A Simple Autumn: A Seasons of Lancaster Novel (23 page)

“Gott’s plan often surprises us,” Annie said. “And do you know how unusual it is for
an Englisher to join the Amish community?”

“I know that now,” Remy said. “I didn’t know it when I made my decision to become
Amish.”

“It must have taken a lot of courage to convince the ministers that you truly wanted
to join us. They don’t usually take to Englishers who are interested in our ways.
A lot of times they turn Seekers away. They tell them to live Plain on their own and
follow the Golden Rule, to be kind to others, treat people the way you would want
to be treated. The Amish aren’t looking to bring Englishers into the community.”

“It’s a good thing I charged ahead like a crazy bull,” Remy said. “Bishop Samuel kept
giving me that look he has, with those bushy eyebrows and concerned eyes, but I didn’t
back off. That look said I was one pebble short of a rock collection. But there was
no stopping me when I made the decision to join the church.”

Annie had seen that look from the bishop and it frightened her.

“Thank goodness the bishop is a very wise man. I think he could tell that I was ready
for this. This family. This way of life.” She leaned back and looked up toward the
rafters. “This faith. But if you had told me a year ago that tomorrow I would be baptized
into the Amish faith, that I would promise to spend the rest of my life living Plain,
I would have said you were crazy. Verhuddelt!”

“But … here you are,” Annie said brightly.

“Here I am, and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve found a home here. Ironically, I stick
out like a sore thumb in the place where I belong in the world, but I’m very happy.”
Remy touched the string of her prayer kapp. “Gott had this wonderful plan for me … a
life more awesome than I could have ever imagined. A big family, a home, and so much
to do! My days used to be so empty, but now they’re full of love and laughter.” Remy
spread her arms in a burst of enthusiasm. “I know it sounds corny, but it’s true.
God did an Extreme Makeover of my life. The Amish Edition.”

Annie didn’t get that last part, but she did see the big picture. She saw it clearly
now. Gott had brought Remy here to make her life whole, even as her marriage to Adam
would make the King family whole again. Only the Heavenly Father in His great wisdom
knew how to heal so many lives so completely.

In comparison, Annie’s broken heart seemed to be a very small matter. Small as the
birds fluttering and cooing in the rafters. Annie let her eyes go soft in the golden
light, and the neat rows of benches resembled a ladder.
Jacob’s ladder to heaven
, she thought.

Remy rose, hugging herself as she looked around. “They did a great job lining up all
these benches.”

“I was just thinking the same thing. But there’s one problem.” Annie wagged a finger
at the wall of alfalfa bales that backed up to the benches on the women’s side. “Those
bales there.”

Remy looked up to the top of the tall stack. “Are you afraid they’ll fall?”

“No, they’re not going anywhere. But the alfalfa is scratchy and rough. Folks will
brush past it. You know, a person could get cut from the stubble. Or splinters.” Annie
walked to the end of the row, thinking of what to do. “We need to cover it.”

Hands on her hips, Remy asked, “How do we do that?”

“Let’s talk to Jonah,” Annie said. With all the time they’d spent together at her
family’s farm, Annie was more comfortable talking with him than Adam, and he was good
at solving problems.

Outside the rain had stopped but the sky was the steely gray of evening. A line of
men trudged from the house to the woodshop, each man carrying a rocking chair on his
head. Annie was reminded of ants, bearing loads twice their size as they filed toward
the nest. Jonah led the line.

Remy started to follow them into the woodshop, but Annie stopped her with a gentle
hand on her arm. “We’ll wait until they come out,” she said. Once again she realized
that Remy still didn’t know all the ways of the Amish. Women didn’t mix with men in
all situations, and while men breezed into a place without knocking, most women gave
a knock before entering. Such simple ways, though Annie could see how it would be
hard to learn a lifetime of small traditions in a few months.

Jonah immediately stepped out; he must have seen them coming. “Are you looking for
me?” He held on to the wooden door cautiously, and Annie felt the urge to tease him
that they wouldn’t bite.

“I’m wondering about those bales of alfalfa near the women’s section,” Annie said.
Jonah nodded with understanding as she explained how they were too rough to leave
exposed. “Do you have something we can cover them with?”

Jonah rubbed his chin. “I’d pin a bedsheet up, but that might ruin it.”

“You don’t want a bedsheet in the barn,” Annie said, looking past him to the silos,
the horse barn, and a piece of harvesting equipment
parked near the new milking barn. “What about some sacks?” she asked. “Do you have
any old feed sacks we could use? We could pin them up, side by side.”

He nodded. “That would work, and I think we have some burlap sacks in the barn.” He
started across the path. “Kumm.”

Annie followed him, then turned back to link arms with Remy, who smiled as Annie tugged
her forward. Gott did work in mysterious ways. In just weeks He had softened her heart
and turned the person she dreaded most into a friend.

“Come along, and I’ll show you how to cover the hay bales,” she told the girl with
a sprinkling of freckles and eyes the color of a cat’s. When it came to the ways of
the Amish, Remy had a lot to learn, and thanks to Gott’s blessings, Annie had much
to teach her.

