusilla heard her sister, Hannah, grumble. Apparently she was assigned the duty of weeding along with Elsie. Drusilla smiled to herself, knowing that her mother merely wanted some peace and quiet for a while. After all, Drusilla had been weeding the garden all week.
Behind her, she heard the noise of the children bursting through the door, the two boys yelling as they raced to fields where the cows grazed while the two girls headed toward the garden. Hoping to avoid bumping into anyone, Drusilla slipped around the side of the house and headed toward the barn. She knew she’d find privacy in the hayloft.
Once she was seated on a hay bale, Drusilla took another deep breath. She loved the sweet smell of the hay. Since they had baled it right on their own property, she knew that it was fresh and sweet, not old and musty as some of the store bought hay sometimes was. Outside the barn door, she heard the boys’ laughter in the distance and she could see that Hannah and Elsie were wandering through the garden.
Finally!
Drusilla withdrew the envelope from her pocket. The handwriting was strange to her: neat and square with hardly any loops or flare to it. Quickly, she slipped her finger along the sealed flap and opened it.
A single piece of folded paper was inside. The same, neat handwriting was in the letter. Her eyes scanned it and her heart felt as if it began to race. The letter was, indeed, from Caleb. It was a short letter and dated just five days earlier. But the fact that he had taken the time to write to her meant that he had been thinking of her!
Dear Drusilla,
I pray God finds you well as you read this letter. We’ve been busy baling hay from the cutting last Saturday. It’s finally dry enough to bale. I’m sure you’ve been as busy at your daed’s farm as well.
I was reading Scripture this evening after chores and my mind turned to you when I read this verse in Hebrews:
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
The Bible tells us that even when things cannot be seen, we still must believe. That is the essence of faith. When we took our kneeling vows, we promised to believe. Faith is believing with the heart what we cannot see with the eye. Even if you do not see, Drusilla, remember to keep the faith.
Soon we will attend the youth camping trip. I look forward to walking with you along the trails and hopefully watching another sunset together.
Your friend,
Caleb.
Drusilla reread the letter, savoring each word that Caleb had written to her. She studied his penmanship, appreciating how neatly he wrote each line.
Shutting her eyes, she clutched the piece of paper to her chest. She knew, without a doubt, that she would treasure this letter for the rest of her life. She would tuck it into the bottom of her hope chest, under the quilt that she had made, with the help of the other women in the g’may, last year. There it would be safe from prying eyes, for no one, including Hannah, would dare search through her private things.
Still smiling, she lifted her face toward the open doorway, a sunbeam streaming through and warming her. Soon, she would be walking beside Caleb on the trails that they hiked with the youth hiking and camping trip to the Appalachian Trail. Maybe when the evening came and they sat around the camp fire, he would sit near her during the singing. And in the morning, he would be there to greet her when everyone had coffee and breakfast with the others.
The thought of being able to visit with Caleb for such a long period of time made her feel happy and warm. If she had started to worry that his intentions had faltered, she now understood that his interest in her continued, even if he was too busy on the farm to come visiting. Her heart told her what her eyes had not been able to see.
“Dru?”
She looked up, her thoughts interrupted by her father approaching from the outside. “Ja, Daed?”
“What’re you doing in here, Dochder?”
Quickly, Drusilla folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. “Nothing, Daed.”
But, from the sparkle in her father’s eyes as he watched her shove the envelope back into her pocket, Drusilla suspected that he knew exactly what she had been doing.
“Were you looking for me?” she asked, standing up and brushing the stray pieces of hay from her dress.
Amos reached up and removed his straw hat, battered and worn along the brim from years of use, and wiped his arm across his forehead. With a quick glance toward the sky, he seemed anxious. “I checked with Maem and she don’t need you no more right now. I have an errand for you to run. Daniel and I are trying to fix that containment unit for the milk, but, I must confess, it’s taking longer than I thought.”
Drusilla frowned, surprised at her father’s news. Why, Daed and Daniel could fix anything in no time at all! she thought. “Wonder what’s the problem…”
“Ja, me too!” Amos shook his head, obviously as perplexed as Drusilla. “Anyway, I was wondering if you might run over to the feed store. David said my order for dewormer is in. Daniel’s hitching the horse and I left some money in the buggy.”
“Dewormer? But it’s already July, Daed.” She knew that the cows didn’t normally get dewormed during the summer months so his request didn’t make sense. June, July, and August were the summer brownout.
