As the World Churns (11 page)
“Yah, because this I must see. With such machines, Magdalena, I think it is possible to get milk from a rock.”
I couldn’t help but smile. As much work as it was, Papa had eschewed electric milking machines for the true hands-on approach. He thought the cows responded to his warm touch by producing more milk, and with
a higher
butterfat content.
“So you think these cows deserve to be in this contest?”
Mose bit his lip as he appeared to think this over.
“What is it?” I demanded. “I know you and Freni aren’t too keen on contests, but there’s more to that here, isn’t there?”
“Ach, Magdalena, I cannot tell a lie.”
We’d been having this conversation in the barn, next to Doc’s bloody message. I beckoned Mose into the bright, rejuvenating sunshine of a perfect April morning.
“Okay, Mose, out with it.”
He glanced around, perhaps looking for the Devil. “They are all beautiful cows, yah? But except for one, I think. This one is- ach, but I must say this-ordinary?”
“Ordinary?”
Mose would not knowingly bad-mouth a flea. To hear him use such harsh language about a cow shocked me to the tips of my stocking-clad toes. I reeled like a
drunk
woman.
Had I been wearing dentures, I might well have stepped on them. Fortunately, my real chompers are in tip-top condition, thanks to all the milk Mama made me drink as a girl.
He nodded. “It is not a bad cow; I myself have such animals. But there are many wrinkles on the bag, and it is smaller than the average.”
“Show me.”
Mose led me around to a pen on the north side of the barn. It was the enclosure picked by the Dorfman brothers. Although I’d seen and admired their cows the day before, armed with Mose’s information, I saw them now with new eyes. One of the Holsteins was still a beauty, but indeed, the other was, well, ordinary. She certainly wasn’t worth toting all the way from
“So now you see.”
“For sure.
What gives?”
“Gives?”
“What are the owners of this cow up to?” Mose shrugged. “The ways of the English are like piddles, yah?”
“Piddles?”
“Games for the mind.”
“Ah, you must mean ‘riddles.’ “
“Forgive me, Magdalena, but I think the correct word is ‘piddles.’ “
It was time to stop yanking his chain, as Susannah would say. “Did you say anything to the Dorfman brothers about their inferior entry?”
“Ach, no, it is not my business.”
“Good man. Leave it to me; I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Be careful, yah?” His look of concern was heartening. “I will, indeed.”
“But this time, really careful.
Not like the other times.”
“Mose, just because I’ve been thrown down a mine shaft, left trussed in a burning house, ordered to jump out of an airplane, and even carted off to the wilds of
varied attempts on my life is
proof that I am skilled at extracting myself from the very jaws of the Grim Reaper. Or would that be Reaper
ess
? Then again, if we are to eliminate sexism from language, we cannot automatically assign gender to an entity that lacks a corporal being. But if we do, is not turnabout fair play? I mean, what’s good for the gander is good for the goose, and vice versa.”
Mose sighed deeply, and by doing so, informed me that he, for one, had not shied away from the scrapple at breakfast.
“Again with the piddles.
But I was thinking, yah?”
“As we all must from time to time.”
“Perhaps it is more like the wooden duck.”
“In that case me thinkest thou meanest the Trojan horse.”
Mose scowled. It was the first time I’d ever seen him angry, and I immediately felt guilty.
Me and my big mouth.
But really, when you think about it, my flapping lips have got to be inherited from
whomever
birthed me, and so are not really my fault. Perhaps the woman from whose loins I slithered was a carnival caller. That would certainly explain a great deal.
“Magdalena, I do not speak of horses, but the ducks that hunters set on our ponds.”
“Ah, decoys!”
“Yah, the same.
I think perhaps the not so good cow has been brought all this way from
This time, I chewed my cud before speaking. “Yes, but this competition is supposed to be at a high level. Surely the Dorfman twins don’t think they can win with an entry that doesn’t meet objective criteria.”
“Is it possible they do not intend to win, only to sell the cow?”
“Ha!
An interesting theory.
But you would think they could find a buyer back home for the buxom bovine.”
“Not for this baby,” a voice behind me said.
I whirled, and found myself staring down into the flyaway eyebrows of Harmon Dorfman.
12
“Howdy-do, Miss Yoder,” Harmon said, and tipped a straw hat.
He grinned.
“I’ll let you know when my heart stops racing.”
“And you must be an aye-mish man,” Harmon said and extended a beefy paw to Mose.
“Yah, I am Amish.”
“We have youse in
Best-looking farms I ever seen.
Same thing here.
Tell me, how many bushels of corn do youse get to an acre?”
