The first few miles of our trip were silent. I doubt I was the only one who paid close attention to Robbie’s driving. A tense stillness emanated from the backseat, and though I didn’t turn my head, I saw Naomi’s stiff posture and tightly clasped hands in my peripheral vision.
Our nervous worries were unfounded. The young man drove with a light foot, several miles per hour under the speed limit, and the little red car rolled smoothly down the road without swerving. Well in advance of the first turn, he put on the turn signal and looked into all the mirrors. When we approached a buggy, he slowed even further and edged to the center line to put a wide distance between his car and the buggy. The muscles I’d held rigid relaxed.
“Do you live nearby?” I asked.
He answered without taking his eyes from the road. “In Lancaster, so not too far.”
Not far, but that meant taking me home would be out of his way. Further evidence to support my earlier conclusion about his desire to feel useful. I glanced sideways at him. The nervousness he’d displayed earlier had not completely disappeared, evident in his tight grip on the steering wheel and the convulsive gulping. But his driving was good, and I had no qualms about allowing him to take Johann and Naomi on to Wakefield.
“I appreciate your being willing to bring me home,” I said.
“It’s not a problem.” He did glance away from the road then, just for an instant, and met my gaze. “I mean it. Any time you need to go anywhere, you can call me. If I’ve got something else going on, I’ll work it out.”
In some people, such eagerness would tend to make me suspicious. For some reason, Robbie’s didn’t. What was it about this Englischer that piqued my curiosity? His willingness to help seemed sincere. The reasons were a mystery I found myself wanting to unravel.
Suddenly aware of the line my thoughts had taken, I gave myself a mental shake. The personal life of an Englischer was no business of mine. Settling myself more firmly in the seat, I faced forward and put further questions out of my mind. Other than my directions to Elias Beachy’s shop, the rest of the short drive to Strasburg was silent.
The same buggy and car as before were parked on the side of the building. Robbie glided to a smooth stop directly in front of the door. Unfastening my seat belt, I turned to wish Johann and Naomi goodbye and safe travels. When I exited the car, Robbie jumped out as well.
“What time should I come back?”
I had no idea. The bowl I’d watched Elias make had taken less than half an hour, but no doubt my efforts would be fumbling. In fact, I wasn’t even sure he had time for me. My spur of the moment idea of riding along on this trip may have been ill advised without a phone call first.
I rubbed a hand over my beard. “Give me a moment, please.”
He followed me inside, the bells on the door announcing our arrival. A quick glance around the storefront revealed that the shelves held several more wares than on my last visit. The canister set had been replaced by a similar one. Seated behind the counter on a high stool, the young woman—Leah, her name was—looked up from a ledger. Recognition flashed in the eyes that lit on me, though her solemn expression did not change. Her gaze slid to Robbie and then moved again. At the same moment, I heard the bells announce the entry of someone else. Naomi and Johann had decided not to wait in the car.
Catching sight of Naomi, Leah did smile a greeting.
Interesting.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” Naomi answered in her cheerful voice. She moved immediately toward the first display shelf and picked up a mug. “I received a wedding gift from here, a beautiful canister set, so I was eager to see where it came from.”
Leah looked at me again and gave a small nod in acknowledgment of our purchase several days before. “I’m happy to answer any questions you have.”
I cleared my throat. “Is Elias here?”
As though summoned by the mention of his name, the curtain behind her parted and Elias stepped through. He caught sight of me, and his smile widened. “Ah, young Seth Hostetler. Velkumm.”
At least someone smiled when they saw me. I avoided looking in Leah’s direction and returned Elias’s greeting. “I came to accept your offer of a lesson if you have time.”
He spread his hands wide. “Of course! I’d love the company and the opportunity to share my craft.” His gaze lit on Robbie. “And you’ve brought another student with you?”
The young man’s eyes went round. “Uh, no. I’m just driving them, that’s all.”
“When should he return for me?” I asked.
Elias tapped a finger on his lips, considering. “Give us two hours. Das gut, ya?”
