by Linda Byler
For reasons of her own, the leather-bound book inflamed Annie’s hatred. She found it beside Hester’s bed, picked it up, and confronted her immediately, her face white and pinched, her breath coming in small gasps of agitation.
“You may as well go back to your people. You are nothing to us.”
The words were rocks raining on Hester’s head. Her hands went up to defend herself from the pain.
“You think Noah and Isaac and Lissie love you. They don’t care a lick what happens to you.” Annie stood, her thin fists held to her gaunt hips, leaning forward at the waist, her face only a few feet from Hester’s.
“You think Hans cares for you, too. You think your pretty face will have everyone bowing to you. Well, you are about to be surprised.”
Hester began to tremble. Like a leaf in a storm, she was shaken by Annie’s words. Unable to form any words of her own, she cowered beneath the onslaught of displeasure. But she did not cry. She stood, her arms at her sides, her fingers playing with the folds of her apron, her head bent so that Annie could only guess at the expression on her stepdaughter’s face.
“Another thing you need to understand. You won’t be able to find a husband here among the Amish. Who would want to have the impure blood of an Indian in their freundshaft? So don’t go around harboring ideas about this handsome boy that had you at the table at my—our—wedding. He didn’t pick you to go to the table. You don’t know that boys make bets. They earn money taking the unwanted girls to the table.”
Breathing hard by the force of her words, Annie fell silent, glowering.
Still, Hester would not raise her head.
“Look at me!” Annie shrieked, her voice a hoarse whisper.
Hester obeyed. Her eyes were half-closed, expressionless, her mouth a straight, perfect line, her caramel-colored skin flawless, shining with an inner light.
“Look at me!” Annie whispered.
“I am looking at you,” Hester said, soft and low.
“Open your eyes when you do, you rebellious Indian.”
Hester opened her eyes.
“You see this book? It’s full of witchcraft. It’s evil and must be burned.” She shoved the precious, leather-bound book into Hester’s face, forcing her to turn her head away.
“Now I’m going to burn it.” Gleefully, Annie held it just out of Hester’s reach.
Hester knew if she protested or cried out, it would serve to goad Annie’s fury to new levels, so she stayed still.
“Do you want to put it in the fire, or shall I?”
Still Hester remained as still as a stone, immovable.
The front door opened, and Hans entered the house, followed by Noah and Isaac.
Quickly, Annie lowered the book and lifted her lips into a caricature of a smile. Her eyes widened, her eyebrows lifted, and she stepped back, laughing a low, mocking laugh.
“My, Hester, this book is full of drivel, isn’t it?” Annie looked at Hans, her face contorted with the effort to swallow her anger.
Hans stopped, taking in the scene in one glance. “Give her the book.”
“No.”
“Give Hester the book.”
“No, Hans. It’s full of witchcraft. If this book stays under our roof, evil will befall us.”
“Annie, stop. You have no reason to say such things. It is a book containing old herbal remedies and medicines. It is worth a lot to Hester, who needs to learn some of these things.”
“It will not be in my house.” Annie said evenly.
“Give it to Hester.”
Annie would not. She crossed the room slowly and placed it on top of the warm kitchen stove. “I mean to burn it.”
She said the words to no one, her back turned to them all, her thin shoulders held squarely.
Hester moved so quietly Annie did not hear her. With speed borne of desperation, she grabbed the book off the stovetop, clutched it to her breast, and stood aside, her eyes alive with hope as she searched Hans’s face.
Whirling, Annie snatched the book from Hester’s clutching hands.
“No!” The involuntary cry was wrenched from Hester as she gave up the book.
Hans stepped forward, took his wife by her thin shoulders, wrestled the book from her grasp, and handed it to Hester. “Take it away,” he barked, his eyes like black fire.
Hester ran through the door, down the slope, and into the green forest, silently holding the precious book to her chest, her only link to hope.
