Brightest and Best

by Newport, Olivia

  “I’m so worried about Seth,” Rachel said, rubbing a hand over her eyes.

  “He and Tobias are close in age,” Ella said. “They’re probably together. And the Mast brothers. They’ll all help each other.”

  Just like their parents. Some of the boys were old enough to be in high school. They would be fine. The girls were younger, though. Margaret couldn’t think of any Amish girl at the Wayfarers Home older than eleven or twelve. Who was looking after them?

  After several more stops, four mothers crammed into the backseat and settled care packages on their laps. Margaret did not have the heart to tell them they might not be allowed to leave gifts.

  This time she knew just where she was going and drove confidently up the long driveway before parking outside the front doors and turning off the engine.

  Rachel’s eyes widened at the enormity of the brick building. “It would take three or four of our church districts to fill this place.”

  “This is no place for children,” Mrs. Hershberger muttered from the backseat. “Couldn’t an aunti or a grossmudder take in a child who is truly orphaned? Have they no families at all?”

  “I don’t know,” Margaret said. “Let’s focus on the nineteen children whose mothers are right here in this car.”

  “Do they know we’re coming?” Ella asked.

  “I phoned ahead.” Margaret opened her car door and stepped out. “Let me speak on your behalf while you pray to see God’s mercy in the faces of your children.”

  Margaret led the way. Ella intentionally fell to the back of the line, watching to be sure the other mothers were holding themselves together as they approached a structure that could have contained all their homes and still had room for chickens and cows.

  Other mothers. Ella loved Tobias, Savilla, and Gertie. Together with Gideon, they were going to become a family in a few weeks. She would throw herself in the path of danger for any one of them. If Ella’s maternal instincts surged as hard as this, she could only imagine what this day was like for the women whose wombs and arms had carried their children since the first spark of life.

  Margaret held open the front door, and the Amish mothers shuffled inside, uncertain.

  Margaret pointed. “We’ll go to that desk. They are expecting you.”

  A man met them in the hallway. While the gray-haired woman Margaret had met on her first visit stared at the huddle of rich-hued dresses and black aprons, Margaret introduced him as the director of the children’s home. One by one the mothers gave their names and the names of the children.

  “I’ll Ella Hilty,” Ella said. “I’m here to see Tobias, Savilla, and Gertrude Wittmer.”

  The director arranged his glasses on his nose and consulted his list. “My information indicates that the Wittmer children have no mother.”

  “I’m engaged to their father,” Ella said quickly. “Our wedding is only a month away.”

  A wave of sympathy flushed through the man’s face, but his words were firm. “I’m afraid we have no provision for such a circumstance. Anyone might come in and make such a claim. It’s for the safety of the children. You understand.”

  Ella’s mouth fell open, her heart beating its way up her throat.

  “We most certainly do not understand,” Margaret said calmly. “The children know Miss Hilty well. They understand that their father will marry her soon. I have observed no discord between them on this matter.”

  Ella forced herself to breathe, and the air flowing out of her lungs cradled a prayer of gratitude for Margaret’s presence.

  “Think of how the Wittmer children will feel,” Margaret said. “The other Amish children will see their mothers, and the Wittmers will know someone came for them as well and you prohibited the visit.”

  The director cleared his throat. “I will have to consult the state guidelines, but I make no guarantee.”

  “What about our children?” Mrs. Hershberger wanted to know. “Where are they?”

  “They’ll be brought to you,” the director said. “They are in classes throughout the building, so it will take some time to gather them.”

  “We had an appointment,” Margaret said. “Why are the children not ready?”

  Ella put a hand on Margaret’s arm and said to the director, “Just tell us where you’d like us to wait.”

  He turned to the woman at the desk. “Will you please take the mothers to the visiting room where they may wait more comfortably?”

  “And the others—Miss Simpson and Miss Hilty?” the woman asked.

