Courting Buggy: Nurse Hal Among The Amish (10 page)

Redbird laid her head on his shoulder and blinked her
eyes, fighting sleep. She dozed off. The bishop glanced at her and
said softly, “In Matthew scripture says, Come unto me, all ye that
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Eldon looked down at the sleeping toddler and
smiled. “I hope my sermon wasn't so boring that I almost put all of
you to sleep like Redbird.” That brought some giggles and chuckles.
“Now we will sing,
Amazing Grace
in English.”

When the hymn was over, Minister Bontrager said, “As
for announcements, if the Lord wills and we live, in two weeks the
worship service will be held at Adam Mulenburg's farm. On Saturday
evening in one week, there will be a free will donation supper at
the school to raise funds for school supplies for the coming term.
That starts at 7 P.M. There is not a member meeting this Sunday and
no disciplining needed. Now it is dinner time. As you all already
know the smells coming from the kitchen are voonderball gute.”

Chapter 7

After the men turned benches into tables and placed
benches around the tables for seats, they passed around the light
lunch of bread slices with spreads of cheese, jams and applebutter.
Relish plates full of pickle spears, red beets, radishes, and
carrot sticks. Dessert was cookies and snitz which were fried apple
pies.

John Lapp sat down next to Peter Rogies, father of
Cooner Jonah. The elderly man stared at the wall. After awhile, he
looked beside him. He smiled weakly and said in a cracking voice,
“Do you know who I am?”

“
Of course, I do,” John replied.

“
That is gute that you do. At this moment I do
not,” Peter said wearily.

“
Peter Rogies is your name,” John said,
wondering if this was the elderly man's dry wit at play. “Everyone
knows who you are.

Peter nodded agreement. “I expect they do.” He took
the bread, served himself and handed the platter to John.

Conversations flowed at all the tables as the men
caught up on the news of the last two weeks. After they ate, they
made room for the next diners by going outside to get a breath of
fresh air. Those gatherings every two weeks were much better than
the Budget newspaper when it came to catching up with what was
going on in the Plain community.

John Lapp sat on the edge of the porch with Cooner
Jonah Rogies. Cooner Jonah's father, Peter, walked down the
driveway in front of them. He had changed out of his black suit to
his every day blue shirt, trousers and gallouses already. He padded
along barefoot with his straw hat perched on the back of his head
which was how he always wore his hats. Peter was talking to an
empty space beside him, and his right arm was outstretched with the
hand closed.

“
What is Peter doing?” John asked.

“
His chores. Recht now Daed is taking his horse
out to pasture,” Cooner Jonah replied with a furrowed
brow.

“
Who is he talking to?”

“
His dog, Pet.”

John rubbed his beard. “I do not recall the last time
I saw Peter's old sorrel.”

“
The horse died of old age several years ago.
Daed does not remember that anymore. So did his dog die,” Cooner
Jonah said with a heavy sigh.

“
You mean he thinks he is leading his dead
horse and walking with his dead dog?” John gave Cooner Jonah a
quizzical look.

“
Jah, pitiful it is when a man as sharp as my
father once was has lost his mind,” Jonah said with teary eyes.
“Sometimes, it is a tough day like this one for Daed. He does not
remember anything except in snatches at times. I think having so
many people he can not remember around him at the Sunday meetings
makes him more ferhoodled. My family has faced the fact that he is
old and sick. I know we can not help him get better. All we can do
is take care of him and know whatever happens to him it is God's
will.”

“
A shame. Know that Peter will be in our daily
prayers along with your family for what you are going through,”
John said as he watched the elderly man walk up behind Tootie and
stop her. The two of them seemed to be getting along all right.
Since he didn't know what to say to Cooner Jonah, he changed the
subject. “Say, how you coming with the spring work.”

“
Coming right along. Hope the weather holds for
a while. Seems every year we get started gute and get one rain
storm after another that stops us from working,” Cooner Jonah
complained, still keeping a watch on his father.

