The Amish Blacksmith

by Mindy Starns Clark

  When I began my apprenticeship a year ago, Amos had offered me the cottage to live in in exchange for fixing it up in my spare time. After having sat empty for almost six years, the building needed a lot of repairs, so I was a little concerned at first, but the arrangement had ended up working out great for both of us. I had my own place, the rent was free, and I found myself really enjoying the renovations.

  My bedroom was one of two in the former guest cottage and the only room I had completely finished in terms of repairs. I had fixed the holes in the roof, replaced a section of drywall that had rotted, and refinished the wood plank floor. The window trims had been repainted, and I’d fixed the drawer slides on the dresser that stood in the back corner. There was still much to do here, but so far the work had gone very well.

  I got up and headed for the lavatory, which I had recently replumbed. Fifteen minutes later I was showered, shaved, and dressed in broadfall pants, a white shirt, and suspenders. I made my way to the combined kitchen and living area, which still needed much attention but at least was functional—not that I used it all that often. On workdays I went up to the main house after chores to have breakfast with the Kinsingers and joined them again for lunch as well. Suppers were a little more haphazard, though I would always go wherever invited, which meant that sometimes I ate with Amos and Roseanna, sometimes with Owen and Treva, and sometimes all the way over at Tyler and Rachel’s.

  On the weekends I either headed home and enjoyed my mother’s wonderful cooking or, if I had customers coming in or other things going on around here, I would feed myself from my own limited repertoire of cereal, sandwiches, and scrambled eggs. Beyond that, I was helpless in the kitchen.

  This morning, I didn’t feel like making eggs, and I was all out of cereal, so I downed a quick cup of coffee with a French press Tyler had bought for me in Philadelphia, ate a banana, and then headed out in the drizzle. The rain made for a dreary morning, but that was okay because I knew it would please the local farmers. Early June rain on spring-planted fields was almost always a good thing.

  As I crossed the long expanse of lawn, I passed Owen and Treva’s darkened house on my right. Turning toward the main Kinsinger homestead, I could see lights on in the kitchen, and also in Mahlon and Beth’s home, which was connected to the main house via a breezeway. A rooster off in the distance announced my arrival onto the gravel driveway that led to the blacksmith shop, the welding shop, and the barns and buggy sheds. I caught a faint whiff of cinnamon and nutmeg, which meant that one of the Kinsinger women was baking something wonderful. I hoped whoever it was would take pity on the bachelor in the guest cottage and offer me some. I entered the large area where the family buggies were kept, and my hat was so wet from the rain that I took it off and tossed it on a hook by the door. I looked around for Comet, Stephen’s dog, who usually accompanied me in the barn whether Stephen was with us or not. But he was nowhere to be found, probably thanks to the weather. When it was suddlich like this, Comet mostly lurked on Mahlon and Beth’s front porch, staring out at the lawn and waiting for the sun to come out.

  My thoughts were still on the weather as I headed for the smaller barn on the right that I used for Willow and any horses that stayed overnight with me. I was also thinking of breakfast and the anticipation of working with Patch when I stepped inside, but then I came to an abrupt stop. Farther in stood a figure. Once my eyes adjusted to the semidarkness, I realized that figure was Priscilla. She didn’t seem to notice me. The pattering of rain on the roof must have masked the sound of my footfalls.

  She was standing at the rails of Patch’s stall. Patch was in front of her, his chocolate-brown head bent toward hers. Her hands were on his muscled jaw line, her face very close to his. I heard no sound from either one of them. It was almost as if she were about to whisper a thrilling secret, and he was intent on catching every word. Patch didn’t seem to be aware I had entered the stable, either. Neither ear pivoted in my direction. His tail hung loose, as though he were asleep on his feet. Willow, in the stall next to Patch, raised her head at my silent approach, regarded me for a moment, and then turned her gaze to the spectacle of horse and young woman that was taking place next to her.

  The sight was transfixing. I felt like an intruder in my own barn. Even Willow seemed to be saying to me, “You should probably go.”

