The Postcard Read online

  Still, the historic village and outlying area had offered everything she and her now-grown brothers and sisters ever wanted, and more. There was the grace of swaying willows, the tranquillity of clear, chirping brooks, the honesty of wide-open skies, and the blessing and abundant love of the People.

  “Our Father God, thy name we praise,” she whispered, starting the day—late as it was—with a prayer of thanksgiving.

  Reverently, she placed the white prayer veiling on her head and turned to see her husband standing near the window, his tall, stocky frame blocking the path of the sun.

  “We best hurry,” she said, moving to his side. “Can’t be late for market.”

  “We’ll take the shortcut, then we won’t hafta rush so,” he said, drawing her close.

  “The shortcut?” Rachel was cautious about the roads that led to the Crossroad—a dangerous intersection—where a number of fatal accidents had occurred in the past.

  Jacob reassured her. “It’ll be all right. Just this once.”

  When she relaxed in his arms, he whispered, “What if we moved to Ohio a bit sooner?”

  “How soon?” Her heart beat hard with excitement.

  “Say late December . . . after Christmas maybe.”

  Delighted, she reminded him of her cousin’s many letters.

  “Esther says there’s still ample farmland where they are.” She thought ahead, counting the months. “And the new baby’ll be two months old by then, if I carry full term.”

  Jacob nodded thoughtfully. “A right gut time then, prob’ly.”

  Rachel couldn’t deny that Esther’s persistent letters had caused a stirring in her, and now to hear Jacob talk so!

  “There’s plenty of time left to discuss the details.” He looked down at her, his eyes serious. “The woodworking shop brings in nearly more business than I can handle, so we’ll have enough money by December to make the move.”

  “The Lord willing,” she whispered. God’s will was always uppermost in their minds, yet she longed for the cutting sweet smell of newly mown hay and the earthy scent of cows herded into the barn, ready for milking.

  Rachel’s parents and both sets of grandparents, clear back to the sturdiest aging branches of the family tree, had been dairy farmers. Some of them had raised chickens and pigs, too, spending grueling hours in the field while they spread manure to insure bountiful crops.

  According to snippets of stories she’d overheard growing up, there was only one of her ancestors who’d forsaken his upbringing. Considering the two hundred or so conservative folk connected to her through blood ties or marriage, losing a single member was ever so slight compared to some families. Age-old gossip had it that Great-uncle Gabriel, her mother’s uncle, had turned his back on the Plain community sometime during his twenty-seventh year, long past the time a young man should’ve joined church, making his commitment before God and the People.

  There were various spins on the story. Some said Gabe Esh was a self-appointed evangelist. Others had it that he’d been given a so-called “divine revelation”—only to die weeks later.

  As far as Rachel was concerned, no one seemed to know exactly what happened, though she wasn’t the sort of person to solicit questions. Truth was, most everyone closely acquainted with Gabe had long since passed through the gates of Glory. Except, of course, Old Order Bishop Seth Fisher and his wife, and Jacob’s and Rachel’s parents, though none of them seemed inclined to waste time discussing a “rabble-rouser,” which was just what one of the preachers had said of Gabe in a sermon some years back. And there was Martha Stoltzfus—Gabe’s only living sister. But the brusque and bitter woman refused to speak of him, upholding die Meindung—the shunning that must’ve been placed on him, for what reason Rachel did not know. Lavina Troyer was rumored to have been a schoolmate of Gabe Esh, though none of that was talked about anymore.

  So there was a broken bough on Rachel’s family tree, and not a single Esh, Yoder, or Zook cared to recall the reason for the fracture.

  She headed downstairs to cook the usual breakfast for her dear ones. Abandoning thoughts of the past, she turned her attention to the future as she scrambled up nine large eggs, made cornmeal mush and fried potatoes, and set out plenty of toast, butter, grape jelly, and apple butter. Just knowing that she and Jacob and the children could move so far from home, that a Bible-based conservative group was expecting their arrival—or so Esther had said—filled her heart with gladness. The future was ever so bright.

