The Rebel (4 page)

“I wasn't asking for advice.” His voice became stiff. Did she really think he'd ask someone who was teetering on the fence about being Amish for advice?

“Meaning I'd better concentrate on my own behavior?” The blue eyes snapped. Barbie was as capricious as a dandelion blown by the wind. “I haven't been baptized into the church yet, remember?”

“Maybe you won't be, the way you're going.” He hadn't
intended to lose his temper, and he was aghast that he'd spoken the words aloud.

Barbie just stared at him for a moment. “Maybe I won't,” she said deliberately.

“I should not have said it, Barbie.” His voice was stiff with mortification. What kind of minister was he? He'd better get away from her before he made matters even worse. “I must go.” He pushed his cup away and put money on the table. “Don't worry about Mary. She won't get into that kind of trouble again. I'll be keeping a strict watch on her.”

He could almost see her temper rising. “If you do that, I can practically guarantee she'll find some new way to rebel.”

Ben stood, looking down at her. From somewhere the thought flickered into his mind that she was a wonderful pretty woman, sitting there looking up at him with every emotion showing on her face.

“Are you sure you're not talking about yourself?” he said, and then strode away before he could make matters any worse.

B
arbie
was still fuming over her encounter with Ben when she reached her grandmother's place after work. She stopped often to visit with Grossmammi, who now lived in the grandparent house attached to the farmhouse of her eldest son, Barbie's uncle, the father of her dear cousin Rebecca. Today she might have skipped the visit, afraid her grandmother's sharp eyes would pick up her bad mood, but Grossmammi particularly wanted to see her.

She drew up to the hitching post at the end of the farm lane, waving to Rebecca's two children as they came running from the barn. Rebecca and her family lived on the adjoining farm, and her kinder were here nearly as much as they were at home. With the warming weather, Rebecca would soon be opening the farm-stay she ran for folks who wanted to enjoy a weekend in the country and see what Amish farm life was really like.

Last season, Barbie had been Rebecca's trusted partner as she'd gotten the business going, but Rebecca had remarried in
the fall, and Barbie wasn't sure how that might affect her work. They ought to talk soon. She'd have to figure out how to juggle helping Rebecca with her job at the café.

Going to the side door that led directly to the grossdaadi haus, Barbie tapped once and walked in. “Grossmammi? It's Barbie.”

“In the kitchen.” As always, her grandmother sounded delighted at her visit. Grossmammi managed to make each of her many grandchildren feel as if he or she was the most loved person in the world when they were together.

“Don't get up.” Barbie hurried to hug her grandmother, sitting in her favorite rocking chair near the stove. “If you need something, I'll get it for you.”

Grossmammi's arms tightened around her, and love seemed to envelop her. “Ach, you young ones fuss too much. I can get up and get you some cookies and a cup of tea, ain't so?”

“You can, but let me do it instead. It keeps me in practice for my job.” And indeed, the teacups and cookies were already set out on a tray and the kettle was steaming gently on the stove. All that remained was to fill the teapot and carry the tray to the small table next to her grandmother's chair.

“There, now.” She pulled one of the chairs over from the table and settled herself. “This is wonderful nice. I'm sehr glad to relax with you.”

She glanced around the kitchen as Grossmammi poured out. It was smaller than the kitchen in the old farmhouse where Grossmammi had spent most of her married life, but Barbie's onkels and her daad had done a fine job of building a new, convenient home for her.

The cookies were freshly baked peanut butter ones, their
aroma filling the room, and seeds were sprouting in pots on the windowsills. Grossmammi always had to have her flowers and herbs, no matter where she was.

Did she still miss the old farmhouse, with all its reminders of a long marriage? Barbie eyed her grandmother's wrinkled face, soft as the skin of a peach, the blue eyes still sharp behind her wire-rimmed glasses. The hair pulled back from a center part was as white now as her kapp.

“Why are you so quiet today, my Barbie?” Grossmammi seemed to be studying her as well. “Usually you're talking away a mile a minute about all your doings.”

Barbie's mind flickered to the most recent example of her “doings,” which she hoped her grandmother would never learn of. And to its unfortunate aftermath. Tension tightened her nerves at the thought of Benuel Kauffmann. Would he keep quiet, or would his rigid conscience eventually get the better of his discretion?

She shrugged, realizing her grandmother was still waiting for an answer. “I guess I'm a little tired today.”

