The Amish Blacksmith (51 page)

These were the thoughts that rolled around my head as I covered the distance to the Kinsingers. I hadn't been back there once since being laid off, but when I pulled into their driveway, it felt as though it were just yesterday.

I came to a stop out front, spotting Roseanna in the yard putting clothes on the line. She left the basket of laundry and walked quickly toward me, wearing a huge smile. Amos came out of the blacksmith shop, a surprised look on his face, but he greeted me warmly as well.

Rosanna announced it was a great time for a coffee break and insisted that Amos and I come inside. They wanted to hear what I'd been up to and how things were going, so over coffee and a cinnamon roll, I told them all about my job with Natasha. I also explained how God had been doing some great things for me and in me, and that I wanted them to know they had been an important part of it all. It took a little convincing, but they needed to understand that I was even grateful for having been let go, because God had been using that experience to begin a much-needed transformation in my life. I added that Priscilla had been a huge help to me too, and that she and I had been corresponding regularly.

From there, I was about to launch into the main reason I'd come here today when Roseanna said, “Oh, well, if you and Priscilla have been writing, then you must know about this weekend.”

“This weekend?”

“Being published and all that?”

I nearly choked on my coffee. For an Amish couple, “being published” meant having their engagement announced in church. It was usually done about a month prior to the wedding. And because weddings were held starting in late October, this was prime time for such announcements to begin.

“She… is she… with Noah? The widower?”

Roseanna and Amos shared a glance. Then Roseanna stood and went to the desk and retrieved her latest letter from their niece. Back at the table, she pulled it from the envelope, skimmed through it, and then thrust it toward me, with her finger pointing at a specific paragraph. Taking the letter from her, I began to read.

You asked about the situation with my special friend, but this is all I can tell you for now. I promised to give him a yes or no by the first weekend in October so that, if it is to be, he can speak to the bishop and get the ball rolling for a November wedding. I will let you know how things turn out after then.

Silently, I handed the paper back to Roseanna. Without a word, she stood and returned the envelope to her desk, where she rooted through a pile and came up with something else. As she brought it over, I expected to see another letter.

“This is from July, when Priscilla was leaving, so it might be a little out of date. But at least it's a start.” She gave me a broad smile as she handed me the piece of paper.

I looked down to the page in my hand and saw that it wasn't a letter at all.

It was the train schedule from Lancaster to Elkhart.

T
HIRTY
-S
IX

I
left the next day, and it took me thirteen hours to get from where I was to where I wanted to be. I used the same route Priscilla had, going from Lancaster to Elkhart with just one change of trains, in Pittsburgh. For most of those hours, except for when I was sleeping, I was praying that God would be with me and favor me, and that He would prepare Priscilla for my impromptu arrival.

I also prayed I wasn't too late.

I knew I could have called—should have called—instead. But if there was even the slightest chance that she planned to tell this guy yes, then I had to do this in person. I had to force her to look me in the eye and tell me she didn't love me as much as I loved her.

And I did love her, I knew that now. I was no longer the person who hadn't been able to feel for so many years, who never loved before, who wasn't even sure true love existed. Instead, I was now hands down, head-over-heels in love with Priscilla Kinsinger, and I wanted her for my wife.

My biggest concern was what it might take to talk her into coming back with me. She sounded so happy in Indiana, so pleased with her work and her life there. Even if she loved me in return, how was I going to convince her that she belonged with me in Lancaster County, a place that for her had mostly been one of pain and loss?

I had asked this of my parents the night before, when I sat down and told them what I was going to do.

“When two people love each other, Jake,” my mother had replied, “and I mean, really love each other, they cease to think of only themselves. Their natural inclination, if true love exists between them, is to make the other person happy.”

“Love gives, not pulls,” my father had added, “which is why it sometimes aches. But that doesn't mean it is not the grandest of all virtues, son.”

I repeated their words of wisdom back to myself now as the train rumbled along. One thing I did know was that I was not to pull Priscilla back to Lancaster County, I was to woo her back. And maybe that wouldn't be so hard after all. With every passing hour I was increasingly more and more in love with her. She was my soul mate, I was sure of it. I had never felt for anyone else the way I did about her.

I thought of her words that day at Blue Rock Creek when she pleaded with me to open my heart.

Christ loved the church with ardor and an aching longing to see her redeemed. You are to have that same love for your beloved.

Now, these many weeks later, I finally understood what she'd meant, and I agreed with every word.

