Courting Ruth (6 page)

“It is not your place to decide,” Hannah retorted. “Your uncle was looking for you. Best you hurry back to the school. Now.”

Eli looked at Ruth, excited at the thought of having Sunday dinner with her, feeling guilty about abandoning her, but Hannah was obviously giving him no choice in either matter. “Sunday, then,” he said. “I’ll be here Sunday for dinner.” Abruptly, he turned on his heel and strode back toward the cornfield and the path that led to the school. Ruth’s mother might have the reputation of being a pleasant woman, but now…

Now, he wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of whatever she would have to say to her daughters.

“Mam,” Ruth started, as soon as Eli was out of earshot. “It’s not Miriam’s fault. She was alone here when the cows got loose.”

“Not exactly alone,” Miriam admitted. “Anna and Susanna are in the house, and Irwin was here.”

“Irwin?” Mam demanded. “Irwin? What was he doing here?”

“He came to talk to you. He thought you’d be home from school. He was helping me move the cows from the little pasture into the pound next to the barn, and…” She left her sentence unfinished.

“Where’s the boy now?” Mam rested both hands on her hips.

“I told him to go home,” Miriam answered.

“Mam, it was an accident that they got out,” Ruth said quickly. “She just thought she could get them in quick if she took the horse.”

“To have Samuel and that boy see my daughter riding astride a horse, bareback, no shoes, no stockings, like some…some English jockey?”

Mam didn’t get loud when she was angry, but her words cut like briars.

“I’m sorry, Mam,” Miriam said. “I won’t do it again.”

“Is this the first time you’ve ridden the horses?” Miriam sighed.

“Or the second?”

“Ne.”

Ruth reached for her sister’s hand. “Mam…don’t be angry.”

“You be quiet,” Mam said. “I’m not speaking to you. I’m speaking to your sister.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Isn’t it bad enough that I had to listen to your aunt Martha chastise me in front of everyone at the quilting because you rode on Eli Lapp’s motorcycle?”

“Mam, that’s not fair,” Miriam protested. “It was just a ride and an ice-cream cone. And he bought one for Susanna, too. He’s nice, Mam. He didn’t mean any harm.”

“I’m at my wits’ end with you, Miriam. You are not a boy. You are a girl, a Plain girl.”

Miriam burst into tears and ran toward the house.

“Miriam,” Ruth called after her.

“You’re almost as much to blame as she is,” Mam said, turning on Ruth. “When you saw her on that horse, you should have told her to get down, not encouraged her.”

“I’m sorry, Mam.” Ruth met her mother’s gaze. “You’re right. I should have told her to get down the minute I saw her.”

Mam sighed, her face softening. “It’s only that I want my girls to be good women. Good Plain women.”

“I think we are, most of the time,” Ruth dared.

To Ruth’s surprise Mam smiled faintly. “I think you are, too. Now, come.” She headed toward the house. “There are chores to be done and Miriam’s dander to be smoothed.”

Ruth nodded. She could understand Mam’s concern for Miriam’s behavior, but she knew her sister, too. Miriam didn’t mean to break the rules about riding horses, showing her legs and losing her
Kapp
. She was just high-spirited. Inside, where it mattered most, Miriam’s soul was pure and truly Plain.

Hurrying to catch up with Mam, Ruth took hold of her hand. “Please don’t be upset with yourself. You were right and we were wrong. You’re the best mother in the world,” she said and meant every word. “Dat would be so proud of you.”

“I hope so,” Mam replied. “I worry about raising you girls…if I’m doing right.”

“You are,” Ruth assured her, but a small shiver of unease made goose bumps raise on her arms. Mam was the wisest woman she knew. If Mam didn’t always know the best thing to do, how could she ever hope to make the right choices?

“I’
m not going,” Ruth said. “Anna and Miriam and Susanna can go without me.” She turned the handle on the butter churn as hard as she could. Already specks of yellow were showing in the thick, rich cream.

