Doubting Thomas-Nurse Hal Among The Amish

by Risner, Fay

  What Adam knew about where they were going to live after they married, he was not sharing with Emma. She still had questions, but she wasn't going to ask and risk making Adam mad.

  Three days before September 15th, wedding frenzy began. Early that morning, two buggies pulled up by the house at the same time, Hal exclaimed, “Beth and Amy to the rescue just like they did when John and I got married.”

  “Who is that?” Tootie asked, standing behind Hal at the kitchen window.

  “John's sisters. Come meet them,” Hal said, heading for the door.

  As the two women came up the porch steps, their black hair showed through their black prayer caps. They had dark brown eyes like John. There was no doubt they were related to him.

  “We're so glad you came to help today, Beth and Amy,” greeted Hal.”

  Emma laughed as she hugged the women. “I'm afraid you have your work cut out for you helping to right this house.”

  Beth, slim and wiry, shook hands with Nora and Tootie as Hal introduced them. “We would not have missed helping for anything in the world. Would we, Amy?”

  “Ach, nah!” said Amy, a plumper, shorter version of her sister. She stood on tiptoes to hug Hal and Emma. She patted Hal on the back as she said, “It is gute to see Emma so happy.”

  “We all agree,” Hal said.

  “Boy, do we agree,” Tootie said with meaning. Beth and Amy smiled politely at Tootie as Nora elbowed her sister.

  “Schwestern Hal, find us the wash pails for the window cleaning. We will start with that,” Beth said, running a finger down the living room window. As she left a trail in the dust, she said, “You agree, Schwestern Amy?”

  “Jah, but keep the broom handy so we can tackle inside the house next.”

  “Emma will go get what you need,” Hal said. “Mom, Aunt Tootie and I need to finish in the kitchen and get prepared for lunch.”

  Tootie and Nora were just about done with the breakfast dishes. Hal was mixing up a white cake when a commotion broke loose in the living room.

  Redbird's shrill voice screamed, “Dam, Dam!”

  Beth echoed, “Dam, Dam.”

  The front screen door slammed.

  “What on earth?” Nora exclaimed.

  Hal was mystified. “Where did they learn cuss words?”

  Nora held her flushed cheeks. “What must John's sisters think of those two little girls?”

  Tootie stopped drying her hands on Emma's dish towel and stared down both women. “Don't either one of you look at me! That is not something I would say.”

  Emma giggled as she looked out the window. “It is all recht, Aendi Tootie. It is not your fault. The girls just saw Adam drive in. I think they are trying to say his name. Now they have wrapped themselves around his legs. Adam is caught for sure. He cannot walk.”

  Hal gusted a sigh of relief. “We better go get them and work on the correct pronunciation of his name before they greet him at a worship service. I'd hate to hear how Stella Strutt would twist her story about me as a mother if she heard Redbird and Beth cussing.”

  John and Jim came from the barn to greet Adam. Noah and Daniel followed along behind, giggling behind their hands.

  Jim chuckled. “I'd say those two little girls are excited to see that guy.”

  “Overly excited from the sound of things,” John said dryly.

  Adam knelt between the girls. Redbird knocked his straw hat off and rubbed the top of his head. “Dam, Dam.”

  Beth smiled as she patted his cheek. “My Dam.”

  “Nah! My Dam,” Redbird retorted.

  Adam put a finger to their lips and shook his head, trying to look stern, but they weren't buying it.

  “Wilcom, Adam,” John said.

  Adam nodded and tried to smile as Redbird put a choke hold on his neck. “My Dam.”

  “You here for all day?” Jim asked.

  Adam tried to nod yes.

  Jim chuckled. “Good! Maybe those two will ease up on you before the day is over.”

  Adam grinned.

  When Hal came out on the porch, Beth and Amy were laughing so hard, she thought they were going to fall off their stepladders. Hal scolded playfully, “Fine aunts you two are. Don't encourage those girls. It's hard enough to make them mind.” She rushed to Adam's rescue with Emma following behind her. “We'll save you, Adam.”

  Adam gave each girl a hug and let the women pick them up. The girls protested loudly, waving their hands at Adam for help, shouting, “Dam, Dam!”

