9

David tried not to let the situation with Freeman Glick haunt him, but he was still unsettled when he woke the following day. He hadn’t slept well. He had let yesterday’s events worry away at his subconscious.

After breakfast, he walked to the store through drizzle and depression that hinted strongly of winter’s coming. He felt uncertain about what to do next. A Bible verse Freeman had quoted to him rolled over and over in his mind: “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.” Could it be that trusting in the sovereignty of God might mean that the lot-switching business was ordained? Sanctioned, even?

He pondered that as he walked down the road.

Would it be so bad to let the lot switching slip under the rug? Freeman Glick was a powerful individual in this community. He was highly regarded, viewed as a patriarch. And David couldn’t erase the fact that it was the prior bishop, Elmo Beiler, who had started the whole lot-switching business. If David had been under Elmo from the start, a man he admired and respected, would he have a different point of view about it? Might he have been tempted to participate? He hoped not, but he couldn’t know for sure.

Another Bible verse floated to the forefront of his mind: “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

David had a great deal to learn about the vocation of ministering, but he knew one thing for sure: prayer was at the heart of anything and everything. He stopped and tipped his head up to the sky. “What next, Lord? I don’t know what to do. Guide my steps.” Two little words in that Bible verse, so easy to overlook, filled his mind. With thanksgiving. He lifted his hands. “And thank you.” Thank you for bringing this situation to light, thank you for exposing it, for correcting our missteps, for providing a path through it.

Even if he didn’t yet know the path to take, even still, he was thankful.

He heard someone call his name and whirled around to find the source.

“Did you see it?”

Birdy! Her cheeks were ruddy from the cold and he couldn’t hold back a smile. He walked toward her. “See what?”

“The great blue heron! He was standing on a fence post, not ten feet away from you. I thought that was why you had stopped.”

David dipped his head. “I wish I could say that was the reason.” How typical of him—to miss the natural world calling out to him because he was so locked up with his own thoughts.

“You looked rather solemn. Rather preacher-like.”

An answering grin lifted his mouth. “Well, to be honest, I was praying.”

Seeing his grin, her eyes sparkled. “Well, no one could fault you for that.”

“I’ll walk you to school.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, bumping hips with her, clumsy and yet tender. This relationship with Birdy, it was still so new to him.

“Something must be weighing heavily on you, if you missed seeing the great blue heron. He could have practically reached out and grabbed your hat.” They walked along awhile. “My hunch is that it had to do with church yesterday and my brother Freeman.”

It could have been an awkward thing between them, a dividing point, though Birdy never made it seem so. Freeman was her oldest sibling. How could David talk honestly with her about her own brother’s sin?

He stopped and faced her, taking her hands in his. “Birdy, I don’t want to come between you and your brother.”

“You’re not. I was the one who brought it all out in the light.”

“I was hoping it might resolve easily, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.” He looked down at their hands, joined together. “To be honest, I just don’t know how to resolve it. That’s what I was praying about.”

“Perhaps it’s time to seek help outside our church.”

To involve another bishop is what she meant, and to do so would be a significant step. Each Amish church tried to solve its own problems, to keep everything “in-house.” He tilted his head. “If I go outside the church, there’s no turning back.”

“I think we’ve already come to that point.” She looked right in his eyes. “We have to leave the outcome with God.”

He knew. He knew. “But Birdy, what will happen to us?”

“Well, that outcome belongs to God too.”

He gazed at her for a while, and the most extraordinary feeling welled up inside him. He felt his heart lift into a place he did not think he had known before.

After they parted ways at the schoolhouse, he walked alone to the store. The gray clouds were breaking up and a stream of sunlight lit the road ahead of him. And then, like the sky above, his prayers for discernment cleared the air.

Later that morning, he finished his letter to Isaac Bender and placed it in the store’s mailbox for the carrier to pick up. Indecision evaporated in that one act.

Abigail stayed up much too late last night making a list of all likely leads to pursue for the Bible project. Someday soon, when her father’s well-being was restored, the two of them planned to spend a solid week at the National Archives in Washington, DC, combing through census records on microfiche. Some genealogists sought to exhaust all home sources before going to census records, but Abigail’s father taught her to go to them first, accessible at the large Columbus, Ohio, public library. “Census records are a gold mine of information, Abigail,” her father often said, “just waiting for someone like us to unearth them.”

He showed her how census taking began in 1790 with six simple questions, only six, for the sole purpose of counting the nationwide population. In 1850, the census expanded to include more questions: age of family members, birthplace, occupation, race, immigration. By 1930, the census expanded to thirty questions. Vital records weren’t officially kept in the United States until 1920, so the census records became the only source to find vital information.

Opportunities of abundance waited for the family history researcher, though you had to be savvy. Prior to 1850, the records were often inaccurate—census takers canvassed door to door, often missing remote areas, and those people they did question often withheld information or outright lied because they didn’t trust the government’s motives, vexing the census takers.

