Doubting Thomas-Nurse Hal Among The Amish Read online

  “Is that so?”

  “Jah, she is having twins, so she is going to Wickenburg to the dochtah. She wants to have the babies in the hospital.”

  “Gute! That eases my mind to know she'll get the care she needs. Twin births are more worry than a single. Besides, we won't have to worry about taking the birthing bed away from Aunt Tootie this time.” Hal giggled, remembering the last time Tootie slept in that bed. She had to give it up in the middle of the night to Mary Mast when Mary was in labor.

  Emma absentmindedly watched the road out the kitchen window. “Ellen is due in late October so Aendi Tootie would be gone by then anyway.”

  “But... .” Hal sensed there had to be more from the worried look on Emma's face. Emma wasn't listening to her. Hal repeated louder, “But... .”

  Emma turned to face her. “Ach, I told Ellen I would find someone else to teach for the month of September. She would have tried to do it for me, but I did not want her to in her condition. Now it wonders me, who I can get to help me out?”

  “Have faith. Someone will step forward to substitute teach for you. Worse come to worse, I'll volunteer,” Hal said.

  “You be the teacher?”

  “Don't sound so surprised. I could fake it long enough to give you the time off.”

  “I suppose, but you have Redbird and Beth to take care of and your duties here.”

  “Mom and Aunt Tootie can stick around long enough to take care of the girls until September is over,” Hal countered.

  “Maybe, we will see,” Emma said as she stared down the road, wishing she could tell Adam about her worries.

  “Now quit worrying, and tell me if I need to open up another quart of corn.”

  Emma didn't answer. Hal sighed, picked up the second quart jar and emptied it in the pan.

  Nora and Tootie finished the purple, blue and white milky way quilt top and were anxious to get the quilting done before the wedding. At the next worship service, Hal announced she was having a quilting frolic. She told the women her mother and aunt sewed the top for Emma to put in her hope chest and would like to see it finished into a quilt.

  Some women nodded knowingly and winked behind Hal's back. After all, they had seen Adam and Emma together for several years now. It wasn't too hard to figure out a wedding was in their future.

  The women just didn't know when. They knew better than to ask until the couple's announcement was published with the date and invitations at a Sunday worship service.

  This quilt frolic was the big neighborhood event of the month. On a Wednesday afternoon, Amish women drove in and parked their buggies in lines along the Lapp driveway. One of the later arrivals, Joe Kitzmiller stopped to drop Rachel off. The elderly woman slowly made her way to the house.

  Hal and Emma greeted Rachel on the porch. “Wilcom. Come into the living room. The quilting frames are set up. Ready to go.” Hal waved and shouted, “Gute morning, Joe.” Joe waved as he turned his buggy around and left.

  Emma said, “Your husband is in a hurry.”

  Rachel's wrinkled face crinkled as she grinned. “Sure. He is going to the salebarn for the day. It wonders me that this has become a very important job on Wednesdays now. When he comes back by he will stop for me.”

  While the women quilted, laughter and childish chatter told them their older children were having a good time, playing outside. The babies were on one quilt, and toddlers were on another in the corner of the living room where the mothers could watch them.

  Mary Mast darted a glance at Hal, sitting next to her, as she pulled her thread through the layers. “What are your men doing today?”

  “John took my father and the boys to the salebarn for the day. They were going to eat lunch there and make a day out of it.”

  “Es a voonderball gute day to be quilting, ain't so?” Edna Manwiller noted.

  “Yes, nothing but mare's tail clouds in the sky. We can't ask for better weather in summer,” Nora agreed.

  “How is your apple crop this year?” Roseanna Nisely asked Jane Bontrager.

  Jane leaned her head back and studied the light coming through the eye of her needle so she could rethread. “The trees are plenty full of apples, even though we lost a few earlier when that last wind storm went through.”

  Roseanna said, “I asked around, and we will all have enough apples to have an apple frolic when they ripen if everyone wants to come to our house to work the apples up.”

  “Count us in,” Margaret Yoder said, cutting the shortened thread on top the quilt.

