Light Shines on Promise Lodge

by Charlotte Hubbard

  Whummmmm . . . Zap, zap, zap . . . zap, zap, zap, zap.

  “Marlin was so distracted he nearly left the house without his work gloves and stocking cap,” Frances said softly. “Whatever those men did in town, he’s in a dither about it.”

  Laura opened her mouth to say something, but the whine of a saw cut her short.

  “We could move down to the first floor and work in the meeting room,” Gloria suggested. She appeared tired and a little gloomy as she and her mother stuffed cotton batting into some dolls they were making. “I know we came up here so Clayton wouldn’t interrupt us, but we could lock the doors if you want to.”

  “But then the men on the roof wouldn’t have access to the bathroom,” Mattie pointed out.

  A loud whump made them all jump in their chairs. Frances sighed loudly as she tried for the second time to thread her needle. “Must’ve dropped a bundle of shingles right over our heads,” she said. “I thought they were working on the other end of the building.”

  “Every able-bodied male we know, except the four Helmuths working at the nursery—and Clayton—are working up there, so they’ve probably divided into groups,” Rosetta said. “Once Alma and Deborah get here with little Sarah, we might want to move the party to somebody’s house. This racket will upset the baby.”

  “I’d thought of that,” Beulah put in, “but we already have our refreshments set out across the hall—”

  “If we were nice, thoughtful wives,” Christine interrupted, “we’d make extra hot chocolate and another pot of coffee and offer some goodies to the men. It’s raw outside, the way the wind’s blowing.”

  “Jah, that’s the least we can do,” Rosetta agreed. “For whatever inconvenient reason, they’re working awfully hard this afternoon. If they don’t come down for a break now and then, somebody might fall or hit his hand with a hammer.”

  “Amen to that,” Mattie said. “Amos was as cranked up as I’ve ever seen him when he was gathering his tools to come over here. He took his turn falling off a roof last year, and we don’t need to go through that again.”

  Zap, zap, zap . . . zap, zap, zap. Whummmm.

  Annabelle clipped the threads from the diaper she’d just finished. With four women working on them, the top of the nearby card table was nearly covered with finished diapers. She stood up to stretch and check the weather outside. After a gust of wind hurled a torrent of gold and orange leaves past her window, she gazed more intently.

  “There goes Clayton in his buggy—off to do whatever he does when he leaves,” Annabelle remarked. “Let’s shift the refreshments for the party downstairs into the dining room. It’s not as noisy there, and it’ll make our serving easier when the Peterscheim gals get here with the baby, and when the men take a break.”

  “Truth be told, I don’t like the idea of going into hiding to avoid Clayton anyway,” Beulah declared as she rose from her rocking chair. “If he comes into the lodge and starts up on his big-idea preaching, all of us together can find a way to shut him down. This is our home, after all.”

  “And besides, it’s not Sunday!” Annabelle blurted out. “After the way he threw water on Phoebe and Allen’s wedding reception, we need to show that man that we can socialize without listening to any more of his big announcements. That was uncalled for.”

  “It was totally inappropriate,” Mattie agreed staunchly. She set the diaper she’d just cut beside Annabelle’s sewing machine. “The more I think about that council telling us Clayton’s to be our new bishop, the angrier I get! Let’s take our party downstairs, girls. It’ll be nicer anyway, with tablecloths and better chairs.”

  “I’ll keep sewing for a while,” Annabelle said as she looked at the wall clock. “We’ve got another half an hour before the guests of honor arrive.”

  With a flurry of new purpose, all the other ladies carried the party cake and dishes downstairs. When her apartment had cleared out, Annabelle smiled. She’d felt happy with everyone gathered in her main room, as though she was one of the longtime residents of Promise Lodge, and when she recalled Phineas’s wish to live here permanently, her heart thrummed. They’d agreed to keep their plans to themselves for now, but considering the ruckus Bishop Clayton was kicking up, it was wonderful to have something so positive to look forward to—

  Unless Clayton really does take over as our bishop, she thought with a pang. If he refuses to let Phineas back into the fold, our plans for staying here are for nothing. Phineas is a changed man, and I’m so looking forward to starting fresh with him, having a new house among these friendly folks. . . .

