A Stranger's Wish (The Amish Farm Trilogy 1)

by Gayle Roper

  I left the market and drove to the nearest Christian bookstore, spending time searching for new teaching ideas for kindergarten church. I was starting a month’s teaching on the first Sunday in October, and I felt I hadn’t planned my program very well yet in spite of the materials given me. Perfectionist that I was, I didn’t like the unprepared feeling. I skimmed several books of ideas and programs and decided on three. Only one month serving but three books of ideas. Overkill as usual.

  Just before I left, I went to the section where books on counseling and psychology were displayed. Clarke’s book was there, prominently promoted under a sign that read “local author.” To keep my promise, I bought one.

  “Good book,” the woman at the register said. “Nice man. My daughter has him for a class at Lancaster Bible College.”

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s a personal friend.”

  I smiled all the way to my car because the woman and her daughter liked Clarke. Stupid.

  But Clarke wasn’t my problem. Todd was. I was so glad I’d committed to helping Mary today since her usual ride to the market was away for the weekend. It was a ready excuse when Todd asked me to go with him to his family reunion. I flinched at the idea of being introduced to curious and hopeful relatives as “Todd’s girl.” In many ways he was my closest friend, but the problem was that he didn’t want to be my friend, and I now recognized that I didn’t want him to be anything else.

  I spent the rest of the morning at Rockvale Outlet Mall just east of Lancaster City, wandering from store to store, buying an item here and there.

  “Mom! It’s my art teacher!” more than one dumbfounded kid whispered to a harried parent as I passed. There was something about seeing a teacher in the real world that undid kids. One of my most vocal and active six-year-olds stood in line behind me in one store, struck dumb and paralyzed as she held on to her mother’s shirt. I smiled at the girl and said, “Hello, Hillary,” but she didn’t even blink.

  “Thank you for being here,” her mother said to me. “It’s the first time she’s been quiet all day.”

  In the lingerie outlet, I selected a slip with a great froth of lace at the hem. As I waited my turn at the cash register, I stood behind a young Amish girl about Ruth’s age, lovely in her caped dress, apron, and head covering. She was buying a slip, panties, and padded bra in a brilliant shade of yellow. I couldn’t help wonder whether she’d hang her purchases on the clothesline with the family’s somber clothes, or if she’d keep them hidden from the eyes of the general populace, especially her mother and father. I suspected the latter. A little rumspringa rebellion, I decided.

  On my way back to the farm I stopped at the Bird-in-Hand Bakery, surprised that with the swarm of tourists I actually found a parking place in their tiny lot. Before I went into the bakery, I climbed the stairs to the quilt shop on the second level. I loved looking at the fabric works of art. For many Amish women, quilting satisfied the need to create beautiful things, and quilts, of course, were acceptable because they were so functional.

  I thought of Mary and her love of beauty and her artist’s eye. I’d seen her yearning as she studied my painting of the barn. It occurred to me that while the creative urge was a broad human instinct, the way we wanted to create was highly individual. Quilting, as intricate and artistic as it could be, wouldn’t satisfy me. I needed paint and brush, and I suspected that for her inner urge to be satisfied, Mary did too.

  I wandered around, separating the great dowels on which the quilts hung so I could see the different patterns and color combinations more clearly. At one point I turned to see if the quilt I was studying really did match a pillow I’d seen earlier. I almost plowed into a man wearing a baseball cap standing behind me as he looked at quilted table runners.

  “Sorry,” I muttered as I stepped around him. He didn’t acknowledge me; he just turned away to study the quilted hangings on the far wall. Poor man, dragged up here by his wife, probably trying to hold on to his patience. And fearful she’d want one of the big quilts with their big price tags.

  I spotted some pretty postcards with paintings of quilts reproduced on them. They probably caught my eye because I was used to pictures of buggies against the sunset or in the morning mist. I studied the cards and then turned them over to read the credit on the back. Susie Riehl. A new name to me. The information said she was an Old Order Amish woman.

