Abram's Daughters 01 The Covenant (2 page)

Inside, the front-room windows and those in the kitchen were tall and high with dark green shades pulled up at the ,s;ish. In fact, Leah had never remembered seeing the firstlloor windows ever covered at all. Mamma was partial to natural light, preferred it to any other kind, said there was no need to block out the light created by the Lord God heavenly I1': it her, whether it be a sunlit day or moon-filled night.

The second-story dormer windows were another matter ;i I together. Because the family's bedrooms were located on I hat particular floor, window shades were carefully drawn when the rooms were occupied, especially at dawn and dusk. Abram was adamant about his and Ida's privacy, as well as that of his growing daughters.

From their west-facing windows upstairs, Abram and Ida had a splendid view of the wide backyard, vegetable gardens, the barn and outhouse, the soaring windmill that pumped

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well water into the house, and beyond that the dazzling forest. What intrigued Ida more than the display of trees and brushwood were the songbirds that fluttered from tree to tree and trilled the sonnets of late spring and early summer, when open windows invited the outdoors in.

Meticulously kept and weekly cleaned, the farmhouse was in remarkable condition for its age. Abram and his family, as well as all who had come before, appreciated, even cherished, the warmth of its hearth and hallways, its congenial rooms. It was a house that when you were gone from it, you were eager to return. Leah often remarked upon arriving home from a visit to one relative or another that the front door and porch seemed to smile a welcome. This, in spite of the fact that she and the entire family always entered and exited the stately dwelling by way of the back door. Still, the pleasing exterior was like a shining beacon in a sea of corn and grazing land, forest and sky.

Whenever Abram's daughters happened to take the driving horse and family buggy over to Strasburg to purchase yard goods and whatnot, the sight of the four girls turned many a head. Thirteen-year-old Hannah and Mary Ruth were not quite as tall as Leah, sixteen in a few short weeks, but they were definitely experiencing a growth spurt here lately. Hannah's facial features the pensive beauty of her brown eyes, thick lashes, and the delicate contour of her nose and chin resembled blue-eyed Mary Ruth to some degree, but not enough for folk to automatically assume they were twins. Due to the vivid hue of their identical strawberry blond hair, Hannah and Mary Ruth did make a striking pair when tending the orange and yellow marigolds alongside the road together or looking after Mamma's vegetable-and-fruit stand.

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l'.ui more times than not it was flaxen'haired Sadie

mil in than Leah by three unmistakable years who caused

I v* in ij men to take special notice. Leah, the only brunette of

11In- hunch, strove in her effort not to care that Sadie was

llitlrii singled out. Still, she observed quietly how boys of

conning age were drawn to her enticing older sister, espe-

chilly now that it appeared Sadie was preparing to offer her

llft'i imc covenant to God and the Amish church.

Seems the closer Sadie gets to her kneeling vow, the more fool'ish she becomes, thought Leah one hot and humid afternoon while helping Dat bring the mules in from the field. She Wiisn't one to wag her tongue about any of her sisters' perNonal concerns. Goodness knows, enough gossip went on in I he community, mostly when womenfolk got together to quilt and gab at one farmhouse or another. Family stories past smd present ideas, recipes, the weather, and ways of looking ;it things came flying out into the open then to be both heard iind inspected. There were some gut forms of chatter, but most of it was a waste of time, she'd decided early on.

Leah herself had never been to a quilting frolic. Not once in her entire life. She'd heard plenty about it, more than she cared to, really, from Sadie and the twins. Such gatherings were fertile ground for tales, factual and otherwise, seemed to her. She preferred to engage in straightforward conversation, like the kind she occasionally got to enjoy with Dat out in the cornfield, plowing or cultivating the rich soil. Leah craved the succinct words of her father, his no-nonsense

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approach to life. After all, Sadie had Mamma's affection, and the twins garnered adequate consideration from both parents.

Here lately, Leah had had the nerve to think that she just might have an exceptionally level head on her mature shoulders and it was time she carved out a corner of credibility for herself. Especially with Dat, even though she and her father wholeheartedly disagreed on one thing, for sure and for certain. Her father had made up his mind years ago just whom Leah should one day marry, though if asked, he wouldn't have said it was by any means an arrangement quite uncommon amongst the People.

