Crossing (13 page)

Daniel and Yancy took their seats, and then as was traditional for the Amish, the women seated themselves. Zemira sat down while Becky put Callie Jo in her high chair. Zemira had saved the well-made wooden tray chair for years, wrapped up carefully in an old quilt in the attic. It looked new, but her husband, Jacob, had made it more than thirty years ago for Daniel when he was a baby.

“Now we will bless,” Daniel said.

They all bowed their heads for the silent blessing. As always, Yancy surreptitiously watched his father until he raised his head. Of course, most of the time Zemira caught him, but she didn’t fuss. She merely gave him an amused, slightly conspiratorial look.

As soon as they began to eat, the conversation began. Dinnertime was usually lively, for the Amish worked hard all day at different tasks and it was a time for catching up on everything around the farm. Today, however, which was Saturday, they only wanted to hear from Yancy about Major and Mrs. Jackson. He had been working for them for more than a month now, and though the Amish considered themselves a separate people, they were always eager to hear about news from town and the outside world.

“So, Yancy, tell us all about Major Jackson and Mrs. Jackson and what has gone on this last week,” Becky prodded him. “But first—how is Mrs. Jackson? I know you’ve told us that she still seems sad at times. It’s been, um, six months since she lost the little girl? I can’t imagine how long it would take to get over something like that….” Her voice trailed off, and all eyes at the table went to Callie Jo.

As if she were aware of the attention, she grinned, her two top teeth and two bottom teeth shining. She had a bowl of creamed celery on her tray, and she buried one chubby hand in it, waved joyously, and smeared it all over her face.

Zemira, Becky, Yancy, and Daniel burst out laughing. Becky hurried to clean her face and spoon some of the celery properly into her mouth.

Yancy answered, “Mrs. Jackson is better. It seems like she gets a little better every week. Yesterday she even laughed. It’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh.”

“About what?” Becky asked curiously.

Yancy grinned. “We were out in the garden. I was down on my knees in one of the flower beds, turning the soil and mulching, and I guess Major Jackson didn’t realize I was there. So he comes home and finds Mrs. Jackson, sitting on a bench, reading a book. He starts telling her about this new cadet; his name is Percy Smith. He’s a distant cousin of Superintendent Smith’s, and they’re all under orders to sort of help him along. So during artillery class, Major Jackson lets him be a gun captain, but of course the other guys have to do all the worming and swabbing and priming and loading; all he’s got to do is pull the lanyard when Major Thomas yells, ‘Fire!’

“But it seems like this Percy Smith is kind of a muffin, ‘cause on the first battery he pulls the lanyard, then jumps straight up in the air, covers his ears, and yells, ‘Ooohh!’ And Major Jackson acted it out, jumping up and screeching like a little girl. Mrs. Jackson laughed and laughed. And I did, too, but I was quiet about it, because I knew Major Jackson would be embarrassed if he knew I’d heard him and seen him.”

The others were fascinated. Daniel said thoughtfully, “You know, I’ve never met Major Jackson, but his reputation seems to be of a rather stern, stiff military man of great dignity.”

“So he is,” Yancy agreed, “except with Mrs. Jackson. You wouldn’t believe how different he is with her. Course, he’s very gallant with all ladies, but with her he’s kind and soft and smiles a lot and calls her pet names. He doesn’t mind who sees, either. It’s just that yesterday he was such a big clown that I figured he might mind me seeing that.”

Becky nodded with understanding. “He sounds like a wonderful husband. And so the loss of his daughter hasn’t affected his mind or his health too adversely?”

Yancy shrugged. “He never seems to be really upset about anything, except his health.”

“And so he is in bad health?” Zemira asked.

“I don’t know about that. He doesn’t really look sick, but he’s always complaining of some kind of ailment. Last week he was complaining of an inflammation in his ear and in his throat. He also said he had neuralgia, whatever that is.”

“I suppose he goes to the doctor quite often,” Becky said sympathetically.

“No, I heard Mrs. Jackson urging him to go, but Major Jackson just said, ‘I can prescribe medicine just as well as those fellows.’ He showed me once what he was taking, a whole cabinet full of bottles. One was chloroform liniment, and the bottles were labeled—things like ammonia, glycerin, and nutritive silver.”

