Meek and Mild

by Newport, Olivia

  But Andrew did not stop.

  He did not even catch Yonnie’s eye.

  Instead, he walked past as if he were shunning Yonnie and joined John Stutzman and several other men only a few feet away.

  A shaft of heat burned up through Yonnie’s torso and lodged in his throat. Andrew’s behavior only proved the necessity of the decision Yonnie had made. Regret billowed. He should never have let another ten days pass before trying again to see the bishop privately.

  Mose called the congregational meeting to order. Beside him at the front of the meetinghouse sat Joseph Yoder.

  “We are meeting today,” Mose said, “at the request of some of our members to consider a clarified understanding of recent teaching in our church. Specifically, members have raised questions about the meidung that the bishop called for a few weeks ago.”

  Joseph Yoder cleared his throat and glanced at his father’s stiff pose. “May I remind everyone that the meidung is not new. My father merely asks us to be obedient to the unanimous congregational vote taken many years ago.”

  Caleb Schrock stood up. “I believe our brother refers to the vote taken in 1895, when many of us were children or just beginning our own families. The congregation has seen many changes since then.”

  Does truth change? Yonnie thought. Does the Bible’s teaching change with the generation? No.

  Yonnie watched the bishop, waiting for him to speak. Slowly, Yonnie nodded in understanding. This was a time for the Yoder sons to show the strength of their own leadership. Bishop Yoder was training his sons for their calling.

  Now John Stutzman stood. “Our brother Mose brought us the Word of God today. I believe God gave Mose words that we need to fully consider. What does it mean to live peaceably? Did not the church members who peacefully divided the Old Order from the Conservative Amish Mennonites live peaceably? There was no rancor in the separation of the two districts, and people were free to go where their consciences led them. The broken peace comes only with the insistence of meidung.”

  John sat down.

  Noah Yoder stood. “We must not misunderstand the meidung as an instrument of punishment. It is an instrument of reconciliation.”

  That’s right, Yonnie thought. He had heard this message from Bishop Yoder all his life.

  The Yoders read from the Bible the command to separate from the heathen.

  Mose had just finished preaching the Bible’s command to live peaceably with all.

  Yonnie was looking for the line that would connect these two commands. How was it possible to obey both?

  As Bishop Yoder intoned a solemn closing prayer, Andrew was uncertain what the meeting had accomplished. Nothing that was said would lead anyone to a change of mind about the need for shunning friends and relatives who worshipped on the Maryland side of the border, and no one suggested a new formal congregational vote on the question. Neither those who spoke nor those who kept silent surprised Andrew.

  Nothing had changed.

  People milled between the benches, exchanging news and opinions. Andrew doubted anyone would forgo the shared meal. Amish farms were spread widely enough that many families did not see each other except on church Sundays or organized frolics. The fellowship was as essential as the worship or a congregational meeting.

  Andrew drifted toward John Stutzman, who was restoring order to the furniture at the front of the meetinghouse.

  “Thank you for speaking up,” Andrew said. “Many in the congregation agree with you.”

  “More should speak up,” John said. “The ministers should know what is on our minds.”

  “They know.” Andrew’s fingers thrummed the high back of a chair. “They’ve known for years.” The fall communion was coming. No one would want to defy the bishop and imperil communion for everyone.

  “Mose gave a good sermon.”

  Andrew nodded. “It’s puzzling why he does not have more opportunity to preach. With four ministers, he should be preaching one sermon out of four.”

  “The lot only means that each Sunday Mose has a one in four chance he will be called on. What happens one week has nothing to do with the next.”

  It seemed to Andrew that over time the odds should even out more than they did. “Folks might find greater appreciation for the sermons if Mose preached more often.”

  “Gottes wille.” John gestured to shift Andrew’s attention. “Here comes someone you might like to hear from.”

  “Good morning, Clara.” Andrew hoped his smile was sincere without revealing too much.

  “Good morning,” Clara said. “I hope you are both well.”

  The two men nodded. Andrew considered Clara’s features and coloring. The same strain that distracted her in this place the week before—when he helped clean up her bucket, rags, and broom—gripped her now. He knew her well enough to know when the smile on her face was an intentional arrangement of muscles and not a spontaneous response to what her eyes saw.

  Clara glanced around. “I haven’t seen any of the Brennermans today.”

  “I heard there was illness in the house,” John said.

  “Not little Naomi, I hope.”

  “Her mother, I believe,” John said. “She’s been poorly for several days.”

  “She must be very ill for the whole family to stay home,” Clara said.

  “Perhaps several of them are afflicted now,” John said.

  John made reasonable statements. He could not know that Clara would be particularly concerned for Naomi.

  Fannie washed supper dishes while Elam sat at the kitchen table with paper and pencil in front of him. This was his Sunday evening ritual. After observing the Sabbath all day, whether or not it was a church Sunday, after the evening meal his mind invariably turned to the week ahead—what attention the crops needed, signs of ill health in the animals, the horseshoes requiring replacing, the repair of a buggy wheel.

  Fannie did not mind. Elam was working hard to care for the family, as small as it was, and Fannie had her own thoughts to manage.