Grossmammi studied her face so intently she might be looking right into Barbie's inner thoughts, and Barbie felt her cheeks grow warm in response.

“Something is troubling you, I think. Will you tell me about it?” The question was gentle, but somehow Barbie suspected no one ever failed to respond to it.

“It's nothing,” she said quickly. “Well, it's foolish anyway.” Maybe a little part of the truth would be best. Grossmammi had a delicate ear for falsehoods. “Benuel Kauffmann stopped by the café while I was working today.” She made a face. “I don't think he approves of me.”

“Maybe he fears it's not a gut place for you to work,” Grossmammi suggested.

“Well, maybe so, but he didn't need to act as if I'd committed every sin in the Bible.” Her annoyance was like a prickly rash, impossible not to scratch. “Anyway, he's not my daad. It's not his business.”

Grossmammi didn't speak. She just looked at Barbie until Barbie couldn't handle that clear gaze any longer.

“Ja, I know he's one of the ministers. I guess he means well, but everyone knows how strict he is. You'd think a younger man might be more flexible, but not Benuel Kauffmann.”

Somehow she didn't think Grossmammi was going to join in her criticism of Ben. Sure enough, she didn't.

“I think, my Barbie, that you wouldn't be so annoyed with Benuel unless there was some truth in what he said, ain't so?”

No matter how long she delayed, her answer would have to be the same. Grossmammi saw too much. “Maybe so. But I don't need him pointing it out to me.”

Grossmammi reached out to pat her hand, the touch as gentle as the brush of the spring breeze on her skin. “Ach, Barbie. So restless and eager. I trust that soon God will lead you to whatever it is you are seeking.”

The words went right to her heart and settled there. How could God know what it was she sought, when she didn't know herself? But Grossmammi seemed confident.

She nodded, afraid her voice might wobble if she tried to speak.

“Now, let's get to the reason I wanted you to stop by today.” Grossmammi's voice became brisk. “Komm. We'll go into the living room, and I'll show you.”

“Show me what?” Barbie moved the tray out of the way as
her grandmother got up. With her grandmother's heart problems, she was supposed to take it easy, but that never seemed to slow her down at all.

“You'll see.” Grossmammi led the way, her small body in the black dress somehow indomitable. “You must have thought I'd forgotten to pick out a family gift for you, but I haven't. Here it is.”

She stepped aside, leaving Barbie confronting the object that sat right in the middle of the living room floor. A dower chest. But not just any dower chest. It was Grossmammi's own, the one that had come to her from her own grandmother.

“But . . . you shouldn't part with something you treasure so much, Grossmammi. Something else will be fine for me, that's certain-sure.”

Since last spring, Barbie and her two cousins, Rebecca Byler and Judith Wegler, had been helping Grossmammi to dispose of the collection of objects belonging to the Lapp family—objects that seemed to summarize the history of the Amish in America. Grossmammi had always been the family's storyteller, keeping the stories alive, and she was determined that Barbie and her cousins would take over that role. She had given family pieces to Rebecca and Judith already, but not to Barbie, until now. Barbie had begun to wonder if Grossmammi had forgotten about it.

Grossmammi sat down in the corner of the sofa, her small figure dwarfed by its high back, her gaze resting on the chest. It was large even for a dower chest—big enough that an Amish bride would be able to store all the linens she'd need for her new home. Chests were usually either passed on in families or built by fathers for their daughters, so that from the time
Amish girls hit their teens, they'd begin acquiring the things they'd need for their married lives.

Amish married lives, of course. The idea seemed to stick in Barbie's throat. The last thing she ought to have, given her current uncertainty about her future, was a dower chest.

“This is for you.” Grossmammi's tone was firm.

It was clearly useless to argue. “Denke, Grossmammi,” she murmured, her throat tight.

“I pray it will be a blessing to you, just as Rebecca's and Judith's gifts were to them. They each found an understanding they needed from the previous owners of their objects.”

“This was yours, so I already can rely on your wisdom, ain't so?” She tried to speak lightly, not wanting to think of a time when Grossmammi wouldn't be with them.

Her grandmother smiled, her gaze softening as it rested on the dower chest. “It holds such memories for me. All the important reminders of my life were in this chest at one time or another.”

“All the more reason not to let it go,” Barbie said quickly.

But her grandmother shook her head. “No. It's time. We'll go through the things in it together, you and me. There's no hurry. Then I'll know that my stories won't die with me, ain't so?”

