Chapter 36
Moses stood at the counter, drying the supper dishes as his mamm washed them.
She looked particularly tired today. His daet had cleared off the last of the table, and he had his and Moses’s church shoes out and ready to polish.
Moses picked another dish to dry, working without thinking about the job in front of him.
Miri had suggested that they do their chores separately today, and so he’d done as she asked. She seemed sad, and he didn’t know what she’d done while he’d been mucking out stalls in the cattle barn, or when he’d been filling feeders and water troughs.
It had been strange, and he’d felt lonely and cut away from her in a way that he didn’t know how to explain.
He missed hearing what she thought about things and chatting with her about the minutia of the day, and she seemed to be taking that intimacy back.
When he left to help out at home, Miri wasn’t around.
Footsteps on the stairs outside drew all of their attention, and Daet put down the shoe he was polishing and pushed back his chair just as a knock sounded on the door.
Daet went to answer it, and Moses tossed the dish towel over his shoulder and ambled in that direction out of curiosity.
Mamm didn’t stop washing, but she did turn to look over her shoulder.
“Bishop Hertzler, welcome,” Daet said.
Moses and his mother exchanged a darted look. When the bishop came by, there was normally a problem to be addressed, and Mamm pulled her hands out of the water and dried them. Dishes would wait.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee, Bishop?” Mamm asked. “I have some chocolate cookies, too, if you’re interested.”
She was offering the best they had at the moment.
“Danke, but I won’t be long,” the older man said with a solemn nod. “I come with news that affects all of you, especially Moses. So you’d best come over here too.”
Moses crossed the kitchen and stood next to his father. Mamm bustled up behind them, and the bishop pulled out a manila envelope and handed it over.
“That comes from Wilhelm Schrock’s home.” The bishop folded his hands in front of him in a peaceful stance, but there was a glint in his eye that betrayed some deeper feelings writhing beneath.
“What is it?” Daet asked as he opened the envelope and pulled out a document. He looked it over, then handed it to Mamm, who did the same. At last, it came into Moses’s hands, and he read the first few lines.
This deed made on this date between Miri Schrock, not married, and Moses Yoder, not married, witnesseth that in consideration of $1.00 paid, the receipt thereof is hereby acknowledged . . .
“Miri’s signing the farm over to me?” His voice sounded too loud for the room, and it reverberated. Was that why she’d been so strange and distant today?
“I’ll need to collect a dollar from you to make it legally binding, but yah,” the bishop replied.
“Why is she doing this?”
“I’d like to ask the same question,” the bishop said seriously.
“Because it was the right thing to do?” Daet asked incredulously. “Bishop, I mean no disrespect, but that farm has been in Yoder hands for longer than your own family has been Amish.”
“Did anyone speak with her? Pressure her?” the bishop asked.
“Nee!” Daet replied. “Moses?”
A dangerous anger rose up inside of him, and Moses slapped the document down onto the tabletop. “Are you really asking that?” Moses asked, his voice low and icy. “You’d ask if I would bully a woman into giving up what was rightfully hers?”
“I don’t think it was so rightful,” Mamm interjected. “Moses, I commend her. She did the right thing—”
“This was not the right thing,” Moses retorted, cutting her off. “This was a blatant manipulation.”
“By whom?” Daet asked. “Who manipulated her? Who even brought it up? We didn’t! You didn’t.”
“Nee, I did not!” Moses agreed.
“Then who asked her to do it?” Daet pressed. “Her family, I’ll warrant. That’s who. So stop bellowing at your own parents as if we’ve wronged you. We haven’t done anything!”
“You never spoke to her about it?” Bishop Hertzler asked Moses seriously.
“Nee, Bishop. I told her that it was a painful choice, but I respected my grandfather’s wishes.”
“I want you to know that I stand by what I said when I read the will,” Bishop Hertzler said. “I was there when he changed it. I even tried to talk him out of it, but he was determined. He was of sound mind, and he knew what he was doing. He wanted Miri to have his farm.”
Daet nodded. “Understood, Bishop, but we had nothing to do with this. You have my word.”
“Considering this document, I think it’s better that you keep your distance from Miri for a little while,” the bishop said. “I don’t want there to be a scene.”
Moses nodded. “Of course.”
“Can I get a dollar from you, please?” the bishop asked. “I’ll give it to Miri, and that will be the end of it.”
