An Unexpected Amish Harvest

by Carrie Lighte

  Not half a minute after he stepped down from the carriage, the school door opened and a crush of young children scurried down the steps, followed in close succession by the older scholars, as Amish students were called. Eva was one of the last to come out and she was hugging a cardboard box to her chest. Peter waved to get her attention and when she lifted her blond head and spied him, she smiled and quickened her pace.

  Once they were out on the road, he pointed to the box between them and joked, “Is that your homework?”

  “Neh. It’s the youngest scholars’ spelling tests and math worksheets. The teacher asked me to correct them tonight.”

  It wasn’t unusual for the older students to help the teacher with the younger students’ assignments during class and to correct their papers after school, but Eva was always volunteering to take on even more responsibility. Peter suspected she hoped that sometime in the future she could replace New Hope’s current teacher if she resigned to get married and start a family. Eva provided the teacher a valuable service and she genuinely enjoyed correcting papers, but in the next few weeks, Peter was going to need her help at home more than ever.

  “It’s gut that you’re willing to assist your teacher, but don’t forget, starting on Muundaag, I’ll be working on the Sommers’s potato bauerei in the evenings for the next four weeks,” he said. “And Hannes may have to work late if he can’t keep up with the orders, so I’ll need you to keep Mamm company.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. But Mamm usually goes to bed a lot earlier than I do so I’ll have plenty of time to help the teacher with her paperwork.”

  “Perhaps if you suggested doing an activity together—quilting or playing checkers—Mamm might stay up later.”

  “But whenever I ask her to do something like that, she says neh, she’s too tired,” Eva argued. “You’ve been right there in the same room—you’ve heard her yourself.”

  Usually his sister’s tone wasn’t so flippant and Peter reacted impatiently. “There’s no need to get schmaert with me, Eva. I know Mamm usually says neh. But that doesn’t mean you should give up trying. I’m counting on Hannes to take care of the shop and you to take care of Mamm and the haus while I’m away. Understand?”

  Almost immediately, Eva’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Don’t you understand? I have been taking care of Mamm and the haus. And I’d love it if she wanted to do something with me after supper. Even if all we did was sit on the porch and talk. But she never does...” She dissolved into tears, so Peter directed the horse onto the wide sandy shoulder of the road and came to a stop.

  First Mamm, then Susannah and now Eva—I sure know how to say all the wrong things to weibsmensch today, he thought. He put his hand on his sister’s shoulder as she cried. It was unlike her to be so tearful and it made him realize how deeply his mother’s illness was affecting her, too. She’d been doing her best to take over all of the household tasks at home, without ever grumbling. Nor had she ever complained that her mother no longer engaged in activities—or even in conversation—with her, but Peter recognized now how much it must have saddened her.

  When she stopped weeping, he said, “I’m sorry that right now Mamm isn’t able to do the things she used to do with you. And I do appreciate how much you’ve taken over in the haus. I should tell you that more often.”

  “I don’t mind doing the cleaning and cooking myself. But I can’t talk to myself, the way I used to talk to Mamm.” Eva sniffed. “I know she’s still in the same haus, but it feels like she’s a million miles away. What’s wrong with her, anyway? Do you think it’s really that she’s depressed?”

  “I don’t know,” Peter answered honestly. “But the Lord is our Great Physician, so I keep asking Him to heal her.”

  “I do, too.” Eva heaved a sigh. “And I ask Him to give me more patience because it feels like forever since Mamm was—was Mamm.”

  Peter winced to hear his little sister describe exactly how he felt about their mother, too. “I have an idea. Let me get through the harvest first, and then if Mamm still isn’t her old self, I’ll convince her to go to the dokder again.”

  “How are you going to do that? You’ve asked her to go to the dokder as many times as I’ve asked her to work on a quilt or play a board game with me. She always tells you neh, too.”

