by Jan Drexler
As the first large drops plopped on his hat, he ran the rest of the way to the back porch and cover.
He shut the back door against the storm and hung his hat on the hook. The house was quiet and still. Heat radiated from the kitchen stove as Samuel lit the lamp above the table. He grabbed a towel and took out the Dutch oven. Even though he had told her he would fend for himself, Esther had made a pot pie. A thick crust, golden brown, covered the chicken and gravy. The aroma of stewed chicken filled the kitchen when he poked the crust with a fork.
Taking a dish from the cupboard shelf, he cut into the crust and laid it on his plate. Then he spooned the rich gravy, chicken and vegetables over the crust and held it close, breathing in the aroma.
Sitting at the table, he lifted a forkful of his supper, then paused. He was alone in the house. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been alone in this house, if he had ever been. Someone had always been here... Mamm, one of his sisters, Bram...
The doorway to the living room was an empty hole, black between flashes of lightning. His bedroom door was shut, and the door to the back porch was, too. The kitchen light showed the bottom three steps going up from the doorway next to the stove, but then darkness lurked beyond the lamplight.
He ate the food on his fork, his chewing loud in his own ears between the rumbles of thunder. The storm passed overhead, leaving behind a steady rain that could last for hours. The girls would stay at Sadie’s tonight, and he was on his own.
Washing the dishes took no time, except for the minutes he spent watching raindrops hit the window, then slide down to the sill. Over and over, one after another. Just like the generations of Lapps who had lived in this house. Abe’s father had built the house nearly a hundred years ago. Then Grossdawdi Abe, then his own father, and now him. Who would live here after him?
Samuel wiped out the Dutch oven with an oiled rag and set it on the stove. Banking the fire, he left the kitchen. He took the lamp with him into the living room and found the new Farm and Home magazine. Settling into the rocking chair with the lamp on the table beside him, he leafed through articles about shearing sheep, the new electric fence someone in New Zealand had developed, poultry waterers and a different butchering technique for hogs.
Tossing the magazine onto the table, Samuel leaned back in the chair, rocking himself with his toe. The house was quiet. Too quiet. But when Judith and Esther married and moved away, this would be his life. Quiet evenings alone in the dark, silent house.
As the wind picked up, the old house creaked, as if it was complaining about the quiet, too. The house was full of memories. So many folks had been born and died within these walls.
He pulled his thoughts back from that road. Very few of his memories were good ones, but there had been some worth thinking about on a stormy night. Like when he was small, and Daed would come in from doing chores in the winter, laughing as Samuel and Bram would rush to lick the snow off his coat sleeve before it melted. He remembered Mamm in the kitchen and the warm stove on cold mornings. He remembered jokes, stories, games...he remembered that there had once been life in this house. Life that was gone now, and no one could bring it back.
Leaning his head back against the rocker, he closed his eyes. Sadie’s kitchen had been full of that life this evening, and the girls were there enjoying it. And Mary... His eyes popped open. He couldn’t let Mary wed that Martin Troyer. He couldn’t. But how could he stop her?
* * *
The storm hit with a rush of wind carrying big, plopping drops of rain. Mary ran from the barn to the house, but by the time she reached the back porch, she was soaked. Her kapp hung by its ties from her neck, and her hair clung to her wet skin in long, dripping ropes. She lifted her skirt and apron together and wrung out a few drops of water, but it was no use. She needed to change into dry clothes before supper.
She opened the kitchen door into a world of light and happy conversation. Esther and Ida Mae were laughing over something as they sprinkled chopped raisins into cake batter. Judith sat at the table while Sadie showed her how to do a knitting stitch. They all looked up when Mary came in.
“You’re wet,” Ida Mae said. “Is it raining that hard?”
“For sure it is.” Mary stepped over to the stove and spread her hands out to the heat. “And with the storm as strong as it is, Judith and Esther will be staying the night with us, ja?”
“We were just talking about that. Supper is nearly ready, but you have time to change.” Ida Mae tilted the bowl so that Esther could scrape the cake batter into the pan. “Put on your nightgown and some warm socks.”
“To eat supper?”
Judith grinned. “Why not? No one will be here except us.”
Esther nudged Mary aside with her elbow so she could put the cake in the oven. “Perhaps we should all put our nightgowns on. Ida Mae said you had an extra one I could borrow.”
Sadie laughed. “That sounds like fun. I haven’t done anything like this since I was a girl.”
By the time everyone met back in the kitchen, the thunderstorm had passed overhead and left a steady rain. Ida Mae dished up ham and scalloped potatoes while Judith and Esther set the table. Sadie sat in her usual place, with a quaint kapp on her head.
“What are you wearing, Aunt Sadie?” Judith asked.
“My night kapp. I know girls don’t wear them anymore, but I don’t feel dressed without one.”
Mary had combed and braided her wet hair, and the other girls had long braids hanging past their waists, too. Ida Mae had been right. Mary had gotten her long flannel nightgown from her chest and loaned her summer cotton one to Esther. The warm, dry fabric felt wonderful against her chilled skin, and the warm socks were beginning to take the icy feeling out of her toes.
