IN PLAIN View

by Olivia Newport

  “It might be hard for me to get away on short notice, too, Mom.”

  “But Penny’s only going to be here for a few days. She’s coming all the way from Seattle. Can’t you come seventy-five miles? I’d like to have You both home at the same time.”

  “I know, Mom. I’m not sure about tomorrow, that’s all. I’ll have to figure out my work schedule.”

  Myra waved a hand. “You don’t even need that job.”

  “I need work for reasons other than money.”

  “If you need something,” Brad said, “you let me know.”

  “Don’t be silly, Brad.” Myra pushed her empty plate away. “She has more money than you and I can ever dream of.”

  Annie groaned. “Mom, we’ve been through this. I only have what I made when I sold my condo. I have to be careful. It has to last me indefinitely. All the profits from the sale of the business went into a charity foundation. I can’t touch it.”

  “Your compassionate humanitarianism is admirable, but why you left yourself in need, I’ll never understand.”

  “I’m not in need,” Annie said. “I’m just living more simply, and it’s good to have work.”

  “But in an antiques store? Why don’t the Amish rules let you make money with what you know how to do—technology?”

  “This is what I want, Mom. You have to accept it.”

  “But they put such value on family. We’re your family. Surely They would want you to see your sister.”

  “I do want to see Penny.” Annie missed her sister, who had not written so much as a thank-you note in at least five years. They used to communicate by texting most of the time. Annie had written two letters explaining the changes in her life, but she heard Penny’s reaction only through their mother on the phone. “How long will she be here?”

  “Just until Thursday. It’s a short visit. You must come home.”

  “Please come,” Brad said. “We can have dinner together a few times and catch up.”

  As determined as Annie had been over the winter to live without electricity and a car, and to learn to cook her own food instead of ordering takeout every night, she would be lying if she said she did not miss her family. But Mrs. Weichert was counting on her to look after the shop in the morning, and Franey Beiler was expecting her tomorrow afternoon.

  “I’ll figure something out.” Annie’s eyes suddenly ached to close, and she clamped her jaw against the urge to yawn.

  Brad stood up and started stacking dishes, a habit Annie had always admired in her father. If she did not stop him, he would take the dishes into the kitchen and insist on washing them.

  “That’s a beautiful shelf.” Brad glanced at a white oak shelf fixed to the wall beside the dining room window.

  “Thank you. Rufus made it.”

  Brad inspected the carved pattern along the front ledge. “He’s quite skilled.”

  “I know.” Pride flushed through Annie, and she reminded herself. Humility, humility, humility.

  “And these books?” her father asked. A dozen or so volumes in various colors and thicknesses populated the shelf.

  “Various genealogy books,” Annie said. “Several have come from Amish families, but the rest have come through the antiques shop. Mrs. Weichert doesn’t mind if I take them.”

  “Are they all about the Beilers?”

  Annie shook her head. “Most of them are not. I’ve gotten interested in the whole idea of tracing the generations back in any family.”

  Brad pulled a slim black binder off the shelf and opened it. “Is this the book you found in our basement?”

  “Yep. That’s your Byler roots, going all the way back to Jakob Beyeler in 1737.”

  “I thought it had a spiral binding,” Myra said.

  “I figured it would hold up better in a notebook with page protectors.”

  “That’s a nice thought.”

  “That red volume is all about the Bylers of North Carolina.”

  “Are we related?”

  “I’m pretty sure. I’d like to spend more time studying the family lines than I have.”

  Brad chuckled. “I’ll let you give me the abbreviated version, but I admit I find it fascinating that my mother’s family may be related to the very people you’ve become so attached to here.”

  “Me, too.” Annie covered a yawn. “Sorry.”

  “We’re all tired.” Myra stood and picked up the coffeepot and creamer. She disappeared into the kitchen, still talking. “We’ll pick you up for breakfast. Not too early, though. How about eight thirty?”

  “Sorry, Mom. Mrs. Weichert is going to an estate sale in the morning. I have to be in the shop.”

