The Amish Bride

by Mindy Starns Clark

  Still, Christy was as sharp as a tack, not to mention pretty and feisty too. With her bright and lively brown eyes and beautiful strawberry blond hair, Will was going to have his hands full a few years from now.

  The back door opened and I spun around. Uncle Alexander came through first, followed by Ben. Then Will appeared, his eyes finding Ada’s immediately. I knew he’d been happy with his first wife, Lydia, but he seemed absolutely enchanted with Ada. Sure, they had only been married a few months, but I’d never seen a couple so enamored—except maybe Lexie and James. My cousins were both lucky when it came to love.

  Ezra popped through the door after Will.

  I turned back toward the table and picked up the next glass, filling it slowly, trying not to look flustered.

  Christy was directly across the table from me, placing a napkin under a fork.

  “How’s your new cousin?” I asked.

  “He cries all the time,” she said. “Alice Elizabeth was such a good baby, but he’s a little pain in the neck.”

  “Christy,” I scolded, chuckling. “You might end up with one of those at your house, you know.”

  She rolled her eyes. Then her expression changed as she smirked at someone over my shoulder. Ezra was behind me. I knew without her little antics. I could feel his presence.

  “Hi, Ezra,” I said without turning around.

  “Fancy seeing you here.” He stepped to my side.

  Christy put the last napkin down and then made a funny face at her uncle. “I thought you were hanging out with Ruth today.”

  “Ruth?” The word slipped from my mouth before I could stop it.

  “You know, Sally’s little sister from Ohio.” Christy was clearly enjoying herself. “The one who’s just crazy about Ezra. The one who went to the singing last night, just because he would be there. She’s back again because Aunt Sally is—”

  “Christy, that’s enough.” It was Ada, stepping toward the kitchen. “Please go tell the little girls to wash up.”

  “I need to as well.” Ezra held out his dirty hands, giving a valid reason for his escape.

  I filled the last of the glasses. So Ezra’s sister-in-law Sally was pregnant again. I wasn’t surprised Ruth had come to help out. She’d come the last time Sally was pregnant too—and stayed for at least six months that time, during which she’d made no secret of the fact that she had a major crush on Ezra. Maybe there was one advantage of him being sent away to learn the dairy trade now. He wouldn’t be anywhere near Ruth, who, it seemed, was planning to stick around Lancaster for a good long stretch to come.

  I refilled the water pitcher, put it on the table, and noticed that both Nancy and Mom were standing idle, which meant Aunt Klara had fewer jobs than people. I decided I was no longer needed in the kitchen and went in search of Ezra. Moving into the living room, I saw Alice at the card table helping Mat with a puzzle and, across the room, Mammi sitting by herself on the couch. As soon as Mammi spotted me, she waved me over, and I could tell by the conspiratorial glint in her eye that she wanted to seize the opportunity to speak privately about Sarah’s journal and my attempts at code breaking.

  Though I would have preferred to share a few quiet minutes with Ezra before the meal instead, I didn’t really mind talking with Mammi.

  After all, I had some questions for her too.

  “Well?” she whispered eagerly as I settled onto the couch beside her. “Have you made any progress with the code and the symbols?”

  “No. I’ve been trying really hard, but so far I haven’t figured out either one.”

  I knew she would be disappointed to hear that, but I wasn’t prepared for the absolute devastation that came over her features.

  “Hey, don’t give up hope yet,” I said, sounding more optimistic than I felt.

  She squeezed my hand, sighing heavily. “Oh, Ella. Thank you for trying at least.”

  She looked so sad that I wished I could cheer her up somehow. “Even without knowing the code, the book is awesome. I love it. The recipes are great. And Sarah’s artwork is amazing.”

  Mammi smiled in spite of herself. “She definitely had a gift. I remember sitting out in the garden with her and watching her sketch the chickens.” She shifted toward me and lowered her voice even more. “I don’t know why anyone would draw those crazy birds.”

  “Did she ever draw people?”

