Miriam's Heart (12 page)

“Get up!” Jonah shouted and shook the leathers. The gelding broke into a trot and the boy laughed.

“Easy,” Miriam soothed. “You must be gentle. Never jerk on the reins. It hurts the animal’s mouth.” She took a firm hand on the lines as a pickup passed the carriage.

“Ya,”
Jonah agreed. “Okay.”

Katie, seated on her mother’s lap, laughed, kicked her feet and waved her arms. She was a happy, chubby-cheeked baby with bright eyes and an adorable laugh.

“How did it go last night? With Charley?” Johanna bounced Katie on her knee. “I’ve been waiting to hear.”

“It went all right.” She glanced at her sister. “But that was rotten of you, to tell him that I’d ride home with him from the singing without my say-so.”

Johanna shrugged. “Just doing my job as your big sister. You shouldn’t be too quick to pick a husband.”

“Who says I am?”

Katie yanked her
kapp
off and threw it in the air. Johanna caught it and plopped it back on the baby’s head. “
Ne.
You must wear your head covering, sweetie.”

Miriam looked at Johanna. “What makes you think I’ve picked a husband?”

“Mary. Charley’s sister. She said John and you were walking out. That he was courting you.” Johanna’s expression turned serious. “You need to make certain it’s what you want. You shouldn’t decide against Charley without putting some serious thought into it.”

Becoming frustrated, Miriam gripped the reins tighter. “Who was it who told me to go with John to Easton? You! Now you’re trying to force Charley on me?” She stared at the road straight ahead. “Which one do you want me to go with? John or Charley?”

“Both. Neither.” Johanna placed a firm hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “Do not jump up and down. If you can’t behave, you’ll have to sit in the back of the buggy.”

“I’m good,” Jonah protested, and immediately stopped hopping.

“
Ya,
you are a good boy.
Most
of the time. But you have to be careful in the buggy. Do you want to fall and have the wheels run over your noodle?”

Jonah giggled.

“I’ve got him.” Miriam wrapped an arm around the child’s waist.

Johanna returned her attention to her sister. “So what do you think about Charley?”

“I don’t know what I think.”

Johanna shifted Katie to her shoulder. “And John?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

“Good,” Johanna pronounced. “So, it’s best that you see both of them. Go places, do things, have fun, with both of them. Be certain in your heart before you choose.”

“But how will I know? I like them both,” Miriam admitted. “John’s exciting, and Charley’s…” She leaned close to her sister’s ear. “He kissed me on the way home last night.”

Johanna’s eyes narrowed and she glanced at her son. “How was it?” she whispered.

“Nice.”

“All right, then. Now, the thing to do is to kiss John and see how they match up.”

“Johanna!” Miriam glanced at her sister, then at the road again. “What would Mam say? What kind of advice is that for a big sister to give her younger one? Would you have people say I’m fast?”

“Better fast than foolish.”

T
he following day, Charley stopped by his brother Roland’s house after supper. He’d intended on visiting Miriam, but as he was walking down the road, halfway to her house, John had passed him in his truck. John backed up and asked if Charley wanted a ride, explaining that he was going by the Yoders’ to check on Molly.

Not wanting to share Miriam with John, Charley had changed his original plans. “Thanks just the same,” he’d said. “But I’m on my way to Roland’s.” John had offered to give him a lift to Roland’s driveway, but he’d refused that, too, saying that he needed to stretch his legs.

It wasn’t exactly the whole truth, but close enough. And now that he was here in his brother’s kitchen, bouncing his nephew, Jared, on his knee, Charley was glad he’d come. Pauline, Roland’s wife, was expecting twins and wasn’t well. She was lying down and Roland was cleaning up the supper dishes.

“Ride a horse, ride a horse,” Charley said to little Jared, and then swung him high in the air. “And don’t let him throw you!”

Jared squealed with laughter. “More! More!” he demanded in the German dialect the English called
Pennsylvania Dutch.
Jared was too young to speak or understand English. Most Amish children learned it in the first grade when they went to school, although Charley and Roland’s mother had taught them both English and German from babyhood on.

“Enough, enough,” Roland protested. “It’s his bedtime.”

Charley noticed that the boy was already bathed and in a clean nightshirt and diaper. “You have this routine down good,” he said, handing the giggling child over to his father.

Roland lifted Jared onto his shoulders. “A family’s needs must be met, brother. Give me a few minutes to tuck him in. Pour yourself some coffee. I’ll be down as quick as I can.”

While Roland went upstairs, Charley picked up a dish towel, dried the knives and forks on the counter and put them away. He found a broom and swept the kitchen before helping himself to the coffee on the back of the stove. When Roland returned, Charley saw that his brother’s face looked troubled.

“We were all praying that the new endocrinologist would help Pauline,” Charley said. “I hear Bishop Atlee goes to him.”

Roland nodded. “I feel bad, brother. Her condition. It would have been better for her if she hadn’t gotten pregnant again, but…” He shrugged. “The doctor seems good, but carrying two babies is hard on her, what with her diabetes. The midwife tells us that they may come too soon.”

