Which Way Home?

by Linda Byler

  In the center of the heavy oak table was a brown pitcher filled with sumac and goldenrod mixed with foxtails. My, it was so beautiful. Who would have thought that an assortment of plain weeds could be so pretty?

  Wistfully she thought of her own blue dishes, more expensive and prettier than anything Veronica owned. The same with the hooked rugs Frances made, too. At the thought of her mother-in-law, she looked for her among the circle of women, remembering now that she had not greeted her. Was she sick?

  Leaning toward Samuel Zug’s wife, she inquired about Frances’s absence in quiet tones. Taken aback, Lydia opened her eyes wide, then leaned close to whisper in her ear. “Hadn’t you heard? She requested to be put out of the church.”

  Hester could not believe it. They had missed church two weeks ago, so they hadn’t found out, nor had Hester been to any quiltings or other social events. It would have been far too much like gossip to inquire about Frances’s reason for doing this, at her age—a highly unusual happening—but then, she had always been a bit strange, like a … Hester tried hard not to think of which reasons her highly critical mother-in-law might have cited for leaving the church, because, well, it was the Sabbath, and she should do her best to live right.

  She suppressed a giggle and kept her face hidden from Bappie, striving to keep her thoughts and intentions pure. She sat with the women, singing with a clear and rousing soprano, then listened carefully to the words of Bishop Joel Stoltzfus.

  He warned of worldly lusts and the hellfire that would surely rain on their heads, were they to disobey. He spoke of the need to live wholesome lives, upright and honest in all business dealings, to work the land by the sweat of their brow, the women bearing children as was commanded by the Lord.

  Oh, how glad, how glad I would be to have children of my own, Hester thought, with a longing so intense she felt a physical ache in the pit of her stomach. Lowering her head, she pictured black-haired, naked little Indian children playing with bones and dogs, running among dusty intestines as the women butchered the wild animals.

  She shuddered. She knew she did not want to be alone for the remainder of her years here on earth. But …

  Joel Stoltzfus’s face reddened, and he lifted his fist along with his voice, as it rose and fell in a singsong chant, carried through the generations like a ribbon from the Catholic Mass, their ancestors.

  The sound made Hester feel a part of these people, these darkly clad, sincere, spiritually hungry and thirsty people who longed to do what was right. Everyone, in their own ways, did the very best they could, given the nature they each had. Often the children were raised with stringent rules and punishment, so they became their parents, passing the traditions and views on to their children, resulting in a tightly knit group of conservative people.

  On her knees in silent prayer, Hester brought a heartfelt petition to God, asking that he show her the way, in Jesus’s name.

  The second and longer sermon was preached by a fiery old minister named Eli Fisher. His head was bald and shining, his beard in lustrous health, perhaps because he had no hair on his head. The gray beard seemed to come alive, jumping and swaying as he lifted his head, opened his mouth, and expounded on the word of God in all its power. That two-edged sword sliced right through the middle of the congregation and revealed their sinning souls.

  Brother Eli clapped a skinny, work-roughened hand to his bald head, then wept and pleaded. He slammed himself back against the wall when the immensity of the seriousness of life became almost more than he could bear. His hands shook. He swayed on his feet. He swung his thin arms and called each person to repentance.

  Babies cried and were carried discreetly from the room. A young child was pinched by a frustrated father, the ensuing wail bringing a clap to the face with a handkerchief. Somewhere was the sound of soft snoring. The men looked at one another with shamed smiles surfacing. Eyebrows lifted, a resounding punch was administered, and then a loud snort echoed through the room.

  Women craned their necks. Who was snoring? Shame on him. Aha, young Willie Zug. Out too late last evening with Fannie.

  They sat at the dinner table then, eating bread and dried apple pie, cup cheese, pickled cucumbers, and spiced red beets. There was cold water to drink. Hester longed for a cup of hot tea, but that would be too much work on the Sabbath day.

  Bappie approached the ministers about helping to cut firewood for the Heinz Hoffman family. She was told they would not get involved in those lazy Germans’ lives, and if she knew what was good for them, she wouldn’t either.

