Meek and Mild Read online

  “Our brothers propose to put us under a ban,” John said.

  “Only if you refuse to confess,” Joseph countered. “I pray you will make the right choice.”

  “Threatening the ban is serious,” Mose said. “Why doesn’t someone tell me what happened. Andrew?”

  Clara listened to Andrew relay the summons to see the bishop, only to discover Bishop Yoder in the chair behind the table. Mose paced around the room as he absorbed the details of the conversation.

  “Joseph, please take your brother and your father and join your families. I’m sure they’re waiting for you.”

  “We have not concluded our businesses,” Joseph said.

  “On the contrary,” Mose said, “I’m quite sure you have. I did not ask to be bishop, but neither will I shirk my responsibility. You can be assured I will conclude the matter in an appropriate manner.”

  Noah took his father’s elbow, and the Yoders shuffled out of the room.

  Mose gestured to the chairs. “Please be comfortable while we talk.”

  They took seats.

  “They should not have misled you about which bishop you would find when you came in the room,” Mose said, “and they should have spoken to me about their intention.”

  “We were certain you would feel that way,” Andrew said.

  “Imagine my surprise when Wanda Eicher asked if I had finished meeting with you.”

  “We would have come to you,” John said, “just as soon as we walked out that door.”

  “I have no doubt. It would have been the right thing to do.”

  “Thank you for understanding,” Andrew said.

  “Clara,” Mose said, “you have done nothing wrong in visiting your relatives. I hope you enjoy many more visits with your aunt and your cousins.”

  “Thank you.” Clara’s shoulders lowered, but the hesitation she heard in Mose’s voice kept her on guard.

  Mose stroked his beard. “I am not going to ask you to confess to the congregation, and you will not be under a ban. But I will ask you not to see the Schrocks.”

  Clara gasped. “They’ve been my neighbors for many years.”

  “But they are not your family,” Mose said. “And they only just left the church. It is not the same as the families who left a generation or more ago.”

  “They have not sinned,” Andrew said. “Their only fault—and I do not believe it is a fault—is that they choose to worship somewhere else.”

  “It’s a complicated question.”

  “Is it?” John said. “You’re the bishop now. You can lead the church through change.”

  “I plan to seek counsel on that question from more experienced bishops outside our district,” Mose said. “For now, I would like for the question of the Schrocks not to stir the pot.”

  “But we are not the only ones who will want to see them,” Clara pointed out.

  Mose nodded. “Surely you are correct. I will have other conversations if I need to. You are all good friends to me. For the peace of the community, I am asking for time.”

  Mose was the first to leave the room. Stunned, Clara trailed Andrew and John.

  “We’ll talk more,” Andrew whispered. “We’ll take the car out.”

  Clara nodded. Her father approached, and Andrew paced away. “Rhoda asked me to see if you were coming home,” Hiram said. He glanced at the anteroom door. “Have you been speaking to the bishop?”

  The story spilled out of Clara. Hiram shook his head and sighed.

  “Your mother would be horrified to see what has happened all these years later. She voted against the meidung.”

  “That’s what Aunt Martha told me,” Clara said. “But I thought it was a unanimous vote.”

  “In the way that a twisted arm is a healthy arm,” Hiram said. “I was never in agreement, either, but I raised my hand. Your mother didn’t. She told me later when I confessed that I was sorry I had.”

  “Oh Daed.”

  “I’ll tell you who else did not vote—Betty Stutzman. She was outside watching you nap in the grass when the vote was taken.”

  “John’s grandmother? With me?”

  “She was quite fond of you.” He chuckled. “As if she didn’t have enough kinner in her own family. How could we know that within a few weeks, Catherine and Betty would both be gone?”

  “I was hoping things would be different if Mose was bishop.”

  “They might yet be,” Hiram said. “Gottes wille. We cannot expect Mose can undo all these years in one month. He’ll want what’s best for the church.”

  Clara nodded. Her father was right. Mose had been bishop for less than a month, while the vote to uphold the ban was more than twenty years old, and the division of interpretation of the Bible another twenty years older than the ban.

