Mount Hope

by Sarah Price

  Just two nights ago, on Friday evening, shortly after supper, Fanny had thought she heard the sound of a horse and buggy leaving their farm. Her heart felt heavy when she realized that Thomas had left earlier with his friends and Timothy had retired to bed. That left only one person who would have harnessed up the horse and gone visiting: Elijah. And she knew exactly where he had gone.

  Now, as Fanny and the rest of the congregation waited for the bishop to lead the three baptismal candidates out of the back room and to the front of the congregation, Fanny felt a mixture of emotions. While she was happy that Elijah was officially joining the church, something that she never really doubted he would do, she had a new worry. Young men who joined the church usually had marriage on their minds. And even though Elijah had planned to take his kneeling vow long before the Coblentzes arrived in Mount Hope, Fanny wondered if his piqued interest in Mary had nudged him more strongly in that direction.

  Whenever she thought about this—and it was something she was increasingly prone to do—she felt her chest tighten and her heart race. Sometimes she found herself catching her breath as if she could no longer breathe properly. After a few minutes the wave of panic would pass. But it took longer for her to feel back to her normal self. Even now, as she tried to focus on the preacher’s sermon, she could feel that familiar agitation begin to surface. It didn’t help that, despite the cool autumn weather, the crowded gathering room grew increasingly warm.

  The door opened just as the preacher sat down, his sermon over. The congregation stirred as the bishop led the candidates to the front of the room, where they knelt down. The congregation then began to sing the Das Loblied hymn, and Fanny peeked at Elijah, wondering if he was singing or praying.

  He was singing.

  Feeling the hint of a proud smile on her lips, she couldn’t keep herself from watching him. For the moment she put all thoughts of Mary Coblentz out of her mind and focused on the only important thing: Elijah’s commitment to God.

  When the people finished singing Das Loblied, the bishop cleared his throat, an indication that he was about to begin the baptism sermon. Elijah bowed his head, raising one hand to cover his face in a sign of humility. Fanny sensed the magnitude of the ceremony and felt an unfamiliar burning in the corner of her eyes.

  She fought the urge to cry as she listened to the bishop speak to the congregation. He talked about John the Baptist baptizing Jesus and then about Philip baptizing an Ethiopian. Fanny listened intently, appreciating that it was the same sermon that had been given to generations before and would most likely be the same one that future bishops would give, long after these three people were baptized. Yet, to Fanny, the words felt especially poignant and powerful on this dreary, gray day.

  “In Matthew 6, the Savior says that no man is able to serve two masters,” the bishop said in a loud voice. “For if a man tries to serve two masters, he will certainly hate the one and love the other! Man cannot choose to honor God’s Word if he chooses to live in sin. A life of obedience and humility versus worldliness and vanity. That is the battle that faces these young people today. Which will they choose?”

  Fanny noticed someone fidgeting further down the bench where she sat. Glancing in that direction, she saw Miriam, who was not only ignoring what the bishop was saying but blatantly gazing across the room at Henry.

  The bishop paced in front of Elijah and the other two people kneeling before him. “I ask you now if you are willing to renounce Satan and all of his followers, for the dark kingdom is filled with deceitful and worldly riches!” He paused as he paced. “Will you renounce your own carnal and selfish will, lusts, and affections? Do you pledge yourself to be faithful to God, to receive the Savior Jesus Christ, and to allow yourself to live a life that is led by the Holy Spirit in all obedience to the truth and to remain in this unto death?” Once again, he paused, this time standing still for a long, drawn-out moment. He looked at each one of the people kneeling before him, even though they could not see him, their hands still covering their eyes. Finally the bishop asked a simple question, “Can you acknowledge this with a yes?”

  After the bishop continued with the rest of the questions concerning baptism, he paused again, his eyes carefully scanning the bowed heads before him. “If you are still intent on taking this baptism,” he began, his voice serious and deliberate, “then I ask you to stay kneeling before me and the congregation. If, however, you have any doubts, this is the time to speak up.”