  Mammi shook her head. “I don’t think so. That would have been in violation of their Ordnung, I feel sure.”

  “That’s too bad.” Lowering my own voice, I added, “I don’t know if you ever noticed, but there’s something really strange about the eyes on those chickens. They look more like human eyes. If she’d drawn pictures of the people she knew, I could compare the eyes in those pictures with the eyes on the hen and maybe figure out who it represents.”

  “I never noticed before, but now that I think about it, you’re right.” Mammi turned to look at me, her face considerably brighter than before. “You see? I knew you were the right person for this job. You’ll figure it out one way or another, won’t you?”

  I nodded and smiled, though I was again discomfited at hearing a compliment from one of my own family members.

  “I’m pretty determined to crack that code. Though in the end, you may be right, Mammi. It might take a trip out to the Home Place to do it.”

  I was glad no one else was looking my way right then, or they would have wondered why my cheeks were flushed and my eyes downcast. I felt so guilty! Was I really going to do this? Was I really going to take advantage of an old woman desperate to learn some truth about her mother and use that to get closer to my boyfriend? I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, reminding myself that I also wanted to break the code. I really would love to see the Home Place for myself now that I’d read so much about it in Sarah’s journal.

  Besides, for my big plan to work at all, several really important elements would need to fall into place first.

  That job would have to be located within a reasonable distance of the Home Place.

  Mammi would have to help me get permission from the current owners to come visit the Home Place.

  I would have to figure out how to get there and where I would stay once I did.

  My family would have to get over the realization that Ezra and I would be together again, despite their best efforts to keep us apart.

  That was a lot of contingencies for somewhere I knew next to nothing about. Settling into the couch more comfortably, I decided to back up a few steps and do some information gathering before I got too carried away. In lieu of pen and paper, I pulled out my cell phone and opened a text to send to myself. Then I asked Mammi what I needed to know to get the ball rolling, just in case—the address of the Home Place, the name of the people who lived there, stuff like that, ready to type what she told me into the text.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t have many specifics herself. She said the Home Place was located outside Nappanee, Indiana, which was apparently near the Michigan border. The best she could give me for an address was “Willow Lane,” though she had no house number.

  As for who lived there now, she said the last she heard it was owned by her niece, Rosalee Neff, though the woman had been widowed at a young age and had probably remarried since then, in which case her last name wouldn’t be Neff anymore.

  Frustrated, I pressed send and was about to give up completely when Mammi volunteered the single most important piece of information she’d given me yet.

  “Of course, I feel sure the dairy farm next door to the Home Place is still owned by Neffs,” she said absently. “If Rosalee’s name has changed and we can’t find her in the phone book, we could contact them and see if they can connect us to her.”

  I gasped and then covered it with a fake cough.

  “So there’s a dairy farm right next door to the Home Place?” I asked, hoping I sounded at least somewhat nonchalant.

  “Of course, dear. My dairy farm. I sold it after Malachi died and I dec
ided the girls and I would move to Lancaster County to live with my brother.”

  Sitting up, I turned toward her, my heart pounding. “I didn’t know the farm you owned with your husband was a dairy farm.”

  “Oh, yes. My, that was a hard life. Back then we milked by hand. Your mother never told you about that? She sure milked her share of cows growing up.”

  My mother hadn’t told me a single thing about Indiana. I shook my head as Aunt Klara stepped into the living room.

  “Time to eat,” she called out to everyone.

  Mammi started to struggle to her feet, but I wasn’t finished just yet. “It’ll take a few minutes for everyone to get settled at the table,” I told her softly, a hand on her arm to keep her there. “Just real quick, explain this to me again. You and your husband owned a dairy farm right next door to the Home Place, where you grew up?”

  She nodded, glancing toward the dining room. “Yes, well, ‘next door’ being relative, of course. As the crow flies, the houses weren’t too far apart, I suppose, but these were big farms, bigger than what we have here in Lancaster County. To drive a buggy from my house to my mother’s, we had to go way around a big loop on the road, nearly a mile, if not more. Most of the time, we just walked over so we could use the shortcut instead. But even that was probably a quarter of a mile.”

