A Mother's Gift Read online

  Jude sighed to himself. Here’s the real question: Would our Amish bishops even accept additions to the hymnal—or just let us sing these old songs faster? Would they sanction using a more modern translation of the Bible? How many of our young people do we lose because the Amish faith seems outdated and irrelevant to them?

  Even though Jude believed he was as faithful to God as every other person in the room, he knew of old, conservative bishops who might consider him a heretic if he dared to ask such questions aloud. And even though his brother was considered more progressive than most Amish bishops, Jude suspected he knew how Jeremiah would answer his questions, too—even though the future of their faith might be at stake.

  What if God’s been talking to us all along, and we haven’t been listening? What must He think of us, His creation, if we no longer recognize His voice?

  Jude sighed sadly. The Amish believed their faith was the one true way to gain salvation, yet no one dared to prophesy as the Old Testament prophets had, or to admit that he’d gotten advice directly from God—had clearly heard His voice. Once again Jude lost his place in the hymn they were singing, but it seemed inconsequential compared to the questions he was pondering.

  When he glanced across the room, he noted that Alice and Adeline weren’t singing or even looking at the Ausbund as the long, slow hymn finally came to an end. In recent months he’d wished his daughters would participate more fully in church activities—and their remarks this past week about the burden of the Amish lifestyle had startled him.

  If the leaders of our faith are so resistant to change, I’ll have to change my approach—the way I relate to my daughters and live as their example—if I’m to see them married to Amish men.

  This revelation startled him.

  After the service, everyone shared in the common meal and visited for most of the afternoon. As always, the young people went outside to socialize in the barn and play volleyball after they ate, the women clucked together in Anne Hartzler’s large kitchen, and the men sat solving the world’s problems around the tables that had been set up in the front room for the meal.

  During the buggy ride home, Lenore sat in the seat behind Jude and Leah, with the kids filling the seat at the back of the family-size vehicle. Leah’s mamm bubbled with enthusiasm. “I was so tickled that the ladies in your congregation were asking about my special quilts,” she said, “and I was even happier when a few of them suggested we have a quilting frolic someday soon. What do you think of that idea, Leah? I know quilting isn’t your cup of tea.”

  “Ah, but a frolic would be a gut way for me to get better acquainted with the women hereabouts,” Leah said quickly, turning to look at her mother. “They’re all very interested in Betsy now. And maybe having a baby to look after has made me seem less . . . odd to them.”

  Jude grimaced to himself as he drove, although he sensed the accuracy of his wife’s remark.

  “And truth be told,” Leah went on, “I’d feel more comfortable about such a gathering if you were there to keep the conversation lively, Mama. And if you girls would see to baking and serving the refreshments, it would be a nice party—a nice break from our daily routine—don’t you think?”

  Alice sighed loudly. “Jah, whatever.”

  “I guess we could tolerate it if the Flaud sisters and the Miller girls come,” Adeline put in. “It’s a sure bet we’ll be looking after Betsy and all the other little kids who’ll come with their mothers.”

  “And speaking of kids and mothers,” Alice said with an edge to her voice, “you can forget about that talk you’re supposed to have about baby making and sex before marriage and all that. We already know that stuff, so let’s spare everybody the embarrassment, jah?”

  Jude pivoted in the seat to gawk at his daughters, who had the nerve to smile at him as though sexual matters were an everyday, run-of-the-mill topic of conversation. “So who told you?” he blurted out.

  Alice raised an eyebrow. “Our real mother. Years ago.”

  “Certainly not Mammi Margaret,” Adeline said with a laugh. “She got so red in the face during Uncle Jeremiah’s sermon, I thought she was going to pass out.”

  Jude turned around so he could keep his eyes on the road. His heart was hammering rapidly, even though he doubted the girls had received all that much pertinent information from Frieda. How was he supposed to respond to their nonchalance? Should he be worried that they’d gained their sexual information from close encounters with the English boys they’d been seeing?

  “If that’s the case,” Lenore said boldly, “maybe we adults should have a question-and-answer session so you girls can fill us in on details we might not be aware of.”

