Meek and Mild

by Newport, Olivia

  Clara wiped her hands on her apron. Rhoda would wonder whether she truly meant to bring the thread. Clara pivoted to amble down to the mercantile.

  At first she passed the hardware store. Then she idly turned. The store was Andrew’s favorite. She opened the door and there he was, talking with John Stutzman. Clara contained the grin welling up inside her as she shuffled down the aisle.

  And then she saw Yonnie with his dour features and set jaw. He stood with Andrew and John, only coming into Clara’s view when John shifted his weight to one side. If Clara wanted to see Andrew, she would have to see Yonnie as well. At least John was there with his broad smile and eyes that twinkled for no apparent reason.

  Andrew lifted his head and rotated his glance toward Clara. One corner of his mouth twitched in invitation, and she moved toward them.

  John dipped his head toward Clara. “Gut mariye, Clara. My wife will be wondering what happened to me, so please excuse my departure.”

  “Of course.” Clara gave John a small smile. “Please greet your family for me.”

  Yonnie seemed to have planted his feet. Clara met his eyes with sufficient manners before fixing her gaze on Andrew’s brown hair, with its ragged cut he insisted on giving himself, and the brown eyes that announced curiosity and pleasure as surely as if he spoke into a megaphone.

  If only marriage did not mean bearing children.

  Yonnie crossed his arms over his chest. If Andrew felt no shame for taking the abandoned car, then why should he mind if Clara Kuhn knew about it?

  “Andrew was just telling John about the Model T,” Yonnie said.

  “The Model T?” Clara said. “It certainly has become popular among the English.”

  “At least one English has lost interest,” Yonnie muttered.

  Clara creased her brow. “I’m afraid I’m not following your point, Yonnie.”

  Andrew put a thumb through one suspender. “He means the one I found.”

  Yonnie watched Clara’s eyebrows rise. It was one thing for John Stutzman to show no concern that Andrew had taken possession of a valuable English machine—though Yonnie thought he should have. Clara would be different. Her father was staunch in his convictions. He could have joined the Marylanders twenty years ago when the churches clustered around the border parted ways, but he chose the Old Order.

  “You found a car?” Clara said to Andrew.

  Andrew glanced around the store. He says he’s not ashamed, Yonnie thought, but he doesn’t want everyone to hear. Yonnie surveyed the store as well and saw no other Amish customers.

  With soft tones, Andrew described the events of Wednesday afternoon. Yonnie was less interested in what Andrew said than in what he saw on Clara’s face.

  No alarm.

  No shock.

  Her blue eyes widened, but not in fear. It was more akin to inquisitiveness.

  “Clara, what would your father think of Andrew’s decision?” Yonnie asked.

  She shrugged. “My father is not Andrew’s conscience.”

  “What about you? What do you think?”

  Clara smiled. “I’d like to see the automobile.”

  Was it a sin to hope that Mose Beachy would be the minister selected to give the main sermon? Or to pray that this would be God’s will?

  Though she wouldn’t speak it aloud, that was what Clara wondered during the final hymn before the sermons. In a moment, the bishop and three ministers who served the congregation would return from their private meeting and prayer, and one of them would begin to preach a short sermon. After another hymn, a second minister would bring the main sermon. Why could it not be Mose Beachy? Mose was a gentle, thoughtful man in conversation and in preaching.

  But when the four men entered at the front of the meetinghouse, Clara could tell from Bishop Yoder’s posture that the lot had fallen to him. Clara did not know much about lots and statistics, but it seemed to her that Bishop Yoder gave sermons more often than any of the others. She had been hearing them her entire life. He’d always been firm, but in the last couple of years, he had turned virulent. He wasn’t ancient, but he was near seventy, so few men in the church exceeded his age. Lately, Clara observed, Bishop Yoder moved more slowly, as if his joints had stiffened and refused cooperation. His sons deferentially stood aside and held doors open with patience. Yet when Bishop Yoder stood to preach, his frailties seemed to leave him.

