Living in Harmony (5 page)

“Once you have prayed on the matter, then there is no cause to worry.” He leaned close to brush her forehead with a kiss. “Go to sleep,
fraa
. God in His infinite wisdom will sort out this dilemma.”

The next morning Sally awoke to the steady beat of rain on the metal roof in an otherwise silent house. Even her infant slumbered after his last feeding several hours ago. Dressing quickly, she went downstairs and brewed coffee before setting out fresh bread, strawberry preserves, and a bag of cracked wheat. Creamed wheat sweetened with maple syrup would make a hearty breakfast for Thomas when he returned from early chores. With the pot of hot cereal simmering, Sally settled down with a second cup of coffee. A patter of feet on the steps soon broke her solitude.

“Good morning,” greeted Nora King in English. “Amy's snoring woke me up, so I thought I'd see if you needed a hand with breakfast.” The girl lifted the lid and gave the contents a stir. “What's this, might I ask?” She scraped the sides of the pot with the wooden spoon.

“Our version of Cream of Wheat. The wheat comes from your home state but is ground locally in town.”

Nora tried a sample with a teaspoon and wrinkled her nose. “It tastes fine, but I'm not much for cooked cereals.
Mamm
usually keeps dry cereal on hand for me when we're not having eggs—” her face suddenly paled. “She
kept
it, I mean.”

Sally's heart ached, witnessing the fresh pain of loss. “Do you mean an English boxed cereal?” she asked.

“
Jah. Mamm
bought them from the closeouts at the salvage store or sometimes from the dollar store. She would never pay grocery store prices, no matter how finicky I was.”

Sally noticed that the girl was practically skin and bones, which probably justified her
mamm
's indulgence. “I'm sorry, Nora, but
we have no outlets or dollar stores in Harmony. We have one grocery store, but the Amish usually shop at the community co-op. That's where I bought the ground wheat and strawberry preserves. My berry patch didn't do well this spring. Thomas said it takes several years for a patch to become fully established and productive.”

Nora poured herself a cup of coffee. “Your breakfast will be fine, Sally. I don't mean to sound troublesome. Shall I toast the bread?” Her pretty face bloomed into a smile, making her look heartbreakingly young.

“
Jah
, there's the cutting board and knife.” Sally pointed at the counter and hurried from the room at the sound of a baby's cry. “I'll be back soon.”

By the time she returned with her two sons, washed and dressed for the day, Kings and Detweilers filled her kitchen. Amy scurried around filling mugs with coffee and ladling creamed wheat into bowls. Just as Sally settled Aden into his high chair, Thomas and John rose to their feet.

“I'm taking my brother for a tour of the farm.” Thomas lifted his hat from the peg by the door, while John drained his mug. “Later I'll hitch up the buggy and take our guests on a grand tour of the town.” He winked at Sally. “I'll show them what Harmony has to offer.”

“I can't wait.” John's enthusiasm flowed like a mountain stream in spring. “Can we stop at the bishop's house? I'm eager for him to meet Amy and me. Once he sees our commitment to each other and to the Lord, I'm sure he'll have no qualms about marrying us. Must we wait until November like back home?”

“No, we have no wedding season the way they do in Lancaster County. Folks can marry any month, time permitting, but our bishop doesn't live here. He lives in our sister district up north, close to the Canadian border.”

“Further north than here?” asked Amy in a tone that doubted the possibility of such a thing.

“How can you share a bishop?” asked John, simultaneously.

Thomas answered Amy first. “
Jah
, about a hundred and fifty miles. He hires a car to get him here and back.” Then he turned to John. “He comes every other week to hold church services. On the opposite weeks, the other minister and I conduct Sunday school and Bible study, all in English.”

Three pairs of eyes stared at him. Nora was first to speak. “You have preaching
every
Sunday? No off week?”

Thomas pulled on his suspenders. “Every week. There's so much to learn in Scripture that I feel we can't miss a weekly opportunity to be in God's Word together.”

“Why in English, this Sunday school?” John sounded almost accusatory, as though the Maine congregation was misbehaving in some way.

“We welcome outsiders to our services, even
Englischers
. All are invited to hear about the Lord and His Son. It's the same up north, only on reversed Sundays.”

John reached for his hat, momentarily speechless.

“I told you things were different here,” said Thomas, opening the door.

“I'm sure we can adjust to minor changes.” John stepped onto the porch, tugging down his hat brim against the rain.

“We haven't even scratched the surface yet.” Thomas followed him outside, shutting the door behind him.

Sally was left with two women looking like deer facing a woodland hunter with a drawn crossbow. But after a moment Amy and Nora began clearing the table and were nothing but helpful for the rest of the morning. They cleaned her kitchen, washed the dishes, and started the laundry. While she hung wet clothes on the line under the covered porch, Nora ironed the basket of shirts in the living room from yesterday's load. Amy fixed sandwiches to take for lunch during their tour. Then she breathed a sigh of relief when the King sisters climbed into the buggy, leaving her alone with her
boys. She wasn't used to so many people underfoot. And she wasn't used to other women scrutinizing her housekeeping. Wouldn't you know that when the rain stopped the bright sunshine illuminated windowpanes desperately in need of washing and a huge, lacy cobweb in the corner of the room? How does one whack down a web without being obvious?

