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“But Daed!”
Jemima King’s lovely green eyes pled with her father’s implacable blue ones, but when it came to a battle of wills, it was no contest. The head of the house sputtered an incredulous whoof, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, and Jemima quickly lowered her eyes in defeat.
But Jemima’s mother dimpled, and reached out to caress her oldest daughter’s cheek. “Your father said no, and no it is,” she told Jemima. “But it was very sweet of you to offer. It shows that your heart is in the right place.” Rachel met her husband’s gaze, and a look of approval passed between them.
Then Jacob raised his table napkin and wiped his mouth – a signal that the discussion was over.
“Well, that’s that! Are we ready to go?” He trained his bright eyes on Jemima’s face.
She looked up at him pleadingly and made one last try. “But Daed! It doesn’t make sense for me to give that much money to the Yoders’, and none to my own –”
Her father’s answer was to slap his hands on his knees, stand up suddenly, and announce to the room at large: “Well, I’m going now! Everyone who wants to come with me had better shake a leg.”
He made good on his threat immediately; he strode across the living room, opened the front door, and walked out.
Jemima’s mother turned to her with a smile. “He’s proud of you,” she said softly and put her coffee cup to her lips. “And so am I.”
Jemima met her eyes unhappily. “I may not be all that good. I want to give the money away, at least partly so I can see Mark and Samuel and Joseph again! All of them told me that they couldn’t court with me anymore. Or at least, not while I’m so rich.” She sighed, and kicked one of the table legs with a small foot.
Her mother reached for her hand. “Well, after today, everything will be back to normal,” she reassured her. “When you give the money to the community fund, all of this will be behind you, and your – your admirers will be back over here every day, giving your father headaches.”
Her mother laughed, and Jemima finally broke down and joined in. It was such a wonderful thought that she couldn’t help dwelling on it – the prospect of getting this Englisch letter business over for good.
And getting her young men back!
She took one last sip of coffee and patted her lips with a napkin. “I guess I need to go,” she sighed. “The sooner I begin, the sooner it’ll be done!”
Jemima followed her father across the living room, and out the front door. She paused on the porch steps, and breathed in the cool morning air, and let her eyes wander over the vista.
It was overcast: low, heavy clouds scudded over the green fields and veiled the hills. The mild breeze was fragrant of rain. It was pleasantly cool, a reminder that fall wasn’t far away.
But another, less pleasant sight met Jemima’s eyes too: one that she hadn’t expected. Instead of her father waiting patiently for her in the buggy, he was standing beside Rufus, hands on hips. He was staring at a line of cars, parked by the side of the road, about 300 yards away.
Roughly a stone’s throw away.
The strangers were smart to keep their distance, Jemima thought grimly. While the trespassers had never respected her family’s privacy, they’d quickly learned to respect the fact that her father was a good shot with a rock.
Jemima pinched her lips into a straight line. She could tell at once that the people in the cars were reporters. They were standing beside their opened doors, resting their cameras on the car roofs. No doubt those cameras had long-range lenses – they were probably being photographed at that very moment!
Jemima looked up at her father. She could tell that he was wrestling with the same question that was troubling her: should they cancel the trip or go to the bishop’s house anyway, and arrive surrounded by a gaggle of photo-snapping reporters?
Disappointment welled up in Jemima’s throat and stuck there, like a big, hard lump that would not be swallowed. She’d looked forward to this day, she had prayed for it, and now that it was here –
For the thousandth time, she wished that she had never met Brad Williams. This was his fault. But he hadn’t stuck around to see the misery he’d caused—the coward!
While they were standing there, another car crested the hill, passed the reporters, and stopped just outside their driveway. A small, wizened man poked his head out of the window.
Jemima’s father had built an impenetrable and multi-layered barricade of old anvils, hay bales and rocks, and the man was obliged to get out of his car: but get out he did. When he skirted the barricade, Jacob strode down to meet him, calling:
“This is private property. You’re trespassing—get out!”
The man came ahead, and fixed his eyes on Jemima. He called out to her: “Are you Jemima King?”
Jemima stared at him in wonder. He was a shriveled stick of a man, with a pinched, mean face: but he had courage, she had to give him that. Anyone else would be running away by now because her father had quickened his pace and was rolling up his sleeves. But she nodded slightly.
The man pulled a sheaf of rolled-up papers out of his jacket, lobbed them at her, and turned to flee. He was surprisingly nimble, but he was obliged to dash to the hay bales – and to jump over them – to avoid being caught by her angry father.
The man landed on his feet and turned at the door of his car. “Jemima King, you’ve been served!” Then he tried to get back into his car, but the reporters had been watching, and some of them were nimble, too. They mobbed him before he was able to get in.
Jemima was able to hear just enough to be sure that they got the whole story out of him before he slammed the car door and sped away.
Jacob stayed at the barricade and scowled at the reporters who were brave enough to linger.
“Mr. King, is your daughter being sued?”
“Who’s suing Jemima, Mr. King?”
“What’s she being sued for?”
Jemima was amused to see that when her mighty father made as if to climb over the barricade, even the boldest of their tormentors fled back to the safety of their cars. His Amish beliefs notwithstanding, Jacob King was not a man to be tested.
When he was satisfied that he had chased the enemy from the field, Jacob climbed the hill again. As he came, he bent down and picked up the papers that the intruder had dropped on the lawn.
Then he handed them to Jemima.
She opened them reluctantly. They were written in very formal, very legal-sounding terms, but even she could see that the papers were telling her that she was being sued.
For $1.6 million dollars.
By a man named Caldwell C. Morton.
She looked up at her father. He put an arm around her shoulder, turned her, and walked back to the house.
“Come.”
They walked back inside, and Jemima could tell by the way her father looked at her, that he expected her to burst into tears. A few months ago, she would have.
But not now.
She sighed and looked up at her father’s face disconsolately. “I guess I’ll stay at home today, Daed,” she told him, and went to seek solitude.
