Centennial (43 page)

Sunday was worse. His brothers insisted that he attend church, to let the community view his disgrace, and he had to tag along, sitting in the family pew and feeling the hot stares of the Mennonites, each of whom had heard of what was now being called his assault on the Stoltzfus girl.

“Rape,” a father whispered to his daughters in the row behind. “The work of the devil here in Lampeter.”

At the close of service he had to run the gantlet of condemnatory glances as Mahlon and Christian paused to explain in loud voices that the whole family was ashamed of what had happened—mortified, Mahlon said—and that Levi was going to apologize to the Stoltzfus girl and her father on Tuesday.

The ugly part came at dinner, when Reverend Fenstermacher and his acidulous wife, Bertha, appeared at the Zendt kitchen for their customary free meal. The minister was considerate enough to say to Mahlon, “I know I’m expected at dinner, but in view of the tragedy that’s overtaken your family, perhaps ...” He hoped with all his heart that Mahlon would not cancel the invitation.

And Mahlon said, “You must come! Maybe you can throw some light into his dark soul.” This pleased the Fenstermachers enormously, because they knew how good Mrs. Zendt’s cooking was.

In Lampeter the Zendts were known as one of the typical merchant families that kept the best for the market and served the nubbins at home. In a sense this was true. Mahlon never handed his mother any choice piece of beef or the best apples from the orchard; they were reserved for the families of James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens. Mrs. Zendt got only the second or third best for family use, but she was such an exceptional cook that from nubbins she produced better results than others did with the best. And when the preacher came, she outdid herself.

It was a splendid board she laid that day. Both the table and the stands along the wall were jammed with the best German dishes. She had never subscribed to the old rule that a table must contain seven sweets and seven sours, but she did believe in a generous variety. For meats she had beef pot roast and frizzled dried-beef gravy, pork loin and leftovers from the last ham. For fowl she had a delicious roast hen and a rooster boiled for many hours and served with dumplings. For vegetables she had whipped white potatoes and candied yams, tomatoes and peas, scallions grown indoors, and lettuce with hot bacon dressing. She had five kinds of sours: onions, red-beet eggs, pepper cabbage, chow-chow and plain cucumber. She had four kinds of sweets: applesauce rich and brown, pickled pears, canned peaches and a rich cherry preserve. To start with she had soup with rivels, of course, three kinds of bread, and to close the meal four pies: apple, cherry, lemon meringue and wet-bottom shoo-fly, Mrs. Zendt’s specialty made with molasses and cinnamon bread crumbs.

Reverend Fenstermacher, surveying the feast with long-practiced eye, noticed that she had no cake.

When the eight were seated, Mahlon looked to the preacher, and Reverend Fenstermacher was ready. He had been pondering all day what he ought to say when he dined with the Zendts, and his mind was clear. Surveying the bowed heads, he cried in strong German, “O Lord, we have within our midst this day a sinner, a most grievous sinner, a man who has descended to the level of the beasts, nay, lower.”

That was the opening. From there he reviewed Levi Zendt’s pious upbringing, the sterling character of his father and his mother, who, praise God, was still with us this day, and especially his Grandfather Zendt, who would be suffering tortures in heaven as he contemplated the disgrace brought upon his family by his grandson, Levi. Reverend Fenstermacher pronounced it Lee-wy, and it was repeated several times until it did sound like the name of a depraved man.

In the midst of his discourse Reverend Fenstermacher used a provocative phrase: he said, “A man like this should go and live amongst the savages.” The prayer ended on a hopeful note, Reverend Fenstermacher thought, for he did hold out reassurance of salvation if Lee-wy spent the next forty years of his life in dutiful repentance, as he, Fenstermacher, was convinced he would.

All Levi remembered of the prayer was the part about going and living amongst the savages, and while the others ate voraciously, he kept his square, stubborn face looking down, refusing food, and thinking of a name he had recently learned: Oregon. At the market one day he had heard men from Massachusetts talking; they had traveled all the way to Lancaster to purchase two wagons. They had said, “We’re heading for Oregon. It’s the new world. Great quantities of free land occupied only by savages.”

He had not been sure where Oregon was, but when another group of men and women appeared in Lancaster buying wagons and Melchior Fordney rifles, he had asked them when they stopped at the Zendt stall for smoked meats, “Where’s Oregon?”