  “Will it matter if you’re late? How many customers do you get, anyway?”

  Annie had to admit traffic was slow most days, but Saturday was likely to bring weekend lookers. “I promised her, Mom. She’s counting on me.”

  “Well all right, then. We can have lunch in that quaint bakery down the street before we head back to town.”

  “Let’s figure that out tomorrow.” Annie stifled another yawn.

  “Will you have your phone on?” Myra looked as if she already knew the answer.

  Annie wondered why her mother insisted on pressing the question. “I’m sure I can get a message to you at Mo’s. I’ll use the phone in the shop.”

  “But you’ll definitely go home with us as soon as you’re free?”

  “Mom, I do want to see Penny. I’m just not sure about tomorrow.”

  Four

  October 1774

  Push!”

  At her mother-in-law’s command, Katie Byler grunted and bore down.

  In the other room, Jacob heard the urgency in his mother’s voice and the resolve in his wife’s guttural response. It would not be long now.

  Jacob soothed one of the twins by jiggling the child on his knee. He welcomed the other to lean against his leg. At two, the twins were too young to know what caused their mamm to make those sounds, and he saw terror in their round, ruddy, silent faces. At seven and five, their older brothers, Jacob Franklin and Abraham, remembered the twins’ arrival and were less concerned about the event.

  Four boys, all of them sturdy and healthy. Katie wanted a girl this time. A little sister.

  Jacob’s own sister was supposed to come from Philadelphia to help, but Katie had gone from uneventfully stirring the morning porridge to digging fingernails into his arm in the space of four minutes—three weeks earlier than anyone imagined. All the boys had been tediously late, even the twins. So with or without Sarah’s presence, this baby was coming. It was all Jacob could do to send seven-year-old Jacob Franklin sprinting across the acres to fetch his grandmother from the big house. Soon after her arrival, Elizabeth Byler pronounced the child would appear before lunch. Jacob could not see how it was going to take even that long. Katie’s scream melded into the wail of the new baby protesting an abrupt arrival into the chilly room.

  “A girl!” Jacob’s mother called.

  Jacob stood and thrust the reluctant twins toward Jacob Franklin. He had to see for himself that Katie was all right.

  At the bedroom door, he stopped and smiled. Katie was already grinning. She eagerly caught his eye.

  “A girl,” she said.

  “A girl!” Jacob softened in satisfaction. Their daughter continued her objections while her grandmother wrapped her in a towel and placed her on Katie’s chest. Katie counted fingers and toes as she had with all their children. Jacob moved closer to the bed.

  “She has your forehead, Elizabeth.” Katie gently rotated the child to get a good look at both sides of her face.

  “Perhaps not my best feature.” Elizabeth discreetly positioned a clean rag under Katie to await the afterbirth.

  Jacob soaked up his wife’s pleasure, glimpsing the depth of her yearning for a girl after four boys.

  “Her aunt Sarah has four brothers,” Katie said. “Your sister will have to teach this little one how she survived.”


  Jacob put his massive hand around the back of the baby’s head. “For starters, Sarah never once let us take advantage of her.”

  His mother laughed as long-past years lit her eyes. She had borne five children but mothered ten, taking into her heart Jacob’s older Amish half siblings.

  He knew the story well. Both his parents had told it often. More than thirty-five years ago, after surviving a treacherous sea journey without losing anyone in their family, his five older siblings were abruptly left motherless in Philadelphia, their father crushed in loss. And then Lisbetli found Elizabeth’s heart in a stationer’s shop, and Elizabeth found his father’s heart. The bookish woman of the city married the homesteader and moved to the wilderness, where she labored with five children she could call her own no matter what.

  No matter what.

  His Amish siblings loved her. Jacob believed that. Who could not love Elizabeth Kallen Byler and her gentle, self-sacrificing ways? Yet she refused to convert to the Amish faith, and for that the Amish siblings put on her the weight of luring their father away from the church.