CHAPTER 20
FROM THAT DAY, HESTER’S FATE WAS SEALED.
She was an unwelcome addition to a family that was changing under Annie’s tutelage. As subtle as an approaching change in the season, so was the web Annie wove among all the members of the family.
When did Noah and Isaac begin to keep their distance from Hester? She couldn’t be sure. She just knew they no longer talked openly and unashamedly around her, the way siblings do with each other. It seemed to Hester they harbored a suspicion of her behind a wall of mistrust she did not understand.
Lissie remained the same for some time, but her ego was so swelled by Annie’s praise that she soon formed an air of superiority over Hester that she may or may not have been aware of. Her cookies were soft and moist, her bread light as a feather. Annie taught her how to make pumpkin pies. Hans’s eyes shone at his daughter as he praised her baking, knowing he could enter Annie’s graces by doing so.
Hester began losing weight. Her dresses hung loosely on her thin frame, her facial contours became more pronounced. If anything, she was more beautiful than ever.
Hester hid the book away under a stone below the limestone overhang of rock. She wrapped it carefully, put it in the wooden box, and never looked at the words again. They were imprinted on her heart.
To live without love is one thing, but to live with suspicion and displeasure is quite another, she soon found out. Even Hans seemed to stay away from her, avoiding her at all costs, afraid of Annie’s wrath.
One Sunday in late autumn, Lissie Hershberger placed herself squarely in Hans’s path when church services had just come to a close. He was surprised to see her large bulk obstructing his way and stopped, his eyes wide.
“Lissie.”
“Hans.”
They shook hands, in the way of the Amish. They spoke of the weather, the crops.
Lissie wasted no time. “Hans, what is going on at your house? Hester is not well.”
Her eyes bored into his, quick, alert, and knowing.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
Almost, Hans broke down and told this capable woman all his troubles. Almost, he told her of the division that tore Hester from him, the fear of Annie driving Hester away. Almost, he confessed that the only reason he soothed Annie by agreeing with her disapproval of Hester was to make it possible to continue living as her husband.
“Oh, it’s all right, Lissie,” is what he said.
“It’s not all right, Hans, and you know it. What will become of Hester if someone doesn’t intervene? She’s looking thin and sad, and I know Annie is mistreating her.”
“Lissie, everything is fine. You stay out of it. Hester is happy. She really is. She just had a summer spell.”
There was nothing to do but step back and let Hans continue on his way.
When Theodore Crane began attending the Amish church services, he was met by looks of disbelief, suspicion, and then acceptance when they saw he was making an honest effort to learn the German language.
He was respected by the community as the industrious schoolmaster who kept unflagging order in the classroom, taught the three Rs thoroughly, and went to eat Sunday supper with Lissie Hershberger. That was all they knew.
They didn’t know everything about Lissie, either—the merry whistling that accompanied her swiftly moving hands as she kneaded the biscuit dough on the floured dough tray. Her lighthearted singing late on Sunday afternoons as she cut up the carrots, thickened the chicken broth, and dipped out
cream to drizzle over the berries.
Neither did they know the anticipation Theodore felt as he drove his rickety black cart with the gold stripes painted on the wheels. He had never known a warmer, more caring person than Lissie Hershberger. She never failed to administer a kind word to a failing student, hand a hungry child her own lunch, or give a word of praise to a discouraged one.
She was large and soft and filled with goodness. She infused sunshine into his world until he no longer felt old and rickety and dried up, even when his bones hurt with the cold and his cough heaved from his chest when he rose from his chair to add a few sticks of wood to the cranky, low-burning fire in his fireplace.
Every Sunday, she made roast pork and sauerkraut, or a chicken or some beef if she had them. She often fixed stuffing, stirring in broken chestnuts if they were in season. Sometimes she made duck und kraut, which was one of his favorites. She made so many different pies, he didn’t know if he liked one any better than all the others. Raspberry, strawberry, pumpkin, custard, apple, they were all delicious. He would tuck his napkin into his shirt collar, lean forward slightly, and eat two or three wide wedges of pie, never failing to praise her with flowery words.