  The director sucked in his lips slightly and turned to Ella and Margaret. “I’ll have to ask you to wait out here until I have ascertained your status.”

  “I will gladly wait out here,” Margaret said, “but I will insist that Miss Hilty see her children. Otherwise you will hear from Mr. Eggar, the attorney representing the children’s fathers.”

  “Mr. Eggar has already been in touch,” the director said. “We are both responsible to the court for our actions. I intend to be above reproach.”

  “I hope that does not also require you to be above compassion,” Margaret said.

  Again, Ella touched Margaret’s arm. One might think the director held hostage Margaret’s own offspring.

  “I’ll wait out here,” Ella said. “Is that bench acceptable?”

  The director gestured toward the bench directly across from the reception desk. “Please make yourselves comfortable. The rest of you may follow the receptionist, but let me remind you that this visit will be closely supervised.”

  The director withdrew to his office.

  Ella and Margaret sat on the backless bench. Ella did not even wish for a chair with a back or any other comfort that might compromise her vigilance. She watched the five mothers trail after the woman to a door, which she held open for them. Ella leaned forward for a glimpse of the space where mothers and kinner would be reunited.

  “This is not right,” Margaret muttered.

  Though her heart begged for release from captivity within her rib cage, Ella sat with her hands calmly crossed in her lap. A moment later, three young women left the director’s office, dispatched—Ella hoped—to bring the children from their classrooms.

  “If the director does not return promptly, I will advocate once again for you to see your children.”

  Ella’s shoulders softened and gratitude again overflowed for the English who understood her heart. Perhaps Margaret’s own experience as a teacher helped her know how quickly and firmly affection might grow with a child.

  One by one, the young women returned, shepherding children into the visitation room. Most of them moved quietly through the halls.

  The first time the door opened, Mrs. Mast shrieked at the sight of her boys.

  The second time, it was Seth who came down the hall and Rachel’s sobs that escaped the visiting room.

  Then Mrs. Borntrager.

  The young women returned to the classrooms, returning each time with one or two children. It seemed to Ella that they had begun with the older grades and were working their way down to the younger classes.

  “They didn’t bring Tobias,” Ella said.

  Margaret took her hand. “You will see your children.”

  The students grew younger with each escort. Mrs. Hershberger’s voice went shrill at the sight of her children.

  “They skipped Savilla, too,” Ella said.

  “Has the man no heart?” Margaret said. “Gideon’s children are bright. They will see that the others are going and know that someone has come for them.”

  The Byler children came at last, Hans trailing after his older siblings. Ella swallowed hard.

  The sound she heard next was the most beautiful cacophony ever to reach her ears. Down the hall, a child’s demands grew more insistent with each clattering step.

  “If Hans gets to go, why can’t I?”

  Margaret and Ella grinned at each other and stood up.

  “Gertrude!” The young escort spun on one heel
, holding tight to Hans Byler’s hand. “Go back to class immediately.

  “Is Hans in trouble?” Gertie asked.

  “No. Go back to class.”

  Ella’s eyes widened. Gertie’s yellow hair fell around her shoulders above a blue plaid jumper and white blouse intended for a girl at least two years older.

  “What have they done to our children?” Ella whispered.

  “I won’t go back without Hans.” Gertie stomped a foot, something she never would have done at home.

  The young woman escorting Hans opened the door to the visiting room and gave him a gentle push between the shoulder blades through the door frame before sealing the room again.

  “What’s in there?” Gertie wanted to know.

  Then, in a moment that Ella wished she could ponder in her heart for the rest of her life, Gertie’s curls bounced with the rotation of her head and her gaze found Ella.

  Ella started toward Gertie. The receptionist was on her feet. Gertie was already hurtling toward Ella, out of reach of the young escort’s efforts to contain her.

  “Go,” the receptionist whispered. “Hurry.”

  Ella raced down the hall and scooped up Gertie in her arms.

  The director appeared from his office. “What’s going on?”