“None of us will ever forget you. And you'll be with us for a gut long time yet.” Surely Grossmammi knew what an influence her love had been on each of her grandchildren, didn't she?

Grossmammi just shook her head. “Open it.”

Barbie knelt on the braided rug in front of the chest, taking a moment to trace the faded painting on the front. Two stylized birds faced each other, surrounded by hearts, the colors paled almost to invisibility. Then she raised the latch and lifted the
lid, letting out the scent of the lavender Grossmammi had put in with her treasures.

The trunk was full to the top. Clearly this was going to take some time, if Grossmammi intended to tell her something about every item in the trunk. She hesitated a moment and then lifted out the object that lay on top—something soft wrapped in a section of an old sheet, faded to a soft ivory color with age and as thin as paper.

Carefully, not knowing what was inside, she unwrapped the fabric. Her breath caught. Inside was a tiny baby gown, made in the softest of cotton to the same pattern baby gowns were made to this day. She lifted it, spreading it out, and it struck Barbie that something was wrong.

Baby gowns were normally worn and frayed from frequent washings as they passed from one baby to the next . . . inevitable in an Amish family. This one looked brand new.

“Grossmammi?” She looked up, a question in her voice.

Her grandmother's eyes had filled with tears. She held out her hands, and Barbie put the gown in them, speculations tumbling in her mind.

Grossmammi stroked the fine stitching with gentle fingers, as if each stitch contained a memory. A tear dropped on the material, and she blotted it away.

“This I made for my first babe,” she said softly. “We were going to name him Matthias. He never lived to wear it.”

Lancaster County, Spring 1960

Elizabeth Lapp folded the sheet over the baby gown, her heart wincing as the precious garment vanished from view. For an
instant everything in her rebelled. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. Why should she and Reuben be denied the right to watch their firstborn live and grow?

It is God's will.
The answer was clear, but so very hard to accept. She'd never realized how hard. Nothing in her life thus far had prepared her for the pain of losing little Matthias.

Amish thrift insisted that the gown should be saved and used for another baby, but Elizabeth knew she would never do so. She'd sewn it while feeling the boppli kicking inside her, laughing a little in sheer joy when the vigorous effort had actually made the fabric bounce as she held it. No, she wouldn't put it on another baby. She placed it gently into her dower chest.

Would there even be another babe? The fear seized her. She and Reuben had waited over a year for a pregnancy, only to lose the baby in the final months. What if she didn't conceive again?

Ach, these are foolish thoughts, Elizabeth.
Her mother's voice seemed to sound in her ears. It was only to Mammi that she'd confided her fears. Only Mammi who had been able to comfort her.

It struck her that it was disloyal to Reuben, and she quickly closed the lid of the chest. Of course Reuben was a wonderful great comfort to her. But some things only another woman could understand. How could she possibly have gotten through the past year without having her mother and her sisters so close at hand?

The farmhouse belonging to Reuben's father was unusually quiet this afternoon. The men were out repairing pasture fence, while Mamm Alice, Reuben's mother, had gone shopping with Becky, the young wife of Reuben's brother Isaac. The family
filled the place to overflowing, but no one really minded. After all, it took a lot of hands to run a dairy farm.

Still, Reuben said they must think about getting a place of their own. Isaac, the youngest, would stay here on the family farm when his parents moved into the daadi haus they spoke of building, and his and Becky's children would be the ones to grow up here. That was how things were done, and Elizabeth didn't have any argument with it. She just prayed Reuben would find a farm to buy somewhere very close. She didn't want to have to hitch up the buggy every time she wanted to chat with Mamm Alice or her own mother, just down the road.

Closing the door to their bedroom behind her, Elizabeth headed downstairs. Since Mamm Alice was out, she'd go ahead and start the chicken for supper. Everyone would be hungry after a busy afternoon.

As she passed the living room window, she saw a car turning into the long lane that led to the farmhouse. Frowning a little, she hurried to the back door. Someone from the dairy to talk to Reuben's father? If so, she'd have to run out and find him, unless the men happened to be working within sight of the lane.

But when the car pulled up to the back porch, Elizabeth felt sure she'd been mistaken. This looked more like a family seeking directions, with a man and woman in the front seat and two children in the back.

After a brief conversation with the driver, the woman got out. Englisch, probably nearing her forties, although it was difficult to tell with Englisch women. She wore a pair of bright red slacks with a red-and-white checked blouse and had a camera slung round her neck. Visitors, then, not locals.