“No!” Amos blurted. “They’re so far away, and they have their own lives and families to look after.” Truth was, he didn’t want his daughters and his son to see him in this condition—not that they’d be inclined to travel all the way to Missouri now that their mother was gone.
When Mattie left the room so he could get dressed, Amos got another jolt: his legs weren’t moving the way they were supposed to. Was this part of the problem the doctor had mentioned, with his muscles being out of kilter? He kept quiet, allowing Truman and Gary to help him into his clothes as he sat on the bed, but worry prodded him to speak up when a lady on the hospital staff showed up with a wheelchair.
“My legs feel like pieces of baked chicken with the bones taken out,” he murmured as Truman slipped an arm around his shoulders to help him stand up. “What if my muscles don’t get their strength back? What if my head doesn’t stop hurting and—”
“Amos! Gut to see you dressed so we can get out of here,” Bishop Floyd exclaimed as he entered the room. “After the way these people knocked me unconscious—and then who knows what they did to me?—I’m not spending another minute in this place. And neither are you!” he insisted. “God’s our doctor and we’re going home to heal.”
Floyd didn’t look very steady on his feet. Amos saw Frances in the hallway, a flustered expression on her face as she talked to Mattie. His head began throbbing so hard he couldn’t see straight, so he had no energy to protest. When the aide brought the wheelchair over, Truman helped Amos back up to it. He landed in the seat with a grimace and a groan.
“Jah, let’s go,” Amos said in a shaky voice. He hated it that Mattie saw him looking so weak and out of control, just as he sensed that frustration and pain might be his companions for a long time to come.
Chapter Twelve
Mattie was all ears that evening at supper, when Preacher Eli called a meeting of all the Promise Lodge residents. Rosetta and Christine had simmered a big pot of chicken noodle soup, Deborah had baked bread, and Mary Kate had made orange date bars for their dessert. Everyone was present except for Minerva Kurtz, who was staying with Bishop Floyd so Frances and the girls could attend the meeting. Truman had come over to visit with Amos, so Mattie felt comfortable leaving him.
Once everyone around the tables had prayed, Eli spoke up. “What with both Amos and Floyd laid up for a while, I’m proposing a day when the rest of us fellows finish enclosing Roman’s house,” he said. “Once we get the roof on, Lester can lead a crew to install the siding while the rest of us get the drywall up. Tomorrow’s Saturday. Can we do it then?”
“That’s a fine idea,” Marlin Kurtz replied as he took two slices of bread and passed the basket along. “If Roman’s place sits unfinished, Amos will be stewing about it instead of resting.”
“And then we can set aside another day—maybe a week from tomorrow—to do the inside finishing on your place, Marlin,” Lester suggested. “Depending on how well Floyd’s recovering, I plan to return home to Sugarcreek by Thanksgiving, and I’d like to see those two houses finished before I go. After looking in on my brother when he got home this morning, I can tell you that he’s every bit as antsy as Amos about the work he’s not supposed to be doing.”
“Oh my, but that’s the truth.” Frances shook her head and gazed at Mattie, who sat beside her. “If you thought Floyd was agitated during the ride home from the hospital, he’s gotten more cantankerous since he’s been home. I hope Minerva’s able to keep him quiet—and indoors—while we’re here. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he burst through the lodge door at any moment, even though the doctor told him to sit still so his concussion can heal.”
Mattie nodded. “I thought Floyd was going to roll down the window and jump out of the truck, considering how he fussed at Truman for not driving us home fast enough. Did the doctor give you a prescription for something that might calm him down?”
“Oh, I’ve got pills for settling him,” Frances replied with a sigh. “The trick is getting him to take them. Floyd claims he doesn’t need any sort of medication because God’s his doctor. If we’ve heard that once today, we’ve heard it a dozen times.”
“Hmm,” Rosetta remarked as she stirred her steaming soup. “Minerva might know a trick or two for getting those pills down him. Or you could call the nurse who tended him at the hospital and ask her advice.”
“Maybe I should call from here,” Frances mused aloud. “Floyd will pitch a fit if he finds out I’ve contradicted his wishes by sneaking medicine into his food.”