  And now this woman who had loved them all moved about the room cleaning up and delicately setting aside a bucket and soiled cloths. Her movements were swift and efficient, as she made sure Katie was as comfortable as possible. She stepped to the other side of the bed and pulled a quilt up over her daughter-in-law then paused to lay one last damp cloth across Katie’s forehead.

  His father had made his own choice. Jacob had no doubt. And his mother made hers.

  The others were gone now. Lisbetli was in her grave, and Maria disappeared years ago, run away to who knew where. Unwilling to raise arms in skirmishes with Indians or the French, Christian sold his land and moved to the Conestoga Valley, farther from the frontier. Land the Amish had labored to clear and make farms of was now quite valuable, so other Amish families followed Christian, including Jacob’s half-sisters Barbara and Anna. Eventually many of the Amish settled in a reconfigured Lancaster County, while Jacob remained on land that became part of Berks County.

  “We should write to them.” Katie looked up at Jacob, reading her husband’s mind as she always had. “Your sisters will want to know about the babe.”

  Jacob nodded. “What would you like to call her?”

  Katie shifted the infant into Jacob’s arms. “Her name is Catherine.”

  “That’s a big name for a little one.”

  “She’ll grow into it. They all do.”

  A wail from the front room reminded them that Catherine’s four older brothers were unattended.

  “I’ll go, Jacobli. You should be here now.” Elizabeth laid a small quilt over the child nestled in his arms, quieted now. Jacob recognized it. All his children had slumbered under it in newness, warmed by a token of their grandmother’s love.

  Elizabeth left the room, and Jacob handed the baby back to Katie.

  “I’ll stoke the fire,” he said. “It’s too chilly in here for a babe.”

  Katie pulled the bedding up to where she held the child against her chest.

  “Then I’ll get you some food,” Jacob said. “And tea.”

  “Your brothers will be along soon, I suppose,” Katie said.

  Jacob nodded. “By now John will have noticed I’m not at the tannery today. He’ll call Joseph and David in from the fields.”

  “Your family does rally around a new babe. I have to say that about them.”

  “You might say a great deal more about them, but God has graced you with forbearance.”

  She laughed. “They are my family, too,” she said. “Send them in as soon as they come. Sarah should be here tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow. Jacob was relieved it was not next week after all.

  Magdalena Byler stood at the end of the lane, shading her eyes with one hand. Nathanael was late. If pressed, she would have to admit he was late habitually, but no matter when he turned up her heart quickened. He was twenty-two to her seventeen years. If they spoke to the bishop soon, they might yet marry before this year’s wedding season passed.

  The approaching cart stirred up dust before she heard the clatter of horses’ hooves and wagon wheels. Nathanael would have come on foot. This must be Nicholas, the English who carried mail from Lancaster to the outlying farms twice a week. Magdalena raised one corner of her shawl to spare her lungs the whirling dust.

  Nicholas waited till the last moment to pull on the reins, just as He always did.

  “Guder mariye, Nicholas. Good morning. What do you have for us today?”

  He passed her a bundle of envelopes tied together with string. “One is from Berks County.”

  “My onkel.” Magdalena pulled the knot out of the string and began to flip through the stack. She paused when she recognized the blockish lettering of Jacob, her father’s younger half brother. “It must be news of the baby.”

  “You can tell me all about it next time,” Nicholas said. “Nothing going out?”

  “Not today. Danki, Nicholas.”

  The horse resumed its trot. Magdalena scanned the road again, looking for any sign of Nathanael. Nothing stirred on the horizon. She was tempted to tear the end of the envelope, but it was addressed to her father and his wife. After one more glance around, she chose to take the letters to her father. Nathan could find her there.

  Her parents had brought the family to the Conestoga Valley several years earlier. Her mother’s death, just two years ago, stunned them all. But Christian Byler, her father, lost little time in marrying again to another Yoder daughter. Now he and Babsi coddled a baby of their own. With three brothers and three sisters, Magdalena had thought herself too old to become a sister again, but of course no one could resist baby Antje’s blond curls and violet-blue eyes.