A
n iridescent green dragonfly zigzagged through the air as Gabe crossed the barn Sunday
morning. Golden dust and tiny bits of chaff glittered in a shaft of sunlight as he
went down the aisle, checking one more time to be sure that everything was in place.
The barn was quiet now, but in an hour or so it would be bursting with people, echoing
with voices in song.

Baptism today.

He knew that Emma would be here. He’d been thinking about that all week, and since
she’d broken up with him, the thought of seeing her had weighed him down, as if he’d
been harnessed to a boulder. It wasn’t easy stepping around her feelings and his.
He’d spent a lot of time thinking of how to avoid her.

But now that the day was here, his feet felt light, propelled by the excitement of
hosting the church service. There was much to do over the next few hours.

Satisfied that everything was in order inside the barn, he stepped out into the bright
September day and joined his older brothers,
who waited on the knoll at the end of the lane. It wasn’t even eight o’clock, and
yet a line of gray carriages moved along the main road. The gentle clip-clop of hoofbeats
filled the fields like a country song announcing that it was a church Sunday.

“Here come the carriages!” Simon’s eyes were bright with excitement as Gabe joined
his brothers. Today would mark the first time Simon helped handle horses and carriages,
and the boy was quite pleased to be included with his older brothers in this hosting
duty.

Gabe tagged his shoulder. “Are you sure you can handle these carriages?” he teased.
“Folks don’t take kindly to a runaway horse—especially when it’s theirs.”

“Horses aren’t so hard to handle,” Simon said, staring at the line of horse-drawn
carriages coming down the lane. “But that is a lot of carriages to take care of.”

“Give us a shout if you need a hand,” Gabe called over his shoulder as he moved forward
to take the first carriage from the Yoders. Gideon and Deborah climbed out, then turned
to help their three little ones to the ground.

Gabe climbed into their carriage, took the reins, and directed the horse around the
side of the barn. He let the horse have her head, and she was a little fast on the
curve. The steel wheels popped over a ridge, and Gabe popped up in the seat. He grinned,
hoping the Yoders hadn’t seen that.

Around the back of the barn was an empty field where two horseless carriages were
already lined up. Gabe waited as the carriage was pulled in line with the others.
Then he reined the mare in and jumped down. Since the service and lunch would last
a good five hours, the horses needed to be unhitched and given space to roam. Gabe
released the chestnut mare from the rig, then led it over to the paddock, where it
would be free to graze for the rest of the morning.

He hurried back on the footpath. So many aspects of Amish life were slow and easy,
but on a church morning the horse hostlers had
to move quickly, with so many carriages arriving at once. He came around the barn
just in time to see Simon riding off to the field in an open buggy. Only Jonah was
left standing at the edge of the lane.

“You’re moving like the wind today,” Jonah told Gabe.

Only as fast as a horse will go
. Gabe wanted to tell Jonah that he knew of a way to truly ride as fast as the wind,
but he kept to himself. It wouldn’t do to talk of such things right before church.
“This is the part of hosting I like the most,” Gabe said as another carriage rolled
to a stop.

Gabe and Jonah approached together.

“Leave this to me,” Gabe said casually. “You can handle the next one.”

Jonah nodded as Gabe moved forward and froze. Was that Emma in the carriage? But it
was too small. He’d been expecting her to arrive with her father and stepmother and
all her sisters and brothers.

Things seemed to happen all at once. Something popped out the side of the carriage.
A plastic crate. As it toppled to the ground, Gabe realized that it was the crate
Elsie used as a step to get out of the carriage since her short legs didn’t reach
the ground. Emma’s brother Caleb came out from the other side.

Gabe’s palms began to sweat as he backed away. He couldn’t do this. He didn’t want
to see Emma. He wasn’t ready to look in her eyes.

He turned away, facing his bewildered brother. “Please … you take the Lapps’ carriage.
I’ll get the next one.”

Jonah squinted in surprise, then quickly moved past Gabe to pick up the cockeyed crate
and set it in place right under the carriage door. As Gabe strode up the lane to intercept
the next carriage, he heard them talking behind him.

“There you go, Elsie.” Jonah’s voice was warm, and when Elsie thanked him, it tugged
a sensitive cord deep inside Gabe. Elsie was a cheerful girl, who always had something
kind to say, and though it
hurt Gabe to turn away from her, it would have been ten times worse to come face-to-face
with Emma. That was something he could not do right now.

Later, when the men were lining up to enter the barn, Gabe felt a broad hand on his
shoulder. His older brother Jonah stood beside him, a question in his eyes.

“There must be a good reason for the way you treated Elsie Lapp,” Jonah said quietly,
“but I can’t for the life of me imagine what it might be. Don’t ever forget your manners
like that again, Gabe. And I’m going to pray to Gott that you’ll come to see that
every person He created deserves your kindness, no matter how different that person
looks.”

Gabe’s jaw dropped. “Are you saying that I …”
That I avoided Elsie because she’s a little person?
The notion of such cruelty sent waves of nausea through his belly.

Jonah kept his voice steady, conscious of others who might be listening. “Ya, I’m
sure there’s a story.”

“Jonah, you have to know that’s not true. Look, there’s no time to explain now.” Any
second, they would be filing into the barn. “But I don’t judge folks by how they look,
Jonah. Judge ye not—that’s God’s law. And I’d never do anything to hurt Elsie.”