Jenny's Choice (Apple Creek Dreams #3)

by Patrick E. Craig

  Jenny knelt beside her bed and spoke to her Gott.

  “Thank You, Lord, for the gift of Jonathan. Thank You that our love was born in Your heart and was pure and complete. Thank You, Lord, for my papa, who showed Jonathan and me how a real man loves his wife. And thank You, Lord, for my precious mama, who showed me that one love is more than enough for any woman if it is true love. Thank You, Lord, for showing me on the night they died that they were two lives with one heart. And now I know that is how it was with Jonathan and me. We were two lives with one heart.”

  And you still are, My dochter, you still are.

  After that night, Jenny felt the turmoil and the emptiness slipping away. There were many questions still to be settled, but now she had a surety in her heart that the Lord would give her the answer. And He did in a most unusual way.

  One night Bobby Halverson had come by after work. The three of them shared a meal of fried chicken and mashed potatoes with corn and beans on the side. When dinner was over Bobby had pushed back his chair and groaned.

  “Jenny, you sure learned how to cook from your mama.”

  Jenny smiled and said, “Jonathan used to say that my cooking had become at least edible over the years we were together.”

  “It’s more than edible, Jenny. It’s downright good eatin’. What do you think, Rachel?”

  “My mama makes the best fried chicken ever!”

  “Even better than Grosmudder?”

  “Ja, Uncle Bobby, even better.”

  Bobby put his hands on his full stomach and smiled. “Well, Jonathan must have been pulling your leg, Jenny.”

  They both fell silent for a moment.

  “I miss Jonathan,” Bobby said. “He was a wonderful young man.”

  “Yes, he was, Uncle Bobby. The years I spent with him in Paradise were the happiest of my life.”

  “Jenny, do you think you’ll ever marry again?”

  “Funny you should ask, Uncle Bobby. A man I like very much has asked me, but—”

  “But he’s not Jonathan, is he?”

  Bobby smiled and Jenny laughed.

  “Why is it that everyone says that to me, even the Lord?”

  “Because it’s true, Mama,” Rachel chipped in.

  “Well, I have turned him down again. I sent him a letter yesterday. He is a very good man, but—”

  “But he is not Jonathan,” Bobby and Rachel said together.

  They all laughed. It felt good.

  Finally Bobby asked, “Jenny, if Paradise was the place you were the happiest, why don’t you go home?”

  “Home, Uncle Bobby? But this is my home.”

  “Is it really, Jenny? Reuben and Jerusha are gone, and this house is just a house now. If you’re going to live out your years, why don’t you go back to Paradise? Seems to me that’s really your home. Doesn’t the Bible say something about that?”

  “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife,” Jenny replied.

  “Seems that would go for a woman too.”

  “Uncle Bobby, are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “No, Jenny. I just see you drifting here. You don’t know what to do with yourself. You used to read me things you had written, but you haven’t done that in a while—not since…” Bobby paused. “Jenny, I think you should sell the place and go back home to the place you and Jonathan made together. Just a thought.”

  Jenny sat silent for a moment and then said, “If I go back to Paradise, would you come live with us?”

  “Me?” Bobby said with surprise in his voice.

  “Yes, you. You’re the only real family I have left, and from what you say, I’m the only family you have. Your mom and dad are gone, and you’ve been sheriff a long time. Isn’t it about time for you to retire? I have more than a hundred acres of land, and there’s a small house on the property that Grossdaadi Borntraeger’s helpers used to live in. It would be perfect for you.”

  “Well, I have been thinking about retiring. It’s been almost twenty-five years, and it is wearing me out. But what would I do there?”

  “First of all, you would be with two people who love you, and we would take care of you. And second, you could help on the farm or go hunting or just sit around if you felt like it.”

  Bobby had a bemused expression on his face. “It’s a very interesting proposition. Let me think on it. It would be strange leaving Apple Creek, but I suppose I could get used to it. Especially if we had chicken like this about three times a week. What do you say about me coming, Rachel?”

