Hannah's Choice

by Jan Drexler

  The kitchen door creaked open and Hannah glanced up. Was Liesbet coming back to help? Ne, it was Mamm, on her way to the cemetery again. Hannah watched until she disappeared from view over the hill. She felt the tightness between her eyes and reached up to smooth the creases away. She needn’t worry about Mamm on such a warm, sunny afternoon. Her spells came when the days were cold and dark.

  Hannah shook off the shiver that gripped her and pulled on another cornstalk. She stopped and looked toward the small rise of ground concealing the quiet grove of trees. Mamm should be getting better. The spells should be gone by now. Giving in to the grief only seemed to make it harder for her to let go of the little ones.

  Biting her lip, Hannah fought to keep her mind on her work. She found another squash and threw it in the basket with the others. She knew why Mamm wasn’t getting better. Long ago, when Hannah had recovered, but the graves were still fresh, she had heard her say it. She could hear Mamm’s voice now, strained and hoarse. “You brought death into our house.” She had said those words over and over that winter. That long, black winter.

  Hannah had been nine years old, old enough to understand. If she hadn’t gotten sick, the others wouldn’t have caught the diphtheria from her. If she had been stronger, she could have helped care for the little ones. If she hadn’t fallen asleep . . .

  If she had only gotten out of bed to help, Fanny wouldn’t have died.

  Hannah pulled at the cornstalk, willing it to leave the ground. Tears blinded her eyes and she kicked at the stalk but hit a rotten Hubbard squash instead. She stomped on the squash, smashing it to bits. She turned to the dry, twisted tomato vines. They pulled up easily, ripping from the soft earth, tearing into pieces as she grabbed at them. She clawed at the dead vines with frantic hands. Dust filled the air as she pulled the tangled ropes apart and threw them to the side. Her bare feet trod on rotten tomatoes, slime oozing between her toes. She worked blindly, leaving a bare and broken tangled mess behind her until she stopped at the end of the row, exhausted. Hannah rubbed the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. No use, no use.

  Nothing had changed. Nothing would ever change.

  5

  The fine weather lasted through the week. On Monday, Hannah asked Mamm if she could spend the afternoon with Johanna, and after the apple butter was taken off the fire to cool, she had finally agreed. Hannah nearly ran all the way to the Hertzlers’ farm before Mamm could change her mind.

  Johanna’s stepmother, Magdalena, greeted Hannah from the front door, their newest baby, Veronica, in her arms.

  “It’s so good to see you, Hannah. How is your mother?”

  “She’s well, denki.” Hannah loved Johanna’s young stepmother as much as her friend did, although Mamm had been slow to warm up to her. Johanna’s mother had been her cousin and best friend. The thought that Johanna’s father, Elias, could marry a woman nearly half his age had made Barbara’s death in childbirth even harder for Mamm to accept.

  “Is Johanna here? Mamm said I could spend the afternoon.”

  “She’ll love to have your company. She’s on the back porch, stringing beans.”

  Hannah passed through the garden on the way to the back of the house. Magdalena had planted roses along this side of the house, and late blooms still clung to the canes, showing bright red against the yellow of the limestone wall.

  Johanna squealed when she saw Hannah come around the corner of the house, dropping the bowl of beans on the floor as she ran to give her a hug.

  “I was hoping you’d be able to come for a visit soon, but I didn’t think it would be today.”

  “I thought I should come while the weather holds. We aren’t likely to have sunshine for much longer.”

  “Come help me with the beans. We can talk, and you can tell me all the news.” Johanna bent to gather the beans that had fallen to the porch floor.

  Hannah took a seat on the rush bottom chair across from her friend and took the needle and stout cord Johanna handed her. She could hear Johanna’s sister, twelve-year-old Susannah, through the kitchen door, playing with the little ones.

  “Why do you think there might be news?” Hannah gathered a handful of leathery, dried green beans and poked her needle through the end of the first one.

  “Oh, I only thought you could tell me how Liesbet is doing, or Jacob . . .” Johanna added another bean to her long string.

