Datt didn't say much about the plan other than it would be cheaper than lumber. This must have been all Mem needed, because she and Dodde started to make plans. As it turned out, they paid the Herrings two hundred dollars instead of fifty dollars, but Mem said it was still a lot cheaper than putting up a new house.
Datt started digging the hole for the cellar with a shovel and wheelbarrow, under Dodde's direction. Each evening, Datt would eat supper, then dig a few more wheelbarrows full of dirt out of the cellar hole before going to bed early. Each day when I came home from school, the hole would be bigger than the day before. I wondered how it was that Datt could work so hard, when he had been sitting on his rocking chair for so long. Maybe he only worked hard when he thought there was a reason to. He did not want to spend the money on a backhoe to dig out the hole for the basement.
I was in kindergarten at the time. One afternoon, as the school bus came around the bend towards home, one of the children pointed and said, “Look, what is that?”
I looked out the front window of the bus and saw the old Herring house on top of a long truck, sitting in the Sykoras' lane. As we got closer, I saw what I thought was the chimney of the house suddenly wave. My mouth dropped open. It was Datt, sitting on top of the house, next to the chimney!
The children in the bus chattered excitedly. I realized that Mrs. Heitman, our driver, couldn't turn the bus around the same way she usually did, because the truck with the house on it was in the way. I got up out of my seat and said to her, “Oh, you can turn down this road and then back into our lane!”
Mrs. Heitman chuckled and said, “Yes, honey, I can do that.”
I found Mem standing in the yard in front of the chicken coop, with Sarah, Susie, and Baby Simon. I went over and stood with them. We watched as Dodde and three other Amish men directed the driver of the truck to back the Herring house up to our house. I looked at Datt way up on top of the house and hoped he wouldn't fall down.
“Why is Datt up there?” I asked.
“Someone had to ride up there to hold up the electric lines when the house went under them,” Mem said.
I gasped. “I thought nobody was supposed to touch them!”
Mem smiled and said, “Don't worry; they turned off the electricity.”
I watched Dodde directing everyone with hand signals. When the old house was up against our house, the truck driver turned off the engine. In the sudden quiet, I heard Dodde call, “Well done!”
Then someone put a ladder up to the roof, and Datt climbed down from his perch with a big grin on his face.
The men built block towers under each corner of the house. Then they turned a big metal wheel, and slowly the house began rising up off the truck. When the house was no longer sitting on the truck, but on the block towers, the driver started up the truck and slowly drove it out from under the house. Mem explained that the house was going to stay on those blocks until the cellar walls were built, and then they would use the jack to let the house down onto the new foundation.
MEM WOKE US UP EARLY the next morning for the frolic, or work party. When we were finished eating, Mem said, “Lizzie and Lomie, do the dishes and sweep the floor. As soon as you've finished that, go and pick the corn and the tomatoes. Sarah, you play with Susie, and let's hope Baby Simon sleeps a while longer.”
Mem and Datt had gotten up early to butcher chickens, and now Mem fried them on all four burners of the oil stove. The smell made my stomach growl, even though I'd just eaten a big bowl of oatmeal. We had set up the church benches the night before under the trees next to the woodshed, where it would be shady and away from the dirt.
“Joey,” Mem said, “I need you to go and bury the chicken leavings back in the woods. Hurry up—people will be coming any minute.”
Lizzie and I had just started picking corn when the first buggy drove up. “It's Momme and Dodde,” Lizzie said. She was close to the edge of the cornfield, so I went and peeked out between the cornstalks with her. Dodde was short and stout, with a twinkle in his eye. He looked like Mem would look if she were older and a man instead of a woman. Momme was short and plump, but not as big as Mem or most of my aunts. She was as mild-mannered as my other grandmother was severe. She walked into the house carrying two big baskets covered with white towels. Datt helped Dodde unhitch the horse and water him at the trough by the pump, and then tied him to a tree by the woodshed. Dodde walked over to the cellar hole and stood looking down, hooking his thumbs into his suspenders and chewing slowly on his tobacco. After a moment, he spit a stream of brown juice onto the ground and then wiped his beard. Lizzie and I looked at each other and wrinkled our noses. But we liked Dodde. He would say funny things to make people laugh, and he liked to tease Momme. Even though she pretended to be angry, she would be laughing.
Next, a van drove into the yard, and several of Mem's sisters and their families got out. They had come all the way from Mesopotamia, eleven miles away, in a hired van. I recognized Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Bert, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dan, and the aunt who shared a name with me, Saloma, and her husband, Ervin. They had brought some of the cousins, but they couldn't all fit in one van, so the older ones had to stay home. Marie and Maudie came, and they were almost the same age as Lizzie and me.
More people arrived, some by buggy and some by vans. I didn't know everyone. Mem said Dodde had invited people who he wanted to help lay the cellar walls. Mem came out of the house and shook hands with everyone, smiling, happier than I'd seen her since the night she fainted in the kitchen doorway. After all the handshakes, Uncle Dan said, “Well, uhh, we better get to work; we've got a cellar to lay.”
“Okay, boys,” Dodde said. “Let's get that cement mixed up. We'll need some water. And the wheelbarrow and an old hoe.”
