Abram's Daughters 02 The Betrayal

Beverly Lewis

The Betrayal (Abram's Daughters Series, #2) The Betrayal (Abram's Daughters Series, #2) THE BETRAYAL . ' .

Copyright 2003 Beverly Lewis

Cover design by Dan Thornberg

Note to Readers: Although Martyrs Mirror is an actual book, the account of Catharina Meylin is a creation of the author.

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Published by Bethany House Publishers

11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

Bethany House Publishers is a Division of r- Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 0-7642-2807-2 (Hardcover)6For

Pamela Ronn,

my "shadow twin"

and wonderful'good friend.7CB ever ft/ jGewi's

y

y

Abram's Daughters

The Covenant

The Betrayal

The Heritage of Lancaster County

The Shunning The Confession The Reckoning

The Postcard

The Crossroad

The Redemption of Sarah Cain

October Song

Sanctuary*

The Sunroom

www.Beverlyhews.com

*with David Lewis8BEVERLY LEWIS, born in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, fondly recalls her growing-up years. A keen interest in her mother's Plain family heritage has led Beverly to set many of her popular stories in Lancaster County.

A former schoolteacher and accomplished pianist, Beverly is a member of the National League of American Pen Women (the Pikes Peak branch), and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. She is the 2003 recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award at Evangel University, Springfield, Missouri, and her blockbuster novel, The Shunning, recently won the Gold Book Award. Her bestselling novel (October Song won the Silver Seal in the Benjamin Franklin Awards, and The Postcard and Sanctuary, (a collaboration with her husband, David) received Silver Angel Awards, as did her delightful picture book for all ages, Annika's Secret Wish. Beverly and her husband have three grown children and one grandchild and make their home in the Colorado foothills. 9/J~/-P-0-' -0-

u- &

August 9, 1947 Dear Jonas,

Honestly, you spoil me! I've saved up a whole handful of your letters, and only a few months have passed since you left for Ohio. It's all I can do to keep from running to the kitchen calendar yet again to count up the days till your visit for our baptism Sunday r$ext month. How good of your bishop to permit you to join my church district. The Lord above is working all things out for us, ain't so?

Your latest letter arrived today in the mail, and I hurried out to the front porch and curled up in Mamma's wicker chair to read in private. I felt you were right there with me, Jonas. Just the two of us together again.

It's easy to see the many things you describe in Millersburg the clapboard carpenter's shed where you're busy with the apprenticeship, the big brick house where you eat and sleep, even the bright faces of the little Wiellinger children. How wonderful-good the Lord God has been to give you your10J_-

e w i s

heart's ambition, and I am truly happy for you . . . and for us.

Here in Gobbler's Knob (where you are sorely missed!), there isn't much news, except to say I know of four new babies in a short radius of miles. Even our English neighbors down the road have a new little one. Soon we're all going to Grasshopper Level to lay eyes on your twin baby sister and brother. I have to admit I don't know which I like better feeding chickens and threshing grain, or bathing and playing with my sweet baby sister, almost three months old. Lydiann is so cuddly and cute, cooing and smiling at us. Dat laughs, saying I'm still his right-hand man. "Let Mamma and your sisters look after our wee one," he goes on. But surely he must know I won't be called Afaram's Leah for too many more months now, though I haven't breathed a word. Still, I'm awful sure Mamma and Aunt Lizzie suspect we're a couple. Dat, too, if he'd but accept the truth of our love. Come autumn, the Peopie will no longer think of me as my father's replacement for a son. For that I'm truly happy.

Oh, ]onas, are there other couples like us? In another village or town, hundreds of miles from here or just across the cornfield . . . are there two such close friends who also happen to be this much in love? Honestly, I can't imagine it.

I miss you, Jonas! You seem so far away. ...

Leah held the letter in her hands, reading what she'd written thus far. Truly, she hesitated to share the one thing that hung most heavily in her mind. Yet Jonas wrote about everything under the sun in his letters, so why shouldn't she feel free to do the same? She didn't want to speak out of turn, though.

11

Should I tell Jonas about the unexpected visit yesterday fromhis father? she pondered.

Truth was, Peter Mast had come rumbling into the barny;nc) in his market wagon like a house on fire. In short order, he iind Dat had gone off to the high meadow for over an hour. Sure did seem awful strange, but when she asked Mamma iitiout it, she was told not to worry her "little head."

What on earth? she wondered. What business does Cousin Peter have with Dat?

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13/f*/i*' -*- ^ Ly-it' &

Therefore, on every morrow,

* are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to

the earth.

John Keats

14315n-'to'

4-e--t- L/'<

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I /< >g days. The residents of Gobbler's Knob had been cornplaining all summer about the sweltering, brooding sun. Its iniriisity reduced clear and babbling brooks to a muddy nirkle, turning broccoli patches into yellow flower gardens. Mr;idowlarks scowled at the parched earth void of worms, while variegated red-and-white petunias dropped their ruffled pciiicoats, waiting for a summertime shower.

Worse still, evening hours gave only temporary pause, as

I1 itl the dgad of night if a faint breeze found its way through i ipcn farrhhouse windows, bringing momentary relief to restless sleepers. Afternoons were nearly unbearable and had been now for weeks, June twelfth having hit the record high at ninety-seven degrees.

Abram and Ida Ebersol's farmhouse stood at the edge of a i;reat woods as a shelter against the withering heat. The grazing and farmland surrounding the house had a warm and genial scent, heightened by the high temperatures. Abram's ..even acres and the neighboring farmland were an enticing sanctuary for a variety of God's smaller creatures squirrels,

16 ,i_ e w> I s

birds, chipmunks, and field mice, the latter a good enough reason to tolerate a dozen barn cats.

