An Amish Courtship

by Jan Drexler

  Bram turned away from the devastation. “You’re right. The important thing is that you and the girls are all right.”

  “We’re safe.” Samuel couldn’t look toward the ruined house.

  “Were you able to save anything? Clothes? Anything?”

  “Only the clothes we were wearing. The girls were in their nightdresses.” Samuel gestured toward the circle of women gathered around Judith and Esther. “The clothes they are wearing now are borrowed.”

  Preacher Jonas came toward them. “Samuel, this is terrible. How are you holding up?”

  The reminder of just what had happened overnight made Samuel’s knees weak. “It has been a long morning.”

  Martin Troyer’s farm wagon joined the other buggies and wagons along the road, and the Troyer brothers jumped down. The morning was about to get a lot longer.

  “You will have the help of the community when you’re ready to rebuild,” Jonas said. “I’ve had several offers already.”

  Samuel’s mouth went dry. He hadn’t thought of rebuilding yet...and he never would have expected the community to help.

  Jonas stepped across the yard to greet another church member, but Bram pulled Samuel aside.

  “That’s something, isn’t it?” Bram’s voice was low, meant for only Samuel to hear. “Would they have stepped forward so quickly when Daed was alive?”

  Samuel shook his head.

  “You’re changing things.” Bram gave him a brotherly squeeze around his shoulders. “You’re becoming part of the community.”

  “Daed always hovered around the edges, didn’t he?”

  “Like a dog waiting for scraps.” Bram shook his head. “I don’t know what made him be the way he was, but you’ve shown that you aren’t like him.”

  Samuel spied Martin coming toward him. “Here comes trouble.”

  Bram’s eyebrows went up. “Why?”

  “We’ve had some words about Mary. Martin Troyer is convinced he’s going to marry her.”

  “What does she say about that?”

  Samuel grinned. “She’s a strong one. Refused him with no way to misunderstand her meaning, but he still insists it’s going to happen.”

  “Is he jealous of you?”

  “Most likely.”

  Martin stopped several steps away from Samuel, raising his voice as he spoke so that everyone could hear.

  “Sorry to hear about the tragedy, Lapp.”

  Samuel faced him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mary watching them. “Not so much of a tragedy, Martin. We only lost the house and barn. The family and the livestock survived. We’re thankful.”

  “I’ve heard folks saying that you’re going to rebuild.”

  “I haven’t thought too much about it yet, but I suppose we will.”

  Martin took a step closer. “So at the end of it, you’ll have a nice new barn to replace the old decrepit one that stood here yesterday.”

  Samuel shifted his feet. What was Martin getting at?

  Preacher Jonas stepped forward. “Are you suggesting something, Martin?”

  Martin turned from one side to the other, perusing the audience he had gathered. “I’m just saying that it is nice for Samuel Lapp—” he emphasized the last name “—to enjoy a new house and barn while the rest of us are struggling so much in these hard times.”

  Samuel heard the accusation in his voice. “I didn’t have anything to do with this fire.”

  “Of course you would say that.” Martin grinned, his gaze shifting to Mary and then back. “But we have to wonder, don’t we? You were saddled with a real burden when your old father died, and you’ve been losing ground every year.” He took another step closer. “So tell us, Samuel, did you wait for a storm in the middle of the night to set the fire so you could blame it on the lightning? Or was it just a happy coincidence?”

  A few voices protested at Martin’s accusation, but not enough. Samuel looked around at the small clusters of men talking among themselves. Not enough.

  Preacher Jonas stepped between Samuel and Martin. “That is a pretty serious accusation, Martin. There is no proof that Samuel had anything to do with the fire.”

  Martin’s grin faded, then strengthened as he found a few supporters in the crowd. “There isn’t any proof that he didn’t, either. It seems that this should be a matter to look into.”

  Jonas quieted the crowd’s response to Martin’s suggestion. “It was an accident, Martin. This rumor that you’re trying to spread needs to stop.”

  Martin took a few steps back, a satisfied look on his face. Samuel’s pulse thumped as Martin joined his friends near the farm lane. If Martin was determined to follow through with his threats, knowing the truth might not be enough to stop him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mary packed the used coffee cups into the baskets the doughnuts had been in and swept crumbs off the makeshift table onto the ground. The crowds had cleared out once Preacher Jonas had come up with a plan to begin preparing the old building sites for the new barn and house. Work would begin tomorrow morning. Saturday.

  With a gasp, she remembered that this was Friday, the day to take her carefully gathered eggs to town for the buyer. The butter would keep until next week, but the six dozen eggs waiting in the cool cellar wouldn’t be fresh by Tuesday. Ida Mae would have to put up with more puddings and custard. And they would have to pickle most of the eggs. With a sigh, Mary resigned herself to the chore she hated.

  “Good afternoon, Mary.”

  “Martin.” He had walked up while she had been thinking about the eggs.

  “Can I give you a hand with anything?”

  She leveled her gaze at him. “If you want to help me, you can take back that accusation you made about Samuel. You know he didn’t set this fire.”

