Arms of Love (41 page)

T
hat evening, the whole of the Yoder and Wyse families were gathered around the hearth with the bishop, eating popcorn and dried apples. They made a merry time of it, and Lena especially enjoyed it when the bishop told tales of his travels. She also realized that she liked to watch the glow in Isaac’s eyes as he listened; she was glad to see him happier than he had ever seemed with her.

She listened now as the bishop told of a mountain Amish family, deep in the Alleghenies, where he had found rest and comfort and much humor.

“The
grossmuder
and her granddaughter make a livelihood by crafting homemade items and then selling them twice a year at an
Englisch
fair. It is a tenuous way to live, but they rely fully on the Lord, and the granddaughter has an amazing spirit. She is a bit of a spitfire as well.”

“You mean they do art and such?” John asked with interest.

“Hmm?
Ach, ya
. . . all sorts of paintings and decorative household things and broomstick air castles and fine knitting and embroidery too.”

Lena watched her brother’s face light up with the idea and wondered whether he might take some of his artwork to market one day. The Amish were not traditionally wont to do such things, but if Ruth had anything to say about it, John might be able to make a living painting.

“Well, the granddaughter’s a wild one for sure, but a true beauty too. She can shoot a rattlesnake’s eye at ten paces and speak Latin table manners as pretty as you please.”

“Latin?” Isaac asked.

The bishop waved a hand. “
Ya
. Latin, Greek . . . The
grossmuder
believes in the training of a woman’s mind.”

“To what purpose?” Isaac queried, and he looked alarmed when Lena gave him a sisterly rap on the knuckles. “What?” he cried as the others laughed.

The bishop went on. “I cannot help but say that it has made the child only a finer person to study, not vain in any way. But you will get to meet them in person, Isaac, and I hope find as much rest there as I have.”

“
Ya
, that is my prayer, surely.”

Lena realized in the midst of much talk and joking that Adam was gazing at her, a sleepy, warm look that made her want to shake her head at him in reproof. She wished she were sitting closer to him to hold his hand. She was thinking about how she might artfully change positions when an odd sound from the cradle behind her caught her ear. She listened again and heard it, faint but distinctive—it drained the color from her face.

“Listen!
Ach
, please listen,” she cried, and the group stilled.

Then the noise came again, a tight, wet cough ending in a terrifying whooping sound. Whooping cough! Lena had heard it before when Abby was two and came down with the disease. Their mother and father had battled day and night for nearly a week to turn the tide of death that almost always accompanied the self-imposed quarantine of the house.

Lena went to peer over the cradle, unsure which babe had coughed, when Ruth bustled her to one side. “ ’Ere now . . . a bit of the whooping cough, ’tis all. Which one of our pretties is it? Or both, perhaps?”

Lena studied both babies carefully, then realized as the infant’s face reddened with the next coughing spasm that it was Faith who struggled to gain her breath.

“There now,” Ruth said, scooping up the baby. “Samuel, ’tis Faith.”

Lena watched her father come forward, looking suddenly younger and more alert than he had in weeks. “We must fight it, before Mary takes ill as well.”

“Likely she already has it,” Ruth said.

“
Ach
, what can we do? I have not had young
kinner
in so long,”

Ellen said, rising from her chair.

“ ’Twill pass,” Ruth soothed to the room at large, even as Faith coughed again against her ample shoulder. “We must make a tent about the cradle with a thin blanket and let her lie there while using steam from a kettle filled with hot water and mint.”

Lena stood frozen as she watched the tableau unfold before her— people rushing to gather things at Ruth’s request, the bishop bending his head in prayer, and the murmured sounds of comfort as the babe wrestled through another spasm.

“Are you all right, my love?” It was Adam standing at her back, his strong hands on her shoulders.

Lena shook her head. “
Nee
,” she said. “I think not.”

“What is it? You fear for the babe?”

“
Ya
. . . perhaps. But it is more than that. There are so many here to help, the fear is less. Not like when . . .”

“When your
mamm
died?” he whispered.

She half sobbed, then turned into the shelter of his arms, letting herself be drawn away from the bustle of activity and out onto the darkness of the porch.

The stars lay in a heavy blanket against the shadowy tips of the trees that surrounded the farm against the moonlit sky.

Adam let her sob against him and found loose tendrils of her hair from beneath her prayer covering to twine about his fingers.

“I should go back in,” she said after a few minutes.

