An Amish Buggy Ride

by Sarah Price

  ALSO BY SARAH PRICE

  THE AMISH OF LANCASTER SERIES

  #1: Fields of Corn

  #2: Hills of Wheat

  #3: Pastures of Faith

  #4: Valley of Hope

  THE PLAIN FAME TRILOGY

  #1: Plain Fame

  #2: Plain Change

  #3: Plain Again

  OTHER AMISH CHRISTIAN ROMANCES

  Amish Circle Letters

  Amish Circle Letters II

  A Gift of Faith

  An Amish Christmas Carol

  A Christmas Gift for Rebecca

  The Divine Secrets of the Whoopie Pie Sisters (with Whoopie Pie Pam)

  First Impressions (Realms, an imprint of Charisma)

  Life Regained (with Whoopie Pie Pam)

  Priscilla’s Story

  OTHER BOOKS, NOVELLAS, AND SHORT STORIES

  Gypsy in Black

  Postcards from Abby (with Ella Stewart)

  Meet Me in Heaven (with Ella Stewart)

  The Prayer Chain: A Christian Series on Faith (with Ella Stewart)

  Pink Umbrellas: The 12 Days of Devotion (with Lisa Bull)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 Sarah Price

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Waterfall Press, Grand Haven, MI

  www.brilliancepublishing.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Waterfall Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477826188

  ISBN-10: 1477826181

  Cover design by Kerri Resnick

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014942339

  To my husband, Marc, for being my knight in shining armor. Where words were once used to hurt, you taught me that it is possible to use them to heal. <3

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  A WORD ABOUT VOCABULARY

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  GLOSSARY OF PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

  This is the first and great commandment.

  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

  —Matthew 22:36–40 (King James Version)

  A WORD ABOUT VOCABULARY

  The Amish speak Pennsylvania Dutch (also called Amish German or Amish Dutch). This is a verbal language with variations in spelling among communities throughout the United States. For example, in some regions, a grandfather is grossdaadi, while in other regions he is known as grossdawdi. In some books, you might see “thank you” written as denke or denki, although I’ve chosen to use danke in my books.

  In addition, there are words such as “mayhaps,” or the use of the words “then” or “now” at the end of sentences, and my favorite expression—“for sure and certain,” which are not necessarily from the Pennsylvania Dutch language/dialect but are unique to the Amish.

  Also, many Amish speak English in a manner that is grammatically incorrect, such as the following phrases: “Go throw down the ladder some hay,” “I wonder that,” or “Put the manure on the ground in the barrel.” Such expressions are not grammatical errors but authentic dialogue, idiomatic ways of speaking, based upon my firsthand experience growing up in a Mennonite family and living among the Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

  The Pennsylvania Dutch used in this manuscript is taken from the Revised Pennsylvania German Dictionary: English to Pennsylvania Dutch (1991) by C. Richard Beam, Brookshire Publications, Inc., in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

  Please refer to the glossary at the end of the book for definitions of the phrases and words that appear in these pages.

  PROLOGUE

  Early December 2014

  Kate stood at the kitchen window, peering through the frosty glass as huge, ragged snowflakes silently blanketed the driveway. Already, three inches covered the gravel. Most of the other youth had departed already. Only a few still remained, mostly those who lived on neighboring farms: Ella Riehl, John and Samuel Esh, and Hannah Hostetler.

  “You need a ride, then?”

  Kate turned around, her dark-brown eyes adjusting to the contrasting brighter light of the room. She smiled when she saw Esther standing beside her. Just a few years older than Kate, Esther seemed much more confident. It was a confidence that Kate admired, and she sometimes wished that she could emulate the young woman.

  But they were as different as different could be. Esther was tall and willowy with blond hair and hazel eyes that often looked green when she wore darker dresses. Kate, on the other hand, was more petite with brunette hair and dark eyes. She had never quite gotten over her shyness around others, especially the older women in her youth group.

  “Nee,” Kate replied, her black jacket already slung over one shoulder. “Bruder David should be here any minute.”

  Esther nodded, glancing over her shoulder at the simple clock that hung on the wall. Kate’s eyes followed. Eight thirty. It was growing late, and with all of that snow, she didn’t want any delays getting home. Esther looked as concerned as Kate felt.

  “I saw him earlier,” Esther said after a moment of hesitation. “Thought he left with Ruth, ain’t so? He wasn’t singing with us . . .”

  With a simple shrug of her shoulders, Kate refused to reply. It wasn’t her place to speculate about whom David ran with and even less her place to gossip about whom he might be courting. And if others suspected that David left with Ruth earlier, that was none of her business . . . as long as he returned to take her home.