“That sounds awful, and dangerous, too,” Daniel said.

“He doesn’t act sick, but he talks a lot about his ailments. I told you how he sucks on lemons all the time. Nobody knows where he gets them in the wintertime, but he always has a bunch of them. He thinks they help his digestion or something.”

“But he is a Christian man, I heard,” Daniel said cautiously.

“Yeah, he is. He talks about the Lord and the Bible all the time,” Yancy answered. “And Mrs. Jackson, too. They’re always quoting the Bible.”

Zemira, Becky, and Daniel exchanged glances. The Amish didn’t believe in quoting scripture excessively. As with vocal prayer, they considered it very forward and smacking of pride. Of course, Yancy didn’t know this, and the adults had no intention of confusing him by explaining it to him now.

“He sounds like a good Christian man,” Becky said generously. “One that I’m proud for you to work for.”

Yancy ducked his head and murmured, “I’m proud to work for him, too.”

Very early on Monday morning, Yancy left the farm for the Jackson home in Lexington. It was the second week in October, but they hadn’t had a frost yet. It was chilly but not really cold. On this day he rode Fancy because his father had told him they wouldn’t need her. He got there at about seven thirty, unsaddled Fancy and put her in her stall next to Gordo, and brushed her down good. Then he went in the back way to the kitchen.

Hetty, Mrs. Jackson’s maid, was making coffee. She was a good-natured but no-nonsense woman, chubby, with dark eyes that crinkled into tiny slits when she laughed. Hetty had been with Mary Anna Jackson for many years. “ ‘Bout time,” she grumbled.

“I’m early,” he countered. “Mmm, coffee smells good. Can I have some?”

“I don’t know if we’ve got enough sugar and cream for you,” she said, hands on hips. “You make such a syrup out of it.”

“It’s good for me.” Yancy grinned. “A pretty girl told me at church yesterday that I’m a growing boy.”

“Bet pretty girls tell you lots of things,” Hetty said. “My daddy always told me don’t believe everything you hear. He was a smart man.”

“Bet he was. Bet his daughter is, too.”

“Humph. What are you kissing me up for today?”

“Lunch, maybe?” Yancy suggested.

“Like I don’t fix lunch for you every single time you’re here,”she said, sauntering out of the kitchen. “Dunno why I baby you, I truly don’t. You’re sure no baby ….”

Yancy finished his coffee quickly then went to the parlor.

It was the routine—Mrs. Jackson waited for him in the parlor to tell him his duties for the day. He knocked and she said softly, “Come in, Yancy.”

He went in, where Mrs. Jackson sat by a small fire. To his surprise, she was wearing a plain skirt with no hoops and a plain white shirt.

Always before she had worn the elaborate dresses that were fashionable for ladies, with wide hoop skirts, lace trim, and lace caps topping full ringlets. Today Anna’s hair was bound up tightly in a bun, and a wide-brimmed straw hat lay on the settee by her side. “Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning, ma’am. What can I do for you today?”

She smiled. She had a sweet face and kind eyes. As Yancy had noted, she seemed to have overcome her grief for her lost baby slowly over the last month. “Today I want you to work on my flower garden, Yancy. And I’m feeling so well today that I’m going to work, too. My fall flowers are looking so wonderful that I know I’ll enjoy working in the garden, as I did before—before.”

“That’s good, ma’am. I’ll enjoy the company for a change.”

Anna put on her hat and some leather work gloves, and they went out the back to the garden. Though the Jacksons had only owned the house for a short time, the garden had been created many years before by the previous owners. Anna Jackson loved gardening, so she was constantly making changes in the plantings and renewing the beds. There had also been a rather large kitchen garden in one corner. But Major Jackson had bought a farm just outside of Lexington, and as was everything else in the Shenandoah Valley, it was fruitful and grew all the fresh vegetables they could ever need.

