Brightest and Best

by Newport, Olivia

  “You won’t have to run,” Gideon said.

  “I don’t understand why you asked Gertie to get eggs in the morning. She dawdles.”

  “We’ll just wait for her.”

  One minute.

  Gertie burst in, breathless. “I looked in all the nests and there’s not a single egg.”

  Savilla popped up, and Gideon motioned she should sit again.

  “I need to talk to both of you,” he said.

  “Your eyes are not smiling, Daed,” Gertie said.

  “I’ve made a decision,” Gideon said. “I’ve decided that the two of you will learn at home from now on.”

  Savilla’s eyes widened. “We’re not going to school?”

  Gideon shook his head. “I think it’s best for you to stay on the farm and study here.”

  “But who will teach us?”

  Gideon brightened his tone. “Today you will have a school holiday! Play outside. Get some fresh air.”

  Gertie squealed her delight.

  Savilla scowled her doubt.

  When Gideon’s buggy approached, Ella set aside the bird manual and leaned on the fence to wait for him.

  “I took the girls out of school,” he said.

  “I thought you might,” Ella said. “I was at the Hershbergers’ when the deputy arrived with the papers yesterday. He said he had already been to your farm.”

  “I will pay the fine, but I will not be bullied into sending my children to a school that thinks so little of them that they would make no effort to understand their home.”

  “Miss Simpson seems very nice.” Ella’s heart pelted her chest. This conversation could have only one end.

  “She’s quite pleasant.” Gideon nodded. “But she is one teacher, and despite her intentions, she seems to have no voice in the decisions.”

  Ella swallowed. Living alone or having a job or even owning an automobile did not mean English women were equal to their men. Lindy had said as much many times. But once she decided she didn’t want to marry, Lindy chose to live among the English. Better to be an English old maid than an Amish one, she reasoned. Ella wasn’t so sure. Margaret Simpson did not seem to be any better off for her English upbringing and independence.

  “I’ll do it,” Ella whispered.

  Gideon raised his eyebrows.

  “I’ll teach the girls,” Ella said. “I won’t have any idea what I’m doing, but I’m willing to muddle through if you are.”

  Gideon’s brow wrinkled. “I want you to be certain.”

  “I am.” And she was.

  CHAPTER 21

  I’m old enough to decide.” David spoke with surety two days later. “If I’m old enough to do a man’s work on the farm, I’m old enough to decide I want to stay in school.”

  “But if you go to school, you won’t be here to do a man’s work,” Jed said.

  “David, no,” Rachel said.

  “I’m going to live with Lindy. She’s like an aunti to me. You always tell me that.”

  Ella held her breath. The breakfast she’d swallowed a few minutes ago threatened to work its way up. When she saw Lindy pick David up after school, she never imagined it would come to this. At least David waited until after morning devotions and Seth’s departure, sparing his brother this scene.

  “I already packed,” David said. “I don’t mean to hurt anybody. If you want me to, I’ll come home on Saturdays and work from dawn to dusk.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Jed said.

  Rachel blanched. Ella’s stomach sank.

  “Lindy has been my friend since we were small girls,” Rachel said. “I can’t believe she would do this to me.”

  “I haven’t talked to her about it yet,” David said. “But she’ll say yes.”

  Ella’s eyes flicked up. With his bag packed, David seemed certain.

  “I’ll ask her not to,” Rachel said. “She’ll know I don’t approve.”

  “Then I’ll go somewhere else,” David said softly. “I’ll find a place to camp, or get a job after school and rent a room.”

  “You would really do that?”

  David met his mother’s eyes. “Wouldn’t you rather I be with Lindy? I know Lindy would rather know I’m safe.”

  Ella forced some air out of her lungs, wishing David had waited two more minutes until she’d at least left the room, if not the house. She could have been cleaning the henhouse or sweeping the porch or mixing bread dough or on her way to Gideon’s. Anything but listening to this. Slowly she stood up from the end of the davenport.

