Amish Country Arson

by Risner, Fay

  “Just so you know we might as well let this information be between us for right now unless you want to tell folks what your sister did. Don't look like she's going to live long enough to be prosecuted for the crime. If she did improve, I'd have to arrest her.”

  “Denki, Sheriff. I am sorry for my sister's grave actions,” Wanda implored.

  After the sheriff left, Hal said, “We can all breath a sigh of relief now that there won't be anymore fires. That is a blessing.”

  “Hal, you are recht, but I am afraid of what everyone will think of Enoch and me if they find out what Gladys did. They might blame Enoch and me, too,” Wanda worried. “After all, they do not know us very gute yet.”

  Hal thought Wanda might be right. “Well, we can wait for awhile and let people calm down. Perhaps, we wouldn't have to say anything. No more fires, and after while people will stop thinking about the arsonist. Life will go back like usual.”

  “I'd like that. At least until the Plain community gets to know Enoch and me,” Wanda told her.

  Hal waited two days, thinking she'd hear Gladys Kraybill had passed away. When she didn't hear from Wanda, she went back to the hospital. The intensive care room was empty. Hal asked the nurse where the patient was. She said Gladys had improved enough she'd been taken to surgery to remove her leg.

  A few hours later, Gladys was back in intensive care. The pale woman was unresponsive and hooked to machines. The nurse said she couldn't have company except for her sister.

  Sheriff Dawson had left a request to be kept informed on her condition. A few days later, Gladys moved to a room on the ward. Hal was sitting with Wanda when the sheriff came in.

  “Howdy, ladies. How is Miss Kraybill doing?” He asked Wanda.

  “She is in and out of sleep right now, but the doctor says she should continue to improve,” Wanda said dully.

  “In a few days when the woman is conscious and understands what I'm telling her, I'll be back,” he said and left.

  The day the sheriff was told by the nurse that Gladys was doing better and might be released soon, he drove out to visit Hal. “I want you there when I go in Gladys Kraybill's room. The doctor says it will be awhile before the stump heals. She needs to be confined and nursed. Then will come physical therapy with a crutch and to strengthen her arms so she can get herself out of bed and into a wheelchair. The doctor says he will let her go home to mend if you take over as the Home Health nurse.”

  “Is that the way you want it?” Hal asked.

  “It's a sure bet the woman isn't going to flee in the shape she's in. If her sister is willing to take her back home, I think the law can be patient. When she is healed and strong enough, I will arrest her.”

  “I see. Do you want me to go with you now?”

  “If you don't mind,” the sheriff said.

  Gladys looked at the sheriff stoned faced while he told her she was under house arrest until she mended. As soon as her leg healed and her strength returned, he'd arrest her and take her to jail. Her expression changed when the doctor said Nurse Hal Lapp was going to be her home health nurse to tend her wound and help her with therapy. The woman glared at Hal. Sheriff Dawson said she had to abide by what they told her to do, or she could go to jail right away and suffer in a prison hospital bed.

  The next morning, Hal and Wanda arrived to take Gladys home. She patted Wanda's hand and mustered up a smile for her, but she eyed Hal distastefully. Nurse Lucy came in and helped Hal transfer Gladys to a wheelchair to take her to the car.

  Wanda helped with Gladys transfer from Hal's car to the wheelchair.

  “Gute job,” Hal encouraged.

  “If you say so.” Gladys tone was snide.

  Wanda spoke with slow exactness. “Sister, you must remain polite and accept our help as Sheriff Dawson wanted you to do.”

  “Jah, I am sorry,sister,” Gladys said contritely.

  A month later, the sheriff came to check on Gladys. “You look like you getting around well enough in that wheelchair. I'm going back to town and talk to the doctor. If he's willing to release you in my custody, tomorrow morning I'll be out to arrest you.”

  Wanda sat through the visit tight lipped and with tears in her eyes.

