Jacob's Return

by Annette Blair

  “I know where there is a Gutenberg Press,” she said, to get their attention.

  “Ya,” Jacob said. “Tell us where so we will know why you frown.”

  “Listen. ‘Dear Mrs. Sauder. For your information, there is an old Gutenberg in the cellar of the Times of London. I saw it there last month. I hope this helps with your search.’” Rachel looked at Jacob. “It is written by the publisher of the New York Times.”

  “Big help,” Jacob said.

  Wondering if they would ever get her press printing, Rachel shrugged. “Well it was nice of him to write.”

  * * * *

  Weeks later, when hope was dim and the press was all but forgotten, Jacob heard Rachel calling from the house and ran so fast, his hat flew off. “Rachel? What is it?”

  “It’s the printing press.”

  Jacob took a breath. “The children are all right?”

  “Of course.”

  Her smile slowed his anger. He shook his head, and tugged a kapp ribbon. “You scared the daylights out of me.”

  “I’m sorry, Jacob.” She tugged his beard.

  “Ouch!”

  “Pay attention. Listen. I have a letter. It’s from R. Hoe & Company, Pressmakers. ‘Assorted Gutenberg Press parts with three odd sets of letters, being shipped to Rachel Sauder, Editor, Amish Chalkboard, by train today. Pickup at Strasburg Station, on or after September 15.’”

  “That’s wonderful. We’ll have them in four days.”

  “Not so wonderful. We cannot afford them.”

  “We need them. How much are they?”

  “Too much.”

  “Rachel, how much?”

  “One hundred, seventy-two dollars. Robbery!”

  Jacob whistled. “That’s why they can afford this fancy letter-writing paper. They do good business. Charging for the parts is only good business, Mudpie.”

  “It’s almost two years pay, Jacob.”

  “I can afford it, Rachel. Let me do some good with my money. Will you accept me as your partner?”

  “How would you be my partner?”

  “When you can print so many papers you begin to make ten dollars a week, you will start giving me half.”

  Rachel’s brows furrowed. “But I don’t—”

  “In time, I will make back my hundred and seventy-two dollar investment and more. If you don’t like being partners, after I earn my investment back double, you can buy my half for one hundred seventy two dollars, and you will be sole owner.”

  “All these problems tell me publishing a newspaper is foolish, as Simon says.”

  “Don’t lose faith now, Mudpie. You have come so far. Why don’t we pick up the parts and see if we think they are worth the price? We might find we have a bargain. If we think they are worth less, we will write and offer less. If he does not accept, we can send the parts back.” He tapped her nose. “But if they are worth the price, I will become your partner … until you can buy me out.”

  Rachel sighed. “All right, Jacob. I agree to that. You might be a good partner.”

  Jacob looked at her with longing. “I would be a very good partner to you, Mudpie.”

  Wanting nothing more than to step into his arms and feel them close around her, Rachel turned away and went back into the house.

  * * * *

  When Jacob and Ruben went to pick up the Gutenberg Press parts in Strasburg, the shipment was gone.

  The Station Master knew only that an Amishman had picked it up early that morning.

  “I am going to strangle him,” Jacob muttered as they drove home.

  “You don’t know it was Simon,” Ruben said.

  “Of course it was Simon. He is no longer allowed near enough to Rachel to harm her. What other way can he hurt her?”

  “I would remind you,” Ruben said, “I do not actually comprehend why, strictly speaking, Rachel’s husband is not allowed near her. Though there has been talk, on and off since their marriage, of Rachel’s sudden capacity to hurt herself.”

  “And you are not a stupid man.”

  “Why thank you, Jacob.”

  “Don’t thank me. I point it out so you will not need an explanation as to why I will throttle you for not stepping forward to protect her.”

  “I was too busy wallowing in grief and self-pity to think of such a thing. Rachel’s bruises did not seem particularly important at the time. For this, I give you permission to throttle.”

  Jacob gave a disgusted snort. “You have been throttled enough by fate. I forgive you.”

  “Thank you. And you are right. I imagine Simon could hurt Rachel best by using her printing press.”

