by Anna Schmidt
Caleb took a bite of the dried apple concoction and grinned. “Not as good as my Ma’s,” he said with a wink at Hannah.
“Oh, Mrs. Goodloe, I should have thought… I didn’t bring you…”
“It’s all right. If you’ll sit with Caleb and make sure he doesn’t overdo, I’ll get some for myself. It looks delicious.”
When she looked back, Caleb was teasing the girl by offering her a bite of the ice cream and then pulling the spoon away at the last minute. It was something his father would have done and Hannah smiled at the memory. And then she turned back to the house and saw Levi talking to her father-in-law and the bishop. But the most astonishing sight was that standing with them was Chester Tuck.
Levi seemed uncommonly nervous and kept wiping the palms of his hands against the sides of his suit trousers as Hannah approached. She was aware that her expression was one of confusion but she could not hide her curiosity at the strange assembly of men standing on the Harnisher’s porch.
“Ah, Hannah,” Gunther said when she reached the foot of the steps leading up to the porch. “Levi has been waiting for you.”
In another time, the words might have been music to her ears. “Levi has been waiting for you…” would have been enough to launch her heart into flight. But that morning during services she had seen plainly the reasons for his interest in her. She wondered what it was that he wanted from her now.
“Chester,” she acknowledged as she climbed the steps without looking at Levi.
“Ma’am,” he murmured and started to say more but Levi placed a restraining hand on his sleeve.
“Shall we go inside?” the bishop suggested.
Hannah was perplexed by the seriousness of the mood and the unexpected presence of Chester, but when the four men turned and entered the house, she had little choice but to follow them.
Inside, Gunther led the way to a bedroom where benches had been added for the bishop, deacon and ministers to congregate before the services. Gunther indicated that Hannah should sit on one low bench while Chester and the bishop sat on the side of the bed facing her. Levi and Gunther remained standing.
“Mr. Tuck has something he wishes to say to you, Hannah,” the bishop told her as he placed his hand on Chester’s shoulder.
“Ma’am,” Chester began, then cleared his throat and started again. “I’ve come to ask you to forgive me for accusing you the other day. I was the thief and I tried to throw suspicion onto others.”
Hannah’s heart went out to the man who looked so small and miserable sitting there. “Chester, I…”
“I thought I had good reason for the stealing,” he said, “but the very idea that I could try to accuse someone like you—someone so pure and honest. I was just lashing out because you were the one who found me out.”
Hannah looked to the bishop and Gunther and finally Levi, trying to understand this strange confession.
“Chester has asked to face those he accused and try and make amends,” Gunther explained.
“It was his idea to come here,” Levi added. “All I asked him to do was write letters to you and the others. He already met with the rest of the company earlier this morning.”
“Was Jake there?”
Levi’s eyes darkened with sadness and he shook his head. “No one has heard from him.”
The bishop cleared his throat. “Do you forgive this man, Hannah?”
“Of course. He did me no real harm, but Levi, I still cannot testify in court.”
“There will be no trial,” Levi said. “I have dropped all charges. Chester was desperate. His mother needed an operation and medicine. His father was out of work. The doctor insisted on payment up front. He meant to pay it all back but then it just got ahead of him.”
Levi turned his attention to Chester. “You have been my friend for many long years,” he said so softly that Hannah found herself leaning forward to catch the words. “We have seen many things together and had many adventures.”
Chester nodded, his head bent low, his folded hands dangling between his knees.
“You stole from me and in taking from me you also stole from others who had been your friends. You could have come to me. I would have helped.”
Chester sniffed back a choked sob and cleared his throat but he did not look up. “I was too proud.”
“Pride goeth before a fall,” the bishop said in German.
“And I meant to pay it back. I thought I could.” He buried his face in his hands and burst into racking sobs.
Levi knelt next to Chester. “I forgive you,” he murmured rubbing his friend’s back. “It’s over, Chester. I forgive you. It will do no one any good for you to go to jail. I won’t recover my money. Your parents will be even more destitute. And I will have lost the best twenty-four-hour man working the circuit today.”
“You mean it. It’s over?”
“You can keep your job,” Levi said as he reached into his pocket and handed Chester a check. “This should cover the medicine and expenses your parents might have for the next six months. During that time, I expect you to work on setting up some kind of budget and payment plan that you can live with.”
Levi stood and offered Chester his handshake. Chester stood and accepted it. Levi delivered the traditional Amish handshake but then Chester embraced Levi, thanking him profusely. Then Chester turned to Gunther and Hannah and blubbered out his promise to mend his ways and make it all up to Levi and anyone he might have harmed through his actions. Unable to go on, he collapsed back onto the chair and broke down completely.
While Gunther and the bishop calmed Chester, Hannah found herself alone with Levi for the moment.
“Why?” she asked as the two of them moved out onto the porch.
He smiled and spoke to her in the language of her ancestors. “Because it is your way,” he replied, “and as you now know it used to be my way, as well.”
