Fearless Hope: A Novel

by Serena B. Miller

  The day I arrived, Wednesday, was a very big day. Two hundred and fifty pounds of potatoes had been peeled. The ingredients for the bread dressing had been combined and stirred in a dozen large bowls. The bride had also perfected the exact seasoning she wanted to use for the dressing and had taped a recipe card beside one bowl.

  When the dressing was finished, it was put into storage containers until the next morning, when it would be cooked. There had been an animated discussion on the merits of starting the frying of the chicken at 5:30 a.m. the morning of the wedding, but Deborah had decided to fry it the day before to make it easier for the women assigned to that task. Pineapple was cut up and blueberries thawed for topping the fruit pizza. Gallons of mint tea, an Amish favorite, were made and cooling.

  Joyanne informed me that we had been invited to take part in their work frolic “haystack dinner” that would start in an hour. I could hardly wait to get over there and witness everything . . . and take notes.

  • • •

  I love the Amish phrase work frolic. To my mind, it conjures up a joyful time—which also incidentally involves work—and that is exactly what it is. One of the things that surprised me most about the Amish is that the women, at least the ones I have met, are not drudges. Even though they don’t have all the time-saving appliances that we have, and usually a lot more children, somehow they don’t seem to be as weighed down with responsibilities as most Englisch mothers I know. I believe that a large part of that is because of their work frolics.

  Work frolics are called for whenever a woman is scheduled to host the church on Sunday. Walls will be washed, floors scrubbed, stables cleaned, and grass trimmed. If peach trees have a bumper crop, it’s time to break out the canning jars and have a work frolic. A barn needs painting? Someone is ill and has crops in the field to harvest? Work frolic!

  A work frolic is always accompanied by talking and visiting, much laughter and gentle teasing, lots of food, and plenty of children running about. The younger children play, and the older ones watch after the smaller children or learn a new skill at their father’s or mother’s elbow. The Amish believe that many hands make light work. From what I have seen, many hands also make for light hearts.

  When we arrived, we found the haystack dinner being served in Deborah’s spacious basement, where most of the food preparation for the wedding was taking place. With an outside door and plenty of windows, it felt surprisingly light and airy.

  “This is my canning kitchen,” Deborah explained, when I commented on the enviable fact that she had an entire second kitchen in her house. “It makes things so much easier during canning season. When I’m canning, I can work all day and still be able to run upstairs and prepare meals for my family without having to clean up the mess. Then I can come back downstairs and finish whatever I’ve got started.”

  I’ve done quite a bit of canning myself, and this second kitchen struck me as an absolutely brilliant idea. There was nothing fancy about it. Everything was plain and utilitarian, but I couldn’t help but be envious of all that counter space and the large bank of cabinets.

  In the middle of the room was a huge, old, scarred wooden table that had been pressed into service as a serious worktable. A few old couches and various chairs were scattered about. That day, every chair, every couch, every place at that table was filled with Amish friends and relatives helping Deborah prepare for the wedding.

  Deborah is one of the most serene women I’ve ever known, even under these circumstances. I marveled at the fact that the day before the wedding, a mother of the bride could be so calm about having so many people in her home. I would have been a nervous wreck, but these were her Amish sisters and aunts and mother and daughters. They knew exactly what they were doing and were being an enormous help. It probably would have seemed exceedingly strange to her if they were not there helping.

  Lunch was not a formal affair. Women filled their plates whenever they came to a good stopping point in their work. A haystack dinner has become the preferred work frolic meal, at least in Holmes County. This meal consisted, basically, of piling every sort of salad-type food item imaginable in layers onto your plate as though mounding up a haystack.

  My plate held layers of crumbled Ritz crackers, rice, spaghetti noodles, taco meat, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, salsa, crumbled Doritos—all seasoned with a ladleful of a delicious, thin cheese sauce. The best way I can describe a haystack dinner is to say that everyone brings a big bowl of whatever they have on hand. The cheese sauce blends the various foods together and makes mixing rice, spaghetti noodles, and Doritos seem like a good idea. It’s a little like creating a do-it-yourself taco salad spread, but with more varied ingredients. It was delicious.

