When the English Fall

by David Williams

  So many were our friends, not just our family, and our bonds went far back. But after Sarah died in the womb, and after we learned that we would not be having more children, things changed. It was whispered among the women that this was judgment for pridefulness, and Hannah was deeply hurt.

  When the whispering continued, month after month, I had brought it to my uncle, and he seemed to only affirm it. He said I needed to examine my heart for sin. I needed to consider why God had inflicted this punishment on my family, and to repent of it.

  When I was a child, not yet a man, I would have yielded to this judgment. Submission and humility are how all must live, and accepting the authority of those chosen to lead is part of that. But I knew enough of the world, not the English world, but of other settlements and other districts. I had been through the wandering-around, and it had taken me places where things were different.

  I knew the anger that such broken instruction stirred in me was righteous, and biblical. Job did not suffer because of sin. Christ did not suffer because he was sinful, and neither did the martyrs and the apostles. Good men were not punished by sickness, and good women did not suffer because they deserved it.

  To say otherwise felt like a failure to grasp why our Lord and Savior had lived and died.

  It felt like hochmut, like sinful pride at work in those who prospered. I felt it strongly, though I am not as strong in the spirit as my wife. It became a powerful wedge, driven between my uncle and me like an adz bites into dry wood. I prayed over it, and I prayed over it, but it would not leave.

  I began to realize that my anger at it was not pride, but the thing that stirred me and made me determined to stand firm. It was not an anger that strikes a blow, or speaks a word of hatred. I was never disrespectful. It was, instead, the anger that tells you that a wound has been inflicted.

  It was for that reason most of all that we left. Why I sold off all of the holdings and property that had been given me, and sought land in a settlement where there was more grace. It was a miracle that I found this house at just a time when land prices here were falling to within reach. Coming here proved so much easier than I had thought.

  I only wish anger was as easy to leave behind.

  I will pray over this more. But still, it is good to have the house filled with sound and with life.

  October 18

  This Sabbath day was to be a day of prayer, as it is every other week in normal times. I had told Mike and Shauna that yesterday. There were the very basic chores to accomplish, as there always were. But for the morning, the four of us would gather for a time of readings and praying, and sometimes we would sing. I wanted our guests to know that this was not our being inhospitable, and they told us that they understood.

  I think Mike and the boys were really tired from all that they’d done the day before, so Mike said they would probably sleep in. Shauna, though, asked if she could sit with us, as we prayed and as we read together, and Hannah told her that it would be fine.

  They had talked about it much yesterday, and so there she was, with us.

  We sat in silence. It did not seem, this day, like we should try to sing together as a family from the Ausbund as we sometimes do. It would not be welcoming to Shauna, because she does not know the language, and so instead we shared readings from the Psalms in English.

  When it came time to talk, our family custom was that I would say a few words about a scripture, and then Hannah, and then Sadie, and then Jacob. That is the blessing of a shared family worship, this time of reflection. So we each chose and read a passage.

  I chose to read from Job, because that was where God has been leading me these last weeks. We read in English, because again it would not be right to have a guest with us and not to let her join us.

  I do not know how Bishop Schrock would feel about this, but I know that it was what we needed to do.

  Hannah read from the twenty-third Psalm, where she so often goes for comfort, and then shared her trust in God in a short reflection. Sadie chose to read a passage from Luke, one that talks about the coming of the Kingdom and the end of things, and how it is already among us. It was that passage I’d been reflecting on the other day, about the vultures gathering over a corpse.

  “I think we all know what that means,” Sadie said, as she closed the Bible and passed it to her brother. And that was all she had to say about that.

  Jacob read from 1 Samuel, as he often does, the story of David and Goliath. He reads it because he likes it. Because it makes him feel brave, even though he’s not grown up. That was what he said.

  “I’m very scared when I look out at the English now. I still dream about those planes falling down, about the fires, and I feel small and like I am nothing. But then I remember how David was strong, even though he was just a kid. Especially because he was a kid. He was smart and fast, and he knew what to do. So I like this story right now.”

  When the Bible was passed to Shauna, she read from the Psalms again, a little passage from Psalm 51, about creating in her a clean heart.

  And then she talked, and she cried, and she talked some more. About how afraid and alone she felt. About how she had already been so lonely and isolated, because of how things had been. She had always been anxious, and afraid, and she had turned to alcohol and men who were not her husband. She had lost her job as a nurse’s assistant at the hospital because she had let her life slide, and had done things she should not have done. She had not known how to talk to her boys when they became teenagers, and they had hated her because she had done terrible things and been a terrible mom.

  Then she cried for a while, and Hannah and Sadie held her, and she said she was sorry for crying, and then she cried some more.

  Then we prayed from the prayer book to end our family time, as we always do.

  I think it was good that she could be with us. The lives of the English are so very hard.

  THAT AFTERNOON, WE DID not work, for it was Sabbath. Sadie and Hannah went with Shauna, Tad, and Derek to visit at the Fishers’. I would go later, but for now, I stayed with Mike, and he and I talked and walked the property along the fence line. There were things we needed to discuss.

