Meek and Mild Read online

  The speed stabilized just as Andrew reached the farm’s lane. He turned the steering wheel to the left, realized he had pulled it too far, and turned back toward the right slightly. The next turn would be better. The right front tire dipped into a rut in the road, and again Andrew tugged on the steering wheel with both fists to correct the forward motion.

  “Whoa!” he said aloud, as he would to a horse. The Model T chugged forward. Andrew’s eyes went from his hands to the levers as he tried to remember the notes he’d taken and what they meant. Mr. Hansen had spoken so quickly, as if Andrew understood all the terms he used. Andrew planted his feet on the floor, remembering that if he did not want to change from low gear to high or to slow the speed, his feet had nothing to do. That was not so different than driving a buggy. Looking through the glass shielding his eyes from the wind, he began to plan how to turn right onto the main road.

  To his relief, no automobile, horse, or buggy was coming into his path. Without having to stop, he turned to the right, once again pulling too hard on the wheel and correcting as swiftly as he could. The Model T zigzagged across the road several times before he gained control of the trajectory.

  He needed to slow down. Another driver could appear over the next rise, or a horse pulling a wagon, whether English or Amish.

  Slow down. Find the gear pedal. Be ready with the brake pedal on the left. No, the brake is on the right. Yes, the right. Be careful not to press the reverse pedal.

  While Andrew planned the series of motions, the car hit a bump. The entire automobile twitched to the left. Forgetting about the pedals, Andrew pulled the steering wheel to the right.

  When he lifted his eyes again, a ditch was rapidly approaching. The front wheels dropped off the road. The car stopped abruptly, the engine died, and the right rear tire spun in the air.

  Andrew let out his breath and then gulped fresh air, his heart pounding. He’d been doing so well. A horse didn’t go off the road every time it hit a bump.

  The soft spring earth had yielded graciously. Andrew was relieved to hear no thud or crash. He climbed out of the seat and inspected the Model T, ignoring the bump his knee had taken against the dashboard.

  Yonnie slowed the milk wagon on the main road. Before his eyes lay the evidence that Andrew, in fact, did not know what he was doing. Andrew waved from beside the rear axle of the Model T, and Yonnie gave the reins a final tug.

  “I’m going to need to borrow a rope again,” Andrew said.

  Yonnie eyed the precarious tilt of the car. “Perhaps this is the revelation of God’s will for you.”

  “I doubt it.” Andrew said. “Anyway, I can’t just leave it here.”

  He certainly could, Yonnie believed. “I’m already late on my rounds.”

  “Dale won’t begrudge you stopping to help someone in need.”

  Yonnie sucked in his lips, thinking, Even if your own sin brought you to your need?

  Andrew approached the wagon. “This is not the time to worry about rules, Yonnie.”

  “If you were concerned about rules, you wouldn’t have this automobile.” Yonnie reluctantly got out of the wagon and lifted a coil of thick rope from where it hung on the side. “Where is your allegiance to the faith of our fathers?”

  “You can preach at me later,” Andrew said. “Right now we have to figure out how to get out of the ditch without breaking the axle.”

  Yonnie tossed the rope to Andrew, sighing in disbelief that he agreed to have anything to do with this automobile. Even the English owner had the good sense to abandon it.

  The walk from the Kuhn farm to Springs was six and one-quarter miles.

  But Clara found no reason not to walk.

  Nothing pressing took her to town, either, but she had to get off the farm. In the last day and a half, she tried to polish Rhoda’s cedar chest in the front room, wipe the dust from the kitchen cupboards, and mend the tiny weak spots she noticed in the good white tablecloth. Rhoda discouraged every indoor effort, so Clara moved into the June sunshine to sweep and mop the front porch, weed the vegetable garden, and scrub out the slop bucket. Even outdoors, though, Josiah or Hannah turned up with instructions from their mother to complete whatever task Clara began. They were small children. They could help and learn—even eagerly—but on their own they could not accomplish what Clara could do.

