The Sacrifice

by Beverly Lewis

  Could be, as soon as a year from this fall, Hannah might be wed.

  As for Mary Ruth, she’d most likely missed out on also marrying then. Much better to take her time and be sure than to rush into something and be sorry later, thought Leah. She guessed she ought to think likewise about her courtship with Smithy Gid, because he was visibly smitten . . . and, truth be known, she was falling for him, too.

  Could it be Hannah and I will marry during the same wedding season? she wondered, spotting Gid’s shock of light brown hair above the throng of men preparing to go inside the barn for the Sunday meeting. Her heart skipped a little as he caught her eye and then turned discreetly, pretending not to have seen her. The People’s way . . .

  Mamma might faint if she knew how fond Gid is of me . . . how often he says he loves me. I have yet to tell him, though. I must be ever so sure.

  Chapter Nine

  Lorraine Schwartz had been so deeply moved by the previous Sunday’s sermon that she readily agreed to go with the Nolts to the midweek service. She had not a hunch how Henry would take this, but she was altogether eager to attend the Mennonite house of worship again, and she told him about it just as he was sitting down for supper on Wednesday night. “I hope you won’t mind if I go out this evening for a few hours.” She went on to say what she was planning.

  He was slow to speak, evidently tired. “Are you trying to keep up with your son?”

  She hadn’t thought of it in that light, but now that Henry had mentioned it, she assumed Robert’s quest for the spiritual might have influenced her, as well. “Why don’t you come along?” she suddenly suggested. “You might be surprised and enjoy yourself.”

  “My desk is piled high with paper work.” The tone of his voice caught her off guard; he was insulted.

  “Are you all right with this, Henry?”

  He looked across the table, his brow creased. “Go, if you must.”

  Fortunately their suppertime talk took a turn when Henry admitted he was toying with the idea of expanding the clinic, perhaps offering an internship to a medical student and building on to make room for more patients.

  This was news to her, but she liked the idea. Henry, though he was close to his forty-fifth birthday, had aged considerably in the past year—virtually before her eyes.

  She speculated it was due to keeping himself busy with an overabundance of patients, more than enough for one country doctor, and she sometimes worried about his frequent lethargy. Even so, he had much to teach anyone interested in medicine.

  Henry’s need to extend himself to new blood coming up in the ranks surely had something to do with his sons’ lack of interest in the medical profession—Derek having chosen a soldier’s life and Robert, more recently, the Lord’s work. She was almost certain Robert’s abrupt fork in the road had affected Henry more than he realized. “Any hope of Derek getting leave time for Christmas?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “He’ll have off two weeks, I would presume.”

  “Have you written him lately?”

  “I did a week ago,” said Henry.

  Good, she thought. Her husband was keeping in touch with their younger son in spite of Derek’s stubborn silence.

  Henry shook his head and reached for his coffee. “Deep down, our boy does have a beating heart.”

  She was glad to hear this from Henry’s lips and watched as he drank his coffee. Slowly she finished off her carrot cake and ice cream. If only Henry might consent to go with her to church, even a single time, she believed the pockets of stress under his eyes might soften and the spring in his step might return.

  Hannah could scarcely wait to show Mary Ruth the letter from Grasshopper Level. They were already in their cotton nightgowns, each having brushed the other’s hair, when Hannah asked her twin to “guess who’d written.”

  Mary Ruth shrugged. “I’m too tired to care, really.” She slipped under the sheet and snuggled into bed.

  “Well, listen to this,” Hannah said. “It’s a letter from our cousin Rebekah Mast!”

  “What?”

  “I saved it till just now.”

  Hopping out of bed, Mary Ruth hurried to peer over Hannah’s shoulder. “Quick, read it to me.”

  Dear Cousin Hannah,

  This is the last letter I’m planning to send to you!I haven’t even told Mamma I’m writing, but you need to know she’s awful peeved you and Mary Ruth would come here. We don’t need no pies and no letters, neither, from you Ebersols.