  Bishop Yoder remained standing beside the preaching table, while his two sons, Joseph and Noah, took seats on either side of Mose Beachy on the ministers’ bench facing the congregation. One of them would give a second sermon. Clara clung to the hope that she might yet hear Mose’s words of wisdom today.

  Clara settled in with her youngest sister on her lap. Mari had fallen asleep during the final hymn, and Clara doubted she would wake before the service ended. Beside them was Hannah and then Rhoda. Clara glanced across the aisle to the men’s side, where Josiah recently had been permitted to sit with his father rather than among the women. He took the privilege seriously and sat somberly with his hands crossed in his lap and every muscle in his face under control. Clara nearly smiled in pride but caught herself just in time. Of all places, the worship service was the wrong place for pride.

  In the row behind Hiram and Josiah, Andrew sat beside Yonnie with the unmarried men. Clara wished she could know what Andrew was thinking, but like all the worshippers, he wiped expression from his face. It pained Clara to think that even if she married Andrew, she could not sit beside him during church and feel him near.

  Clara shook off all the trivial hopes and wishes that coursed through her. None of them mattered. She was here to worship and learn, though she did not have to wait for the bishop to announce his Scripture text to know what he would preach about.

  Self-discipline. This seemed to be the only theme God had laid on the bishop’s heart for the last two years.

  Bishop Yoder began to preach.

  Clara succeeded at remaining still and attentive, but under its outward form, her body ached to rise and pace across the back of the meetinghouse. Ironically, if she had a colicky baby on her hip instead of a sleeping sister in her lap, she could have done so.

  She glanced at Andrew again.

  At the sound of the benediction, Andrew’s first thought was Clara. As she left the meetinghouse, she glanced over her shoulder at him and met his eyes. Outside, he meandered toward where she strolled without particular aim, making sure to greet several people along the way. Clara was doing the same, but Andrew knew she was waiting for their paths of greeting to cross just as he was.

  “Gut mariye,” he said when he reached her and they stood safely away from other members of the congregation—but not so far as to provoke speculation.

  “Gut mariye,” Clara answered. “The same as always, was it not?”

  They had spoken of Bishop Yoder’s sermons before.

  “Please don’t let him upset you,” Andrew said.

  “He is working up to something,” Clara said. “I believe he can find the theme of discipline in any part of the Bible.”

  “He preaches what God puts on his heart.”

  “Does he? Does the Holy Ghost use such judgment?”

  “Will you be at the Singing tonight?” Andrew would hear Clara out later, when they were alone, and then their conversation could move on to more personal matters.

  Clara nodded. “You’d better go help with the benches.”

  Andrew’s gaze held her eyes for a few more seconds before he turned away to his duties. A few men had already begun transforming benches into tables, and Andrew grabbed the free end of a bench and entered the process.

  Beside him a conversation was under way, and it had nothing to do with benches and tables.

  “He’s doing it again,” one man said.

  “He never stopped,” another responded.

  “Almost thirty years of this, ever since he signed that letter in 1887.”

  “That’s history.”

  “Is it? Bish
op Yoder has never found peace with the decision to let the Maryland churches go their own way. That’s why he preaches as he does.”

  With the approach of footsteps, the two men cut off their conversation and carried a bench out of the way. Someone took the other end of Andrew’s bench and they moved it over several yards, where it would provide seating on one side of a table. Andrew’s partner dropped his end of the bench with a careless thud.

  “Are you all right?” Andrew walked along the length of the bench to stand beside the man, someone about ten years older than Andrew whom he did not know well.

  The man looked around. Andrew followed his gaze across the room to Noah and Joseph Yoder.

  “His sons are the same way, you know,” the man said. “Mose Beachy is our only hope.”

  “Hope for what?” Andrew probed.

  They picked up another bench, but the man clamped his lips closed.

