Gladden the Heart

by Olivia Newport

  “Why can’t they see how God works?” Patsy reached for her coffee mug.

  “They do see,” Charles said. “Have I told my stories so badly that you do not see God in them?”

  “I mean the Amish,” Patsy said. She told a few stories of her own, wishing that her father might stay home for a good long stretch and see for himself.

  After breakfast, Patsy strolled the farm with her father while Harvey, the weathered farmhand, reported to Charles on the corn and wheat fields, when he thought the harvest might begin—Charles would try to be home to help with that—and how much cash they might expect the farm to yield.

  After a while, Mercy’s voice rode the wind, faintly calling her husband’s name. Then came the bell that could be heard across the acres. Patsy and Charles turned back toward the house and hastened their steps.

  Shem Hertzberger stood at the base of the steps leading up to the front porch, his black frock coat announcing that he had come on official duty as a minister. Charles owned a similar coat, though he did not wear it when he was home on his own farm.

  “Mr. Hertzberger,” Charles said, “I do not believe we have ever had the privilege of hosting you in our home.”

  “I have offered refreshment,” Mercy said. “Mr. Hertzberger tells me his visit will not be a long one.”

  “We can at least sit in the shade of the porch.” Charles gestured up the steps.

  Shem shook his head. “I have come only to ask that you take care with my flock.”

  Charles tilted his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Confusion courses through my congregation,” Shem said. “Perhaps you do not understand the influence you have and that it is misplaced when directed toward our people.”

  “You are speaking of Noah,” Charles said.

  “And Niklaus,” Shem said, “and all those who are drawn to give or hear sermons that are not in the way of our people. The congregation finds itself in tension, and I ask that you mind your conversations carefully so as not to cause further rift than you have to this point.”

  Patsy boiled over in an instant. “You dare to come here and tell my father that he has caused a rift in your congregation!”

  “Patsy,” Charles said softly.

  Mercy laid a hand on Patsy’s elbow, but Patsy shook her off.

  “If your people are confused,” she said, “it is because their bishop scolds them for a true experience of the Spirit of God. You might open your heart first and then show them the way.”

  “Patricia!” There was nothing soft about Charles’s voice this time.

  “Come,” Mercy said, “we’ll go inside and let the ministers speak.”

  Patsy ought to feel sorry for her outburst. Her parents made that clear. But she didn’t. It was about time someone stood up to the likes of Shem Hertzberger.

  “You have a visitor.”

  Deborah stood in the open barn door, looking up at Niklaus in the hayloft. They would bale again soon. He wanted the loft ready to receive its fresh supply.

  “Who is it?” Niklaus brought his hook down in a solid thrust into a bale so it would be safely stored until he could return to his task.

  “That English girl Susanna is so friendly with.”

  “Patsy Baxton?” Niklaus looked down at his nodding wife before making his way to the ladder, down its rungs, out the barn door, and to the young woman sitting on his front stoop. Deborah went into the house through the back, leaving Niklaus to sit beside Patsy.

  Her news of the bishop’s visit to her family’s farm surprised him. As long as he had known Shem, his old friend never ventured to tell the English how to behave.

  “I lost my temper,” Patsy muttered.

  “I am sure you are sorry,” Niklaus said.

  “Not really.”

  Niklaus paused and then said, “You may want to reconsider.”

  “I believe what I believe,” Patsy said.

  “Of course you do. But it is not your beliefs that have brought you here to see me.”

  Silence expanded the inches between them.

  “You’re right,” Patsy finally said. “I came because I feel terrible about the things I said.”

  “Our old friend repentance arrives again.”

  “Will I have to apologize to your bishop?”

  “First make your peace with God.”

  Patsy nodded.

  Niklaus pressed the heels of his hands into his knees, his elbows swinging wide, and pushed himself upright.

  “In the meantime,” he said, “I will speak to Shem. You Methodists have your own bishops. Shem should not have approached your father that way.”

  “Then we agree!” Patsy said.

  Niklaus gave a half smile. “Yes, we agree on that point. But we also agree that you have an opportunity to know God’s mercy through repentance.”

  “That’s what Noah always says.”

  “He is not wrong,” Niklaus said. “I will get my horse and leave you to examine your own heart.”

  Bishop Hertzberger’s arrival sent a shudder through the makeshift congregation gathered to hear Noah. Standing in the front room with a clear view out the window, Susanna saw Amish shoulders stiffen, as if they were children caught with a spoonful of sugar their mothers were carefully rationing. Patsy might be glad he had come—if she were there. Noah had fallen under at least half an hour ago, and Patsy had not come. Patsy advocated that if people would just hear Noah preach, they would see he was a true servant of God, and usually Susanna agreed. She was less certain of that result when it came to Bishop Hertzberger. His sermons the last two months made clear where he planted his feet.

  Now the bishop trotted his horse alongside the benches. A handful of people immediately dashed for their wagons. But what was most remarkable about the bishop’s arrival was that he was not alone. The English doctor was with him. Phoebe and Noah had been to doctors before. No one had a solution. If the bishop had bothered to speak to them, he would know this.

  Shem eyed the side of the barn and steered his horse toward the hooks where he and the doctor could tie up their animals.

