Gladden the Heart

by Olivia Newport

  But he had noticed the fence, and he was up at the road to fix it just as Susanna happened by. He hoisted himself over the top railing and waved at her in the road. They did not get to wander with their friends the day before, so he proposed to invite her to explore a new trail into the forest. Uncle Niklaus seemed to turn his head when Adam slipped away with Susanna, no matter how much work there was to do, a tendency Adam could not resist exploiting. Her cart was moving slowly enough that he could easily trot beside it.

  “Oh,” she said. “Adam. Hello.”

  “Is that the best I get?”

  She turned her face to him. “I am sorry.”

  “Are you all right? Is your cousin all right?”

  “Noah is fine. He is fine.”

  “So you have been to see him?”

  “Yes. Where else could I go down this lane?”

  Adam furrowed his forehead. “Susanna, what is wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She picked up her reins. “Nothing.”

  “It does not sound like nothing.”

  “Well, it is.”

  He trotted beside her, thinking what else to say.

  “I found a new trail,” he said. “I do not know who tramped it down, but it is easy to follow. We would not get lost. We could look for roots.”

  “I have no need of more roots right now.”

  That had never mattered before. Susanna had been as complicit as Adam in finding times and reasons to explore God’s creation together. Adam reached a long arm over and tugged on the reins. The old mare required little convincing to stop.

  “What are you doing?” Susanna asked.

  “I am trying to talk to you.”

  “My mamm does not want me to be late for supper and devotions.”

  “You have time,” Adam said. “What report will you give her on your cousin?”

  “I told you. Noah is fine.”

  Why did he not believe her? “Susanna.”

  “Adam, we will talk another day. I must get home.” She took the reins again and urged the horse forward.

  Adam stood in the road and watched her until she rounded the bend and went out of sight. She had never done that before.

  CHAPTER 6

  The sight of her father cooking an egg mesmerized Patsy Baxton, not because she had supposed that he was incapable but because it so rarely happened. He had been home for a week now, and that in itself was unusual.

  “Papa, let me make you some toast to go with your egg.” Standing beside her father at the stove, she opened a burner and used tongs to hold a thick slice of bread flat over the lapping flames.

  “Egg and toast,” Charles said, “and strong black coffee. What better breakfast to send me off on my horse.”

  Patsy inhaled her father’s scent—the fragrance of the soap he’d used on his bushy gray-streaked hair mixing with the smells of his freshly laundered shirt and his well-traveled light wool frock coat. This is what her fathered smelled of—readiness for the journey.

  “You could stay home another day.” Patsy slowly rotated the bread to brown both sides evenly.

  Charles shook his head. “’Tis Thursday already, and I am promised to a revival meeting on Saturday that is two days’ journey.”

  “The toast is ready,” Patsy said.

  “And the egg.” He reached for a plate and carried his breakfast to the table. “What will you eat?”

  “I’ve had my porridge.”

  “Ah. I will have my fill of porridge during my circuit. A favorite of hosting families.”

  Patsy arranged herself in a chair across from her father, filling her mind with this ordinary image of him. A man eating his breakfast. That is what he was just then. An hour later he would be the minister on his horse.

  “How did you feel about the revival meeting here?” Patsy planted her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands.

  Her father swallowed a bite of egg. “We reached many souls, and I believe many have genuinely turned their hearts toward God.”

  “I saw the one woman who was so happy to be converted that she was crying.”

  “She knew in that instant that she was saved. The knowledge took great weight off her shoulders.”

  “Some of the Amish were there,” Patsy said.

  “On one night, yes. I do not expect the Amish will easily convert. Their teaching, as I understand it, leaves little room for true knowledge of salvation.”

  “But Niklaus Zug is your friend, and you think he believes. I’m sure Susanna does.”

  “But do they have a testimony? The fruit of faith?”

  “Did any of them go forward?”

  He shook his head. “Nary a one. But I continue to pray that God will work renewal among our friends.”

  Patsy sat back in her chair. “Will you ever leave the circuit?”

  Most Methodist circuit riders were young men. Her father was forty-one, an age when most riders had settled down. Over the years, Patsy heard stories of men her father knew who had given up the work in a state of ill health—or even been found dead on the circuit. She did not want his next journey home to be so riddled with illness that the end of life was in sight.

  Her father reached over and grazed her cheek with his fingers. “I do as the Lord bids me. My heart aches for you whenever I am away. But your mother’s inheritance—which we never expected—allows us to have this farm and helps to run it. Is this not God’s provision for the ministry?”

  Patsy wrapped her fingers around her father’s hand against her face. “I love you, Papa.”

  “Do you believe this is absolutely necessary?”

  Susanna sucked in her lips before turning to meet her mother’s examination.

  “This is the third time this week you have run off to the Kauffmans’,” her mother said.

  Veronica scrubbed a man’s work shirt against the washboard. Susanna presumed it was her father’s, but Timothy was of stature to fill a man’s garment as well.

  “I only want to be helpful,” Susanna said, wringing out a frayed apron before pinning it to the clothesline.

  “But you said yourself that Cousin Noah is better.” Her mother scrubbed again.

