The Amish Seamstress (11 page)

She always talked about how quickly the chicks flew, but with Thomas so young, it would be a long time before my parents had an empty nest—if
ever. In fact, I was pretty sure I'd end up an old maid, living here with
Mamm
and
Daed
for the rest of their days.

She wouldn't like that one bit.

It wasn't that she wasn't a good
mamm
. She really was. She cared for us, each of us, meticulously. Her house sparkled. She worked tirelessly from dawn to nightfall to keep us clothed, fed, and scrubbed. She tended the garden, canned, shopped, and cooked. Sewed, mended, and laundered. Swept, mopped, and dusted.

She loved each of us deeply, I knew, even if she didn't show it with affection very often or words of endearment. We could tell by what she did for us, by the look in her eyes, by the way she instructed us.

She was efficient and no-nonsense. She did her work quickly and properly. She was all action.

But she and I were as different as could be. I thought about something long and hard before I took action. That wasn't her way, so she didn't value it in me.

Daed
did his work well too, but differently than
Mamm
. He was slow and methodical, focusing on craftsmanship and quality. I knew it irked her how long it took him to finish a project, but I also knew she was proud of the end result.

I was far more like my
daed
, except I wanted to talk through what I was contemplating with someone. I wanted a sympathetic ear and words of encouragement. I wanted someone to bounce ideas around with. I wanted Zed.

I stumbled on the path, catching myself before I fell, and then once I reached the barn, I pushed the door open with more force than needed.

Daed
was building his shop in the back, and I made my way there over the concrete floor, inhaling the scent of pine as I went.

My father stood by the window, staring out over the field of corn.

“
Daed?
”

It took a moment for him to turn toward me.

“I came to help.”

He smiled and nodded toward a wall frame lying on its side. It was huge. No wonder Thomas had been too small to assist him.

“Get that end,”
Daed
said. He was dividing the area in half so he had a
shop on one side and a place to do his finishing work on the other. He was a carpenter, but because he hadn't had much to do on building sites lately, he was trying to get more business going on his own by making tables, all sizes, including big ones for Amish families. He'd filled several orders as wedding presents over the last year and hoped to get more.

I grabbed the two-by-four, lifted at the same time
Daed
did, and then scooted the frame into place. He grabbed a mallet from the workbench and tapped his side into place. Then he worked his way toward me, tapping along.

“I got a new job,” I said.

“Oh?”

He kept slowly tapping as I explained the situation to him.

“Well, good,” he said when I'd finished. “It sounds like you'll be a big help to Susie. And I know how fond Verna is of you.”

“I'll be able to keep doing the handwork while I'm there. In fact, Susie asked specifically that I keep doing it. She's getting lots of orders for my stuff.”

“Sounds like a win-win situation, as long as you don't let it go to your head.”

I nodded.

“Things are coming together,
ya
?” He stopped tapping and stepped back, sliding the mallet into his tool belt. “Next you'll join the church. Then find the right husband.”

“
Daed
,” I said, wanting him to stop.

He looped his thumbs into his suspenders. “You know what I want more than anything is for all of my children to be hard workers, serve the community, and join the church.”

I nodded again. We all knew that.
Daed
didn't talk a lot, but he'd made his wishes clear through the years. “You know I'll join the church,” I said. “But the marrying part is up to God, not me.”

“Izzy, God has someone planned for you. Wait and see.”

When I didn't respond he said, “Let me know when it's time to eat.”

The next morning Stephen and I headed out together. I was going to drop him off at school and then go straight to Susie's. Stephen, an exact
replica of
Daed
minus the beard and a foot of height, sat silently, watching the fields go by.

The rain had let up, finally. Both of my parents had seemed in a good mood this morning.
Mamm
and Thomas were going to help
Daed
out in the field with the harvest. I imagined, if I didn't have a new job, they would have dragged me out there too. There was nothing I disliked more than fieldwork. The forecast was for three days of sunshine—just enough time to get the harvest done.

I left Stephen at the schoolhouse and continued on toward Susie's. I had my handwork beside me in my bag, plus a collection of history books, mostly ones Zed had loaned me over the summer. He had said I was free to keep them while he was gone, and I thought Verna might enjoy them too.

Thinking of Verna, I really did hope she would be able to fill in some of the blanks for me in our family's history. Remembering the book I'd seen her reading the day before, I wondered what others she might have, and if any of them had illustrations showing what people wore back in the mid-1700s. I knew it would be a while yet before Zed finished the script and locked in his character list so I could get started on the costumes, but I couldn't wait. My heart raced at the very thought.

I turned off the highway by Susie's shop and pulled around to the alley. A few minutes later, after I'd unhitched my horse and put her in the small pasture with Susie's gelding, I hurried up the steps to the house, my things in tow.

I'd barely rapped on the door once when I heard Verna call out, “Come in.” I stepped into the kitchen, shed my cape, slipped off my shoes, and started toward the living room.

“Over here.” Verna was on the sofa, wrapped in a quilt again, reading the same book.

“Anything new?” I joked.

She shook her head and smiled at me.

I asked if there was anything she needed, tea or another blanket or whatever, but she said no, just the company would be lovely.

