Abram's Daughters 02 The Betrayal (8 page)

h taught to her all the days of her life.

l']Slow 1 want to read to you about my mother's ancestor

tM'grandmother several times over." Dat turned the pages

(triers Mirror carefully, as if it were a holy book. He began

emI (he testimony of Catharina Meylin, who was fire

plrd on her fair cheek for her beliefs. "'She held tena-

|||y to the doctrine of adult baptism,'" he read.

Leah struggled with tears for the courageous and devout

her of eleven children, wondering if she herself had that

I of commitment. Am I willing to die for the Lord God? At

lyery least she wanted to strive for strength of faith and

hctcr.

WDid she . .. live on?" Leah asked softly. v:

M ij_jer feet were bound hard, and she was carried off to the

Pent prison, where she was given only bread and water for

ly weeks,'" Dat read in response.

Ke sighed loudly, glancing up. "She was allowed to write

I one time a testimonial letter to her grown children."

Leah listened intently. "Read the rest of the account, will

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Her father nodded and followed the words with his finger. " 'Daily, Catharina was beaten, and when she would not deny her faith she was, in due time, delivered by the grace of God from her earthly bonds.'"

Starved and beaten to death? Leah wondered, though she felt too pained by what she had learned to ask. Truly, Dat's ancestor was a faithful servant of the Lord God.

Dat's voice wavered a bit. "She wrote this to her dear chil-

dren: 'Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.'"

She gave up her life for what she believed. . . .

Leah felt ever so convicted. Was she worthy to present herself to the almighty One in baptism?

Dawdi John grunted out of the rocker, standing there all wobbly in the middle of the kitchen. Leah looked to Dat for a signal, and his brow crinkled slightly, letting her know the end of their study time had come.

"Come along, Leah," said Dawdi John at last, leaning hard on his cane.

She hurried to her grandfather's side, steadying him as they made their way to the front room and the connecting door to his little Dawdi Haus. Gladly she would ponder the Scriptures and Dat's great-grandmother's stalwart conviction, as well as the many important things Dat had said this night. For now she was thankful both Deacon Stoltzfus and Preacher Yoder had given consent for this discussion of the Scriptures. Something Sadie had never consulted Dat about, far as Leah knew.

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lie letters from Jonas continued to arrive in the Ebersol I Unix, and fast as she possibly could, Leah penned back a |him', She still hadn't mentioned his father's visit to Dat.

hirj not to ponder it too much, ignoring the gnawing li .1 i-.ness that something might go awry.

mmmday, August 16 ;

'< .ii Jonas,

I I'omorrow we're having Preaching service here. Actually,

'.i/'s thinking fee ought to hold it in the barn, since it's a bit yoliT out there. We've been having fairly regular afternoon mhnwers now, which is nice for the ground but not so helpful br the workers the third cutting of alfalfa is in full swing.

I I've been spending several evenings a week with Dawdi o/in, who tells interesting stories of his youth. Might be nice br you to visit him when you return for baptism a month from mow. We could go together, maybe.

I I've agreed to be a bridesmaid in Naomi Kauffman's wedwing, which is November 11. After observing her at baptismal Mtructton classes the past weeks, she seems to be ready to

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turn her full attention to sewing the Lord God and the People. Maybe you and I will have some good fellowship with her and Luke once we're all settled in as young married couples.

Sometimes 1 worry about Sadie, with both Naomi and me being younger and soon to be married. It can't be easy for her.

1 want to share something with you. Dat's allowing Mary Ruth to do some light housekeeping and cooking for our English neighbors, the Nolts the new parents 1 wrote you about. It's puzzling to me because he was so steadfast about keeping us younger girls separate from the outside world after Sadie attended public high school. Do you think this is wise, letting one so young and innocent work for English folk?

As for me, I'm ready to follow the Lord in the ordinance of baptism and can hardly wait for that most holy of days when 1 will bow my knees before the bishop and the church membership.

Oh, Jonas, I can hardly wait to see you again! To think we'll be joining church together.

