by Mary Ellis
Solomon rose to his feet, bowed to the bishop, and nodded at the other brethren. He knew this old-fashioned, formal gesture was unnecessary and annoyed the two younger men, but he believed the old ways were best—when the Amish had separated themselves from the world, whether from other fellow Christians or godless heathens. Only with strict adherence to their Ordnung without exception would they ever find the true paradise for which their town had been named.
“Where are you going?” asked Josephine. “You and Rosanna haven’t had refreshments yet.
“Danki, but we must be on our way. I don’t like leaving Violet alone for long periods of time.” Solomon took his fraa’s arm and helped her to her feet. With a frown Rosanna dutifully followed him off the porch toward their buggy, knowing full well Violet could manage just fine by herself.
When a man declares his intentions as Lewis had, a girl naturally would think he would take the opportunity to spend time with her. But Nora hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him all day. With Saturdays busy at lumberyards and bakeries, they both had to work yesterday. Last night during dinner, Lewis talked about his first two days on the job, proud of what he’d mastered while laughing over what would take more time to learn. He wasn’t shy with Emily or Jonas, and he certainly ate his fair share of fried chicken, baked beans, and sliced tomatoes, and yet he had said little to her other than “Please pass the cornbread.” Nora had lingered in the kitchen after doing the dishes, hoping for an evening buggy ride or a walk to the tall pines. After sweeping the floor twice and wiping down the countertops three times, she finally gave up and went to her room.
Lewis had disappeared after supper and didn’t return with Jonas after evening chores. Even after Nora’s late night bath, there was no sign of him. Did he climb the oak tree outside his bedroom and crawl in through the window? Why would a man interested in courting avoid her like this?
Today they had the perfect chance to get reacquainted when Jonas and Emily left to visit the bishop after devotions. Because their trip was for district business, not socialization, neither houseguest had been invited to tag along. When Nora heard the Gingerichs would be gone all afternoon, a surge of anticipation raced up her spine.
That anticipation had been for naught.
After wolfing down a bowl of cold cereal, Lewis headed for the barn, even though Jonas had already tended to the horses. Considering it was the Sabbath, Nora had little to do but wait for her beau to return. A few hours later, she heard the buggy clatter down the driveway just as she set a cold lunch on the table. Where on earth is the man headed? He’s only been on the job two days and has gone to no social events. Who would he know in Paradise?
Nora looked at the sandwiches, marinated vegetables, and homemade applesauce with little appetite. She had no taste for the lemon meringue pie she brought home, either. Wherever Lewis went, she hadn’t been asked to accompany him. Is courting always this confusing? What was the big declaration down by the pond all about? Nora kept watch at the window and tried to read the inspirational romance Emily gave her. But, unfortunately, the Gingerichs returned from the bishop’s before Lewis and neither seemed inclined to talk when they walked through the door. Emily and Jonas ate a sandwich and left the room, never inquiring about the missing buggy.
The elusive Lewis returned shortly before dark. While he took care of the horse, Nora nursed another cup of tea. By the time he stepped into the kitchen, she’d read the same page for the third time.
“I didn’t expect you to still be up,” he said. “It’s late.”
“I was curious as to where you went today. Did you already receive an invitation to someone’s house?”
He laughed with good humor. “Nein, I’m afraid I haven’t made any new friends in the district yet.” Lewis hung up his coat and hat next to hers. “I borrowed Emily’s buggy and drove around to familiarize myself. So far I’d seen only Grain of Life and Gingerich Lumber.” He leaned his tall frame against the counter.
“Why not sit down and tell me what fascinating sites you discovered?” Nora twiddled with a kapp ribbon.
“I found two carriage shops, a sorghum mill, and two cabinet makers. I also found the town of Clark, whose heyday appears to have passed. Rather sad, no? Perhaps the Englischers didn’t support the local businesses. Just about every one of them is shuttered and abandoned. The town seems ready to blow away with the next strong gust of wind.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it as I haven’t been there yet.” Her trembling fingers gripped her mug as though strong gusts buffeted the kitchen. “What else did you see?”