  But I stood there, glued to the spot.

  And then I heard Priscilla speak in the lowest of tones. I could not make out the words, but I could detect the lullaby timbre of her voice. Patch chuffed and nodded his head as if to say, “Yes, yes.” She stroked his head, leaned even closer to him, and laid her cheek against his. Patch closed his eyes.

  I had never seen anything like it.

  Part of me wanted to ask her what in the world she was doing with my charge, and part of me wanted to stand there and be a silent witness to it. Instead of doing either, I forced myself to turn and leave as quietly as I had come. Something about the scene felt private and uninterruptable.

  I turned soundlessly to enter the connecting buggy shed that was situated between the small barn and the larger one where the Kinsinger horses were stabled, careful to quietly close the wooden door behind me. In my effort to be silent, I almost ran right into Amos. He was bent over the back wheel of a buggy, tightening a nut.

  “Guder Mariye, Jake,” he said, crooking an eyebrow in surprise at my sudden appearance.

  “Good morning, Amos.”

  He continued to look at me, and I suppose he thought I’d come to ask him a question, which he was politely waiting to hear.

  “Um… ” I began and paused. I pointed to the barn next door. “So… ”

  But I didn’t need to find the words to tell him what I had just witnessed.

  “Ya. I saw her in there. She was up before any of us. I think she came straight out to the barn. She’s probably missing her horse from Indiana. Or maybe even her daed’s horse from when she lived here before. ”

  “Oh.”

  Amos stood and set his wrench down on the workbench next to him. “I sold Shiloh a few months after she moved away, once I realized she wouldn’t be coming back any time soon. He’d been my brother’s horse, but with him and Sharon both gone and then Priscilla off in Indiana for who knew how long, there was no reason to keep him around. We didn’t need him anymore. At the time, Roseanna wanted me to keep him for Priscilla, but after a while we just couldn’t justify the cost.”

  It struck me that Amos felt bad about that, almost guilty that he’d had to let the horse go. I tried to think of something to say that might make him feel better.

  “Of course not, and Shiloh wouldn’t have been very happy if you had kept him around,” I said. “Nothing is sadder than horses with no job to do. They need to feel useful.”

  “True enough.” Amos studied the wheel he had been working on as though it might speak advice to him. Then he turned to me. “Now that Priscilla is back, though, I’d like to get her a horse of her own. Lorraine and Otto had one she was very fond of, which she had to leave behind in Indiana. I think it would help her to feel more at home here if she had her own horse. She’s always been so taken with them.”

  “Makes sense. But, uh, you heard what she said at dinner last night. Her stay here is only temporary.”

  Amos nodded, stroking his beard. “Ya, well, sometimes the right animal can help make a temporary situation permanent.”

  I smiled. “You’re pretty sneaky for an old guy.”

  Amos flashed me a wink. “I think we can find her something quickly at auction. An easygoing Standardbred. Maybe a Dutch Harness. Young but well behaved.”

  “Ya. I’m sure you can,” I answered. Every week, several popular auctions for buying and selling horses were held in Lancaster County.

  “You don’t have any customers this morning, right?”

  For a second Amos had lost me. “Uh, no. No, I don’t,” I said, realizing too late that he was asking because he wanted to go to the auction today and wanted me to go w
ith him. As different auctions were held on different days and this was a Saturday, that meant he had in mind the Stone Road Auction Ring in Ephrata, one of the largest in the region.

  “You know more than I do about finding a healthy horse. I don’t want to bring home an animal that has bad knees or rotting hooves or a sour disposition. I’d feel better about what I buy if you were there, Jake.”

  I really didn’t have a good excuse for not going. Working with Patch that morning was the only thing on my agenda, and that could wait until the afternoon if need be.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Good, good. I’ll go tell Priscilla.” Then Amos lowered his voice and asked if I’d spoken to Amanda about the two of us showing his niece around and helping her get reacquainted with everyone. I assured him that I had and we were happy to do it. Not exactly a lie. I was happy enough to lend a hand. And it didn’t seem to be a lie as far as Amanda was concerned. As long as she could play matchmaker, she was eager to help Priscilla get reacquainted with her old district.