I nodded. I’d be home in time for supper, which would make Mamm happy. “Is that okay with you?” I asked my driver.
“Sure.” Robbie glanced at his watch. “I’ll be back around four thirty.”
Leah had come out from behind the counter and was showing Naomi and Johann a set of bowls. When Robbie opened the door, Naomi gave him an imploring look. “May we have a moment here, please? We won’t be long, I promise.”
Shrugging, the young man said, “Take as long as you want. I don’t have to be anywhere until four thirty.”
He left the shop, and Elias turned his infectious smile on me. “Come with me and let’s get started.”
Nervous excitement took me as I followed him through the curtain. On one of the benches sat an unfinished pitcher. A set of tools lay on the tray beside it, and I walked over for a closer look. Elias was in the process of carving a design in the soft clay.
I turned to him. “I don’t want to interrupt your work.”
“Ach.” He dismissed my comment with a wave. “I can finish that later. Teaching is more fun.”
Taking up a sheet of heavy plastic, he loosely covered the pitcher and then indicated that I should follow him to a high work surface beyond the benches. From a row of pegs on the wall he took a canvas apron—similar to the one he wore, only cleaner—and indicated that I should put it on. While I did, he retrieved a huge brick of dull gray clay from a corner and unfolded the plastic wrapping. Taking up a thin metal wire, he sliced off a sizable chunk, divided it in half, and set one section on the scale that rested on the corner of the table. Seeing that the other portion weighed approximately the same, he gave a satisfied grunt and, rewrapping the brick, returned it to the floor.
“This,” he said, holding a chunk in each hand, “is clay.”
Such a serious expression. Like Becky explaining to little Sadie, “This is a spoon.” I couldn’t hold back a chuckle.
He raised a finger. “You laugh, but there is much to learn about the type of clay a potter chooses.”
I furrowed my brow. “There is more than one type of clay?”
“There are hundreds of varieties of clay bodies, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. This”—he hefted one of the lumps—“is a basic stoneware clay, inexpensive, soft, and easy to work with. It has minimal impurities, and the iron content makes it durable after firing.” He slapped a lump on the surface in front of me, where it landed with a splat. “First, I will teach you to wedge.”
A familiar term, but obviously when applied to clay it had a different meaning than the one I knew. Perhaps explaining the process of making pottery as if to a small child was not a bad idea.
Elias placed his own chunk on the work surface and covered it with both hands. “Put your hands like so, with the heels of your palms on the top edge closest to you.”
I arranged my hands like his. The clay felt moist but firm beneath my fingers.
“Now, roll the clay away from you, pushing down with equal pressure on both hands.”
He demonstrated, and I watched a few times before attempting it myself.
Elias shook his head. “No. You must cup the sides of the clay as well. Roll down and cup. Roll down and cup.”
Imitating his movements, I applied more pressure to the sides, pushing the clay down and away from me while pressing in on the side
s, and then rolling it back toward me and pressing forward again.
After watching me for a moment, he gave a nod. “Das gut.”
“I feel like my mamm kneading bread.”
He smiled. “Something like that, and for a similar reason. This process removes pockets of air that may crack when the pot is fired. Also, wedging the clay forms a spiral that will make it easier to work with on the wheel. See here?”
Lifting his lump, he turned the side to me. The repetitive pushing and rolling had produced a circular design visible on the edge. I picked up my own, and was disappointed to see that my spiral looked more like uneven ripples.
“Cup more firmly,” Elias advised, “and keep wedging.”
I did. As with most new things, the master beside me made the process look easier than it was. He finished wedging long before I did and then waited patiently as I continued to roll and cup, roll and cup.
When he deemed my lump sufficiently wedged, he instructed me to ease up on the cupping pressure until the clay formed a rounded pyramid, with the spiral most evident in the base. I stepped back, examining my work while rubbing away an ache in my right shoulder. Elias’s creation looked like a smooth gumdrop. Mine resembled a squat, malformed carrot.