Amy and Nora pretended not to notice the spider's handiwork, the dying pot of herbs on the windowsill Sally had forgotten to water, or the fact she hadn't knitted a single sofa throw to add some warmth to her bland living room. These were well-mannered Christian girls well raised by their
mamm
—a
mamm
who probably never overcooked noodles or burned a batch of cookies in her life. Sally shook off her self-pity as she remembered that their mother had gone home to the Lord and would never have an opportunity to overcook or burn anything again.

While Aden played with the small wooden horses carved by his
daed
, Sally decided to cook a memorable dinner for their first supper in Maine. But good intentions will never fill the silo, as her
grossdawdi
used to say. She underestimated how much a big, strapping man like John could eat. Her two roasted pullets proved inadequate for five adults and one toddler. Once she sliced up the meat on the platter, she flushed with embarrassment. In addition, her stringy green beans apparently should have been picked sooner. And she should have mashed the parsley potatoes, because that's how they looked in the serving bowl anyway. When Aden had doused himself with juice, his midday bath had distracted her from the boiling pot of spuds.

“Everything is delicious,” said Amy after swallowing a dainty forkful of potatoes.

“I'm glad you like it,” said Sally, sipping a glass of water. She hoped the Lord would forgive Amy's well-intentioned fib. The younger sister, Nora, looked pale and distraught, as though she'd witnessed something unimaginable on the trip to town. “How was
the tour?” Sally hoped livelier conversation would divert attention from the empty chicken platter.

Amy glanced up with unreadable cool blue eyes, but John was quick to answer. “
Gut
,
gut
. The town's smaller than we expected, but everything a person needs is here. Farmland everywhere and not a single housing development in sight. Your cooperative market is a good place to buy what we need and sell whatever we grow, if we ever have more than what our family needs.” His handsome face couldn't look more enthusiastic. “And they sell fresh donuts there on Wednesdays.”

“Do you really hold preaching services in a new building like the Mennonites?” asked Nora.

Thomas smiled patiently at her. “We do. It's our meetinghouse, school, and church. We don't worship in one another's houses.”

“So you just hang around there, visiting after lunch?”

Thomas paused a moment. “We eat a simple meal after services, but after that we usually have hymn singing for the whole congregation and then go home.”

Nora nodded while pushing green beans around her plate. “Where's the closest Walmart?”

“I have no idea,” he said as Sally burst out laughing. “Probably in Bangor, but that's too far for us to go by buggy.” Thomas set down his fork. “You'll find things much slower and quieter here than what you're accustomed to.”

“That suits me fine.” John dabbed his mouth with his napkin. “Say, do I smell something burning?”

Sally leaped to her feet. Eager to hear about the tour, she forgot about two apple pies still baking.

Thomas jumped up too. “Careful now,
fraa
. Don't burn yourself on those hot pans.” He grabbed oven mitts from a drawer and carefully removed the smoking pies from the oven. Sally opened the window and set two trivets on the sill. Thomas placed them so smoke would drift outside and then leaned over to inspect them.
“Only the crust is burnt,” he announced. “I trust the insides can be scraped out with a spoon just fine.”

Sally smiled at him gratefully, but she couldn't wait for supper to be over with, especially after she'd noticed her brother-in-law's expression of utter disapproval.

“Walk with me,
bruder
,” said Thomas.

John jumped to his feet. Dessert had been a disaster—the apples were as mushy as the parsley potatoes earlier in the meal and just as lumpy. “
Jah
, sure. I could use some exercise. I'd love to look at your workshop again.”

“A man needs a way to keep his hands busy during the long winter.” Thomas held open the kitchen door and they stepped into a warm summer night.

“With weather as hot as this, cold temperatures are hard to imagine.” John gazed at a sky already beginning to darken as the sun slipped behind the hills.

“Our hot weather lasts barely a month, not three like in Pennsylvania. And the growing season is shorter here. We can't plant until late May and must harvest silage corn in September, not November. At best we'll get three hay cuttings, not four, and sometimes snowstorms come in October.”

“You don't say? I bought a book to read about New England agriculture for the bus ride. I worked on a construction crew back home to save money toward a farm. Because I already know carpentry, maybe I could learn woodworking and help out in your shop this winter.” John paused to admire the three-story barn with a gambrel roof. “Almost every barn I saw today was brand-new like yours.”

Thomas batted away a mosquito. “Most barns in Waldo County
have to be knocked down. Farming dried up here forty years ago, but it's slowly coming back. Young
Englischers
have started organic produce farms and welcome us with open arms. Everyone wants this section of Maine to return to its former productivity.”