  David stood as well, and without speaking he climbed the stairs. Ella crept out of the room and hovered at the doorway to the kitchen.

  “Are you going to just let him go?” Rachel said to Jed. “You didn’t even try to stop him.”

  “He has made up his mind,” Jed said.

  “Don’t you think of him as your own son?” Rachel said, her pitch rising. “Would you let your own fifteen-year-old son do this?”

  “When we married, I took responsibility for the boys,” Jed said. “But he already runs off half the time even though he knows our decision. How do you propose that I make him stay?”

  “Forbid him to go.”

  “And if he goes anyway?”

  “He’s my son, Jed. He’s going to the English.”

  “Lindy went.”

  “But my son! It’s different.”

  David’s footsteps returned, heavier. Above his mother’s eyes, he caught Ella’s gaze.

  She shook her head. David bent to kiss Rachel’s cheek and went out the front door with a duffel.

  Younger men arrived to scramble up the ladders, hoisting shingles over their shoulders in a way that made James’s shoulders ache just watching them. Chester Mast had driven all the way to Chardon to order lumber and supplies. The school would be finished soon. Already, while the roof crew enclosed the top of the building, others sealed windows in their frames, whitewashed the walls and floor, hammered in shelves, and sanded the wall where the chalkboards would hang.

  Today’s effort had been a sort of frolic among the men and any boys not in the English schools. Earlier progress came from a few men at a time turning up to do what they could between the long hours of their harvests, but all agreed that a frolic that brought nearly twenty men together would speed them to the finish line. The chalkboards would be the last large pieces to transport, once they arrived.

  The women were at the Glicks’ with a promise to arrive with lunch for everyone when the hour came. James had dropped Miriam off with a crate full of ingredients.

  With his hands crossed behind his back, James stood at the rear of the school and imagined the room alive with children. Gertie and Savilla. Hans and the other Byler children. All those Hershberger girls whom James couldn’t quite tell apart. The Glicks. The Borntragers. The Kings. Jed Hilty’s stepson. The names of others in the church district drifted through James’s mind.

  Cristof Byler sidled up. “It will be a fine school.”

  James nodded. “What do the English think?”

  Cristof laughed. “Not too many English school authorities come out this way. Chester’s boys are in school—for now—so they have no reason to visit his farm.”

  “Will you take your children out?”

  “Just as soon as we have a teacher. I’m already keeping Hans home some of the time. Gideon says he’s working on finding a teacher.”

  A new voice spoke. “James.”

  He turned toward Isaiah Borntrager.

  “The women sent a message,” Isaiah said. “Miriam collapsed.”

  The pressure in his chest stopped James’s breath.

  “They said you should come,” Isaiah said.

  James gulped air. “Of course.”

  He strode to his buggy, checked the hitch and reins, climbed to the bench, and put the rig in motion.

  At the Glick farm, three women hovered over Miriam on the front porch, one fanning her, another urging her to sip water, another arran
ging a pillow behind her head in the deep Adirondack chair. James nudged his way past them and knelt in front of his wife.

  “What are you doing here, old man?” Miriam said.

  She grasped a glass of water, and James was relieved to see it did not wobble in her grip.

  “What happened?”

  “I felt a little tired, that’s all.”

  “She nearly passed out,” Mrs. Borntrager said.

  “I’ll take you home.” James put one hand behind Miriam’s back to help her up.

  “I promised you lunch,” she said.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I’ll find something at home.”

  “You’re going straight to bed.” He took the water glass out of her hand and handed it to Mrs. Borntrager.

  As soon as they arrived home, James once again pulled a chair up to the side of the bed to insist that Miriam rest. He would have to talk to Gideon about expecting less from Miriam with the main house and children. Surely Gideon would marry Ella in a few weeks, and the pressure would ease on Miriam. And he would have to be more direct with Miriam. It was no sin to admit she was tired.

  Forty-four years. James wanted forty-four more with his bride.

