Meek and Mild (7 page)

“I found something the other day,” Andrew said.

John’s eyebrows arched. “A horse that drinks oil?”

Andrew gave a half smile. “What if I said yes?”

“Then I’d say it was a horse that didn’t eat hay.”

“Not so far as I can figure, no.”

“Not having to muck a stall would bring certain advantages.”

Andrew laughed now. “Do you want to see it?”

“Do you mean to say you’ve taken possession of the remarkable beast?”

The remarkable beast
. The description seemed apt, both for the automobile and for Andrew’s rapidly growing affinity for it.

“I have indeed,” Andrew said. “Free and clear.”

“I will confess that does spark a certain degree of curiosity in me.”

The fine lines at the corners of John’s eyes creased, offering a faint suggestion of his age. For the first time, Andrew noticed wisps of faint gray in his friend’s hair curling at the back of his neck.

“Then we shall have to arrange something,” Andrew said.

With their heads tilted toward each other, Andrew revealed where the Model T was and the circumstances under which he acquired it. He’d poked and tugged at every loose edge inside and outside the automobile, looking for any evidence that the note and papers giving the Model T to whoever was willing to take it off the hands of its exasperated owner were not as straightforward as they seemed. Finding nothing, he took the papers home and stored them securely where even Yonnie would not know where to find them.

John laughed at Andrew’s recounting. “You’re hiding an automobile and you’re worried someone will find the papers?”

Andrew shook his head. “I have no regret about taking the car. The possibility of being falsely accused of how I came to possess it enters my mind.”

“What about Yonnie?”

“What about him?”

“Do you trust him?”

“He’s my relative and my childhood friend.”

“Yes. And do you trust him?”

John looked over Andrew’s shoulder, and Andrew turned to follow his gaze. Yonnie stood at the end of the aisle.

Clara sometimes wondered what it would be like to court as the
English
did—always properly chaperoned, but without secrecy. Amish pairings were not always a surprise when engagements were published in church, but until that moment, no one could be certain a young man who offered to take a young woman home from the Singing where the unmarried gathered had true affection for her or whether she returned it. If a group took a buggy and food baskets for a picnic along the Casselman River, there might be a romantically aspiring couple among them or there might not be. Three minutes of conversation beyond the ears of anyone else could be casual insignificance or stolen, treasured words. Clara had her suspicions who might be announcing engagements as the harvest season approached this year—Ruth and Peter, for instance—but she made no claim to be certain of anything.

One thing Clara did know was that if she never left the Kuhn farm, she would never run into Andrew coincidentally—or not so coincidentally. After all, was there such a thing as a coincidence? Was not all that happened God’s will?

So when Rhoda casually remarked on Saturday morning that she had forgotten to purchase green thread the last time she was in town and was now disappointed that she was not equipped for the mending in her basket, Clara cheerfully offered to go to the mercantile. To her surprise, Rhoda did not refuse the help and in fact gave Clara a list of several other small but needful items that would more than justify the excursion.

Taking just one horse with a small cart, Clara kept her eyes open for any sign of Andrew, who might come from a side road because he had been visiting a neighbor or who might come from the direction she was traveling. When Clara passed the turnoff to his farm, the urge to see if he was home tempted her, but she knew a daytime meeting would be much safer out where anyone might observe it and think nothing of it.

The thought that she
might
run into him, that it
might
be God’s will for them to see each other today, was enough to stretch her neck in anticipation, but she chastised her own hope with determination not to lose her grip on her errand for Rhoda. If she wanted to prove herself useful, she could not disappoint Rhoda by tumbling into distraction and failing to come home with green thread and a few practical items.

Clara got all the way to Springs, where she drove around two small squares of shops looking for a place to leave the horse and cart. The shops still had hitching posts in front of them, but every time Clara came into Springs, there seemed to be more automobiles. Irritation pulsed through her good mood. The automobiles themselves did not bother her, but why did their owners have to leave them in front of the hitching posts?

The annoyance fled when the circuit around the blocks led to a sighting of a brown stallion with a stripe of white running down his long nose.

Andrew’s horse—and room to share the hitching post. Clara eased her gentle spotted gray mare into the space and knotted the reins to the post before reaching under the bench in the cart for the sack of apples her father always kept there. She offered one to the mare and one to the stallion, tempted to feed them all the apples in the bag while she loitered with the thought that Andrew would have to return to this spot eventually.

Clara wiped her hands on her apron. Rhoda would wonder whether she truly meant to bring the thread. Clara pivoted to amble down to the mercantile.

At first she passed the hardware store. Then she idly turned. The store was Andrew’s favorite. She opened the door and there he was, talking with John Stutzman. Clara contained the grin welling up inside her as she shuffled down the aisle.