  Noah preached with his usual kindly forcefulness, but Bishop Hertzberger did not halt a single step to take in Noah’s words. Instead, he led the doctor in a straight path in full view past the benches and toward the front door.

  Phoebe had gone to her sister’s for the day. Patsy was unaccounted for. Susanna saw no sign of Adam, not even sitting on the pasture fence behind the gathered crowd. Gulping, she met the bishop at the door.

  “Susanna,” he said. “We must come in.”

  The one rule Phoebe was adamant be enforced was that no one be allowed in the house during Noah’s sermons. Did such a rule apply to the bishop?

  “I am sorry for your trouble, Doctor,” Susanna said. “No one here requires your services.”

  “I asked him to come on this day,” the bishop said. “It has been arranged for some time, so I ask you to permit entry.”

  She could have heard him perfectly well if he had spoken with a private tone. Instead, it was as if he wanted to best Noah’s volume. Noah, of course, showed no awareness that his bishop had come calling.

  “We are coming in.” The bishop pushed past Susanna. The doctor followed tenuously.

  “But we do not need a doctor,” Susanna said.

  “You are in great need of a bishop. I have chosen to bring the doctor to prove once and for all what this is.”

  This was Noah preaching the truth of God. Why was that so difficult to see?

  “You have a kind spirit,” the bishop said. “I do not doubt your intention is to help Noah in some way, but you have tangled yourself in his duplicity.”

  Duplicity!

  “Doctor, are you ready?” Shem said.

  The doctor unclasped his black bag and unfolded his leather surgical kit.

  “What are you doing?” Susanna stepped between the doctor and Noah. Even if Noah was being duplicitous, how could the doctor possibly treat him with a
surgical kit?

  “This will just take a minute,” Shem said. “A few seconds. A simple medical experiment.”

  The doctor removed a long needle from its place in the medical pouch.

  “I cannot allow this,” Susanna said. “There is no wound to close.”

  “You dare to speak to me that way? You are being far too emotional.”

  The bishop grabbed the needle from the doctor and jabbed it into Noah’s thigh.

  CHAPTER 28

  Susanna gasped. “Bishop!” She tussled her way to Noah’s side and stood with a hand on his shoulder.

  But Noah made no response to the needle coming through the weave of his black trousers and into his thin thigh. Today’s sermon was on forbearance, and the fluidity of his exhortation did not falter. God’s divine forbearance toward us should most certainly inspire forbearance toward one another. Susanna, however, felt no inkling of the trait.

  “Doctor,” she hissed, “what results do you find from this medical experiment?”

  The doctor shifted his feet as Shem slapped the syringe back into the surgical kit he held open in his hands.

  Outside, listeners had left their seats and come closer to the window to peer up at Noah.

  “Looks like he didn’t even feel that,” someone said.

  “Or he is exercising great control because he wants us to think he didn’t feel it.”

  “Hey, Doc, do you think he’s sick?”

  “Is this some kind of trick?”

  Even the Amish who had guiltily abandoned their seats when Shem arrived inched their way back for a closer look.

  Noah spoke of God’s unending patience for the faithless Israelites and turned pages in his Bible.

  Not so much as a wince.

  No touch on his leg to acknowledge the intrusion.

  No glance at Shem.

  No quizzical look at the doctor.

  Noah’s hands did not move from his Bible, nor his eyes from the Word of God.

  “There,” Susanna said, stepping back from Noah. “You have your response.”

  “You verge on impudence, Susanna,” Shem said, glancing at the onlookers on the other side of the window. He stepped deeper into the room. “Your parents have taught you better.”

  She held her tongue but could not constrain her thoughts.

  “This proves nothing,” Shem said. “I am not accustomed to handling such a delicate tool. Perhaps the doctor should show me how I ought to have done so.”

  So far the doctor had not spoken a word, as if he had come along simply because he was in possession of the longest, sharpest needle the bishop could find.

  “Doctor,” Susanna said, “in your medical opinion, is there any value to poking Noah again? Might not the action draw blood and create a needless wound?”

  The doctor folded in the flaps of his kit. “I do not see advantage in repeating an experiment that has given clear results.”

  “Your opinion, Doctor?” Shem said.

  “Clearly this man has no awareness of the events at which he is the center.”

  “Do you believe him to be sleeping or unconscious, as some have claimed?” Shem said.

  “The mind is far more mysterious than our understanding of it.” The doctor snapped closed the clasp on his black bag.

  The warmth of a golden gloat infused Susanna’s face as she met the bishop’s eyes.

  “I have other patients to see while I am out this way,” the doctor said.

  “I will show you both out through the kitchen,” Susanna said. The least the bishop could do was leave quietly. Susanna was doing him a favor by not thrusting him out the front into a bevy of English onlookers asking questions.

  Niklaus rode to the Hertzberger farm, miles across the valley, only to hear from Shem’s wife that her husband had gone to visit Noah Kauffman on the farm next door to Niklaus’s.