  Next door. Short cut. Dairy farm. I could hardly breathe, I was so excited.

  “And the people who own that dairy farm now,” I said. “Do you know them?”

  “If they are still the same owners, I do. I sold it to the Neffs, a nice family in our church. Last I heard, their daughter Cora and her husband were running the place.”

  It was hard to keep everything straight. “Okay, and how are they related to us?”

  “They’re not.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, listening to the shuffle of chairs being pulled out around the table. “But you said they were Neffs, like your niece Rosalee, who is also a Neff.”

  “Oh, right, I see what you’re asking. Well, we are related by marriage, I suppose. Rosalee is a Neff because she was married to Cora’s uncle. Now that I think about it, though, Cora’s maiden name was Neff but now she’s a Kline. So actually, it’s the Klines you would contact if you want to track down Rosalee.”

  Mammi looked toward the dining room and again tried to stand. This time, I had no choice but to stand as well and take her arm, gently helping her up.

  “So, Kline is the name of the people who own the dairy farm?” I whispered urgently. “What’s the husband’s first name? Do you know?”

  Steady on her feet at last, Mammi took a moment to brush her hands across the wrinkles of her skirt.

  “Darryl. Cora married Darryl Kline. He was a fine fellow, maybe twenty when we left. I used to think he’d make a good husband for one of my girls. But that was not God’s will for their lives. And I’m sure he and Cora have been very happy.”

  She began walking to the dining room, which had grown nearly still. As we rounded the corner, we got a glare from Aunt Klara, who was seated at one end of the table.

  “Hurry up, you two,” she chided. “The food’s getting cold.”

  “Like a pair of whispering hens in there,” Alice teased with a wink.

  I was blushing furiously, trying to think of some explanation when Mammi simply grinned and said, “‘The last shall be first, and the first last.’ That means Ella and I have dibs on the biscuits.”

  Everyone chuckled as we took the two remaining seats, both on the same side of the table. Mammi was on the end, next to Mom, who was next to Zed. I was in the middle between him and Christy. Nancy and Ben rounded out our side. On the other side sat Will, Mat, Ada, Alice, Ezra, Mel, and Izzy. The twins did better at mealtimes when separated from each other and seated between attentive adults.

  Uncle Alexander and Aunt Klara were at the head and foot of the table, and as I looked around at the group gathered there, I suddenly found myself getting kind of choked up. Except for Izzy, whom I didn’t really know, I realized almost all of the people I loved most in this world were around this table. If only Lexie and James were here too, my joy would be complete. I put my hands to my face, willing my tears to stop.

  Zed poked me with his elbow. “What’s with you?”

  “I have a speck in my eye.” I pretended to be fishing for one with my index finger.

  Uncle Alexander asked us all to bow our heads, and we prayed silently. I wanted to ask God for a favor—that Ezra would love me, that he would marry me, that I could handle joining the Amish church—but it didn’t feel right, and I couldn’t pull a coherent prayer together. Instead, I silently recited, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be—. I stopped. Was I truly willing for God’s will to be done? If His will matched mine, of course…but what if it didn’t?

  Uncle Alexander stirred, and one by one heads were raised, including mine.

  Thy will.

  I looked around the table. Mammi’s life hadn’t turned out the way she expected it would. Neither had Mom’s, nor Aunt Klara’s, nor Will’s. Ada was off to a good start, but she was still young. Who knew what lay ahead for her? Just the thought of it made me shiver.

  I took the bowl of mashed potatoes that appeared in front of my face. Next came the chicken, salad, applesauce, steamed chard, and homemade biscuits, distracting me from my thoughts. Aunt Klara was an exceptional cook. She’d sprinkled dried rosemary from her summer herb garden over her roasted chickens, which made them more than perfect. The birds were fresh, from her own coop, moist and flavorful. The potatoes were beat to perfection, and the chard was probably from her garden, frozen last summer to be used through the winter. The biscuits were freshly baked. In fact, they were still warm. I savored each bite. I couldn’t wait to see what was for dessert.

