The Bridge of Peace (15 page)

The shrill sound of her youngest student’s voice caused others to come running. Lena knelt in front of her. “She … she died, sweetie.”

“No!” Tears streamed down the little girl’s face as she reached for her cat. Lena stopped her.

Marilyn pulled away from Lena. “You can’t throw my cat in the ground!”

Marilyn’s older brother pushed through the crowd. Levi’s emotions reflected across his nine-year-old face, and soon he was sobbing too. Lena directed them toward the schoolhouse. “Could one of you older boys please finish what I started?”

“What are we, your slaves?” Peter retorted.

Lena turned to Jacob, who gave a nod.

Lena knelt in front of Marilyn. “You need to go inside, but you can stay with Levi and sit on the reading couch. I’ll be inside in just a few minutes, okay?”

Marilyn nodded and clung to her brother, crying as they walked toward the schoolhouse.

Lena lifted her head, ready to give loud instructions. “I want everyone to go inside and take a seat.”

The children headed in that direction while Lena went to the hand pump. She lifted the handle and lowered it several times before water gushed out. After grabbing the soap dispenser out of its bucket, she scrubbed her hands and arms with a fury that could not remove the filth of what was taking place.

Mandy came back outside with a towel in hand. “Marilyn can’t catch her breath. She seems to think you killed her cat, and she doesn’t want to be thrown into a hole with some bloody towels when she dies.”

Bracing herself for the long week ahead, Lena took the towel and dried her hands. “Let’s go see what can be done to console—”

A piercing yell sliced straight through Lena. Had Jacob hurt himself while burying the cat?

Jacob came from the side of the lean-to. “What’s wrong now?”

Too frazzled to even think, she headed for the playground area, followed by Mandy and Jacob. Elmer lay on the ground, crying. What was he doing out here? One glance at the swing set explained everything. The chain had broken, and based on where Elmer had landed, he’d been swinging really high.

“Stay put, and tell me what hurts.”

“My arm!”

“Okay, lie still for just a moment, and let’s make sure nothing else is hurt.” She made a quick assessment just like her Red Cross classes had taught her. After running through her checklist and getting reasonable answers, she helped him to his feet.

“It hurts! Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.” Elmer’s whining concerned her, but more than that, his hand had already begun to swell, and it had a slight blue tint to it.

“Can you move your fingers?”

As he wiggled them a little, her mind whirled with conflicting thoughts on what to do next. If she took him with her while going for help, someone else could get hurt, not to mention the emotional state Marilyn, Levi, and most of the class were in. Sending an older student might cause problems with the school board since she was on probation for a similar incident. Regardless of that, she couldn’t leave. If she let one of the older children drive Elmer to the closest phone, and they didn’t handle it like an adult, Elmer could have permanent damage done to his arm. Buggies hit potholes. Cars spooked horses. And if, in their nervousness, they drove too fast or too carelessly, more than just a child’s limb could be in danger. She’d seen far too many incidents of that sort in her lifetime.

Deciding Mandy had the best head on her shoulders, she turned to her. “Can you drive my rig to Ephraim’s place by yourself? He’s got the closest phone. Tell him Elmer has fallen off a swing and may have broken his arm.”

Upon hearing those words, Elmer started crying harder. Lena placed her hand on his head, comforting him. If he’d done as she’d said, he’d be at his desk safe and sound right now.

“Ya, I think so.”

Lena moved in front of Mandy. “I need you to drive careful and deliberate. This isn’t an emergency, but we need an Englischer driver and Elmer’s parents so he can be taken to the doc in Shippensburg. Can you be very, very careful?”

She nodded.

“Jacob, hitch my horse to its rig, and then come directly inside. Is that clear?”

“Ya.” Jacob’s wide eyes told her he’d do exactly as she’d just demanded.

With her arm around Elmer, she guided him toward the schoolhouse.

No matter how she handled the next couple of hours, she’d hear from upset parents. If not tonight, then at the school board meeting next Tuesday. She’d have to explain these incidents and her actions.

And all she wanted to do was work with her students and teach, not be second-guessed by the parents.

Dwayne laughed so hard he almost choked on his dinner as Peter finished telling about the dead cat and Elmer getting hurt.

“That girl is sorely lacking in what it takes to be a good teacher.” His Mamm pointed a finger at him. “But what happened to those children isn’t funny, Dwayne.” Mamm held a plate out to him, offering him more pot roast.

Dwayne slapped his brother on the back. “Does serve her right, though, don’t it?”

Peter shrugged. “It’s not like cats matter no way. They fill up the barns like mice and rats, and we shoot ’em, but I did feel a little bad for Marilyn. She’s terrified people are going to throw her in a dark hole if she dies.”

No one said a word. Dwayne finished his meal and shoved his chair back from the table. “Don’t be such a wuss, Peter. What do you care how anybody feels? Set a goal—like getting even with that teacher—and enjoy hitting the target. It’s that easy.”

“Dwayne,” Mamm corrected, “watch your language, and we don’t want to get even with her. I’d like to see her step down and get somebody in there who knows what she’s doing. It’s just like at our last Amish school. The teacher has no quality to her. That’s all.”

Daed pushed his empty plate away and propped his forearms on the table. “Now your mother was a great teacher in her day.”

