Such worry faded quickly with his kisses. She knew once again, in her heart of hearts, Derry was her one and only love, for always.
Chapter Twelve
The night of Leah’s sixteenth birthday she dreamed of her hope chest, newly filled with birthday treasures, though still rather bare compared to Sadie’s. In the dream, the daring sun peeked its golden head into each of the bedroom windows, shining forth a brilliant shaft at the foot of the double bed, where both girls’ pine chests stood, side by side. Glancing at Sadie’s, she found herself eager to look inside. She wanted to compare her gifts with the many items Sadie had made and received over the years. Leaning down, she opened the heavy wood lid, and there before her eyes were the beautiful contents of Sadie’s years of hard work.
Still dreaming, Leah dug even deeper, suddenly startled to see all of her own perty birthday remembrances, each and every one . . . inside Sadie’s hope chest. She lifted out the lovely hand-sewn pillow tops, crocheted doilies, and other linens she’d just received from Aunt Lizzie, Aunt Becky, and other aunts on both sides of the family, as well as from Fannie Mast and Miriam Peachey. She was especially delighted with Adah Peachey’s embroidered floral pillowcases and the yellow quilted potholders and matching mitts from Mary Ruth and Sadie. Hannah had her own surprise for Leah. Seven perty handkerchiefs, one for every day of the week. Mamma, too, gave a useful gift—a complete set of sheets, with pillowcases to match, a woolen blanket, and a quilted coverlet. Here they were, all neatly folded inside her sister’s chest.
“Ach, Sadie . . . what have you done?” She began to cry. Her sister had somehow taken away her few cherished gifts. The sky was a sudden gray, and she was terribly afraid.
Awakening, she sat straight up in bed, breathing ever so hard and looking round the dark room. It was nighttime, not noonday at all. And Sadie was next to her, sleeping quietly. Tempted to slip out of bed and investigate the two wooden chests, she was aware of the beating of her heart. But the longer she sat there, the more she realized the dream had only seemed real—the result of having a second helping of Mamma’s dessert surprise. A wonderful-gut pineapple upside-down cake with fresh whipped cream. No need to think twice about such a dream. She turned on her side, facing away from Sadie, and hugged herself. May my dreams be sweet now, Father God, she breathed a prayer and closed her eyes, falling asleep once again.
The morning of Sadie’s baptism was as gloomy and rainy a Sunday as any she ever recalled. Seemed to her the heavens were already unleashing divine wrath upon her as she stood in the line, waiting with five other girls to take their places in the center section over near the minister’s bench. Just now she felt an overwhelming need to rutsche—squirm—but her memory served her all too well. During many a Sunday Preaching service, when she was little and not able to sit as perfectly still as Mamma would expect her to, Sadie had received Mamma’s firm pinch on her leg. She could almost feel the smarting pain even now, a bleak reminder of her indifference to those things her parents deemed sacred.
A holy hush came over the room. The applicants for baptism prepared to turn their backs on the world and all its pleasures, saying a resounding “Jah” to the Lord Jesus and the Ordnung—the unwritten rules for holy living.
Preacher Yoder had literally pounded away at the aspects of covenant making, as stated in the Old Testament, teaching them that a vow made had lifelong consequences if broken. “To disobey the church would mean death to the soul.”
Obey or die. . . .
There had been exhortation from Dat, too, Sadie recalled. He’d sat her down just yesterday and read aloud from Genesis chapter fifteen, where Jehovah God made a covenant with Abram of old. The blood of a young heifer, goat, and ram, along with a dove and a pigeon, had been spilt. Then a blazing torch, representing the Holy One, had appeared and passed through the blood path, sealing the covenant. “Making a covenant with the Lord God heavenly Father is a very serious matter,” Dat had said. Yet she had remained silent.
Kneeling before the bishop and his wife, Sadie battled in her spirit, caught betwixt right and wrong, good and evil. But she went ahead with her baptism, making good on her parents’ hopes and wishes for her—paying merely lip service, so unable was she to deny her desperate love for Derry Schwartz.