A grin filled his face. “I discovered an honest-to-goodness restaurant in the town of Sturgeon—rather like the deli you were fond of in Harmony.”
“Is that right?” Nora opted for a tone of nonchalance, remembering she’d never gone to that diner with Lewis, only with her sister. “Did you get something to eat?”
“No, not today, but I asked if they would be open on Tuesday. Not only will they be open, but on Tuesdays they offer a dinner special of stuffed peppers and mashed potatoes, along with two additional side dishes.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “And I must add they have an impressive list to pick from.”
“Sounds delightful.” She smiled at his enthusiasm for food.
Lamplight shone in his eyes, deepening them to a rich shade of sapphire. “They also had a large assortment of pies in their spinner rack, in case you’re curious about the talents of Sturgeon bakers.”
With her napkin, Nora dabbed a bead of perspiration from her lip. “Grain of Life isn’t worried about competition, but I will mention your fondness for stuffed peppers to Emily. She grows row after row of green, red, and Hungarian hot peppers in her garden. That restaurant must have imported theirs from Florida. It’s still too early for ours.” She sniffed.
Lewis closed the distance between them, stopping across from where she sat. He leaned forward and placed his palms flat on the table. “I bring this up, Miss King, not only to explain my absence, but in preparation to ask you out…on a real date, as the English call them. Would you go to dinner with me on Tuesday evening?”
A strange paralysis seized Nora. For several seconds, she could do nothing more than stare at him. “In Sturgeon?” she asked ridiculously.
He smiled at her. “That’s where the Crossroads Restaurant is located. Because you don’t work either Tuesday or Wednesday, and Wednesday is my day off from the lumberyard, neither of us will have to get up before dawn the next day.”
“That’s what you were doing? Planning an outing for us?” she asked in a tiny voice. Elam had never invited her anywhere unless it involved one of his schemes.
“Well…of course. Now what do you say, Nora, yea or nay? Tomorrow is a work day, so I need to hit the sack.”
“Yea, or I mean jah—yes, in English.” She pushed herself to her feet.
“Glad to hear it. See you tomorrow at supper. Gut nacht.” Lewis jogged up the stairs to his room.
After Nora heard his door close, she floated on air up to hers. He had asked her out. He was serious about courting her after all!
It was all Nora could do to get through Monday’s laundry and then pie-baking on Tuesday. When Lewis and Jonas drove into the yard after work that afternoon, she was dressed in her prettiest sage-colored dress and pacing the floor.
“What are you so tense about?” asked Emily, entering the kitchen to start supper. “You knew him back in Maine. I thought things hadn’t worked out.”
“It was Harmony that didn’t agree with me, not Lewis. Everything is different now that he’s here in Missouri.”
Emily rolled her eyes, pulling out a head of cabbage. “Okay, but stop pacing the floor. You look ready to pounce the moment he walks through the door. Why not wait on the front porch? He’ll need to shower before you leave.”
Nora exhaled with relief. “Good idea. I don’t want to become all sweaty while you boil cabbage and noodles.” She hurried down the hall before the men reached the house.<
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Twenty minutes later, she and Lewis were driving down the road on a perfect early June evening. A light breeze carried the scent of freshly cut hay—sweet perfume to the hearts of farmers—and cooled her overheated face. Lewis kept up the majority of conversation by pointing out three schoolhouses, a cabinet shop, a metal supplier, and a cemetery he’d found two nights ago.
Nora relaxed—something she seldom did around Elam. Lewis put her at ease, even if he didn’t possess Elam’s magnetic appeal. However, inside Crossroads Restaurant, situated close to the main route to Columbia, she found appeal of a different sort. Several pairs of eyes turned in their direction when they entered the diner. And each of those faces wore a bright smile.
“Good evening.” Picking up two menus, the hostess nodded at Lewis. “We’re all ready for you, sir.”
