“Well, I hope you’ve changed your mind about goin’ to the next Singing,” Grace said softly. “’Cause otherwise, I’ll really miss ya.”
“I’ll miss bein’ there with you, too,” Maggie said. “It’s really not what I want,” she told her. How could it be? she thought. “If I was normal, like the other girls—like you—I wouldn’t frighten the fellas away.”
“Aw . . . Maggie.” Grace squinted her eyes. “I prob’ly shouldn’t say it, but you’re prettier than any girl round here. That’s the honest truth. And you’re ever so wonderful on the inside, too.”
Maggie dipped her head, embarrassed. After a pause, she said, “You an’ I both know that fellas want able-bodied young women to court and marry. And nothin’ less.” The image of the redheaded fellow backing away from her crossed Maggie’s mind, and she flinched anew.
Grace didn’t refute it. She poured the home-canned apples over the pressed dough in the pie dishes.
She knows it’s true, Maggie thought.
Once the pies were ready to bake, she and Grace would go out to the henhouse to feed and water the chickens in Miriam’s stead, then gather eggs. Anticipating that chore and all the standing it required, Maggie let the story of Jairus’s daughter’s healing, which she’d read last night, play over in her mind.
I’ll read it again later, she thought, hungry for more.
On Sunday afternoon, Maggie went to Leola with her family to visit Dawdi Reuben, who lived next door to Aendi Barbieann and her husband, Onkel Zeke, and their five children still living at home. The trip took about an hour by horse and spring wagon. The People did not ride in automobiles on the Lord’s Day, so the family had gone in the open wagon, since the whole family was along. They looked forward to spending time with Mamm’s widowed father, something they did as often as possible. He cherishes our visits, Maggie thought, recalling how seeing their mother enter the house would always bring a hearty smile to the dear man’s wrinkled face.
While the wagon bumped along, Maggie glanced at Grace sitting next to her on the second seat, staring at the landscape in an apparent daydream. If only I could somehow communicate what I’ve experienced at the revival meetings—the growing closeness I feel toward the Lord. How can I explain?
Their brothers were sitting in the back, talking quietly in Deitsch. Now and then, Stephen would raise his voice a bit, but for the most part, they were behaving themselves, lest Dat ask them to quiet down. She listened for a moment as Andy mentioned the possibility of playing softball real soon. Stephen was quick to agree, and Leroy said they should get some of their boy cousins to join them.
Dat and Rachel were talking softly in the front seat, and Miriam turned to look back at Maggie every few minutes, grinning, her expression filled with mischief. Maggie smiled back at her.
“Do ya wish you were in back with the boys?” Maggie asked her.
Miriam was quick to shake her head. “They’d just pester me.”
“Or maybe the other way around?” Maggie smiled.
To that, Miriam said nothing, but there was that impish twinkle in her eyes again.
“Want a Life Saver?” Maggie asked, opening her pocketbook and taking out a fresh roll with the five classic flavors, her favorite.
“Sure.” Miriam reached back and grabbed the whole thing, giggling as she opened it and offered one each to Dat and Rachel up front.
Goodness, thought Maggie, having to laugh at her sly sister.
When Miriam returned what was left of the prettily wrapped roll, she apologized.
“That’s okay,” Maggie said. I was a playful sort once, too.
Returning the Life Savers to her purse, it crossed Maggie’s mind how lively and happy Cousin Lila had seemed lately—not mischievous like Miriam—each time they were together. Was it because she was so enjoying the tent services, or did she have a beau, just maybe? Pondering the latter, Maggie realized that most every young woman her age, and even some younger, had a steady beau. And it struck her that she would likely be living on her own someday—like Great-aunt Nellie did.
Early that evening, following a light supper of ham and cheese sandwiches and a bowl of fruit cup, Rachel was pleased when Joseph asked her to go for a walk, leaving the girls to redd up the kitchen.
“How long’s it been since we walked, just the two of us?” Joseph asked, reaching for her hand the minute they were far enough away from the house.
“Too long?” she asked, flirting back.
