My Amish Childhood

by Jerry S. Eicher

  The workers nodded. “This is a good plan. We will help you do this. Put locks on doors. Better protection on windows. No more will anyone break into your houses.”

  So the Amish headed for town that morning and the police station, which lay off the center square in Guaimaca, a plain-looking building with a white stucco front. Inside the door, the front office consisted of a low countertop for the transaction of business. A room immediately to the left was the jail, with iron bars across its full-height door. The cells looked dirtier than many a horse stable.

  A lone officer in military uniform usually stood guard, lounging about. He would have greeted the arriving Americans, shaking their hands. “Is there a problem that you have?”

  “Yes. Our homes were broken into yesterday, and we would like to report it.”

  “I will tell my boss then, and we will go out with you and look at the situation.”

  The Amish men agreed with the arrangement and returned to La Granja.

  “We would like to speak with the workers that you have,” was the first request once the police arrived.

  “With our workers? But they work for us. They had nothing to do with this.”

  “We still would like to speak with them.”

  And so the workers were informed. They shrugged their shoulders, gathered up their tools, and took them along for the questioning.

  At the house, the officers were waiting. They asked to speak with the workers alone. Animated conversation ensued, with much waving of arms and gesturing, ending with the police handcuffing everyone and throwing them into the back of the pickup trucks.

  The Amish demanded answers.

  They would have been told, “These men are the ones who robbed you on Sunday.”

  “Robbed us on Sunday? That’s not possible. We trust them to take care of the place. It couldn’t be them.”

  And the police would have smiled. “You are ignorant of some things. You trust people too much. Here in Honduras, you don’t trust anybody. These men and their families are the ones who robbed your homes on Sunday.”

  “How do you know that these are the ones who robbed us?”

  The smiles would have broadened. “Come. We will show you. Follow us to their houses. Trust us. We know who did this.”

  Arriving at the workers’ homes, a small complex of houses beyond the store and hidden behind one of the knolls a mile or so off the main road, they pulled up to several huts. The officers jumped out and motioned for the Amish men to join them. They left the handcuffed men sitting in the back of the police vehicles.

  As they prepared to enter the houses, the women of the houses appeared and protested. “Please, señor. Why are you coming to our house? Why are our husbands handcuffed in the backs of your vehicles?”

  “We will search your houses, señora, for stolen goods. These gringos, their homes were broken into yesterday. And we have reason to believe the items are here.”

  “This is simply not true. Our husbands would never steal anything.”

  “Please, señoras, step aside. We will search the house.”

  Weapons were flourished, and the women pushed aside breaking into loud wails. A quick search was made first, and then the Amish men were asked to come in afterward. The group was led across the dirt floor to a room in the back.

  Tortillas would still have been warming on the lid of the fifty-gallon drum from the morning’s preparation of food. Outside the open window the chickens would have flown off into the yard with a mighty fluttering of wings. Pushing aside the cloth curtain that served as the door, the officers led the way into the room. Stacked from the floor to the ceiling was American merchandise: tools, hoes, rakes, kitchen utensils, and gunny bags of things still unpacked.

  The officers turned to the Amish men. “Is this all yours?”

  The men could only look at each other as they nodded. “Yes,” someone finally said.

  Consternation ensued once the report was taken back home.

  “You mean to tell us that it really was our workers who robbed us on Sunday?”

  “Yah, we saw the stolen goods ourselves.”

  “But how could they have robbed us? They were such nice people. Look at how hard they worked around the place. There was nothing they would not do for us.”

  Parties were sent to bring the others up-to-date on the news. And from there the news spread through the community.

  By the afternoon the stolen goods were safely back home, with a high ranking officer from the police station coming along.

  “You have a reward posted for the return of your goods. Is this not true?”

  “Uh, no, not really,” the Amish men informed him. “But we’re glad that the things are back.”

  “My officers told me this morning when you came to report this crime that there was a large money reward for the return of your stolen items.”

  Continued denials from the Amish men followed. But the officer didn’t give up.

  “This has been a great favor done for you—that your things have been found so soon. And there were many things lost. I believe if you look, you will find everything there except for some minor items, maybe. And we got a full confession out of these thieves. They are really small-time people. They do not know how to steal things well. This is why we catch them so easy. With a little persuasion they have told us everything, and where they have hidden more of the things. My officers went back to the thieves’ homes to search again and also in the hills behind their house. We believe everything will be found eventually. If not, then when more things are found these will also be returned.”

  “This thing of the money,” one of the Amish men ventured, “we certainly are grateful to you and to your officers for finding our things. And I suppose we can give a reward for their return. We have just not spoken of it yet, but I will speak with the others about it.”