  Silence.

  When enough time had passed, it was time for each of the candidates to profess their confession of faith.

  “Elijah Bontrager, do you renounce the devil, the world, and your own flesh and blood?”

  He nodded his head. “Ja.”

  “Can you commit yourself to Christ and his church, to abide by it and therein to live and to die?”

  Fanny thought she saw Elijah swallow before he responded with another simple, “Ja.”

  The bishop took a deep breath before he asked the third and final question, “And in the Ordnung of the church, according to the Word of the Lord, to be obedient and submissive to it and to help therein?”

  This was the one that Fanny worried about the most. She knew that if she broke one of the church district’s rules, she risked being shunned, and she fretted constantly that she might inadvertently say or do something against the Ordnung, those unwritten rules that governed their Amish community.

  But Elijah seemed more confident than Fanny had felt when she took her vows. He was always more confident. That was one of his traits that she admired so much. While Fanny worried and prayed that God would help her keep that vow, she knew that Elijah would never stray. Once Elijah made a commitment, he would not break it.

  “Please speak your confession of faith, Elijah Bontrager,” the bishop said.

  “Ich glaub dab Jesus Christus Gottes Sohn ift,” Elijah said.

  Fanny’s heart pounded as she heard him profess his steadfast belief that Jesus Christ was, indeed, the Son of God. Once the words left his lips, the bishop placed his hands upon Elijah’s head.

  “Elijah Bontrager,” the bishop said as the deacon poured water on his bare head. “Upon your confessed faith, you are baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved.” He removed Elijah’s hands from covering his face and helped him stand before the congregation. The bishop kissed the back of Elijah’s hand, the indication of the completion of Elijah’s baptism.

  When Elijah turned to rejoin the rest of the congregation, Fanny sat straighter and craned her neck in the hopes that he would see her. She wanted him to know the extent of her joy at this moment, her joy that he had accepted his baptism. But the joy quickly faded and the feeling of pressure in her chest returned when, upon walking back to his seat, Elijah’s eyes sought out and paused on Mary Coblentz. His kneeling vow over, Elijah was now a true Amish man. Clearly his thoughts were already on the next ceremony of importance to an Amish man: his wedding.

  Chapter 10

  THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY Elijah found Fanny sitting outside in the sun, the weather being unseasonably warm for autumn. With her chores finished and the sun beginning to set, she had taken some time to sit on the porch swing to think. Ever since Timothy had returned to Ohio, Fanny had noticed a tension in the air, especially in the evenings. Miriam and Julia both seemed pouty, although no one else seemed to notice. Elijah remained distracted, and Thomas was rarely home at all. Naomi tended to visit less frequently, and Martha’s lethargy was increasingly obvious to all. She had even heard Elijah speaking with his father about the need to take Martha to a doctor for some medicine for her melancholy and constant fatigue.

  Timothy had responded with a curt “Let me think about it.”

  As far as Fanny knew, the discussion had not resurfaced. Timothy was not a proponent of modern medicine and felt that Martha’s depression would eventually resolve itself in due course. Fanny wondered if it would resolve i
tself quicker if Naomi spent less time trying to run the household, an opinion she never spoke aloud.

  Fanny watched all of these changes from the sidelines of the family, knowing that her opinion was neither sought nor welcomed. But she couldn’t keep herself from worrying in silence.

  Upon leaving the barn, Elijah crossed the yard and climbed the porch steps where she had been praying with her eyes closed. But as she heard him approach, she ended her prayer, opened her eyes, and greeted him with a warm smile.

  “Fanny,” he said, making a gesture that he wanted to sit beside her on the porch swing. “How fortuitous that I found you!”

  She laughed as she moved over to make room for him. “Fortuitous? I doubt that there is anything ‘fortuitous’ about finding me. I’m never far from the house. Just look and you will always find me, Elijah.”

  He nudged her arm with his shoulder. “Ach, Fanny! You know what I mean,” he said. “I never see you anymore.”