  “Imagine then what he did with the parts.”

  “Well. He could not bring them to your farm. He could not sell them; people would recognize him. Who would want Gutenberg Press parts besides us? I would probably dump them along the way.”

  “All right. Where?”

  “You think for a while now. I’m tired.”

  “You’re always tired, Ruben.”

  “Ach. I am.”

  Jacob shook his head. “Let me see. They might be dumped in the woods. Down a well. In an old mine. A cave. Help me here.”

  “All bad ideas,” Ruben said. “They could be seen and found in any of those places. They should be buried.”

  “Or destroyed. But how?”

  “Fire, flood, famine, locusts,” Ruben offered.

  “Since Simon is not God, he probably does not have those things ready to hand.” Deep in thought, Jacob allowed Caliope to set the pace. When they approached the farm, Jacob saw Simon down by the limekiln. But it was usually his father who saw to the burning of the bones after slaughter to make the lime they spread on the fields. “How about buried and burned?” he said, nodding in Simon’s direction.

  Throwing the reins at Ruben, Jacob jumped from the moving wagon.

  Despite Simon’s protests, Jacob grabbed the huge fire-rake and began pulling the burning contents from the pit upward and to the ground around it. He stomped out most of the fire and extracted every metal piece he saw, separating it from bones and burning wood to cool. Some of the wood, which was not the logs used to burn the bones, could not be saved.

  Since a Gutenberg Press was more wood than anything, their loss was great. Now the one hundred and seventy-two dollars would have to be paid.

  More important than the cost, was how much this would hurt Rachel. Jacob wished he did not have to tell her, but she would know when she saw the scorched parts. He sighed. “Ruben. Those small slug-type pieces must be letters, though they are so black, it’s hard to tell. See them here, and here. Get them out and let them cool. Go easy or they might lose their shape at this temperature.”

  Letting his fury rip, Jacob whipped about and gave Simon a hard shove. “You baptize on Sunday ...” He pushed again. “And steal and destroy on Monday?” Another shove and Simon fell so far back, he teetered at the edge of the smoldering limekiln.

  Let him fall? Help him?

  Jacob reached out.

  He released his breath when Simon was safe, angry with himself for showing mercy, but not as angry as he would have been, otherwise.

  Simon stepped far from the pit and got his fear — he must be furious that he revealed it — under control. “You dare—”

  “The deeds I have dared would shock you. Know this, if you ever do anything … anything to destroy the printing press or hamper Rachel’s progress again, you will wish I’d pushed you in. The fact is, brother, there is a fiery pit waiting for you, and you will be in it for a very long time.”

  Simon spat into the dirt before walking away.

  His own sins mocking him, Jacob shuddered. Him, of all people, threatening hell.

  “Throw ye not the first stone,” Ruben said.

  Jacob slapped his friend on the back. “Ach, I was just thinking the same thing. Let’s clean up this mess and bring it to Rachel.”

  When Ruben showed her the charred letterbox, Rachel held back her tears beca
use he’d made fun of her for being a water-spout the day before.

  How could it be so difficult for her to forgive Simon for such a small sin when hers was so great?

  So she forgave him, and decided Levi did not need to know.

  Simon’s actions delayed their progress but it did not stop it. Parts not badly damaged could be used as patterns for new ones, which was more than they had before. Charred parts gave them approximate widths and shapes, lengths and turns. Half-burned pieces in their hands were better than whole ones they could not imagine.

  Over the following weeks, Ruben showed incredible ability designing, turning and finishing the wooden parts and putting the puzzle together.

  Some of the letters had melted beyond recognition in the limekiln. Some were lost. Others, to their amazement, Atlee fixed.

  A blacksmith by trade, until his retirement thirty years before, Atlee sat patiently before his make-do forge, an old iron fire-pot that Ruben and Jacob set up for him.

  Rachel watched the first day, amazed at his skill. He held each tiny letter over the fire with his smallest fire tongs — huge, compared to the letters, but they worked. He used the tools, he told her, that were for making links for chains — cross-peen hammer, file, chisel, punch and cleaver — he named them all.