  Peter had no idea how he’d finally persuade his mother to make another doctor’s appointment, but he’d have plenty of time to think about it on the farm. Picking potatoes could be as boring as it was backbreaking, so having a challenge to think about would keep his mind occupied. “Leave that to me—and meanwhile, keep praying, okay?” Eva nodded but she still looked so forlorn that he suggested they should pick up a pizza for supper. “This way, you won’t have to cook and you can grade those papers. I’ll visit with Mamm, if she’s up to it. And Hannes can take care of the animals.”

  “That would be great. Let’s get the kind with ham and pineapple,” she suggested, visibly perking up.

  Relieved he’d finally made one female smile that day, Peter instructed the horse to giddyap. Unfortunately, he had a feeling it was going to take a lot more than a Hawaiian pizza to keep a smile on his mother’s face. And as for making Susannah grin? Peter figured there was virtually no chance of that happening. But at least if I avoid her, I won’t make her frown, he thought.

  * * *

  Susannah’s meal was so salty she couldn’t seem to drink enough water to quench her thirst. She and her grandparents were eating supper at a picnic table outside an Englisch diner in town because Lydia had insisted Susannah shouldn’t have to cook her first night there. Susannah thought that was silly, since cooking was such a routine part of her life and she actually found it relaxing.

  But then Lydia whispered that she wanted an excuse to get an extrathick milkshake before the restaurant closed on September 30 until Memorial Day of the following year. So Susannah had played along, telling her grandfather that yes, she really would enjoy eating out. And she would have enjoyed it, too, if everything on the menu wasn’t fried or previously frozen. But since she didn’t want to seem ungrateful, she ordered a burger with coleslaw instead of fries.

  “I didn’t realize Peter Lambright was one of the menner helping you with the harvest this season,” she remarked to her grandfather in what she hoped was a casual voice. She had never told her grandparents about her courtship with Peter before and she certainly didn’t intend to let on about it now.

  Marshall finished chewing a large bite of fried chicken before replying. “How did you find that out?”

  “He stopped by to make sure you didn’t want him to start work tomorrow instead of Muundaag.”

  “Hmpf.” For some reason, he seemed disgruntled. “Since Lydia’s two seh couldn’t kumme this autumn, I had to recruit two other menner to help. Peter Lambright is one of them.”

  “Peter is a wunderbaar young mann.” Lydia’s straw made a loud slurping sound as she finished the last of her milkshake. She set the empty paper cup on the tray. “Once he sees you again, I wouldn’t be surprised if he asks to be your suitor.”

  Embarrassed that Lydia was discussing such a topic in front of her grandfather, Susannah looked down at her plate and picked at her coleslaw with a plastic fork.

  “Don’t be lecherich. She didn’t kumme here to find a suitor.” Marshall’s gruff reply to his wife surprised Susannah. “She came to help us.”

  Lydia persisted, “But there’s no reason she can’t help us and find a suitor, is there?”

  Jah, there is a reason. A very gut reason, Susannah thought. And that’s that I’m not interested in a suitor and I’m especially not interested in Peter. Susannah didn’t answer aloud and neither did Marshall, but he hastily collected their used paper plates and cups and carried them on the tray to the recycling station.

  “Your groossdaadi is so protective of you,” Lydia whispered. “I don’t know if it’s because you remin
d him so much of your mamm or if it’s because he doesn’t realize that you’re no longer a young maedel.”

  The comment was almost amusing coming from Lydia, since she also had a tendency to fuss over Susannah as if she wasn’t a grown woman. “It’s okay. He’s right—I didn’t kumme here to find a suitor.” Susannah tried to sound as resolute as her grandfather had sounded, but she couldn’t seem to get through to Lydia.

  “If you’re not interested in Peter, the other young mann who’s coming from Serenity Ridge is a bachelor, too. Benuel Heiser. He’s the one who’s picking up the buwe at the bus station.”

  Susannah thought the other crew member was local, not from Serenity Ridge, so she was surprised to hear Lydia mention there would be an extra horse on the farm. “Benuel’s staying at the haus?”