“Two hundred and fifty days from here, heading westward all the time. But it’s a great country. Malachi here went there by boat. He’s our captain.”

Oregon of the savages! Oregon of the free land, the new life!

On Tuesday at eleven, when the market was jammed, both with normal customers and with sensation-seekers who had heard that Levi Zendt was going to apologize in public, stern Mahlon led his youngest brother through the mob and up to the counter of Peter Stoltzfus. In a loud voice he cried, “Brother Stoltzfus, here is a man who wishes to speak with you.”

Peter Stoltzfus, dressed in white apron, leaned over the edge of his stall and glowered at the man who had tried to rape his daughter. “Becky, come here!” he called, and from between the curtains masking the back of the stall Rebecca Stoltzfus appeared, so fresh and beautiful in her carefully pressed clothes and so neat in her little white cap with the dangling strings that the onlookers gasped to think that a human beast had tried to defile her. Several women, imagining that they had once looked like that, started to weep.

There was an awkward silence, whereupon Mahlon jabbed Levi in the back and the latter began to speak, in a whisper so low that no one could hear. “Speak up!” several men shouted.

“I am sorry, Baker Stoltzfus ...” Levi simply could not go beyond that, and Mahlon grew tense with rage at this new humiliation.

The impasse was ended by Peter Stoltzfus, who leaned down from his stall and punched Levi so solidly in the nose that the young butcher staggered backward, tripped over Mahlon’s foot and fell flat on his bottom. The crowd cheered and a man’s deep voice shouted, “Give him another, Peter.”

That was the end of the apology. Mahlon, filled with disgust, abandoned his brother, and the other Zendts returned to their own stall, nodding approvingly across the aisle to Peter Stoltzfus and his daughter. Rebecca stayed at the counter, receiving the condolences of numerous women, and after a protracted moment on the floor, where he was too humiliated even to rise, Levi Zendt pulled himself together, rubbed his nose where Stoltzfus had thwacked him, and left the market.

That night, at five, he loaded the sleigh with the leftovers and drove out to the orphan asylum, where the mistress called him a human beast, directing him to unload the stuff and begone. But as he was working alone, Elly Zahm, the factotum, came to help him. She was a scrawny child, sixteen years old, an orphan whom it had been impossible to place in any private home. She knew how to work and was industrious; normally she should have been picked up as a maid-of-all-duties, but she was so unappealing in appearance, with straggly hair and thin face, that no one wanted her.

She lifted a basket that would have taxed a man, and Levi said, “Leave that one for me,” but she already had it indoors.

“I heard what they said about you and the Stoltzfus girl,” she said with precise accent. “I can’t believe it.”

Even here! His face grew a deep red and his hands trembled. Was it to be like this the rest of his life: “What about you and the Stoltzfus girl?” Leaving the baskets behind, he leaped into the sleigh and whipped the horses through the asylum gate.

Wednesday and Thursday were days of deepest anxiety. The Mennonites of Lancaster County were a lusty lot; they were by no means prudish, and their language could be most robust, with words that would have shocked ordinary Baptists or Presbyterians. They particularly liked to use barnyard terms, which made a Lancaster County saloon a rather lively spot, with constant reference to bowel movements, urination and sexual intercourse. It was not through prudishness that the Mennonites turned their back on Levi Zendt; it was because tradition required that sexuality be expressed in words rather than actions. For one Zendt boy to break out of the restraints that had bound the other four was intolerable and a menace to the whole community.

Therefore, without a formal vote, the Mennonites decided to shun him. From that moment he became an outcast. He could not attend church, nor speak with anyone who did. He could not buy or sell, or give or take. He could converse with no man, and the idea of striking up a friendship with any woman was beyond imagination.

“They’re shunnin’ Levi Zendt!”

“About time. That animal.”

On Friday, when he walked from the farm to Lancaster, no passer-by would offer him a ride. The black sleighs skidded past as if he were a pariah. And when he reached the market, none of the merchants would talk with him. At the end of the day he loaded the gifts and drove out to the edge of town, where the mistress of the orphanage refused to speak to him, but Elly Zahm appeared as usual to help him unload.