  Rhoda did not raise her voice or express impatience. She simply was firm and consistent. So Clara, who had only the cash from two housecleaning jobs to call her own and did not carry it around, walked to town and moved between the shops. Her father had accounts at a few of them. If Clara had a true need, she could make a purchase, but she knew she wouldn’t. She only needed to be off the farm.

  Clara stared at her reflection in the glass of the mercantile window. Down the street was an Amish furniture store, and farther down was a grocer who carried products from the Amish dairy. The bank in Springs held the mortgages on Amish farms. Clara could name many Amish families who rarely came off their farms and even more rarely transacted business with the English, but many others saw no harm.

  The English and two Amish districts huddled around the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Most of the English could not tell the difference between the two types of Amish, though the Amish certainly recognized the subtle distinctions in clothing and hair coverings. Undoubtedly they knew who attended church in which meetinghouse on alternate Sundays.

  When a clerk inside the mercantile looked out the window, Clara moved down the street. She had not brought even a few coins to buy a sandwich or a cup of coffee. She shuffled to the next shop window, an English dress shop. Realizing where she was, she didn’t linger. It was better to keep moving even if all she did was walk around the block looking purposeful.

  Maybe she should have walked to Niverton instead. She could at least sit on the old log outside the meetinghouse and feel less conspicuous.

  Clara hadn’t been to church with Fannie or any of the Hostetlers since she was a little girl, before her father married Rhoda and she used to spend long leisure weeks with her cousins. Then everything changed. Hiram became more firm that his daughter’s visits over the border should conclude in time to have Clara home with her own family on Sundays when the congregation gathered at Summit Mills or Flag Run. In the last dozen years, Hiram did not explain his decision, but neither did he soften.

  Would he really now allow Rhoda to dispatch Clara to Maryland to worship with her mother’s family again? Or would he oppose Clara if she wanted to? Or would he insist Clara go if she did not want to?

  Martha and Fannie and all the others would welcome Clara. They would welcome Andrew if she married him, and he would go.

  And why wouldn’t he go? He was no more inclined toward Bishop Yoder’s sermons than Clara was. His own parents had moved to Lancaster County. His married siblings were scattered over several districts in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Nothing held him to the Old Order Amish, as they became known after the 1895 split.

  Clara wished she remembered more about that year.

  Perhaps it would not feel so odd to join the Conservative Amish Mennonites—or at least to visit them.

  “Clara Kuhn!”

  Clara turned toward the voice. Sarah Tice strode toward her with a towheaded child attached to each hand.

  “It seems like we never get a chance to talk anymore,” Sarah said.

  It was true. Clara had gone all the way through school with Sarah. After that they often found an excuse to visit one another. The distance between their farms had not been daunting. When Sarah married Jacob Tice, though, she moved farther out. Getting to her farm north of the Summit Mills Meetinghouse required more planning. Even at church, Sarah’s attention was occupied with her little ones, and it was difficult to have a satisfying conversation.

  Clara realized one child was missing. “Where’s your little girl?”

  “I insisted Jacob keep at least one of the children with him or I’d never get my shopping done.”

  One of t
he little boys raised his arms to be lifted up.

  “Will he let me hold him?” Clara asked on impulse.

  Sarah nodded, and Clara bent to lift the boy. Sarah had always wanted a houseful of children. It was no surprise that she had three within five years. Clara liked children—the wonder of them, the tiny completeness of them. It was the process of carrying and birthing children that simmered reluctance. As girls, whenever Sarah gushed about children, Clara changed the subject.

  “Are you still cleaning houses?” Sarah asked.

  Clara nodded. “Just two right now, Widower Hershberger and an English family.”

  “You might as well enjoy a bit of pocket money while you can. I heard Widower Hershberger is getting married. He’s been corresponding with his late wife’s cousin in Ohio. I imagine he won’t need you much longer.”

