Accidentally Amish (25 page)

When Jakob pushed open the door to their two small rooms, he found Barbara chopping onions and potatoes on one end of the table, and Christian scowling and scrubbing at ink stains at the other end. Anna sat on an upturned barrel near a window, staring out. Jakob supposed it did not much matter what was beyond the pane. These days she just stared for long stretches.

“I copied over the list,
Daed
,” Christian said. “The old one was getting too hard to read. But the ink is nearly gone.”

“You’re an organized young man.” Jakob reached into his pocket for the powder and dropped it on the table. Christian would know what to do with it. Lisbetli was stuck to him again, but he carried the hope that she would recover her childhood in the kindnesses of people like Elizabeth Kallen.

“I have three columns,” Christian continued. “One column tells us the supplies we already have, like axes and hammers and pots. The second column is a list of things we absolutely need before we go. I put the bellows there. We can’t go without those.”

“When I get my wages next week, we’ll go see the blacksmith,” Jakob said.

“And the third column are things we can get when we can afford them.”

Jakob leaned over the table and glanced at his son’s lists, surprisingly neat and straight. The boy took the planning tasks so seriously that Jakob sometimes had to remind himself he was only nine.

A knock made all their heads turn. Christian hopped off his stool and opened the door. Hans Zimmerman stepped inside. The two men exchanged a greeting by lifting their chins toward each other.

“We’re almost ready.” Hans straightened his hat. “We’ll be leaving in a few days.”

Christian’s eyes moved to his father and widened. Jakob nodded. His son was full of questions, but he knew better than to enter the conversation uninvited.

“There might yet be a blizzard.” Jakob laid a hand on the top of Lisbetli’s head.

“As the Lord wills,” Hans replied, “but the Siebers have offered us shelter for the last of the winter. When the weather allows, we will begin clearing. We might still get a late spring garden in.”

“I don’t suppose we’ll be far behind you. By Christian’s reckoning, we will soon be outfitted ourselves.”

“Would you like some coffee, Mr. Zimmerman?” Barbara asked. “It’s fresh.”

Zimmerman nodded. Jakob offered the best chair in the room to his friend and sat on a crate with Lisbetli in his lap.

“Christian, what news do you have?” Zimmerman asked as Barbara handed him coffee.

This was all the invitation Christian needed. He pulled his stack of papers out of his lap and reviewed the Byler progress in collecting homesteading supplies. Their wagon was stored with the man who kept their horse, and as they acquired items, Christian and Jakob secured them in the wagon. Christian had drawn his own scaled sketch of the farms emerging along Irish Creek: The Stehleys had arrived a few weeks ago and immediately claimed land west of the Bylers. Hans Sieber was to the south, and Hans Zimmerman to the west, beyond the black oak. Kauffmanns, Buerkis, Masts, and other familiar names had sprouted on Christian’s map.

Jakob listened absently as Christian prattled on and Barbara cooked. The Amish community already on their farms would make sure each family had shelter as they arrived. Barns would go up quickly, followed by cabins. Although winter weather was still possible, more likely conditions would shift radically any day now. He should be excited to go—as excited as Christian. Jakob did look forward to being near Verona, but it would not be the same as being
with
her.

Love again, my love.

He was nearly fifty years old and moving to the wilderness with five children and a few other families.
Where would I find another wife?
he asked himself.

Jakob struck a deal with the blacksmith for hoes and tongs and an anvil. From the dry goods store, he bought yards of ticking and hired a seamstress to sew it into mattress covers. Verona would have wanted to do it herself, but it was too much to ask of Barbara and Anna. They labored enough by candlelight over their own clothing, simple dark dresses and practical aprons. He consulted his daughters about supplies for the kitchen and slowly but surely put checkmarks next to each item on Christian’s list of essentials. Working less at the tannery, Jakob put his energy into filling the wagon and finding a second horse to help pull it over rugged terrain.

And he did much of this with his youngest daughter’s arms around his thick neck. She seemed most soothed when he walked, so Jakob began to stroll in the late afternoons in weather that crept more certainly toward spring each day. Lisbetli would find enough solace to eat a good meal before falling onto her pallet exhausted. Unconsciously, his route settled into one that took him past the stationer’s, and he found his steps slowing on that block.

One afternoon he heard the laughter again.

Lisbetli lifted her head. Before Jakob realized what she intended, the little girl wriggled out of his arms and slid down his legs to the ground.

She ran to Elizabeth Kallen, who squatted and opened her arms to receive the tiny, hurtling form.

Jakob followed his daughter.

Elizabeth smoothed loose hair and stood up with Lisbetli. “I was hoping you would come by.”

Jakob’s heart sped up. She wanted to see him?

“I have a map for your son,” she said.

A map. For Christian. “How thoughtful of you.”

“I understand it’s very similar to one that William Penn used,” Elizabeth explained. “I thought it might be of particular interest.”

Jakob nodded. “I’m sure Christian will find it invaluable.”

