The Wings of Morning (4 page)

“Papa!” Lyyndaya exclaimed. “That is not fair. You know how he worked night and day to get plows ready for spring planting, to shoe horses, fix buggy wheels and suspensions, all so he could spend a few days developing his flying skills—”

“A few days!” her father almost shouted. “Weeks among the English! Weeks!”

“—and go to Philadelphia, something the bishop and the leadership approved of and gave their consent to. You make it sound like—like—he is some lazy gadabout with his head in the clouds—”

Her father snorted like a horse. “What else would a flyboy be?”

“—when he has always done his duty by this colony, always worked hard as our blacksmith. Don’t you remember the Widow Borkholder, her iron bed, she could not sleep on any other, and he was up twenty-four hours mending the frame so that she could rest. He took no sleep for himself for more than a day so he could—” Lyyndaya felt the tightness in her throat and the burning on her face and stumbled for words. Looking like a twelve-year-old again, she appealed to her mother. “Mama, you know that what Papa says about Jude is not true—”

Her mother waved a hand in the air. “The pair of you. I should have locked you both up in the corncrib years ago until you settled matters. You are too much alike—headstrong, determined, independent, clever with the tongue.” She looked at her husband. “You know, Papa, that we have said we will abide by the rules of the colony and the decisions of the bishop and elders.”

He averted his eyes and looked at the wall on the other side of the kitchen. “
Ja, ja
.”

“So then there is no argument when Jude is permitted to take flying lessons or go to the aerodrome in Philadelphia if the colony’s leadership have agreed to allow it, is there?”

Lyyndaya’s father said nothing, but she could see his jaw working under his beard. Then her mother turned two tired but very dark eyes on her.

“And daughter, I know you like this boy, this man, this Jude Whetstone. No, he is not old family, they came at the same time we did thanks to Bishop Lapp’s ministrations, may he rest with the Lord. But—perhaps—you are not right for each other. Perhaps—” She hesitated, gazing at her daughter’s broken face and the broken spirit it expressed, then bit her lower lip and plunged ahead “—perhaps it is like striking a match by a barrel of gasoline. The two should not mix. Not unless you want to blow something up. Or burn down a house.”

“Mama—” Lyyndaya began.

Her mother waved her hand again. “Let me finish. You are very young. So is he.
Ja
, some girls here marry at sixteen or seventeen, but that is not for everybody. Who knows what you will yet grow into? Who knows what you will become? Who knows how he will change, how the both of you will change? It is enough now that you respect our wishes and not spend time with him and certainly not let him court you. Your father and I are unsure about flying, but that is a debate the whole colony is having and it is not for us to decide for the colony what is right and what is wrong. But you are our daughter, and when it comes to you and your future then it is for us to decide what is right and what is wrong. We feel this young man is wrong for you and that what is best for you is a future that does not have him in it.”

Lyyndaya sat very still, then began slowly to speak. “Very well. I will do as you wish. May I meet with him again to tell him what we have discussed, or should I write a note?”

Her mother smiled in a sad, lopsided way and nodded. “I think a note would be best, dear. Ruthie can deliver it.”

Lyyndaya pushed back her chair and stood up. “May I go to my room now?”

“Of course, dear,” her mother responded. “Are you sure you don’t want your coffee?”

“No, thank you. Good night, Mama. Good night, Papa.”

She avoided looking at her father as she went up the stairs to the room she shared with Ruth. When she opened the door a lamp was lit on a table, but Ruth was not there. Often she read Bible stories to the younger ones at bedtime and prayed with them before Mother and Father came up to tuck them in. Lyyndaya wanted Ruth’s company with one part of herself, and wanted to be alone with another part, so she accepted her sister’s absence with a sense of what was meant to be, flopped down on her bed, and cried as quietly as she could manage into her pillow.

When all her tears were exhausted, she rolled over on her back and stared up at the ceiling of plain boards. How could an evening that had begun so beautifully, in an aeroplane flying through the sunset, end so badly, with her parents telling her she could not see Jude again?
Oh, God
, she prayed,
what am I going to do? How can I tell Jude? He just lost his mother in February and now he will lose our friendship as well
. She sat up on her bed, opened the drawer of her night table, took out a fresh white handkerchief, and blew her nose into it. On top of the small table was a thick black Bible and another book bound in red leather. She took the red book and lay on her stomach.

This dear book was the most precious possession she had. Great-grandmother Kurtz, who loved playing with words and had given her the unusual name of Lyyndaya, had also written a devotional book for her great-granddaughter. The book, bound by hand by her great-grandmother’s husband, Grandpapa Moses, contained Grandmother’s own ideas about various scriptures, which were combined with her vast store of life experiences so that she was able to produce unique day-by-day readings for the whole year. Lyyndaya had been using the red book since she was ten, a month before her great-grandmother died, and had been reading it through every year since then. It had inspired and encouraged her more than once, and now she turned to it again, her heart a stone in her chest.

She opened it to June twenty-seventh.

The Bible verse her great-grandmother based the day’s passage on was from Philemon 15:
For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever
. Lyyndaya was startled and read the verse twice. Then she looked over what her great-grandmother had written in her neat, precise hand. It was about the goodbyes and farewells of life.

