Abram's Daughters 01 The Covenant

Beverly Lewis

The Covenant (Abram's Daughters Series, #1) The Covenant (Abram's Daughters Series, #1) or :

THE COVENANT

Copyright 2002 Beverly Lewis

Cover design by Dan Thornberg Cover photo Blair Seitz

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written

permission of the publisher and copyright owners.

Published by Bethany House Publishers

A Ministry of Bethany Fellowship International

11400 Hampshire Avenue South

Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

www.bethanyhouse.com

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 0-7642-2330-5 (Paperback) ISBN 0-7642-2717-3 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-7642-2718-1 (Large Print) " ; ISBN 0-7642-2719-X (Audio Book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lewis, Beverly

The covenant / by Beverly Lewis.

p. cm. (Abram's daughters ; 1)

ISBN 0-7642-2717-3 (hardback : alk. paper) ISBN 0-7642-2330-5 (pbk.) ISBN 0-7642-2718-1 (large print paperback)

1. Lancaster County (Pa.) Fiction. 2. Sisters Fiction. 3. Amish Fiction. I. Title.

PS3562.E9383 C65 2002

813'.54 dc21 20020086651

-a-v--*if-ti,

For

three devoted sisters:

Aleta Hirschberg, Iris Jones, and Judy Verhage.

M51 aunties, ever dear.

8CBi/ OSeoerfu /oewis

Abram's Daughters

The Covenant

The Heritage of Lancaster County

The Shunning The Confession The Reckoning

>

The Postcard

The Crossroad

The Redemption of Sarah Cain

October Song

Sanctuary*

The Sunroom

www.BeverlyLewis.com

*with David Lewis9BEVERLY LEWIS was born in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country. She fondly recalls her growing-up years, and due to a keen interest in her mother's Plain family heritage, many of Beverly's books are set in Lancaster County.

A former schoolteacher, Bev is a member of the National League of American Pen Women the Pikes Peak branch and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Her bestselling book October Song has received the Silver Award in the Benjamin Franklin Awards, and The Postcard, Annika's Secret Wish, and Sanctuary have received Silver Angel Awards. Bev and her husband have three grown children and one grandchild and make their home in Colorado. 10/J*/i* ^ /-** &

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth.

John Keats11// y-t- & * t>

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YAW

( Mowing up, I drank a bitter cup. I fought hard the notion thnl had I been the firstborn instead of my sister Sadie, my early years might've turned out far different. Fewer thorns nvcr the pathway of years, perhaps. But then, who is ever Kiven control over their destiny?

When I came*along my parents already had their daughI it perty, blue-eyed, and fair Sadie. Dat needed someone to lielp him outdoors, so taking one look at me, he decided I was of sturdier stock than my soft and willowy sister. Hence I lu'oune my father's shadow early on, working alongside him in the fields, driving a team of mules by the time I was ei^'ht plowing, planting, doing yard work and barn work, loo, some of it as soon as I could walk and run. Mamma needed Sadie inside, doing "women's work," after all. And my, oh my, Sadie could clean and cook like a house a-fire. Nobody around these parts, or in all of Lancaster County for

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that matter, could redd up a place faster or make a tastier beef stew. But those were just two of Sadie's many talents.

Truth be known, my sister was at war with the world and its pleasures . . . and the Amish church. At eighteen, she was taking classes with Preacher Yoder, along with other young people preparing to follow the Lord in holy baptism, to make the lifetime vow to almighty God and the church. Yet all the while offering up her heart and soul on the altar of forbidden love.

Still, I kept Sadie's dreadful secret to myself. Ach, part of me longed to see her get caught and promptly rebuked. Sometimes I hated her for the unnecessary risks she seemed too willing to take, not just foolish but ever so dangerous. I was truly worried, too, especially since I was nigh unto courting age and eager to attend Sunday night singings myself when all this treachery began. What would the boys in our church district think of me if word got out about shameless Sadie?

