Everlasting Amish Love (Amish Romance): Amish Love Stories Series: Emma & Benjamin

by Joshua Elliot James

  “I don’t think so.” Emma says, but she doesn’t sound entirely confident. As she does her best to climb up onto the pony’s back without hurting him, Benjamin briefly reconsider’s his previous thoughts of her aptitudes, but although the less than graceful sight is something almost farcical to behold, she manages to right herself well. “Well? Shall we get going?” She asks after a short while, drawing Benjamin from his deep thoughts. He shakes his head free of them and smiles.

  “Of course.” He smiles, making his way over to his own horse again; he’s kept the lady waiting for this moment long enough. He takes no pride in mounting his own gelding with so much more expertise than Emma, though she doesn’t seem to pick up on this so all is well as the pair ride out into the cool evening air.

  Together they walk all around the farmland, taking in all the sights and enjoying each others’ company as Benjamin tells Emma all about the places they pass: all of the hausses of the people he knows all by name as he’s lived and worked around them for all of his life, the church where the whole of the community goes every other Sunday evening for a service hosted by a member of this same community. He speaks only briefly of the service that takes place afterwards for those old enough. That’s something that he has only recently started attending himself and he hasn’t had any interest in the women to socialize with and court during his brief time there. It’s not that he hasn’t liked them, but the deepest love he feels now for Emma just hasn’t been present while he’s been conversing with the more familiar girls.

  After that, Benjamin takes Emma out to the fields he so often has been working in, especially during this busy harvest season. He’s modest about the work he does here and showing her isn’t the reason he’s brought the young woman out here. The reason for that is to show her the glowing autumn sunset, lighting the land with its warm red glow. He’s often sat enjoying this view with his friend Joshua, or even on his own, and now he wants to share the sight with Emma. She seems to appreciate the calm this brings in the same way that Benjamin does, as both remain contently quiet taking in the breathtaking scenery all around.

  “… We should start heading back.” Benjamin speaks up out of the blue. It is getting dark and that has something to do with the decision he has made. Mostly though, he’s found that he’s absently been leading both his own horse and Emma’s to the road out of the Amish county. The one he had been riding down with Joshua yesterday. As far as he had known, he no longer had a desire to visit the city, now that Emma has visited the community. The fact that he has sub-consciously ridden out this way anyway troubles him.

  He isn’t ready to say anything about this to Emma yet, with the troubles she is already going through on her own, so the two of them start the slow ride back to the hauss and buildings. They even begin to work their horses up into trotting, in their attempts to arrive home before nightfall. This scares Emma at first, but once she becomes used to the momentum, she finds herself liking this speed of riding, as the light wind caused by this brushes by her brown hair.

  * * *

  “Benjamin?” Emma speaks up shyly once the two have arrived back at Daniel’s farm. The boy’s already dismounted his own horse and is surprised to see that Emma hasn’t done the same with hers when he looks over to see what she needs. “Um, I know I got up here on my own but… I’m scared to get down.” She admits. “I may fall.”

  “Wait right there.” Benjamin tells her. He leads his own horse back to its stall but soon returns to the girl. “Getting down isn’t hard.” He assures her. “Just lean over the horse’s neck, you won’t hurt him. Then bring yourself around towards me, and gently slide down.” He instructs her calmly. Emma is still so unsure, but knows she can trust Benjamin’s words. She’s almost safely down after following them, but stumbles as her feet touch the floor. Even then, Benjamin is there to steady her before she falls. His hands linger gently on her shoulders for a moment, before he pulls away, knowing she is now safe.

  “… Can I tell you something?” Emma asks, raising her hands to her chest, once Benjamin’s contact has left her. She entwines her fingers nervously as she waits for his answer. Once he’s taken her horse back to its stall too, he does.

  “You needn’t even ask.” He lets her know as he loyally returns to her side. “Whatever you want to tell me, I am here. I will listen.”