  There were things he needed to hear from me.

  “From what you have told me, and what I have seen, you are not going to be weekend guests, Mike. This is going to last a while, maybe a very long while.”

  He nodded, grimly. “Yeah. I don’t know how this turns out. I can’t see it being good.”

  I told him about what we would be able to do for the winter, which would be on us soon. There was harvesting that needed to happen yet. Soon it would be the wheat that had survived the storm, the root vegetables that still grew deep in the earth, the fall crop.

  And with four more mouths, our preparations were barely adequate. I’d need to slaughter that calf, soon, tomorrow, and he and the boys could help me butcher it and prepare it. That meat would help.

  But it would mean less for us to give when others came hungry to us. It would mean that we would need to keep a positive spirit toward one another, and the work would be hard.

  I asked him if he was willing to commit to doing what needed to be done.

  “We’ve worked together so long, Jacob,” he said. “You know I’m good for doing whatever we gotta do to make this happen. And do I have a choice? I mean seriously, do I?”

  I told him that I knew I could trust him, but that sometimes what we mean to do and what we do become very different things.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I hear that. Story of my life.”

  Then I told him that we needed to talk about Shauna. Would they be able to be together and not be angry? “It is going to be a very hard time, no matter what happens,” I said. “If we work together, and are careful, and make sure that we spend ourselves not on anger and tearing each other down but on building up, then God will reward us as God sees fit.

  “If we do not, then . . .”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “Too much drama. Too m
uch drama. Can’t do the drama if we want to survive.”

  “Can you stay away from it?” I asked him. “There has been so much bitterness the two of you have shared. And she still hurts from it, as do you.”

  “I’ll try,” he said. I could tell that he meant it.

  Then we talked about how to slaughter a steer, because it helps to be prepared to do something like that.

  THE AFTERNOON AT THE Fishers’ was good. Mike chose to stay at our place, said he needed to think about some things. After the meal, we shared a dessert of Rachel’s bread pudding. It was graham crackers and whipped cream and sugar, mixed together with a pudding mix, so it was not really and actually bread pudding as I remembered it from my childhood.

  But it was very delicious. “How do you eat this and stay so thin?” I heard Shauna say.

  Joseph and I talked together for a while about what we were hearing these last few days.

  News was worsening from everywhere. More and more hungry people, and people without enough. More angry people, more stories of violence and death.

  Even the soldiers seemed to be struggling with it. He had heard from Bill, who had talked with someone in Lititz, that some Guardsmen were beginning to return to their homes, because they were afraid for their families and children. Bill said he didn’t see the difference himself, but that others had told him that there were fewer police and soldiers.

  Maybe it was just a rumor.

  What could be seen was that more men were on the streets with guns, and there were not one but three militias and neighborhood protection groups just in the area. Bill himself was part of one, one made up of farmers and local businessmen who wanted to be sure that no one took advantage of their crops, or raided their homes at night.

  “Is there any good news?” I asked. “Surely there must be something good.”

  He thought for a minute or two. “One of the bigger English farms on the other side of the county had gotten a couple of their combines running now,” said Joseph. “They fixed them up with parts from other things. Finding gas isn’t easy, but it has helped. The wheat they’ve harvested has gone to a couple of bakeries in Lancaster, where they’ve figured out a way to get the ovens going again. That means bread, which is something that everyone is happy about. Even if it isn’t quite enough.”

  I agreed that was good, and hoped we’d see more of it soon.

  Joseph nodded, and there was a pause as we watched those around us, the children running and playing, the women sitting, talking. It was like it had been last month, six months ago, a year ago. As if nothing had happened. Nothing for a hundred years.

  It was a moment of forgetting. Sometimes, forgetting is God’s most gracious blessing.

  October 19

  The wind rose up this morning, blowing hard from the north, bringing clouds that were high and swift and stark. It was colder again, and the sharp winds bore a bite in them that was not there yesterday.

  It was a good day for slaughter. Too hot makes it feel messier, and there is the risk of the meat spoiling quickly. But with the temperature suddenly below fifty, it is almost like we have been blessed with refrigeration. The Lord is good in His Providence.

  After breakfast, Mike joined me as we retrieved the steer from the field. We led it toward the area behind the shed. The rest of the herd was a far way off, and the young bull did not fight or make it difficult. They almost never do.

  Why would it? Being fed was the most likely thing to expect, and I am never cruel with them, so they have no cause to fear me.

  I had sent Jacob and Derek to get the blades and the pistol, and they returned, Derek carrying the various different blades in their leather pouch, and Jacob carrying the pistol and a box of ammunition. Tad was not with us. He had heard that we were going to be killing the steer, and decided that he’d rather help his mother and Hannah and Sadie with the cleaning up after breakfast, and to prepare for making the large batch of beef stew.

  “That’s gonna be nasty,” he said, and that was his reason. I notice, however, that he has been making an effort to talk with Sadie and that may be another reason. A father does not miss such things.

