Hope deferred, p.3
Hope Deferred, page 3
The Christmas program at school was underway the week after Thanksgiving, each child given their part in the German play, with instructions to outline their sections of the script with a yellow highlighter, which David did not own. He was Grandfather Yoder, and, in his own opinion, he had absolutely no right to be a grandfather, as small as he was. And besides, the lines he had to say were stupid. They made no sense. He told his mother, his teacher, and all his classmates, until the teacher gave the part to Andrew Lee in the third grade, which pleased him until he was given a long, serious poem about the birth of Jesus and the astounded shepherds in the fields to recite.
He told Anna on the way home from school that he wasn’t too sure about this shepherd thing. How were the sheep out grazing given all the snow on the ground most Christmases?
She looked at him with wide-eyed innocence and said the hills were green around Bethlehem; they had colored them like that in a picture on the wall. He agreed immediately, then went home and asked MaryAnn what she thought about the shepherds.
Mam heard them, and said Bethlehem was in a warm country, so of course Anna was right. Then she told him he shouldn’t question things the way he did.
“Too young, David, you’re too young,” she said.
Voss Gebt mitt da boo? she thought.
On the night of the program he stood tall, fastened his eyes above the crowd, and recited the poem in a clean voice that carried well, making a huge impression on his teacher and everyone in the packed schoolhouse. Elias and Barbie thought of the prayers they had offered on his behalf and felt a deep abiding renewal of their faith. Surely David had changed after all. Thank God.
His father sat in the audience and wiped tears from his eyes, thinking what a talented young man he was and wondering how one was expected to know how to direct the energy to the greater good?
Anna simply smiled at him, a sweet warmth filling her chest.
By the time David was in fifth grade, he’d reached a level of intelligence seldom found in Amish parochial schools. He did his schoolwork out of necessity, then read anything he could manage to get his hands on.
His parents both read books, mostly history or true stories published by a variety of Christian publishers, believing all literature of the modern world contained teaching contrary to their belief. His mother enjoyed an occasional romance, and the magazine rack by her recliner held the “Reader’s Digest” and “National Geographic,” both of which David devoured like a starving little man. He read his father’s hunting publications, including the ads not meant for a ten-year-old. With no one knowing, he pondered the mysteries of life. He read every book in the limited library at the small parochial schoolhouse, reading and rereading the dog-eared paperbacks. Even the girls’ books Little Women, Amelia Bedelia, and Heidi were part of his world.
Teased unmercifully by the seventh grade girls for reading Little Women, he merely shrugged his shoulders and glared at them until their smiles slid sideways and they slunk away, feeling thoroughly punished by the light in those blue eyes.
He begged his mother to go to the Bookmobile, the large white bus emblazoned in green and blue that made regular stops at small towns throughout Lancaster County. She pursed her lips and shook her head, saying there were too many unfit books for boys his age.
Most Amish parents saw no good coming of a head swimming in nonsense, leading away from a simple, contented lifestyle. It’s the reason cell phones and computers were so frowned on. Forbidden. Verboten.
David threw one of his classic fits of rage to the point of wiping tears after the tirade had lost steam. Why? Why not? What was wrong with reading books?
He read every Laura Ingalls book at least a dozen times, especially Farmer Boy. He lived and breathed Almanzo and his brother Royal, telling MaryAnn she reminded him of Eliza, the bossy older sister. He practiced eating copious amounts of food, including two slices of pie, the way Almanzo did.
All the reading, the comprehension of what he read, coupled with an extremely lively imagination, produced an interesting young man at the age of twelve, entering sixth grade but able to do eighth-grade work and beyond. Life on the farm and in school was the physical part, but what went on in his head traveled way beyond the simple life.
He still walked to school with Anna, but it felt different now. They had grown older, with the attached stigma of being boyfriend and girlfriend, though they both denied it adamantly, Anna’s face flushing to a rosy hue, David’s burning with the start of a temper fit.
