Promise Lodge

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “So Bishop Floyd figures to come to Missouri, along with several other folks, and plant himself here as our leader?” Rosetta asked in a doubtful tone. “How does that work, Amos? He can’t just take over Promise Lodge without a drawing of the lot for a bishop—can he?”

  “Well, he could—bishops serve for life, you know,” Amos replied as he refolded the yellow sheet of paper. “But who can tell? Perhaps other bishops will move here, just as we already have Preacher Marlin stating his intention to come. We’ll decide on our leaders when we know for sure who’s going to live here.”

  “But what if we don’t like Floyd Lehman—or anybody else who wants to live here?” Laura blurted. “Do we have to let them move in?”

  “Jah! The land belongs to you and our mamm and aunts,” Phoebe pointed out. “Can you decide you’ll not sell them any property?”

  Amos smiled as he rose from the table. “We’re bound to get folks with viewpoints that are different from ours, and with ideas that might push our buttons,” he said. “We must rely upon God to grant us patience, and we’ll trust Him to send us new neighbors who want to live in hardworking harmony. Life at Promise Lodge might get a whole lot more interesting than we figured on when we left Coldstream.”

  When the kitchen was tidy, Rosetta went upstairs to her room, where she wrote her report for The Budget each Sunday evening. Composing her column was a good way to review the previous days’ happenings as she prepared herself for the coming week, she’d found. As she took out her pen and paper, however, her thoughts hopped like agitated rabbits.

  What if Floyd Lehman insisted that it was his God-given right to be their bishop? What if he was as brash and willful in person as he sounded in his letter? What if he believed Amish women shouldn’t be managing apartments? What if—

  Rosetta exhaled her frustration and looked out the window. Dusk was settling over the woods, and the surface of Rainbow Lake reflected the blue gray of the sky. Beyond the orchard, at the two-story Wickey home, a light came on in an upstairs window.

  Is that Truman’s room? What if he’s gazing in this direction, wondering which room I’m in?

  Rosetta knew this was a silly, adolescent thought—but her room was getting dark, so she lit the lantern nearest the window. They were all grateful for the helpful suggestions Truman had given them about clearing away underbrush that had gotten out of control, and Amos was extremely glad to have the Wickey Landscaping crew coming to take down a number of dangerous dead trees.

  What should they serve for noon dinner tomorrow? With at least four additional men to feed, she and her sisters needed to overestimate the amount of food they cooked rather than risk running short. Imagining the pies, rolls, and other good things they would bake early tomorrow morning, Rosetta went down the back steps and into the pantry. She gazed into one of the big upright freezers, selecting the largest venison roast along with two packages of ham steaks. When she placed them in the refrigerator to defrost, she realized her heart was beating faster with the anticipation of seeing Truman again.

  That’s silliness. He’s a Mennonite and I’m Amish, Rosetta reminded herself as she returned to her room.

  But what was wrong with planning a nice meal—planning for happiness—when their attractive neighbor came over? She and her sisters would be thanking the crew for their labor rather than just entertaining Truman. It wasn’t as though she’d be trying for his attention, after all. She was happily single, embarking upon a business path Plain men didn’t approve of.

  Rosetta laughed at herself as she sat down at her desk again. If she didn’t set aside her schoolgirl crush on Truman, she wouldn’t get her Budget column written. She picked up her pen and positioned her lined tablet.

  We’ve spent another busy week transforming this former campground into a new colony. Along with a couple days of soaking rain, we welcomed our dear friend Deborah Peterscheim. We’ve also met our Mennonite neighbor, Truman Wickey, and we’re grateful for his landscaping crew and heavy equipment helping us clear away underbrush and dead trees. The garden plots are popping with rows of green shoots and leaves, the honeysuckle bushes smell heavenly, and we’re receiving letters from Plain folks all over the country who might want to make their new homes with us.

  Rosetta paused, thinking of how to finish her account. The events of the past week had given her plenty of food for thought—and thinking about Truman had made her stop fretting about Bishop Floyd Lehman and his attitude. She would go to bed with a smile on her face, and for that she was grateful.

