No Use Dying Over Spilled Milk (11 page)

“Why, I think that’s a wonderful idea,” my dear sister said sweetly. “I try to make a fresh start whenever I lose someone I love.” Despite her worldly ways, Susannah is as innocent as a newborn babe. I have yet to convince her that naivete is not the arrival of Baby Jesus on Christmas morning.

“Not that I want to move,” Sarah said more to herself than us. “All my babies were born here, and even though Yost died here… ” Her voice trailed off, and for a moment she stopped punishing the dough.

“Then don’t move,” I said. “Maybe Enos and Dorothy can stay on permanently here. Or at least until your kids are old enough to make the difference.”

“I’d move to Hawaii,” Susannah said helpfully. “Or Myrtle Beach. I hear it’s cheaper than Hawaii and a lot more fun. The guys are supposed to be cuter there too.”

Sarah responded with a sob.

I gave Susannah the kick she was due and patted Sarah on the back. Four hundred years of inbreeding may have made me undemonstrative, but it didn’t leave me without feeling. “It isn’t time to be thinking of moving, dear. Not now. Give yourself time. And plant three rows of snap beans, because I’ll come and help you eat them.”

Sarah smiled weakly and wiped her face on her sleeve. Four hundred years of inbreeding had made her strong as nails, the occasional sob notwithstanding. “Yah, now is not the time to think about such things. Would you like to stay for supper, Magdalena? You too, Susannah. We’re having frankfurter rafts and sauerkraut salad. The children all love frankfurter rafts.”

My mouth watered. I hadn’t had frankfurter rafts since the day—I was twelve—Mama discovered TV dinners.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” said Susannah, who had never had frankfurter rafts. “Magdalena and I already have plans.”

“We do?” That was certainly news to me. I had purposely told Lizzie Troyer not to count on us for supper. While bread and fish might be sound Biblical fare, pies and cakes have their place too.

Susannah gave me what was supposed to be a meaningful look. Anyone else would likely have thought it gas. “Yes, we made plans earlier, remember?”

I didn’t. Undoubtedly Susannah had another date lined up with Danny Hem, but that didn’t mean I had to be stuck eating sardines in solid oil.

“Actually, dear, I remember no such thing,” I said. “However, if you have plans, feel free to run along. But leave me my car, of course.”

Even I began to wonder if Susannah had gas. Either that or had gotten something in her eye. I hadn’t seen a human face go through so many contortions since back in seventh grade when Ernie Hershberger replaced the lettuce in Lydia Kauffman’s BLT with poison ivy. The Pennsylvania DMV would have loved that.

“Are you all right, dear?” I asked kindly.

Susannah’s left eye gave a final twitch that would have dislodged her false eyelash had I given her time to apply it that day.

“We have plans, Mags. Thank you, Sarah, but we’ll have to take a rain check on that dinner.”

I could hardly believe my ears. Not only had Susannah displayed exceptional manners in thanking our cousin, but she actually wanted me to tag along with her someplace.

“Well, I guess we do have plans after all,”

I said. “You can at least stay for another cup of cocoa, can’t you?” our cousin coaxed.

We stayed and sipped the delightful brew while Sarah shaped the bread into loaves, put them into well-greased pans, and set them aside to rise.

“It’s a funny thing about Yost,” she said suddenly, “but he wasn’t himself the night before he died.”

I was all ears. “He wasn’t?”

Sarah didn’t seem to hear me at first. She wet some dishtowels, wrung all the water out, and then placed them lightly over the loaf pans before answering. “No, Yost was definitely not himself. I have known him my whole life, but he never acted like that before.”

“Acted like what?” Susannah asked. It surprised me that she’d even been listening.

“Ach, I have never seen such behavior. Even in springtime the animals don’t act like that.”

Susannah ignored my hand signals. “Like what?”

“Like he was crazy.” She lowered her voice and glanced at the windows, through which we could hear the distant voices of children. “Maybe possessed.”

