A rooster crowing right below her window jerked Leah out of a sound sleep. The eastern horizon glowed with a bright light, but the rest of the sky was still flushed dark. What time was it?
She yawned and stretched. Whatever the time, she heard distant activity downstairs, so evidently she wasn’t the first one awake.
Feeling virtuous for being an early riser, she dressed and padded down the stairs in her bare feet. She found Edith and Sarah in the kitchen, chatting softly in Deitsch. “Good morning.”
Both women turned. “Good morning!” they replied in unison. “You’re up early today,” added Sarah.
“I had a rooster alarm clock. Can I help with something?” Whether or not she was taught that domestic chores were oppressive, she was still a guest and felt compelled to ask.
Sarah rolled and cut biscuits. “Do you want to make gravy? We’re having biscuits and gravy for breakfast.”
Leah bit her lip. “What do I do?”
Over the wood cookstove, Sarah showed Leah how to mix butter and flour together, then dribble in milk until the mixture thickened. “Now add just a bit of thyme,” said Sarah, reaching for a jar on a shelf. “Then we can flavor it either with crumbled sausage, or with bits of bacon. Which do you prefer?”
“How about sausage?”
“Then you can chop it up, as well. Here, put the pot on this side of the stove where it’s not so hot. If you come with me, I’ll show you where we store our meat.”
Lighting an oil lamp, Sarah led the way into the basement to the amazing shelves of canned food. “We keep the meat over here,” said Sarah. “See the labels on the shelves? Here’s sausage.” She picked up a jar that held what looked like crumbled pork meat inside.
“You canned this yourself?”
“Yes. See the date on the lid? That was from one of our pigs last year.”
Leah shook her head. “Your skills and creativity amaze me. I wondered how you kept meat from going bad without refrigerators or freezers.”
“We freeze some in the winter, but whatever’s not eaten by spring, we can it so it stays preserved. No sense wasting Gott’s bounty by letting food go bad.”
Holding the pint jar of sausage, Leah followed Sarah back up the stairs to the kitchen. She found the other daughters awake, sipping tea and helping with breakfast. Rachel dipped something out of a large glass jar.
“What’s that?” asked Leah, placing the sausage on the counter.
“Cream,” the young woman replied. “This is yesterday’s milk. Daed will be in shortly with this morning’s milk.”
“Here’s how to open a canning jar,” said Sarah, handing Leah a small implement. “You pry the lid off, and we keep the lid and gasket. These canning lids and gaskets are reusable.”
Following instructions, Leah scooped the sausage out of the jar, chopped it fine and added it to the gravy. Despite feeling like she was all thumbs, she found it pleasant to work in a kitchen full of women, chatting in English for her sake and engaged in creating a hearty meal out of home-produced ingredients.
By the time the sun peeked over the horizon, Ivan clattered into the kitchen. “Guder mariye, guder mariye,” he called, shouldering open the door since his hands were clutching two brimful buckets of milk. “Ah, Leah, you’re up early.”
“Yes, I decided not to be lazy anymore,” she bantered, relieving him of one of the buckets while he hefted the other one on top the kitchen counter.
The three boys came stumbling into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing their eyes. The youngest went straight to his mother, who lifted him and sat down in a kitchen chair with him on her lap, snuggling in what was clearly a morning routine.
Ivan poured himself a cup of coffee and added some of the cream Rachel had just skimmed, along with a scant teaspoon of honey. “Have you had coffee?” he asked Leah.
“I prefer tea, actually.”
“Oh, we have tea.” Rachel reached for a jar of loose-leaf blend. She prepared a mug for her. “Tomorrow morning, help yourself. We keep it here, and the tea strainers are in this drawer.”
With the entire family up, the girls set the table while Edith strained the milk and poured it into clean jars, which she capped. “Those will go down into the cellar after breakfast,” she explained to Leah. “Tomorrow we’ll skim the cream. Normally we’d make butter, too, but since tomorrow is the Sabbath, we’ll wait until Monday.”
“Sit yourself down, boys,” Ivan told his sons.
Leah seated herself as well, as Edith settled the youngest into a booster seat. Everyone bowed their heads for a silent prayer.
Including Leah. Almost without realizing it, she found herself being grateful for the food upon the table. It was gratifying to know she had helped prepare some of it.
Ivan started with the scrambled eggs, dumping some onto his plate, then adding some to his youngest son’s. “Even though I still have a lot of work to do to finish those pieces for the Cleveland store, I’m going to walk the pasture fences and tighten a few spots today. Boys, you can help me find where Matilda—that’s one of our Jersey cows,” he added to Leah, “keeps pushing over the fence into the horse pasture.”
“What’s on the agenda today?” Leah asked Edith.
“Laundry.” Edith counted off on her fingers. “Housecleaning. Weeding. Picking strawberries. Baking. Tomorrow is the Sabbath, so we’ll all take baths tonight. Rachel, I’ll ask you to make some cheese today,” continued Edith, eyeing the gallon jars of milk on the counter. “We’ll strip the beds and wash sheets today too. Lots to do!” She chuckled.
