by Faye Sonja
“Oh Clara,” her sister giggled, taking one of the baskets. “I spent the day in the infirmary. You know I want to work there someday.”
And she had no doubt that her sister would. She had healing hands, as their father used to say, and she most certainly wanted more for her than what they had now.
“Oh did you hear about Mary-Beth?” Sara piped up.
“No. Has something happened to her?”
Sara smiled. “Something has, but be it good or bad is dependent on how you see life Clara.”
“Out with it,” she demanded of her sister who paused to fuss over the bonnet on her head that the wind tried to carry away.
“She left.”
Clara stared at her in shock. “What?!”
“Yes. She met some man through a letter and upped and left to marry him. Her mother is devastated.”
“What?” she asked again, this time in confusion.
“Mmhhmm,” Sara said as they headed towards the crowd. “She responded to some ad an Englishman placed in the papers looking for a religious wife and her mother says that a letter came extending an invitation to her.”
“What?!!” she asked again her voice rising in pitch.
Sara turned to look at her. “Your vocabulary has suddenly become very limited.”
“Did she really though?” she asked, now intrigued and trying to find the words to form a sensible sentence. “Oh, I wish her the best. Any place but here must be good.”
“That is what her brother said. I think he is thinking of leaving the community, too. He says things are too hard here.”
Clara didn’t comment on the fact that she had been having similar thoughts. The last thing she wanted to do was to frighten her sister, but she did make a note of how Mary-Beth had found an escape and vowed to look for a similar way out. If she married an Amish man from some place more fertile, she could send money home for her ailing mother and her sister to buy what they needed. She knew it would break her mother’s heart but the truth was that it was beginning to look like a sacrifice she was going to have to make.
“Let’s go,” she said smiling at her sister. “Let’s sell these off as soon as possible and go enjoy the music.”
Nothing ever happened in her little Amish town. Nothing but these bonfires once or twice a month. It was the time for Rumspringa, a time when the young would come out to play and court each other. Soon Sara would be of age to be courted and that scared her. The thought of her baby sister growing up and settling down worried her. As for her, she was twenty-three and still unmarried, unlike so many of her peers. She had too much on her plate to be thinking of that, and again, she refused to marry into hardship. There was more to life. There just had to be, and she had an inkling to find it.
* * *
1
Chapter ONE
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“ I would never, ever
forget about you … ”
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Tucson, Arizona
John stared at his brother across the way. He was sitting in the shade of the lone acorn tree with his pregnant wife’s head resting in his lap. From where he sat they looked like the kind of couple he wanted to be once he found his own true love. The late evening Arizona sun brought with it dry but cool air, and it was about the only time the place was remotely comfortable. Well, that was not exactly true. In their small Amish community, things were relaxed and easy. This was a new community established just three years prior by nomadic Amish elders who had grown weary of the road. As far as john was concerned there must have been a great deal of weariness for them to pick this place. His father, being one of the elders tried to explain to him that they chose this place to set down roots because it was one of the few places in Arizona with promise, and one of the fewer not caught in some blood feud between Indian and Mexican settlers.
He had found the fact the least bit comforting, since they had been here they had been having a rough time growing anything at all, and an even harder time of making ends meet. The one thing that was certainly looking up was the fact that his brother and a few other young men had found themselves suitable English, but deeply religious wives who converted to the Amish faith and accepted that should they leave they could never come back.
He was not so sure why the idea of being Amish had appealed to these strange women so much but he had hadn’t questioned it. He loved everything about their way of life, but he knew if the late summer harvest they had been toiling over did not bring them what they hoped, he would go mad.
“Someday that will be you there,” his mother said to him.
He turned with surprise to see his mother smiling down at him. “You mean me lazing about instead of tending the fields? Don’t think so, Maem.”
She laughed and handed him a glass of lemonade she had brought him. “He is in love. Leave him be.”
“I wish he would be in love with a little manual labor,” John lamented much to his mother’s amusement.
They sat and chatted for a few minutes before she brought up a conversation he knew she would. “It is time you sought a wife, my son.”
It was not a question nor a statement of some desire she had for her youngest son. It was simply a fact accompanied by a subliminal demand. She had been getting more adamant about this for a couple months now. He was more focused on ensuring their produce came to fruition than populating their rapidly growing community, but his mother would always be his mother and for her, procreation was important.
“I would like to see you settled down with children before I die,” she confirmed his thought.
He smiled and got up, but she was not about to allow him to escape. “I will be heading into town with your Daed to pick up some grains a bit later, and I intend to see to it that a request for a wife is placed for you in the papers there.”