A boy of twelve did not want to have a girlfriend. Boys were tough and cool and never noticed the group of giggling females who hardly ever contained one brilliant thought in their head.
But he knew, deep down, that Anna did. She was cute and funny and sincere, and she was smart, too. She knew about the galaxy, the stars, and many of their names. She knew about coyotes killing baby deer, and she knew the correct pronunciation of gosling was not “gooseling.”
They no longer shared whoopie pies or plastic ziplock bags of cheese curls, knowing at a certain age that it was no longer proper. But they cared immensely when one hit a home run and wanted to be the first to smack a congratulatory high five. When their sparkling eyes met, they knew.
There was something there. It was the uplifting sensation he felt when Anna was in the same room, on the ballfield, along the same road. He knew the color of her dress, the gleam of her blonde hair, her smile when she was happy, and the frown of concentration that produced two fine lines between her eyebrows when she did arithmetic, her biggest challenge.
Every morning, he donned a clean shirt for her, he combed his hair just so for her. When most boys his age couldn’t have cared less, David harassed his mother until she remedied torn suspenders, or replaced them with a new pair. He begged for red ones, like the rumschpringa wore.
He cut slits in his old sneakers, after the toes turned up and the laces became frayed, when he saw the new gray and yellow Adidas that Michael in eighth grade had on his feet. This appearance thing was very important to David, in spite of his mother’s relaxed view on clothing and other apparel like shoes and coats and beanies.
Anna took to begging her mother to buy a package of wide barrettes, afraid that David would find Suzie attractive with gold in her dark hair.
Anna’s mother was an expert on child rearing. Having read all the latest books on adolescence, she prepared herself for the coming years when her daughter would notice these things.
Now that she had done just that, Barbie Fisher shivered, thinking of her eldest daughter’s innocence, her pure and unspoiled life, and the terrors of the world around her. Kidnappers, men with strange desires, traffic on the road, wild and unruly horses driven by wild and unruly youth who would stop at the yard gate to take her away on the weekends after she turned sixteen.
Well, there would be rules.
Fully aware of her daughter’s blossoming beauty, she determined with a fierce, almost maniacal resolve to protect Anna from heartache, from sin in its various forms, and certainly from marriage to someone who would not meet the high standards her parents had set for her.
It was God’s will that a daughter be raised to be chaste, a keeper at home, to love her husband, and raise children in willingness to follow God’s teaching in all matters.
She sang hymns of praise as she worked in her bright gleaming kitchen, smiled with motherly benevolence as they baked cookies together, read Bible stories on most evenings in her quiet, well-modulated voice, listened to prayers with practiced ears, then discussed each child’s strengths and weaknesses with her husband, listening to his wise counsel with an open mind.
CHAPTER 3
“MOM, SUZIE HAS NEW BARRETTES FROM HER OLDER SISTER. THEY LOOK really pretty in her hair.”
Anna was taught to call her mother Mom, not the old-fashioned Mam. Barbie and Elias decided early on that Mom and Dad were just better, more in keeping with the facts in the Christian child-rearing books.
Barbie looked up from her pea shelling to search her daughter’s face. There was no rebellion, no challenge, only a wish to have what a classmate wore in her hair. Barbie gave her daughter a smile of kind understanding. “And what do these hairpieces represent?”
Perplexed, Anna frowned, the two lines appearing. “Nothing, really.”
“But of course they do, Anna. The Bible teaches us to stay away from outward adornment, from the hanging on of gold and jewels. What is good and humble in the sight of the Lord is an unadorned body, and a meek and quiet spirit within. So rather than having you strive to adorn the outside, you should be seeking a meek and quiet spirit, like Christ had while he was here on earth.”
“But it’s only two barrettes.”
“No, Anna. It’s much more than that. You are lusting after adornment that is not our ordnung.”
“But you wear them.”
