Hester Takes Charge

by Byler, Linda;

  Sitting on the hard wooden bench, Hester had bowed her head with shame and guilt as she remembered her marriage. Ben’s words pressed against her heart, weighing against her breathing like a stone.

  On good days, when the sun shone and life stretched before her with all its uncertainties, she was glad for her faith, glad for the belief that one’s happiness lies in serving others—Jesus first, yourself last, as her mother Kate would say.

  It was good to be afraid of sin and good to seek humility, but when Kate spoke of it, she seemed to fulfill the law the way Jesus said he had come to do. It was not hard, not an insurmountable chore, not something that felt like repression. Kate had truly found joy and happiness in the life she led—in simplicity, in a homey kitchen filled with praise and laughter and new babies, a fresh blueberry pie cooling on the windowsill and a pot of stew bubbling on its hook above low coals, sending out an invitation to contentment.

  The world and its ways meant nothing to her. Every stray cat or dog was fed and cared for, every bird and butterfly adored. She explained to Hester the reason for plain clothes: not to be superior to worldly fashions, not to appear self-righteous, but to be clothed with humility and obedience to the laws of the church, which would benefit the soul throughout life.

  Hester was filled with a longing so great she felt it physically in the region of her heart. She clasped both hands there, her eyes swimming with quick tears, blinding her for an instant. Ah, Kate, if only you were here.

  She thought again of Noah. So much like his mother, was he God’s way of leaving Kate in the world through her son? This oldest son of Kate received so little from her husband, except reprimands and stinging slaps at the supper table. Kate would wince, and a certain shadow played across her face.

  Hester wondered if she should go with Noah. She wanted to so fiercely. In fact, she had not longed for anything ever quite like this. But was it her own will, or God’s? How could a person know?

  Ah, but she knew. She knew. Ben Kauffman had explained it clearly. If we sacrifice ourselves to God, we can discern the will of God. If we empty ourselves and give up our own will, then we will know.

  She wanted to go. She wanted Noah. She wanted to marry him, to be his wife, and live in Berks County among the beloved hills and forests, next to the streams that played clear music as the water rushed over the rocks, then eddied in deep pools where the tree roots hung low above the dark brown water, covered with moss and sprouting with lichens. The smell of the damp, muddy creek bank was ambrosia, a heavenly perfume in her nostrils.

  She wanted to watch Noah build a small house, a log one, with a barn just the way she remembered. A sturdy fence would surround the barn, making a yard where the cows would wait to be milked, the barn cats would purr and stretch around the posts, and violets and wild irises would nod and play in the breeze.

  To have Noah, to have and to hold him, to live among the beauty of the hills of Berks County, the home of her childhood and his, was a dream, a mirage, shimmering on the horizon, conjured by her imagination. It was not to be. How could it be meant for her if she deserved nothing, not even a small portion of such happiness?

  No, she would remain firm, resisting her selfish desires. Once she had been attracted to William King’s dark, good looks and swayed by his confession of great love.

  And now this. This blond giant who was her brother. So great were the differences between them, so unbelievable, so far beyond her imagination. Even the lights in their eyes couldn’t have been more opposite, one as dark and forbidding as the other was light and pure.

  Hester stood by the kitchen table, her hand lightly on a chair back, staring through the narrow, wooden-paned window. She saw nothing as these thoughts ran through her mind, all connected one to another in sequence, as if the order of her mind had been freshly cleaned and organized. She had questions, too many of them, but they could not all be answered now. She would remain on course, deny herself the pleasure of going with Noah, and see what each day would bring.

  She had just dropped her hand from the kitchen chair and turned to go to the backyard to gather the eggs, when the front door burst open, followed immediately by “Eppa do?”

  Hester hurried through the short hallway leading to the front door and found an Amish man standing inside, the sweat on his hatband grayer than the darkened old straw of his well-worn everyday hat, his beard long and black, the hair hanging in greasy tendrils. His clothes were slick with dirt and grease as well. An unwashed aroma hung in the small hallway.

  Without thinking, Hester’s hand went to her mouth and two fingers covered her nose. A short cough followed.