As the men set to work, Mem said to Marie and Maudie, “Lomie and Lizzie are in the garden. Would you like to go help them pick corn?”
Lizzie and I waved, pretending we'd just come to the edge of the field. Marie and Maudie walked down to where we were.
“Want to help?” Lizzie asked, holding out one handle of the basket to Marie, who took it. Maudie and I followed them back into the cornfield.
“Let's husk these outside,” Aunt Saloma said when we brought the basket filled with corn to the house. She and the other aunts took the basket out to the benches in the shade and sat down to husk and visit.
Maudie, Marie, Lizzie, and I ran to the cellar hole and stood with the other children as close as we could get and still be out of the way. Dodde poured fine gray powder from a large bag into the wheelbarrow and added water from the pail Joe and Cousin Andy brought from the pump. Datt stirred it with a hoe. I watched as the gray powder turned into thick mud.
“Lizzie! Lomie!” Mem called from the kitchen door. She held Baby Simon. As we came up to her, she said, “Lizzie, take him to Aunt Sarah and see if she will hold him. If he cries, bring him to me. Lomie, we need some potatoes from the cellar. And then you both can set up the small bathtub with some soap and towels in the yard for the men to wash in, out near the church benches.”
The morning went by quickly. I watched Datt and several other men carrying the cement blocks. Dodde directed the laying of the blocks for the walls, which got higher one layer at a time. The men joked about who was strongest and who worked the hardest.
Around noon, the food was all set out. Besides Mem's chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and fresh ears of corn, there was Aunt Ada's baked beans, Momme's homemade bread that tasted just like Mem's, and tomatoes and beans from the garden. For dessert there would be cake, pudding, and ground-cherry pies. I hoped the men would leave some for the women and girls.
The men washed up, and then everyone bowed their heads for Händt nunna. After a long moment, Dodde cleared his throat, and then everyone moved. I looked at him in surprise. This was Datt's home, so wasn't it his place to end the “Hands down”? I wondered. But Datt was already moving into the line of men to fill their plates, and I couldn't see his expression.
&nbs
p; After the men had taken their plates to the church benches and eaten, the boys sitting with their full plates on the ground around them, the women and girls could go to the table and fill their plates. I sat down on the ground beside Lizzie, Marie, and Maudie. I tried not to eat too fast, but it was hard, because the food was so good. When I was done, I had that nice, full, satisfied feeling that the Amish called sot. This was a word that described it so much better than the English word, “full.” One could be full but not satisfied. Sot said it all in one short word, and that is exactly what I felt after the frolic meal. While the aunts did the dishes, Lizzie pushed the girl cousins on the swing. She could push so that the tall swing would go far and fast. When it was my turn and she pushed me, I was swinging higher than the roof on the woodshed, with the wind rushing past my ears and excitement tickling my stomach. I could see Mem and the aunts moving around in the house propped above the cellar hole. Their voices echoed as they chatted about the work that needed to be done. All of sudden, they screamed and made for the door with their aprons over their heads, trying to get down the shaky, bendy planks. What looked like a black bird flew out of one of the broken windowpanes. They had startled a bat, and the bat startled them. They stood around outside, laughing and daring one another to go back in. Most of the women wouldn't go back in, because they were afraid that there would be more bats. I asked, “Why did they put their aprons over their heads?”
“So the bat wouldn't get tangled in their hair,” Lizzie said.
I wondered how a bat could possibly get caught in the women's hair—each one of them had her hair tied up into a bun and was wearing a kop. Lizzie said, “Lomie, it's someone else's turn now.” I got off the swing and Maudie took her turn.
Finally, just as it started to get dark, the walls reached the same height as the cellar under the house. They were taller than Uncle Dan, and he was the tallest uncle. The following week, after the walls had had time to set, Dodde and a few close neighbors would come back and lower the house down onto them. The work of the frolic was finished. Everybody began leaving, tired, but I saw men nodding when they looked back. I watched them go and thought about how it must feel to build something all day, and then be able to look at it, all done, at sunset.
MEM'S HARD WORK on the house was yet to come. For the rest of the fall, she spent every free moment she had working in the old house. At first, when I came home from school there would be piles of old plaster waiting to be taken to the trash pile back in the woods. When all the old plaster was gone, Mem mixed up new plaster and smoothed it over the lath walls and ceiling, and when that had dried, she put on another layer. She took out the light switches and filled in the holes. When she finished putting up new wallpaper, it began to look more like a house.
Dodde came and put in new windows and made a doorway between the two houses on the first floor and in the upstairs. Now we didn't have two separate houses, but one big one. Mem painted the woodwork, and finally cleaned the floor and painted it gray. We washed the windows, and when Mem hung clean new curtains and laid woven rugs on the floor, it began to feel like part of our very own house. We moved in as we were getting our first snow.
Even though we had more room in our house, it did not change Mem's level of responsibilities. She was just as stressed and worked as hard as always.
