Amish Outsider

by Marta Perry

  “She’s been happy with the dresses Ruthie lent her, but she’ll love having one her aunt Sarah made just for her.” He might have thought of that himself, instead of just accepting what had been given.

  His feisty little sister had turned into a generous, thoughtful woman. She had her hands full making clothes for her own kinder, without taking on Allie, too.

  Aunt Verna, finishing pouring coffee, sat down with her own cup. “You did some more work for Mrs. Carpenter, ain’t so?”

  “Mending her cellar steps.” He frowned. “She ought to have a railing on them. Somebody her age shouldn’t take such chances. I told her so.”

  Lige choked on his coffee, and Aunt Verna set her cup down hard.

  “You didn’t say so to her. She doesn’t like people interfering in how she lives.”

  “Is she giving you any more work?” Lige struck a practical note.

  He shrugged, amused at their reactions. “She said she’d think about the railing. And told me to come back and give her a quote on the work.”

  “She did? Ach, I wouldn’t have believed it.” Shaking her head, Verna stood.

  “Where are you going? You didn’t finish your coffee.”

  She lifted down the dress. “I’ll hang this in Allie’s room so she’ll see it when she wakes up.” She smiled, touching the dress tenderly. “She’ll be wonderful happy.”

  Lige forked up a large bite of pie. When they could hear her footsteps on the stairs, he nodded. “Verna’s the one who’s happy. She’s starting to feel like Allie’s her own granddaughter, ain’t so?”

  “It’s good for Allie, too. She’s never had grandparents.” Or much other family.

  “That reminds me.” Lige looked as if he contemplated walking on eggs. “Sarah wanted me to remind you that she’s supposed to take Ruthie and Allie to your father’s house tomorrow after school.” He seemed braced for an explosion.

  Michael felt a flare of resentment, but he forced it down. His father was the way he was, and there was no changing him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be a good grandfather to Allie.

  Finally he nodded. “Okay.” He hesitated again. “If Allie has a chance to have a relationship with her grandfather, I don’t want to mess that up. Tomorrow after school.” He forced a smile. “She’ll want to wear her new dress.”

  Lige seemed relieved. “Gut. Sarah will be happy. Not satisfied, but happy.”

  “Sarah wants a happy ending,” he said. He shrugged and then moved on to another thought. “If Mrs. Carpenter does hire me to build the railing, I could use another pair of hands. Feel like working a few evenings?”

  “Sure thing.” Lige grinned. “Always glad to earn a couple bucks. I—” He stopped at the sound of a car coming down the drive. “Wonder who that is at this hour? It’s dark out.”

  “He’s going too fast.” Apprehension sent Michael to his feet. Even as he spoke, brakes shrieked and there was the sound of gravel spattering.

  In the next instant, it seemed, they heard the crash of breaking glass. Michael charged to the door, with Lige right behind him. Together they burst out into the night.

  Three men were attacking the nearest greenhouse. Michael saw the swing of a bat and yelled.

  As if his shout had been a signal, the men raced toward the waiting car. Michael ran to cut it off. By the time they turned, maybe he could get there and stop them. It was already moving as the last man jumped in.

  It swung in a circle, turning, and then headed out the lane. If he could just get in position to see the license number...

  The car veered and suddenly it was headed right at him. He froze for an instant, heard Lige shout and then dove to the side, rolling over in the soft grass. The car spurted by, turned onto the road away from town and vanished.

  He stood, panting, his fists clenched. If he’d gotten his hands on one of them...

  Lige’s hand fell on his shoulder. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Could you see the license plate?”

  “No chance, not with the lights off. There’s no way of telling who it was. Let’s see how bad it is before Verna gets out here.”

  It was too late already. Verna had paused to grab a battery lantern. Face grim, she held it up to focus on the damage.