  Clara determined that nothing should show on her face. Mr. Hershberger had said nothing to her. It was the sort of personal information Sarah always seemed to know before anyone else.

  Clara stared into the dark eyes of Sarah’s little boy, waiting to ache for her own.

  “We should go,” Sarah said. “But let’s plan a proper visit. Can you borrow a buggy from your daed and come to our place?”

  “Maybe,” Clara said. She surrendered the boy to his mother.

  “Please try. The children are down for naps right after lunch.”

  Sarah rearranged her grip on her sons’ hands and resumed walking. Clara turned back to the mercantile window, though if anyone asked her later what she had seen, her answers would be vague.

  A gleeful shriek behind Clara made her spin around to see a little English boy, older than Sarah’s littlest son but younger than Mari, galloping down the walkway. The joy on the child’s face evaporated in an instant when he stumbled. Clara reached out and caught him before his tender hands and face scraped the ground. Startled, the boy looked up at Clara with a trembling lower lip. Instinctively, Clara pulled the little one into her arms and whispered reassurance in his ear.

  The child’s anxious mother arrived a few steps later. “Thank you! He got away from me so quickly.”

  “He’s fine.” Clara released the boy into his mother’s arms and watched them continue down the street.

  Was this what her future held? Handing other people’s children back to them because she was frightened to have her own?

  Suddenly she wanted to see Andrew.

  The wrench slipped out of Andrew’s grip and knocked his kneecap before falling to the barn floor. With a short yelp, he hopped on one foot. This was the third time, and he hadn’t successfully adjusted his grasp.

  “Are you all right?”

  Andrew refrained from rubbing his knee and looked up. “Clara! What are you doing here?”

  She stepped inside, put her hands behind her slender waist, and leaned against the door frame. “I was out for a walk.”

  “On your way somewhere?” Andrew said. Clara was a fair distance from the Kuhn farm for a walk with no purpose.

  She shook her head. “Just walking.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  Clara pushed herself away from the wall. “How’s the work on the car coming?”

  “I can’t seem to hold on to a wrench.” He bent to pick up the tool. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Clara shrugged one shoulder. “I just needed some fresh air.”

  “Something on your mind?”

  “Nothing important.” She smiled, the gesture manufactured for Andrew’s benefit. “Have you figured out what you’re doing?”

  Andrew tilted his head to consider her face and decided not to press. They hadn’t seen each other since Sunday night. Anything could have happened in two days. When she was ready, she would talk to him. He’d waited two years for her already and did not plan to give up. If they never married, it would not be his decision bringing that result.

  “I had it running yesterday,” Andrew said.

  She moved to stand beside him, her hands still behind her waist, and leaned over to peer at the engine. With another smile—genuine, this time—she looked at him out of the side of her eyes.

  “You used the past tense,” she said.

  “I admit to an unplanned incident. But there were no witnesses to the actual circumstances, so I won’t embarrass myself by divulging the details.”

  Clara burst out laughing. Andrew grinned.

  She stepped back and examined the car. “It doesn’t look broken.”

  “It’s not broken. I fixed it.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “So you’ve put the…er, incident…behind you?”

  “Let me offer you an irresistible bargain.” Andrew closed the cover over the engine. “Come for a ride with me.”

  “A ride! Now?”

  He fixed on her eyes and nodded.

  Clara put her hands on the car and looked inside.

  “Do you even know what to do with those pedals and levers?”

  “Mostly.”

  She laughed again.

  “You’re a long way from home,” he said. “Wouldn’t you like to get off your feet?”

  She gestured toward a misshapen bale of hay in one corner. “I could sit there.”

  “But it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.” Andrew opened the automobile’s door. “Here we have a tufted seat with a full back made of the finest leather.”

  “Well,” she said, “it’s true that while I’ve done a great deal of thinking today, I’ve had very little fun.”