  I blinked. An Old Order Amish woman who not only painted but had her work reproduced and sold? How fascinating and how very unusual. Did Mary know about this woman? Did she even realize another woman was doing what she so clearly yearned to do? I bought several of the cards to show her.

  I went downstairs and bought a whoopie pie in the bakery. I loved those small chocolate cakes with white icing between. I got a diet soda to assuage my guilt over the whoopie pie’s calories and sat in the car to eat and drink. The only thing missing was an Auntie Anne’s pretzel. Auntie Anne, Anne Beiler, had been raised Amish in Lancaster County, though she’d left the People many years ago. If I was going to ruin my dinner appetite, I might as well do it big time.

  I opened today’s Intelligencer Journal as I chewed and looked at the handsome, photogenic faces of Adam and Irene Hurlbert at a political gala the previous evening. With them was retiring United States Senator Vernon Poltor, smiling broadly in his support for Adam.

  I was pleased. Each day it appeared more and more certain that the Hurlberts would be in Washington in a matter of weeks. One nice sidelight to Adam’s election would be the passing from Lancaster of one Nelson Carmody Hurlbert, aged nine. All the more reason to vote in November.

  As I drove slowly back to the farm, I saw a sign for a yard sale and a yard full of tables still littered with items. On a whim I pulled over and climbed out. I didn’t expect to find anything because it was late enough in the morning that the true salers would have taken everything of genuine value.

  But I fell in love the moment I spotted the red high-top Converse sneakers sitting beside an aqua vase with a pink rose twined about its base. The Chucks were barely worn, and they were my size. I shoved the two dollars in the woman’s hand and ran before she decided she couldn’t part with such a treasure.

  I was wearing a pair of red walking shorts with a red-and-yellow knit top. I had on my matching red flip-flops, but I sat in the car and slipped them off. I slid the Chucks on and laced them up.

  They were perfect.

  “Perfectly ugly,” my mother would say, and for the courtroom, she was correct. But for me on the farm, they were just right.

  I pulled onto the road, driving around a car whose driver looked a lot like the guy back in the quilt shop. At least his cap did. He was studying some old 75 RPM records. What a nice, patient husband, I thought. Maybe if he didn’t like the records, he’d like the pair of old baseball cleats beside the nesting mixing bowls so used that their original design was worn off.

  I was almost back to the farm when a car backed hastily out of a driveway without checking for oncoming traffic. I stamped on my brakes and squealed to a stop, my front bumper inches from his back one. The young Amish driver, identifiable by his haircut and shirt, screeched off, never even looking my way. A second car followed none too gently, but its young Amish driver, his straw hat pushed back on his head, did remember to look before he roared into the street. He was obviously very unhappy.

  With some surprise, I realized I was stopped in front of Aunt Betty Lou and Uncle Bud’s house. As I waited for my heart to regain its normal rhythm after the close brush with a collision, I watched Clarke in the driveway talking with yet another Amish boy, who climbed into a third car and drove off after his companions. Clarke followed him down the drive to watch him on his way.

  I lowered my window. “Whatever’s going on?”

  He walked over. “It’s the Stoltzfus brothers. They all have cars and keep them hidden in the cornfields most of the time. At least they thought they were hidden.” Clarke grinned. “Ammon Stoltzfus is nobody’s fool, and he t
old his boys to get all the cars off the property. Church is at their house tomorrow, and he doesn’t want anyone accidentally finding one.”

  “So they parked here?”

  “And forgot to ask permission. I guess they figured that anyone with a long driveway wouldn’t mind a few extra cars for a night or two. Unfortunately for them, Aunt Betty Lou happened to be looking out the window as they were parking. The boys seemed to have trouble understanding that she wants her drive free for her own guests this evening.”

  “Are they related to the Stoltzfus boy who was shunned? Jake’s friend?”

  “Cousins. Their uncle, Big Nate, would be very upset if he saw those cars. By the way, I’ve been trying to get hold of you.”

  I hoped my eyes didn’t light up as obviously as I feared they did. “I’ve been shopping.” I indicated my packages.