  “I miss Clara,” she murmured.

  “Mmm?” Elam did not look up.

  “Clara is the sister I never had,” Fannie said. In the old days she would have told Elam her every thought. Lately she said little to him other than matters of the household. But Clara was important. She sat at the table across from her husband, and he finally lifted his eyes to her.

  “Has she written?” Elam said.

  Fannie waved a hand. “A silly letter about how the summer is passing so fast and she hopes Sadie is well.”

  “What is silly about that?”

  “It’s not the kind of letter Clara writes. Something’s wrong.”

  “So write to her.”

  “I have. I invited her to come here and stay.”

  “You know she’s always welcome.”

  Elam had not a bone of jealousy about his wife’s affection for her cousin, something that always had endeared him to Fannie.

  “We must persuade her,” Fannie said. “It’s not like her to be silent.” She gave no voice to the abandonment she felt. Her disconnection from her own family was her doing, but she could think of nothing she had done to cut herself off from Clara.

  “So write to her again.” Elam shifted papers in front of him.

  “She should think about joining the Marylanders. Surely Andrew would agree. His own family is in Lancaster County. He’s on his own with that farm, and he’s not a strict man. He would do anything to make Clara happy.”

  At this point, Elam put down his pencil and gave full attention to the conversation. “Just what do you know about Andrew Raber and Clara?”

  “Clara speaks of him from time to time.” Clara had confided Andrew’s multiple proposals, but Fannie saw no reason to reveal details. She was thinking aloud when she spoke of Andrew, falling into the old habit of telling Elam everything as if they shared one mind. Fannie surprised herself. In the restraint of the last few months, the lack of a baby hung in the middle of every conversa
tion between them, and it had become easier not to talk.

  Elam raised his eyebrows.

  “Never mind Andrew,” Fannie said. “Clara should make her own decision about which church God wants her to be in. If she comes to visit, we will give her every reason to visit our congregation.”

  Elam half smiled. “Just give Sadie permission to nag.”

  Fannie surprised herself again and laughed softly as she returned to the dishes.

  Clara cooked on Monday—not for her family but for the Brennermans. When Rhoda took the children with her into Springs for some shopping, Clara took over the kitchen. By the time Rhoda returned, Clara had a pot of chicken soup, a casserole laden with garden vegetables—but no celery—and bread with sliced cheese. If one dish did not appeal, surely another would. It would all bring nourishment, even if only a bite or two at a time. Clara wrapped everything in towels to hold in the warmth and arranged the items carefully in a milk crate to put in the cart. Rhoda had her arms full of a fussy, overtired three-year-old and offered no objection to Clara’s departure with the horse and cart.

  Having a purpose invigorated Clara. After a summer of aimless wandering and finding her friends busy with their own young families, she relished the thought of easing Mrs. Brennerman’s day. She sat up straight on the cart’s bench and insisted the horse oblige with a brisk pace for the entire six miles.

  The Brennerman yard was quiet, and Clara’s alarm heightened. The family had seven children. Someone ought to be outside playing or weeding the vegetable garden or beating rugs. Two chickens clucked and fluttered from their positions on the front steps as Clara carried her crate to the door and knocked.

  Clara hoped the only reason the windows were closed and shuttered was a defense against August heat pressing in. Finally she heard shuffling from within, and the front door opened. Mrs. Brennerman, beleaguered and pale, stood before her.

  “We have sickness,” Mrs. Brennerman said. “You ought not to come in.”

  “I only came to help.” Clara gestured to the crate. “I brought some food.”

  “Thank you, but no.”

  A series of flabbergasted sounds passed Clara’s throat, but none of them were words. She cocked her head.

  “Naomi told me all about your stories,” Mrs. Brennerman said.

  “I see.” The crate suddenly weighed heavy in Clara’s arms. She set it on the porch. “How many of you are feeling poorly? I thought it might be helpful if you didn’t have to fix food.”

  “Are you going to confess your sin to the congregation?”

  For a woman with a houseful of illness, Mrs. Brennerman was stubborn. Clara chose her words with deliberation.

  “How can stories from the Bible be sin?” she said.

  “If that’s how you feel, then you won’t mind if the bishop knows.”

  Clara’s spine tingled as it straightened. First Mrs. Schrock—whose rebuke at least had been gentle—and now Mrs. Brennerman. Lillian’s mother would be next, and the trail from there to Rhoda would be short. Clara could not take back the stories she had told, nor did she want to. This was the moment in which the realization took full form. No, she would not mind if Bishop Yoder heard about the stories. Living in fear was no way to receive a gift from God’s hand.

  “Do what your conscience tells you is right,” Clara said, “but my food will bring only good to your children. I hope it will offer you a moment of needed rest.”

  She turned and strode toward her cart without looking back.

  The decision to see the bishop on Tuesday afternoon was an impulse. Andrew allowed that it might even be the prodding of the Holy Ghost. He paused only briefly at the intersection before taking the turn toward the Yoder farm. If the Bishop Yoder was not there, Andrew would only have lost an hour of his afternoon. Gottes wille. He murmured a prayer for a kind and merciful conversation.

  The bishop opened the door himself. “Scrappy Andy.”