  “They are all following God the best way they know how,” Andrew said.

  “Then why does it feel so much like they want us to follow them?” The words, hardly more than a mutter, were the man’s last contribution to the conversation. He turned on one heel and found another task in another part of the room.

  Andrew straightened benches under tables, seeing in his mind instead of slats of wood the sleek green metal and brass of the Model T.

  “It’s 1905 all over again,” Barbara Stutzman said.

  Bishop Yoder had eaten and said his farewells, with Joseph and Noah at his elbows. Several other families had left as well. The women were clearing away the remaining food.

  Clara remembered 1905. Rhoda had lost her first baby only weeks before the truth came out at church. At home, Clara’s father cared much less about controversy swirling in the congregation than the fragile state of his young wife. Clara had not understood everything that happened at church or at home, but the silence of a child was expected in both places so she dared not ask questions. She muted her curiosity and kept a respectful distance from the grieving adults in her home.

  “We were duped in 1895 and again ten years later,” Barbara said. “It won’t turn out that way this time.”

  Clara liked Barbara Stutzman as much as she liked her husband, John. But never had she heard Barbara speak out with such certainty. Duped? Surely that was a strong word for the decisions the congregation made.

  Rhoda appeared beside Clara. “Are you riding home with us?”

  Clara glanced at the group of men sorting out the last of the benches, arranging them in neat rows in readiness for the next time the congregation would gather in the Flag Run Meetinghouse.

  “It’s a nice day,” Clara said. “Perhaps I’ll take a walk.”

  “That’s wise.” Rhoda looked from Clara to a tangle of unmarried people forming at the meetinghouse door.

  Hannah tugged on her mother’s sleeve. “I want to walk with Clara.”

  “You’ll ride with us.” Rhoda’s tone left no room for argument. Hannah knew better than to pout.

  Clara squelched the urge to say she would be glad to have Hannah with her. She and Rhoda both knew the girl would tire and begin to whine before all the miles were accomplished, but Clara also saw in Rhoda’s eyes the mandate to mingle with the young people who lingered. “Find someone to marry.” Clara heard Rhoda’s voice in her mind. “Start your own life.”

  “And you’ll go to the Singing tonight?” Rhoda said.

  Clara nodded.

  “Good. Then I’m sure you have a full Sabbath ahead of you.”

  Clara kissed the foreheads of both of her young half sisters and offered her stepmother a wan smile of assurance that she would not be underfoot in the Kuhn household today.

  After a long service and a leisurely shared meal, the evening Singing was only a few hours away. Someone would suggest a group walk along Flag Run Creek or a sports game to pass the hours in friendship and laughter. Clara used to enjoy these afternoons more than she did now. Friends her own age had all paired off and married. She and Andrew were two of a diminishing number of people in their twenties who were not married.

  And it was not Andrew who kept them in this state.

  Clara reasoned that the socializing part of the day had begun and saw no reason not to join Andrew in his cluster of conversation. The circle widened slightly as Clara approached. She stood where she could see Andrew’s round face. Whether to be beside him and feel him near or to be able to watch his expressions always was a choice she hated to make. But being seen beside him too often would spark speculation she was not prepared to confront. His eyes met hers but did not linger.

  “Bishop Yoder has gone too far this time.” John Stutzman spoke with the same conviction Clara had heard in his wife a few minutes earlier. Had they already found a private moment to discuss their feelings about the sermon? Had they decided to speak out, or was it coincidence?

  There was no such thing as coincidence, Clara reminded herself. Gottes wille. Everything that happened was God’s will.

  “He said nothing he has not said before.” Mose Beachy gave Clara a welcome glance. She was glad to hear his voice, calm and peaceable.

  “He’s been proud of his power for years,” John said.

  “That is a serious accusation,” Mose said.

  Clara shifted her eyes to Yonnie, who stood silently listening.

  “Are we not to speak the truth in love?” John said.