“It’s a terrible disease.”

Charley knew that Pauline had needed to take insulin daily since she was a teenager, but she’d seemed so much better in the first year of her marriage. Now, she’d gotten worse—a lot worse—and Roland’s medical bills were mounting. The Amish carried no health insurance as the English did. Instead, the community pitched in when there was a need. “
Ya.
My wife is a good wife and mother. She wanted more babies so badly.” Roland looked around the kitchen. “You swept? No need for that. I was going to do it.”

“It’s not easy for you, either, Roland. When Mam hears—”

“
Ne.
Don’t worry her. Pauline’s sisters have been a help with Jared. We’re making out. It’s good you stopped by. We don’t get enough time to talk. Remember when we were kids? It seemed like we were never apart.”

Charley laughed. “I remember. You were always getting me out of one scrape or another. And you were always giving me advice to keep me out of trouble.”

“Which you
never
listened to. Always the jokes and teasing for Charley.” Roland lit an oil lamp. It cast a yellow circle of light across the table and began to smoke until he turned down the wick. “It can’t go on, you know.” Roland peered over the top of his glasses and fiddled with the wick again. “Time you settle down, get baptized and start courting that pretty Yoder girl.”

“Which one?” They both laughed. Roland knew which Yoder girl Charley fancied. But then,
everyone
knew.

“Seriously, little brother. You’ve got that steady job you were wanting. If you’re not careful, someone else will snatch her away. Maybe even that John Hartman.”

Charley slid his cup away and met his brother’s steady gaze. Behind Roland’s thick glasses were big blue eyes, full of wisdom and compassion. “I asked her if I could court her,” Charley admitted. “I even kissed her. Just once. When I drove her home from the singing last night.”

Roland tugged at his short beard. “Not something I’d mention to Preacher Reuben if I were you. She let you?”

Charley shrugged. “I think she liked it as much as I did, even though she acted mad afterward.” He was quiet for a second. “But that’s not the thing. You know, I’ve always expected that we’d marry, someday. Everybody knows it. Didn’t I buy Miriam’s pie last spring at the school fundraising picnic so I could eat with her? Right in front of everyone?”

“That you did. So, what’s your problem?”

Charley brought his palms together as if in prayer, before lightly tapping his chin with his index fingers. “Now that I’ve finally gotten around to asking her if I can walk out with her, she doesn’t seem all that interested. I think that Mennonite has stolen my thunder.”

“More like, your girl.” Roland got up, went to the refrigerator and brought back a blueberry pie and two forks. “Help me eat this,” he said. “Mam keeps sending pies over. Pauline can’t eat them and they’re making me fat.”

Charley looked at the pie. “So you want to make
me
fat?”

“Blueberries. They give you brain power.”

“Which I’m lacking, compared to the
veterinarian,
” Charley took one of the forks and cut off a mouthful of pie. “
Ne.
That’s not true. You were always the smart one in the family. Who won the eighth grade spelling bee?”

Charley grimaced. “Miriam.”

“Okay, bad example. But you always got a hundred percent on your fractions and long division. And that doesn’t really matter, not when it comes to being a good husband. You just need to figure out how to show Miriam that
you’ll
make a better husband than John will.”

“Not easy.” Charley forked pie into his mouth and chewed. “Competition’s stiff. He’s got that truck and he makes more money than I do. They’re both interested in healing animals. I don’t even have a house to take her to, if she
would
marry me.”

Roland tossed him a paper napkin. “Blueberry. There on your chin.”

Charley laughed, wiping his chin. “Flaky. Mam makes good pies.”

“You ever think maybe you don’t need a house? Who does all the cooking at the Yoder place?”

“Mostly Anna, I guess. Sometimes Hannah. The other girls pitch in.”

“And who does most of the outside chores? Putting in the crops? Milking the cows?”

“Miriam. She’s always liked farming better than housework. And she’s good at it. Did you see her corn crop last year?”

“My point. And how well do you get along with her mother?”

“Hannah? Fine. Who doesn’t like—” Charley broke off and stared at Roland. “You mean…live there? At the Yoder place?”

“Why not? If it suits Miriam, why not? So long as Hannah is all right with it. They could certainly use another man for the heavy work, and it’s a big house.”

“It is. Miriam said they don’t even use the rooms over the kitchen. And there’s the
Grossdaadi haus.
We might—”

“Ne.”
Roland shook his head. “Mam said that Alma said that her mother and aunt might be coming to live with Hannah, once her mother-in-law can travel. I got the idea that there were some problems the Yoder girls in Ohio were dealing with, but Mam didn’t say what.”

“Hannah’s going to take her in? A daughter-in-law? Why don’t Alma or Martha take her?
They’re
her daughters.”

“Alma told Mam that Lovina can’t stand her, and she never did get along with Martha.”

“I’ve seen enough of Lovina to know she can be a handful, plus there’s her sister, Jezebel. A lot for Hannah and the girls.”

Roland smiled. “All the more reason it would make sense for you to help out by staying on the farm. What with you having a steady job now, it makes more sense than you taking Miriam home to Mam and Dat’s. Can you see our father letting Miriam plow his fields?”