  Atlee re-shaped each letter with painstaking care until it slid into the letterbox Ruben built. If one didn’t fit, he began again.

  Five long days, he labored.

  When he told Jacob he was finished, Rachel went to pick them up herself. She brought him a pumpkin pie, some chow chow, and enough jars of preserves and vegetables to last him the winter.

  “Chust like old times,” he said as he presented the skillfully repaired letters. “For you, Mudpie, I do goot chob, aint? Sweat like pig, already. Hot work. Not too old, aint?” He kissed her cheek and embraced her with the strength worthy of a much younger man. “Sweet Mudpie.” He touched her cheek. “As pretty you are outside, the same in your heart.”

  Rachel cried.

  Two weeks later, after long days of repairing, refitting, and modifying, Rachel’s press produced its first printed page.

  Jacob handed Rachel the page with a flourish.

  Ruben grinned like a schoolboy playing hooky, a look they’d seen often over the years.

  Levi accepted the first page with honor. “Ruben,” he said. “Build a frame so we can put this on the best room wall.”

  At supper that night, they celebrated to such a degree that Simon left the house in a rage and did not return before they went to bed.

  The next morning at breakfast, he stood watching them until they stopped talking to look at him. “Rachel,” he said. “You are to be brought before the Elders at Eli Mast’s on Sunday morning for going against the Ordnung by printing a newspaper.”

  Jacob jumped from his chair. “You bastard!”

  “Mein Gott, Simon,” Levi said. “Will this never end?”

  “It will, Datt. Sunday morning.”

  Chapter 10

  Gadfly hauled the buggy up Beachy Hill with a brisk, lurching gait. At the very top, about a quarter mile from the Mast farm, Rachel tightened her hold on the cracked reins and stopped.

  Despite the Distlefink calendar on her best room wall proclaiming the month as October, warmth already claimed the Indian-summer morning.

  When she and Jacob were growing up, they would walk home from service sharing secrets on Sunday mornings just like this. But they were no longer young, and Jacob no longer walked beside her.

  Simon now stood beside her … at least he was supposed to. Hard to believe her own husband had brought her to this.

  When Simon said she would be brought before the Elders at the Mast farm, Rachel had expected her appreciation for its beauty to be dimmed. But she was wrong.

  Nestled in the valley before her, the sprawling farm fronted Beachy Hill, the highest of Lancaster’s hills, where stalwart silver pines arrowed toward heaven.

  Its beauty soothed her, like a balm to her soul. And the warm morning breeze became a kiss of peace.

  More ready than she thought she could be, Rachel snapped the reins and moved on.

  Jacob had wanted to drive her this morning, but she could not let him. That his presence would mean everything was the reason why. The strength of their bond was fearsome, and she dare not let it be seen. Especially not now.

  Ten minutes later, as she stepped into Mary Mast’s best room, the thrum of voices stopped. No surprise there.

  A chair waited for her in the center at the front of both the men and the women who faced each other. Serious business this, if she was not made to use a backless bench like the rest, but to sit apart. Separated, but not shunned … yet.

  Of Levi and Jacob there was no sign, but Ruben and Atlee sat on the first bench in the men’s section.

  Rachel sat and faced them, Atlee’s twinkle and Ruben’s wink encouraging her.

  Esther defied the Ordnung, their book of rules, by taking her hand and squeezing as she walked by. But with her mother’s rigid upbringing, and a lifetime of following those rules, she looked straight ahead, saddened to see her daughter’s obedience questioned.

  Perhaps wanting to print a newspaper was selfish. It hurt those she loved. Mom was already sick, and her father, as Bishop, was being called upon to judge his own child. Even Levi hurt today because of her.

  Simon, Rachel supposed, experienced a turmoil of sorts, himself. He had spoken no word to her this morning, nor did he look at her now. She should not be surprised.

  Her father stood, but unlike Simon and her mother, he smiled at her. And in the mist before her eyes, Rachel saw herself as a six-year-old about to read the nativity in High German before the entire church district. With that same smile, he’d said, “I love you. Nothing you do will disappoint me. My arms will be waiting when you are finished, no matter what.”

