Emma Miller - The Amish Bride

The bathroom was large and plain with a white tile floor, white fixtures and white walls and window shutters. Neziah wondered if his boys ever realized how lucky they were not to have to use an outhouse as he had for much of his childhood. He hadn’t minded the spiders and the occasional mouse or bat as much as he had the cold on winter nights. He smiled. This modern bathroom with its deep sink, corner shower and propane heater was a great improvement. The Amish elders might be slow to change, but they did make some concessions to the twenty-first century, and bathrooms, in his opinion, were at the top of the list.

“My tummy hurts,” Joel said in English, sticking out his lower lip. “I have hungry.”

“After the big dinner and all the pie you ate at the Beacheys?” Neziah chuckled. “I don’t think so. You’ll have to wait for breakfast.”

Joel’s face contorted into a full-blown pout, and Asa chimed in. “Me hungry, too.”

“Bed and prayers.” Neziah whisked off the towels and tugged cotton nightshirts over two bobbing heads. “Brush your teeth now, and maybe we’ll have time for a little Family Life before lights out.” Family Life was one of the few publications that came to the house, and Neziah made a practice of reading short stories or poems that he thought his sons might like at bedtime.

“But we’re hungry,” Joel whined, retreating to the Deitsch dialect. “My belly hurts a lot.”

“Then cookies and milk will only make it worse,” Neziah pronounced. He scooped up Asa and draped him laughing over his shoulder and took Joel’s hand. “Bed. Now.” Joel allowed himself to be tugged along reluctantly to the bedroom and the double bed the boys shared. Neziah deposited Asa between the sheets then reached down for Joel.

“Read,” Asa reminded. He pulled the sheet up to his chin and dug his stuffed dog out from under his pillow while Joel wormed his way over his brother and curled up on top of the light cotton blanket and sheet.

A breeze blew through the curtainless windows on the north side of the bedroom. Like the bathroom, this was a sparse chamber: the bed, a bookcase, a table and two chairs. There were no dressers. The boys’ clothing was all hung inside the single, small closet. Neziah pulled up a chair, lit the propane lamp and together they shared a short prayer. Then he took the latest copy of Family Life magazine from the table. He’d read to Joel and Asa every night since their mother had died. It was something she’d always done with the children, and although he wasn’t as much at ease with reading aloud as Betty had been, he felt it was the right thing to do.

Strangely, the practice, which he’d begun out of a sense of duty, had become the highlight of his day. No matter how tired he was, spending a few moments quietly with his sons brought him deep contentment. Asa, in particular, seemed to enjoy the poetry as much as Neziah did. It wasn’t something that Neziah would have willingly admitted to anyone, but he found the sounds of the rhyming words pleasing. Joel preferred the stories, the longer the better, but Neziah suspected that it was simply a way of delaying bedtime.

Tonight, Neziah chose a short and funny poem about a squirrel that stored up nuts for winter and when he had finished it he said, “Sleep well,” as he bent to rest a hand lightly on each small head. Joel’s hair was light and feathery; Asa’s thick and curly. “God keep you both,” he murmured.

“Dat?”

“ Jah , Joel, what is it? No more about cookies tonight.”

“ Nay, Dat. I was wondering. Is Ellen going to be our new mutter ?”

Neziah was surprised by the question; he had wondered how much his sons had understood from the conversations he and Micah had had with their father and later at the Beacheys’ table. Apparently, they’d caught the gist of it. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. He made it a point never to be dishonest with his children, not even for their own good. “Maybe. Would you like that?”

“ Grossdaddi said she might marry you,” Joel said, avoiding the question.

“ Jah , and...and Uncle Micah, too,” Asa supplied.

Neziah chuckled. “A woman can only marry one man, and a man only one woman. Ellen might marry me or your uncle Micah, or she might not marry either of us.” Neziah slid the chair back under the table and retrieved a crayon from the floor. It was almost too dark to see, and he wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t stepped on it. “Good night, boys.”

“But will she?” Joel persisted.

He stopped in the doorway and turned back to his boys. “We’ll have to wait and see. If she marries your uncle Micah, she’ll be your aunt.”

Joel wrinkled his little nose. “Is that like a mutter ?”

A lump rose in Neziah’s throat. Joel had been so small when his mother died, and Asa only an infant. Neither of them could remember what it was like to have a mother. Neziah felt a faint wave of guilt. Had he been selfish in waiting so long to remarry? His sons deserved a mother; everyone in Honeysuckle thought so. But would Ellen be right for them? For him ?

“Ellen makes good pie,” Joel said.

Asa yawned. “I like pie.”

“Ellen does make good pie,” Neziah conceded. “Now, no more talking. Time for sleep.” Pretending not to hear the muted whispers behind him, Neziah made his way out of the boys’ room and down the stairs. He didn’t need a light. He knew the way by heart.

He continued on through the house, past the closed door to the parlor, where a thin crack of light told him that his father was still awake reading the Bible or working on correspondence as part of his duties as a church elder. He walked through the kitchen and outside, making his way to the old brick well that stood near the back porch. The windmill and a series of gears, pipes and a holding tank delivered water to the house and bathroom, but the coldest water came from the deep well. Neziah unlatched the hook and slid aside the wooden cover. With some effort, an overhead pulley, a rope and a wooden bucket rewarded him with an icy drink of water scooped out with an aluminum cup that was fastened to the iron frame.

Neziah leaned against the old brick and savored the water. This was another habit of his. Every night, if it wasn’t raining, sleeting or snowing, he’d come out to the well and draw up fresh water. He liked the sensation of the liquid, the rough texture of the bricks and the familiar curves of the bucket and cup. He’d always loved the well. It was a good place to think.

He was still standing there, one hand steadying the bucket, when he heard the rhythmic sound of a stone skipping across water. Instantly, he knew what it was. He finished his water, hung the cup back on the hook and walked across the yard, past the grapevines. At the edge of the small pond in the side yard, he spotted the outline of a figure. The figure tossed something just so and again Neziah heard the familiar splash, splash, splash of a rock skipping across water.

“Only three. Can’t you do better than that?” he called, walking toward his brother.

“It’s not about how many hops. I’m practicing my technique,” Micah explained.

“Ah.” By the light of the rising moon, Neziah picked up a stone from the water’s edge and slid it back and forth over his fingertips, judging its shape and weight. A good rock had to be flat and oval and just the right weight. “Your spin’s still not right.”

“My spin is fine.” Micah picked up another rock, crouched and threw it.

Four skips.

“You should try standing up to start...like this.” Neziah lifted his hand above his head, his wrist cocked, and then swung down and out in one smooth movement. The stone hit the water and skipped one, two, three, four, five times before disappearing beneath the surface.