Following a supper of lamb loaf, scalloped asparagus, buttered carrots, homemade bread with Sarah Mae’s blueberry jam, and topped off with Mamm’s well-loved misty mint salad, Annie washed and dried the dishes, taking pleasure in redding up. Mamm put away the few leftovers in their new gas-powered refrigerator, then swept the floor.
Soon her father wandered to the corner cupboard and took down the big family Bible for evening reading and silent prayers. He went and poked his head out the back door and called for Yonie, just turned nineteen last week, Luke, seventeen, and Omar, fifteen months younger than Luke—all courting age.
Annie had heard Daed refer quite often to his ‘‘empty wallet’’ now that Omar was sixteen. The price of a good road horse was twenty-five hundred dollars, not to mention her father’s purchase of a new open buggy for Luke, close to three thousand dollars. All this with Daed being something of a penny-pincher, too. But a new horse and buggy assured each boy attendance at the all-important Sunday night singings, as well as other necessary activities during rumschpringe—the running-around years before a young person settled down to marry.
Later, when evening prayers were done, Annie hurried upstairs to her room and lit the gas lamp. She sat at the little maple desk Daed had made for her twelfth birthday, pulled out the narrow center drawer and found her floral stationery. She was mighty curious to know how things had turned out with Louisa’s mother’s idea of having dozens of white doves released from cages as the bride and groom hurried out of the church to something called a stretch limousine, whatever that was. Annie had not the faintest idea about most of the things Louisa shared in her letters. Nonetheless, she began to write to her best English friend:
Wednesday, October 26
Dear Louisa,
Hello again. How are you doing?
I’ve been thinking so much about you lately. I hope you’re not as tired this week as you said you were last, what with all the places you and your mother have been rushing to. Hither and yon, goodness me! Do you ever feel like just going to bed with the chickens, the way I do?
Which reminds me, did you decide what to do about the doves? Or has your mother changed her mind yet again? (I’m sure you’re still wishing to have your guests simply blow the little bubbles, as you described in your last letter. To be honest, I think that would be the most fun.)
She stopped writing, trying to picture thousands of bubbles with every color of the rainbow gleaming within each tiny circumference. Smiling, she daydreamed about being present on Louisa’s special day, to witness firsthand the peculiar yet fascinating way the English celebrate a wedding ceremony and reception.
‘‘What would Daed think if I just upped and went?’’ she whispered to herself. I really ought to. . . .
But Mamm was entirely right—she had never set foot outside Lancaster County. So what made her think she could be high-minded enough to get herself a bus or train ticket all the way to the Rocky Mountains, which is nearly where Louisa’s well-to-do family lived? Somewhere south of Denver, in a place called Castle Pines. Louisa had herself an apartment in the town of Castle Rock, just a hop, skip, and a jump from her parents’ home.
According to Louisa, the prime location had been her father’s first choice some years ago—five acres, a custom-built home set high on a ridge with sweeping views of the mountains, with three rock fireplaces, a separate library large enough for a writing desk and three overstuffed chairs, and five large bedrooms, each having its own bathroom. And although only the two of them resided there, they had four living areas, a ‘‘separate dining room big enough to entertain thirty for sit-down dinners,’’ as Louisa described it, a butler’s pantry, and a kitchen with every imaginable appliance, including electric everything— refrigerator, a regular oven, convection oven, dishwasher, garbage disposal and compactor, and the list went on and on. All this in a room the size of the entire downstairs of the hundred-year-old farmhouse where Annie lived. Most of these things Annie had never heard of before in her life.
She couldn’t begin to know why Louisa’s parents needed so many rooms, but it was not her place to question. Englischers were often frivolous, Daed had always said of outsiders. Still, in spite of that, Annie felt mighty happy all these years to have ended up with such an interesting pen pal. A true and faithful friend.
She let her mind wander back to the day the first letter from Louisa had arrived in the mailbox.
The afternoon had been unseasonably cool and rainy. Fall housecleaning was well underway, with plenty of hands making light the work. Annie kept herself busy whitewashing the picket fence that bordered the main pastureland.
When the mail truck came with a letter postmarked Denver, Colorado, but with the recipient’s name and address all soiled, Annie opened it, planning only to read enough to see who the letter was meant for. The inside salutation had read simply: Dear New Friend, so Annie began to read the first few lines. The letter writer introduced herself as Louisa Stratford, named for her paternal grandmother. Louisa was obviously not Amish and said she was almost eleven. But she’d written that she wanted to be an artist when she grew up, ‘‘with all of my heart, I do.’’ Declaring this in the first few lines immediately grabbed Annie’s curiosity.
Reading further, Annie soon realized the letter was not intended for her. She knew she ought to check at the next farmhouse over, to see if the English farmer’s daughter, Jenna Danz, had signed up for a Colorado pen pal at school, maybe. Yet eight-year-old Annie was compelled to read on, especially because some pretty drawings in the margins caught her eye. And before she knew it, she’d read the entire letter, so captivated by this faraway modern girl and the way she described herself. Most of all, her keen love of drawing.
Quickly Annie wrote down Louisa’s name and her return address. Then she put on her galoshes and raincoat and promptly marched down the road stepping in all the mud puddles, taking the letter to its rightful owner. She also apologized for having opened the letter and read it all, but dared not admit why . . . that she, too, loved to draw. She left that part unsaid, hoping Jenna would forgive, and she had.
Returning to the house, she had scarcely any hope of ever getting a letter back, even if she did have the courage to write to the Colorado schoolgirl. But since she was still learning English grammar at the one-room schoolhouse, she reasoned childishly that writing to Louisa Stratford would be extra good practice for her, too.
The rest was history, as Louisa liked to say. Besides that, Annie had always felt it providential—meant to be—her getting the letter from outside the Plain community . . . the two of them so completely worlds apart, yet opening up their hearts to one another by mail. Daed had never said one word against it, though Annie was fairly sure he had no clue how often the letters flew back and forth.
But Mamm knew and was good enough to keep it to herself. Annie supposed her mother assumed there was no harm done, what with all the miles between the girls. Up until just this year, Annie never would have given a second thought to a wedding invitation such as the one she held now in her hands.
What would it be like to see the colors of all those cut flowers . . .and the golden candelabra, and satin bows, and . . . ?
She shook herself, knowing she must simply pick up the pen and politely reply on the RSVP card that she would not be going. Even though with all of her heart, she would be there in her mind’s eye when Louisa took her father’s arm and strode the lengthy walkway along the rows of church pews, the ‘‘aisle,’’ Louisa had called it, covered with an ivory runner and sprinkled with red and pink rose petals by the five wee girls dressed as miniature brides and carrying flower baskets. All this to get Louisa on her way to her smiling and handsome husband, who was to stand with nine other men also in fine black suits, lavender shirts, and matching cummerbunds high at the chapel altar. Formal tuxedos, Louisa had written to describe them and had sketched them, as well.
Annie easily read the words, but without the aid of the drawings tucked into each letter, she would have been completely bewildered about the upcoming wedding ceremony of Miss Louisa Victoria Stratford to Mr. Michael Logan Berkeley at twelve o’clock noon on Saturday the nineteenth day of November. . . .