  He smiled with a touch of a leer. “I don’t know that, and neither do you. This is just the kind of stunt a Lapp would pull.”

  “You don’t need to run Samuel down. No matter how you feel about him, it makes no difference in how I feel about you. I’ve told you that I won’t marry you.”

  Martin put a false pouting expression on his face. “You keep saying that.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “You won’t find a better situation than I can offer you.”

  He started ticking off the reasons on his fingers, but she interrupted him.

  “I don’t care what you can offer me, because you can’t offer me what I want.”

  “And what is that?”

  “To be left alone.” She picked up the basket full of coffee cups and carried it to the buggy. Chester stood, still hitched to it, head down and tail swishing.

  Martin hurried after her. “You don’t mean that.”

  She turned on him. “Don’t tell me what I mean.” Too late, she remembered her manners. She started over. “I want you to leave me alone. Forget about me.”

  He spread his hands with an imploring gesture. “But I gave you a cow.”

  “You can have her back.” Mary walked back to the table to get the next basket.

  “You don’t like her?”

  Mary sighed and turned toward him. “I like the cow. She is very useful. But if accepting her means I owe you something, then you can have her back.”

  Martin’s eyes narrowed. “You want her, but you don’t want her. It’s time to stop playing games. Bishop Kaufman is going to announce our wedding at church on Sunday. We’re going to get married.”

  An icy trickle went down Mary’s back. “I’m not going to marry you, and you can’t force me.”

  Martin stepped toward her and Mary looked for help, but no one was near. He grabbed her hand and pulled her close. His breath smelled like cheese.

  “When we are married, you will learn t
o control what you say. Now—” he wrenched her hand and tears welled “—tell me what I want to hear.”

  She looked him in the eye. “I will not marry you. Never.”

  He tightened his grip, but she refused to back down. When Harvey Anderson had forced her against her will, she had been weak. She had caved in to his demands. She had given him control.

  But she wasn’t that girl anymore.

  “Leave now, Martin, and don’t come back. I won’t marry you, and my sister won’t marry Peter. You need to look somewhere else.”

  Over Martin’s shoulder, she caught sight of Samuel walking toward them. Martin turned to see what had captured her attention.

  “So that’s it. You’ve chosen that Samuel Lapp over me.” He shoved her away. “You deserve whatever he gives you. Peter and I will stop by your place to pick up the cow on our way home.” He glanced behind him again. Samuel had almost reached them. “I will enjoy watching you suffer as his wife the same way his mother suffered. Being married to a Lapp is no way for a woman as fine as you to spend her life, but that’s your choice.”

  He walked off toward his wagon and Mary ran to Samuel. He held her close, but she didn’t cry. Martin Troyer wasn’t worth crying over.

  Samuel held her for a moment, then pushed her back, searching her face. “What did he do? What did he say to you?”

  Mary wiped her eyes and laughed. “He said I deserve what I get when I—”

  She stopped, biting her lip before the rest of the sentence could escape.

  “When you what?”

  “Never mind. He’s taking Schmetterling back.” She looked up at Samuel’s puzzled face. “I’ll miss the poor cow, and I’ll miss the butter we made from her milk, but I won’t keep her on Martin’s terms.”

  “He still wants you to marry him?”

  “I think I’ve finally convinced him that I won’t.”

  Samuel picked up the basket of coffee cups and carried it to the buggy, sliding it in the back next to the first one.

  “I’m not sure he’s going to give up that easily.”

  “He’ll have to get used to it.” She sighed and rolled her tired shoulders. “Do you think anyone will listen to his silly accusation?”

  “That I set this fire myself?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Some people will believe anything bad they hear about the Lapps, and Martin has his supporters.”

  “But you’ve been working so hard to change that ever since the day you helped with the plowing. How many farmers have you helped with their windmills? And didn’t you say you spent all day Wednesday at the Hopplestadts’ last week, helping build a new fence?”

  “It might not make any difference if Martin insists on spreading his rumors.”

  Mary folded her arms. “If the church won’t help you rebuild because of Martin, then we’ll do it ourselves.”

  He grinned. “You and I are going to build a barn?”

  “We have Judith, Esther and Ida Mae to help, too.”

  “Four women and one man are going to build a barn and house without anyone else helping?”

  “Why not? You know how, don’t you?”

  Samuel shook his head and leaned against the buggy. “I don’t see Sadie and the girls anywhere.”

  “They went home a while ago. Sadie was getting tired.”

  “You and your sister take good care of her.” He scratched at the day’s growth of whiskers on his chin. “I have to admit, I had my doubts when you first moved here.”

  “But then you realized that someone else is just as able...even more able to care for her like she needs than you are.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched and he shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

  He waved to Preacher Jonas as he drove down the lane toward the road, the last of the neighbors to leave after the long day.

  “What time are folks coming in the morning?”

  “An hour past dawn. That will give everyone the time to finish their chores at home, and then we start clearing out the debris from the barn and house.”

  “Judith and Esther are staying with us, but where will you sleep tonight?”