  Stella Strutt watched Tootie's stitches as much as she did her own. Finally, she said, “I am glad to see you have improved your stitches. Improved your stitches indeed. You have I see. You have improved very much since the last time we quilted together. The last time we quilted together.”

  Tootie blushed. She remembered all too well sewing Stella's apron to the quilt at Jane Bontrager's quilting frolic. Stella fell on top the quilting frame when she stood up. Tootie had the feeling Stella was rubbing that day in by bringing it back to the memories of the ladies. In fact, the titters and giggles around her assured Tootie the women did remember.

  A glance at Nora's stern face told Tootie she better let by gones be by gones. She smiled sweetly at Stella. “Thank you. I'm glad you approve.” That must have been the right words to say. Hal winked at her.

  Midday, the women stopped for a light lunch and fed the children before they went back to quilting. Later that afternoon, they finished the quilt.

  Nora said, “Thank you so much, everyone. It's so good to see the quilt done. Many hands make light work.”

  The women said jah in union.

  Hal said, “Come to the kitchen. We'll have a glass of ice tea and a piece of Emma's chocolate cake. Emma, call the children in for punch Kool aid and sugar cookies.”

  “Sounds gute,” Roseanna said, stretching her stiff shoulders. “I am ready for a break.”

  Emma said, “I think the children would rather snack on the porch like a picnic.”

  Nora picked up the pitcher and a stack of glasses. She headed for the front porch. “I'll help serve the children.”

  Emma followed with a plate of cookies. Once the children were served, Emma and Nora came back. Emma sat in an empty chair between Roseanna Nisely and Margaret Yoder.

  While Hal went after the cake in the pantry, Tootie got glasses and poured the tea. Hal placed a saucer of cake in front of Rachel Kitzmiller. “Have you heard that Ellen Miller is having twins?”

  “Nah, I did not know. When her time comes is she coming here?”

  “Nah, She told Emma she's going to Wickenburg hospital.”

  “Sounds like a gute idea. I know I am getting too old a midwife for a birthing with twins. Too much worry,” Rachel admitted.

  Hal smiled. “I know how you feel, Rachel. I was relieved when Ellen picked the hospital instead of me.”

  Emma stared at her saucer with a worried expression and pushed a bite of cake around with her fork.

  Margaret whispered, “Emma, is something wrong?”

  “Jah,” Emma whispered back. “I was going to ask Ellen Miller to substitute teach for me for the month of September. I guess Jenny has mentioned why.”

  “Jah.”

  “Well, Ellen is in no shape to help me even though she was willing to give teaching a try. Now I have to find someone else, and I do not know who to ask.”

  Margaret leaned over to Emma's ear. “Ask me. I think it would be fun to teach for a few days.”

  Emma dropped her fork on her plate. “Really?”

  Margaret grinned and shook her head yes.

  Emma felt so much better with one of her problems solved. Now she could enjoy visiting with Roseanna Nisely. “Samuel is probably glad his hay is put up now.”

  Roseanna seemed very puzzled. “Samuel has not made his hay yet. It has been so dry the hay is growing slow. What made you think he made hay?”

  Flustered, Emma said, “Ach, I must have heard wrong. Must be ano
ther farmer that Daed, Dawdi and the boys helped.”

  Why would Daed tell Hal he was going to help Samuel Nisely make hay when he didn't? The men were gone all that day. What had Daed, Dawdi and her brothers done that they didn't want the women to know about?

  After Hal finished serving the cake and sat down, a cool eastern breeze blew through the kitchen window. “That sure feels gute on my hot back.”

  “It does indeed. Does indeed,” Stella Strutt said, wiping her sweaty forehead with her paper napkin.

  Hal took a bite of Emma's rich chocolate cake. As she chewed, she laid her fork on her saucer to brush a ticklish spot on her left arm. She picked up the fork, caught a small movement and thought it was a fly.

  On the fork tines was a tiny brown grasshopper. It jumped and landed in the middle of her chocolate frosting and stuck there like it would on a sticky fly strip.

  As the grasshopper struggled, Hal glanced around her. Thank goodness everyone was too busy eating to notice. Hal eased her fork under the insect and placed it on the side of the saucer and buried it in frosting. She laid the corner of her napkin on top of icing and continued to eat her cake. The grasshopper must have come inside earlier on Emma or her mother's clothes.

