Jacob's Return (15 page)

How odd she should see him so clearly now. How sad that it was too late.

“I shall read,” Simon said, “Rule number six of our
Ordnung
.
‘No brother or sister shall introduce or begin anything in the congregation, not already there, without the counsel of the congregation.’” Shoulders back, stance righteous, Simon radiated pride. “I charge that Rachel Zook failed to follow this rule.”

Ruben jumped up. “Rachel Sauder discussed her newspaper with me, lots of times. I gave her my counsel. You too, Atlee, right?”

“Ya, I giff Mudpie my counsel last winter.”

“Levi? Esther? She talked to you about how she wanted to publish her newspaper. Didn’t she?”

They all nodded. Esther smiled.

Ruben turned back to Simon and waved a hand in dismissal. “We are the congregation. We gave Rachel our counsel. She followed the rule.” He sat down and crossed his arms. “Next problem.”

Red-faced, Simon shuffled his papers. “Her pride in her newspaper is evident,” he shouted his voice quivering with fury. “She has used the schoolchildren to advance her newspaper and herself!”

He looked around, calmed, and shook his head in deep sorrow. “She used your children. Used them to copy her newspaper, when she should have been teaching them. She profited from those of you who purchased that paper, when you could little afford it. Rachel Zook should be made to cease her vile pursuit. It is God’s decree that we give back to the land, replenish and nourish the earth. This does not mean, ‘Print a newspaper.’”

Rachel watched Jacob rise from the back row and march into the kitchen. When she saw him pace across the doorway, she knew he’d needed to release his anger or blacken Simon’s other eye. She smiled inwardly, imagining the scene.

Ruben stood and theatrically cleared his throat. “Rachel Sauder,” he said, looking directly at Simon, “prints a newspaper called the
Amish Chalkboard
.”

Jacob came to the kitchen door when Ruben began to speak and Rachel gathered even more strength from that.

“If this is a sin,” Ruben said, brows raised. “I will have to be punished also, as I read the thing from beginning to end.” He leaned forward as if to confide a secret. “Sometimes twice.”

Leave it to Ruben to make people laugh, even now, Rachel thought.

Ruben grasped his suspenders, his stance arrogant. “I feel no need to address the charge of pride,” he said. “If Rachel Sauder is proud, then I am the greatest farmer ever lived.”

All-out laughter ensued.

Now Ruben shook his head. “But the charge that Rachel uses your children.” He rocked on his heels shaking it sadly. “Instead of teaching them?” he asked in disbelief. “This is a serious charge.” He scanned the crowd and pointed to a barrel-chested farmer whose eight burly sons sat beside him. “Abe Stoltzfus. Tell me how little Perry did with his High German his first few years in school.”

Abe stood, turning his black Sunday hat round and round in his hands. “Not so
goot
.”

“And Perry will finish school this year, ya?”

Abe nodded. “Ya.”

Perry was her most enterprising student. He copied several papers each month, earning more than the rest of her students.

“So there will be no reading of the Martyr’s Mirror nor the Bible in High German for him his whole life now, right?” Ruben asked.

“Ach. No,” Abe said. “Perry reads High German
goot
now. Plenty
goot
. Only Rachel Sauder could ever teach that
dumpkoff
anything.”

Rachel saw Jacob catch Simon’s eye and grin.

“So Rachel did teach Perry something,” Ruben said, “despite his copying of the newspaper in her class.”

“She made certain they could read and understand every German word, or they would not be allowed to copy the paper and earn their pennies. My Perry got to reading his German
goot
then. Rachel Sauder was the best teacher Perry ever had....” Abe reddened and looked toward the women. “Sorry to the other teachers,” he said with a nod of respect. “But it is so.”

“Thank you, Abe,” Ruben said. “Those of you whose children had Rachel in school, stand up if they did
not
learn good German.”

Everyone looked around, but no one stood.

“If you think Rachel was a good teacher, stand.”

Most everyone did.

“Raise your hand if your children learned better High German than ever.”

Most of them smiled at her and raised their hands. She could barely see them through a mist of tears. She might just kiss Ruben later.

“You may sit,” Ruben said. “No, wait. Anybody think the money you pay for the
Amish Chalkboard
is too much?”

