17

Abigail arrived at the Bent N’ Dent at 10:56 a.m. on Saturday. Her cousin Jesse had set aside an unopened box of bubble gum for her, adding in a 10 percent fee for himself, though she didn’t really see the necessity for a fee, especially among family. She was in no position to object, though. And a fortuitous sequence of events meant that her uncle was not planning to be at the store this morning. She would be able to meet Leroy, privately, in her uncle’s back office.

When she walked into the store, she was happy to see that the old men, those who normally loitered around the woodstove for hours on end, had not arrived yet. She wondered if that might be her grandmother’s influence. Jesse said that the old codgers scattered like buckshot whenever they saw Tillie Yoder Stoltzfus coming through the door.

Bethany Schrock was restocking shelves as Abigail went behind the register to get the box of bubble gum. There it was, with her name on it, just as Jesse had promised. When she saw that Bethany was up on a ladder to fill a shelf, she called to her, “I’m going to use Uncle David’s office for a little while.”

“That’s fine,” Bethany called back. “You know, your grandmother started this whole reshelving project. Shootfire! She has me frazzled down to my last stitch. And where is she now?” Bethany continued to mutter disparaging comments about Mammi from high up on the ladder, but Abigail couldn’t take time to listen to them now.

She went into the office and cleared off the desk, carefully placing things in a pile so she could replace them when she was finished. Her heart was racing with excitement. She had high hopes that today’s discovery would solve the riddle, but she held many doubts that a nine-year-old boy could be a reliable informant.

She glanced at the wall clock. 11:04. Leroy Glick was late. It was very frustrating to her how often people, even a nine-year-old person, did not respect others’ time. Then she heard the bell ring on the store’s door and she hurried into the front room to see Leroy walk in with a large square bulging from his coat.

She glanced at Bethany, still on the ladder. “I’ll handle it, Bethany.”

She motioned to Leroy to follow her and they went into Uncle David’s office. “Put it on the desk,” she said.

“Not until I get my bubble gum.”

Abigail pointed to the box on the floor and Leroy’s face lit up. He unbuttoned his coat, then his shirt, then his undershirt. There was the old family Bible!

He set it on the desk and bent down to pick up the bubble gum box. He put it right on the desk, this close to an exceptionally valuable centuries-old Bible. She gasped. “Leroy, you mustn’t allow bubble gum to be anywhere near this Bible.”

“I need to get the gum wrappers! One of them has a ticket for a lifetime supply of bubble gum.” He ripped open the box and started to pull out the little gum bundles.

To Abigail’s way of thinking, Leroy already had a lifetime supply of gum, right there in the box. “Can you please take the box and go over to that chair? I need to work and I don’t want to be distracted by your bubble blowing.”

“Fine. But I don’t have much time. I need to be home for lunch.”

“What?” She glanced at the clock. 11:15 a.m. Fine. She would have to work fast.

She sat at the desk and pulled out her white gloves, then carefully opened the Bible’s heavily worn leather cover, delicately turning the pages until she came to the section between the Old and New Testaments, a place for records and registers. She scanned the pages quickly, pleased to see that the handwriting changed many times. Excellent. That was an indication that this was an original record, not copied.

She started at the beginning of the record, dating from 1741. She read down an orderly list of names and dates, marriages, baptisms, births, and deaths.

Abigail’s mind was churning backward in time. She wondered about those earliest immigrants, those first ones who came from Europe on a leaky, bobbing high-masted ship. Did they have any idea what the future would look like for them? From what she’d read, Penn’s Woods was thickly forested. The immigrants claimed their land and then had to clear it of trees to farm it. Imagine the work they did to claim their property, the disappointments and hardships and sorrows they endured. It was a life filled with risk and reward, most likely more risk than reward. She’d read once that monograms had first been created so that the children of mothers who died in childbirth—and there were many—would be sure to receive their mother’s belongings.

She turned a page as thin and brittle as onionskin and saw that the handwriting had now changed. It became delicate, spidery yet feminine, with curious little unconnected notes scrawled in the index, as if the writer couldn’t help herself from recording important events.

HOR hung on May 15, 1881.

All Saints’ Day, 1881, Elizabeth’s child born today. A boy.

Then the handwriting changed again, to someone else’s penmanship. No additional notes were found in the indexes. She squeezed her eyes shut. Her father had taught her a valid investigation required three confirming facts. She had just found the first piece of evidence.

“I gotta go.”

Abigail looked up to find the entire box of bubble gum had been opened, wrappers littered the floor. Leroy’s pockets were filled with unwrapped gum. “Leroy, I’m just getting somewhere. You’ve got to let me have it a little longer.”