  If I sound upset, I am. After all, your sister Leah got our brother Jonas shunned by talking him into joining church over there in your neck of the woods.I won’t say everything that’s on my mind, but we wish to goodness he’d never laid eyes on her!

  Please don’t bother to answer this letter. We have nothing to say to each other. Only one good thing came out of this awful mess—Sadie and Jonas have found some true happiness out west. That’s all I best be saying.

  So long,

  Rebekah Mast

  “Well, I declare!” Mary Ruth said a bit too loudly.

  “Shh! You’ll wake up the whole house.” Hannah shoved the letter into the envelope and stuffed it in her drawer. “What a horrible cousin.”

  “You can say that again.” Looking mighty gloomy now, Mary Ruth headed back to her side of the bed.

  “I didn’t think Rebekah had it in her to be so rude.”

  Mary Ruth pulled up the sheet and muttered, “No doubt Becky’s echoing what Cousins Fannie and Peter are sayin’ and thinking ’bout us.”

  Hannah put out the oil lamp on the dresser and crawled into bed. “I knew she was bossy and liked to talk a big talk, but this . . .” She almost wished she’d never bothered to open the envelope, especially not at night. Now the cutting words would encircle her thoughts, and she needed her sleep. Tomorrow she planned to help Leah mow all the yards—front, back, and side—then burn the week’s trash. That alone would take nearly the whole morning.

  “Don’t worry yourself over Becky Mast,” said Mary Ruth, reaching over and stroking her hand. “Just consider the source.”

  “Jah, I s’pose.”

  They lay quietly for a time; then Mary Ruth spoke again. “Aunt Lizzie and I will be canning quarts and quarts of pickles tomorrow. Who’s gonna look after Lydiann?”

  Hannah shared with her what she planned to do, laughing a little. “Maybe Dawdi John will come over and look after our baby sister.”

  “That’s not such a gut idea, do you think? Not as quick on her feet as Lydiann is gettin’ to be.” Mary Ruth had a point there.

  “Jah, he may be hard-pressed to keep up with our baby sister; it’s a good thing Dawdi John’s hip has improved with Dr. Schwartz’s help.”

  Hannah was anxious for sleep to come.

  Mary Ruth yawned and turned to face her. “Do you ever wonder who it was Lizzie must’ve loved enough to give up her innocence before marryin’?”

  “I hate to admit it, but I’ve thought about the same thing. . . .” She didn’t want to speculate, but she guessed Leah’s birth father must surely be the son of one of the Hickory Hollow ministers. And, if so, well . . . wouldn’t it be interesting to know just who?

  “Best be sayin’ good night now,” she said, hoping to turn off the chatter.

  Ida found herself standing in the hallway where she had stood that first morning twenty years ago now— here, at the top of the stairs, where the window looked out to the southeast, to the Peacheys’ fine-looking spread of land. Tonight, though, she did not care to admire the smithy’s acres and acres of corn and grazing land. No, she was looking up, high overhead. The stars captured her attention this night.

  Bless the Lord, o my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. She paused to rest her hands on her middle. O Father God, place your hand of blessing on this babe of mine, growing so restlessly within, she prayed silently.

  Here she stood, suffering twinges in her stomach on the very spot where so long ago she had accidentally overh
eard Abram telling young Lizzie what she must do about her baby. Lizzie had begun to soften from the near-rebellious state she was in when she and Abram brought her home to live with them. Ida recalled, too, that Abram had repeatedly questioned Lizzie to no avail that same day. “Your baby’s father . . . who is he?”

  Her sister could only weep, not once mentioning the young man’s name.

  Surely she’ll want to share the truth with Leah someday, Ida thought, still staring at the sky strewn with stars.

  But deep inside, in that near-sacred place where a woman frets silently over her dear ones, Ida was fearful. Nervous for Lizzie and Leah both, for what such a revelation might do to the good solid relationship they enjoyed. But, most of all, she worried for Abram. If Leah were ever to know her blood father, would Abram lose his rightful, even special place in Leah’s eyes? She could only imagine what hurt this could cause him and the girls. All of them, really.