  Ella ignored him. It was quite obvious what was going on. Gertie buried her face in Ella’s shoulder.

  The clipped steps behind Ella belonged to Margaret.

  “Now if you would please send someone for Miss Hilty’s other children,” Margaret said.

  “This is thoroughly unorthodox,” the director said.

  Ella took Gertie’s face between her hands to examine every inch of it. “Are you all right?”

  “I don’t like it here,” Gertie said loudly. “They never let me talk to Tobias and Savilla. I only get to see Hans when it’s time for our reading lessons. And they won’t tell me why Hans went in that room.”

  Tears blurred Ella’s eyes. “Hans went in there to see his mamm.” Gertie kept her hands clasped behind Ella’s neck.

  “You can see their affection is genuine,” Margaret said to the director. “If you care for these children at all—”

  The director tilted his head, and the young woman awaiting his bidding started down the hall. She opened the door to the visiting room.

  “You won’t have long,” he said.

  Inside the room, tears and laughter intermingled. The children hated the clothes they were forced to wear, and no two of them had been assigned to the same dormitory room. They sometimes saw each other across a classroom or the assembly room, but rarely were they allowed to speak freely with each other and it must always be in English, not Pennsylvania Dutch. Ella’s chest felt as though it might cave in with the isolation they described. Sitting in opposite corners, two women in navy blue wool dresses watched the movements in the room. Every few seconds, Ella’s eyes went to the door, looking for Savilla and Tobias.

  When the door opened, it was Gertie who saw them first and shot off to greet her siblings. Whatever manner in which they might have irritated each other at home dissolved in the embrace. Ella waited for their eyes to lift and opened her arms to Tobias and Savilla.

  Questions spewed from all three of them, and Ella had few answers. She could only tell them that Gideon was with the other fathers. She hadn’t been to see them—none of the women had managed a visit to Chardon—but Mr. Eggar brought news that they were well. Tobias promised to pray for his father.

  The large round clock opposite the door seemed designed to greet everyone who entered the visitation room and remind them that their minutes were few. As if on cue, exactly one hour after the mothers had entered the room, the two women in blue stood up and announced it was time for the children to return to their classrooms. One of them opened the door to reveal the three younger women who would escort their charges on their return.

  Ella held on to Gertie as long as she dared. In the end, it was sensible Savilla who wordlessly pried Gertie’s grip off of Ella’s neck while a visible lump formed in Tobias’s throat.

  And then they were gone. The room fell into a choked hush.

  Margaret drove most of the way home hearing only the machinations of her automobile, the shifting gears, the rhythmic thump of tires, the engine threatening to sputter for more fuel.

  “I want my children back,” Mrs. Hershberger finally said.

  “And my husband,” Rachel said.

  “I never thought I would say this,” Mrs. Borntrager said, “but it’s time for them to do whatever is necessary.”

  “Whatever is necessary for what?” Mrs. Mast challenged. “To bring our families home, or to do what is best for them in the long run?”

  Margaret kept her eyes on the road. Beside her, Ella took in a long, slow breath.

  CHAPTER 36

  It’s the bishop!” Isaiah lurched toward the bars of the jail cell.

  Gideon, who had been praying silently at one end of the bottom bunk, opened his eyes immediately and pushed himself off the bunk. Men in both cells lined up along the cell doors and watched a uniformed guard escort their spiritual leader into this forgotten corner of the English justice system.

  “This is our pastor,” Gideon said. “Please admit him.”

  The guard shrugged. “He’s not on the list.”

  “What list?”

  “I have a list of approved visitors on my desk,” the guard said. “He’s not on it. He stays on this side until your attorney comes.”

  Bishop Garber nodded. “It’s all right. Mr. Eggar brought me in his automobile. He will park and then come in.”

  The guard withdrew to the end of the hall, and through the bars the bishop shook each father’s hand with a prolonged grip.

  “Bishop,” Isaiah said, “have you come to tell us what we must do?”