  Michael’s stomach twisted. Thank Heaven the men hadn’t reached the other greenhouses, but they’d done plenty of damage to the first one, where Verna kept the annual plants that were currently selling best. Shattered glass—that was the first thing that struck you. Glass had scattered far and wide—they’d have to find a way to clean it all up. And then the repairs...

  “I’m sorry.” He couldn’t find any way of comforting her. “This is my fault. It’s because I’m here.”

  To his astonishment, Verna put her arms around him, holding on tight, as if finding comfort that way.

  Lige, face working, put his arm across her back awkwardly. “We’ll fix it,” he said, his voice husky. “We’ll make it gut as new, ain’t so, Michael?”

  Michael nodded, but was it really for the best that he help? If he left now, this persecution would cease. “If I left—”

  “No.” Verna’s voice was sharp, and Lige was already shaking his head. “That’s not how we deal with trouble.” She straightened, standing on her own. “I will call the police.”

  He and Lige exchanged looks as she marched toward the phone shanty. “I never thought she’d do that.” Lige was the first to speak.

  Michael rubbed the nape of his neck, trying to think. “I guess it’s best,” he said slowly. “This is what Mrs. Carpenter meant, I guess. She said people were talking. Stirring up feelings against us.”

  Lige shrugged. “It’s happened before. It’ll happen again. It goes with being Amish.”

  “It shouldn’t, not this time. This time it’s because of me.”

  Lige eyed him seriously. “Best if you quit saying that. It doesn’t help. We’re all in this, not just you.”

  Lige’s severity shocked him, but at the same time it woke him up. Whether or not it was his fault didn’t matter. The fabric of Amish life was woven so tightly that what touched it affected all. Declaring that this trouble was his alone would be seen as pride, in an oddly inverted way.

  He nodded. “Okay. You’re right.”

  “I’ll get more light,” Lige said. “We’ll have to see what we can save from inside.”

  Michael roused himself to concentrate on the immediate problem. “Right. I’ll go up and check on Allie first.” Without waiting for a response, he headed inside.

  Tension tightened his muscles as he hurried up the steps. If only she could have slept all through it. This ugliness couldn’t be allowed to shatter the peaceful world she’d found here.

  He eased her door open. Allie slept curled up on her side, her face relaxed, her loose braid hanging over her shoulder. Her breathing was even and relaxed, and the stuffed dog was under her arm.

  Michael smoothed the quilt over Allie’s back with gentle hands before heading back downstairs to face the current crisis.

  The police had arrived in the form of Guy Smethers. Michael stifled a groan. Smethers was the last person to be helpful in the current situation.

  “Got some trouble,” he was saying as Michael approached. “Not much we can do about it when you didn’t even get a description of the vehicle.”

  “You mean you only investigate when other people have done your work for you?” Michael snapped.

  Smethers flared up instantly, fists clenching. “If these people want to escape trouble, they’d be better off without you. You were trouble when we were kids, and you’re trouble now.”

  Before Michael could say what he wanted, Lige and Verna had moved next to him. “We are family.” Lige’s tone wasn’t combative, but it was firm.

  Smethers seemed to fight for control. It hung in the balance, but the
n another car turned into the lane, dissolving the tension.

  The new vehicle drew to a halt, and Chief Jamison stepped out. For a moment he stood surveying the chaos of the greenhouse, and then he came to Aunt Verna.

  “I’m awful sorry about this, Mrs. Forster. We’ll do our best to get to the bottom of it.” He turned to Smethers. “Guy, get some photos of those tire tracks where the vehicle turned around. Let’s have a look for any paint scrapings. They might have hit something in their hurry to get out.”

  Smethers seemed to hold back a retort. Then he turned to follow orders.

  “We need to save what we can from inside,” Lige said. “Okay for us to go in?”

  “Did any of the men go inside?” He looked from Lige to Michael.

  They both shook their heads. “They ran along this side. I saw rocks and one man had a baseball bat.”

  Jamison nodded. “Right. Lige, how about if you start while Michael answers some questions?”

