Abram's Daughters 01 The Covenant (14 page)

Carrying the throw rugs down the steps, she saw Sadie i ciming up the sidewalk, looking for all the world as if she'd lost her only friend. "What'sa matter?" Leah asked, dropping the rugs in a heap on the grass.

"Nothin', really" came the hollow reply.

"Nothin', then?"

"'S'what I said."

Leah bristled. "You sound miffed . . . are ya?"

Sadie shook her head. Leah picked up the first rug and went to hang it on the clothesline so she could beat it free of

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dust. "Sounds to me like you need a gut Sunday meeting."

"I'm gonna join church next Sunday," said Sadie.

"Didn't know you were thinkin' otherwise," Leah spouted, secretly thrilled.

"No . . . guess I wasn't."

"So, then, why're ya tellin' me this?"

Sadie shrugged. "Just thought I'd tell someone."

Someone ... so is that what she'd become to Sadie? Just a someone, not the closest sister and best friend Sadie had ever had, before rumschpringe came along. "What's gotten into you anyhow?" she blurted without thinking. "What's wrong with you, Sadie?"

Sadie's eyes flashed anger. "I don't know what you're talking 'bout!"

"You most certainly do so!" Leah shouted back.

"Girls . . . girls, no need to raise your voices," Mamma rebuked them from the doorway.

Sadie turned and marched right past Leah, up the steps, and into the Dawdi Haus. Leah was left there, the mound of rugs at her feet.

"Didja think a yelling match was best, Leah dear?" Mamma said, walking toward her.

"Sorry, Mamma." She kept her eyes lowered, truly sad about what had just happened, though she didn't understand the extreme tension between herself and Sadie. Didn't like it

one iota. Then, raising her head, she could see that Mamma didn't, either.

"Come along now . . . we'll have us a nice walk over to Blackbird Pond." ., -.

"But, Mamma. ..",.".. ..; ...,.

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"I've waited long enough. It's time you told me what you know 'bout Sadie."

Leah's heart sank as sure as the clods of grass she, Adah, niul Smithy Gid used to toss and let sink into Peacheys' pond. "Sndie's well into courtin' age, ain't so, Mamma?" She didn't huve to remind her mother of the People's secretive courting I radii ion. What went on under the covering of night was iilwuys kept quiet till the last minute; then the second Sunday ni I or fall communion in October, couples who planned to marry in November were "published" by the bishop. That's how it had always been in their Old Order circles, the way it had been nigh unto two hundred fifty years.

"Won'tcha consider confiding in me, Leah? I'm ever so worried."

"Well, I can tell you this . . . Sadie said she's joining church one week from tomorrow."

Such joyous news brought a flush of color to Mamma's cheeks, and she stopped walking and kissed Leah's face. "Denki for tellin' me. Oh, Leah!" With that, she promptly I loaded across the meadow.

Leah watched Mamma's skirt tail flapping in the breeze.Sadie oughta be mighty glad I kept her secret all this time, she I bought.

Turning back toward the pond, she walked more slowly I ban before. She contemplated her mother's words to both her and Sadie a few years ago as they hung out the wash together. "Remember, girls . . . purity at all costs," Mamma had said. "May be old'fashioned, but it's God's way . . . and theIh'st way." Mamma also said that a person with a pure heart could draw strength from prayer. The mention of God in such R personal way was odd, really, Leah had thought at the time.

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Oh, she knew her mother prayed more than most womenfolk, probably. But talk of the Lord God heavenly Father wasn't something many of the People felt comfortable doing. Sacred things weren't discussed so much, except at church from the lips of Preacher Yoder and the deacon's Scripture readings.

Reaching the old willow tree, she sat down and watched dragonflies skim over the surface of the gray-blue pond, ever so glad she'd had something good to tell Mamma. What if Sadie and she hadn't exchanged heated words earlier? What if she hadn't known her sister was headed for the kneeling altar? But now Sadie would be making her covenant to the church, so surely Derry was out of the picture.

Thankful for that, Leah breathed a sigh of relief. Keeping Sadie's secret had tuckered her out but good, knowing that if something bad had happened to her sister, Leah herself would've borne the responsibility. Things were changing for the better, after all.