  “Sadie said I should sleep in her barn. The girls were going to make a bed for me in the loft.”

  Mary closed the side door of the buggy. “Do you have anything else you need to do here? You could ride home with me.”

  “I need to make sure the pasture fence is tight. I don’t want the cattle wandering off. I also need to check on Tilly. Dale Yoder put her in with his horses. I’ll walk over when I’m done.”

  It was time for her to go home, but Mary didn’t want to leave Samuel alone. She was running out of things to say, though. She stalled one more time.

  “Have you thought about rebuilding? What kind of house and barn you’ll need?”

  Samuel turned to her. “That’s been going through my head all day. We need a home, the three of us, but I want to build for the future, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “I may decide to get married someday. So, the house will need an upstairs for the children, and a room downstairs.”

  Mary remembered the day he told her he would never get married. What had changed his mind?

  Then she thought about the house she grew up in back in Ohio. “A big laundry porch would be nice. And a cellar.”

  “And the house should be large enough so we could host church without crowding everyone in too much.”

  “A modern kitchen, with a pump at the sink.”

  “With room for a big table.”

  Mary’s eyebrows rose. “Why does it have to be big?”

  “For all of the children. I don’t want my children squeezed so tightly on a bench that one might fall off during a meal.”

  “Just how many children do you think you’ll have?”

  Samuel’s eyes were soft and warm as he watched her face. “As many as we can.”

  She leaned closer to him, drawn by the breathless tone in his voice. “And who will be the mother of all these children?”

  He smiled and put his arms around her, pulling her close. “We’ll have to see about that.”

  His kiss, gentle and warm, grew deeper until he broke it off. Then he tucked her under his chin.

  “We’ll have to see.”

  * * *

  Samuel reached the farm just before dawn, after downing a quick cup of coffee and a couple slices of bread and butter in Sadie’s kitchen. The air reeked of ashes and soot, damp and acrid. It was the only odor he could smell all through the night. Even the strong cup of coffee hadn’t washed it away.

  As the rising sun turned the sky rosy pink, the devastation stood out black against the surrounding grass. He peered into the old cellar, something he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do the day before. Underneath half-burned beams and floorboards, the canning shelves lay strewn on the dirt floor, every jar broken.

  He choked back a sob when he saw Mamm’s rocking chair, charred but still together, hanging upside down from a beam. He ventured onto unsteady boards to retrieve it and set it on the ground. He smoothed the seat, wiping ashes off. One arm was burned and blackened, and one of the rockers was broken, but the rest was in one piece. How had it escaped the fury of the fire? Perhaps it could be repaired. He set it to the side, underneath the maple tree in the front yard.

  A steer’s bawl from the pasture pulled him away from the house, and he made his way through the orchard, past the shell of the henhouse, to the pump. The watering trough had escaped the fire, but it was dry. He set to work, pumping by hand, turning his back on the skeleton of the windmill and the barn. The steers crowded around, all of them shoving their way in to the fresh water. He pumped hard, working out all the anger and frustration. All the grief. Why did he have
to be the one to lose everything?

  But at the same time, the relief still lingered. He had tried to push it away, knowing he shouldn’t be happy about anything, but the relief of knowing he would never again have to look at the stairway where Mamm died. And the barn roof... Daed’s death had been just as sudden as he had fallen from that height. Those constant reminders of his failures were gone.

  As he finished filling the trough the whisking sound of buggy wheels on the gravel road made him turn around. Preacher Jonas was the first to arrive, along with Paul Stutzman and Conrad Hopplestadt. They tied their horses along the fence away from the burned house. Samuel met them as they crossed the lane to survey the damage.

  “Good morning, Samuel,” Jonas said, shaking his hand. He sighed. “It doesn’t look any better this morning, does it?”

  Samuel shook the other men’s hands. “Not at all. Except that it seems the fire is out. I haven’t seen any smoke from either building.”

  Conrad gestured toward what remained of the house. “Will we start here, or at the barn?”

  “The barn can wait. I only have the one horse, and she’s happy sharing Sadie’s barn. And the steers won’t need shelter. But my sisters need a home, so I thought we’d start there.”

  Jonas peered into the black hole where the house had once stood. “Are you planning to use the same cellar?” He looked around the barnyard. “There’s a nice spot for a house up there on that rise by the maple tree. It’s closer to the road, but it will bring the house up and away from the barn.”

  Samuel nodded. “That would be a good place. And someone suggested a larger cellar, with a window or two. It would be a better cellar for the girls.” Sadie had made that suggestion the night before. A light and airy place for the girls to work.

  Paul Stutzman rubbed at his beard. “You’re going to build a new modern house?” His eyebrows rose as he looked at Samuel. “This fire seems to be a mixed blessing, allowing you to move up in the world.”

  Something in Samuel’s stomach gnawed at him. He had hoped Martin’s accusing words from yesterday would be forgotten.

  Jonas ignored Paul’s comment. “So we have two things to take care of. First we need to do something with the old cellar, and then we need to dig a new one.”