Not far from the barnyard, hummocks of coarse, panicled grass bordered the mule road near the outhouse, and a wellworn path cut through a high green meadow leading to the log house of Ida's maidel sister, Lizzie Brenneman.

Ida, midlife mother to nearly three-month-old Lydiann, along with four teenage girls Sadie, Leah, and twins Hannah and Mary Ruth found a welcome reprieve this day in the dampness of the cold cellar beneath the large upstairs kitchen, where Sadie and Hannah were busy sweeping the cement floor, redding up in general. Abram had sent Leah indoors along about three-thirty for a break from the beastly heat. Ida was glad to have plenty of help wiping down the wooden shelves, making ready for a year's worth of canned goods eight hundred quarts of fruits and vegetables once the growing season was past. Working together, they lined up dozens of quarts of strawberry preserves and about the same of green beans and peas, seventeen quarts of peaches thus far, and thirty-six quarts of pickles, sweet and dill. Some of the recent canning had been done with Aunt Lizzie's help, as well as that of their close neighbors the smithy's wife, Miriam Peachey, and daughters, Adah and Dorcas.

The Ebersol girls took their time organizing the jars, not at all eager to head upstairs before long and make supper in the sultry kitchen.

"I daresay this is the hottest summer we've had in years," Mamma remarked.

"And not only here," Leah added. "The heat hasn't let up in Ohio, neither."

17 ^H M.iiy Ruth mopped her fair brow. "Your beau must be ^Hpln' v

Leiili, seventeen in two months, couldn't help but smile ttiul nuuh too broadly at that. Dear, dear Jonas. What a wonderful-good letter writer he was, sending word nearly three Nimm i-i week or so. This had surprised her, really . . . but Miiiiinia always said it was most important for the young man tn ih i I In- wooing, either by letters or in person. So Jonas was wt'H ilnuight of in Mamma's eyes at least. Not so much Dat's. No, her father held fast to his enduring hope of Leah's marryiiiK I Ik- blacksmith's twenty-year-old son, Gideon Peachey nicknamed Smithy Gid next farm over.

Sndie stepped back as if to survey her neat row of quart-

I i fil tomato soup jars. "Writin' to Cousin Jonas about the E u-i iihcr can't be all that interesting, now, can it?" she said,

I1 \i ing Leah.

I "We write 'bout lots of things. . . ." Leah tried to explain, I M using one of Sadie's moods.

I "Why'd he have' to go all the way out to Ohio for his I upprenticeship, anyway?" Sadie asked.

I Mamma looked up just then, her earnest blue eyes intent

I1 in her eldest. "Aw, Sadie, you know the reason," she said.

I Sadie's apologetic smile looked forced, and she turned

I1 nick to her work.

I The subject of Jonas and his letters was dropped. Mamma's Ijwill reprimand was followed by silence, and then Leah gave

II long, audible sigh.

I Yet Leah felt no animosity, what with Sadie seemingly

18

miserable all the time. Sadie was never-ending blue and seemed as shriveled in her soul as the ground was parched. If only the practice of rumschpringe the carefree, sometimes wild years before baptism had been abolished by Bishop Bontrager years ago. A group of angry parents had wished to force his hand to call an end to the foolishness, but to no avail. Unchecked, Sadie had allowed a fancy English boy to steal her virtue. Poor, dear Sadie. If she could, Leah would cradle her sister's splintered soul and hand it over to the Mender of broken hearts, the Lord Jesus.

She offered a silent prayer for her sister and continued to work side by side with Mamma. Soon she found herself daydreaming about her wedding, thinking ahead to which sisters she might ask to be in her bridal party and whom she and Mamma would ask to be their kitchen helpers. Selecting the hostlers the young men who would oversee the parking of buggies and the care of the horses was the groom's decision.

Jonas had written that he wanted to talk over plans for their wedding day when he returned for baptism; he also wanted to spend a good part of that weekend with her, and her alone. But on the following Monday he must return to Ohio to complete his carpentry apprenticeship, "just till apple-pickin' time." His father's orchard was too enormous not to have Jonas's help, come October. And then it wouldn't be long after the harvest and they'd be married. Leah knew their wedding would fall on either a Tuesday or Thursday in November or early December, the official wedding season in Lancaster County. She and Mamma would be deciding fairly soon on the actual date, though since Jonas didn't know precisely when he'd be returning home for good, she had to wait

19Tke C16ell

H dUiuss it with him. Secretly she hoped he would agree to

MiiiHc an earlier rather than a later date.

H An lor missing Jonas, the past months had been nearly

Bfcbeiirahle. She drank in his letters and answered them <|!iit:l

uuiiship. But for Sadie's sake, Leah had stayed put in GobMn's Knob, wanting to offer consolation after the birth and

Iciili of her sister's premature baby. In all truth, she had believed Sadie needed her more than Jonas.

Hut Jonas had been disappointed, and she knew it by the unmistakable sadness in his usually shining eyes. She had told

1.1in her mother needed help with the new baby, the main

huusc she'd given. Dismayed, he pressed her repeatedly to i'Consider. The hardest part was not being able to share her ic.il reason with him. Had Jonas known the truth, he would luive been soundly stunned. At least he might have underlined why she felt she ought to stay behind, which had nothing to do with being too shy to live and work in a strange i"wii, as she assumed he might think. Most of all, she hoped lie hadn't mistakenly believed her father had talked her out

Today Leah was most eager to continue writing her letter the minute she completed chores, hoping to slip away again