Meek and Mild Read online

  How quickly she had failed her resolve that afternoon.

  “It was for my own admonition,” Andrew said. “Whatever others do, I hope I will remember its message better than I have. I owe Yonnie an apology.”

  “I talked to him today,” Clara said. “I’m not sure he’s of a mind to receive an apology.”

  “He always was the tattletale who would go running to our mothers before anyone could be properly sorry. As the saying goes, ‘Some people are like buttons, popping off at the wrong time.”’

  Two proverbs in one day, Clara thought. No matter how clever, traditional proverbs would not smooth the rough edges in the congregation.

  Clara said, “In this case I think he’s only waiting for the bishop to recover.”

  For a few moments, only the sluggish drop of horse hooves punctuated the silence.

  “Don’t worry about what Yonnie does,” Andrew said. “I don’t.”

  “He infuriates me.”

  “I know.”

  “Where can I find love in a puddle of infuriation?”

  “Love must be the pond that swallows up the puddle. I’m going to apologize to Yonnie for my anger.”

  “It won’t change his mind.”

  “That is not my purpose.” Andrew took Clara’s hand. “Let’s talk about something else. I saw you with Wanda’s boy today.”

  “I’m worried about Wanda. She had some pains. It’s too soon for that.”

  “She’s had two children already. She’ll know if something’s wrong.”

  “What if she realizes it too late?”

  “What if nothing is wrong at all?” Andrew countered.

  Clara sighed. “I always think the worst, don’t I?”

  “Not always. Only when it comes to babies.”

  “The heartbreak would be too much to bear,” Clara whispered.

  “Joy cometh in the morning,” Andrew said. “You’ll be a wonderful mother.”

  “If I ever find the courage.”

  “You will. When you do, I’ll be right here.”

  She squeezed his hand but could not form a response.

  “Why don’t you go stay with Fannie for a few days?” he said. “It’s been weeks since you saw her, which seems ridiculous for the sake of five miles.”

  “I don’t know,” Clara said. “I don’t want to stir up trouble.”

  “You told me Fannie was discouraged.”

  “She is.” The words of Fannie’s letters flowed through Clara’s mind. She read between the lines that Fannie’s doldrums were not abating.

  “I’ll take you, and you can send a message when you want to come back,” Andrew said.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Why wait?”

  “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  “I won’t.”

  Clara rubbed the cuff of her sleeve between thumb and forefinger. “Perhaps, but I want to be back for the day of preparation.”

  “Of course.”

  She wouldn’t even write to say she was coming. A surprise visit would cheer both Fannie and Sadie. And while she was gone, tensions in her own district might settle down.

  “Can you take me on Saturday?”

  Andrew squeezed her hand. “Keep your eyes on love.”

  The bishop is not seeing anyone.”

  Caroline Yoder did not raise her voice, but Yonnie had heard this tone before. He broadened his smile.

  “I come with the prayers and good wishes of my entire family,” Yonnie said, sliding one foot closer to the threshold Mrs. Yoder occupied.

  She did not budge.

  “Surely his withdrawal from appointments does not apply to visits from extended family.” Yonnie did not budge, either.

  “It applies to whomever I choose.”

  “Should not the bishop choose?”

  “The bishop requires complete rest. When he is feeling better, I’m sure word will get around the district quickly enough and he will welcome visitors.”

  “Might I not come in and say a prayer for him?”

  “God will hear you from your buggy.”

  At that moment, Yonnie was grateful he was related to the bishop—even if only distantly—and not to this woman who failed to even offer him a cup of coffee. He supposed that if he traced the family lines far enough back, he would find a connection to everyone in the district, but the Yoder name is what mattered.

  “Everyone missed you both in church last Sunday,” Yonnie said. The service was six days old now, yet there was no word of the bishop’s improvement. “You’ll be glad to hear your sons preached faithfully.”

  “That is their way.” Mrs. Yoder wiped her hands on her apron. “If you will excuse me, I have a long list of tasks to fill the day.”