Quickly, Barbie’s hand slid beneath her covering, finding the hard metal surface of the black barrettes.
“Black ones, Anna. No one can see them.”
“But they are still barrettes.”
Barbie searched the daughter’s face and tried to stay calm in the face of the first display of questioning her parents’ wishes. What had Debra Rissler spoken of in her latest book? Chapter 7, “How to Say No.”
“We would not believe the barrettes are important. What is more important is for you to obey my words without question.”
“But, why, if you wear them?”
There was no reply, merely a compression of the mouth and a sad shaking of the head. The conversation was ended.
That evening, parents and daughter held a long, difficult discussion, the parents elaborating with hand-picked verses from the Bible, explaining views on modesty and the inward adornment. That made it difficult for Anna, choking on a strong dose of spiritual meat that was hard for her young mind to comprehend. But she listened quietly, which was her way, then knelt obediently to ask God to cleanse her of the longings of the world.
Afterward, she lay with her hands crossed on her chest, her eyes wide open as the light from the neighboring pole and the movement of the leaves toyed with her mind.
She knew plain from fancy. Any twelve-year-old girl will know the difference between a large, conservative covering compared to the smaller heart-shaped version on the younger, more permissive women in the Amish church. It was normal, everyday variety, both acceptable.
So why was her mother’s covering one of the smallest? Her dresses were bright colors cut in the latest trend, made of dimpled fabric, or fabric with small checks or raised bubbles. Why were those adornments ok, but not barrettes?
Far away in the night, a dog set up a mournful howl; another series of short yips followed it. Anna shivered, pulled up the quilt, and turned on her side to tuck both hands below her cheek, her eyes drifting shut as the questions faded away.
These days David wandered to the creek alone, fishing pole and bait bag slung over one shoulder. MaryAnn had no interest in accompanying him to the creek, and Anna never did, either. He often wondered when she lost interest but never got up the nerve to ask. He figured correctly that it had something to do with boyfriend-girlfriend stuff. If they went to the creek together it would mean they liked each other, which of course, they didn’t.
He missed Anna to the point that he’d taken to sitting along the bank at a strategic angle, where he felt sure she could see him from her front kitchen window. He baited his hook with canned corn and caught two nice brown trout within a half hour. He kept watching Anna’s house. Maybe, just maybe, this time she’d be down. School had been over for a month. The days were getting hot and summery, with corn stretching from the soil as the heat and wetness increased. A month was an awful long time to go without seeing Anna, and he was wondering how to signal her from the creek bank when he heard splashing and voices to his right.
He turned and peered around the swaying curtain of willow branches to find Anna and her twin little sisters wading along the edges of the creek, their skirts knotted in two fists, their legs bare to above their knees, hoisting a minnow net.
Anna was laughing, her blue dress like a portion of the sky.
“Hey, you!” she called.
David scrambled to his feet, tripped backward on a tree root, then righted himself before reeling in his hook.
“Hey.”
“What are you doing?”
“Fishing.”
“Catch anything?”
He held up two fingers, “Catch and release.”
“You let them go?”
“Yeah.”
She came to where the bank rose in front of David, stood still, and looked over to her sisters.
“Velleta raus?”
David reached for her extended hand and drew her up. She was as light and agile as a fawn. He reached for both sisters and drew them to the safety of the matted grass on level ground.
“There you go.”
They looked at one another. Both were filled with infinite inadequacies. Floundering, David tried conversation.
“How’s . . . you know, how’s summer going?”
“Good.”
A long silence, stiff with new and unresolved feeling.
“Um, Kathryn, you ready? Rachel Ann?”
She turned to her sisters and made as if to go.
David wanted her to stay but didn’t know how to accomplish this. Desperate, he picked up his fishing rod and thrust it at one of the sisters.
“Would you like to fish? Do you know how?”
Hands clasped behind backs, their heads wagged in unison.
“No.”
“You want to try?”