Daet went to the cookie tin on top of the gas-powered refrigerator and pulled out a dollar bill. He handed it over, and the bishop tucked it into his pocket.
“You can come take over the farm in two days’ time. I want to give Miri some space to pack up her things,” Bishop Hertzler said. “It’s legally yours, Moses. But I ask that you please give her a few days’ grace.”
“Yah, of course,” Moses said, his mind still spinning.
The bishop took his leave, and for a moment Moses stayed silent, but his mother wrapped her arms around Moses’s shoulders and gave him a squeeze.
“Didn’t you hear that? The farm is yours, sohn!” she said. “You and Benuel’s plans can go forward. It’s back in the family!”
Moses looked between his parents, and he could see the relief and joy written all over their faces.
In their eyes, everything had been set right.
The farm Daet loved was back in his family again.
The land he’d helped to tend as a boy growing up was now in his son’s hands.
From his parents’ perspective, this was an answer to prayer.
“This is wrong,” Moses said, his voice low.
“There were more issues at stake,” Daet replied.
“I can sign it right back over to her,” Moses said. “Where do I get a form like this?”
“The district was ready to split over this, sohn,” Daet said, and Moses’s heart hammered to a stop. “People were ready to unseat the bishop or split the community. This is bigger than you or me.”
“They’d really split up a church district over this?” Moses asked.
“They were ready to,” Daet said. “People felt strongly. It could just as easily be one of them next time.”
Moses was silent.
“The bishop should have acted as a peacemaker between your dawdie and the family,” Daet went on, “and not gone along with his hurtful plan. Justice is about a whole family, not one man’s whims.”
“It’s over,” Mamm said. “I’d been praying that Gott would speak to the Schrock family, and I believe he did.”
“Because Miri did what you wanted?” Moses asked. He didn’t mean for his voice to sound as curt as it did.
“Nee, not because of that. But because this is right, sohn.”
“And if I don’t accept this?” Moses asked.
Mamm leaned over and pointed to a word on the top of the page. Copy.
“The original might be filed with a lawyer or something,” Mamm said quietly. “I’m sorry. I know you feel guilty to have benefited this way, but this land was supposed to be yours all along. This is only setting things right.”
But what about Miri? He knew how she loved that land and cared about the cattle.
It wasn’t about money for her, it was about something deeper.
He’d seen how peaceful she was when she was looking out over the herd, and that wasn’t the smug satisfaction of a woman who’d gotten ahead financially.
This was heart-level for her, and the loss would be devastating.
No one was thinking about that, were they?
Sure, the farm was back in Yoder hands—in his hands—but could he ever look at that herd again without thinking about Miri’s deep love for the cattle? Could he walk over the fields and not think of the way Miri’s heart seemed to spread out over every last acre?
Miri’s father didn’t have a farm, and while she might be able to board her few head of cattle with an uncle or someone else who did, she’d never have an opportunity to farm on her own again. They hadn’t set anything right. They’d broken a good woman’s heart when she’d done nothing wrong.
“I need to talk to her,” Moses said.
Daet put a firm hand on his shoulder, and when he looked over, his father’s eyes were filled with tumbling emotion.
“This isn’t about just you anymore, Moses,” Daet said.
“This is about an entire community so wound up it’s about to snap in two.
The Schrocks did something selfless for the sake of community unity, and the bishop has a community he must reunite.
That will take some time and a delicate touch.
He has asked you to give some space, because while you mean well, you could do more harm than good right now.
This is no longer about one farm and your future.
It’s about Shepherd’s Hill as a whole. Stand down. ”
His father was right in this instance, but wrong in so much else connected to the farm. Dawdie had made a choice, and the Schrocks had put the community first and undone what he had tried to do.
Would Gott bless Dawdie’s last worldly effort being undone this way? Would the farm be a blessing to Moses now? Or would it be a constant reminder of how fragile this faith community was?
More than a paid-off farm, Moses wanted Gott’s blessing on his life, and he wanted Miri’s happiness. He wanted to see Miri’s grin as she leaned over that fence rail, and he wanted her to finally have those cattle that filled her heart in the same way it had done for his grandfather.
But if he dared to sign this land back, Shepherd’s Hill may very well come apart at the seams.
There was no winning, was there? There was just a quiet, sad concession as Miri handed up her hopes and happiness in a quitclaim deed.