“Maem!” he cried out in shock.
“Enough,” she said. “This is your chance to start anew. For years we have traveled from one place to the next and nothing this promising had ever presented itself before. Now we are settled and the time for taking a wife is ideal.”
He had never quite understood his parents’ obsession with marriage, but he left them to it, as it was the Amish way, and what the parents decided could not be objected. They spoke a bit about the particulars of the ad that would be placed and he made it clear he wanted an Amish wife. He had seen these English women with their strange ways and he wanted no part of it.
“An Amish wife, Maem,” he warned his mother as she walked away. “Or I will refuse to marry her once she has arrived.”
His mother laughed, jubilant that he had finally submitted to her demands. He was glad to make her happy, but again he knew that if the rain did not bless them with its presence there would be no food to feed his new wife if she ever did arrive.
Wife…
The idea of him having one caused him to panic just a bit, but he kept himself together. He was after all now a man of twenty-seven years. He would most certainly need a woman’s touch and the warmth of her love in his life. And his parents would have no need to stress him much after he had complied. But an arranged marriage to some woman he did not know was just as scary as the thought of marriage itself. He kept that bit of information to himself and went back to work.
With nightfall he made his way home to his father at the dinner table they had built from the timber they had cut down.
“Daed,” he said to the older man hunched at the table. “Is everything okay?”
His father smiled at him but there was sadness in his eyes. “Yes. Your mother left you dinner.”
But even then in the light of the lantern he could see that all was not well. His father’s shoulders were bent with worry.
“What is wrong?” he asked again and this time he refused to leave his side without an answer.
“You know we have little money,” his father began and he
nodded. “Well, I had to borrow a hefty sum from the other elders to make ends meet once we had decided to settle here and it is more than I can pay back without that harvest.”
John sighed. “I know Daed. We will be fine and so will the harvest.”
It was the main reason he could not fathom how his mother could think another mouth to feed could be so important. They didn’t need much money, for the people of community supported each other, but they needed some money to get by and he had seen the toll that had taken on his father’s already burdened pockets. They depended on the harvest each year, but this was not a healthy way to live. For this reason he worked long hard days in the fields.
He sat in silence eating the meal his mother had left him, and when he was done he squeezed his father’s shoulder in support and made his way to his room in the furthest corner of the house. It was a night he wished he had the comfort of a woman’s arms to keep him warm, but he settled on a bath and went to sleep.
He hoped tomorrow would be a better day.
* * *
Three days later Clara sat watching the sun set form her porch. Her mother had gone to bed early and her sister had just come home from her work in the infirmary. The place was silent save for the lone buggy that came trotting up the lane towards their little cottage.
“You asked for the papers from my stops, Clara,” the man driving the buggy said. He hopped down tying his horse to the hitching post outside her house as she hopped excitedly down the wooden stairs to him.
“Thank you!” she said with joy taking the stack of papers.
“Is there some special reason why you are so interested in the outside world,” the nosy man asked her.
She side-eyed him but did not respond. Akkon was his name and he was famous in her community for knowing everybody’s business and telling everybody’s business to others. She was sure it would soon be known that she had asked him for a collection of papers from town. Truth was, she didn’t particularly care nor was she able to go and get them herself. People could talk if they wanted to. All that could be said really was that she had a thirst for reading.
And that she did do after he finally got the point and turned his horse back down the road, a few cents richer. She read through all the papers and found a bounty of men looking for wives. Mail Order Brides they were called and she found the name distasteful. Made it sound like they were buying a woman. But if she were honest with herself she could say they were doing exactly that, for what the men advertised was wealth. There was much to be said about a woman who would run to a man for his money.
When she stopped to think about it for a while, she was not interested in being rich, but she did need a man who could provide for her and in so doing help with her mother. Another truth was that she was not so different after all.
Then she saw it when she was about to give up all together. The ad she was hoping to find in a small four page publication- written in old German for a specific viewer.
Hi there,
If you are reading this advertisement, then maybe you are the woman I am looking for.
I am a twenty-seven year old man named John, from Tucson, Arizona.
I am part of a strict, religious and closed Amish community here and I am looking for a wife.
I do not promise riches, for us Amish do not believe in such things.
What I promise is the opportunity to be part of a growing community, with a husband who will work twice as hard to make sure you are provided for.
If you are so inclined, please respond to the address below.
God’s richest blessings.
She read it three times and smiled. This she could work with. This meant hope, and maybe she would not be shunned if she moved to another Amish community.
