Hannah reminded herself that she wasn’t going very far. The temptation was to keep Clover at a walk the entire way. The only thing was, a slow pace would increase the likelihood of a car happening to come along and pass them. She’d found that terrifying when she was only a passenger, Samuel confidently driving his larger work buggy. On her own, Hannah was afraid she’d have a meltdown.
I wanted to do this, she reminded herself grimly, although she hadn’t dreamed she’d be setting out on her own so soon. Samuel seemed confident she didn’t need much practice.
Point the direction you want to go, sit back, and relax.
Apparently, Daad had plenty of faith in Clover.
Was a prayer excessive? she asked herself. Undoubtedly, but she whispered a verse from Psalms anyway.
“ ‘Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation.’ ”
Feeling remarkably silly but no less nervous, she made herself gently flap the reins and click her tongue again. Without hesitation, Clover broke into a relaxed, ground-eating trot. The untied ribbons attached to Hannah’s kapp rippled. She’d have worried she hadn’t secured the kapp well enough, except she wore a black bonnet atop the kapp. It seemed Amishwomen almost always did when they were traveling or in town.
“It helps to hide our face when the Englischers take pictures, too,” Lilian had told her. Presumably, the brims on the hats worn by the men accomplished the same purpose. Hannah realized she would be offended if some passing tourists took her picture.
Clover had reached the sharp right-hand bend that had confused Hannah the day she was trying to find her father’s address, and followed it without any signal from her driver. From here, it wasn’t half a mile down the road to Gideon’s driveway.
She could do this.
Of course, that’s when she heard a car engine. It was coming up behind her, so she wouldn’t see the vehicle until it, too, came around the bend—and the driver wouldn’t know a buggy was just ahead, either.
Hannah was so stiff she thought she might break. Clover never hesitated in her stride, seeming entirely unperturbed at the approach of what Hannah saw was a big pickup truck when it moved to the oncoming lane to pass her.
Her terror didn’t subside even when she realized the truck was moving slowly and the driver had gone out of the way not to crowd her. An older man, he waved as he passed, and gradually picked up speed. Hannah would swear Clover’s ears didn’t so much as swivel. The mare was completely unconcerned.
Hannah had a bad feeling she’d find big circles of sweat under her arms when she got to Gideon’s, but she blew out a long breath and tried to make herself relax. The sharp striking of Clover’s hooves on the pavement and the whir of the steel-rimmed wheels were rhythmic enough to be lulling, had she been any less tense.
Her gaze latched onto the mailbox, today with the red flag raised, and she eased Clover to a walk and a turn into the driveway, then let her resume her trot.
She passed the house in favor of a hitching post beside the barn doors.
Reining in Clover—although she hardly needed to—Hannah bowed her head forward. She’d made it.
Thank you, Lord.
* * *
* * *
Saturday morning, Gideon had just stepped out his back door to stretch, evaluate the weather, and take a deep breath of fresh air, when he heard the approaching horse and buggy. Samuel, to drop off Hannah, Gideon assumed. He was glad Hannah worked on Saturdays. Mondays were difficult enough, with his getting the kinder ready for school, walking them to the foot of the driveway, then remembering to knock off whatever he was doing at the time of day when they got home. At least he had a good part of the day to work in peace, although he had to prepare dinner.
That was less challenging than it had been, thanks to Hannah; Rebekah had truly become useful in the kitchen.
Still, Gideon and his kinder all dreaded Mondays and looked forward to Hannah’s appearance Tuesday morning, him the most, although he made sure neither Zeb nor Rebekah guessed that was so.
Still hatless, he walked across the grass, his eyebrows climbing at the sight of the two-person buggy, and the horse he didn’t recognize. And, ach, an Amishwoman driving. This was early for Julia or Miriam to come calling—
The brown mare stopped neatly in front of the hitching rail . . . and the woman slumped in her seat. Shocked although he shouldn’t be, Gideon realized this was Hannah. She’d not only driven herself today but wore Amish garb. He would have recognized her sooner were it not for the bonnet. Why had she decided to dress plain for the first time at his house the same day she drove herself?
“Hannah?” he said.
She lifted her head and untied her bonnet ribbons with hands that he thought were shaking, then removed the bonnet to expose a white prayer kapp and the hair that made him think of corn silk after it had darkened.
“That was scary!”
A smile crept over his face. “Did something happen?”
She turned her big eyes on him. “A pickup truck passed me. A giant one!”
His smile died. “Speeding?”
“No.” She sighed, making no move to get out of the buggy. “The driver was polite. He waved.” She sounded as if she’d been insulted. “Clover didn’t even twitch an ear. But I panicked. Wow. I don’t know about this.”
Gideon reached her side of the buggy and stopped, no more than a foot or two from her. “You’ve driven with your daad.”
“That’s not the same.”
The Amish young spent years as passengers in buggies before they eventually learned to drive their own.
For Hannah, this small buggy, not even fully enclosed, must feel flimsy compared to the solid metal cars she was used to.
“You don’t remember riding in a buggy when you were a kind?”
She accepted his hand as she climbed out. “Denke.”