  “I have come to pray with you and for you,” the bishop said. “You are caught between obeying God’s command to submit to the government He has ordained and obeying God’s command to train up your children in the way they should go. I don’t make light of the decision you face.”

  The decision had become considerably more complex after six nights in jail. The men’s resolve to act as one faltered more with each day away from their wives and children.

  “When we were baptized,” John Hershberger said, “we all promised to submit to the church. Bishop, if you tell us what to do, whatever it is, none of us would find shame in submitting to you.”

  The bishop shook his head. “I’ve never been that kind of bishop, and you know it. I didn’t ask to be a minister, much less to have the bishop’s lot fall to me. You also promised to be willing to serve as a minister, if called upon. In this situation, we must all minister to each other.”

  John sighed and stepped away from the bars. “It all seemed so clear in the beginning—at least to me. I didn’t want my children in that town school. Now they will go to an English school whether or not I like it, so I might as well have them at home with me at night.”

  Chester Mast shuffled his feet.

  “Chester?” the bishop said. “Would you like to speak?”

  “We’ve come this far,” Chester said. “We’ll never know what might come of it in the end if we don’t see it through.”

  Determined footfalls approached.

  “Here’s your Mr. Eggar,” the bishop said.

  Two guards accompanied the attorney and allowed all the men to file into one cell before withdrawing down the hall to monitor from a distance. The fathers leaned against the walls, eager for Mr. Eggar’s report.

  “I continue to work toward your release,” Mr. Eggar said. “We have an arraignment hearing on Thursday morning. I’ve confirmed with the judge’s clerk that we are on the docket and stressed that the delay is approaching the outside limits of ‘unnecessary delay.’”

  Gideon worked his lips in and out as he listened. The sheriff’s department seemed to rely on the general ignorance of the Amish about specific rights within the
legal system.

  “What does that mean?” Jed asked.

  “They’ll formally read the charges, and we’ll enter a plea of not guilty,” Percival said.

  “But we are guilty, aren’t we?” John asked.

  “We’re not giving up,” Percival said. “We want this to go to trial. That’s where we get to make our case.”

  “What if we lose at trial?” Jed asked.

  Silence fell.

  “What if I said I would pay the fine and send my children to school?” John asked finally.

  “Then you would plead guilty,” Percival said. “Is that what you wish to do?”

  “I know I want to go home to my family,” John said. “What if the long way around is a lot longer than any of us imagined?”

  Gideon stepped away from the wall, paced the center of the small cell, and turned in a complete circle.

  “If Mr. Eggar determines that it is an option to pay the fine and obey the school laws,” Gideon said, “then each man must decide whether this choice is in the best interest of his family.”

  “I want to go home,” John said.

  “I want to see it through,” Chester countered.

  The others stared at one another, silent.

  Margaret slept more deeply on Tuesday night than she had in weeks. It might have been simply because the day’s emotions had exhausted her, along with the Amish mothers, but she preferred to believe she slept the sleep of the righteous. She had done the right thing. She had acted on behalf of the defenseless. She had cared for the—temporary—orphans and widows, just as the Bible told her to do.

  The morning sky was still gray when Margaret left her home on Wednesday morning ready to resume her normal responsibilities at the school. If the substitute had encountered any difficulties or been unable to get through all the lesson plans, she would have left notes. Margaret wanted to review the situation long before her pupils arrived. The woman who worked in the school’s office was always first to the building, making her rounds with the keys, and Margaret intended to be the second arrival.

  In her classroom, she reached for the switch that would rouse the electric lights to overcome the dim gloom of early morning. Margaret had taught long enough in a one-room schoolhouse that was never electrified to be grateful for the transformation that came with the simple touch of her fingers. She scanned the room. The rows of desks were in satisfactory alignment, and on the center of her own desk was one white sheet of paper with neat script. Margaret pulled out the chair and sat down to read the substitute’s report.