All my love, Your faithful Leah

She folded the letter and slipped it into the envelope. In no hurry to leave the quiet woodland setting, she leaned her head against the locust tree and stared high into its leafy structure. Her life was about to change forever. No longer would she live under the protective covering of her father, though she would always love and respect him and Mamma both. Her place amongst the People would be that of Jonas's helpmeet and wife, and the mother of his children in due season.

Since Dat had read to her Catharina's final testimony of faith, Leah had been thinking constantly of the Anabaptist

83Idelrayal

martyrs. She struggled with the thing that separated her from i lie dedicated church members right here in Gobbler's Knob the terrible secret she kept locked away inside. She

11uly felt the Holy One of Israel was calling her to repent of i he sisterly covenant made last year, though she dreaded what Mich a thing might do to her and Sadie's relationship.

In the end Dat would understand if she broke her vow to Siidie. With his concern about Sadie's rumschpringe, he would undoubtedly accept the dire revelation of his firstborn's misconduct as true, but would it cause him undue grief?

Mamma, though she would agree with Dat, would undersiund why Leah had made the covenant in the first place.

And what of Aunt Lizzie? Leah felt her cheeks burn, knowing Lizzie was unyielding when it came to the tie that hinds. She'd made her promise to Sadie, as well.

The battle within Leah's heart between doing what she knew was the right thing and keeping her word to Sadie was < ausing her to lose her appetite. She found herself whispering iote but fervent prayers, not just at mealtime and bedtime, but ;ill the day long.

Walking barefoot to the Nolts' house, Mary Ruth heard a pair of woodpeckers hidden in the trees that rimmed the road. I 'hough she couldn't see them just now, she knew they were

11inch larger than the bats Dat sometimes spotted in the barn rafters of a night. Their wedge-shaped tails steadied their black bodies as they flew from tree to tree, driving hard bills Jeep into tree bark in search of a succulent insect dinner.

She kept to the left side of the road, still baffled by her lather's voluntarily allowing her to work for fancy folk. To be

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sure, Aunt Lizzie had played a part. Seemed most anything Lizzie wanted lately she got, especially if Dat had much to say about it.

Awful surprising, she thought as she headed off to her first day on the job with the nice Englishers and their infant son. When she'd gone to meet them with Aunt Lizzie yesterday after supper, she'd noticed right away the baby's dark hair, unlike his blond and blue-eyed parents, though neither of them seemed to pay any mind. Dottie Nolt had quietly shared with her that baby Carl was indeed adopted, not common knowledge. Now in their midthirties, the Nolts were pleased to have a little one to love as their own. Mary Ruth thought they must be churchgoers because Dottie had told her yesterday they were planning to have their baby dedicated to God in church soon. There was something awful special about knowing they wanted to raise their little one with the Lord God's blessings. It made her respect them, English or not, though she scarcely knew them.

"Hello again, Mary Ruth," Dottie greeted her at the front door.

"Hullo," she replied. Stepping into the thoroughly modern front room, Mary Ruth felt such gladness to be here again. She had an uncanny connection to the larger world here. It was just as some of her older girlfriends had described their first visit to downtown Lancaster that unspeakable, somewhat delirious feeling of rumschpringe being allowed to experience something other than the society of the People . . . truly the only thing she knew.

After she was offered a glass of lemonade, freshly squeezed just like Mamma's, Mary Ruth agreed to sweep and scrub both85

the entry hall and the kitchen floors. "I'll even get down on nil fours like Mamma does at home," she told Dottie.

Her employer appeared somewhat surprised, eyebrows arching as she smiled. "I can see I'm going to become very spoiled with you around, Mary Ruth."

So she took extra care to reach far into all the corners and crevices, washing the floor by hand. When that chore was complete, she dusted the front room. Carefully removing knickknacks and magazines from the sofa tables, she hummed, enjoying herself far more than she'd ever dreamed possible In a worldly home, of all things. Except she'd seen an open Bible in both the kitchen and now here, on what Dottie culled the "coffee table." Interesting, to be sure.