  But time was running out. Across the meetinghouse, John Stutzman picked up his youngest child and kissed her cheek. Clara wondered how many more Sundays she would witness John’s care for his family.

  Andrew left the Model T on the shoulder of the main road eight days later while he walked the final yards and stepped onto the lane leading into the Kuhn farmstead. He and John had been fortunate last week to find Clara alone and sweep her away in the buggy with minimal fuss. Andrew had no doubt that rumors already circulated about the summons to see the bishop that took John and Andrew and Clara into the anteroom with the ministers. This time Hiram or Rhoda might object to an invitation for Clara to take a ride. Certainly they would object if they saw the automobile.

  Rhoda came out of the front door and snapped dirt out of a rug. Four sharp jerks loosed gray plumes, rising and then falling. Mari, too young to join her siblings at school, held on to her mother’s skirt. Andrew hovered at the top of the lane as Rhoda retreated into the house. Scanning the farmyard, Andrew saw no other activity and took a few steps toward the barn. The milk cows and horses were in the adjoining pasture.

  Clara could be anywhere. Hiram, full of questions, could emerge from one of the outbuildings. Rhoda could come out with another rug. But Andrew wanted to see Clara. A flash of gray fabric in the loft window of the barn drew him closer. He slipped inside.

  “Clara,” he whispered.

  A few seconds later, her face looked down at him from the hayloft. “What are you doing here?”

  “Let’s go for a ride,” Andrew said.

  She paused. “In the Model T?”

  “We’ll go visit John.”

  She was descending the ladder now, hay caught in the folds of her dress and trapped under the edge of her kapp. When she reached the floor and turned to meet his eyes, Andrew wished he could capture the beauty of that simple moment, like an English photograph or painting. It would not be a graven image to him, but a reminder of loveliness in simple things.

  “The Model T is up on the road,” Andrew said, when what he really wanted to say was, May I kiss you right here?

  Clara did not even glance back toward the house as they walked side by side up the lane. This wasn’t like Clara. What was Clara doing in the hayloft in the middle of the morning? Something had been amiss in the Kuhn household for months.

  But he asked none of his questions. When Clara got in the car, her blue eyes brimmed with trust. She would go with him, wherever he drove, by whatever method of transportation.

  “Is John all right?” Clara asked once they were well away from Kuhn land.

  Andrew shrugged one shoulder. “I feel a particular kinship with him these days. I’d just like to see him.”

  Clara pressed her shoulders into the upholstered bench. The top was up on the automobile now, enclosing the rectangle in which they sat. Without it, the November chill would have bitten at their faces in the wind.

  They found John easily enough in one of his fields, walking with a toolbox and inspecting fence posts.

  “Any more word from the bishop?” John asked as he set down his toolbox and brushed dirt off his knees.

  Andrew chuckled. “Which one?”

  “The only o
ne who matters now,” John said.

  “No, nothing,” Andrew said. “I may try to have a word with him, to hear more what is in his mind.”

  “Mose Beachy is a good man.”

  “The auction is next week,” Clara said. “Will your wife be showing a quilt again?”

  John cleared his throat. “Under the circumstances, we think it would be better if we did not attend this year.”

  “What circumstances?” Clara said.

  John used a hammer to nudge a split rail into its slot more securely, testing it with one hand. His hat brim blocked any view of his face.

  “John,” Andrew said. “Please speak your heart with us.”

  John straightened and looked at their faces again. “We’ve decided to join the Marylanders immediately. Mose will have our letter withdrawing our Old Order membership by tomorrow.”

  “But John!” Clara said.

  Unselfconscious in John’s presence, Andrew put an arm around Clara’s shoulders. “I thought you might. You asked a lot of questions when we visited Maryland last week.”

  “I will not shun people who have done nothing more than find another way to worship the same God,” John said. “When Mose asked us not to visit the Schrocks, I knew the time had come for my family to leave as well.”