  Then Joel Stoltzfus told her in authorative tones that Hester and she would better start considering moving back to the country. Some of the gleeda were not satisfied with the way they lived in town, hawking their vegetables, perhaps being less sober and reserved than the world expected of the pious Amish. They would be better off as keepers of the home, quiet, devout, and not walking the streets of Lancaster, often with their caps untied. Someone had seen them wearing coats without the required shawls and hats. If they did not conform, they would be subject to a visit from the deacon.

  It would be better for them to marry, bear children, and look after their husbands, he informed Bappie, not unkindly. He wished her Herr saya, and his eyes softened when he looked at Bappie’s plain, freckled face. He walked away, aware of the ministers’ duties that were not always so pleasant. But he did agree with the lay member that Bappie’s voice at market was anything but chaste and humble.

  Bappie was furious. She leaned forward and slapped both reins down on Silver’s rump until the poor horse flew along the road, the buggy tipping and careening, bits of water, mud, and gravel spitting out from under his hooves until their faces were peppered, and Hester couldn’t tell which were mud splatters and which were freckles all over Bappie’s face.

  Bappie talked as fast as she drove. She said, couldn’t he see how homely she was? Ugly as a mud fence and God had made her that way. Was it her fault that no man wanted her for his wife? How was she supposed to go about making a living? Huh? How? She scraped the back of her hand repeatedly across her cheeks, then blew her running nose into the edge of her back shawl.

  “And not one of those men will help gather firewood for them!” she shouted into the wind, a strand of brilliant red hair loosening and waving above her black hat like a torch.

  Hester assured her that she was not ugly. She just had never met the right person.

  Bappie snorted so loudly that Silver broke into a gallop. “You can say that. You with all your beauty.”

  “I’m not married.”

  “Puh. Well, I’m going to get a load of firewood, if I have to chop every piece myself. I don’t understand. Evidently you have to be Amish to receive any help. Puh.”

  Hester placed a comforting hand on Bappie’s arm. “You won’t have to chop firewood alone. I’ll help.”

  Bappie sniffed and looked straight ahead.

  CHAPTER 22

  WALTER TROUT HELPED. THEY DROVE JOHNNY’S wagon out to Barbara King’s homestead and cut firewood in the brisk, gray day. The sun was a mist-shrouded orb overhead, cold, insufficient, and half-hidden in the dreary skies. Chopping and loading the wood kept them warm, their breaths coming in short, white puffs as they worked.

  The great Belgians stood patiently, dozing in the still November air as the wood clunked into the sturdy oak wagon bed.

  Walter worked alongside, grunting, puffing, and perspiring. At precisely ten o’clock, he announced his wish for “the luncheon” Emma had prepared. “Ah, yes, a bit early, perhaps, but to the working man, having a full stomach is of great and utmost import.”

  Bappie grinned cheekily and gave the axe a good whack into the chopping block. She dusted her hands by clapping them together and said loudly, “Where is this picnic?”

  Walter was already arranging a blanket on the leeward side of the wagon. Giving it a final pat, he happily dug through the large wicker basket. He brought out a loaf of bread first, cut into inch-thick slices. Chun
ks of fried ham were laid between the slices, after a thick layer of yellow salted butter was applied with intense concentration. Every corner of the bread was covered precisely.

  There was cold buttermilk, spicy little cucumber pickles, hard-boiled eggs, spiced peaches, sugar cookies, and wedges of squash pie with cinnamon, brown sugar, and nutmeg sprinkled over the top.

  Walter was in his glory, his eyes shining with the purest delight as he ate. Such large quantities disappeared from the spread on the blanket that perhaps even Emma would have become concerned.

  He dabbed delicately at his mouth with the cloth napkin, belched quietly behind it, arranged the belt of his trousers more comfortably, and humming delicately, cut a slice of pie that was very nearly half of the whole. “Fuel for the soul,” he crooned, after swallowing every bit.

  “I thought preachers supplied that,” Bappie said.