  “We’ll stay on the back roads,” Andrew said. After the detour into the ditch, he had found a balance between enthusiasm and caution.

  Clara stepped up into the Model T. Before she had time to change her mind, Andrew reached in to set the levers, snatched the crank from under the seat, and sprinted around to the front of the automobile to insert it.

  This time he got it started on the first attempt.

  Clara gripped the bench with both hands, but she giggled as Andrew steered the Model T out of the barn.

  “How did you learn to do this?” She raised her voice above the motor.

  “After my…incident…I spent a good part of yesterday practicing.” Andrew made a smooth turn onto a path barely wide enough for the Model T. After getting the Ford safely back to the barn, Yonnie had clucked his tongue in disapproval. Andrew, however, made a few adjustments that were surprisingly easy, considering his limited mechanical knowledge, and had the car running again before lunchtime. Then he gave himself some proper driving lessons around the abandoned farm.

  “Today the back roads,” he said to Clara. “Tomorrow, Springs.”

  Her eyes widened. “Would you really drive to Springs?”

  “Why have an automobile if you don’t plan to use it?”

  “Why indeed?”

  He gave her a half grin. “Well, maybe not tomorrow, but just wait. The day will come.”

  Gradually Clara relaxed her grip. She had imagined the sensation of riding in an automobile would feel faster, more like a constant gallop than a sedate trot. Before Sunday, when she saw the automobile for the first time, Clara had not been on the old Johnson farm. She was uncertain where the narrow road Andrew chose would take them.

  “How fast can it go?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Andrew said. “I haven’t been in high gear yet.”

  “Are we going to try high gear?” The hopefulness in her own voice surprised Clara.

  “If that’s what you want.”

  She made no effort to contain her mischievous spirit.

  “Let me find the gear pedal.” Andrew let his knees fall open so he could see his feet, put his foot on a pedal, and moved the hand lever before opening the throttle. “Here we go!”

  The car thrust forward. With the wind in her face, Clara noticed Andrew was not wearing his hat. She had never before seen the wave of brown hair in its entirety. Like all Amish men, Andrew was well trained to wear his hat, whether black felt in the winter or straw in th
e summer. Today it would not have mattered, because a hat would not have stayed on as the car picked up speed.

  A clatter crumbled Clara’s thoughts.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  Andrew’s hands were busy adjusting levers. Despite his efforts, the engine sputtered and seized, and the Model T came to an abrupt halt.

  “What happened?” she said.

  Bracing himself and swinging his legs over the door without pausing to open it, Andrew leaped out of the car. “I’m beginning to understand why the previous owner was so eager to be finished with this car.”

  “But you’re not giving up, are you?”

  “Of course not.” He flipped open the engine cover, releasing steam. “We might have to let it cool down, but it won’t take long. We haven’t been driving long enough for it to be too hot.”

  Clara found a lever that looked like it might open the door. She got out and leaned against the car.

  “That was the best four minutes I’ve had all day,” Clara said.

  Andrew joined her against the car, nudging her shoulder with his. “I had a feeling you weren’t having a very good day.”

  The words swirling in Clara’s mind were slow to find structure, but she knew Andrew would wait.

  “You’re a little older than I am,” she said finally. “What do you remember about 1905?”

  “A lot of things.”

  “I mean, in the church. Why would Barbara Stutzman say that last Sunday was like 1895 all over again? That the congregation had been duped then and again ten years later?”

  Andrew sighed. “Bishop Yoder had just been ordained to the office in 1895. He had strong feelings about the Maryland churches separating.”

  “He still does. But the congregation voted, didn’t they?”

  “Yes. Officially. Ten years later the truth came out.”

  “What truth?”

  “I remember eavesdropping while my parents talked,” Andrew said, “although I didn’t have to try very hard. They were upset. Their voices grew loud.”

  Clara moved away from the car to stand where she could look Andrew in the face. “What happened, Andrew?”