“No. Worms are icky,” Kathryn griped.
“I’m not using worms. I’m using corn. See?”
He held up a green-labeled can of corn.
He baited the hook cleanly, piercing the large kernel with precision, then drew back, released the button on the reel, swung expertly, and watched as the hooked corn sailed through the air and plunked into the quiet waters of the creek.
Anna laughed, a sound he never tired of.
“You want to try?”
She nodded, “I do.”
His hands on hers, he taught her proper technique.
She cast in short plunks, the corn barely skirting the grass. Over and over she cast, finally sending the bait to the middle of the creek. Her sisters whined that they were thirsty.
Did David understand his regret at not bringing his blue Coleman jug full of ice water? Did Anna realize the quick irritation that rose in her chest? At twelve years of age, they were possessed by a longing to be together, a happiness at being in one another’s company, but now this pristine shyness, this scrambling to locate words that had never eluded them before.
Still a child in every sense of the word, having been taught well in the ways of kindness, Anna put a hand on Rachel’s shoulder and said, “Okay, we’ll go. I’m thirsty too.”
Looking back once, she lifted a hand to say goodbye.
On the creek bank, David lifted a hand in answer, slowly, hesitantly, as if to prolong the leaving. A sigh escaped him. Two brown trout were enough. He reeled in his line, removed the soggy corn, shouldered his rod and bait bag, and moved off slowly.
And so it went for another summer. He gave himself to hard work in the broiling sun, unloading bales of hay and straw onto the rattling elevator, sweat dripping off the tip of his nose, tasting salt as it pooled in the corners of his mouth, his shirt stained dark with the sweat on his back.
His hands blistered and bled, then turned to thickened calluses. His legs became strong and sinewy with hours of walking, lifting, bending, and stretching. He mowed most of the grass in the large well-kept lawn and dug all of the borders around the flower beds.
He put up the wire of the pea vines and pounded the wooden stakes into the soil with the broad side of a hammer, the way he’d seen his father do it. He found his father’s tobacco pouch, inserted two fingers and lifted a hefty chunk, placed it in his left cheek, waited for the taste, then threw up violently and never tried it again.
He ran the large wheeled cultivator up and down the rows of corn and beans, leaning into the bent, wooden handle, his elbows stuck out like wings, straining and puffing, his legs cramping as the bent teeth dug up the soil removing chickweed and redroot, thistle and dandelion.
He pushed wheelbarrow loads of mushroom soil, distributed it in wide curved flower beds filled with roses and hydrangea, boxwood and daylilies, MaryAnn scolding and shouting and telling him to slow down and stop ruining the coreopsis.
David couldn’t tell one flower from another, so he went right ahead and dumped the mulch where he wanted, figuring she would yell, but she was lucky she had him to do all the hard work while she scuffed around in the bushes and shrubs. Until she got really mad and grasped his ear between her thumb and forefinger, and twisted till he thought she’d surely pulled it off. He grimaced and threatened before running off to tell his mother. “Ach my,” she said, and went right on reading the mail.
Picking peas was the worst. Whoever heard of putting all that effort into raising a vegetable that wasn’t edible in the first place? Peas were unhandy little green marbles that rolled around on your plate and that you were expected to stab with a fork and get to your mouth somehow. If macaroni and cheese grew on those crawly vines it would be different.
Peas ripened in June, when the mornings were wet and cold and the days turned broiling hot in a hurry. The peas hung thick and saggy in their shells, some of them ripe, some of them half-ripe, and some not ripe at all, so it was up to you to decide which to pick. The most depressing feeling came from leaving so many on the vine, knowing you’d have to go back and do this same soggy backbreaking work in about four or five days.
It was only him and his mother and MaryAnn. His mother wasn’t worth that much, with all her stretching and groaning and exclaiming. She had a bad back and achy knees, she said, and nothing was worse than bending over halfway to pick peas off a wire.