"Promise me, Leah," she whispered at night when we dressed for bed. "You daresn't ever say a word 'bout Derry. Not to anyone."

Even though I wished Dat and Mamma did know of Sadie's worldly beau, I was sorely embarrassed to reveal such a revolting tale. I struggled to keep the peace between Sadie and myself, but against my better judgment. Soon, I found myself wondering just how long I could keep mum about my sister's sinful ways. Truth be told, I wished I knew nothing at all about the dark'haired English boy my sister loved beyond all reason.

In those early days I was forever worrying, so afraid I'd be stuck playing second fiddle to Sadie my whole life long. Living not only under the covering of my steadfast and God-

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feuring father, but daily abiding in the shadow of my errant filler sister. The cross I was born to bear.

Sometimes at dusk I would slip away to the upstairs bedroom I shared with Sadie. Alone in the dim light, I gazed into ii small hand mirror, looking long and hard by lantern's light, yi'i not seeing the beauty others saw in me. Only the refleclion of a wide-eyed tomboy stared back a necessary substitute for a father's son, though I was a young woman, after all. And as innocent as moonlight.

Abram's Leah . . .

Clear up till my early twenties, I was identified by Dat's lirst name. To English outsiders, the two names together might've sounded right sweet, even endearing. But any church member around here knew the truth. Jah, the People were clearly aware that Leah Ebersol was dragging her feet about marrying the man her father had picked out for her. So because I was stubborn, I was in danger of becoming a mazdel in short, a maiden lady like Aunt Lizzie Brenneman, although she was anything but glum about her state in life. For most young women, not marrying meant denying one's emotions, but notiizzie. She was as cheerful and alive as anyone I'd ever known.

As for Abram's Leah, well, I possessed determination. "CIrit . . . with a lip," Dat often said of me. And I do remember that I had a good bit of courage, too. Never could just stand by tight-mouthed, overhearing the womenfolk speculate on "Abram's rough-'n'-tumble girl" them looking clear down their noses at me just 'cause I wasn't indoors baking pies or doing needlework. Goodness, that's how Sadie spent her time . . . and Hannah and Mary Ruth, and of course, Mamma.

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Puh! 'Twas Dat's fault I wasn't indoors making ready for supper and whatnot. I was too busy with farm chores milking cows twice a day, raising chickens for both egg gathering and, later, dressing them to sell. Whitewashing fences, too. Oh, and sweeping that big old barn out in nothing flat every Saturday. I wasn't one to mince words back then. I was as hardworking as the next person. Just maybe more practical than most young women, I 'spect. Sometimes I even wore work trousers under my long dress so dust from the haymow or mosquitoes from the cornfield wouldn't wander up my legs of a summer. Come to think of it, my second cousin, Jonas Mast, was the boy responsible for sneaking the britches to me promised to keep the deed to himself, too.

Ach, I was a lot of spunk in those days. A lot of talk, too. But now I try to mind my p's and q's, make apricot jam and pear butter for English customers, and get out and weed my patch of Zenith hybrid zinnias purple, yellow, and green in my backyard. More often than not, I find myself saying evening prayers without fail.

'Course now, nearly all that matters in life is the memo' ries. Dear, dear Mamma and unyielding Dat. Kindhearted Aunt Lizzie. Happy-go-lucky Mary Ruth and her too-serious twin, Hannah competitive yet connected all the same by invisible cords of the heart. And Sadie . . . well, perty is as perty does. The four of us, Plain sisters, attempting to live out our lives under the watchful eye of the Lord God heavenly Father and the church.

Ofttimes now before twilight falls, when the sun's last rays shift slowly down over the golden meadow, if I step outside on my little front porch and let my thoughts stray back, I can hear a thousand echoes from the years. Like a field sprinkled

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wllli lightning bugs, they come one by one. Bright as a uprlnylime morning, radiant as a pure white lily. Others come tiimished, nearly swallowed up by blackness, flickering too luiNlily, overzealous little lights . . . then gone.

