A Hope for Hannah (4 page)

As she worked the corn, she reminded herself of how
Da Hah
had brought both her and Jake here separately just so they could meet, eventually fall in love, and marry. The memory warmed her heart greatly and filled her with relief, knowing she had been spared from marrying Sam Knepp. It was, no doubt, a relief to Sam too. She had heard that Sam had married her old friend, Annie. So it was Annie, and not Hannah, who was now comfortably settled and married in Indiana. True, Annie might be hard at work on the farm Sam’s father had given him, but she was safe from bears. Hannah smiled. And Annie, no doubt had a gas range.

She and Jake had been invited to Sam’s wedding. After some serious deliberating about how it would look, they went to the wedding, and nothing was said to anyone. It was almost as if that horrible day had already become ancient history to the people she knew. And that was good. Good for her and good for Sam and Annie. Everything had worked out so well. Annie had looked radiant that day, and Sam was all shiny in his new black suit with his hair slicked down over his forehead. Sam had blushed as the bishop married them. He surely loved Annie, and for that she was glad.

But she wasn’t going to think about that anymore. This was where she wanted to be and where she belonged—with Jake. And now a baby was growing inside her. For some reason she was already thinking of the baby as a boy. It seemed as natural to her as breathing. Jake needed a boy. Not that he had ever mentioned it before, but still she wanted to give him a boy. She wanted his firstborn to be the delight of his eye, the pleasure of his heart. This child would be a joy for both of them. Of that she was certain.

Hannah took a break from her husking and went in to check the fire. Although it still burned steadily, the flames seemed low and so she added another piece of wood. She then returned to her husking, but this time she sat in a chair as she pulled off the husks and threw them in a pile. Jake would carry them to the garden for mulch when he came home. Jake was like that, always willing to help her with such things even when he came in from work exhausted.

She must be careful, Hannah told herself, not to impose on Jake too much. This was especially true with the baby on the way and the extra work that needed to be done. Her mother had once mentioned something to that effect about her father, but Hannah couldn’t remember the exact reasons her mother had given. She just knew she didn’t want Jake to be overburdened. He already had enough to do.

When she had finished husking the corn, she left the ears lying on the ground and returned to the kitchen. She pulled her pressure cooker off the bottom shelf of the cabinet and carefully added the correct amount of water. Trying to remember what her mother had done next, Hannah tapped the pressure gauge to check it. Sure enough, the little black needle bounced in response to her taps.

She had purchased the cooker at a garage sale in Libby soon after she and Jake were married. Surprisingly, she had not received one among the wedding gifts. She remembered, with regret, receiving a cooker for her presumed wedding to Sam, but after the wedding was cancelled, Kathy had insisted they return the gifts.

She tapped the round gauge again and got another little bounce out of the needle. Surely it was fine. It had given her no problems all summer. Still, the idea of a malfunctioning gauge on a pressure cooker was not a trifle. That would be one embarrassment she could do without.

“You’ll be a good boy,” she told the cooker, “and do your job just right.” She then laughed at herself and said aloud, “I do need a baby. I’m talking to the kitchen pots!”

Hannah left the control knob in the off position and pushed the cooker to the side of the stove. She then returned to the yard to slice the corn from the cobs. When she had enough for one sizeable batch, she went back to the kitchen and filled the jars, pleased to find there was still corn left over.

She slipped the filled jars into the cooker and moved it back onto the stove. Hopefully she could cut enough corn for a second batch before the cooker whistled. Quickly she went back to the pile of corn in the yard and sliced away, glad this job would soon be done.

When Hannah stepped back into the kitchen, she was disappointed to find that the fire was lower than it should be and the water wasn’t boiling yet. After searching for the cause, she saw that the ash pan was full. She would have to remove the sliding tray, carry the pile of ashes to the edge of the woods, and dump it.

Jake, because of his fire spotting days, had frequently warned her of the danger of a fire starting from ashes. Back home in Indiana, there was no stove to make fires in and few woods to burn up. Here, though, there was great danger, and so Jake had cleared a little area by the side of the garden to dispose of ashes safely.

Usually Hannah would have dumped the ashes without much thought, but this morning everything seemed to need extra care. With the tip of the pan, she spread the pile thin because she knew that thinly spread ashes would cool faster.

When she returned to the kitchen, she found the fire burning much better. She added extra wood to keep it hot just in case.

She heard the whistle of the cooker none too soon, sounding only moments after she had packed the second batch of corn into the jars. After she checked the strength of the fire again, Hannah set the control knob on the cooker. The pressure was steady, and so she left the kitchen to check the garden and plan the rest of her day.

There were still a few tomatoes left on the vines. She walked the row to be sure of the number, counting enough to easily make another batch of canned tomatoes. That would come in handy this winter since both she and Jake enjoyed tomato soup.

She had delightful visions of the two of them—soon to be three, she reminded herself—sitting in the cabin, sipping tomato soup, and eating popcorn in the evenings while the snow piled up thick outside. When, then, should she tackle the job? Today yet? Hannah decided the task would be a little too much. She glanced up to find the clearness of the sky reassuring. With no rain in sight, the tomatoes could wait until tomorrow.

She returned to the kitchen to check on the cooker. One look at the gauge assured her all was well. Five more degrees and she could slide it off the hot part of the stove. She added another piece of wood to keep the flame steady.

Because she didn’t want to go far and didn’t want to wait in the kitchen, Hannah stepped into the living room where two of Jake’s shirts needed mending. She had draped them over the couch yesterday. From her mother’s instruction, she knew this was not a good practice and she should keep such things in the sewing room. But here she had no sewing room and little space to keep mending projects.

