Which Way Home?

by Linda Byler

  Hester dressed the baby in clean diapers and a white nightgown of soft homespun. She wrapped him in a heavy blanket and laid him in the cradle, bearing his indignant cries while she washed Sarah’s feverish body and put her in a warm, clean nightgown. She draped the hickory chair with warm blankets, thought of Emma and Billy, then helped Sarah into it and put the baby to her breast for a good feeding.

  Amos coughed and coughed, sucking in a desperate breath after each racking of his body. He tried to get up again and again. Hester moved among them, quiet, single-minded in her purpose. She would make them feel better. She would heal them with the old woman’s wisdom of the earth and its fruit.

  She heated water all afternoon. She washed clothes and hung them in the attic to dry. She fed them the fragrant soup, accepting Sarah’s sighs of gratitude. While the baby slept, she washed diapers and floors, scrubbed dishes, and changed the rough, homespun sheets on the bed. She shook the dirt from the rugs, swept, and scoured the hearth.

  Sarah and Amos swallowed the spoonfuls of medicine obediently, gladly. Hester was alarmed to find the light in the windows turning to darkness, subtly, as if a cloud had passed over the gray curtain that already hid the sun. Breathless now, she gave Sarah instructions, promising to return. She threw hay to the animals. She’d water them in the morning.

  Fannie ran low and hard, but night had almost fallen before Hester had unhitched her and raced into the house, her shawl flying behind her through the deepening gloom.

  Fortunately, William was late for his supper, so the bean soup was hot and the cornbread baked, golden and piping hot when he came in. He noticed his wife’s heightened color, the snapping of her eyes, the renewed energy.

  As usual, they bowed their heads. William shoveled large spoonfuls of the bean soup into his mouth and broke squares of cornbread into rectangles, loading them with freshly churned butter.

  He asked her about her day, curious about the added energy that radiated like heat.

  “Oh, I went to visit Sarah Speicher and baby Abner. Remember, they had a son about six weeks ago? Well, I found them in deplorable shape. All three were sick with what I think is whooping cough. So I stayed, helping them with onion plasters. And I cleaned and made soup.”

  For a long time, William said nothing. When he spoke, his works were measured, short, as if each one was contained in a very small cup. “That was nice of you. But I hope you won’t go back. They need a doctor, not you.”

  “Oh, I had the whooping cough when I was six years old.”

  “You did?”

  “Oh, yes, we all did. Noah and Isaac and Lissie and Solomon. Noah brought me cup after cup of cold water. Kate said I cried for it constantly.”

  Hester gave a low laugh, then lifted her eyes to his, seeking his approval, hoping he would agree that she had done the right thing. Instead, he forbade her to return.

  “But I have to,” Hester pleaded, floundering in the quagmire of his attitude. But he would not relent. He said he was afraid she would become ill, further removing his chances of producing an heir.

  She bowed her head and submitted. When William went out to do chores, hot tears of frustration pricked her eyelashes, but not one drop fell on her cheeks. Anger replaced the tears. She gave vent to it by hurling a pewter candle holder into the wall and was pleased to find a nick in the plaster, a small spray of whitewash on the floor.

  Word got around, though, probably by way of Elias King, who loved to help his neighbors—or at least organize a frolic, be the foreman of other men’s labours, and acquire another pile of honor to his already elevated state. For Elias, like William, was highly esteemed by his fellow Amish. Fortunately, his goodwill included Amos Speichers, and a working bee was held. Hester was allowed to attend.

  Hurriedly, furtively, she checked their supply of medicine. She was pleased to see they had swallowed every spoonful. Amos was on a chair, pale, trembling, still coughing, but visibly improved. Sarah’s cheeks were pink, her eyes alive with interest. Baby Abner cooed on her lap.

  Sarah wasted no time telling astounded neighbors about Hester’s concoction of miracle herbs, as she called them. She related in minute detail the placing of the onion plaster, the vinegar baths.

  “Ya, oh ya. Goot. Sell iss goot.”

