Fire in the Night (3 page)

“Mam!” she called suddenly, the need to rescue her mother from her pitiful stance at the sink rising to her throat.

“What, Sarah?”

“Come sit down. You can’t stop the fire by standing there hanging onto the countertop.”

Mam turned her head, looked sheepish, and then sank into the nearest hickory rocker, murmuring and shaking her head in disbelief.

“Try and get some rest, Mam. Morning will come soon enough.”

Mam nodded, but Sarah knew she would only shut her eyes and remain wide awake beneath the closed lids, her mind churning with questions tumbling over each other as she planned the upcoming day. The children needed to go to school. Their lunches needed to be packed. Mervin had brought home his arithmetic workbook with red check marks all over one page. Had he done the corrections?

There would be breakfast to prepare for these men. She counted the dozens of eggs in the propane gas refrigerator in the
kesslehaus
, where she stored the extra eggs from her fine flock of laying hens.

As if she read her thoughts, Sarah called, “There are plenty of eggs, and we have canned turkey sausage.”

“Yes, Sarah. Bless your heart.”

Sarah was warmed and rejuvenated by the sound of her mother’s voice. Dear, dear Mam. At a time like this, when tension ran high, she remembered to appreciate her daughter’s help. By the light of the flickering flames, she smiled.

The Beiler farm, as always, had been immaculate, the level black-topped driveway lined with maple trees, the lush green grass beneath them mowed twice weekly, in the spring especially. The white fence beside it contained the herd of clean black and white Holsteins, the clipped and well-fed brown mules, Dutch, the riding horse, and George, Charlie, Pansy, and Otter, the driving horses. The stone farmhouse stood off to the left, a proud old house that had weathered centuries of rain and sunshine, arctic temperatures and tropical ones, humidity, drying winds, thunderstorms, and the dark of night.

Dat had just renovated the shingle roof, replacing it with more expensive standing seam metal that was pewter gray, almost black, and complemented the ageless gray and brown stone. The porch had been expanded and stretched across the entire front, except for Levi’s enclosure with its tall windows shaded by the maple trees and the boxwoods adding a thick, green skirt.

There was a new addition built on the side, a
kesslehaus
, the hub of Amish farm life. Against one wall stood the wringer washer and plastic rinse tubs. Against another wall were a deep sink, countertops, and cupboards containing canning supplies. The cupboards also held Sevin, Round-Up, insecticides, Miracle-Gro, Epsom salt, and pickling lime.

That was also where they stored the extra-large matches called barn burners used to light the fire for the
eisa kessle
(iron kettle). The huge cast-iron pot rested on the cast-iron top of a brick enclosure. Heavy pieces of wood, along with newspaper and kindling, were fed into the enclosure and lit with a barn burner through an opening on the front that was then sealed with a cast-iron door. The door was securely shut to contain the heat that was necessary to heat the water in the kettle for cold packing hundreds of jars of fruits and vegetables.

The floor was cemented and painted with at least three coats of a light brown oil-based paint—the color of mud. The man at the paint store had tried to persuade Mam that nowadays the water-based paint was as good. But she pursed her lips and shook her head. Her eyes flashed as she said, no, it wasn’t. She knew what held up under the countless comings and goings of a large family. Only her oil-based paint would protect the floor against kicked-off boots, endless baskets of laundry, bushels of corn, peaches, and apples, cardboard boxes, and stainless steel buckets.

Adjacent to the
kesslehaus,
the kitchen was large and homey. Golden oak cabinets were constructed along two walls in an L-shape. The large gas refrigerator, an EZ Freeze from Indiana, fit snugly beneath two small cabinets built above it. On the other side of the room were the gas stove and the canister set containing flour, sugar, tea, and coffee running along one countertop.

The kitchen table was large. Two leaves extended it to the required size for seating the seven of them. At one time, when the married boys had all been at home, they’d had as many as four leaves. The brawny sons had needed elbow room as they shoveled heaping mounds of mashed potatoes, beef, beans, and corn into their mouths to nourish their craving stomachs.

The seating area was like an extension of the kitchen, a circle of sofas and chairs, propane lamps housed in oak cabinets, magazine racks containing the
Die Botschaft
, the
Connection
,
Keepers at Home
, and the
Ladies Journal
—all periodicals about Plain life. Mam looked forward to reading them when Mervin brought in each day’s mail on his scooter.

