by Marta Perry
“My dat died, too, when I was young. I don’t remember much about him, just him laughing and me jumping out of the hayloft into his arms.” He hesitated. “Mam never talked about him much.”
“Did your mother remarry? My aunts are urging Mam to, but I don’t think she’s ready.”
“My stepfather, Joseph, is my father’s second cousin. He married my mother when I was four, but I never thought of him as a father, just Joseph. He already had his own sons. He never liked Free and me much, and he was strict.”
Ruth reached down to pluck a wild daisy from an open space beside the path. She brushed the flower petals over her lips and asked, “Is your mother happy with him? Is he a good man?”
“Joseph is a hard worker. He provides for her.” He shrugged. “I never asked Mam if she was happy. In my family, you don’t talk about private things.”
She nodded. “My dat was different than a lot of men I know. He laughed when he was happy, shouted when he was mad and wasn’t ashamed to shed a tear when our old collie died. He used to talk to us about everything.”
“He must have been a special man. I wish I could have known him,” Eli said. Uncle Roman was the closest he’d ever had to a father figure, and because of the distance, he hadn’t seen too much of him until he’d been invited to live with them and work at the shop. “I think my uncle Roman is a little like that,” he admitted. “It seems like he’s a man who talks.”
“Ya, we all love Roman.” She smiled at him with her eyes. “Roman says you’re talented with your hands. Your stepfather must have taught you woodworking—”
“Ne. My grandfather taught me his trade. I was apprenticed to him after my brother died. Mam had a new baby and I went to live with my grandparents. It was better for Mam that way.” He paused for a second. “Enough talk about me.” Eli’s mood changed swiftly. Their conversation was becoming too intimate, and he wasn’t comfortable. He forced a grin. “Why doesn’t a girl your age have a steady beau?”
“That’s a rude question.”
“I just wondered. I mean, you’re pretty, smart, and I hear you aren’t afraid to make a sharp deal with the English tourists at Spence’s.”
“Miriam talks too much.”
He laughed. “She does talk a lot.” Not three days ago, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t have anything more to do with Ruth Yoder. And here he was, walking her home with an armload of schoolbooks like some grass-green boy too baby-faced to shave. And saying things he’d never said to another girl.
What had made him tell Ruth about Free? He should have gotten over Free’s death a long time ago. Hadn’t his grandfather insisted he had gone to a better place, and only a selfish boy would want him back? But that was hard to accept then and still was now. Somehow, he felt he would never get over losing his brother, and that everything had started to go wrong, not when Dat had walked out, but the night Free had gone out joy-riding and never come back.
When they reached the stile at the fence line, Eli dared Ruth to jump and offered to catch her. He didn’t mean any harm, but he would have liked to have circled her small waist with his hands and to get close enough to smell the sweet shampoo she used on her hair.
But Ruth was having none of it. She scrambled down the steps and hurried on ahead of him. As they crossed the fence, the closeness between them seemed to evaporate. Now she was just an attractive girl, and he was just a stranger with a bad reputation.
“Oh, no!” Ruth cried. “The cows are out.”
Eli looked in the direction she was pointing. A heifer was trotting down the rows of ankle-high corn, snatching mouthfuls of newly sprouted field corn and munching for all she was worth. Ruth snatched off her apron and, waving it, ran toward the wayward animal.
“Shoo! Bossy! Get back!”
Eli placed the stack of books on a dry tuft of grass and dashed after her. Another cow, a black and white one wearing a bell around her neck, was just loping into the cornfield. And behind her, on a plow horse, came Ruth’s sister Miriam, riding astride, skirts up around her knees and Kapp flying off her head. A Shetland sheepdog ran after them barking.
Since Ruth seemed to have the heifer on the run, Eli turned to cut off another cow. Yet another cow, followed by a calf, appeared on the far side of the field. Eli waved to Miriam and pointed. “I’ll get this one!” he shouted. Miriam dug her bare heels into the horse’s sides and lumbered after the runaway mother and baby through the corn.
The three of them had rounded up the escapees and were just driving the four animals into the barnyard when Samuel Mast’s buggy came up the lane.
