Meek and Mild

by Newport, Olivia

  “Please, Mamm, please?” Sadie’s entire body seemed to beg with expectancy. “It’s a good day to go see Grossmuder, isn’t it? We can make some pound cake and open a jar of blueberries. Grossmuder would like that. I know she would.”

  “Grossmuder is busy.” Fannie dried the last of the lunch dishes and added it to the stack on the kitchen counter.

  “She’s never too busy for me. I’m her only granddaughter.”

  “You must learn not to take advantage of her.” Fannie swiped a damp rag across the table, pausing at the place where Sadie usually sat to scrub at a spot of spilled milk.

  “Because I’m getting big?” Sadie said. “Or because she’s going to have another boppli?”

  “Both. Besides, we have a lot to do around here.”

  “Grossmuder says the new babe will be my aunti or onkel. That doesn’t make sense. How can a baby be an aunti or onkel?”

  “I’ll explain it when you’re a little older. I want you to clean your room today, please.”

  “Are you going to help me?”

  “You’re old enough to do it yourself.”

  “After that can we go see Grossmuder?”

  “By then I’ll need to start supper.”

  Sadie’s shoulders slumped. “Maybe tomorrow?”

  “I have to beat the rugs tomorrow.” Fannie handed Sadie a dust rag and a broom whose handle was twice as tall as the girl. “Do a good job, please.”

  Sadie shuffled out of the room. Fannie ached to feel the soft comfort of her bed under her weary back. Maybe she would pull a quilt over her head if she could stand the heat. She wouldn’t sleep, just rest where she could easily hear Sadie.

  No.

  She would not go lie down. Two nights in a row Elam had asked if she felt well. There was always a chance he would come back to the house in the middle of the afternoon, and why shouldn’t he? Fannie used to hope that he would.

  Now, though, she did not want him to.

  She did not want to speak to Elam or anyone—especially not her mother.

  Resisting the urge to find her bed, Fannie instead went into the front room and sat on the davenport. She would not stretch out. She would only put her head back and pull the first quilt she ever made off the end of the davenport and into her lap.

  Her guilty spirit weighed heavy. Guilt for sending her five-year-old off so she could be alone. Guilt for hoping her husband would not come in from the fields early. Guilt for not rejoicing in the new life her mother carried. Guilt for holding Sadie back from delighting her grossmuder with her presence. Guilt for not wanting to cook supper. Guilt for wishing she could be blessedly asleep.

  At least, Fannie knew she ought to feel guilty about those things. The truth, though, was that she had left guilt behind days ago. Her limbs were too heavy to lift, and her lungs too weary to inflate, but no longer from guilt. Leaning back on the davenport, she closed her eyes.

  Unburdening herself to Andrew on Wednesday morning had allowed Clara to breathe evenly again. For that she had no regrets. When she heard on Thursday that he had confronted Yonnie, though, doubt skulked into her peace of mind. Stirring dissension between the two of them was not her intent. By Friday, Clara wondered if the dissent had only risen to the surface as it was meant to do, as it was inevitably going to do. And by Saturday, she dreaded seeing Yonnie again at church the next day. She knew the row where he preferred to sit and could make sure to sit well behind him on the women’s side of the aisle.

  Clara now sat in the Schrocks’ living room with a length of black fabric in her lap. She could practically make a new apron with her eyes watching evening fireflies instead of her stitches under a lamp, but cutting one out in the company of other women would pass the morning pleasantly. Their chatter would be about recipes and children and laying hens and the new threads at the mercantile. Clara would not have to think about Yonnie or the meidung.

  Worry for Fannie scoffed her optimism, though. Never had she seen her cousin this way. The English would have a word for the condition, Clara supposed. Melancholy? Was that it? It was not a raging illness, but a gentle sadness that threatened to clot and scar Fannie’s future.

  The next time Clara visited, she would make sure to arrange with her father to take a horse and cart—or at least a horse. She could not rely on Yonnie, and perhaps not on any of the milk wagon drivers.