  “Ya, ich bin Amos Stoltzfus.”

  “Hello.”

  “Doo bisht Hester King?”

  “Ya.”

  “Die vitfrau?”

  “Ya.”

  “Well, I came to ask for a maud. Our girl fell from the hay wagon and broke her back, we think. My Frau had a bupply. She is in bed. We have now 13 children, and no one to do the wash. The peas are overripe. The beans are coming on, and there is no one to hoe corn or potatoes.”

  Hester nodded, wide-eyed. So here stood God’s answer in all its soiled form. She had never in her life smelled anything like this man, except perhaps in the houses in the poor section of town when she still occasionally practiced with medicinal herbs. She glanced at his feet, then swallowed when she saw the telltale stain of liquid cow manure spread up between his knobby bare toes.

  She nodded again, swallowing quickly as she looked away from his toes.

  “How soon can you come?”

  “Well, I need to tell Bappie, do some washing, pack my things. Can you come back tomorrow morning for me?”

  “Ah, I don’t know. I was hoping you’d ride back with me.”

  “Well, do you have any business in town?”

  “I was going to buy my wife a new copper pot, for the washing.”

  “Go ahead. Give me about an hour to get my things and leave Bappie a note.”

  “Goot. Goot. Sell suit mich.” Clapping his filthy hat on his head, he let himself out. Hester stepped up to the door quickly, caught the latch, and peered out at his form of traveling.

  As she had figured, a two-wheeled cart was pulled by a pot-bellied mule, every rib showing above the distended stomach, the blinders on the harness wobbling outward, revealing the eyes of the animal, half-closed in laziness. The cart was splattered repeatedly with untold layers of mud.

  Hester shut the door quietly, sagged against it, laid her head against the moulding and closed her eyes. She let out a long, slow breath of acceptance. “Here I am, Lord. Truly, here I am. Completely given up to do your will. This family needs me, and I am willing to go. Just provide strength for every day, every hour.”

  She leaned away from the door and sprang into action. Her movements were fluid and quick. She ran upstairs and grabbed her two extra work dresses, the oldest gray aprons to tie over them, and a fresh cap. She decided against shoes. Summer was here, so there was no need. She’d come back every two weeks to attend church.

  She sat at the kitchen table with a square of brown paper, an inkwell, and quill pen. Slowly, she dipped the pen into the ink, spread the palm of her hand across the paper to smooth it, and bent her head to the task.

  Dear Bappie,

  Amos Stoltzfus came for me. His daughter is ill, and his wife is in bed after childbirth. I will be back to go to church.

  My regards,

  Hester

  That was all. No indication of her whereabouts, or how long before she’d write again, or any more information. When Bappie found the note, her face turned as red as her freckles. She crumpled the paper and threw it on the floor.

  There she went in all her righteous martyrdom, very likely without telling Noah what she was doing or where she was. Sometimes Hester made Bappie so mad she saw red. If she could only move past that Hans and William once and for all, instead of nearly throttling herself on her rope of grudges. She took better care of
her self-pity about her past then she did of the chickens.

  Bappie often wondered what that Billy Ferree told Hester. It seemed to give Hester a fresh hold on some past wrong. Oh, well, so be it. She’ll come to her senses soon enough, if it’s the Amos Stoltzfus Bappie thought it was.

  Hester sat beside her newfound employer, perched on the edge of a hard wooden seat that slanted backward, her bare feet planted firmly on layers of dried mud and dust, bits of twine, pieces of hay, and something that looked very much like a snakeskin.

  The mule’s flapping haunches seemed to be only a few feet from her knees, the cart bobbing and wobbling along behind it. The wheels seemed to be strangely oblong, coming around each time with a thump and a sideways shift of the cart, leaving Hester scrambling for a steadying grip, so as not to be thrown against the less than clean Amos.

  The cart was so low, and the mule so huge and loose and flappy, Hester sincerely hoped they’d make it to the farm before nature called for the mule and they were splattered.