  “I didn’t really any need the help getting down.” She more truthfully admits this time, partly ashamed that she has misled him in such a way. “I just really didn’t want this ride of ours to end. I feel so wonderful when I’m around you Benjamin.” The boy can’t honestly say he feels deceived by the woman. He too would have continued the ride, would have time and his restless need for wandering allowed.

  “There is always tomorrow Emma.” He smiles. “We can ride together again.”

  Chapter 6

  Despite his want to go and see Emma again as soon as he can, Benjamin’s work is slower while he’s out in the fields the next day. He makes mistakes and hums choir songs to himself as he has to keep going back to fix them. This isn’t something that seems to bother the young mann, but Joshua notices something might be wrong with his friend.

  “Benjamin, are you ill?” He asks, as the younger mann’s once again going back to retrieve some harvest he has dropped. Even Joshua has completed his work in this part of the fields before the blond today. He’s sitting in the cart to go on to the next place, while he waits for his friend.

  “What?” Benjamin snaps to attention at his friend’s words. He seems to have forgotten anyone else is out here with him, being in such a world of his own. “No.” He answers eventually, once he’s registered what Joshua’s asking him from the older mann’s concerned expression. “What makes you think I’m ill Joshua?” He questions.

  “You haven’t noticed?” The boy asks in surprise. He looks over the less than well completed harvest work still before him, hoping that Benjamin will follow his gaze and come to his own conclusions. He continues speaking when this doesn’t seem to be the case. “All day you have seemed so distracted. It is a welcome change to feel that I have completed my fair share of work, but you’ve always been such a hardworking mann yourself. I cannot think of what might have happened to change that, if you are not tired or sick… or perhaps you are sick in another sense.” He smiles to himself, finally understanding what might be the cause for his friend’s distractedness.

  “And what do you mean by that?” Benjamin frowns in confusion, but also some irritation towards his friend and the game he’s playing.

  “Maybe it is that you are lovesick, rather than in the conventional sense my friend.” The startled look on Benjamin’s face once that has been said confirms Joshua’s suspicions. Maybe this is something Benjamin hadn’t even known he had been affected by himself. “You’ve been thinking of Emma all of this time, haven’t you?” Joshua sighs and shakes his head as his friend. “I fear you truly are being too impatient in your courting of her Benjamin. Perhaps she will be able to adapt to our Amish ways as you say, but there is still some growing up for the both of you to go through before either of you start thinking of marriage-”

  “Marriage?” Benjamin cuts off the mann’s words suddenly, testing how the word feels in his mouth. “Yes… marriage.” He grins at the idea the second time the word leaves his lips. Joshua dreads that he may be the one to have actually placed the idea of marrying Emma into Benjamin’s head. He has to wonder though, what else the boy might have thought all his interactions with the girl could have been leading up to, if not love.

  “No.” Joshua says more sternly. “At least, not yet. You must know how likely it is that your daed will disapprove of this match taking place so soon after Emma has arrived here.”

  “My daed will understand Joshua.” Benjamin tells the mann as he heaves the last of the harvest onto the back of the cart the two young menner are using. He climbs into the front of the cart with his friend. “What Emma and I have is love, pure and true.” He smiles at Joshua now, fu
lly confident in these words.

  “I fear you do not know Daniel as well as you should Benjamin, being his son.” Joshua continues as he starts the horse moving again, over to the next field they are so behind in getting to. “You already tell him so little. Do you truly think he shall have no trouble accepting that you wish to marry the girl you have met so recently?” He asks, more serious than he has been with the younger mann.

  “Maybe so, but I don’t think he’s the one having trouble accepting my decision right now.” Benjamin accentuates the ‘he’ in his words, referring specifically to the mann he’s currently working with: the one whom he has always seen as a supportive friend. The speed of Benjamin’s work picks up after that exchange of words. It is uncomfortable for Joshua though, with the tense silence hanging in the air whilst the two friends are around each other. He doesn’t see any need to press Benjamin any further. He doesn’t have any desire to either, with the dark turn their conversation had taken so quickly.