  A small presence blew breath across Clara’s cheek, and she turned slightly toward it. Priscilla Schrock leaned in and whispered in Clara’s ear.

  “Another story, please.”

  The request was not unexpected, but Clara found it daring. It was one thing to wander away during a busy barn raising. It was another for the child to make this request in her own home, under her mother’s watchfulness. Clara glanced down the hall and saw three more sets of eyes leaning around a corner in anticipation. Lillian’s and Naomi’s mothers were present, and of course Rhoda had brought Hannah to the sewing frolic.

  Clara knew just the story she would tell. The wise Abigail knew how to help the great King David to control his temper and do the right thing. The girls could learn that a true friend helped others understand how to please God, even someone who was great and powerful.

  It was only a matter of time, Clara realized. Four girls knew she told Bible stories, and one of them was her own sister and shared her home. One of them would innocently drop a reference to a story into conversation with a parent over farm chores or evening prayers. Clara almost wished that Hannah was not among the girls who would be tangled in confusion when the mothers began to speak to each other. But why would she hold back God’s Word from her own sister?

  She wouldn’t.

  Priscilla had scampered away after seeing Clara’s slight nod. Now Clara excused herself, slipped out the back door of the Schrock house, and quickly rounded the corner of the barn.

  There they were, seated in the grass and waiting.

  Clara jammed a fist against her mouth, stopping the scream rising through her sleep but helpless to thwart the wail flashing through time.

  This version of the dream had faces.

  Fannie’s. Sadie’s. Martha’s. Atlee’s. Hiram’s.

  Drawn. Pale. Stunned. Tormented. Lost.

  A baby’s cry faded. Martha collapsed.

  Clara gasped and sat up. The morning breeze through the window, still cool in advance of the sun, blew across her suddenly sweat-drenched nightgown. Chilled, she scrambled out of bed, stepped to the washing bowl, and splashed tepid liquid on her face repeatedly until her breathing slowed.

  Martha’s baby. How would any of them recover if this dream proved true?

  Clara sat on the bed. The vague sadness that startled her every few months now growled full terror.

  From down the hall, Mari’s cry sounded. Rhoda’s footsteps responded.

  Clara released pent-up breath. Perhaps her little sister crying in her sleep was all that triggered the dream. She should have been used to the sound. It was not unusual for Mari to cry out for her mamm without waking and remember nothing in the morning.

  Little-girl dreams easily soothed with a mother’s touch.

  Clara had no mamm to call for when she was little. Would dreams of sadness have followed her for years if her mother had been there to stroke her forehead and hum a soothing tune? She would never know.

  An early walk, before the bustle of breakfast and readying for church, would release her burning muscles and relieve her of the image of Martha’s empty arms. Clara pulled on a dress and shoes. When she returned an hour later, the household had wakened. Hiram and Josiah were milking the cows, and Rhoda was braiding the girls’ hair.

  A normal morning. Everyone was safe.

  After breakfast, Clara went to her room to freshen up. She tucked the last pin in her hair and checked her reflection in the dull glass that hung beside her bedroom door to be sure she had taken captive every rebellious strand. On this first church Sunday in August, filled with worship and socializing, she would have little o
pportunity for repairs.

  She did not hear the footsteps coming down the hall. Bare feet in summer slapped the wooden planks more kindly than winter shoes. Instead, the swish of skirts, which the seasons did not alter, alerted Clara. It was not enough fullness of yardage to be Rhoda. She supposed Hannah, and in a moment her guess was confirmed.

  “Mamm wants to know if you’re ready,” Hannah said, standing in the doorway.

  “Nearly.” Clara looked around for what she had done with her prayer kapp.

  “Are you going to tell us a story today?” As it always did when she was excited, Hannah’s voice rose in pitch and volume.

  Clara sucked in her breath, grabbed Hannah to pull her into the room, and closed the door.

  “No,” Clara said softly, “we won’t have a story today. It’s a worship service. We’ll hear sermons.”

  “Sermons make me sleepy,” Hannah said. “I don’t understand them.”

