Clayton entered the barn feeling good about his plan of action. He didn’t like thinking about life without Daed in it, but for the first time since his father’s diagnosis, Clayton felt that he had a handle on what would befall the family in the foreseeable future.
He breathed in the earthy scents of hay and animals, relishing the quiet solitude. After feeding the pair of pigs they were raising for butchering in the fall and shoveling out the chicken coop, Clayton grabbed two lead ropes and walked out to the small pasture between the houses where Miriam had been earlier. Their horses, two Standardbreds Clayton’s mother had long ago named Winnie and Snowflake, needed to be brought in from the field out behind the house. He looked up at the Beiler home as he attached the lead rope to Winnie’s nose halter, and then he just as quickly turned his head away when he realized he had done so.
Clayton led their horses to their stalls, fed and watered them, and then turned his attention to the newest addition to the barn, a sweet-tempered Jersey who was due to give birth in the coming weeks. He had just finished raking out Rosie’s pen and was about to lay down fresh straw when he heard a voice behind him.
“Will you let me know when Rosie starts to calve?”
Startled, Clayton whipped his head around. Miriam was standing with her arms crossed nonchalantly over the rail, almost as if she had been there for hours. She and her family didn’t have any livestock at their place other than buggy horses, so she often came to the barn at chore time. But that’s when Daed was usually here too, and the two of them could hear her singing all the way toward them.
“Miriam! When did you come in?” Clayton glanced toward the door, knowing they shouldn’t be in here alone together for too long, as it might reflect poorly on her.
“You will, won’t you?” she said, bypassing Clayton’s question. Her brows were knit together in careful thought. She was beautiful as always, and Clayton had to look away from her.
“Uh. Ya. I guess.” Moving as quickly as he could, Clayton tossed out new straw for Rosie and then slipped from the pen, latched it shut, and put the pitchfork away. “She might calve while we’re all asleep, though,” he added as he headed for the door. “That happens more often than not.”
“Well, tell me when it gets close, then,” Miriam replied, falling into step behind him, “and maybe I’ll come down here and sleep on the hay next to her so I won’t miss it.”
“Miss it?”
“Newborn calves. They’re adorable.”
Clayton laughed nervously, partly because it was a crazy notion, and partly because Miriam was the sort of person to attempt such a feat. The thought of her curled up in Rosie’s pen all night, just a stone’s throw from the house, made his heart pound. “I don’t believe your parents would think that was a great idea,” he said, peeking at her from beneath the brim of his hat.
“You’re right.” She sighed in frustration, the sun’s long rays surrounding her shiny auburn hair, neatly bound in its twisted bun and partially covered by her crisp white kapp. “I don’t know why they’re always so critical of everything I do.”
Clayton waited a moment to see if she expected him to respond. It wasn’t exactly a question, even though he knew the answer. It was because Miriam didn’t fit the mold. She was her own person, one who marched to the beat of her own drum, and that was about as un-Amish a thing as anybody could be. As a child, she’d gotten away with far more than most. But now that she was grown, the time for being unconventional was over. Clayton knew that Miriam’s parents were eager for their daughter to wrestle down her more individualistic tendencies, join the church, and submit to authority and community.
“They’re not just critical,” she continued. “They’re meddlesome too.”
Finished with the chores, Clayton should have been making his way back down to the shop to help Daed close up and then wheel him back to the house. But Miriam was making no move to return home herself. If he said he needed to get back to the shop, she’d end their conversation.
And he didn’t want it to end.
Clayton glanced toward the horizon. Judging by the angle of the sun, he decided he could spare another fifteen more minutes or so before his daed would start wondering where he was. Until then, he would remain here with Miriam, using the time to do some pruning as they chatted.
“Meddlesome?” he asked as he walked over to a nearby sapling, Miriam following close behind.
She let out a laugh, one without mirth. “To put it mildly.”
“But they’re your parents, Miriam. It’s been their job to train you up in the way you should go.”
“Even now that I’m in my twenties? Even when it comes to choosing a mate?” Her voice was coated with challenge.
Clayton felt an odd lurch in his stomach. Choosing a mate? Was Miriam considering marriage? With his bare hand, he snapped a dying branch from the tiny trunk with such force that the wood made a loud crack and splintered. He swallowed hard and glanced at her, afraid she may have noticed his change in temperament, but she seemed oblivious. He turned his attention back to the tree, trying to keep his eyes on the task at hand. “I didn’t realize you were being courted,” he managed to mutter.
“I’m not.”
The relief he felt almost made him exhale aloud.
She pulled some browning leaves from one of the branches and continued. “They’ve been harassing me to find a husband. Settle down. Start a family. All that stuff.”
“All that stuff,” Clayton echoed again, feeling an odd mix of elation and dismay—elation that she wasn’t yet involved with anyone, dismay that it was only a matter of time.
“Like tonight, for example. Would you believe they’ve invited someone to dinner—as a date for me? Some older man from another district who apparently needs a wife and thinks I might fill the bill. I can’t believe their nerve—of them for asking him to come, and of him for coming. Since when do Amish parents meddle in their children’s love lives? It’s ridiculous. How embarrassing!”