  Joyanne explained to me that this has become the favorite meal for raising funds for various charity events, too, such as helping out a neighbor with medical expenses or raising funds for one of their schools. Everyone contributes a dish and then donates money as they go through the food line.

  In addition to all the women working there today, there were children. Always children. Having spent days at a time with my Amish friends, I am convinced that Amish children are the happiest children in the world. I hear no bickering, no tattling, and definitely no fights or back talk. I don’t even see any spankings or sharp glances from mothers. Instead, the children simply . . . play. Cheeks grow ruddy from playing tag and hide-and-seek outdoors, as well as investigating every activity in which the adults are involved.

  One toddler looked as though she could pose for a painting of a Victorian cherub. Curly blond hair, round, rosy cheeks. She’d just learned how to walk and held on to a couch for stability as she watched all the activity with round, solemn blue eyes. She wore a miniature blue Amish dress exactly like her mother’s and was so adorable I ached to cuddle her. I refrained from doing so because I was concerned that being scooped up by an Englisch stranger would frighten her. The last thing I wanted to do was to make this enchanting child cry.

  The conversation swirled around me and I wished I knew enough German to join in. Considerate as always, the women switched to English in order to include Joyanne and me. They might as well not have bothered. The intricacies of various relationships and babies being birthed, and who was ill and who was recuperating, were almost as incomprehensible as they would have been had they been speaking in their mother tongue.

  One kind lady took pity on me and asked how my writing was coming along. I cut my answer short because I could tell that it was a sacrifice for her to pull away from the more fascinating Amish topics floating around us. She kept losing concentration, which I found amusing—but I appreciated her effort.

  The Amish women teased Joyanne by pretending to talk about her to me behind her back.

  “Joyanne is our favorite driver.” A young matron named Tabitha shielded her mouth as though telling me a great secret. “We make sure she gets to go shopping a LOT!”

  Joyanne’s eyes sparkled as she joined in the fun. “Do you know how many Amish women you can get into a van?” she asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  Joyanne held up a finger. “Just one more.”

  This brought on peals of laughter, but I didn’t get the joke.

  Joyanne explained it to me. “The van driver is paid by the mile, not by the number of passengers, so the Amish women, being the frugal people they are,” she said, grinning at them, “always make room for ‘just one more’ friend to help share the expense. They also pack a picnic lunch and make an event out of it.”

  “But we always pack extra for Joyanne,” Deborah said.

  “They have to. I’ve been driving these women for so long, I’ve started to think I’m half Amish. I used to have short hair, wear jewelry, and never go out of the house without makeup.” She patted her hair, which she wore in a bun. “Now look at me!” Her face was devoid of makeup and she wore no jewelry.

  “We think Joyanne looks a lot better now,” Tabitha said.

  I coul
dn’t tell if Tabitha was joking or serious, but as a harried writer with many deadlines, I immediately started calculating how many minutes of writing time per day I could salvage if I gave up curling my hair, digging through my drawers for matching earrings, and putting on makeup every time I went out the door. I decided that this idea would bear closer examination to save for a future time.

  “So, what is your favorite store when Joyanne takes you shopping?” I asked.

  This involved some serious discussion as they pondered some of the possibilities. I fully expected them to name one of the local stores that catered to the electricity-avoiding Amish, or possibly Walmart, where I’d noticed they frequently shopped.

  Tabitha finally said, “I like Kohl’s the best.”

  The others nodded in agreement. Yes, Kohl’s was most definitely a favorite among these Amish women.

  “Um, Kohl’s?” I was surprised by their choice. All I could picture were the jewelry, makeup, and clothing departments that greeted me each time I walked into that particular store. What could they possibly find to purchase in Kohl’s?