Hannah thought of the story he had told Caleb, recalling Caleb’s words. “He was older…”
“It’s hard to explain my reasoning, Hannah,” he said in English. “This…” He waved a hand over the land. “This was my father’s and grandfather’s land but after my parents died…”
“I know the story, Levi. Matthew told me.” She stared at the barn for a long moment.
“It was rebuilt,” he said softly. “There was a barn-raising not long after…”
“Oh, Levi, how very painful this must all be for you—coming back to such memories.”
“Not so much anymore. I made my peace with it years ago. It’s partly the reason I decided to settle the circus here in Baraboo. I wanted to be close to what family I had left. Matthew and I worked it all out after our grandfather died. At least here I could see them from time to time.”
It had started to rain again as a deputy escorted Chester down the porch steps to a car that had been parked around the side of the barn out of respect for the Amish. All around them people were clearing the tables, loading the benches and preparing to leave.
Levi touched Hannah’s arm. “I have to take care of some things—since I pressed charges in the English court, that all has to be legalized before Chester will be truly free,” he said, “and I need to find Jake.”
“You haven’t seen or heard from him?”
“I doubted him, Hannah. My best friend—the one person who has been with me through all of this and I questioned that loyalty and friendship.”
“He just needs time,” she said, but wasn’t sure that she was right. Jake was a proud man, especially when it came to all that he and Levi—“two dumb stowaways” as he liked to refer to them—had accomplished together. “He’ll come around. The two of you are like brothers. In time…”
Levi clearly doubted that. “Perhaps. The first step is to find him.”
“No one has seen him?”
“Lily says he left as we all boarded the train and she hasn’t seen him since.”
“You said he once worked in Chicago. Perhaps he went back there.”
“That was a long time ago. No, he could be anywhere by now.”
She rested her hand on his arm. “Give him some time,” she advised.
He covered her hand with his, the warmth of his touch seeping through her like the balm of the first true spring day. “Hannah, could I come back later?”
“Oh, Levi, perhaps it would be best if…”
“I want to say a proper goodbye to the boy,” he said, interrupting her and once again she realized that what she had taken for his feelings for her were really just a good man’s concern.
Hannah thought her heart would surely break at the reminder that soon she would leave him—for good. She looked around at the others climbing back into their buggies and heading down the lane in a single line of identical black-topped, horse-drawn carriages toward home. She looked beyond the parade of vehicles to the surrounding countryside, green and verdant after the rain. And she looked up at the sky where a break in the clouds had freed the afternoon sun. Maybe if we stayed…in time…
She turned to face him, the words on her lips. But then over his shoulder she saw Pleasant, her shawl covering her head and shoulders as she stood beneath a weeping willow and watched as the young man and his family drove away. Two naive women—she and Pleasant—taken in by men who had meant no harm—only kindness.
“Yes,” she told Levi. “Come and say goodbye.” And she gathered her skirts and ran back inside the house before he could witness her tears.
Chapter Seventeen
When Levi returned later that evening it was evident that he would have no time alone with Hannah. She had made sure of that. Almost as soon as he arrived, Matthew called for him to come help with the evening milking. Once that was done and they returned to the house, Mae had supper prepared, a supper that Hannah and Pleasant helped to serve. After supper Hannah insisted that Caleb needed his rest and she had packing to do.
She thanked him profusely for all of his kindness and his help in finding Caleb and seeing that he was so well cared for. She prompted Caleb to do the same and that, in turn, prompted Gunther to add to the chorus of appreciation. They left him with little choice but to wish them all safe travels and ask that they write and let him know of their return.
And then she was gone. She followed Caleb down the dark narrow hallway to his room and closed the door. It was as if she could not get away from Levi fast enough. Her actions confused him. He had thought that once she knew that he was Amish, that once he publicly forgave Chester, then she would see that he could change, that they could have a future together.
He had come to his brother’s farm, not to say goodbye, but to ask her to stay and marry him. He loved her and he had been certain that she returned those feelings. Had been…
He glanced up to see pity in the eyes of his brother and his sister-in-law. “Tell me what to do,” he pleaded, but Mae simply shrugged and Matthew wrapped his arm around Levi’s shoulder and walked him out to the porch.
“Let her go,” Matthew murmured. “In time you will both understand that it’s for the best. We cannot go back, my brother.” He gave Levi two sharp claps on the back and went inside the house.
Levi stood there for a long moment. The words his brother had just uttered went against everything Levi believed. Wrongs could be made right. Had he not just seen that with Chester? And how was it for the best for two people who loved each other to be torn apart? He glanced toward the barn—the ground where his parents had died. They had been together because they could not be apart and they had paid a terrible price, but sometimes love demanded such a price. No. Perhaps in taking them both, God had actually given the two of them the blessing of not having to go on alone.
He stepped off the porch and instead of heading down the lane toward town, he walked across the yard to the small cemetery where his parents, grandparents and five other generations of Harnishers were buried. He had lost almost everyone he’d ever cared about—his parents, his best friend and now Hannah. He found his parents’ graves and knelt between them. And for the first time in all the years since he’d run away, Levi prayed for God’s guidance.
