Jacob's Return (11 page)

Jacob swallowed. Twenty-five years later, and he wished to God he could say yes.

“Atlee forgets things these days,” Ruben whispered, as he took down the jug. “Remembers ninety years ago one minute; forgets yesterday the next.”

“That should help.”

“Not much.”

“Look at this,” Jacob said holding up a cigar box.

Ruben read the spidery writing on the cover. “String too short to use.” He shook his head. “Damn, he does save everything.”

Jacob handed a cup of cider to their flinty-eyed host. “Beard’s all white now, Atlee. Reach your ankles yet?”

“Chust about. You lookin for somethin, ain’t?”

“Ya,” Jacob answered. “You remember Rachel? Rachel Zook?”

“Your Rachel? Mudpie?”

His Rachel. Jacob looked at Ruben, unable to form a reply.

Ruben put a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Ya, Atlee, Jacob’s Rachel. She made you some good medicine last winter, you remember? Made you better.”

“Ya.” The old man’s beard did touch the floor when he leaned forward in his chair. “She want my old Gutenberg, aint?”

This is too easy, Jacob thought, looking into Atlee’s wide, eager eyes. “Brought the market wagon,” he said, worried the man’s age-sharpened gaze might see into his cursed soul. “We came to get the press and bring it to her.”

“
Goot, goot. Kum,
ve get.” He rose and began a slow, shuffling trek out the door. “Too hundred dollars, ya?”

Jacob stopped dead in his tracks. “Chicken shit!”

“Jacob Sauder, mind your cussin.” Atlee slapped his knee with a cackle. “I got you good, ain’t? Twenty-five, I say, and twenty-five is plenty good. It’s besser to be rich in heaven, aint? Kum, ve get, then more cider.”

* * * *

Rachel heard their off-key singing before Caliope pulled the market wagon into the yard. Shaking her head she went outside.

She hid her smile as the exact words they sang took form. “My mother-in-law’s a cadaver, she lets the noodles burn, she turns the pancakes with a pitchfork—”

They stopped when they saw her and she nearly laughed at their guilty faces. They looked at each other, shrugged, and began to sing,
Bringing in the Sheaves
.

When Caliope stopped, Jacob threw her the reins. “Hey, Mudpie. Got your press.”

“A mother-in-law song first, then a Mennonite one you sing, Jacob? You couldn’t do better?”

“Ach, Rache.” He smiled sheepishly. “I couldn’t remember the sailor one.”

“Good. Atlee give you any trouble?”

“Just cider.” Ruben grinned and lifted her in the air to turn her in circles. “Hey, Mudpie. Got something good to eat?”

“You smell like the inside of a barn, Ruben Miller.”

“Why thank you, Rachel. I thought I smelled worse than that.”

“You do,” Jacob said. “She’s just being polite.”

Simon stood by the barn door wiping his hands on a rag, his usual grimace in place.

Ruben rubbed his hands together. “Hey Jake. Let’s get to pulling those three or four chest hairs. This is the most fun I’ve had in years.”

Rachel looked to Jacob for an explanation.

“You don’t want to know. Can the rascal stay for supper?”

“Sure. Quit at four and send him home with the buggy to take a bath and change his clothes. Esther’s coming for supper too.”

Jacob put his hand on her arm. “Ach, not for me, Rache.”

“For
supper
,” she said.

They looked at each other, and Rachel knew if Jacob married, it would break her heart. But he wasn’t hers, and she’d best remember it.

“Good mothering, Rachel,” Simon said indicating the house with a nod. “Looks like those normal two-year-olds learned something new today. Without your help.”

Everyone turned to look, and Jacob laughed.

Emma and Aaron stood on the porch, naked as sheep after shearing. “Pa-pop, Pa-pop,” they called, jumping up and down.

“Ach, you two,” Jacob said. “Where are their clothes?” he asked Rachel.

“In their beds? They were napping ten minutes ago.”

“Two new things today,” Jacob said as he scooped them up and brought them toward Ruben. “To climb from their cribs and to remove their clothes. Smart babies I got. Ruben here is my Emma and my Aaron.”

For a minute Rachel thought Ruben would cry. Then he squared his shoulders and gave them a big smile. “Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Can you say, Ruuu ben?”

“Boob,” Emma said, raising her arms to him.

That tormented look passed over his face again, but more quickly this time. He took Emma into his arms and hugged her.