And yet Theodore spoke neither of love or marriage. That was all right with Lissie. She chuckled to herself as she mixed up a cake with brown sugar crumbled over top. She thought the dear man couldn’t live without her, he just didn’t know it yet. Give him time.
It would be wonderful to cook his breakfast and wash his clothes, to sit with him in the morning and discuss their day, to refill his cup with steaming coffee and bend to kiss the top of his head. She would sew his shirts and wash them. He could learn enough of the German that he could understand the sermons in church. He already knew each family, having taught their children. He knew the Amish ways, so it was only a matter of time.
It was on a blustery evening, as the pumpkins lay rotting on the dry, brown vines and the yellowing corn stalks rustled in the gale, when Theodore thought he heard a sound in the wind. He put down his fork and looked at Lissie, who stopped chewing, held very still, and thought perhaps this was the moment when he would finally propose. But what he did was hold up one finger and tilt his head to one side so he could hear better. Lissie’s blue eyes watched his face intently, then cut into the pie she was eating once more.
“Sh. There it is again.”
Lissie heard nothing. She resumed eating her pie.
“I hear a sound of whistling in the wind.”
“Ach piffle, Theodore. Who could tell? It’s so windy that everything flaps and whistles, howls and roars on a night such as this.”
Theodore shook his head, lowered his eyebrows, then raised them again, before bending to his pie. He drank two cups of hot milk, putting off going out to his cold cart, cranky horse, and weak lantern light. The thought of entering his cold, disheveled-looking house gave him a decided case of the blues. How would it be to rock without interruption in Lissie’s chair by the fire on a night like this? He could stay here and would not have to go out and hitch up the ill-tempered beast or light the smelly lantern hanging on the cart’s side. He just did not want to do that.
Sometimes he wondered if there would be any room left over on her fluffy, goose down mattress, if he ever decided to ask for her hand in marriage. She was a large woman. More and more, he found thinner women quite unappealing compared to Lissie. Take that Annie Hans had married. My goodness, she was like peanut brittle.
Oh, he just wasn’t sure. For years, he didn’t think about women, didn’t even notice them. Then Lissie pushed herself into his life, cooking all this food, and he felt himself slipping, losing his handhold on his vow to remain alone all his life.
Abruptly, he said, “Lissie, you know I don’t hold with shunning.”
In answer, Lissie laughed, her stomach shaking up and down. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, this ban and shunning is not something I would hold to.”
“Why would you have to? You’re not a member of the Amish church.”
“But if I were.”
“Why would you want to be?”
Feeling the noose tighten about his neck, he said gruffly, “Oh, nothing.”
When he left, Lissie whirled about the kitchen, singing and whistling, scouring pots and pans, her cheeks pink and shining, her eyes snapping. He was surely thinking about something, that Theodore was. Coming up with that statement out of the clear blue sky. Yessir, he was thinking of joining the Amish church. There was not one other reason on earth to make him pop up with that statement.
She thumbed through the greasy, dog-eared, old book that contained her recipes, planning next Sunday night’s supper. Dried plums. She’d never served them to him. Or would dried apples be better? He’d never eaten them either.
She set the old recipe book aside, placed her hands across her rounded stomach, and thought of Hans, his evasive manner, and Hester, that poor, unwanted soul. What kept her in that house?
Hester wrapped her black shawl expertly around her thin shoulders, shivered, drew her knees up to her chin, and laid her head on them, as she sat perched on the limestone rock that jutted out over the side of the steep mountain. Beside her lay the opened book, bound in leather, the one the Indian woman had left her. It was her heritage, the link to something true and real, an object that gave her direction. Over and over, she read the words of wisdom, memorized them, spoke them to herself.