  With my plate fully loaded, I had taken just a few bites when Mat knocked over her glass of water.

  “Uh-oh,” she said, in her cute, going-on-four voice. Ada sprang to her feet and rushed to grab a towel as Will scooped up the little girl before the liquid cascaded over the edge onto her lap. Ada was back with the towel, sopping up the water on the table and then the floor. In record time they had everything cleaned up. It was obvious they had done this before.

  “What about your table cloth?” Ada turned toward Aunt Klara.

  “It’s just water. It’ll be fine until we’re done eating.” She smiled at Mat, whose glass was half empty now. No one offered to pour her any more, and as an afterthought, Izzy grabbed Mel’s glass, carried it to the sink, and poured some of hers out too. Watching as she brought it back to the table and set it down in front of the child, I was embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of potential spills when I’d dispensed the water so fully earlier.

  “Ella was asking about the Home Place,” Mammi said out of the blue, turning toward Ada. “It’s in Elkhart County, but now I have to wonder how my mother’s people ended up there. Didn’t you tell me that they settled in Adams County when they came to Indiana?”

  I held my breath, hoping this conversation didn’t take any bad turns. While I was interested in getting more information, I certainly didn’t want her to bring up anything about my going out there. That would have to be kept under wraps until after I found out if a dairy job at the Kline farm could be arranged for Ezra.

  “They weren’t in Adams County long. That was just the first stop when they emigrated to Indiana,” Ada said. Ever since her trip to Switzerland, she had become our ad hoc historian. Her friend and tour guide, Daniel, had done a lot of research about our families and had encyclopedic knowledge of our ancestors, much of which he’d imparted to her.

  “From what I understand,” she continued, looking toward Mammi, “your parents learned that land was cheaper a little farther north and west, near the Michigan border, so they ended up there with the financial help of their sponsors. They wanted to farm wheat and needed a good-sized piece of land to make a go of it.”

  Mam
mi nodded, her eyes sparkling with memories. “They started with wheat, but through the years that changed to corn and soy. Of course, when I was growing up, we had the usual livestock too. Chickens and a few head of beef. Some pigs. A nice garden, of course.”

  “So the farm where you grew up was real big, Mammi?” Christy asked. She’d been part of the group who went to Switzerland with Ada, and I’d noticed that she also had taken a genuine interest in our family’s history ever since.

  “One hundred and ten acres with a woods behind the house,” Mammi replied proudly. “We were a few miles northeast of Nappanee, not too far from the road to Goshen, so in the summer we would sell produce from a little shed just off the highway—and sometimes baked goods and flowers too. We’d drive our pony cart with all of our things in it and set up shop.”

  I glanced at Mammi, still worried she might say the wrong thing but gratified to see such a spark in her eyes. She didn’t glow like this when she talked about her life there as a wife and mother—not surprising, considering she’d had an unhappy marriage to a mean husband—but the memories of her childhood were clearly happy ones.

  “Did you have many brothers and sisters?” Izzy asked shyly before popping a forkful of chicken into her mouth.

  “No sisters,” Mammi replied. “I had one half brother and two full brothers, and I was the youngest.”

  One half brother. Just like me. I was tempted to poke Zed under the table, but the topic was still a little too raw.

  “I did everything I could to keep up with the older kids,” Mammi continued, shaking her head with a smile. “Not just my brothers, but also tons of cousins. My mother had eight siblings, so you can imagine how many cousins I had by the time I was born.”

  Izzy nodded, genuine interest on her face. “And they lived close by?”

  Mammi nodded. “The nearby Mennonite district was made up almost entirely of my aunts and uncles and cousins.”

  “Mennonite?” I glanced across the table at Ezra. “I thought they were Amish.”

  “No, my mother was the only one on her side of the family to change over to Amish. My grandparents and aunts and uncles all stayed Mennonite, as far as I know.”