  Stella laid her fork down and rubbed the back of her prayer cap. “Felt a tickle on my head. Sweating under my prayer cap, Sweating for sure.”

  Hal peered where Stella rubbed. Two small grasshoppers were mashed to Stella's prayer cap. A batch of the little hoppers was on Stella back, edging slowly up her shoulders, nearing Stella's neckline.

  Hal's arm felt prickly. She looked down. Horrified, she found a brown line of grasshoppers parading over the roll of her long sleeve at the elbow and marching on her bare forearm toward her hand. Panic set in. Where were all these grasshoppers coming from? Hal glanced around the table. Margaret had them on her, too. In a matter of seconds, Stella realized the grasshoppers were on her when they reached her neck.

  Stella, Margaret and Hal squirmed. The grasshoppers leaped and landed on the table, in the sticky saucers and dived into the ice tea. As the women on Hal's side the table gasped in unison, the women on the other side looked up to see what was wrong. Jane, Mary, Nora, Rachel and Tootie stared at the grasshoppers marching across the table toward them. Hal went into action, smashing grasshoppers with her hands. The other women slapped grasshoppers crawling near them.

  Stella exclaimed in a perplexed tone, “This is as bad as the swarms of locust in the bible. In the bible. This time God has sent them to eat not our grain, but Emma's gute chocolate cake. Kill them all now! Kill them all.”

  Tootie took aim with her fist, missed the grasshoppers and accidentally hit the handle of her fork, sending a piece of cake flying through the air. It landed on top of Stella's head and stuck to her prayer cap.

  Stella thought it was a grasshopper landing and slapped her head, smashing the cake and icing through her prayer cap. She brought her hand away and stared at the brown goo. “What a mess. What a sticky mess,” she said irritably.

  Hal bit her bottom lip to keep from grinning as she wondered where the cake came from. Her gaze fell on Tootie. The elderly woman grinned back, pleased with herself. Hal tried to frown, but it was hard to be stern with her aunt. Tootie felt vindicated now that she had gotten back at Stella. Besides, Stella didn't know who flipped the cake on her prayer cap.

  The swarm continued for a few minutes before the amount of live insects finally let up. Jane Bontrager leaned back in her chair and held up her red hand. “I am glad we finished the grasshoppers off. My hand is sore.”

  “Mine, too,” Mary Mast agreed as she got up to go see about her baby and the other children. The loud slapping sounds and excited exclamations had startled the little ones on the pallets in the living room. They were crying. She settled the babies down, and patted the toddlers on the back so they would finish their naps. Soon she came back to the kitchen.

  Everyone else nodded agreement with Mary as they looked at their sore hands. They leaned back to rest and contemplate what had just happened at the end of this fun day. Embarrassed, Hal worried what the women might think of this insect infestation in the Lapp kitchen.

  Margaret Yoder looked across at Mary Mast. Mary smiled and looked at Hal. Hal gave a twitchy smile, and looked dubiously around the table at the others. All of them grinned at each other, then giggled. Finally, they couldn't hold it anymore. They burst into a fit of laughter.

  Jane Bontrager wiped at the tears streaming down her face. “I have said it once or twice, but it bears repeating. I can always count on the unexpected and a gute time when Hal Lapp is around.”

  The way the women laughed, Hal thought they all must agree. She tried to offer an explanation. “I'm sorry this happened. This … this problem was totally unplanned. I can't imagine how so many grasshoppers got in the kitchen.”

  Hal got up and removed the parsley plant from the window sill to the sink. She inspected the open window for holes in the screen. The screen didn't have any bugs plastered to it, and she couldn't see any holes. Not one grasshopper in the window. She picked up the bushy parsley plant to place it on the sill again and gasped. “Fudge! Here's where they came from. More grasshoppers are hatching out of the soil right now.” She raced for the mud room door with the pot and carried it to the back fence.

  When Hal returned, she said, “I'm so sorry. I didn't know the pot was full of grasshopper eggs when I brought it in.”

