Chapter 28
That evening when Moses arrived at the farm to help Miri with the chores, golden shadows stretched like warm taffy over the rain-drenched farmyard.
The air smelled fresh and damp, like soil and grass and sunlight.
The cattle in the nearby field lowed quietly, and birds twittered from trees overhead.
It was the kind of Sunday evening that normally brought peace to his soul, but today things were not right.
The farm was at peace, but Moses was not.
And neither was his family.
That Daet could even suggest that he try to get Miri to give the farm back had left him disappointed.
Daet was normally so moral. He believed in doing things right—living Amish, even when it was hard, even when there were so many easier ways to do things.
When it came to Daet versus the outside world, Daet was a rock.
But when it came to conflict between two Amish families, one that touched the land that Daet loved so dearly, Moses was seeing some cracks in those ideals.
Daet was human.
Someone had said a man truly became a man when he realized that his father had weaknesses, and Moses was now seeing the wisdom in those words.
It stung to see his father at his worst this way.
It made him feel guilty, somehow, like his daet’s reaction to this was somehow his own too.
Even though Moses disagreed, it would reflect on him.
If the family took that stance together, people would think he did, too, and going around telling people he didn’t think as his family did would be a different kind of betrayal.
It left Moses stuck uncomfortably in the middle between his family and his conscience.
He set his horse to grazing in the pasture with the two other buggy horses—his grandfather’s horses—and then made his way up toward the cattle barn.
In years past, he’d find his grandfather inside, looking slender and frail but still wiry strong.
And it almost felt like he’d find him in there again as he approached the barn.
Dawdie would be full of gruff, unpopular advice.
He’d say something like, “Right is right, and wrong is wrong. I don’t care who spouts it off.
” Or he’d say, “Any man who tries to push around a woman should be placed between an angry mother cow and her calf for ten minutes. Whatever’s left of him can go home and behave better in the future. ”
Moses smiled ruefully at the imagined reactions from the old man. Dawdie had been a strong believer in doing the right thing, even if it went against the tide, and that gave Moses a bit more strength.
The barn door was propped open, and Moses stepped inside, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light.
The sickest cattle still occupied the stalls, and the smell inside was eye-wateringly strong—which happened when several cows were ill at the same time.
Across the barn, Miri stood atop a stack of hay, struggling with a large bale.
She rolled it off the pile, then jumped down after it.
“Let me help you,” Moses said, heading across the barn.
“I’m fine!” There was a sharpness in her tone that put a hitch in his step.
“Miri, it’s heavier than you are,” he said, attempting to joke. “Let me help.”
“I said I’m fine.” She fixed him with a direct look, then hoisted the bale up by the twine and dragged it about twelve inches before she straightened, breathing hard. Then she heaved it again.
“You don’t want a hand?” he asked.
“Nee, I don’t.” Her tone suggested more annoyance than seemed fair, and he watched her drag the bale slowly across the floor.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
She heaved on the bale once more, then straightened. “When you leave, I’ll be the one doing the work,” she said. “And I’ll be fine then too.”
“That’s true,” he said slowly, “but when I leave, you’ll have found someone else to come help out—”
“A girl to help me in the kitchen,” she cut him off. “I am running this farm, whatever your family seems to think.”
His heart thudded to a stop. Had she overhead Daet and him talking?
“Miri . . .”
She got the bale where she wanted it and cut the twine. The hay sprung up, and she took off a flake and put it into the feeder at the first stall, her back to him.
“Miri,” he said louder.
She turned, and her eyes were ablaze with anger. He had to stop himself from taking a step backward.
“What happened?” he asked. “Why are you angry with me?”
“I realize it’s na?ve on my part,” she said curtly, “but I thought you were my friend.”
“I am—”
“You’re not.”
“How do you figure?”
“You’re here to make me change my mind,” she said. “You’re being friendly with me to get me to put my guard down and convince me that this farm is far too much for me to run on my own. With friends like you, who needs enemies, right?”
“Nee, I’m not.”
“That’s a lie.” She faced him fully then, her shoulders squared and her chin tipped up to look him in the eyes. She had all the fury of a woman in the right.
He sighed. “You heard my daet and me talking.”
“What if I did?”
Shame warmed his face. If no one ever knew about what his daet had suggested, he’d feel better. Not every moment of weakness needed to have an audience. Some could stay quiet and be put behind a person. But she’d heard this one.
“I didn’t agree with him,” Moses said.
“He’s your father. It doesn’t much matter if you agreed or not,” she said.
“Nee? Because I imagine you go against your family’s wishes on a regular basis,” he shot back. “Are you telling me your daet likes your split skirt? You don’t have family members who wish you’d just keep to the house and stop thinking about cattle?”
She was silent, yet he knew he was right.
People had been talking about Miri for years, about how she was perfectly pretty, and if she’d just stop being so peculiar and tomboyish, she might find herself a husband.
But he liked that she did what she wanted to, in spite of public opinion. That was part of her charm.
“So, nee, I don’t agree with my daet,” he went on.
“Things have been tense lately, and not just in our family. People are weighing in on Dawdie’s will.
There are some strong opinions being bandied about, and I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business.
Given some time to think away from other influences, Daet is going to feel ashamed of those words.