  “Yay!” Rachel shouted. “I say yes!”

  “Okay, Jenny,” Uncle Bobby said. “I’ll give it some thought. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll definitely consider it. And what about you?”

  “You know, I think you may be right about Paradise. It was the one place that I really felt was my own home—a home I made for Jonathan and me. Maybe I should go back. I think I would see it in a different way if I did.”

  “You let me know what you’re going to do, and I’ll help you any way I can. Now, how about we go sit on the couch and have some rhubarb pie?”

  Rachel clapped her hands. “Yay again!”

  In the days that followed, Jenny realized that the Lord had been speaking to her through Bobby. The thought of going home to Paradise grew on her until she knew moving back was what she should do. So she went to Johann Troyer and talked to him about it.

  “We will be sorry to see you go. But it’s not as though the Springers and the Hershbergers will be gone from Apple Creek. Your family is deeply rooted here.”

  “I’ve spoken to Papa’s brother, Amos, who lives in Galion, Bisschop Troyer. He has always loved our place and would give me a very fair price for it. Mama’s brother died long ago, but my mama’s cousin has been farming Grossdaadi Hershberger’s farm for many years. So that land would stay in the Hershberger family.”

  “Ja, das ist gut,” Johann said. “You are a Borntraeger by blood. To go back where you made your home on the Borntraeger farm in Paradise würde ein sehr gutes Ding sein, a good thing indeed. I will help you however I can.”

  The next month was a blur. Jenny packed up the things that were important and sent them ahead—her mother’s dishes, some of her clothing, and Jerusha’s collection of quilts. She shipped a few pieces of furniture off to Paradise, including her desk and her mama’s porch swing, and the rest she left for Amos. She kept the Rose of Sharon quilt with her. Her Uncle Amos came, and they went through Reuben’s tools. Amos kept many of them, and what he didn’t want, Jenny gave to Henry Lowenstein, who was delighted to take them.

  “When I was a kid, your dad used to teach me how to use these,” he said. “I’d hang out in his shop, and we would talk about all kinds of things. He’s the one who told me about Jesus, and it’s the greatest gift he ever gave me. I’ll think of him every time I use these tools.”

  “Henry, it’s not that far to Paradise. Won’t you come and visit us?”

  Henry brightened at the idea. “Why, sure, Jenny. I’d love to. I could make it there in about six hours. That would be great. And by the way, don’t ask anybody else to drive you there because I’m going to. I’ve been driving the Springers and the Hershbergers for too many years to quit now.”

  Bobby helped her sort out a lot of the other things, and soon the day came when they closed the house on Richenbaugh Lane for the last time. Jenny stood on the lawn with Bobby and Rachel and said goodbye to the old place. Then she turned to Bobby.

  “Have you thought any more about my offer?”

  “I’ve been thinking it over, Jenny. I can’t come yet because I need to finish out my last term before I retire. But I might come visit in the spring and see how I like it.”

  She took his arm as they walked to Henry’s car. “Yes, Uncle Bobby, that would be wonderful. I’ll look for you when the daffodils start to bloom.”

  Part Three

  THE TREES OF EDEN

  When I left Paradise in 1978, it
was a time of great bitterness in my soul. The days were dark, my heart was empty, and my future stretched away before me like some great desert—a place of burning sands and bitter winds. Thorns came up in my palaces, and nettles and brambles, and my life became the habitation of dragons.

  But today I look homeward, and though my heart is weary with the adversities of the last years and I bear their scars like great scourgings, in my heart a joy begins to rise as I remember the words from Isaiah 51 and Ezekiel 36.

  I will make your wilderness like Eden, and your desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

  And they shall say, this land that was desolate is become like a garden.

  And I will dwell among the trees of Eden, and I will be glad.

