by Anna Schmidt
“But how could you ever…”
“I have divested myself of anything connected with the outside world—the English world, Hannah. Jake owns the circus and the state has the mansion here and most of the land holdings I once owned. I have been preparing myself for this moment ever since that day when I watched your train leaving Baraboo. I…”
She placed her fingers over his lips unable to hear more. “You cannot come into the faith for false reasons, Levi. Being baptized and joining the church is not a means to an end—it is a commitment to live your life a certain way no matter what. Do not do this because of me.”
“There was a time when I would have done anything if it meant that we could be together,” he said. “When I first realized that I was in love with you…”
“No,” she cried. “This is wrong and I will not allow it.” She gathered her skirts and ran back to the house, closing the door behind her.
“Hannah?” Gunther glanced up from reading his bible. “Are you unwell?”
“I am…” She had meant to assure him that everything was all right, that she was simply tired, that she would see him in the morning. But instead she started to weep and could not seem to stop.
Between her sobs she told him what Levi had told her, adding that she was certain he was doing this only because he thought he was in love with her. “And even if he were to return to the faith for the proper reasons, any idea that he and I might…”
“Why not?”
“He is a man catching up to the life he left behind. He wants marriage and a family.” She broke down completely.
Gunther remained silent and slowly she regained control. “It’s impossible,” she finished on the hiccup of a sob.
“And yet, it seems to me that there is another way to look at this,” Gunther suggested, stroking his gray beard. “Think of it, Hannah. Think of how Levi came into our lives. Think of how many times along the way he should have simply disappeared from our lives but did not. What if God has led the two of you to one another? What if God has used you, and Levi’s love for you to bring him back to his faith? Where is the harm in that?”
Her head was spinning. “But surely if his only reason for…”
“And do you know for certain that you are his only reason, Hannah? That speaks of arrogance that you could have such influence.”
Hannah bowed her head. Of course, Gunther was right. How immodest of her to set herself on such a high pedestal. She should have rejoiced in Levi’s decision, not degraded it with her own conceit. “I can see your point. I should apologize,” she said. “Thank you, Gunther.”
Outside, she could hear Levi’s laughter as he talked with Caleb and Greta in the barn. She followed the golden light of the lantern the children had taken with them when they went to stable the horse. They were talking about the baseball game and when she stepped into the open door of the barn, she saw Levi showing Greta how to grip a bat properly.
“Children, it’s late,” she said when they looked up at her and the two of them nodded and headed for the house.
“I should go,” Levi said as he put on his straw hat and rolled down his sleeves. He did not look at her as he passed her on his way out.
“I’m sorry to have doubted you,” she said, and he stopped but did not turn around. “It is good that you have heard God’s call for you to return to the faith of your ancestors. I am happy for you.”
He picked up the lantern and used it to light her face. “You’ve been crying.”
“Yes, but my tears were tears of pride and arrogance.”
He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Hannah, there are two things you must believe about me. I am serious about returning to my faith. For some time now I have been unsettled. In spite of everything I bought or acquired—success, power, material things—I was never able to find the one thing that makes life worth living. Contentment with who I am and how I pass my days.”
She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. “And the second thing?”
“I love you, Hannah. I think I fell in love with you the day I saw you coming up the drive of my mansion. I think I knew that somehow you were going to change my life in ways I could not begin to fathom—and you have.”
He kissed her then, his lips warm on hers as he cradled her cheek and angled her face to receive his kiss and return it.
“Marry me, Hannah,” he murmured.
Reality hit her like a slap and she drew back from him. “I cannot,” she whispered. But this time she did not run from him. After everything they had shared, everything he had done to bring Caleb back to her, she owed him an explanation. “I love you,” she began and realized that was not the best choice of a beginning to her explanation.
“But?” He ground the word out through gritted teeth.
Levi Harnisher might be plain on the outside but there was still some of the proud and powerful Levi Harmon that lived within. Hannah heard impatience and resistance in that single word.
“Hear me out,” she pleaded.
He left one hand resting on her shoulder but gazed beyond her for a moment. Then he looked down at her. “All right. I’m listening.”
“The Ordnung teaches us that marriage is meant for a clear purpose—the purpose of bringing children into the world.”
“Seems to me for some it’s also for the purpose of companionship,” he argued.
“That’s true—for someone like Gunther, for example. But you are not old, Levi.”
“Neither are you.” He ran one hand through his hair, a habit she’d found endearing when she’d first met him.
“I cannot have more children.” There, she had said it but she should have taken into consideration that Levi never accepted easy answers.
“Because? What did the doctor tell you, Hannah?”
His question exasperated her because, of course, no doctor had told her anything. She had simply gathered the facts of her many miscarriages and drawn her own conclusion.
Levi hooked his forefinger under her chin and lifted her face so that the light from the lantern shone on her.