“What are you doing?” Sara’s voice intruded on her solitude as the last of the evening sun disappeared. She hurriedly tucked the papers away.
“Just thinking,” she responded.
“About what?” Sara sat beside her on the stairs and tucked her tunic in around her. She stared up at her older sister and waited for the words to sooth the furrowing in her brows.
Clara looked down at her and placed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Have you ever wondered what is on the other side of these hills, Sara?”
The little girl sighed. “All the time I wonder. I wonder if the people who don’t live like us have it easier, you know. Some place, somewhere, somebody must have it easier than we do here.”
“Would you ever leave?”
Sara looked up at her in shock. “Are you thinking of leaving Clara? You can’t leave us here like Mary-Beth did her parents!”
The fright in the little girl’s voice made her feel instant guilt for having had the thought to begin with. “I think we might all have to leave. At least to some place cooler with more grass and better weather. The dry air here is not doing Maem any good and we are barely getting by.”
“I know,” Sara said snuggling closer to her sister who hugged her close to her. “But if we go they will never let us come back.”
“If we go, we might never have to,” she pointed out to her. “Wouldn’t it be nice to star over someplace else?”
Sara nodded against her bosom. “But you know Maem will never agree.”
They sighed in unison. That was precisely the problem. Getting their mother to leave the only place she had known and called home, would be a trial in and of itself.
“We have to try Sara or this will be your life,” she pointed out.
Her sister looked up at her. “Was that what you were looking for in the papers? The same thing Mary-Beth found- a husband?”
She nodded apologetically. “It needs to be our secret though.”
Sara smiled. “I would never betray you Clara. Ever.”
She knew the words her sister spoke were no joke and she knew the little girl would never give her secret away, so she pulled the papers out and showed her what she had found.”
Sara read it and they sighed with excitement. “He is Amish too! Maybe Maem will agree to that.”
There was one problem though. “I think she might. But Sara, we cannot all go at once. This is an arrangement to be made; he has to agree to me before I can even begin to help you and Maem.”
“So you are leaving us behind,” the little girl said dejected.
“Only for a little while to see what it is like, and then I will arrange safe passage for you both. You have to take care of Maem while I am away.”
“I will,” Sara said trying to hold her tears back.
“Hey,” Clara lifted her tiny freckled face to hers. “I have not left yet and I won’t for weeks. He has to accept my response and make preparations for my arrival, so we have a little time left.
Sara nodded. “Promise you won’t forget us when you go,” she asked.
Clara looked down at her. “I love you more than life itself, and I love Maem just as much. I would never, ever forget about you. I would never be able to so much as go a day without missing you both. Don’t you ever forget that.”
Seemingly convinced at least for the moment that they would be remembered, they sat and spoke about all the things she had learned at the infirmary until sleep came a calling. When Clara put her to bed she lit the lantern in her room and wrote a response to Mr. John Hamm, whose wife she hoped to soon become.
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2
Chapter TWO
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“ I would never, ever
forget about you … ”
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Four weeks later
His July started bright; brighter than he had ever expected it. And though his brother’s insistence on rubbing his love in his face was ever so annoying, John was hopeful for a romance of his own and so he found his spirits could not be dampened.
“She arrives today!” his mother said pinching his cheeks at the breakfast table
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His father was a reserved man who sat with a good enough smile on his face, more than happy about his son’s prospect of marriage. The harvest was looking good and they would have quite a few things to celebrate. Well, assuming his new wife did actually come.
“Look at you” his brother joked, punching his shoulder in some primitive congratulatory fashion, “about to become a man!”
He smiled uncomfortably. All this fuss was making him uncomfortable. He wanted nothing more than to reflect on the changes about to happen in his life and prepare himself for them. Among his worry was what his wife would look like. As an Amish man, he had been taught that things as superficial as appearances were not as important as matters of religion and of the heart, but he was a man and he was human nonetheless. He wanted a beautiful and smart wife, and Lord knows his brother would never let him live it down if he were to get a wife who was less than his. That sibling rivalry knew no limits.
He ate his breakfast in relative silence beneath the watchful eyes of his father before it was time to head to the train station to pick his bride up.
“I will keep you company,” his father said as he kissed his excited mother good-bye.
He turned in shock to look at the older version of himself. “Are you sure, father?”
His father’s response was to walk ahead of him, his tall top hat and black waist coat trailing down the steps to the buggy where the horse waited impatiently. He was elated to have his father along.
“Don’t want to show up for your girl with your father in tow?” his father teased when he stared at him hesitantly.