“The calves,” Amos said as a simple explanation. Then, as if an after-thought, he leveled his gaze at her and added in a somber voice, “We need to wean the new ones, Dru.”
She wanted to cringe. When the calves were weaned from their mothers, they needed to be dewormed. It helped with maintaining a solid weaning weight, especially if they
were going to be sold for veal. Drusilla hated that part of living on the dairy farm. Those small little calves with big, chocolate brown eyes were far too adorable to be sold and slaughtered at such a young age. Still, she knew better to complain. When it came time to feed the calves, she always put on a brave face so that Hannah and Elsie did not sense her distress. No one would benefit from getting emotionally attached to the calves or complaining about their plight. That was, after all, part of farming.
“And grab some medicine for mastitis. That Mastoblast works right gut! I noticed some of the cows getting a bit inflamed,” Amos called out as Drusilla started to walk toward the stable.
She didn’t mind making the errand. She liked the peace and quiet of riding in the buggy along the long roads that headed toward town. With the corn fields almost five feet tall, the roads felt enclosed and secluded. The gentle rhythm of the horse’s hooves and the gentle whirling sound of the buggy wheels on the road created a song of tranquility that she found was perfect for just being. No thinking, no reflecting, just being. And with the front buggy windows latched open, a breeze caressed her cheeks. She didn’t even mind the horse hairs that flew into the buggy.
The drive to David’s feed store was only a thirty minute drive by buggy. Just on the other side of the main road, she didn’t encounter too many cars along the way. She stopped the horse at the intersection and, looking both ways, she waited for a chance to cross and then turn into the feed store parking lot.
When she walked into the store, David greeted her with a smile that lit up his weathered face. “Hullo, Drusilla! Wie gehts?Your daed sent you for the medicine then?”
She nodded. “Ja, dewormer and Mastoblast. That’s what it’s called, I think he said.”
“Oh ja, the mastitis is hitting the herds. Hot in those dairy barns, for sure. Breeding ground for infections,” he said before disappearing into the back room.
She stood at the counter, tapping her finger on the top. While she waited, she looked around at the different aisles of items for sale: heat lamps, chick feeders, bagged shavings, plastic tubs, horse halters. Basically everything needed to care for animals on a farm regardless of whether the farmer was an Englischer or an Amish man. So when the bell over the door tingled and a couple walked in, both looking more like tourists than farmers, Drusilla was surprised.
The man wore khaki shorts and a faded red T-shirt. His white sneakers looked old, too many smudges to be new, but his white socks that covered his ankles appeared to be brand new. His white hair, thinning on top, looked as if it needed a good shampooing. He wasn’t the most pleasant looking man that Drusilla had seen, especially with his red cheeks and bulbous nose.
The woman seemed better dressed, even if her short floral dress clashed with the plaid handbag that hung on her arm. Her pink-lensed sunglasses hung from a floral orange cord around her neck. Her eyes seemed to dart around the store, her expression a mixture of excitement and nervousness.
And, with one quick glance, Drusilla saw the dreaded cell phone in the woman’s hand.
Quickly, Drusilla turned around so that her back faced the people. Oh how she hated when the tourists invaded their private space. It was one thing to snap photos of the Amish horse and buggies on the road, but to be so brazen as to enter a feed store? Clearly the couple had no business in such a place.
“Excuse me, dear,” the woman said as she approached Drusilla. “We’re looking for an Amish bed and breakfast.”
Drusilla glanced over her shoulder at the Englischer and merely shook her head. She knew better than to engage with the woman. While her own encounters with the Englische were limited to people that her parents’ knew or others in the g’may introduced to her, Drusilla had never had to deal with them in such an unprotected environment.
“Surely you must know some Amish folk who might offer us lodging, hmm?”
Again, Drusilla shook her head. In her head, she willed David to return and bring her the items for her father.
“How about a photo then?”
Fortunately, David walked around the corner with a brown paper bag and, as soon as he saw the couple, his eyes narrowed. “Sign out front says no tourists please,” he said. “Unless you have some business dealings here, I’ll kindly ask you to leave.”
From the corner of her eye, Drusilla saw the man quickly scan the store as if trying to find something of any significance to purchase. The woman, however, wasn’t quite as coy. “What harm is a photo?” She started to lift her camera. “We’ve come all the way from Virginia and it’s not so convenient to find an Amish here.”
Drusilla bit her lower lip and averted her eyes. She could tell that David was irritated. His jawline seemed to tense, the muscles in his cheeks twitching. Still, Drusilla knew that there was very little that he could do. “How much, David?” she mumbled, reaching out her hand to take the bag.