  “Very good. Why don’t you start this morning’s chores with my horses? I’ll go talk to Priscilla now, and by the time you get to your animals, she’ll be out of there and you can take care of Willow and the Fisher horse. Then come to the main house for breakfast. We’ll leave for the auction as soon as the rain lets up. Or by eight at the latest, rain or not.”

  He left and I saw to the five Kinsinger horses. After sweeping the stalls, forking in clean straw, and filling troughs, I headed over to my stable to do the same for Patch and Willow, fully expecting to find only horses when I stepped inside.

  It was after six thirty by then, but Priscilla was still there, this time standing right in front of the horses’ stalls. Both animals were at the rails, leaning close to her, as though she were giving them instructions for the day and they were attentively making mental notes. Except that she wasn’t talking, she was just standing, her arms crossed gently in front of her chest. I stepped further in and she turned. That’s when I saw that she’d already done what I had come to do. The stalls were swept clean of manure, new straw had been laid, and the troughs were full. When Priscilla turned from them, they both bent their heads toward their troughs and began to munch on breakfast.

  “Good… good morning,” I muttered, stumbling over words everyone said every day of their life.

  She just stared at me, and even from that distance I could see the deep lavender hue of her eyes.

  “I’m sorry I messed up your schedule this morning,” she said, though her tone wasn’t exactly repentant. “Uncle Amos told me you usually start in here. I didn’t mean to be in the way.”

  Though her words contained an apology, her voice sounded strangely accusatory. I believed her about being sorry for having messed up my routine—something I honestly couldn’t have cared less about—but underneath the apology was a layer of near hostility. I didn’t see how she could be mad at me. She hadn’t been back long enough for me to do anything wrong. But anger was what I sensed under her confession.

  “Uh, it’s no trouble. And you didn’t have to do what you did. Really. It’s not a big deal.”

  She looked behind her to the cleaned-out stalls. Each horse lifted its head and glanced at her, munching as they did. She turned back to me.

  “But I put you behind schedule. I’m sorry.” Again, the tone was no match for the words.

  I forced a smile regardless. “I am not that tied to a schedule. Honestly. It’s no big deal. And even if I was, you wouldn’t have set me that far back. There are only seven horses to care for here. It really doesn’t matter in which order they are attended to.”

  Priscilla stood there for a minute, weighing my words, so it seemed. Testing them to see if I was being sincere, maybe? Or perhaps gauging them in light of her subtly discernible anger toward me.

  I was annoyed that she was mad for no reason I could tell. I barely knew her.

  My mind raced as I tried to figure this out. Clearly, her anger had something to do with the horses. Then it came to me. Perhaps the stalls where they now stood eating their breakfast were once the very same stalls used by her family when they lived here all those years ago. Maybe somehow it felt to her that I had taken over the place that should have belonged to her father’s old horse.

  “Look, if this is about Shiloh, I just want you to know… I mean, they didn’t sell him because of me. He’s been gone a long time. Years. Since a few months after you moved to Indiana.”

  Any veiled evidence of anger fell away and was instantly replaced with incredulity. She looked at me as though I were crazy.

  “What are you talking about?”

  A few moments of silence stretched between us.

  “Uh. What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t talking about anything.”

  The next few seconds of silence were truly awkward.

  “My mistake,” I finally said. “I… I thought you were… you seemed upset, and I thought maybe my horse being in this particular stall was… ” I let my words drift away because none of them seemed to be accomplishing anything.

  She exhaled heavily and shook her head in what seemed like disbelief. In the mellow light of a cloud-covered daybreak, it was hard to discern which emotion she now wore. I had the feeling I’d disappointed her somehow. For some reason, I wanted to fix that, right then, at that very moment.

  I took a deep breath and blew it out. “Amos told you that you’ll be getting a new horse today, right?” I said, forcing my voice to take on a lighter tone. “There are always some good ones at Stone Road.”