  The officer smiled. “I will be expecting your decision then in several days. Yes. In the meantime the thieves remain in the prison for a long time. Your large reward will ensure that they stay there for a very, very, long time—maybe a year, maybe two years. Our prisons are very good—with hard ground to sleep on. We keep our prisoners from wanting to come back too soon. We do not feed them, so you do not have to worry about an extra expense. Unless the family feeds them, they not eat. They all get very thin in prison. A year is a long time to be in prison here. Your reward for the stolen goods will help these men not steal again. Yes, I am looking forward to the time when you come in with the reward. We will speak then of how long the sentence will be for these thieves.”

  With that the sergeant left, and more meetings were called that night in the Amish homes. What lay behind this request for a reward? And what should be done with the men in jail? Obviously they would not be treated lightly by the authorities. Did they wish to cause such suffering? And what about their nonresistance stance? How could that be reconciled with throwing men in jail?

  Then there would have been talk from the perspective of how things were done stateside.

  “This is simply wrong, making us pay for something the police should be doing anyway.”

  “These police are corrupt, that’s all there is to it.”

  “They must have planned this all from the start.”

  “It’s all about the money, that’s what it is.”

  “Makes me think now that they knew who did this before we ever reported it.”

  “Did the workers have some kind of deal with the police?”

  “It sure looks like it. And if that’s true, the police must have double-crossed them when we walked in this morning. Probably thought we had more money.”

  “Must be this rich gringo mentality they have down here. Everyone who is white is considered rich.”

  “What do we do then? Keep our mouths shut and just take it? This is awful.”

  “I’m afraid something in that order is all we can do. If we accuse the police of this, it could just make things worse and still not solve our problem.�
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  “Okay, so the police want money. But how can we ethically pay what amounts to a bribe?”

  And someone would have said, “If you had just listened to me from the start and not gone to the police, we would not be in this predicament now. Our people have always had a deep distrust of the police. This just goes to show why this has always been so.”

  And they would have been right. Stateside, the police had become quite easy to work with, even when the Amish questioned the wisdom of it.

  Their beliefs on peace still ran deep though. God’s people never depended on the secular authorities for their physical protection. They trusted in God. The stories had been told and retold. Not just the teachings of Jesus, but Old Testament stories. Of the time Ezra made the trip from Babylon to Jerusalem when the returning Jews had miles of territory to cross with their possessions and carrying large quantities of silver and gold the king gave them for rebuilding. They traveled through territory full of robbers, thieves, and killers, yet Ezra and his men were ashamed to ask the king for soldiers to protect them. Hadn’t they just told the king how great their God was? So instead they fasted and prayed for several days and made the journey without any of the king’s soldiers. They arrived safely in the land of Israel without any loss of life or property.

  Finally a solution to the mess was suggested.

  “We can go to the police and tell them we are sorry that we started this whole thing and offer to pay bail for the arrested thieves. That would free the workers without any prison sentence. It would also give the police some money, which seems to be what they are after.”

  Throats would have been cleared and hands wrung, but no better answer was found. So in the morning they arrived back at the police station to be greeted by a very happy officer.

  “Yes, you have come to pay the reward. You are glad that my men have returned your things to you. This is good. Now both of us are very happy. You because all of your things are back. Me because you will pay a good reward. So how much will the reward be?”

  “We have not come to pay a reward,” one of the men would have said.

  “You have not come to pay a reward? How can this be?”

  “We will not pay the reward, but we will pay the bail for these men so that they can come out of jail.”

  “Ah.” The face lit up again. “You will pay money then. And you want the men to come out of jail. Then you will deal with them on your own. Psst…psst. But you must not tell me about this. The bail money will be enough.”

  “Nothing will happen to the men,” the sergeant was assured. “We just don’t want to be responsible for their incarceration.”

  The officer looked puzzled, but he understood the sight of the money they placed on the counter. And the jailed men were soon out on the street, expressing their profuse thanks to the Amish men.

  Chapter 24

  The news spread like wildfire into every nook and cranny of the Honduran world, it seemed. Gringos have paid the bail for the men who robbed them. The thieves had been let off scot-free. Dad was beside himself. He was a firm believer in nonresistance, and he would never have taken up a weapon to defend himself. “This is the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time,” he said. To broadcast the matter, and in a country like Honduras. “We might as well put out a welcome sign to one and all. Come rob us,” he told Emil at the shop. “Take what you want. We will do you no harm.”

  Dad never laid claims to being a prophet. He was just a practical man, seeing things that others often missed. And on this point, he couldn’t have been more right. I make no claims to know what the correct method of introducing the peace doctrine into a third-world culture would have been. I only know what I saw. And what I saw were Amish people scrambling to deal with the problem without resorting to violence as the locals now descended upon them after dark to pick up the easy loot.

  I was there and felt the fear. The trembling inside closed doors at night. The clank of the wooden bar across our front door each night at six-thirty. The starting at the slightest unusual sound. The awakening when the dogs burst into barking fits. The dry mouth that comes from sheer panic. And the absolute terror of darkness lying anywhere outside our four walls.