  “But Mose just wants time,” Clara said. “In his heart he doesn’t agree with the meidung.”

  “For twenty years most of the church has not agreed with the meidung,” John said. “Yet it exists. If I cannot peacefully submit, then it is better for the congregation that I go.”

  Andrew tilted his head at the sentiment that echoed his own parents’ choice.

  “But your family is dear to all of us,” Clara said.

  “And you are dear to us,” John said. “When Mose finally sorts things out, whether in one year or ten, we will see each other again.”

  “We’ll still see you,” Andrew said.

  “No.” John shook his head. “It is better if you respect Mose’s wishes. We are not moving to Maryland, as the Schrocks did, but Mose will view us the same way he sees them—trouble to stir the pot.”

  Clara’s shoulder trembled under Andrew’s arm. His own tremble was inward.

  They drove halfway home in silence.

  “The Pennsylvania district will never change if our strongest families leave us,” Clara said finally.

  Andrew took a long pause. “I think that’s the point. People should feel free to worship elsewhere if God leads.”

  “But what about the shunning? Freedom to leave is one thing, but we are pushing people we care about into a corner. They have to choose between worship or being part of the way we take care of each other.”

  “The Yoders, and those who agree with them, think shunning will bring people back.”

  “That might work in other places where there is only one Amish church,” Clara said, slapping her hands on her thighs, “but around here it’s easy to go to another building on Sunday morning and find another community waiting for you.”

  Andrew let another long pause hang before he spoke again. “We could do that, too. Either the Schrocks or the Stutzmans would be at whichever congregation we joined.”

  “And how many other friends would we leave behind?” Clara’s words fell in a halting cadence. “And what about my brother and sisters? My daed?”

  Andrew drove without speaking. Leaving the Old Order district would cost Clara too much—and he would not go without her.

  “The rope on the well frays more every day,” Fannie told Elam.

  “I know. You’ve told me half a dozen times.”

  The edge in his tone startled Fannie.

  “Will you have time to replace it soon?” Fannie chose to ignore his mood and carried the last of the lunch dishes to the counter.

  “I have to go to Grantsville for the rope.”

  “I’ll go with you. Sadie would love it.”

  “No need.”

  Perhaps her own withdrawal colored her perception, but it seemed to Fannie that Elam’s responses to ordinary conversation were growing terse. He remained playful with Sadie, and he’d had no trouble being hospitable and conversational when Clara and the others visited the previous weekend.

  It’s only me, Fannie thought.

  Had he no idea of the enormous effort it took for her to remain upright? Of course he didn’t. Fannie didn’t tell him. She had his meals on the table at the appointed hours—for the most part—and the house remained tidy. It was the weeds in the vegetable garden that ran rampant all fall, and the mending pile that doubled every time she looked at it, and the eggs left in the henhouse until it was too late, and the fruit that went soft before canning—all details Elam would pay no attention to in the face of a triumphant harvest and caring for the animals. She would have to do better and have something to show for her efforts, something Elam could see and appreciate.

  “I know you’re pleased with the harvest,” she said, her spirit not nearly as bright as her voice. “Next year will be even better, I’m sure.”

  “I thought I would cut back next year.”

  “Cut back?”

  Year after year Elam talked about seeding more acres even as he let some fields lie fallow. They still had at least ten tillable acres he had never touched. Cutting back made no sense.

  “We can live on less.”

  “But I thought you wanted to expand the farm. You’ve always dreamed of buying more land someday.”

  Elam ran a finger back and forth along the edge of the kitchen table. “That was when I was planning for sons.”

  He might just as well have sliced through her with a harrow blade. Her throat instantly threatened to cut off her air.

  “Have you given up, then?” she whispered.

  “Haven’t you?” He did not seek her eyes.

  The answer lodged in Fannie’s throat, unformed.

  “Sadie will marry and move to another man’s farm,” Elam said. “Without sons it will be hard to work more acres than we have now.”

  “We could hire someone. I could help.”

  “There will be no need.”