  Susanna chose her words carefully, as she had done all week. “I did say he is stable. But I have seen in my visits that his condition may take longer to resolve than Phoebe had hoped, and if she does not take care, she will need tending as well.”

  Stable not well.

  Condition not illness.

  Resolve not cure.

  “Phoebe is a dear wife,” her mother said, “and with no children, she certainly provides all the attention of a dedicated nurse.”

  “Caring for someone who has not recovered in a few days is tiring,” Susanna said. “There is a farm to run. A helping hand goes a long way.”

  “There is much to do right here at home. The truth is, your four younger brothers are more help to your daed than to me.”

  Susanna swallowed. Timothy was sixteen, and Daniel twelve, both old enough to work in the fields or in the barn. At nine and seven, Philip and Stephen were still doing lessons, and Susanna gladly had taken on their instruction. They would start up again right after the harvest. She milked the cows more than any of her brothers, and she kept the family of seven in cloth. She planned to stay right beside her mother until the family’s weekly laundry was hung that day. Vegetables for the Hooley supper were laid out in the kitchen. What more could her mother ask of her?

  “You are always very generous with the candles you make,” Susanna said. “Phoebe could use some new tapers. I said I would bring some—if you can spare them.”

  “I can spare them,” her mother said. “’Tis you I cannot spare.”

  “I will not walk nor stop to collect any colors,” Susanna said. “I will go directly in the cart and come home directly as well.”

  “Perhaps another day.” Veronica dropped the scrubbed shirt into the pail for Susanna to wring.

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  �
��We will see.”

  Susanna angled herself away from her mother to wrest moisture from the garment. Controlling her daughter’s comings and goings was not like Veronica. If she knew the truth—that Phoebe needed help keeping Noah safe while he preached—would that make a difference?

  “Like this?” Adam held the corner together as Bishop Herztberger instructed, two logs meeting.

  “Is it perfectly square?” the bishop asked.

  Adam looked at the array of tools on the floor and settled his eyes on a right angle piece of metal.

  “That is right,” the bishop said, following Adam’s gaze.

  “I cannot let go to pick it up,” Adam said.

  The bishop laughed. “This is why a good carpenter always benefits from an assistant.” He picked up the angle and demonstrated how to use it, checking both the bottom and the top of the joint Adam had begun to create.

  “I have never done this before,” Adam said. “I want it to be right for my onkel—and my cousin Jonas.”

  The bishop nodded. “You have learned much this week already. Lock the notches in place, and we will check the angles once more. We already have the basic shape of the pen, but we must be careful that the angles do not migrate wider or smaller, or Jonas’s wife will never be happy with the way the furniture fits!”

  Adam chuckled. His own mother had complained for years about a drafty corner that left a gap. She was compelled to keep a substantial chest of drawers there whether it suited her or not.

  “Do not fret,” the bishop said, “we have plenty of time before any harvest weddings, and the newlyweds will visit around to their relatives before settling in here.”

  They set notched logs that Niklaus had selected and felled with Jonas. Adam grew up in a house his grandfather had built, and his limited experience with barn raising taught him little about home construction. At least he recognized the shape of an emerging rectangle.

  “You are doing well, Adam,” the bishop said as they began the process of setting the next set of logs to shape the room.

  “Danki.”

  Adam was unsure with every cut or notch, yet the bishop commended him. The patience Adam witnessed in this carpenter in common work clothes did not form a clean corner in his mind with the stern minister of Sunday who chastised Noah Kauffman for speaking truth from God’s Word. How could donning a black frock coat to lead a worship service, as all the ministers did, change the demeanor of a man? Perhaps if Adam began an extemporaneous sermon, the bishop would chastise him as well.

  Bending to blow sawdust out of the latest notch before setting the crosspiece, Adam shook off the thought. He could not explain what happened to Noah, but it was not his place to judge the bishop’s response. When he was baptized, he vowed submission to the church. Certainly the vow held when he moved to a new district.

  “Very nice work,” the bishop said. “Now do you think you can manage cutting some notches on your own?”

  “Surely I am not ready!”

  The bishop ignored Adam’s hesitation. “We will begin with three logs. I will try to come again tomorrow or the next day, and we will see how you have done.”

  “You are leaving?”

  “’Tis nearly suppertime, Adam. You have worked well and hard today. Try the notches. A dovetail takes the most time to cut, but it also gives the tightest hold.”

  “I am not ready. I will make a mistake.”

  The bishop gestured to a pile of mismatched ends of logs cut from the pieces that formed the walls so far.

  “Practice on some scraps. Remember to keep a steady hand. If you are uncertain, your onkel can help. He does not make a very square corner, but he is not bad with an ax if he tries, and he will try for the sake of Jonas.”

  The bishop picked up his tools and mounted his horse. His farewell was a simple tip of his hat, and Adam was left standing alongside a framed pen four logs high. If the day’s heat had not already drenched Adam’s shirt, the thought of taking any step in the construction on his own would have. It was Niklaus’s idea for Adam to learn carpentry, but Adam had only imagined himself as the assistant to an experienced laborer. As he puffed his cheeks and blew out his breath, he picked up a piece of scrap wood and an ax. Disappointing either his uncle or the bishop was not an acceptable alternative.

