Promise Lodge

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “We’ve never shared a phone. We live a ways down the road from our nearest neighbor,” Frances remarked quietly.

  Floyd glared at his wife, but he held his tongue as Amos returned to the table.

  “Sounds like we’ll have another family coming for a visit in a week or two,” the preacher remarked as he picked up his fork. “With so many folks arriving, you and Frances might want to pick out the cabin you’ll stay in while your house is being built. We’ll hold it for you—unless you’ve already decided you don’t want to move here.”

  In the expectant silence that followed, Rosetta’s thoughts raced. It wasn’t proper to hope the Lehmans would stay in Ohio, even if it seemed clear that Bishop Floyd would constantly find fault with her and her sisters. Should she and Mattie and Christine concoct a policy for not selling land to prospective residents who rubbed them the wrong way?

  Lord, forgive me for such an uncharitable thought. We can’t exclude Your children from our new colony simply because we disagree with them. As Rosetta carried dessert to the table, Floyd cleared his throat ceremoniously.

  “If you’ve got so many others coming, perhaps Frances and I should stay in one of the rooms here in the lodge,” the bishop began. “I have a bad back that requires a firm bed. I doubt the mattresses in the cabins will support it.”

  “Just so happens we’ve put a new mattress in number two,” Christine spoke up. “Extra firm. And we’ve hung new curtains at the windows.”

  “You’re also welcome to furnish any of the cabins with your own belongings,” Mattie pointed out.

  Beulah leaned toward her sister, who sat beside her. “In your own words, Bishop, it might make for a sinfully tempting situation to have a man here in the apartments that are intended for women,” she remarked with a straight face. “All those bedrooms, you know.”

  “Oh, temptingly sinful,” Ruby agreed in a serious tone. “We’d no doubt have someone confessing to wayward thoughts after every Sunday service.”

  Rosetta bit back laughter as she set the slab pie on the table. Noah and Roman were fighting smiles, as well, while Christine’s girls and Deborah nipped their lips and blushed. Floyd appeared ready to deliver a sermon, but as he opened his mouth Beulah raised her hand to silence him.

  “My sister and I have crossed the line with our flippant talk,” she began contritely. “It was rude and improper of me to start such a thread of conversation—”

  “And we hope you can forgive the disrespectful way we twisted your earlier words, Bishop,” Ruby continued without missing a beat. “It’s not our way to have fun at someone else’s expense. Honest. We’re very sorry.”

  Floyd’s mouth opened and closed, as though he had no idea how to respond to the gray-haired, bespectacled sisters across the table from him. Rosetta began to cut the slab pie into generous squares, wondering how the conversation would continue.

  “You know, this brings up another point,” Amos said. “Now that we have our first tenants, it’s improper for me to be living here any longer. I’ll shift my belongings into that smallest cabin at the end of the row, right after supper.”

  Noah kept his eye on the pie Rosetta was slicing, his expression pensive. “I hate to take up another one of the cabins—especially when Deborah would be so close by,” he added, “so I’ll bunk in the barn loft. Plenty of space up there until we get a load of hay, and windows on either end to catch the breeze, too.”

  “I’ll join you there,” Roman said. “As the summer passes, we’ll figure out something more permanent—and you’ll most likely be building a house soon anyway.”

  Noah smiled. “Queenie can stay out there, too. Out of everyone’s way.”

  Once again the dining room grew quiet. Everyone looked at Floyd, awaiting his response. Rosetta was proud of her nephews and pleased that their three men had set an example of consideration—sacrificing their personal comfort and convenience to maintain proper decorum now that the Kuhn sisters would be living here. Deep down, Rosetta wondered if Floyd was making up excuses to stay in the lodge, where the rooms were more modern.

  “I think it’ll be fun to stay in a cabin,” Frances remarked. “It reminds me of the day we met, Floyd, when our families were holding reunions in the same state park.”

  Floyd’s eyes widened, suggesting he might launch into another rant, but then he exhaled as though he realized he was outnumbered. “All right then, we’ll claim the one with the new mattress for now,” he agreed as he accepted the plate of pie Rosetta had passed down the table to him. “By the time we head back to Ohio on Monday, I’ll let you know whether you need to hold it for us.”