  “You’ve been rather . . . ” She paused. “ . . . preoccupied, Elijah, since your baptism.” Most evenings, he excused himself from the supper table and retreated outside. No one seemed to question his comings and goings, not the way that they frowned upon Thomas’s. But Timothy seemed to have an extra spring to his step, often looking as if he knew a great secret that pleased him tremendously.

  Fanny feared what that secret might actually be.

  Elijah returned her smile, but there was a distant look in his eyes. “Ja, I have, I reckon.”

  He looked away, his eyes scanning the horizon and admiring the fields. She followed his gaze but saw nothing of interest there. The cornfields were bare, the stalks having been cut and ground for feed. Beyond the incline of the field stood a scattering of trees, the leaves just beginning to fall, the highlight of their rich autumn colors having faded to an orangey-brown. Autumn, she thought. A time of change for everyone.

  In one week, on the following Sunday, their church district would hold the Council meeting after worship service. In order for the Amish to take communion, every member of the church needed to attend the Council meeting where the Ordnung would be discussed and new rules added. Last year, the members of the g’may had voted that the use of cell phones, even for business, would not be permitted. They felt it was giving the youth too much accessibility to the outside world and that could lead to temptation and sin. Fanny suspected that the same issue would be raised this year, since so many young men especially needed access to phones to coordinate drivers to their non-farm jobs.

  The other objective of the Council meeting was to right any wrongs that had been done throughout the year. Fanny remembered a mild feud between two neighbors when a cow broke through the fencing and trampled some of the corn crops. While the owner of the cow fixed the fence right away, he had not recompensed his neighbor for the damaged corn. It was a sore subject among the farmers in the church district.

  Only after everyone was in agreement and outstanding issues made right would the g’may be permitted to take communion at the following worship service.

  All of this made Fanny happy. After all, Mary and Henry were not members of the Mount Hope church, so, just the previous day, they had returned to Gordonville in order to attend their own Council meeting and to participate in the communion service. Miriam had been quietly pouting since their departure, which made Fanny wonder about her sincerity regarding marrying Jeb. Why would she marry a man just because he had a large farm if her affections rested with another?

  As for Julia, she too was unusually quiet. Fanny noticed that Benjamin seemed to come around more often under the false pretense of visiting with Elijah, but Fanny caught him on more than one occasion making an excuse to enter the kitchen where Julia was working on a basket. She welcomed the distraction, shoving the unfinished basket in Fanny’s direction so that she could visit with Benjamin. Whether Julia’s joy was due to seeing Benjamin or merely getting out of work, Fanny couldn’t tell. But she did know that Julia fancied Henry much more than Benjamin. He was merely a distraction while she pined for another.

  Of all the Bontrager family, Fanny appeared to be the only one relieved that Mary and Henry had departed. She simply was not a fan of Elijah’s attention to Mary Coblentz. He doted on her every word, laughed at her little comments—some of which Fanny felt were a touch too sarcastic!—and seemed to focus just on her when she was around. The more Mary visited the Bontrager farm, the more Elijah became ferhoodled in love.

  Now that they were gone, Fanny thought, life could return to normal. Or, at least, whatever normal meant considering so much would change in the upcoming weeks.

  After the communion service, the bishop would begin announcing upcoming weddings. Jeb and Miriam would be among the first named. Fanny wondered how it would feel when Jeb began spending the nights at their farm, another person to add to the Bontrager family until spring came and Miriam moved to his parents’ 160-acre farm that she kept talking about whenever the opportunity arose.

  And then Fanny wondered about Julia. Would she be the next to marry? With her sights once set on Henry, Julia certainly had held high hopes that she would. But now that he had left Holmes County, those hopes were dashed. Perhaps in Henry’s absence, Benjamin would finally have some success in gaining her interest and attention.

