by Anna Schmidt
“I cannot do this and you must not ask it of me,” she interrupted and turned to head back to the house.
“You would let a thief go free—someone who stole not only from me but from people who have befriended you these past few weeks?”
She stopped and turned to face him. “It is…”
“…not your way. I get that.” He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his thick hair in frustration.
“It is not your way.” She covered the distance between them, wanting to shout the words at him. Instead, she pressed her fists to her skirt to stem the tide of her anger. “You are Amish.”
“Was,” he corrected. “I made my choice long ago. I am as much an outsider now as anyone in my company.”
His bitterness surprised her.
“And at the moment,” he continued, “it is my company I must think of. Chester has taken more than money. He has stolen the trust I worked so hard to build with these people. They look at each other now with suspicion and doubt. They look at me differently.”
His pain was so obvious in his haggard features that Hannah had to resist touching his face. As if touching him would do anything to smooth away the exhaustion and distress she saw there.
“Levi, think of it. Chester has been your good friend and a valued employee. He was not always a thief. Why did he steal? Have you asked him that?”
“I don’t know—greed, selfishness, because it was easy. What do the reasons matter? He did it and kept doing it. And I didn’t see it. Nor did Jake. That’s the point.”
“And so he must go to jail? That is the only possible recourse? That will make things right with you?”
“What would you have me do, Hannah? Forgive and forget? This is not just about my selfish interests. These people work for me—if they see that nothing is done about a man who steals, then what?”
“It is not for me to say what you should do—only God can tell you that. But you must be willing to listen.” She took half a step closer and stood her ground. “And I must ask that you respect that I cannot and will not break with my traditions to do what you think must be done.”
He stared down at her for a long moment and then carefully picked an errant blossom petal from her hair. “I would walk through fire for you, Hannah,” he said and had Mae not chosen that moment to sound the dinner bell, she realized that he would have kissed her.
Levi had thought that he could keep her close by insisting that she testify. He didn’t really need her to do that. Chester had confessed to opening accounts for dummy companies that he’d established, as well as confessed to forging by changing the amounts on certain invoices.
When Levi realized the extent of Chester’s deceit, he was furious. But just then in the orchard he had seen in Hannah’s eyes and heard in her question, the truth of the situation. This was not about justice. It was about revenge. Chester had betrayed him, and Levi had the need to make an example of the man lest anyone else think they could hoodwink him in the future. His anger and hurt carried over to Jake who he felt should have questioned the bills, the higher prices.
But he’d seen the bills as well, noticed the higher costs. Had Levi questioned anything? No, he had trusted a man who had worked for him for over ten years. And yet throwing the man in jail did not feel right. Chester behind bars did not make Levi feel any sense of peace.
Only God can tell you what to do, Hannah had said.
Later that night Levi wandered into the kitchen of his modest Wisconsin home—a home far less elegant than the mansion in Sarasota. Hans sat at the kitchen table reading.
“Sir?” He was immediately on his feet ready to serve.
“Just came for some water,” Levi said. “What are you reading there?”
“Scripture from the book of Matthew,” Hans answered.
“I didn’t realize you were a religious man, Hans.”
“It was a habit I developed on the trip here. Gunther—Mr. Goodloe—read some every night. I found that it was a good way to set aside the worries of the day. We also started each morning with a reading,” he added.
“So read me a passage,” Levi said, as he leaned against the sink and drank his water.
Hans cleared his throat. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Levi stood for a long time staring out the kitchen window at the rain sluicing down the glass. “Thank you, Hans. Sleep well,” he said softly.
“And you,” Hans replied, and left Levi alone.
Chapter Sixteen
On Sunday, families came from all around the area to crowd into the Harnisher home for services. It was their turn to host the services and Mae had been cleaning for days. As the others arrived, Lars and his brothers took charge of unhitching the horses and getting them out of the rain into the barn. Men unloaded the backless benches from the bench wagon that moved with the services from house to house. Mae had insisted on leaving some of the more comfortable chairs in place for older members of the congregation.
The benches replaced the large table where the family normally gathered for meals. Men sat together at the front and women at the back. This was a small group and so everyone was able to crowd into the one room.
Three chairs had been placed at the very front of the room for the ministers and the bishop to occupy. While the first hymn was sung, the two ministers, bishop and deacon retired to another room to decide who would preach that day and in what order. During the hymn, people continued to arrive and find their place in the crowded room.
Caleb leaned on his crutches and took his place next to his grandfather. As the first hymn began, Hannah watched Caleb carefully, worried that it might be too soon for him to be up and around, when she heard Pleasant gasp.
“It’s him,” her sister-in-law whispered, her eyes darting quickly toward the door and then back again to her hands folded tightly in her lap. The hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her normally tight-lipped mouth.