  CHAPTER 7

  The brush snagged on a burr in the stallion’s mane, and Adam tugged harder. Belgians were beautiful animals and never disappointed in the fields, pulling plow or the work wagon full of harvest. The pair that Adam and Jonas were brushing now had been Jonas’s choice, his first independent purchase of farm animals that he hoped to have for a long time.

  “He is your favorite, ja?” Jonas said from the side of a young mare.

  “Ja.” Denying it would be insincere. The horse Adam rode came from his father’s stables, and while his relationship with the stallion was amicable, he was a serviceable riding horse with little to remark on. His color could be named neither white nor gray, and the brown streak down his nose was crooked. But Jonas’s stallion was a creature of beauty. Along with a silky chestnut coat and flaxen mane, he had the ability to haul tremendous weight.

  “Mine too,” Jonas said, glancing around to surrounding stalls. “He is stalwart and loyal and handsome, and I pray he will breed well for many years.”

  “Surely it will be so.”

  “You were up very early this morning.” Jonas exchanged a curry comb for a dandy brush.

  “The bishop gave me an assignment. I did not want to disappoint.” Adam slowed his brush. “Will you be helping to build as well?”

  Jonas met Adam’s eyes. “You are wondering why my daed offered your services to the bishop rather than mine.”

  “I am happy to do as your daed asks,” Adam said, “but ’tis a curious question.”

  “Truly. Perhaps you will be the one to teach me to build.”

  “I have just begun to learn,” Adam said. Jonas was barely nineteen, several years younger than Adam, and already on the verge of betrothal.

  “I do not always understand my daed’s decisions, but I have learned to trust what I do not understand.” Jonas glanced out the small window in the stable wall. “Here comes the bishop now.” Adam returned his brush to its hook on the wall, inhaled and exhaled a deep breath, and stepped out into the yard just as the bishop tied up his horse.

  “Gut mariye, Adam,” the bishop said. “I trust one day has been enough time for you to try your hand at notching.”

  “I have done my best,” Adam said.

  “Was Niklaus able to advise you?”

  “I did not ask him.”

  The bishop raised an eyebrow. “Then let us see the work of your hands.”

  Adam led the bishop around to the far side of the house, where Jonas’s room would rise one log at a time. Three logs, each one notched at both ends, lay in equally spaced parallel lines.

  Bishop Hertzberger squatted and lifted one end for closer inspection. “Well done.”

  And the next, and the next.

  “You have done extremely well,” the bishop said. “You must have practiced first.”

  “I did.”

  “May I see the scraps?”

  Adam pointed to a row of twelve log ends, all with dovetail notches.

  “But these are perfect as well,” the bishop said, picking up one and running his eyes down the row. “Where are the mistakes? We learn from our mistakes.”

  “This is all of them,” Adam said.

  “When you are learning, mistakes are nothing to be ashamed of. You need not hide them from me.”

  “I am hiding nothing,” Adam said. He would not lie to the bishop, of all people.

  “Perhaps one or two that you threw on the fire last night?”

  Adam shook his head.

  The bishop dropped the scrap in its place beside the others. “If you take such care with simple notching, God will be pleased with the beauty of what you create.”

  “I hope so.”

 
The bishop shook a finger. “But do not become proud.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then let us begin.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Niklaus rounded the corner. “Shem! Jonas said you had come again.”

  “Your nephew is a talented young man,” Shem said to Niklaus.

  “All I did was notch a few logs,” Adam said.

  Shem clasped his hands together. “It is the spirit of your work that you offer to God, and you have offered Him your best.”

  “I try to,” Adam said.

  Niklaus clapped his nephew’s back. “You are careful with the details in all that you do.”

  “And such care is what will make you a carpenter,” Shem said. “Someday a young woman will be blessed to have a husband who can bring God’s beauty right into the home.”

  Niklaus contained his smile. Susanna was the young woman who should be so blessed.

  “Adam has a good head on his shoulders,” Niklaus said, “and a good heart. Deborah and I are delighted to have him in our home.”

  Adam had arrived two years earlier, tentative, reluctant, hesitant at every turn. His father had decided it was best that Adam leave, and his mother—Niklaus’s sister—did not object. She must have seen for herself that Adam would not thrive under the direction of a man who imposed an hourly schedule on his children, even after they were grown. Niklaus was happy to have his sister’s boy. If you are a child’s favorite onkel when he is small, it is only right to take him in when he is in need. Adam should have married sooner, in his father’s opinion. But someday—soon, Niklaus hoped—Adam’s parents would meet Susanna and understand that God’s hand had not left their son. In the meantime, if the bishop recognized and commended Adam’s abilities, great blessing would fall on Adam and spill over to Susanna.

  “I will get my tools,” Shem said, “and we will begin. Niklaus, are you helping us today?”

  “Perhaps I will,” Niklaus said. “The chores are in hand, and the corn and wheat will grow no faster if I sit in the field and watch it.”

  “Then you may stay,” Shem said, “but you will do as you are told.”

  Niklaus bowed his head slightly. “You are the master. I am but a lowly servant.”