Meek and Mild

by Newport, Olivia

  Hannah took a drink, grimacing at the effort.

  Clara set the glass back on the side table and slid her arms around her sister’s slight form, whispering a prayer of gratefulness for the cart.

  At home on the Kuhn farm, Clara carried Hannah into the house and laid her on the davenport.

  “What’s going on?” Rhoda came in from the kitchen, Mari trailing behind her in an improved mood.

  “Hannah is sick.” Clara arranged a pillow under Hannah’s head.

  “I’ll sit with her,” Rhoda said.

  Clara started to move away, but Hannah grabbed her wrist.

  “I want Clara,” Hannah whispered.

  “Clara has taken good care of you to get you home,” Rhoda said, “but your mamm is here now.”

  “I want Clara,” Hannah repeated, tightening her grasp on Clara’s arm.

  Clara winced at the effort required for her sister to speak at all. She would gladly sit all day and night with the girl, but Hannah was Rhoda’s child, and Rhoda wanted to care for her. Rhoda kissed Hannah’s forehead and stroked her cheek. Hannah’s fingers opened and her hand slid off Clara’s wrist.

  “We’ll make ice cream,” Rhoda said. “You’ll like that on your throat, won’t you?”

  Hannah nodded.

  Clara stepped away.

  “Don’t go,” Hannah said.

  “I’m here,” Rhoda said, looking at Clara more than at her daughter. “Clara can go now.”

  After twelve days, the Model T looked at home in the rickety Johnson outbuilding. And Andrew felt at home with it. A few days of neglect required him to tend to the chores on his own farm—Yonnie was right about that. Andrew did need to take care of his crop. But now he left most of his lamps and lanterns with the automobile so that whenever he had a few hours to work on it, he could see clearly what he was doing. At home, alone in the big house where he grew up, Andrew could move one or two lights around as he needed them, but he spent most of his evenings with the Model T. Jurgen Hansen was generous with suggestions—and even spare parts. Though he spoke English, Andrew was not a fluid reader in the language. Still, he took home the papers Jurgen gave him to study, painstakingly sounding out words his German mind did not immediately recognize.

  The moon was waning now. Andrew left the Johnson land, but rather than turning toward his own farm, he let the horse amble in the other direction—toward the Kuhn farm and a path running through Hiram Kuhn’s fields. Experience in the last two years reinforced this inclination often enough that Andrew waited in the dark more frequently than anyone knew—even Clara. He waited for her. She would sometimes come out for a night walk, and he would “happen” to be staring at the stars when she did.

  Andrew could hardly use that excuse tonight, though. The sky had clouded over while he adjusted the carburetor on the Model T. Dense humidity clung to the air, a portent of something more than an ordinary night in the middle of June.

  Leaving the buggy, Andrew began to pace. The weight of the air deterred any real speed. Already the night’s clamminess stuck his shirt to his skin. He would not wander more than an eighth of a mile in either direction. It would be foolish for Clara to come out tonight into the hovering storm, but if she did, she would come to this spot.

  He paced a hundred yards before pausing to consider the sky. Lightning flashed in the distance, but no thunder answered—yet. Clouds obscured any starlight. Even the moon, though visible, seemed dim.

  The rain started then, at first an uncertain drizzle and then finding a rhythm. The next lightning strike seemed closer. Andrew turned back to his buggy.

  If Clara would marry him, he would not have to wait for her under heavy, damp sky.

  The way she giggled when they rode in the automobile, and waited patiently while he got it running again, made him more resolute than ever. Many of the church members might think Bishop Yoder was going too far in his preaching about shunning, but few would consider an automobile as easily as Clara had.

  The blackness brightened again, and in that split second Clara saw the shape of Andrew’s buggy. She could turn around now, and he would never know she had been there. He would never have to see the stricken lines she felt in her own face.

  But why else had she come if not with the hope that Andrew would be here?

  “Andrew!” she called into the dark. Clara hastened her pace in a direct path to where the lightning had revealed the buggy to be.

  “Clara!”