A few weeks later Gideon Peachey and his father worked together, chopping and stacking wood, a backbreaking chore. Keeping his eye on the log, Gid swung the ax down hard in one mighty blow, splitting the log apart at the center, the way his pop had taught him to do.
Close to one o’clock Gid happened to look up and see Abram Ebersol coming across the pastureland, cutting through the side meadow and round the barnyard to where they worked, a long stone’s throw from the barn. “Willkumm!” he and his father called at once.
Abram moseyed over and offered to lend a hand. Gid was glad for the extra help, since there was more wood to hew than he and Dat could possibly split in three hours’ time, and the afternoon milking would be rolling round here before too long.
Nodding, Abram smiled stiffly. “Thought I could make myself useful.”
Gid cheerfully gave Abram a spare ax, and the two of them worked on the pile of wood while Dat went to stacking. They kept at it for an hour and a half before Mam brought tall glasses of sweetened iced tea for each of them. Mopping his brow, Gid glanced at the man who might be his father-in-law someday. If Leah Ebersol would have him, that is. From the moment his father’s and Abram’s plan had been revealed to Gid, marrying Leah had appealed to him. He hadn’t let on to either Dat or Abram that long before his school days he’d had his eye on the perty brunette girl who lived just across their grazing land. Of the four Ebersol sisters, Leah was the one who’d most caught his attention. Same thing once they started attending school together. Leah had been the kindest, most pleasant of all the girls in his class, which wasn’t taking into account whatsoever that he thought she was downright beautiful—inside and out. Adah and Dorcas, his younger sisters, must’ve thought so, too, because the girls, especially Adah and Leah, had struck up an instant friendship back when they were just little.
Truth was, everyone who knew her spoke well of Abram’s Leah. Gid could only hope he would be worthy of courting her. That she might allow him to accompany her home in his black open buggy come this Sunday night. Evidently Adah had already talked to Leah about driving to the singing together, the three of them. But Adah had said that Leah wanted to go a little farther away—over to the Grasshopper Level singing—which was right fine with him. It was the returning home part of the evening he cared most about.
According to Adah, she hadn’t been able to pin Leah down about riding over with them. Seemed Leah preferred to go with Sadie. If so, would Leah meet up with Adah later? Did Leah mean to say she might give Gid a chance at being the young man to drive her home? The question had nagged him ever since Adah reported back about her quiet conversation with Leah out near the pond some days ago.
And what of the note he’d sent, delivered by Adah, where he offered his sympathy for Leah’s hurting ankle? He would’ve gladly done more than simply pen a get-well message. If things weren’t so downright awkward, what with both Dat and Abram plotting to set things up between himself and Leah, well, he might’ve gone over there to visit her awhile. Maybe even played a tune for her on his harmonica, having learned another new melody from Dawdi Mathias Byler. He and Dawdi Mathias liked to spend their evening hours practicing the mouth organ whenever they could. Dawdi would play his while Gid stumbled along, letting his ear tell him whether to slide up or down on the notes. Of course, the bishops wouldn’t approve of their playing hoedown music at singings or whatnot, encouraging dancing and all. Still, it was all right for them to play in their homes, for their own enjoyment—“or our amazement,” Dawdi Mathias would say with a chuckle and a twinkle in his eyes. Both Dawdi and Mammi Mattie Sue enjoyed having their grandchildren come for visits. “Come over whenever you like,” Mammi always said, coaxing the three of them to spend the night on the Byl
er dairy farm, where they’d fall asleep to Dawdi’s rhythmic serenade.
Thinking back to Leah, Gid was more than certain that Dawdi and Mammi would wholeheartedly approve of her, though he hadn’t breathed a word of his affection to a soul, except to Adah, though ever so subtly, asking her to be a messenger girl just that once.
From now on, though, he planned to handle things on his terms. Very simply, he would have to draw Leah into conversation quickly at her first singing, be the only one to win her consent to see her home in his carriage. If not, he might lose his chance to court lovely Leah at all. With her winning smile and ways, she would be a magnet for any number of young men.
