by Sarah Price
“Ohio.” Susan scratched her ankle with her other foot. “What’s it like there?”
“Oh, ja, Ohio.” Fanny set down her bag, and now that her eyes had adjusted to what little light spilled in from the other room, she looked at her sister. “It’s nice, I reckon. The houses are bigger and brighter.” As soon as she said those words, Fanny regretted it. She hadn’t intended to make a comparison, especially one that sounded as if Ohio was superior to Colorado. “I mean they’re just different, that’s all.”
Susan almost smiled, and Fanny wondered if that was a rare reaction for her sister. “There are bigger and brighter houses out here too,” Susan said lightly. “But we’re just poor.”
“Oh, I don’t know about . . . ” But Fanny could not complete her sentence. The truth was that her parents were poor.
“Daed’s been trying to sell the house for five years, you know. No one wants it. It’s too far away from the other Amish community, and Englische people want a house that is big and bright.” She emphasized the words big and bright but not with malice. Fanny wondered if Susan considered her to be more Englische than Amish. “Daed can get a bigger farm on more fertile soil if he moves. But no one wants this old place.
“It’s—it’s really not that bad,” Fanny said.
This time, Susan did smile. “Mayhaps no. But it sure would be nice to live with the others. It’s ten miles away from here, you know.”
“I wouldn’t know that.”
Susan took a deep breath and nodded. “I forget that you were sent away so young. Ja, vell, it’s too far for all of us to go to worship; we only have the one buggy. We take turns.”
Fanny frowned. This would have been her life had she not been sent away.
“And the little ones have to study at home.”
Without being closer to the community, Susan wouldn’t be able to attend youth gatherings or make friends. How on earth would her sister ever get married if she couldn’t court a young man? Westcliffe wasn’t like Mount Hope, where there were so many different families, both in the town as well as surrounding areas.
“I don’t see why someone wouldn’t buy this place,” Fanny said.
“The people around here know that the crops aren’t growing. Plus they can get more land a bit further out. Doesn’t matter to them. They all have trucks to drive to town.”
Fanny looked at Susan. “The crops aren’t growing? Bad soil?”
Susan shrugged. “Mayhaps. Or mayhaps it’s just that Daed’s a bad farmer. Either way, he can’t buy a new farm if he can’t sell this one.”
“Oh help!” Fanny whispered.
Her thoughts shifted to Henry Coblentz and for a moment, just a brief hesitation in her mind, she considered that she may have made a mistake. But a second image, this one of Elijah, pushed Henry away and she lifted her chin, resolute in her determination that she would not be bullied into a marriage with a man she did not love, even if she knew that she could never marry the one she did.
“I think I best go help with supper,” she mumbled, not wanting to criticize her sister, but not wanting to hear Susan say anything else regarding their father.
“Aren’t you going to change into your work dress?” Susan asked.
Fanny gave her a soft smile and lifted her shoulders in an apologetic shrug. “This is my work dress.”
“Oh.”
They walked back into the kitchen where the three younger children huddled together near the stove and stared at her, their eyes big and filled with curiosity. From the looks of things the children seemed introverted and her mother appeared overworked. Depression and tension lingered between the four walls of the house. Without a nearby school and with the church so far away, their social interactions were certainly limited, and that did not make for a happy future for any of the remaining Price children.
Fanny hesitated before approaching her mother. She could see that the past few years had not been kind to her mother. Despite having sent away William and Fanny, her parents had added two more mouths to feed, Caren, and Hannah, and Joseph, new siblings that Fanny had never met before: family and strangers at the same time. She felt conflicted knowing that they watched her as she waited for instruction from her mother.
And Fanny longed for Mount Hope.
“May I help then?”
Her mother turned around from the stove. Right away, her eyes traveled from Fanny’s head to her toes. When she realized that Fanny had not changed and was still wearing the shiny shoes, her lips pursed in a familiar and disapproving way, one that reminded Fanny far too much of Naomi. Yet her silence favored Martha’s personality.
“I’ll just slice the bread,” Fanny mumbled and moved toward the two loaves that rested on a cooling rack. Even though the kitchen still carried the sweet scent of yeast in the air, the loaves were cold to the touch. Her mother must have baked them earlier that morning.
Susan slipped into the room and began to busy herself with the younger two children. Sitting on the large chair near the glass window that faced west, she pulled out a children’s book, and with one sibling on each of her legs, started to read to them. Fanny was thankful for the distraction.
“Who is this, Maem?” eight-year-old Ruth whispered.
“That’s your eldest schwester,” their mother said at last. “Fanny.”
Susan stopped reading for a moment and looked up from her book. “You were a baby when she left,” she said in a maternal tone. “But I remember her. And your bruders Jerome and Peter will too.”
Fanny continued slicing the bread. Jerome. Peter. The names didn’t even sound like family to her ears, though they’d been five years old when she left. She had been cast out from the Bontragers’ lives as if she had never belonged. All of those years that she had wanted to be a part of their family—and perhaps had tricked herself into thinking that she might be!—had been wasted on a foggy dream.
