Whispers of a New Dawn (6 page)

She patted the part of the bench where he had been a moment before. Slowly he took his seat again and removed his straw hat. He didn’t say anything but when he finally looked at her she was smiling a small smile.

“Moses, I have no idea what I’m going to do. Mother tells me Bishop Zook is going to ask me how I feel about taking my vows and being baptized, and I don’t know what to tell him. I’m flattered that you want me around and that you like me. I like you too. It’s pleasant to be in your company. I like to listen to your voice and thoughts as much as you do mine. I don’t know what is going to happen when it comes to the Lapp Amish and Becky Whetstone. But for now it’s very good to be here. And very good to hear a beautiful man tell me I’m beautiful too.”

Moses’ face reddened under his tan. “Now I have no words at all. The Amish girls don’t speak this way.”

“Well, I do. I believe in being forthright.” She touched his cheek with her hand. It seemed as if he would pull away but a different kind of light came into his face and he did not. “So I’m also going to ask you this, even though you say you have no words. Water the color of—yes? Can you finish your sentence for me?”

“What?”

“A moment ago you said a man could come alive swimming in water that had a special color.”

He didn’t look away. “The water would have the color of your eyes.”

“Ah.” Everything in her body and her face smiled.

He leaned toward her and Becky caught herself leaning his way as well, then straightened. “Maybe you should move to another bench now. They’ll all be coming soon…”

F
OUR

S
o you’ve been here three weeks. What do you think?” Ruth was changing out of her dress into a nightgown.

Becky was lying on her stomach on her bed. Her head was pillowed on her arms. “I don’t know what to think.”

“Did you see Moses again today?”

“Yes.”

“How did you two manage it this time?”

“He had a gift of fresh-ground flour for Grandma. One hundred pounds.”

Ruth began to laugh. “He never runs out of ideas. The other day a big container of grease for our wagon wheels. Before that it was twenty pounds of cheese he said his mother didn’t need. He likes you for sure. Is the feeling mutual?”

Becky’s mouth was pressed up against the skin of her arm and her words came out muffled. “Of course it’s mutual.”

Ruth sat down on the edge of her bed, let out her hair, and began to brush it slowly. “If you’ll get ready for bed I’ll brush out your long golden locks for you, princess.”

Becky didn’t budge. “A month ago I just wanted to visit and leave. Now I don’t know what to do.”

“Are you thinking of staying?”

“If I stay I can’t fly. All my life, God and flying have been the biggest things. There were no boys or men to complicate matters. Now I meet an Amish farmer who looks like a dream and suddenly everything is in a mess.”

“A mess?” Ruth stopped brushing her hair. “Has he asked you to stay?”

“Oh, from the first day he wanted me to stay and I thought,
You’re cute but I’m not becoming Amish just to stick around you
. But now…”

“Have you told your mother and father about this?”

“No. Mom watches me with the guys like a hawk anyway. If she thought I was getting serious about Moses she’d lock me up.”

“Lyyndy won’t be that bad.”

“Would you like to place a wager, Auntie Ruth? On whether or not she’ll impose further restrictions on my movements and who I spend time with?”

“I don’t place wagers.”

“I could do what I want, you know. I’m a woman of nineteen, not some skinny fourteen-year-old.”

Ruth began brushing her hair again. “What became of the other knight?”

“What?” Becky turned her head to look at her aunt. “You mean Joshua?”

“Mm-hm.”

Becky stared back at the ceiling. “He lost interest right from the day I argued with him about the importance of having missionaries. And he’s uncomfortable with my flying. He doesn’t know what to do with me. Any more than his father, Pastor Miller, does. So now he hangs around Rachel King a lot.”

“You’re okay with that?”

“Do you think I need three or four young men on a string to make me feel good about myself? I’m more than happy getting to know Moses. If I only knew how to stop feeling like a washing machine.”

“And what does that feel like?”

“Well, like being the butter in a butter churn. But I’ll be lucky if I come out looking like anything as good as butter.”