  Amos nodded. He sat back as Christine picked up his dirty dinner plate, while Deborah and the two other girls began to clear the food from the table. “Any idea how many other families might be coming with you?” he asked. “We’ve drawn up a rough map of our property, with some lines where a couple of roads might go, along with some possible boundaries for individual plots. Once you look at that, and we show you around, you’ll have a better idea if this land is suited for your friends’ homes and businesses.”

  “It’ll be exciting to build a new home and establish a new colony with other folks,” Frances said quietly. “But Missouri’s a long way from Ohio, where we’ve lived our entire lives. I’ll be praying about this a lot in the next day or so—and I hope you’ll pray for us, as well, Rosetta. You and your sisters know exactly what it’s like to leave your lifelong home and your friends.”

  Rosetta handed Frances a plate of pie. “Mattie and Christine and I found that leaving our friends has been the hardest part of this venture.”

  “But not one of us would turn back,” Mattie insisted.

  “We’re in it for the long haul, too,” Beulah said, smiling at her sister.

  Ruby nodded emphatically. “I keep bees and Beulah plans to open a small cheese factory. What do you folks do?”

  Frances cut into her pie before she responded. “The girls and I maintain the household, mostly. It wouldn’t be proper for a bishop’s wife to operate a business—”

  “Don’t get any ideas about doing that if we move here, either,” Floyd cut in as he eyed Rosetta and the Kuhn sisters with a hint of disapproval. “My brothers and I own a siding and window installation business. Our ride through the countryside around Promise makes me wonder if that trade would be profitable here, however. I didn’t see any residential areas nearby that would provide a customer base.”

  Amos raised his eyebrows. “Seems to me you’d be perfectly positioned to work on new houses here at Promise Lodge,” he pointed out. “I build homes and barns, so I plan to be busy at that for a long time as our new residents move in.”

  “Maybe our neighbor Truman would connect you with some building contractors, Bishop Floyd,” Noah suggested. “He runs a landscaping business, and he’s the fellow who just hired me to make ornamental gates at one of his work sites.”

  “It’ll all work out,” Frances said with quiet conviction. “There’s a place for everyone and work for every hand in God’s earthly kingdom.”

  “Jah, we never seem to run out of work!” Beulah replied with a laugh. “I predict that life here at Promise Lodge will be anything but boring.”

  “I can’t wait to settle in next week,” Ruby chimed in happily. “A place named Promise Lodge just has to be a spot where God makes His promises come true, ain’t so?”

  Rosetta smiled as she sat down to her own piece of apricot cherry pie. Ruby’s got it right, Lord Jesus. Let it be so for all of Your servants who come here to live.

  Chapter Twenty

  Deborah dressed quickly on Sunday morning, thinking Rosetta might want some extra assistance with breakfast. She was glad Bishop Floyd had agreed that today would be a day of rest rather than a morning for church. Somehow, it seemed their guest had already delivered several sermons on their behavior at Promise Lodge, and—petty as it seemed—she was tired of him pointing up faults he found with every little thing.

>   Forgive me, Lord, for finding fault, as well, she thought as she strode from her cabin to the back door of the lodge building. It’s not my place to—

  Deborah stopped when she saw Preacher Amos, Noah, and Roman standing outside the mudroom door. Noah placed his finger over his lips, signaling for her silence. Even Queenie, her black ears angled upward, seemed intent on listening to something—and then Deborah heard Floyd’s voice drifting through the open window.

  “I’m telling you, Lester, these people are like sheep gone astray without any inclination to return to the fold,” the bishop was saying. “I hesitate to expose my daughters—and yours—to these wayward, freethinking women even as I believe it’s my Christian duty to set them all back on the path to righteousness.”

  Preacher Amos gripped the door handle. He looked ready to burst in on Bishop Floyd’s phone conversation, yet intent upon hearing their guest’s entire story before he revealed his presence.

