outsiders it seemed innocuous enough, but Caleb was wise enough to see that if Amish children were forced to spend most of their time in English schools, in a generation or two there would be no Amish left.
It broke his heart, and it hardened his resolve.
When he had finished his brief, hard prayer he would put his hat on and turn his hands to whatever the day demanded of him. But Caleb Bender had been a farmer all his life and his hands, like a well-trained mule, knew their own way. His work seldom required much of his mind, so while he walked a fence line with a pair of pliers and a roll of wire, he was free to think about the school dilemma. While he chopped up a dead fall for firewood, he was probing, and while he worked a new horse or roamed the woods hunting deer, his mind was ranging far and wide searching for a way to rescue the children from the grip of the world without breaking his word. In time it became inescapably clear that as long as he stayed in Ohio he would be bound by the law, and by his promise.
He was not averse to leaving Ohio – after all, it was persecution that drove the Amish to America in the first place. But history also told him that even a move to another Amish settlement in Pennsylvania or Indiana would provide only a temporary solution. If one state passed such a law, sooner or later they all would.
He just couldn’t see a way out.
Caleb’s mind was occupied with these things on a Thursday morning in mid-February when he hitched up his buggy and drove down to Kidron for the livestock auction. At the auction he spoke with at least a dozen brethren he knew very well, and all of them were scratching their heads and wagging their beards over the same issue. It was the main topic of conversation at the sale, yet none of them could see a way out.
Caleb found nothing he wanted at the auction – it was always a little slow this time of year – but when the sale ended he was deep in discussion with his good friend the blacksmith, so he walked with him over to the hardware store. The blacksmith needed to buy a new knife for trimming hooves. He weighed various knives while they talked, hefting each in his hand to gauge the strength and balance of it, and when he had made his choice he went to the counter to pay for it. Caleb waited for him by the door, staring absently through the glass. As he stood there an Amish girl passed by on her way home with a lunch pail in her hand, and from the back she looked so much like his Rachel that he instinctively pulled the hat from his head, right there in the store, and sent up a silent, fervent plea for his Gott to show him another way.
Then he put his hat back on his head and turned to his right where he saw his reflection in the glass case covering a bulletin board. It was just a cork board with pieces of paper pinned to it announcing horses and mules for sale, offering the services of cobblers and tinkers and well diggers. But there in the middle of his face, as his eyes refocused to see the board behind the glass, was a folded piece of paper bearing a bold one-word headline that caught his eye and would, he knew instantly, alter the course of his life.
MEXICO.
Underneath that, in smaller letters, were the words LAND FOR SALE .
It was an answer, a sign – he recognized that still small voice, the incendiary subtlety. A little shiver ran through him.
Caleb swung the glass door open by its wooden knob, and his hand shook as he reached in and pulled the tack from the pamphlet. He didn’t wait for Irvin. Holding the paper close to his face with both hands he hurried outside into the bright sunlight so he could read the small print without his glasses. The front page said:
Paradise Valley – five thousand acres of prime, flat, fertile farmland nestled in the Sierra Madre of northeastern Mexico, only a hundred miles from the American border .
Five thousand acres. Enough for many Amish farms. Before now, he had not thought in terms of a whole group
It broke his heart, and it hardened his resolve.
When he had finished his brief, hard prayer he would put his hat on and turn his hands to whatever the day demanded of him. But Caleb Bender had been a farmer all his life and his hands, like a well-trained mule, knew their own way. His work seldom required much of his mind, so while he walked a fence line with a pair of pliers and a roll of wire, he was free to think about the school dilemma. While he chopped up a dead fall for firewood, he was probing, and while he worked a new horse or roamed the woods hunting deer, his mind was ranging far and wide searching for a way to rescue the children from the grip of the world without breaking his word. In time it became inescapably clear that as long as he stayed in Ohio he would be bound by the law, and by his promise.
He was not averse to leaving Ohio – after all, it was persecution that drove the Amish to America in the first place. But history also told him that even a move to another Amish settlement in Pennsylvania or Indiana would provide only a temporary solution. If one state passed such a law, sooner or later they all would.
He just couldn’t see a way out.
Caleb’s mind was occupied with these things on a Thursday morning in mid-February when he hitched up his buggy and drove down to Kidron for the livestock auction. At the auction he spoke with at least a dozen brethren he knew very well, and all of them were scratching their heads and wagging their beards over the same issue. It was the main topic of conversation at the sale, yet none of them could see a way out.
Caleb found nothing he wanted at the auction – it was always a little slow this time of year – but when the sale ended he was deep in discussion with his good friend the blacksmith, so he walked with him over to the hardware store. The blacksmith needed to buy a new knife for trimming hooves. He weighed various knives while they talked, hefting each in his hand to gauge the strength and balance of it, and when he had made his choice he went to the counter to pay for it. Caleb waited for him by the door, staring absently through the glass. As he stood there an Amish girl passed by on her way home with a lunch pail in her hand, and from the back she looked so much like his Rachel that he instinctively pulled the hat from his head, right there in the store, and sent up a silent, fervent plea for his Gott to show him another way.
Then he put his hat back on his head and turned to his right where he saw his reflection in the glass case covering a bulletin board. It was just a cork board with pieces of paper pinned to it announcing horses and mules for sale, offering the services of cobblers and tinkers and well diggers. But there in the middle of his face, as his eyes refocused to see the board behind the glass, was a folded piece of paper bearing a bold one-word headline that caught his eye and would, he knew instantly, alter the course of his life.
MEXICO.
Underneath that, in smaller letters, were the words LAND FOR SALE .
It was an answer, a sign – he recognized that still small voice, the incendiary subtlety. A little shiver ran through him.
Caleb swung the glass door open by its wooden knob, and his hand shook as he reached in and pulled the tack from the pamphlet. He didn’t wait for Irvin. Holding the paper close to his face with both hands he hurried outside into the bright sunlight so he could read the small print without his glasses. The front page said:
Paradise Valley – five thousand acres of prime, flat, fertile farmland nestled in the Sierra Madre of northeastern Mexico, only a hundred miles from the American border .
Five thousand acres. Enough for many Amish farms. Before now, he had not thought in terms of a whole group
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