“Eventually you’ll settle down inside.”

“When?”

“A year or two.”

Ruth grinned. “Come. I said I’d brush your hair out for you and
it’s getting late. I want to go to bed. So get into your nightgown and sit beside me here.”

Becky reluctantly got up, washed her face and hands at the washstand and toweled them dry, changed into her nightgown, and sat down by Ruth. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep.”

“I noticed you didn’t eat much supper either. I’m surprised my sister didn’t pick up on it.” Ruth began to run her brush through Becky’s blond hair.

Becky rolled her eyes. “The only reason Mom never saw how little I had on my plate was because she was too busy darting back and forth from the oven to the table. Her and her angel-food cakes.”

“It’s not as if no one sees what’s going on. It’s quite obvious the bishop’s grandson is attracted to you. But the community knows nothing can come of it unless you’re baptized into the faith.”

“I think,
This is so foolish. I can’t give up flying
. Then Moses looks at me with his green eyes, those deep-water eyes, and says something like, ‘You are this special person. It’s like watching the sun come up over the fields and I’m all alone and the air is so good.’ What am I supposed to do with that? God throws this curveball at me—this handsome Amish farmer who is some kind of love poet too.”

“What is a ‘curveball’?”

“In baseball. A difficult pitch to hit with the bat.”

“Hm. But you don’t love him, do you?” Ruth stroked Becky’s hair with her hand. “You’ve let it grow almost to your shoulders. I’m surprised. Usually you keep it short.”

Becky mumbled. “Well. He says my hair is like—” She stopped. “Never mind what he says.”

“The Bible says a woman’s crowning glory is her hair.”

“Moses says that too.”

“The only man who may see it among the Amish is the husband.”

“Yes. So he told me.”

“And does he want to be the husband?”

“Just so he can see my hair?” Becky began to squirm. “Are you done yet?”

“With the longest hair I’ve ever seen on Rebecca Whetstone? Oh, no.”

“Ouch!”

“You see? A snarl.” Ruth slowed her brushing down. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“What question?”

“Do you love him?”

“How should I know? I told you. Everything is mixed up in my head.” She groaned. “It’s easier to fly upside down and do the kind of stunts where one mistake turns you into strawberry jam.”

“Ugh. Please don’t talk like that, Becky.”

“Saying it doesn’t make it happen, Auntie Ruth.”

“Still. I don’t want the image in my mind.” She set down the brush. “There. That will do. It’ll gleam like gold in the morning when Moses sees it.”

“What makes you think he’s going to see it tomorrow morning?”

“I thought you knew. He will be here at five to help your father repair the fences. The dairy herd escaped yesterday. And some of the horses got into the hayfield and almost ate themselves to death before a neighbor spotted them. Luke and Daniel and Harley are helping too.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“It was just decided after supper. When you came up here to lie down.”

“You thought I knew? How would I know?”

“Shh. Now I suppose you’re going to have an even harder time falling asleep.” She hugged Becky with one arm. “I’m going to pray for you. None of Grandma’s homemade medicines will work on what ails you, my dear.”

Ruth prayed in German for several minutes. Becky didn’t understand any of it but by the time her aunt said
amen
she was calmer inside even if she still didn’t feel like going to bed. Once she was sure by Ruth’s breathing that she was asleep she peeled back the sheets and got to her feet. Moving quietly and quickly she left the room and went down the staircase and out the front door of the dark and silent farmhouse. The moon was half full, and she stood by one of the fields looking at the silver lighting up the heads of the tall hay.

So I will pray in English—if you don’t mind. I’ve always felt you wanted me to fly and be a missionary pilot. Are you having second thoughts? Do you
have a new plan? Is Moses part of it? I really can’t think straight—half of me doesn’t object to becoming Amish if he is the man I lie with every night and get up and face the day with every morning. It would be nice to have a sign from you, Lord. I would be grateful if you showed me something, anything, just so long as I understand what you’re showing me when I see it. Thank you. I love you. Amen…and good night
.