  Lige turned wordlessly toward the greenhouse. When Verna attempted to follow him, Jamison spoke up. “Mrs. Forster, do you think you could make a fresh pot of coffee? That’d be a help.”

  Verna hesitated, but then she nodded. Michael breathed a little easier. She was in shock, and it would do her more good to be working in the bright kitchen than out here with the dark and the damage.

  He and Lige would have to cope with the destruction. He felt a burst of gratitude to Lige, who’d become as good as a brother to him so quickly. Still, this was on him, and somehow he had to find a way to repay his family for all of this grief.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CATHY TOOK THE horse and buggy to school the next morning. Mindful of the chief’s warning, she’d decided she wouldn’t be walking through the woods for a time. Mamm and Daad were sure to question why she was driving if she did it every day. She could only hope this situation would be resolved before it came to that.

  She drove into the Forster lane to pick up Allie and stopped, appalled at the sight that met her eyes. The greenhouse—for a moment it looked as if it had been hit by a tornado. Then reality asserted itself. This hadn’t been done by nature. Someone had vandalized the building.

  She’d barely formulated the thought when Michael came striding toward her, his movements quick, his shoulders tense. He leaned against the buggy seat to speak.

  “Allie will be out in a minute.” He jerked his head toward the greenhouse. “You see that we had visitors last night.”

  “It’s...it’s terrible.” She didn’t have the words. No wonder he looked so strained. He was blaming himself, of course, for having brought this trouble on the family. “Who was it?”

  Michael’s hands tightened into fists. “I wish I knew. Lige and I were in the kitchen when a car came racing in. We ran out at the first sound of breaking glass, but they did a lot of damage in a short space of time.”

  “You couldn’t identify them?” But he’d have started with that if he could have.

  “Three men, that’s all I could say. Youngish, from the way they moved, but not kids. They piled back into the car and beat it before we could catch up with them.”

  “Poor Verna. She must be so upset. What can I do?”

  His eyes softened. “Just keep Allie occupied. Verna’s surprising us. She’s already forgiven. I’m afraid I’m not able to meet her standard. At least the damage is nothing that can’t be fixed.”

  Michael turned as the back door opened and closed. Allie came hurrying toward the buggy. Cathy’s heart winced when she saw the child’s face. Allie was all closed in again.

  But then she reached Michael, and her expression blossomed into a smile as she took his hand. Cathy’s tension eased. Allie was turning to her father in a way that seemed natural. They were finding their way to each other, and that was the best thing that could happen to them.

  “Okay, off you go to school in your pretty new dress.” Michael lifted her to the buggy seat next to Cathy. “Don’t worry. You’ll be surprised at how much Onkel Lige and I will have cleaned up when you get home today.”

  Allie nodded, accepting his words, but Cathy was still concerned. This vandalism had hit Allie on an emotional level, and she thought it was worse because Allie had begun to see this place as belonging to her, too.

  “We’d best get moving,” she said with a cheerfulness she didn’t feel. She clucked to the mare, turning in a wide circle to head back out the lane. “I’ll see you after school, then,” she called to Michael while trying to send a message with her expression.

  I’ll do my best for Allie. She hoped he understood.

  They rode in silence for a few minutes, and she waited, hoping Allie might speak. But Allie had retreated firmly behind her barricades.

  Cathy hurt for her, and she knew she had to open something that was bound to be painful. Still, it was even worse to keep silent.

  “That was a terrible thing that happened last night,” she said, watching for cues. “Did you hear it?”

  Allie shook her head. “Daadi told me when I woke up. Why—” She stopped, clamping her lips closed.

  “Why do bad things happen?” Cathy asked, hoping she guessed right.

  Allie’s mouth compressed even more, but her eyes were alive with a mixture of feelings—most likely anger among them. It was like watching a pot come to a boil.

  Then the lid seemed to pop off. “Why do they happen to us?” It was a cry so many people had made, but Allie wasn’t to know that.