  “So I see.” He made believe he was counting the packages. “And doing a thorough job of it too.”

  “You wanted to talk to me?” I said to divert his attention from my profligacy.

  “Right. Aunt Betty Lou decided this morning that she’d like to have one last cookout as the summer fades into memory. She told me to invite someone, so…I know it’s very last minute, but can you come to dinner?”

  I was inordinately pleased. I hadn’t seen Clarke to talk to since the tomato fight and had feared he wasn’t interested in me at all, especially since he’d watched me leave for a date with Todd.

  “I’d love to come,” I said. “What time?” I thought of my new jeans lying in a bag on the backseat. I thought of my red V-neck shirt and the white camisole to go under it. I thought of a hairbrush and toothbrush, rouge and lipstick.

  “How about six o’clock?”

  “Plenty of time to make myself beautiful—or as close to it as possible.”

  “You look fine to me.”

  I looked up at him, astonished. “I didn’t realize you had such a severe vision problem.”

  He grinned. “I’ll walk down for you, okay?”

  I nodded. When had I last felt a fluttering in my stomach over a date? I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt it this badly.

  “By the way,” he said, “I love your sneakers.”

  I looked at my feet, resting on the floor of the car, astonished. “Really?”

  “They make quite a statement. Be sure you wear them tonight.”

  I drove the short distance to the Zooks, examining the fact that Clarke liked my footwear. He didn’t look askance. He didn’t make snide comments about how ridiculous they were. He took them as the over-the-top fashion statement they were, no more, no less.

  I could get used to such acceptance very easily.

  12

  I walked into the house to find that Mary still wasn’t home from the farmers’ market and Ruth was working with black permanent press fabric at the treadle sewing machine.

  “What are you making?” Ever nosy, I walked over to see. I find anyone who makes something from scratch very impressive. The last time I had sewn was in a class in junior high. We had to make blouses, and mine somehow had sleeves of two different lengths and button holes that didn’t match the placement of the buttons.

  “It’s a dress for Mom.”

  I wondered how they had decided it was time for Mary to have a new dress. The decision wasn’t dependent on changing fashions, as many of my purchases were. The caped dresses had been the same forever. Well, slight exaggeration, but for a very, very long time.

  Did you automatically make a new one every fall and spring, or did you wait until the old one got holes? Did you make a new one for an occasion like a wedding you were attending, or was that seen as prideful because you wanted to look your best? I decided that given amazing Amish frugality and practicality, holes got my vote.

  “Careful you don’t get lost in all the fabric,” I teased. Ruth was such a tiny girl. Tiny, slim, and petite. I’d noticed that she was wearing her dresses with the hem at the knees, very daring for an Amish girl and a subtle sign of rumspringa. Mary’s dresses reached well down her calf, almost to her ankles.

  “Love your shoes,” Ruth said with a smile.

  I glanced down at my red Chucks and wiggled my toes. “Me too. I found them at a yard sale.”

  “I’ve got a girlfriend who would love them.”

  “Really?” Intriguing. An Amish girl in Converse high-tops?

  “Rhoda Beiler.”

  “The one who almost fainted at the pretzel factory?”

  Ruth nodded, looking around as if she were checking for anyone listening. She leaned toward me and said softly, “Her running around has gone real wild. She wears jeans and smokes and goes to the hoedowns where they drink and some do drugs. She stays away all weekend with guys and listens to rock music on her iPod all the time. She went to a couple of rock concerts with some of the older kids, and now she wants to be a rock star.”

  An Amish rock star boggled the mind. “Does she play an instrument or sing?”

  Ruth glanced around again. “She’s taking guitar lessons. She got a raise at work and didn’t tell her father. That way she can keep the extra money for lessons instead of turning it in to him like me.”

  “You give all your money to your father?” My dad might have tried to manage my life, but he never asked for any money I made, even when I was young. “Tithe some and save some,” was all he said.