  John rubbed his beard and eyed his laughing sisters. “Hal, we need to work on what is proper to say when the girls greet people.”

  “Jah, but John, Emma thinks they're trying to say Adam's name. We just need to get them to pronounce his name correctly,” Hal assured him.

  “It is gute to know that they have not picked up such rough words from somewhere,” John said, his lips twitching at the corners. “Adam, come to the barn and hide with us. We are close to done.”

  “Yeah, it might be a good idea for you to get out of sight for awhile until those two calm down,” Jim added. “They were roughing you up but good.”

  Trudging along with them, Adam rubbed his red neck.

  As soon as milking equipment was cleaned, the men met with the women in the kitchen.

  Adam looked cautiously around the room as soon as he walked in.

  Emma giggled and said softly, “You are safe for now. The girls are playing with their dolls in the living room.”

  The men sit down at the table with Tootie. John set up the plans for the hog butcher the next morning while Nora poured each of them a cup of coffee. “Usually we kill the hogs when the weather is cold, but we are not going to be working up this hog except into pieces that will fit in large pots. The women cook the meat and pull it off the bone. I have rented a refrigerated trailer that will park on the yard in the morning. All the food will be stored in it.”

  “I sure know about winter butchering. When I was a kid, Dad sent me to spread the word to my uncles, Dad's two brothers, to bring their families and a hog to butcher. We all shared the meat, because we butchered three or four hogs. That was hours of work, but sure good eating that winter,” Jim reminisced. “What are we going to do today?”

  “We get a barrel and one of the large, cast iron kettles out of the shed. Noah and Daniel, it will be your job to fill the kettle. The water has to heat early in the morning. That is your job to light the fire. You stack wood under the kettle and a large pile nearby to feed the fire until the water is hot.”

  “The women will get all the large pots and pans ready for the hog meat. As we cut it up, they can get the meat on the stove to cook. Jim, Adam and me will check out the chin up poles.”

  “Now what might that be?” Jim asked.

  “It is the frame work behind the chicken house that we hang the hog from to work on it. Over time, some of the poles are not study. They rot. We need to go to the timber this morning and cut as many limbs as we need into large stout poles.”

  “To answer your question, Dawdi, Daniel and I use the framework to do chin ups sometimes,” Noah said.

  “I see,” Jim exclaimed. “Well, John, send these two boys out to do a few chin up and see how the frame holds up.”

  John grinned. “That is a gute idea. Try it, boys. While we are in the timber, we have to pick out some small pieces of wood and whittle sharp points on each end. They will fit in the hog’s hind legs.”

  Aunt Tootie leaned back in her chair and patted her chest. “Holy buckets! What happens next?”

  “Tootie, watch what you say!” Snapped Nora. “We have big enough ears playing in the living room.”

  “Sorry,” Tootie said sheepishly. “It's just that I missed out on the way meat was prepared when I was a kid. This is interesting to me. So go on. I want to hear.”

  John explained, “After the hog has been dipped up and down in the boiling water to scald it, the stobs suspend the carcass from the cross pole so we can scrape the hair off. Th
e scolding hot water loosens the hog hair. With this gute help, we will get done fast.” John grinned at Jim and Adam. “Hope you are ready for the lifting. The hog is a heavy one.” He smiled at Emma. “I've been saving the largest one for this wedding.

  Noah, you and Daniel dig out one of the log chains we use to pull the hog up and down in the water. Lay it by the kettle. Emma, get out the knives and see if they need sharpened. Have them and the whetstones laid handy for in the morning. Hal, Nora and Aendi Tootie can get all the pots and pans ready for us to lay the pieces in as we cut the hog up.”

  The next day after chores, John went in the house and got his rifle to shoot the hog. Adam, Jim and the boys walked with him to the pen.

  Tootie asked, “What is John going to do with the gun?”

  Emma answered, “That is what he uses to kill the hog.”

  “Holy buckets! He shoots the poor thing,” Tootie cried.

  Nora said, “How on earth do you think they get the hog to cooperate when they're cutting him into pieces?”