“I’ll settle with your daed another day. You go on home.”
As she turned around, the woman started pressing at her phone and Drusilla turned her head, pushing by her as she headed toward the door. Her feet could not carry her away fast enough from the couple. She heard David grumble something to them, but she couldn’t hear their reply. As she burst through the door to the parking lot, she could scarcely untie the horse fast enough from the hitching post.
Her heart pounded and her hands trembled. How could people be so unaware of how their behavior was perceived by the very people they sought out? So many tourists were kind and polite, genuinely good people with an understandable curiosity. It only took one or two like that couple at David’s store to create a level of silent hostility among the Amish for all Englischers.
Oh, if only I could just stay on the farm and away from such people! she thought as she drove the horse away from that feed store, hoping to make it through the intersection and toward the less crowded roads that led to home before those horrid tourists left David’s feed store. At times like this, she had to take deep breaths and pray for God to help calm her nerves for she truly wished that she would never again have to travel outside of the comfort and safety of the Amish community.
Chapter Four
Drusilla paced the floor, waiting for the van to fetch her. She knew that it was stopping at Miriam and Naomi’s house first, but she couldn’t help the way that her nerves felt. Her small bag rested where she had dropped it on the floor by the door.
She had been up since four-thirty that morning, eager to race through the morning chores before she changed into her nice, green dress, careful to pin her apron so that when she rode in the van, the straight pins would not stick her sides. It felt odd to put on her black sneakers since, during the summer, she usually went barefoot. However, she knew that hiking in the woods was not the place to kick off her shoes.
Now, as she waited with as much patience as she could, she found herself wishing that the van would arrive, even though she knew that it was only seven o’clock. She still had another fifteen minutes until it was scheduled to pick her up.
Hannah stood at the sink, a scowl on her face and her clothes almost as wet as the water she used to wash the breakfast dishes. Despite the meal having ended an hour ago, she was still elbow deep into soapy water with a damp towel slung over her shoulder. Elsie sat at the kitchen table, happily rocking a quiet baby Anna while Esther poured through a cookbook, her readers perched on the edge of her nose.
“Could you stop doing that, Dru?”
Drusilla looked up at Hannah. “Doing what?”
“Walking back and forth like that. You look like a fretting chicken!”
Esther exhaled a quick, sharp breath of air. “Hannah, pay more attention to those dishes than your schwester, please. Seems if you did, you’d have been finished a long time ago!”
Hannah made a noise of unhappiness but returned her attention to the sink.
Nonetheless, Drusilla stopped pacing. She forced herself to sit on the bench next to her mother, peering over her shoulder. “What are you looking up, Mamm?�
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“Something for Mammi Ana. She’s not been feeling right gut these past few days.” With another short breath, Esther removed her glasses and rubbed her temples. “Stomach’s been acting up and she hasn’t been eating.”
Hannah cast a glance across the table at her older sister.
“I brought her supper last night like you asked,” Drusilla said. “Hannah went with me. We saw her eat some.”
“Ja, but she can’t keep it down.” Esther shut the book and pushed it toward the center of the table. With a long sigh, she looked at the clock on the wall before she stood up. “Reckon I’ll start by making her some rice water. See if that helps a bit.”
Drusilla noticed Elsie make a face at the mention of rice water.
The door opened, the hinge squeaking as her father walked through the opening. He paused for just a moment to stomp the direct from his boots before entering the kitchen. With a smile at Drusilla, he said, “Almost ready then?”
She loved when her father smiled at her. There was always so much work at the farm and, quite often, he was plain worn out in the evenings. When she was younger, he didn’t have time to play games or spend much time with the children. That task was left to their mother. Now that Drusilla was older, she was able to help her father with the chores in a way that she couldn’t as a smaller child. Even though he didn’t talk very often, there was a special bond that grew between father and daughter. Drusilla sensed it whenever he worked alongside her, whether in the fields or in the dairy.
Of course, it wasn’t the same bond as her brother, Daniel, had with their father.
Drusilla didn’t envy her brother for having that special relationship. Fathers and sons worked side-by-side all day, every day. One day, soon, Henry and Elam would each follow in Daniel’s steps. But they were too young, right now, to work as hard as their older brother. So it was Daniel who shadowed their father, helping him with plowing and harvesting crops, feeding and watering the animals, and all of the other laborious tasks that needed to be done on the farm.