Meek and Mild Read online

  Footsteps sounded down the hall, and Hannah sat up in recognition of her mother’s approach.

  “Hannah!” Rhoda called.

  “Go quickly.” Clara nudged Hannah’s thin form and was relieved when the child complied without arguing. The last thing Clara wanted to do right now was inflame her stepmother’s mood. She would stay out of Rhoda’s way, be as silently helpful as she could, and hope that the notion of sending her to live in Maryland would pass.

  “Come on,” Andrew said. “Help me.”

  “Help you do what?” Yonnie said.

  “Move this car.” Andrew picked up the FREE sign from the ground in front of the car and carried it to Yonnie’s buggy.

  “You’ve been making me do things like this our whole lives.”

  Andrew winked. “We’ve never moved a free car before.”

  Yonnie turned his head to look both directions down the road. “Where exactly are you planning to move it? We’re still a long way from our farms.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m just pointing out reality.”

  Yonnie was especially good at pointing out reality. Even as a boy, he persistently hovered over what might go wrong or which rules they might break even accidentally in the course of ordinary childhood play. Perhaps that was why Andrew had long ago developed the ability to ignore Yonnie’s lack of enthusiasm. He barely heard the protests anymore.

  “There’s a barn,” Andrew said, “just over a mile down the road. It’s been empty for at least five years.”

  Yonnie cocked his head to think. “An English family named Johnson used to live there.”

  “That’s the place. A fire took the house, and they didn’t rebuild.”

  “If they were Amish, they would have. Everyone would have helped.”

  “Well, they weren’t Amish and they were getting on in years. I heard they moved in with their son in Ohio.”

  “They must still own the land.”

  Andrew shrugged. “Probably. But they’re not using the barn.”

  “It’s more like a shed, as I recall,” Yonnie said. “Three stalls at most. It might have served as a barn originally, before the Johnsons put up a more sufficient structure.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “But it would be a good place to hide a car.”

  “I’m not hiding it,” Andrew said. “I only need a place to store it—a place big enough to work on it.”

  “How do you propose to get the car there?”

  Andrew rolled his eyes. “You have a horse six feet away from you.”

  “I suppose he could pull it, but I’d have to unhitch my buggy.”

  Andrew waited. At this point in a conversation with Yonnie, he did not have to articulate his next argument. He only had to wait for Yonnie to catch up.

  “I suppose the buggy would be safe here,” Yonnie finally said. “Not many people have reason to come down this road, and no one could steal it without an extra horse and harness.”

  Andrew waited again.

  “If we drag the buggy well off the road, it won’t be in any danger. No harm has come to the car while it was parked here.”

  Now Andrew moved again. He had Yonnie right where he wanted him—persuaded that the job was possible and not, for the moment, entangled with his conscience.

  “I’ll get your rope,” Andrew said, one hand already fumbling around under the buggy bench. He had no idea how to tie a rope to a car, but he supposed it could not be much different than dragging a buggy. The main thing was to not put too much stress on the axle, and he would have to figure out how to release any brake that might impede the tires’ movements.

  Common sense. That was the primary strategy to solving most problems. Despite Yonnie’s legalistic perspective on decisions, he was loyal. Right now, Andrew counted on Yonnie’s loyalty toward him to run long and deep. As long as Andrew stayed one step ahead of himself and was patient enough to learn, he would have himself a car.

  Garrett County, Maryland

  The vice gripping Fannie Esh’s womb, all too familiar, meant only one thing.

  The womb was empty. There was no child this month. Next would come the backache, and then the flow. Heartbreak would smash through hope once again.

  Once she weaned Sadie more than four years ago, Fannie assumed another child would come as easily as Sadie had, another wash of luminous wonder into the household, another joyful pitch of a baby’s giggle. She and Elam had never tried to avoid a child, but now all she had to do was catch his eye over his supper plate and he would know what the expression meant. Oblivious, Sadie would chatter through the silent exchange at their small wooden kitchen table. Elam would rise early the next day and be out in the fields before Fannie could fix him a proper breakfast. He would not come in for lunch nor eat more than a few bites at supper. They would not speak of it. What more was there to say after all this time, while their siblings and neighbors and fellow church members received child after child from God’s hand? Sometimes the babes were not even a year apart.