  Although Yonnie did not step back, Caroline closed the door firmly, barely clearing the end of his nose. Yonnie stood on the porch and shook his head. He could think of no one in the district who would not at least have offered a bit of refreshment to a visitor, even while holding firm on the matter of seclusion.

  After waiting this long, a few more days would not matter.

  Andrew’s attempt at an apology had not changed Yonnie’s mind. Andrew might be sorry that he lost his temper and embarrassed Yonnie at the dairy—as well he should be—but he showed no remorse about possessing the Model T. It was only a matter of time before the bishop would call on Andrew to confess his sin.

  “I’m going to take Thomas outside to play,” Sadie announced.

  “Sadie, I don’t think—” Fannie began.

  Her sister-in-law broke in. “That’s a lovely idea, Sadie. He loves to roll in the grass.”

  “We have lots of grass.” Sadie took the hand of her toddler cousin.

  “Perfect.” Lizzie smiled at Sadie and then at Fannie. “Your mother and I will be right here in the kitchen if you need us.”

  Against her better judgment, Fannie resigned her opposition. “I’ll pour the kaffi.”

  “Thank you. The children will be fine.”

  “Sadie is only five.” Fannie set out two cups. She glanced out into the yard, but already Sadie had taken the boy out of her line of sight.

  “She has always been careful with him,” Lizzie said. “It’s your mamm I’m worried about today.”

  Fannie brought her gaze back indoors and fixed it on her brother’s wife. “Is she unwell?”

  “She’ll never admit it,” Lizzie said. “But I don’t think she’s well at all.”

  Fannie moved to the stove, turning her back as she gripped the coffeepot. “She’s with child. It’s not unusual to feel unwell. More rest would help, would it not?”

  “She works too hard. There is no question of that. She claims she never let expecting a child interfere with her work before and that she’s nowhere near her time.”

  Fannie poured the coffee, but she had already dismissed the idea of drinking any.

  “She’s right,” Fannie said. “I never saw her slow down a day with any of the boys.”

  “She’s not as young this time around,” Lizzie said. “She won’t listen to any of us. You must come and talk sense into her.”

  “What makes you think she would pay heed to me?” Fannie’s stomach clenched.

  “You’re her only daughter.”

  “She couldn’t be any more fond of you if she had birthed you. You are a true daughter.” Fannie had heard Martha say this dozens of times since Abe married Lizzie.

  “It’s not the same.” Lizzie leaned across the table and put a hand on Fannie’s arm. “Outside of church, you haven’t seen her for weeks. Elam comes to suppers without you. You don’t bring Sadie for strudel in the mornings. Martha’s heart is heavy for you.”

  Fannie’s throat thickened.

  “Why don’t you come?” Lizzie said softly. “You have always been close. She’s your mamm.”

  Escalating giggles outside the back door made Fannie turn her head. She was grateful for a fleeting excuse to glance away from Lizzie. Any mo
nth now Lizzie would break the news that Thomas was going to become a big brother, and Fannie wouldn’t be able to look her brother’s wife in the eye any more than she could look at her mother.

  She moved to the sink and dumped her untouched coffee. “I’ll try to go.”

  “Don’t wait too long.”

  “I won’t.” Fannie gripped the edge of the sink in determination to believe her own words.

  Lizzie stood. “I’d better get Thomas home for his nap. I could drop you off on my way.”

  “No,” Fannie said. She gave a smile she did not mean. “There’s no need to trouble yourself. I will come.”

  Fannie walked outside with Lizzie. Sadie protested being separated from Thomas so soon, and Fannie took her daughter’s hand as a reminder of the behavior she expected. The girl’s shoulders slumped but her objections ceased, and they watched Lizzie put Thomas in the buggy and signal the horse into motion.

  “Can I stay outside to play?” Sadie asked.

  Fannie inhaled and sighed. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Will you play with me?”

  “I don’t feel very playful just now.”

  “Then watch me play. Please?”