Levi’s room was off to the left, facing the front lawn and the white dairy barn that was added on to the older barn structure in 1978 and now housed much of their livelihood. They’d added the cement manure pit, the new barnyard, and the large shop and implement shed the year after they remodeled the house.

Mam had been guilty, plain down guilty, when Ammon King’s work crew started gutting the dear old house. What had been good enough for her mother-in-law all of her life should have been good enough for her. But Dat squeezed her shoulders and said they’d been blessed and were now financially able to make the renovations. Though she beamed and smiled and her eyes twinkled as she secretly anticipated her wonderful “new” house, she always kept her head bowed and tried to be humble—but she really wasn’t.

They made do in the buggy shed during the renovations that summer. Now Mam grew pots of ferns and fig trees and African violets on the new wide oak-trimmed windowsills. She hung the required dark green window shades in the living room but made pretty cotton curtains in plain beige for the kitchen.

She was, after all, a minister’s wife, and her house needed to be in the
ordnung
(within the rules) as befitted the wife of a leader in the church. But, oh, how she adored it! She scattered hand-woven rugs made from cast-off clothing, enjoying the charm the vibrant colors added, and went about her days with a song in her heart, surrounded by the things she loved.

Sarah must have dozed. There was a knock on the door followed by a rustling sound. She realized that someone was in the house. Sitting up and squinting, she carefully lowered the footrest of the blue La-Z-Boy, glancing at Levi’s form beneath the covers, and stood up.

“Hannah.”

At the same time, Mam’s head rolled across the back of the hickory rocker. She gasped, “
Ach
(oh)
,
my!”

Hannah, the wife of Elam Stoltzfus and the mother of several married daughters and two boys, Chris and Matthew, was their closest neighbor. “Don’t be scared. Stay there.
Ach
, Malinda!”

An old sweater was slung across her purple dress, a black apron pinned around her rotund form. Gathering Sarah and Malinda in a massive hug of sympathy, she bore enormous amounts of goodwill, kindness, and
an mit-leidich’s g’feel
(understanding). She shed a few discreet tears as she spoke, trying in vain to contain them. Stepping back, she kept a large hand on each of their shoulders.

“Oh, I told Elam, of all the folks in Lancaster County, Daveys are the least deserving of this tragedy. Your whole barn! In one night? Do they know what happened? Was it the diesel?
Gel
(right), that was probably where the fire started. You know, I would have come up, but to tell you the truth, I was afraid I’d get smashed flat by a fire truck. Those sirens give me the woolies.
Ach
, Davey.”

Leaving Mam and Sarah, she went to greet Dat, his eyes red rimmed, his face streaked and blackened.

“Davey.”

She shook his hand as firmly as a man might, then pulled her upper lip over her lower one, ducked her head, and blinked. In the morning light, her dark hair gleamed under her white covering, a shroud of motherliness.

“Good morning, Hannah.”

“Oh, you look awful tired, Davey. What a night! What a dreadful night. Elam came up here right away. He said you got the cows out. That’s good. But the horses. Oh, I can’t think of the horses. I thought of Priscilla’s Dutch.”

Mam lifted a finger in warning, her eyes rolling to the couch where Priscilla lay sleeping, or appeared to be.

“Well.”

Hannah turned to the cardboard box she’d been carrying and carefully extracted two large jelly-roll pans containing her famous breakfast pizza.

“
Gook mol
(look here), Malinda.”

Where cooking was concerned, insecurity was completely foreign to Hannah. There wasn’t a shred of humility in her. She knew the firemen would be complimenting the huge pans of breakfast pizza as they reached for second helpings. She knew, and she was glad.

Hannah took charge, telling Mam and Sarah to freshen up as she had breakfast under control. Matthew was bringing French toast in her stainless steel roaster.

Mam looked as if she might cry. Instead she laughed with eyes that glistened too brightly.

Sarah went upstairs, her legs cramping with fatigue. She entered her room and held the curtains aside, watching the scene below. It looked like the end of the world—the apocalypse—only all in one spot. Twisted, blackened metal lay jumbled among horrible, charred timbers, once so strong and useful and sweet-smelling from centuries of supporting a roof with the harvest stored below. Now all was reduced to nothingness.