  Once her cousins married, most of the domestic work would fall upon Fanny’s shoulders. Naomi complained that her arthritis hurt too much to do laundry or scrub floors, while Martha’s “condition” continued to worsen, her tendency to sit and silently stare out the window confirming to Fanny that the melancholy her aunt felt was more serious than anyone would admit.

  “I have something I wanted to speak to you about,” Elijah said at last.

  She looked at him, surprised. “Oh?”

  “I have a question to ask you.”

  Fanny stared at him, unable to respond right away. “I imagine that anything you would ask I would respond to with great favor,” she managed to say.

  He laughed at her response. “Oh, ja, that’s our sweet Fanny! Always eager to do anything anyone asks.”

  She felt the color flood to her cheeks. She wondered if that was how he saw her. Eager to please all? If only he knew her constant acquiescing to additional chores was not from eagerness to please but to avoid a browbeating by Naomi and to be left alone by the others in the family. The only caveat to that was Elijah. He was the one person that she was always eager to please.

  “But it’s a different type of question, Fanny. And I’m not quite sure how to ask it.” He began to tap his fingers against his knee as if nervous. “I’ve been thinking about it for quite some time and . . . ” He stole a peek at her. “ . . . well, you are really the only person I’d ever dream of asking.”

  Fanny caught her breath. “Oh.”

  He nodded. “Ja, it’s true.” Another pause and then he cleared his throat. “It’s silly, really. Well, maybe not so silly, but I feel silly asking you. I’m sure I know what your response will be . . . ” The way he rambled on made her heart feel light and happy. Was it truly possible that, at last, he might ask her the one question she so longed to hear?

  “Go on, Elijah,” she heard herself coax.

  “All right then.” He seemed determined, even though he was clearly uncomfortable. “So what I wanted to ask you, Fanny, is about Mary.”

  If the color had just risen to her cheeks, now she felt as if it drained from them. “Mary?”

  He nodded his head, a sheepish look on his face. “Ja, Mary. What I wanted to know is . . . well, what you think of Mary.”

  Fanny caught her breath. If she suspected that, after the baptism ceremony, Elijah might try to intensify his relationship with Mary, Fanny now knew that she had guessed correctly. However, she was taken aback to realize that, not only was Elijah interested in Mary Coblentz, but he hoped Fanny would approve of his choice.

  “I—I hadn’t given it much thought,” Fanny managed to say. “She appears godly, I reckon. Righteous for the most pa
rt.”

  He made a noise as if agreeing with her and then seemed lost in his thoughts.

  “Why did you ask, Elijah?” She didn’t want to know the answer to that question, but suspected that he wanted her to ask it.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, his modest words not masking his smitten tone.

  “Must be something . . . ”

  He shrugged and kept staring into the distance. His fingers continued tapping against his knee and she had the distinct impression that he was avoiding looking at her. “I believe she is a righteous woman. She appears godly, as you say. However, I’ve noticed that she has some notions that are unusual, don’t you think?”

  Fanny took a short, quick breath. So that’s what was weighing heavily on his mind, she thought. She couldn’t deny that Mary had some different ideas than most of the women in their church district. If anything, she seemed to be much more vocal about her expectations and opinions. While most women were eager to please a possible suitor, it was clear that Mary preferred a suitor who displayed an eagerness to please her. And Mary showed no qualms about speaking her mind, sometimes speaking long before thinking.

  “You mean about farming, Elijah?”

  He hesitated, just for a short second, before he nodded his head. “Ja, farming in particular.”

  “Elijah,” Fanny said, her voice giving away her trepidation at what Elijah was certainly thinking. “Your daed will not turn the farm over to your bruder. He has not proven himself to be reliable or even remotely capable of being responsible for much of anything. Your future is here in Mount Hope on this farm—the farm that has been in your family for generations, Elijah.”

  “Fanny . . . ”

  When his voice trailed off, Fanny immediately panicked that her choice of words—and the manner in which she spoke them—offended him. She looked at the ground. Had she misread him? Taken his comment and assigned it an unintended meaning? The color started to drain from her face. “Mayhaps I spoke out of turn.”