“Can’t. Gotta go.”

She glanced at the wall clock. “You promised me one hour. It’s only 11:43.”

He sighed. “Yeah, but I’m bored.”

“Not an acceptable excuse. I get seventeen more minutes. Clean up the wrappers while you wait.”

She ran her finger down the delicate pages to find records dating in the 1830s. She skimmed farther down and saw Elizabeth’s birth date and her parents’ names. She scribbled the information down on a Bent N’ Dent notepad she found on her uncle’s desk.

Elizabeth’s marriage was never documented. Her living child had a birth date, but no known father.

She read through those dates again, wondering who HOR might be. Was he the father of Elizabeth’s child? Obviously, he was not approved of by the family. Most likely, not a church member.

She turned another page to learn what had happened to Elizabeth’s surviving son, Mose Glick. The handwriting changed again, this time to what seemed like a man’s penmanship: bold, slanted, no-nonsense. Perhaps Mose himself recorded these events. He married, had four sons, then his wife died and he married again and had four more sons. He became a minister, then a bishop. She turned the page again and realized that Freeman was a direct descendant of Mose Glick. Somehow, just the handwriting alone revealed their common ancestry. Bold, slanted, no-nonsense.

Leroy stood right in front of her, blowing bubbles. Highly distracting. “Five more minutes, Leroy. That was our agreement.”

“Can’t. I gotta go.” He reached out and grabbed the Bible, stuffed it under his coat, and hurried out the door. A precious, ancient, beloved Bible, jammed against the unwashed body of a bubble-gum-chewing nine-year-old boy. Disgusting.

Bubble gum wrappers littered the floor. Appalling.

Oh no. No, no, no, no. An appalling realization struck Abigail. She had to see that Bible again. The Bent N’ Dent notepad she had used to record her observations was jammed inside.

David Stoltzfus sat in complete silence, reflecting on all that this particular Saturday represented. He was in the back of the barn, watching men greet each other with a firm handshake and a kind word, pleased at the turnout for this annual ministers’ meeting. Twenty-one ordained leaders had come to the barn of Mahlon Mast—three from each of the seven church districts. He recognized most of them from last year’s meeting. There was Monroe Smucker, a small, bald man with a crumpled face like a baby. Then there was Enos Bontrager, a thoughtful student of the Bible who was prone to depression. On the bench next to him sat Lucas Lehman, a minister who was rather too dour for David’s taste. And of course there were Freeman and Levi Glick.

Mahlon Mast had prepared his barn for the meeting with meticulous attention to every detail. There wasn’t a spider to be found; the barn had been swept and cleaned that thoroughly. Kerosene heaters were placed at the end of each row of benches. Bishop Henry Hershberger, a small, thin man with quick-moving eyes, led the day’s agenda.

David treasured these gatherings. Ministers belonged to a world that even their own families had trouble understanding. Anna certainly hadn’t understood, David recalled. She resented the time he spent away from the family, the middle-of-the-night knocks on the door, the confidences he kept from her. David was not only removed from normal give-and-take friendships, but he was also alone. Friendships were few.

Once a year, at these ministers’ meetings, there was a place full of men who understood, who longed to make contact with each other and belong to a community of a few. They may each have had their own reasons for coming, but in the end, David had come to discover, the fellowship filled and fortified them for the year’s work that lay ahead of them.

The men would meet to discuss the troubles and concerns they encountered in their churches. This little group, David mused as he watched them, was a microcosm of the church as a whole, promoting the faith as best they could. Sometimes they bungled it, sometimes they handled it well, but they did their best to hold firmly to their beliefs and values in a world that wanted to steal them away.

So far this morning they had discussed, at length, the ongoing cell phone dilemma. Did the benefits of cell phone use outweigh the drawbacks? For every negative story—like the one shared by Mahlon Mast about how many young men whipped out their cell phones to take pictures at his daughter’s recent wedding—there was a positive story. One farmer got his hand caught—mangled!—in the wheat thresher, and his son was able to call for an ambulance immediately, avoiding the delay of a long run to a phone shanty. The farmer’s hand had been saved. The cell phone dilemma was put on the wait-and-see list, to be discussed again next year. Privately, David thought it was too late; once the cell phone had been introduced, it would be very hard to get rid of.

And then there were smaller issues discussed—some vandalism in nearby Leola that was targeted at the Amish. Some benefits planned to help replenish the drained reserves of the Amish Aid Society. Marvin King was particularly enthusiastic about the benefits because of the barn fires in his church. He had the money earmarked.

