Meek and Mild (22 page)

“I understand Young Dave is the boss of the raising today.” Hiram Kuhn guided the family buggy to a clear spot along a pasture fence and pulled on the reins.

“His first time,” Rhoda said. “I’m sure he has learned well from his father.”

Clara got out and then raised her hands for little Mari. Hannah would insist she could get down on her own. Josiah was already helping Hiram unhitch the horse, and Rhoda gripped the handles of two baskets of food. Clara welcomed Mari into her arms, giving the three-year-old a quick hug and a kiss on the top of her head without looking at Rhoda.

“I want to really help this time.” Josiah straightened his eight-year-old height. “I’m old enough.”

“We’ll see,” Hiram said.

“I don’t want to go with the
kinner
.” Josiah’s face set with his mother’s determination. “I want to learn to build a barn.”

Clara watched the glance that passed between Hiram and Rhoda.

“Come with me,” Hiram said, “but you must obey carefully today.” They walked away.

Mari tugged Clara’s skirt. “Is this a frolic?”

“Yes, it is,” Clara said. A hundred people or more would turn out. Glancing around, she could see most of the church families were already present.

“I like frolics, don’t I?” Mari, standing beside the buggy, looked up at Clara for confirmation.

Clara smiled. “You are the best frolicker I know.”

Rhoda cleared her throat. “Please don’t fill her head with pride.”

Clara cupped her hand around the back of Mari’s head but said nothing.

“Come along, Mari,” Rhoda said. “You, too, Hannah. Let’s let Clara enjoy her day.”

“I’ll keep the girls,” Clara said, gesturing at the baskets Rhoda carried. “You have other things to do.”

“Thank you,” Rhoda said, “but I’ve already spoken with Hannah. It’s time she took on more responsibility. She’s old enough to keep Mari occupied.”

Once Rhoda turned her back, leading the girls away, Clara let out her sigh. Clara would have enjoyed her day very well with her little sisters in tow. Even when her father first married Rhoda, Clara knew she had a determined personality. Her penchant for order served the household well after Hiram’s years of limited cooking skills and uncertainty about what a little girl needed. But now, the way Rhoda drew lines around her stepdaughter without ever being rude—this was something Clara would not have predicted.

Clara turned her eyes to the bustling scene. Men clustered around supplies, women unwrapped food at a series of tables, and children scooted off to find friends and have the run of the farm. Young people old enough to go to Singings would eye each other.

She would enjoy the day. As a motherless little girl, she loved any sort of frolic that brought her into the arms and attention of the church. No one today would have reason to think anything was wrong between Clara and Rhoda. She could be with people she had known all her life, doing something no one would disagree about.

Clara caught Andrew’s eye across the farmyard cleared for the day of the chickens that normally occupied it. He would be working hard. She had seen Andrew’s contribution to a barn raising before. He let older men lean into the poles that would raise the first bent to an upright position, while nearly two dozen others held it with ropes from falling over. As soon as the second bent was raised, Andrew would lead the scramble of agile young men up to jiggle and fit the crossbeams into place and drive in the locking pins. He had never been afraid of heights or of standing on surfaces more narrow than his boots. The men were already arranging themselves, awaiting Young Dave’s call to begin raising the skeleton.

Clara decided to be useful by helping to set up a water station. It was already after eight o’clock, and in the middle of July, temperatures would soar by midmorning. A large dispenser was positioned on a table, no doubt well chilled in spring water. Clara pulled out one of several crates under the table and found glasses, which she began to set out in rows.

“Clara!”

The voice came from behind her. Clara pivoted to see Priscilla Schrock a few feet away.

“I was hoping you would be here.” Priscilla bounced on her heels.

“And here I am,” Clara said.

“I’m going to tell Naomi and Lillian you’re here. We can have a story class.”

“Priscilla, I don’t think—”

The girl was already in motion, unhearing of Clara’s gentle protest. As she looked round, Clara wondered if she appeared as furtive as she felt.

Young Dave strode past her, positioned himself in a central location among the supplies, and gave the first call.

Yonnie joined the crew framing doorways and windows. Uncomfortable with climbing the rising form of a barn, he was consistent in his choice of tasks that kept both feet on the ground with little risk that any sudden movement would endanger his balance. Now he wished he had paid more attention over the years to the details. If he had learned to frame a window rather than simply hand tools to the carpenter, he might have a skill to offer a new employer.

Mose Beachy turned a palm up, and Yonnie laid a tiny awl in it. At least he knew which tool was needed, even if he hadn’t learned to use it himself. He watched carefully, though. The barn would have several doors and a bank of windows letting in daylight.

Bending his wide girth, Mose finished an adjustment and signaled that Yonnie should help him lift the window frame into the space left for it in the side of the barn. Outside the barn, older men marked with chalk where siding boards would cross a beam before handing the boards off to others who carried them, three at a time, and passed them to younger men stationed among the framing. The sound of swinging hammers striking nails would not abate for hours as siding boards went onto the frame in a rolling wave.