  “Oh, Frances thinks this place is quaint, and she loves the idea of building a new house,” Floyd continued in a rising voice. “But women usually see the world through impractical rose-colored glasses. It doesn’t bother her that the three gals who’ve established this place are inviting maidels and widows to live in apartments, or that they’re all running businesses instead of households . . . jah, you heard me right,” Floyd continued with a humorless laugh. “They seem to believe they can prosper without menfolk, and that’s not the way God intended for them to live! And the preacher that came here with them is letting them get away with that.”

  When Deborah looked away, wondering how long Floyd would rant about Promise Lodge, she saw Frances leaving the cabin the Lehmans had slept in. The bishop’s wife walked toward the front porch of the lodge, probably planning to help with the preparation of their simple Sunday breakfast. Deborah heard the steady tattoo of her footsteps crossing the hardwood floors of the lobby . . . then entering the dining room, and then the kitchen.

  “That’s the way I see it, Lester,” Floyd continued. “It would be a lot easier to find our own land and establish a colony that’ll be run our way from the beginning. If your wife and mine get into the habit of—”

  “Floyd Lehman!” Frances cried out. “Not one thing’s been readied for breakfast because you’re gossiping on the phone and our hostesses are too polite to interrupt you! How very rude!” she exclaimed. “It would serve you right if they were all listening to you right now. They can’t help but hear you—I caught every word before I even stepped inside!”

  Deborah covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. A loud clack told them Floyd had hung up the phone, but how would he react to learning he’d had an audience?

  “I was not speaking that loudly,” the bishop insisted in a slightly quieter voice. “Once again, you exaggerate about—”

  “And once again you refuse to admit how hard of hearing you are,” Frances interrupted him. “You have no idea how your voice carries, and how you speak in your sermon-giving voice even during a face-to-face conversation. See there?” she went on after a brief pause. “Rosetta and Mattie have been waiting patiently at the top of the stairs.”

  As Deborah pictured this, she suspected the Kuhn sisters, Christine, and her girls were standing behind Rosetta and Mattie. They were probably wondering—as she was—what would happen next, and what the proper response to Floyd’s phone conversation would be.

  Preacher Amos cleared his throat and opened the screen door. “There’s no pretending that the rest of us didn’t hear what you said, either, Floyd,” he remarked as he led the way inside. “I’m sorry you’ve compared us to sheep gone astray—but you can see that having this phone on the kitchen wall is actually a lot less private than allowing folks to use a phone shanty. I think it’ll go a long way toward limiting idle chitchat and the hurtful things we say when we believe no one’s listening. No one except God, that is.”

  Deborah quickly stepped around the men to enter the kitchen. When she glanced up the back stairway, she saw Mattie and Rosetta coming down the steps.

  “I didn’t say a thing that wasn’t true,” Floyd insisted. “Every one of you knows that Promise Lodge has gone against Old Order ways from the moment you women decided to buy this land. I may be the first man to point that out, but I won’t be the last.”

  “We anticipated some objections to the way we’ve established our new colony,” Amos replied calmly. “And I’ll say it again: perhaps Promise Lodge isn’t the right place for you and your family to settle. We believe our ways of peace and acceptance are just as right as you believe they’re wrong.”

  “It’s up to God to be the judge of right and wrong,” Mattie remarked when she’d reached the bottom of the stairway. “So while I won’t criticize you for your opinions of us, neither will I allow you to yank us up and toss us aside as though we’re weeds in your garden, Bishop Floyd. My sisters and Amos and I own this land. We can refuse to sell to anyone we choose, you know.”

  Deborah’s eyes widened as she opened the silverware drawer. She’d never heard a Plain woman speak out this way—and to a man, no less.

  “Jah, we’ve received letters and calls from plenty of other folks,” Christine put in. “I’m not a bit worried about my investment in this place being repaid. And if that sounds boastful and proud, that’s not my intention.”

  “You haven’t said a thing that wasn’t true, Sisters,” Rosetta chimed in. She stood on the step behind Mattie, her arms crossed tightly. “But it seems that our truth and what God has told us are different from what the Lord has revealed to you, Bishop Floyd. We believe He loves all of His children equally, whether they wear suspenders or skirts, hats or kapps.”