  “Of course not—your groossdaadi would never allow that, not with you here!” Lydia exclaimed. “He’s staying with his relatives just down the road. My great-nephews, Jacob and Conrad, will be the only ones staying with us...which reminds me, I didn’t make up their beds yet. You’ll have to do that for me. Now, do you have room for dessert?”

  This time, Susannah didn’t give in. “Denki, but I’m so full my stomach hurts.”

  Hours later, as she was lying in bed, her stomach still hurt. Whether that was from the amount or type of food she’d eaten that afternoon, or because talking about and seeing Peter had upset her, Susannah couldn’t be sure. But she knew if she continued eating and feeling like she had today, she’d regret it physically and emotionally. So before falling asleep, she resolved she’d start the next day with prayer and an early morning walk.

  Unfortunately, she overslept and was woken the next morning by the smell of sausages frying. She got dressed and hurried into the kitchen. Lydia was standing in front of the oven, where two large cast-iron pans were sizzling on the stovetop.

  “How did you ever manage to lift those singlehandedly? I’m sorry I slept in—you should have woken me.” Susannah looked into the pans. One contained thick slabs of ham and several sausages; eight eggs were frying in the other. Seeing the amount of food, she asked, “Did Jacob and Conrad get here already?”

  Lydia looked confused. She backed away and sat down at the table so Susannah could finish preparing the meal. “Neh. They aren’t coming until suppertime. Why?”

  Susannah didn’t want to point out that the breakfast was enough to feed half a dozen people, instead of just the three of them. It would have come across as self-righteous, considering it wasn’t that long ago when she wouldn’t have blinked at eating a breakfast this size. So she said, “I just want to be sure to make their beds up before they arrive.”

  After Marshall came in from the barn and they’d eaten their breakfast, Susannah washed and dried the dishes and then carried a stack of sheets and quilts to the open, unfinished loft upstairs. The beds weren’t actual beds; they were borrowed mattresses lying on the floor. But after Susannah made them up, swept away the dust and washed the windows to a shine, she surveyed the room and thought, It looks really cozy and comfortable up here. Especially for two scrappy fourteen-year-old buwe like Jacob and Conrad.

  She’d met the twins when she’d come to New Hope the previous summer, and at the time, they’d been just about her height, so when they arrived shortly before supper, she was surprised to see they were now taller than her grandfather. And they were taller than Benuel, the sinewy auburn-haired man from Serenity Ridge who’d given them a ride from the bus station.

  “You’ve really grown!” Susannah remarked as they all crowded into the kitchen.

  “Jah,” Conrad acknowledged with a lopsided grin. “And you’ve really shrunk!”

  She supposed she had invited his remark and she would have dismissed it lightly, considering the last time they were together she and the twins had taken to teasing each other good-naturedly, like siblings sometimes did.

  But then Jacob clarified, for Benuel’s benefit, “He means she’s lost a ton of weight. Last summer Susannah was twice as wide as she is now.”

  Although he said it admiringly, Susannah’s cheeks burned. She didn’t know how to respond without drawing more attention to herself. Just when she thought she couldn’t feel any more embarrassed, Benuel came to her defense when he said, “I doubt that’s true. I can’t imagine her being that overweight.”

  “It’s true. She was really—” Jacob began, but Marshall cut him off.

  “Let’s clear out of the kitchen so the weibsmensch can finish making supper. Buwe, kumme wait on the porch with me.”

  “Benuel, you’ll stay for supper, too?” Lydia asked, but it wasn’t really a question. When she invited someone to stay for a meal, she didn’t take no for an answer. In this case, Benuel didn’t need any convincing.

  “Denki.” He looked directly at Susannah as he added, “It smells appenditlich.”

  The second the door closed behind them, Lydia whispered, “He seems like a nice young mann, don’t you think?”

  “Jah,” Susannah replied distractedly, taking a stack of plates from the cupboard.

  “And strong, too,” Lydia insisted.

  Aha. Now that she realized what Lydia was getting at, Susannah answered more cautiously, lest her own words be used against her. “That would explain why groossdaadi requested his help.”