“It will do,” he pronounced. “Now we go to the wheel.” From a shelf on the wall he took two plastic discs and held one up. “This is a bat.”
“Why is it called a bat?”
A good-humored grin hovered around the corners of his mouth. “Why is an apple called an apple?”
I took that to mean he didn’t know the origin of the word and returned his grin. “I guess it doesn’t matter.”
With a nod of agreement, he approached one of the benches. “You fit the bat on the wheel like so.”
Indicating that I should sit on the bench, he fixed his own bat in place on the wheel next to mine. Elias taught by example, using few words but patiently demonstrating the techniques again and again until I grasped them. I learned the proper way to slap my cone-shaped lump of clay in the center of the bat, or as close as I could manage, how to kick the footplate to achieve and maintain a consistent spin, and how to hold my hands as I manipulated the whirling lump of clay. Several times he left his bench and placed his hands over mine, pushing to show me how much pressure to apply, how to mold with the heel of my hand, and to plant my elbows on my thighs to keep my arms steady.
The consistency of the clay changed as I applied more and more water. At first gritty, when I added water and worked it through the mass, it became smoother and more pliable.
As the clay drank in the water, so it absorbed my thoughts. The world narrowed to the size of Elias’s workshop, my focus to the spinning object taking form between my hands. Under his guidance, my thumb pressed into the center, pushing its way down to create a cavity, and then my fingers expanded the hollow into a basin. The clay felt soft and pliable, susceptible to the slightest change in pressure. The sole of my shoe kept the kick plate spinning, and after a while I forgot to notice the movement of my leg, so fixated was I on forming the bowl taking shape on my bat.
And then I pressed too hard. Or perhaps my arm slipped, or I forgot to move with the slow, unhurried movements Elias advised. My bowl began to wobble and before I could steady it, the sides collapsed inward.
I sat back, my foot returning to the floor, and stared in dismay at the malformed object before me.
Looking at the disaster on my wheel, Elias nodded toward it. “The sides were not uniform thickness. See there.” He pointed to the strip where the upper two inches of my bowl had separated from the rest. “Look how thin the clay is there, and how thick directly below. Go ahead. Feel it.”
I did, and immediately saw the problem. By not applying consistent pressure as I worked the sides upward, I’d created an area that was thinner than the rest. That section had been unable to withstand the strain of further molding.
The older man wore a wide smile that touched off an itchy irritation in my mood. I didn’t bother to soften my tone. “You need not be so delighted with my failure.”
To that, Elias merely laughed. “But that is how we learn, Seth. How else do we gain knowledge except through failing and trying again?”
His words struck me as particularly wise and applicable to more than pottery. But I was not in the mood to think deep thoughts at the moment. Instead, my hands itched to mold the clay once again.
“How do I fix it?”
Elias shook his head, still chuckling. “There is no fixing that. But don’t worry about waste. We will reclaim the clay. For now, put it in that barrel over there”—he pointed to a thick plastic trash can behind me—“and begin wedging another piece.”
I did as instructed, though I experienced a stab of melancholy as I scraped my ravaged bowl off the bat and into the barrel.
When the curtain was swept aside and Robbie stepped through, I looked up in surprise. “You came back early?”
He halted a step inside the workroom, confusion apparent on his face. “It’s four thirty.”
Astonished, I looked at Elias, who nodded. I couldn’t remember ever losing track of time so completely.
“Hey, that looks pretty good.” The young driver approached, eyeing the bowl on my bat. “I thought you’d never done this before.”
“He is a gut student.” Elias awarded me a wide grin. “Only two mishaps and three successes.”
He waved toward the shelves, where my three bowls sat beside the seven he’d made during the same time. Though pride was a sin not to be tolerated, I couldn’t help feeling a sense of accomplishment. Not a single one of my three was in danger of being called a boat anchor.
“I’m almost finished with this one,” I said. “Do you have time?”