By the time that the sun started setting behind the mountains, the house took on a different kind of chill. The younger children were fed first so that by the time their father and older brothers returned home, they would be able to eat at the table without interruption.
When she heard the male voices outside, followed by the sound of heavy boots thumping up the steps to the porch, Fanny turned and braced herself. Already she had gotten over her disappointment with her mother’s lack of warmth, compassion, or plain emotion. She could barely anticipate what would happen with her father.
The door opened and a rush of cold air flooded the room.
“Oh now!” a male voice boomed from the open door. “I thought I saw a car coming down the lane. Must be that Fanny’s returned.”
To her surprise, her father seemed much more jovial and lively than she had expected. He removed his hat and placed it on the counter, unaware that his wife scowled as she moved it to the peg on the wall. He ran his fingers through his thinning hair and stood there, blocking entry for his two sons that eagerly peered over his shoulders.
“There she is!” Her father gave her a crooked smile and she saw that he had lost a tooth. His face looked more weathered than she remembered it, but otherwise he hadn’t aged nearly as much as his wife over the past eight years.
He approached her at last, leaving the way open for Jerome and Peter to hurry inside and shut the door behind them. The chill of the November evening air lingered in the air.
“Look at you, Dochder!” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Turn around then.” He helped her move in a circle. “My, my, so grown up.” He grinned again and looked over at his wife. “It’ll be good to have another girl here to help you, Maem.” He withdrew his hands and made his way over to the table. “I hope you’ve made plenty, Maem. I’m ravenous after the day we’ve had.”
Her mother said nothing as she set the food on the table before him. Jerome and Peter joined him at the table, and Susan hurried to help her mother bring over the basket of bread and plate of butter. Beside the boiled potatoes and carrots, there was only a thick s
lab of pork that, from the looks of it, had been overcooked. There was no sauce or gravy to keep it moist.
“Ah, look at this!” her father said cheerfully as he picked up his fork and jabbed it into the plate of meat. “A feast fit for a king.”
Fanny hesitated before sitting down at the far end of the table next to her brother Jerome. She wondered when they might pray, but as her father began to eat, she realized that he had not forgotten but merely did not consider the bounty, the one that he claimed fit for feeding an earthly king, fit for thanking a heavenly one.
“That back field,” her father said with his mouth full. “This spring it will be our saving grace, I tell you.”
Fanny watched as her mother took her place opposite her husband. She bowed her head and silently prayed, despite the fact that her husband still talked.
“Spreading that manure now will make it more fertile and we’ll make a go of corn once again.” He looked over at Jerome, pointing at him with his fork. “Corn, my bewe! That is the answer. With just one good year, we will have enough money to move at last. Why, every farmer will be begging to buy this place. Mark my words!”
Fanny looked up, staring at her father with complete surprise. “Corn, Daed? In Colorado?”
“Ah ha, my girl!” He laughed and hit his hand against the table, thumping the top three times. “Your education has certainly paid off. Why, you are the only one with sense at the table!”
Her mother made a slight noise and began to cut the small portions that were on her plate.
“I don’t see it as a matter of education or sense, Daed,” Fanny said, forcing herself to address the man seated at the head of the table. “It’s just simple common sense that no one in Colorado, at least not in Westcliffe, plants corn.”
“See?” Her father delighted in her response. He slapped Peter on the arm joyfully. “She understands that we will be the only ones to do it!”
Fanny frowned. “I think you misunderstand. No one plants it here because it is not possible at such high elevation.”
“Ach!” The smile faded from his face. “Such nonsense! Why, corn can grow everywhere. Just because some farmers fail, especially in Westcliffe . . . ”
Fanny glanced across the table at Susan. When their eyes met, Fanny realized what her sister had meant when she had criticized their father’s capability at farming the land. His determination to succeed in planting corn was a misguided dream and, perhaps, the very reason that the family suffered in such a state of destitution. If he had only abandoned the dream years ago and developed a skill or, at least, begun farming acceptable crops, they might have moved and become an integrated part of the Amish community at last.
If only her uncle could see that Henry in his own way was just as unreliable as her father! But Timothy’s blindness to issues of character—even the character of his own daughters—and his focus on material comfort and rule-keeping had left him unable to discern the difference between righteousness of the heart and the pseudo-righteousness of appearance. If Timothy had thought that sending her to Westcliffe would change Fanny’s mind toward Henry, he had been wrong. Now, Fanny was more determined than ever that she would not fall into his misguided dream of seeing her wed to a man who, undoubtedly, shared both her father and her uncle’s propensity for misplaced ambition.
Chapter 17
IN FANNY’S OPINION there was very little to like about Westcliffe and even less about being at her parents’ home.
For the first few days Fanny never saw another person. Her days were spent trying to clean the house when her mother wasn’t watching; Fanny feared insulting her. Often, in the afternoons, her mother would lie down for an hour, sometimes two. Fanny would take that time to scrub the walls and floors, often with Susan at her side helping. Fanny took advantage of those moments to teach hymns to Susan and any of the other children who cared to listen.