Here on her rock, she felt as one with the earth and its Creator, exactly the way Uhma had written. She could identify with ease the things Uhma portrayed on these pages.
She had never had a chance to visit the schoolmaster. Never had a chance, or was she too ashamed?
She had a constant companion now. Everywhere she went, she imagined herself carrying a handicap, like a growth on her back or one leg too short to walk properly. She was an Indian. Ingrained in her mind, for everyone to see as plain as day, the color of her skin marked her as strange, inferior, less.
The small changes had grown steadily, fueled by Annie’s distaste for the Indian. Savages, she called them.
Hester kept the book hidden away, opening it only in rare moments when she could get away without being seen or needed.
The rock had become a place of worship, an altar, a place she came to be comforted, to feel as one with her Creator.
She so wanted to find the secrets of the book and understand the way of the Lenape, which she carried as an unexplored longing in her heart. The old woman had written instructions for her, it was true. She had told Hester to stay among the white people because they were kind. That was not true. They were no longer kind, so that would give her the right to leave.
Hester had a birthright. She had the right to search for her beginnings. A place where every skin was the same color as hers. “My people,” she said aloud to herself. The thought brought a thrill, an intense desire to be among them, to live with them in peace and harmony so she could experience a true and pure sense of belonging.
She remembered the distasteful smell permeating the interior of the trading post on the day she had finally encountered the men from the Lenape tribe. Could she learn to live in this primitive manner, now that she had lived all her life in the German culture of cleanliness and hard work?
And there was Jesus, her Savior, who redeemed her from sin. There was her promise to the Amish church to be baptized and live by their rules, to help build the church, to be honest and good and obedient. Like Kate. Like John Lantz, the bishop. And like Hans and Noah and Isaac used to be before Annie came into the family.
Why did Annie dislike her so? For the thousandth time, the question tormented her. Annie’s dislike was deeper than the color of Hester’s skin.
She did not want to leave her family. Not now. Winter was coming. She wouldn’t survive. If she stayed, she would have food and shelter.
Well, she would try harder. She would work more, do everything better. Perhaps her family would change again.
/> Hester went home and threw herself into every task required of her, again.
She spent days husking corn, forking manure, hauling hay with Noah and Isaac.
When the snows came, the woodhouse was jammed with expertly cut wood, probably half of it done by Hester. She directed all the frustration and loneliness in her life at the cut log pieces, the blade of the axe biting skillfully, severing the pieces easily. Hans praised Noah and Isaac, telling them they were tremendously capable of sawing and splitting wood.
Hester left it at that, lowered her eyes, and swallowed her pride. Annie’s mocking eyes laughed at her.
Every Sunday when they had no church services, Hans gathered his children around his chair, and they took turns reading from the great German Schrift (Scriptures). Noah and Isaac were fluent, rattling off one difficult sentence after another, but Hester stumbled over the words, mispronounced them, or sat silent, feeling the sneers behind her heavy eyelids. Hans was always patient. Once, when she dared lift her eyes, she found his dark ones on her, brooding, mysterious, containing an expression she did not understand.
Reading and writing had always eluded her, but since she was older, she was getting better at words. That was why Annie told her to go to the schoolmaster for awhile.
“What a dimwit! If you’d sit with Theodore Crane for awhile, he could knock some sense into your head,” she said one Sunday after a particularly grueling session of German reading. Suddenly the atmosphere in the house was stifling. Hester got up, wrapped herself in her shawl, and headed out the door.
No matter that she slipped and slid, Hester pulled herself up the side of the mountain by any young tree that offered itself. She was gasping and heaving by the time she reached the rock. Falling on her knees, she dug frantically, her breath coming in quick puffs of steam, searching for the box.
Her mittens were soaked, her fingers icy, her arms aching with effort when her heart leaped. It was there! Pulling out the wooden box, she grabbed eagerly at the volume inside wrapped in cloth. She held it to her body and calmed her breathing.