Abigail certainly understood those suspicions. The Plain People didn’t trust the government, either. Why did it need personal information? Could information be used against them? Higher taxes? Military service? No. It was wise to be cautious when dealing with the government.

And yet, she was grateful for the collected information. And there lay the conundrum. Glad for the benefits provided by the government, reluctant to offer up anything more.

Abigail reined in her thoughts about the National Archives and set her mind to the task at hand. She combed through the books her uncle had loaned to her and categorized all the Glick primogenitors in Lancaster County. She was going to ask each primogenitor if she could see their family Bible. Old family Bibles, an accepted source of documentation for genealogical purposes, were usually passed to the oldest son. Family Bibles were held with high regard, considered the last tie to the Old World. Births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths were recorded with remarkable accuracy.

She would start with the primogenitors in Stoney Ridge and move out from there. First on the list: Freeman Glick.

It was a fine morning. Jesse found it difficult to get out of bed quite as early as Fern Lapp expected, but he knew that the first few hours of light were the best part of the day, a time of freshness and optimism. “Die Maryeschtund hot Gold im Mund,” Fern was fond of repeating. The morning hours have gold in hand.

Jesse particularly liked it when he knew Fern had left Windmill Farm for the day and he could turn on his transistor radio, kept tucked away, as he toiled on a challenging buggy. Those were his happiest moments. Of course it depended to a great extent on the buggy. He had dismissed Hank Lapp’s complaints about the orneriness of certain buggies as sheer laziness and a fondness for fishing. But he had quickly discovered that there were, indeed, some buggies that made even Jesse despair.

Eli Smucker’s old buggy was a case in point. Jesse had spent a great deal of time on that buggy and felt that he knew it quite well by now. It was not a difficult one to deal with, but it could not be kept going forever, and he wasn’t sure whether Eli could accept that truth.

Jesse looked around at the other buggies that were waiting for attention. Billy Lapp had brought in a buggy that had no brake pads left to speak of. And there was Solomon Riehl’s one with an axle that made an earsplitting squeal. Another buggy with wheels that needed some spokes replaced.

Jesse had a full day of work ahead of him. However, he needed to ask Hank a few questions, and as his former employer liked to say, “These buggies aren’t dying. They’ll still be there when you get back.”

So he snatched his hat off the wall nail, slammed it on his head, and whistled for C.P. Companionably, his pup followed behind him to walk to the Bent N’ Dent where they were greeted with a cheery welcome by the old codgers. Jesse grinned as he shed his hat and coat, happy to be in the store and out of the biting cold.

Hank dragged a chair close to the woodstove for him and pulled out a dog biscuit for C.P., who bounded toward him. “SIT DOWN AND WARM YOUR OLD BONES,” he shouted in his everyday voice.

Jesse was too cold to point out that his bones were not old. He didn’t have a chance to, anyway, because Eli Smucker leaned forward on his rocking chair and peppered him with questions about his broken-down buggy. “When is it going to be ready? I’m very fond of it. They don’t make buggies like that anymore.”

Jesse rubbed his hands together and tried to buy some time. The problem was that he wasn’t quite sure how to repair Eli Smucker’s ski sled attachments. They had rusty, brittle square head bolts—parts he couldn’t locate to reorder. That was one of the reasons he had stopped by the store this morning. He wanted to ask Hank about it, but not in front of Eli Smucker, of course. Hank may not have been handy in the traditional sense, but he was a born inventor. He often came up with ingenious solutions. With a little “tinkering,” as Hank called it, he could fix any problem.

For example, there had been a rash of scooter thefts on Main Street in Stoney Ridge. It was Hank’s idea to suggest to scooter owners that they remove the handlebars and carry them into a store as they shopped. Brilliant. No more scooters were stolen.

Unfortunately, many scooter owners had trouble getting the handlebars back on. Apparently there was a tiny pin that popped out and was easily lost. It took a trip to the buggy shop, and a twenty-dollar repair bill for parts and labor, to get the scooter back into service. Nevertheless, Hank reminded them all, the problem of theft had been resolved.

The other reason Jesse stopped by was because he was ready to unveil the details of his plans for the Bent N’ Dent to start a grocery delivery service. Yardstick Yoder, the fastest boy in Stoney Ridge, factored into these plans. He was released from school at 3:00 p.m. and could make those deliveries on his way home from school. “Call by three, arrive by five,” was the lingo Jesse had invented.

Brilliant.

There were glitches in this plan, of course. Jesse anticipated accounting issues. He wasn’t sure how his father would feel about people getting their groceries before they paid for them.

And then the biggest glitch of all: Yardstick Yoder. He was holding out for Jesse to offer him a more generous hourly wage.

Eli Smucker cleared his throat, waiting for a response. Just as Jesse was about to respond, the front door opened and in blew his grandmother on a gust of cold wind. His cousin Laura trailed behind her and gently closed the door. Mammi’s steely gaze swept over the store and landed on the old men.

“Excellent!” she said, which Jesse knew was a trick. “You men can help us rearrange the store.”