“Hardly.” Charley grinned at the thought. “It does seem sensible. But how does that help my immediate problem of getting Miriam to agree to let me court her? How can I compete with John? She likes him a lot, and they’ve got taking care of animals in common. Plus, he’s such a good guy. He helped out with the house-raising and he even brought Eli and Ruth that bathroom stuff.”

“John is worldly, and a good man, that’s true enough. But it would be a big step for Miriam to leave the Amish faith. Don’t be so quick to give up, brother. Put your trust in God to do the right thing for all of you. If He means for Miriam to be your wife, no one can come between you.”

“But
John
is coming between us, Roland. Chances are, he’s standing there in the Yoder barn with her,
right this minute.”

“So why are you here?” Roland stood up. “Get on over there, boy. Let her see that you care about her. And don’t try to be someone you’re not. She can depend on you, Charley. You’re steady. Make certain she remembers that.” He went back to the refrigerator, took out another blueberry pie and handed it to him. “Here, take this. It will give you an excuse for coming over so late.”

Charley clutched the pie. “You think I should?”

Roland opened the kitchen door. “Get going, before she starts kissing John.”

And for once, Charley did as Roland advised.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Miriam was cleaning Molly’s stall when her mother came into the barn, a kerchief tied over her head and picked up a pitchfork.

“Mam, I can do this. There’s no need for you to—”

“You think I don’t know how to muck a stall?” Her mother smiled. “Sometimes hard work is what we need.” She scooped up a heap of dirty straw and dumped it into the wheelbarrow. “So how is the mare? Will the infection heal?”

Miriam nodded. “It looks like it will. She’s much better. John expects her to make a full recovery in a few weeks.”

“He comes a lot, John.”

“He cares about Molly.”

Her mother leaned on her pitchfork. “He comes to see more than the mare, I think.”

Miriam didn’t answer. They continued working, side by side.

“Aunt Martha told me that the neighbors wonder why the vet comes here so much for a sore hoof. You know how people like to talk, to gossip.”

Miriam pushed the gate open and pulled the wheelbarrow out into the passageway. “That should do it. I’ll go up into the loft for fresh straw.”

Her mother stepped in front of her, blocking her way. “We have to talk about this, child.”

“I’m not a child.” Miriam rested one hand on her hip. She was taller than her mother, but only by an inch. “I’m twenty-one. I know what I’m doing.”

“So, all grown up, you are? No longer need a mother’s advice?”

“It’s because John’s Mennonite, isn’t it?” She looked into her mother’s face. “You were once Mennonite. Were you ungodly? Is he a bad man because he wasn’t born Amish?”

“No one said anything about ungodly. Come.” Hannah took her hand and led her to a hay bale. “Sit,” she said.

Miriam sat. “Mam, you don’t understand. John is—”

“Listen to me,” her mother interrupted. “Do you love him with all your heart? Are you ready to leave your family, your church, everything you know for
his
world?”

“I don’t know. I
like
him a lot. I feel all giddy when I see him. He makes me laugh, and…”

“He’s new and exciting.”

Miriam nodded. “So many things he takes for granted, things I would like to do and see. But how can I be sure?”

Hannah grasped her hand and squeezed it. “When I met your father, Jonas, it was the same way for me. This world…” She glanced around the barn. “This quiet, peaceful world, it was different than what I’d grown up with.”

“But your life revolved around God, too.” Miriam stared at the dirt floor. “How did you know that Dat was the one man for you?”

“Like you, there was another boy that favored me. His family and mine were close. They’d served on a mission with us to Canada. My mother wanted me to marry him.”

“You went to Canada? You never told us that.” Miriam’s eyes widened. “Why didn’t I know that? Where in Canada? How old were you?”

“It was long ago. Our work was with the Indian people in the north. I don’t remember a lot, just the games I played with the tribal children and the cold winters. Two years, we were there. We came back when I was eight.” She grew thoughtful. “It isn’t just John that the community is talking about. Charley was here last night, too, wasn’t he?”

Miriam nodded. “He came just after John left. He brought us one of his mother’s blueberry pies.”

“If you are thinking seriously of John, is it fair to encourage Charley?”

“The problem is that I can’t say I don’t want to encourage Charley, too.”

“It isn’t the custom to walk out with two boys at the same time. Some consider that fast, for a girl. Not Plain.”

Miriam scuffed her shoe in the straw. “I haven’t joined the church. I don’t have to follow the rules yet.”

“The Amish way is not an easy one. It’s not for everybody. It may not be your way. It’s the reason I haven’t pressed for you to be baptized yet. I wanted you to embrace our faith with your whole heart, to realize that the rules are not walls but wings that will someday lift you to heaven.”

She looked at her mother. “Have you ever been sorry that you left the Mennonites to become Amish?” It was something that she’d always wanted to ask, but had been afraid to.

Hannah shook her head. “Never. Not even when I lost my dear partner, not even when some of my family closed their doors to me and my children. It was the right thing for me. I had dreamed of being a missionary to faraway lands, and instead I found joy here, in this tranquil place.”