The Face of Heaven

by Murray Pura

  Lyndel’s eyes became a dark blue. “Are they going to march on the plantation?”

  “They have no reason to do so.”

  “Thank you, brother. Are you still with me as far as our plans go?”

  He nodded. “I am. But…it does not feel right slipping away without a word to mother and father.”

  She smiled in a halfhearted way. “I know. Every time I pray, the Lord touches on that very thing. I will tell them, brother. Just before we leave. It would be wrong to act as if we were abandoning them.”

  “I would like to be there when you speak with them.”

  “Of course.”

  He played with the brim of his hat. “It can’t be until after spring planting.”

  She gave a short laugh. “Every April it is the same. Nothing can happen until after spring planting. Perhaps the war will end at spring planting.”

  “I pray to God it would.”

  “So are you thinking of June?”

  “I am. The seventh. A Saturday.”

  “Nathaniel’s regiment will no longer be encamped near Manassas, will it?”

  “I think it’s unlikely. They move them around like knights and rooks on a chessboard. But my friend will find the regiment. The Philadelphia paper has assigned him to the Virginia theater of operations permanently.”

  Lyndel put her arm through her brother’s. “See me home, would you? One day I should like to meet this newspaperman of yours and thank him. Now that I can’t send Nathaniel mail or receive his letters, your friend’s information will be more important than ever.”

  “Once we’re in Virginia I will introduce you.”

  “Has he gone ahead and tried to make the arrangements I—we—requested?”

  “He has. He has spoken with a Mrs. McKean, who is a matron at the Armory Square Hospital in Washington. She seems inclined to take you on as a nurse.”

  “Without ever meeting me? Why?”

  “Oh, I suppose I have talked you up to my friend. And being a writer, he has embellished everything I have said.”

  “Levi! How will I live up to whatever nonsense you have told her? She probably thinks I am ten feet tall!”

  “To tell you the truth, my friend mentioned Mrs. McKean was impressed by the fact you were a farm girl. I guess she expects that means you are strong and hardworking. And that is so. I believe you will have no trouble being hired as a nurse.”

  “If God wills, then may it come to be.”

  Lyndel had scarcely entered her bedroom and washed her face, pouring fresh rainwater from a pitcher into a basin on the washstand, than her little sister Becky tapped on the door and called to her.

  “What is it?” asked Lyndel. “I’m cleaning up.”

  “Papa wants to see you in the kitchen.”

  “Do you know what it’s about?”

  “Well, I see he has a letter on the table by his cup of coffee.”

  Lyndel quickly dried her face and went down the staircase with Becky. When they reached the kitchen, their father smiled, caught Becky’s eye, and nodded his head in the direction of the door to the porch.

  “Your sisters need someone to hold the other end of the big skipping rope.”

  “All right, Papa.”

  When she had gone out the door he looked at Lyndel. “Sit with me, please. Would you like something to drink?”

  “Not right now, Papa, thank you.” She sat down next to him and saw that his eyes were dark and swollen just as hers had been.

  “You understand how difficult a day this has been for me as well as you?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “It is hard on the entire community. Please understand that.”

  “I do understand it.”

  His longer fingers tapped against a white envelope on the tabletop. It was stained with dirt and splotches of ink.

  “This came yesterday. I did not tell you. I wondered if there should be any mail passed on to you. I knew the Meidung would be coming into force. But as the day has worn on, as I have prayed and listened and worshipped, it has become clear to me this is your letter and you are meant to have it. There can be no others after this.”

  Lyndel sat up. “Do you mean to let me have that letter, Papa?”

  “I do. And it is right that you must be permitted to respond. Then there must be no further correspondence until he has laid down his weapons and repented.”

  “I may write him back once more?”

  “Ja.”

  Impulsively, she got up from her chair and threw her arms around her father, the chair clattering backward onto the floor, her father surprised by the strength of her hug and the two kisses on his cheek and beard.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you!” she cried.

  “Hey, hey, my girl, it is only a letter.”

  “Papa, you know it’s not only a letter.”

  “So you love him?”

  Clutching the envelope she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t say that I love him. But I care about him so much. He is so sweet. And he has declared his love for me.”

  “Has he?”

  “Ja, ja.”

  “Well, perhaps the day will come when he weds you in the way a good Amish man takes a good Amish wife to himself.” His eyes strayed to a window that overlooked the pasture. “It started with Charlie Preston. And in a way I cannot blame him—I too cut Charlie from the tree—no, I cannot blame him. He must lay down his whip, he must lay down the musket and bayonet, but God knows he saw great evil and wanted to right it. His intent is pure even if his path is violent and dark.”

  She sat back down and took one of his hands in hers. “Papa, may I ask you something?”

  “Ja?”

  “You said in your sermon the Amish are people who bless. Who heal.”

  “I did say it.”

  “Would it be wrong to nurse a wounded soldier back to health?”

  “What is this?”