  Amos rode in silence, his beard and face a stark profile. He looked like Daniel in the lion’s den, so serious was he. The picture in Kate’s Bible storybook of the unfortunate prophet looked so much the same, with a long black beard, a square cut of bangs on his forehead, and hair so unwashed it hung in sections over his protruding ears, smashed flat here by a discolored hat.

  She turned her head wistfully to view the lowlying meadow, that patch of swampy ground with an abundance of herbs and plants all lush and green, ripe for drying or boiling into healing tinctures.

  She looked away.

  From his trouser pocket, Amos produced a grubby, homemade pipe made of corncobs. He tamped down the half-smoked bowl of blackened tobacco, lit it with a match, then sucked away on it until the bowl glowed red and tiny sparks rained over his shoulder, plumes of smoke decorating the air between them.

  Hester’s mouth was a grim line. He had a match, those expensive little wonders that even Bappie refused to buy. She bet his wife had no matches for her cookstove.

  When the mule slowed to a tired walk, Amos hit him across his skinny haunches with both reins, accompanied by a loud yell of, “Come on, du alta essel. Git up there.”

  When that endeavor brought no change, Amos bent low and scrabbled under the seat, searching for a whip. Amos brought that down with a vicious crack on the bony back, and the mule lunged forward, throwing Hester back with a hard jerk. Fortunately, she had driven carts and wagons and was prepared, tucking her legs beneath the seat and hanging onto the edge of the seat with both hands as the mule broke into a run, the cart bobbing and swaying behind him.

  Hester noticed the absence of a copper pot and was just about to ask Amos about it, but then thought better of it. She was a new maud so it wouldn’t have been proper to ask.

  The sun shone down, spreading heat across Hester’s black hat, its power felt along her shoulders and down her back. The mule’s haunches were stained dark with sweat, and a thin band of white foam appeared on his legs where the harness jostled along the back of his legs.

  Amos lifted his hat, the pipe clenched in his yellowed teeth, and let the breeze blow through his hair, which did not move at all, so hardened by weeks of not being washed. Hester swallowed and looked away.

  It was no surprise, when the road shifted downhill, to find a farm nestled along a forest, the ground low and uneven around it, dotted with rotting stumps. Trees had been felled and the wood cut and taken away, but the stumps were still there, sentries to Amos and his dreaminess, his unwillingness to finish a job he started.

  As they approached, the mule, with a final burst of speed, sensed the presence of home. Hester was appalled to discover an Amish farm quite like this one. She had not known it was possible, or even godly, to live in such squalor. The farm lay in another church district, a natural border dividing it from her own church, perhaps a creek, a road, or a band of trees, so she had never met or known about this family.

  The house was built of lumber and had grayed to a nondescript color since the once-new boards had been allowed to face the elements without the usual coat of whitewash. There was no porch, only the square, unadorned two-story house with only one window on each side, small ones with even smaller panes.

  The barn was small as well, surrounded by a split-rail fence in varying stages of disrepair. The vegetable patch was a growth of solid green, the weeds as high as the potato plants, the beans and yellowing pea vines barely visible among the thistles and crabgrass, burdock and red root.

  As they approached, a small group of children, each barefoot with clothes torn and filthy, their hair uncombed, came around the corner of the house. They stopped and stared, the youngest sucking on thumbs, their knobby little knees showing through the holes in their trousers.

  Stiff, yellowish-brown diapers, tablecloths, and towels had been thrown across the decaying yard fence to dry in the sun. Without a washline, that was suitable, Hester supposed.

  The weeds and clumps of dry grass that was the yard around the house contained firewood, broken wheels, bits of cloth, buckets upended or lying on their sides, cats as thin as pieces of slate, and red-eyed chickens with all their tail feathers missing, pecking belligerently at any remaining bits of food or bugs not eaten by the whole hungry flock.

  Washtubs and a scrubbing board stood close to the door, the bare earth around them wet and gray from being sloshed repeatedly by the water containing lye soap and dirt.

  “Here we are, Mrs. Stoltzfus!” Amos sang out.

  Hester felt her mouth widen into a polite semblance of a smile, an acknowledgment, before she stepped down from the cart, lifted the valise containing her clean clothes, then picked her way gingerly between the broken pottery and angry chickens to the front door. The wide-eyed children stayed rooted in place, nothing moving except for the soft motion of their mouths, drawing comfort from the thumbs inside them.