  “Oh, they do, they do. But if I had my choice, I’m afraid the squash pie would prevail, indeed.” His shoulders shook with merry giggles.

  Word spread among the rowhouses. Something had happened at Heinz Hoffmans. Finny was working. The children were clean. They ate green things. Chon survived the infection. Their house was warm.

  When, a few houses down, a young girl was taken sick with pleurisy and bleeding in her lungs, Finny reported this to Hester, who had merely come for a visit, eager to hear how Finny was doing.

  Instantly, Hester thought of the red Beth-root, bayberry root, and witch hazel leaves which she boiled in wine, and then stirred in a teaspoon of honey. This was the ancient treatment for pleurisy that she had learned from the book.

  Bleeding of the lungs? Or consumption? These were deadly viruses that spread like wildfire. She shivered, with Finny beside her, as they walked to Bessie’s house. Bessie was the wife of Joe Reed, a Scots-Irishman who had fallen on hard times, having broken his hip in a farm accident. He was able to walk, but only by leaning heavily on a cane. His wife Bessie was at least twenty years younger and bore him a child each year, with little or no means to provide for them.

  The house was bigger than the Hoffmans’, if only by a few feet. It was decidedly cleaner, but so bare of even the most basic necessities it was hard for Hester to grasp the Spartan conditions the family lived in.

  Joe was a gentleman, proud, kind, and so polite. He bowed over Hester’s hand and thanked her for coming in an Irish brogue so thick she could not understand his speech.

  Bessie was English, her words spoken precisely. Toothless, thin, and her brown and curly hair riotous, Bessie looked out of eyes that were flat and strained with the impossibility of her days. She was barefoot, her too short dress showing puffy ankles criss-crossed by bulging blue veins.

  A baby slept in a broken cradle close to the hearth. A group of thin toddlers were lined up on a bench, either sucking on a thumb or a finger, or holding a corncob as if it were a doll.

  The girl with the sickness was propped up against the outer wall by a rolled up blanket, her chest heaving as she struggled to breathe. Her eyes were sunken in her face, her lips apart, cracked and bleeding, a gray pallor spread across her features.

  “This is Dulcie.”

  Hester bent to her line of vision.

  “Hello, Dulcie.”

  A rolling of the eyes and a slow drooping of the tired lids were the only signs that she had heard. One thing was certain. Dulcie was very sick. To Hester, it looked as if she had an ongoing case of consumption, likely well seated, which was, in fact, not curable. Why the smaller children had not come down with it, she didn’t know. Perhaps it wasn’t the dreaded illness.

  Elecampane, pignut, sage, horehound, yellow parilla, Solomon’s seal, golden seal, all boiled in rainwater. She had the tincture at home.

  Again Bappie accompanied her, cleaning and giving the family food and clothing. When the women had no more extras to give, they went door to door, asking for clothing, food, whatever they had to spare. Bappie said there was no difference between that and peddling wares. Lots of the Amish peddled vegetables, bread, pies, and cakes.

  They approached gabled brick houses with ornate white trim, where the front doors were opulent, and there was a brass ring to lift and let fall without smashing your knuckles. Servants, mostly black-skinned housekeepers in immaculate white caps and aprons, opened the doors, shook their heads from side to side, and spoke in low velvety voices. “No, ma’am.” “Sorry, ma’am.” “Not today, ma’am.”

  When Dulcie breathed her last, Hester cried. Bappie rubbed her shoulders and blinked rapidly, saying she didn’t think she would die. They buried her in the common graveyard where the town’s poor laid their children. Hester stood in the biting December air, hung her head, and raged at the rich who lived inside their protected brick walls, surrounded by wealth and plenty, their consciences and their money secured by brick walls as well.

  She kicked pebbles the whole way home, her nose red from crying, her soul withered within. “I’m going to go with Hunting Wolf. I can’t stand another day of this. We did all we could for the Hoffman family, and what happens? He’s in jail. Dulcie dies. What’s the use?”