  She moved away from the window, wincing as she caressed her stomach . . . her unborn child, wondering if Leah’s natural father even knew he had a daughter. She ambled down the hall, stopping at the first bedroom to look in on Leah, sound asleep, then on to Hannah and Mary Ruth’s room, where they, too, slept peacefully, like two small kittens nearly nose to nose.

  Checking, observing, loving . . . her beloved family of girls, minus one. Would the hands of time turn things around for Sadie? Would the grace and goodness of God—the blessed Holy Spirit—woo her to Him faster than the People’s shun? She prayed it would be so.

  How she loved her girls, all of them equally, and she prayed as she walked the hallway, speaking to the Lord silently, imploring Him for each one’s future. Ida longed for them to walk uprightly, to know the Holy One of Israel not only as their heavenly Father, but to embrace the atonement of His Son, the Lord Jesus.

  Bring peace to this house . . . to my heart, she prayed without speaking. At last she headed back to the bedroom where Lydiann slept in a wooden crib in the corner and Abram lay sound asleep, not knowing she had been walking softly and praying earnestly. Not knowing that all too often, of late, the wee hours were filled with sharp pain, and sleep was far from her.

  Chapter Ten

  July stepped gingerly into August, and soon after September came in on wild turkeys’ feet, surprising the local folk with much cooler temperatures and buckets of rain. The unsuspecting gobblers wandered brazenly out of the woods, becoming unwelcome visitors to the cornfield, as if daring someone to shoot them before small-game hunting season.

  Mamma observed her forty-fifth birthday on the second day of September without much ado other than a card shower from the women folk. Leah said the hydrangea bushes near the house had seen fit to mix their brilliant hues with some deep bronze on cue for Mamma’s special day, the first hint of long and lazy autumn days leading the way for the harvest and silo filling.

  October’s gleaming red and yellow apples rapidly turned to applesauce, cider, and strudel, and the musty scent of wet leaves led smack-dab into November’s wedding season and the glory of deepest autumn.

  It was the Sunday evening before Thanksgiving Day when Leah consented to ride along with Smithy Gid to visit his ailing uncle Ike. She was glad for the heavy woolen lap robe protecting them, since the open carriage provided no shelter from twilight’s falling temperatures. Gid held the reins with one hand and steadied his harmonica in the other, playing one tune after another as they rode along. In between songs, he whistled, as cheerful as she’d ever known him to be.

  We’re practically betrothed, she thought but instead quickly brought up the subject of his uncle. “Has a doctor seen him for his pneumonia yet?”

  “Aunt Martha wants to call in the hex doctor, but Uncle Ike won’t hear of it. Seems they’re at a standstill, but I’m sure my uncle will have his say-so.”

  Leah thought on this. “What do you think of powwowing, Gid?”

  “I don’t rightly know. Pop says there ain’t nothin’ wrong with having the hex doctor have a look-see when somebody’s sick, but Mamm, now, there’s a whole ’nother story.”

  “She goes to the medical doctor, then?”

  “I believe Mamm would rather die than have white witchcraft goin’s-on in our house. And that’s just how she says it, too.”

  White witchcraft? Leah pondered that. Seemed her own mamma lined up with Miriam Peachey on this matter. Dat, now, he didn’t seem to care one way or the other—neither did Dawdi John. Aunt Lizzie, though, liked to have had a fit when Leah mentioned it some time back in regard to the day she was born. “Was there an Amish midwife or hex doctor on hand?” she’d asked, to which Lizzie had replied, “No midwife . . . not the powwow doctor, neither one,” turning an indignant shade of peach when Leah mentioned the latter.

  “What do the ministers say ’bout powwowing?” she asked.

  Gid shook his head. “They’d prob’ly say they have more important things to think about.”

  Seemed to her the brethren ought to have an opinion one way or the other. Still, such a topic would never be preached on in any Sunday sermon.

  Recalling that Jonas used to write her about certain Scriptures not being used in sermons here in Gobbler’s Knob, she thought of asking Gid what he thought of that. But she kept her peace, not wanting to touch on the past—good or bad.