“My late husband and I tried to have more children,” she said softly. “Except for Caleb, we lost them all.”
Levi frowned and she thought perhaps she had convinced him and wondered why instead of relief, she felt only sadness.
“I am not your late husband,” he said. “We will follow God’s plan for us and if that brings children, so be it.”
“And if not?”
“So be it,” he said, biting each word off precisely so that there could be no doubt of his commitment. “Now, do you have any other reasons not to let me court you properly over the coming weeks?”
“Oh, Levi, you can’t want…”
To her surprise he set down the lantern and cupped her face with both hands. “This is me you are speaking to, Hannah. Pleasant was partly correct when I asked to come for supper and she said I would do as I please anyway.”
Hannah leaned into him. “Only partly correct?” she teased.
“In this particular circumstance, I cannot do as I please unless you are also doing as you please. So I will ask once more, Hannah. Will you marry me?”
And because her heart took flight on wings of pure joy and because she was more certain than she had been of anything she had ever done in her life, she wrapped her arms around him and whispered, “Yes, Levi Harnisher, I will marry you.”
Chapter Nineteen
During the years he had owned the circus, Levi had prided himself on doing whatever manual labor might be necessary to keep things running smoothly. Often when they were short a man to unload the wagons, Levi had stepped in to help. He had worked with the animals, especially the elephants and horses that the company depended on to do the heavy work of setting up and tearing down the huge tents. But all of that had been child’s play compared to the unending work of farming. From well before sunup until well after dusk it seemed there was work to be done—work that could not be postponed.
He had forgotten how great a factor a change in weather could be. A deluge of rain could ruin a day’s work if the soil and seeds got washed away. In the aftermath of such a storm the plow could get mired in deep pockets of sandy mud left behind. It was a little like stepping into wet concrete. And no rain at all was even worse. He had set out to plant his fields with celery because that was a proven crop in these parts. But celery thrived in this part of the country because of the boggy, mucky, semiwet fields. Days of no rain dried those fields and left the tender young plants struggling to survive.
Levi was plowing the last rows of the field closest to the modest house he’d completed and thinking about his grandfather as he often did these days. As a boy, Levi had thought his grandfather was far too serious, too stern, too joyless. But now he was beginning to understand that along with the responsibility of a family came an enormous weight. The weight of “what if.” What if there were a hurricane that wiped out everything? What if there were a fire in these dry days? What if the crop prices dropped? What if he failed?
Of course that was only half the worry. The other half came with fitting into a culture he had abandoned long ago. It was more than simply putting on different clothes or reverting to the language of his youth. There were times when he had found himself thinking about assigning some task to Hans or about a new marketing ploy that might help fill seats at the next performance. There were times when he missed the life he had so willingly handed over to others. Life among the Amish was so…plain.
As he pushed the plow through the muck, the muscles in his arms and legs screaming with overuse and exhaustion, he wondered if he and Hannah could be truly happy or if he—like his grandfather—would one day turn into a beaten down and bitter old man.
No, he thought as he pulled back on the reins looped around his shoulders and the team of horses paused. He took off his hat and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and gazed up at the sky—a cloudy gray sky that held the promise of rain before evening. Show me the way, he prayed. The rest of the way on this journey You have set me on. Show me how to be a good husband to Hannah and father to Caleb.
The heat and humidity of the midday sun distorted his view of the horizon as he stared at the house. It wavered as if it were no more than a mirage. But then he saw Hannah coming across the fields toward him. She was carrying a bucket and stepping carefully over the furrows he’d plowed. The hot west wind carried snatches of the hymn she was humming, soothing away his worries as if they—not the house or the fields or the life he had chosen—were the mirage.
“I brought you some water,” she said, filling the dipper and handing it to him. “You’re not used to being out in the hot sun, Levi. Perhaps you should—”
“I’m almost finished,” he assured her. He drank down the water and handed her the dipper, which she refilled and handed back to him. “And if I can finish the plowing today, then tomorrow I can start the planting and then—”
“Caleb could help you,” she said. “He’s only waiting for you to ask.”
He knew that she was asking another question entirely. The question of why he hadn’t asked the boy to help. She shaded her eyes with one hand and stared up at him, waiting.
“I don’t want Caleb to feel that I’m trying to take the place of his father.”
“His father died, Levi, as did yours. I had thought—hoped—that you might understand what that means for him. He misses—”
“It’s because I understand, Hannah, that I’m taking it slow.”
She wrinkled her brow into a quizzical frown.
Levi touched her cheek. “After my father died, my grandfather treated me as if nothing had changed. He was my father now and that’s all I needed to understand as far as he was concerned. I had his assurance that he would protect and provide. That was supposed to be enough.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No. I missed my father’s patience, his humor, his assumption that I would grow up to be a good man. And from what Caleb told me about his father that night we sat in the rain along the side of the road, he misses those same things.”
