Runaway Amish Girl

by Emma Gingerich

  While we sat around the table eating lunch, Uncle Jacob answered my question when he asked, out of the blue, if I had hit a mailbox on the big highway. He took a big bite of mashed potatoes and continued, “I just thought it might have been you since you were the last person on the road before me.”

  I felt my face turn beet red. I had not expected him to ask me that question. He had been in town that morning and apparently had not been too far behind me as he drove home. Of course, I had to tell him the truth—there was no way to hide my guilt-flushed face.

  “Yeah, it was me that hit the mailbox,” I said. I wished I could disappear into a hole, like groundhogs do.

  “Be sure to tell your Datt about it because he needs to go talk to the owners and offer to fix it,” he said calmly.

  There was no way I could tell my datt about it. After what had happened six month ago with Smokey, he would really question my ability to drive anymore.

  “I will let him know,” I said after a long pause.

  The rest of my day was just horrible; I rode myself thinking about how I had ruined someone else’s mailbox. Some English people on this side of town did not even like the Amish, and I wondered if the owners of that piggy mailbox could be one of them. Amish-haters had smashed our own mailbox several times in the past. In fact, about a year after we had moved to Missouri, some young guys had driven by our place at night on several occasions and destroyed the mailbox. They had even gone as far as backing into the corner of our house to scare us. I remember lying awake at night scared, wondering if someone could hate the Amish enough to set our house on fire. For just a few seconds, I felt smug that I had the opportunity to smash someone else’s mailbox because of what had happened to ours. I had been taught not to take revenge, but as long as I was only thinking those kinds of thoughts and not telling anyone about them, I thought I would be fine.

  I drove home by a different route that evening so I would not have to face the damaged piggy. I did not want to see if the owners had already discovered it. In a way, I was mad with myself, but I tried to find a way to blame the incident on my datt. He should have never bought such a stubborn little horse, especially since no one liked her. Deep down I knew I was the only one to blame, but at the time, it felt better to blame it on someone else.

  I decided not to tell my parents what had happened that day because I did not want to face Datt’s judgment. My heart sank a week later when Uncle Jacob and his wife came to visit and catch up on gossip. I feared them telling my parents, so I avoided them in case my presence accidentally reminded them of what had happened. I was almost certain Uncle Jacob would not forget, but every time he came around I would hide so as not to jog his memory. After each visit from his brother, I was afraid Datt would seek me out and ask me about it. After all, I had only made the situation worse by not only hiding the fact I hit the mailbox, but also because I did not confess to him at once. Life went on, however, and I never heard another word about that day, but I carried the burden for a whole year before I grew confident Datt was not ever going to find out.

  §

  The harvesting in North Dakota ended and I headed back to Texas, where it was almost time for me to start my next chapter in life. I had a feeling the days of working in the fields were over, but I was excited to finally start going to college. Harvesting acres and acres of wheat gave me plenty of time to think about my childhood, especially my teenage years. Being free reminded me that God was always looking out for me whether I knew it or not, and He had guided me to the outside world where He meant for me to be. Thinking about the freedom I now have brought tears to my eyes. I thanked God for the chance to drive a combine, and I compared it to the time when I was just a farm girl at home.

  I was sixteen years old and Amish tradition dictated girls should not do fieldwork. But I did not care—I loved it! My two oldest brothers, Jacob and Sammie, did not like farming. So Jacob got a job at an Amish sawmill business making slats for pallets. I traded jobs with Sammie when he complained about having to work in the fields to get ready for spring planting. For my part, I was not content sitting in the shop all day long making baskets. Sammie promised he would try his best to do my job so Mem would not miss my work too much. Basket sales produced our main household income, and the women did most of the weaving. Datt smoked his pipe all day long and expected things to get done without his help. I thought the reason he had so many children was for them to do the work and serve him like a king, as was customary for Amish families.

  As Sammie took over my job weaving baskets, I jumped into his job plowing the fields. It did not take me long to learn how to plow with a John Deere one-bottom plow pulled by four big Belgian horses. I do not know how I decided I could handle four horses when I had had problems with just one, but the fact that Datt trusted me with his big babies was shocking. Nevertheless, things started out smoothly and I was able to keep it like that.

  I did not have much freedom as an Amish girl, so being in the field all alone, all day long is like being on a vacation. No one bossed me around; in fact, I bossed the horses around. That gave me a great feeling of satisfaction, and suddenly I realized how Rhoda must have felt. I did not have to do much bossing though—the horses knew what they were supposed to do. I looked up at the blue sky and said thank you to the Good Man for giving me the opportunity to be out here all alone, a half mile from home.

  As soon as I thought I had the world by the tail, Rhoda decided she wanted her turn at the plow too. Of course, I had to give in and let her try. In our family we had a set age for when we were old enough to do certain work, but everything I did, Rhoda got to do too. She did not have to wait until she was old enough. As soon as I was old enough to bake pies, which was about the only thing I enjoyed doing in the kitchen, Rhoda took it away from me. Now she wanted to start plowing, but there was no way I would let her take that away from me too. Unfortunately, I had no control over it, and since my parents favored her, and whatever they said happened, they agreed Rhoda was old enough to plow.