  “You will soon.”

  “We could have a story after the service.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But it’s been weeks and weeks.” Hannah’s pout accelerated.

  “It only seems that way,” Clara said. It had been just over two weeks, but to a six-year-old that must have felt like half the summer.

  “But Priscilla will be there, and Lillian and Naomi. And lots of other girls.”

  Clara had worried the girls would speak to their parents about the Bible stories, but they had only to speak to their friends. Priscilla, after all, had initiated Lillian and Naomi by retelling a story. Another innocent child would ask her mother if she could hear the stories, too. Before she knew it, Clara would be standing in front of Bishop Yoder with his demand that she explain herself pounding in her ears.

  “We might not be able to have any more stories,” she said. “At least not for a while.”

  “But we like them.” Hannah pushed out her lower lip another half inch.

  “I know.” Clara straightened her sister’s kapp and knotted the strings beneath her chin.

  “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.” Hannah’s eyelashes blinked over her blue eyes in wide simplicity.

  Clara ran her tongue behind her top lip. Hannah was no secret keeper. She wasn’t a tattletale motivated by self-righteousness or maliciousness, but when she got excited, words gushed out when she didn’t mean them to. It was a wonder Hannah hadn’t already told her mother about the stories. Arranging her own kapp, Clara puzzled over why Hannah hadn’t said anything yet. She would never tell the girls to withhold truth from their parents. A secret was too close to a lie. To a child, condoning one would be to condone the other. A six-year-old should not be responsible for discerning the difference, nor burdened with conflicting loyalties should a choice come down to the secret or a lie.

  Clara blew out a soft breath. She knelt and put her hands on Hannah’s elbows, trying to form a response that would neither ask the child to keep a secret nor send her running to divulge one.

  The footsteps in the hall now were firm, quick, and evident of shoes.

  “Where is everybody?” Rhoda’s voice rang out. “It’s time to go.”

  “Never mind,” Clara said to Hannah. She pushed up out of the crouch, opened the door, and took her sister’s hand to lead her down the stairs.

  In the family buggy, Rhoda sat in the front bench beside her husband with Mari on her lap. In the second bench, Clara sat between Josiah and Hannah. All three of them folded their hands in their laps as they had been taught to do as a reminder to keep themselves still and not cause danger in the buggy. Clara could still remember Hiram setting her on the bench beside him and folding her little hands when it was just the two of them, with a stern warning that she must obey or she would fall out of the buggy. By the time she was old enough to be trusted not to move suddenly, the habit was long instilled.

  Clara regarded the posture as fitting for preparing for worship. It quieted the body for the long service and encouraged a calming of the spirit as well. She wanted a clean heart for worship.

  Her posture came from outward effort, however, while her heart rebelled against every notion she’d ever learned of being ready for church.

  She did not feel guilty about telling Bible stories to little girls, but neither did she want to confuse them about right or wrong.

  She did not feel guilty for knowing about Andrew’s car, nor for her lack of judgment over his ownership of it.

  She did not feel guilty for her intention to see her relatives in Maryland no matter what the bishop said.

  No matter how tightly she wound and pinned braids against the sides of her head or how perfectly her kapp sat on her hair, Clara knew what was in her own heart.

  At the Summit Mills Meetinghouse, Clara lingered outside while Rhoda ushered the girls inside and her father and brother took their places in the men’s processional. At the last minute, before the men began to march in, she slipped into the bench at the back of the women’s section where she could watch Andrew in the mass of black suits and hats. His defense of her to Yonnie had poured cleansing love over her spirit, washing away the humiliation of a dark night. But at what price? While Clara had never felt personal warmth toward Yonnie, Andrew did. Now because of her a chasm ran through their friendship—if it could still be called a friendship.

  And the chasm was one more truth that did not spawn guilt.

  Was it possible to feel guilty about not feeling guilty?