She made her way back to her bed and for the next several hours slept off and on, until four when she joined her mother for the milking. She heard her uncles—Luke, Daniel, and Harley—arrive in their wagons and saw Moses pull up in a buggy as she glanced through the open barn door. He looked around after greeting her father and her uncles and she felt like he expected to see her. Her mother noticed that Becky had her head up and was staring out at the farmyard.

“Finish your work. You’ll see him at breakfast.”

Becky leaned her head into the cow’s side. “At breakfast? With all the noise and talk there will be at the table today I’ll be lucky if he even hears me say hello.”

Lyyndaya smiled as she worked the teats of her cow. “No matter. Your father thinks they will be at it tomorrow too. Just him and Moses. Would that sort of breakfast table suit you better?”

Becky stopped milking. “Just Dad and Moses tomorrow? Why?”

“He only needs one other pair of hands Thursday.”

“And he chose Moses?”

“Yes.”

“Out of the goodness of his heart?”

Lyyndaya picked up her bucket and milking stool and lantern and moved to another cow. “No doubt he was thinking of you.”

“Me?” Becky started working on her cow again. “Ha. That probably means he wants to grill him. Am I right?”

“This isn’t some sort of gangster movie.”

“He will though. I know Dad. ‘What makes Moses Yoder tick?’ That’s what’s on his mind. Not me.”

“Both of you are on his mind. Believe me.” Lyyndaya glanced at her daughter. “Moses’ mother, Emma, once vied with me for your father’s affection.”

Becky stopped milking again. “What?”

“Keep working. Ruth and Grandmother will have breakfast ready at six-thirty, after the men have put in an hour’s work on the fences.”

Lyyndaya watched to be sure Becky returned to milking her cow. “I tell you this because it would be just like Lydia Yoder to speak with you about it, thinking she’s doing us all a good turn. So I was young and Emma was young, a great beauty, and we both fell in love with Jude. You know the story about him going overseas. Even then he wasn’t sure which of us he should marry…if he returned alive. He was shunned because he went to war and we couldn’t write him and he couldn’t write us. Emma and I were good friends, despite being rivals for Jude, and we prayed for him and wrote him letters anyway, letters he never saw.”

Lyyndaya got up and emptied her bucket into a milk can. Then she took her stool to another stall. Becky poured her milk into the container and moved to a different stall as well, carrying her lantern with her. She waited for her mother to finish the story, listening to the sounds of the dairy herd and the small creaks and groans of the barn. Finally Lyyndaya picked up where she had left off.

“You’ve heard the story about how your father enlisted to spare the other young men here persecution during the war and also to ensure the safety of the Amish community in Paradise. At the time, however, we didn’t know why Jude had done what he had done, why he had joined the army and gone to France as a fighter pilot. Many felt it was because flying was such an obsession to him he couldn’t resist the temptation. As time went by, Emma simply stopped believing in him and didn’t want him as a husband even if he did return and repent. So she took up with another man in the community who she felt was more righteous and more Amish. She was, after all, Bishop Zook’s daughter. Who can blame her? No one understood what Jude was doing or why.”

“But you didn’t stop believing in him, did you?”

Becky had stopped milking. Lyyndaya was going to tell her to keep going but then she stopped milking too and looked at nothing, her eyes light and dark in the glimmer of the lantern.

“I loved your father. And he told me when we met again that he realized long before he returned that it was me he loved, not Emma. He had one last letter I had written before the shunning and he read it over
and over again before he took to the air every morning. The skies were dangerous in 1918 and my words in the letter and God’s words in the Bible gave him hope and strength. Yes, I believed in him. I knew he must be doing something holy and good that none of us could comprehend but that one day God would bring it to light. And so he did. Your father was a hero and he saved lives here in Paradise as well as in France. He even saved his enemies’ lives.” She looked over at Becky and half smiled. “Who knows? Perhaps you will do something like that too. Save lives. Oh, what am I saying? You’ve already done that by having airlifted patients, brought in medical supplies—”