With the contact of their bare hands, Gideon felt all the small hairs on his arm lift. It was a shock of a different kind.
Hannah looked flustered, but he couldn’t tell if she was reacting to his touch, or was only recovering from her new experience.
Gideon was careful to back up several feet, trying not to stare but unable to help himself. This wasn’t the same Hannah.
“I remember talking about horses,” she said, evidently in answer to his question, “and when we passed Amish buggies, I asked if Daadi was driving that one, but my mother always told me not to be silly, my father would never have driven a buggy. It got so I believed her.” She offered him the smile that was twisted enough to show that it hid old hurts.
His least favorite of her smiles.
“I’m sorry.”
Her head turned. “Where are the kinder?”
“Upstairs getting ready. Or squabbling or playing, I’m not sure.”
Her chuckle lifted his spirits. Still . . . he struggled to align his knowledge that this was Hannah, his Englisch employee, with what his eyes told him. A tall, slim Amishwoman stood in front of him, the forest green of her dress bringing out the green in her eyes, the white gauze of the kapp framing her fine-boned face. If she were a visitor attending their worship service, he wouldn’t have been able to look away any more than he could now.
“Your daad said you planned to dress plain, but . . .” He shook his head. “You took me by surprise.”
“Since this is the only dress I have”—she plucked at the skirt—“I decided to save it for the big day when I could drive myself. And I’ll have to try to keep it clean so I can wear it again tomorrow for the service.”
So she would be worshipping with them.
The back door of the house opened and the kinder burst out, running halfway before seeing the buggy and an apparent Amishwoman.
“Daadi?” That was Rebekah, who could still be timid.
“It’s Hannah,” he said, outward calm
hiding an inner turmoil that confused him.
Hannah turned to the kinder, held out her arms, and twirled around once. “So, what do you think?”
Zeb gaped at her. “You look different.”
Rebekah got over her surprise and ran to her, throwing her arms around Hannah’s waist. “You’re dressed like me! I like it.”
“Good.” Hannah touched her head gently. “We have lots of baking to do today. Except, um . . .” She turned back to Gideon. “I don’t know what to do with Clover. Daad started to teach me how to harness her and take it off, too, but I kept making mistakes.”
Gideon prayed his chuckle hid these strange feelings inside him. “Samuel already asked me to take care of your horse once you made it here. I’ll harness her for you at the end of the day, too.”
“Then, denke again.” She steered the kinder toward the house as Gideon spoke quietly to the mare and unhitched her from the buggy.
Hannah’s car and her Englisch clothing had been a good reminder that she was an auslander. With her speaking Deitsh so well, too, anyone meeting her would think she was Amish.
He must take even more care where she was concerned.
* * *
* * *
The family was too large to squeeze into even Samuel’s family buggy, or sedan, as he called it. So on Sunday, Mose and Hannah drove themselves separately, in the same small buggy she took to go to work. It was actually Lilian’s. Having loaned it out, Lilian now either did errands or made visits on Mondays, when Hannah was home, or took Mose’s wagon, good for carrying lumber. Because of Mose’s age and determination to build a business, the family already owned three harness horses. Her usual good-natured, placid self, Clover pulled the buggy this morning. Mose had offered to let her drive, but Hannah had politely declined.
“I’ll watch you.”
He smiled in his reserved way. “Doing it yourself is better.”
“Maybe two weeks from now. Right now, I’m feeling good because I made it back and forth to work yesterday without getting knocked into a ditch, or doing something to make poor Clover bolt.”
“Bolt?”
Able to tell he didn’t get her meaning, she said, “Run so I can’t stop her.”
“One of those big trailer trucks could go by, filling the road, the driver blasting his horn, and Clover wouldn’t even think of running.”
“Really?”
“Really. We drive on the busy highways, too, you know.”
Remembering the buggy she’d passed on the highway when she was arriving in Tompkin’s Mill, she couldn’t help her shudder. “You do. I’ll stick to back roads.”
“Mamm stays on back roads, too.”
“I hear some of the young men race their buggies during their rumspringa,” she said, shifting her gaze from Samuel’s much larger buggy preceding them to Mose’s strong, already calloused hands, so confident on the reins. “It sounds crazy.”
“Ja, that’s true. And it is crazy. I will not be doing it.” He nodded ahead. “We’re almost there.”
“Oh. That wasn’t so far.”
Today’s service was to be held at the home of Melvin and Rosaria Esch. Lilian had explained that, like Julia Bowman, albeit thirty years earlier, Rosaria had become a convert to the Amish faith, her family Italian immigrants to this country who had taken up farming.
“She speaks three languages,” Lilian had marveled.
Personally, Hannah thought the fact that nearly all Amish spoke two languages with reasonable fluency was impressive enough. Teaching foreign languages in school didn’t work very well in this country. It was too easy to forget the French or Japanese—or German—you never had reason to use outside of class.
Following the rest of the family, they turned up a typically long driveway, more like a pair of ruts separated by a grassy hillock, that led between cultivated fields. Even Hannah recognized the corn growing on one side. At least ten buggies were already “parked” facing the fence on the left side. Samuel pulled into place, Mose following suit.