  Taking a deep breath, Hester knocked at the faded gray door, noticing the broken board where the thin shadowy cats had easy access to the interior of the house.

  “Komm rye!”

  The voice came from what Hester supposed was the bedroom. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw a pallet made with graying covers in the corner beside the blackened fireplace. A slim form lay inert, the small face turned to the wall as motionless as a doll. This must be the injured daughter.

  It was the smell that stopped her from going into the bedroom. Thick and cloying, the rancid stench colored the air around her with images of unwashed diapers, overfull chamber pots, spoiled food, unswept floors, unwashed beds and bodies. Hester almost turned and fled.

  She imagined herself running, her feet skimming the earth as she flew down the hot, dusty road, finally reaching the shade of a heavy forest, and never stopping until she reached her home in the town of Lancaster.

  From the hearth, a teenaged daughter glared at her. She was holding the newborn infant wrapped in a gray blanket, her eyes petulant and unwelcoming. Hester directed a faltering smile in the vicinity of the fireplace, swallowed, and made herself enter the bedroom.

  A low bed stood against the opposite wall. The only light came from an uncurtained window that was stark and yellow, trapping sunshine and shimmering heat. A woman was propped up by two pillows, both stained and brown. A light quilt was thrown across her legs. Her face was large and square, the jaw as prominent as a man’s, but her eyes were kind, in spite of being so small they appeared to be two black dots in the big face.

  “So you are the maud.”

  Not a question, no inquiry about her well-being, not even a request for her name. Only a recognition that the maud was here, which, Hester supposed, was a lifeline thrown to a drowning person.

  “Fannie is hurt, we don’t know yet how bad. Amos thinks her back will heal.”

  Her voice became strident, then, impatient with what Hester supposed was her lot in life. “I know it’s shrecklich. We didn’t start out this way. I’m going to ask you to just take ahold, do whate
ver you see needs to be done, which is everything. I’ve been in bed for six days, so I have four more to go, I’m afraid. I’ll get milk fever if I get out too soon. Had it last time. Put the girls to work. They don’t always listen to me. Amos is so easygoing with the children.”

  Here she paused.

  “I’m awful hungry,” she soon said. “Dinnertime is past, but it seems Rachel didn’t know what to make.”

  Grimly, Hester set her lips, glanced at the valise clutched in her white-knuckled hands, and asked where she would sleep so she could put her things away.

  “Oh, upstairs somewhere. We supposed you could sleep with Rachel since Fannie hurt her back.”

  Turning, Hester made her way upstairs and into the acrid smell of stifling rooms filled with sheets used by a horde of little bedwetters. She had no way of knowing which bed was Rachel’s, so she set the valise down and made her way downstairs.

  Looking around, she took stock of the situation. The hearth was unswept. Rachel and the baby sat rocking on gray ashes and bits of burnt wood. The long trestle table was piled with unwashed dishes and bits of leftover food, all on top of a tablecloth that appeared to be stuck to the table in its own grease.

  A cupboard on the opposite wall contained more dishes, so Hester piled all the soiled ones on the dry sink against the other wall. When she tugged at the tablecloth to remove it, she found it stuck so tightly, she had to unearth a knife to scrape at the substance that held it to the tabletop.

  Rachel sneered, “Leave it on.”

  Hester pretended not to hear and kept right on scraping until she lifted it off, stiff with weeks of food and mold. Holding it away from her body, she flung it out the door close to the washtubs, then turned to go back in, determined to get food on the table somehow.

  Slowly, the small kitchen filled up with children trickling in through the doors. They were wide-eyed and silent, filthy and painfully thin, with sores around their eyes, mosquito bites, and angry-looking rashes, their hair stiff with dirt and the lack of a comb.

  This home was no different than those in the poorest section of Lancaster. Perhaps worse. How could they live like this, having been brought up in the hard-working expectations of Amish culture? Hadn’t they arrived from spotless farms in the Rhine Valley in Switzerland? Weren’t they successful landowners in Germany?