Chapter 5
Miri stepped out of her shoes as she came into the house.
Her parents came in after her, the screen door bouncing shut.
Miri rolled down her black stockings and took them off.
The cool floor felt good against her bare feet.
Her black dress was too tight around the shoulders and armpits, especially when she bent over, and she was already sweating.
She needed to make herself a new black dress that would fit better the next time someone in the community passed away.
There was no way she could wear this one again.
Miri hated sewing. All the nitpicky little details were irritating, but without them, a dress looked like it was made by a ten-year-old. But her clothes were the least of her worries right now.
“Did you see how they were looking at me?” Miri said, turning her to parents, who passed her to go into the kitchen. “They’re furious.”
“They’re shocked,” Daet said.
“And they blame me.”
Daet didn’t argue that point, and she knew why. It was because the Yoders did blame her. They thought she’d somehow manipulated Old Tom into giving her everything. She was still stunned by it all.
“What do we do?” Mamm asked. She went to the counter, where a pitcher of meadow tea was brewing. She got a glass from the cupboard and then poured through a sieve to catch the mint leaves before they reached her glass. Mamm took a long drink, then studied her cup distractedly.
Miri looked between her parents. Did they have a solution for this? They’d always been her source of advice and insight, but on their buggy ride home, her parents had been silent.
“Tom gave it to her,” Daet said. “She did nothing wrong.”
“But the Yoders have lost their farm.” Mamm looked up.
“Still, it wasn’t Miri’s fault.” Daet crossed the kitchen and got himself a glass of tea too.
“I’m not saying it is, but there is an entire family who is very angry.”
“What can she do about that? Tom should have explained.”
“Didn’t he? There was a letter.”
“It didn’t seem to calm Moses and Benuel down.”
“What was his reason for doing this?”
They both turned toward Miri, and she just shook her head. “I have no idea. I already told you that.”
“Is there any chance he was”—Daet winced—“feeling romantically inclined toward you?”
“You mean, was he in love with her?” Mamm said.
“I don’t like to even suggest it, but . . .” Daet met Mamm’s gaze.
“He wasn’t in love with me,” Miri assured them. “Tom was a friend to all of us. He encouraged my interest in farming and gave me a place to practice new skills. We don’t have land, so if I was going to keep a few head of cattle of my own, I couldn’t do it here.”
“I thought he was just being kind to a clever girl who loved cattle,” Mamm said hesitantly.
“I was never fully comfortable with him encouraging her so much,” Daet said. “It felt like too much.”
“He wasn’t in love with me,” Miri insisted. “He treated me like a granddaughter. He gave me advice, and he grumped at me when he thought I could do better in my work. He never once suggested anything else between us. Old Tom wasn’t like that.”
It felt indecent to even suggest it.
“People will ask that, though,” Daet said.
Mamm nodded. “They will. I’m sorry, Miri, but it’s the truth. They’ll want to know what would drive him to give a single, unrelated girl a farm instead of any number of family members.”
“I never imagined he’d want to leave me an entire farm!” Miri replied. “And he wasn’t a dirty old man. He was kind, and he was wise. He was decent and fair.”
“Maybe less than fair to his grandsons,” Daet said. “Those young men worked that farm with him for years. It won’t feel fair to them.”
“I’m going to get changed,” Miri said, feeling the need to get some space to think.
“Sure,” Mamm replied. “Go ahead.”
Her parents continued discussing, and Miri headed for the stairs. She needed to get out of her black dress and into something that fit better—preferably something with a split skirt—so she could move.
But why had Tom left her the farm? Why hadn’t he prepared his family for this, if it was what he really wanted to do? Why hadn’t he given her a hint about it?
Miri took off her dress and tossed it over a straight-backed wooden chair in the corner of her room.
She’d have to wash it and see if she had any smaller cousins who needed a black dress.
She looked down at one slightly wavy seam.
If anyone would want it. She wasn’t good at home chores.