If it weren’t for the oil wells on Moss Hill, David would feel alarmed by Marvin’s presumptions, but he felt that God was providing the means to handle Ephraim Yoder’s hospital bills in a different way. David had already gone to the hospital’s billing office with the lease bonus to start the process of repayment.

Isaac Bender had recommended that David wait until after lunch to address the dilemma that plagued the church of Stoney Ridge. Isaac felt it would end up derailing the meeting for any other conversation.

As the men reconvened after lunch, Isaac stood strong and tall in the middle of the floor. “There is something else, something that must be confronted.”

David waited until Isaac gave him a nod, then he stood, his stomach twisted in a tight knot. “The church of Stoney Ridge has been dealt a blow.”

The room fell silent. Heads turned toward him as David continued. “It’s been discovered that Elmo Beiler, who has passed, had switched the lots during an ordination. That practice has continued on two more times.” He did not mention Freeman’s name, hoping he might stand and repent. But Freeman did nothing. He watched David but with an air of complete detachment on his face.

“When brought to light, unrepentant sin has resulted.” David paused and looked right at Freeman. “The sin came from our bishop.”

All eyes turned to Freeman. He slowly rose to his feet. “Most of you have known me my entire life. You’ve known my parents, my grandparents, even my great-grandparents. You’ve known the kind of people I come from, the kind of stock I belong to.” His voice conveyed a calm confidence, a man used to fixing things.

Funny how sometimes people undergoing the worst kind of discord in their lives can look so calm. But David could see. Freeman’s bearded chin jutted out firmly, but his eyes were far from certain.

“I’m sure you even know that my ancestor is Peter Glick, who emigrated with his family to Pennsylvania in 1748. You all know the dramatic story of the Indian attack that killed Peter Glick’s family. One son”—he waved a finger in the air to prove the point—“only one son, John Glick, escaped the Indians by hiding in a hollowed-out tree. I, along with every other Glick, can trace their history to John. That is the truth.” Freeman dropped his chin on his chest and remained silent for a moment. “There is another truth to be told, my brothers. Stoney Ridge has a very jealous minister who is creating discord in our church.” Levi and Marvin bobbed their heads in agreement. “The church did not have problems before David Stoltzfus moved in.” He lifted his head and gazed slowly around the entire room, meeting each pair of eyes. “You can all attest to that.”

Freeman pointed at David. “This man has created conflict from the moment he arrived. Every single thing, he objects to, unless it personally benefits him. Just ask him about those oil wells he’s digging. Never once did he ask the church if digging for oil would be appropriate.” He wagged a finger in the air. “Not once!”

Levi nodded vigorously. “Never one single time.”

“He has stooped so low as to toy with my own sister’s affections, influencing her to betray her family. To lead her on with hopes of marriage, only to drop her—” he snapped his fingers “—when she no longer served his purposes.”

David had expected this kind of bait-and-switch response. Still, his stomach was shooting out arrows of pain. He pressed a hand against his belly, trying to absorb the pain. He had to get through this. “Freeman, do you deny that you switched the lots to become bishop?”

No one spoke. No one moved. A silence filled the barn so dramatically that you could hear the wings of the swallows, zipping around in the rafters. Each man’s eyes were on Freeman, waiting for his response to David’s question.

And then a blast of severe pain ripped through David’s middle, one spasm after another, until he doubled over.

Abigail was leaving the Bent N’ Dent as her cousin Jesse drove his buggy into the parking lot. “Gabby, I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”

“Please call me Abigail.”

Jesse whistled for his puppy to jump out of the buggy. “I’ve been digging through the carriage house at the Sisters’ House, looking for some spare buggy parts.” He grinned. “I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but I’m starting to understand how you like sifting through old people’s junk.”

That wasn’t exactly the way she perceived her genealogy work, but she realized Jesse was trying to be affirming. “Did you find what you needed?”

“Actually, yes. Square bolts! And I came across something I thought you might find interesting. A wooden chest that’s filled with old papers from around Stoney Ridge.”

Abigail’s heart started pounding. “How old?”

“Seriously old. I saw one receipt for a saw that was dated 1889.”

“1889?” Don’t get excited, she told herself. It might be nothing. But it might yield something too. “Do you think they might let me go through it?”

“Absolutely. I already told them my cousin Gabby might be dropping by.”

“Abigail,” she corrected quietly, but her mind was spinning. This could be a bonanza!

Out of nowhere, Leroy Glick hurtled himself between them, gasping for breath. “I kept shouting and you never heard me.” He picked himself up and started toward the store.

“What’s happened?”

Leroy turned his chin to shout, “It’s Jesse’s dad! He dropped dead at the ministers’ meeting!”