  As soon as the sheriff left, Gladys said, “No need to feel sorry for me, sister. Feel sorry for yourself when the Plain community finds out it was one of your kin that started the fires. Life here will not be easy for Enoch and you.”

  Wanda saw to it that Gladys was in bed early that night. On retrospective, she'd later remember Gladys was the most peaceful and docile she'd seen her sister in years.

  Gladys reached out and grasped Wanda's hand. “Denki for all you have done for me. I am most grateful for your help and thankful that you are my sister. I pray God will forgive me for the wrong I have done to you and to others.”

  Wanda left the grossdawdi house puzzled by the change in Gladys. Surely, this meant Gladys had made peace with herself and God. She seemed accepting and ready for what was to come in the morning when the sheriff came to take her to jail.

  Wanda slowly climbed her porch steps, feeling sad for her sister and hating to see morning come. It startled her when a mourning dove flew off the arm of one of the three rockers lined up on the porch. With apprehension, Wanda realized the dove had been perched on Gladys's rocker. Wanda watched as the bird circled over the grossdawdi house three times before flying away. That bird usually brought some sort of bad warning when it came close to people. Surely, nothing any worse than what was going to happen in the morning could happen.

  Tick tock, tick tock. The steady grinding of the tiny wheels inside the alarm clock by the bed penetrated the dark quiet of the room. Gladys listened for a few minutes, before she fold her hands together and prayed, “This is not Thy will, God, but I have lived as long as I can in the shape I am in. I do not plan to spend any time behind bars. I will not ever be wilcom in this community after the trouble I have caused. Forgive me for my sins and what I am about to do.”

  She picked up her alarm clock and set the alarm for midnight, knowing Wanda and Enoch would be sound asleep.

  Sleep refused to come while her mind was so heavy with her thoughts. Wide awake, Gladys went over her life and wondered why she didn't follow God's way. She said aloud to the ceiling, “I would not be lying here in this bed waiting for the end if I had been a better sheep in God's flock.”

  When the alarm finally and inevitably went off, Gladys lifted herself upright on to the edge of the bed. Slowly, she transferred herself to the wheelchair just as she'd done with Nurse Hal watching her. She turned the wheels on the chair until she aimed herself around the end of the quilt. She rolled passed the rocking chairs and into the kitchen.

  She opened a drawer and took out a box of matches. With the box in her lap, she wheeled back to the rockers and stopped to look around this little home she had barely taken the time to get to know.

  Gladys slid the box out of its cover and picked up a wooden match. She struck its head on the box side's sandpaper strip. Carefully to keep the flame burning, she laid it on the window sill facing the porch. She picked up the bottom of cotton half curtain and pushed the thin white material into the flame. It ignited. Yellow and red flames licked up the curtain as if they were in a hurry to get this job done.

  Gladys backed up the wheelchair so she could watch. When the flames heated the wooden window sill and ate into the wood, creating a red porous glow she was satisfied. Gladys turned around and rolled back behind the quilt. She calmly transferred herself into the bed and covered up.

  With one arm over her eyes so she couldn't see the red flickers on the wall, she waited for what was to come as she heard the crackles and snaps of the fire eating away at the house. She smiled, complacent now that she knew she wasn't going to prison. This might be the very act of attrition that would keep Wanda and Enoch from being shunned in their new home. The fire would end it all here for her and serve as her punishment. This much she could do for herself and her family.<
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  Loud crackling noises woke Wanda and Enoch. They jumped out of bed in a bedroom much lighter than it should have been for the middle of the night. Wanda ran out on the porch and screamed her sister's name as she sank to her knees. The fiery heat made Wanda think of Hell. She prayed for the Lord to forgive her sister and hoped he was listening.

  A lump grew in Wanda's throat as Gladys house was completely engulfed in fire. Wanda had not one bit of doubt that her sister set the fire. She searched for Gladys in the yard that was now all a glow, but she knew in her soul Gladys was burning right along with her house. Horrified about her sister's suffering, Wanda watched the crackling roar of the inferno and hoped that the end had come swiftly for her sister.