  Magdalena decided to go to the barn rather than the house. Her father was sure to be there. She was curious enough about Onkel Jacob’s news to want her daed to open that letter, even if he read the rest when he was sitting comfortably in his chair by the fire. Magdalena found him right where she expected, standing in the hayloft with a pitchfork in his hands. When he saw her, he thrust the implement upright into the hay and leaned on it to look at her.

  “Onkel Jacobli has sent a letter.” Magdalena waved the entire mail packet up for her father to see.

  Christian Byler wiped his hands on his pants then carefully maneuvered down the sturdy ladder to the main floor. At fortyfive, he still seemed robust to Magdalena. He did not ask younger men to do what he was not willing to do himself. The end of his brown curly beard rested against his chest as he took the stack of mail from Magdalena.

  She had laid Jacob’s letter on top. Her father now carefully broke through the end of the envelope and extracted a single sheet of paper.

  “Maedel. A girl,” Christian said a moment later. “They’re calling her Catherine.”

  Magdalena smiled. “A pretty name. When did she come?”

  “Nearly three weeks ago. Sarah is there now. All is well.” Christian looked up. “I thought you were to walk with Nathanael Buerki this morning.”

  “I am.”

  “He’s late.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you sure you want to spend your life waiting on this man?”

  Magdalena nodded. Nathanael’s perpetual tardiness bothered her father more than it did her. “He is worth it.”

  “You had better be sure.”

  “I am.”

  “You could have been married last year. He has his own land with a cabin. It’s not the house you’re used to, but it would serve you well for now.”

  “The cabin is fine. We’ll marry when the time is right.” Magdalena hoped it would be soon. “I’d better go back up to the road to wait for him.”

  Nathan was there when Magdalena reached the end of the lane again. He looked over his shoulder as he hustled her down the road.

  “What’s wrong, Nathan?”

  “Patriots,” he said. “I saw a gang of them on the ridge.”

  “They could
be there for any number of reasons,” Magdalena said. “One of their meetings, perhaps.”

  “I had a bad feeling, Maggie. From up there they can see the road in both directions. You never know when they will drop down.”

  “I don’t understand why they cannot leave us alone. Is it so terrible that the Amish want to be neutral and peaceful?”

  “Ever since the Patriots dumped tea in the Boston Harbor, there is no such thing as neutral in their minds.” Nathanael slowed his steps and reached for Magdalena’s arm when she got a few steps ahead of him.

  “You said they were on the ridge,” Magdalena said.

  “I think they’ve moved,” Nathan whispered.

  Magdalena gasped and clutched Nathanael’s hand as four young men lunged from bushes beside the road.

  One of the men broke from the others and sliced between Magdalena and Nathanael, knocking her down at the side of the road and pinning her shoulders there. She stared into his gray eyes. He was Stephen Blackburn. His family had arrived in the Conestoga Valley the same year hers had. They were hardly more than children when they first met. He was English, but he had never threatened harm.

  “Don’t try anything.” He gave her shoulder an extra shove; then he stood up.

  What did he think she would try? She was Amish. She would not strike him or purposefully cause him harm. And neither would Nathan.

  The foursome now circled a frozen Nathanael.

  “Have you considered the hypocrisy of your position?” Stephen taunted. “Your people came to America seeking freedom, but now that the British threaten the freedom of all the colonies, you will not stand up against persecution.”

  Magdalena watched Nathanael’s Adam’s apple descend in a slow swallow.

  “We are peaceful people,” Nathanael said. “We would be hypocrites if we were suddenly to take up arms.”

  “There will be a war, you know,” Stephen said. “You will have to decide whether your allegiance belongs to Britain or America.”

  “My allegiance belongs to God alone.”

  “But you live in Pennsylvania. You must have some sense of patriotism.”

  Nathanael did not answer. Still tasting dirt, Magdalena was afraid to move.