“Are your arms tired? I’ll help,” Anna offered. It was a rainy afternoon, and they were all gathered in the kitchen. Anna was pressing the wrinkles out of her starched
Kapp
as Susanna eagerly slathered generous gobs of marshmallow filling on her still-warm chocolate cookies and pressed them together, forming fat whoopie pies. Miriam’s sleeves were rolled up as she scoured the stovetop vigorously, while their mother sat at the table shelling peas.

“You should all go,” Mam advised. “Young people should be together and have fun.”

Ruth turned the crank harder. The butter was forming into chunks now. If there was one thing she could do, it was make beautiful, sweet butter. She loved the process, feeling the soft, squishy butter in her hands, adding just the right amount of salt and waiting to see if the blocks came out of Mam’s wheat-patterned mold in perfect shapes. Not everyone could make good butter. It was the only chore in the kitchen where she could outdo Anna, and she took secret satisfaction in her gift. “I’m getting too old for singings,” she said, giving the handle another turn. “It’s for the younger girls and boys.”

“Nonsense,” Mam declared. “Samuel told me that tonight there will be wagons to take you to the homes where there are shut-ins. Your hymns will give them so much pleasure, and you know that God has given you a rare voice.”

Ruth unscrewed the lid on the churn and dumped the ball of butter into a clean cloth. “Making butter is messy,” she said, trying to change the subject. She did love to sing. Secretly, she wanted to go with the young people, but she was afraid. What if Eli was there? What would she say to him? What would he say to her? She sighed. She was probably making something out of nothing. If Eli was there, he probably wouldn’t even notice her with all the other girls there.

“Like life,” Mam said.

“What?” Ruth asked.

Mam motioned with her chin. “You said making butter is messy, and I said, ‘It’s like life.’” She chuckled. “But when everything goes right, you are left with a treasure.”

“I wasn’t even sure you would let us go to the singing,” Ruth said.

“Aren’t you afraid we’ll do something scandalous again?” Miriam chimed in.

Their mother fixed the two of them with a cool gaze. “I was upset,” Mam admitted. “And let my temper get the best of me. I know you are both good girls. It’s just that you have a reckless nature, Miriam.” Her stern look melted to a smile. “You’re too much like me, I fear.”

“Like you?” Susanna licked a sticky finger. “You would never ride a horse like a boy and show your legs.”

Mam tossed a pea shell at her. “Not only would,” she admitted. “Did.”

“Mam!” Anna said in astonishment.

Ruth’s eyes widened in surprise. “You didn’t! Did you?” It was hard to imagine her mother breaking the rules.

“Not even Mennonite girls were allowed to enter the horse race for the Amish boys at the Harrington fair when I was young.” Mischief sparked in Mam’s eyes. “So I borrowed my cousin’s clothing, pinned my braids up under his straw hat, and used his name to enter the race.”

“You rode in a boys’ race?” Susanna demanded.
“Ne!”

“I tried. I got as far as the first turn on the track before my hat blew off and my hair tumbled down. Everyone laughed.”

“But you won the race, didn’t you, Mam?” Ruth said. She was laughing now with the others.

“Tell us,” Miriam urged. “You did.”

Mam grimaced. “I did not. The boys were so surprised that half of them reined in their horses, and two of the riders crashed into each other. My pony reared up, and I fell off, right in front of the grandstand.” She shook her head. “It was years before people stopped teasing me about it.”

Susanna’s eyes widened in excitement. “Were you in trouble?”

“Big trouble.” Mam covered her face with her hands, remembering. She dropped them. “You see, at the time, I was thinking about what I wanted to do instead of what was best for my family or our community. People blamed my parents because I broke the rules.”

“It was a bad rule,” Miriam said. “Girls should be able to ride in races.”

“Maybe,” Mam agreed, “but rules are made for a reason. If they are unfair, people should work together to change them. But no one, least of all a silly thirteen-year-old girl, should decide what rules she will follow and what she will ignore. Because I broke the rule, riders or their mounts could have been badly hurt.”

“I understand,” Ruth said. Then she giggled. “But I would have liked to have seen you dressed up like a boy.”

“It probably wasn’t as good a disguise as I thought,” their mother admitted.

