A View from the Buggy (15 page)

After eating breakfast and loading Jon Berthlow's team, Rudy went with Darrel Urban to deliver the beans. He came home happy. The beans had been quite dry when they were thrashed, so the rain had not hurt them any.

When Grandma heard about all this she said, “So that's what I heard last night!”

At 11:00 she had awakened upon hearing an awful crash, followed by silence. She hadn't known about the worry of the bean bin going over, or she'd have alerted us to the noise.

This fall the bean thrashing time rolled around, and we have another bin set up. We were thankful to find a 1000-bushel bin just four miles away, where an old elevator had sold out. There is a solid cement foundation under it now, and Rudy said, “If this bin goes down, it must have been a tornado went through.”

Jon Berthlow and his wife brought their team down one day this fall to help with the bean thrashing. At the dinner table that noon we got to talking about the last time Jon was here when the bin tipped. Jon's wife said we should have heard Jon's story when he came home, how he couldn't believe the support the neighbors showed.

To which Jon had this to say: “I have never had so much fun in my life! Rudy waking me up early in the morning saying, ‘Jon, my bean bin tipped over!' ”

To which his wife added, “So this fall when Jon said he's going back, I quickly asked, ‘Can I go too?' ”

So she got a taste of bin thrashing, and a taste of the food Jon had talked about, but thankfully she didn't get a taste of the bin tipping over.

Hosting Church

Sarah Bontrager

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching (Hebrews 10:25).

I
T WAS A
S
UNDAY MORNING IN
D
ECEMBER
. I
WAS SITTING ON THE
backless wooden bench, listening intently as grey-haired Bishop Omer preached on discerning God's will for our lives. I was seated with the 20 other young women near the front of the room. Around me some 180 people were gathered; the men sitting on one side and the women on the other.

With the three-hour service halfway finished, I crossed my legs and sat up straighter. Bishop Omer now picked up the worn leather Bible, flipped it open, and said, “I want to turn to Matthew 6.” He proceeded to read the familiar high German words.

I knew it was time for me to head for the kitchen and help Mom prepare lunch, since the hosting family used the second Scripture reading as their guide as to when to begin the final preparations for the noon meal. So I slipped out of the room with my three younger sisters following me.

Out in the kitchen Mom was already bustling about. Her face was flushed and curls of hair peeped out of her white head covering.

“Katie, dish out the pickles into plastic bowls,” she said to my sister. Then she turned to Esther and said, “Set the trays on the tables. We'll need nine tables and four trays on each table. That makes thirty-six—and also put nine others out for the cookies.”

I grabbed the large 16-quart stainless steel bowl of peanut butter and began to stir.

“This is too thick,” I said in a hushed tone, so the church service in the next room wouldn't be disturbed.

I added hot water to the peanut butter and began to stir with slow strokes. This had last been mixed on Thursday, so it was no wonder the mixture had hardened in three days of sitting around.

“Mom, we'll never be ready in time,” I heard my sister Lorene whisper. I turned to glance at Mom standing in front of the cookstove, tending the two 20-quart stockpots on the front burners. She looked worried.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“The brine's not cooking yet,” Mom said, “and it's eleven already. The noodles should be let set to soften at least an hour. What should we do?”

“I don't know,” I mumbled. I lifted a lid from one of the big stockpots and peered into the good-smelling kettle of chicken broth made with browned butter and seasonings. I stuck in my finger to test the temperature.

“It's warm,” I said. “It'll be boiling before long.”

“But it still won't be ready by lunchtime,” Lorene said with an exasperated wave of her hands.

“I'll be so embarrassed,” Mom sighed. “I guess I should have stayed with the traditional meat and cheese we eat with the peanut butter, pickles, and bread.”

“But this will be ready,” I assured her. “Just wait another five minutes. We'll add the noodles, cooking brine or not. They'll get soft in time.”

“Well, we'll know next time to start heating this earlier,” Mom said. “Let's prepare the rest of the lunch while the brine heats up.”

I went back to dishing out peanut butter into small bowls. Lorene put butter on paper plates. Katie dipped out the last garlic dill pickles from the large bowl and Esther set out the cookies our four neighbor ladies had each brought.

Mom stood by the stove, now tapping her foot, obviously still nervous about the noodles. “Girls!” she finally blurted out. “I think I'll dump the noodles in now, even if it's not quite boiling. I can't wait any longer.”

“Good idea,” I encouraged her.

At that moment, Mary, one of the married church sisters, entered the kitchen and asked, “Do you need help with anything?”

“Am I glad to see you,” Mom said. “I need advice. This broth took so long to get hot that I put in all the noodles even though it wasn't boiling yet.”

“I'm sure they will be fine,” Mary hastened to say. “Bishop Omer just sat down from preaching and the other ministers still have to give their testimonies. That'll be another twenty minutes before the service is over.”

“I feel so encouraged.” Lorene let out a long breath.

“So do I,” I agreed.

“I just hope the noodles won't be mushy,” Mary added.

“I don't think that will happen,” Mom said, but her eyes were big. “I'll turn the burner off right now. And thanks for the advice.”

“You're welcome,” Mary said, and left to take in the rest of the service.

“This kind of thing often happens to us,” Lorene muttered. “But I guess we can learn from our mistakes.”

“Okay, girls,” Mom said. “What's left for us to do yet?”

“We have all the trays filled,” I said. “Should we wash the dishes?”

Mom nodded and soon we had the big bowls, ladles, and scrapers. washed and dried so that they sparkled clean again. As we worked, the congregation had begun to sing the parting song. The slow rise and fall of the tune was soothing music to our ruffled minds. We began to relax and feel happy again.

