Emma Miller - Leah's Choice

Leah had loved coming home after almost a year in Ohio taking care of Grossmama, but things here had quickly fallen back into the ordinary. Not exactly boring… There were always chores to do and new challenges to face, especially now that Anna had married Samuel in a whirlwind romance, leaving only Susanna, Rebecca, Irwin and her at home to help Mam. But after the hustle and bustle of Grossmama’s more liberal Amish community, her new Mennonite friends, and the relative independence she and Rebecca had experienced in Ohio, it wasn’t easy settling in under Mam’s authority again. And she did have to admit to herself that sometimes Seven Poplar’s conservative customs seemed a little old-fashioned.

So many changes, Leah thought wistfully. When she and Rebecca had left for Ohio last year, the house had been bursting with unmarried sisters, and when they’d returned, three had found husbands, and Mam had hired and then practically adopted Irwin, a thirteen-year-old orphaned boy who had lived with Joey Beachy’s family. It all took a little getting used to.

Not that her beloved sisters were far away; Miriam and Ruth were just across the field in the little farmhouse with their new husbands, and Anna and Samuel’s farm was next door. But they had their own families and households, and it wasn’t the same as waking up every morning to a gaggle of giggling girls or having so many to share secrets and gossip with after the lights had been blown out at night. Plus, Grandmother Yoder, no longer able to live alone, and her sister, Aunt Jezebel, were now part of Mam’s household.

Grossmama was going to live with Anna and Samuel this summer. Anna had wanted her to move in sooner, but Mam had been firm. She’d insisted that Anna needed a few months to adjust to being a wife and mother to Samuel’s five children before taking on Grossmama, no matter how well the two of them got on together. That would leave Aunt Jezebel here, but compared to her sister, Aunt Jezzy was a dream.

“What’s taking you so long?” Rebecca called from the doorway. “You aren’t even dressed.” She came in and plopped onto the unmade bed. “Grossmama won’t be happy if her pancakes are cold.”

Leah rolled her eyes and forced back a snappy response. “Sorry. I didn’t expect anyone to wait breakfast on me this morning.” She went to the corner where her clothing hung and took down a fresh shift and a lavender-colored dress.

“Mam said not to wear that,” Rebecca said. “Wear your good blue one. Aunt Martha thinks that the lavender is too short, and she’s bound to come visiting today. She’ll want to hear all about that Mennonite preacher you were running around with in the dark last night.”

Leah wrinkled her nose. “Since when does Mam take Aunt Martha’s advice on what we should wear?”

Rebecca shrugged. “I’m just telling you what Mam said. I think Mam thinks it’s too short, too.”

Leah’s mouth puckered as she hung the lavender dress with its neat tailoring back on the hook and took down the dark blue one her mother had given her for her birthday. Leah liked the blue. It went well with her eyes and her dark auburn hair, but she was particularly fond of the lavender dress she and her Mennonite friend, Sophie Steiner, had cut and stitched. Sophie’s mother had a new electric-powered Singer that practically sewed a garment for you. Maybe the lavender was a little shorter than the blue dress, but it covered her knees and the neckline and sleeves were modest enough to satisfy even the bishop.

“And your good kapp,” Rebecca added. “No scarf today.”

Leah sighed. She and Rebecca had spent so much time together in the last year that they should have been as close as Ruth and Miriam, but somehow, this sister always brought out the worst in her. She loved Rebecca dearly, but they were just too different to have the relationship she had with Johanna or dear Anna. Leah loved to be doing something with her hands: picking blueberries, making jam or selling vegetables to the English tourists at Spence’s Auction. By contrast, Rebecca was happiest at home, drinking tea with Mam or Aunt Jezebel, reading a prayer book or writing a letter for publication in the Budget.

Rebecca never questioned the rules. She’d always been the good girl of the family, the serious one. She’d been baptized at age sixteen, before she’d even ventured into the outside world. It never occurred to Rebecca to be cross with Aunt Martha for her criticizing or bossy ways. In Leah’s mind, Rebecca was simply too meek for her own good. And worse, Rebecca couldn’t understand why Leah sometimes longed to kick out of the traces, and why, at almost twenty-one, she had yet to make the lifelong commitment to join the Amish Church.

Leah gathered her brush, kapp and her clean underclothes and started for the bathroom. “I’ll be quick,” she promised her sister. “Tell Mam, five minutes.”

“What was he like?” Rebecca asked.

“Who?”

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “You know who. The Mennonite preacher. Was he as fast as they say?”

Annoyed, Leah stopped short and glanced back over her shoulder. “As fast as who says? Who around here knows him well enough to say something like that? That he’s fast?”

Her sister smiled. “It’s what they say about all Mennonite boys, isn’t it? People say that they’re wild, that they try to take liberties with Amish girls.”

“That’s nonsense. And Daniel isn’t a boy. He must be twenty-five, maybe older.”

Rebecca snickered. “And it’s just Daniel now, is it? But then you probably got to know him well out there in the woods. He didn’t try to steal a kiss, did he?”

“No. He didn’t. And Daniel Brown’s not a preacher. He’s a nurse, a good one.”

“And you know that how?”

“Because he helped a baby goat to be born when we were out looking for Joey. It was stuck, a leg tangled. The nanny would have died and the kid with her if Daniel hadn’t known what to do.”

“So he’s not a preacher. But he is a missionary. He must have been lots of places, known lots of English girls. Fancy foreign girls, too.”

“I suppose he has, but he was nice. Is nice. And when he gives his program, I’m going to be there to hear it.”

“If Mam lets you go again.”

Leah’s brow creased as she tried to hide the annoyance she felt at Rebecca’s words. “Ne, sister,” she answered softly. “That’s not what I said. I said I’m going to hear Daniel’s talk and see the pictures of Spain and Morocco. I’ll be twenty-one in a few weeks, and I’m an adult. I think I can decide for myself if I’m going to hear a missionary speak about his experiences in spreading God’s word, without asking for my mother’s permission.”

Rebecca slid off the bed, moisture gleaming in her dark eyes. “I’ve made you angry.”

Leah shook her head. “Not angry.”

“Ya.” A single tear blossomed on Rebecca’s cheek. “I never say the right thing to you, Leah. I try, but it always comes out wrong. I worry about you.”

Leah opened her arms and Rebecca came into them. Leah enveloped her in a hug. “Worry about me? Why? Because I hunted for a lost child last night—”

“Ne.” Her sister switched from English to Pennsylvania Dutch. “You have a good heart. It was wrong of me to tease you about the Mennonite boy. I only did it because I’m frightened that we might lose you.”

“Lose me?” Leah pulled away to look down into her sister’s face. Rebecca was a small girl, like Miriam, not tall like Mam’s side of the family. “How could you lose me?”

Rebecca clasped her hand and squeezed it hard. “You move too easily in the outside world. Since we were children, you always have. The English don’t make you uncomfortable, as they do me.”