The amish newcomer, p.14
The Amish Newcomer, page 14
Sarah disappeared into the basement and emerged with a nylon duffel bag, which she put on the table.
At last, Leah heard the welcome clip-clop of a returning horse and buggy, and within minutes a hearty, plump woman bustled into the kitchen and took charge. Clucking in Deitsch, she sat Edith in a chair and felt her belly. She brought the birth bag into the bedroom, along with a hefty bag of her own supplies Ivan carried behind her. Then she whisked the expecting mother into the bedroom and closed the door.
“And now we wait.” Ivan poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table.
“Will you go in when she’s about to give birth?” inquired Leah. She also sat, too boneless to stand.
“Ja, of course. But for now, the midwife needs to make some examinations, and that’s best done in private.”
“Seven children,” mused Leah. “That seems like such a large number.”
Ivan looked surprised. “It’s what Gott gives us. Each and every one of them is a blessing of riches.”
In the three months since she’d arrived, she knew Ivan spoke the truth. Children were cherished among the Amish. They weren’t viewed as inconveniences interfering with a career. They were seen as the natural result of the love between husband and wife.
She heard Edith groan from inside the bedroom, but no dramatic screams or cries rent the air. After a few minutes, the bedroom door opened and the midwife poked her head out. “Ivan, she’s near time if you’d like to come in.”
Ivan shuffled to his feet and went in to support his wife during her travail.
Leah continued to sit at the kitchen table, watching in some bemusement as Sarah and Rachel went about their tasks. Sarah wore something of a glow on her face. “Someday, that will be me. I can’t wait for my first baby.”
“And since I won’t be having any, I can’t wait to hold him,” grinned Rachel.
Leah realized she was tense, her muscles clenched as if she were the one in labor. She made a deliberate effort to relax. The minutes ticked by.
Suddenly she heard a subdued flurry of activity...and then a baby’s thin wailing cry came through the door.
The sisters exchanged grins.
Rachel dropped clean towels into a large bowl and poured steaming water from the stove over them. When Elizabeth opened the door again, she was ready and handed the woman the bowl.
“Danke.” Elizabeth smiled. “You have a beautiful baby sister.” She closed the door.
“Ah, that’s wonderful,” sighed Rachel. She made herself a cup of tea and sat opposite Leah at the table.
“Everyone’s so calm,” commented Leah. “In the city, having a baby is a huge thing. It starts with baby showers and birth announcements and ends with hospital rooms and doctors.” She grew curious. “Do Amish women ever give birth in hospitals? What happens if there’s an emergency?”
“Some women use hospitals, but it’s expensive, and why go if there’s nothing wrong?” countered Sarah. “But yes, emergencies happen. A couple years ago, Penny Miller needed to be transferred to a hospital, but the baby died.” She looked grave. “It was very sad. But she’s pregnant again, so this time they’ll go to the hospital first.”
Elizabeth came out again. “Is there some hot water?” she inquired.
“Ja.” Rachel stood up. “I’ll bring it.”
“Pretty little girl,” commented the midwife. She took a small bag from her apron pocket. “Please use this to make some tea. It helps healing.”
Sarah took the herbs and prepared tea. Leah dipped hot water into buckets and placed them outside the bedroom door.
Within half an hour, Elizabeth opened the door. “Come in and meet your sister.”
Edith looked wan but happy, lying tucked in bed. Next to her, Ivan sat in a rocking chair with the tiny infant in his arms.
“What will you name her?” Sarah bent to take the baby in her arms. “Oh, she’s wunnerschee.”
“Your mother and I thought Charity Anne,” said Ivan.
“That’s lovely. Hello, Charity.” Rachel touched the baby’s face with a gentle finger.
Ivan got out of the rocking chair, and Sarah sat down, cuddling the infant. A peaceful expression passed over her face. Rachel squatted at her feet, peering at her new baby sister.
“How do you feel, Edith?” asked Leah.
“Tired but elated,” she replied. “Glad it’s over and the baby is healthy.”
“Leah, would you like to hold her?” asked Sarah.
“May I?”
“Of course. Sit down.” Sarah rose and swapped places with Leah, who sank into the rocker and took the infant. “Here, like this. Make sure you support her head in the crook of your arm. That’s right.”
Instinctively Leah began to rock. As she looked at the tiny red face, a thrill came over her—warm waves of love for this tiny child birthed so miraculously in this humble bedroom. Her eyes grew moist. Could she ever do this, have a baby half this wonderful?
“My turn?” Rachel finally asked. Leah looked up to see the young woman standing nearby, clearly anxious to hold her baby sister.
“I’m sorry.” She rose and traded places. “I’ve never held a newborn before. She’s amazing!”
Rachel chuckled as she sank into the chair and took her sister with experienced arms. “It never gets old,” she admitted.
She looked at Rachel’s face, different because of her genetic condition but filled with love as she regarded her baby sister. Leah wondered at the long, hard internal battle Rachel must have had in deciding not to marry and have children. It was clear she would make a wonderful mother.
