Smicksburg Tales 1,2 & 3 (Amish Knitting Circle, Amish Friends Knitting Circle & Amish Knit Lit Cirlce ~ Complete Series: 888 pages for Granny Weaver Lovers and 30+ Amish Recipes

by Karen Anna Vogel

  “Sunday?” Fannie nearly screamed. “He can’t work on Sunday.”

  “He spoke up yesterday and his boss got mad. Said he was tired of the Amish saying they can’t work on Sundays and our other holy days.”

  Granny grimaced. “But there’s laws in place to protect us.”

  “Zach said he’d use them, if it came down to it. He also kept talking about Marathon…”

  Fannie gasped. “Move to New York? You won’t, will you?”

  “I think Zach was just talking out loud. Sure hope so.”

  Jack barked, announcing another buggy had arrived. Maryann and Lavina were soon waving. When Maryann nimbly got out of the buggy and led her horse to the hitching post, Granny’s eyes filled with tears. Maryann had beaten cancer and had more of her energy back, despite radiation therapy. Praise be. And to think Lavina was living with Maryann, who was once her harshest critic. Maryann treats me like Mary Magdalene, Lavina used to say, crying on Granny’s shoulder. Cancer and possible death had made Maryann realize she was also sinning, being so harsh and judgmental toward Lavina. God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to behold.

  ~*~

  Lizzie leaned forward to welcome another kiss. Roman’s lips still tasted like the peppermint tea they’d just shared. Did she need to go to knitting circle? She wanted to live in Roman’s tender embrace. For the past three weeks since the wedding, she feared she’d wake up from the sweetest dream. But the Good Book was true: God could do above and beyond what we hoped or imagined. “I need to go…all the women have arrived.”

  “I know,” Roman said, pulling her tight. “I need to spend some time with my ‘Little Women’ tonight, jah?”

  Lizzie cupped his cheeks. “I love that book. I read Granny’s, I mean, Mamm’s.” She kissed his cheek. “I’m thinking Jenny needs a goot book like that, but one for her age.”

  “She reads as goot as me,” Roman said. “Suzy finds Mamm’s books on the internet, or at Punxsy -Mart. Maybe ask her?”

  “I will. A story that has a step-mamm in it. A nice one who’s concerned.”

  Roman drew her to himself and cradled her head against his shoulder. “Give her time. She remembers Abigail; the twins don’t.”

  “I know, but I just wish she could open my heart and see that she’s in it. I love all the girls, as if they were mine.”

  “They are yours.”

  “You know what I mean. Their real mamm.”

  A knock shook the side door. Soon Melvin’s voice was heard talking to the girls. “You best go over to Mamm’s.” Roman kissed her again. “You know how much knitting circle means to her.”

  “Jah, I do.” Lizzie gave him one last hug before turning to get her knitting loom that now sat in the corner of the living room. She thought back to the first circle meeting and how she avoided Roman. Granny had given her Pride and Prejudice for a wedding present, saying she was indeed a Lizzie, but Lizzie Bennett, and Roman was Mr. Darcy. She’d gobbled up the book over the past weeks and realized how she’d misjudged Roman’s cool way with her. He was so hurt but had hidden it behind a wall of pride.

  She looked up to the pendulum clock. It was seven and she needed to get going and quit being so daydream-like. But then again, she was living in a wunderbar goot dream.

  Lizzie greeted Melvin before she ran over to Granny’s. She waved at the women on the porch, but they seemed a little on edge. What was wrong? As she approached, and the rounds of greetings ceased, she quickly caught on to the conversation.

  “But why don’t we just keep knitting on looms?” Maryann asked. “Becca has one handed down from her oma.”

  Granny wiped the sweat beads forming on her forehead. “Suzy wants us to have knitting circle here because her store’s being remodeled and she wants me to invite folks from the Baptist church. Lots of them…”

  “Ach, Janice is lots of fun. Will she come?” Ella asked.

  “Jah, and that new home they have, Forget Me Not Manor, the Rowland’s old house, is now a place for homeless mamms. We should invite the girls who come to live there.”

  “They need our support,” Lavina said. “I could have been one of them.” She turned to Ella. “So goot to know the twins have a nice cozy home, with you…”

  “Danki, Lavina. And I really mean that,” Ella said, her voice breaking from emotion.

