Amish Circle Letters II: The Second Circle of Letters (31 page)

Book Excerpt #1

Sitting on the dock, a sense of relaxation washed over Leah as she let her eyes wander nonchalantly over the water. It was crystal clear and completely calm, the serene glasslike surface barely marred by the occasional ripple caused by a dragon fly fluttering down to dip its legs into the water, from the edge of a water lily. The sun had already begun its nightly descent over the hill, right behind the Millers’ family farm, its orange glow from the perfectly shaped orb casting glittering embers all across the pond. A bird flew overhead, heading toward the woods that bordered the large farm property. It disappeared into the sea of green leaves that clung to the branches, motionless in this breezeless late summer evening.

Leah sighed and returned her attention back to the pond, contemplating that it wouldn
’t be long before the surface would turn into a crystal sheet of ice. It was only late August and she knew that she shouldn’t be already thinking about winter, but she so dreaded that season: cold, grey, dark.
No
, Leah thought to herself. Winter was not her favorite time of year, that was for sure and certain!

But, as her
grossmammi
had always pointed out, “You have to go through winter before you can get to spring!”
Wise advice from an even wiser woman
, Leah thought. If only
Grossmammi
Maggie was still around. Leah could sure use her advice and her wisdom right now.

Instead, Leah felt alone. Even more than alone; lonely. Whenever such feelings overcame her, feelings of worry and fear, she would escape the craziness of her home, even if only for a few moments, to sit on the dock, her bare feet dipped into the cool water as she reflected on the problems at hand. After all, this pond had always been her favorite spot; her place to find solace and to recapture her spirit. And of late, Leah Mast needed a lot of that.

As she watched two little sparrows play in the branches of a nearby weeping willow, Leah found herself smiling.
That
was a peaceful moment, she reckoned, one that gave her a sense of tranquility after a long and stressful day. Oh, how Leah loved these sparrows, always thinking of the Bible verse that stated God even took care of the little sparrow! They were her favorite bird and observing them always made her realize that there was more to life than met the eye. Watching those little birds flit and flutter through the branches always made her wonder why life couldn’t be that simple for humans. Their play was as innocent as that of a newborn baby.

Leah began to shiver. She wasn
’t sure if it were the cool northern wind that was now blowing an evening chill through her bones or the acknowledgement that her family’s lives were a mess. From the day that they each entered the world, Leah had felt a responsibility for her siblings. And more so, two years ago, when their parents were killed in a car accident while on their way to a cousin’s wedding in Pennsylvania. Leaving behind the family business, her parents had also left Leah with something else to tend to: their two youngest
kinner
[4]
.
Even today, that was not easy for a young woman of 34 years who already had her own growing family of seven children.

How can I hold it together?
She asked herself again, more as a statement than an actual question. Indeed, it was the question that she asked herself every single time she escaped to the pond, just after shutting down the store and before preparing for evening chores. Yet, holding it together was the one thing that Leah was good at doing. After all, she had been given no choice. Her family
needed
her. Of that, she was constantly reminded. Not only was she the oldest, but she had always been considered the strong one: the one that everyone depended upon in a time of crisis; the one her mother had entrusted with her prize bakery: Whoopie Pie Place.

To Leah, this responsibility gave her a great secret. But that secret came with a weight. It gave her pride, something she would never admit among her peers or family. Pride was one thing that Amish people were supposed to avoid. But Leah knew that she was proud of the bakery and of its widespread reputation as
the only place
outside of Berlin, Ohio, where one could purchase authentic Whoopie Pies. People ordered them from all around the country, asking for shipments to arrive in time for birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas and Easter.

Yes, the continued success of the bakery gave Leah great pride. But, at times, it made her bone weary as well.

Indeed,
she thought as she started to get to her feet, her eyes scanning the horizon.
How long can I hold all of this, the family, the business, and my sanity…together?

The hustle and bustle of Whoopie Pie Place, the most renowned bakery located just outside of Berlin, Ohio, right off of Route 62, was at an all-time high on that particular morning. It was the peak of the tourist season and that meant the busiest time of the year at Whoopie Pie Place. Indeed, tourists wanted two things when they came to Holmes County, Ohio: to meet authentic Amish people and to enjoy some authentic whoopie pies.

At Whoopie Pie Place, they were able to do both.

Tourists flocked to the bakery from every corner of the country. And that meant that summer time was the busiest time of the year. It was time to make Whoopie Pies and sell them by the dozens, day in and day out, five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday, from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. But the baking had to start in the wee hours of the morning. They did close two hours earlier on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so that the sisters who ran the bakery could share time with family during the summer season.