  “You read in the papers how Clara Barton and other women helped tend the wounded in Washington after the battle last summer.”

  “After Manassas? Yes, I read that. They did good work.”

  “Holy work?”

  “Holy work?” Her father ran a hand over his dark beard. “Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these you did it unto me. Yes, I would have to say—holy work, the work of love.”

  “If I…if I were to do such work…someday…would I find favor… in your eyes?”

  He stared at her. “Is this what you are thinking? Will you also leave us for this terrible war?”

  “Not for the war, Papa, for the healing, to minister to the sick—”

  “Still. You are involved in the war. Clara Barton is not Amish. You are. Your calling is different.”

  “If we are both called upon by God to heal, it is not so different.”

  Her father shook his head and waved his hand, standing up from his chair. “The church would not approve. I would be called on to order the shunning of my own daughter. Would you take me to such a place?”

  Heat came to Lyndel’s face. “Why may I not heal others in the name of God?”

  “There are always sick here. You can nurse the sick of the church or Elizabethtown. You do not need a war.”

  “But the war is where I’m needed most. Here a few are ill with fever or stomach cramps. There young men are torn to pieces. Balls of lead are in their arms and chests. Their blood is pouring out onto the ground. They cry out for their mothers while the doctors saw off their legs. Tens of thousands, you said. There are not enough nurses to help. I could make a difference, Papa.”

  “You would be part of the war. The Amish are never part of a war, never—not in any way are they part of a war.”

  “Not even in a good way?”

  He shook his head again, slowly and forcefully. “There is no good way.”

  “Not even if it is Christ I nurse? Not even if it is Christ whose skin is burnt black from the explosion? Not even if it is Christ who is crying out as the life
flies from his mangled body? ‘And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’”

  Her father did not move, listening, thinking. Then he turned away. “If this is what you will do, please say goodbye to your mother and me first. Will you do that?” He stopped at the door, partly opening it so that the laughter of his three younger daughters filled the kitchen. He looked back at Lyndel. “Do you find it in yourself to at least give us that?”

  She wiped at her eyes with her fingers. “Of course, Papa.”

  He gazed at her, nodding. There was a very faint, faraway smile. “I am grateful to the Lord for you.” Then he went out and closed the door gently behind him.

  Lyndel made it to her room, threw herself full length on her bed, and wept. It took more than ten minutes before she was able to prop herself on an elbow, her eyes red, tears still running across her face, and open the envelope with Nathaniel’s letter inside.

  Dear Lyndel,

  I hope this letter finds you well, you and your family and the entire community. All I can tell you is we are marching back and forth in Virginia. The bread is not soft Amish bread and the cooking is not like what I’m used to at my place or yours. Corinth and I are the only Pennsylvanians mixed in with the boys from the 19th regiment and we tell everyone we are from Elkhart County, Indiana, which is true enough as that is where our Amish settlement is located. A few others are from that county, but most hail from different parts of the state. Along with the Hoosiers—that is what the Indiana boys like to call themselves—our brigade is composed of troops from Wisconsin—the 2nd, 6th, and 7th volunteer regiments (I hope it is all right to say so in my letter and to give out the numbers). We get along well enough but it is no Amish church meeting as you can imagine. Our brigade commander, General Gibbon, is tough as a plowshare and not liked too much, but the officer who is in charge of the 19th Indiana, Long Sol Meredith, well, we all respect him and will pretty much follow him anywhere.

  But that’s enough soldier talk. Since I last wrote I have been going through Isaiah in the Old Testament and Ephesians in the New. I also reread all your letters and the boys rib me about this but I don’t care. I love the way you write and what you have to say and I love the scent you leave behind on the paper—it’s that soap your mother makes with lilacs, cinnamon, and roses. I keep your letters in my Bible in my knapsack and sometimes I stick that Bible in the blanket I roll up for a pillow—so there are your letters and Paul’s letters and Peter’s all jumbled together and holding up my head.

  I must go—a corporal’s duties. Will write you again when I can. It takes forever for the mail to catch up with us but I hope the next mail call will have a card or note from you. Lyndel, you mean so much to me. May God keep you safe.

  Are we courting yet?

  Love, Nathaniel

  Lyndel smiled as she read and then quickly got up from the bed and went to her desk. She laid out a fresh sheet of paper, lit the lamp at her elbow, and dipped the tip of a goose quill in her bottle of ink. Then she began to smoothly spread her flowing script across the page, dipping the quill after every third or fourth word.

  My dearest Nathaniel,

  I have just read your latest note to me and I have to write to tell you they will not let me send you any more letters after this one. It is, of course, on account of your enlisting and taking up arms against the South and slavery. They have given you a year to return home and you have not done so. But do not be dismayed, my darling, they still love you, only they want you to come back to being a true Amish man again. I confess that sometimes I’m confused about the whole matter but I know this—what happened to Charlie was wrong, and slavery must be stopped one way or another. I also know I can no longer sit here while this war drags on. Wounded men need care and if other women can nurse the soldiers so can I. Was not Christ a healer?