  “But can we knit shawls with needles? It looks hard,” Ruth said.

  “Well, to be honest, I already learned. Suzy taught me…”

  “How come you never mentioned it?” Fannie asked.

  “Didn’t think it was important. Jeb knew…Suzy dyes her own wool and was willing to teach me. I do love color.”

  “And Jeb was fine with it?” Maryann asked.

  “Jah,” Granny said. “God made color. Look at all the flowers popping up.”

  Ella looked up from her loom and cleared her throat. “Suzy’s a goot friend to us all. I’m willing to learn. Emma Miller makes crocheted rag rugs in her store. She said it’s similar to knitting with needles.”

  Lizzie’s mind kept wandering to Jenny. Would she like to learn to knit? Could this be something special they did together? Her stomach did a turn. Jenny seemed to challenge every word she’d said all day. This was part of married life she gave little thought to, being a mamm to the girls. Jenny had always been so excited to see her, and when she was going through counseling, it was Roman and the girls who made dinners for her, trying to show her they could be trusted. Where was the once happy Jenny?

  “Lizzie, what do you think?” Fannie asked.

  “About what?”

  “Daydreaming of your new husband?” Lavina teased.

  “Nee, something else.” She turned to Fannie. “What do I think about what?”

  “Making socks and hats for the homeless.”

  Lizzie nodded. “Sounds like a goot cause. As long as I’m knitting something…so goot for the nerves.”

  Granny stood up and motioned Lizzie to come into the kitchen with her. “Can you help me bring out the angel food cake and ice tea?”

  Lizzie put her arm through her new mamm’s as they went inside the house.

  “Lizzie, don’t let Jenny get you down. She’ll come around, in time.”

  “I hope so. I do worry she’ll never accept me…”

  “You call me Mamm, jah? What did you think of the first time you called me that?”

  Lizzie looked down at the spotless oak floors and the image of her mamm, taken too soon, appeared. “My own mamm…Ach, I see.”

  “Just don’t fret about it. You’ll never be only three weeks married again…”

  Lizzie picked up the tray with paper plates, each having a large piece of angel food on it. “So much cake!”

  Granny snickered. “Jeb loves it so much, I made three. He likes it with fresh strawberries from the patch.”

  Lizzie went back outside and served each woman a piece of cake. When she handed Fannie a plate, they both grinned at each other. “I still think about our wedding, a lot.”

  “If Suzy hadn’t let us use her tent, there’d be no wedding.” Fannie turned to the women in the circle. “Suzy is truly a trusted friend. She wouldn’t ask us to take in Outsiders that would drag us away from our faith. I say we do it.”

  “Me too,” Ruth said. “I’d like to see Marge come. She’ll be living down the road shortly.”

  Granny came out with the iced tea and smiled. “I’m glad some of us are seeing eye to eye.” She looked over at Maryann. “Is it too much contact with the English, or is there something else?”

  Maryann shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. Could be that now that school’s out, I want to spend more time with the kinner…”

  “But you see them all day,” Lizzie said. “I’ve been a mamm for three weeks, and know I need to be with grown women all the more.”

  Maryann looked intently at her cake. “Life is short. Cancer taught me that. What if it comes back? This could be my last summer with my kinner.”

 
Granny leaned forward. “Maryann, did you get some bad news?”

  “Nee, no trace of cancer. But it’ll be a five year wait to be truly cancer free.”

  All was quiet, except for the peeper frogs and katydids. A barn swallow swooped down into the porch and darted back out. Granny shifted in her chair. “Well, I’m sure you’ll be fine, Maryann. But I understand if you want to take the summer off. Will you join us again when school resumes?”

  “Jah, I’d like that.” Maryann looked around the circle. “And I’ll pop in once in a while during the summer.”

  “Well, you’ll need to come on Thursday nights,” Granny said. “Baptist have church on Wednesday nights.”

  “How come?” Fannie asked. “I see cars there at the church every Sunday. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Well, the Baptist church service is shorter than ours, so maybe they have special meetings on Wednesday.” Granny took a bite of cake and looked up at the nesting birds in the porch rafters. “Is everyone, besides Maryann, in agreement? We’ll meet Thursday nights and invite the Baptists?”