  Fannie glanced toward an outdoor chair Elam had made for her during the summer she was expecting Sadie.

  “All right,” she said, “for a little while.”

  Sadie tumbled into the grass again. Fannie sat in the chair and lifted her face to the sun. In mid-September, the days were still full of summer but with the edge shaved off the heat.

  “Mamm, you’re not watching!”

  Sadie’s thin voice scolded, and Fannie opened her eyes. She would have anyway, because behind closed eyelids she saw her mother, heavy with child and refusing to slow down. Lizzie had put the image in the place where Fannie closed off her pain. If she could not retreat there, then where?

  Sadie squealed and began to run along the side of the house. Fannie gasped and popped out of her chair.

  Clara was walking toward them—with her small brown suitcase. Sadie took it from her, gripping the handle with both hands and leaning to one side to keep the bag from dragging in the dirt. In a moment, Clara’s arms were around Fannie, and Fannie resolved that on this visit her cousin would not find her in the bed—or anywhere—unable to get up and make a meal.

  Clara could not have ridden the milk wagon. The time wasn’t right.

  “You didn’t walk, did you?” Fannie said.

  Clara hesitated and then smiled. “Andrew Raber left me at the top of the lane. He’ll be back Friday.”

  Six days together. Something soothed and brightened within Fannie. The smile creeping across her face took her by surprise.

  “Andrew Raber,” Fannie murmured. “He could have come down to the house for some refreshment.”

  Clara’s face flushed.

  “Sadie,” Fannie said, “take Clara’s bag to the spare bedroom. She’s going to stay awhile.”

  “Good!” Sadie said. “She can visit my Sunday school class tomorrow.”

  Sadie lugged the suitcase into the house.

  “You should visit the class,” Fannie said. “Sadie loves it.”

  “I know it’s a church Sunday for you,” Clara said, “but I thought I would pass a quiet Sabbath on my own.”

  Fannie held the screen door open for Clara. “You haven’t been to church here since we were little. You might enjoy the changes. The new hymns have lovely four-part harmonies, and the stanzas are much shorter than you’re used to.”

  Clara did not respond as she pulled a chair away from the table to sit down.

  “I have a feeling we have a great deal to catch up on,” Fannie said. “Your letters have not said much.”

  “Let me settle in,” Clara said. “And Sadie will want some attention.”

  “Have you brought her any new stories?” Fannie took a plate of cookies from a cupboard and set it on the table.

  Clara nodded. “I can’t stop myself from writing them.”

  “And why should you?”

  Clara sucked in her breath but said nothing.

  “Sadie is going to insist you visit the class,” Fannie said. “She’ll pester you all night.”

  One side of Clara’s mouth turned up. “I admit I’m curious what it would be like to see what a teacher does with a class of children talking about Bible stories.”

  “Then come to church. The Sunday school class is right after the shared meal, before everyone goes home.”

  “Maybe just for the class,” Clara said.

  “We won’t bite.”

  “It might…complicate things.”

  Fannie munched a cookie. The class was a start. Clara could see for herself how well she would fit in with the Maryland church. Maybe on her next visit, she would come to worship.

  Clara walked to the Maple Glen Meetinghouse the next afternoon, carefully calculating her arrival to coincide with the close of the meal. As soon as the last of the food was stowed away, Fannie had explained, classes for children met around the tables on one side of the meetinghouse, while adults quietly continued their visiting on the other side. Clara stepped inside the building—identical to the meetinghouses where she was accustomed to worship—and looked around.

  “There’s my cousin Clara.” Sadie’s voice rang out, and she wiggled off the bench where she sat with a cluster of little girls. Some were even younger than Sadie, but others were older.

  The teacher followed Sadie toward Clara. “I’m Ellen Benton. I’m so glad you could visit our class.”

  “I won’t be any disturbance,” Clara said. “I only wanted to see what it is like.”

  Ellen grinned. “You help make my job quite pleasant.”

  “Me?”