  Andrew’s urge was to cross his arms against his chest in doubt that Joseph Yoder’s sermon would speak to Andrew’s heart. His brother Noah certainly hadn’t in the first sermon, although his point had been clear. How would the transgressors who strayed from the church turn to repentance without shunning?

  Joseph now announced that his theme would look at two Josephs in the Bible. Andrew’s skepticism notched up.

  “Where did the brothers of Joseph need to go to become reconciled with him after they behaved so unmercifully toward him? They needed to take the distant trip to Egypt. One might say they went to Egypt only to get grain during the famine, but I believe they were sent of God, since this Joseph is an example of the heavenly Joseph, Jesus Christ. In Egypt they bowed before Joseph and acknowledged their trespasses against him. All hardened transgressors must come to Jesus in the same spirit. Joseph’s brothers came in a spirit of undoneness and brokenness. So long as a transgressor has not come to that place, the status of a child of God is not applicable.”

  Andrew did cross his arms now.

  “And let us move to the greatest Joseph of the New Testament. Mary and Joseph left the child Jesus, naturally speaking, and could not find him until they returned to where they left him,” Joseph Yoder continued. “This is a lesson for us. If anyone loses a child, spiritually speaking, he should search again at the place where he lost it. Those who have been placed into the ban should be shunned, even if they join another church, so that they may indeed repent, regret, and sorrow with humble hearts and with a demonstration of a sincere lifestyle become reconciled with the church from which they left. The ban can only be lifted if the wanderer renews his commitment with God and the church on bended knees and by seeking the peace where he lost it.”

  Joseph Yoder’s eyes panned the congregation in dramatic silence. “By holding fast to the ban, you will be an instrument of God’s will, drawing the transgressor back to true peace. If we do not do so, the transgressor may draw away the entire church. Would such a disturbance of the peace please God? I do not believe so. I call upon each of you to bring to the attention of your ministers and bishop any knowledge you have of individuals who have lost their peace and threaten the peace of the church with their transgressions. Though the ban may seem difficult, we bear the cross Christ calls us to that we may pray for the transgressor’s return to peace before we all share in the disturbance of our mutual peace.”

  Joseph paused again, letting his words sink in.

  If there were a third sermon, Andrew wondered
, and Mose Beachy were to stand with his Bible open, what would he say? The peace was already disturbed. Bishop Yoder disturbed it himself when he insisted on a strong meidung against people whose only transgression was to form a slightly different kind of Amish congregation a generation ago—two generations ago. It was sermons like these that could leave a young woman humiliated on the side of the road. Andrew saw no peace in that.

  Andrew glanced at John Stutzman and then at Caleb Schrock. They held their posture better than Andrew did, but he knew their straight spines did not express their thoughts. He would seek them out even before helping to turn benches into tables for the shared meal.

  Yonnie nodded his head. He was right. Dale and Clara and Andrew—and so many others—had turned their hearts from obedience to Christ. Hadn’t the minister just said so?

  Yonnie shifted his head slightly to glance at Dale, whose expression gave away nothing. Perhaps he had closed his heart to the truth so long ago that he would not hear the Holy Ghost knocking even through two sermons that spoke plain truth. Both sermons made clear the responsibility that had stirred Yonnie’s heart for weeks, ever since the day he helped Andrew tow the Model T to the abandoned barn. He had been weak, too much under the daring influence of his childhood friend. When he later pulled the car out of the ditch, he was no better. But at last he grasped hold of the fortitude God offered when he rightly interpreted that Dale should avoid contact with the Marylander families out of loyalty to Christ. Clara was a woman. Since she had no husband, she would need the guidance of her father to find strength to shun her cousin, but Hiram Kuhn had been lax for so long that Yonnie almost counted him among those who needed to seek peace where they had lost it.

  Clara was not Yonnie’s responsibility, but Dale and Andrew were fellow men. Any of them could be called upon to be a minister in the future. Dale was already married, and Yonnie and Andrew would be eligible themselves once they wed. The day might come when someone would nominate one of them to be a minister and they would face the lot—a slip of paper tucked in a hymnal that would indicate God’s choice.