  The road from Quarryville was particularly deserted this evening. Most folk were indoors keeping warm on such a brisk night, Robert Schwartz assumed. He wanted to surprise his parents by arriving early for Thanksgiving but had been just as eager to attend the Oak Shade Mennonite Church before heading northeast to Gobbler’s Knob.

  The minister had begun by speaking slowly to the congregation in an almost conversational tone. As time passed, though, his discourse had become swift and strong in its delivery, and Robert had been enthralled by the message, “Finding God’s Plan for Your Life.”

  “As sons and daughters of Christ Jesus, we have an obligation to seek out His will and live it,” the preacher had instructed. “We must delve into the Word of God for answers. What would God have you do with your remaining days on earth? Will He send you forth into the field, for it is white unto harvest?”

  White unto harvest. The words had seeped into Robert’s heart, taking hold. To think what he might have accomplished for God in the weeks and months leading up to the invasion at Utah Beach in Normandy. The Allied air forces had dropped all those bombs . . . twenty thousand tons on France alone. Too many of his buddies had died on those bombing missions. And he’d lost his sweetheart, a true flower of a girl, though an unbeliever. If only I’d known the Lord then, he thought sadly as he remembered Verena.

  Tonight he had gladly received the preacher’s fervent words. They, along with many months of Bible study at the Mennonite college, had converged in an overwhelming epiphany, clinching his decision to become a country preacher. Truly, he wished he might have known God on some significant level during the war. What comfort and support he might have offered to his comrades and others had he been a believer then. Certainly the chaplains weren’t the only ones imparting spiritual consolation during those horrendous days and nights. He recalled there had been a few Christian boys who had shared the Good News among the young, yet hardened soldiers. He would have joined ranks with them had he known then what he knew now. To think he might have saved a life or two, or more . . . for God. Instead, he had aided in the death of many enemies of the Allied forces—a martial victory, true, but a defeat for eternity, nevertheless.

  Now, on the drive home, the words of the seasoned minister continued to resound in his thinking. He felt nearly euphoric as he drove the forsaken back road. Something was compelling him to follow through, to get his license to preach despite his father’s disapproval, which was ongoing and would surely be voiced during the coming holiday. Still, his spirit had been touched in a way unlike any he had ever felt in the village church where his parents had infrequently attended through the years. There parishioners dutifully congregated Sunday mornings to
hear a social gospel that trumpeted Jesus’ humanitarian accomplishments, with few references to the true and living Word of God. If Robert was not mistaken, the small edifice with its numerous stained-glass windows was coming up here fairly soon on the left side of the road.

  I’m here to answer your call, O Lord, he prayed, gripping the steering wheel as the road narrowed and the dense woods closed in on either side.

  They had been talking about the fact that neither of them was well versed in the Holy Scripture when Leah first heard a siren in the distance. The wail came closer as Gid’s horse pulled the courting buggy back from Uncle Ike’s farmhouse toward Gobbler’s Knob.

  “Ach, Gid,” Leah said, clutching her throat.

  “Someone nearby must be hurt.”

  The ambulance was approaching fast behind them, and Gid skillfully reined the horse onto the dirt shoulder and stopped while the shrill siren pierced their eardrums. “Wanna follow and see if we can be of some help?”

  Gid asked after the ambulance had sped by.

  “Sure, if we can catch up.”

  The accident, as it turned out, was less than a mile away, but by the time they arrived, the ambulance had already arrived and left. Two patrol cars blocked the road in both directions, so Gid parked the buggy a distance away, leaving Leah holding the reins. “I’ll be back right quick.” He jumped out of the buggy. “Will you be all right here alone?”

  She said she would, but up ahead the sight of a car crisscross in the road, its headlights shining across the mowed cornfield, frightened her no end. A lame horse, which looked to be awful young—more like a pony, really—was being led limping off the road by one of the policemen.

  Then she noticed a young Englisher sitting in the backseat of one of the police cars. Could it be he was the driver of the car? Had he caused the accident, maybe startling the young horse?