After she ate, Tootie felt as if she was in the way
in a room full of efficient Amish women as they cleaned up Anna
Rogies's kitchen. What she needed was some fresh air with some
peace and quiet. Tootie edged her way through the chattering women
and went outside.

She came around to the front of the house. John was
talking to a man on the porch. Other men were gathered by the front
of the house. A group of boys stood by the barn, and teenage girls
sat under a shade tree at the side of the house, watching the boys.
Tootie turned in the only direction left that she could be alone
which was toward the road.

She clasped her hands behind her back and strolled
slowly, taking in the scenes this farm had to offer. Good fresh
country air. She breathed deeply and appreciated hearing only
faintly the chatter and laughter.

“
What are you doing out here alone?” Peter
Rogies said from behind her.

The old man was dressed in chore clothes and
barefoot. Tootie tilted her head over one shoulder as she curiously
checked him out. He had one arm outstretched. His hand was a fist.
Perhaps, he had a disability from a farming accident.

When he caught up with her, he said, “You were at the
service today?”

“
Yes, my name is Tootie.”

“
That can not be your given name,” Peter said
matter of factly.

“
No, my given name is Dolly,” Tootie
answered.

Peter studied her face a moment as if he was trying
to pull a memory from the depth of his mind. A glimmer of
recognition came over his face. He smiled. “I thought I knew you.
Where are you living now?”

“
I live in northern Iowa, but I'm visiting John
Lapp and his family. His wife, Hallie, is my niece. You are Peter
Rogies, and you own this farm?”

“
You should know,” Peter said with meaning.
“Are you still married?”

“
My husband passed away a few years ago,”
Tootie replied. “Are you still married?”

He nodded no as he looked off into space. “My Sara
died.” He seemed uncomfortable dwelling on the subject of his wife.
“What are you doing out here by yourself?”

“
I needed some fresh air. All the chatter of so
many people was getting to me,” Tootie said truthfully.

“
I know just what you mean. So many people
around me makes me verhuddelt,” Peter said.

“
Excuse me, what does that mean in
English?.”

“
It means I get confused. Wait a minute, and
I'll walk with you.”

Tootie liked Peter's husky, cracking voice and his
friendly manner so she waited. He walked over to the fence and made
a circling motion with his hand around the top wire. “Now I am
ready.”

They continued their walk together toward the road.
Not talking. Just enjoying quiet companionship until Peter looked
down between them and said, “Heel.”

Tootie didn't know what Peter meant. She
remembered Edwin said heel when he trained a bird dog he wanted to
follow him.
If that is it,
Peter must want me to walk a few steps behind him.
Is this what Amish women do, heel like a dog when they are told to
be submissive?
She slowed down and trailed
behind him.

Peter looked back. “Sorry if I am walking too fast
for you. I will try to slow down so you can keep up.”

Tootie smiled. Amish men were truly
strange, but she liked this man with the kind eyes anyway. She
didn't want to hurt his feelings.
If only I
had brought that Amish book with me. Maybe I'd have a clue what
Peter Rogies meant by heel. I should have hidden that book in my
suitcase so Nora didn't know I had it with me.
“I just need to get some walking practice in, and I'll do
better,” she excused.

“
Dolly, you want to see the day old
colt behind the barn. He is a nice looking fellow already,” Peter
said proudly.

“
I'd love to see him,” Tootie
exclaimed. As they rambled along beside the fence line, she looked
out over the cornfield filled with neat green rows. “The corn is
coming up I see.”

Peter gave the field a wistful regard. “Growing corn
is a treat for these old dim eyes.” Tootie edged closer to him with
a scrunched up face, trying to avoid a large black and yellow
spider creeping down a blade of grass. Peter looked at the grass
and back at her with a youthful grin. “I see you still do not like
spiders even after listening to the worship service this
morning.”