“I would pay more,” one man yelled.

Many more shushed him and Rachel outright laughed. No one was more frugal than an Amishman.

Ruben eyed the Elders’ table. “I believe we have answered these foolish accusations.”

Simon stood. “There are more.”

Ruben threw his hands in the air. “Of course more.” He sat.

Simon began to pace. He stopped and held his frock coat open, his hands at his waist. A particularly proud stance, Rachel thought. He’d best take care, or others would see it too.

“One of the greatest challenges the Amish have had to face here in America,” Simon said. “Has been happening before our eyes these past thirty years and more. This ‘age of industry’ as the government calls it, they say will make our lives easier. Machines to do this and machines to do that. All the work is done for us.

“Is this our way? To have our lives made easy? Is it not our way to toil, to sweat to provide for our families? Has it not been decided by us in this district, as in most Amish districts, that if we use machines to work for us, the devil will settle in as we fritter away our time in more worldly pursuits?” He looked over the men to see how they received his words. Clearly, some of them liked what he said.

“Why do we need words printed by a worldly machine, by men who would pull us into a life fraught with temptation, one devoid of family values. It is a sin, I say, to use such a machine. Iniquity to use a machine which is the devil’s plaything, merely to bring useless words to us.”

The disgruntled murmurs filling the room saddened Rachel.

“But!” Simon shouted. “If you say the newspaper has helped teach our children the language of their ancestors, and if you like to read such a paper, then make it the job of whoever the schoolteacher is to publish it.” The smile he gave her was victorious, enough to stop her self-pity.

Jacob surged forward, but Levi’s arm shot out to stop him. They exchanged words, Levi’s chest puffed out like a bantam rooster, Jacob’s stance hostile, then he nodded and stood still.

Ruben stood again and raised his arms for quiet. “With respect to our good Bishop and his preachers, I believe the Deacon’s mouth has run over with the devil’s own garbage.”

Several serious coughs resulted from the statement.

“Sit down, Ruben!” came a command none of them dared disobey.

 Atlee Eicher stood. His bent frame had lost height over the years, his beard, white as new-fallen snow, was the longest she had ever seen. Though no longer tall or straight, the wisdom in his eyes, as he scanned the crowd — his gaze pausing on her, narrowing on Simon — could not be denied.

Peace filled her.

“A sin you say, Deacon Sauder?” Atlee shouted as if he’d been insulted. “A sin to print words with my great-great-grandfather’s Gutenberg, already? In which secret place our martyred people would pray, did that press print, and where to be baptized and marry. That same press for the printing you speak of?”

Simon did not answer.

“Well is it?”

“I speak of any machine which allows—”

Atlee slammed his hand on the table in front of Simon so hard that Simon flinched. “Ya! That press
allowed
the stories of our ancestor’s deaths at the hands of their killers to be told. And the devil’s work it is, you say, to print? Ach. Like to print our Bibles, the devil worked? Here, my Bible I have brought.” He opened it and shoved it under Simon’s nose so fast, Simon jumped as if a snake struck.

“See, Deacon Sauder!” Atlee cackled. “See your Bible with the words of the sinful printing done.” He raised the open Bible in the air and turned about, revealing the holy words to all, then he kissed a page before closing the book and placing it reverently on the table. He lifted a copy of their Martyr’s Mirror, a book twice as thick, long and wide, as the Bible, and opened it. “See the printing by the devil’s machine. The same, aint?” he asked Simon. “And, here. Here is our
Ausbund
, our hymn book, this devil’s printed book with the sacred stories of our martyrs to sing.” He scanned the faces of the men, then the women. “No sin there is here either, I say. Say any of you? No.”

Atlee turned back to Simon. “This paper of the news, Rachel’s
Amish Chalkboard
, makes besser use of Great-Great-Grandfather Zeke’s press since the old world. In the new world, it makes new way to use.”

Atlee looked at the women. “It makes good,” he said, his voice hoarse. He wiped his eyes and smiled. “I praise God I lived so long to see it. A paper of the news for our people in High German is worthy. Only good I read in Rachel’s
Chalkboard
.”

He looked at the Bishop. “Ezra Zook!”

The Bishop smiled.