My Mama’s Frankfurter Rafts

8 skinless frankfurters

Bacon grease

1 egg

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon powdered onion

2 cups cold mashed potatoes

2 cups baked beans

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 8-inch-square glass baking dish.

Brown frankfurters in bacon grease. Set aside to cool. Beat egg with milk and onion powder. Thoroughly mix beaten egg mixture with mashed potatoes. Smooth mixture over bottom of baking dish. Cut cooled frankfurters into halves lengthwise. Cut again across the width. Arrange frankfurter slices over potatoes until covered. Spread baked beans over the frank slices. Sprinkle the grated cheese evenly over the surface of the beans.

Bake for 25 minutes or until heated through and the cheese is melted.

Serves four.

I was stunned. Mennonites and Amish don’t take possession lightly. We are forbidden Ouija boards and other types of entertainment that claim to make connection with the spirit world. Seance parlors and fortune-tellers are not even discussed, much less patronized. In a society without television, in which “new age” is what you become on your next birthday, the word “channel” is almost never used. Our faith is in God, and we look past the netherworld to the world to come. That is, the Kingdom of God.

Of course, the Bible is full of demons, as well as angels, so we believe that they do exist. We prefer to ignore them, however, as long as we can. If the subject comes up, it is never as a whim, or in jest. Sarah Yoder would not have suggested that her dear departed husband had been possessed unless she had ample reason to believe it. And unless there had been other witnesses.

“Can you describe his behavior for us in a little more detail?” I asked gently. I must admit that my naturally suspicious mind favored a human rather than a supernatural explanation. There is enough evil in the average human heart to make a personal appearance from the devil quite unnecessary.

Sarah nodded, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears. “It was after supper that night. The children were already in bed, but Yost and I were still downstairs. I was reading a book and Yost was writing a letter. Suddenly he looked up at me with the strangest expression on his face.

“ ‘My eyes must be giving out on me,’ he said. "Suddenly the words seem to be marching right off the page. Look, there they go now. Can you see them?’ he asked.”

“Wow!” Susannah said.

“At first I thought he was joking. Yost liked to kid around a lot. He was always teasing the children, but he was especially fond of teasing me. I’m what you would call gullible.”

“I understand,” I said. And I did. Susannah was ten before she stopped believing everything I said. Still, a farm child half that age should have known, without asking Mama, that there is no such thing as a macaroni plant.

The tears began to spill from Sarah’s eyes, but she did nothing about them. “We were sitting right here, at this table. Suddenly Yost pushed back from the table and began to cry. The table was breathing, he said. It wasn’t a table after all, but one of the cows. The cow had somehow been made into the shape of a table, and it was in pain.

“Then Yost jumped up and grabbed a cleaver and smashed it down on the table. To kill the cow and release it from its pain, he said. Only he was crying.”

“Far out,” Susannah said.

“Here. Look here!” Sarah scraped some flour out of a deep groove with her fingernail, and we could see that the cut in the exposed wood was fresh.

“Oh God,” Susannah said.

I gave her a gentle kick under the table. “Then what?”

“I asked Yost to give me the cleaver, and he gave it to me. Then he started to moo like a cow. He got down on his hands and knees and mooed like a cow!”

“Jesus!” Susannah said.

I kicked her harder. “Then what, dear?”

“Then Yost started begging me not to kill him with the cleaver. Magdalena, it was like he believed he was the cow!”

I kicked Susannah in time to forestall her next utterance. “What happened next?”

Sarah glanced at the outside kitchen door and shivered. “Then he went out that door, still on his hands and knees, and I never saw him alive again.”

“You poor dear!” I thought for a moment. Mercifully Susannah must have been thinking too.

“But Sarah, dear,” I said carefully, “I was under the impression you found your husband in the morning when he didn’t come in from milking. Is that true?”

She shook her head, and I was glad that the bread was safely covered and in another spot. Bread dough is not that forgiving. “No, that’s what I told the sheriff. But what else could I tell him?”