  The nickname had fallen away once Andrew’s parents moved to Lancaster County and he no longer shared his father’s full name in the same congregation. The bishop’s use of it unsettled Andrew.

  “I wonder if you have time to talk,” Andrew said.

  “I will heat up the kaffi.”

  “Please don’t go to any trouble.”

  Bishop Yoder had already turned to lead the way through the house to the kitchen at the back. He lit the stove. Andrew wondered if the coffee had been in the pot since breakfast.

  “What has God put on your heart to speak to me about?” Bishop Yoder pulled a chair from the table for Andrew to sit in.

  He was breathing heavily, it seemed to Andrew.

  “If you are unwell,” he said, “I can come to talk another time.”

  “I’m not as young as I used to be,” Bishop Yoder said, “but it’s nothing a cup of kaffi won’t help mend.”

  The coffee turned out to be lukewarm and bitter, which did not seem to bother the bishop. Andrew took a few polite sips before abandoning the effort.

  “What brings you here?” The bishop raised an eyebrow.

  “The congregational meeting has been on my mind.”

  “The lessons are not buried so deeply. They will find them.”

  “Perhaps,” Andrew said, “a middle way?”

  “The pages of the Bible are one.”

  Andrew inspected the bishop’s reddening face. “Help me understand your meaning.”

  “We look into a glass darkly. Thus saith the Lord.” Bishop Yoder stared into his cup before abruptly lifting it to swallow its contents in one gulp.

  “The congregation,” Andrew said.

  “The ninety-nine and the one. The word of the Lord is irrefutable.”

  Andrew had found little to agree with in the bishop’s recent sermons, but at least their meaning had been clear. These riddles befuddled Andrew—if that is what they were.

  The back door opened. Mrs. Yoder entered with a basket of vegetables over her arm, black earth still clinging in clumps to blotches of green and orange.

  “Am I interrupting?” she said.

  “Scrappy Andy had a question, which I have just finished answering,” her husband said.

  Andrew stood, puzzling how he might ask Mrs. Yoder if her husband had fallen ill in the last two days. Though the bishop had been quiet during Sunday’s service and the meeting that followed, no one had remarked that he seemed unwell.

  “You ought to stick to your appointments.” Mrs. Yoder touched her husband’s shoulder before setting the basket on the counter and glancing at Andrew. “The bishop has always preferred to give careful thought to how to respond to a spiritual matter.”

  Illumination washed over Andrew. She was protecting her husband.

  “The lessons are not buried so deeply. They will find them.”

  “The pages of the Bible are one.”

  “We look into a glass darkly. Thus saith the Lord.”

  “The ninety-nine and the one. The word of the Lord is irrefutable.”

  Caroline Yoder, Andrew realized, was not surprised that her husband might not make sense.

  “Is it today?” Sadie asked.

  “Is what today?” Fannie leaned forward in the glider and reached for a foot to rub. Lately her feet were not happy in shoes and not happy barefoot.

  “The quilts. The ones that aren’t finished yet.”

  “The quilting bee?”

  “Yes. That’s what I mean. This is Wednesday, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid we missed it,” Fannie said.

  “The whole thing? It’s supposed to last all day, isn’t it?”

  Sometimes Fannie wished that Sadie did not listen quite so carefully to the adult conversations around her. She wasn’t sure where Sadie gathered her information, but she’d absorbed it correctly. This was indeed Wednesday, and indeed quilting bees lasted most of the day.

  “It’s too late to go now,” Fannie said.

  “Can’t we still go?”

  Fannie sucked in a breath in the
hope that the exhale would bring patience.

  “It just didn’t work out for us this time,” she said. “There will be another bee.”

  “And we’ll go?” Sadie came close and widened her eyes to stare into her mother’s.

  “We’ll see.” Fannie kissed Sadie’s forehead. “Do you think you could go pick some beans for supper all by yourself?”

  Sadie dashed off for a basket as Fannie knew she would. Her daughter thrived on opportunities to prove her independence.

  Her mother was going to the quilting bee. Plain and simple, that was the reason Fannie could not muster enthusiasm for the event.

  Fannie missed Martha—at least, the balance between them as Fannie waited for a second child. She missed confiding monthly disappointment to her mother. She missed knowing that Martha stood with her in prayer for a child. She missed being in and out of each other’s homes several times each week.

  Martha’s pregnancy changed everything. Fannie could not look at her mother without resentment. And no matter how guilty she might feel about the attitude, she couldn’t change it. Every day that passed, she cared less about it.

  She cared less about everything.

  Fannie leaned back in the glider and pushed it into motion. She was upright, not napping in the middle of the day. In a few minutes she would engage in a needed task. But the effort or normalcy exhausted her.

  The screen door thwacked. The footsteps crossing the kitchen were Elam’s. He came through to the front room.

  “I’ll get your lunch,” Fannie said, though her muscles did not respond to the thought with movement.

  “I expected I would be on my own,” he said. “Isn’t this the quilting bee day?”

  “A bee is a long day,” Fannie said. “If anyone tries to leave early, the others make a fuss. It’s better to stay home if you don’t feel well.”