One surprise that impressed Fanny was Susan’s aptitude for learning. With the three younger children being homeschooled—and not a lot of time for that!—they were all behind in their reading, writing, and arithmetic. On her third day in Westcliffe, when the chores were finished, Fanny took over the schooling hour, more to try to help them rather than to give her mother a break. The older two boys, thirteen-year-old Jerome and Peter, were rarely home during the day, but the other children loved to listen to Fanny read stories from the Bible.
The children loved the story of baby Jesus. One night, Caren asked Fanny to point out the star of Bethlehem.
“That was only there to guide the wise men!” Joseph said.
“But his birthday is coming up so the star has to come back!” Caren retorted with a fierce determination in her cherubic face to prove him wrong. Fanny smiled, listening to Caren try to argue with her six-year-old brother and watching four-year-old Hannah's eyes dart back and forth from one sibling to the other.
Finally on the fourth night, Fanny decided to write a letter to Elijah. Sitting at the table, her head bent, Fanny wrote about reuniting with her family and her alarm at prospects of any future for her siblings, especially Susan. It was the closest she could come to saying how much she missed Mount Hope.
Not wanting to belabor the terrible situation that her parents were in, she added her thoughts on how different the climate was from Mount Hope. The air seemed thinner and the valley in-between the mountains looked desolate. She paused and turned to look out the large window near the wood-burning stove. The sun was already setting behind the mountain range, a tinge of orange-red color outlining the mountain. By day the mountain was covered in snow, but during the sunset it looked as if it were on fire.
“Wha’ ya writin’, Fanny?”
Fanny didn’t even lift her head. “It’s you, not ya, Ruth, and I’m writing a letter to . . . ” She paused. She had almost said the word home. But Mount Hope was no longer her home, was it? Timothy had made that clear. In the eight years that she had lived with the Bontragers, she had given them not one reason to complain about her behavior or work ethic. Yet the first moment she stood her ground, and about something as important as marriage, Timothy had quickly banished her from Ohio, a cruel reminder that she was not truly a part of their family and their house was never going to be her home. “ . . . friends,” she finally said.
The next morning, she walked to the mailbox and slid the envelope inside of it. She lifted her face to the sun, her back to the mountain range, and shut her eyes. Breathing in the crisp November air, Fanny wondered how she could possibly stay in Colorado. The cramped house offered no warmth, spiritually or emotionally. While she enjoyed the children, she felt no familial bond with them.
Susan, however, was different. With her natural intelligence, Susan had potential to escape a life of poverty. But not while living with her parents. She had too little education and even less social interaction. At best she might marry a man she hardly knew, but Fanny couldn’t imagine much happiness in that type of arrangement.
“I’ll be going into town today,” her mother said when Fanny returned to the house. “You might as well ride along and let Susan watch the little ones.”
It was the closest thing to a friendly effort on her mother’s part since she had arrived!
Fanny saw the look of desperation on Susan’s face. While Fanny wanted nothing more than to see the town, not to mention other people, she knew that such opportunities probably came infrequently to her sister.
“I can watch them, if Susan wants to ride with you,” Fanny offered, sending a soft smile in Susan’s direction. Her sister lit up, her eyes glowing in anticipation.
“If that’s the way you want it,” was the only reply their mother gave.
When her mother and Susan left in the buggy, Fanny sent Joseph out to muck the barn and took the opportunity to clean the kitchen, scrubbing months, if not years, of grime from the floorboards. Ruth and Caren helped her by drying the floor when she was finished with each section. By the time that she finished and moved onto the cabinets, almost two hours had p
assed and she knew that she needed to start cooking the evening meal.
“Oh help! I wonder what Maem wanted to make for supper,” she asked as she dried her hands on a towel.
“Potatoes, carrots, and meat,” Ruth offered.
“We had that last night.”
Caren tossed a damp towel into the sink. “We have that every night.”
Fanny frowned. “That can’t be true.” But it was true, at least during the past week that she had been there with her family. Some nights there were different variations of it such as stew instead of dried-out ham with no gravy. “Where does Maem keep the canned goods?”
Ruth took her outside to a small storage room in the barn, where glass jars of pickled and canned foods filled the rough-hewn shelves. On the floor were baskets heaped with potatoes and onions as well as a crate filled with carrots. Fanny picked through them and realized that there was not enough food for the family to survive the winter. Something needed to be done to help her siblings get better nutrition.
“Mayhaps we can ask Maem if we can make some pasta tomorrow, ja?” Fanny suggested as she selected potatoes to cook for dinner. She grabbed an onion and several carrots as well, wishing that there was a greater variety of food.
As she headed back to the house, she noticed a vehicle in the driveway. A man approached them. She looked at her sister Ruth, who shrugged.
“You got a Fanny Price here?” the man said when he drew near.
“I’m Fanny Price,” she said.
The man pursed his lips and stared at her. “Never seen you before,” he said. “You visiting?”
She nodded.
“Someone should’ve told me,” he mumbled. “You got some mail. Almost didn’t deliver it today, since no one else on the route this way had mail. But I made the trip anyway.” He thrust two envelopes toward her, and without waiting for her to thank him, he turned and hurried back to his truck.
Fanny stared after him, watching as he turned around his truck and practically flew down the driveway.