“Oh, no,” Ruth groaned. She dropped the broken cornstalk she’d been using as a switch and hastily tied on her apron and tucked the worst of the loose strands of flyaway hair under her Kapp. “It’s Samuel and my mother. We’re in trouble now.”
Miriam slid down off the horse and shook her lavender skirt over her ankles. “You’d better get away while you can,” she whispered to Eli.
Eli glanced from one sister to the other. “Me? What did I do? You were the one on the horse.” He pointed to Miriam, then hooked a thumb in Ruth’s direction. “And Ruth just helped to catch—”
Miriam wrinkled her nose and tsk-tsked. “I’m telling you, you should go. Hannah Yoder doesn’t lose her temper often, but when she does, no one is spared.”
Hannah was climbing unaided out of the buggy. She looked at the cows, then back at the three of them, took a book from Samuel and started toward them. Samuel frowned, clicked to his mare and sent her trotting back down the lane in less time than it took Ruth to close the pound gate.
“What is this?” Hannah demanded.
“The cows were in the corn,” Eli began. “We were just—”
“Thank you for your help. Come again another day, Eli Lapp,” she said, her tone clipped. “I wish to speak to my daughters about their behavior. And it is best if you leave us in private.”
He hesitated. “I left your books back in the field. I’ll just—”
“Ruth will fetch the books.” Hannah’s eyes flashed. “You will come for dinner on Sunday. It is not a church Sunday, and I’ve already invited your uncle Roman and aunt Fannie. Now, you can help best by leaving us.”
Eli felt his face flush. “They did nothing wrong.”
“It is not your place to decide,” Hannah retorted. “Your uncle was looking for you. Best you hurry back to the school. Now.”
Eli looked at Ruth, excited at the thought of having Sunday dinner with her, feeling guilty about abandoning her, but Hannah was obviously giving him no choice in either matter. “Sunday, then,” he said. “I’ll be here Sunday for dinner.” Abruptly, he turned on his heel and strode back toward the cornfield and the path that led to the school. Ruth’s mother might have the reputation of being a pleasant woman, but now…
Now, he wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of whatever she would have to say to her daughters.
“Mam,” Ruth started, as soon as Eli was out of earshot. “It’s not Miriam’s fault. She was alone here when the cows got loose.”
“Not exactly alone,” Miriam admitted. “Anna and Susanna are in the house, and Irwin was here.”
“Irwin?” Mam demanded. “Irwin? What was he doing here?”
“He came to talk to you. He thought you’d be home from school. He was helping me move the cows from the little pasture into the pound next to the barn, and…” She left her sentence unfinished.
“Where’s the boy now?” Mam rested both hands on her hips.
“I told him to go home,” Miriam answered.
“Mam, it was an accident that they got out,” Ruth said quickly. “She just thought she could get them in quick if she took the horse.”
“To have Samuel and that boy see my daughter riding astride a horse, bareback, no shoes, no stockings, like some…some English jockey?”
Mam didn’t get loud when she was angry, but her words cut like briars.
“I’m sorry, Mam,” Miriam said. “I won’t do it agai
n.”
“Is this the first time you’ve ridden the horses?” Miriam sighed.
“Or the second?”
“Ne.”
Ruth reached for her sister’s hand. “Mam…don’t be angry.”
“You be quiet,” Mam said. “I’m not speaking to you. I’m speaking to your sister.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Isn’t it bad enough that I had to listen to your aunt Martha chastise me in front of everyone at the quilting because you rode on Eli Lapp’s motorcycle?”
“Mam, that’s not fair,” Miriam protested. “It was just a ride and an ice-cream cone. And he bought one for Susanna, too. He’s nice, Mam. He didn’t mean any harm.”
“I’m at my wits’ end with you, Miriam. You are not a boy. You are a girl, a Plain girl.”
Miriam burst into tears and ran toward the house.
“Miriam,” Ruth called after her.
“You’re almost as much to blame as she is,” Mam said, turning on Ruth. “When you saw her on that horse, you should have told her to get down, not encouraged her.”