  Bappie inserted the key into the lock. They let themselves in, shivering and rubbing their hands. Hester poked up the fire, laid small pieces of split wood on the burning embers, and watched it flame up before swinging the kettle over it. They stood in their black shawls and hats, staring morosely into the gray, joyless day, their spirits trampled, as if a giant hoof had staggered all over them.

  “I guess there’s not much to say, except that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” Hester said softly.

  “They have too many children anyway,” Bappie said gruffly, slamming her gloves against the stone wall of the fireplace. “Will they all get the consumption?”

  “Likely. It’s a bad thing. They can cough and spit blood for years. It’s hardly ever curable.”

  They put a handful of beans in the boiling water and added a bit of salt pork from the attic. The rich smell moved through the rooms of the house, warming and cheering their battered feelings, giving them a small degree of comfort.

  They made their rounds of the shopkeepers and came away with a wagonload of potatoes, turnips, beef tallow, lard, and cornmeal, heaped on until they had to be careful not to throw anything off.

  Joe and Bessie were grateful, the children overjoyed.

  Two of the toddlers were coughing, so Hester left some of the same tincture, with instructions for Bessie.

  A week before Christmas, when the women were knitting gifts, and green boughs and holly berries decorated the mantle, there was a sharp rap on the front door, then another. Bappie moved quickly down the short hallway.

  A gust of icy air moved across the floor. Hester heard Bappie’s low voice. When she closed the door, she sighed, relieved the visitor had gone. But then she held her breath as heavy footfalls followed Bappie’s lighter ones.

  She looked up. A white-coated livery man stood in their kitchen. Tall, dark of face, his eyes light with a greenish flash like a trout in a forest pool, his face was trimmed by a neat beard, a mustache above his lips.

  He saw Hester in the gray afternoon light, the crackling fire casting her face in an ethereal, golden glow. Her eyes were large and dark, her mouth slightly open, revealing her perfect, white teeth, her long, slender neck reminding him of a swan.

  He forgot where he was and his errand.

  Bappie cleared her throat, which severed the spell efficiently.

  “I … I beg your pardon. You must be Hester Zug.”

  “King.”

  “Hester King. Yes. I am employed by the Breckenridges on King Street. Their daughter is indisposed. They have heard of the Amish women and the herbs they have knowledge of. Would you be so kind as to accompany me?”

  Immediately, Hester was on her feet.

  The livery man was amazed at her height. He had never encountered such charm, such innocent beauty.

  “Allow me a minute for my shawl.” Her voice was like the c
all of the whippoorwill, a babbling brook, the trill of a bluebird, the wind in the fir trees.

  Hester had acquired a black bag, which she filled with labeled bottles, all in order side by side, along with clean strips of muslin, scissors, a knife, and any small utensil she thought she might need.

  As she followed him down to the grand carriage, her heart swelled within her, recognizing this venture for what it was. A dream. A passion.

  When he opened the door for her, he saw her face was completely hidden by her large black hat. He wanted to grab the wide black strings and rake it off her head. He mourned the loss of her face.

  He sat outside, up high, while she sat alone, Bappie having opted to stay indoors and finish her knitting.

  Hester stayed hidden, afraid someone from their church district would see her being borne away to the wealthy section of town. With the stern reprimand of Bishop Joel Stoltzfus still weighing heavily on her conscience, she shrank back against the luxurious cushions.

  The carriage stopped. Hester waited. When the door opened, the white-coated man stood directly in her line of vision, his eyes intense, eager. She shrank from his too-familiar look. She lowered her eyes and brushed past him, seeming to skim the steps in her haste to reach the front door.

  He mourned the loss of her. She mourned the fact that some things never change.

  The brass ring slipped in her hand and crashed against the red door with a splintering sound. Quickly, the door swung open from the inside. A short, buxom woman stood aside, her graying hair piled on top of her head in artificial poufs, containing so many glittering combs her hair seemed to be alive.

  “Oh, you’ve come! You’ve come! Miranda!” She called quite loudly for a lady of her stature, but was quickly rewarded by the heavy pounding of steps from the wide, oak staircase directly in front of her.