  Saturday brought the men together again for a morning of finishing work. Gideon tied his horse to a tree and hefted his toolbox out of his buggy.

  “Where’s James?” Cristof wanted to know. “I was hoping he would help us sort out what we need to build the desks.”

  “He can’t leave Miriam,” Gideon said. “She’ll refuse to rest if he’s not there to make sure she does.”

  “Then he is where he should be,” Cristof said.

  “We should talk to Lindy Lehman about the desks,” Gideon said. “She’s a better carpenter than most people realize, and she’ll appreciate the need for simplicity.”

  “I can’t get used to the idea of a woman carpenter. It’s not fitting.”

  “You have one of her birdhouses in your yard.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Only in size.”

  Joshua Glick broke into their conversation. “Gideon, I just heard that you took your children out of school.”

  “That’s right.” Gideon gripped his toolbox with both hands and looked Joshua in the eyes.

  Joshua gestured to the nearly finished school. “Someday we’ll have a school. In the meantime, though, we should obey the law.”

  “In my mind,” Gideon said, “the question has become more complex.”

  “Perhaps we should all pull the children out of the English schools,” Cristof said. “If we were united, it might send a strong message.”

  “It would get more of us in trouble,” Joshua insisted. “Several men have already been fined.”

  “It’s a small amount,” Gideon said. “The deputy is blustering more than anything.”

  “The Bible tells us to live in submission to the government,” Joshua said. “Are the apostle’s words not clear?”

  “They are,” Gideon said.

  Cristof spoke. “Maybe the time has come for a church vote.”

  “No.” Alarm spurted through Gideon’s gut. “Asking for a vote would only inflame matters further.”

  Joshua kicked at the dirt. “People look up to you, Gideon. You should set an example.”

  “Perhaps I am,” Gideon said.

  “I mean an example of doing the right thing,” Joshua said.

  “Perhaps I am,” Gideon repeated.

  “That’s right,” Cristof said.

  Gideon began to wish Cristof would go find something else to do.

  “Joshua,” Gideon said, “you are in favor of running our own school, aren’t you?”

  “I am—when it’s legal.”

  “That may take some time.” So far Gideon had not been able to persuade the superintendent to grant him an appointment to discuss the matter calmly. He was quite sure cooperating to make an Amish school part of the district had not entered Mr. Brownley’s mind.

  “We have to go through the proper procedures,” Joshua said. “While we wait, the children should be in school.”

  “And what becomes of our children in the meantime?” Gideon said. Gertie’s self-portrait took form in his mind, along with the frivolous novel Savilla had been assigned to read. How would a book called The Secret Garden prepare Savilla for a quiet life on an Amish farm?

  Ella happened to glance out the window of her second-story bedroom and saw the automobile before she heard it. She dropped her dust rag on the small desk and leaned toward the windowpane. Three seconds later, she pivoted and flew down the stairs.

  “Rachel! Rachel!”

  “In the kitchen,” came the answer.

  “Where’s my daed?” Ella burst into the kitchen, where Rachel held a long wooden spoon and stirred coffee cake batter.

  “I’m not sure. He left right after breakfast.” Rachel tilted her head in question. “What’s so urgent?”

  “The deputy’s car is coming down the lane.”

  Rachel dropped her spoon, spattering batter on table and floor, and raced out the back door calling her husband’s name.

  The knock came on the front door. Ella smoothed her apron and focused on not hunching over as she answered it.

  “Hello,” she said, stepping out onto the porch.

  “It’s a fine Monday morning,” Deputy Fremont said.

  Superintendent Brownley was with him this time. His gloomy scowl was the only expression Ella had ever seen on his face.

  “We are thankful for each day God gives,” Ella said.

  “Is your pa here?” Deputy Fremont asked.

  “My pa?”

  “Or whatever you people call your father. Jed Hilty. I need to speak to Jed Hilty.”

  “It’s a large farm and it’s harvesttime,” Ella said. “I’m not sure I can say where he is just now.”