  “The Trees of Eden”

  from the journals of Jenny Hershberger

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The Fountain

  AND SO, JENNY AND RACHEL returned to Paradise. The sale of her parents’ farm in Apple Creek had taken some emotional toll, but Jenny knew it was for the best. There would be no looking back.

  The day they arrived, the old farmhouse almost seemed to welcome them back. Rachel ran straight to her room and jumped onto her bed.

  “I’m home, room!” she cried.

  Jenny went into her room and closed the door. She looked around, and then she knelt down by the bed.

  “I’ve come home, Jonathan. I’m home to stay. I will thank God every day that He gave us this place to make it into a home. Everything I shared with you is here. Rachel was born here, and we had true love here, so this is where I’ll stay, content, until the glorious day I see you again.”

  Then she got up and went about the business of coming home.

  That first winter back in Paradise passed quickly, and then it was spring, and the daffodils were in bloom. Jenny stood on the porch one morning beating a carpet when she saw an old Ford pickup coming up the drive. A familiar face smiled at her through the open window. Bobby Halverson had retired as sheriff of Wayne County and had come to visit as he promised. They sat up late the next few nights talking things over, and in the end, Bobby agreed to come and live with them. Lem fixed up the old bungalow that sat on the rise just beyond the barn. Bobby brought his things, and then he was there and that was that. At first the local Amish wondered at an Englischer living on an Amish farm, but when Bisschop Troyer came to visit and told of the love the Ohio Amish had for the man, they accepted Bobby unequivocally.

  Jenny made the spare bedroom upstairs into an office and set up her desk there. Lem and Bobby took out the old tall window with the sliding sash and put in a wide picture window so Jenny could look out onto the rolling fields of her place while she wrote. And write she did!

  The wellspring of inspiration that had dried up in Apple Creek began to flow again—first a trickle, then a stream, and then a torrent. She wrote poems, short stories, and articles. She delighted in the Amish life, and her articles were full of insight and humor about the highs and lows, the perfections and foibles of her faith. She wrote often about Apple Creek, about her mama and papa, keeping their memory alive with wonderful stories about growing up among the Ohio Amish. The stories made her think about the book—it lay in its place at the bottom of the cedar chest—but she never got it out. As far as she was concerned, that was a closed chapter.

  At a certain point Bobby read one of her Apple Creek stories and encouraged her to submit it to the local newspaper. The editor loved it, and soon Jenny was writing a weekly column. After a year, the local paper was purchased by a bigger publication in Lancaster, and Jenny’s column went with it. Soon she was getting a flood of mail, asking her questions about the Amish, their ways and culture and faith. She printed her answers in her column, and readers began calling her “Dear Jenny.”

  Five years passed, years of peace and calm and productivity. Rachel grew from a sprout to a precocious teenager, and Bobby and Jenny aged gracefully. And then one day Jenny had a visitor. And with the visitor came change and turmoil and the hand of the Lord moving in her life again. The visitor was Jeremy King.

  Jenny was out in the back garden pulling up some onions and spreading them on the ground to dry. It was late August, and the afternoons in Paradise were heavy and languid. The last days of summer heat did their best to keep the impending fall at bay, but instead they made the fields heavy with the coming harvest, and the fall came anyway. Jenny’s garden was overflowing with beans, carrots, and turnips—all the staples that she would put up for the winter. As she bent over the row of onions, she head a voice call her name.

  “Jenny, Jenny Hershberger!”

  “I’m out back…come around the house.”

  Jenny stood with her hands on her hips, the rebellious curls still doing their best to escape from the bun under her kappe. Jeremy King walked around the corner and stopped. If anything, the years had made Jenny even more beautiful, and there was life in her eyes and joy in her greeting.

  “Jeremy! What a surprise—and a delight. How are you, my friend?”

  Jenny put out her hand, and Jeremy took it.

  “You’re as pretty as a picture, Jenny. And you look happy. It does my heart good to see you in such fine spirits.”