“Should you?” He turned her gently in his arms until she faced the gloaming of the front yard of the house, the fireflies blinking out a waltzing cascade. “Perhaps, for only a moment, you should look at what is before you. The God who made all of this holds Faith in His capable hands. And Ruth Stone is not a bad angel to have on board either.”

He felt her smile through her tears with the tips of his fingers against her face.

“
Ya
, but, Adam . . . sometimes
Gott
says
nee
. . . like with
Mamm
.

I miss her so much. I would have been so happy to have her celebrate our wedding day with us.”

“I know,” he whispered. “But do you think heaven so veiled from this world that she cannot feel our joy through the love of Christ?”

“I have not thought of it that way. And to imagine that there was a time when I was unsure of your faith, of what you really believed. I know by your words that you so love
Gott
and will be a
wunderbarr
spiritual leader in our home.”

“
Danki
, Lena. Now come . . . let us go back inside, if you are feeling better.”

He escorted her back to the light of the door when Isaac appeared, looking troubled.

“Lena . . . the babe breathes a bit easier, but—but I would speak to my
bruder
alone for a moment if you do not mind.”

“Of course . . . please do.”

Adam watched her slip indoors, then looked at his brother. “What is the matter, Isaac? Does the babe do as well as you say?”

Isaac stepped farther into the shadows. “It is not that exactly.”

“Then what?” Adam felt an anxiety in his spirit for Isaac that he did not know he was capable of—it was amazing how God was allowing him to develop feelings and emotions for a brother he had little known and so little understood while they grew.

“I fear if I tell you that you will think me a bit mad.”

Adam reached out and touched his brother’s shoulder. “Isaac, tell me.”

“Well, when the bishop and I were praying for the babe, it was as if—as if I heard
Gott
speak to me directly. He said very clearly to rise, lay hands on the babe, and bring healing to her in His name. I know it sounds
narrish
, but . . .”

“So did you?”

“What?”

“Did you do it?”

“
Nee
. . . I came out here to ask you what you thought.”

Adam sighed. “Isaac, if there’s one thing that I understand through the relationship—if you want to call it that—with our father, it’s the concept of obedience. When you are told what to do by a greater authority, you do it—or suffer the consequences.
Gott
is clearly the higher authority here, and you should obey. I should think with all of your study that—”

Isaac made a low sound of frustration in the dark. “That’s just it— it is study, but no true application in life. And I fear what people in there will think.”

“It is not about you,” Adam said. “It rests on God. I think you should act.”

Lena came to the screen door then, her face haloed by the candlelight within, revealing her anxiety. “
Ach
, Adam, Faith is doing worse. You had better come, please. I’m sorry, Isaac.”

“
Nee
,” Isaac muttered, brushing past Adam to open the door. “ ’Tis

I who am sorry.”

He hurried into the house, and Adam caught Lena’s hand to follow.

Chapter 39

R
uth heard the dismal rasp for breath and knew a moment of fear. She glanced over the thin blanket that she and Samuel held over the cradle while Ellen fed the steam inside. She could not bear to think what would happen if God should allow the loss of Faith, not when she had come to love and care for her as her own. And what would Samuel feel? He, who had already lost his true wife in the life giving of the child.

Ruth closed her eyes and tried to grasp what Lena had read to her. “
God is for you
. . .” She let the words drift round in her brain, stopping to peer periodically at the little face in the cradle. She was at the end of her nursing abilities; now it really did seem to rest on whether she believed that God was indeed on her side in the matter or not.

Isaac brushed past her in that moment, taking her hands from the blanket and gently edging her aside.

“Please, Ruth,” he said. “I must—I must touch the babe.”

“But the steam . . . ,” she began, then stopped as she saw the intensity of the young man’s gaze. Something stilled her words and her hands, and she fell back on her knees. Samuel, likewise, lifted the blanket and sank down to the floor.

She watched as Isaac reached his large hands into the cradle and laid them on the fretful babe. Then she glanced up in surprise when she heard him speak.

“In the name of the Lord Christ, I tell you to be healed and rebuke any illness or harm that threatens you, Faith Yoder.”

Then he withdrew. Ruth saw a muscle tense in his face as he watched the baby, clearly expecting something to happen. She, too, looked at the child and, amazingly, saw a lessening in the babe’s struggle. She leaned forward and grasped the edge of the cradle, scared that Faith might have ceased to breathe altogether. But as Isaac drew back, Ruth saw normal color suffuse the delicate cheeks, and as she laid a hand on the small chest, she could find no sense of tightness. Indeed, Faith nestled closer to her hand, then dropped into the normal breathing of restful sleep.