Patches of determined little flames kept breaking out, defiant and rebellious against the dousing torrents of water that had extinguished them. The smoke was unrelenting, groping its ghastly black way into nothingness. The very maw of hell, Sarah thought.

Dat had often expounded on heaven’s wonders, but he also spoke of an awful place of fire and brimstone, where torment is never quenched. Well, this earthly fire was quenched.
Kaput
(done). All the power of the devil, and that’s exactly what it was, could not prevail against the human spirit of kindness, sympathy, and the goodness that made a community pull together.

In her mind, Sarah pictured their whole church district with ropes held taut over their shoulders, their backs bent, pulling large cut stones to build a wondrous Egyptian pyramid, like the Israelite slaves in a Bible story book. As the knowledge that good triumphs over evil seeped through the fear and doubt, sealing off the conduits of worry and anxiety, Sarah knew she had nothing to worry about.

Hannah was the first one, lifting Mam’s burden of breakfast. During the restless night, while they had dozed, uncomfortable, unable to sleep, Hannah had been mixing flour and yeast and sugar and oil, spreading the dough to each corner of the large pans, her heavy fingers repeating motions she’d done hundreds of times. Fried, shredded potatoes were next, then crumbled sausages and large bits of bacon that were applied with a liberal hand. The egg beater had been put to work mixing dozens of eggs that were then poured over it all with a flourish. After sprinkling shredded cheddar cheese on top, Hannah had popped the preparation into a hot oven before tackling the dishes.

She’d wake Matthew early. He was the cook.

Sarah smiled to herself. Matthew Stoltzfus. Tall, dark, and built like a wrestler, and happily dating the sweetest, cutest girl in the group of Sarah’s friends.

She shook herself and peered to the right as she heard the grinding of a tractor-trailer’s gears. Surely they weren’t bringing the bulldozers already.

Incredulous, her eyes popping in disbelief, she watched as the large truck bearing a yellow earth-moving machine came slowly up the drive. A line of buggies followed, the horses tossing their heads impatiently, champing bits in frustration.

“Sarah!”

“Yes?”

“You better hurry up.”

She dashed to the bathroom, pulled out the steel hairpins, and ran a brush through her long, curly hair. Opening the silver faucet, Sarah cupped her hand beneath the streaming water and wet her hair. She used a fine-toothed comb to help tame the silken, brown curls and then applied hairspray liberally, her fingers working the pump of the lime green bottle of Fructis. Satisfied, she carefully placed a neat white covering on her head, sliding the straight pins along each side to hold it in place.

She decided to stay in the green dress she’d donned in a panic. It was the color of grass. She yanked a black apron from the closet, slid it over her head, and tied the strings behind her back. She pulled on warm socks and ran down the stairs.

She was surprised to see a line of weary men already waiting to fill their plates. Dat hurried by with clean towels as they washed up at the sink in the
kesslehaus
.

“Pour grape juice,” Mam instructed curtly, the strain of the night showing in her eyes.

Quietly, Sarah opened the refrigerator door, found the gallon pitchers of chilled homemade juice, and began to pour, her eyes downcast.

“Matthew, what took you so long?” Hannah said, her voice rough with irritation.

“It takes a while, using up all that bread,” was his jovial answer in the gravelly voice that amazed Sarah.

They’d gone to school together. All their years, they had stood in singing class and played baseball and volleyball and Prisoner’s Base and King’s Corner. He was in fourth grade when she entered first grade, a scared, sniveling little girl who cried every single morning that first week. She couldn’t imagine her life without Matthew Stoltzfus in it, albeit in a detached way since he’d started dating Rose Zook.

They were the perfect match, and Sarah was happy for Matthew. So happy, in fact, that she cried great tears of happiness that puddled into a rushing river of misery. It wasn’t safe to sit on its banks and observe the way the water took away all her peace and comfort and hope for the future.

But she was happy for Matthew. Really happy.

He stepped up to the table and set down a steaming hot roaster piled high with French toast, looked sideways at her, and said, “Hey, Sarah.” She looked back at him, saw the sympathy in his eyes, and knew she’d be sitting by that rushing, roiling river again. Her voice came out a bit choked and shaky when she said, “Hey, Matthew,” and she went right back to pouring grape juice as if her only interest in life was how accurately the liquid came to within an inch of the top of each glass.