  “You’ve got it right, Rosetta,” Beulah said as she came the rest of the way down the narrow stairs.

  “And I see no reason to waste any more time on this conversation,” Ruby stated from behind her. “We’ll all feel better after we eat breakfast and drink some coffee. ‘This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.’”

  * * *

  Noah smiled at Deborah and his cousins when the women had finished redding up the kitchen after breakfast. “Anybody in the mood for a walk? I don’t want to spend this pretty day being cooped up inside.”

  “I like the sound of that, Noah,” Phoebe replied as they hung up their wet towels. “I’m all for getting some fresh air—”

  “Oh, that sounds like a lovely idea,” Beulah remarked wistfully.

  “But we know you young people would rather have your time together without us old ladies along,” Ruby said.

  As Noah gazed at the Kuhn sisters, the memory of his long-gone grandmothers tugged at his heart. When Roman joined them, the matter was decided.

  “Why not take Ruby and Beulah out to the orchard so they can think about where to situate their beehives?” he asked. “Meanwhile, we’ll get a better idea about how much clearing we need to do so the trees will produce gut apples again.”

  “I’d like that,” Deborah replied as she linked her arms through Beulah and Ruby’s. “I haven’t been to see the orchard, either.”

  Noah smiled as the seven of them headed through the lobby and out onto the porch. The breeze made the hummingbird feeders sway beside the trumpet vines, which was loaded with orange blooms in the shape of pointed hats. Queenie greeted them with a woof, circling them in her eagerness to join them. When they’d walked several yards away from the lodge, Noah cleared his throat.

  “I need a break from the bishop,” he admitted in a low voice.

  “I didn’t know what to think when you fellows were standing outside the mudroom door this morning,” Deborah said with a shake of her head. “Floyd surely had to know we could hear him talking on the phone.”

  “Loud and clear,” Beulah agreed. “When I opened my door, there was no way around eavesdropping on every word he said.”

  “I was surprised at the way Frances lit into him, too,” Ruby said softly. She glanced back toward the lodge as
though to be sure the Lehmans weren’t out on the porch—or following them to the orchard. “I have to wonder if Floyd will chastise her for that later. And I’ve had second thoughts about living here if those folks come to Promise Lodge.”

  “Oh, Ruby! Please don’t let him change your mind about staying,” Laura protested. “I’m really looking forward to you ladies setting up your cheese factory, and selling your honey in our roadside stand, too.”

  Ruby stopped walking at the same moment her sister did, and the two Kuhns exchanged a long look. “Are you sure?” Beulah asked hesitantly.

  “Jah, we understand what a bother a couple of old biddies can be,” Ruby said. “We get reminded about that fairly often—maybe not in so many words—”

  “But facial expressions tell the tale,” Beulah said with a rueful laugh. “We know we’re not perking along like spring chickens anymore.”

  “Puh!” Laura remarked as she turned to face both of them. “None of us here have any grandmas left, and I for one really miss them!

  “Jah! You can be our adopted grannies!” Phoebe agreed as she clapped her hands together. “And we can help with your honey and cheese making—if you want us to.”

  Ruby and Beulah grabbed one another’s hands, looking as though they might cry. “Well, if that’s not the sweetest thing to say—”

  “And it makes up for Bishop Floyd’s sharp tongue, too,” Ruby finished their sentence. She gazed at the overgrown orchard. Many of the trees had branches that dragged on the ground, and the grass and weeds were growing in long clumps around their trunks. “My little bees could be just the remedy for these neglected trees—and gut for your vegetable gardens, as well. I think they’ll enjoy having fresh territory to pollinate.”

  “Look at how pretty the pasture is—and look at those cute little goats of Rosetta’s frolicking around,” Beulah said lightly. “I’m so glad we saw your ad—”

  “And that we decided to visit Promise Lodge instead of just wishing we could,” Ruby remarked. “Truth be told, it’ll be nice to have you older kids around. Our nieces and nephews sometimes tease us . . . slip into our room to change things around—”