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Authors: Beverly Lewis
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be today as she hurried to find her sewing basket. With the wedding only a few days away, she’d better listen to her mamma and finish up her wedding dress. She sank down into a rocker and was nearly halfway around the hem when she remembered Bishop John’s invitation for supper. She’d forgotten to tell her mother.
And she’d forgotten something else. Mam would be happy to hear that she’d abandoned her doubts and decided to go ahead and marry John, music or no music. All around, it was the best thing. The right thing, as Mary would say.
Still, in spite of everything, Katie struggled with a restive feeling. She picked up her sewing and headed through the kitchen to the long, rectangular-shaped front room, where they gathered for Sunday preaching when it was their turn to host the meeting. Had she not been marrying a widower, her wedding night might have been spent here in this very house. As it was, her first night as John Beiler’s wife would be spent at his place, a spacious farmhouse brimming with children. She would sleep next to him in the bed he had shared with his first wife.
Brushing tentative thoughts aside, Katie hurried to the doorway connecting the stone house with a smaller addition—the white clapboard house her ancestors had built many years ago. With both sets of grandparents now deceased, the Dawdi Haus remained vacant. But someday, when her father was too old to work the land, it would become her parents’ home. Then Benjamin, the youngest son, would inherit the main house and forty-five acres of fertile farmland—passing the family homestead from one generation to the next.
Katie opened the door and surveyed the living room of the smaller house. Sparse furnishings had been left just as they were when her maternal grandparents lived here—matching hickory rockers with homemade padding on the seats, a drop-leaf pine table near the window, and a tall pine corner cupboard. Colorful rag rugs covered the floor, but the walls were void of pictures except for a lone, outdated scenic calendar hanging in the kitchen.
Katie closed the door behind her and entered the Dawdi Haus, wandering through the unheated rooms, wishing Dawdi David and Mammi Essie were alive to witness her marriage. She imagined them sharing in the joy and the preparation of the community ritual, knowing they would have delighted in becoming instant step-great-grandparents to five young children.
Katie sat down in Mammi’s rocker, the unhemmed wedding dress still in her hands. She leaned back against the wooden slats and shivered. It was much too cold to sit here and sew, yet she remained seated, recalling a childhood memory involving her mamma’s mother, Essie King—twin sister to Ella Mae Zook, the Wise Woman.
Mammi Essie had caught young Katie humming a tune, just as Jacob Beiler had earlier today. One of those fast, made-up tunes—way back when Katie was but a schoolgirl, around first or second grade. She couldn’t remember which grade exactly, but it really didn’t matter. The memory that stuck in Katie’s mind was what Mammi Essie had said when she looked up from snapping peas.
“Lord have mercy—you’re like no little girl I ever knowed! Like no other.”
At the time, it seemed like a reproach—the way the words slipped off her wrinkled lips and stung the childish heart. Condemning words, they were, and Katie had blushed, feeling ashamed.
Yet, as she thought back to the incident in their backyard, where honeysuckle perfume hung in the air and bees buzzed messages back and forth, it seemed that Mammi Essie was making more than a verbal rebuke. Had her grandmother sensed a streak of stubborn individualism? Such a thing was strongly discouraged; Katie knew that. By the time you were three, the molding of an obedient Amish child was supposed to be evident. That is, if the parents had done a thorough job of teaching the ways of Gelassenheit , total submission to the community and its church leaders.
Katie had
And she’d forgotten something else. Mam would be happy to hear that she’d abandoned her doubts and decided to go ahead and marry John, music or no music. All around, it was the best thing. The right thing, as Mary would say.
Still, in spite of everything, Katie struggled with a restive feeling. She picked up her sewing and headed through the kitchen to the long, rectangular-shaped front room, where they gathered for Sunday preaching when it was their turn to host the meeting. Had she not been marrying a widower, her wedding night might have been spent here in this very house. As it was, her first night as John Beiler’s wife would be spent at his place, a spacious farmhouse brimming with children. She would sleep next to him in the bed he had shared with his first wife.
Brushing tentative thoughts aside, Katie hurried to the doorway connecting the stone house with a smaller addition—the white clapboard house her ancestors had built many years ago. With both sets of grandparents now deceased, the Dawdi Haus remained vacant. But someday, when her father was too old to work the land, it would become her parents’ home. Then Benjamin, the youngest son, would inherit the main house and forty-five acres of fertile farmland—passing the family homestead from one generation to the next.
Katie opened the door and surveyed the living room of the smaller house. Sparse furnishings had been left just as they were when her maternal grandparents lived here—matching hickory rockers with homemade padding on the seats, a drop-leaf pine table near the window, and a tall pine corner cupboard. Colorful rag rugs covered the floor, but the walls were void of pictures except for a lone, outdated scenic calendar hanging in the kitchen.
Katie closed the door behind her and entered the Dawdi Haus, wandering through the unheated rooms, wishing Dawdi David and Mammi Essie were alive to witness her marriage. She imagined them sharing in the joy and the preparation of the community ritual, knowing they would have delighted in becoming instant step-great-grandparents to five young children.
Katie sat down in Mammi’s rocker, the unhemmed wedding dress still in her hands. She leaned back against the wooden slats and shivered. It was much too cold to sit here and sew, yet she remained seated, recalling a childhood memory involving her mamma’s mother, Essie King—twin sister to Ella Mae Zook, the Wise Woman.
Mammi Essie had caught young Katie humming a tune, just as Jacob Beiler had earlier today. One of those fast, made-up tunes—way back when Katie was but a schoolgirl, around first or second grade. She couldn’t remember which grade exactly, but it really didn’t matter. The memory that stuck in Katie’s mind was what Mammi Essie had said when she looked up from snapping peas.
“Lord have mercy—you’re like no little girl I ever knowed! Like no other.”
At the time, it seemed like a reproach—the way the words slipped off her wrinkled lips and stung the childish heart. Condemning words, they were, and Katie had blushed, feeling ashamed.
Yet, as she thought back to the incident in their backyard, where honeysuckle perfume hung in the air and bees buzzed messages back and forth, it seemed that Mammi Essie was making more than a verbal rebuke. Had her grandmother sensed a streak of stubborn individualism? Such a thing was strongly discouraged; Katie knew that. By the time you were three, the molding of an obedient Amish child was supposed to be evident. That is, if the parents had done a thorough job of teaching the ways of Gelassenheit , total submission to the community and its church leaders.
Katie had
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