  * * *

  In the end, Benjamin doesn’t go straight to Emma’s haus once his work is done this day. He dislikes letting the girl down like this, after the assurance he made her yesterday that they could go riding again, but there’s something else he has to take care of before he feels he can face her again, now that Joshua has brought it up.

  He stands for a long time outside his own haus, waiting for his daed to return home. Even when the mann does Benjamin makes only a half-hearted attempt to gain his attention, after Daniel has already walked by. The son is still so unused to talking with his daed and what he has to say is something truly significant. Even though Benjamin had managed to brush aside his worries about this when he was around his friend, he is not quite so certain that his daed will accept his deep love for Emma now that the time has come to approach him about the subject. Taking a deep breath however, the boy braves walking into the haus some time after his daed. He may want to avoid the imminent discussion, but knows that it is going to be something he has to face sooner or later.

  “Daed?” He asks, after knocking upon the door of mann’s room. Daniel grants the boy entry, so Benjamin reluctantly makes his way inside. The mann is sitting at a wooden table across from his bed, pen in hand as he writes on the rough paper before him. “… There’s something I want to ask you about.” His son explains his reasons for coming here today, once the door is closed behind him.

  “Truly? You so rarely seek my guidance nowadays as you once did.” The mann seems pleasantly surprised by his son’s words, and this helps Benjamin to relax. He finally works up the courage to discuss what Joshua had been so uncertain he would with his daed.

  “It’s about Emma.” Benjamin smiles even as he mentions the girl’s name, but his daed doesn’t seem nearly so pleased as he had just been. His face is already beginning to fall back into its familiar stern expression as he waits for his son to continue. “I’ve decided… that I would like to marry her someday and I ask for your blessing for when that time comes.” Daniel frowns deeply at the revelation his son has made.

  “I should have expected this.” He sighs, leaving the writing he had been working on to approach his son.

  “Then you accept the way I feel about her?” Benjamin asks with naïve hope. He seems oblivious to his daed’s visible disapproval, too caught up in thoughts of being with Emma to even bear imagining a future without her by his side.

  “No.” This one word from Daniel is enough to bring the boy crashing back down to Earth. “You hardly know the girl. Have patience, court her at the same pace I did your mother and as Joshua is now doing with Naomi. There is no need to rush such things Benjamin and I won’t allow it. I know you feel as though you love her now, but if somewhere down the line that love fades you will only become dissatisfied.”

  “I would never feel dissatisfied, so long as Emma and I are together.” Daniel glares at his son’s defiant interruption, but even this is not enough to stop Benjamin from saying all that he feels, now that he has started to. “If you’ve truly ever felt the same way about anyone as I do about her now, you would know that. I love her whole-heartedly and I want to declare that love in the eyes of Gott.”

  “She has not even been baptized into the Ordnung yet son, as I have told you before.” Daniel raises his voice to prevent his son from saying anything more and getting ahead of himself so much. Benjamin is left stunned into silence that his daed would disregard his love for Emma through the use of such a technicality. “Take the time to get to know her, while the both of you wait for that to happen.” He speaks again, with more understanding this time as he can sense the desolation he has caused his son.

  “I will.” Benjamin says, talking quietly this time as he looks down at the stone floor to avert his eyes from the mann. Still, Daniel is somewhat satisfied by the young mann’s eventual acceptance of his words. “And I will start getting to know her better right now.” He continues boldly this time as he finally looks his daed in the eyes. “We shall prove our love for each other, no matter what anyone else may say.” He declares, before striding out of the room. Daniel cannot say he isn’t at the very least slightly angered by the reaction it turns out his son has truly had to his words. He considers following the boy to stop him from walking out of the haus and into the night, but decides it would be best to return to his work instead. At the age Benjamin is at now, it is time for him to make his own mistakes in life, and learn from them in his own ways.