  As proof that Gladys was not going easily, Wanda heard long, horrendously painful screams wailing from the middle of the inferno. The screams ceased when the roof fell in. Red sparks of fire shot above the house, caught on the breeze and sailed high into the sky.

  Wanda gripped a porch post, stared as the wavering sparks moved as one toward Heaven. Convinced that she was seeing the spirit of her sister rising up, Wanda ask God to accept the soul of her tormented sister, Gladys Kraybill and make her heavenly stay more peaceful than her stay on earth had been.

  Enoch knew it was too late to try to save Gladys the minute he saw the house in flames. He mounted one of the horses in the barn and raced to the phone shed to call the fire department. He wanted the fire put out before the sparks landed on his house.

  Next he called the sheriff's office. Since he knew the sheriff was coming out in the morning, maybe he wouldn't want to bother if he knew Gladys had died.

  Once the fire cooled off enough for investigators to hunt for the body, they recovered bits and pieces of the body to place in a pine box.

  The funeral was like any other Amish funeral with the visitation in Enoch and Wanda's living room. People from the Plain community passed by the unopened coffin, expressing their condolences to Enoch and Wanda for the loss of Wanda's sister even though they didn't know her.

  Outside, they paused to stare at the pile of smoking rubble and feel sorry for the poor woman who died so horribly at the hands of the arsonist. Now all the Plain community could think about was whose building would be next and would someone else die by fire?

  The next morning, everyone came back for the funeral. They parked their buggies in line on the road ready to drive to the cemetery.

  After a brief service in the Bruner living room, everyone filed out and headed for their buggies. At the grave site, Bishop Bontrager led the Lord's Prayer and a hymn. He ended the service by reading a verse from Job chapter three verse seventeen. “There the wicked cease from troubling; And there the weary are at rest.”

  The verse seemed like a strange one to quote at the funeral of an ailing woman that was burnt alive in her home by a madman. Such an invalid was the poor woman that she was unable to save herself.

  After the funeral luncheon in the Bruner home, men mingled around outside. Some of the elders gathered out of the wind by the barn. Among themselves, it was whispered how worried they were about what the coming days would bring. Their prophecy of someone dying in one of the fires had come true. And wasn't that the oddest verse Bishop Bontrager read at the graveside? What did he mean to say with that verse?

  It was Rudy Briskey that came up with the answer. The bishop surely meant with this death the arsonist might cease to set another fire. Now that he'd be branded a killer, he'd move on before he got caught.

  That sounded logical to the other men. They passed this reasoning on to the rest of congregation. Everyone prayed the bishop was right, and it would be so that the arsonist wouldn't bother Plain people again. They agreed that Gladys Kraybill was the weary at rest as mentioned in the Job verse by Bishop Bontrager. They prayed that now she was at peace in the hands of the Lord.

  Amish Recipes

  Aunt Tootie's Favorite

  Amish Chicken Corn Soup

  This 4 quarts of soup serves 16 people. Large amounts of this soup would be used at many of the Amish gatherings such as craft shows, fairs, benefits or barn raisings to name a few events.

  Prep 15 minutes Cooking Time 40 minutes

  12 cups water

  2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast, cubed

  1 cup chopped onion

  1 cup chopped celery

  1 cup shredded carrots

  3 chicken bouillon cubes

  2 cans (14 ¾ oz) cream style corn.

  2 cups uncooked egg noodles

  ¼ cup butter

  1 teaspoon salt

  ¼ teaspoon pepper

  In Dutch oven, combine water, chicken, onion, celery, carrots and bouillon cubes. Slowly bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for thirty minutes or until chicken is no longer pink and vegetables are tender. Stir in corn, noodles and butter. Cook 10 minutes or until noodles are tender. Season with salt and pepper.

