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Jemima was silent at the breakfast table the next morning. So was her mother, who showed distressing signs of having spent the night in tears; and also her father, whose sagging shoulders suggested that he had also been up late, trying to console her.
They ate in heavy silence, except for Deborah, who filled the void by complaining about the lack of discipline at school. Deborah said that she’d been the target of hateful boys who had suggested that she needed “a broom and a black hat.”
“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” she exclaimed, extending her hands. “No one is more patient than I am!”
This startled Jemima out of her depression, and she lifted her eyes in wonder to her sister’s face. It seemed to irritate Deborah even further.
“What are you staring at, fright wig? And stop chewing your nails – you look like a four-year-old!”
It was a measure of their parent’s preoccupation, that no one corrected Deborah for this rudeness or made the slightest mention of the woodshed: a fact that Jemima noted with some bitterness. But she had more important things to think about, than Deborah.
She had already decided to go find a lawyer and had planned to ask her father to drive her to town; but one look at her mother’s face told Jemima that her father wouldn’t be helping her that day.
She could drive the buggy herself, but it would be risky. The reporters could reappear at any time.
The thought occurred to her that she could ask Joseph to drive her into town, since he supported her decision: but his family’s farm was clear across the valley, not close at all. And anyway, she didn’t want Joseph to press her to marry him again. She couldn’t make such a big decision when her life was upside down, and she’d told him so last night. But he hadn’t paid much attention.
Maybe she could walk to town unnoticed, if she cut across country instead of using the road. Of course it would be a long, tiring trip, but the corn was tall in every field, and it would keep her out of sight, most of the way.
Yes, that was the best.
Jemima rose from the table, picked up a basket, and went outside to pretend that she meant to do her daily chores: gathering eggs, and vegetables, and working in the garden. But when she saw that no one was watching, she turned and walked out into the garden. She kept walking into the bushes at the edge of the garden, and through the woods beyond, all the way to the fence at the edge of their property.
Jemima looked this way and that, hiked up her skirt, and climbed over the rail fence. That put her into their neighbors’ corn field, the first of many on the way to town. Jemima walked into it and was instantly swallowed up in the green rows.
After having been in the spotlight for so many months, there was something deliciously secretive about disappearing into the fields – going where no one could find her. Once she was inside the cornfield, there was nothing ahead, to either side or behind, except green stalks stretching into infinity.
And it was a beautiful day for walking—a fine, bright morning, with the high white clouds of late summer sailing over the earth. Jemima stopped now and then to shade her eyes, and look up at them through the waving green leaves. She saw and heard nothing else, except the faint call of birds, and the equally faint hum of farm equipment somewhere across the valley. Occasionally her approach startled some small animal. A rabbit that she hadn’t guessed was there suddenly jumped into the air and rocketed away: and a field mouse scurried across her path and disappeared.
They were the only living things she saw for a long while.
Halfway through her route, she climbed over a pasture fence and crossed over into the Christener’s fields. The land belonged to Mark’s family, and Jemima played with the idea of paying a quick visit, but decided against it. Mark had made it clear that he didn’t plan to see her again until she had resolved this issue.
She crossed the entire breadth of the Christner’s corn field without incident, but when she stepped out of it and prepared to cross the fence to the farm next door, she was mortified to see Mark standing not ten yards away – staring.
“Oh!” she shrieked and climbed down from the fence.
Mark’s expression was as puzzled as his voice. “Mima? What are you doing way out here?” He put down a pair of pliers and took off his work gloves. Jemima noticed, with deep embarrassment, that she had managed to pop out of the field at the very point at which Mark had been mending their fence.
A full-body wave of heat began to crawl up from her toes. “I—that is – I’m walking to town.”
Mark looked at her doubtfully. “Through the fields?”
Jemima nodded and looked down at her feet.
There was a heavy silence. Mark finally shrugged and sat down on a tree stump. “What’s wrong, Mima? You’d never go hiking across country unless something was bad wrong. What is it?”
Jemima bit her lip and looked at him unhappily. “I’m going to town to get a lawyer,” she murmured.
Mark’s dark eyebrows shot up. “A lawyer? You? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
Jemima turned pleading eyes to his face. “Yes – big trouble! An Englischer is suing me for all the money I have! A man came and gave me papers and said I had to appear in court! The Englischer claims that I promised to sell him the George Washington letter – and that I lied!”
Mark’s brow gathered darkness. He stood up, came over, and put his arms around her. Jemima pillowed gratefully on his chest.
“Mamm is unhappy with me,” she murmured. “She says I should just let him have the money, but I can’t, because I’ve already given half of it away! And if I don’t fight, it’s like admitting that he was right and that I’m a liar!”
“No one who knows you could ever think such a thing, Mima,” Mark assured her, and kissed her cheek. “And it doesn’t matter what outsiders think.”
Jemima frowned. “It matters to me!” she said and pulled out of his arms. “And I’m not going to let him just take this money from me when he has no right, and when God told me to give it to others. It isn’t fair!”
Mark’s eyes were dark and troubled. “I think your Mamm is right, Mima,” he said slowly. “I think you should let the Englischer have the money. It would end this trouble, and everything could go back to normal again. Don’t you want that?”
Jemima felt her lower lip trembling and bit it. “Oh, of course I do!” she cried, “but not like this! I won’t have people saying that I lie when I can prove that I didn’t. And I won’t let this greedy man come and steal from me!”
Mark ran a hand through his black hair and sighed. “All right then, Mima, have it your way. But I still think you’d do better to let be.
“And you still haven’t told me—why are you in our cornfield?”
This time, the tears were dangerously close. “Because we can’t go out of our house!” Jemima cried. “There are reporters parked on the road outside our driveway, waiting for me like vultures! And Daed won’t drive me because Mamm is upset! I don’t want to drive alone, and if I walk through the fields, maybe they won’t see me, and I can go to town in peace!”
Mark gave her a look that said he saw the tears underneath, and he took her in his arms again and kissed her hair. “All right, Mima. Come inside with me, and have something to eat, and rest. Let me change out of my work clothes, and I’ll drive you into town if you’re determined to go.”
“Yes, I am. Thank you, Mark,” she replied doggedly, but the tears trembling just underneath her words pooled up in her eyes and formed a knot in her throat. She was grateful that Mark asked her no more questions. Grateful that he just held her until knot had loosened somewhat and she could breathe without embarrassing herself.