Moving upstairs, she couldn't help but think of the extra mi >ney she was going to earn. What a good idea to put it away Inr future schooling needs. Dat would have a fit when he put I wt > and two together and discovered what she was saving up for. Yet it wasn't as if she had sought out this work. The whole thing had fallen into her lap, thanks to Aunt Lizzie.

Hannah, on the other hand, had appeared startled about this opportunity. "How will ya keep up with your homework once school starts?" she had asked Mary Ruth in the privacy i >l I heir bedroom last night.

"Dottie Nolt wants me only two or three times a week. That's all."

"Twice oughta keep the house clean enough, seems to me," Hannah replied.

"Maybe so, but I want to please my first employer. I'll still have plenty of time to help Mamma at home."

So, after talking it over with Mamma, Mary Ruth agreed

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that if the job interfered with schoolwork, she'd ask Sadie to fill in for a while. But she doubted that would work, what with Sadie seeming to recoil at the sight of her own baby sister. Mary Ruth truly wondered about that.

just now, going into the darling nursery, she stopped to admire a framed wall painting above the dresser a small boy with suntanned legs making chase after a lone orange-brown butterfly that appeared to be just out of reach. She'd seen bright-colored butterflies like that many times in the high meadow over near Blackbird Pond, out behind smithy Peachey's bank barn and blacksmith shop.

The painting made her smile, and she set to work dusting the dresser thoroughly before moving on to the oak rocker, cleaning the rungs beneath. A peek at the empty crib let her know baby Carl was either cradled in his new mother's arms or tucked away for a nap in the wicker bassinet near the kitchen. Such a wondrous thing, these folk opening their home and their joyful hearts to an orphaned baby.

Eager to complete her housekeeping chores in an acceptable manner, Mary Ruth attended to every detail. When the rocking chair was polished, she moved to the round lamp table nearby. To her surprise, there on the table lay yet another open Bible, same as the two downstairs. She saw that a verse from the Psalms was underlined in red As the hartpanteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

Why so many copies of the Good Book in the house? she wondered. Was Dottie a follower of the Jehovah Lord? Were there Englishers who were also devout like the People? For sure and for certain, the idea of an open Bible in every room and in a fancy home was ever so curious.

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Distracted and restless, Abram worked up a sweat redding Up the barn for the Lord's Day gathering and the young people's singing that was to follow tomorrow evening. He'd made the decision to have the church benches set up on the threshlny floor, where an occasional breeze might do some good I-roping folk awake instead of the way it had been two weeks ,i);u, when he and everyone else had been helpless to fight off ilie heat-induced stupor. And with Ida still tending closely to ilidr infant daughter, the housework of removing all the rugs inul rearranging the furniture would have fallen to the girls Mild Lizzie. Truly, it was better to have church in the barn, where he would plan the seating arrangement and direct the lVople to their seats.

He was mighty glad to have a strong helping hand this .iliernoon with the heavier duties. Far as he was concerned, ' 'inithy Gid could easily become a necessary right arm to him, what with Johr*suffering a hip ailment clear out of the blue.

Working with Gid, he shoveled manure out of the stable Hi t'lU Then they raked and swept clean the widest area of the threshing floor, where the People would sit as hearers of the Word.

" 'S'mighty gut of you to help," Abram said, pushing hard mi I he long-handled broom. *| "Glad to do it." . .'..

^H "Ain't so certain how I'll manage here in a few weeks." HP Gid nodded but kept working. "I wonder 'bout that, too,

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Abram. But more and more Pop needs me to help him with some of the smithy work."

Abram knew that, all right. But there was no real need to address the event both men dreaded. The topic of Leah's impending marriage was something they avoided discussing altogether. Abram had witnessed firsthand Gid's feelings for Leah, saw the hopeless longing in the young man's eyes whenever she was anywhere near.

Abram's feeble attempt to get Jonas Mast out of town and off to Ohio had backfired. The time apart had served only to solidify their love, visible by the number of Ohio letters arriving each week. So Leah had fallen in love with the boy she believed was to be her life mate . .. although Abram would be surprised if she and Jonas ended up together.