  No matter what.

  Catching the exchange between her and her father, Simon shot her a disgusted look. As her father’s smile brought memories, so did Simon’s look. It had once been enough to turn her into the same quivering six-year-old. But for some reason, at this moment, it strengthened her.

  Now Simon rose, looked about him, and allowed his importance to settle in every mind.

  “Rachel Zook,” he began, “Has brought shame upon herself, her family, even upon this district, with her blatant disregard for our laws.”

  By naming her Zook, rather than Sauder, he was, in effect, repudiating her. Now, if anyone learned she did not share his house, it would be seen as his decision. The community would think a humble man like Simon would be disgraced by her ‘sin,’ except that only a proud man like Simon would call her on such a thing.

  How odd she should see him so clearly now. How sad that it was too late.

  “I shall read,” Simon said, “Rule number six of our Ordnung. ‘No brother or sister shall introduce or begin anything in the congregation, not already there, without the counsel of the congregation.’” Shoulders back, stance righteous, Simon radiated pride. “I charge that Rachel Zook failed to follow this rule.”

  Ruben jumped up. “Rachel Sauder discussed her newspaper with me, lots of times. I gave her my counsel. You too, Atlee, right?”

  “Ya, I giff Mudpie my counsel last winter.”

  “Levi? Esther? She talked to you about how she wanted to publish her newspaper. Didn’t she?”

  They all nodded. Esther smiled.

  Ruben turned back to Simon and waved a hand in dismissal. “We are the congregation. We gave Rachel our counsel. She followed the rule.” He sat down and crossed his arms. “Next problem.”

  Red-faced, Simon shuffled his papers. “Her pride in her newspaper is evident,” he shouted his voice quivering with fury. “She has used the schoolchildren to advance her newspaper and herself!”

  He looked around, calmed, and shook his head in deep sorrow. “She used your children. Used them to copy her newspaper, when she should have been teaching them. She profited fr
om those of you who purchased that paper, when you could little afford it. Rachel Zook should be made to cease her vile pursuit. It is God’s decree that we give back to the land, replenish and nourish the earth. This does not mean, ‘Print a newspaper.’”

  Rachel watched Jacob rise from the back row and march into the kitchen. When she saw him pace across the doorway, she knew he’d needed to release his anger or blacken Simon’s other eye. She smiled inwardly, imagining the scene.

  Ruben stood and theatrically cleared his throat. “Rachel Sauder,” he said, looking directly at Simon, “prints a newspaper called the Amish Chalkboard.”

  Jacob came to the kitchen door when Ruben began to speak and Rachel gathered even more strength from that.

  “If this is a sin,” Ruben said, brows raised. “I will have to be punished also, as I read the thing from beginning to end.” He leaned forward as if to confide a secret. “Sometimes twice.”

  Leave it to Ruben to make people laugh, even now, Rachel thought.

  Ruben grasped his suspenders, his stance arrogant. “I feel no need to address the charge of pride,” he said. “If Rachel Sauder is proud, then I am the greatest farmer ever lived.”

  All-out laughter ensued.

  Now Ruben shook his head. “But the charge that Rachel uses your children.” He rocked on his heels shaking it sadly. “Instead of teaching them?” he asked in disbelief. “This is a serious charge.” He scanned the crowd and pointed to a barrel-chested farmer whose eight burly sons sat beside him. “Abe Stoltzfus. Tell me how little Perry did with his High German his first few years in school.”

  Abe stood, turning his black Sunday hat round and round in his hands. “Not so goot.”

  “And Perry will finish school this year, ya?”

  Abe nodded. “Ya.”

  Perry was her most enterprising student. He copied several papers each month, earning more than the rest of her students.

  “So there will be no reading of the Martyr’s Mirror nor the Bible in High German for him his whole life now, right?” Ruben asked.

  “Ach. No,” Abe said. “Perry reads High German goot now. Plenty goot. Only Rachel Sauder could ever teach that dumpkoff anything.”