“I agree, and I’ve been lookin’ forward to some time alone with ya, love.”
She nodded happily, still aware of how her heart fluttered when he said sweet things like that. “To be honest, I’m real thankful for Sunday afternoons and evenings.”
“’Tis a slower time, jah.” He paused to kiss her cheek. “Remember how we’d sneak away from Sam Zook’s place to go walkin’? It was worth braving even the chilliest weather.”
She laughed softly, the breeze warm against her face. “You were quite romantic then, Joseph.”
“Then?” Joseph said, his face humorously pained.
She laughed. “You still are.”
Chuckling, he squeezed her hand.
This deserted dirt path, used by the mules to get from field to field during the week, was the very one she and Joseph had strolled along as a new courting couple. While I stayed those two months with Sam and Ruth Zook, she thought, glancing back across the wide meadow toward the couple’s farmhouse.
“I haven’t forgotten the way you looked at me across the table at Sam Zook’s that first night,” she said.
“I’ll never forget, either. You laughed at all my jokes.” He stopped walking and slipped his arms around her. “The surest way to a man’s heart.”
She loved the feel of him next to her and nuzzled in closer, lifting her face to his to initiate another kiss. “I’m so thankful for Sam and Ruth’s invitation.”
“I believe the Good Lord allowed them to bring us together.” He glanced toward heaven as they began to walk again. “I did think you were a bit leery of me,” Joseph surprised her by saying.
“Well, if I was, it only lasted a few moments.” She remembered how Joseph had stuck his hand out to shake hers, his eyes soft and adoring almost immediately.
“I couldn’t blame ya, really, considering you were younger and single . . . without a houseful of children.”
She laughed. “Once you started talkin’ about your happy life with your family, my heart went out to ya, Joseph . . . knowin’ what ya’d lost.” She paused a moment, conscious of his arm brushing against hers as they ambled along. “That’s not to say that I felt sorry for ya.”
“Well, ya must’ve, poor, lonely man that I was.” He reached for her hand again. “But it was far more than that. I think I must’ve fallen in love with ya at Ruth Zook’s kitchen table that very night . . . could hardly take my eyes off ya.” Joseph smiled and glanced at her. “Such a perty girl—I couldn’t believe the Good Lord kept ya just for me. Still can’t when I wake up next to ya, dear.”
Joseph was the man of her every daydream. The kind of man Rachel had always hoped to meet and marry, even as far back as when she was in her teens and attending the weddings of her sisters and cousins.
But she brushed off the lurking memory of those days, not letting herself think about any of that, not on this relaxing evening walk.
Rachel came by her love of the outdoors naturally—from her Mamm, who relished taking long romps through the meadows and up to the woods, too, when Rachel and her sisters were children. She was thrilled to be married to a man who took time to comment about the many flower gardens she was tending. And she smiled, recalling his first question to her, about what flowers she enjoyed growing.
All around her she noticed beauty—the wild flowers, the pebbles along the path, and the birds singing their joyous songs. There were occasional large rocks in the field, and clumps of purple wild thistle, but this stretch of land belonging to Joseph signified honesty and hard wo
rk. This patch of God’s green earth represented His promise of blessing.
As she and Joseph picked up their pace at the end of this lovely Lord’s Day, she wondered if they might end up at the big pond where Joseph had taken her several times to ice-skate during their wintry courtship. In fact, one of the times, she’d thought for sure he was going to ask her to marry him. But he’d talked instead about how she’d feel about helping him raise his children. “I have a ready-made family,” he’d said with an apprehensive frown.
Rachel had thought it sweet of him to bring that up, but she hadn’t realized what a task it would be to win Leroy over, especially. She’d known she loved Joseph that day at the frozen pond, but she also knew that if she married him, she’d be marrying into his family, too. “Might it be wise for me to spend some time with them?” she had asked Joseph, starting her journey toward stepmotherhood.
“What are ya thinking ’bout?” Joseph asked now as they rounded the bend, following the path through the underbrush, toward the familiar pond.
She told him.