  “So I hear.”

  “You’ve never been?”

  She shook her head.

  “How about the auction at New Holland?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hoover’s?”

  “I’ve never been to a horse auction, Jake. Never had a reason to.” She turned to Patch, who was still feeding. “Is this one yours?”

  “No. He belongs to a customer. He’s here for some therapy.”

  Priscilla whipped her head back around. “Therapy?”

  “Sorry. That’s what I call working with horses that need to be gentled. I—”

  “‘Gentled?’ And what exactly do you mean by that?”

  “You know. Taught to cooperate. To obey.”

  “I see,” she replied, her tone clipped and tight.

  “Anyway,” I continued, “call it ‘therapy’ or ‘gentling’ or whatever, it’s one of my specialties. I suppose I have a way with horses—at least, that’s what other people say. And I really like doing it.”

  “Really.” Her tone suggested I couldn’t possibly know what I was talking about.

  “Yes, really,” I answered, and with enough emphasis to assure her I certainly did know what I was talking about.

  “So he’s not yours.”

  “No.”

  She placed a hand on her chest, her expression one of deep relief.

  “Thank goodness,” she said as we heard the bell calling us to breakfast from outside. “ ’Cause I was going to punch you if he was.”

  I laughed. “Punch me?”

  Her face grew more serious again. “He’s been abused, that horse,” she said as she moved past me. “By a man. Don’t wear your hat around him.”

  Priscilla stopped just inside the barn door and looked at me for a moment, perhaps making sure I understood. Then she turned and began running through the rain back to the house.

  I remained where I was for several long seconds, watching her go, dumbfounded.

  Then I grabbed my hat from the nearby hook, slapped it onto my head, and took off running as well.

  FIVE

  The rain tapered off during breakfast, giving way to the sun. Radiant beams spread over the wet landscape, turning every corn and alfalfa shoot visible from the kitchen windows a glistening green.

  I left the table first, grabbing another slice of apricot coffee cake to eat as I set off toward my cottage. I changed out o
f my muddy shoes, grabbed my wallet, and then headed over to the barn, where I set about hooking up Amos’s primary driving horse, Big Sam, to the family buggy.

  Despite my odd interaction with Priscilla earlier, breakfast had been a pleasant enough affair. Roseanna had asked her how she slept—because mothers and aunts always ask that question of houseguests—and Priscilla answered that she slept better than she thought she would. It was an honest answer gently given, I thought. The only uncomfortable part of the meal was when my gaze kept settling on the striking young woman across from me. It happened more than once without my really being aware of it, which wouldn’t have been bad except that she caught me. The only thing worse than being caught looking at someone is frantically darting your attention away from that person as soon as they do, which of course, he or she also sees.

  The thing was, I just kept wondering what she had been doing with Patch earlier, when I’d first seen her at his stall. Not only was I intrigued, but I felt I deserved to know. Trudy had left Patch in my care. I had a right to ask Priscilla what she had been up to. I also very much wanted to know why she thought Patch had been abused, not by just anybody, but by a man specifically.

  Those were the two reasons why my attention drifted toward her while we ate. But I hadn’t felt right asking her with Roseanna and Amos there, because that would have revealed that not only had I seen Priscilla in the barn, but that I’d stayed and silently watched her for at least long enough to wonder what she’d been doing.

  Awkward.

  Instead, I’d just finished eating as quickly as I could and left. Now, as I was looping the last harness buckle in place, Amos and Priscilla emerged from the house.

  “How about if you drive, Jake?” Amos said as they neared the buggy.

  Without a word, Priscilla climbed into the backseat, and then Amos and I took our places up front. Though it was just a little after eight, now that the rain had stopped the morning was already growing warm. I signaled the horse to go and then opened my window as Amos rolled down his and Priscilla fiddled with the one in back. As the breeze swept through, we made our way onto the macadam, shiny from the rain. Our destination was about ten or eleven miles away, depending on the route we took. That was about as far as Amos liked to take Big Sam, who at twenty-two was getting on in years.