Jo Brown - An Amish Arrangement

When he’d arrived, Jeremiah had carried his two bags as he crossed the snowy yard past neglected barns. No tracks had been visible. Nothing had gone in or out of the big barn since the last snowstorm. Allowing himself a quick glance at the other outbuildings, which needed, as he’d known, a lot of repairs, he’d walked through the freshly fallen snow to the main house.

The large rambling home had a porch running along the front and the side facing the barn. Through a stand of spruce trees, he could see another house, where a tenant family once would have lived. The few remaining shutters hung awkwardly at the windows, a sure sign the house was a fixer-upper, too.

He looked forward to beginning—and finishing—the tasks ahead of him as he made the farm viable again. His skills as a woodworker would be useful while renovating the barns and the sap house near the sugar bush farther up the hill.

Climbing onto the porch, he’d set down his bags before he knocked snow off his well-worn work boots. He’d gone directly to the side door. Rudy had told him to use that door when he arrived.

“Don’t knock,” the most recent letter had instructed him. “My ears don’t work like they used to, and I don’t want you standing in the cold while you bang and bang. Come in and give a shout.”

He’d thrown the door open. “Rudy, are you here?”

A shriek had come from close to the ceiling. He’d looked up to see a ladder wobbling. A dark-haired woman stood at the very top, her arms windmilling.

He leaped into the small room as she fell. After years of being tossed shocks of corn and hay bales, he caught her easily. He jumped out of the way, holding her to him as the ladder crashed to the linoleum floor. His black wool hat tumbled off his head and rolled toward the wall.

“Oh, my!” gasped the woman.

She was, he noted because her face was close to his, very pretty. Her pleated kapp was flat unlike the heart-shaped ones his sisters wore. Beneath it, her hair was so black it gleamed with bluish fire in the fading sunlight coming through the door and tall windows. Her brown eyes were large with shock in her warmly tanned face, where a few freckles emphasized her high cheekbones. She wore a pale pink dress with white and green flowers scattered across it in a subtle pattern. No Amish woman from Paradise Springs would use such fabric. It must be allowed in the new settlement along Harmony Creek. What else would be different here?

But first things first.

“Are you okay?” he asked, not surprised she wasn’t the only one who sounded breathless. His heart had slammed against his chest when he saw her teetering. And from the moment he’d looked into her lustrous eyes, taking a deep breath had seemed impossible.

“I’m fine. I had just a little farther to go. Just a little...” Her voice trailed away as the shuddering ladder, which had landed on its side, clattered to the floor.

Jeremiah frowned. There was nothing on the wall to prevent her from falling. He saw the ruined wallpaper and chipped crown molding along with scraps of paper she’d already pulled off were piled on the floor. Why was she tearing off wallpaper in Rudy’s house?

“Who are you?” he asked at the same time she did.

“I’m Jeremiah Stoltzfus,” he answered. “You are...?”

“Mercy Bamberger.” Her face shifted into a polite smile, and he guessed she’d collected her wits that had been scattered by fear. “Thanks for catching me.”

“Why are you here?”

Instead of answering, she said, “You can put me down.”

Jeremiah was astonished his curiosity about why she was in what would be his house had let him forget—for a second—that he was still cradling her in his arms. He set her on her feet, but caught her by the elbow when she trembled like a slim branch in a thunderstorm.

Hearing uneven thumps upstairs and hoping they heralded Rudy’s arrival, he steered her to the left. There, a staircase was half-hidden behind a partially closed door. Seating her on the bottom step, he picked up his hat as he asked, “Are you all right?”

“I am.”

He didn’t believe her, because her skin had a gray tint and her voice quivered. He wouldn’t push her, because he guessed she was embarrassed by the circumstances. But one question remained: What was Mercy Bamberger doing in his house?

“Bamberger?” he asked aloud. “Like Rudy Bamberger?”

“Yes. Do you know my grandfather?”

Well, that explained who she was and why she was in the house. Glancing up the stairs, his eyes widened when he saw a shadow slip across the top. It was far too small for a grown man and appeared to have four legs.

He watched, saying nothing as he realized the silhouette belonged to a kind. A little girl, who looked about seven years old, had braided hair as black as Mercy’s. She leaned on metal crutches with cuffs to go around her skinny arms. Her legs were encased in plastic and Velcro from the tops of her black sneakers to her knobby knees. Who was she?

As if he’d asked the question aloud, the little girl cried, “Mommy!” Rushing at a pace that forced his heart into his throat again, because he feared she’d fall, the kind flung her arms around Mercy’s neck. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Mercy reassured her.

The kind glanced at him with a scowl. “I heard the ladder fall and—”

“I’m fine, Sunni.” She hugged the little girl. “Jeremiah kept me from getting hurt.”

“Who?”

“Jeremiah.” Mercy pushed herself to her feet and swung the little girl off the steps. She kept herself between the kind and him, showing she didn’t trust him though he’d saved her from a broken bone or worse. “He’s Jeremiah.” Without looking at him, she added, “Jeremiah, this is my daughter, Sunni.”

Again he fought not to ask the questions battering at his lips. The kind was unquestionably Asian, and her eyes, like Mercy’s, glistened like dark brown mud in a sun-washed puddle. She also wore plain clothing with a small print.

Comprehension struck him. Mercy and her daughter weren’t Amish. They dressed like the Mennonite women who lived near Paradise Springs. He searched his mind, but couldn’t recall if his Realtor had mentioned anything about Rudy living plain. He glanced up at the electric light hanging from the ceiling. Some plain folks used electricity.

Too many questions needed answers.

Right away.

“Hi, Sunni,” he said, because he didn’t want to upset the little girl or her mamm more.

She aimed another frown at him before turning her back on him. When she didn’t answer him, Mercy asked the kind why she’d been upstairs. He thought she was dismayed the little girl had gone on the stairs by herself until Mercy said, “Be extra careful. Don’t forget the floors aren’t safe.”

“I stayed away from those, Mommy.” Sunni raised her left crutch and tapped the floor beside her. “I do that to check before I go in.” Without a pause, she asked, “Can I have a cookie?”

“One,” Mercy said with a smile. “Put the bag clip on after you get your cookie.”

“Okaaaay,” Sunni replied in the same tone Jeremiah had used as a kind when his own mamm said something he deemed obvious.

He smiled, but again the little girl acted as if he were invisible before she drew her arms from the cuffs on the crutches. Leaning them against the wall, she hurried through a doorway to the right. He guessed it must lead to the kitchen.

His grin vanished as he glanced around the room. Rudy called it his everything room. Hooks on the wall showed where coats, hats and bonnets could be hung. The bare floor was scraped from years of barn boots on it, and the tattered wallpaper was a grubby white. It might once have been a brighter color. The room was furnished with a rickety table and a battered sofa covered with a worn blanket. A desk had a book under one leg to keep it steady on the sloping floor. The interior of the house was in worse condition than the outside. The photographs sent by the Realtor had been misleading.