Wonderful Lonesome (12 page)

“Nonsense. I will mention to my
daed
that Eber might benefit from some male company.” She turned into the lane that would take them to the Gingerich home. To her surprise, Eber was sitting in a chair in the yard.

When Abbie stopped the buggy, Ruthanna got down as gracefully as possible in her condition.

“Eber! You’re outside!” Ruthanna closed the yards between them and put a hand on her husband’s head.

“Jake carried the chair outside,” Eber said, “on condition that I agree not to lift a hand with the work.”

Abbie followed Ruthanna’s eyes as she smiled at the Mennonite minister.

Jake picked up a rag and wiped it across his forehead. “I thought I would make some repairs to the henhouse. Hail damage, I think.”

“I’m sure the hens will be grateful,” Ruthanna said.

“Maybe they’ve gotten used to seeing the stars at night.”

Ruthanna laughed. Still in the buggy, Abbie clamped her jaw closed. This was not the time to impress on Ruthanna that Jake Heatwole’s motives might include recruiting the Gingeriches.

“I should go.” Abbie rearranged her grip on the reins. “As soon as I hear that Noah Chupp has officially accepted, I’ll let you know.”

Willem looked up when the shadow across the barn door interfered with the light he was depending on. “Noah! Good afternoon.”

Noah stood in the doorway without stepping into the barn. “Do you have a few minutes, Willem?”

“Certainly.” Willem laid down the short stool leg he was carving to replace one that had cracked on his milking stool. “Shall we go in the house? It’s humble, but it’s out of the sun.”

Noah nodded, and Willem led the way. Inside, Willem turned two narrow wooden chairs toward each other. He saw the perspiration seeping through Noah’s beard.

“Let me get you a glass of water.”

Noah put up one hand as he sat down. “There is no need. I’m on my way into town to deliver some boots and will not take up much of your time.”

Willem scratched the back of his head and occupied the other chair. The space between them would have accommodated one pair of stretched out limbs, but Willem took his cue from Noah and sat straight and upright.

Noah cleared his throat. “I told the committee I would let you know when I made a decision.”

Willem held his face in solemn stillness, already suspecting that Eli Yoder was going to be unhappy with what Noah was preparing to say.

“Yes,” Willem said, “we are anxious to hear what sign the Lord has given you.”

“I came here because I believe you are the most sensible man on the committee who visited me four days ago.”

Willem waited.

“I must decline the gracious invitation to serve as the settlement’s first minister.”

Willem sighed. He could not think of one settler who would not be disappointed to hear this decision.

“People will have many questions,” Noah said.

“Yes, I suppose so.” Willem waited as Noah shuffled his feet and rubbed his hands down his legs.

“We each must serve out of our conscience,” Noah said. “My conscience will not allow me to accept such a grave responsibility while my spirit is home to the least bit of doubt.”

“Doubt?” Willem had never known Noah Chupp to be filled with anything but devout faith. “Are you doubting our Lord?”

Noah shook his head. “Our Lord is faithful, and my faith in Him is firm.”

“Then what troubles your spirit, Noah?”

“Our settlement is as fragile as an old stalk of wheat.”

Willem leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Yes, we are precarious. I would have to agree. But we all feel that a formal church with a minister will only be to our good. When we hear the Word preached and sing our hymns together, our bonds will surely strengthen.”

Noah tilted his head. “I realize that is the prevailing sentiment.”

“Is it not more than sentiment? Is it not faith?”

“Therein lies my doubt,” Noah said. “We are few in number as it is. No one else is coming. We need members. We need crops to feed our families and take to market. Frankly, I believe we will lose families rather than gain them.”

Willem also suspected this to be true, so he offered no dispute.

Noah licked his lips and glanced around the house before meeting Willem’s eyes again. “My family will be the first to leave, Willem.”

Willem sat up and scraped his chair back a few inches. “Have you already decided? I thought your livelihood was going well because you took in work from the
English
.”

“It is. But I need a church as much as anyone. My seven children need a church. In a few years my eldest daughter will be looking for a husband. Am I supposed to marry her off to Widower Samuels? Or that bundle of nerves Rudy Stutzman?”

Willem had no response.

“I am on my way to Limon to mail the documents to finalize the purchase of land in Nebraska. I am already talking to an
English
interested in my land here. He won’t pay what I paid per acre, but I will go away with something to start again.”

“I see. You’ve given this a great deal of thought.”

Noah rubbed a knuckle against the side of his nose. “I may as well tell you the whole truth.”

“There’s more?”

“I am leaving the Amish.”

“Leaving? Altogether?”

Noah nodded. “I believe the Mennonites are fine people, and not so different from us. Even the Baptists are true people of God, and many of them live as plainly as we do. I am sure we will find a spiritual home.”

Willem felt his jaw drop open. He never suspected Noah Chupp would consider anyone beyond the Amish to be true people of God. He cleared his throat.