Nora gasped when the woman led them to a table set with a white tablecloth, linen napkins, bone china plates, and crystal goblets. Two tall tapers burned from a gleaming silver sconce. She glanced around the diner. Everyone else was eating supper with ordinary plates, paper napkins, and plastic cups without the benefit of a tablecloth. No candles illuminated any other meal. “Why are we the only people getting the fancy treatment?” she asked once the hostess left.
Lewis pulled out her chair. “I suppose because no one else is on a first date.” After she was seated, he sat down in his own chair and draped the cloth napkin across his lap.
“How much extra will this extravagance cost?” she hissed under her breath. “Did you forget we’re Amish?”
He shrugged while scanning the menu. “Nothing beyond the price of our meals. These nice people were tickled to make the evening special for us. Even Amish people are allowed to be romantic during courting.” Lewis leaned across his dinner plate. “My daed bought my mamm a potted orchid while they were courting. She had admired one at a garden shop. Can you imagine an orchid in Maine? It didn’t last a month, but my mother cherished it until it curled up and died.” Lewis set down the menu. “I took the liberty of preordering the stuffed peppers. After all, they are on special.” His left dimple appeared. “But you may select your own side dishes.”
Nora scanned the daily special sheet, conscious of the attention they had attracted. “I’ll take green beans and the cinnamon baked apples.” When she set her menu on the edge of the table, he covered her hand with his.
“Relax, Nora. Worry about nothing but enjoying supper in Sturgeon, Missouri. Life is short—over with in the blink of an eye. Let’s make the most of tonight.”
“Okay, I’ll do my best.”
And so she did. They ate delicious food on elegant china and chatted about their trips across America. They smiled and laughed and enjoyed each other’s company. Not once did he behave embarrassingly bold toward her. Not once did she fear for their reputations in her newfound community.
Along with the check, their waitress presented them with a giant cupcake. “For your dessert, compliments of the owner,” she said. Someone had written “good luck” with white icing across the rounded top.
That night, in the charming Sturgeon diner, home to local Englischers and Amish folk alike, Nora’s world shifted on its axis. Nothing was different in her life and yet, somehow everything had changed.
Wednesday
The hired van carrying Violet and Rosanna picked Emily up promptly at seven thirty. She had decided to accompany the Trasks to Columbia for the day while Nora stayed home to bake cookies for Grain of Life. While Violet received her physical therapy on her legs, Emily planned to spend the day at the library. She had a lot of research to do if this thorny issue between Jonas and Solomon was ever to be settled.
Jonas had barely spoken to her on the ride home from Ephraim’s last Sunday, apparently peeved she’d revealed district cell phone use and television viewing. But wouldn’t withholding the information be the same as lying? Honestly, she didn’t know if she’d done the right thing or not. Take the log from your own eye before worrying about the speck in your neighbor’s. Isn’t that what Jesus had taught us? And Emily’s life was hardly sin-free.
When the van dropped her off, Emily found peace and quiet for a few hours in the reading room. As fond of Violet as she was, sometimes the girl’s chatter and bizarre sense of humor got on her nerves. Nora adored Violet’s quick wit, but lately Emily found her quips disrespectful and almost rude. There I go again—judging another person instead of leaving that up to someone more qualified. As Emily entered the air-conditioned, tranquil world of books, periodicals, and computer stations, she pledged to immerse herself in history and not allow a single judgmental thought intrude.
However, the second regional book set aside for her by the librarian turned out to be anything but a pleasant diversion. Emily propped her reading glasses on her nose and pored over the history of Boone County. Anxiety and a dull sense of foreboding grew with each passing minute. In Centralia in 1982, twenty-eight homes and businesses burst into flames when a backhoe hit a natural gas line regulator. According to the account, hot water heaters and furnaces spit flames like blowtorches. The mayor of Centralia declared a state of emergency. One woman cooking lunch had been warned by her son and they escaped the house minutes before the furnace blew up. “It was the hottest fire I ever saw,” she declared. Pilot lights on stoves shot flames into the air. Smoke billowed over the community for hours. “First one house blew up and after that it was bang, bang, bang in a chain reaction,” stated the chief of the volunteer fire department. A man interviewed said one of his sons lost his house while the other’s insurance business was leveled. “It seemed fire was everywhere you went.” One hundred twenty-five firefighters were called in from surrounding towns to battle the inferno. The Red Cross set up shelters for the newly homeless in two churches, surprisingly unscathed.