“I’m sorry, Mam.” Ruth met her mother’s gaze. “You’re right. I should have told her to get down the minute I saw her.”
Mam sighed, her face softening. “It’s only that I want my girls to be good women. Good Plain women.”
“I think we are, most of the time,” Ruth dared.
To Ruth’s surprise Mam smiled faintly. “I think you are, too. Now, come.” She headed toward the house. “There are chores to be done and Miriam’s dander to be smoothed.”
Ruth nodded. She could understand Mam’s concern for Miriam’s behavior, but she knew her sister, too. Miriam didn’t mean to break the rules about riding horses, showing her legs and losing her Kapp. She was just high-spirited. Inside, where it mattered most, Miriam’s soul was pure and truly Plain.
Hurrying to catch up with Mam, Ruth took hold of her hand. “Please don’t be upset with yourself. You were right and we were wrong. You’re the best mother in the world,” she said and meant every word. “Dat would be so proud of you.”
“I hope so,” Mam replied. “I worry about raising you girls…if I’m doing right.”
“You are,” Ruth assured her, but a small shiver of unease made goose bumps raise on her arms. Mam was the wisest woman she knew. If Mam didn’t always know the best thing to do, how could she ever hope to make the right choices?
Chapter Six
“I’m not going,” Ruth said. “Anna and Miriam and Susanna can go without me.” She turned the handle on the butter churn as hard as she could. Already specks of yellow were showing in the thick, rich cream.
“Are your arms tired? I’ll help,” Anna offered. It was a rainy afternoon, and they were all gathered in the kitchen. Anna was pressing the wrinkles out of her starched Kapp as Susanna eagerly slathered generous gobs of marshmallow filling on her still-warm chocolate cookies and pressed them together, forming fat whoopie pies. Miriam’s sleeves were rolled up as she scoured the stovetop vigorously, while their mother sat at the table shelling peas.
“You should all go,” Mam advised. “Young people should be together and have fun.”
Ruth turned the crank harder. The butter was forming into chunks now. If there was one thing she could do, it was make beautiful, sweet butter. She loved the process, feeling the soft, squishy butter in her hands, adding just the right amount of salt and waiting to see if the blocks came out of Mam’s wheat-patterned mold in perfect shapes. Not everyone could make good butter. It was the only chore in the kitchen where she could outdo Anna, and she took secret satisfaction in her gift. “I’m getting too old for singings,” she said, giving the handle another turn. “It’s for the younger girls and boys.”
“Nonsense,” Mam declared. “Samuel told me that tonight there will be wagons to take you to the homes where there are shut-ins. Your hymns will give them so much pleasure, and you know that God has given you a rare voice.”
Ruth unscrewed the lid on the churn and dumped the ball of butter into a clean cloth. “Making butter is messy,” she said, trying to change the subject. She did love to sing. Secretly, she wanted to go with the young people, but she was afraid. What if Eli was there? What would she say to him? What would he say to her? She sighed. She was probably making something out of nothing. If Eli was there, he probably wouldn’t even notice her with all the other girls there.
“Like life,” Mam said.
“What?” Ruth asked.
Mam motioned with her chin. “You said making butter is messy, and I said, ‘It’s like life.’” She chuckled. “But when everything goes right, you are left with a treasure.”
“I wasn’t even sure you would let us go to the singing,” Ruth said.
“Aren’t you afraid we’ll do something scandalous again?” Miriam chimed in.
Their mother fixed the two of them with a cool gaze. “I was upset,” Mam admitted. “And let my temper get the best of me. I know you are both good girls. It’s just that you have a reckless nature, Miriam.” Her stern look melted to a smile. “You’re too much like me, I fear.”
“Like you?” Susanna licked a sticky finger. “You would never ride a horse like a boy and show your legs.”
Mam tossed a pea shell at her. “Not only would,” she admitted. “Did.”
“Mam!” Anna said in astonishment.
Ruth’s eyes widened in surprise. “You didn’t! Did you?” It was hard to imagine her mother breaking the rules.