  * * *

  Even with Benjamin’s arrival at her haus being so late in the day, the boy is still surprised not to find Emma outside waiting for him as she had before. The look he receives from Jonah doesn’t seem promising either when the mann opens his door to him, but once again Benjamin doesn’t pick up on the expressive signs of others.

  “Jonah, hello.” He greets kindly, but also with hurry to get straight to the point of his reason for coming to this haus so late this evening. “May I speak with Emma?” He requests.

  “I’m not so sure she’ll want to see you Benjamin.” The mann warns him. The boy’s heart sinks. Have his daed and Joshua been right in their warning him away from the non-Amish girl? “Englischers can be just as sensitive as any of us. She was hoping you’d come over earlier, as you told her yesterday. She waited out here for a long time, praying that you would, but the cold got to her. She’s been crying in her room ever since she came back inside. My fraa for the life of her couldn’t convince her to eat a thing.” All at once, Benjamin is ashamed of the faith he began to lose in Emma a few seconds ago.

  “Let her know that I am here now.” He means for this to sound like a request rather than a demand, but his desire to be with Emma right now, to comfort her now that he has heard she is so saddened, causes urgency to make its way into his tone.

  “I’ve told you boy, she doesn’t want to see you.” Jonah starts to close the door, not taking kindly the determination in the boy that he takes as aggression. Benjamin puts a hand up to the door to stop him.

  “Please.” He says more weakly this, pleading with the mann to let him see the girl that he so loves. The pressure he puts on the door loosens as he looks up to mann now keeping them apart with sadness in his brown eyes.

  “… Wait here.” Jonah finally gives in. He opens the door wider, but only to continue the conversation he had been intending to close. He still doesn’t want Benjamin in his haus at this moment in time. “I’ll ask her if she still wants to see you. Make sure you don’t go disappearing before she gets here if she agrees; that would surely break the girl’s heart.”

  Benjamin does as he is told as the mann does close the door and makes his way inside. It feels as though he is waiting for hours with the anticipation of seeing Emma again building up inside of him. Still he waits patiently. He will wait forever to see her again if he needs to, even if she hasn’t been able to do the same for him. At last Emma comes to the door. Benjamin can see clearly in her tear-stained face the hurt that he has caused her. His heart swells.

  Chapter
7

  “Emma… I am so sorry.” Even as he says them Benjamin knows just how insignificant those words probably sound to the girl now, but there’s nothing else he can think of to say to make up for the disappointment he’s caused her. He lowers his head, dreading her rejection of him that he fears will soon follow.

  “Where were you Benjamin?” Emma asks instead. There’s a longing in her voice to know the answer to this question. What has been so important that it has kept Benjamin from her, with all the love she had thought they shared? “I waited and waited for you to come. I prayed to God that nothing had happened to you. Now that I can see you here, looking as well as ever, I can’t understand it. Why didn’t you want to see me today, like you said you would, until now?”

  “I wanted to come over straight after work.” He tells her weakly. “I wanted to see you again, but I had to speak with my dead about something… about us. He doesn’t want us to be together Emma, Joshua doesn’t either. I’ve said all I can to try and convince them that we truly love each other, that our love for Gott and the Ordnung is the only thing more dear to our hearts, but it’s so hard; they won’t listen to me.” Tears of frustration sting Benjamin’s eyes as he does his best to stop them from falling in front of Emma. The way everything is piling up against the young lovers does make him feel like crying though, much in the same way he guesses Emma was crying when he wasn’t around as she waited for him.

  “… I came here to build my faith in God.” Emma reminds Benjamin. That’s not the only reason she has restated this however. “But this, all of this, is only making me lose faith in him even more.” She cries as the reality of the words she is saying breaks her heart further. “I don’t even know why I came to live out here anymore. I can pray and pray, but if God doesn’t want us to be together Benjamin, what can we do?” She finishes, at a loss once all of this is out in the open. Gingerly Benjamin reaches out and pulls Emma’s distraught and shaking body closer to him.