  “What about Liesbet?” Hannah’s fingers trembled. Had news of Liesbet’s antics reached their neighbors?

  “Well, not Liesbet so much . . .”

  Hannah took in Johanna’s red face as she bent over her task. Not Liesbet? Johanna wanted to hear about Jacob?

  “I thought you were interested in Henry Miller.”

  Johanna leaned over her bowl of beans. “Henry Miller is a stuck-up pig.”

  Giggles drifting through the open kitchen door made Johanna turn that way with a frown, and she scooted her chair closer, lowering her voice to a whisper.

  “He’s been visiting Mary Kurtz. She says he comes to talk to her daed on Saturday evenings, but I’ve seen him looking at her during meeting.”

  “So you’re giving up on Henry?”

  “Why wait for someone who can’t make up his mind when there are other boys around?”

  “Especially one who lives just down the road, ja?”

  Johanna laughed. “Ja. So are you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Is Jacob sweet on anyone?”

  “Not that I know of. But you know Jacob, he never tells me anything.”

  Johanna stopped stringing beans and sighed. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful?”

  “What would be wonderful?” Hannah took another handful of beans from the bowl on Johanna’s lap.

  “If we were sisters-in-law, of course.”

  Hannah halted her needle. “You want to marry Jacob?” Silent Jacob married to her talkative friend?

  “Why not?”

  Hannah smiled. “Why not? I’d rather have you for a sister-in-law than anyone else.”

  Johanna smiled back. She had finished her string of beans and measured out another length of thread.

  “Did the men from Somerset come to talk to your daed?”

  “What men?”

  “It was Yost Bontrager and Eli Schrock. They came by yesterday and had supper with us. They talked for hours about a new settlement out west somewhere.”

  “Ne, I don’t think so. Why did they come here? Is your daed thinking about going west?”

  “I hope not,” Johanna said. “But they spoke about the small community we have here, and how small their communities are becoming with so many people going on from Somerset County to Ohio.”

  Hannah sighed, thinking of all the families that had sold their farms along Conestoga Creek and moved west or to Canada where the land was cheaper.

  “I wish there were more Amish families here, but I can’t imagine Daed selling our farm.”

  “I didn’t think mine would consider it either, until I heard him talking last night.” Johanna lifted another handful of beans out of the bowl she had set between them. “But I know he is afraid one of us will jump the fence and go to the Mennonites or Brethren like the Eshelmanns did last spring.”

  Hannah started at the mention of the name. Clarence Eshelmann, the oldest son, had married a Dunkard girl a year ago, and by spring the entire family had left the Amish church. Since they were under the bann, no one was supposed to talk about them. Her hand shook as she speared the end of a bean with her needle.

  “And they’re not the only family that has done that,” Johanna went on. “The Troyers, the Schmidts, the Zimmermanns—”

  “Ja, ja, ja,” Hannah interrupted her. “Daed says the families who left us to join the Brethren or the Mennonites have lost the faith. They’ve chosen an easier way, but is that a reason for us to move away?”

  Johanna sighed. “Daed seems to think so. He was telling Mamm that a larger Amish community would be be
tter for us. Keep us pure.”

  Hannah bent her head to her work, her thoughts swirling. Ja, it would be good to take Liesbet away from men like George McIvey, but would Daed consider a move like this?

  Shaking her head, Hannah pushed the thought away. “Ne, Daed would never leave the Conestoga. Our family has been here for generations. Our roots are here, our home is here. He wouldn’t consider it.”

  “I didn’t think my daed would either.” Johanna pushed the beans she had just strung to the end of her thread. “Our family settled this area the same time as yours, but he says there are more important things than land.”

  As Hannah picked the last handful of beans from the bowl, her mind flitted to the three small graves in the cemetery. Mamm might never recover from her grief if she was forced to leave them behind.

  “But, Johanna, what about your mother? Would your daed move west, leaving her grave here?”