  Esther raised an eyebrow. “I could ask my daed to take you home, if you’d like.” She glanced over her shoulder at the small group of remaining people. “Or mayhaps one of the Esh brothers could?”

  “David will come,” Kate replied instead, turning back to the window, silently willing David to appear. Please don’t embarrass me again, she prayed silently. The last thing she wanted was for Samuel Esh or his younger brother, John, to feel compelled to drive her home in this dreadful weather. “I didn’t even know it was to snow at all. Sure am glad we don’t live far.”

  Five minutes passed before she saw the familiar buggy, a pair of black-and-white fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror, pull into the driveway and stop in front of the porch. Relieved, and a touch irritated, she hurried toward the door, pulling on her jacket as she passed the remaining group of young people. Despite recognizing them, she lowered her eyes as she passed. Since they were older than her, she only knew the
m well enough to lift her hand, a bashful wave good-bye, as she reached the door to leave.

  The cold air startled her and she flinched as she stepped through the door and the driving snow hit her face. Blinking, she saw David waiting for her at the bottom of the porch steps and she made her way toward him, shivering. She clutched at the throat of her jacket, making certain that it was closed properly.

  “You ready, then?”

  Kate reached David’s side and looked into his face. He stood before her, his eyes bloodshot and his brown hair tousled, snowflakes clinging to his curls. Despite the cold weather, he wore neither coat nor hat. She frowned. “Something wrong, David?”

  He shook his head, overemphatically. “Nee, nee,” he mumbled. “Just get in.” With a wild wave of his arm, he gestured toward the buggy. The way he avoided her eyes struck her as odd and, as she began to accompany him to the buggy, she inhaled deeply.

  With a frown, she put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Again, David? Really?”

  “What?”

  She knew that look on his face as well as the tone in his voice: feigned innocence. She didn’t buy it for one minute. With a shake of her head, she took a step backward and crossed her arms over her chest. The icy wind picked up, and she was grateful that the wide brim of her black bonnet shielded her face when she tilted her head away from the snow. “I’m not getting in that buggy with you.”

  “Aww, come on!” He shook his head in frustrated disbelief as he reached for her arm, grabbing it none too gently.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she hissed in a low voice, yanking her arm free. “Not with you driving, anyway!”

  “Well, I’m sure not letting you drive my buggy! It’s brand-new and the roads are slick!” he snapped, his temper flaring at the suggestion. Then, trying to look serious and in control, he put his hands on his hips and faced her. “I’m fine, Kate. Just let’s go already!”

  “You’re not fine,” she retorted, her voice low and calm. “You’re drunk.”

  “You’re not my mother, Kate!”

  “Mayhaps you should listen to me for once,” she said.

  “I did once,” he snapped. “And look what happened!”

  She cringed at his words, the hateful tone sending her down an all-too-familiar path in her memory. How many times would he say things like this to her? Would he ever tire of making her relive the pain? Each time he found some way to refer to Jacob, that fateful day twelve years ago felt as fresh and vivid as the bright new snow on the ground.

  For a long moment they stared at each other, as if the struggle froze them in place at the bottom of the porch steps. Voices from inside came suddenly closer, and Kate realized it was most likely the remaining youth preparing to leave before the storm worsened. Then David looked past her toward the house, his eyes flickering in recognition. Without turning around, Kate knew someone was standing there, observing their exchange.

  Pressing his lips together, David leaned forward and whispered, “Come on, Kate!” as he grabbed her arm again and started tugging her toward the buggy.

  Whoever was observing them lifted a kerosene lantern high on the porch, and its golden glow spilled onto the driveway. In the light, Kate could clearly see her brother’s wild expression. She refused to remove her eyes from David’s face. Defiance poured through her veins as she yanked her arm free. “You forsake the Lord, David. Thine own wickedness shall correct thee.”

  He rolled his eyes and waved his hand at her. “Don’t be quoting the Bible to me, Kate.”

  “You need help!” she hissed.

  “The only help I need,” he snapped, “is for you to get into the buggy so I can take you and Ruth home! I came back just for you, you know!”

  Kate peered over his shoulder at the buggy. Vaguely, she could make out the form of a person sitting on the far side of the front seat. “You have Ruth with you?” She snapped her eyes back to her younger brother, a fierce look on her face. “David Zook!”

  “Don’t start with me, Kate!” He held up his hand and started backing away from her. “I ain’t taken no kneeling vow yet. Neither has she.”

  Kate sighed. How many times had she heard this from him? Same story, different day. Praying for him wasn’t working. Neither were her words. “Well, kneeling vow or not, you are a sinner. And I’m not going to be caught in the presence of a sinner.”

  He shook his head again.

  “In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .”