And when he left the little graveyard and headed back to his compound, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what he must do to make everything right again. It would take some time, but all he had was time. The first step was to find Jake.
Hannah finished packing Caleb’s things and tucked him in for the night. Back in the room she shared with Pleasant, she packed her own clothing and then stood at the window looking out at the dark. She watched as Levi crossed the lawn and stopped near two headstones in the little cemetery she had noticed on her first walk with Caleb to try out his crutches.
She saw him kneel and bow his head and every fiber of her being tugged her to go to him. The roar of her need was so loud in her head that she failed to hear Pleasant enter the room until her sister-in-law was standing behind her with her hands resting lightly on Hannah’s shoulders.
“You love him,” Pleasant said.
“Yes.”
“And he loves you?”
“No.” She had never been more certain of anything. “He was only being kind like the young man who came to the bakery.”
“But he’s free to love you and in time…”
“But I am not free to love him,” Hannah said and turned away from the window. “I can’t live in the world he has chosen, Pleasant, without abandoning everything I believe in.” She saw her misery reflected in Pleasant’s eyes. “If God wills it, you will find love, Pleasant.” And perhaps, so shall I.
“I’ve been such a fool,” Pleasant said. Her eyes welling with tears.
“You were naive,” Hannah corrected.
“I thought that Noah’s attentions were…something more. All he meant was friendliness—a man who enjoys making people smile. He never intended…it was all in my head.”
Hannah embraced her sister-in-law. “I know. We’ve both learned hard lessons on this journey. And yet, had you not persuaded Levi to convince Gunther that we should all come, I would still be waiting to see Caleb. You did that, Pleasant, and I am so very grateful.”
Pleasant snorted derisively. “I didn’t do it for you. I thought…”
“Whatever your reasons, it got me here. Oh, think of it, Pleasant. Think of the friends we have both made and the adventures we have shared. Think of what might have happened had Caleb not ended up here with Levi’s brother or had Levi not told Caleb his story. I might have lost my son forever.”
“I guess,” Pleasant said, sniffing back her tears. “Do you think they will write to us? Lily and the others?”
“Of course. And next season when they are in Florida, we will have a reunion,” she assured her.
“And will you invite Levi to that reunion?”
“Levi will always hold a special place in my heart,” Hannah admitted. “I think that for some reason, God led me to his house that day. I think there is some purpose we can’t begin to know in this journey we have made with Levi’s circus, Pleasant.”
“But will you see him when he comes back to Florida?”
“Oh, that’s the future, Pleasant,” Hannah replied, knowing that she was avoiding a question that she couldn’t begin to answer. “Tomorrow we head home to Florida where we will both start again all the wiser for the experiences we’ve shared.” She hugged her sister-in-law. “This I am certain of—we are sisters as we have never been before and that in tandem with bringing Caleb home, makes everything worth whatever price we may have paid.”
Levi had not made it in time. Torn between word that Jake had been seen in town and that Hannah’s train was leaving, he had thought he could settle things with Jake and still make it to the station in time.
In time for what?
To beg her to stay.
Jake had been at the barbershop for a shave and haircut. Rather than try and approach him in front of others, Levi had waited outside, sitting on a park bench in the square and keeping an eye on the barbershop door. Finally, he saw
Jake emerge.
“Jake?”
His friend hesitated, squinted into the sun and then turned and kept walking away.
“Give me a chance to explain,” Levi said as he caught up to him and fell into step.
“This oughta be good, because from where I’m standing you have no explanation. How could you think I would ever…” Jake bit down on his lip and kept walking, his hands thrust into the pockets of his suit trousers.
“You’re right,” Levi admitted. “I couldn’t figure out how Chester could pull it off since he had no direct access to the money.”
“And I did,” Jake said bitterly, then he wheeled around, stopping Levi in his tracks. “Do you know how it felt being questioned by the police? How it felt that other people—people I know and care about—knew?”
His face was almost purple with his suppressed fury.
“Would it help if you punched me?” Levi asked quietly.
Jake looked startled at the suggestion, then shrugged. “Naw. That’d be no fun because you’d never punch me back. You’ve got that much Amish in you.”
They walked along for several blocks in silence.
“I can see only one way to make this right,” Levi said after a while.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
Levi pulled a document from his pocket and handed it to Jake. “I’m giving you my shares in the business. It’s yours—all of it. I work for you now.”
Jake thrust the paper back at him. “I don’t want your business, Levi. I want your friendship and your trust.”
This time it was Levi who put his hands in his pockets. “You have both right there in your hand. It’s the only evidence I can offer—that and my apology. Think about it,” he said. “I have to go to the train station, but when I get back…”
“I’ll be there,” Jake replied. “You never could run this thing by yourself.”
Levi started off down the street at a trot.
“Hey,” Jake shouted and Levi looked back but did not stop running toward the station. “Good luck.”
But as Levi ran through the streets and into the station and then out the door to the platform, he saw that he had come too late.