  “Sadie would like a little sister, wouldn’t she?” Fannie’s friends used to say.

  “There’s nothing as sweet as the smell of a baby’s head.”

  “Have you seen the new Stutzman baby? She’s their most beautiful child yet.”

  Now her friends had three or four children and somberly promised to pray for God’s blessing to come to Fannie as well.

  Fannie yearned for another child, but she was beginning to doubt whether the arrows in the quiver, as the Bible said, were truly a measure of God’s blessing. Perhaps the psalmist meant something else entirely, something that would make Fannie feel less discomforted by her inability to bear another child.

  She sat at the kitchen table, where in the past she would allow herself the release of tears when this moment arrived. Fannie had abandoned tears more than a year ago. Now she simply counted off ten slow, deep breaths and composed herself.

  Sadie bounded in through the back door, her cheeks scrubbed fresh by the late spring air and her eyes lit with anticipation.

  “It’s today, right?” Sadie said. “Today we go to for supper with Grossmuder, ya?”

  The desire to join her boisterous family for the evening meal could not have been further from Fannie’s mood, but Sadie loved to go. Especially since Fannie’s brother’s son began to toddle, Sadie loved to take Thomas’s hand and lead him around the house or yard.

  And Elam would be waiting for them there. He walked over several hours early to help Atlee Hostetler put a new door on the outside entrance to the cellar. Perhaps it was just as well. Among her extended family it would be easier to avoid Elam’s eye. He could have one more day of hope even if Fannie could not.

  “Shall we fix your hair before we go?” Fannie said, taking her daughter’s hand. “Your braids are coming loose.”

  “If we must,” Sadie said, “but please hurry.”

  Fannie took in little of what Sadie said while they repaired her hair and rode in the buggy the two miles to the Hostetler farm. Most of it seemed to be about the words Sadie wanted to teach her young cousin, though in Fannie’s observation the boy showed little interest in expressing himself beyond the few simple sounds he already had mastered. There was plenty of time for that.

  Fannie pulled her buggy in beside her brother’s, and Sadie gripped the bench and looked at her mother for permission to get out. After Sadie once jumped out before the buggy stopped moving and nearly rolled under a wooden wheel, Fannie and Elam became stricter than their general natures about a rule that Sadie must not leave the buggy without explicit permission.

  Fannie nodded. Sadie leaped down, and Fannie followed. They entered the back door together, and the little girl ran to embrace her grossmuder, flinging her arms around Martha’s waist and laying her head against her abdomen.

  “Grossmuder,” Sadie said, “my arms don’t reach around you anymore. Are you eating too much?”

  “Sadie!” Fannie said
sharply.

  “Sorry.” Sadie hung her head for a few seconds before looking up again brightly. “Where’s the baby?”

  Martha Hostetler laughed. “In the front room. But he’s supposed to play on his blanket right now.”

  “I’ll help him play.” Sadie shot through the door.

  “What can I help you with?” Fannie said.

  Martha turned and removed a knife from a drawer. “I haven’t done the vegetables yet.”

  “I’ll do them.” Fannie took the knife from her mother.

  Amish dresses hid weight gain and shifting shapes, but in a startling moment Fannie saw what had sparked her daughter’s impolite question. Her mother’s bosom was heavier and her apron climbed a less defined waistline.

  Martha was thickening.

  “Clara!”

  Clara jolted at the sound of Rhoda’s voice. Whatever Rhoda needed, Clara would do—dishes, dusting, sweeping.

  She stepped from her room into the hall. “Yes? What can I do for you?”

  “Nothing,” Rhoda said. “I only wanted to say that I’m going to walk the children up to the road and see them off to school.”

  “I’ll take them,” Clara said.

  “No need. I can manage.”