  “You have had a lot of bad things happen to you in the last year, haven’t you?” Cathy kept her voice calm, feeling her way. “Maybe you started to feel as if you did something wrong to bring all these bad things on.”

  Allie shot a glance at her, as if weighing whether Cathy thought that. Whatever she saw must have reassured her, because she seemed to lose a little of the tension she carried.

  “Do you think that’s why?” she asked, her voice very small.

  Cathy reached across to take one cold little hand in hers. “No, I’m sure it’s not. Very sure. It’s not you.”

  “Then why?” The words had tears behind them. “Why?”

  Why do bad things happen? She was asking the biggest of questions and expecting an answer.

  “Sometimes people do bad things,” she said, praying for the words. “It’s not your fault if you’re hurt by one of those bad things, any more than it would be my fault if I were hit by lightning. You see?”

  Allie nodded, but she was clearly not satisfied. Cathy would have to dig a little deeper.

  “You didn’t do anything to make those things happen. And it’s important to remember that there are more people doing good things in this world than bad.”

  She mulled that over for a moment. “Are you sure there are more?” This sounded almost like a challenge.

  “I’m sure.” She smiled at Allie. “Tell you what. We’ll have a game. We’ll count up all the good things that happen today, and we’ll tell each other on the way home. Okay?”

  “Okay.” There was still doubt in Allie’s tone, but she managed to smile. It was a tiny smile, but it gave Cathy hope. Somehow she had to make sure that Allie had good things happen to her today.

  When they reached the school, Cathy kept Allie with her while she unharnessed the buggy horse and turned her into the small paddock. By the time they’d done that, some of the other scholars had started to arrive.

  Cathy cringed inwardly when she saw who her helper for the day was. Mary Alice Stoltzfus. She’d wondered why Mary Alice seldom volunteered to help, since she supposedly wanted to be a teacher. Now Cathy had a chance to find out. But almost any other day would have been better to have Mary Alice watching her.

  The morning went on its usual course, but Cathy, with an ear well tuned to her classroom, could tell that some of them had already heard what happened at the greenhouse the previous night. That
settled it in her mind. She’d speak to the children about it. Children relied on the grown-ups in their lives to set the tone of their reactions.

  As the time for morning recess approached, she closed out the current lessons and asked that books be put away. As they did, her scholars looked at her expectantly. Mary Alice rose from the corner where she’d been listening to the third and fourth graders reading aloud.

  Cathy came around her desk to be closer to the children, looking from one face to another. “Some of you have heard about what happened last night at Verna Forster’s greenhouse. If you didn’t, you must know that several people attacked one of the greenhouses and made a mess.”

  She didn’t need to explain that the attackers had been Englisch. They’d know that without thinking.

  The children exchanged glances, some looking shocked and others a little frightened.

  “All of you know Verna, Allie’s great-great-aunt, and you understand what a mean thing that was for someone to do. Do you have any questions you want to ask?”

  A tentative hand went up, and she nodded.

  “Will they... Will they do that to us, too?” Anna Schmidt, whose family ran a large farm stand, looked as if she imagined it the target of an attack.

  “I don’t think so, Anna. I’m sure your daad will be watchful to keep you safe. But we can all imagine how it would feel if it happened to us, can’t we?”

  Heads nodded solemnly, and more than one child glanced at Allie.

  “What do we do when one of the Leit needs help?”

  Ruthie’s hand shot up. At Cathy’s nod, she said, “We help them.”

  “That’s right. We all know that, don’t we?” Heads nodded solemnly. She scanned faces, looking for any dissent, but found none. If any of their parents were inclined to think Verna had brought it on herself by taking in Michael and Allie, they hadn’t apparently shared that with the kinder.

  “So we will look for ways we can be kind and helpful, remembering that’s what we are called to do. You may go to recess now.”

  Mary Alice hesitated for a moment as the children began to file out. Then she went to take hands with Ruthie and Allie as they moved toward the door.