  Still astride his horse, he saw through the window what Shem did while Noah innocently expounded the Scriptures. At the back door he dismounted, shaking his finger at a boy with his hand on the knob and shooing him off in time to hear the latch move on the inside. The boy would not have gotten in, but Niklaus’s task would be easy. Shem stepped out of the house.

  “Shem, my old friend, you have had a busy morning. First the Baxtons and now the Kauffmans.”

  “It is none of your concern.”

  Niklaus nodded his black hat at the doctor. “I hope you have not troubled yourself too much.”

  The doctor shrugged, thumbs fiddling with the handle to his bag.

  “Shem,” Niklaus said, “what were you hoping Charles Baxton would do? He is a Methodist minister who does what he believes God calls him to do.”

  “Then he can understand when I do the same,” Shem snapped.

  “Our people have lived apart for two hundred years,” Niklaus said. “It is not our habit to persuade others that their religious practices are in error.”

  “I only ask that he keep his ways to himself also,” Shem said.

  Two colorful hats leaned around the corner, two sets of shoulders following, with four eyes fixed on the three men.

  Niklaus shook his head at the women. “If you would like to hear Noah preach, I suggest you remain in the front. This is a private conversation.”

  The women withdrew.

  “Noah’s behavior has become an occasion for too much interaction with the English,” Shem said. “It is not good for the church.”

  “It causes no harm.”

  “Then why have you withdrawn?”

  Niklaus looked away for a few seconds. “We have to be sensible in these matters.”

  Shem pointed a thumb over his shoulder toward the house. “Do you believe this is sensible?”

  Niklaus exhaled. “If you go around to the front to leave, you will only cause a greater spectacle than what has already happened. I will fetch your horses. Ride through the fields to the road at the edge of the forest and depart that way.”

  He should have come earlier. Adam could see that now.

  The bishop.

  The English doctor Adam had seen only one other time in two years.

  Niklaus leading two horses, neither his own.

  No sign of Galahad—so Patsy was not there.

  Empty dirt where Phoebe usually left her wagon.

  Susanna was alone in her responsibility for Noah, and the afternoon had not been routine.

  “Onkel.” Adam left his horse and sprinted across the Kauffmans’ backyard, sending pecking chickens fluttering.

  Between the two mounts, reins in both hands, Niklaus’s head turned.

  “Please do not attract attention,” Niklaus said, low and firm.

  Adam glanced over his shoulder. At the moment, no one followed.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I cannot speak of it now,” Niklaus said. “Shem and his needle must leave, and I will see that they do.”

  “Needle?”

  “Go inside,” Niklaus said. “Susanna needs someone.”

  Niklaus headed off toward Shem and the doctor. Adam targeted the back door, which was latched.

  He knocked. “Susanna, ’tis me.”

  Hearing no footfalls, Adam leaned to one side to peer through a window. The door to the front room was propped open, giving him a clear view through the house. Susanna’s eyes were fixed on Noah.

  He knocked again. This time Susanna startled, and her head jerked toward the kitchen. He waved, catching her gaze. She glanced again at Noah and then lifted the hem of her skirt enough to allow quick steps. The expression on her face wrenched his heart as she lifted the latch and he slipped in. Susanna gripped his hand.

  “What happened?”

  “The bishop jabbed a needle into Noah’s leg to prove his trickery.”

  “And Noah did not respond,” Adam said.

  “Of course not. Whatever you think of his preaching, Adam, you have seen for yourself that ’tis no malicious trickery.”

  Adam nodded. If Shem had been
in the house while Noah preached, surely he had seen for himself that Noah’s preaching was not an act of volition that could be constrained simply because the bishop had entered the room.

  “I cannot go home now.” Susanna released Adam’s hand and pulled fingers across one eye. “Mamm will hear of this, and it will be the last straw. Besides, I want to stay here. Noah is right. This is where I belong right now. I am not even sure I can go back to church.”

  “Susanna!”

  She heaved out her breath. “I am sorry, Adam. I am just telling you the truth.”

  “But leaving the church?”

  “Your onkel did it.”

  “And I pray that he will return soon. God will not turn away from the one who repents.”

  “Can one repent of compassion?” Susanna turned and paced into the front room.

  Adam followed. He was meant to be Susanna’s husband, if not this year then next. But they must marry in the church.

  Repentance was sluggish for Patsy. Even charging up Jacks Mountain when she left the Zug farm did not split her spirit open in exuberance as she had hoped. Instead, she felt undeserving of joy if it were true that she was displeasing God with her anger. Well into the afternoon, sincere repentance was reluctant enough that she halted Galahad four times on the way to the Kauffmans’ so that she might search her heart, even though she knew she would miss the falling under. Perhaps Noah was preaching on repentance and his words would soften her heart when her own self-examination was insufficient.

  The benches beneath Noah’s window were nearly empty—but the flower bed was full. The summer’s flowers were already spent, but that was no reason to venture off the benches and so near the house. Patsy pressed her knees into her horse to speed her arrival.

  “Please step out of the garden,” she said in the officiating voice she had developed over the last few weeks, imitating the authority she had grown up hearing in her father’s tone.

  “Not on your life.”

  The man who retorted was a loyal listener when Patsy’s father preached, and she would not have expected such disrespect in the presence of anyone’s sermon.