Emma sniffed daintily, then leaned back looking at him uncertainly. She crinkled her nose.

Ruben’s laughter erupted full force.

Having Jacob home might bring Ruben back to the living. Or it might finish him off. Either way, Rachel thought, it would be better for Ruben than being neither one nor the other.

“Why do my children have red fingertips?” Aaron opened his mouth and showed his father his tongue. “Ah, yes,” Jacob said. “And red tongues too?”

“Churries!” Aaron said.

Rachel nodded. “We went cherry picking this morning. With those two, it was one for the bucket, two for the mouth. A pit or two, I think, they swallowed, before they got the hang of spitting them out. But when they understood the way of it, the spitting they did best of all.”

“Smart, didn’t I say so?”

Rachel took the naked monkeys into the house to re-clothe them. Ruben and Jacob went to unload the press.

Jacob and Ruben, sweating and grunting, lowered the Gutenberg from the back of the market buggy into the far corner of the barn’s lower-level near the window.

Simon watched.

“We could have used your help,” Jacob said, as he wiped his brow with his sleeve.

“Not for this will I raise one finger. Everything to do with that newspaper is against the law of God.”

Jacob leaned on the press and folded his arms. “I know I’m going to hate the answer, but how?”

“Women are meant to raise children and serve their husbands needs, not to break the laws of nature by doing men’s work.”

“So if Rachel were a man, printing a newspaper would not be against God’s laws?”

“The entire concept is an abomination. If God meant us to … to—”

“Read … he would have given us eyes and minds?” Jacob said.

“Explaining to you is a waste of time. You cannot leave the dratted machine there. That is where I repair the buggies.”

“But you can repair them where they sit. You don’t need this spot.”

“I do. The light is better here.”

“It is better for Rachel’s printing too.”

“If I have anything to do with it, there will not be any printing.”

“Why does this not surprise me?” Jacob asked. “All right. Ruben, let’s put the machine back on the wagon and move it to the corner where the thresher is. We’ll put the thresher here and when Simon needs to repair a buggy, once or twice a year, he can move the thresher outside for a time.”

“I do not want the thresher outside. It will rot.”

“I wish to hell you would rot, you sorry excuse for a—”

“Levi,” Ruben shouted toward the upper floor where they could see him through a ladder door repairing a flailer. “This is your barn, where can we put Rachel’s printing press?”

Levi muttered a string of sharp, though unintelligible words.

“What did you say?” Ruben called, brow furrowed.

Levi came down the ladder. “I said, ‘muzzle you, Ruben Miller.’” He raised his eyes to the heavens, seeking patience. “For bringing my attention to my children’s bickering.”

“Datt—”

“
Mein Gott,
Simon, shut up! A decision I have made and you need to hear it, the both of you,” he said encompassing all three in his disgruntled look. “Ruben, you ask whose barn is this? Well I have an answer. Jacob is home and as youngest, the farm is his by rights. But Simon has worked it four years without Jacob’s help. Without Simon’s hard work, the farm would be worthless.”

Jacob saw his Datt’s look narrow and land on Ruben. “Like your farm is, Ruben, and my friend, Zeb Miller, your poor Datt, weeping for looking down at it.”

Ruben closed his mouth tight, a look of patient respect for Levi on his face, as he waited for the end of the reprimand.

Three chastised children, they stood, Jacob thought, resisting the urge to smile at Ruben because he had been included in the scold.

“... and when you meet him at the pearly gates, you bet Zeb will be harder on you than I am. But this farm. This is my right to decide. Though the farm is rightfully Jacob’s—”

“Datt, I—”

Levi raised his hand. “One more word, Simon, and I will thrash you.”

Simon stepped back and shut his mouth.

Jacob and Ruben chuckled and got a hand raised to them. They shut up too.

“I cannot take the farm from Simon,” Levi said. “So here is what we will do. We have the main house in the middle, and my house, the
daudyhaus
, on the left. We will put another small house on the right, a
kinderhaus
, for Simon and Rachel, and leave the big house for Jacob, Emma and Aaron. This way, the farm will be split equally between my two sons.” He narrowed his eyes and examined their faces in turn.

Jacob remembered the look. He was eight years old and had switched the fowl eggs. Geese, chickens, and ducks, squawked at strange hatchlings, and Datt was going to kill him.