In fact, between the warmth of her night clothes and the filling heat of her supper, Mary began to get sleepy as she sat at the table, listening to the conversation. But then Judith mentioned Martin Troyer’s visit.
“Are you going to go on that picnic he invited you to?”
Ida Mae glanced at Mary, then shook her head. “I’m sure he and his brother are nice men, but...” She bit her lip.
Mary felt a guilty nudge inside. She had only thought what Martin’s invitation meant to her. She hadn’t considered Ida Mae’s feelings at all. Was her sister ready to spend some time with a man?
“I’m not too sure about Martin,” Esther said. “He always seems to be bragging about something.”
“His brother, Peter, is a hard worker, but that’s all I know about him.” Judith cut her ham into bites. “He’s very quiet, and doesn’t enter into conversations much.”
Mary took a biscuit and spread some jam on it. “What do you know about them, Sadie?”
“Like the girls said, Martin is a talker and Peter isn’t. Martin was right about their dairy farm, though. Their father started it, and the boys have taken it over and are doing well with it. They’re hard workers, for sure.”
Ida Mae leaned back in her chair. “You called them boys, but Martin seemed to be pretty old.”
“He may seem that way to you, but to me he’s still a boy.” Sadie tapped her finger on pursed lips. “He must be Samuel’s age...ne, that can’t be right. Martin’s mother was a Zook, but not related to the Eden Township Zooks. She was Myron’s Betza’s sister...” Suddenly Sadie smiled. “Martin was born the same year as my brother, Solomon’s, youngest. So, that would make him forty years old, and his brother, Peter, must be thirty-eight.”
Martin Troyer was the same age as Daed. “And they are both bachelors?”
Sadie nodded. “The dairy farm has kept them busy. Too busy for starting a family, it seems. I’m not sure what put it into Martin’s head that he should come courting.”
Ida Mae stood and started gathering the dirty dishes. “No one said anything about courting. Martin only asked if we
would want to go on a picnic.”
Mary rubbed at her finger. Ida Mae hadn’t heard her conversation with Martin on the back porch. But she seemed to be interested. Perhaps they should accept the invitation, for Ida Mae’s sake. But Mary’s stomach clenched. She couldn’t think of marrying Martin Troyer. She would never put herself in the position of being alone with any man again. Especially an overbearing man like him. But what did Ida Mae think?
Judith and Esther took Sadie into the front room while Mary and Ida Mae washed the dishes and redd up the kitchen for the night.
Ida Mae chewed her bottom lip as she shaved soap flakes into the dish pan. “Do you think we should go on the picnic with Martin and Peter?”
That was the comment Mary had been waiting for. It sounded like Ida Mae was in favor of getting to know the two men better.
She poured warm water into the dishpan and kept her voice casual. “If you would like to.” She smiled as Ida Mae glanced at her. “It’s an opportunity to get to know them better. And who knows? We might even like them.”
“Would you consider marrying a man so much older than you are?” Ida Mae swirled the dish rag in the water to melt the soap flakes.
“It happens pretty often,” Mary said, thinking of the number of families she knew where the husband was several years older than his wife. “Especially when the man is a widower and has young children to care for.”
“But these two have never been married. What if there is something wrong with them? How many girls have they tried to court that have turned them down?”
Mary couldn’t tell if Ida Mae was worried about the men’s characters, or if she felt sorry for them.
“Sadie said they have been working very hard on their farm. It sounds like they would be good providers.”
Her sister chewed on her bottom lip again as she washed the four plates and handed them to Mary to dry.
“I guess we could go on the picnic. What would it hurt?”
It was Mary’s turn to chew on her bottom lip. She could do this for Ida Mae. She would do anything to see her sister happy and looking toward the future again.
“You’re right. What would it hurt?”
Chapter Eleven
Samuel couldn’t listen to Preacher William’s sermon that Sunday morning. Martin Troyer sat two rows in front of him, next to Peter, and two rows in front of them, on the women’s side, were Mary and Ida Mae. It seemed that Martin and Peter weren’t listening to the sermon, either, since they were both staring at the girls. He recognized the slow burn of jealousy for what it was, and didn’t care. Martin had no call to be thinking of marrying a girl like Mary.
At least Mary didn’t notice. Her attention was on the preaching.
Samuel forced his attention back to Preacher William’s droning voice. It was too bad preachers weren’t called on the basis of their speaking ability. Focusing on the sermon, Samuel heard him stress that a man must die to sin and be united with Christ.
Samuel’s gaze drifted to his hands, calloused and with a bruise on one thumb where he had hit it with a hammer yesterday. Yesterday. When Mary and Ida Mae had gone on that picnic with the Troyers and he had heard the Troyers’ buggy going by on the road. He flexed his fingers, feeling the dull pain of the bruise creep into the palm of his hand.
The congregation shifted in their seats as Preacher William sat down and Preacher Jonas stood. The first thing he did was to read from the German Bible the story of how the Pharisee, Nicodemus, had talked with Jesus in the garden at night. Samuel tried to think of something other than the familiar words, but Jonas’s voice wasn’t the kind you could ignore.