  “Shoes, bed linens, purses, towels, kitchenware . . . oh so many things,” Tabitha said. “Sometimes they carry nice black cardigans, too.”

  Eventually, we began the cleanup and everyone assigned themselves a job. I grabbed a broom and dustpan. Unless one is sick or extremely pregnant, it is taken for granted that all will pitch in after a meal to make sure the hostess doesn’t have anything left to clean after the guests leave. I noticed that Deborah’s sisters and other relatives knew exactly where every item went—they didn’t have to ask. They were completely familiar and at ease in one another’s kitchens.

  Afterward, Deborah took Joyanne and me to check out the mobile kitchen they had rented for this affair. From this extra kitchen, Deborah’s friends and family would provide around five hundred meals before the day was over.

  These large mobile kitchens are a necessity during wedding season in Amish country. One end is devoted to an eighty-square-foot walk-in refrigerator lined with sturdy shelves. The rest of the space is filled with a well-designed commercial kitchen. There are five stoves, three sinks, and what looks like acres and acres of cabinets and drawers. It is fully equipped with dishes, pans, utensils, dish towels, dishcloths, and potholders. Everything anyone could possibly need to feed large groups of people has been provided, down to the serving spoons. For a household that has no electricity, this mobile kitchen, arriving with its own generator and propane tank, is a welcome addition.

  Deborah told us that it might be best for us to wait an hour or two before coming to the wedding the next morning. She explained that since the entire three hours would be conducted in German, we might enjoy the experience more if we came halfway through the service instead of trying to grit it out for the entire three hours. I protested that it would be rude to show up so late. She assured me that no one there would consider it so. Besides, she added in typical Amish no-nonsense bluntness, it would be better to come in late than to fall asleep halfway through the wedding service.

  Suddenly, we discovered there was a crisis. Rebecca’s carefully tended flower garden had not yielded enough flowers for all the vases she intended to place on the tables. The flower supply would have to be supplemented. Joyanne and her van were pressed into service so that the bride and her friends could make an emergency trip to a nearby florist.

  • • •

  The next morning, we arrived at the Beachys’ large working farm and parked alongside dozens of black buggies in a field across the county road from the house. Dozens of horses were tethered there beneath a line of trees.

  It was a gorgeous fall day. The preferred wedding month for the Amish is October, but this wedding took place in September. There are only so many Thursdays to go around in the month of October, and with so many young people having weddings, September has also become a frequently scheduled wedding month. With a community as interconnected as the Holmes County Amish, there are many, many weddings to attend in the fall.

  Weddings are not taken lightly by the Amish. It is my observation that most are total romantics at heart. From the oldest to the very young, they believe in an enduring love between one man and one woman for life. Old women and old men can, and often do, lovingly recount details of their own courtship—even if that courtship took place sixty years ago.

  “Do you see that clock on that shelf on the wall?” The bride’s grandmother pointed out a wooden clock as we sat in the living room of her Daadi Haus.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “My husband made that for me before we got married.”

  “There was a lot of love put into the making of that clock,” I remarked.

  “Ja,” she said, smiling happily. “There was.”

  All Amish believe that a marriage should be celebrated with gifts, food, laughter, great joy, plenty of people, and various silly wedding tricks played on the bride and groom by the youngies. Everyone who can come will come. One never knows when a groom’s courting buggy might just “accidentally” end up on the roof of some outbuilding. A wedding is not to be missed.

  We climbed out of the van that morning and carried our gifts through the field, across the county road, and up the sharply inclined driveway. As we approached the house, we heard singing coming from the nearby barn. This was something I had longed to experience. I knew that the hymns the Amish sang had been, for the most part, written by their martyrs five hundred years ago. The Amish hymnbook, the Ausbund, is the oldest continually used book of hymns in the world. I also knew that they sang the songs extremely slow, in respect for those martyrs who, while singing hymns in their prison cells, were mocked by jailers who danced to them. Showing typical Amish pacifist ingenuity, those early ancestors solved the problem by simply slowing their songs down until it was no longer feasible for the jailers to dance.