Clayton wanted to say something in response, but hearing her confide in him about a potential suitor made the words in his head disappear. She was right. Among the Amish, when it came to marriage and dating decisions, parents rarely were involved. Instead, once their children reached the age of sixteen or seventeen, they would look the other way, at least somewhat, allowing such choices to be worked out in private. Parents might offer a word of advice here and there, but sometimes they wouldn’t even be aware of a serious relationship until their children informed them that they were engaged.
“I’m sure they think they’re acting in your best interests.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Clayton. This is about their best interests, not mine. They seem to think that because I’m not being courted by anyone and I’ve quit another job, I simply must get married by tomorrow or they’ll be stuck with me forever.”
“You’ve quit another job?” He tore a twig from the tree, wanting very much to be done with the topic of dating entirely.
Her shoulders slumped. “I hated working at the furniture store. It was so boring. It smelled like sawdust and varnish, and everyone was always so serious. And they didn’t allow singing. Not even humming.”
“Oh.” A tiny thought began to percolate at the back of Clayton’s mind. “So you’re looking for another job, then?”
She turned to him and smiled triumphantly. “Actually, I already have a lead on a new job. Cleaning house for an Englisch couple in Lancaster. They want an Amish woman because they say we know how to keep a house. They’re tired of Englisch girls who only do a job halfway.”
“Oh?”
“My friend Kate told me about it. You know Kate, right? She’s had the job herself for only a few weeks, but now she and her husband have decided to move down to Quarryville, so she has to quit. She told them she knew someone else who might be interested, and now they want to talk to me.”
“You said the job’s in Lancaster?”
She nodded. “According to Kate, the peo
ple have a big house, lots of money, and no children. She’s a career woman, so she doesn’t have much time to fool with housework and stuff. Kate’s job has been to clean up after them, do their laundry, dust and mop, shine the silver, and have dinner waiting on the stove for when they come home. She says when they arrive, they just collapse in front of their television and eat. They have a television, Clayton!”
“Oh.”
“I’ve never seen one myself. You probably haven’t either, but Kate says it’s really something. She says you can’t imagine all the different kinds of shows there are. Kate’s favorite is called Secret Storm, and it comes on every day. It’s a drama, but she says there are also comedies. Shows where people play games and win money. Shows just for children, with puppets and stuff. There are even shows where all the people do is sing.”
“Really?” Clayton said, only half listening.
“Yes, really. Can you imagine? How fun.”
Miriam went on, but Clayton hardly heard a word she said. Instead, his mind was consumed with asking her the question that had been somersaulting in his brain for the past few minutes, ever since she told him she’d quit her latest job. Now that she was available, would she consider working for him? At the clock shop?
If she did, he wouldn’t need Maisie or Joan or anyone else pestering him about trying to man the store all by himself. Between him and Mamm and Miriam, everything would be covered.
But the thought of even framing such a question made his face grow warm. He cleared his throat to chase the nervousness away. “Do you think you will like cleaning up after people and cooking for them?”
“Well, it sure beats breathing in sawdust all day. And I can sing whenever I want to. There won’t be anybody there. Of course, my parents aren’t too happy about it. They said they don’t want me in an Englisch house, just singing all the time or watching television. As if I’d have time for that with all of the cleaning and cooking to be done.”
Clayton snapped off one last tiny limb and prayed for the courage to ask Miriam if perhaps she would like to work in the clock shop instead. In fact, if she started soon, they could train her on all the facets of the business while Daed was still around. Besides handling the customers, she could also take on the bookkeeping and other administrative functions, freeing Clayton to focus almost exclusively on clockmaking and repairs.
Then again, there was the matter of propriety, he realized, as it wouldn’t do for an unmarried man and woman to spend their days together inside the same small building, alone except for the occasional customer or two. But there had to be some solution for that, even if it meant one of his nephews working there with them, as he’d been thinking about before, and serving as a chaperone of sorts.
“I just feel like I need a break from life here,” she continued before he could speak. “I need to see something different. I need a change. Do you ever feel that way, Clayton? Like you just wish you could do something new. Something not Amish?”
Clayton coughed back his shock. “Not Amish?”
“I just want to see something pretty every day. I want to be surrounded by pretty things. Not for forever. Just for a little while.”
“You… you mean fancy things?”
“Yes, okay. Fancy things. I want to see photographs of the ocean and feel lace on my skin and smell perfume and watch the sun glint off stained glass. And I want to sing in the rain and dance on tiptoe and wear a sparkly bow in my hair and paint with watercolors. I want to hear someone play a cello and have my nails done and go to the theater to see a play or a symphony.”
Clayton had never heard Miriam talk this way. It was almost as if she had forgotten she was speaking to one already baptized into the church. Her eyes had a faraway look, and it suddenly struck him that he needed to speak with her about all of this—as a Christian brother, if nothing else. Because if this was how she really felt, then taking a position in a fancy Englisch house was only going to make things worse. This new job, if she ended up getting it, would carry her even further away from the Amish principles with which she’d been raised. He was trying to decide how to phrase his objections when she shot him an astute glance.