  Johanna lifted the hem of her apron and wiped her eyes. “I know. Sometimes I think he couldn’t leave all the memories behind, but then I remember she really isn’t there. She’s in the Blessed Land, where there is no sickness, pain, or death. Whether we live here or somewhere else, we will always carry her memory with us.”

  Hannah poked her needle through the end of the last bean. What memories would she take with her of the three little ones who lay in those small graves? When she let herself remember them, all she could hear was Fanny’s raspy voice, asking her to bring some water. Why didn’t she force herself out of her feverish bed to do that one small thing for her sister? What if that one swallow of water could have saved her? But no, Hannah had succumbed to sleep, and when she woke, Fanny was gone.

  The leathery bean crumpled in her fingers, the needle a bright point swimming in a blurred sea. She lifted her apron hem to her eyes. She could never leave Fanny. She could never leave the creek, the woods and fields. This is where her heart belonged.

  When Hannah returned home, a strange wagon was in the yard. Mamm was bustling in the kitchen and the smell of frying mutton filled the house.

  “Hannah, you’re finally home. We have company for supper.”

  She glanced into the sitting room as she hung her cloak on the hook. Daed was sitting with two men, deep in conversation. Ja, it was Yost Bontrager and Eli Schrock, the same men who had visited the Hertzlers last night.

  “Where’s Liesbet?”

  “She’s occupying the little ones upstairs. William has been fussy all afternoon. If you can stir the beans, I’ll get the corn pone out of the oven.”

  Hannah helped finish the dinner preparations, all the time straining to hear the conversation in the next room. Were they talking about the west? What was Daed saying?

  When they were all seated around the table and prayers had been said, Eli Schrock picked up their conversation again.

  “The land in Indiana is fertile and plentiful. There’s plenty of farmland, some of it quite inexpensive.”

  Jacob looked from one man’s face to the other, his eyes bright with interest. “I hear the land in Iowa is flat, with no trees, but plenty of water.”

  “Ja, well, you can’t believe everything you hear.” Yost Bontrager broke off a piece of corn pone. “I’ve been to Iowa and seen the land for myself. And ja, there’s plenty of water and not as many trees as here in the east, but one has to wonder how good the land is where no trees will grow. Indiana has vast groves of huge trees, much like we have here in Pennsylvania. You know where there are good trees, there is fertile soil.”

  “What kind of Amish community is there?” Daed asked as if he were interested. As if he were considering such a move.

  “Four families moved there from Somerset County last year. Preacher Joseph Miller and Deacon Sep Borntrager started the church, along with the Daniel Millers and the Christian Borntragers. We’re both moving our families in the spring, and we’re recruiting more to join us.”

  “Our desire,” said Eli Schrock, leaning toward Daed with his sharp nose nodding in his direction, “is to start a community dedicated to the glory of God, with the discipline and direction of the church.”

  Yost Bontrager joined in. “There is room there for many families, and room to live in harmony with other people.”

  “So there are Mennonites there?”

  Yost’s beard bobbed as he nodded. “Brethren too. But each group is settling in their own communities, not mingled together as they are here.”

  Eli pointed at Daed with his knife. “The most important thing for me is that it’s peaceful there. None of the talk of war and dissension you hear this close to Maryland and the other slave states, and no risk of abolitionists trying to talk a man into breaking the law by harboring runaway slaves.”

  As the men’s conversation turned to news from the families who had moved to Somerset County from Conestoga, Hannah happened to glance at Mamm. Her face was pale in the lamplight and her mouth was pinched in that strained, drawn look she had when one of her spells was coming on. She would never agree to the move.

  Hannah could hear the men’s voices rise and fall long into the night. Mamm had excused herself as soon as supper was over, retreating to her bedroom and closing the door, while Hannah took charge of redding up the kitchen.

  She had worked as quietly as she could but caught only snippets of the conversation—mostly comments about rainfall, the amount of timber, and how chill fever could be a problem for settlers in the low-lying areas. By the time the clock struck nine, she had the younger children upstairs and in their beds.