“Okay,
it’s
stopped racing,” I said. “Do you often sneak up on people?”
“No, ma’am.
Of course, I don’t get me much chance, on account of Harry and I don’t get out very much.”
“I thought your brother was married.”
“Oh he is, but she
run
back to her family after two weeks. So far he ain’t seen fit to go after her.”
“How long has it been?”
“Five years come July.”
Mose shook his head in bewilderment. Although he’s had to interact with us English his entire adult life, he still finds our ways strange. Funny, but I used to exclude myself from the category English, coming as I did from a Mennonite family that descended from Amish forebears. But that was then and this is now, as my pseudo-stepdaughter, Alison, says.
Now that I was no longer of the blood, but the unwanted offspring of a carnival caller-hmm, my biological mama might not have been the caller. She could just as well have been the bearded lady, or the amazing snake woman. What’s more, short of a DNA test, I had no proof
who
my papa was either. For all I knew, he could have been a count from Liechtenstein who’d done the extracurricular mattress mambo with a housemaid, who then handed me off to a passing carnival. Did that, perchance, make me a countess?
“Miss Yoder? Miss Yoder! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine as the bearded lady’s nose hair, and you may call me Countess Yoder-Rosen of Liechtenstein.”
“Ach,” Mose said. The poor man was, however, used to my flights of fancy.
“Miss Yoder, if you don’t mind me saying, you’re a hoot.”
“Owl
accept
that as a compliment. Tell me, Mr. Dorfman, why have you hauled this unremarkable cow all the way from
“Because Cindy Sue-that’s her name-ain’t unremarkable, on account of the other one, Cora
Beth,
is her clone.”
“Excuse me?”
“Youse know what a clone is, Miss Yoder, right?”
“I read newspapers, Mr. Dorfman, as well as the Bible.” A clone! Perhaps that applied to me. Okay, so scientists had yet to clone a human forty-eight years ago-at least not one that we know of-but it was possible the government had been working on it secretly. After all, if we really knew everything that the government has been up to, it would boggle our minds to the point that we’d all go insane.
And
if
I was a
clone, that
would go a long way to explain the feeling I’ve always had that somewhere there is an identical twin just waiting to be reunited with me. But even if scientists could clone the human body, what about the soul? Would the new person have one? If not, would they still be
human,
or just look like one? And if the soul could be cloned, and the original person was “saved,” would the clone be saved as well? What if the pope was
cloned,
and his clone disagreed with him on theological issues? Who would be infallible?
“You sure don’t look very well, Miss Yoder.”
“Yah,” Mose said. “Magdalena, I think maybe you should sit down.”
“Sitting is for wusses. Continue, dear, with this cloning gibberish.”
“It’s not gibberish. You see, Harry has himself a biology degree from the University
of
North Dakota. When all this cloning stuff started happening, he took special notice, and studied up on it. Then one day, he and some of his buddies decided to try and clone a Holstein. The rest, as they say, is historic.”
“That would be ‘history,’ dear.”
“That’s what I’m telling youse.”
“Then why haven’t I heard about it before now?”
“ ’Cause
it’s top secret, on account of this time the clone-that would be Cora Beth-turned out better than the original. I mean, see for yourself.”
“I see an exceptional cow and an average one. How am I supposed to tell which is which?”
“Um-well, I guess youse is gonna have to trust me on that one, Miss Yoder. But I don’t
got
no reason to lie to you. Anyway, as soon as word of this gets out, they’ll likely be a million scientists clamoring to test this baby. They’ll be lots of folks wanting to buy her too.
At top dollar.”
“So that’s why you brought her all this way?
To create a media sensation at my
Holstein
competition?”
“With all due respect, ma’am, I didn’t know it was
your
competition.”
“You know what I mean, and there’ll be nothing of the kind. This is an event the sole purpose of which is to select America’s best dairy cow; this is not a circus. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.
But could I bring my own reporter?”
“No clone, no press announcement.”
“But Miss Yoder-”
“Is this a legitimate question?” But it was Mose’s hand that popped up. “Yah, Magdalena, I have a question.”
“Yes, Mose?”
“What does it
mean,
this clone?”
“It means-well, in a nutshell it means that scientists are trying to play God, and that in this case in particular, Harry and his buddies were able to take a microscopic piece of so-so Cindy Sue and turn it into the breathtaking Cora Beth.”
“Ach!
Like at creation?”
“Pretty much.”
“Get behind me, Satan,” Mose said, and wisely fled the scene. “Just so you know,” I said to Harmon Dorfman, “if fire and brimstone rain down on my farm, you’ll have to reimburse me.”