Hannah watched a jovial young man greet several of his peers and elders gathered in the outer hallway. He was at least two inches shorter than Pleasant was. He had a ruddy round face and an easy smile, and Hannah could understand how a woman as reserved as Pleasant might be taken by such an easygoing and gregarious young man.
She nudged her sister-in-law with her shoulder and smiled her approval. Pleasant covered a girlish giggle of delight by pretending to cough. But then her eyes darkened, her face reddened and she went as still as a stone.
“What?” Hannah whispered, thinking Pleasant might have choked. She glanced toward the door ready to cry out for help when she saw the reason for Pleasant’s distress. Or rather the reasons.
For following the young man into the room was a woman, small and heavy with child and three additional children who could not have looked any more like their father.
Pleasant threw off Hannah’s hand of comfort and as the pregnant woman and her two youngest children slid on to the bench next to her, Pleasant sat up even straighter. Her jaw was firm, her eyes pinning the man with accusation. He glanced their way then, and clearly recognized Pleasant. To Hannah’s shock, he smiled and nodded as he might in greeting someone he hadn’t seen in some time but was pleased to see now.
All through the services Hannah tried to concentrate but she went through the rituals by rote. All the while next to her, Pleasant simmered with indignation and fury.
As the main sermon was being delivered in a singsong style and in the High German preferred by this group, Hannah could think only of what Pleasant had told her of the man. He had
come to Florida to visit a sick uncle and offer help with the crops that winter. He had talked of looking at some land to buy, of possibly coming to Florida to live. She knew that he had come to the bakery every morning that he was in the area and that he and Pleasant had talked of the weather and the crops and his uncle’s improving health. She knew that he had complimented Pleasant on her cake donuts, claiming they were lighter than air.
But there had been no more to it than that. He had not walked with Pleasant or taken her for a ride in his uncle’s buggy. Pleasant had admitted as much, hoping that perhaps if they could see each other again in Wisconsin, things might move to that next level of official courting. In the days that they had spent traveling north, Hannah could see now that Pleasant had built an entire picture in her mind of how things might develop between her and the boyish-looking farmer.
The hope that romance awaited her had been behind her announcement that night that she might just stay in Wisconsin. She stole a look at her sister-in-law as the second minister droned on. Pleasant’s face was composed, her eyes seemingly riveted on the preacher while her hands writhed as she twisted a lace handkerchief into a coiled rope of her misery.
Hannah’s heart went out to this woman who, over the duration of their journey, had become her friend. And then she had a thought that made all other thoughts fly away like the sound of the minister’s words through the open windows in the close little room.
What if she had also misjudged Levi’s feelings for her? What if she, like Pleasant, had taken his attentions for something more than was intended? What a fool she must appear to someone so worldly. She thought back to those moments when she had been most susceptible to his kindness, his gentle touch, his kiss…
In every case it could be said that he had wanted something from her, needed something. Like in the orchard the day before when he had told her he needed her to testify in court. Mortified, she closed her eyes tightly as she recalled how her heart had soared at the touch of his lips on hers that night in the payroll car that now seemed a thousand years ago. Why would a man like Levi have the slightest interest in a plain woman like her? He had his pick of the women in his company and of the women in the towns they traveled through. And there were the wealthy society women Hannah had seen on the streets of Sarasota riding through town in their fancy cars, the tops down and their laughter trailing behind them like expensive perfume.
As he had said, he had made his choice. It had been years since he had run away to the outside world and he had never come back.
Fool.
She felt Pleasant’s eyes on her and realized that she, like her sister-in-law, had suddenly sat up a bit straighter and clenched her fingers into fists. Pleasant reached over and covered one of Hannah’s fists with her open palm. Clearly, she thought that Hannah’s anger was an expression of solidarity and perhaps in a way it was, for they had both been foolish and naive.
When the services finally ended, the room was transformed once again in preparation for the noon meal to be shared before everyone started for home. Because converting some benches to tables took more room and left less seating, the congregation would be served in shifts. While some stood talking on the covered side porch that ran the length of the house, others had their meal and then the order reversed until all were fed. Again, everyone squeezed onto the long benches set next to tables laden with a variety of dishes that would serve as a light lunch. Mae’s best jam, apple butter and pickled beets filled dishes up and down the length of the table. There was homemade bread and cheese. Knowing that in just two days she and her family would be on a train back to Florida, Hannah stood a little to one side of the gathering taking it all in. Their gatherings in Florida were not so different from this one and she could not help wishing that Levi could somehow realize that this was where he belonged.
While everyone else was at church or sleeping in for the morning, Levi entered the small cell where his front man was being held. Chester’s face was lined with exhaustion and remorse. “I’m so sorry, boss,” he muttered without looking directly at Levi.
“Then you are done with trying to throw the blame onto others?” Levi asked.