The young man was Gideon Peachey, the only son of the blacksmith the next farm over. He was known as Smithy Gid, to tell him apart from other boys with the same name in the area. Gideon's father and Dat had long tended the land that bordered each other's property even before Leah was ever born. Truth was, when they were out working the field, Dat liked to say to Leah, pointing toward the smithy's fifteen acres to the east of them, "There now, take a wonderful-gut look at your future . . . right over there. Nobody owns a more beautiful piece of God's green earth than the smithy."

It was a knotty problem, to be sure, since Leah wanted to please her beloved Dat in the matter of marriage. And she was well aware of the benefits for the bridegroom, as well as for the lucky girl who would become Gideon's bride, since the smithy's son was to receive the deed to his father's sprawl of grazing land upon marriage. Of course, all this had, no doubt, played a part in the matchmaking, back when Leah and Gideon were youngsters. Not only that, but the smithy Peachey and Dat considered each other the best of friends, and Gideon was the son Dat wished he'd had.

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j 1 call had no romantic feelings whatsoever for nineteen-

iyt-iii <>lil Gideon. Oh, he was nice looking enough with wavy

brown hair that nearly matched her own and fair cheeks that

hhixlied red when he smiled too broad. He was a good boy,

riglu kind, hardworking, sincere and all. As a conscientious

ubji'i lor, he'd received an agricultural deferment, to the relief

tjf I ii.s father and the entire community, just as had many

|di Iht of their boys eighteen and older.

I I i-ali and her sisters, and Gideon and his sisters, Adah [end Dorcas, had grown up swinging on the long rope in the IPeachey haymow together, and ice-skating, too, out on iBInckbird Pond. She knew firsthand what a good-hearted boy jCiidcon was. And Adah . . . one of her own dearest friends. I Yet Leah's heart belonged to Jonas Mast and there was no IgtMling around it. Of course, no one but Sadie knew, because things of the heart were carried out in secret, the way Leah's |own parents had courted and their parents before them. Now Leah eagerly awaited the day she turned sixteen. At last she would ride home from Sunday night singing with Jonas in his open buggy, slip into the house so as not to awaken the family, hear the clip'dopping of the horse as he sped home in the wee hours, all the while dreaming the sweet dreams of romani ii love. Jah, October 2 couldn't come anytime too soon.

The hilly treed area known as Gobbler's Knob had never frightened young Derek Schwartz, second son of the town doctor. He was well at home in the vast confines of the shadowy jungle, notwithstanding his own mother's warning. As a lad he had purposely sought out frozen puddles to break through with a single stomp of his boot. He insisted on defying most every periphery set for him growing up, and

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he proceeded to live as though he planned never, ever to die.

When Derek met up with Sadie Ebersol that mid'August night, he was instantly intrigued. It happened in the village of Strasburg, where two Plain girls, in the midst of their rumschpringe the "running-around," no-rules teen years allowed by the People prior to their children's baptism into the church were attempting to pull the wool over several English fellows' eyes. They'd abandoned their traditional garb and prayer caps and changed into cotton skirts and shortsleeved blouses for an evening out on the town. But Derek's friend Melvin Warner, sporting a pompadour parted on the side, said right away he knew the girls were Amish. "Just look at the length of their hair ... all one length, mind you, not a hint of a wave or bangs like our girls."

Derek had taken note of the girls' thick, long hair, all right. He also noticed Sadie's roving blue eyes and the curve of her full lips when she smiled. "Doesn't matter to me if a girl's Plain or not," he told Melvin quickly. "I'm telling you, the blonde belongs to me." Almost before he'd finished his pronouncement, he rose from the table where he and his cronies newly graduated from high school sat drinking malted milk shakes, messing around, and waiting for some action. Standing tall, he strolled over to make small talk with the wide-eyed girls. Particularly Sadie.