Noah stood. “I thank you for not trying to talk me out of a decision I have wrestled with in prayer for long hours.”

Willem stood as well. “I know you can’t have come to this easily. What would you like me to do for you, Noah?”

“Speak to Eli Yoder, please.”

Willem’s heart thudded. “Perhaps we can go together to speak to him.”

Noah waved off the idea. “I realize he will come directly to my shop as soon as he hears, and I will have to talk to him. But I trust your sensibilities to break this news to him first.”

Abbie clenched her fists and glared at Willem.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “Noah Chupp’s decision is not my doing.”

She kicked a rock down the rutted lane of her family’s land. Willem had waited until they were beyond earshot of the rest of the Weavers to tell her the news. She huffed out the air pent up in her chest.

“I’m sorry. It just would have meant so much to the community for him to become our minister.” In an established district, church members would have chosen their minister by lot from among the men. Declining would have been far more difficult. Sadness crept through Abbie that time-tested traditions of their own faith had failed to answer this need.

“I know how much you wanted Noah to accept,” Willem said.

“To discern that it was not God’s will is one thing. But to move away and join the Mennonites? Or the Baptists?”

“He remains a man of deep faith, Abigail.” Willem reached for her hand and pulled her to his side. “
Gottes wille
. If Noah is not to be our minister, God still has a plan. We will be all right.”

“Why won’t any bishops come to us, Willem? That’s what I want to know.” She searched his face for any sign that he knew the answer to her question. “We don’t live in the wilderness. Colorado Springs is not so far, or Denver. Limon has twenty-four trains a day! Traveling to us is not a great difficulty.”

She could see he had no response, but the rampage in her heart was too full blown to stop. “We
need
to worship in our traditional ways. We need to go to church. We need to hear the Word preached. Our settlement could bear everything else that is happening to us if we just had our spiritual life together.”

Willem nodded and lifted both her hands, turning her to face him. “Jake Heatwole is a minister. He knows all our hymns. He speaks our language. We could have church.”

A
Mennonite
church service. The thought of it almost caused physical pain in Abbie’s chest. She wondered if Willem knew her as well as she thought he did.

Abbie stitched feverishly that night on the tree of life quilt, full of defiance of what Willem implied. His words would not be enough to diminish her faith.

Abbie swiped a rag cut from a flour sack across the wide-planked table one last time. Rudy Stutzman lived simply. Cleaning his house never took long. He was not particularly organized, but he was more inclined than most men to push a broom across the floor occasionally or brush bread crumbs into his hand and shake them outside for the birds. Abbie had not seen Rudy that morning. She supposed he was in the fields, though it was possible he had decided to go into Limon. His horses were not in the pasture where Rudy usually left them during the day.

She gathered her pail of cleaning supplies and stood on his narrow front step for a moment, her mind flashing to the day she had found him inquiring about train tickets. That was weeks ago. Surely he was not still thinking of leaving, not after the joy she saw on his face when the calf was born. Abbie heard chickens clacking in the yard and saw Rudy’s cows nuzzling the ground for something to chew. When Rudy acquired more than one cow, many had thought it was an odd choice for a bachelor. How much milk and cheese would he need? Abbie had smiled to herself at the time. Eight cows were Rudy’s investment in a future. Before long he was selling milk, butter, and cheese to
English
neighbors, claiming that the distance he had to drive to do so was well worth the income. Sometimes they paid him in meat or beans, which was almost as good as cash.

With her pail beside her on the floor of the Weaver buggy—in the heat of midsummer, she preferred the shade of the buggy to the open-air cart—Abbie picked up the reins. She was on her way next to Mary Miller’s farm, having promised to sit with Little Abe for a few hours while Mary went to work on a quilt with Mrs. Nissley. Abe was past the age of sitting quietly to play on the floor while his mother concentrated on something besides him, and Abbie loved to be with him. With a glance at the sky to judge the time, Abbie opted for a detour that would take her well out of her way. Once she had made up her mind, she shut off any thoughts of reasons not to.

Forty minutes later, Abbie pulled up to the Chupp property, swinging wide away from the cobbler’s workshop and instead aiming for the house. Sarah Chupp was in the yard hanging the sparse laundry she had indulged in washing. In a household with seven children, a certain amount of water had to be allotted to washing. At Sarah’s feet, her youngest child pushed a fist-sized rock around in the dirt. What would Little Abe Miller do without his favorite playmate?

With a dark brown dress slung over her shoulder, Sarah turned toward Abbie. Taking in a deep breath, Abbie stepped down from the buggy’s bench in no particular hurry.

“Hello, Abbie.” Sarah took a clothespin from a basket and used it to hang a towel. “I suppose you’ve heard the news.”

Abbie nodded. “I’m sorry that I didn’t notice you were unhappy before it came to this.”

“It hasn’t come to anything. We made a decision, that’s all.” Sarah pinned up a tiny white shirt.