  Though she could not see his form, his voice answered with an eager ring, and Clara moved faster. The rain was steady now, a falling river that drenched and chilled.

  The afternoon had stretched endlessly, with Hannah whimpering in illness from the davenport and calling intermittently for Clara’s comfort. Rhoda put Mari down for a nap and fully embraced her duties to nurse Hannah’s sore throat and fever. Even while Hannah slept, Rhoda did not move more than six feet away. Clara hovered in the kitchen, in the dining room, on the front porch. When Mari woke, Rhoda was firm that Mari must keep away from Hannah but remain within sight. Eventually Rhoda gave Clara instructions to put out a cold supper of items from the icebox and allowed Clara to take Mari into the kitchen to eat with Hiram and Josiah.

  But she did not relent in her determination that Clara should not tend to her sickened sister.

  Hiram had carried Hannah to her bed, where Rhoda intended to spend the night, arguing that if Hannah needed her, the girl would have no voice to call out. With the rest of the family bedded down, Clara had eased out the back door. Even if she’d measured the threat of rain more accurately, she would have gone.

  “I’m here,” Andrew called.

  Clara made out his form now, returning to his buggy. They reached it together, both drenched, his hat and her kapp askew.

  “I’m glad you came,” Clara said.

  “Let’s get in the buggy out of the rain.” Andrew offered a hand to help her climb up.

  Thunder now trailed lightning by only a few seconds. Clara shivered. Though the air was still warm, the moisture was damp and chilling.

  Sheltered in the buggy, they watched the rain slide out of the sky in sheets. Clara felt sorry for Andrew’s exposed horse, though the animal displayed no discontent. With one fist she began to squeeze the dampness out of her dress, but it seemed a futile effort.

  “The rain is a blessing,” Andrew murmured. “All the farmers will be pleased in the morning. After a soaking rain like this, we’ll nearly be able to watch the crops spurt up inches by the day.”

  Clara nodded, but words knotted in her throat.

  “What’s wrong, Clara?” Andrew asked softly.

  Clara sighed, making no effort to hide the current of air leaving her lungs.

  “Tell me,” he urged.

  She couldn’t tell him, though. If Andrew knew Rhoda thought Clara should make her own life in her own home, he would see the obvious solution. And she could not be wed to Andrew—or anyone—as long as she feared the blessing of children.

  It was odd for Hannah to be so still, and odd for her to be sitting in her mother’s lap during family devotions after breakfast on Wednesday. Rhoda had moved Hannah from the davenport in the front room to her own bed and barely allowed Clara to go near the room. For two days Rhoda pampered Hannah, who had returned to the family table for breakfast that morning. The fever had lasted only a day, and with hot tea and freshly churned ice cream the sore throat was managed through the second day.

  But here Hannah was at breakfast and morning devotions. Though she was in her mother’s lap, she sat up straight with bright eyes. In Clara’s consideration, Hannah seemed well, though Rhoda would want to be certain three times over before releasing the girl to resume her play and chores.

  Standing beside them, Mari’s lower lip protruded in a jealous unacknowledged pout as she leaned against her mother’s arm. She wanted to be the girl in her mamm’s lap. Across the table, Josiah’s feet gently and intermittently thumped the legs of his chair, as if in response to
a thought that flitted through his mind.

  Hiram Kuhn sat reading aloud from the big German Bible as he did every morning and evening. On many days, like this one, the sound droned. The older Hiram got—almost fifty now—the more he droned. The children were well trained to sit still and appear respectful, but Clara wondered whether they heard anything more than an undulating buzz.

  Rhoda’s countenance was as blandly perfect as it always was. Her eyes fixed on her husband as he read, her head nodding slightly at intervals. Outwardly, nothing about Rhoda had changed. If she suspected that Clara had overheard her say it was time for her to marry, she did not reveal it in her composure. Neither were her words unkind. An onlooker would suspect nothing.

  Yet Clara twisted in confusion and frustration, her spirit wringing more tightly each day.

  While her father’s Amen still draped the room, the family scattered, Hiram and Josiah to outside chores and Rhoda and the girls to wash Hannah’s hair. Clara sat alone for an instant.