  Chapter Eleven

  That same evening, Deborah borrowed some paper, an envelope, and a stamp from Phoebe and returned to her cabin to write her mother a long overdue letter. She lit the lamp and sat in one of the chairs, gazing at the blank page a long time before the words finally came.

  Dear Mamma,

  I’m so glad you’ve talked to Mattie. I’m sorry it’s taken me a while to write. I’m sorrier still that I stuck my nose where it didn’t belong the night of the fire, and that I’ve caused you and Dat so much trouble. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.

  Deborah paused to allow her emotions to settle. After all the talking she’d done today about Isaac and the circumstances of the Bender barn, she felt like a dress in a washing machine, getting agitated and then run through the wringer—yet still not clean. Confessing her story to Noah had brought so many other trespasses to light—so many ways she could have acted differently—even though Laura, Phoebe, and the three women insisted she’d been right to defend herself and that she’d done the best she could, considering her circumstances.

  She didn’t have the strength to write out each and every incident she’d endured that night, and such an apology should be made to her parents in person. Deborah wrote only the main points about getting herself away from Isaac and then Kerry, and assured Mamma that her clothing had been lost or torn during her struggles with them.

  I didn’t know what else to do, Mamma. Like I told you before I left, I’m grateful to God that He helped me escape Isaac and Kerry before they could do more than rough me up.

  How are Lily and Lavern? And Menno and Johnny? My days here at Promise Lodge have been very busy because the buildings need paint and repairs before other families arrive at the new colony. No amount of hard work can erase how much I miss you all. I’m grateful that everyone here has welcomed me and accepted my confession. I understand that I have no right to return home until you and Dat believe I’m worthy to live under your roof again.

  As Deborah pictured her four siblings’ faces, she wondered what questions they must be asking and what answers Dat was giving them. At thirteen, Lily and Lavern—her sister and brother who were twins—were probably the most aware of what had happened after she’d discovered Isaac Chupp and his friends in the blazing barn. Menno and Johnny, who were eleven and eight, would be curious about where she’d gone. It was a blessing that Lily could help Mamma with the housework now that school had let out for the summer, but Deborah’s heart still ached because she wasn’t there with her family. At home, she knew her duties and she sat in the same spot at the table she’d occupied all her life. Being sent away had made her feel more displaced than she could ever have imagined. Was this how a baby bird felt when it fell from its nest?

  Deborah finished the letter quickly, for the words on the page were yet another reminder of the separation she’d caused by behaving so carelessly. She folded the pages and slipped them into the envelope. As she addressed it to her mother, it occurred to Deborah that she’d written many letters in her lifetime, but she’d never needed to write to Mamma. She’d been her mother’s constant companion since the day she’d been born.

  Deborah extinguished the lamp, surprised at how late it was. The cry of a distant coyote underscored her loneliness, but she focused on getting ready for bed. She owed it to Rosetta, Mattie, Christine, and the girls to be rested and ready to work in the kitchen, preparing the noon meal for the crew Truman Wickey was bringin
g.

  She knelt beside her bed, resting her head on her folded hands. Help me be a more obedient servant, Lord, open to Your will instead of so likely to wander from Your way.

  Deborah slipped between the sheets and eventually drifted off. After what seemed like only a few hours of sleep, a steady ping! ping! ping! drew her to the window.

  In the stillness of dawn, while the sky shone as pale as a pearl and the sun made a glimmering ribbon of light on the horizon, she spotted Noah near the orchard. He was shooting tin cans off the woodpile with rapid-fire precision, as though intent upon stopping hungry coyotes in their tracks.

  Or was he releasing his frustration with her? He appeared to be firing and making the cans fly as though each one represented a reason he could no longer love her. If he was out there shooting this early in the day, he surely must be in a foul mood. For all she knew, everyone else had found discrepancies in her confession, too, now that they’d slept on it.