  “Or at the very least, we should write out a quiz and you can put your answers on paper,” Leah suggested without missing a beat. “It would be far less embarrassing to write about these matters than, say, to find out you’re carrying a baby and you don’t know how it happened—and you don’t know how to tell your family about your predicament, either.”

  When Jude heard the girls suck in their breath, he reached for Leah’s hand. “Gut answer,” he whispered. “You nailed them, sweetheart.”

  As he steered the horse into the lane that led to their home, however, Jude realized that it would take a lot more than the present-day prophets and the quicker singing he’d pondered in church to keep his daughters involved in the Amish faith.

  Any help You can suggest would be extremely welcome, Lord, Jude prayed. Then, with a smile, he added, And I thank You for sending me Leah, who is truly the answer to the greatest questions of my everyday life.

  Chapter 14

  Alice stood beside Adeline at their bedroom window, gazing out at the patch of lantern light that bobbed through the evening shadows toward the barn. “Let’s get going, while Dat’s doing the chores.”

  “Do you suppose Leah and Lenore will stay busy in the kitchen long enough?” Adeline whispered.

  “It’s a chance we have to take. We’ve got to find that cell phone before Dexter gets any madder at us for not answering it or texting him.”

  Silently, barefoot, the two of them slipped into the hallway. Outside of Dat’s room, they paused to listen for noises downstairs before entering. Hearing nothing, they went directly to the dresser. They had agreed to leave the door open so the hinge wouldn’t creak.

  “It’s got to be here,” Adeline whispered as she silently opened the top drawer on her side. “Most likely Dat put it someplace obvious like his sock drawer, figuring we’d never dare come looking for it.”

  “Or maybe Leah hid it. It would be just like her,” Alice pointed out as she began rummaging through Leah’s kapps and black stockings. “Hmm . . . it’s not here, so maybe it’s in her underwear drawer—”

  Adeline grabbed Alice’s arm and sucked in her breath. “Who was that?” she whispered frantically as she gazed into the dresser mirror. “I swear I heard something—saw a blur of somebody passing by in the hall. Please tell me it wasn’t Leah spying on us.”

  “You’re just jittery,” Alice hastened to reassure her. “We can’t lose our nerve—and besides, what can she say? That phone doesn’t belong to us, and it was wrong of Dat to take it.”

  “But she’ll tell him, and then he’ll—”

  “Quit worrying and keep looking!” Alice muttered as she opened another drawer. “We don’t have much time.”

  “It would be easier if we could light the lamp.”

  “Like that’s going to happen,” Alice shot back. “Besides, what else would they have that feels slick and flat like a cell phone?”

  Adeline shrugged, sighing loudly in frustration. She eased the third drawer shut and opened the bottom one.

  “So whaddya doin’? Why’re ya in Dat and Leah’s room?”

  Stevie’s voice nearly made Alice jump out of her skin. She gazed at Adeline in the darkness and then stared into the dresser mirror. Their little brother stood silhouetted in the doorway, leaning against the jamb as though he m
ight’ve been there for a while. “Just putting away laundry,” she replied nonchalantly. She turned, flashing Stevie a smile.

  “And when we saw how messy these drawers were, we decided to straighten them,” Adeline added as she, too, turned to look at Stevie.

  Alice’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so she saw how Stevie’s brow furrowed in disbelief. “Then why don’t ya light the lamp, so’s you can see what you’re doin’?” he asked.

  “We can put away laundry without wasting a match—we do it all the time, you know,” Alice replied in a tone that brooked no argument. “Why aren’t you out in the barn helping Dat with the chores?”

  “But this is Wednesday, and ya washed the clothes on Monday,” Stevie pointed out.

  Alice’s stomach tightened. Their brother didn’t sound the least bit convinced by the tale they were telling him, and the minutes were ticking by. She looked to Adeline, hoping she’d say something that would convince Stevie to believe them and move on.

  Adeline cleared her throat. “Leah sent us up here to fetch her some bobby pins so—”

  “Because her hair is coming loose from scrubbing the floor,” Alice added quickly. “She’s getting the house cleaned for Lenore’s quilting frolic, you know.”