On the other hand, Sadie Ebersol—if she was to accompany Leah to the singing—was downright difficult to figure out. He honestly hoped Sadie might have other plans or be too busy at home to go along with Leah, which would give him a better prospect. Sadie just didn’t seem to care much for him. Not romantically, of course, but just in general. She had looked down her nose at Gideon on several occasions lately, though he didn’t know why. This struck him as odd, since both Hannah and Mary Ruth— and Abram and Ida, too—were as friendly and nice as Leah had always been. There was just something different about Sadie. Though she was ever so fair and had the most unusually blue eyes, well . . . he could almost surely put his finger on the root of the problem. Leah’s older sister was plumb full of herself. She seemed to think rules were made to be broken, too. He’d heard tell from some of the youth; it was rumored that Sadie might be seeing someone outside the fold of the People. This was hard for him to accept, what with Sadie having bowed her knee before the bishop and the whole church membership after the Preaching service over at Moses Stolzfus’s house several weeks ago. The sacred act firmly signaled the end of her rumschpringe. But none of this added up, not if Sadie was being untrue to her vows immediately after making them. But time would tell.
Secretly he had watched Leah while her sister was standing in line, ready to kneel and make her promises to God. Leah’s perty face had twitched uncontrollably, as if she were fighting back tears. But why should she be sad at her sister’s baptism? Were they tears of joy, maybe? He would never pry, wasn’t his place, yet he did wonder sometimes what Sadie was thinking joining church when she seemed to lack the genuine goodness and spirit of honesty so evident in her sister Leah and others. Maybe someday dear Leah would share her feelings on all this. Then again, maybe not.
Sadie insisted to Leah that she was much too weary to attend singing on the following Sunday afternoon.
“Are ya sure?” Leah asked.
But Sadie only shook her head. No amount of pleading was going to change her mind. She said she planned to retire early this evening—a new twist for certain, Leah thought. And something Sadie ought to do more often, seeing as how she was awfully worn out. Yet she was staying home all the time, hadn’t sneaked out of the house once lately. Leah was relieved and wondered if joining church had changed things for the better. Could it be?
Yet one thing still troubled Leah. She found it peculiar that she’d never heard an explanation for Sadie’s disappearance that one afternoon, just days before her baptism. Where had her sister gone when she was supposed to be looking after the produce stand? No one—not even Dat and Mamma— seemed to know, or care. And if they did, they were keeping it hush-hush.
Well, all of that aside, the most important and blessed thing had happened at last. Sadie was an official member of the Old Order Amish church. Baptized and set apart.
Struggling not to be put out with Sadie for refusing to go to singing with her, Leah was determined to have some good fellowship, with or without her sister. Finished with both indoor and outdoor chores, she told Mamma where she was headed.
Then Leah hurried over to visit Adah round three o’clock, taking the shortcut through the meadow. She would have to find out from Adah if Gid really would drive them over to the Grasshopper Level singing.
But Adah seemed overjoyed at the idea that Leah should ride with them. “Such wonderful-gut news!” Adah said, beaming. “And don’t worry about the little bit of distance. I’m sure Gid won’t mind at all.”
Giggling, they grabbed each other’s hands and pranced round the bedroom Adah shared with Dor-cas. And praise be, young Dorcas was nowhere in sight. Which was a very good thing, too. Leah surely didn’t want to stir up any mistaken notions that she was soon to be courted by their only brother, who, just now, was out past the barnyard splitting logs with her own father and the smithy.
It turned out Leah and Adah rode in the second seat in the courting buggy, behind Gid, who wore a euphoric grin, reins in hand. She and Adah whispered to each other nearly all the way there. Gid was silent for the most part, joining in the conversation only occasionally to inquire of a particular male youth who might also have turned the appropriate age for the singings . . . but not a young woman, which Leah found interesting. It was as though Smithy Gid was bent on avoiding any talk of another girl having caught his fancy.
Of course, she kept her thoughts to herself about what Gid might be thinking. Wasn’t her business to second-guess. He had every right to pursue any of the girls who might be in attendance tonight. She wouldn’t stand in his way; that was certain.