The night air seems to call to me. And though I am a Kcnsible grown woman, I surrender to its urging. A vast landncupe in my mind seems to reach on without end as I peer across the shadows into another world. Another universe, MPtMtis now. There 1 see a mirrored image that 1 treasure above nil else the reflection of a smiling, thoughtful young man, his adoring gaze capturing my heart on the day our eyes locked across a long dinner table, when all of us spent Second Christmas with Mamma's cousins over near Grasshopper Level. 'Twas a red-letter day, though Dat soon made me want to forget I had ever smiled back.

A lifetime ago, to be sure. These days, 1 simply breathe .silent questions to the wind: M;y beloved, what things do yourecall? Will you ever know that I am and always will be your Leah? . . . daughter of Abram, sister of Sadie, child of God.

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SUMMER 1946

G<

V_Jobbler's Knob had a way of shimmering in the dappled light of deep summer, along about mid-July when the noonday sun standing at lofty attention in a bold and blue sky pierced through the canopy of dense woods, momentarily flinging light onto the forest floor in great golden shafts of luster and dust, causing raccoons, moles, and an occasional woodchuck to pause and squint. The knoll, where wild turkeys roamed freely, was populated with a multitude of trees maple, white oak, and locust. Thickets of raspberry bramble had sometimes trapped unsuspecting young fowl, stunned by the heat of day or the sting of a twelve-gauge shotgun during hunting season.

"Steer clear of the woods," the village children often whispered among themselves. They warned each other of tales they'd heard of folk getting lost, unable to find their way out. The rumors were repeated most often during the harvest, when nightfall seemed to sneak up and catch you unaware on

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the heels of a round white moon bigger than at any other season of year. About the time when all over Lancaster County, fathers came in search of plump Thanksgiving Day turkeys. But even before and after hunting season, children admonished their younger siblings. "It's true," they'd say, eyes wide, "the forest can swallow you up alive."

Certain mothers in the small community used the superstitious hearsay as leverage when entreating their youngsters home for supper during the delirious days of vacation from books and lessons.

One particular boy and his school chums paid no attention to the warnings. Off they'd go, scouring the forest regularly, day and night, in the eternal weeks of summer, playing cowboys and Indians near an old lean-to, where hunters found shelter from bone-chilling autumn rains and reloaded their guns and drank hot coffee ... or something stronger. The lads promptly decided the spot where the run-down shelter stood was the deepest, darkest section of woodlands, where they whispered to one another that it was indeed true sunlight never, ever reached through the mass of branches and leaves. There, among a maze of thorny vines and nearly impenetrable underbrush, everything was its own shadow with gray-blue fringes.

The area surrounding Gobbler's Knob, on all sides, was home to a good many folk, Plain and fancy alike. Soldiers, back from the war, were streaming home to Quarryville just seven miles southwest, to the town of Strasburg about five miles northwest, and to the village of Ninepoints a short carriage ride away.

Abram and Ida Ebersol's farmland was part and parcel of Strasburg Township, according to the map. Smack-dab in the

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Henri of Pennsylvania Dutch country, the gray stone house Hid Ixh-h built on seven acres bordering the forest more than Hghly years before by Abram's father, the revered Bishop Hbei'sol, who now slumbered in his grave, awaiting the truml t'Hr;ill.

The "Ebersol Cottage," as Leah liked to call her father's limestone house, stood facing the east, "toward the rising of i he sun," she would often say, causing Mamma to nod her I lend and smile. The house was surrounded by a rolling front Inwn that became an expanse of velvety grass, where family iiiul friends could sit and lunch on picnic blankets all summer li m^', the slightest breeze causing deep green ripples across the Mi'iiss. Behind the two-story house, a modest white clapboard hnrn stabled two milk cows, two field mules, and two driving horses.