“Amos slept like a rock this afternoon when he was napping,” Roman said. As he buttered his warm bread, his eyebrows rose. “Once he gets rested up, though, and he’s supposed to sit still all day, I suspect he’ll not sleep as well at night.”
“Jah, Minerva’s warned us about that—and about something called sundowning, where your body loses track of whether it’s day or night,” Mattie said with a sigh. She smiled at Roman, proud of him for moving in with Amos to watch over him. “We might need to have other folks spell you at night, son, or you’ll be nodding off in the barn while you’re milking.”
Everyone chuckled, but they murmured their agreement.
“We’ve all got a part to play here,” Ruby put in. “We can take turns sitting with Floyd and Amos—”
“And I’ll be in charge of the meals tomorrow and whatever days you fellows will be working on the houses,” Beulah volunteered. “It’ll save you time if you all eat here instead of going to your separate homes.”
“I’ll bake some bars and cinnamon rolls,” Mary Kate chimed in. “Gloria and I can bring them to the work site midmorning and in the afternoon, along with cider and hot coffee to keep you going.”
“Hey, if there’ll be goodies, I’m going to work on the house, too!” Menno Peterscheim piped up.
“Jah, can we boys all help, Dat?” his little brother Johnny asked excitedly. “We won’t fool around or get in the way—I promise! And since you’re working on Saturday, it’s not like we’ll be missing school.”
Preacher Eli chuckled. “There’s work for every hand, boys—as long as those hands aren’t holding cookies,” he teased.
Across the table from Mattie, Deborah chimed in. “What’s left to do inside the Kurtz place? If the walls are finished, Laura and Phoebe and I could do the painting. We’re old hands at that.”
“And now that we’ve finished the rooms here in the lodge,” Laura said, “we have a few gallons of ivory and pale yellow paint left—enough to get us started, anyway. But if you want different colors, we could drive into Forest Grove and pick them up at the mercantile.”
Preacher Marlin looked genuinely pleased about this idea. “Painting has never been my favorite activity, so I’d be tickled if you girls did that.”
“What if we girls left for the mercantile really early, so we arrive when it opens?” his daughter Fannie asked. “We could get the rest of the paint and any brushes and stuff we might need, and then have our painting frolic.”
“Count me in!” Lily Peterscheim exclaimed.
“You just want to go shopping,” her twin brother, Lavern, remarked.
All the folks around the table laughed, and Mattie got a good feeling about the whole community pitching in to finish the two homes they’d been discussing. In just a few months, these neighbors had bonded even more tightly than she and her sisters had anticipated when they’d first come to Promise Lodge with Amos . . . who would be feeling left out when he got word about their work frolics. She sensed Amos would need a lot of company to keep him from either getting down in the dumps or pushing himself too hard too soon.
“Matter of fact, having you girls go to town is a gut idea,” Beulah said. She rose from the table with the big tureen to fill it with more soup from the stove. “I’ll make out a grocery list to send along—”
“We could use some roofing nails, caulk, and quarter round—and the stain for it, too,” Preacher Eli said. He looked down the side of the table where all t
he younger girls were sitting with hopeful smiles on their faces. “But I’m not sure you ladies would be able to carry all that stuff—”
“Let alone get the right stuff,” Lowell Kurtz put in. “You don’t know heads from tails in a hardware store, Fannie.”
“Puh!” his sister shot back. “If the lists are made out right, we’ll do as gut a job as you would—but I suspect you’ll be over helping with Roman’s house so you can sample those goodies Mary Kate’s making.”
“Hold on.” Noah held up his hand for silence. “Amos is always saying we should be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, so I volunteer to drive the girls into town. I can oversee the hardware shopping and load all the stuff into the wagon,” he suggested. “And I can make sure we get back home in time to do some work, instead of just shopping.”
“That’s the ticket!” Eli said. “We should write our lists this evening so you young people can get an early start tomorrow.”
“The mercantile opens at eight, so we should leave here by seven twenty,” Noah said to the girls. “We might as well get the paint for Roman’s place, too. Something like pink or lime green would be his choice, I’m guessing.”