  Rachel and Jacob sat down with the children to eat, but the minute Jacob was finished, he dashed outside to load the market wagon. Rachel gently encouraged the children not to dawdle as she washed and dried the dishes.

  Soon, Jacob was calling to them from the yard. “Time to load up the family. Kumme—come now!”

  Rachel dried her hands and gathered up her basket of needlework. It was always a good thing to keep busy at market, especially if there was a lull, though that would hardly be the case on a summer Saturday. Tourists generally flocked to the well-known Farmers Market this time of year.

  Spying the letter to Cousin Esther on the buffet, she snatched it up just as Jacob came indoors. “I think we’re all ready,” she said, shooing the children in the direction of the back door.

  The Yoders settled in for a twenty-minute ride, by way of the shortcut. An occasional breeze took the edge off the sun’s warm rays as Jacob hurried the horse. Still, they were forced to reflect on the day, allowing the primitive mode of transportation to slow them down, calm them, too. Truth be told, Rachel was glad they still drove horse and buggy instead of a car, like a few of her young Beachy relatives. The thought of buzzing highways and wide thoroughfares made her shiver with fright. She hoped and prayed Holmes County might be far less bustling.

  “Plenty of time left,” Jacob had said about scheduling their moving day. More than anything, she wanted to bring up the topic as they rode along. But she thought better of it and kept her peace.

  It was Aaron who did most of the talking. Jabbering was more like it. After several minutes of the boy’s idle babbling, Jacob reprimanded him. “That’ll be enough, son.”

  Instantly, Aaron fell silent, but Rachel heard Annie giggle softly, the two of them still jostling each other as youngsters will.

  Children are a gift from God, she thought, glancing back at the darling twosome. How very happy they all were in this life they’d chosen. And her husband’s quiver was surely on its way to being full of offspring.

  She allowed her thoughts to wander back to each of her children’s home births. Seemed like just yesterday that Mattie Beiler, Hickory Hollow’s most prominent midwife, had come at dawn to help deliver Aaron. Rachel kindly rejected her mother’s suggestion to have a hex doctor come to assist—even after twenty hours of excruciating labor. Her firstborn would make his appearance when he was good and ready, she’d decided, in spite of Susanna’s pleadings. For once, Rachel had spoken up and was glad of it.

  One year and two months later, Annie, all sweet-like, had arrived with the mildest, shortest labor on record in the area—around midnight. No sympathy healer was hinted at for Annie’s birth. And no midwife.

  Rachel cherished the memories, yet tried to lay aside her ongoing concern over the powwow doctors. Especially one die blo Yonie—Blue Johnny. Dokder was the name the children called him, though she knew he was not a real doctor at all. Not Amish either.

  The tall man with bushy brown hair came a-knocking on one door or another nearly every Tuesday afternoon. Last month, he’d come to the Yoder house quite unexpectedly. He’d reeked of the musty scent of pipe tobacco as he rubbed his little black box up and down her son’s spine and over his shoulders, never waiting for Rachel’s consent whatsoever. Yet in no time, he knew about a tiny wart, hardly visible, growing on Aaron’s left hand.

  “To get rid of it, just roast the feet of a chicken and rub the wart with them, then bury the chicken feet under the eaves of your house, and the wart will disappear,” the man h
ad said, eyeing her curiously.

  Because of her wariness, Rachel never roasted any such chicken feet. She honestly wished she hadn’t opened the door to Blue Johnny that day, what with Jacob working clear across the barnyard in his woodshop. Even so, she was too timid to speak up. Such folk, calling themselves faith healers—with charms for this and herbal potions for that—had frequently called on Plain folk for as long as she could remember. Some of them were Amish themselves, though the powwow doctors among her own family had died out years ago. She herself had been looked upon as a possible choice because of certain giftings manifest in her as a young child. But due to her extreme shyness, she had been passed over.