  Things were soon pushed to the edge of foolishness. But that’s said from a stateside perspective, where people are surrounded by a competent police force who looks out for citizens whether they desire it or not.

  One incident occurred after we’d spent an evening at David Peachey’s place eating an enjoyable supper and socializing afterward. On the way home in our flatbed spring wagon pulled by Molly, the Belgian, Dad stopped short of the cattle guard still some distance from the house.

  “There are lights in front of our house,” he said, his voice hushed.

  All of us children stared openmouthed into the darkness, not uttering a sound.

  “You didn’t leave anything on in the house, did you?” Mom asked him.

  “No, I checked before we left,” Dad replied.

  They consulted further in hushed tones.

  “There are men moving about,” Mom finally said. “I can see them.”

  We looked, and there were indeed several men moving about between the house and the driveway. Light came from flashlight beams bouncing on the side of the house. Low voices could now be heard.

  Dad had enough. Without a word he wheeled Molly around on the dirt road. And away we went, tearing back toward David Peachey’s place. Molly broke into a gallop, lashed on by Dad’s thrashing of the reins. I hung onto the side of the wagon, the night wind rushing across my face. The faster we went, the more noise we made. The thudding of Molly’s hooves, the bouncing of the wagon wheels across the ruts in the road, the wild clanging of harness chains against the steel wagon shafts. One of my sisters claimed only recently that her knees were knocking together that night from sheer terror.

  We raced past the children’s home, never slowing down. Dashing up the slope we must have sounded like a rolling nightmare ever drawing nearer to the Peacheys. David Peachey came out on the porch with his gas lantern, an astonished look on his face.

  Dad brought old Molly to a stop by their wooden fence and her sides were heaving.

  “Is there a problem?” David asked.

  “There were people in front of our house with lights,” Dad said.

  “Do you think they were robbers?”

  “We don’t know,” Dad said. “And neither do I want to find out.”

  David seemed to understand, making no effort to persuade Dad otherwise. He opened his home to us for the night. Molly was unhitched and turned into the field. Where everyone slept, I can’t remember, but I ended up in the basement thankful just to be alive.

  In the morning, once the sun was shining, Dad went to investigate, leaving us at the Peacheys. He came back to report that nothing seemed to be amiss. We figured we had escaped the robbers by the skin of our teeth.

  Thanking David, we loaded up and went home. Later in the day we found out that our night visitors had been Uncle Abner on the way home from his produce route. Seems he wanted to drop off some unsold items for our use.

  We should have been embarrassed, I suppose. But I never heard anyone mention anything to that effect. Nor did Uncle Abner do any laughing at our expense. He knew—as they all knew—what it was to be afraid. There had also been gun barrels stuck in Uncle Abner’s ribs on the night of the Great Robbery, and he had not forgotten.

  Fausto took pity on us when we told him the tale, and set out the next weekend to purchase a gun on the theory that nothing had happened, but something was surely bound to happen eventually.

  “Just call me when there’s trouble again,” he told us. “And I’ll shoot in the air.”

  His shack was well within shouting distance of the house, so the plan was workable. I waited for Dad to object on religious grounds, but he said nothing. He never used the plan either, so he might have remained silent so as not to offend Fausto.

  Mom and I, though, had no such co
mpunctions. We were quite willing to use whatever methods were at our disposal. But again it was largely an exercise in foolishness. Sometime during those years, Mom awoke me in the middle of night. Dad was gone on an overnight trip into Tegucigalpa, and she obviously didn’t want to face the situation alone.

  “There are men at the door,” she whispered as I came out of a deep sleep.

  We still lived in the basement of the new house at the time, and I could hear them outside our bedroom window walking about, hammering on the door, shouting for us to open up.

  “We have to do something,” Mom whispered.

  But there was nothing to do while the men were outside our house. So we waited and listened to the stomping feet.

  Great terror produces a great need for bathroom facilities—and quickly. I held it in as the minutes ticked by. By the time things fell silent outside, I was near the explosion point. I snuck quietly into the bathroom. Mom had her head by the window when I came back.

  “We still have to do something,” she told me. “They’re now over at Uncle Stephen’s place.”

  I didn’t question her word. If she said they were at Uncle Stephen’s, I believed her. Besides there were faint sounds of shouting still hanging in the air.

  “We have to call for Fausto’s help,” Mom informed me.

  I rolled the matter over in my mind and came up with no objections to calling for help. Clearly something had to be done before the men came back.

  We crept upstairs, each move an exercise in moving muscles frozen with fear. When I arrived at the open window above the stair door, I leaned close to the screen and hollered, “Fausto! Ladrones! Ayúdenos!”

  Silence fell after my voice shrieked into the darkness. I shivered, hardly able to move but needing the bathroom again.

  When nothing happened, I repeated the call. “Fausto! Thieves! Help us!”

  “Come! It’s not working,” Mom said, pulling on my arm. She was probably afraid we would get caught in front of the open window by the returning men.