Young people from several church districts were already gathering at the big barn when Leah and Adah stepped down from Smithy Gid’s buggy. Almost immediately, Gideon unhitched the horse and led him up to the barn. Later, Adah told her, he would head off in the direction of a group of boys, playing the part of older brother not only for his sister Adah’s benefit, but also for Leah’s, since she had no brother to accompany her to the singing. There was the unspoken agreement that just because she had consented to ride with Gid and Adah didn’t mean she was obligated to return home in the same buggy.
Leah’s dearest hope was that Jonas Mast might show up tonight. She would be heartbroken if he didn’t. Yet something within her assured her he would be here. And with a smile on his handsome face, just for her.
Ach, it was ever so nice to see so many young folk all in one place. And the boys, well, if they didn’t look spiffy! It was as if they were attending preaching service, with hair clean and brushed, straw hats in hand, wearing long-sleeved white shirts, tan suspenders and black ties, and such fine black suits free of the slightest wrinkles or dust.
On the way up the lane, she’d taken special notice of the buggies lined up on the side yard, all shiny and neat. Some of the horses, she’d seen on the ride over, had too many reflectors on the bridles, just for show.
The girls were equally well-groomed for the occasion, many of them wearing their for gut blue or purple cape dresses, including a clean, long black apron. She had chosen her purple dress, just as Adah had.
“C’mon,” Adah whispered to her, “let’s gather round the table. It’s time to begin, looks like.”
Leah, feeling suddenly timid, followed her friend to a long table set up on the barn floor, swept clean for the evening. The boys were expected to sit on one side and the girls on the other. So far, the girls were getting seated first. The boys were straggling over, three and four at a time, as if they might be sizing up the situation—seeing what new girls were here.
She felt prickly all of a sudden, a tingle of anticipation going up her spine. She still hadn’t spotted Jonas, but Sadie, of all people, had cautioned her not to appear too eager for a particular boy. “If Jonas comes, you’ll know he’s lookin’ to take you home and no other,” Sadie explained. Leah assumed her sister was probably right.
The singing began almost before Leah realized what was happening. Several girls announced the first hymn, blew a pitch pipe, and got the melody going. They seemed to sing only the faster ones, and sometimes words were put to different songs than they sang at Preaching service. This was all new to Leah, but she caught on quickly and found herself joining in, singing heartily, just as Mamma always did in church, singing right in Leah’s ear. Ever so joyful Mamma was at such times. Just as Leah
was now, especially because Jonas Mast had just caught her eye, a long ways down the table.
Jonas is here! she thought, her heart gladdened. But she was careful not to look his way too often, lest both Adah, next to her, and Smithy Gid, directly across from her, might know there was really no chance she’d be riding home with the village blacksmith’s son. None whatsoever. Yet she would be cautious not to hurt their feelings—his and her best friend’s, both.
Between the selection of songs, there was enough time to talk to the boys across the table or, in Leah’s case, to Adah and two other girls nearby. By the time ten o’clock rolled around, there were enormous bowls of popcorn brought in and soda pop and lemonade. Another whole hour would pass, with plenty of visiting and joking—and boys already doing their best to line up a girl to take home.
“If we instruct our children well, they won’t forsake the truth.” Mamma’s words rang in Leah’s ears as she sat there observing over a hundred young people, some moving away from the table, already pairing up.
Getting up, she looked around for Adah, who had disappeared. She was mindful of Gideon, but didn’t want to be found standing alone, didn’t want to be too available for Gid to approach her. Then she spied Adah way over on the other side of the barn, talking to a boy from their church district, of all things. So Adah had abandoned her for a boy on the first singing. But she didn’t much care. Because, in the end, she was rather glad to be standing there alone, under the rafters where two cooing pigeons had perched high overhead.
Jonas sneaked up behind her and said in her ear, “Hullo, Leah.”
She spun round and greeted him. “Nice to see you again,” she said, grinning and wishing she might say more, but hoping they had the rest of the night to talk together.
The Covenant Page 12