An Uncommon Grace (29 page)

Elizabeth nodded. “Bill has quite a collection of foreign money.”

“I’ll take him some next time I go.”

“Oh, he would love that.” Elizabeth took a bite of turkey ham. “Is this low-fat, Becky?”

“It is. The doctor said this was what you needed to be eating.”

“I don’t think God ever intended for turkey to pretend to be ham.” Elizabeth took a close look at the turkey. “But never mind.”

“I think it tastes okay,” Grace said. “No worse than what we got back at camp. Oh, by the way”—she glanced at Becky—“the preacher asked me how your prison ministry was going. I didn’t
know what to tell him.” She cut a tomato slice in half. “Who have you been writing to?”

Becky’s fork paused in midair. “Nobody lately.”

“What do you mean?”

“With Grandma sick and trying to keep up in school, I didn’t have a lot of time.” She shrugged. “Besides, I didn’t like doing it much. Snail mail is a pain. A few of the older people at church really put a lot of time and thought into it, though.”

Grace couldn’t help but smile. The answer was exactly the kind most seventeen-year-olds would give. Stationery, pens, and stamps were things of the past. If it were something that couldn’t be texted or tweeted, then forget it.

They finished their lunch, and Becky offered to do dishes while Grace went upstairs to change. As she passed a window on her way to her bedroom, she heard the back door slam and saw her sister carrying the remains of their lunch outside. Becky had been feeding a small stray dog she found hiding in the woods lately. The poor thing had been so abused, Becky said, that it was too afraid to come close to the house. She had taken to carrying any leftovers they had out to the edge of the woods for it to eat.

Grace watched her sister disappear behind the cluster of outbuildings that had once been part of the working farm this place had functioned as before her grandmother purchased it. There was a corncrib and various storage buildings crammed with old farm implements, an old outhouse and smokehouse, a tumbledown barn that was starting to lean. In her estimation, those old buildings really should be removed someday soon. She was already dreading mowing around them.

A few moments later, Becky came upstairs and leaned against her door frame. “Do you mind if I go to evening services tonight?”

“Sure,” Grace answered. “I’ll be happy to stay home with Grandma.”

“I’ll probably stay after to help put spiral binding on the cookbooks the ladies have been putting together. Those cookbooks are going to be really nice.”

Becky and Elizabeth had mentioned the cookbooks several times in the past, but Grace didn’t remember hearing about their purpose. “How is the church planning on using the money they get from the sales?”

Becky’s eyes lit up. “Some of the men are going to Honduras to build one-room houses for people who are so poor they are living in little tentlike things they make with sheets and sticks. I saw pictures. It was so pitiful. We hope to make enough to pay for at least some of the materials. We have enough preorders to build two so far!”

“Put me down for a cookbook, then. In fact, make it two. I’ll give one to Claire.”

“Sure thing.”

After Becky left, Grace finished changing clothes. Her little sister had turned into such a sweetheart. She had never known a seventeen-year-old who was more thoughtful of other people.

She was intensely relieved that Becky had lost interest in her “prison ministry.” A girl who was so tenderhearted that she fussed over stray animals and tried to raise funds for homeless people in Honduras had absolutely no business getting involved—even if it was only snail mail letters—with hardened criminals.

L
evi entered the outdoor cellar that an ancestor of his stepfather’s had carved into the small rise behind the house. It smelled of damp earth, apples, and bins of potatoes. It was a pleasant scent. One of his favorite chores as a child had been to carry his mother’s quarts of produce down here and place them neatly on the shelves.

He lit the overhead lamp and sniffed the air for the scent of cucumbers—the telltale smell that warned of the presence of copperheads who sometimes mistook the cellar for a nice, quiet den. But the only scent within that hillock was of earth.

Tomorrow he would take the buggy into town and purchase food for himself, food that would be separate from the rest of the household’s. But for now he was just hungry, and his sweat and toil had gone into the growing of this food. He had no problem with helping himself to it, and he knew his mother would have no problem with it.