  Old Hannah Miller nodded her head in agreement, her beady brown eyes going to Hester’s face. But skunk cabbage? Pignut? She had never heard of it. Hesitantly Hester spoke. She told them of the old Indian woman. Suspicion hooded eyes and made tongues cluck with caution. These Indians were behoft with witchcraft. Perhaps the devil gave Hester the power. Women shivered, thinking of old wives’ tales brought across the Atlantic’s heaving waters from Switzerland.

  The men cleaned the stables and repaired the henhouse. The community brought chickens and placed them in the newly repaired house. Wood was cut, as well as split and stacked beneath the eaves. The chinking between the logs was repaired, as was the fence surrounding the barn.

  So much food was brought in the shelves in the cellar bulged with cheeses and hams, potatoes and onions and dried lima beans and cabbage. Honey, elderberry jam, molasses, and cones of sugar were squeezed in. People carried ground cherry pies, green tomato pies, and custards. Amos and Sarah stood side by side with little Abner and thanked everyone gahr hoftich. They felt unworthy, they said.

  Elias and Frances rode home, confident of having shored up their foundation of good works yet again, followed by William and Hester, whose thoughts of the situation were completely opposite. William insisted that Hester’s dumb gamach with those herbs were over, for sure, when Reuben Kauffman said those Indians were all guilty of powwowing. Hester wondered how soon the next call for help would arrive.

  She did not have long to wait. Exactly seven days later, in fact. Reuben Kauffman’s daughter, Naomi, woke up burning with fever, coughing violently.

  Hester cooked the herbs and mixed them with honey. She did not ask William or her parents-in-law. She merely went about her business, hitched up Fannie, and set off to Reuben Kauffmans through the cold, dry countryside. It was almost Christmas, a few days before, in fact.

  When the first snow came from the north, the flakes were small and hard, driven by a relentless, moaning wind that howled under the eaves like ghostly wolves. The big oven glowed with heat. The massive fireplace in the kitchen crackled and popped with a lively fire, yet the corners of the house made Hester shiver. She rubbed her arms as she went upstairs for onions and hovered by the fire as chills raced across her back.

  She was making medicine again. After the herbs had boiled down, she lifted out the sodden mass, then mixed the extract with honey, bottled it, corked it, and waited for the next household to come down with the whooping cough. By the time Christmas arrived, she was becoming weary of all the sleepless nights and the days spent nursing the sick, cleaning, cooking, and washing.

  On Christmas Eve, the snow lay thick and heavy like whipped cream layered over the stone house and barn, the pine trees, and bare branches of the forest. The yellow glow of the downstairs windows made William and Hester’s house appear warm and inviting, a cozy haven of rest for travelers or acquaintances. The people who traveled by on sleighs turned an appreciative eye to the big stone house, so well built that it would last for hundreds of years, a beacon of true workmanship. The son was so like the father. Yes, they were something, weren’t they?

  William was in a secretive mood, his blue eyes alight with pleasure. He invited Hester to sit beside him on the deacon’s bench by the fire. She put a cork slowly onto the last bottle of medicine, washed her hands, and dried them on a flour sack towel before turning to William, who caught her hand in his, so unlike him. Bewildered, suddenly ill at ease, she drew back, hesitating.

  “What, William?”

  “I have something for you.”

  “A gift?”

  “Certainly. For Grishtag.” He scuttled to the walnut corner cupboard, boyish in his anticipation. Hester turned to watch as he opened the cupboard door,
then extricated an oblong box awkwardly. How had he been able to hide that in such an obvious place? Hester felt the weight of the box.

  “Don’t drop it!”

  Slowly, she unwrapped it, the white paper falling away to reveal a wooden crate containing a set of the most beautiful dishes Hester had ever seen. Blue. A pattern of indigo blue on a white background. Eight plates, eight saucers and teacups. A soup tureen and a serving platter. The china was so delicate, so beautiful, Hester was afraid to touch it.

  “Go ahead, Hester. Put it on the big cupboard in the kitchen,” he coaxed.

  Hester gasped, her eyes wide with wonder. “Oh, I can’t, William. It would be too showy. Hochmut, you know. I’ll place it very carefully in the corner cupboard where no one will see it.”