  When Annabelle went downstairs, she glanced at the countertop to see if the mail had arrived—and made a beeline for the envelopes there. A few of them were addressed to the Kuhn sisters, Gloria, and Irene, but when she saw the familiar handwriting on a small envelope addressed to her, Annabelle snatched it up. Weeks she’d been waiting for word from her neighbor, Orva Shank, and as she stepped into the mudroom she lost all track of the ladies who were making extra coffee and trays of treats for the men.

  Annabelle skimmed the words Orva had written from one edge of the lined paper to the other without leaving any spaces. She rapidly passed over everyday details about the home place and who’d taken sick and how the Over-holts’ sale had gone—

  “And what’s this about a Council of Bishops? Nobody here’s ever heard tell of such a thing, and when Bishop Ephraim asked the leaders from nearby districts about it, they all shook their heads. The area bishops get together now and again, but there’s no such thing as a Council of Bishops with any say-so over us—or over you folks in Missouri.”

  Annabelle sucked in her breath. The sentences had jumped off the page at her, and to be sure she’d understood them correctly, she read them again—and again. Her head spun as she continued to the end of Orva’s letter.

  “Is that bishop fellow you wrote about still there? Sounds to me like he’s up to no good, and I’d send him on his way. Maybe you’d better come back to PA, Annabelle! We miss you and Phineas. Maybe if you come back, Phineas will, too.”

  Annabelle leaned against the deep freeze to steady herself. Surely this was all the proof they needed to keep Clayton King—or whoever he was—from displacing Bishop Monroe and further disrupting their lives at Promise Lodge.

  But it’s not your place to say that. You need to show this letter to Monroe right away.

  “You all right, Annabelle?” Ruby asked from the mudroom doorway. “Bad news from your hometown?”

  Annabelle folded the letter back into its envelope. “A bit of a shock,” she replied in the steadiest voice she could muster. “But not bad news so much as . . . interesting news.”

  As she slipped the letter into her apron pocket, Annabelle wanted to blurt out what she’d just learned, so her friends could rejoice with her. But instead, she would give the letter to the bishop as soon as she could, confident he’d do the right thing.

  “The truth shall set you free,” the Bible said. And as always, God’s word had it right.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gloria’s mind was only partly focused on the fun as she and Laura and the other ladies watched Deborah open a second box of cloth diapers.

  “My word,” the new mother said as she held up the stack, “you must be thinking little Sarah is full of you-know-what.”

  Friendly laughter filled the dining room. “There’s no such thing as too many diapers,” her mamm, Alma Peterscheim, remarked. “When a baby has tummy troubles, you can go through a drawerful of them long before you have a chance to do laundry.”

  Once again Gloria slipped her hand into her apron pocket, touching the letter that called out to be opened immediately. It had no stamp or return address, so she suspected Cyrus had written it—and now that she’d recovered from the initial shock of discovering his bet with his brother, her curiosity smoldered. Whatever he had to say seemed much more relevant than watching Deborah ooh and ah over crocheted booties and caps, even if Gloria had vowed not to fall
for Cyrus’s sweet talk.

  When Laura approached the refreshment table, Gloria joined her. “Did you get a note from Jonathan?” she whispered.

  Laura’s eyes widened. “No—or at least I haven’t seen one. I’ve been here at the lodge most of the day—”

  “Let’s walk up and check your mail,” Gloria suggested as the ladies’ laughter rang out once again. “We need to keep track of those guys so they don’t pull another whammy on us.”

  Laura downed her punch and led the way into the kitchen. “So you got a letter from Cyrus? What’d he say?”

  “We’ll find out while we’re walking. Considering I’ll probably never get married, a baby shower seems like a waste of my time right now.” Gloria grabbed her coat from its peg in the mudroom and tied her kapp strings before stepping outside.

  When they saw that Bishop Monroe and the other men were starting down the ladders from the roof, Gloria jogged toward the road before any of them could call out to her. She snatched the envelope from her pocket and ripped it open.

  Cyrus’s handwriting was so crisp and neat that he’d surely copied this version of his letter from an earlier draft. Gloria cleared her throat and began to read aloud.