She glanced at Edith and saw the woman had dozed off. Tapping Ivan on the arm, she gestured toward his wife. He nodded and tiptoed out of the room, followed by Leah and Sarah. Rachel remained, rocking the baby, though Elizabeth came out, too, and closed the door.
“Aah, the Lord is good,” sighed Ivan, sinking into a kitchen chair with a smile on his face. “Danke, Elizabeth, for coming so quickly.”
“Do you want me to milk the cows?” asked Sarah.
Ivan glanced at the clock. “The time! Yes, child, I could use the help.”
“You go. I’ll keep watch,” said Elizabeth.
“I’ll start supper,” offered Leah. It pleased her to know her way around the Bylers’ kitchen well enough to volunteer for this task alone. Though nothing was said, she sensed approval from the midwife.
The family scattered to the various tasks.
“Would you like some tea?” Leah asked the midwife.
“Ja, danke.” The older woman sank into a chair. She smiled. “What a blessing today has been.” Her gaze sharpened. “You’ve never been around a newborn?”
“No. As you know, I’m not Amish. I’m just staying here for a bit.” Leah busied herself stoking the stove and pulling out ingredients. “I’m happy to help the Bylers however I can. They’ve been so good to me.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Except for not speaking our language, you could certainly pass for Amish.”
Leah was so startled she whirled around in surprise. “Thank you!” she gasped.
“You’ve a good touch with babies,” the midwife continued. “It will be nice for Edith to have an extra pair of hands, though her three girls are so good. Danke,” she added as Leah placed a steaming mug before her.
Rachel came out of the bedroom. “Leah, is there any food I could bring Mamm? She’s hungry.”
“Give me five minutes.” Leah stirred noodles into the dish Sarah called “dump and go” casserole. When everything was ready, she scooped some food into a bowl and gave it to Rachel on a tray, along with a spoon and napkin.
While Rachel attended her mother, Leah set the table. Ivan and Sarah came in with foaming buckets of milk, and she helped strain it into jars, then covered the jars with cloths and carried them into the basement so the cream could rise.
And when the time came to bow their heads in silent prayer before the meal, Leah expressed genuine thanks for Edith’s safe delivery.
Chapter Fourteen
A week after baby Charity’s birth, Isaac waded out among the bean plants in his mother’s garden where Leah was picking. “I want to go into Pikeville tomorrow. I have some errands to do. Do you want to come with me? Perhaps you can work on the website you mentioned.”
Leah straightened up and smiled. “You changed your mind!”
“Ja, I guess.” He quirked a smile. “I’m not terribly enthusiastic about the idea, but I suppose it’s necessary in this day and age.”
“The kind of website I’m thinking of is an information-only website.” She dusted her hands on her apron and picked up the basket of beans. “You won’t have to do anything with it—you won’t have to monitor it in any way—but it will tell customers how best to submit articles or how to subscribe.”
“Then ja, go ahead.”
“I’ll start by registering a domain name, then I’ll create a website on a free hosting platform. Later I’ll go in and link the domain name to the website, and you’ll be good to go.”
“I didn’t understand a word you just said,” he admitted. “Here, I’ll take that.” He relieved her of the basket.
She chuckled. “No worries, this shouldn’t be hard to do. I’ll make plans to go in with you tomorrow.” She visualized the kind of website most suited to his magazine—clean layout, basic design, plain features—and beautiful photos.
“I’ll pick you up at the Bylers’ then.”
In the morning, Leah was ready when Isaac pulled up in the buggy. Edith had given her a list and some money to make some small purchases in town.
“This is a much nicer trip than the last time I was in a buggy.” She admired the scenery. “I was so focused on Ivan and his injury I hardly looked around.” The clip-clop of the hooves was a soothing rhythm.
“I wanted a car that day since it was an emergency, but I prefer to travel by buggy. It’s easier to see things.” He waved to a neighbor.
“I can’t wait to check the news.” Leah nearly quivered with excitement. “I’ve been out of it for so long—I don’t know what’s going on in the world.”
“Would it make any difference if you did?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you can catch up on all the news, but there isn’t much you can do about events taking place in the Middle East or in China or whatever. Sometimes I think it’s better not to get too involved in worldly events.”
“It’s a hard habit to break. When I was a reporter, I spent hours involved in the news each day. It’s what I lived for.”
“And now?”
Leah looked at the peaceful scenery they passed. “Now...maybe not so much.”
“More often than not, the news is bad anyway.” Isaac pulled the brim of his hat lower against the sun. “When I was out in the world, I didn’t like keeping up with the news. I realized the badness was seeping into my bones, making me a more negative person. It was hard to see Gott’s goodness in every person when I was seeing nothing but the bad in people’s behaviors. I couldn’t handle it.”
“The ironic thing is, some might say you were running away, by putting all that behind you.”
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” quoted Isaac. “I can’t save the whole world. That’s Gott’s job, not mine. My job is to save my own soul, and perhaps influence the souls around me. I’m a simple man, so the only way I could figure out how to save my own soul was to return to my roots.”