“Ya.” Dwayne stood, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “So we’ve heard.” Unwilling to listen to any more stories about when his mother taught some twenty-five years ago, he walked out the back door and straight to the barn. At the back, under stacks of baled hay, he removed a Hot-Shot—his brand-new electric-current cattle prod. If that teacher thought a dead cat and a broken swing were problems, she hadn’t driven a horse after it’d been on the receiving end of a Hot-Shot all night.

Thirteen

Deborah turned another page in the magazine, reading a true account of a family using a portion of their farm for a pumpkin patch. The aroma of shoofly pies and Amish bread pudding filled the kitchen as she waited on them to finish baking. Their commercial-sized oven had six shelves, all filled with pies, and their family-sized oven had the bread pudding.

Based on what she’d read, she and Ada could not do this venture alone, not even with Cara’s help. “According to this article, we’ll need a lookout tower of some sort.”

From her position at the sink washing dishes, Ada glanced over her shoulder at Deborah. “A lookout tower?”

“Ya, it’s a structure built in the middle of the cornfield maze. One of us can climb it to see the people inside the maze. If someone gets stuck, we can have a visual of them to send someone else in to lead them out, or we can give directions through a bullhorn. If you’re selling baked goods and I have to go in to get them, who will come lead me out?”

Thoughts of all it’d take to set up a pumpkin patch kept running through her head. Unfortunately, she hadn’t yet managed to secure use of the cornfield. She’d gone to the owner’s house on Monday and Tuesday, but no one answered the door or appeared to be home. She’d had the same result this morning and intended to return again this evening, just like the other two days. Maybe they were on vacation.

Ada rinsed her hands and grabbed a dishtowel. “You’re saying that like it’s a joke, but you’re really worried about getting lost in that maze, aren’t you?”

It surprised her how well Ada read her sometimes. “A little.” But the truth was, parts of her were terrified. Since Mahlon had left, she either felt grief or anxiety wadded up like a bale of hay smack in the middle of her chest most days. And she’d had enough.

When she heard voices and an odd noise, Deborah went to the back door and peered out. Not seeing anyone, she turned back to Ada.

Ada slung the dishtowel over her shoulder. “We’ll get the hang of all this. I just know we will.”

Jonathan’s words ricocheted around inside her like one of those super bouncy balls her little brother bought from a vending machine in town.
Then do it while you’re scared
. She’d never heard such perfect words in her life.

The buzzer went off. Deborah took the pies out of the oven and set them on a cooling rack. “There’s so much to do, and we’re six months behind before we even start. But I think our goal should be to do what we can this year—buy pumpkins to sell. Next year we’ll grow them and let people pick them off the vine. We’ll build a small maze if we can get use of the field and have a simple hayride—and really be ready for business next year. Do you agree?”

“Absolutely. I just hope the permits I have for operating my home business will cover what we need for a pumpkin patch.”

“Ya. Robbie’s taking me to the courthouse later this week.” She tilted her head, listening to voices that seemed to be getting closer and the rhythmic echo of something being whacked.

Ada looked out a side window. “I think someone’s in the cornfield, cutting stalks.”

Deborah grabbed her sweater and ran out the front of the house, across the yard, and down the side alley until it opened up into the cornfield. There appeared to be about two Plain Mennonite men and one woman and then ten or so Englischer teens, all either cutting cornstalks or gathering them and hauling them to a nearby truck.

“Excuse me,” Deborah called while hurrying toward them.

One of the men stopped cutting stalks. He looked about twenty-something and had dark brown hair. The woman passed an armload of stalks to a teen and then walked closer while dusting off her cape dress. Deborah hoped the right words would come to her by the time she stood directly in front of the man.

When she reached him, she drew a few deep breaths and straightened her apron. “I … I’ve been trying to reach the owner of this field.”

The man jabbed the end of his machete into the ground. “An Englischer gentleman by the name of Carl Gilbert owns the field, but we work with a teen mission out of Harrisburg, and we rent the pasture from him.”

“I’m Deborah Mast. My … business partner and I moved into the house that adjoins this property nearly four months ago, and I was hoping to rent this field with the stalks still standing.”

“Business partner?” he asked.

“Ada. We bake goods for some local bakeries. But we hope to expand.”

“Is she the older woman? And the man we see around here regularly, is he a partner too?”

“You’ve seen us?”

“I suppose a better question is, you haven’t seen us? We harvested a lot of corn throughout the summer.”

He would’ve had to set off dynamite for Deborah to notice anything but her own pain and confusion since moving in. “We … 
I
 … have been distracted. I apologize if in my state I was rude in any way. The older woman is Ada. The man is my brother. He lives in Dry Lake, and the younger woman is his fiancée.”

He pulled a work glove off his right hand and held it out. “Ray Yoder.”

She shook his hand.

“And this is my mother, Joan.” She had a pleasant smile as she nodded.

“Hi.” Deborah returned the nod before focusing on Ray. “Any chance we could work something out?”

“We use this plot each year to teach inner-city teens about planting and growing and reaping. We do everything by hand, and right now we need these stalks for various fall festival events.”

“There must be two acres here,” Deborah defended. “Do you need all the stalks?”

His lips pursed, showing what might be amusement. “What we don’t use, we sell to local churches and schools who need some fall festival decorations, and then that money goes for the mission. We do it each year, and it brings in decent money—for dried-up stalks, that is.”

“I think I can match that money. I sure was hoping to build a maze—you know, with huge swatches missing all throughout it.”