  More silence. Lizzie knew Granny was more friendly to Outsiders than the rest of the group. But she was older and wise, so it must be a goot thing, she supposed. “I’m all for it. If you want to knit on Thursday with the Baptists, and other Englishers, raise your hand,” Lizzie said.

  All hands went up except Maryann and Ella’s.

  “Ella, what’s wrong?” Granny asked.

  “With Zach working so much, I don’t know if it’s fair to ask him to watch the twins.”

  Lizzie’s mind raced. Jenny could help keep an eye on the twins. Make her feel needed. She’d played mamm to the twins for years, and maybe she missed it. “Ella, maybe Jenny could come over and help with the twins.”

  “But she’s only seven.”

  “Almost eight…”

  Granny clasped her hands. “I don’t think Jenny could care for twins so young. Ella, you talk to Zach about it. Maybe get a sitter?”

  Nathan came around from the side of the house and walked up on the porch. He looked at Lavina and smiled, then turned to Granny. “Oma, the garden’s been planted.”

  Granny’s eyes were filled with relief. “So goot to have you with us this planting time. There’s egg salad and bread in the icebox. Open a can of chowchow, Jeb and I cleaned off a whole jar of beets.”

  “I will. I’m famished.” He looked over at Lavina again before entering the house.

  Lavina tucked a runaway strand of auburn hair under her prayer kapp, nodded and grinned.

  Granny’s eyes darted from Nathan and then Lavina and then down to her cake. “Nathan is staying here in Smicksburg for goot.” She looked up slowly at Lavina.

  Lavina cleared her throat. “That’s wunderbar.”

  “So many changes here since the last circle began,” Fannie said. “And all goot, jah?”

  “Jah,” the women said in unison.

  ~*~

  Lavina hugged the dear women in the circle before leaving. How much healing she’d experienced by just being accepted by another human being for who she was. Suddenly, anger stirred within. Why didn’t she ever feel loved growing up? Why was her daed such a harsh man and her mamm so quiet? If she only had parents like Granny and Jeb, she’d never had looked for love in another man’s arms at such a young age.

  An image of her with Christian, in bed, made nausea wash over her. She was only fifteen and he was nineteen. Christian had started seducing her at fourteen, and controlled her in a year. How he’d withhold any affection, even an embrace, if she stepped outside his well-defined “terms” in the relationship.

  She watched as Ella left, and thanked God her twins were being raised in a loving home. In an odd turn of events, the twins were her salvation. Maternal love woke her up to all the lack in her life. When Christian and her daed threatened her to confess before the congregation that she didn’t know who the father was, she knew the twins had to be raised elsewhere. But sometimes, she longed for them…to be their mamm. A sharp pain stabbed her stomach and she reached for her middle.

  Lavina felt an arm around her shoulder and recoiled. But it was Nathan, the one man who treated her so differently. “Ach, you scared me.”

  “I scared you? By touching your shoulder?”

  “Jah. A little nervous today.”

  “Hop in the buggy and we’ll take a stroll and loosen you up.”

  Lavina took Nathan’s hand and got into the buggy. What did he mean, loosen me up? Were all men like Christian? She wiped her sweaty palms on her black apron. Surely not…

  Nathan hopped into his side of the buggy and urged the horse forward. Lavina waved at Granny and Jeb standing on the porch, barely making them out in the twilight. Was it concern on their faces? She looked ahead, trying to relax.

  Nathan took her hand. “So you heard I’m staying in Smicksburg, jah?”

  “Jah.”

  “Can you guess why?”

  Lavina looked into Nathan’s penetrating blue eyes. “Nee…”

  He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Found someone I want to know better.”

  Lavina felt like embracing this man, who’d been only pure kindness the day they met at Granny’s seventieth birthday in February. Over the past three months, they’d gone out in groups, but now he said he wanted to be alone…to know her. What did that mean?

  Nathan put his arm around her. “Lavina. You don’t seem happy I’m staying. Did I do something wrong?”

  She pursed her lips, and looked down. “I’m afraid, is all.”