  “Then leave Mari with me.” The three-year-old would only slow down the others.

  “I’ll take her,” Rhoda said. “I simply wanted you to know I’ll be out of the house for a while.”

  Clara glanced out the window. “It’s a lovely morning to walk. Take your time. I’ll start the laundry water to boil.”

  “I’ll do that when I get back,” Rhoda said. “If your father comes in, you can tell him I’ll have coffee cake for him at midmorning.”

  “I’ll mix it up,” Clara said.

  “I’m sure you have things to do,” Rhoda said. “I know just how he likes it.”

  As if I don’t, Clara thought as Rhoda herded her children out the front door. Clara followed them out and sat on the top step. Rhoda supported Mari on her hip with one hand while with the other she straightened the shoulders of Josiah’s white shirt and smoothed his black suspenders. At the last minute, before they stepped out of the yard and onto the path to the road, Hannah turned and waved. Her expression was lost in the morning glare, but Clara was certain her mouth was a wide smile. It always was when she waved good-bye.

  Clara blew out her breath and closed her eyes to focus on the sensation of the sun bleeding orange through her eyelids. The truth was, she had little to do since Rhoda had begun refusing her offers of help around the house, so she closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun. Each day was warmer than the one before, and the heat came earlier. Another week would bring unquestionable summer, vanishing the threat of retreating into the cool, damp days of spring. At least Josiah and Hannah would be out of school after tomorrow. Josiah would be eager and content to work alongside his father in the fields. Hannah would be the wriggly one. Hiram had never let Clara work in the fields, so she doubted his policy would change for Hannah. And Hannah wouldn’t want to. She would prefer to flit in and out the back door doing whatever caught her fancy. Rhoda, on the other hand, would have a more structured method to keep Hannah occupied.

  The approaching clatter of horses pulling a rickety wagon demanded Clara open her eyes.

  Yonnie Yoder. Andrew brushed off Yonnie’s mannerisms in amusement, but Clara was not so noble. Yonnie usually did the second collection route for the Amish dairy that employed him closer to midmorning, though occasionally he took a turn at the early-morning route. But what brought him to the Kuhn farm? The Kuhns did not keep extra cows. With six people in the house—and Hiram’s well-known affinity for cheese—they consumed most of what their two cows produced.

  Clara descended the porch steps and paced out to meet Yonnie’s wagon.

  “Gut mariye,” she said when he pulled to a stop. Who could complain about a morning greeting? For Andrew’s sake, she injected an extra dose of friendliness into her words. “What brings you here this morning?”

  “Your cousin was out at the road first thing this morning waving me down,” Yonnie said.

  “Fannie?”

  “She sent a note.”

  “So early?” Clara took the envelope from Yonnie. “Thank you for coming out of your way to deliver it promptly.”

  “Are you suggesting sometimes I am not prompt?”

  “No, of course not,” Clara said, wondering how Andrew tolerated someone so inclined to be suspicious and snippy. She was not sure she would have the fortitude if one of her childhood friends had grown up to have Yonnie’s temperament. “Thank you, Yonnie. I pray God blesses your day.”

  He turned the wagon in a wide circle around the yard and left. Clara tore off the end of the envelope and unfolded the single sheet inside.

  Dear Clara,

  Please come as soon as you can. My heart is heavy once again, and I have received stunning news which ought to make my heart glad but which instead weighs on my spirit. I can tell no one but you.

  Your cousin,

  Fannie

  Clara read the words a second time but found no further meaning in them. An empty day stretched ahead of her. Why should she not go to Fannie now? She could walk and be there before the midday meal. Clara pivoted to scamper up the porch stairs and then to her second-story bedroom as she considered whether she ought to pack the overnight bag. When she heard movement downstairs, she expected Rhoda had returned from her errand to send the children off on their walk to school. Instead, the heavier footsteps ascending the stairs were her father’s. Clara stepped into the hall.

  “Hello, Daed. Rhoda asked me to tell you she will have a coffee cake ready by midmorning.”