It was usually Sadie who got up extra early to start the baking and the three married sisters took off one extra day a week each. It was a tiring schedule, with baking and frosting, packaging and displaying, selling and smiling; always the smiling! But, as the owners of the most popular whoopie pies in the entire county, all of them knew that smiling was part of the deal. After all, Leah always explained, it became a whole lot easier to smile when they remembered that whoopie pies kept some…
real food
on their own tables.

The bell hanging over the door tingled, announcing yet another visitor and LaVonne, the local tour guide and owner of Amish Heartland Tours, escorted in a busload of people. With a warm smile, she waved at Leah and lifted one perfectly manicured hand as she held open the door to let her clients single-file into the store. Leah had been forewarned about this particular tour, a group of Amish-loving women that had met on Facebook, some strange
Englische
virtual world that none of the Miller sisters were too familiar with. Apparently, this virtual group had weekly book club meetings and had finally gathered in Berlin for an actual face-to-face book club reunion.

Leah smiled back at LaVonne and immediately braced herself for the inevitable questions that would be asked by the tour patrons. Always the questions. If there was one thing that Leah could count on, it was the sun rising in the morning, setting in the evening, and the endless stream of questions from the
Englische
tourists. She could see it in their eyes as the tourists descended upon the bakery, their curiosity clearly at peak. One by one, they each took their turn to order whatever their hearts desired from the bakery case. Most came for the famous whoopie pies, others for the fresh homemade bread. But, without fail, they always came with those crazy, silly questions.

The questions were always the same from each tour group that entered the doors of Whoopie Pie Place. Leah could almost repeat them by heart:

What Amish order did they belong to?

Answer: Old Order Amish
.

Did they really not use electricity in the bakery?

Answer: No.

Did they actually brush their teeth with ashes?

Answer: What?

Is there truly an Amish mafia?

Answer: Only on your silly television.

Can Amish people have their photos taken?

Answer: Not if you want any whoopie pies from this store!

And many more. There was never a day that the questions didn
’t continue to amaze Leah. Where on earth, she often wondered, did these people get their information from? But she knew the answer: the wrong places!

As the oldest sibling in the family, Leah was the front sister, the one who worked the counter and greeted the customers. She was the only one with the patience to respond without an edge to her voice, despite the intense desire to lean forward and smack the nearest tourist who waved a camera in her face.

The Miller family was known throughout the Amish community for their scrumptious whoopie pies: chocolate, vanilla, pumpkin, coconut. Anyone could request just about any flavor and, without doubt, one of the sisters could make it. The strangest flavor they had ever made? Pomegranate blueberry with chocolate raspberry filling.

This particular day, the featured whoopie pie was chocolate-strawberry shortcake. These were seasonal, produced during the time when strawberries were at their ripest. Picking the strawberries was the responsibility of the only Miller son living at home: Tobias. And today, he was running behind schedule. Glancing at the clock over the door, Leah was suddenly distracted from the women filing into the store as she began to worry about what might possibly be delaying him and if they would have enough strawberries today to finish up the orders that they had already received.

“Excuse me, Miss,” a woman called out, waving her hand, which held a small piece of paper in the air. “I think you just called number fifty? That’s me! Hello, Miss?”

Leah took a deep breath and turned around, forcing the forty-ninth smile of the day onto her face. Her first smile of the morning was always easy and never forced: it went to their first customer, Jenny Yoder. She was the older mother of the Yoder clan who lived down the lane and came almost every day to get ten whoopie pies. What she did with those pies Leah never asked. But any woman who raised eleven children, all of them having happily joined the church after eleven low-key and uneventful
rumschpringes
, was bound to get a genuine smile from every member of the
g’may
[5]
.

“Miss, I
’d like a dozen of those whoopie pies,” the woman demanded, her high-pitched voice tinted with a definite New York accent, cutting Leah back to reality. She let the piece of paper flutter from her hand and, for just a moment, Leah watched as it floated through the air and landed on the floor, just beside her, on the other side of the counter.

“Ja,” Leah said, lifting her eyes to meet the tired baby blues that stared back at her from behind small red bifocals. “A dozen of those will be no problem.” Quickly, she took a white box from behind the counter and began to carefully place the whoopie pies into the box, silently counting to make certain she had exactly twelve in the box. Once it was folded and the money collected, Leah slid the box across the counter and said her standard good-bye: “You will enjoy these. They were freshly made this morning.”

Luckily, the weather had been tolerable in Holmes County over the last couple of days. A cold front was moving through the area and had cooled the temperatures by 10 degrees or so. It was a welcomed relief for the five Miller children who worked at Whoopie Pie Place. On hot and humid days, the bakery could become quite unbearable, reaching over 95 degrees inside the store and even more in the back kitchen baking area. Without electricity or air conditioning, it was enough to cause even the kindest of souls to snap.