  “We did not think you did,” Margaret said, her lips twitching.

  “No harm done,” Jane added. “We had most of our cake eaten before the grasshoppers appeared and tracked across the icing.”

  The women were being good sports about the whole thing. Even Stella Strutt was taking her sticky hair in stride. Just the same, Hal feared the favorite topic around most supper tables that night would be the bug infested Lapp kitchen.

  When Rachel's husband, Joe Kitzmiller, drove in, Emma walked with the elderly woman to the buggy. Rachel always needed help to balance when she stepped up. “Denki again for coming to help with the quilt. It is so gute to have it done in one day.”

  “It was a gute day of fellowship. I enjoyed myself,” Rachel said.”

  “Sure, it was a fun day.”

  “I imagine I had more of an exciting day here to tell Joe about than Joe did at the salebarn,” Rachel said, grinning.

  Emma giggled as she helped Rachel into the buggy. Joe gave them a questioning look, wondering what he had missed out on.

  Emma asked, “How was your day at the salebarn, Joe?”

  “Slow sale day, but I can always find someone to visit with to pass the time,” he said, grinning.

  “Including my daed, dawdi and brothers I expect.”

  Joe's sun darken face, woven with wrinkles, scrunched up as he shook his head no. “They were not at the salebarn.”

  Emma couldn't believe him. “Are you sure?”

  “Jah, I am sure.”

  That was bewildering. Emma excused, “I guess I misunderstood where they were going today. You two, come back to visit any time you can.”

  “We will do that, and you come visit us,” Rachel said.

  Joe clapped the lines over his horse. “Get up, Oliver.”

  As Emma trudged back to the house, she tried to make sense of what she'd just found out. What's going on with the men in her family? That was twice today she found out they had lied about where they disappeared to for a day. She didn't want to upset Hallie and Mammi. This was something she wouldn't mention to them. She just wished she knew why Daed lied. It wasn't like him to do such a thing, and why would Dawdi go along with him, knowing Daed lied. Noah and Daniel hadn't said a thing to her about this. How had they managed to keep what they did a secret? So many questions and no answers.

  Chapter 5

  Time passed slowly for Emma on the routine days that came and went. Adam hadn't shown up for days. Emma looked out the window every time she heard the clop of hoof beats, hoping it would be Adam.
/>   She missed him more all the time. So much so her thoughts became more troubling with time. Adam might have changed his mind about marrying her. So consumed was she with missing Adam, her worries were fueled by the worse thoughts possible. Thoughts that made Emma quiet and irritable.

  One morning, Emma snapped at Daniel for slamming the back door. Hal, Nora and Tootie twisted around to stare at her. Daniel face flushed with embarrassment.

  Hal asked,” Emma, what's wrong with you?”

  “Daniel is no longer a small child that has to be told over and over he should come into the house and leave it without wearing out the screen doors.”

  “I agree. Now what is really wrong?” Hal persisted.

  Emma shrugged. “Just worried about all that we need to get done before the middle of September I reckon.” She turned to Daniel. He was shuffling from one bare foot to the other, wishing he could get away. “I am sorry for yelling at you, Daniel. Just try to shut the screen doors easier.”

  “Are you sure you're edgy because of the wedding plans? Everything is going good. Maybe it's that you're missing Adam?” Nora wondered. “After all, he hasn't stopped by since we've been here.”

  “I do miss Adam,” Emma admitted.

  “Adam told you he was going to be very busy for awhile,” Hal said.

  “Jah,but knowing that does not stop me from missing him. He should stop by at least long enough to find out how the wedding plans are coming. Sometimes, I feel as if he is staying away on purpose, so he will not have to help us make decisions.

  Ach! I'm going to hoe in the garden while it is still cool and cloudy. Weeding helps settle my soul and my temperament. For sure, the Weber sisters garden puts mine to shame. Before they drive by and see mine, I need to do a lot of hoeing,” Emma said.

  “By all means, give that a try,” Hal agreed. As Emma went out the mud room door, she called after her, “But if hoeing doesn't work for you, talk to me about what's bothering you. We're almost finished in the kitchen. We'll be glad to help you hoe if that helps lighten your load.”