Chapter 3
The next day, Miri went with her parents to Old Tom’s farm.
She left her split skirt at home and wore a proper dress for visiting.
Several other buggies were there when they arrived, parked in a neat row in front of the stable.
The horses were in an attached corral, extra hay in a feeder for them.
A teenaged boy, one of Tom’s great-nephews, was leaning against the wooden corral fence, waiting to help them unhitch and send the horse in with the others. Everyone was pitching in.
Somehow the whole farm looked different now.
It didn’t feel like it belonged to Old Tom anymore, and she felt like an interloper here.
Part of it was her black funeral dress—restrictive and a little too tight.
Every woman had a black dress ready for such a time as this, but Miri hadn’t had reason to try hers on for a couple of years, and it no longer fit very well.
After Daet and the boy unhitched the buggy, Miri got out and looked west toward the pasture, where her cattle were grazing. She’d have to find a new place to board them now. Three cattle weren’t much of a herd, but they were her start. With access to a bull, her cow and heifer could have calves.
“Miri, let’s get the food,” Mamm said, and Miri followed her mother around the back of the buggy.
They’d made pies and bread last night so they could bring something to help feed the host of visitors who’d be coming by for Tom’s visitation.
With Miri carrying a pie in each hand and her mother carrying the bread, they went through the side door of the house and straight into the kitchen.
The big wooden table had all three leaves in to extend it to its farthest limit, and several people sat around it.
The kitchen was spotless—cleaner than Miri had left it.
Women from the community would have come in earlier to help get the house ready.
A community could move very quickly when they needed to, and funerals were events that needed everyone’s help.
There were always just three days between death and burial, and a lot had to happen.
Miri’s parents expressed condolences, and Miri handed Moses and Benuel’s mother, Leah Yoder, the two pies.
Her mother set the bread onto the counter, where two other women were putting together a plate of Amish peanut butter sandwiches.
So much bustle and life about the place—more than Miri had seen in the last two months she’d been helping Old Tom.
It felt like he should be here somewhere, fully alive and irritated by the intrusion.
Miri peeked into the sitting room and paused there.
The sitting room was sparse, as most Amish sitting rooms were.
There was a calendar on the wall and a clock.
The hard-backed seats and rocking chairs had been pushed into a semicircle.
The hospital bed had been removed, and in its place was a simple plywood casket.
Tom lay inside, his head propped up on a pillow.
She couldn’t see what he was wearing, only the profile of his face, but it would be his Sunday best. Tears misted her eyes. She’d miss the elderly man dearly.
“Did you want to go see him?” Leah asked quietly at her elbow.
Miri startled and wiped an errant tear from her cheek.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’d rather remember him like he was.”
“I understand,” Leah said. “Danke for your help around the house the last few weeks. You made a huge difference, and my father-in-law liked you a lot. He thought you were a wonderful girl, you know.”
Miri couldn’t imagine Tom using words like wonderful girl. He’d say something like, “She’s not stupid, and she can get a cow in a head gate—more than I can say for most people.” Those were the things that mattered to Tom Yoder, and he’d never been one to speak anything but his mind.
“Danke,” Miri said. “He was . . . a friend. If that isn’t too wrong to say about a man sixty years older than me. But he was kind to me, and we both liked cattle.”
Leah smiled sadly. “He loved cattle.” There was a beat of silence. “The boys are outside, if you want to say hello.”
“The boys” were now grown men, of course, with Benuel married and his wife expecting. Moses was old enough to be married now, too, once he settled on a match. But they’d all gone to school together, and that fact somehow cemented them in time for their mother.
“Danke. I’ll go give my condolences,” she said.
What Miri wanted most was some fresh air, though, and some time outside of the overcrowded house.
If Tom were alive, he’d be stomping out to the barn to get away from it all.
Miri’s mother looked up and followed her with her gaze as Miri headed for the door, but she didn’t say anything.
The men were talking in low voices—sober and serious.
She slipped back outside and sucked in a breath of fresh air. It felt better being out under the vast blue sky, and she angled her steps toward the barn. It was habit at this point, but she also wanted to look in on the sick cattle.
“Miri?” Moses called.
She turned to see Moses and Benuel coming out of the stable.
They were both wearing work clothes. Moses was taller than Benuel, and a little broader too.
He had a face that smiled easily, but today he was sober.
Benuel was serious by nature—and he seemed to make up for his smaller stature with more intensity.
“Hi,” Miri said. “How are you doing?”
Moses shrugged. “Just getting some chores done.”
Benuel gave her a silent nod.
“How is Sadie?” she asked Benuel. “I didn’t see her inside.”
“She’s not feeling well, so she’s at home getting some rest,” he replied. “Her mamm is helping out for a few weeks.”
A pregnancy could be a delicate time, but just like the Yoders would have support in the loss of Old Tom, Sadie would have support when she needed it too.
“That’s good she’s getting the rest,” Miri replied. “Tell her I said hello.”
“Yah, I will.”
Miri should be used to school friends getting married and starting families by now. Enough of them had done it. Her cousin Rose Schrock—now Rose Lapp—had married about three years ago and recently had her first child.
“Oh, Miri, M-2 is showing signs of illness,” Moses said. “I’m sorry.”
“Bitsy?”
“That’s right, sorry. I forgot her name.”
“Are you sure she’s sick?” Miri pressed. “We kept mine separated from your dawdie’s cattle. What are her symptoms?” Her mind went to the list Tabitha had said to watch for.