  “I noticed you caught his eye.” Lydia’s silvery voice was too loud for Susannah’s comfort.

  She set the plates on the table, turned toward the oven and said, “I’d better stop gabbing and concentrate on finishing supper or I’ll overcook this.”

  “What is it you’re making?”

  “Roasted vegetable casserole.”

  “That sounds gut. What kind of meat are you serving with it?”

  “I didn’t prepare meat. This is a very filling dish on its own.”

  “You’re not going to win any mann over with nothing more than squash and brussels sprouts for supper,” Lydia warned.

  Her stepgrandmother’s insistence that she should be trying to win a man over—winning him over with food, no less—was so exasperating that Susannah felt like screaming. But after a quick, silent prayer for grace, she was able to make light of the situation. She teased, “Then maybe I’ll win him over with what I made for dessert.”

  Lydia narrowed her eyes. “I thought you said you didn’t make dessert today.”

  Susannah snapped her fingers. “That’s right, I didn’t. Oh, well.”

  She giggled but Lydia just shook her head sadly, as if she didn’t know what to make of a young woman who claimed little interest in having dessert and even less interest in having a suitor.

  * * *

  On Sunday morning, it took Dorothy so long to get ready for church that Peter considered suggesting she ought to stay home. But unless someone was out of town, in the hospital or seriously ill, an Amish person rarely missed church. Besides, Peter didn’t want to discourage her, knowing she was doing the best she could to honor the Sabbath by gathering with others for worship. Still, by the time she got out the door, they were already late, and it was almost as much of a rarity for an Amish person to be tardy to church as it was to be absent from it.

  Like the other settlements in that part of Maine, the New Hope district had constructed a building for their services instead of taking turns meeting in each other’s houses, the way most Amish districts did. As the Lambrights approached the church, Peter felt self-conscious, knowing its large windows meant that everyone could see them. But at least the congregation was still singing hymns when his family tiptoed in, so they didn’t disrupt the actual sermon.

  The benches in the back of the room were filled, so Peter’s family had to make their way to an empty bench halfway up the aisle. In their church, instead of the men and women sitting separately, as they did in some of the more conservative Amish churches, the families sat together. So once they took their places,
Peter noticed Marshall and Lydia were occupying the bench two rows up from them. Two tall young men—presumably Lydia’s nephews—were seated on the other side of Lydia, and Susannah was on the other side of the boys. To her right was a man Peter had never seen before; he would have remembered, as no man in their district had hair that color.

  Did someone kumme with her from Dover? he wondered. Her bruder, maybe? But Susannah’s brother was married with children; he wouldn’t have come without them. Peter scanned the front half of the room but he didn’t see any children he didn’t recognize.

  Then he caught sight of the Heiser family seated one row up from where Susannah was. Didn’t Marshall mention that the crew member—Benuel, a bachelor Peter’s age—was related to them? Peter deduced that there must not have been enough room for him on their bench, so he’d had to move back a row, joining Susannah and her relatives.

  He tried to focus on the sermon, but Peter felt himself growing increasingly agitated to see Benuel and Susannah seated side by side. He wasn’t troubled because it seemed as if they were a couple or because Peter himself wanted to be sitting next to her. He was troubled because he used to want to be sitting next to her. His favorite daydream used to be of the two of them going to church as husband and wife, and eventually filling a bench with their children. Seeing Susannah beside a man his own age made Peter keenly aware that he’d proved himself unworthy of being a husband and father by hurting the woman he loved in order to fulfill his own needs.

  He sighed heavily, which startled his mother, who had fallen asleep against his shoulder. Dorothy jerked awake with an audible snort and Marshall glanced over his shoulder at her and scowled. Although it wasn’t unusual for people to fall asleep during the three-hour Sunday sermon, usually those who dozed off were either teenage boys who’d been out late the evening before or elderly men. Dorothy covered her mouth with her hand, obviously embarrassed. And although he knew his mother really couldn’t help falling asleep, at that moment, Peter was embarrassed by her drowsiness, too. He just wished he could disappear.