  Fannie. She would go see Fannie and Sadie. At least there she could do some good.

  At the turn from the Kuhns’ lane onto the road that led toward the border, a wagon clattered in the street. Clara stepped well to the side. The wagon slowed, and a milkman looked down from the bench.

  “Looking for a ride?” he said. “I’m going over the border.”

  “Thanks, Reuben,” Clara said, “but it’s a lovely morning. I think I’ll walk. Maybe on the way back this afternoon.”

  Reuben shook his head. “I’ll be sorry to miss you. Yonnie has that run. Shall I tell him to look for you?”

  Clara smiled and remained uncommitted. If she was at the Maple Glen Meetinghouse when Yonnie came by, she could face the question then whether she was in the mood to ride with him. The walk was only five miles in each direction. Clara had little else to do to pass the hours.

  “I know where to catch him,” she said to Reuben. “I pray God brings favor to your day.”

  Reuben clicked his tongue, and the horse moved ahead.

  Clara doubted Rhoda would scowl even if Clara missed supper, although her siblings were sure to wonder where she was. Illness or essential overnight travel were the only reasons for missing the evening meal and devotions. In this expectation, the Kuhns were no different than any other Amish household—on either side of the border.

  What did Andrew eat for supper? Clara occasionally wondered about this question. Did he cook or eat a cold plate? Did he accept invitations from families who pitied him after his parents moved to Lancaster—or who had a daughter of a marriageable age? Did the young women who eyed him at Singings turn up on his farm with casseroles or pies? Clara never asked Andrew these questions. If she would not say she would marry him, why should he not accept invitations?

  Still, the thought that he might stung.

  Yonnie Yoder had a younger sister who had trailed after the boys when they were children as much as she was allowed. In his telling of the stories, Andrew never seemed to mind that she was there digging worms with them or climbing the lower branches of a tree while the boys scrambled higher. She was old enough to wed now, and though Andrew’s great-grandmother had been a Yoder, the relationship was distant enough to allow for a marriage.

  Clara pushed the thought out of her mind. Andrew was waiting for her.

  Andrew with his Model T.

  Alone on the road, Clara smiled at the memory of riding in the automobile while Andrew drove. He was not afraid of the form that joy might take in his life.

  Old Bishop Yoder might have other ideas.

  “I can do it!” Sadie raised a shoulder to interfere with Fannie’s movement. The girl knelt on a chair to stir the apples, brown sugar, and raisins for the apfelstrudel. Her tongue poked out one side of her mouth in concentration as her fist gripped the wooden spoon handle and she pushed through the mixture in swift, thorough circles.

  Fannie returned to kneading the dough. In a few minutes Sadie would insist on helping to stretch the dough thin, and Fannie would let her. Sadie was only five, but she had a knack for baking already. She knew just what the dough should feel like as she pulled it into a rectangle to fill with the apple mixture.

  As troublesome as it was to think that Sadie might be her only child, Fannie delighted in ordinary moments like this one. Sadie would forget them. She would grow up with the automatic motions of making strudel, and dozens of other dishes, flowing from her fingers. One day she would prepare food in her own kitchen, perhaps with her own little girl.

  But Fannie would store up these moments in her heart, the way she was sure Mary had stored up the moments of Jesus’ childhood.

  “Knock, knock.” The voice came from the back door, which stood open to disperse the oven’s heat.

  “Clara!” Sadie dropped her wooden spoon and scrambled down from the chair to throw herself at the visitor.

  “I didn’t know you were coming.” Fannie brushed flour between her palms and wiped her hands on her apron before embracing her cousin.

  “Neither did I,” Clara said. “I only decided after breakfast.”

  “We’re having strudel for lunch,” Sadie declared.

  “Or,” Fannie said gently, “dessert after supper.”

  “Or both!” Sadie’s eyes glistened with optimism.

  They stretched the dough, filled it, rolled it, and slid it into the hot oven.

  “We have something to show you,” Sadie said once her hands were clean and dry. “A surprise.”