  After a few moments of contemplation, Stevie shook his head. “Nuh-uh,” he countered. “You’re lookin’ for that cell phone Dat hid. And I won’t tell ya where he put it, neither. Not even for a hundred dollars.”

  Alice lurched forward, glaring at him. “You know where it is?” she demanded.

  “You’d better—we have to have that phone,” Adeline insisted, “or Dexter will come here and get really mad at us.”

  “Jah, and we’ll tell him you know where it is,” Alice said as she started toward the doorway. “Trust me, Stevie, you don’t want to mess with the likes of Dexter and Phil.”

  “They’ll throw you in the back of the pickup,” Adeline chimed in as she kept pace with Alice. “And then they’ll drive you way, way out of town and dump you somewhere totally strange. You’ll never find your way home.”

  “So do the right thing, Stevie.” Alice stopped directly in front of him, holding his gaze as she towered above him. “Just tell us where the phone is. We won’t tell Dat you let it slip about where he hid—”

  “Jah, why would we tell him?” Adeline asked. “It’ll be our little secret.”

  Alice crossed her arms, driving her point home. “And if those English guys haul you away for holding out on them, not telling them—or us—where the phone is, we’ll keep quiet about that, too. Dat and Leah won’t have a clue what happened to you. It’ll be like you just disappeared—poof!” she said with a dramatic snap of her fingers. “Days and weeks will go by—”

  Stevie waved her off. “You girls are full of beans. Dat won’t let those guys do nothin’ to me.”

  When he turned and started down the hall, Alice grabbed his shoulder. “Stevie, stop it!” she whispered fiercely.

  “How much do we have to pay you?” Adeline muttered as she took hold of his suspenders.

  “I’m not sayin’ nothin’. Not even for two hundred dollars.” Stevie shrugged out of their grasp and backed away from them. “And if you’re not nice to me from now on, I’m gonna tell Leah how I got bruises on my shoulders—I’ll tell her what you said and what you did to me,” he said, his voice ringing in the hallway. “And if you don’t stop bein’ so mean to Leah, I’m gonna tell her you were riflin’ through her underwear, too.”

  Alice bit back a retort and watched him go into his room. If Stevie told Leah—or Dat, heaven forbid—what she and Adeline had been doing, there would be no end to the lectures and punishment . . . and they would probably have an adult monitoring their moves every minute of every day.

  “We’ve got to make sure we closed those drawers,” Adeline whispered.

  Alice nodded, and they quickly stole back into the bedroom. Her stomach was clenched in a knot at the way Stevie had taunted them. “What if he just said that to irritate us?” she whispered as they quickly checked the dresser drawers. “What if he has no idea where that cell phone is?”

  “Do you really think he’s smart enough to threaten us that way, if he doesn’t know?” Adeline mused aloud. “He’s just a little kid. Not even in school yet.”

  “Maybe Leah put him up to it.” The thought curled Alice’s lip as the two of them slipped out of the bedroom and into the hallway. It seemed like something Leah would do, and the unfairness of it all really galled her. “Maybe she heard us walking around up here and—well, for sure and for certain she deserves a little payback for such meanness, and for using Stevie to trap us. I’m thinking she’s going to be sorry she did that, come time for Lenore’s quilting frolic.”

  Chapter 15

  On the following Friday, Leah felt as nervous as a newborn colt. Neighbor ladies and their daughters were arriving to begin quilting her mother’s newest quilt top—and it would soon become obvious that Leah didn’t quilt, nor was she much good at the chitchat most women engaged in so effortlessly. Still, she felt happy. Mama was beaming, welcoming their guests, while Alice and Adeline took pans of cinnamon rolls from the oven to go with the cupcakes and brownies they’d already made.

  “Oh, but it smells yummy in here!” Delores Flaud declared as she entered the kitchen with her two teenage daughters. “And look at this little angel you’re holding, Leah. Why, I think she’s grown since we saw her at church last Sunday.”