It was going to be very lonely for a while, but as long as he had access to the land and his workshop and his horses and his farm equipment, he would survive.

Not for a moment did he consider finding a job in one of the factories that employed so many of the Old and New Order Amish. He was a Swartzentruber and Swartzentrubers farmed—if
they were blessed enough to have land to farm. If he could hang on long enough, perhaps Zillah would have a change of heart, tell the truth, and the bishop would allow him back into the church.

His eyes caught on a jar of home-canned tomato juice and he felt a sudden craving for it. With no supper beneath his belt, he was ravenous. He screwed off the lid and drank deep of the sun-ripened richness.

Albert, Jesse, and he had all worked together, putting the tomato plants into the ground, watering them, and then mounding the dirt up around the tiny roots. Even little Sarah had been given a job. She had toddled around with a little tin cup happily pouring water into the holes that her brothers dug. They had made a small fuss over what a good job she was doing, and she had been proud of herself for being a productive part of the family.

She had stood there in her tiny dress and work apron, barefoot, her little toes digging into the ground, frowning as she concentrated on pouring just the right amount of water for her brothers. The picture was as clear and crisp in his mind as a snapshot from a tourist’s camera.

But the tourist’s camera could never show the years of tradition and family togetherness that this portrayed. The Amish worked. It was part of their identity. And they worked together. With help from one another, they raised giant, sturdy barns, houses large enough to hold as many as seventeen children under one roof, houses that were large enough that once or twice a year the partitions could be removed and a congregation of two hundred people could be fitted into rooms that had been designed with that very purpose in mind.

As someone now shunned, he would not be allowed to participate in the barn raising that would be taking place next
Saturday at John Yoder’s farm. He would not be allowed the joyful camaraderie among the men as they pooled their strength and knowledge together to create the sturdy structure that would make it possible for the young couple to make a living with the small dairy herd that John planned to accumulate.

As someone who had been banned, he would not be allowed to attend the wedding next Thursday morning of his good friend Gabriel. It was going to be a happy event. Gabriel and his wife-to-be, Amanda, had been courting longer than most because she had been helping care for an ill mother who had recently passed on. Amanda had fulfilled her responsibilities well and was respected by the entire community because of her faithfulness. Gabriel was respected for his restraint as he had waited for his wife-to-be to fulfill her obligation as a dutiful daughter.

Gabriel and Levi had talked about the upcoming wedding on their last fishing trip together.

Until the ban was lifted—assuming it ever was—there would be no more fishing trips. There would be no more easy conversation between him and his childhood friends. He could not play the tricks on the young couple that were customary in their group.

He would not be allowed to join in the men’s singing while the women washed dishes after the wedding dinner and began preparations for supper. He would not be allowed to stand around with the other men dressed in their Sunday clothes, discussing everything from the weather to the price of milk to the latest calf born on someone’s farm.

He finished the quart of tomato juice, carefully closed the cellar door behind him, mounted the stone steps, and went to the well, where he drew a bucket of water, rinsed out the Mason jar, and sat it on his mother’s back porch.

She would have need of it soon enough when she began her canning again.

He went back up to his room, sat down on his bed, and looked at the empty bookshelves. He had burned his books for nothing. In the end he had been banned anyway. He now wondered what to do with the long evening that stretched before him.

Normally, he would spend Sunday evening in the front room of the house, playing some silly game with his little brothers and sister, entertaining them while his mother cleaned up the kitchen from the evening meal. He might work on a basket once the children became occupied with a game of their own, and in the past, he would discuss the next day’s work with his stepfather.

But not tonight. Or the following nights. So many long evenings stretched out before him. He couldn’t even go visit a friend. He did not have any friends who were not part of his church. After today, he would not be welcome in any of their homes—even those homes that he had sweated and strained to help build.