  Jenny laughed. “I was a wreck when I was staying with my folks in Apple Creek, wasn’t I? You must have thought me a basket case.”

  Jeremy laughed too. “Maybe. But the most delightful basket case I’ve ever met.”

  “So, what brings you to Paradise?” Jenny asked.

  “I want to chat with you about an idea.”

  “Come inside. I’ll make some coffee and we’ll chat.”

  They went in the back door, and Jeremy looked around. “Where’s Rachel?”

  “Rachel’s fourteen and in her last year of schule. But she’s an excellent student, and she wants to know why she can’t keep going. I’m going to have to wrestle with her and some other people over this, I’m afraid.”

  “Times are changing, Jenny. The old ways are disappearing.”

  “That’s the problem, Jeremy. If the old ways disappear for the Amish, there will be no Amish.”

  “Still convinced that the Amish way is the best way, Jenny?”

  “It’s who I am, Jeremy. Without my faith and my culture, who would I be then?”

  “I left, Jenny, and I’m still who I am.”

  “To each his own, Jeremy. It’s not something I can explain. Now, what did you come about?”

  Jeremy laughed. “Why don’t you just get out a hammer and hit me between the eyes with it, Jenny Hershberger? I guess I better get to the point before you do. You’re still the most direct person I’ve ever met.”

  Jenny put the coffee on, and they sat down.

  “I’ve been reading your column in the local paper in Lancaster. It’s wonderful, you know. You’re funny, wise, insightful, and sometimes even prophetic. And your readership is growing every day. The paper must be happy to have you.”

  “It is going well with the column and the articles, Jeremy. Years ago you said that the interest in all things Amish was the coming trend. Well, it’s happening just like you said. And it’s not just from people who live around here. I get letters from all over the country. People send someone one of my articles, and then I get a letter from California or Montana, and so on. The newspaper is thinking about syndicating the column, and then I don’t know how I’ll handle all the mail.”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about. How would you like to do a book based on your articles? In fact it could be just that—your articles with questions and answers and an index with information on how to find out more about the Amish. I’m sure it would be extremely popular, and it would just be a setup for more books. What do you say, Jenny?”

  Jenny thought about it for a moment. “You know, Jeremy, I think that would be a good idea. I’ve always wanted my writing to glorify God and help people to understand the Amish more. How would we
do it?”

  “We’ll have to get permission from the paper to reprint the articles. I might have to pay them a small royalty or a flat fee, but I know the publisher, and we can work that part out. Besides, a book will just increase their circulation. All I need is to write up a contract and have you go over it, and if it’s fair, you can sign it and I’ll do the rest.”

  “That sounds fine, Jeremy. I’ll wait for your contract. Now, how about some coffee?”

  Jenny talked it over with Bobby and Rachel that night at dinner. Bobby listened while she laid out the proposal and then nodded in agreement.

  “Do you think by putting my articles in a book I’ll be going beyond the limits of what the Ordnung says, Uncle Bobby?”

  “Jenny, you’ve already been writing articles for the paper for three years. You either write them by hand or on your old manual typewriter. You’re not making personal appearance tours; you’re just helping people to better understand the Amish. I know that I sure do after I read your articles. Funny how you can live among a people for years and never really know what makes them tick.”

  Rachel was a little more reticent. “Are you sure you want to get into something that is going to bring you a lot of attention from the world, Mama?”

  “As always, my darling girl, your questions go straight to the heart of the matter. I prayed about it this afternoon, and I have no check in my spirit. For some reason, I believe the Lord is going to use this to do something wonderful.”

  Later that week, the contract from Jeremy came. Lem sent Jenny to a local attorney who advised the Amish on legal matters. The attorney read through the contract and gave his approval.

  “It’s a standard publishing contract. In fact, it’s very generously weighted in your favor. The fellow who wrote it up must like you.”

  Jenny thought about that.