“Well, it sure seems like Andy and Stephen and Miriam have taken to ya, love,” Joseph replied, leading the way to the water. “And aren’t Maggie and Grace makin’ an effort?”
“The older girls just need a sounding board or an encourager, I think.”
“Jah, ’specially Maggie.”
“I’m tryin’ to be sympathetic toward her,” she told Joseph, knowing she was no match for Sadie Ann’s mother heart. They’re her flesh-and-blood children, Rachel thought wistfully.
11
On the afternoon of Maggie’s eighteenth birthday, June twenty-sixth, Leroy asked her to ride with him to pick up some cheese from an Amish neighbor three miles away. “Would ya want to?”
“Sure, I’ll go.” But first she needed to finish dusting her bedroom, having already taken the braided rugs outside to beat on the clothesline before dry mopping the floor. And unfortunately, everything took longer for her.
“I’ll wait for ya outdoors, then,” Leroy said.
Looking forward to getting out of the house, Maggie took the dust rag out to the front porch and shook it hard, thinking that perhaps Leroy needed to blow off more steam.
As Maggie rode along with her brother, she savored the sights of neighboring farmers in the fields with their mule teams, some with their school-age children out helping, as well.
Leroy broke the peace in the carriage. “There’s a spare room at Dawdi Reuben’s, ain’t?”
“Jah, why?”
“I keep wishin’ I was old enough to move . . . either there or even farther away.”
“Dat would never hear of it.” She didn’t need to remind him that he was only fourteen and years away from adulthood. “Besides, how would that make Dat feel?”
Leroy shook his head quickly. “He sure didn’t consider how his children would feel, did he, marrying that woman!”
“Her name is Rachel,” Maggie said softly, surprised that her brother’s anger had escalated to this. “She’s our father’s wife, Bruder.”
Leroy’s face turned red, but he fell absolutely silent, and Maggie decided it was wisest to say nothing more. It was clear that he was still sorting through the emotions from Mamm’s sudden death. And the recent late-night talk hadn’t altered his anger one iota.
They passed one large dairy farm after another, and Maggie wondered why they were going so far out of their way just to purchase cheese. Not wanting to ask, lest Leroy erupt again, she tried to relax in the seat as Buster pulled them along, slowly and peacefully, the way she liked it. She hadn’t forgotten how tense she’d felt riding in Cousin Luke’s shiny new car.
When they arrived, she noticed a homemade sign out front advertising cheese from the Riehl farm. “I’ll wait for ya in the carriage,” she told him.
“It won’t be long.” Leroy jumped out of the driver’s side, tied the horse to the nearby hitching post, and hurried to the back of the house, out of sight.
He seems mighty eager, Maggie thought.
Sitting there, she thought again of the tent meetings and how they had stirred up such an interest in reading the Scripture, more than ever before. She was glad she’d gone for several reasons—one, very secretly, was the way Glenn Brubaker had treated her. He hadn’t shown pity, for one thing. Of course, she would never think of telling Cousin Lila or Grace about that. The truth of it was that Glenn seemed genuinely interested in welcoming her and hopeful that she might come back. A pastoral student must be trained to seek people out, she thought, remembering what Lila had said.
“Ach, I must be ferhoodled,” she said aloud, and just in that moment, she glanced up and saw Leroy putting his billfold back into his pants pocket. He was talking to a blond girl, his face animated with a boyish liveliness she hadn’t noticed lately. The girl’s mother stood nearby. What on earth? Maggie leaned forward, squinting into the sunlight. Then she recalled having seen this very girl at market, where she helped her Mamm sell cheese.
Maggie knew not to inquire about the girl, considering Leroy’s mood on the way here. And she assumed he wouldn’t just come out and volunteer anything, either.
Leroy turned back toward the buggy, moving so fast Maggie almost expected him to break into a run. And just as she’d expected, he was mum as he picked up the driving lines and headed out of the driveway and onto the road again.
Maggie stared out the window, amused by the trek clear over here for two big blocks of cheese. Puppy love’s a-brewin’, she thought, not looking Leroy’s way, lest she let out a snicker.