  Sons.

  Sadie burst into the room with slate and chalk. “Daed, will you help me with my letters?”

  “Of course.” Elam scooted back his chair and took Sadie into his lap. “What are we going to spell?”

  “How about boppli?”

  “What sound do you hear when you say that word?” Elam asked.

  Sadie sucked in her lips and then said, “Buh.”

  “And what letter makes that sound?”

  Sadie thought hard. “B.”

  Elam nodded.

  Next spring, during planting season, Sadie would turn six, and next fall she would go to school. Someone else would teach her to spell and read and make sums. Fannie had always imagined that by the time Sadie’s first day of school came, two more children would fill the days. Now she wondered what it would be like to be home alone, Sadie at school and Elam in the fields.

  By then her mother’s new babe would be pulling up on the furniture, perhaps even beginning to toddle.

  Elam patiently guided his daughter’s hand as she formed the letters of her selected word. He always had time for Sadie. He did not want her in the fields, where in a few seconds she might come to harm with the animals or blades while he turned his attention to some needful task, but he welcomed her in the barn and was already teaching her to milk.

  They finished the word.

  Elam lifted Sadie off his lap. “Your mamm wants me to go to town and buy rope.”

  The words he chose stung. Your mamm wants. The rope needed to be replaced or they would have no water in the house. It had nothing to do with what Fannie wanted.

  “I want to go with you!” Sadie abandoned her slate.

  “We’ll have a delightful time.”

  “Is Mamm coming?” Sadie looked at her mother.

  Fannie caught the flicker of Elam’s eyes before he looked away.
/>   “Your mamm has things to do,” he said.

  Fannie began scrubbing plates in the sink. Perhaps Elam observed more than she realized. Mentally she listed the tasks she could accomplish while Elam took Sadie to Grantsville. She stood on the porch and cheerfully answered Sadie’s frantic good-bye waves with her own.

  When the clip-clop of the horse’s rhythm faded and the buggy was out of sight, Fannie hugged the solitude, striving to welcome it with aspirations of productivity.

  Sons. Elam deserved a house full of sons to teach with patience and understanding. He had given up on sons, and with it the farm. On her.

  A cow’s soft moo alerted Fannie that Elam had fetched it from the pasture and taken it into the barn. She followed its call and scratched behind its ears to assure herself the animal was well. Elam had said nothing about why he had brought the animal in at midday. How many other decisions did he say nothing about?

  Fannie could not fault Elam. She, too, felt the weight of effort to say more than was necessary.

  She had come to the barn with no cloak. The brisk November day rushed through the open barn door, chilling her. Fannie reached for a horse blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, keeping company with the cow for a few more minutes.

  Then she opened the stall next to the cow, saw that Elam had freshened the straw, and sank down to her knees to pray.

  She ached to pray.

  She longed to pray.

  But she could not pray.

  She lay in the straw, wrapped in the blanket, and gave way to sleep.

  By Thursday, the news had sifted its way through the district. John Stutzman had delivered his letter to Bishop Beachy on Tuesday morning. The Yoder brothers pronounced the Stutzmans under the ban. The bishop, in office a scant five weeks, reluctantly agreed. Two churchwomen stopped by to spend a morning sewing with Rhoda on Wednesday, and every time Clara overheard a snatch of conversation, it had to do with the Schrocks and Stutzmans, who were now subjects of somber prayer for repentance.

  Clara dragged through the days, finding chores to do. She cleaned the henhouse, put quilts in the buggy for the winter, and yanked overgrowth from the flower beds across the front of the house. For three days she did not leave the farm. Clara wanted to speak to no one, not even Andrew, while the Stutzman tempest brewed and settled. When she did manage to escape her grief over John’s decision for a few minutes, trepidation mounted over Martha approaching labor. Incessant activity between waking and sleeping was her only path to release. On Thursday afternoon, the children arrived home from school just as Clara had readied the buggy to go to Niverton for a few items, an errand for which Rhoda gave lukewarm agreement to its merit.