  As Jacob handed me the Smith & Wesson, Derek looked at the old revolver with fascination. “I didn’t know Amish people had guns,” he said. “My dad taught me to shoot at the range and all, but I thought you didn’t ever have that sort of thing. You know, because you’re so . . . I don’t know. You just can’t hurt people, right?”

  I loaded one of the fat rounds into the chamber of the pistol. “We have knives, too,” I said with a smile. “But they are tools for farmers and hunters. Nothing more. Harming another to protect ourselves would betray what we believe. That would be pride, and it would be killing, and it would not be what Jesus taught us.”

  He nodded.

  I asked him if he had ever seen an animal killed, and he said that he hadn’t.

  I led the steer to a post near the barn, right by the hitch we would use to lift the carcass, and secured it lightly. Then I set a bucket of feed in front of it. It began to eat, head down. I stepped forward, and as I did so, Jacob plugged his ears, and Derek and Mike did the same. I put the round cleanly into the animal’s forehead. It fell sideways, then rolled over on its side, legs twitching, straight out in front of it.

  Such a kick, that pistol has. I can still feel it in my hand, even as I write this.

  A smaller caliber rifle would work as well, and be more practical. Especially for hunting. But this was a gift, and one should use a gift, especially one that is so practical. And the truth is I rarely hunt.

  I asked Jacob for the curved blade, and he handed it to me, still sharp. I cut into the throat, and blood fountained out, the scent of it filling the air. It is an old pattern, so familiar.

  Mike seemed to take it in stride. He was a soldier, for a while. But Derek? His large, ruddy face lost some of its normal color. He looked a little pale and dizzy.

  He remained pale for a while, but he stayed with us the whole time, as we hoisted the steer and bled it and skinned it and gutted it and prepared the cuts. I will admit I was impressed. I do not think that I did that well the first time I helped my father.

  I told him so, and he seemed pleased.

  WELL BEFORE THE DAY was over, we had finished with the butchering. It was not quite as much meat as I had hoped, because the forage and the feed have not been as good in the pastures. But it was still close to five hundred pounds of beef.

  Jacob is a quick hand with the blade, as he has learned much from me over the last few years.

  Mike and Derek mostly helped with the cleanup and simpler preparation, like cutting the meat and preparing it for curing, or bringing it to the house, where every pot was turned to making the stew for canning and storage.

  The house hummed with working together, all eight of us turned to the same purpose, and I felt good of it.

  The day went swiftly by, as a day blessed with productive work does, like a song or a heartfelt prayer.

  And the steaks at dinner were delicious.

  TONIGHT AS I PRAYED, I found myself giving thanks for Mike and his family, for the speed with which they worked and were willing to learn. I would not have thought it, if I am honest with myself.

  A part of my soul would have assumed, as would many of those in the settlement, that those who live among the English and are part of them just cannot bring themselves to work as we do. That is part of the greatest danger to our souls, a pride that can come when we set ourselves apart to be servants, but then assume that our servanthood makes us better.

  Bishop Beiler would talk about that all of the time. It was in the first sermon I heard from him, when I came here to get a sense of this settlement, in the time of parting. It was his last sermon to us, in those days before the cancer took him. If we look at our simple way, and let ourselves become proud of it, then demut becomes hochmut. Our strength becomes our downfall. That is how Satan works in all of us, tearing us from God’s love.

&nb
sp; It is like the bitter heart of the elder brother of the prodigal, sitting resentful in the field. Or the resentments of the laborers, when even the latecomers to the field are given wages from the generosity of their employer. Jesus knew our hearts, so easily turned to pride and hate.

  But Mike and his family can be a blessing to us. And we to them, if we keep ourselves turned to the task of blessing one another.

  GUNFIRE HAS WOKEN ME again. It crackles and pops, far distant. It has lasted for a while. I cannot sleep for worrying.

  October 20

  It was colder still this morning, and a light frost lay on the ground from the night before. But the day was beginning clear, and I was thankful for that, as bright sun was needed these next few days.

  This afternoon, we would be ready to fill all three of the drying houses with the cured meat, and I checked the houses. All were cleaned and ready. As I rested my hand against the clear side of one, I felt the warmth of the rising sun already heating the space within.

  But before that, there were other things to do.

  Tuesday was here again, and we had set aside a case of stew for giving, and some of the cabbage from the garden, which I would take to the Schrock farm once the morning’s tasks were done.

  Before I left, Jon arrived with news. It was about the gunfire last night. A dozen armed looters had tried to break in to the Stauffers, though there was almost nothing left on the shelves. They had smashed the windows and tried to take whatever they could get their hands on.

  There had been a firefight between the looters and some of the men from the town. It lasted for a while, and ranged nearby as they pursued the men. Five or six were dead.

  And then Jon handed me a handwritten message, one from Bishop Schrock. After all of the food had been loaded onto the National Guard trucks to be taken to market, he would like to talk with me. I knew what our conversation would be about.