  And it’s not only that. I simply can’t let another year go by without seeing you. This past winter was difficult enough but at least we had our letters to one another to sustain us. Now that those are being taken away, another winter, even another summer, would be impossible. So here is my news to cheer you—I am going to come to you, I am going to find you, even if I have to go through all the Union and Confederate armies to do it. Levi is escorting me and he has a newspaper friend following the war, who will also assist us. I intend to nurse the wounded and sick and my objective is to be assigned to the surgeons in your regiment. I’m not sure how I will get permission to do this but I believe God is with me in this enterprise and that He will make a way—I have every reason to believe I will be successful if I only begin the journey and take one step at a time.

  So place this note under your pillow and dream for the day it will be true and that I will stand before you and let you take me into your arms—oh, yes, I will, even if my father and the whole Amish church and President Lincoln himself are watching.

  My most earnest desire is to see you again. God bless you and keep you from harm. Our reunion will take place very soon.

  With all my heart, I am,

  Your Lyndel

  7

  Lyndel and her brother didn’t leave in June as they had planned but early on a July morning. Levi spent the extra weeks working with his father in the fields, Lyndel with her mother and sisters around the house and the barn.

  When the day finally arrived, their mother stood like stone on the porch as the buggy pulled out of the drive and onto the road in the darkness of the pre-dawn morning. Waves of guilt surged over Lyndel as Dancer trotted toward the depot. Levi gripped her hand as their father drove.

  “I do so worry,” Lyndel whispered to her brother. “I hope they can manage without us.”

  “Remember, I’ll be back for harvest,” he said softly. “They won’t be alone for long. I’ll escort you to Washington and see that you are properly settled. And if I can be of any help to the effort, short of taking up arms, I will do what I can. By September I will have returned.”

  “I feel I am doing the right thing,” she groaned quietly. “But now that we are actually leaving I wonder…”

  “We can ask Papa to turn around.”

  Lyndel considered this for a moment and then said, “The papers are full of the fighting around Mechanicsville and Frayser’s Farm and Malvern Hill. The casualties are pouring into the hospitals. This isn’t simply about finding Nathaniel’s regiment and asking to serve with their surgeons. It’s about keeping as many of the boys and men alive as possible. Even you can help with that.”

  Levi nodded. “I intend to…if I can.”

  “Here we are.” Their father brought the buggy to a halt. “Let me help you with your bag.”

  “It’s light enough, Papa,” said Lyndel as she stepped down. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

  “It’s no trouble.” Taking his daughter’s bag, he walked ahead of them to the station platform, where they stood quietly waiting for the call to board the train.

  Finally, their father spoke. “As your father, I must say what I must say and then I must trust you to our God. Above all things, I want you to remember who you are and what you believe. Perhaps nothing will come of it since Levi is only escorting you, Lyndel, and you are simply going to be nursing the wounded. But some will say that makes both of you contributors to the war effort. Who knows what will come to pass? I’m sure I can give you three months before others insist on the Meidung.”

  “I’ll be back before that,” Levi said.

  “Still. They may ask you to repent upon your return.”

  “I won’t have so much as lifted a rifle,” Levi protested.

  “Nevertheless. In your way you have supported the war by helping your sister.”

  “Helping her to heal the sick just as our Lord did.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “Perhaps I will be home very soon as well, Papa,” Lyndel spoke up.

  He looked at her. “Do you truly think
so?”

  “They’re always talking about fighting one big decisive battle, aren’t they? Perhaps that will happen this summer. Then the South will surrender.”

  “There have already been many battles, daughter, and the South has won most of them. Why would they surrender? No, the fighting has decided nothing. It has only succeeded in placing more young men in the ground.”

  “I hope to keep some of them away from the grave, Father, if I can.”

  His dark eyes remained on her a long time. Finally he said, “I know. Let me pray for both of you before it’s time to leave.”

  He removed his wide-brimmed straw hat, put it by his feet, and placed a hand on each of their shoulders, praying in High German. Levi took off his hat as well. Lyndel felt herself calm as her father spoke with God. Then he put his hat back on his head and stepped back, his hands behind his back. The locomotive had taken on water and coal and was building up a head of steam.

  A short man with a cigar walked by and spoke in a dull voice, “All aboard!”

  “Well, then,” their father murmured. “You must board…and I must get back to your mother.”

  Lyndel put her arms around his neck. “I’ll miss you, Papa. God bless you.”

  He patted her gently on the back. “And Christ be with you, daughter.”

  Levi shook his father’s hand. “I will not be long.”

  “I pray not. May his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

  He went and stood by Dancer and the carriage and was still there when the train pulled out of the station. Lyndel and her brother faced each other at window seats and both lifted their hands to him. Their father nodded. Then he and Elizabethtown were gone and the sun rose, coloring the land by laying down layer after layer of light as the train moved through.