Tootie's face heated up. “If you think I'm going to
step on that spider to kill him you're mistaken. As for this
morning, I did try to kill that spider to keep that woman from
getting bit. What happened is too embarrassing to talk about except
to say I'm so sorry I caused such a ruckus at your worship service.
What horrible things must your family and that poor woman think of
me?”

Peter snickered. “That whop on the bottom is just
what Stella Strutt has deserved for a long time, but no one has
tried to do it. I am not sure how Moses puts up with her. The rest
of us just avoid her as much as possible.”

“
Still I hate that I caused such a
disturbance in the church service over a spider,” Tootie
declared.

Peter stopped at the pen fence that adjoined the back
of the barn. His gaze didn't budge from her face. “That was not the
first disturbance you made over a spider as I recall, and I doubt
that it will be the last.”

Tootie started to ask what he meant by that remark,
but he turned his attention to the pen and whistled loudly. A red
mare and leggy colt lifted their heads to find the source of the
whistle. The mare took one more mouth full of hay from the manger
and came running.

Peter stuck his hand through the fence to let the
mare nuzzled it. The colt stretched its neck and sniffed Peter's
hand.

“
It's amazing that the colt isn't
scared of you,” Tootie said quietly.

“
He was not born with fear. We want
to keep him gentle, and at his age, he is naturally
inquisitive.”

Tootie stuck her pale smooth skinned hand through the
fence beside Peter's larger calloused hand, darkened by years of
work in the sun, with twisted arthritic fingers. The colt sniffed
her hand and licked it. Tootie giggled.

“
You used to like kittens. We have a
litter. Want to see them? They are just big enough to open their
eyes and be sassy,” Peter said.

One more peculiar statement from this man, but Tootie
didn't want to dwell on why he kept assuming what she liked and
disliked. She clapped. “I do love kittens. Show me.”

Peter pointed to a side door on the barn. “We can go
in there, Dolly.”

Tootie wouldn't have had any trouble finding the
noisy kittens by herself. The mother had left them to take a break,
and they didn't like her being gone.

Peter opened a horse stall. “There they are.”

The six fuzz balls were crawling over and under each
other in the loose straw as they cried for their mother. Tootie
bent down and picked up a hissing kitten speckled with every color
a cat could be. “This is certainly a brightly colored one. He's so
pretty.”

“
That is a she,” Peter said,
stroking the fussy kitten on top the head with one gentle
finger.

“
How do you know that?” Tootie said,
doubting him.

“
Calico cats are always females,”
Peter said.

“
Really! I didn't know that,” Tootie
declared.

“
Now you do, Dolly.”

Tootie put the kitten gently back in the pile of
churning fur. “I should go to the house. When my family can't find
me, they might be worried. I didn't tell anyone I was going for a
walk.”

As they stepped out of the barn, Tootie wanted to
tell Peter she enjoyed their walk. She felt a flutter in her
stomach that stopped her from speaking.

Peter gave her the most intense look as if he was
reading her mind. “Maybe we could do this again sometime. We used
to enjoy long walks together.”

Tootie wasn't sure why this man thought she liked to
take walks with him, but he knew about calico cats, didn't he?
Maybe Amish men just sensed things about others. No matter. She
knew she was born a romantic, but she was too old to be doing
anything about it. “Thank you for showing me the colt and kittens.
I must go now. This has turned into a pleasant afternoon indeed
thanks to you.”

“
Sure, now I will get back to my
chores.” Peter walked away.

Cooner Jonah and Anna walked with the Lapp family to
their buggies. Soft spoken Anna said to Hal, “Next Wednesday is
Peter's birthday. We are having him a small celebration that
evening. Just cake and homemade ice cream. We would like your
family to come and bring your company. That should be enough
visitors to make it look like we are celebrating Peter's
birthday.”

“
Sounds gute,” Hal said. “We
accept.”

“
Nothing more fun than a birthday party,” Nora
said.