“I used to think I was obliged to stay up-to-date on everything.” Leah sighed. “Not just because of my job, but because it was a moral imperative. Somehow I thought if I reported on the corruption in Washington or the latest terror attack in Europe, I was making a difference. But I can see your point. Maybe I was tearing myself apart, little by little. Then the only way to patch myself together was to develop a thick skin and call it cynicism.”
He glanced at her before focusing on the horse. “That’s good insight. And I assume you’ve reported on more than your fair share of bad news?”
“That’s an understatement.” She sighed and leaned back against the buggy seat. “You might say I was busy reporting on everybody’s crooked sticks.”
He chuckled. “How’s your own stick?” he teased. “Seems to me it’s been straightening out.”
“I hardly have a choice, do I? It’s not like I could get into any trouble out here.” Looking out at the landscape as it slowly transitioned from rural to small town, she saw birds, blowing grasses, trees shading the road. “It’s going to be hard to leave this all behind.”
She felt more than saw him stiffen, though his voice stayed neutral. “It will be hard to imagine you gone.”
“Well, I guess there’s no rush. I still don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Then maybe you could stay here and work on straightening out your stick some more.” His smile was back.
“I don’t know how much longer I can trespass on the Bylers’ hospitality. They’ve been so good to me. As for my crooked stick, I already said I couldn’t get into any trouble out here.”
“But a straight stick is more than just avoiding bad behavior. It’s about faith.”
She felt uncomfortable hearing him talk about his faith. “I’m still working on that.”
“Ja, it’s not something that can be done in a day.” He went silent.
She knew by now it wasn’t Isaac’s nature to push. His restraint made it easier to venture into the subject again. “I wonder,” she mused, “how much faith follows actions.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, as you just said, faith is not something that can be achieved in a day. But what about many days? What about months? If I go through the actions—listening to Ivan read the Bible, praying before meals, attending Sabbath services—all the time being surrounded by people who don’t question their faith, how long before it rubs off on me?”
“Who can say? But I think faith seldom comes in a blinding road-to-Damascus flash. It takes time, and it takes practice. And like anything worth mastering—carpentry or sewing or milking a cow or working on a computer—it’s something that takes a lot of time and the chance to mess up without fear of someone mocking your efforts. Sometimes it takes patient teachers, and sometimes it’s something you wrestle with in private. Everyone’s journey is different.”
“And did you experience this journey?”
“Ja, of course. Most of it came after I left and went to college. Before that I never questioned my faith. But college can be challenging. I tried to blend in. I dressed like everyone else, talked like everyone else. I didn’t read my Bible, didn’t attend Sabbath services. My faith just...slipped away.”
“So what happened? When did you realize that?”
“It was just a minor thing, really. I was walking in a park on a Sunday morning. I didn’t attend any church... I was just walking. I saw two young girls, maybe ten or eleven years old. They were staring at the smartphones in their hands. They weren’t talking to each other, they weren’t playing, they were just staring at their phones. And they were dressed badly. Even though they were very young, they were dressed like older teenagers. On a Sunday. I looked at them and I saw my own daughters someday, if I stayed in the Englisch world. I compared them to how girls dress here—modestly, in a way pleasing to God. I realized there were too many forces against children, too many things they had to fight off to maintain any measure of goodness.”
“So you came back here?”
“Well, it wasn’t that fast. But that was the beginning of reaffirming my faith. I wanted a better path, for myself and for my own future children. The only place I knew to get on that path was to come back home. Besides, by then my mother’s hip problems were starting to cause her difficulties. My next oldest brother was just about to get married and he wanted to move. That would have left my mother alone. So I came home and became baptized.”
“No regrets?”
“None whatever. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have some periods of adjustment, because I did.” He gave a rueful chuckle. “The most ironic thing is, I don’t have those mythical daughters yet. Or sons. A man my age often has three or four children already.”
“And you want children?”
“Ja, of course. They are a legacy, a gift from Gott.”
That was almost exactly what Ivan had said when Charity was born. “And there’s no local woman you’re interested in marrying?”
“No, because none are interested in me.”
“All because you’re tainted by too much time with the English?”
“Maybe a little, but it’s also because by the time I came home, all the girls I grew up with were already married, and the ones who aren’t married yet think I’m too old. Maybe a young widow will become available.” He glanced at her. “Or a visitor.”
“Who isn’t Amish.”
“Ja, who isn’t Amish.”
Pikeville was small, only about twenty-five hundred people, and the library was correspondingly modest. In addition to a parking lot for cars, it also had a long hitching post under the shade of some trees for Amish buggies.
“I’ll drop you here while I do my errands.” Isaac directed the horse into the parking lot of the small building. “I’m guessing it will take me an hour or so. Will you need more time than that?”
“Yes, but I’ll get a good start. I can work on it over several different sessions in town. Can you pick up some lemons and coffee for Edith? Here’s the money she gave me.”
He handed her down from the buggy. With the physical reserve the Amish normally expressed, the mere act of placing her hand in his was electrifying. Leah sucked in her breath and kept her eyes on the ground.
“In an hour, then.” Isaac’s voice was gruff.