  “Oh?” Clara’s glance moved from Sadie to Fannie.

  “Can I go get it, Mamm?” Sadie was nearly jumping in excitement.

  “Yes. Remember to take care.” Fannie watched the marvel that was her daughter scamper down the hall. She gestured for Clara to move into the front room.

  “Close your eyes!” Sadie called from down the hall, and Clara complied.

  Fannie nodded encouragement for Sadie to lay the gift in Clara’s lap.

  Clara’s eyes popped open. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a Bible storybook!” Sadie’s enthusiasm gushed out of her. “It’s all the stories you’ve sent me in a scrapbook, and when you write more, we’ll put those in, too. Hurry up and write more!”

  Clara giggled, the same girlish giggle Fannie had heard through the secret moments of their childhood. Neither of them had a sister. They were sisters to each other.

  “I can’t read all the words yet,” Sadie said. “Actually, I can only read a few. But I know them all by heart because Mamm reads me your stories every night before bed.”

  “They’re not my stories,” Clara said, “they’re God’s stories.”

  “I know that, silly. Mamm says you’re helping me hide God’s Word in my heart.”

  Fannie sat on the arm of a stuffed chair watching the pair of blond heads meeting temple to temple as Clara and Sadie turned the pages in the scrapbook with a plain green woven cover.

  “It was Sadie’s idea,” Fannie said. “She saw the book in the mercantile in Grantsville and told me what she wanted to do.”

  “It’s lovely.” Clara closed the book and ran two fingers across the thick weave.

  “Are you going to tell me a story today?” Sadie turned her face up, her eyes wide in hope.

  Clara smiled. “As a matter of fact, I was going to mail you a story, but I decided to bring it myself.” She reached under the bib of her apron and pulled out two sheets of paper.

  Sadie jumped up. “I’ll get the paste. Let’s put it in the book right now and then you can read it to me.”

  “Perfect,” Clara said.

  “You have to visit to my Sunday school class.” Sadie’s voice trailed out of the room.

  Clara glanced at Fannie. “Why would she suddenly ask me to visit?”

  “You haven’t been to church with us since we were very small,” Fannie said. “You really should come.”

  Clara watched the door slam behind Sadie as the child skipped out the kitchen door to play in the sunshine.

/>   “You’re very patient with her,” Fannie said. “You didn’t have to read so many stories. I’m trying to teach her to be grateful for small blessings and not demand the universe!”

  Clara chuckled. “I get to go home. You’re the one who will have to read more at bedtime.”

  Fannie cut a slice of apfelstrudel, still warm, and slid it onto a plate to hand to Clara. “Do you remember being five?”

  “Not very well.” Clara poured two cups of coffee and settled in a kitchen chair. “I remember more about visiting your family than being at home with my daed.”

  Fannie sipped coffee. “Remember when we found the litter of seven kittens in the barn and didn’t tell anyone for five days?”

  “I was eight. We were afraid your daed would drown most of them. Nobody needs that many barn cats. By the time he caught us, we’d named them all.”

  “As soon as they were old enough to wean, he made us drag them around in a cart until we found homes for all but two.”

  “I’d do it again,” Clara said. “Poor kitties.”

  Fannie nibbled strudel.

  “What about when we were older?” Clara said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When we were twelve or thirteen. You must remember something.”

  Fannie raised an eyebrow. “About what?”

  Clara chose her words carefully. “There was new information in 1905 about the vote of the Pennsylvania congregation ten years before to shun the Maryland churches. Something about a misunderstanding.”

  They both looked out at Sadie, who was tossing a stick for the dog Elam had brought to the Esh marriage. The dog was aged and reluctant, though.

  “Obviously my parents weren’t at either meeting,” Fannie said. “We heard rumors. Some boys who came down to an auction were rude to my brothers.”

  Clara vaguely remembered. For a while Rhoda had not wanted Clara to visit the Hostetlers, at least until things settled down again.

  “What did your parents do?” she said.

  Fannie shrugged. “What they always did. After family devotions one night, they told us what they thought we needed to know.”