MY WEEKS AT SMITH were both short and long—they were short because I enjoyed my studies and there was always something fun to do, but they were long in missing David. Therefore, I looked forward to packing up my laundry and books and heading for home after my German class on Friday afternoons. On this Friday afternoon, the three hours went by quickly as I listened to German tapes along the way. I arrived home and saw David moving about in the kitchen. He saw me coming and came out to help me carry my belongings in. We hugged out by the driveway. David held back, and I said, “You haven't seen me all week and you aren't giving me a real hug?”
“Let's go in where it's private,” David said with a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. I looked across the top of the car at him and laughed. “You always did have to have absolute privacy for a simple hug and a kiss. Fine, then—you are going to get it when we get in the house.”
“No, you are going to get it,” he laughed.
It was worth the privacy to wait for David's hugs and kisses. I saw him as if he were new to me. He was so handsome—fair, clear skin, a high forehead, and full red lips. His hair is barely streaked with gray, even though he is almost fifty, and I love his blue, blue eyes that are so expressive. I can often tell his mood by reading his eyes. At this moment, I could tell his mood was the same as mine. Our passion came first, our dinner second.
After dinner, I started my laundry. David and I settled down for a movie. We sat next to one another on the couch, our bodies hungry for the touch we had missed all week.
When we were snuggled into bed for the night, I said, “I have been having vivid memories of Datt every night this week as I went to sleep.”
“What kinds of memories?”
“Mostly I remembered the times when I was really little and frightened by his state of mind. Those times seem so dark to me now. It seems to me he brought sorrow to so many people's lives, and his own life was so filled with sorrow. I just have to ask, what is the meaning of such a life?”
“I don't know,” David said. “Maybe it is one of those mysteries that we will never know the answer to.”
“It just seems that it is an unfair lot that Datt never experienced real joy in his life.”
“How do you know that he didn't? Maybe he experienced joy in smaller ways than most people. What about the time he got his job at the orchard?”
“You could be right. I have never seen him so happy before or since.” With my head on David's chest, I remembered.
I was about seven years old. Datt had been without a job, and Mem often prodded him off his rocking chair and urged him to go and look for one. Late one afternoon, after Datt had been away for most of the day, he suddenly came bounding up the driveway, yelling and clapping his hands above his head and shouting, “Ich happ en cha-ap! Ich happ en cha-ap! Ich happ en cha-ap!” (I have a jo-ob . . . ). I had never seen him so exuberant.
Mem looked out and saw what Datt was doing, and a smile crossed her face. She said, “Well, what has gotten into him?”
Datt came in and told us. In the fall he would be picking peaches, apples, and pears at an orchard, and in the spring he would prune the fruit trees. He would be working with other Amish men at the orchard.
Datt's happiest days were when he was working in the orchard. He seemed to have one area of intelligence—trees. When I walked through the woods with him in the spring, tapping maples, he would be able to name every kind of tree on his forty acres. Each of the trees seemed like one of his friends. I often felt that he cared more for his trees than for his family. Now, as I reflected on this, I was just glad that he had a passion in his life. I wonder if part of Datt's depression was because of his feelings of inadequacy in the community. There was basically one role for an Amish married man to play—to provide for his family. If Datt felt like a failure in this role, he might have felt like he couldn't do anything worthwhile.
David's breathing got deeper, and I knew he had fallen asleep. I kept my head on his chest, and breathed in his smell, and listened to the snores deep in his chest. I was so grateful for his support. It is staggering to read the statistics for how many women who grow up in abusive families end up finding partners who are like their abusers. David is so different from either Datt or Joe. All couples have difficulties, but we have a base of love and support for one another that carries us through these difficulties. I thought about what one of my housemates had told me—that the odds of Ada Comstock scholars coming to Smith married and leaving divorced were high. I hoped David's and my relationship was not going to add to these numbers.
Do You Remember Me?
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL<
br />
Back at Smith, my struggles to stay focused grew more intense. As I awoke in my window bed one morning, I realized that my days belonged to Smith, and my nights belonged to my memories—though there were times when my memories intruded while I was sitting in class. Most of the time I could keep the two separate, but with each passing day, as Datt kept failing, it became increasingly harder to concentrate on my studies.
Just as I was deciding I might regret not going back to see Datt for the last time, an email arrived from Sister Susan, reporting that Datt's struggle with life had ended at around 2:00 that afternoon, with family members around him.
When I called David to tell him of Datt's death, he was sympathetic and supportive. But when I told him I felt we should set out for Ohio the next morning, he balked. The trustees at the museum where he worked were coming to see an exhibit he had been working on for two years—he insisted we could not leave until he had walked them through the building. It would take him until noon, putting us in Ohio around midnight.
“Where are we going to stay?” David asked.
“I don't know. If we are coming in that late, it is not appropriate to ask anyone in my family.”
“How about we stay with my sister?”
“That would be nice, actually. It would give us a reprieve from the Amish and the intensity of what's happening in my own family. But Bernadette and Maurice go to bed so early.”
“Yeah, but maybe they could leave the door open for us.”
“Do you mind calling them?”
“I can do that.”
“Okay, good. What are we going to do about Tim? He's on break from school this week, isn't he?”
“Yes. He will have to come with us.”
Why I Left the Amish Page 5