Sadie never would've believed it if anyone had hinted at what might happen if she kept sneaking off to Strasburg come Friday nights. No, never. She had gone and done the selfsame thing several other times before this, discarding her long cape dress and black apron, even removing her devotional Kapp, unwinding her hair, parting it at the side instead of in the

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ceni it, letting the weight of its length flow down over one itu mliler. Ach, how many times in her most secret dreams

frhii'l she wished . . . no, longed for a handsome young man Nile h us this, and an Englischer at that? The tall boy headed Ik-i way, across the noisy cafe, had the finest dark hair she ilu>ui;ht she'd ever seen. And, glory be, he seemed to be makin); ;i beeline right for her. Jah, as she waited, Sadie knew he wms intent upon herl The look in his dark eyes was spellbinding and deep, and she could not stray from his gaze no matter how hard she might've tried. He seemed vaguely familiar, too. Mad she known him during her years at the Georgetown

:;School, when she and her sisters and their young cousins and Plain friends all attended the one-room public schoolhouse not far from their farm? Her mouth felt almost too dry, and pressing her lips together, she hoped he wouldn't notice how iiwful nervous she was being here in town, this far away from her familiar surroundings.

Quickly she glanced down at herself, still not accustomed lo this fancy getup she wore, including what Englishers called hobby socks and saddle shoes. She wondered how she looked id such a young than, really. Did he suspect she was Plain beneath her makeup and whatnot? Would he even care if he knew the truth? By the sparkle in his eyes, she was perty sure her Anabaptist heritage didn't matter just now, not one iota. Sadie felt her heart thumping hard beneath the sheer cotton blouse, the one she'd slipped on under her customary clothes so Mamma or Leah wouldn't suspect a thing if she ever happened to get caught leaving the house after she and her sister had headed on up to bed for the night. Excitement coursed through her veins. She lifted her head and tilted it just so, the way she'd practiced a dozen or more times, and

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smiled demurely her first hello to the well-to-do doctor's son, who, she would soon discover, much preferred the nickname his pals had given him Derry over Derek, the name his parents had chosen after his devout paternal grandfather, a minister of the Gospel.

For no particular reason, Leah awakened and saw that Sadie's side of the bed was empty. On a Friday night, yet. This was not a night for a scheduled Amish singing, she knew that for sure. Sadie's flown to the world again, she thought, wishing Mamma and Dat might've heard their wayward daughter leave the house after they'd all gone off to bed. Why must she be so defiant, Lord? Leah breathed her prayer into the darkness.

Slipping out of bed, she went and stood by one of the windows and pulled the shade away. She looked out at the glaring sky, almost white with the rising moon as its light lowered itself over the barnyard below. How had Sadie made her getaway this time? Sadie wasn't so handy outdoors, not at all couldn't have just hitched up one of the driving horses to the family carriage without making a ruckus on such a silent, moonlit night. Ach, it wasn't possible for Sadie. She must've gotten a ride with someone who owns a car. Such harsh speculating made Leah feel nearly sick to her stomach. Surely Sadie wouldn't stoop so low as to do something like that. Why, such things would not only break their parents' hearts but bring awful shame and reproach to their family. Yet Leah feared that was just what her sister had gone and done. Ach, she shouldn't let herself worry so, not about the unknown. Not about things she had no control over.

Daylight would come all too early tomorrow, she knew.

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I \\X, would appreciate her help with the five-o'clock milking. Sc > she needed her rest. After all, somebody around here had lo be responsible and get a good night of sleep on weekends. Turning away from the window, Leah let the blind block out the moonlight and tiptoed back to bed. Refusing to dwell on a host of other shameful deeds her sister might be thinking of tonight, Leah sighed. She slipped back into bed and her head found the feather pillow. She longed for sleep. Truly she did.

The cafe radio blared the tune "Chiquita Banana," the calypso-beat jingle: Pepsi'Cola hits the spot, twelve full ounces, that's a lot ... as Derek and his pal and the two Plain girls they had picked up headed for Melvin Warner's car. Soon they were speeding down Georgetown Road, laughing and joking, toward Gobbler's Knob. He had known almost immediately that Sadie Ebersol, his unexpected date for the evening, was not accustomed to modern ways. Not in any sense of the word. "Stop here," he told the driver of the car. "Sadie and I ... we're getjjng out."

"You're walking her home, through the woods?" Melvin said from behind the wheel.