“I can’t check for fever, but she’s slowed down a lot and has stopped trying to trample the fence.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“But she’s got the nasal discharge,” Moses said. “For now, I haven’t put her with the sick cattle. She’s in a side pasture on her own until we’re sure. Maybe we can get Tabitha to come back and check.”
It was a kindness on Moses’s part. These were his cattle now, after all, and as the one boarding her animals, he could do whatever he felt was best for the herd.
“Danke, Moses,” she said. “I do appreciate that. I’ll talk to my daet about bringing Tabitha back for my heifer.”
It would cost—that was the problem. A veterinarian visit wasn’t cheap, but her daet wasn’t the kind of man to let an animal suffer either.
“Come on, I’ll show you where I put her,” Moses said.
Benuel pulled off his gloves and headed toward the house, and Miri watched him go for a moment before she turned back to Moses.
“It’ll be your farm now, won’t it?” she asked. “Or did Benuel inherit it?”
It would be one of them. That was how they usually did things—through the youngest son’s family. And since their daet already had a farm of his own, it would go to one of his sons.
“We’ll find out after the funeral,” he replied. “That’s when we’ll read the will.”
“You haven’t looked at it yet?”
He shook his head. “Nee, Dawdie had the bishop holding on to it. I suppose he didn’t want it to get misplaced, and he had told Bishop Hertzler that he wanted us to see it after the funeral was done.”
“He had his ways,” Miri murmured.
“Yah, he sure did.”
But looking around the place—the barns, the coops, and the fields beyond—Miri could already feel the shift happening. This would be Moses’s farm, she was sure. Benuel came back out of the house, a peanut butter sandwich in one hand, and returned to where they stood.
“Will you allow me to continue to board my cattle here?” Miri asked.
Moses and Benuel exchanged a look, and she could see the silent communication between them. Then Moses shrugged.
“Yah, I don’t see why not,” Moses replied.
“Your grandfather didn’t charge me,” Miri said, and she included Benuel in her gaze, “but I don’t expect that to continue.
I’m sure you knew that I paid him in helping with chores, and it gave me a chance to see my cattle.
But that was a private arrangement, and I know you don’t need me here.
Maybe you could let me know a fair price, and I’ll bring it back to my daet. ”
She might need to get a part-time job to pay for it all, but she was willing.
“Yah, we’ll do that,” Moses said. “But we’ve got to wait for the will.”
Of course. The will had to be read, and then they’d start the legalities of changing ownership. She glanced up at Moses. His eyes were sad. He’d helped his grandfather for years, and they’d had an interesting relationship that even Miri didn’t know how to decipher.
“I’m going to go finish that stall,” Benuel said. “Good to see you, Miri.” He shoved the last of the sandwich into his mouth.
“You too, Benuel.”
Benuel headed back into the stable, and for a moment, Miri and Moses stood in silence.
Moses was the one who spoke first, his voice low. “I tried asking my grandfather for more stories about the past—how he and Mammi met, how he started up this farm. But he never told me much.”
Tom and Loretta had met at a hymn sing. Tom had told her about it one afternoon. It had been part of his gruff advice about courting, which consisted of making sure a man knew how to pay a bill and trim a hoof and watching how he dealt with female attention.
“He didn’t tell you how they met?” she asked.
“Nee, he would always go on about things having to do with the herd.”
Tom hadn’t told his grandson . . . but he’d told Miri. That was strange.
“He was like that, though,” Moses went on. “So much depended on his mood.”
“That’s true,” she agreed. “A lot of people thought Tom was stern and bad-tempered, but really he just cared very deeply about the things that mattered to him, and he had very little tolerance for small talk.”
Moses smiled ruefully. “That sums him up.”
“He would have hated this viewing,” she said.
“With all his heart,” Moses agreed, and as he looked down at her, his expression softened. “You understood my grandfather rather well.”
“He was a good man. I’m sorry you lost him,” she said.
They angled their steps around the barn and up a slope that led to another smaller pasture, and she spotted Bitsy standing in the center, her head hanging. Miri picked up her pace, lifting her skirt to be able to take longer strides.
“How long has she been like that?” she asked.
“Only noticed this morning that she was showing symptoms,” Moses replied. “She was fine last night.”
Miri had to lift her skirt above her knees to squeeze through the fence, and Moses lifted the top wire to help her get through.
She looked back at him standing there, a forlorn look on his face.
While this farm would likely be his, it came at a cost. Tom had been more than a good man.
He’d been an uncomplaining mentor and straight talker.
This would be a chance for Moses to move his life forward on a farm all his own, but it was also a time of grief and loss.
“He met her at a singing,” Miri said.
“What?”
“Your grandfather met your grandmother at a hymn sing,” Miri said. “He told me the story as part of a lecture about going to hymn sings and putting my best foot forward.”
“Your best foot being . . . ?”
“He said I shouldn’t hide my ability on a farm, and a good man would cherish a woman who could make a meal and get a cow into a head gate. He was frustrated with me for giving up on courting. That’s why he told me about your grandmother.”
She felt the need to explain it—give some excuse for Tom opening up more with her than he had with his grandson.
“I didn’t know that,” Moses said.
“He would have told you eventually, if he was telling you off for something,” she replied, attempting to joke. “It was just a matter of getting under his skin about the right thing.”
She cast him a wry smile, and Moses returned it. His shoulders lowered just a little, and he kicked his boot against a fence post.
“You’re probably right,” he agreed.
Good, Moses felt better. Somehow that made her feel better too. She turned back toward her heifer. Bitsy didn’t look good, and Miri could only pray it wasn’t the same thing affecting the other cattle.
Miri had three head of cattle—only three. And Bitsy was special.
Please, Gott, let her feel better.