“So Miriam takes after you,” Ruth said thoughtfully as she began to squeeze the liquid out of the yellow butter. “And look how well you turned out.”

Her mother shook her head. “I work hard every day to be the type of woman I believe God and my community expect. We all have parts of our nature that need constant care, lest, like an unweeded garden, the unpleasant things spring up and choke out the good.”

Susanna stuck the last pair of cakes together. “Weeds, Mam? How could you grow weeds?”

“I could,” Mam teased. “Right out of my hair, so that I couldn’t get my
Kapp
on.”

Susanna laughed and they all laughed with her. Then she glanced at Ruth. “I want to ride in the wagon and sing songs. Will you come, Roofie? Please.”

Ruth pressed the new butter tightly into the mold. “We’ll see,” she said. “We’ll see.” But she knew she would. She knew that she couldn’t bear to stay away and miss the evening of fun…and just maybe the chance to see Eli again.

Eli unbuttoned the top button on his good shirt because he felt like his collar was choking him and drained the last of the root beer in his paper cup. Lots of young people from three churches had arrived at the Borntragers’ barn for the singing, and the straw wagons were already filling up with chattering girls in starched
Kapps
and aprons. The boys and young men hung back, some playing a loud game of dodgeball, but most just watching to see which girls would climb into which wagon. Every boy wanted to choose his wagon wisely, depending on which girl he was sweet on, and no one wanted to appear too eager to climb on amid all those blue, purple and green dresses.

Eli hadn’t wanted to come. What if Ruth Yoder was here? He’d made up his mind that being around her was a mistake. He kept telling himself that the only reason he felt such a strong attraction to her was that he was a long way from home and all his friends. He might have a bad reputation in Belleville, but at least everyone knew him. There, he felt a part of the community. Here, he just stood out.

Maybe he should do what everyone had expected when he left home, leave and turn Mennonite or even English. He had a trade. He could get work, get a driver’s license and buy a car. Other boys and even a few girls he knew had done it. Then he wouldn’t have to live by the strict rules of being Amish. He could do anything he wanted.

So why was he here? He’d promised himself when he left his grandfather’s house that he would choose his own path. He’d spent half his life in a household where religion dictated every hour of the day. He’d never been whipped, never gone without food or a clean bed, but his grandparents had seen him as a way to make up for his father’s mistakes. They were determined that he would live a moral life, that he not leave the church. Sadly, their attitude had done more to turn him against the Amish lifestyle than they could ever imagine. In their quest to save him, his grandparents had dedicated their lives to raising him in a somber house without laughter, where charity was freely given to others, but withheld from their own grandson.

That wasn’t to say life in Belleville had been bad. Some things about his growing up had been good. He’d loved the old farm and the stillness of his grandfather’s orderly woodshop, the clean scent of the shavings that fell from the lathe, the feel of cherry or walnut or pine taking shape under his fingers. He’d taken pleasure in the carefully cared-for tools and the furniture and cabinets that the shop produced. And he’d found sinful pride in his gift for making a chest of drawers or a table that would last for centuries and only become more beautiful with the years.

Sometimes in the long hours he spent alone in the shop, he had imagined Jesus as a humble carpenter in his own shop. If he had lived in those old times, Eli wondered if he and the Lord might have been able to talk about a particular slab of wood or the patience it took to achieve a hand-rubbed shine on a tabletop. And he wondered if the Lord could have explained why Eli’s brother had had to die in a ditch before his life had really begun.

Eli glanced around, feeling more out of place by the second. He shouldn’t have come here tonight. He’d only done it to please Aunt Fannie and because he liked to sing. He had a good voice and a good memory for the old hymns in High German. Singing at service and young people’s gatherings had always been one outlet that hadn’t displeased his grandparents.

“Go,” Aunt Fannie had urged him. “Meet the young people. You’ll make friends. Go to the singing.”

Uncle Roman had shrugged. “Go and take the small buggy,” he’d offered. “Maybe you’ll find a girl who’ll let you drive her home.”