  As for Blue Johnny, she felt uneasy around him and others who claimed “healing gifts,” even though he’d graciously cured Lizzy of rheumatism years ago. He’d come to the Zook farmhouse and taken the disease away by tying a blue woolen yarn around her sister’s painful limbs, repeating a charm three times. In the process, the man had taken the disease on himself. And she knew that he had, because he limped out of the house and down the back steps, while Lizzy was free of pain in the space of five minutes!

  Most of the Plain folk in the area never gave powwow practices a second thought. Sympathy healers and folk medicine came with the territory, brought to Central Pennsylvania by early Dutch settlers. Such healers were believed to have been imparted gifts by the Holy Spirit and the holy angels, but there were others—a small minority—who believed the healing gifts were anything but divinely spiritual, that they were occultic in nature.

  Rachel knew precisely where her own uncertainties concerning powwow doctors had come from—an old column in the Budget, the popular Ohio-based newspaper for Amish readers. There had been an article written by one Jacob J. Hershberger, a Beachy Amish bishop living in Norfolk, Virginia, back in 1961. Esther had stumbled onto it when she cleaned out the attic before their Ohio move.

  For some reason, her cousin had thought the article important enough to save, so she’d passed it along to Rachel and Jacob. The writer had spoken out strongly against enchantment and powwowing, describing such as the work of evil spirits. Jacob Hershberger had also admonished Amish communities everywhere to abandon their superstitious beliefs “handed down by godless heathen.” He instructed them to “lay on hands, anoint with oil, call the elders of the church, and pray” for the sick as God’s Word teaches, instead of turning to witchcraft—powwow doctoring.

  After reading the column, Rachel initially wondered if there might be some truth to the notion that powwow doctors received their abilities from the devil rather than God. Could that be the reason she’d always had such a peculiar feeling around them? Yet if that was so, why didn’t others in the community feel uneasy—the way she did?

  Since Rachel didn’t have the courage to speak up and share her apprehension with either her bishop or the preachers, she was glad she could confide in at least one other person besides Jacob. Esther was always kind enough to say, “Jah, I understand,” or gently beg to differ with her. Esther was either black or white on any issue, and Rachel had come to trust that forthright approach. It was that kind of thoughtful and compassionate friendship they’d enjoyed throughout the years.

  Rachel gazed lovingly at her husband’s strong hands as he held the reins, urging the horse onward. She looked ahead to the narrow two-lane road, taking in the barley and wheat fields on either side. Bishop Glick’s place, with its myriad rose arbors bedecking the side yards, would soon be coming up on the left-hand side. Then another two miles or so and they’d pass the stone mill and the homestead where she’d grown up amidst a houseful of people.

  She marveled at the beauty around her—the sun playing off trees abundant with broad green leaves and the wild morning glory vines entwined along the roadside. Ambrosial fragrances of honeysuckle and roses stirred in the summer air.

  “Will we miss Lancaster, do you think?” she asked Jacob softly.

  He reached over and patted her hand. “We always miss what we don’t have. ’Tis human nature, I’m sad to say.” His was a knowing smile, yet his words were not of ridicule.

  “Living neighbors to Esther and Levi will be wonderful-gut,” she replied, thinking out loud. “We’ll be farmers again . . . after all these years.”

  Her husband nodded slowly, his well-trimmed beard bumping his chest. “Jah, the soil tends to pull us back to it, I’d say. But I’m a-wonderin’ if you and Esther don’t have somethin’ cooked up.” Jacob looked almost too serious. “Maybe Levi and I oughta keep you and your cousin apart, for good measure.”

  Rachel didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Surely you don’t mean it.”

  He looked at her and winked. “You know me better’n that.”

  She had to laugh, the mere pressure of the moment bursting past her timid lips. “Jah, I know,” she said, leaning her head on his strong shoulder. “I know you, Jacob Yoder.”

  They rode that way for a spell while the children twittered playfully behind them. She closed her eyes, absorbing the sounds of baby birds, newly hatched, and the rhythmic clip-clop of the horse. The familiar sound of a windmill told her they must be approaching her parents’ homestead. She felt close to the earth; the back roads made her feel this way—riding in the long, enclosed market wagon, pulled by a strong and reliable horse down provincial byways that wove the farm community together.