  “Your stories, silly,” Sadie said. “I showed her the scrapbook.”

  “Oh!”

  “The girls love them,” Ellen said. “They bring the Bible to life in just the right ways. And what an inspiration! I’ve even begun to try my hand at it, although I have not the skill you have. We teach the boys separately from the girls, of course, but even the boys’ teachers enjoy your stories.”

  Clara did not know what to say. She knew Sadie went to Sunday school, but it never crossed her mind that Sadie—or Fannie—would share Clara’s stories with anyone else. Surely the teachers had their own plans or instructions from the ministers.

  “We tell the stories so the children can understand them,” Ellen said. “Then we work on learning High German so they can learn to read the Bible for themselves someday. The little ones practice picking out letters.”

  “I’ll just have a seat over here and watch,” Clara said.

  “Wouldn’t you like to tell a story?” Ellen said. “I was planning on Daniel and the lions’ den.”

  Clara had first told a story to Priscilla, then to two girls, then to four. Thirteen heads now bobbed around the table. Daniel and the lions’ den was one of the stories in the scrapbook. Clara had written and rewritten the words a half-dozen times before she was satisfied. The taste of them saturated her tongue.

  “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”

  “Thank you for asking,” Clara said, “but I’ll watch and listen and learn right along with the girls.”

  She sat down on a bench a few feet away, where she could hear and see clearly. A moment later Fannie slid in next to her.

  “Next time visit church,” Fannie said. “You’ll see.”

  “See what?” Clara said.

  “You’ll see.”

  I want to go see Grossmuder!”

  Clara watched Sadie’s bare foot lift and stomp, though her slight weight made little sound on the polished wood floor.

  “We’ll have to go another day,” Fannie said, her eyes fixed on the mending in her lap.

  “You always say that, but we never go. Isn’t that a lie?”

  Fannie looked up now. “Sadie Esh, you mind your tongue.”

  “Sorry,” Sadie muttered. “But I still want to go s
ee Grossmuder.”

  “Let me take her,” Clara said. “I’ve been here three days and haven’t seen my favorite aunt.”

  Fannie poked a needle through a seam in one of Elam’s shirts.

  “I know it’s not a good time for you to go.” Clara chose her words with care. Sadie was standing right there. “But I want to see Martha anyway. Sadie may as well come with me.”

  Fannie didn’t look up. “All right.”

  Sadie shot out the front door. Clara nearly had to trot to keep up with her. Martha had strudel ready, as she had for as long as Clara could remember. When she was Sadie’s age, she relished a visit to Martha’s kitchen as much as Sadie did now.

  “Where are my uncles?” Sadie swiped crumbs off her lips with the back of one hand.

  “Doing barn chores,” Martha said.

  “I think they want some strudel,” Sadie said.

  “I think you may be right.” Martha laid two pieces of strudel in a dish towel cut from a flour sack. Clara remembered when her aunt had stitched the blue-and-yellow border on it.

  Sadie carried her offering carefully out the back door. Clara watched Martha’s movements around the kitchen as she wrapped the remaining strudel in a flour sack and tucked it away in a cupboard. Her rosy complexion was absent, and she occasionally flinched with the movement of her left leg. They moved into the front room.

  “I am so glad you came.” Martha finally allowed herself to sit. “When we heard about the kinds of sermons your ministers have been preaching, we wondered what would happen. For a few days, it was like what happened to your mother all over again.”

  “What do you mean?” Clara leaned forward in her chair.

  “You were little—about Thomas’s age—when Bishop Yoder first became stern about the ban. Catherine and I were determined to see each other. She didn’t vote for the meidung, you know.”

  “But it was a unanimous vote.”

  “Not exactly.” Martha put a hand on her back and winced.

  “Are you all right?” Clara thought Martha looked inordinately tired even for a woman with child.

  “I’ll be all right.” Martha blew breath slowly. “Catherine was close to her time. I was her sister. Of course she wanted me to come. As soon as the message arrived that she was laboring, I went.”