  “Of what?” Nathan turned the buggy right onto the main street and then a sharp turn left on to a deserted dirt road.

  Lavina smelt the pungent aroma of apple blossoms, but the sickening image of Christian taking her down dirt roads overcame her. She put her trembling hands over her face. No, this can’t be happening again! When Nathan pulled the buggy over to the side of the road, she turned to him, fury rising within her. “Nathan, I won’t do it.”

  Nathan took off his straw hat and raked his fingers through his brown hair. “Lavina. This is our first buggy ride alone and I wanted to make it special.” He reached to the back seat and put a little white box in her hand. “I got you some fudge at the Sampler.”

  Lavina looked at Nathan again. He had not one trace of lust in his voice or eyes. Could it be that there were men like Jeb her age?

  He took her by the shoulders. “Lavina, look at me. I know about the twins. About Christian. I am not him. Understand?”

  The scent of the blossoms filled her and peace settled over her soul. He did know her whole story, yet cared for her. He was so much like the Jesus she loved; the merciful God who said, “He who is without sin, cast the first stone….” She let Nathan embrace her and years of shame and pain seemed to fall off. She whispered in his ear. “Danki.”

  He gently took her chin and kissed her lips. “For what?”

  “For the healing…you know.”

  He kissed her cheek and then her nose. “It’s God who heals, jah?”

  “But it’s nice to see Him in a man. Didn’t know it really existed until I met Jeb.”

  Nathan sighed. “My opa is a goot man, but most men are like him. You just came from…”

  “The pit of he--?” Lavina clasped her hands over her mouth. “Ach, I didn’t mean to say such a thing.”

  Nathan grinned. “Well, it is a word in the Bible.” He put his hand on her cheek. “Was it that bad?”

  A tear slipped down her cheek. “Jah, it was. And I get so angry sometimes.”

  “Have you sought advice from an older woman in our Gmay?”

  “Jah. Maryann. And she helped a lot. I also talked to Marge.”

  “Marge? She’s not Amish.”

  “I know, but she came to the house all the time when Maryann was getting radiation. We talked a lot, and she has strong views about what happened to me. Called it abuse.”

  He took her hand. “My oma and opa love their dog, Jack. They rescued
him from an abusive home. I remember Jack used to be skittish, but love cured him.” He kissed her hand. “The more you’re loved, you’ll be as mellow as Jack, too.”

  More tears fell down her cheeks but she didn’t care. She let Nathan brush them aside. This was what a normal relationship was like. What Maryann and Michael had…Granny and Jeb, too. It’s what she’d longed for her whole life. She thanked God for Nathan as he drew near to kiss her, tenderly.

  ~*~

  The next morning, after chores, Jeb hitched up the buggy for Granny and she kissed his cheek. “Danki, Love.”

  “Want me to come?”

  “Nee, I’ll be fine.”

  “Spending too much time with the English lately…”

  “Jebediah, I am going to a home for single mamms. Helping those in need, Amish or English.”

  Jeb winked. “Don’t get your dander up, Deborah. I’m actually proud of you.”

  “Not goot to be proud.”

  Jeb scratched his head. “Okay, you’re like everything an elder’s wife should be…like the Good Book says. Given to hospitality and helping the needy.”

  Granny felt a rush of emotions, as if she were a teenager again and Jeb her steady boyfriend. “Jeb, you’ll make me blush.” She cleared her throat. “Want something special for dinner or something…”

  Jeb chuckled. “You cook so goot, I can’t pick a favorite.”

  “Jebediah, what are you getting at?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Can’t a man give a compliment? I don’t want anything. You women folk are always looking for some hidden meaning.”

  She kissed his cheek again. “Sorry, Love. Now make sure to pay attention to Jenny. She told me she hardly ever catches a fish.”

  Jeb grinned. “I’ll make sure she ‘catches’ a whopper.”

  Granny spryly hopped into the buggy, smiled at Jeb, and then clucked her tongue to make the horse move forward. When passing her large lilac bushes on the side of her house, she inhaled and closed her eyes for a second. How she relished the month of May; the scent of lilacs along with the blossoms from their many fruit trees filled the air, but nothing could compare to the scent of her roses. Her beloved roses were a testament to the daughter she never had, the daughter that was still born.