Sometimes you see the person again on earth, sometimes in heaven. If it is on earth, the separation may be due to war or employment or illness. It might be, if the person is meant to be a close friend, that neither of you are quite ready to be close friends yet. Or it might be, if you feel the person is destined to be your husband, God has more work to do in each of your lives before he entrusts you to one another forever. One must rely on God above all. One must learn not only patience and perseverance, but a deeper faith in him, in his goodness, and in his ways
.

Her great-grandmother had underlined the word
rely
three times.

Suddenly Lyyndaya felt light as air. A warmth and a freedom swept through her mind and body and she felt like God was in the room with her, granting her joy in the midst of sadness. The Bible’s words ran through her thoughts over and over again:
for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever
. She went to a corner of the room, where there stood a fold-down writing desk with three drawers and two glass sides for books. Her favorites were on one side, Ruth’s on the other. She lowered the writing surface and sat in the chair. Taking a sheet of paper from one of the small shelves within the desk, she began to copy what her great-grandmother had written. When she was finished, she took another sheet of paper and penned,

When Ruth came softly into the room a half an hour later, Lyyndaya had brushed her teeth, combed out the snarls in her hair, put on her white summer nightgown of cotton, crawled under the covers, and was asleep. A letter in an envelope lay on Ruth’s bed with the name
Jude Whetstone
on it. Ruth had been told it was her task to take her sister’s note to Jude and bring back any reply, whether verbal or written—but only once—for her mother had spoken to her about it. By common consent, they had agreed it was best to give Lyyndaya more time to herself, so Ruth had sipped a cup of tea in the kitchen and listened to her parents tell her why they had to do what they were doing to Lyyndaya and Jude.

She took the envelope in her hand and sat on her bed and thought about purposely losing it or destroying it. Then Jude would be none the wiser and would show up at the door or at the Sunday singing with a horse and buggy for Lyyndaya. Mother and Father would have to explain themselves to Jude at the house or in front of the whole colony at the singing instead of hiding behind the letter.

Ruth sighed. Of course, she would not do that. She was a good daughter and tried very hard to be a good Christian. The day Jude returned on the train, hoping to see her sister, she would be the bearer of bad tidings that would crush his spirit. Oh, she liked him—she thought he was perfect for Lyyndaya. Her younger sister needed someone as strong-willed and adventurous as she was. Why couldn’t Mother and Father see past aeroplanes and propellers and focus on the young man at the smithy who worked hard, sang the hymns like an angel, and who had wept unashamedly at his mother’s funeral? He was a man with heart and soul.

She looked over at Lyyndaya, fast asleep, bright hair fanning across her pillow like a bird’s wing.

“Oh, my little Lyyndy,” she whispered, “what Jude wouldn’t give to be sitting where I am right now and looking at your beauty. Will there ever be such a day for him or you? I fear that before there is even the remotest chance of that happening you will both have to go through waters that are too deep, too dark, and too chill. I will never stop praying. But may God have mercy on you both.”

T
he train whistle blew twice, long urgent notes, telling Paradise it had arrived. Lyyndaya stopped milking her cow a minute and looked out the open barn door to the main road. There were still buggies, carts, and wagons moving along toward the station—some to pick up supplies or tools, others to meet family or visitors or bring members of the colony back to their homes. Ruth would be there, ready to greet Jude and give him the letter at the train or follow him back to his house. Perhaps he would give her sister a note to bring back, the last exchange of messages Mother and Father would permit.

She went back to milking and tried, unsuccessfully, to put the matter from her mind. A few cows down from her, her younger sister, Sarah, who was fourteen, struggled to get Primrose to cooperate and muttered away in Pennsylvania Dutch. Daniel, who was nine, and Harley, who was twelve, were helping their mother at the butter churn in an adjoining shed. Luke, at fifteen, was with Papa examining their second hay field to determine when it should have its first cut. Lyyndaya leaned her head gently against Cynthia and kept working, holding the teat in one hand and expressing the milk with the strong slender fingers of her other hand. One of the fingers had a small white bandage. Lyyndaya looked at it and thought of the aeroplane ride and that first thrilling barrel roll. She smiled at the memory and prayed,
Please, God, I hope you do not see this as a frivolous request, but may there be many, many more aeroplane rides with Jude
. Yet once she had finished her short prayer a part of her felt sorrow at something that she feared might never be again.

Her pail full, she carried it to the nearest milk can sitting in the cool shadows. After pouring her pail into the can she moved on to Vivianne, who always made such a fuss. She continued to milk down the row of cows, now and then stopping to help Daniel or Harley—Sarah always refused help of any kind. After more than an hour she began to fret about Ruth’s absence. Was it a good thing or a bad thing that her sister was gone so long? She had no sooner begun to wonder than she heard Trillium’s smart step in the drive and the sound of buggy wheels. Luke and Papa had returned and she could hear them talking to the horse and to Ruth. Then she heard her mother’s voice. She hurried with her milking of the second to the last cow. Just then Papa appeared in the barn doorway.