Family Blessings

Before Pleasant could think of any appropriate response to her sister-in-law’s comment, Hilda had left the shop, carefully skirting her way around the boys as she returned to the dry goods store.

“Boys, stop that,” Pleasant called to the twins who rolled to a sitting position and blinked innocently up at her.

“Yes, Mama,” they chorused.

Pleasant felt the familiar tug at her heart to hear any of Merle’s children call her “Mama” without even thinking about it. That triumph—especially with Rolf and Bettina, the older two—had required a good deal of patience on her part and she treasured each and every use of the title. Always shy and withdrawn, even somewhat sickly while their father was alive, the two older children had blossomed under Pleasant’s care. Rolf and Bettina never missed school and were often seen taking care of some chore or another around the large house. The twins—only toddlers when their mother died—had accepted her without question from the day she moved into the house.

Her heart melted as it always did in the presence of the identical boys. “Come here,” she said, stooping down and holding out her arms to receive them. Giggling, they ran to her, colliding with her at the same moment so that they nearly knocked her off balance. “Look at the two of you,” she fussed as she tucked their shirts into matching homespun trousers and slicked down identical cowlicks with fingers she wet on her tongue. “Now please try to stay clean,” she pleaded as they scampered away.

It was at times like these that thoughts of Merle sprang to mind unbidden. He had had such a difficult youth as he often reminded her when he thought she was being too soft with the children. His own father had shamed the family by running away with his wife’s sister when Merle was only a little older than Rolf was now. Merle had been forced to leave school and take a job in addition to managing the small family farm in order to support his mother and siblings. Knowing his painful past made the fact that Merle would never see how well his own children had turned out all the more poignant. And yet, she realized, that in the year she had been married to him, never had she witnessed a moment of such unconcealed love between Merle and any of his children as she had just enjoyed with the twins. Merle Obermeier had been a bitter man and in a year of marriage she had made little progress toward softening his ways.

She was about to close the shop’s front door to prevent the dust from the street from blowing in when she saw Jeremiah Troyer exit the dry goods store and wave to her. She waited until he was in front of the bakery and then asked, “Did you need something more, Herr Troyer?”

“I came back to give you this,” Jeremiah said, his tone easy and calm as he held out a folded piece of paper to Pleasant. “It’s one of the recipes used by someone I knew back in Ohio. I’d like to consider something similar to this for the cones,” he told her. “It’s important to set one’s product apart from that of the competition.”

“You had an ice cream business in Ohio then?” she asked as she stepped onto the front stoop and accepted the recipe.

“Not exactly. You see, Frau Obermeier, as a boy I was ill with rheumatic fever, and my uncle—my father’s eldest brother—thought it best that I take a job in town since I was too weak to work in the fields. The only person hiring was Peter Osgood, the pharmacist. He bought the cream and eggs for making the ice cream he served in the soda shop in the front of his drugstore from our farm. One day he mentioned that he was looking for a young man to help make the ice cream.” Jeremiah shrugged. “I was already making the delivery of eggs and cream. It stood to reason that I might as well stay to do the work, and so I was hired. I was there for ten years.”

Pleasant fingered the rough thick paper he’d handed her for a moment. His childhood held some similarities to that of Merle’s thin and awkward eldest son, Rolf. “Mr. Osgood knows you have his recipes?”

Jeremiah laughed. “I didn’t steal them. He handed them to me himself at the train station when he came to see me off and wish me well. In fact, you may have the opportunity to meet him one day. He’s promised to come for a visit.”

“And your father did not mind that you …”

A shadow of deep sadness flitted across his handsome features. “My father died when I was thirteen. My brothers and sisters and I were raised by our uncle.”

“I see.” Another thing that he and Rolf had in common. She looked up at him.

“And that’s probably a good deal more than you need or want to know of my childhood,” he said with a wry smile.

Pleasant pocketed the recipe and turned to open the bakery door. “I’ll give this to my father when he returns and let him know that you stopped by.” For reasons she didn’t fully understand, she hesitated. “Good day, Herr Troyer,” she said softly.

“And to you,” he replied and he headed down the steps and on to the empty building he’d purchased to turn into an ice cream shop.

Almost as soon as Pleasant had entered the bakery, Hilda was back, her brow knitted into a frown of disapproval. “What was that paper he gave you?” she asked as she ran one finger over the display case and clucked her tongue at the dust she found there.