“I know what you’re thinking, Clayton, but please don’t say anything. You’re the only one who doesn’t have a fit when I talk this way. I just need some place where I can spit it out like this, just the honest, gut-level truth.”
He hesitated and then nodded. If she already knew, what would be the point in speaking his admonishments out loud?
“I’m sure that after a while I’ll want to come home and marry and live an Amish life, but right now, I feel like I’m going to burst. I just want something different to happen. Church member or not, I know you know what I mean.”
His mind returned to the thought of her working at the clock shop, and it was on the tip of his tongue to ask her about it when they heard footsteps approaching.
They both turned their heads as Clayton’s petite mamm stepped around tree. She smiled cordially at their neighbor, but Clayton detected a shimmer of apprehension.
“You’re wanted at home, Miriam,” she said. “Apparently you have company coming and you need to get ready.”
Miriam turned away, a flash of irritation crossing her features as she did.
“Danke,” she said, as she started to walk off. “Bye, Clayton.”
“See you,” he called after her, feeling as unfinished as a sentence interrupted after the first word. If only Mamm had come along just a few minutes later!
Miriam strode across the wide grassy field between their houses. Clayton watched as she reached the split-rail fence that separated the two properties and let herself out through the gate. Usually she didn’t bother, but he supposed she was acting with modesty now for the sake of his mother, who would not think very highly of a young woman hoisting herself up over a fence and down the other side.
“Don’t forget, Clayton,” Mamm said, interrupting his thoughts, “Maisie and Joan and their families will be joining us tonight.”
He felt a surge of anger well up within his chest. “Ya, at Daed’s request,” he snapped. “I haven’t forgotten.”
His mother sighed, as if she already knew the evening was going to play out badly. “Your father wants to have a few things in place for you when—” She stopped for a moment, her voice breaking as she added softly, “When the time comes.”
He glanced her way, feeling guilty for having taken his frustration out on her. Clearing his throat, he pushed back the anger and spoke in a far gentler tone.
“Everything is already in place,” he said softly. “Daed doesn’t need to worry about any of it. I’ll be fine. You and I will be fine.”
She looked up at him, her eyes swimming with tears. “You will hear him out, though, won’t you? This is important to him.”
“Ya. I will listen to what he has to say.”
His mother nodded, turning away to dab at her tears with the hem of her apron. As she did, Clayton’s gaze returned to the retreating form of Miriam Beiler, who was now almost to her own house. When she turned the final corner at the back and disappeared from view, he realized that his mother had been watching as well.
“I understand a suitor is coming to supper at the Beilers’ tonight,” she said, her voice heavy with implication.
Clayton didn’t reply. Instead, he turned and began limping toward the clock shop. He knew what Mamm was really trying to tell him.
He just didn’t want to hear it.
TWELVE
Supper was a much noisier and more chaotic affair than usual, and Clayton was relieved when it ended and most of the children were sent outside to play in the last of the day’s sun. Only the two youngest remained. All of the leftovers had been put away, a fresh pot of coffee had been made, and now Clayton, his parents, his sisters, and their husbands were all seated in the big front room. The two toddlers were on the rug nearby, quietly entertaining themselves with a basket of toys Mamm kept handy for when little ones came to visi
t.
“I’ll get right to it,” Daed began. “I want to make sure Clayton and Mamm will be able to keep the business going and tend to all the day-to-day details of the house and the land once I’m gone.” He reached for his wife’s hand as he said this and gave it a squeeze. Her eyes immediately glistened. “I want to know I have everything in order before another day goes by, and that’s why I asked you all over tonight.” He looked at his daughters and their husbands with purpose and conviction.
Clayton had just opened his mouth to speak, ready to assure his father that there was no need to worry, when Maisie beat him to it.
“Roger and I have been talking about this,” she said, turning toward her husband.
He gave her a nod and then looked to Daed as he took it from there.
“With Reuben coming on fifteen and Fern nearly thirteen, they are good, responsible workers. Maisie and I have decided we can spare them a couple afternoons a week so they can help out in the barn and in the clock shop. On Tuesdays I can come along too.” He looked toward Joan and her husband, adding, “Solomon, you said Thursdays were good for you folks, ya? And some of your boys can help with morning chores on Mondays and Fridays?”
“Ya,” Solomon and Joan replied in unison.
As Roger continued, clarifying with Solomon the details about who would handle which chores when, Clayton looked over to his father, who was listening intently, seeming pleased and surprised that his children had already talked all of this over and come up with some solutions. Clayton’s eyes went to Maisie and then Joan, both of whom were just sitting there, beaming proudly, as their husbands controlled the discussion. When they were finally done, Joan added that although she was planning to be here on Thursdays, there were a few coming up that might be problematic.
“Ya,” Solomon said, looking at Daed. “But not to worry. I’ll be filling in for her here on those days.”
Again Clayton opened his mouth to interject, but his father filled the gap. “Well, it’s a great relief that you four have already thought things out so thoroughly—”
The Amish Clockmaker Page 10