Emily slipped her marker in place and closed the book. Five people had been injured, including a woman who had suffered a heart attack, but miraculously no one lost their life. Twenty-eight homes had either exploded or burst in flames, and not one person died? Had God meant this to be some sort of warning?
She turned next to a story of epic brutality during the final year of the Civil War. A Missourian named William T. Anderson joined a group of guerrilla warriors led by William Quantrill. Although Southern sympathizers, these cavalry raiders operated beyond the sanction of the Confederate Army and became famous for terrible acts against their enemies. They tortured and mutilated prisoners, showing no mercy to those who sided with the Northern cause. In 1864, Anderson, nicknamed Bloody Bill, led his gang of bushwhackers into Centralia, looting and terrifying the residents. During the raid, they blocked the tracks of the Northern Missouri Railroad and forced a train to stop. The group robbed the civilian passengers and killed twenty-two Union soldiers, many of whom had surrendered. Some of the executed soldiers had been scalped.
Emily pressed a hand to her chest. Again, tragedy had descended on the town of Centralia. She skimmed the next few paragraphs. After Anderson had been shot by militiamen, soldiers found a silken cord that contained fifty-three knots, presumably the number of men he killed. Human scalps were discovered hanging from the bridle of his horse. Emily’s skin began to crawl when she read of the horrific treatment of Anderson’s body after his death. She slammed the book shut.
Both sides had been guilty of godless acts of cruelty.
Emily walked to the women’s room and splashed cool water on her face, trying to rid herself of the disturbing images triggered by the account. What had happened to Bill Anderson as a child or young man to harden his heart and blacken his soul? Refusing to read anymore war stories, Emily leafed ahead to the third and final bookmark.
The last article notated by the librarian involved other Plain settlements. The Centralia community in Audrain County hadn’t been the only one to disappear in Missouri, not by a longshot. A Hickory County Amish settlement went extinct in 1882 after continuous crop failures, financial losses during the Civil War, lack of congregational growth, a
nd rough neighbors. During the war, both Union and Confederate troops preyed upon the Amish by confiscating their grain and cattle. And at least one case of pies had been purchased with counterfeit money.
Pies? With everything a baker must worry about, now she must wonder whether or not the currency handed over the counter was real?
After a few minutes, a more disturbing thought took root and began to fester. Lack of congregational growth…did that mean few or no babies had been born to these people? The Amish usually had large families. What could have caused a low birthrate other than God’s displeasure?
Emily stacked the books and returned them to the front desk. She would read no more today. Was this the reason she and Jonas had no kinner—because God’s wrath prevented her from conceiving? She hurried outside into the blinding sunshine. After the air-conditioned building, the heat struck her like a slap to the face. She shielded her eyes against the glare and spotted a bench across the street, a place to wait until Violet and Rosanna returned for her. She had much to mull over and even more to pray about if she were ever to atone for her past transgressions.
ELEVEN
Till all the ransomed church of God
When Solomon sat up in bed the following Monday morning, he gasped for air as needle-sharp pain rendered him breathless. Every once in a while if he slept in the wrong position, his lower back spasmed in protest. He should see the chiropractor in Middlegrove again, but he hated to take time away from his district or spend the money—more so the latter than the former. The less cash he wasted on himself, the more he had for Violet’s treatments. What if her doctor suggested additional surgery on her legs? Even if they arranged a payment plan, surgeons expected half the amount up front. Thus, he reached for the aspirin and glass of water from his bedside table. He would take three tablets today instead of his usual two and pray for relief.