I shrugged. “What else happened?”

“I ran outside after Yost. I didn’t even grab a coat first. But I couldn’t find him anywhere. Not in the barn, not in the dairy, not even the root cellar. It was like he just disappeared.

“Then I ran upstairs and checked on the children. They were all asleep. That put my mind at some ease, so I went out and hitched up the buggy. I looked everywhere one last time, but still I didn’t find him, so I drove to Annie Stutzman’s for help.”

“Is she your nearest neighbor?”

“Yah. I brought her back here so she could watch the children while I went to get Stayrook Gerber. He is the nearest man.

“Anyway, Stayrook was still up, and he came over right away. Stayrook and I looked together until Annie made me go back inside and drink some hot milk. She thought it would calm my nerves. Then she sat with me while Stayrook continued looking.

“Stayrook even walked across the north pasture to where we have some hay piled up for winter feed. He thought maybe Yost could be hiding in there.”

“But why would he be hiding?” Susannah asked. It was a reasonable question, so I kept my toes to myself.

Sarah looked at Susannah and then me. “I don’t know why he would be hiding. But we had to take everything into consideration. We had to think of all the possibilities.”

I patted her hand. It was ice-cold. “Of course, dear.”

“Of course, Stayrook didn’t find him there either. After that he stayed in the kitchen with Annie and me, and we prayed and read the Bible. And waited. It was just after midnight when I heard a noise coming from the dairy. It sounded like someone shouting.

“We all three ran to the dairy, and that’s when we found him. He was dead by then. Drowned in the milk tank.”

“But naked?” I asked gently.

Sarah froze, her eyes as big as buckeyes. “How did you know?”

“Annie Stutzman told me when she called about the funeral.”

Sarah’s icy hand grabbed my wrist. “You won’t tell the sheriff, will you? You must not say anything to him about that, Magdalena!”

“I won’t,” I promised. “And Susannah won’t either, will you?” I nudged Susannah with the toe of my shoe.

“Of course not. What do you think I am, stupid?”

I sipped my cocoa, which was getting cold.

“But you did call the sheriff,” I said after a while. “I mean, you did call him as soon as you realized your husband was dead, didn’t you?”

Sarah looked startled. “What? Oh no, we didn’t call the sheriff right away. I mean, we took him out of the milk first, and then Stayrook drove over and got the bishop.”

“The bishop?” Susannah and I chorused.

Sarah gave us each a challenging look. There was indeed mettle there despite the tears. “Yah, the bishop. We wanted his advice before we told the sheriff. You see, Sheriff Stoltzfus is not an easy man to deal with.”

Susannah sputtered in her cup. “Stoltzfus?”

“Yes, Stoltzfus,” I said. “But Marvin, not Melvin. I’ll fill you in later. Go on,” I said to Sarah.

She glanced at Susannah, who was still sputtering. “Bishop Kreider is a good and wise man. He said that the sheriff, who is English, might not believe that sometimes the devil or his angels can enter a person and possess them. Like in the Bible. He said the sheriff might order an autopsy, and that there could be a big investigation if he knew Yost had drowned without his clothes.”

She looked beseechingly at us, as if our approval was important. We both nodded, and she continued, “The bishop didn’t actually suggest it, but he hinted that it might be better if we dipped Yost’s clothes in the milk tank and put them on him before we called the sheriff.”

“I take it you found the clothes nearby?”

“Yeah, but they were thrown everywhere. It was as if he had ripped them from his body.”

“How terrible it must all have been. But I take it the sheriff believed that Yost just happened to fall into his milk tank and drown? I mean, didn’t it seem odd to the sheriff, even a Stoltzfus sheriff, for such an accident to happen? Didn’t he suspect something?”

Sarah shook her head. “What other explanation could there be? Yost was a good man who was well thought of by everyone. You saw how many people were at his funeral.”