You shouldn’t judge him for something that came out of his mouth in a moment he thought was private.
A man can change his mind about something he’s said. ”
“Is it that bad?” she asked.
“It’s . . . not good.” He lifted a shoulder. “You know how people can be. Hopefully it’ll all just simmer down with time.”
“You don’t think your daet was right?” Some of the fire in her gaze had dimmed.
“My daet was flat-out wrong, Miri. I told him so after you left too. I don’t know why my grandfather left you this land, but he did. And that’s that.”
Miri bit the side of her cheek. “Your family thinks I did something wrong.”
He was tempted to deny it, to hide their private discussions on the matter, but he couldn’t do that and be honest too.
“They do think so,” he replied. “But I don’t. I know you better than that. You are a stubborn woman who does what she thinks is right no matter what, and you wouldn’t try to manipulate a dying man into giving you land. It would go against all of your scruples.”
“It would.” Her eyes softened, and for just a moment, he saw the gentleness in her again. Then she turned away and bent down to put another flake of feed into the next stall.
“Miri, Sarah Mae talked with me after you left.”
“About what?” she asked.
“About your grandmother Adelheide and my dawdie.”
She turned back, her brows knit. “What about them?”
“They knew each other rather well,” he said.
“How well?”
He could feel the question between the lines there. A man and a woman . . . had they been friends? Enemies? In love with each other? The possibilities were interesting.
“I’m not sure. I was hoping you knew,” he confessed.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” she said.
“Did your grandmother ever talk about my grandfather? Did she mention him at all? Were they friends?”
She shook her head. “You know how the old people are. She had a group of elderly ladies she was friends with. She didn’t chat with the men. It wouldn’t have been proper.”
“It was the same for Dawdie,” he agreed.
“So what did Sarah Mae say about them?” Miri’s interest seemed to have piqued, because she put a hand on a stall rail and looked up at him.
“She said you look a lot like Adelheide did.”
“People tell me that.”
“And she said that my dawdie left the faith for about five years. He lived Englisch.”
Miri’s eyebrows snapped upward. “Old Tom? He was the most devout man I knew! He might have had his own ways, but he believed in our Amish life something fierce. He used to complain about you not settling down yet, if you must know.”
Great. So Dawdie had been talking about Moses’s romantic foibles?
“He had his own ideas about who I should spend my time with,” Moses said.
“But there’s more. Apparently, your grandmother was the one who went out and brought my grandfather home again after he left the faith, so they obviously had some closeness in their relationship for her to be able to do that. ”
“But they both married other people,” she said.
“Maybe the closeness wasn’t romantic,” he replied. “Whatever happened, my dawdie met my mammi shortly after he came back, and they were married that fall. And Adelheide married your dawdie—I’m not sure when—and both of our families began.”
“But they were good friends, at the very least,” Miri murmured.
“Yah, it seems so. Maybe like you and me.”
Some color touched her cheeks, and she bent for another flake of feed. It broke in her hands and disintegrated onto the floor. She muttered something and gathered it up between her gloved palms.
“Didn’t mean to embarrass you,” he said.
She put the hay into the next feeder. “Are we friends, then?”
“I thought we were,” he said. “I’ve known you a long time.”
“We weren’t friends when we were children,” she said bluntly.
“Ouch.” But he smiled to soften it.
“You were my competition,” she said. “It’s different.”
“Okay, well, maybe we’re friends now,” he said. “We know each other a lot better. We like each other. At least I like you. You might not feel too warm toward me right now, though.”
She licked her lips. “Nee, I like you.”
“Good.” He was glad to hear it. She’d said it out loud, so he knew it was true. She was honest like that. “Maybe that friendship between our grandparents explains why you inherited this place.”
Miri was silent for a moment or two, and he could almost see her mind whirling.
“Miri, if we can find out why Tom left you the farm, then people will stop seeing the worst in the situation,” he said. “And it would help me and my family make our peace with it too.”
She looked up at him again, searching his face for something. He just looked back at her, waiting for her to find whatever it was that would put her at ease.
“You don’t want me to sign the land back over to you?” she asked.
There was an ache in his heart. This was a loss for him too—a personal one. It would hurt for a long while, and there was no getting around that.
“I can’t ask Gott to bless me in anything if I pressure you to do that,” he replied, his voice low. “But maybe we can figure it out together and put the rumors to rest.”
She smiled, and her entire face transformed from cautious and distrustful into beautiful and open, and his heart stuttered in response. Did she have any idea what a smile like that could do to a man?
“Your dawdie’s bedroom is exactly as it was,” Miri said. “Maybe there’s something up there, some clue.”
“Would your mammi have kept any mementos from a past friendship too?”
“She’s been gone eight years now,” Miri replied. “Still, it’s worth checking the few things we have of hers. I don’t feel right going through your dawdie’s things alone, but if we did it together this evening . . .”
“Okay,” he said. “Let me help you so we can finish up faster, and then we go look.”
It felt like the kind of search they should do together.
Maybe there was an answer that could set all of this to rest and give Moses some peace in the matter too.
Maybe there was a better reason for Dawdie’s choice, and Moses hadn’t been some sort of personal disappointment to his grandfather after all.