  The only antidote for this worrisome frame of mind was work, so Deborah got dressed and headed for the lodge to help prepare breakfast.

  * * *

  By noon, Noah was famished and parched from working in the hot sun. While Truman Wickey and his three men had manned their cherry picker and high-powered saws to fell seven dead trees, Noah, Roman, and Amos had used their chain saws and hatchets to cut the branches that had landed on the ground. They were keeping the smaller logs for firewood, and would feed the remainder of the wood to Truman’s giant chipper to make mulch.

  “Sure makes it easier, having Wickey’s equipment to handle most of the work,” Preacher Amos remarked when they stopped for dinner. “Think about how long it would’ve taken the three of us to fell those trees and cut them up.”

  “If we could’ve gotten around to it,” Roman remarked. “Our other projects might’ve kept us so busy that we would’ve left those trees for another year.”

  After the seven of them washed up out at the pump, they headed inside for dinner. They hung their straw hats on pegs Amos had mounted along the dining room wall, planning for when several residents would be taking their meals there. Noah was glad that the nearby maple trees shaded this side of the lodge and lowered the temperature by several degrees. Truman and his men were greeting the ladies, making much of the food that was being set down the center of the table.

  “Is that a banana cake I see?” Edgar asked as he looked at the desserts on one of the tables. “And cookies and pie, too? What a feast!”

  “Oh, I’m eyeballing that bowl of mashed potatoes with the chunks of bacon,” Jay replied, rubbing his hands together.

  Toby let out a laugh. “I’m saving room for a lot of that shoofly pie.”

  “Is that a venison roast I smell?” Truman asked as Rosetta set the platter on the table. “Covered with sliced onions and gravy, too. That’s a real treat.”

  Rosetta’s cheeks were flushed from working in the hot kitchen, and they burned brighter at Truman’s compliment. “Noah’s our deer hunter,” she remarked. “He’s put a lot of meat on our tables over the years.”

  Noah smiled at his aunt’s compliment, but his eyes were on Deborah. She and the other girls were carrying a platter of ham steaks, steaming bowls of sliced carrots, green beans, pickled beets, and a fruit salad from the kitchen. While Laura and her sister happily greeted the workers, Deborah appeared subdued. Downhearted.

  Noah sighed. She was probably still upset from telling her story about the Bender barn. What girl wouldn’t feel the weight of such an ordeal? Although he wasn’t ready to ask if he could court her again, he was still her lifelong friend, wasn’t he?

  He decided that if the weather remained pleasant, he would take her fishing at Rainbow Lake after supper. Maybe in the stillness of evening they could talk some more, and she would reveal what was troubling her.

  Wouldn’t it be nice to kiss her again? That always made her smile.

  After grace, as Noah passed the meat platters and bowls of vegetables, he stole glances at Deborah without trying to engage her attention. He thought ahead to sitting on the grassy bank, baiting the hooks on fishing rods they’d found in one of the sheds, left from the days when Promise Lodge had been a church camp.

  “This is the best bread I’ve eaten in ages,” Jay remarked as he smeared butter on his third slice. “Soft and chewy. Bet it would make a great sandwich, too.”

  Laura slung her arm around Deborah’s shoulder. “This would be our bread baker,” she said. “Deborah had the dough rising before I even got to the kitchen this morning!”

  “We’re mighty glad she’s come to visit,” Aunt Christine chimed in as she started the vegetable bowls around again. “Her peanut butter cookies are chewy-gut and so easy to stir up.”

  Noah was already planning to devour his share of Deborah’s cookies before their guests discovered how wonderful they were. Deborah was smiling politely at these compliments, but the light was missing from her deep green eyes—more incentive for Noah to improve her mood once they could be alone this evening.

  “Oh, my,” Truman said as he held up a forkful of cake. “This is more than just a banana cake, ain’t so? Maybe if I have a second piece I’ll figure out what makes it so moist and tasty.”

  As Noah savored one of Deborah’s chewy peanut butter cookies, he couldn’t miss how Aunt Rosetta’s cheeks bloomed with pink roses—how much younger she looked as she responded to their neighbor.