  “‘Dear Gloria, I’ve been a total jerk and I hope you can forgive me.’”

  She blinked as she and Laura reached the curve in the road that led toward the Burkholder home. “Maybe he’s taking his vows to the church seriously, confessing his transgressions.”

  “Maybe there’s hope for him yet,” Laura remarked as they kept walking. “Now you’ve really got me wondering if Jonathan’s written me an apology, as well.”

  Gloria focused on Cyrus’s precise penmanship again. “‘You must’ve overheard the talking-to Jonathan gave me after the wedding, about that stupid bet I put him up to. And for once, he was right,’” she continued reading. “‘It was probably the worst idea I’ve ever had in my life, and I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. You are worth so much more than money to me, Gloria. I hope you can believe I sincerely mean that.’”

  Gloria blinked rapidly. Cyrus’s words were making the big white house on the hill appear blurry around the edges. “What do you think, Laura?” she whispered. “Does he mean it? Or is he just buttering me up because he doesn’t have any other girls to choose from at Promise Lodge?”

  “Ask him that,” Laura replied without missing a beat. Then she sucked in her breath. “Look at that big blue pot on the porch! It wasn’t there when I left this morning—”

  “And look at the four different colors of mums in it!” Gloria put in. “Do you suppose Jonathan—”

  “Well, it’s certainly not from Mamm or Monroe,” Laura remarked as she jogged up to the porch. She plucked a small envelope from the profusion of orange, gold, magenta, and pale yellow blooms. “Jonathan doesn’t always say a lot, but he can be very thoughtful. And generous.”

  Gloria was tempted to be envious of the eye-popping gift Laura had received, yet she held her emotions in check. The Helmuth brothers were as different as night and day, so it was only natural that each of them had his own way of expressing what he felt. She’d always been glad that it was Cyrus who’d taken a fancy to her, because he was bolder and more fun to be around, even if his antics sometimes got out of hand.

  Laura beamed as she read the note. “He wants to talk things over,” she murmured as she skimmed the message. “He’s sorry about the bet, and he wants me to know that it was Cyrus’s idea, and that he’s nothing like his younger brother—which is so true.”

  “Jah, it is,” Gloria agreed as she admired the mums and the planter. “So what do you think? Shall we give them another chance? I don’t want to give Cyrus the idea that I’ll fall for any more pranks just because he’s my last chance at—”

  “He is not your last chance, Gloria,” Laura said firmly. “Other families will move to Promise Lodge. Or maybe that special fellow God intends for you might come for a wedding, or to one of our shops, and you’ll be here waiting for him.”

  Gloria sighed. It was easy for Laura, at eighteen, to entertain such romantic notions—especially since she stood a good chance of making up with Jonathan. “Maybe, maybe not,” she said softly. “It’s fun to be in this with the four of us together, but maybe we shouldn’t act as though we girls—or the Helmuth brothers—are a package deal. Maybe we should each see how this plays out.”

  Laura nodded as she read Jonathan’s note once more. “They’ve asked for our forgiveness,” she pointed out. “We can grant them that without agreeing to go out with them again. We should make them prove their intentions—work harder to convince us that they’re sincere.”

  “That sounds like something our mamms would say,” Gloria teased. And as she finished reading the note in her hand, she had to smile. He had ended the letter with: “Can we please talk this over, Gloria? I’d do anything for you, if you’d give me another chance.”

  A few months ago, Cyrus would never have written her such a note, much less begged her forgiveness. Maybe he was capable of change, of mending his ways.

  And maybe you don’t want him to change completely. Cyrus wouldn’t be Cyrus if he always toed the line.

  “That’s a gut plan, Laura,” Gloria said. “I’ll keep Cyrus hanging, at least until I’ve had some goodies at Deborah’s party—or maybe until tomorrow after dinner, because there’s no church service.”

  “Phoebe always recommended playing hard to get,” Laura remarked as they started back down the hill. “Not that she ever made Allen wait, that I can recall.”