It was a good long time before Leroy made a peep. “Just curious, Maggie. . . . Do ya believe in love at first sight?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Nee, I’m serious . . . do ya?”
She smiled. “Well, remember what Dat said when he brought Rachel to meet all of us?”
“Honestly, I’ve tried to forget it.” Leroy suddenly looked glum.
Maggie nodded. “’Tween you and me, I felt the same way. It wasn’t something I’d ever imagined hearing from Dat. And we were all still grieving so hard, too.”
Leroy clammed up again.
“So, love at first sight?” Maggie said. “What do you think ’bout it?”
He turned to her and nodded. “I prob’ly shouldn’t say, but that girl ya saw me with back there . . . well, she’s the one I’m gonna court someday.”
“I feel like I’ve seen her before,” she said. “But remember, you’ll meet lots of perty girls in the next few years.”
“None as sweet, though . . . not like Joanne Riehl.”
Maggie didn’t argue; after all, Jimmy Beiler had caught her attention when she, too, was fairly young. “How do ya know her?”
“Oh, from when I’ve been out and around, runnin’ errands for Dat and whatnot. The first time I saw Joanne at the bakery up yonder, I knew she was the girl for me. I just did.”
Maggie wasn’t so amused now as thoughtful. Leroy was a boy of many talents and as hardworking as the winter was long. And to think he thought he knew his future already at just fourteen. Well, it was unfathomable. “I ’spect you’re a prophet, then.”
“Go ahead, make fun.” Leroy stared at the road. “You’ll see.”
She let him have the last word.
The closer they came to home, the more Maggie wondered what it would take for Leroy to accept Dat’s new wife. Or would his anger continue to fester until it caused a rift and hurt their father? And Rachel, too?
Leroy surprised her by pulling into the parking lot for the Amish bakery not far from home. “I’ll help ya down,” he said, then went to tie Buster to the hitching post. “Come, Maggie, it’s a surprise treat from me to you.”
Pleased at this turn of events, Maggie got out without much trouble. “You definitely are full of tricks.”
“Happy eighteenth birthday,” Leroy said as he walked with her toward the bakeshop, where two signs were posted: No Sunday Sales and No Photographs Please.
“I’ll keep quiet what ya told me,” she said as he reached to open the door for her.
A flash of concern crossed Leroy’s face. “About Joanne, or about me wantin’ to move away?”
“Both,” she answered with what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
12
A good many of the family were present for Maggie’s birthday supper late that afternoon, including Rachel’s parents, Gideon and Mary Mae Glick from Myerstown, and Great-aunt Nellie from right next door, minus furry Siggy. Mamm’s elderly father, Dawdi Reuben, was too frail to ride over in a carriage from Leola.
Sitting there while everyone looked so jubilant, Maggie had a sneaking suspicion that Dat might have put Leroy up to getting her out of the house so that Rachel, Grace, and Miriam could prepare this out-and-out feast. She noticed the endearing way Dat smiled right at her just now before bowing his head to ask the silent blessing. A father-daughter moment! There was roast beef, creamy mashed potatoes, thick gravy, buttered asparagus spears, and Maggie’s favorite side dish: lima beans swimming in butter. Chow chow and a large dish of homemade dill pickles completed the mouthwatering offerings. Rachel had used Mamm’s nicest dishes for this occasion.
Maggie wondered how Rachel must feel, using Mamm’s things—furniture and most everything else in the house. Even the garden trappings included reminders, like the special stepping-stone nestled in the soil, a surprise from Dat to Mamm so long ago. A treasured gift indeed.
Rachel’s given up far more than any of us have acknowledged, Maggie realized. Her own hope chest is up in the attic, collecting dust, while she keeps Mamm’s memory at the forefront of our daily lives, using Mamm’s things instead of her own.
Maggie suddenly felt sad, trying to put herself in Rachel’s situation, with a family that for the most part only marginally accepted her. On this particular birthday, Maggie wanted to be sure to show her gratitude to Rachel and everyone else present at the table.
The First Love Page 7