  “I didn't think about that part at all,” Tootie said.

  “Aunt Tootie, sit down,” Hal said, placing a cup of coffee on the table. “Brace yourself, and it will be over with in a minute. I know just how you feel. I felt the same way when I saw Emma butcher chickens for the first time.”

  As the men looked over the fence, Jim asked, “Which one is it?”

  “The black one with that white ring around his neck,” John pointed out. “I have to wait for him to turn around and look at me. Can't stir hogs up. Meat will be tough if we do.”

  The hog quit rooting dirt and turned to look in the direction of the voices. John raised the rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. The hog fell and kicked for a few minutes. That caused the other hogs to squeal and kick up a cloud of dust as they rushed to the far end of the pen. They turned to stare at the fallen hog. When the men entered the pen, they snorted and squealed in fright as they smelled blood.

  As quick as they could, John and Jim tied a rope around the hog's front legs. Adam and the boys wrapped their hands around the rope and helped pull the animal from the pen into the grass. Jim handed John a knife to cut the hog's throat. Blood ran from the slit as the hog's heart finished beating. They rolled the hog onto a homemade sled. All of them took hold of the rope and dragged the sled behind the chicken house where the work was to be done.

  A fire blazed under the steaming kettle. The water was boiling. John and Jim hooked up the log chain to the hog. John threw the chain over the top post of the chin up structure. They all grabbed the chain to started pulling the hog up and down into the water. As soon as the steaming hog was ready, Noah went for water to douse the fire under the kettle. They scraped off all the hair, leaving the skin exposed.

  When that was done, John cut the hog open all the way down the front to remove the entrails. The guts fell into a metal bushel grain basket.

  There was much laughing and joking as the men sawed and cut the hog into pieces. Nora and Tootie were busy in the house, cooking lunch. After Hal and Emma had been outside for awhile, washing loose hairs off pieces of meat, Nora said, “Tootie, take one of the smaller pans and go get the liver so we can cook it for lunch.”

  Tootie stepped out the back door. “Nora wants the liver now.” Hal and Emma turned to her. Their clothes were splattered with big splotches of blood. Emma reached into a kettle of water and brought the dark blob up in her hands. Stained water dripped off it, speckling the ground and their bare feet red.

  Tootie grew wide eyed as she backed up to lean against the house wall and screamed. All work stopped. The men turned to see what was wrong with her, their knife points poised toward the sky. Amy and Beth jumped off the ladders and ran around the house.

  Nora raced outside, letting the mud room door slam behind her. “What on earth is wrong with you, Tootie?”

  Tootie pointed a wavering finger. “Hallie and Emma are hurt. See! They are all bloody.”

  “Aendi Tootie, it is just butchering day,” Emma said simply.

  “There's nothing to worry about,” Hal said. “Not a pretty sight I know, but it’s got to be done. We always look this way. Was there something you wanted, Aunt Tootie?”

  “I got to sit down.” Tootie thrust the pan into Nora's hands and disappeared inside. Nora held the pan out to Hal. Her face quivered as she tried not to laugh “I'll take the liver in, please.”

  Emma put the liver in Nora's pan as Hal said, “Remember that list of don't dos if we want Aunt Tootie to come back to visit again. We can add she is not helping with hog butchering.”

  “Is your aunt going to all recht?” Beth asked Hal.

  “Jah, we're used to this. Aunt Tootie recovers quickly,” Hal said, giggling.

  “You are sure she will not have another heart attack?” Amy asked.

  Nora stuck the liver pan on her hip as she said, “I'll go check on my sister just to make sure.”

  As soon as the meat was rinsed off, Hal and Emma made several trips to pick up pans filled with leg pieces, shanks, shoulders and hams, before the chickens or the cats could sneak in and steal a bite. Nora and Hal put the chucks in large kettles already filled with steaming water.

  As soon the meal was ready, the men stopped to rest and eat. Amy and Beth put down their brooms and came to the table. The dinner consisted of brown beans, turnip greens, mashed potatoes, fried liver, cornbread along with plenty of fresh churned butter, milk and coffee. Dessert was a blackberry cobbler and whip cream.