  It was the intersection at Ronks Road and Route 340— the Crossroad—that put the fear of God in her. But the junction was a good twelve minutes away and the unfortunate accidents long since forgotten. Thankfully, a traffic light had been installed after the last tourist car accident, making the crossing safer.

  She would simply enjoy the ride, let her husband humor her, and put up with Aaron’s increasing silliness in the back of the wagon. Then, once they settled in at market, she’d have the children run over to the post office and mail her letter to Esther.

  Two

  With great expectancy, Susanna Zook watched through her front room window as an open spring wagon, drawn by a veteran horse, rumbled up the private lane to the Orchard Guest House.

  Unable to restrain herself, she sailed out the screen door, letting it slap-slap behind her. She leaned on the porch post, catching her breath as her husband and his English friend climbed down from the wagon and tied the horse to the fence post, then proceeded to unload a large cherrywood desk.

  Home at last! she thought, reliving the recent weeks of haggling with the Mennonite dealer over the handcrafted piece. The minute she’d caught sight of the fine tambour desk on display at Emma’s Antique Shop she had coveted it, secretly claiming it for one of their newly refurbished guest quarters. She had thought of asking her son-in-law Jacob Yoder to make one, perhaps even suggest that he inspect the desk—see what he could do to replicate it. Something as old and quite nearly perfect didn’t often show up in shop windows. Such handsome items usually ended up at private estate sales and family auctions.

  Rumor had it that the rolltop desk had been in old Bishop Seth’s family, unearthed and in disrepair in his wife’s English nephew’s shed up near Reading. Someone at the store let it slip that the 1890s desk had been restored in recent years, though when Susanna pushed for more background information, she was met with vague responses. She soon discovered that it was next to impossible following up on former antique owners.

  Watching from the porch, Susanna held her breath as the men tilted, then lifted the enormous desk off the wagon. She could picture the space she’d set aside for its permanent new home. Upstairs in the southeast bedroom—newly painted and papered—ready for an overnight guest. All four of the other bedrooms had been completed in just a few short weeks after she and Benjamin had taken possession of the historic structure.

  The architectural mix of colonial red brick, typical white porch, and country green shutters was both quaint and attractive, made even more fetching by the gentle backdrop of nature: the apple orchard and mill stream beyond the house to the north, a p
ine grove to the south, as well as expansive side and front lawns. Relatives and friends had come to help fix up the place, and in a few weeks, the rambling two-story house had been ready for tourists.

  Sighing with sheer delight, she watched as Benjamin and his friend hauled the desk up the walkway lined with red and pink petunias. “It’s awful heavy, jah?” she called.

  Ben grunted his reply. It was obvious just how burdensome the ancient thing was, weighing down her robust man—her husband of nearly forty-five years.

  She hadn’t brought up the subject, but she figured Ben had encouraged her to purchase the desk as a sort of anniversary gift. “It’s not every day a find like this shows up at Emma’s—walks up the lane and into your house,” he’d said, with a twinkle in his eyes.

  She knew then he honestly wanted her to have it, and she was tickled pink. But then, Benjamin was like that, at least about special occasions. He, like many farmers, didn’t mind parting with a billfold of money, so long as it made his wife happy. And Susanna had never been one to desire much more than she already had, which, for an Amish farmer’s wife, was usually plenty, especially when it came to food, clothing, and a roof over their heads. Just not the worldly extras like fast cars, fancy clothes, and jewelry, like the modern English folk.

  She held the door open as the men hoisted their load past her and into the main entryway. Deciding not to observe the painstaking ascent to the upstairs bedroom, she made herself scarce, going into the kitchen to check on her dinner of roast chicken, pearl onions, carrots, and potatoes.

  When she was satisfied that the meal was well under way, she went and stood at the back door. Their new puppy, a golden-haired cocker spaniel, was waiting rather impatiently outside—as close as he could get to the screen door without touching it with his wet nose.