Nerves fluttered in Hannah’s stomach. With lots of people chattering, her limited fluency was likely to break down. And what would the Amish who hadn’t already met her think of her? Would they be pleased she’d dressed plain, or disdain her for pretending to be something she wasn’t?
She took out the cheese pie with a potato crust she’d made this morning, and joined Lilian, who was carrying her own offering. Emma solemnly carried yet another dish, and Adah a loaf of fresh bread. Hannah worried whether she should have been so generous with the chili pepper in the filling of her pie. Maybe nobody would like it. They certainly wouldn’t expect it to be so spicy. And . . . did her determination to distinguish her offering from others mean she was too prideful?
Mose and Samuel paused to speak to a boy who seemed to have been assigned to watch over the horses, and the women went ahead, Zachariah and Isaiah scampering along with them. They hadn’t yet reached the large lawn in front of the typical two-story, white-painted farmhouse when a girl broke away from one of the groups and raced to meet them.
“Hannah!” Rebekah cried.
“I really am here.” She smiled at the girl. Lilian and the girls greeted her, too.
“I’m going to sit with Hannah,” Gideon’s daughter told them proudly. “She asked if I would.”
“That’s good of you,” Lilian assured her. “I hope you two will sit with us.”
“Can we, Hannah?”
“Of course we can. Samuel is my daad, you know, Adah and Emma are my sisters, and Zachariah and Isaiah my brothers.”
Rebekah knew that, on one level, but still showed puzzlement. How could this Englisch woman nobody knew really be her friend Adah’s sister?
She pointed ahead. “There’s Daadi.”
Her pulse quickening, Hannah had already seen him, even in a cluster of other men, all clad in dark coats and broad-brimmed dark felt hats. He was taller than most, of course, but that didn’t explain her easy recognition. It was just something about the way he carried himself, the tilt of his head as he listened to another man speaking.
Hannah was afraid she’d know him in the pitch dark, which was a very bad sign.
Gideon Lantz would never see her the same way, and for good reason.
Suddenly, she felt like a fraud, dressed to blend in with all the other women. She wasn’t one of them. They knew it, and so did she.
Her cheeks hot, she felt a cowardly desire to slink around the barn and hide until it was time to go home.
No, not home. She was a visitor. She certainly wasn’t Zeb and Rebekah’s mother, the way she sometimes wished she were.
But hiding wasn’t an option. Her daad was so happy that she had come today. She had to hold her head up and make him proud.
* * *
* * *
Once Gideon saw Hannah emerge from the house and start across the lawn toward the barn where the service would be held, he left the group of other men who were still discussing an offer from a frozen food packing company made to two of them. The representative who had visited the men, both of whom grew primarily corn, said he could guarantee a price now, in the spring, protecting them from the possibility that they’d lose their crops through drought or other disaster—and from the chance of a glut of corn again come early fall.
Of course, the offered price was extremely low.
Glad he had decided to diversify, Gideon walked to meet Hannah. Lilian and her kinder trailed behind, Rebekah chattering with Adah.
“It’s good to see you here,” he said gravely. “You may have a backache by the time the service ends.”
She wrinkled her nose. “So people keep warning me. I think I’m sturdier than that.”
“Ja.” He had to clear his throat. “I’ve seen how strong you are.”
For a fleeting moment, their gazes held. She wasn’t as
lighthearted as she’d seemed, he saw, and he had no idea what she read on his face.
Then Rebekah dashed over and hugged her daadi’s legs, as if they hadn’t parted barely ten or fifteen minutes ago. People started moving toward the open doors of the barn.
“Oh, I pray my Deitsh doesn’t fail me,” Hannah whispered.
He resisted the urge to squeeze her hand in reassurance. Others would see . . . and talk.
“It won’t,” he murmured, before they had to part, him to join the men while looking around for Zeb, still too young to sit with his friends. Kinder were usually nine or ten before they could be trusted not to make trouble.
At least Hannah would not be alone, he saw at a glance. She and Rebekah had been neatly inserted in the usual order between Lilian and her daughters and Julia Bowman, who held her small daughter’s hand and cuddled her boppli against her shoulder. Miriam Miller appeared, too, her hand pressed to her back as if it ached before she even sat down on the hard wooden bench.
Zeb wriggled through the gathered men to sit beside Gideon, ready to lean close to read the words of the hymns in the Ausbund that Gideon spread open on his lap. As had become habit, Miriam’s husband, David, sat on his other side, followed by his brother Jacob, who had two young sons with him. Luke Bowman joined them on the same bench with his younger brother, Elam, who had married their hosts’ daughter just last fall. Gideon liked feeling that he was sitting among friends. When he moved here, everyone had been welcoming, but that wasn’t the same.
Light came between cracks in the barn walls and from a loft above as well as through the broad opening. Doors were usually left open, as nursing mothers or a parent with a toddler disturbing the service sometimes had to slip out, returning when they could.
Gideon tried not to be obvious when he kept an eye out for Hannah, but hoped others would assume he was watching for his daughter. Ach, and there they were, Rebekah clutching Hannah’s hand. He made sure to turn his head away before they saw him.
Finding Hope Page 14