Priscilla's great-aunt, Cora Kurtz, lived about halfway between Elkhart and Goshen, so when I arrived at the train station, I switched to a local bus that would take me within a two-mile walk of my destination. Seated on that bus for the last leg of my journey, I couldn't help but compare the terrain of Indiana to that of Lancaster County. It was much flatter here, and there were fewer trees, but for some reason the sky seemed bigger. I began to see Amish buggies as soon as the bus eased out of the city center, and my eyes were wide as I took in the differences between those here and the buggies back home. Having been a buggy-maker myself prior to farrier school, I saw things others might miss or not even care about. I kept wishing my
daed
or Tyler were here so we could point out to each other the various differences—in color, shape, accessories, and more—between these vehicles and the ones I'd grown up making in my family's buggy shop back home.

The bus dropped me off at a gas station, and a man working inside told
me where I could find the road I was looking for. I hiked my small traveling bag over my shoulder and set out. Despite having had only four hours of sleep on the train, I was nervously energized at the thought that I was now less than a half hour's walk from Priscilla.

I came upon the driveway for her grandparents' house first, recognizing it by the handmade sign for the fresh, organic honey I could buy there. I knew the next place up the road, which I could see through the tops of the rows and rows of apple trees, was where I would find Priscilla.

Lord
,
this is it. Please be with me now. Please don't let this be for nothing. Please help me convince her to come back to Lancaster County where she belongs.

The Kurtz home was a white two-story house with gabled upper-floor windows and red shutters. A tidy lawn bore two apple trees on either side of a paved walkway. The two trees stood like sentinels, calling attention to the orchard of their brethren all around them. The leaves on the trees were just starting to turn, and nearly every branch was heavy with fruit. Cast iron pots of summer geraniums were situated on the wooden porch, still vibrant but not quite as full as perhaps they had been a few months earlier. Clematis vines twirled about the porch posts, and forsythia bushes lined one side of the house, while a colorful squash garden sprawled across the other side. I could also see a sizeable vegetable garden, recently harvested of most of its wares. Dresses hung on a line between the house and a big barn, some of them large and matronly looking, and others dainty and trim in shades of lavender, rose, cornflower, and celery-green. A gray-striped cat sunning himself on the porch studied me as I approached, flicking his tail in apparent greeting.

The entire aspect was welcoming, the home worn but pleasant looking, the orchard vast and sweet smelling. For a second I wondered what I was even doing. This was a beautiful place, and Priscilla was surely content here, but I shook off the momentary troublesome thought. Love could make a home anywhere. What mattered was who a person spent her life with, not where she lived. If she loved me, Priscilla would come back to Lancaster County with me.

I walked up the pathway to the porch. The front door was open halfway, and a screen door allowed for the aroma of something sweet and creamy to reach me. As I stepped onto the porch and breathed in the tantalizing fragrance of baked apples, the cat stood, stretched, and meowed.

“Hey, fella,” I whispered back. Then I knocked on the screen door, waited, and prayed.

“Come on in, Eunice,” a voice called from within.

“Um, I'm not Eunice,” I replied. There was a slight pause and then an older, heavy-set woman with a cane appeared at the doorway. She smiled at me. “Well, hello, Not-Eunice. What can I do for you?”

“I… I was hoping I might speak with Priscilla if she's home.” I answered, a bit nervously.

The woman, surely Cora, cocked her head in curiosity. “Is she expecting you?”

I couldn't help but laugh. “No, she's not.”

Cora's smiled deepened. “Are you a friend of hers?”

“
Ya
. She's… Yes. A good friend.”

“Well, she's not here right now. Would you want to wait for her or come back later?”

“Do you know where she went? Maybe I could find her.”

“Is it that important?” Cora said with a laugh.

“
Ya
. It's pretty important. I've come from out of town.”

“Oh?” she asked, moving a step closer.

“I'm from Lancaster County.” As if to prove it, I held up my bag to show her.

Her eyes widened, and her smile seemed to take on a different curve. “Ah. So you're him, Mr. Jake Miller from Lancaster County. The man of letters, so to speak. Come on in. I'm Priscilla's great-aunt, Cora Kurtz.”

“Danke.”

She opened the door for me, and as I stepped inside, I felt a ridiculously deep surge of joy, not only that this woman knew of me but that she knew my name. That meant Priscilla had talked with her about me, had told her I was a part of her life.

I set my bag on the floor near the door. Cora gestured toward the kitchen table, and we moved there together. I held her elbow as she sat, and then I took the chair across from her.

When I met her eyes, I realized she wore an expression of concern. “You are here to tell her something she will want to hear?”

“I sure hope so.”

“You came a long way to say it.”

“It didn't seem long.”

We shared a smile.

“Okay, well, I hope you came in time.”

“I do too,” I managed. “Do you know… ”

She peered at me for a long moment, as if she were trying to see inside me to my very soul. Then she said, “I've been single my whole life, Jake, which was God's will for me. And though I wouldn't have chosen this for myself, I know that a life alone is still better than a life with the wrong man.”