Robbie shrugged. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”
He straddled the bench of the wheel facing mine and watched as I put the finishing touches on my final bowl. When I had formed the rim exactly as I wanted it, I set down the wooden rib and saturated a small piece of sponge in the now-cloudy bowl of water. Applying the sponge, I smoothed the surface, both inside and out, and then separated the bowl from the bat by running a thin wire beneath it. Then I straightened and examined my creation.
“Looks great to me,” Robbie said.
Elias came to stand beside me and bent over for a closer inspection. With a nod, he remarked, “It is usable.”
Over the past two hours I’d learned enough about him to recognize the remark as approval. Satisfied, I stood, removed the bat, and slid the bowl on the tray beside the other three. Now that I examined them with a critical eye, I noticed something I had not before.
I turned toward my teacher with a frown. “They’re not the same.”
“No. They are not.”
I’d started with the same amount of clay each time, but looking at the bowls now, I saw that one was taller than the rest, and one thicker. The third’s sides bulged wide, and the lip of the bowl I’d just finished appeared more round. Perhaps my satisfaction of a moment before was unfounded.
Robbie had come to my side. “I like that one best.” He pointed to the tall bowl. “You should make a few more like it, and then you could sell them as a set.”
I was about to protest that I was a long way from producing anything that would be worthy of selling, but Elias spoke before I did. “A good goal for a future lesson. But on Monday we will trim these.”
“Monday?”
“Ya. I like to trim the next day, but tomorrow is Sunday. I’ll cover these in plastic to keep them moist, and we will trim on Monday.”
I hadn’t considered when I would return, but I certainly saw his point. My creations were recognizable as bowls, but they lacked the finishing touches of the products on Elias’s shelves. The lower portions were uneven and thick where they squatted on the bats. The bottoms would need to be shaped to look like regular bowls. And if I wanted to carve a decoration into them, as Elias sometimes did, I’d need to do that before the clay was hardened in th
e kiln.
“Monday it is. I’ll come after morning chores.”
Robbie jerked to attention. “I’ll bring you. What time should I pick you up?”
I eyed the young man. Though I hated to monopolize his time, I also hesitated to ask Aaron for use of the family’s buggy for a personal errand such as this one. It was enough that I would be asking for permission to leave the farm and any work he had planned for the day. Noah would no doubt lend me the use of his buggy, but again, I hesitated to ask. Driving myself did not produce nearly the anxiety of driving the women of my family, and yet I found myself wanting to avoid taking up the reins. And besides, Robbie seemed eager.
“Will ten thirty work?” I included Elias in my question, and both agreed.
I cleaned my work area and my hands, and then we exited the workroom. Beyond the curtain we found Leah sweeping the showroom floor. She glanced up at me, and I felt myself the subject of an intense stare that lasted a few seconds. Then she gave a slight nod, whether in dismissal or acknowledgment of my work with her employer I didn’t know, and returned to her sweeping.
An odd woman. She’d certainly displayed a friendly side to Naomi this morning, but though I’d gone out of my way to be pleasant, I had yet to see even a hint of a smile directed toward me. Nor Robbie either. Was she uncomfortable with men? Had her scar, perhaps, been caused by a man?
Pondering the disturbing thought, I bid Elias farewell and followed my driver out of the shop.
SIX
The following day was a church Sunday, and this time the meeting was held at the Graber home. My friend Josiah lived there with his mamm and daed, along with Ella and their two children and a few younger brothers and sisters. As eldest son, Josiah would one day run the family farm, but for now his daed remained in full control.
The service lasted the usual three hours, but today the main sermon was delivered by James Troyer. Our district was fortunate to have such an engaging speaker among our ministers. James loved to laugh, and though he controlled himself during his sermons, he couldn’t completely restrain his natural tendency toward humor. Often during his sermons the community struggled to maintain an appropriately solemn and worshipful attitude, and Bishop Beiler had been known to cast a disapproving glare around the congregation, daring anyone to laugh out loud.
The Amish Widower Page 7