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W ednesday at the noon meal, Sadie volunteered to tend I he vegetable stand by the road, "so Leah can help Mamma il need be," she'd said. Dat nodded his head, looking a mite bewildered at her eagerness. Mamma said that was all right with her, since Leah and the twins once Hannah and Mary Ruth returned home from school had other chores to see to later this afternoon. Mary Ruth had offered at breakfast to go out round four o'clock, "spell you off some," she'd said, but Sadie insisted-she could easily look after things without any help. She didn't want sympathy just because she wasn't feeling so well these days.

So she was on her own, just the way she'd planned to be, having taken extra care to comb her hair back smoothly on the sides, tucking the loose strands tightly into the low bun hi the nape of her neck. She'd worn Derry's favorite color, i no. "The color of your eyes," he had said early on, after one dl their first meetings. Now she sometimes wondered if he even noticed how closely the blue fabric matched her eyes on the sunniest days, as today definitely was. Temperatures had

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dropped slightly in the night, so she wore her clean white sweater over her cape dress, and though she'd come out to the roadside barefooted, she thought about returning to the house to pull on her high-top black shoes, first time the idea had crossed her mind since clear last spring. During the night there had been a trace of frost on the ground, maybe a bit soon for this early in September. Still, she remembered looking out the bedroom window this morning and seeing Cat's and Leah's footprints left behind on the thick green lawn. Now the sun stood high in the blue sky and there wasn't a breath of wind. The day had turned out much warmer than anyone might've expected. Who would've guessed the predawn hours had been so cold?

Farmers were in full swing, busy filling silos. Vegetable gardens were slowly emptying out and the corn was turning fast. "Buddies Day" came round perty often, when cookiebaking frolics and canning bees were plentiful, well attended by the younger women, especially. Sadie didn't mind so much making chowchow. Actually, she preferred cooking and canning bees over quilting, maybe because she sensed such scrutiny the past few times she'd been. She was glad Leah had gone in her stead recently to Anna Mast's quilting. Not that she was happy to be under the weather, no. Just hadn't felt like putting up with raised eyebrows and the unspoken questions that were surely being thought as she sat and stitched amidst a dozen or more women in fairly close proximity.

The last time she and Mamma had gone over to Hickory Hollow for an all-day frolic, two big quilts were in frames the Sunshine-and-Shadow pattern for Mamma's friend Ella Mae Zook, the other the Log Cabin pattern for Ella Mae's twin sister, Essie King, both women distant cousins of Fannie

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Mast. On another day the same group of women had gotten together at Ella Mae's to make a batch of fruit mush. Sadie's mouth watered at the memory just now, and she recalled that she and Mamma had returned home to find Leah turning the handle on the butter churn and feeling awful tired doing so ... the closest thing to cooking she'd ever come.

Not so today. This morning, of all things, Leah had insisted on making breakfast for the family. Erschtaunlich astonishing, really. Sadie had squelched a smirk, observing the look of delight on Mamma's face, the pleasant smiles from Hannah and Mary Ruth. But the fried eggs had turned out a lot harder than Mamma's usual "over easy," the way Dat liked his. As for the bacon, the long strips had gotten much too crisp, almost too hard to eat. Yet the family was as polite as could be and ate what was set before them, chewing longer and harder than they had in many a year.

Sadie was thankful for this time to be alone, out here near the road, wondering if Derry would come by or not . . . hoping he'd received her note. Going round to the front of the stand, she eyed the arrangement of long wooden shelves she and 4eah had constructed late in the spring when early peas and head lettuce were first coming in. All told, there were three levels bushel baskets of sweet potatoes and red beets on the first; bicolored pear-shaped gourds, as well as lime green, yellow, orange, and dark green gourds shaped like miniature bottles, eggs, and apples on the second shelf, along with acorn squash and butternut squash, late raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries. Turnips and tomatoes lined the third shelf. Occasionally, Hannah brought out a flat basket with embroidered handkerchiefs, offering them to the regular customers if they purchased more than a dollar's worth of

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produce. Of course, there were always the favorites usually nearby neighbors who insisted on purchasing the dainty hankies no matter how much produce they bought. Here lately, Mary Ruth had been baking a whole lot of pumpkinnut loaf, which was selling out nearly as fast as she could bake it.