Happy to oblige, I sat down on the other side of the couch from her, and after just a few minutes of simple conversation, I decided to ask her
about the parts of our family history that would be relevant to the topic of Zed's film.

“I've been thinking about our ancestors who first came to America,” I told her. “The ones who would have been around in the 1700s. Well, more specifically, in 1763.”

She tilted her head. “Oh? Why these particular ancestors?”

I hesitated, wondering how to put it and hoping she wouldn't find the idea of my involvement with filmmaking offensive or improper. Then I realized that the subject might go over better if I started by telling her who was at the helm.

“You know Marta Bayer, right?”

“Of course. She was just here the other day looking after Susie.”

I nodded. “Do you know her son, Zed?”

Verna thought for a moment. “A tall, handsome young man? Blond hair that hangs too low over his eyes?”

I chuckled. “That's him.”

“Oh, I'd like to take a pair of scissors to those bangs of his. But otherwise he's a lovely boy. Sweet, handsome, well mannered—and quite intelligent, from what I understand.”

“Quite. He's in college out in Indiana right now, where he's studying film.”

“Film?”

“He wants to become a movie director.” I went on to explain about how he won the two awards at the recent film festival and how his next movie was going to focus on either his ancestors or ours, both of whom came to America on the same ship and settled in the Lancaster County area. “He wants me to get some details about my people from back then so he can work them into the script. Meanwhile, I'll start researching the types of clothes they would have worn and make the costumes.”

That seemed to give her pause. “All by yourself?”

I shrugged. “Filming won't begin till next June, so as long as I can get started on them by the end of the year, I should be able to finish in plenty of time.”

Verna nodded, and then after a long moment, she glanced around and then said, “I saw a movie once.”

My eyebrows shot up.

She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Don't ever tell a soul,” she whispered, “but when I was in my thirties, a few of the women in my sewing circle and I snuck off to a theater in Harrisburg to watch
Ben Hur
.”

I gasped. “No way!”

She nodded again, a sheepish grin spreading across her face. “One of the Mennonites in the group had a car. I knew I shouldn't go with them, but I'd already read the book and simply couldn't imagine God would count it as a sin for me to see the film. Of course, I felt so guilty about it afterward that I made a full confession to the bishop. More than anything, he just seemed to think it was funny. He didn't even have me confess to the congregation. He just said not to do it again.”

“And did you?”

“No. I felt guilty enough the first time.”

I sat back in my chair, in that moment loving Verna more than I ever had. “Wow,” I said, shaking my head. “Did you get popcorn? Zed says people always get popcorn at theaters.”

“Oh, goodness, I don't remember.”

“What did you think of the movie?”

Her face colored. “There were not enough clothes on some of those actors and actresses, but when the resurrection scene came, oh my…” Her eyes lit up as her voice trailed off in wonder.

I gazed at her for a long moment, and it struck me how glad I was she'd chosen to share this secret with me. I hoped to hear many more of her stories in the days to come.

We took a break for some coffee in the kitchen, but soon we were back on the couch and again onto the subject of Zed's film as I sewed. I was explaining that his primary interest was in the demise of the local Conestoga Indians. Verna seemed familiar with the story, but I reiterated the high points, that in 1763 a group called the Paxton Boys brutally murdered the entire Conestoga tribe, even though they had been peacefully coexisting with the settlers in this area for years.

“Zed hopes to tell the story of the Plain people who lived nearby and how they reacted to the massacre,” I said. “As pacifists, you'd think the Anabaptists would have been quite vocal in the Conestogas' defense.
Some were, of course, but he says that many sat quietly by and let it happen without speaking up at all.”

The crease in Verna's worried forehead only deepened.

“What is it?” I asked, afraid I had said too much.

She glanced away and then back at my face. “I'll tell you, but you're not going to like it.”

I tilted my head, curious. “What?”

“It's rather hard to explain,” she said, one hand flitting nervously to her collar.

“Take your time.”

Verna thought for a moment and then finally said, “I'm already aware of everything you've described. But have you ever heard of the War of Words?”

I shook my head.

“It began soon after the attack on the Conestogas,” Verna went on, not waiting for an answer. “Benjamin Franklin started it, actually, by publishing an account of the entire massacre and condemning the men who had carried it out.”

“Oh, that. Right. Zed said everybody started hashing it out in the press.”

“Exactly. Soon all sorts of people were jumping into the fray, publishing this and that, and basically fighting with each other about what had happened via the written word.”

I nodded, my own brow furrowed as I waited for her to get to the point.

“People made pamphlets to present their positions—saying ‘The Paxton Boys were murderers' to ‘The Paxton Boys were fully justified,' and everything in between.”

“That makes sense with what I already know because that's how Zed got the idea for the film in the first place. His nine-greats-grandfather published an essay about the injustice of the massacre. Zed has a copy of it, but it raises more questions than it answers. From what I read, it sounds as though some members of the local Amish community took a very un-Amish stance on the situation back then and actually endorsed the massacre.”

“Well, dear, I hate to tell you this, but…”

Verna's expression grew quite miserable and her voice trailed off. I squinted at her, waiting, until she met my gaze. “The folks who did that were
our
ancestors.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean our ancestors were not in support of the Indians. They condemned the Indians and supported what the Paxton Boys had done.”