Throughout the day, Leah got a crash course in laundry, dishes, cooking, picking strawberries, canning preserves, and making bread. Mouth agape, she watched as Rachel made mozzarella cheese out of yesterday’s milk. The house was cleaned from top to bottom and the bed sheets washed.
By late afternoon, Leah found herself gathering dried laundry with Eliza, the youngest daughter.
“It looks pretty, don’t you think?” she asked Eliza, pointing to the white sheets moving in the breeze.
“Ja,” agreed Eliza. “And I like having nice clean sheets on my bed.”
But even this simple task required some explanation from the twelve-year-old. “You might want to fold them as you go,” instructed Eliza. She showed Leah how to unpin one corner of each sheet and gather it across the length until the last pin came off. “That saves a lot of folding in the end.”
Leah gave a huff of annoyance at herself. “You’re, what, sixteen years younger than me—and you know a lot more than I do.”
Eliza looked at the ground for a moment. “It’s just practice,” she mumbled.
“And I need a lot more practice.”
“But why?” asked Eliza, reaching for another sheet. “You won’t be here too long, will you?”
“I don’t know.” Leah placed a folded sheet in the basket. “I don’t know how long I’ll be here.”
“Could you stay if you wanted?”
“I—I don’t know. Your parents are being so kind to me... I certainly couldn’t stay with them forever.”
“You should marry Isaac,” pronounced Eliza with the assurance of youth.
Leah felt her cheeks flare. “Why do you say that?”
“Because he’s already courting you. He’s a good man.”
“Does everyone think he’s courting me?”
“Ja, probably.”
Her lips thinned. So this was how rumors started. “Well, he’s not,” she snapped. Seeing the girl’s stricken expression, she softened. “I’m sorry. It’s just that Isaac can’t court me. He rubs me the wrong way. Plus he only just met me, and I’m not Amish.”
“Maybe you could be.”
Her curiosity got the better of her. “How does someone become Amish?”
Eliza looked puzzled. “I don’t know. Maybe talk to the bishop? He’d know.”
“The next question is—would I want to?” She didn’t really mean for the words to be spoken out loud, but they were.
Eliza unpinned another sheet. “I like it here. I don’t know if I want to go anywhere else for my rumspringa. It sounds dangerous out there. Like the man who hurt your face.”
“It can be dangerous.” Leah sighed. Eliza was still blessed with the innocence of youth. “But there’s a lot of good too.”
“There’s a lot of good here.”
“I can see that.” She glanced around at the tidy farm, better understanding now the sheer hard work it entailed. “I don’t know if I’m ready to give up modern conveniences and learn to do everything by hand.”
“I like working with my hands. I like doing useful things.”
Leah found herself being schooled by this preteen and wasn’t sure she was happy about it. She came from a world where labor was avoided by the use of laborsaving devices. Yet there’s no question the work the Bylers did on a daily basis accomplished useful things. It produced cheese. And strawberry preserves. And furniture.
With a start, Leah realized what the Bylers had that she lacked: peace of mind. It wasn’t just the bucolic rural setting either. It was the assurance that work was the answer, that trust in God was the source, that unity was strength.
The young girl was right. There was a lot of good here.
“Eliza!” called Edith from the porch. “There is some food I want you to bring to Anna Yoder.”
“Ja, Mamm,” replied Eliza. “We’re almost finished.”
Leah dropped her last folded sheet into the basket, then took one handle as Eliza took the other and helped carry it toward the porch.
Inside, the kitchen was cooler and cleaner than she’d left it, with the older girls tidying. “Put those away,” Edith told her youngest daughter, “and I’ll have something ready for you to take.”
“Who is Anna Yoder?” asked Leah.
“A widow in poor health.” Edith paused to hold her stomach and close her eyes. Leah suspected the baby was kicking. “She lives with her son and his wife, but I have my doubts about the young wife’s cooking. I like to help out when I can.”
“It’s constant, isn’t it?”
“What’s constant?”
“The...the sense of community. Everyone thinking about everyone else.”
“Ja, sure. How else could it be?”
Leah didn’t have the heart to tell the older woman she didn’t even know who lived in the apartment next door to her in LA. Asking for help from those unknown residents was out of the question. Nor would her neighbors ask her for help. It was a much different world here.
After Eliza left with a basket packed with goodies, Edith dropped into a kitchen chair. “Ooh,” she grunted. “This little one is getting heavy.”
“Are you okay?” Having never spent any time around pregnant women, Leah wondered if Edith was ill.
“Ja, fine. I just get tired more easily. That’s another reason I look forward to the Sabbath—I can take a nap without guilt.”
“Can I get you something? Some tea, perhaps?”
The older woman smiled. “Ja, danke, that would be nice.”
Leah felt proud she was becoming comfortable enough in the kitchen that she knew how to prepare a mug without bothering Sarah or Rachel, who continued to clean up.
She set the cup of hot tea on the table, along with a jar of honey. “Thank you.” Edith spooned in a scant half teaspoon of sweetener and stirred. She sipped. “How are you settling in, do you think?”
“I think I’m bothering Sarah and Rachel far more than I should.” Leah smiled at the two young women.