  The beauty of the day and the rural scenery about me made it feel as though I’d walked straight into an Amish movie, complete with authentic background music. The timbre of the German words, sung in unison, resonated throughout the valley with a haunting quality unlike anything I had ever heard. Their music, to me, sounded so very holy.

  I had given much thought to purchasing a practical gift for a new bride, finally settling on a large cast-iron Dutch oven with a yellow baked enamel surface. What I had not realized was that I would be carrying it quite so far. The thing was heavy, the package awkward, and the driveway steep.

  Fortunately there was a handful of little boys waiting alongside the driveway to relieve the guests of gifts. This was their job and they seemed pleased to be doing it. They were dressed in the same traditional black hat, white shirt, and black coat of their fathers, and their eyes were sparkling with excitement over being part of the wedding. I was worried that the little guy who came for mine was too small to carry it.

  “Be careful, it’s heavy,” I cautioned him.

  The child didn’t even grunt when I handed it to him. Instead, he flashed me a grin as he trotted off. He knew that I was impressed.

  We were met by Luke, the father of the bride. He was handsome in his new black coat, vest, and pants, and with so much responsibility, he was more serious than usual. He politely showed us to the seats that had been waiting for us.

  The barn, where the actual wedding would be held, was built into the hill, close enough to the house to require only a short walk. It was a large, sturdy barn. There was a second story below that Joyanne told me had been cleaned within an inch of its life. Several horses were stabled there; others took their ease in the shade across the road where they had been tethered. The main level of the barn was so clean it practically shone. Brothers and uncles and grandfather had cleaned it so well over the past week, there was not so much as a spiderweb in view. Square bales of hay were piled to the rafters along the sides of the barn as well as in the haymow to make room for guests. It smelled amazing—the scent of fresh hay permeated the air. I took a deep breath and for an instant, I w
as transported back to my own childhood on a farm in southern Ohio. A sudden great nostalgia for the hours I spent playing with my cousins in our own barn washed over me.

  Hanging from one beam was a single, perfect hanging basket of blue petunias. It was the only floral decoration in the barn. The wooden floor had been swept clean, and was in its own way a work of art. The weathered flooring had been built from planks of wood wider than any I’d ever seen. My father was a sawyer. I knew just enough to recognize virgin timber, built so long ago that there were still forests of giant, ancient trees available.

  • • •

  As large as this working barn was, the family did not think it would be large enough to seat everyone. There was a white three-sided tent placed against the open double doors of the barn, in order to expand the seating. We were placed here, along with a handful of other Englisch guests. Luke expressed disappointment that Joyanne’s mother, a woman in her nineties, had not felt well enough to join us. He had made certain that there was an especially comfortable chair for her.

  I wished I could take a picture of all of this, but I respected my friends’ beliefs against the making of graven images. Instead, I tried to imprint the scene before me on my mind, memorizing details, savoring every moment. Inside the barn, sitting sideways in front of us, were two groups. All the women sat to my right, facing the men, who were on my left. They turned their heads and watched with friendly curiosity as we entered, but then their attention was caught again by the preacher, who stood between the two groups with his back to us as he spoke to the church.

  There would be three ministers who, taking turns, would preach for nearly three hours by the time this wedding was finished. Several preachers were needed to get through the long wedding service. I recognized a few words—“Noah” and “Moses” and “Abraham”—but the rest of the service was incomprehensible. This was as it should be. The wedding service was not for us, and it was not for show, it was for the Amish. We Englisch were allowed to watch, but it would never occur to them to switch to English for our benefit. Nor would Joyanne and I have expected them to do so. This was their culture, their church, their beliefs, their traditions. I was honored and grateful simply to be allowed to observe.