“I hear they’re shunning you,” she said. He was too anguished to reply, and she said a most peculiar thing: “They’ve been shunning me all my life.”

The words made him look up. For the first time he saw this skinny, unlovely child whose hands were so red from overwork and whose eyes seemed so very old. He could say nothing, and left as abruptly as he had the previous time.

But as he drove through the gathering dusk and approached Lampeter, he pulled up at Hell Street and went boldly into the White Swan. “Is Amos Boemer here?”

The bartender nodded toward a corner, where the tall wagoner sat in a stupor. Levi went over to him, shook him and asked, “Amos, you want to sell that Conestoga?”

Amos tried to clear his eyes, saw only a dim shape, and mumbled, “I wanta give the bullshit thing away.”

“How much?” Levi asked.

“Twenty dollars and you can kick that bullshit thing all the way to Philadelphia. It ain’t worth a nickel.” He fell forward, but as Levi continued to pester him he rose, stared at the intruder and demanded, “Ain’t you the Zendt boy? Goin’ around rippin’ the clothes off decent girls. Get the hell out of here.” He pushed Levi toward the door, cursing him savagely long after he had departed.

Two weeks later, when the snow was gone, Levi walked down to Hell Street, ignoring the stares that marked his passage. He went to the White Swan and again rousted Amos Boemer from his corner. “I want to buy your Conestoga,” he said.

“I’m not sure I want to sell. That’s a very good wagon.”

“I know. I want to buy it.”

“Twenty dollars and it’s your’n.”

“Here’s the twenty dollars,” Levi replied, offering him money saved from his wages.

“It ain’t got no bells.”

“I don’t need bells.”

In that way Levi Zendt became owner of a Conestoga a quarter of a century old. It had been built with great care by one of the best workmen in the area, and had seen much good service on the Philadelphia freight route. It had suffered no broken boards; its toolbox and wagon jacks were usable, and its lazyboard worked. The twenty-four bells were gone, it was true, but where Levi was thinking of going, bells were not desirable.

To haul the wagon he would need six horses, and he had but two, a pair of sturdy grays. During the following week he bought two additional grays from a farmer in Hollinger, but told him to keep them until called for. The farmer said that he would need pay for their boarding, and being in an amiable mood, said, “You hear of the city feller who wanted to board his horse and he asked his friends what he ought to pay and they said, ‘The price ranges from one dollar a month to fifty cents to two bits, but whatever you pay, you’re entitled to the manure.’ So this city feller goes to the first farmer, and the farmer says, ‘One dollar,’ and the city feller says, ‘But I get the manure?’ The farmer nods, and at the next place it’s fifty cents, and the city feller says, ‘But I get the manure?’ and the farmer nods. At the third farm two bits and the same story, so the city feller says, ‘Maybe I can find a place that’s real cheap,’ and he goes to a broken-down farm and the man says, ‘Ten cents a month,’ and the city feller says, ‘But I get the manure?’ and the farmer says, ‘Son, at ten cents a month they ain’t gonna be any manure.’ ” The farmer laughed heartily. Levi forced a smile and walked back to his farm.

He now had four grays, and he knew where he would get the other two. He would “borrow” them from his brother Mahlon.

It would be impossible, of course, to go west or anywhere else without one more essential item. He would need a gun. For a Lancaster man to move even across his own farm without a gun was unthinkable. The so-called Kentucky rifle, which had played so powerful a role in the War of Independence and had practically decided the War of 1812, was in truth a Lancaster rifle, invented and perfected in the smithies and shops of this town. Now, in days of peace, the Lancaster gunsmiths made the best hunting rifles in America, and their finest products rivaled those of Vienna.

Levi had never owned a gun. He was a good shot but so far had always used his brothers’ guns, and now he faced a dilemma. He had the money, but how could he, under penalty of shunning, march into the shop of Andrew Gumpf or one of the Dreppard brothers and try to do business with them, they being such good churchmen? He devised various stratagems but none seemed practical. He really was an outcast.

Then he thought of Melchior Fordney, who made a very good gun but who was somewhat out of favor with the decent people of Lancaster because he had up to now refused to marry his housekeeper, a Mrs. Tripple, whom they suspected of living with him carnally, without sanctification by the church. Fordney was a strong-minded individual, and if anyone in Lancaster would sell Levi a gun, it would be he.