  “I hope she does not go to a lot of trouble. I’m not feeling well.”

  Clara looked at him more closely. When his head drooped at the breakfast table, she had supposed he hadn’t slept well. Now she could see he was pale and his breath labored.

  “You should lie down,” she said.

  “That is my intention,” Hiram said, “but I must ask a favor of you.”

  “Of course.”

  “Take the buggy and go over to John Stutzman’s farm. I promised I would go to help him with roofing repairs today. He will understand that I am ill, but I don’t want him to think I have forgotten him.”

  Clara glanced into her bedroom at the bag on the bed. “Of course.”

  The Stutzmans lived on one of the most outlying of the Amish farms. They were near the Maryland border, but well west of the Kuhn land. A round-trip journey, with time for polite socializing or the meal John’s wife was likely to offer, would take half the day. Clara was grateful, though, that Hiram had enough sense not to go up on a roof when he felt unsteady.

  Fannie would have to understand.

  Fannie tucked the lightweight quilt around her daughter’s shoulders and cracked the window to coax in cool air. Sadie bounced through her days with enough energy for three children. When bedtime came, she dropped into bed and often was asleep before Fannie finished murmuring soft prayers for her household. Tonight was no different.

  Fannie sat on her daughter’s bed and put out the lamp before listening for Sadie’s even breath. She had hoped that Clara would come before the day’s light petered out. Even without conversation, Clara’s presence would have been a comfort.

  Clara feared childbirth as deeply as Fannie longed for it. They knew each other’s secrets more than anyone else. But this—who would have expected this? After five children, the youngest of them twelve years old? At Martha’s age?

  Elam sat in the front room studying papers about crop rotations. He knew Fannie’s news now. But did he know Martha’s?

  Clara lost the entire day. By the time she got home from the Stutzman farm, she’d missed the afternoon run of the milk wagon, her usual prospect for hitching a ride to a farm near Fannie’s. Though she might still walk the six miles before darkness fell, she hesitated to leave without being sure her father was on
the mend—or at least resting well—and Hannah was so full of after-school chatter that there was no place for Clara to break in and explain she was leaving. Clara recognized the precise moment she looked out the window and knew it was too late.

  She barely slept.

  On Friday morning, Clara paced before daylight the mile to the corner where she knew the milk wagon would pass. The words in Fannie’s notes replayed in her mind. Though a stone dropped in her stomach when she realized the driver was Yonnie Yoder and not one of the two other—more pleasant—dairy drivers, Clara put a smile on her face and asked for a ride that went past the Maple Glen Meetinghouse the Marylanders used. At least she knew he would not require conversation beyond an initial greeting and departing pleasantries.

  When he let her off, Clara ignored Yonnie’s silent scowl and thanked him for obliging her with a ride. He no more approved of her visits to her Marylander relatives than he did his employer’s choice to do business with the Marylanders.

  None of that was Clara’s concern. She only needed to see Fannie. When she knocked on the back door, Clara smelled the bacon and eggs Fannie cooked every day for Elam’s breakfast. Her empty stomach gurgled in response.

  Fannie fell into Clara’s arms. Elam was gone to the fields or the barn, and Sadie stood on a chair with her skinny arms in the dishwater. Clara felt Fannie’s tremble and squeezed her shoulders hard, while at the same time catching Sadie’s grin. The girl was especially proud that she had lost three teeth and smiled wide to show her accomplishment.

  Fannie composed herself and touched her daughter’s shoulder. “Sadie, thank you for helping with the dishes. We’re going to go see Grossmuder, so please tidy your bed before we go.”

  Sadie pulled her hands out of the water, splashing droplets on Fannie and Clara. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said to Clara, pulling her lips wide again.

  Clara smiled at Sadie and then turned to Fannie as soon as the girl was out of sight. “We’re going to see your mother? Is she all right?”

  Fannie pulled the last plate from the sink and rinsed it in clear water. “Yes. As far as I know. It seems she has not been confiding in me.”