Roman rolled his eyes. “You think I’m going to give you gut money for such colors?” he teased. “Think again!”
Mattie enjoyed watching Lily, Fannie, Laura, and Phoebe all laughing together, anticipating their adventure in the Forest Grove mercantile. She had a satisfying feeling that these girls and the Lehman sisters would become fast friends over the coming years as they matured into wives and mothers. “I’ll get the post office box key from Amos, too,” she said. “You can stop in Promise for the mail on your way back. Maybe we’ll have more letters from families wanting to move here, and Amos will enjoy reading them.”
As Mattie looked at Christine’s daughters, another idea occurred to her. “You girls don’t happen to know addresses or phone numbers for Amos’s kids, do you? He’s insisted that we not contact them, but I think they should know about his accident.”
Phoebe and Laura glanced at each other, shrugging. “Last I heard, Barbara and Bernice married twin brothers in Ohio,” Phoebe replied.
“And Allen’s somewhere in Indiana, doing who knows what?” Laura put in. “Allen couldn’t wait to leave Coldstream after his mamm passed on. Wouldn’t surprise me if Allen has jumped the fence, considering how he and Amos used to go head to head over church issues.”
Mattie nodded sadly. It was a shame that the Troyer kids had scattered so far away from their dat, and that Amos wouldn’t be able to do so many things that he’d come to enjoy since moving to Promise Lodge. She saw it as her mission to make Amos smile and keep him occupied during the weeks he was supposed to rest in dark rooms. Mother Nature seemed to be cooperating, because the days were growing noticeably shorter. From the table she could see the rays of the setting sun shimmering on the frost-coated orange and yellow leaves of the large old maple trees outside the lodge.
After everyone had finished eating, Mattie filled a container with soup, wrapped up some of the bread and orange date bars, and walked over to see how Amos was doing. Her sisters had insisted that she and Frances tend to their men rather than stay to clean up the kitchen, so Mattie walked with the bishop’s wife until they reached the bend in the road that veered toward the two Lehman places.
“I sure hope Floyd hasn’t given Minerva any trouble—and I hope you’ll all get some rest tonight,” Mattie said as they paused in front of Amos’s house.
“Jah, I keep thinking he’ll wear himself out soon,” Frances replied with a sigh. “We live in hope—and we live in the Lord’s keeping.”
Mattie nodded and hurried along the lane toward the modest home she and Amos would soon be sharing. Surely he would be recovered enough by the time November twenty-first rolled around—and perhaps they could hold the wedding at Amos’s house instead of in the big meeting room at the lodge, to make it easier for him. It wasn’t as though he’d be preaching at his own wedding, so he could remain seated if he needed to. Truman had rented a basic wheelchair so Amos could roll from room to room—not that he showed much inclination to move around, with his head hurting so badly.
“Amos? You ready for some soup and fresh bread?” she called out as she entered the house.
“Bring it on!” came his reply from the bedroom in the back. “But bring it in here, will you please?”
Mattie smiled. He sounded stronger this evening, as though resting and spending time with Truman had lifted his spirits. “How about you, Truman?” she asked. “I’ve got plenty of soup, so you could eat with him.”
Truman joined her in the kitchen, where he took his felt hat from the peg on the back wall. “I’ll get on home,” he replied. “How about if I feed and water his horses before I head out?”
Mattie gazed gratefully at him. “That would be a big help, Truman. We’re so blessed to have you for a neighbor.” She lowered her voice, glancing over her shoulder to be sure Amos hadn’t followed him to the kitchen. “How do you think he’s doing?”
Truman shrugged into his barn coat. “He talked some, and he napped some. I noticed that he couldn’t quite think of the right words from time to time—but the doctor said that would probably be the case for a while.”
Mattie nodded. “I’m going to suggest an early bedtime after he eats. I’m hoping Amos won’t feel his pain while he’s asleep.”
“I’ll keep you both in my prayers,” Truman said before starting toward the door. “He’s taken as much of his pain medication as he’s allowed to, but I suspect it’s not helping much. Amos is one to put on a happy face and act like he’s feeling all right, but I could tell his headache was wearing on him. Gut night, Mattie.”