  “I give Father most of it. Everyone does.” She glanced toward Jake’s doorway and said softly, “Jake’s care has cost a fortune. If my little can help, I’m glad to give it.”

  I pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat beside Ruth. “Jake didn’t have health coverage on his job?”

  “Some but not enough.” She frowned. “Mom and Father worry about losing the farm. They don’t think I know, but I do. Elam does too, and Jake.”

  “I thought since the Amish don’t believe in insurance, they took care of their own.” Though Jake wasn’t really one of them, come to think of it.

  “We do, and people have been very generous with their assistance. But every time we think things are paid off, something new happens or a new bill comes. Father doesn’t like being such a burden to the church. He doesn’t want to take so much because others need help too.”

  She picked at a loose piece of thread on the black fabric lying in her lap. “Father and Elam would be so miserable if we had to sell. And Jake would have extra guilt to carry. He knows his injury has changed all our lives, especially Mom’s and Father’s, and it hurts him. I think his guilt is more painful to him than his paralysis.”

  She must have seen skepticism on my face because she said, “People think Jake’s a wild man with a hard heart, but that’s not true. Sure, he was wild and now he’s bitter, but he was never mean. He’s a good man, Jake is. He worries because he’s a financial burden.”

  I didn’t think Mary and John or Jake would be happy with this discussion of the family finances. Apparently the same thought occurred to Ruth because she colored and turned away. “I shouldn’t have said so much.”

  “It’s all right.”

  She clasped her hands and closed her eyes as if she were praying, and maybe she was. “God will supply. He always does.”

  We sat quietly for a few minutes until she placed the material under the needle and lowered the presser foot. The machine whirred as she worked the treadle.

  “So,” I said when quiet returned, wanting our conversation to end on an innocuous note, “do you ever want to do something as wild as wearing red high-tops or playing in a rock band?”

  Ruth rolled her eyes and shook her head vehemently. “Not me. I’m going to join the church sometime soon. I know it. I never wanted to do anything else. I’m not interested in cruising and boozing like Rhoda and some kids. I know they think I’m uncool because I enjoy the sings and the frolics, but that’s okay. I think you should get baptized and join church and obey the Ordnung. It’s God’s way.”

  “How about Elam?” After all, there was that beer in the
buggy the other night.

  “He wants to be Amish too. Him and his friends like beer, but that’s about as wild as he gets.” She laughed. “His friends decided that if he could make root beer, he could make regular beer. He tried and gave me some to taste.” She made a terrible face. “I think they dumped it all in the creek.”

  I had a sudden vision of tipsy cows.

  “He wants to join church soon too,” she said. “He’s going to stay on the farm. It’s what he wants. He likes the hard work. Some of his friends think he’s crazy when he could go to a factory or do construction and work limited hours and make lots more money, but he loves farming and he loves the dairy herd. You should hear him talk to the cows. I think he’s given all of them names, which Father thinks is stupider than beer.” Ruth grinned.

  I tried to picture Elam in the barn encouraging his girls to give more milk. Come on, Josie. That’s a girl, Maisie. I knew you could do it, Missy.

  “Some people think animals are just for using, not for caring,” Ruth said, and I thought of the bad publicity over the Lancaster County puppy mills, many run by Amishmen. “Sure they’re for using, but they depend on our care. Elam’s a bit extreme, but it’s a nice way to be.”

  I had to agree.

  “Anyway,” Ruth said, looking at my feet as black fabric cascaded over them, “Rhoda would love your sneakers. She keeps talking about her outfit for being on stage.”

  I laughed at the doubt I heard in that “on stage” comment. “You don’t think she’s going to be a star?”

  “With six months of lessons? I don’t know anything about rock bands, but I bet it takes a lot of learning and a lot of practice. She met some guys who have a band in a garage, and she thinks she’s in love with the drummer.” Ruth’s hands stilled on the pins attaching a sleeve. “I’m afraid she’s going to go so wild she won’t find her way back.”

  She glanced out the window. “That would be very sad.” She frowned, stood, and walked toward the window. “Someone just drove up to the barn in a big black car.”