  “There you go again. You and your Bible quotes.” He glared at her. “I have my entire life to know God and obey the gospel as well as the Ordnung! Until then, you either get in the buggy or you walk home, Kate. I’m not fooling with you anymore.”

  She tilted her chin, trying to ignore the fact that the snow was falling even heavier now. “If those are my choices,” she said, “I’ll walk.”

  “Suit yourself.” He wasted no time in hurrying back to the buggy and climbing inside. With one final look in her direction, he slid the door shut and, within seconds, the buggy began to roll down the lane toward the road, the horse pulling it through the snow that had already accumulated. She glanced over her shoulder to see if the person who’d brought the lantern to the porch was still there, but all she saw through the snow was the closed front door.

  As the buggy disappeared down the road, the blinking lights on the back of it fading away, Kate suddenly felt the consequences of her decision. It was cold. And she was going to have to walk home in the snow. Alone.

  On a clear night, it would take only fifteen minutes. Twenty at the most. Shivering, she clutched her jacket tighter around her neck and stepped back onto the porch steps. No one else was around; most of the other youths had already left. The few who remained lived closer; only the Esh brothers would be driving near her parents’ farm. Still, it would be too great an inconvenience to ask them to take her home.

  Besides, she told herself, the last situation she wanted to be in was one in which she needed to explain David’s behavior. Rumschpringe or not, she would not lower her own morals and values to accommodate another.

  With a big sigh, she lowered her head and began the walk down the lane toward the farm. The snow blinded her, not that she could see much anyway. It didn’t matter, though. She knew the way as well as she knew the back of her hand. She had walked these roads for her entire life, all twenty years of it. Straight down the road, left before the hill, and then the first right would take her home.

  In her mind, she repeated Bible verses to take her mind off her toes and fingertips. They tingled from the biting wind, so she kept wiggling them. Despite wearing a heavy coat, thick stockings, and woolly mittens, she grew increasingly cold with each footstep. Secretly, she found herself hoping that someone might drive by, perhaps one of the older youths who lingered behind, and offer her a ride. She tried to think of excuses she might make if, or hopefully when, that happened.

  But no one appeared.

  Turning down the road that led past her aendi’s house, Kate’s thoughts turned toward David. It made her angry that he scoffed at her for following the Amish religion so closely. Oh, she knew some youths who took the kneeling vow and still kept cell phones. She even heard of a few older people who were on the Internet, using their work computers for pleasure. She just was not one of those types of Amish. When she had taken her kneeling vow the previous autumn, she’d meant it.

  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

  That vow was the basis of the Amish religion, after all. Conformity to the world, especially today’s world with technology and alcohol, pulled people away from God and away from family. Those harmless cell phones that some of her friends kept tucked deep in their handbags or hidden un
der their mattresses meant isolation from the community, their family, and, most importantly, God.

  The day she took her kneeling vow was the day she threw away her cell phone. Little did she know that David would dig it out of the garbage and reactivate it.

  Still, in hindsight, she shouldn’t have been surprised. As she’d happily said good-bye to her rumschpringe, David eagerly said hello to his.

  He was three years her junior and eager for the freedom afforded to sixteen-year-olds in the church. Rumschpringe. The time for running around and experimenting with the world and exploring what it had to offer before deciding whether to take the next step: baptism. Most of the youths in their g’may only ran around for two years before taking the kneeling vow and committing to the Amish way of life, both culturally and religiously.

  Unfortunately, Kate had a sneaking suspicion that David would not follow that path. He seemed to be growing further away from taking his vow, not closer.

  As a driving wind blew snow into her eyes, Kate’s thoughts turned to Ruth, and how small her huddled figure had looked in David’s buggy. With her big brown eyes and freckled nose, Ruth was a pretty young woman. She’d always appeared to be the perfect future Amish wife. She worked hard, spoke softly, and never complained about anything. The fact that Ruth tolerated David’s behavior conflicted with the pious nature Kate believed she possessed.

  Was it possible that Ruth didn’t know?

  That thought struck Kate. Was it possible that Ruth didn’t smell the whiskey or notice his slurred, aggressive speech? Didn’t Ruth wonder why his own sister refused to ride home with him in the buggy that evening? Or did Ruth know and choose to look the other way?

  “Dear Lord,” Kate whispered. “Please help David see the truth in Your light and free himself from Satan’s ways.”

  As she rounded a bend that began the ascent of the hill just by her parents’ farm, Kate quickened her pace. Only a little farther and she’d be home, out of the snow and, hopefully, snuggled in her bed. The second floor of the farmhouse remained cold all winter, but nothing as biting as what she felt now. Once she climbed into her bed underneath all of those quilts, she’d warm up in no time, that was for sure and certain!