She was a miserable seamstress, a middling cook, and every time she washed a floor and thought it was clean, Mamm would find a dirty spot she’d missed.
Miri got changed into a split skirt, carefully pinning the waist. She could hear her parents’ voices through the floor, and they were still discussing why Tom might have left her a farm. Maybe they’d figure it out, because she sure couldn’t.
She headed back down the stairs, and her parents both looked up as she entered the kitchen.
“That skirt!” Mamm’s face paled. “Miri, all eyes are on you right now. The whole community will be watching you. And you’re going to push the boundaries with your split skirts? Now?”
“I’m going to brush the horses,” Miri said. “And this skirt lets me move more easily. You know that, Mamm.”
“It’s also going to get you in trouble with church leadership,” Mamm said.
“When no one was looking and you were just tramping around the farm with Tom, you could get away with it. But you’ve got the whole community staring at you now.
You’ll find yourself being sat down by an elder for that skirt. Mark my words.”
Miri looked down at her dark purple skirt. She might not be a very good seamstress, but she’d managed to make the skirt appear to fall normally with some well-placed pleats. It had taken several tries to figure it out, but she’d managed to make it work.
“No one has reported me yet,” she said.
“And you think that Moses and Benuel are going to be so supportive now they’ve lost their inheritance?” Mamm asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I wore this skirt when I worked with Tabitha, too, and she said it was smart.”
“She doesn’t wear her skirts that way, though,” Mamm pointed out.
Nee, Tabitha didn’t. And she’d spent a decade of her life in blue jeans after she jumped the fence and got her veterinarian education.
But this wasn’t about the skirt. It was about the farm.
And her mother was nervous on her behalf, but what was Miri expecting to do with her life?
She wanted to work with Tabitha as her assistant so that she could work with animals more directly.
She was hoping to make enough to pay for the board of her cattle somewhere.
She was trying to come up with a way to support herself as a single woman, because she highly doubted that she’d ever turn a man’s head with her lackluster homemaking abilities.
But the farm changed things.
“I want to keep the farm,” Miri said.
Her parents were silent.
“As of yesterday, I was hoping to work with Tabitha,” she said. “But you know as well as I do that I’m not the marriageable type. Just being myself, I’m a problem. I don’t have any of the skills men are looking for in a wife.”
“You can learn,” Mamm said with a sigh.
“Maybe, but I’m not exactly drawing in any interested single men anyway,” she said.
“You could settle down and start behaving like a woman who wants to get married,” Mamm said.
“Maybe I don’t want to.”
Mamm set her glass of meadow tea onto the counter and pressed her lips together in a tight line.
“Your mamm is afraid that this will hurt you, Miri,” Daet said, his voice low. “She’s afraid that the community will be upset with you, and they’ll turn their backs on you.”
“That wouldn’t be Christianly.”
“It would be human.”
Miri didn’t answer because she knew it was true.
“It is her farm,” Mamm said after a beat of silence. “Tom gave it to her.”
“What do you want to do?” Daet asked Miri.
“I want to run my farm,” Miri said, tears pricking her eyes. “I want to get up before the sun and care for my cattle. There’s a spreading illness in the herd, and I want to bring them through this. That’s what I want.”
Daet nodded somberly, then looked over at Mamm. “What do you think?”
“It’s her land,” Mamm said, and she straightened her spine.
“Miri has loved cattle ever since she was a little girl going to Tom’s place with you to help with the chores.
And now she has a farm of her own. It’s hers.
It’s a gift so big that it scares people, but if she doesn’t get onto that land, someone else will take over the work, and possession is nine-tenths of the law, isn’t it? ”
Miri’s pulse sped up, and she looked between her parents.
“Do I have your support in this?” Miri asked.
“You do, but be careful,” Daet said. “Hopefully this gift is blessed by Gott, and it will be the best thing that ever happened to you.”
And for the first time since hearing the news, Miri allowed herself to smile. She well and truly had a farm of her own. If only she could thank Tom some way. But it was too late for that. All she could do was accept the gift and enjoy it.