  Mose reached under his beard to scratch his chin, as he often did during fragile conversations. Clara realized she was holding her breath. Andrew tilted his head toward Mose.

  “You speak well,” Mose said. “The Scriptures do admonish us to speak the truth in love. We do well if we remember the fine balance of the admonition. Neither truth nor love should obscure the other.”

  Clara exhaled softly. This was why she liked to hear Mose Beachy preach. These few sentences were more profound—and convicting—than anything Bishop Yoder said in nearly an hour of holding his big German Bible in his hands.

  “Lucy is waiting,” Mose said. “The little ones will need to go home for their naps.” He stepped away.

  “Little ones,” Yonnie said. “With fourteen children, they’ve had little ones longer than anyone around here.”

  “They have a lovely family,” John said. “But Mose sets a good example. My wife will be wondering what’s become of me as well.”

  John crossed the room to find his family. The meetinghouse was nearly empty.

  Yonnie looked from Andrew to Clara. “Will you be recreating with the others today?”

  Clara looked to Andrew for the answer.

  “Clara and I will take a walk,” Andrew said. “Perhaps we’ll join the games later.”

  Skepticism crossed Yonnie’s face, but he moved away from them.

  “A walk?” Clara said.

  “Do you object?” Andrew gestured toward the door.

  She twisted her smile to one side. “Actually, I was hoping to see your Model T.”

  Andrew turned his buggy down a dark side road. He knew, and Clara knew, that choosing this route home from the Singing would add at least thirty minutes to the ride home. Andrew intended to add much more than that. He had always enjoyed Singings, though he went less often now. Unless Andrew was certain Clara would be there, his interest in the traditional social gathering faltered.

  Two lanterns hung from the front of his buggy, lighting the dim, narrow road that divided fields of adjoining farms. Even without the lights, the nearly full moon and the canopy of stars hurled across the sky would have given them safe passage. Andrew knew the road well. No holes awaited the steps of his horse.

  It was the stars that brought them out here tonight. Andrew slowed the stallion. The day had been beautiful—any day spent with Clara was beautiful—and he wanted this memory in his mind when he was alone on his farm tonight. Clara beside him. The sky vast above them. The sounds of evening restful around them. The night air cool and fluttering on their faces.

  “Thank you fo
r showing me the Model T.” Clara’s words came on a soft ripple.

  The horse clip-clopped forward.

  “It means a lot to me that you wanted to see it,” Andrew said.

  “I love your curious mind,” Clara said.

  “Even if I am curious about an automobile engine?”

  “Would God have made you curious if He knew it would displease Him?”

  Andrew turned and smiled at her in the moonlight and slowed the horse even more.

  “Have you no doubt?” he asked.

  “About the gift of curiosity? No.”

  “And about the Model T?”

  “It was you who found it,” she said, “not I.”

  “I care what you think.”

  “None of the ministers have preached against the automobile,” Clara said. “Not even Bishop Yoder.”

  Andrew slowly eased the horse to the side of the road and gave the reins a final tug. “Bishop Yoder is too busy preaching about discipline in all its forms.”

  “Would he not think that owning an automobile is a lack of discipline in some form? Perhaps it has not occurred to him that anyone in the church would consider owning a device the English have taken such a liking to.”

  “Until it comes to a vote in the congregation, what harm will it be for me to learn something from it?” Andrew said. “Eventually the church will have to face the issue. Mr. Ford seems determined to make car ownership affordable.”

  “Perhaps affordable does not also mean desirable,” Clara said.

  “Do you find it undesirable?”

  “No. Not precisely. I am only hearing in my head the arguments others will make.”

  “Automobiles could benefit the congregation,” Andrew said. “It would be easier for families who live on the outskirts of the district to get to church. The dairy Yonnie works for could transport milk more easily and more quickly without risking spoilage. When someone falls ill, it would be faster to summon the doctor. Those who owned cars could be generous toward others who needed to travel.”