“Then give him those things,” Hannah said. “His father is gone, Levi, but you are here and if we are to truly be a family, then Caleb needs your love and guidance.”
“I’ve never been a husband or a father,” Levi said. “It’s a lot of responsibility and I’m—”
Her eyes widened with fear. “Do you regret leaving that other life, Levi? Because if you’re not sure…”
He cupped her jaw and forced her eyes to meet his. “I have never been more certain of anything as I am that I love you and that my life without you would be unendurable.”
“Then, what is it?”
“I’m afraid I might fail you—and Caleb. What if…?”
She laid her fingers on his lips and shushed him. “Our love for one another and God’s love for us will see us through whatever lies ahead, Levi. We are starting from a good place. We have a home and this land and an entire community to help us through whatever may come. We’re going to be all right.”
The horses snorted and stamped, and Hannah laughed. “See? Even the horses agree. Now come in out of this heat and rest for a bit. You and Caleb can finish plowing this evening after the rain.”
Together they unhitched the horses and led them back to the yard. “Caleb?” Levi called when he spotted the boy sitting alone near the barn, working on a piece of harness. He looked up, an eager smile on his face, and Levi wondered why he hadn’t recognized that look. It was the same look he had given his grandfather in the days following his parents’ death. It was a smile filled with hope. Let me in, that smile said. Let me be part of your life.
Hannah breathed a sigh of relief as she went to washing the windows of the home they would share and watched Levi and Caleb tend the horses. They would be all right. And even if God decided not to bless them with more children, it would be enough. They would be a family. And with Gunther and his daughters and her cousins and aunts and uncles back in Ohio and Levi’s family in Wisconsin…
She polished a pane of glass and thought about Levi’s family—his sisters who had joined their grandparents in shunning a boy who had never been baptized into the faith in the first place. As she and Levi had set about planning their wedding, she had noticed how he carefully avoided any mention of his sisters.
“Matthew and Mae and the kids could make the trip,” he’d told her, “and then maybe we could travel back with them and visit your people in Ohio as we work our way back here.” Tradition called for them to leave the day after their wedding and spend several weeks traveling around visiting family and friends. Jake had insisted that they allow him to provide transportation on what was now his private railway car for the journey. “I’ll even make it plain for you,” he assured Hannah.
But there had been no mention of Levi’s sisters and their families. “Well, this won’t do,” Hannah muttered as she polished the glass panes. “If we are to truly be a family, then we need to mend these fences.”
That night, after Levi had taken her and Caleb back to Gunther’s house and everyone was asleep, Hannah wrote a letter to Mae Harnisher and enclosed separate letters for each of Levi’s sisters that she asked Mae to deliver. She introduced herself to them and invited them to come for the wedding, making sure to note that she realized it was a long trip and certainly she and Levi would understand if they could not get away. Then she asked if she and Levi might call upon them when they came to Wisconsin after the wedding. She was about to end the letters there when she decided that she had perhaps been too circumspect. And before she could change her mind she added the following note to each letter.
The one thing that our families share is the pain of great loss. And had it not been for Levi’s kindness, I might have lost my only child as well to a life that would have taken him away from me as Levi’s choice took him from you. I cannot know what your thoughts may be, but I do know that Levi thinks of you often and mi
sses you. I am asking you to open your hearts to us as we begin this new chapter in our lives and join us in celebrating the great joy that God has given us.
She sealed the envelopes before she could rethink a word of the letters. As soon as Yoder’s Dry Goods opened, she would post the letter to Mae and then pray that Mae would take it from there.
In his career with the circus, Levi had stood before crowds of hundreds—even thousands—of spectators, making speeches or acting as ringmaster for the show. But never had he been more nervous than he was on this Sunday morning sitting in the front row of the small Amish congregation that had gathered for services in Gunther’s house. And yet, he had never in his life felt more certain about the path he had chosen.
When he had run away from his grandfather’s farm, he hadn’t been certain of anything except the strong need to get away from the memories and the pain of loss. From that day to this he had lived his life on the move, making decisions based more on expediency than what the long-term consequences might be. For years it had all seemed to work in his favor.
He had met Jake, and the two of them had eventually become a formidable business team. He had acquired assets beyond anything he might have dreamed. He had become a respected figure in the communities where he had established bases for his business. But through it all he realized now that he had never stopped running, never stopped searching for whatever it was that he had left the farm to find.
And then Hannah had walked up that driveway and into his life. It occurred to him now that on that day he had felt something shift. He had not understood it, but there had been no denying it. Now he felt more certain than ever before in his life that God had sent Hannah to him that day, not to find her lost son—but to find him and bring him home to his roots.
After the last sermon and hymn, Bishop Troyer rose and cleared his throat. “We have a special request to consider,” he said. “Levi Harnisher has asked to be accepted into this congregation. If you agree, he will join those applicants already accepted in being baptized at our next service.”