“You will share the responsibility equally,” Levi continued. “Cost, income, work, the keeping of the ledgers. But until I get Nate McKinley to write up the papers, this farm is still mine. You leave the press there, Ruben, it is the best place.”

Jacob couldn’t believe that his father aimed that sorrowful look at him. Why was it that Datt was always most disappointed in him?

Levi shook his head. “From you, I expect more.”

Jacob mentally threw his hands in the air. Thirty years old, and his father could still read his mind. It was humiliating.

Finally, Datt turned that look on Simon. “You approve of this or you find another farm.”

Simon nodded once.

“You and Jacob will share everything. Equally.”

“Everything?” Simon asked.

“Everything,” Datt repeated, then he gave one last scowl before he walked away.

Simon watched their father go, then turned and examined his brother’s face.

“What?” Jacob asked.

“Datt wants us to share everything. Equally.”

Simon turned to Ruben. “You know, Ruben, I think Rachel will like such an arrangement.”

Chapter 7

Rachel removed a cherry pie from the oven, freeing a scent like almond paste to mingle with the spicy ones of sausage, onion, and pickled beets. “Smells good enough to tempt a fasting Quaker,” she said.

Esther put her hand on her big belly and smiled. “Then I must be a fasting Quaker, because I’m starved.”

“You’ve been starved for months, Es. That baby is going to be so big, he’ll come out walking.”

They were still chuckling when the kitchen door opened.

“Welcome, Ruben,” Rachel said. “You look nice.”

“Clean, you mean, Mudpie.”

“Esther, you remember Ruben.”

“Hello, Ruben,” Esther said. “You’re thinner.”

“Hello, Es. You’re not.”

Esther’s smile faltered. “I’m sorry about … all of them.”

“I’m sorry you’re going to die.”

“Ruben!” Rachel nearly dropped the beets. “What a terrible thing to say!”

Ruben looked like he’d swallowed a pickle whole. “I can’t believe I said that. Esther, I’m sorry. It’s just that since I lost Alma, then Violet, in child-bed, well it’s just … your chances aren’t good, you know.”

Rachel wasn’t certain who was paler, Esther or Ruben. “Don’t be stupid, Ruben. If all women died in child-bed, none of us would be here talking about it.”

“You’re right, Mudpie.” Ruben took Es’s hand. “Let’s start again. I’m sorry about Daniel, Esther.”

“Thank you, Ruben. I miss him, just like you miss Alma and Violet.”

Ruben grimaced. “It’s hard having two dead wives, you know. If I miss them both, I think there’s something wrong with me for wanting them both back … when I could never have had them both at the same time anyway. But if I think of one and get to really missing her, I suddenly feel guilty for not missing the other one.”

Esther shook her head. “You’re in a bad way, Ruben. That’s for certain.”

He nodded. “If we were luckier, you and I, I would have died instead of Daniel, before ever knowing I had killed another wife and baby.”

“Oh, Ruben,” she said softly, and placed her hand on his arm. “It wasn’t your fault they died.”

Jacob came in carrying the twins, followed by Simon, one cut, purple eye, swollen shut.

“It is not our way!” Levi shouted behind them.

Judging by Levi’s words, and Simon’s face, it looked as if Jacob gave Simon what-for sometime between arriving home with the press and leaving it in the barn. Knowing Jacob, he had good reason. Knowing Simon, Jacob had good reason.

Ruben touched Esther’s cheek. “Don’t cry, Es.”

Simon stopped dead. “Ruben, don’t go making eyes at Esther. She’s Jacob’s.”

“Simon!” three voices shouted.

Jacob turned to his father. “You can doubt I had cause?”

“Turn the other cheek,” Levi said.

“Wasn’t my cheek took the blow, Datt,” Jacob said lifting Aaron.

Levi shook his head in resignation.

“Unkabear, boo-boo ouch?” Aaron said leaning over and poking his finger in Simon’s black eye.

Simon shouted and lurched back.

Jacob retrieved Aaron’s finger. “Don’t, Aaron. It hurts Unkabear for you to touch his boo boo.”

“As if you care,” Simon muttered.

Aaron began to cry, and the two brothers faced each other, a lifetime of anger and disappointment between them.

Aaron raised his arms to his uncle but Simon did not move.

“Don’t be a jackass, Simon,” Ruben said. “Take the boy.”

“He is sorry he hurt you,” Rachel said, trying not to smile at Ruben’s comment.