“Not even Mennonite girls were allowed to enter the horse race for the Amish boys at the Harrington fair when I was young.” Mischief sparked in Mam’s eyes. “So I borrowed my cousin’s clothing, pinned my braids up under his straw hat, and used his name to enter the race.”
“You rode in a boys’ race?” Susanna demanded. “Ne!”
“I tried. I got as far as the first turn on the track before my hat blew off and my hair tumbled down. Everyone laughed.”
“But you won the race, didn’t you, Mam?” Ruth said. She was laughing now with the others.
“Tell us,” Miriam urged. “You did.”
Mam grimaced. “I did not. The boys were so surprised that half of them reined in their horses, and two of the riders crashed into each other. My pony reared up, and I fell off, right in front of the grandstand.” She shook her head. “It was years before people stopped teasing me about it.”
Susanna’s eyes widened in excitement. “Were you in trouble?”
“Big trouble.” Mam covered her face with her hands, remembering. She dropped them. “You see, at the time, I was thinking about what I wanted to do instead of what was best for my family or our community. People blamed my parents because I broke the rules.”
“It was a bad rule,” Miriam said. “Girls should be able to ride in races.”
“Maybe,” Mam agreed, “but rules are made for a reason. If they are unfair, people should work together to change them. But no one, least of all a silly thirteen-year-old girl, should decide what rules she will follow and what she will ignore. Because I broke the rule, riders or their mounts could have been badly hurt.”
“I understand,” Ruth said. Then she giggled. “But I would have liked to have seen you dressed up like a boy.”
“It probably wasn’t as good a disguise as I thought,” their mother admitted.
“So Miriam takes after you,” Ruth said thoughtfully as she began to squeeze the liquid out of the yellow butter. “And look how well you turned out.”
Her mother shook her head. “I work hard every day to be the type of woman I believe God and my community expect. We all have parts of our nature that need constant care, lest, like an unweeded garden, the unpleasant things spring up and choke out the good.”
Susanna stuck the last pair of cakes together. “Weeds, Mam? How could you grow weeds?”
“I could,” Mam teased. “Right out of my hair, so that I couldn’t get my Kapp on.”
Susanna laughed and they all laughed with her. Then she glanced at Ru
th. “I want to ride in the wagon and sing songs. Will you come, Roofie? Please.”
Ruth pressed the new butter tightly into the mold. “We’ll see,” she said. “We’ll see.” But she knew she would. She knew that she couldn’t bear to stay away and miss the evening of fun…and just maybe the chance to see Eli again.
* * *
Eli unbuttoned the top button on his good shirt because he felt like his collar was choking him and drained the last of the root beer in his paper cup. Lots of young people from three churches had arrived at the Borntragers’ barn for the singing, and the straw wagons were already filling up with chattering girls in starched Kapps and aprons. The boys and young men hung back, some playing a loud game of dodgeball, but most just watching to see which girls would climb into which wagon. Every boy wanted to choose his wagon wisely, depending on which girl he was sweet on, and no one wanted to appear too eager to climb on amid all those blue, purple and green dresses.
Eli hadn’t wanted to come. What if Ruth Yoder was here? He’d made up his mind that being around her was a mistake. He kept telling himself that the only reason he felt such a strong attraction to her was that he was a long way from home and all his friends. He might have a bad reputation in Belleville, but at least everyone knew him. There, he felt a part of the community. Here, he just stood out.
Maybe he should do what everyone had expected when he left home, leave and turn Mennonite or even English. He had a trade. He could get work, get a driver’s license and buy a car. Other boys and even a few girls he knew had done it. Then he wouldn’t have to live by the strict rules of being Amish. He could do anything he wanted.
So why was he here? He’d promised himself when he left his grandfather’s house that he would choose his own path. He’d spent half his life in a household where religion dictated every hour of the day. He’d never been whipped, never gone without food or a clean bed, but his grandparents had seen him as a way to make up for his father’s mistakes. They were determined that he would live a moral life, that he not leave the church. Sadly, their attitude had done more to turn him against the Amish lifestyle than they could ever imagine. In their quest to save him, his grandparents had dedicated their lives to raising him in a somber house without laughter, where charity was freely given to others, but withheld from their own grandson.