With her mother coming to visit, perhaps she should think of someplace else to put the mending. But her mother was sensitive, she reminded herself, and would understand how little space they had. For that Hannah was thankful.

Just as she was considering all this, the unimaginable happened. From the kitchen Hannah heard the unmistakable sound of the pressure cooker blowing. The awful sound shook through her body. Soon after she was filled with horror and shame for allowing such a thing to happen. Hannah Byler, the just lately minted Hannah Byler, had blown up her pressure cooker.

Her first thought, as she turned toward the kitchen, was,
This is not something I can hide under the proverbial rug. Everyone is going to find out about this!
The emotion of what had just happened swept over her. Few Amish women blew up their cookers, and those who did were not forgotten quickly.

Some would, no doubt, tell her to just be thankful she wasn’t in the kitchen at the time, but at the moment, she wished—at least partly—she had been. The thought that a few small burns would help stir up some sympathy flashed through her mind. But no, she had come out unscathed.

Her first look into the kitchen quickly caused her to forget her lack of injury. The lid to the cooker lay mangled on the floor, and the ceiling now had a deep gash in it. Even worse, corn and pieces of glass were splattered on every wall except the one in the living room furthest from the stove. Great clouds of steam rose from the stove top where much of the spilled water had landed. If she had been in the room, she was certain the result would have been more than a few burns.

Hannah’s next thought was of Jake and how he would come home that night to a wife who had blown her kitchen to pieces. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have enough to do already. She felt an urge to rush in and clean up—to sweep up the pieces of glass, to pull the corn off the rough logs, to wipe away the water, and to make it look as if this had never happened. Instead, she gave way to feelings of a great weariness. Her legs didn’t want to work. She returned to the living room, ignored the mended shirts draped across the back of the couch, sat down, and burst into tears.

Five

Hannah spent the rest of the morning cleaning the kitchen. The immensity of the task was soon evident—not just by the corn and glass pieces stuck to the walls but by the damage from the metal fragments.

One of the upper cabinet doors was broken, and Jake would have to fix it. After she wiped the others off, she discovered that they were water-stained but seemed to be okay. She figured no one could fix the gash in the ceiling.
It will remain there forever as a reminder for all the world to see,
she thought despairingly,
of the young woman who blew up her pressure cooker.

As she washed the corn off the walls, she noticed it left little yellow stains behind. Because of that she decided to let it dry out first and then sweep it off the walls with her broom. Hannah glared at the old stove, the handiest thing to blame other than herself. She could find no damage whatsoever to its hardy exterior.

“You’d live forever, you mean thing,” she told it.

She didn’t know what to do about the last batch of corn. Hannah no longer had a pressure cooker to work with. To throw the corn away was simply out of the question, and so that left only one course of action.

Too anxious to feel hunger, even though lunch time had arrived, she hitched their young driving horse, Mosey, to the buggy and left. Food was not important at the moment.

The drive to Betty’s seemed to take forever. Hannah urged Mosey to move faster, but he protested by swishing his tail back and forth. She slapped the lines again. Mosey increased his speed momentarily and then lapsed back into a slow, steady gait. So this was how he got his name, she thought as she settled back in her seat.

Finally Hannah saw the sign that read “Horseback Riding,” remembering it from her days when she ran her aunt’s riding stable. As Hannah tied Mosey to the hitching rail, Betty came out of the kitchen door, her work apron around her waist.

“What’s brought you around at this time of day? My, it’s sure nice weather for this time of the year.”

The sound of her aunt’s voice pushed Hannah where she didn’t want to go, and the tears threatened again. “I wondered if I could borrow your pressure cooker,” she managed.

“Why, dear?” Betty asked as she searched Hannah’s face. “You have one yourself. Now don’t you tell me you’re wanting to use two cookers at the same time with that old stove of yours. You’re liable to blow the old thing up working it that hard. Didn’t your mom ever tell you that?”

The blowing up remark brought the flood of tears. “I already blew up the cooker,” Hannah replied, choking out the words.

“You blew up the cooker? Oh, my word!” Betty clucked. “Just blew it up? Why? Was the gauge stuck? Surely that’s what it was. Did you check it? You weren’t in the kitchen at the time, were you?”

“No, I was in the living room. I don’t know what I did,” Hannah said. “I tapped the gauge like usual. It’s an old cooker, of course, but the needle bounced.”

“Then no one can blame you. Not for a minute!” Betty said, consoling her niece.

“Now I’ll be known as the girl who blew up her cooker,” Hannah cried. “Mom will think I’m completely careless.”

“Now, now,” Betty said, still trying to comfort her, although there was now a slight chuckle in her voice.

“It’s not funny,” Hannah said indignantly.

“No, I suppose not,” Betty agreed. “But really, you ought to be thankful. You are a girl who can blow up her cooker and yet not have a single scratch or burn. Look on the bright side of things. You’re strong. You survived walking out on your own wedding. But now look at you. Married already and well settled in. You have nothing to worry about. Everything will be just fine, but I suppose you need help cleaning up?”

“No. I’m already done.” Hannah said, wiping a tear.

“So you need a cooker, and I’m canning myself.” Betty got back to business.

“Oh,” Hannah was quick to say, “I didn’t know. I can ask Elizabeth. Maybe I can borrow hers.”

“That’s farther in the other direction,” Betty said. “I couldn’t let you do that. Now, wait a minute. I believe my old cooker is still in the basement.”

“Your old one?” The horror crept into Hannah’s voice.

Betty laughed again. “Don’t worry. This one won’t blow. It’s been faithful for all these years. The only reason I got a new one was so I’d have two at the same time. Today, though, I’m only using the one.”