The double doors to the big room now opened as the women filed into the cloakroom and kitchen. The men were soon busy setting up tables. They did this by putting two benches together with a pair of wooden legs at both ends. The women unrolled the red and white checkered vinyl tablecloths on the 12-foot tables. We young girls set out the water glasses, food trays, bread, and silverware on all nine tables. And last of all we set the soup bowls at each place setting.

“You can go sit down to eat,” Mom went around telling the ladies, while at the same time Dad seated the men. Out in the kitchen we girls ladled hot noodles into china serving bowls. After the prayer at
the tables, we served the noodles steaming hot, with two bowls to each table. The noodles sure smelled delicious.

I was kept busy filling coffeepots while Lorene refilled the teacups with peppermint tea. Esther and Katie made sure the peanut butter spread, pickle bowls, and water glasses were kept full.

People visited as they ate, which created quite a din with so many talking at once. We soon passed out a cookie tray to each table. What a nice selection of cookies there were: marshmallow brownies, peanut butter bars, and chocolate chip cookies. There was also banana sheet cake. Tea was passed around again now that the cookies had been served. Then Dad told Bishop Omer that everyone had finished eating.

“If we're done eating, let's pray,” Bishop Omer shouted above the din. An immediate hush fell over the room as everyone bowed for a silent prayer of thanksgiving.

Following the prayer, I asked Lorene, “Can you help me fill the dishwashing tubs with water?”

“Sure!” she said, and we hurried to the sink. What a bustle of people there were as the women all helped clear the tables and scrape together the leftover food. Within the hour everything was cleaned up and everyone settled down for another hour or so of fellowship before they left for home.

“Thank you for the good lunch!” the women told us as they put on their black shawls and bonnets to leave. “The noodles were a very special treat on such a cold winter day.”

“I guess serving noodles turned out okay after all,” Mom told us girls when the house was empty. “No one knew the anxious moments we had.”

“I think it was rewarding to serve noodles,” I agreed. “And now I'm off to visit friends for the afternoon.”

I bundled up to join the other girls down at Melvin's place. We would eat popcorn, play games, and visit until it was time for the youth singing that evening back at our place. Lorene soon joined me and together we walked out the door and down the road.

Can We Go to Law?

Levi F. Miller

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also (Matthew 5:39).

W
OULD YOU PLEASE STEP OUTSIDE WITH ME?
”
MY SON ASKED SOON
after we had returned home from the funeral of one of the older bishops in our community. I had noticed his buggy and horse tied to the hitching pole, and wondered what had brought him to our home this close to chore time.

A troubled look was in his eyes, and a strange foreboding passed though me. He found his voice and said, “Six of our cows were stolen today.”

“What!” I exclaimed. “Six cows!”

Having only been married a few years, my son and his wife were just getting their start in farming. They had purchased a small farm with an even smaller barn, and they were making mortgage payments on a regular basis from income that came exclusively from milking cows and raising a few hogs, sheep, and chickens.

The cows were of course the most important part, as the milk check paid the bulk of their monthly farm payment.

My son said he had arrived home from the funeral to notice tire tracks leading to the barn door. As it had been a chilly early spring day, the cows had been left in the barn. My son had pushed open the barn door to stare in disbelief at three cows instead of the nine he owned. Six of his best cows were gone!

It was easy to see what had happened. A trailer had backed up to the door and the cows had been herded up the trailer ramp. They were simply gone.

After the first shock at hearing this news, the full impulse of my human nature gripped me.
We must get those cows back!
I thought.
How can payment be made without the milk check? What milk will fill the empty cans tonight?

Next, the questions arose:
Why would someone want to steal a young farmer's cows? Did he have any known or unknown enemies? What cattle dealer knew of this out-of-the-way farm?

My son's place has a long driveway and could not be seen from the main road. He told me he had no known enemies, and had very little to do with any cattle dealers, except one local man who had worked with the Amish in the community for many years. My son had been feeding steers for him, and that very day the dealer had picked them up, as had been planned. Few others visited his farm.

So would this dealer have returned later in the day to back up to the barn and load six cows? The man would have known my son and his wife were at the funeral. But this possibility was mind-boggling.

Of course, we shouldn't have been so ready to jump to a conclusion because things aren't always as they appear. But my son had the phone number of the cattle dealer and went to the neighbor's to call, hoping to ask the man some questions. But no one answered the phone. Which we had half-expected, thinking him guilty already.

Our next move was to contact the local auction barns. After contacting the first one, they informed us that our man had not been there, nor had six cows come in. Contacting the next auction barn, they also told us our man hadn't been at the sale, but six cows had come in that fit our description of the lost cows. But here the manager suddenly was on his guard.

“What's up?” he asked.

After we explained our difficult situation he told us, “I believe these might have been your cows we sold today, but our sale barn policy is that we cannot give out information except to the police or other law officers. Please contact them immediately, and we will give them all we know.”

Now we were in a more difficult situation. Our belief in nonresistance was severely put to the test.

In the end we contacted the sheriff, who told us he would be out to the farm shortly. By now the evening was dark. I rode home with my son to his farm, both of us heavyhearted. Soon headlights gleamed and probed the darkness as a shiny patrol car entered the driveway. A heavyset, curt law officer stepped from the vehicle. After his preliminary inquiries, we explained the situation. He informed us he could do nothing to help us or even look at the situation unless we signed papers that would allow him or the law enforcement agency to take action, investigate, convict the guilty person, and bring him to court—and also find the whereabouts and value of the stolen cattle from the auction company.