  William was clearly puzzled. “But why would you do that?”

  “I don’t know. Wouldn’t it be grosfeelich to display the expensive china in my kitchen? Perhaps one of my women friends would become jealous of me.”

  “That would not be your fault.” Sighing, Hester placed the dishes on the cupboard in the kitchen, then felt William’s arms about her as he stood behind her. Together, they admired the lovely dishes. They drank spicy eggnog and popped popcorn over the open fire, staying up late to talk about their pasts.

  William was attentive, drinking in Hester’s rare beauty by the light of the flickering fire. His beautiful wife intrigued him even now, three years after marrying her. She had needed a stern hand at first, but he had taught her well the ways of an Amish wife. He eyed the bottles of herbal medicine. Warily he approached her, bringing up the subject.

  Hester listened, then drew away from him. “You do not approve, even after so many people have been helped?”

  “What do you mean, ‘helped’?”

  “The… the medicine helps them through the coughing.”

  “Really? You think so?”

  “Yes. It makes a big difference.”

  “It’s only you that thinks so.”

  Hester shook her head.

  “Do you charge them for your trouble?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “Of course. You could make a tidy profit. The herbs are free. So is the honey.”

  “But would it be right to charge poor young people like Amos Speichers? They have so little.”

  “We don’t have a lot either. We have land to pay. To my father.”

  Hester nodded slowly. “How much should I charge?”

  Quickly, William calculated the amount Hester could profit, named a sum, and told her to charge that for each bottle.

  Hester thought of Lissie Hershberger and the endless hours of devotion she gave to the families around her, for which she received potatoes, a slice of salt pork, some cornmeal. Her payment was more than cold, hard coins. Hester knew love could not be measured. It couldn’t be valued the way land or money could. Love kept flowing and flowing until it created a wide river that carried others along with it, straight into Heaven’s door.

  But William would think her silly if she tried to tell him that. He would say she talked like a woman. Weibsleitich. So she agreed. He was surprisingly pleased as he gathered her in his arms, his words of love effusive.

  Long into the night, Hester lay awake, pondering her life. So many things were good, and for this she was thankful. For William, for the ability to use her knowledge of herbs far beyond anything she had imagined. So many short years before this, she was only an Indian in hiding.

  She was thankful for Emma Ferree. And for Billy.

  Quick tears sprang to her eyes, sliding down the sides of her face, but she let them go unhindered. Pillows held secrets well. No one could tell how often they were wet with the heart’s sorrows and longings, the sighs of repression.

  Sometimes she imagined her life being large and healthy with real love, the way her childhood had been sustained by it. Emma and Billy kept it alive in their good-natured way, as much as any strangers could fill in for real family.

  The Indians contributed to the meaning of life and love in their own special way of living.

  And now. Was she still blessed with the knowledge of acceptance? Yes, she was. Yes. She told herself this over and over as the warm trail of her tears kept a steady course into her silent, secretive pillow. It was just the way of it, after Kate died.

  She was blessed. For a scavenger, a seeker of whatever she could find, she had a good life with William.

  She knew, also, that she would gladly break every piece of lovely expensive china to be free of his highly esteemed authority. Always, it was William’s way. The belief that a woman should have an opinion never crossed his mind. Did all women feel like she did, whether they’d admit it or not?

  On Christmas Day they attended church services at Ezra Fishers, a brother-in-law to Elias. The sun shone with a blinding brilliance. Hester’s tears had cleansed her spirit, leaving her with a warm glow that radiated from her dark eyes.

  She held little Abner Speicher, whispering with Sarah while the congregation sang the old Christmas hymns from the thick leather-bound Ausbund, and was thankful for a home and a husband, the empty cradle beneath the eaves forgotten for the moment.

  Frances outdid herself, cooking and stewing, baking, and serving huge platters of festive foods to the extended family. The stone house brimmed with relatives Hester had never met. They spilled over into William and Hester’s house, where they admired the dishes. Goodwill and merrymaking poured from every window, the men and women singing lustily, their faces red and perspiring.