  As Gloria thought back to Phoebe and Allen’s wedding, when Cyrus was signaling her with his hands, she brightened. Cyrus wouldn’t have hinted at standing with her in front of Bishop Monroe unless making such a commitment was on his mind. He was better at gestures and jokes than he was at putting his serious feelings into words—so his heartfelt note had convinced Gloria to give him another chance.

  But it would be on her terms.

  * * *

  As Monroe pulled off his stocking cap and work gloves, he was deeply grateful that the women were bringing a big urn of coffee and trays of sweets into the meeting room for him and the other men. They all needed a break after working in the wind for the past few hours.

  “Bless you, Beulah,” he said when she brought a pan of fresh caramel rolls into the room as the men removed their wraps. “I have a feeling you baked these for your Sunday breakfast—”

  “And what if we did?” Ruby teased as she placed a tray of coffee mugs by the urn. “It’s the least we can do when you fellows are keeping a roof over our heads on such a blustery day.”

  “We probably could’ve waited for warmer weather,” Amos remarked as he filled a cup with the steaming coffee, “but work is gut therapy when you’ve got problems to solve.”

  “We’re thinking of it as a roof frolic,” Marlin teased, placing one of the warm, gooey rolls on a plate. “You ladies have your hen parties and sewing frolics, and we men gathered in a higher place today. But I was getting so cold I could barely wrap my fingers around the hammer and saw anymore.”

  Annabelle sidled up to Monroe with a tray of utensils, as well as a big carafe of hot chocolate. “This should warm you up, Bishop,” she murmured as she slipped him an envelope. “But you’ll want to read it in private.”

  Monroe’s eyebrows rose. “All right, denki for the heads-up. I need to use the bathroom anyway.”

  He could feel the other men’s curious gazes following him out of the meeting room, but Monroe sensed he should take Annabelle at her word. After he’d entered the bathroom off the lobby, he skimmed the page, which was completely covered with tiny, irregular handwriting—

  “And what’s this about a Council of Bishops? Nobody here’s ever heard tell of such a thing, and when Bishop Ephraim asked the leaders from nearby districts about it, they all shook their heads. The area bishops get together now and again, but there’s no such thing as a Council of Bishops with any say-so over us—or over you fo
lks in Missouri.”

  “Gotcha!” Monroe whispered as he read the paragraph again. On the roof, the men had aired their frustrations and speculations about the eloquent man who’d declared himself the new bishop of Promise Lodge, but Monroe and the three preachers—and Annabelle—were still the only ones who knew that their visitor was an impostor with a fake name who’d tried to access their bank account. No one else realized that King still hadn’t produced the list of addresses they’d asked him for, either, so time was on their side.

  But how long would it take to figure out who this guy was, so they could nail him?

  Chapter Nineteen

  At dinner on Sunday, Gloria stayed busy helping her mamm, Mary Kate, and Minerva set their simple meal on the table—hoping no one would notice that she was distracted by her thoughts of Cyrus. Marlin’s younger kids, Fannie and Lowell, were in charge of entertaining baby David, who would be a year old in a few weeks—and who insisted on playing with pots and pans whenever anyone was working in the kitchen. His shrieks of laughter came from the front room as Gloria carried a big bowl of peas and carrots—David’s favorite vegetables—to the table.

  “It’s a blessing to have such a happy baby in the family,” Mamm remarked wistfully. “Last year about this time, we were all so worried about Floyd after Amos fell off the shed roof and landed on him—”

  “And I was huge, and so ready to have that baby,” Mary Kate put in with a chuckle. “So much has happened in the last year. I married Roman, and we lost Dat, and now you’ve remarried, Mamm.”

  “I was happy to help you with David’s delivery, too. It’s been a big year for our combined family—and for everyone at Promise Lodge,” Minerva agreed as she cut up two baked chickens. “And just amongst us hens, I have to say Marlin’s as happy as I’ve ever seen him—even if Bishop Clayton has really stirred the pot.”

  “God is gut,” Mamm put in firmly. “He stands by us in sunshine and shadow, and He’ll shine light on this situation with Clayton King when the time’s right. I hope it’ll be soon, so Marlin and Bishop Monroe and our other leaders can get back to doing the Lord’s work amongst us.”