“A recipe for me to give Papa,” Pleasant replied. “And now if you’ll excuse me, Hilda, I have …”

“That man is trouble,” Hilda muttered as she followed Pleasant into the kitchen. “He has this habit of laughing and smiling far too easily. In these hard times what does he find to be so happy about? You’ll want to stay clear of him,” she warned.

Pleasant decided to ignore this last remark. Ever since Merle’s death, Hilda seemed to have assumed the need to speak for him. Pleasant could almost hear her late husband issuing the same warning to keep her distance. It occurred to her that Merle would not have liked Jeremiah Troyer. Pleasant could not say how she knew that or what the basis for Merle’s dislike might have been. But she knew beyond a doubt that he would have offered her the same warning that his sister offered now. And as Hilda prattled on about the foolishness of even thinking of opening an ice cream shop in the middle of a depression, Pleasant could not help but think that perhaps she would be wise to take heed of such signs.

Amish communities around the country had long ago established the habit of holding their biweekly Sunday services in private homes or barns around the district. In fact, many districts were composed of no more than twenty-six households, making sure that each family would host services at least once during the year. In Celery Fields, they still had a way to go to reach twenty-six families. The community was still growing and for the second time that year, the service was to be held at Pleasant’s house. The simple wooden benches stored on a special wagon and moved from house to house as the services did had arrived on Saturday and now stood lined up in the two large front rooms of the house.

In the two years that had followed her husband’s death, Pleasant had made a number of changes that most everyone in the small community applauded.

For one thing, the citizens of Celery Fields no longer dreaded gathering in the house that Merle had always kept cloistered and shuttered even in the stifling summer heat. On the day of Merle’s funeral, friends and neighbors had arrived to find the windows and doors of the house thrown open, exposing the somber and shadowy interior of the house to the light. Pleasant had stood together with Merle’s four children on the wide front porch, greeting each new arrival. Further, when time came for setting up the benches—usually all crowded into the small front room at Merle’s insistence—Pleasant had suggested spreading them into the adjoining dining room and giving people more room.

Then there was the matter of how she had handled the children—three boys and one girl. It was well-known that she had married Merle more because he was her one chance at ever finding a husband than because of any deep love for the man. For his part, Merle had made it clear that he had chosen her for equally practical reasons. She had managed her father’s house after the deaths of her mother and her father’s second wife. She had practically raised her two half sisters, and even now she continued to help her father in the family’s bakery business. Merle had needed a mother for his four children and someone to manage the impressive house he’d built on the edge of the acres of celery fields he farmed. Theirs had been more of a business arrangement than a marriage. And that had suited them both.

Pleasant thought on all of these matters as she listened to the service, trying hard to keep her focus on the children and the responsibilities God had given her rather than the broad back of Jeremiah Troyer seated just two rows in front of her. When the service finally ended she hurried off to make sure that her oldest son, Rolf, had put out hay for the horses waiting to take the churchgoers home later, and then headed around the side of the house toward the kitchen.

On her way, she was struck by what a truly beautiful day God had given them. She took a minute to pause and close her eyes as she drew in a breath of the sweet warm October air. She could smell the herbs thriving in flowerbeds she’d planted herself all around the perimeter of the house. She almost felt as if she could smell the sun itself as the warmth of its rays bathed her face. She silently offered up a prayer of thanks for all of the blessings that God had seen fit to bestow on her as well as a plea for forgiveness for all the times she had complained about the life she’d been given. If she opened her eyes and turned away from the house and the bounty of its herbs and flowers, she knew that she would find herself looking out to the fields that stretched out for acres beyond the house. Merle’s legacy for his children that had once thrived lay fallow now, the furrows parched and cracked. Still, the land and house were paid for so she thanked God that she and the children had food and shelter and, in these hard times, she felt truly blessed.

In the kitchen Hilda and several women were working in an easy and familiar rhythm. While the men reset the benches, the women prepared platters of fried chicken, mixed up a variety of salads and cut up pies still warm from the morning’s baking. Pleasant joined her good friend, Hannah Harnisher, to help slice the heavy loaves of bread she’d baked the day before and lined up on one counter.