  The great pink hams were adorned with holly and berries; the turkey lay in a bed of parsley with a display of red apples. The sweet potatoes were lavished with walnuts; the pies were high and sweet and creamy. William’s older brothers brought chestnuts, which they roasted over the fire.

  Hester glowed in her red dress and moved among her relatives with a renewed sense of belonging. Every man in the room was enchanted with her but remained circumspect, distant, blushing, and bowing when she spoke to them in her perfect, low voice. She possessed a husky quality in her speech, which one brother-in-law found extremely endearing. He was nipping the fermented apple cider in the cellar when Hester opened the door, turned her back, and lowered herself down the steep stairs, the way she would go down the rungs of a ladder.

  CHAPTER 14

  LARGE, CALLOUSED HANDS CAUGHT HER WAIST tightly like a human vise, the grip forcing air from her astounded mouth. The smell of sour apple whiskey was hot and rancid, flowing past her ear, as she was pulled against the person who held her in his grip.

  Instinctively, she began to struggle and pull away, her hands going to her waist, clawing at the disgusting hands that held her.

  Slurred words of affection accompanied the sour stench of his breathing. When Hester saw how dire the situation was, she drew up a foot, and kicked backward, the sharp heel of her leather Sunday shoe catching her brother-in-law’s shin with a splitting blow.

  She was released so suddenly she fell headlong onto the caked red earth of the cellar floor. Before she had a second to recover, the door creaked open and a shaft of light shone on her as she struggled to her feet. Her dress was covered with loose dirt, her eyes were wide and filled with fear.

  “Hester! Vass geht au?”

  It was William, her husband. Before she had a chance to brush off the dirt, he was down the cellar steps, his long legs lowering himself as swiftly as possible. Breathing hard, he grasped Hester’s shoulders, his eyes boring into hers from the light of the flickering oil lamp.

  Before she could open her mouth to explain, William found the brother-in-law, his hands hanging stupidly by his side, his mouth working as he wrestled with his shame.

  The result of that fateful encounter in the cellar were lies the brother-in-law told William in smooth, pious words, punctuated by sighs of righteousness as he explained Hester’s descent down the cellar steps and into his unwilling arms. She was an Indian, after all.

  Hester remembered very little
of the Christmas evening, her eyes large, afraid, furtive.

  Nothing was wasted on Frances.

  William did his duty, bringing his errant wife to task. Simply, it was her word against Johnny’s, the brother-in-law.

  Over and over, she repeated her story, her words falling on ears stopped with indignation. William was furious, disappointed. How could she?

  Hester sat beside the immense fireplace, the deacon’s bench empty except for her quivering form on one end, the soiled red dress in stark relief against the whitewashed wall like a Christmas poinsettia someone had trampled upon.

  For the hundredth time, she shook her head. “I didn’t, oh, William, I didn’t. It was him.”

  William stalked the kitchen floor, his hands behind his back, his head thrust forward in the throes of his anger. “I would believe you if it wasn’t for the Indian in you. Indians lie. They don’t care, godless heathens that they are.”

  She stopped then. She gave up trying to tell William the truth. She watched with eyes that were dull and lifeless as he hurled every bottle of herbal medicine into the roaring fire, forbidding her to travel the community with her witchcraft, her Indian powwowing.

  He grasped her shoulders, her forearms, leaving dull blue marks that lasted for weeks. He told her that if it ever happened again, the ministers of the church must be alerted, and she would be forced to make a public confession. Perhaps the bishop would then decide to excommunicate her for her sins. He, William, would carry out the required shunning afterward, for the extended period of time the Ordnung called for.

  The threat drove a numbing fear into her heart. Anything, anything, except public humiliation. So she bowed her head, telling William she was sorry to disappoint him, that she would repent, do better, become more vigilant.

  He slept beside her as she lay bruised, her eyes open, tears pooling on the pillow, darkening the dried blotch again where they had fallen before. This was the way of it then. The lineage of your blood, the nature God gave you the day you were born, handed down from generation to generation, was what made you who you were.