  “Have a third piece—or take some home,” she replied. “That’s a hummingbird cake, so jah, it’s got bananas and pineapple in the batter, but I think it’s the banana glaze that makes it special.”

  “A big improvement over the version that has creamed cheese heaped on it,” Preacher Amos remarked. “You ladies outdid yourselves today making this dinner.”

  After the meal, when the men rose from the table, Noah snatched three more peanut butter cookies on his way outside. When he held them up, winking at Deborah, he was pleased to see her smile shining a bit brighter. Thinking about fishing with her later on, just the two of them at Rainbow Lake, made the afternoon’s labor seem less intense.

  Roman and Wickey’s men cut up the tree trunks that lay on the ground, while Noah and Preacher Amos fed those pieces to the chipper. When they finished around five o’clock, a mountain of mulch stood at the edge of the orchard and the woodpile had doubled in size—testimony to what seven men could accomplish when they worked as a team.

  Amos paid Truman, and they waved as the four guys took off in his big pickup, hauling the chipper and the cherry picker behind it. Anticipating some time alone with Deborah after she’d finished in the kitchen, Noah took a quick shower. When he sat down at the table, he drank an entire glass of iced tea after their silent grace. This meal was simpler—egg salad and ham sandwiches, along with sliced cheese, and a mixture of the vegetables left over from dinner.

  As they were passing what remained of their noon desserts, Noah’s mother fetched an envelope from the kitchen. “I got a letter from Alma Peterscheim today,” she said. “We thought you fellows might want to see these clippings from the Coldstream paper.”

  Deborah’s cheeks colored as she gazed down at her lap. As his mother unfolded the newspaper articles, Noah could see that a couple of photographs were included—which had probably put Deborah through that tragedy all over again when she and the women had read the articles earlier.

  “May I read them aloud so we fellows hear the story all at once?” Preacher Amos asked. “I sure hope the reporter wrote an accurate account, which might convince Bishop Obadiah to follow up with discipline for his son.”

  Deborah nodded, although she looked as if she’d rather be somewhere else. Once again Noah felt his mission was to cheer her up—to convince her she’d been forgiven for any wrongdoing on the night that had sent her life down a path she hadn’t planned to follow.

  “‘On Tuesday evening Coldstream’s emergency dispatcher received a call that the barn on the farm formerly owned by the Walt Bender family was i
n flames,’” Amos read in his resonant voice. “‘Sheriff Curtiss Renfro was the first to arrive on the scene, where tire tracks in the mud suggested that at least three cars and a horse-drawn buggy had been present. No one remained on the premises. The local volunteer fire department doused the flames, but the structure was pronounced a total loss.’”

  Amos gazed at Rosetta, Mattie, and Christine. “I’m sorry about this, ladies. These photos look pretty bleak.”

  Rosetta shrugged, sighing. “I suppose we should be thankful we sold the farm when we did, but I still feel bad for the new owner. Keep reading, Amos—although the article doesn’t get much cheerier, I’m afraid.”

  Amos found his place on the printed page. “‘Firefighters and the sheriff noted the presence of several beer bottles, cigarette butts, and two oil lanterns, which might have ignited the hay still stored in the barn. Bishop Obadiah Chupp insisted that any further investigations will be done by the leaders of his church district, as the Amish prefer to handle their own emergencies rather than allowing local law enforcement officers to intrude in their members’ lives.’”

  Amos looked up from the clipping. “As much as I respect our church policy, I sure hope an investigation won’t be glossed over because the sheriff’s not in on it,” he remarked. “Once again, this gives Chupp the opportunity to cover for his son’s involvement—knowing the members in the district probably won’t challenge him.”

  The preacher began reading again. “‘The nine-one-one call was traced to the phone on Eli Peterscheim’s farm down the road from the barn, but Peterscheim denied knowledge of who had placed the call. “Anybody driving by who saw the barn was afire might have stopped at the phone shanty and called in,” he claimed.’”