  After lunch, the men went back to butchering. They removed the spine, the tenderloin, from the carcass. The rest of the body was cut into two sides of back and two side of front.

  Jim used a meat saw to cut the top off the head and removed the brain to be fried with scrambled eggs for supper. Emma was ready with a bowl when he scooped the brains out of the skull and dropped them into her pan.

  The boys emptied the dirty water out of the black kettle, and Hal cleaned it. “When you are ready you can pour the fat chunks into the kettle now,” she said.

  “Got them ready and waiting,” Jim told her. He dumped two large kettles of fat cubes and gave Hal the kettles to wash.

  The fat rendered into lard in the kettle over the open fire. It was a hot job. Hotter in warm weather than on a cold winter day. So the women took turns stirring the fat chunks constantly to keep it from burning. Tootie even offered to take a short turn.

  In the kitchen, Hal ladled the melted fat into a lard press so she could squeeze all the lard out, leaving small, hard pieces of meat and skin in the press. She dumped those pieces on baking sheets.

  Tootie's nose wrinkled up as she watched. “You keeping that?”

  “Jah. We call those cracklings. We put a handful of them in bread or just eat a handful like that for a snack.”

  “Oh,” Tootie said in a tiny voice.

  Emma said, “Lard cake is gute with cracklings in it. When we have time we should mix a cake up for you.”

  “Oh, goody,” Tootie said dryly. She sat at the table while the women worked on the meal. Hal looked around at Tootie with the thought Tootie could set the table to be a help. Hal watched her aunt while she cracked the eggs in the skillet of brains. Tootie looked tired. She'd had a busy and long day. Hal decided not to ask her to set the table. Best let her rest. They shouldn't expect too much out of the woman. After all, she just had a heart attack.

  Hal smiled when she thought of Tootie's reaction to hog butchering. The elderly woman was probably wondering why she had gotten so excited over hog butchering yesterday. She wouldn't want to see another hog cut up any time soon.

  Later, as the bowls passed around the table that evening, Tootie said, “Oh, good, I love scrambled eggs.”

  “Tootie, maybe you shouldn't take any,” Nora said, putting a hand over her sister's on the spoon.

  “I am, too, taking some.” Tootie sounded argumentative.

  Nora gave up. “Fine then. Take some and pass the bowl on.”

 
Later, Jim said, “Pass the fried brains back around. They were good. Haven't had any hog brains in ages.”

  Tootie's face scrunched up as she looked around the table. “Which bowl were they in?”

  Nora said, “The one next to you with the scrambled eggs in it.”

  Looking queasy, Tootie said, “You put brains in with the scrambled eggs! Why didn't you tell me that, Nora?”

  Nora giggled. “I tried to, but you wouldn't let me. They must have been good. You cleaned up what you put on your plate.”

  Tootie gave her plate a hard look. “I wondered what the soft, white chunky stuff was in the eggs. I thought it was thicker than usual egg whites.”

  “That was brains, and good fresh ones,” Jim said.

  “You ate them.” Nora narrow her eyes at Tootie, daring her to make a fuss.

  Tootie picked the bowl up and holding it at arm's length gave it to Nora to pass on to Jim. “Hallie, just so I know, did you cook all the brains, or will there be more in scrambled eggs for another meal?” Tootie asked.

  “That was all of the brains for this butchering,” Hal answered.

  “Good,” Tootie said softly.

  “So what did you think of butchering day now that you have been here for one?” Adam wrote, smiling at her as he handed her the note.

  Tootie read the note out loud. “Adam, yesterday I was excited about being here for the butchering. I thought I'd like helping with it. Truthfully, today not so much.”

  Chapter 13

  The day before the wedding, men came to unload the bench wagon. They moved the living room and clinic furniture to the basement. The divider wall between the clinic and living room was opened. They carried the benches in and set them in rows with an aisle down the middle. In front of the benches were the chairs for the ministers and the wedding party.

  While that was going on, other men put up a large tent in the yard for the reception. They brought in tables and benches, placed side by side in the shape of a U. As the tables were completed, a woman placed white tablecloths on them. The corner table, the eck, was reserved for the bridal party.