Younger boys, old enough to help but not yet trusted with tools or heights, moved around the barn and yard collecting waste wood to pile out of the way. One of them trailed Mose and Yonnie now. It was the Kuhn boy, Yonnie thought, though he never could remember the boy’s name. Joshua. Jeremiah. Something like that.

Mose worked with few words. Suddenly he shouted over Yonnie’s shoulder. “Watch out.”

A thud launched a clatter, followed by a yelp.

“Put the window down.” Mose swiftly lowered his end to the barn floor. Yonnie set his end down carefully and balanced the frame against an interior post, irritated that Mose had left him with the weight of the fragile window.

Mose knelt beside the boy, who had fallen and dropped the waste wood balanced in his arms.

“Josiah, are you all right?”

Josiah
. That was the Kuhn boy’s name. His eyes were closed, and he made no sound.

“Josiah?” Mose said again.

“My head hurts.” Josiah raised a hand to one temple, his eyes still closed.

“It’s all right. You can open your eyes.” Mose pulled out a shirttail and gently wiped sawdust from the boy’s face. “It’s only a small cut.”

“Is it bleeding?” Josiah’s eyes popped wide open.

Yonnie rolled his gaze at the boy’s fright. “You should have been more careful.”

The boy’s face crumpled.

Mose looked up through the unfinished slope of the rear portion of the barn. Yonnie followed his view and saw Andrew peering down.

“Anybody hurt?” Andrew said. “A board got away from somebody up here.”

Mose looked at Josiah. The boy was startled and on the brink of tears.

“We’re fine,” Yonnie told Andrew.

“I think Josiah will want to go find his mother.” Mose helped the boy to his feet.

“You should have been paying more attention,” Yonnie said. “It’s dangerous to have children in the way of the men while they’re working.”

“I’m helping,” Josiah said.

“Look at the mess you’ve made.” Yonnie pointed to the strewn waste wood.

“I’ll pick it up again.” Josiah’s voice trembled.

Mose put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “The important thing is you’re safe. But maybe you’d like some water or a pastry before you get back to work.”

Josiah nodded.

When the boy had left the barn, Mose began picking up the spilled wood and stacking it against the wall. “You were harsh with the boy. It wasn’t his fault one of the men above dropped a board.”

“If fathers want to let their sons work,” Yonnie said, “they should supervise more closely.”

“I have fourteen children,” Mose said. “Not a one of them would fail to look around and see what needs doing when the church community is together. They want to belong. Your parents taught you the same way. I can remember when you were a boy picking up waste wood.”

“He has to be aware of what’s happening around him.” Yonnie mumbled now. “He could have been hurt.”

“And if he had been, we would have taken care of him. That’s what we do. Jesus teaches us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.”

The admonishment, though delivered with gentleness, stung.

Yonnie returned to the window frame. “Let’s get back to work.”

The men ate lunch in two shifts, selecting food from the women’s offerings and findings seats at tables inside the Mast house or in the shade of trees in the yard. After the men were fed, the women and children would eat. Women shuttled around refilling water glasses and clearing plates to wash quickly for the next wave of diners. Finishing his meal with the second shift, Andrew watched Clara amble back toward the water table where she had spent most of the day so far. Stopping to greet others who spoke to him, Andrew followed Clara in a vague way. On a day like this, a working man could always use another glass of water.

On the verge of speaking, Andrew held his words when Hannah Kuhn whizzed past him and grinned at her big sister.

“I thought you were watching Mari,” he heard Clara say.

“Nap time!” Hannah answered. “
Mamm
said I could go play.”

“Then you should go find your friends.”

“Priscilla said I should come here.”

“She did?”

“Yes. She has a surprise for me!”

Priscilla, Naomi, and Lillian arrived in tangled unison.

“I told you she was here,” Priscilla announced. She turned to Clara. “You don’t have to stay here every minute, do you?”

Andrew’s soft steps took him closer, still behind Clara. His curiosity piqued.

“No,” Clara said. “I don’t suppose so.”

“Grown-ups can get their own water,” Naomi said. “But they won’t tell us a story like you will.”

Andrew saw Clara’s frame stiffen. Pride rose through his chest, though he did not allow it to form on his lips.

“A story?” Hannah said.

“That’s the surprise,” Priscilla said.

Clara’s nervous glance swept the farmyard. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea right now.”

“It is! It is!” Lillian said. “We’ve been waiting all day for Mari to go to sleep so Hannah could come, too.”

Andrew recognized the shift in her posture as Clara embraced the notion. His mind’s eye saw again lines jumping from her sheaf of papers. He glanced at the barn, where the side boarding continued on one end and the roofing began on the other. He judged there were enough young men willing to scale the heights and do the work, and he might not have another opportunity to hear Clara tell a story.

She could not know he was there, though, or she might get shy. And he did not want his presence to inhibit the enthusiasm he witnessed in the little girls. Andrew gave Clara and the girls a head start, the girls tugging at her hands and skirts as they walked down the tree-lined lane. He could easily keep them in sight, see where they settled, and lean against a tree out of sight but within earshot.

Andrew wished he could watch her face as she arranged a circle with four little girls to tell the story of one little boy who offered his lunch—everything he had—to Jesus.