  Liesbet fell asleep right away, snoring softly in the bed next to her, while Margli talked softly to her doll until she finally gave one final yawn and settled into sleep. Hannah lay still so she wouldn’t disturb her sisters, but she longed to creep to the top of the stairway and hear what the men were saying.

  Instead she went over the evening’s conversation in her mind. Daed had shown such interest in the new settlement, but he couldn’t be thinking of joining in on the trip west. From what the men had said, Indiana was the frontier. The forests would be thick and untamed, and there may be dangerous wild animals. And surely Daed hadn’t forgotten about the recent Indian wars.

  It would be much better to stay here where the hard work of clearing the land was already done. And where they were close to the market, and neighbors, and family. Ja, it was much better for them to stay here, where they belonged.

  Soon after the clock struck ten, Hannah heard the men settle down for the night, the visitors on pallets on the parlor floor. When all was quiet, she began to drift off to sleep.

  She wasn’t quite asleep when the clock struck eleven, and then another noise drifted to her ears. The kitchen door opened with its distinct creak.

  Certain she would see one of the visitors making his way to the outhouse, Hannah went to the window. A figure ran toward the woods, a white nightdress blowing in the wind.

  Hannah took the extra quilt from the foot of the bed and crept down the stairs. If Mamm was having another one of her spells, she wouldn’t feel the cold through her flannel nightdress until she was chilled through. Even then she might not come into the house to get warm.

  Throwing her cloak around her shoulders and taking Mamm’s from the hook, Hannah slipped out the door and followed the path to the family cemetery. The grass was wet and cold on her bare feet, and her toes ached by the time she reached the short picket fence surrounding the graves.

  The waning moon rode low in the sky and gave little light to help Hannah pick her way among the family markers, but she knew where she would find Mamm.

  Trees in the corner of the plot cast a shadow over the little graves, and there she was, huddled in the darkness. Hannah fastened her mother’s cloak around her, and then wrapped her in the quilt. Mamm shivered, but didn’t seem to notice Hannah’s presence.

  “Won’t you come back to bed? It’s cold out here.”

  “I can’t leave them.” Mamm’s voice sounded hollow, as if she was far away. “I can’t leave
my babies.”

  Hannah’s eyes smarted in the cool breeze. If only she could go back nine years. If only she could have saved the little ones.

  Mamm’s fingers twined themselves in the long grass, as if she could pull the dead bodies out of the grave that way. She paid no more attention to Hannah, but lay with her face pressed to the ground.

  As though listening for their voices.

  A prickling finger ran along Hannah’s spine and she stood, backing away. At times like these, her mother was somewhere in another world. Hannah hated the way she let her grief consume her.

  “Mamm, forgive me, please.”

  There was no answer. Hannah could have been speaking to the wind.

  Once more, Hannah knelt next to the prostrate form, tugging at one arm.

  “You must come back to the house.”

  Mamm roused and turned toward Hannah, hair flying and her face distorted. “Ne, ne. Leave me alone. Leave me alone!” Then she collapsed on the ground again, shoulders shaking as she sobbed.

  Hannah rose and backed away until she reached the low fence, then ran for the house. Daed would know what to do.

  6

  Christian roused at the shaking of his shoulder.

  “Daed, come quickly.”

  “Hannah?”

  “Ja, it’s Mamm. She’s down at the cemetery and won’t come back.”

  He came fully awake. His bed was cold and empty. How long had Annalise been gone? “I’ll be right there.”

  Hannah left the room and Christian stepped into his trousers, tucking his nightshirt in. He passed Hannah in the kitchen. The faint starlight from the window showed her waiting for him.

  “Do you need me to come?”

  He heard the tears in her voice. His dear Hannah. “Ne, you go back to bed.”

  Putting on his boots by the back door, he heard her light footsteps going up the stairs. He grabbed his coat and hat and stepped outside, casting a glance upward to judge the time from the stars. Sometime after midnight.