“How is it you never developed skills needed for cooking and such?”
“Simple. I blame modern conveniences.”
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you how to sew or cook?”
Leah looked down at her hands. “My mother and father divorced when I was very young. I rarely saw my father. Mom raised me by herself and was always working, trying to make a living, so she simply didn’t have the time to pass on any domestic skills she might have possessed.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry...”
Leah looked up to see deep sympathy in Edith’s blue eyes. “Mom’s wish was always that I would have a better life than she was able to give me. That’s why she put such a high value on a career.”
“How is your mom doing now?”
“She died in a car crash when I was nineteen.”
“Oh no! Are you all alone? No family nearby?”
“None. I was an only child, and so were both my parents. I have no extended family.”
Leah thought Edith might burst into tears at this news, her face looked so stricken. Even Sarah and Rachel suspended their work, staring at her wide-eyed.
“Hey, it’s not as bad as all that,” she said into the silence. “I did okay. I had a nice career and a nice apartment.”
“But no support structure, no people around you who love you.” Edith swallowed hard. “And then your career was taken away too.”
“Yeah, I didn’t see that one coming.” Leah traced a shape on the table with a fingernail. “That’s why I feel so at loose ends. I don’t know quite what to do with myself, and I’m so grateful you’re offering me a place for the moment.”
“Have you asked Gott for help?” inquired Edith with the tone of someone for whom this was a normal part of everyday life.
“Um, no.” Leah felt awkward saying that out loud. “I’m still busy trying not to be mad at Him for this.” She touched the scar on her cheek.
“Och, things happen for a reason. Your job now is to figure out what the reason is.”
Leah didn’t dare confess the depth of her lack of faith to this kindly woman. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said evasively.
With a clatter, Ivan came into the kitchen followed by his two older sons. “Time for milking,” he announced. “Sarah, are the buckets clean?”
“Ja, there.” The older daughter pointed.
“Back to work, then,” said Edith, hauling her ever-growing form out of the chair. “Girls, let’s get water heating. Everyone needs a bath tonight. There you are,” she added to her youngest child, who came stumbling into the kitchen rubbing his eyes. He clearly had just woken up from a nap. Edith scooped him up and said something softly in Deitsch.
“How do you take baths?” inquired Leah. She had a special interest in the answer to this question.
“In the bathtub, of course. But since we don’t have running water, we use a bucket system.”
The brief moment of rest was over. Leah thought it was no wonder Edith looked forward to the Sabbath as a chance to cease the unremitting toil of running a large household without the aid of electric appliances.
Within half an hour, Ivan returned with buckets brimming with milk. Rachel started straining the milk, and Sarah scalded the buckets clean. Eliza returned from her errand, and Leah helped her set the table. Edith stirred a pot on the stove and put hot food in serving dishes. The boys washed their hands at the sink. Then the family sat down, bowed their heads in silent prayer and started eating.
“Aah, the Sabbath,” said Ivan with his mouth full. “It will be nice to rest.”
“Many Englisch people work on Sundays,” observed Leah, thinking of how many weekends she had worked.
Eliza looked shocked. “But the Fourth Commandment!” she blurted.
Edith made a shushing gesture. “Not everyone lives by the Good Book, dochder,” she said.
“It’s true.” Leah pushed some food around on her plate. “But I’m starting to see how a society works when people do follow the Good Book.”
“Ja, it’s nice to have an instruction manual,” agreed Ivan. “We don’t have to—what’s the term?—reinvent the wheel when it comes to living our lives.”
“But you do, kind of,” contradicted Leah. “Because the outside world moves so fast, the Amish have to adjust, too, deciding what technology to reject.”
“That’s true,” agreed Ivan. “But it’s an effortless process. Mostly. Once in a while a thorny dilemma comes up, such as Isaac wanting to use a computer, but when it comes to such things as using machinery to power woodworking tools or dairy equipment—well, such decisions come down from the bishop and the elders, and we don’t have to question it.”
Leah wondered if that chain of command made the Bylers uneasy or content. She guessed the latter. They didn’t have angst about whether their limited technology damaged their most important criteria in life—community ties and devotion to God.
There was no Bible reading that night, as it was past the younger children’s bedtime by the time everyone was clean.
But as Leah lay in bed, on fresh sheets, she realized how tired she was and yet—oddly—exhilarated. She had done things today. She had picked strawberries, helped make preserves and assisted with any number of tasks the Byler family routinely undertook.
It had been, she thought with a small shock, a long time since she’d felt satisfaction at a day’s work, and she wondered if it was a heresy of some sort to feel the emotion in conjunction with domestic chores. What would her mother think?
This train of thought led to another. She recalled Edith’s words earlier: “Have you asked Gott for help? Things happen for a reason. Your job now is to figure out what the reason is.”
What could possibly be the reason behind losing a career and gaining a facial disfigurement? It made no sense.
But the fact remained—she didn’t know what her future held. Mentally she shrugged. Maybe she should pray. What did she have to lose?
“God,” she whispered, feeling rather foolish, “I don’t understand why You did this, but it’s done. Please show me what direction I should go.”
Then she fell asleep.