The old men stared at her, slack-jawed.

Mammi looked each one up and down, then narrowed her mental telescope at C.P., who sat looking back at her with his tongue hanging out. “And why is there a dog in this store?”

Thus began Mammi’s takeover of the Bent N’ Dent. Her strategy for the store, as it was for her entire life, was to be helpful in the most unhelpful ways.

Abigail knocked on the door of the Big House and was surprised to find it opened by two very similar-looking women. Her first thought was that she might be having a stroke and seeing double. She had read about strokes. Then she remembered Uncle David had told her that Freeman and Levi Glick, brothers, happened to be married to sisters. She explained who she was and why she had come.

“You’ll have to speak to my husband,” one sister said. “He’s out in the barn.”

Abigail thanked them and went to the barn. She recognized Freeman Glick from his preaching on Sunday. Rather uninspired preaching, she thought, with a bad habit of rambling off topic, but that was beside the point. As was the lot-switching business that her grandmother was constantly stewing over. The only concern on Abigail’s mind was how she could get a look at the Glick family Bible, assuming there was one.

Freeman was feeding a large bottle of milk to a calf when he saw her. “You. Here. Finish this up.”

He handed her the bottle of milk and promptly walked away from her.

“But I have never fed a calf . . .”

He didn’t seem concerned. Nor was he listening. He walked down the aisle of the massive barn and disappeared. She turned back to the calf, who looked at her with large, solemn eyes. She held the bottle out to it and it practically yanked the bottle right out of her hand. She could barely keep hold of that bottle! The tongue on that calf was like a powerful muscle, which, in fact, it was. The calf guzzled the rest of the milk, then looked at her again with those large, woeful eyes, disappointed that she had nothing more to offer. Fortunately, Freeman returned with a dose of medicine to give to the calf. He squirted a syringe down its throat and then turned his attention to Abigail. He looked her over, and he didn’t like what he saw. “What do you want?”

His gaze was so piercing that she debated concealing her last name, but truth was always the best policy. “I’m Abigail Stoltzfus.”

“I know who you are. I asked what you wanted.”

Good. A practical person. “I would like to see your family Bible.”

“Why?”

Ah! Judging by Freeman’s suspicious reaction, there was, indeed, a treasured family Bible.

Down the long aisle of the barn came a boy of about nine or ten, as round as her cousin Molly, chomping gum and blowing large pink bubbles as he walked toward them. Freeman frowned and held out his hand. The boy spit the wad of gum into the open large palm. Freeman tossed the gum into a rubbish bin and turned his attention back to Abigail. “Why?”

Abigail had trouble keeping her eyes on Freeman because the round boy, directly behind his father, had reached into his pocket to get another piece of Bazooka bubble gum, unwrapped the wrapper, and popped the gum into his mouth.

“I’m working on a Glick family tree and I’m trying to fill in the blanks.”

“There are no blanks.” Freeman smiled, but there was no warmth in those dark eyes. He lifted a bale of hay as if it was feather-light and carried it outside to a wagon.

Abigail followed behind. “But there are. There’s an important blank. A critical gap. I was hoping your family Bible might provide the missing information.”

“There is no missing information.”

Oh. He was a stonewaller. She would have to try a different tack. “How did your ancestors arrive here?” she asked him instead.

“My people came to the New World in 1748. The first wave of the Amish.”

“But why do you think your ancestors came to the New World?”

“So they could own land. It wasn’t possible to own land in Germany.”

“How many ancestors came on that ship?”

“Peter Glick came over with a large family. They settled in Berks County, and all but one son, John, died when their house was burned by Indians. Every single Glick traces their lineage to John, who escaped the Indians by hiding in a hollow tree.”

How interesting! A piece of history she had overlooked. “So who did John end up marrying?”

He stiffened. “His wife was Amish too, if that’s what you’re nosing around to find out.”

“No doubt. My question is about a missing male name in the family tree a few decades later. I’m trying to track that individual down.”

He narrowed his eyes. “My family is 100 percent Amish.” He lifted a finger in the air and repeated, “One hundred percent!”

“Most likely. But you can’t be certain unless I can confirm the identity of that unknown individual.”

“We don’t have anyone hiding in the woodpile, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“The only thing I’m after is the identity of your great-great—” she had to stop and count back—“great-great-grandfather. May I have your permission to look at your family Bible?”

“Absolutely not.”

How exasperating! “But why not?”

“Because my word is good enough. I know who I am and who my people are. I don’t need a Stoltzfus to tell me otherwise.” He placed both hands flat on the wagon and turned away from her, signaling that their discussion had ended.

Incredible! A critical portion of family history was missing, and Freeman Glick didn’t know about it or care to know the truth.

He walked off, muttering something she barely caught. “You Stoltzfuses are all alike. Always after something.”

Abigail opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it. She had assumed that the lot-switching business was not her problem. Apparently, like so many other assumptions she made about people, she was wrong.