“I hope you will accept it as my gift.” She held out the map.

Jakob’s fingers closed around the map, brushing hers. “I should not infringe on your profit.”

She shook her head. “It is torn on one end. We would not be able to sell it, so I thought your son might as well have it.”

Lisbetli laid a hand on Elizabeth’s face, and Elizabeth instinctively turned toward it and kissed the little palm.

Jakob’s heart cracked open.

Jakob smoothed the quilt, one of Verona’s last, at the front of the wagon right behind the driver’s bench. He patted the pile. “Hop in, girls.” Christian would ride at his side, and the girls would have their comfortable corner, where Lisbetli and Maria could enjoy a small space to wiggle. Tied to the back of the wagon, a cow nosed around in vain for a patch of grass. With the children in the wagon, Jakob took one last look around the two rooms, making sure they left nothing behind that belonged to them and took nothing that belonged to the Quaker owners. Traveling with a loaded wagon and leading a cow would require several days to reach Irish Creek. Gear to make camp each night hung from the rim of the wagon.

Jakob heaved himself onto the driver’s bench and took the reins from Christian. “Ready to see Irish Creek?”

Christian nodded, his eyes wide in anticipation.

A slender form appeared at the side of the road, and Jakob blinked twice before he believed his eyes. “Miss Kallen! What are you doing here?”

“I suspected you were leaving today. I have something for Lisbetli.” She held out a small, soft doll with a carefully cross-stitched face.

“You are too kind.”

“May I give it to her?”

“Of course.”

Elizabeth approached and leaned over the side of the wagon. Lisbetli popped her thumb out of her mouth and wiggled her fingers in a wave. When Elizabeth placed the doll in her hands, Lisbetli giggled shyly and held it tightly.

“Thank you, Miss Kallen.”

“You’re most welcome, Mr. Byler.”

Maria leaned over and inspected the doll. “But it has a face,
Daed
! Our dolls don’t have faces. It’s a graven image.”

“I hope I have not caused offense.” Elizabeth laid one hand over her heart.

“Of course not.” Jakob dared not offend her, either. “It is not our usual way for a doll to have a face, but Lisbetli loves it already.”

Elizabeth looked crestfallen. “I have a lot to learn about the Amish ways.”

“Christian,” Jakob said, “why don’t you thank Miss Kallen for the map she found for you?”

“It is a wonderful map.” Christian bobbed his head sincerely. “
Danke.
Thank you very much for thinking of me.”

“It was my pleasure.” She looked from son to father. “May your journey be safe, Mr. Byler. You have my prayers.”

“Thank you, Miss Kallen.”

Elizabeth stepped back, and Jakob nudged the horses forward.

He wanted to go, but she made him want to stay.

O
n Saturday morning, Annie sat cross-legged on her bed with a genealogy book on each side and her laptop straight in front of her. She looked from page to screen to page. Each source revealed twists on the spelling of family names and slightly different lists of descendants, but it all added up the same.

Jakob Beyeler arrived in Philadelphia with an Amish wife and five children.

His wife died.

He married again and had five more children, but no records indicated that this second wife was Amish.

Annie sank back against a stack of pillows. What a wrenching choice Jakob must have made. But somehow his older children remained Amish.

As she traced through the generations in the book Franey and Eli had loaned her, Annie found their names. At the time the book was assembled, they had one child. Rufus. A descendant of Jakob’s first son, Christian Byler.

And she found her own name easily enough in the book her mother unearthed from the basement. A descendant of Jakob’s second son, born to his second wife.

Beyeler. Byler. Beiler. Biler. Even Boiler. No matter how the name was spelled, the dates and random bits of information matched. It was all one family line that traced back to Switzerland in the eighteenth century and a countercultural religious group who simply wanted to live in peace.

Annie put her finger on Rufus’s name and imagined the line completed with the siblings who followed. Daniel. Matthew. Ruth. Joel. Lydia. Sophia. Jacob.

She riffled the leaves of the bound book. Pages and pages of names and birth dates and death dates, each one a story. Most of them were gone from memory, but thick paper between plain brown covers collected the evidence of their existence. The pink-covered, spiral-bound book in which her own name appeared overlapped in the beginning with the record in the brown book. Quickly it diverged into a family line absorbed in mainstream culture and left behind increasingly distant relatives faithful to the Amish life.

Jakob’s choice spawned two sets of descendants who would be hard pressed to find common ground three hundred years later.
Had he chosen for love?
Annie wondered.
Or necessity? How dearly had he paid for his choice?

Annie’s mind wandered to Ruth Beiler. Why had she left her family? What was really going on?

“Only one way to find out,” Annie said aloud. She closed both books and moved them to the nightstand.

In her back pocket, her phone buzzed. Annie saw the caller ID: L
EE
S
OLANO
.

What now?

“Did you get your bid in?” Tom asked Rufus. “The town council just gave the green light for remodeling the visitor’s center.”