  I did not have to fret too long, though, because Rhoda gave up the first hour in the fields. She could not coax the horses to move forward; no matter what she did to get them to move, they would not listen. I did not watch her that day, but I heard the horses somehow got tangled up in the lines and harness. It made me happy Rhoda was now officially not a farm girl. I got my job back and I plowed for the next ten days, excluding Sunday. I never tired of it. I enjoyed talking to the horses, praising them for messing up Rhoda’s chances for my sake. When the horses rested, I jumped off the plow and walked barefooted on the moist soil. The freshly-turned sod felt soft and cool under my bare feet. My contentment and joy came to an abrupt end when my menstrual cycle arrived and Mem would not let me go out to the fields to plow anymore.

  §

  I hated when this part of the month came. Amish rules required women to take it easy during their menstrual cycle, stay in the house, and do only light housework. This was especially hard for me during the summer months when there was so much to do outside. During the summer, everyone went barefoot except when that dreaded time of the month hit; I then had to wear shoes for a whole week.

  My siblings would ask, “Why are you wearing shoes?” and I could not answer because it was not my place to explain. No one ever talked to me about it, so why should I talk to them about it?

  I had no clue what was happening the first time I started bleeding at age eleven. I thought I was deathly ill. I did not feel comfortable enough to tell Mem about it, but after the second day of freaking out, I finally broke down.

  “Oh yeah,” she said, “you will start being a ‘gluk’ every month now.” (Gluk means the same as a hen setting on eggs to hatch them).

  She showed me some Kotex pads and told me to wear them.

  “By the way, tell me every time you are a gluk,” she added, before going back to the sewing machine.

  I did not know what to think. Gluk? What a terrible word. Why do I have to tell her? I felt emba
rrassed, but for what? I had many questions, but asking them was something I could not easily do. My life changed after that, and every time my period started I had to stay home from school for two days, and Mem did not give me any chores requiring too much hard work. I once heard from a friend that if women did not take care of themselves while on their periods, they got very sick and would eventually become handicapped.

  After a couple more periods, I started to wonder if all mothers did not inform their daughters about how their bodies would change into bloody monsters for one week every month. It scared me to death when I saw Rhoda wearing shoes one hot summer day. Oh no, I am her big sister. Was I supposed to warn her before she got that far? I do not know. I suspect Rhoda might have known a little about it because she had seen me suffer through it for a year. She did not look worried about it at all. She always had a way of taking everything in stride. Nonetheless, I felt sorry for her.

  §

  Besides being old enough to work in the fields with horses, and drive into town for shopping, I was also old enough to become a hired maid. Being a teenage girl is like being a slave mother to children of other families. Before girls got married, they had a chance to be hired out to other families needing help with a newborn baby, or needing baby sitters while the parents visited their families and friends out of town.

  I worked for an Amish family with eight children. I got paid $1.50 a day, but I had to relinquish the pay to my parents; I was not allowed to keep any money until I turned twenty-one. I had some experience from helping the neighbors, but this time the family lived eighteen miles away, a two-hour drive with horse and buggy. I loved being away from home any chance I had; however, this time I was anything but enthusiastic.

  The parents left for Michigan to visit family and friends, and planned to be gone for over two weeks. They took their two-year-old son, but they left me to take care of an eight-month-old baby named Edna and six other children. The oldest attended fifth grade.

  Talk about growing up fast! I was only seventeen at the time. I had to pack my sweet girl looks away and put on a tough momma face. I thought I knew everything about raising kids from babysitting my own siblings, but when I tried caring for someone else’s children, my little world got turned on its head.

  In addition to watching the kids, I had to cook three meals a day, do the laundry, milk the cows, feed chickens, bottle-feed two small Holstein calves, make applesauce, can pears, pack lunches, and get the kids off to school. The list went on and on. A hired hand did the chores in the mornings so I could stay in the house to make breakfast and help get the rowdy children ready for school. At first, I thought it would be easy to get everything done each day if I made a list. Was I ever so wrong! I could never predict how each day would turn out. Looking back on it, I have to say this experience helped prepare me for the realities of life!

  An endless pile of clothes to wash overflowed the washroom the first Monday after the parents left. I thought for sure I was going insane. I wanted to pack up the kids and take them to our house until their parents returned. It would have been better than washing clothes. I had a feeling the mother purposely did not do laundry the week before because she knew the hired maid would do it. A lot people lived at our house, yet never in my life had I seen such a big pile of clothes to wash. I did laundry from eight o’clock in the morning until five o’clock that evening. I lost my voice that day from the stress—my body had a weird way of reacting to it.

  Amish have washing machines hooked up to small gasoline engines, but the water must be heated in a big kettle and carried to the washing machine. After the clothes have swirled in the water long enough, they are removed one-by-one and fed through a wringer to squeeze out the excess water.