Today, however, that wasn
’t the case.

Indeed, the end of summer had brought along some cool mornings and afternoons. Yet, even though the heat was at a minimum, sister Lydia had been feeling rather flustered lately. In fact, she was often huffing and puffing under her breath, quick to snap at her sisters, her rudeness taxing everyone
’s nerves. Even as Leah was helping the customers, she could hear the tension building up in the back kitchen where Susie and Lydia were working. It was all that she could do to keep herself from bursting through the swinging doors as the confrontation began to escalate!

Unfortunately, that was not an option. With so many people in the store, she had to focus on the customers, first and foremost. LaVonne always brought her guided tours to Whoopie Pie Place and Leah was not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth.
Tours
meant
tourists
and that translated to
customers
. Customers were vital to their thriving business.

“Fifty-one?” she called out, a forced smile on her face as she waited for the next customer in line to step forward.

Back in the kitchen, the heart of the store, two Amish women were busy kneading bread and making whoopie pies. The room was a disaster, the counters filled with countless whoopie pie pans, some filled and waiting to be baked, others sitting on the cooling racks by the open window. The hardwood floor, faded and in good need of being refinished, was covered in patches of flour and crumbs that had been pushed off the counter during the course of the day. Luckily, there was a ceiling fan overhead and it spun rapidly, keeping a nice breeze flowing through the otherwise stiflingly hot room.

"Lydia,” Susie asked, reaching out a hand covered in flour and chocolate, and wiggling her fingers in the air. “Might you hand me that bowl of cream so I can finish the rest of these pies?"

There was a moment’s hesitation before the younger of the two sisters responded. Her voice was strained and sharp. "Why, I'm just as busy as you are, Susie!" Lydia sassed. None too happily, she handed the bowl to her sister.

Susie looked up, a scowl on her face as she stared at her younger sister with glowering dark brown eyes. "No need to be so sassy, then! I only asked for a small favor!” Susie snapped back. She had never been one to keep her mouth shut, not once. Especially from her sister.

Lydia rolled her own brown eyes. “It’s always a small favor with you, ain’t so?”

“Apparently you need to go back to bed and start the day over again,” Susie answered none too happy. “Get up on the right side, I reckon! If you have one!”

Lydia whirled around, her face creased with anger and eyes bulging from her head. A stray hair had slipped from beneath her prayer
kapp
and, for a moment, she looked like a mad woman. “
I
need to go back to bed?” she snapped, emphasizing the word
“I”.
Pressing her lips tight, she glared at her sister. “I need to go back to bed?” she repeated yet again, this time with an exaggerated emphasis on the words. “Well, my dear sister, mayhaps you
need to think about someone other than yourself. You forget that I have just as much work as you do!”

A stern look crossed Susie
’s face as she replied, “How do you have as much to do as me? You try working here all day then going home to three children and a husband to take care of. It’s not as easy a burden as yours!”

At that comment, the color flushed from Lydia
’s face. How dare her sister bring up the fact that she had no children! Susie seemed to recognize her mistake and immediately wiped her hands on the black apron that was wrapped around her soiled green dress. She started to walk toward her sister but Lydia stopped her, pushing away her outstretched hands.

“I didn
’t mean that, Lydia,” Susie started to apologize,   compassion in her eyes. It was clear that she hadn’t meant to hurt her sister’s feelings. However, it was also clear that it was far too late for that. The damage was done.

“
Nee,” Lydia said, the tears starting to fill her eyes. Her lips trembled and she swiped at her eyes. “You did and that was right hurtful. I need to step outside for a spell. You can just finish up in here by yourself!” And with that, Lydia spun on her heels and darted out the back door.

“Lydia!” Susie called after her but, by the time she got to the doorway, Lydia was gone out of sight and, Susie suspected, would not be returning anytime soon. With a scowl on her face, Susie turned back to the kitchen, instantly aware that she was on her own for the rest of the day. Again, she wouldn
’t be getting home in time to clean the house before preparing supper for her family.

With a sigh, Susie returned to the counter and lifted the spatula off the bowl to spread the cream between the layers of whoopie pie cakes. Despite Lydia
’s hurt feelings and disappearance, someone had to keep supplying the store with the freshly baked goods. As usual, that responsibility fell upon Susie’s shoulders. It was a responsibility that she did not take lightly for she knew that the reputation of Whoopie Pie Place depended on delivering the promise of quality-baked goods, served with a smile.

Read the rest of the
Divine Secrets of the Whoopie Pie Sisters.
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