And then she saw Yonnie with his dour features and set jaw. He stood with Andrew and John, only coming into Clara’s view when John shifted his weight to one side. If Clara wanted to see Andrew, she would have to see Yonnie as well. At least John was there with his broad smile and eyes that twinkled for no apparent reason.

Andrew lifted his head and rotated his glance toward Clara. One corner of his mouth twitched in invitation, and she moved toward them.

John dipped his head toward Clara. “
Gut mariye
, Clara. My wife will be wondering what happened to me, so please excuse my departure.”

“Of course.” Clara gave John a small smile. “Please greet your family for me.”

Yonnie seemed to have planted his feet. Clara met his eyes with sufficient manners before fixing her gaze on Andrew’s brown hair, with its ragged cut he insisted on giving himself, and the brown eyes that announced curiosity and pleasure as surely as if he spoke into a megaphone.

If only marriage did not mean bearing children.

Yonnie crossed his arms over his chest. If Andrew felt no shame for taking the abandoned car, then why should he mind if Clara Kuhn knew about it?

“Andrew was just telling John about the Model T,” Yonnie said.

“The Model T?” Clara said. “It certainly has become popular among the
English
.”

“At least one
English
has lost interest,” Yonnie muttered.

Clara creased her brow. “I’m afraid I’m not following your point, Yonnie.”

Andrew put a thumb through one suspender. “He means the one I found.”

Yonnie watched Clara’s eyebrows rise. It was one thing for John Stutzman to show no concern that Andrew had taken possession of a valuable
English
machine—though Yonnie thought he should have. Clara would be different. Her father was staunch in his convictions. He could have joined the Marylanders twenty years ago when the churches clustered around the border parted ways, but he chose the Old Order.

“You found a car?” Clara said to Andrew.

Andrew glanced around the store.
He says he’s not ashamed
, Yonnie thought,
but he doesn’t want everyone to hear
. Yonnie surveyed the store as well and saw no other Amish customers.

With soft tones, Andrew described the events of Wednesday afternoon. Yonnie was less interested in what Andrew said than in what he saw on Clara’s face.

No alarm.

No shock.

Her blue eyes widened, but not in fear. It was more akin to inquisitiveness.

“Clara, what would your father think of Andrew’s decision?” Yonnie asked.

She shrugged. “My father is not Andrew’s conscience.”

“What about you? What do you think?”

Clara smiled. “I’d like to see the automobile.”

W
as it a sin to hope that Mose Beachy would be the minister selected to give the main sermon? Or to pray that this would be God’s will?

Though she wouldn’t speak it aloud, that was what Clara wondered during the final hymn before the sermons. In a moment, the bishop and three ministers who served the congregation would return from their private meeting and prayer, and one of them would begin to preach a short sermon. After another hymn, a second minister would bring the main sermon. Why could it not be Mose Beachy? Mose was a gentle, thoughtful man in conversation and in preaching.

But when the four men entered at the front of the meetinghouse, Clara could tell from Bishop Yoder’s posture that the lot had fallen to him. Clara did not know much about lots and statistics, but it seemed to her that Bishop Yoder gave sermons more often than any of the others. She had been hearing them her entire life. He’d always been firm, but in the last couple of years, he had turned virulent. He wasn’t ancient, but he was near seventy, so few men in the church exceeded his age. Lately, Clara observed, Bishop Yoder moved more slowly, as if his joints had stiffened and refused cooperation. His sons deferentially stood aside and held doors open with patience. Yet when Bishop Yoder stood to preach, his frailties seemed to leave him.

Bishop Yoder remained standing beside the preaching table, while his two sons, Joseph and Noah, took seats on either side of Mose Beachy on the ministers’ bench facing the congregation. One of them would give a second sermon. Clara clung to the hope that she might yet hear Mose’s words of wisdom today.

Clara settled in with her youngest sister on her lap. Mari had fallen asleep during the final hymn, and Clara doubted she would wake before the service ended. Beside them was Hannah and then Rhoda. Clara glanced across the aisle to the men’s side, where Josiah recently had been permitted to sit with his father rather than among the women. He took the privilege seriously and sat somberly with his hands crossed in his lap and every muscle in his face under control. Clara nearly smiled in pride but caught herself just in time. Of all places, the worship service was the wrong place for pride.

In the row behind Hiram and Josiah, Andrew sat beside Yonnie with the unmarried men. Clara wished she could know what Andrew was thinking, but like all the worshippers, he wiped expression from his face. It pained Clara to think that even if she married Andrew, she could not sit beside him during church and feel him near.

Clara shook off all the trivial hopes and wishes that coursed through her. None of them mattered. She was here to worship and learn, though she did not have to wait for the bishop to announce his Scripture text to know what he would preach about.