Preacher Jonas had a habit of looking the people of the congregation in the eyes as he spoke, and for some reason, he focused on Samuel this morning. Samuel shifted on the bench and glanced behind him. Every man’s gaze was focused on the preacher. When he looked back at Jonas, the preacher had shifted his focus to the other side of the room, but then came right back to Samuel.
“Ye must be born again,” said Jonas with a smile.
A smile on the man’s face? After Preacher William had only talked of death?
Samuel focused on his shoes, polished for this morning’s meeting. The messages in the sermons were confusing. He glanced at Mary. She watched Preacher Jonas, sitting straight on the bench, her hands in her lap. He looked at Martin. He was also watching the preacher, as if the man was talking only to him.
Tapping the bruise on his thumb, Samuel kept his gaze focused on the black coat in front of him, waiting for the preaching to end.
Dinner after the preaching was intolerable as Samuel watched Martin watch Mary. The man was blatant in his attentions to her, even rising once to help her carry a heavy platter to one of the tables. He should be embarrassed, mooning on like a love-sick cow.
Samuel snorted and left the house. He would wait for the girls by the buggy, and then they could go home. Maybe he should have stayed home today and let the girls ride with Sadie, then he wouldn’t have had to witness that display of Martin’s.
He leaned on the Hopplestadts’ pasture fence. Conrad was one of those farmers who never let anything on his farm look run down, but the pasture fence had been repaired badly. Samuel bent down to examine it. The broken fence wires had been patched with baling twine, and the patch was nearly worn through.
“Hello, Samuel.”
Preacher Jonas’s voice took him by surprise.
“Preacher.” Samuel shook the hand the other man offered.
Jonas leaned on the fence next to Samuel. “You barely touched your dinner, and now you’re out here by yourself instead of visiting with the rest of the congregation.” He turned to look at him. “Is everything all right?”
Samuel shrugged. “For sure, everything is fine.”
“That’s good.” The preacher looked out over the pasture. “The grass is good and rich this year. Not like last year at all.”
“We’ve had some good rain.”
“Ja, for sure. We have much to be thankful for.”
Samuel picked at the broken bit of fence wire.
“You seemed uncomfortable during the sermon.”
“Preachers notice things like that?”
The older man laughed. “Ja, for sure.” He gestured toward the horses in the field. “When you look at these horses, what do you see? A bunch of animals? Or do you see that some are grazing and some are standing, drowsing in the sun? It’s like that when you’re in front of a congregation. We see who is paying attention to our words, who is thinking of something else and who is fighting to stay awake.”
“So, which one was I?” Samuel grinned. At least he wasn’t sleeping.
“You seemed to be listening at first, but then you were trying hard not to listen.”
Samuel didn’t answer.
“I had to ask myself, why? Why is Samuel Lapp trying so hard to ignore God’s word?”
“It wasn’t God talking, Preacher. It was you.”
“When I read from the Good Book, I’m reading God’s words. And when I expound on those words in a sermon, I pray that I’m communicating God’s message to His people.”
Samuel picked at the fence again. “I’ll tell you why. It seemed that Preacher William had one kind of message, and then you were saying the opposite. How am I supposed to figure out who is right?”
Jonas picked a stalk of grass and started pulling off blades. “The messages weren’t contradictory. They go together, like a hand in a glove.”
“So we die, and then are born again?”
The preacher smiled. “That’s right.”
“Who? Who could die and then come to life again? You’re not making sense.”
Jonas sighed. “Have you ever listened to a sermon in your life, Samuel?”
Samuel dug into a clump
of grass with the toe of his shoe.
The preacher grabbed his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Try listening to the entire sermon the next time, all right?”
Samuel nodded. “I’ll try.”
Jonas shook his head. “No one can ever accuse you of being a liar.” Then he laughed. “I just wish all church members were as honest with themselves as you are.” He plucked another blade of grass. “In a few weeks we’ll have the church council meeting. Someone has asked that you be disciplined.”
An icy hand clutched at Samuel’s stomach. Disciplining meant standing before the congregation and being asked to repent.
“What for?”
“We’ve received an accusation that you are harboring ill will toward another church member.” Jonas paused, then said, “Is this something you need to repent of before the congregation?”
“Who am I supposed to be angry with?”
“Martin Troyer.”
Samuel sighed. “I guess it is no secret that his words goad me to anger, but I don’t wish him ill.”
“You would not rejoice if his dairy cows became ill and he couldn’t sell the milk?”
Samuel’s eyebrows rose. “Is that what I’m accused of saying?”
“Something similar.”
“I have never thought such a thing, and I certainly never said it.”
Preacher Jonas threw the grass stem away and leaned on the fence post, staring out at the horses. “Then we have one man’s word against another’s.”
Samuel’s temper rose. “You can’t believe this—”
Jonas interrupted him with a raised hand. “I don’t know who to believe, but I’ve never known you to be other than truthful.”
“Tell me, is it Martin who made this accusation?”
The preacher shook his head. “And at this point, I don’t want to tell you who did.”
Jonas sighed again, his shoulders bent as if he carried the weight of the entire congregation on them. With a start, Samuel realized that was exactly the burden he bore.