Small chance of that. But just in case, he’d curried Uncle Roman’s bay gelding until his hide gleamed and polished his hooves with lamp black. He’d washed down the buggy and shined the wheels. And he’d replaced some of the ordinary lights required by law on the back of the buggy with flashing blue bulbs. There wasn’t any sense in having the reputation of being wild if you didn’t make the most of it.

Singings were supposed to be fun, to be a healthy way for young people to get to know each other, for forming friendships that led to marriage. Tonight’s procession would go from house to house. They would remain long enough to sing a selection of hymns and then pile back onto the wagons to go to the next house. And the rule was, everyone had to switch wagons at each stop. The scramble to get together with the boy or girl you liked, without the adult chaperones catching on, was tricky.

A young man, Mahlon something—Eli didn’t know his last name—was the singing leader for the evening. Mahlon shouted out for everyone to climb on the wagons, that it was time to leave. If Eli wasn’t going to go, this was his opportunity to slip away without anyone noticing. He’d spoken to a few guys he’d met already, tossed a few balls, had a soda and a doughnut, but no one would notice if he didn’t go with the group. He could drive around for an hour or two in his uncle’s buggy, and then go home. Aunt Fannie would never know the difference.

Eli was just sidling toward his horse and buggy when he heard a high squeal and spotted Miriam in the lead wagon, tugging on a younger girl’s hand. On the ground, giving the plump girl in the blue dress a push up, stood Ruth. Tonight she was in purple. Her
Kapp
was neatly in place, hiding every strand of red hair; her stockings were pressed smooth, her apron was blindingly white and her shoes were shined. The face under the white
Kapp
was so full of life, so beautiful, it made his breath catch in his throat.

A boy took Ruth’s hand and helped her up, and the driver clicked to the team. The big Percheron draft horses broke into a trot, and the second team pranced and strained at the reins, eager to follow. Other boys hurried to catch up and leaped on the wagon of their choice, some making quite a show of it.

Eli stood watching. He could just see the back of Ruth’s
Kapp
as her wagon rolled away. At the last possible minute, Eli made up his mind. He dashed after the third wagon and hopped on beside a skinny teen in a green dress and black sneakers. She flashed a big smile at him and slid over to make room, patting the seat beside her. Eli gave her a hesitant smile and wondered if this was going to be a long evening.

Ruth was glad she’d given in and come when she saw the smile on old Warren Troyer’s face. Warren’s mother was ninety and in a wheelchair. She was so crippled up in her body that she seemed no bigger than an eight-year-old child. Her pinched face was as lined as a dried apple, but her eyes gleamed with pleasure, and she clapped her small wrinkled hands with joy. Susanna wiggled with excitement as Mahlon led the group into another song. Willard and Amy had set up a long table with sandwiches, chips, cookies and jugs of apple juice.

Ruth was so glad Mam had urged her to come. Riding the wagons, singing the old songs was as much fun as it had always been. And she had to admit that Mahlon’s attention wasn’t unwelcome. Even if she didn’t want a beau, it was nice that she had someone to talk to besides her girlfriends and sisters.

At each house, the groups had formed into two sections, one of boys and one of girls. Both sounded good tonight, all the male and female voices blending in. A deep, rich male voice behind her made Ruth glance over her shoulder. To her surprise, she saw Eli Lapp standing beside Mahlon. She hadn’t expected that Eli, of all people, would know the words to the hymns or would have such a gift for singing. Miriam noticed him, too. Ruth saw her sister smile at him. She would have to make certain that Miriam remained with her when they got back on the wagons and that they picked one that Eli wasn’t riding on. Mam had just gotten herself calmed down. It would not do to give Aunt Martha something more to gossip about.

Later, at the refreshment table, Ruth was telling Amy Troyer how good her ham sandwiches were when someone thrust a cup of juice into her hand. When she turned to say thank you, Eli Lapp was grinning down at her. Standing this close to him, she realized just how tall he was. Her fingers closed around the cup.

“Nothing special,” Amy said. “Boiled ham and homemade mustard. I can give you the recipe for the mustard if you like.”