Hannah had once been married to Pleasant’s brother, but after he died she had married Levi Harnisher. The couple had met a few years earlier after Hannah’s son had run away with the circus—a circus then owned by Levi. Pleasant and Gunther had gone with Hannah to Wisconsin to retrieve the boy and the journey had forged a lifelong friendship between the two women—one they had not shared before that journey.

Pleasant had been different in those days. Life had dealt her a number of disappointments early on—her mother’s death, her father’s remarriage bringing two new siblings into the household. And then her brother had married the beautiful Hannah and the two of them had been so very happy. In those days, Pleasant had viewed each event as further evidence that she had been abandoned by those she loved. Then she had gone to Wisconsin with Hannah and along the way had gotten to know a group of women—circus folk—changing her outlook forever. With these new and unlikely friends she had discovered humor in the face of hardship and kindness in the face of the prejudice that is born of ignorance.

“Who was that man Gunther was sitting with?” Hannah asked.

“That’s Bishop Troyer’s great-nephew from Ohio.”

“He’s visiting then?”

“No, apparently he’s come here to go into business.” She could see that several other women—especially those who lived some distance from town and were eager to learn more about the handsome stranger they’d seen for the first time that morning—had leaned in closer to hear what she was saying. “An ice cream shop,” she added, setting off a chain reaction of whispers as the news was repeated from one group to the next. The women were soon occupied speculating about the addition of an ice cream parlor and whether or not that was a good thing or something far too frivolous for an Amish community.

“Yes,” Hilda added, “it seems that the bishop’s nephew—great-nephew that is—has purchased the empty building next to the bakery and the storehouse behind.”

As this new bit of information set off a wave of speculation among the others about whether or not the newcomer would also live in the building, Pleasant moved closer to Hannah and lowered her voice. “He has asked me—well, Father, really—to provide him with the baked cones he will use to serve his ice cream,” she confided. “He expects to be in need of a steady supply.”

Hannah’s eyebrows lifted. “You’ll be working even longer hours then. Hilda certainly won’t approve of that.”

“Well, what can I do? In these times, business has slowed to such a state that we almost never sell more than the basics. This is an order that we can’t afford to decline and frankly, it will be nice to work on something besides rye bread and rolls.”

“Perhaps Greta could …”

Pleasant laughed at the very idea that her youngest half sister might be any help at all. “Greta? That girl is a dreamer and it’s all she can do to attend to the few chores she’s responsible for at home. She would forget to check the ovens and no doubt burn the cones to a crisp,” she said, but there was a fondness in her tone that spoke volumes. “And Lydia has all she can manage with the school.”

Hannah pressed her hands over her apron. “I suppose I could help some,” she said. “At least for a while.”

Pleasant saw how her friend caressed the flatness of her stomach under her apron. “Oh, Hannah, you’re expecting another child?”

Hannah’s smile was radiant—more radiant than it had been even on the day when she had married Levi or the day when she had delivered twins—a boy and a girl, now three years old and the image of their mother. She nodded then put her finger to her lips. “Shhh. I’m fairly certain and I don’t want anyone to know until I have the chance to tell Levi.”

Pleasant could not have been more touched that Hannah was trusting her with this wonderful secret. It was a mark of just how much their friendship had grown.

“Caleb is going to soon feel outnumbered by little ones,” she teased. Caleb was Pleasant’s nephew—the boy who had run away with Levi’s circus. Now as a teenager he was of an age to make one of the most important decisions of his young life. In the Amish faith—as in any Anabaptist group—baptism was an act of joining the church and as such was not performed until the person was of an age to be able to understand the covenant he or she was making with God. To prepare a young person for such a decision, parents often looked the other way while their teenagers took some time to explore the ways of the outside world. That time was called Rumspringa or “the season for running around.” Of course, in some ways, Caleb had done that when he ran away with Levi’s circus.

Hannah did not smile as Pleasant might have expected. Instead, she sighed. “I do worry about how he will feel about another baby in the house. After all, I remember what you said about your feelings after Gunther remarried and then Lydia and Greta came along. What if he decides to run away again?”

“Caleb will be fine,” Pleasant assured her. “It’s not the same at all.”

Hannah’s smile showed her relief. “I certainly have you to inspire me. The way you came into this house and made a true home for Merle’s children. They love you as if you were their real mother, you know.”

Pleasant waved away the compliment. “That was God’s will. And God will show you and Levi the way as well.”