Just as her first customers for the afternoon drove up, Sadie moved back to the side of the produce stand. It was Mrs. Sauder and Mrs. Kraybill, two of their most frequent visitors, just down the road about a mile and a half to the southeast. Mrs. Sauder was always headed somewhere, like Strasburg, running errands with two preschool-age children in the backseat, "before my hubby gets home from work," she would say. Mrs. Kraybill was the Mennonite neighbor who drove Hannah and Mary Ruth to school three days a week. Dat, on the other two days, took the twins to school in his market wagon on his way up to Bird-in-Hand.

"What'll it be today?" Sadie asked, folding her hands and waiting while the women looked things over.

"Oh, I think I'll have several pints of strawberries and blackberries," said Mrs. Sauder.

"Makin' some pies, then?" asked Sadie.

"My husband loves his fruit pies. So do the children." Here, Mrs. Sauder motioned toward little Jimmy and Dottie, who were grinning up at Sadie from the car.

After Mrs. Kraybill chose her fresh vegetables for the week, a steady stream of folk began to stop by. It seemed to Sadie that the gourds and squash were in greatest demand, and by two o'clock, once she'd sold what was left of them, the berries and tomatoes were almost gone, too.

Standing there, reshuffling the remaining items, Sadie was

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a bit surprised, yet very pleased, to look up and see Derry's gray automobile pulling onto the shoulder of the road. At once she noticed his plaid wool jacket and cuffed blue jeans as he strolled toward her. Usually when she saw him he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and sometimes a nicer pair of trousers. But today he'd dressed as if he had made the trip just to see her instead of having come straight from work.

She looked at him and smiled, waiting for him to speak first.

"Hi, Sadie," he said. , -... ,.: .

"Hullo." Her eyes searched his. . ; ;

"I almost didn't drop by today."

Was it the note she'd sent? Was he displeased?

"Well, I'm glad you did," she said. "Care for some sweet potatoes or turnips for your mother?"

Nodding his head, he dug his hand in his pocket, pulling out some change. "Here, take whatever you're asking for them."

"No . . . no, I didn't mean it thataway. I meant for you to take something home for supper, to your family, from me . . . to them."

He broke into a big smile then, warming her heart. "Thanks, but I can pay." He chose a turnip and a handful of yams.

"You'll enjoy a tasty meal tonight." She felt odd making small talk, aware of the awkward strain between them.

"I received your letter." His voice had turned suddenly flat. "My mother saw it first, in the mailbox."

"Oh ... I'm sorry if "

"From now on, it would be best if you didn't send anything through the mail. Wait until I contact you." ;

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So she had been too bold. But with no telephone, no other way to keep in touch with him except the mail, how were they to communicate? Seemed to her the last couple of times they'd talked, it had been too easy to offend him, though she didn't know why . . . and it was much harder to make amends.

He turned to leave, heading back to his car, carrying turnips and sweet potatoes in the brown bag she'd given him. Should she say again that she was ever so sorry? Plead with him? Mamma would say no, plain and simple. It wasn't a gut thing to be schandlos shameless with a young man. Yet Sadie would like to hear him say good-bye to her at least. Anything at all. But something in her knew that if she dared to call out, she might not see him again. And she could never live with that. So she remained silent, the lump in her throat crowding out her very breath.

Please come back, she thought, fighting tears.

He started up the engine and drove slowly to the front of the stand, stopped, leaned his head down, and called to her through the open window on the passenger side, "Hop in, Sadie. Let's go for a spin."

A ride in his car? Ach, he still loved her!

She wanted to abandon her post and go with him, wherever he was headed. Yet what would her sisters think if she turned up missing? And worse, what would Mamma say if she left the remaining vegetables unattended? Then she knew what she could do. It was the clever thing Miriam and Adah Peachey did many a time when they were too busy with house or garden chores to just wait for customers. They made a sign, which was exactly what she did, too.

"I best be pricing the produce," she told him, overjoyed

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thni lie wanted her with him. This day was turning out far In-Her than she would've ever dreamed.