Chester nodded. “I’m so ashamed of what I did. I just…” He lifted his shoulders and let them drop as if words could not be found to explain what he had done.
Levi bowed his head for a moment and then certain that he was doing the right thing, he reached for Chester’s hand. “Then I forgive you. I am dropping the charges against you.”
This time Chester looked at him, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Why would you do that?”
“Because someone recently reminded me that the Bible teaches mercy and forgiveness. For a long time I had forgotten that and when I realized how you had betrayed my trust, all I wanted was justice. But that kind of justice is no more than revenge and makes me no better a man than you were when you decided to steal from me.”
“But…thank you, Levi. Oh, thank you. I promise you that…”
Levi held up his hand. “I don’t want your promises,” he said, “but you can do something for me.”
“Anything.”
As Hannah helped serve the light lunch, she saw Pleasant’s lost love approach her in-laws and make the introductions to his wife and children. It was obvious that he was none the wiser for the heartache he had left in his wake as he ushered his little family back inside to the table they shared with another family. But Hannah saw Pleasant make some excuse to her father and hurry off into the kitchen.
She thought of going after her, to comfort her, but she saw Caleb leaning on his crutches surrounded by a circle of girls and younger children at the far end of the porch. He appeared to be telling them a story and Hannah could not help but be curious. She moved closer.
“…And then the tornado came,” he said as every child leaned closer. “It smashed across his father’s farm sounding like the roar of a hundred freight trains. It destroyed livestock and the house and then it hit the barn…”
“…Where his parents had gone,” one girl murmured.
Caleb nodded. “And when the storm had done its worst the boy crawled out from the cellar with his brother and sisters and saw that nothing was left.”
Hannah inched closer. Where on earth had the boy come up with such a tale?
“What did he do then?” a child asked.
“For a while he lived with his grandparents but he was very very sad and lonely for his father and mother and so he ran away.”
“What happened then?”
Caleb’s face went blank, but he recovered quickly. “Oh, he had many adventures and became a very rich man. He had his own car,” Caleb said in an awed tone and several of the young boys in his audience gasped with appreciation. “And a big house—two big houses,” he added.
“But he was not happy,” a girl prompted and Hannah saw Caleb glance at her and smile.
“No. He was not happy for he had gone into the outside world—and no matter what he did, he did not belong. He had no family there.”
“And what happened then?”
Caleb faltered again and Hannah realized that he had no grand ending to his tale. “Nothing. He was trapped in that world. He wanted to go back but he couldn’t.”
The children started to grumble. “That’s a terrible story,” one boy groused as he got up and brushed the dust off his good Sunday trousers. “I’m going to see if there’s pie.” One by one the other boys followed him and the girls wandered away. Hannah stepped forward.
“Where did you hear that story, Caleb?”
“From Levi—Mr. Harmon. He told it to me the other night while we were waiting on the side of the road but I fell asleep and never heard the true end of it.”
He eased himself to a sitting position and Hannah sat next to him. “What if that was the end of it? What if Mr. Harmon was telling you that story to teach a lesson?”
“Like in church?”
“Something like that. Maybe he wanted you to think about the true c
ost of running away—at least for that boy.”
“That boy was him,” Caleb said. “He turned out okay.”
“How do you know the story was about Mr. Harmon?”
“Because he told me so. He told me that he used to be Amish, too, and when he ran away he didn’t think about how he would never be able to go back. He was older than me and said he should have known better because once a plain man chooses the English world, that’s it.”
Hannah felt as if her breath could not find its way through her lungs. “And what do you think of that?”
Caleb shrugged. “I don’t know, Ma. I like being who I am. It’s just that sometimes I wish there was some adventure. But then it was sometimes pretty scary being out there by myself. When I came here, it was like coming home again, like a real family and I liked that better.”
“Did you not miss your grandfather…or me?”
“Oh, Ma, I missed you a lot and I just kept thinking how perfect it would be if you could come live here with the Harnishers, too. Then maybe you wouldn’t be so sad and we could be a family with them and…”
“We have our family,” she reminded him.
“I know but I think about how Pa used to teach me stuff like Lars’s dad does. Grandpa is always so busy. And there are only a few boys my age back home. Most guys my age live somewhere else and just come to Florida for visits.”
It was true. Caleb’s cousins lived in Ohio and the community in Florida was so new that it was either older couples who had raised their families and come south to farm in a warmer climate, or single men or young marrieds who saw Celery Fields as their future as Caleb’s father had.
“It is the life God has chosen for us, son,” Hannah said.
“I suppose,” he said glumly.
Hannah looked around, trying to think of some distraction that would bring back Caleb’s smile and saw the girl who’d been listening to his story coming from the kitchen.
“I brought you snitz and ice cream,” the girl said, offering him the plate. “I made the snitz myself.”