  Rachel came around the corner of the house, her faced blanched but her spine extended, her shoulders back.

  Good for you. Ella liked seeing determination in Rachel.

  “Are you Mrs. Hilty?” Fremont asked.

  “I am. May I be of assistance?”

  “Can you tell us where your husband is?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” Mr. Brownley muttered.

  Rachel returned his stare but said nothing.

  Brownley cleared his throat. “Would you give your husband a message?”

  “Of course.”

  “We’re pleased he has cooperated and we see David Kaufman in school, but his attendance has been erratic.”

  “I’m certain it will improve,” Rachel said.

  “I understand you are the boy’s mother.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Then you can appreciate the gravity of the situation.”

  Gravity? Ella thought. That seemed a severe word.

  “Your son’s attendance borders on truancy. He’s often late or leaves the building early without authorization.”

  “As I said, I believe you will see improvement,” Rachel said.

  “Your husband has the opportunity to be an example of cooperation that other parents can emulate.”

  “I’ll tell him you said so.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ella stood on the porch and watched the two men retrace their steps to the deputy’s automobile, crank the engine, and roar off the farm.

  Only then did Jed appear.

  “Daed!” Ella met her father’s eyes. Had he been there all along?

  “I couldn’t find you anywhere,” Rachel said. “The horses were all here. I thought you must have walked out to one of the fields.”

  Ella believed Rachel had looked diligently for her husband. Surprise burned its way through Ella’s chest. Jed had not wanted to be found. Had he seen the car coming even before she did?

  Rachel gave a rapid account of the conversation.

  “I have half a mind to take Seth out of school,” Jed said.

&nb
sp; “But he’s only twelve,” Ella said. “Seventh grade.”

  “They wanted David and now they have him,” Jed said. “Are we also going to give them Seth?”

  Why should Seth be a pawn to trade with the school district, one boy for the other? Ella’s father had backed down so easily at the moment of David’s ultimate defiance, but now he would take a sweet, earnest, contented boy in exchange? Ella pressed her lips together to keep disrespect out of her words.

  “Other families are teaching their children at home. Your Gideon, for instance.”

  Ella swallowed.

  “If you can teach Gideon’s girls, you can teach Seth.”

  Ella found her voice. “I’m not even sure I can do a good job with the girls. Seth’s lessons would be more advanced. It might be too much.”

  Jed looked again at the empty lane where the car had been before pacing across the yard to the barn.

  CHAPTER 22

  In church the following Sunday, Gideon mulled over the reality that so far the bishop had not publicly addressed the education of Amish children. He supposed the English would call it the “elephant in the room.” By now any member in church could look around the congregation and know which decision each family had made, including his.

  Joshua Glick had been right. As soon as word got out that Gideon was keeping his girls home from school, other households did the same. No matter how many times Gideon said that he did not judge another man’s conscience on the matter, other fathers seemed to look to his example.

  Yet the closest any of the ministers had come to preaching on the subject was to choose a Bible passage exhorting kindness to neighbors, as they might have done at any Sunday worship service of the year.

  Gideon bowed his head, making a prayer of the final hymn.

  Where shall I go? I am so ignorant. Only to God can I go, because God alone will be my helper. I trust in You, God, in all my distress. You will not forsake me. You will stand with me, even in death. I have committed myself to Your Word. That is why I have lost favor in all places. But by losing the world’s favor, I gained Yours. Therefore I say to the world: Away with you! I will follow Christ.

  Gideon made sure Tobias remained with the men to transform the benches of worship into tables for a meal in the King barn. He was glad for his coat this morning, and grateful that the next Sunday service was scheduled in a heated home large enough to accommodate the congregation. A juicy, steaming morsel of pork dangled from his fork on its way to his open mouth when Gideon felt a little hand thudding against his back. He turned to see Gertie. The girls were supposed to be eating with the women, under Ella’s supervision. Miriam was home ill.