Much of Yancy’s time had been spent in this garden, uprooting the old vegetables and tilling and retilling the soil and fertilizing to prepare for flowers. Today, Anna pointed to six shallow crates full of colorful flowers. Yancy had seen them before—his grandmother had them in her front yard—but he didn’t know what they were.

“Pansies,” Anna said to his unspoken question. “I dearly love them.” One crate held solid-colored orange flowers, one white, one yellow, one red, one purple with black markings around the center of the flower, and one with yellow petals and purple markings.

“They are pretty,” Yancy agreed, stooping down to caress one of the showy yellow and purple ones. “It’s funny; these two-colored ones have little faces.”

“You’re perceptive,” Anna said. “That’s exactly what all of the expert botanists call it. They’re wonderful flowers. If you have the soil conditioned just right, they bloom even in snow.”

“Really?”

“Yes. They look fragile and delicate, but they’re actually very strong.”

“Mmm, like some ladies,” Yancy said, rising and looking at her. He looked down at her, for she was a full foot shorter than he was.

Anna Jackson looked slightly surprised and then pleased. “I’d like to border the flower beds with them. Come, and I’ll show you which color goes where and exactly how to plant them.”

They worked steadily. Yancy, at the largest flower bed, worked carefully placing the tiny little plants closely around the border. Anna, down on her knees, worked at a small corner bed that had only three sides.

Yancy found himself humming a hymn, a doleful tune, as most of the Amish hymns were. He had no idea what the words said because it was in German, but it had been a hymn they had sung at church the day before.

Anna came to stand over him. “What is that tune, Yancy?” He looked up at her face. Her cheeks were rosy, though she didn’t look hot; she looked happy. It was the first time he had seen a complete peaceful happiness on her face.

“I don’t know, ma’am. Almost all of the Amish hymns are in German. For all I know, we’re singing about sauerkraut and pretzels.”

Anna laughed, a sweet, pleasing sound. “I rather doubt that, Yancy. It sounds much too sad for that. You’re not sad, are you?”

“Oh no, ma’am. It’s just the songs. They all sound sad, and the few that are in English are real sad.”

Anna considered this. “So—are your people very somber and grave?”

Yancy thought for a few moments. “Not really, ma’am. I guess they’re just like everyone else. Some of them are serious, some of them laugh a lot; sometimes anyone can be sad and serious and other times happy and light. They’re just people. Except they dress funny.”

“Yancy!” Anna chided him.

“Sorry,” he said unrepentantly. “But they try to make me wear a hat that looks just like yours, Mrs. Jackson. It looks real pretty on you, but you’re not going to catch me breathing and wearing a straw hat with a wide brim.” Yancy wore leather slouch hats with a wide brim and beaded hatband that his mother had made.

“I suppose,” she said, struggling to keep a straight face, “that I would feel such reluctance if someone tried to make me wear my husband’s forage cap. It simply wouldn’t do.”

“No, ma’am,” Yancy agreed heartily. “It would not do.”

Anna knelt by him and they worked side by side for a while. The flower bed was the largest in the garden. Yancy had, in deference to Mrs. Jackson, memorized all the flowers that were blooming this fall—chrysanthemums, marigolds, nasturtiums, dahlias, and now they were adding pansies as a border.

After they had worked for a time, Anna sat up and pulled a heavy round yellow chrysanthemum bloom up to her face. “They’re beautiful, but they have no scent. And you know, at Cottage Home in North Carolina we had a white chrysanthemum. It was so unusual. It looked just like a daisy. But it was hardy and fallblooming. I wish I had one here, but I haven’t seen one since I left home.”

“You know, ma’am, I think my grandmother has some of those,” he said thoughtfully. “There’s three big bushes of them in the backyard by the kitchen garden that just started blooming. I’ll ask her. I’m sure she’d love for you to have some plants.”

“Why, thank you, Yancy,” Anna said with pleasure. “I would dearly love to have white daisy-mums in my garden.”

They worked until noon, and then had a surprise. Major Jackson rode up and hurried through the backyard to embrace

Anna. As Major Jackson and Anna had gotten more accustomed with Yancy, they had begun to show more affection in front of him. He always made a point to discreetly ignore them, and he knew this made them feel comfortable with him.