“You, too, Truman.”
After Mattie put a bowl of soup on a tray along with some buttered bread, she carefully carried it to the bedroom at the back of the house. Amos had joked that this room would become his dawdi haus when he got too old and unsteady to climb the stairs. Mattie was glad he’d had the foresight to arrange his floor plan so he could live on the main level now.
She paused in the doorway of Amos’s room to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. It took a moment for her to distinguish the armchair positioned beside Amos’s bed—and the wheelchair that sat near the head of the bed.
She felt acutely aware that she was entering Amos’s bedroom without Roman or anyone else in the house . . . and that beneath the covers, Amos was dressed only in his long johns. Although nothing intimate would take place, some folks—Preacher Eli, for instance—would probably feel she was entering into a sinful situation, considering that she and Amos weren’t yet married.
“Are—are you comfortable with me coming in, Amos?” she asked hesitantly. “Roman will be here anytime—”
“Nobody I’d rather have as my nurse, Mattie,” he assured her. “And if the neighbors—or the bishop—suspect I’m getting too frisky, well, I guess I’ll make my confession at church this Sunday. Even if it’s only wishful thinking.”
Mattie entered the room and sat down in the armchair, carefully balancing the tray with the bowl of soup on it. It was reassuring that Amos knew they were having church on Sunday, but she didn’t want to get his hopes up. “Sunday will probably be too soon for you to get out,” she murmured as she handed him the tray. “From the way Frances talks, Bishop Floyd’s not doing as well as he thinks he is. Sounds like Eli and Marlin will be preaching—”
“We’ll see.” Amos grasped the tray and held it for a few moments longer than he needed to, allowing his fingers to close around hers. “God and I have been talking about this today. I feel a lot better this evening, and I predict I’ll be right as rain in a few days—sitting through church on Sunday, and helping with Roman’s house by next week.”
In the back of her mind, Mattie heard Dr. Townsend’s warnings that Amos needed to rest for several weeks—at least until Christmas. “Let’s take it one day at a time,” she suggested gently. “A
nd you shouldn’t compare your recovery time to Floyd’s, either. Something tells me he’ll push himself too hard because he believes he must lead us instead of resting.”
In the dimness, Mattie saw Amos concentrating. He set the tray carefully on his lap before he spoke. “Do I recall correctly that as I was falling off the shed, Floyd hollered out for Jesus to send His angels to catch me?”
Mattie nipped her lip, wondering where Amos’s question might lead. “Jah, he did,” she replied softly. “I wasn’t sure what to think about that.”
“Well, as I’ve pondered Floyd’s plea, I keep remembering how—when Jesus was in the desert fasting for forty days,” Amos said in a pensive tone, “Satan tempted Him by telling Him to turn stones to bread. Then the devil told Him to jump from the pinnacle of the Temple to prove God’s angels would bear Him up.”
“Jah, that’s how the story goes in the Bible,” Mattie murmured. “But Jesus refused, saying it’s wrong to tempt God.”
“Exactly. The way I see it, I should’ve known better than to prop the ladder so close to the corner of that roof that we’ve all agreed needs replacing,” Amos said. “It’s my own fault I was so eager to help the girls—and to return to that volleyball game with the fellows—that I didn’t pay close enough attention. And although Floyd was making a brave effort to catch me, that wasn’t such a smart move, either.”
Mattie took Amos’s hand, relieved that his thought process seemed as sound and down-to-earth as it always did. “It was nice he broke your fall—but then, he was expecting angels to bear you up.”
“None of this was God’s fault,” Amos insisted, squeezing her hand. “Two men who should’ve known better made some bad choices. If that subject comes up in church, or if Floyd tries to twist this tale any other direction, I hope you’ll set folks straight about how I see it if I’m not there. God did not forsake Floyd by refusing to answer his call for angels. God was being God.”
Mattie felt blessed by Amos’s words and by the presence of mind it required to share his faith, his opinion. “I’ll do that, Preacher Amos. I wish neither one of you had gotten hurt, but I feel a lot better after hearing you say that. I still believe in angels, though.”
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