Tonight he had no heart for weaving or any other kind of work. He sat at his table, as the room grew darker, and he wondered how he would live the rest of his life.

“G
ood report today, Grandma.” Grace looked both ways, waiting for the traffic to clear before pulling out of the parking lot after Elizabeth’s doctor visit. “I’m really happy with how well you’re doing.”

“Me, too,” Elizabeth said. “But do we have to go home immediately?”

“Where do you want to go? For more ice cream?”

“That would be lovely, but while we’re in Millersburg I was wondering if we could go to the Antique Emporium. It’s just a couple of doors down from the Millersburg Hotel and I just love that store. Could we go in and browse a bit?”

“You aren’t on the prowl for more butter dishes, are you?”

“I probably won’t buy a thing. I just enjoy going in there and seeing all the pretty things. The woman who owns the place has quite a knack for displaying the merchandise.”

Grace had no particular desire to go look at antiques, especially since she sometimes felt as if she were already living in an antiques store. In her opinion, all Elizabeth would have to do is slap some price stickers on things and people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between her house and a hundred other old homes that had been turned into stores.

But if going to the Antique Emporium would help
Grandma feel she was getting her life back, Grace was all for it.

“Sometimes, if you’re lucky,” Grandma said, “you can get a parking spot right in front of the store. Oh, and afterward, could we go to Mrs. Yoder’s restaurant for the buffet? I’ve been daydreaming about her custard pie.”

“When we get back to Mt. Hope, if you’re still feeling strong enough, I’d be delighted to take you to Mrs. Yoder’s.”

Grace was indeed lucky. There was a parking place right in front of the store. As she ushered Elizabeth into the Antique Emporium, she was surprised at how much larger it was inside than how it appeared out front. One room opened into the next and the next. A pleasant mix of new things and old were artfully displayed. Along one wall, beside ancient kitchen utensils, was a display of unique small purses, locally made. In another corner stood a giant wheel upon which someone was apparently engaged in weaving a round rag rug. A staircase ran up the side of the store, with a sign inviting guests to the second story. Across from the staircase was a room that appeared to be entirely given over to used books.

“This is nice!” Grace said.

Elizabeth grinned, pleased at her appreciation of the place. “I told you so.”

The woman behind the counter was engaged in a cheerful conversation with a customer over an old scrub board.

“We’re closing in a half hour, but go ahead and look all you want,” the woman said when she saw them. “Upstairs is also filled with some lovely items.” She went back to her discussion with the customer.

Grace got engrossed in the handmade cloth purses. She disliked carrying large purses and these had been cunningly made to fit onto a belt and yet look stylish. She checked the tag. Not a bad price, and made by someone right here in
Holmes County. She gave the Antique Emporium points for selling locally made items.

She thought one of those purses might make a nice present for Becky’s upcoming birthday but wanted Elizabeth’s opinion before making her decision. She found out that her grandmother had taken root in front of a display of antique toys.

“What did you find?” she asked. “Something you used to play with when you were a kid?”

“No.” Elizabeth’s voice sounded strange. “I’ve found something that belongs to me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Elizabeth carefully lifted a toy from the shelf in front of her. “This mechanized monkey. Your grandfather bought it for me over forty years ago. I never sold it and I never gave it away.”

“How can you tell for sure that it’s yours?”

“See this mark?” Her grandmother turned it over. “That’s where your father bit into it when he was a toddler.” She flipped a little switch and the monkey began to clang the two cymbals together and pull back its lips in a grimace.

“Kind of scary, isn’t it?” Elizabeth said. “Your dad was a fearless little guy. I could never decide if he had tried to use the monkey as a teething toy or was simply attacking it. I put it up high where he couldn’t reach it after that.”

Grace noticed a price tag dangling from the monkey’s wrist. “Two hundred dollars?”

“It’s worth more,” Elizabeth said. “Because the box is with it. With the box it’s worth closer to three hundred.” She set the monkey down. “How could this toy have gotten here?”