Atlee turned back to the congregation. “So old I am, I don’t call Bishop a man who spit up on my best broadfalls.” He put his hand on his chest. “Though in this old heart there is great respect.”

“Ezra. In a few years, six maybe seven, I might be too old to come to worship, ain’t? And I might want to read your too-long sermons.”

No one smiled more than Bishop Zook.

No one frowned more than Deacon Sauder.

“Enough of this foolishness,” Atlee said to Simon. “A press is for printing. If in our hearts we listen for the word of God, His we will hear. If it is the word of the devil we seek, this we will find.”

He turned to the women. “Pris. You teaching now?”

“Yes, Atlee.”

“Better than you cooking, I guess. Can you do Rachel’s job, printing a paper at school like she did?”

“Me?” she squeaked. “No!”

Atlee turned back to Simon. “Your best argument, you give us now. I smell schnitz pie. You don’t talk fast, I go eat.” He inclined his head toward the men. “They will follow.”

Their oldest citizen shuffled away, cackling for all he was worth, as if he’d made a great joke. Before he sat, he enlivened the entertainment by stepping up to her and kissing her forehead.

Rachel closed her eyes and whispered her thanks.

* * * *

Jacob hadn’t expected to have such a good time today. He figured he’d have to visit Atlee more often. He could learn a lot, and Emma and Aaron would probably make him feel like a young man of eighty again.

Lord, that tic in Simon’s cheek was a sight to behold. Jacob didn’t think it had ever gone so fast. “He’s gonna blow, Datt,” he said under his breath, and his father scowled at him.

“A woman’s place is in her home!” Simon shouted, launching himself from his seat at the Elders’ table.

Hands clenched, mouth rigid, face ruddy, Simon looked around as if he were surprised to find himself here. Then he took a deep breath and faced the men. “A woman’s role is to plant her garden, clean her house, and care for her animals. She makes food and does what she must to run a good Amish house. I charge that Rachel Zook does not perform the duties of a wife!”

“Simon!” Levi shouted.

Jacob was ready to ‘raise his sword,’ Amish or not. As one, he and his father stepped forward.

Rachel jumped up. “Your charges, Deacon Sauder, have a foundation built on sand.”

Jacob and his father stopped.

“You publish your newspaper instead of tending the garden,” Simon accused.

Rachel chuckled. “I canned 22 quarts of peas, 18 of beans, 30 of pickles, 43 of tomatoes. From that untended garden I gathered also squash and pumpkins, celery and rhubarb.” She looked toward the back of the room. “Did you ever tend that garden, Levi?”

His father smiled and shook his head. “No,
Leibchen
.”

Rachel turned back to her bastard of a husband. “And we know you didn’t, Simon.” She pointed at herself. “So it must have been me.”

Jacob chuckled. Others watched and listened with great interest. This would be the talk of the district for some time to come, Jacob knew. Generations, maybe.

Simon shook his head. “You write your stories instead of cleaning the house.”

“I clean the house good. Ask any of the women who visit. I have washed and cleaned and cooked for you and Levi since I began my newspaper. But for the damage to your pride, you have not suffered.”

A collective gasp, low, but no less potent went up, for her insult. Pride was an Amishman’s greatest sin. Jacob chuckled and his father swatted him.

“’Tis not my humility anyone here questions,” Simon said. “’Tis your pride, your sins before us.”

Jacob lost his smile and his father took hold of his arm.

“Only the Deacon questions his wife,” Rachel said.

Simon nodded and smiled, as if he was pleased she grasped the situation, the idiot.

Jacob had had enough. It was not Rachel who first broke her vows to honor and cherish, it was her husband, and if need be, he was prepared to say so.

“You have barely performed your duties while printing this newspaper. But now the press will make more work for you, and you will not be able to continue your duties. If you had children, you would never be able to do it.”

Rachel smiled. “You said the press was a sin because it made less work, now you say it will make more. I think you do not know how much work there is, either for a newspaper, or a wife.”

The women laughed.

“I have Aaron and Emma to tend now,” Rachel continued. “And Jacob too, even Ruben, more often than not, to clean up after, and I still do it all. You have no argument, Simon. And I think this is not the business of the whole church district. The problems of Simon and Rachel Sauder should be discussed in private.”