  Leah smiled, realizing that this frolic would be as much about Betsy as it was about Mama’s quilt—and that made the day seem easier, because she wouldn’t have to rack her brain for topics of conversation. “She’s doing well,” Leah agreed, bouncing Betsy against her shoulder. “And she’s not a fussy baby, either.”

  “Such an angelic face!” Frannie Flaud exclaimed as she gently touched Betsy’s cheek.

  “And dressed all in pink, like a little doll,” her sister Kate said with a big smile.

  “Mama made this dress—and stacks of new diapers and other clothes,” Leah said with a nod at her mother. “She’s kept the sewing machine busy ever since she got here.”

  “I can’t wait to work on your quilt, Lenore.” Delores set a covered casserole on the counter, and she and her girls removed their coats. “It’s a real pleasure to see the patterns and colors other gals use. My quilts for around home all seem to look the same, because I’m using up remnants of fabric from our clothes—and I’m not inclined to go looking for a new pattern every time I make one.”

  Mama smiled as she hung up their wraps. “Truth be told, this quilt top is made from scrap triangles left over from a lot of my previous quilts,” she said. “If I didn’t make a scrap quilt every now and again, I’d have to build an annex onto the house to hold my fabric pieces!”

  The two ladies laughed as they poured steaming cups of coffee from the big urn Mama had brewed earlier. Leah enjoyed the easy way the Flaud sisters joined Alice and Adeline as they stirred a big bowl of frosting for the hot cinnamon rolls. Within the next few minutes, Cora Miller and her three daughters arrived—and when Emma, Lucy, and Linda joined the other girls, the chatter level rose immediately. It was so good to hear happy voices filling the kitchen after the intense, unpleasant confrontations with the twins these past weeks—and nice that the ladies always brought casseroles to these frolics for an easy lunch so the hostess didn’t have to do all the cooking.

  Soon Anne Hartzler and her mother-in-law, Martha Maude, arrived along with Rose Wagler and her little girl, Gracie. When the maidel Slabaugh sisters stepped into the kitchen, Leah forced herself to smile brightly as she welcomed them. Jude had suggested that she should invite them to the frolic to dispel their notion that she was a poor housekeeper—and bless them, Mama and the twins had spent a lot of time this past week helping her clean thoroughly. Leah couldn’t miss the way Naomi peered around the kitchen while Esther set the pan of corn bread they’d brought on the counter.

  “Mighty nice of yo
u to invite us today, Leah. Supposed to get some snow later—even if we thought it was supposed to be spring—so we might as well be quilting,” Naomi remarked stiffly. She sniffed the air and squinted through her rimless glasses at Betsy, as though she thought the baby’s diaper needed changing.

  “Been ever so long since we had a quilting frolic,” Esther said, observing the girls across the kitchen as they spread frosting on the fresh rolls. “My word, Lenore, if all of us are working on this quilt, I hope you’ve got it on an especially long quilt frame.”

  Adeline and Alice turned toward them before Mama could respond, their frosting-coated knives suspended over the pan of rolls. “Not to worry, Esther, you’ll have plenty of room,” one of them said.

  “Jah, we girls will be having our own little party,” the other twin chimed in. “We wouldn’t dream of crowding you ladies who truly enjoy quilting.”

  Leah bit back a smile at the way Alice and Adeline had responded just within the bounds of proper courtesy. Esther was heavyset, and her protruding backside was often the subject of quiet jokes folks made when she passed by.

  “Matter of fact, we’re all here except for Margaret,” Lenore said graciously. “We might as well head into the front room so you can choose the side of the frame you’d prefer to sit on, in case anyone else is a leftie, like I am.”

  “That would be me,” Martha Maude remarked with a chuckle. “I’m ready for some coffee and to get to work on your quilt!”

  Jude’s mother bustled inside at last, appearing flummoxed as she handed Lenore a covered bowl. “This was supposed to be a coconut cream pie in a shortbread crust, but the filling didn’t set,” she said woefully. “It was such a mess, I poured it into a bowl and chopped the crust into the pudding. We’ll just have to call it a trifle.”