  I had to hang each piece of clothing on clotheslines to dry, and the poor little baby constantly cried that day while I washed clothes. The next day she was sick. She always cried during the night, keeping me up until I was almost in tears. I remembered to throw some regular table salt in her bed to keep her from getting too homesick. As I got a saltshaker and poured salt on the entire mattress, I wondered how on earth anyone would believe it really worked. It was something I used to do for my siblings when my parents left for more than a week. I do not think it helped, but I was desperate to find a solution and was willing to try anything.

  If taking care of the household duties was not enough, the family had also asked me to take care of selling the farm’s eggs. I had to wash eggs each day to make sure they were ready to sell if customers stopped by. I did not like it when someone stopped, but it happened several times a day and I had to drop everything to tend to the customers. One day, flour from making bread dough covered me from head to foot when someone knocked on the door. I do not have time for this, I thought impatiently, but I quickly dropped everything and wiped my hands. As I headed to the door, baby Edna started crying. I scooped her up from the dirty floor and answered the door.

  “Hello,” I said to an old man patiently waiting on the front steps.

  He stared at me for a long second. I began to get nervous as I wondered what was wrong.

  Then a smile broke on his face and he reached into his pocket, pulled out a clean handkerchief, and said, “You have something white smeared all over your face.”

  “Ya, it is probably white flour,” I replied. “I am trying to make bread and the baby keeps crying so my hands are all over the place.”

  He gently wiped my face with the clean-scented handkerchief, then he asked where the parents were.

  “They went out of town and I am staying with the kids.”

  “My goodness, don’t you need a sitter for yourself?” He looked surprised. “No offense, but you look like a twelve-year-old.”

  “With these children there should be more than one babysitter,” I laughed. “I am older than twelve, but I might as well not be.”

  “Yes, I feel for you, I have been here many times and I know how it goes around here. If I knew where the eggs are I could save you some energy and get them myself.”

  “I can get them for you. It is no problem.”

  I scurried down to the basement with the baby still in my arms. I came back with the three-dozen eggs he asked for.

  He surprised me by saying, “If you pray a lot, things will go smoother for you.”

  I always pray silently, and nothing ever seems to change, I thought to myself rather angrily. Maybe I am doing it wrong. I smiled politely and said, “I will pray more often.”

  I watched him walk across the lawn to his rundown Dodge pickup. He had a slight limp and walked bow-legged. I wondered if he told me to pray because he thought Amish do not pray, or if he actually thought I looked pretty rough. I searched for a mirror, and my reflection confirmed the latter: I looked exhausted, and my greenish eyes stared back at me, red and sunken from lack of sleep. A shock of brunette hair hung out from under the bonnet sitting askew on my head, and white flour smeared across my pale cheeks as if I had a run-in at a flourmill. I was the only one in my family who prayed that I knew of, except for Datt, who said a silent prayer before and after each meal.

  Each child I babysat had been given a list of chores to do when they got home from school, but after the second day they all decided to ignore them. They stomped through the door when they got home, threw their lunch buckets on the floor in front of the sink, and ran outside to play or fight with each other. The kids fought a lot, making my life a living hell. I tried to keep peace between them, but they would not listen. After all, to them I was nobody. Every time I asked them to play with the baby or carry wood for the cook stove, they jostled to figure out whose turn it was, and that resulted in total chaos. Compared to these rowdy and noisy kids, my siblings were perfect angels, even though they fought sometimes too.

  I knew from living in the same community as this family that the children experienced much more physical and emotional abuse than my brothers and sisters ever did. I concluded that, since the parents were not home, the kids wanted a brea
k from their hectic days and I felt a little sorry for them.

  During this hectic two weeks I always had dishes to wash, floors to sweep, dirty diapers to change, and messes to clean up. I welcomed a dull moment, but none showed up, not even at night. Each night, while I held the baby and rocked her to sleep, I wondered how in the world I got myself into this. This experience was very far from the life I wanted. I already stood on the verge of a nervous breakdown from my days at home, and I knew if I continued to stay Amish, I would be expected to go work for other families or become a schoolteacher. Taking care of other people’s households and children was a way of preparing for, and learning the values of, being a housewife. Then boom! Before I knew what hit me it would be time to get married and start my own family. Being an Amish woman, there was no time to be just me and enjoy life. I began to realize I wanted no part of it. I wanted to enjoy some freedom before I started my own family, and if I ended up having kids, I wanted to raise them in a different environment. How could parents even think young girls could take on such a responsibility of being both the mother and father of their unruly children?

  I looked at the sweet, innocent baby girl sleeping peacefully in my lap and decided I needed to quit thinking all the negative thoughts and go to bed myself. It was already midnight and I was so burned out I could have cried myself to sleep, but I kept my emotions together as best I could. In five hours it would be time to get up and do it all over again.

  Not only was babysitting someone else’s children an emotional roller coaster, but the fact I was in turmoil ever since I started dating and going to church singings made life so much more miserable. Teenage life should not be this difficult, I thought as I laid the baby in her crib. Something has got to change.

  Chapter 4:

  What Does “No” Mean?

  Keep some room in your heart for