  Emma Lapp's Favorite

  Amish Tomato Gravy

  1 quart canned, peeled, chopped tomatoes

  3 tablespoon flour

  2 to 3 tablespoon water

  4 tablespoon brown sugar

  Heat tomatoes to boiling point. Meanwhile, in separate boil stir together flour and water. Mix until smooth. Stir tomatoes while pouring flour mixture and brown sugar in. Cook until thick.

  Serve over fried potatoes or Mac and Cheese.

  Can add salt to taste. Amish canned tomatoes would have salt in it. A tablespoon or two of butter and parsley.

  Hal's favorite salad

  Amish Broccoli Salad

  1 head of broccoli, chopped

  1 head of cauliflower, chopped

  1 cup mayonnaise

  1 cup sour cream

  ½ cup sugar

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ½ pound bacon, fried and scrambled

  1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

  Mix all together and chill.

  Nora's favorite green bean dish

  Pennsylvania Dutch Style Green Beans

  3 strips bacon, cut up

  1 small onion, cut up

  2 teaspoons cornstarch

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  ¼ teaspoon dry mustard

  1 tablespoon brown sugar

  1 tablespoon vinegar

  1 quart jar green beans

  Fry bacon until crisp. Drain fat except for 1 tablespoon. Add onion and brown. Stir in cornstarch, salt, dry mustard and ½ liquid from green beans. Stir all together until mixture comes to a boil. Blend in brown sugar and vinegar. Add green beans and mix.

  Spoon in greased casserole dish and put in 350 degree oven until throughly heated. This can be prepared the day before and served hot or cold.

  Serves 6

  Jim's Favorite Cake

  Raw Apple Cake

  1 ½ cups sugar

  ½ cup shortening

  2 eggs

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  2 ½ cup flour

  1 ½ teaspoon salt

  3 cups chopped apples

  Crumb Topping

  8 tablespoon brown sugar

  4 tablespoon flour

  4 tablespoon butter

  In bowl, cream together the sugar, shortening, eggs and vanilla. Add half of the 2 ½ cups of flour, soda and salt. Stir well, add chopped apples, then the rest of the dry ingredients. Fold in well. Pour in 9 x 13 greased and floured pan.

  For topping, combine brown sugar, flour and butter. Mix until crumbly and sprinkle over cake batter. Bake for 50 minutes in 350 degree oven. Good served warm with ice cream.

  Amish Molasses Pie

  This Amish pie is made with molasses as the filling. Because it is so sweet the pie attracts flies which has to shooed away. That is why the Amish call it Shoo Fly Pie.

  Shoo Fly Pie

  One 9 inch pie crust

  For filling

  1 cup flour

  2/3 cups brown sugar

  1 tablespoon vegetable shortening

  1 large egg
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  1 teaspoon baking soda

  ¾ cup boiling water

  Mix together first three ingredients until shortening is integrated. Reserve ½ cup of mixture for later. Add molasses, egg and baking soda. Mix then add water and mix, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Pour filling in the pie crust and scattered the reserved ½ cup over the filling.

  Bake 375 degrees for 18 minutes and lower temperature to 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes until crust is golden and center is only a bit wobbly. Cool pie on a rack. Serve with whip cream or ice cream.

  Amish Taffy

  2 cups sugar

  1 cup molasses

  ¼ cup water

  2 teaspoons white vinegar

  2 tablespoon butter

  ½ teaspoon baking soda

  Lightly grease baking sheet.

  Bring sugar, molasses, water and vinegar to a boil in pan over medium heat. Cook and stir until sugar reaches hard boil stage at 250 to 255 degrees.

  Test by dropping small amount of syrup into cold water to form a rigid ball.

  Remove from heat and stir in butter and baking soda. Pour onto baking sheet. Allow to cool enough to handle at least ten to fifteen minutes.

  Grease hands. Fold taffy in half then pull to double its original length. Continue folding and pulling until the taffy turns golden brown in about 15 to 20 minutes. It will be too stiff to pull anymore.