Hannah's Courtship

“Crash,” David supplied. He was a young man of few words. “Bam,” he said. “Ina ditch.”

Hannah gazed over Susanna’s head. “Are you hurt, David?” she asked. “What about Taffy? Is the pony—”

“Not a scratch, so far as I can tell. It could have been a lot worse.”

Hannah accepted Albert’s opinion without hesitation. Not only was he a longtime family friend, but he was a local veterinarian. She turned her attention back to her daughter. “Why did you go out at night?” Hannah demanded. “And what made you take Taffy?”

“Pizza,” David said. “We wanted pizza.” He shook his head. “Mam gonna be mad at me. Ya.” He nodded his head. “Really mad.”

“I was so worried. Come on,” Hannah urged. “Let’s get off this road before we’re all killed.” She held tight to Susanna, unwilling to let her go now that she’d found her. Adrenaline still pumped through Hannah’s veins, and she felt vaguely sick to her stomach.

“Good idea,” Albert said.

Together, they walked back to Hannah’s lane. Once away from the blacktop, she loosened her grip on Susanna’s arm and merely held her hand. “Albert,” Hannah said, “how did you find them? Where did you find them?”

“Half a mile on the other side of the Kings’ place,” he said. “I was coming back from a call. A cow having twins was in a bit of trouble. Two pretty little heifers, both right as rain once we got their legs untangled and got them delivered. Anyway, I was just on my way home when I saw Jonas’s courting buggy in the ditch and these two standing there beside it.”

“A car came,” Susanna wailed. “It scared Taffy. She jumped in the ditch.”

“The buggy rolled over on its side,” Albert explained. “A wheel is broken, but the carriage seems okay. I was more concerned for Susanna and David.”

“Not David’s fault,” Susanna stoutly defended. “He drove good. The car beeped and scared Taffy.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “David drove?”

Susanna nodded.

They continued to walk up the long drive. “But, Daughter, you snuck out of the house.”

Susanna shook her head. “Ne. I didn’t.”

“You did,” Hannah said. “Did David come to the farm and hitch Taffy to the buggy?”

“Ya,” Susanna said, but David was shaking his head. “Hush,” Susanna ordered, shaking her finger at him. “You said!”

Confused, Hannah glanced at Albert, who shrugged. “I couldn’t get a straight story out of them, either. They were both crying when I got there. The pony was tangled in the traces.”

“It was God’s mercy that you found them,” Hannah said. The pony belonged to her daughter Miriam, but she stabled it at the home barn so that Rebecca and Hannah had the use of it. They were all very fond of Taffy, and the thought that the animal could have been badly injured or killed by Susanna’s carelessness made Hannah angry. “I’m disappointed in you, Susanna,” she said sharply. “Very, very disappointed.”

Susanna hung her head. Tears ran down her cheeks and she wiped at them with dirty hands, but Hannah wasn’t feeling sympathetic.

“What you did was wrong and dangerous,” Hannah chided. “You, David or Taffy could have been killed.”

“We...we wanted pizza,” Susanna mumbled. “You never...never let us go get...get pizza.”

“I like pizza,” David declared.

The sound of an approaching horse and buggy caught Hannah’s attention. “That’s got to be Rebecca,” she explained to Albert. “Where’s your truck?”

“I left it on the side of the road by the buggy.”

Hannah nodded. “I can send Charley and Eli to get the buggy in the morning.”

“No worry,” Albert said. “I called Tony’s Towing.”

“But that will cost dearly,” Hannah said. Did she even have the money for a tow truck?

“Don’t worry about it.” Albert gave her a reassuring grin. “Tony owes me for stitching up his Labrador’s hind leg last week when he got it caught in the screen door. There won’t be a charge. He’ll have the buggy back in your barn within the hour.”

Rebecca reined in Blackie, and Susanna pulled away from Hannah to run and tell her sister about her adventure. David stood patiently where he was, waiting for Susanna or someone to tell him what to do.

Hannah glanced back at Albert. “You walked right past David’s house. Why didn’t you leave him there?”

Albert tugged off his ball cap and looked sheepish. “He wouldn’t go. Susanna wanted him with her, and I thought maybe you’d be uneasy about me bringing her home alone. You know, how it would look to the community...”

“How it would look? When you saved both of them from who knows what? Albert, you may not be Amish, but we trust you. You’ll never know how grateful I am that it was you who came along when I needed you most.”

“I suppose it was meant to be,” Albert offered slowly. “His plan. I’m just glad I could help.”

Rebecca climbed down out of the buggy, and Hannah quickly filled her in on what had happened. “We’ll tie Taffy to the back and take her to the barn, and put Susanna to bed,” she continued. “Albert and I are going to walk David home—”

“No need for you to put yourself out.” Albert started to lead the pony around to the back of the buggy. “I can take David home.”

“Ne, Albert,” Hannah replied. She gave Susanna a gentle push in Rebecca’s direction. “I need to come. David’s mother has to know what he was up to. I don’t think she’ll be any more pleased with this night’s mischief than I am.”

Chapter Two

All I need now is for Bishop Atlee to drive past and see me walking down the road after midnight in my bathrobe and house slippers—accompanied by two men, Hannah thought wryly.

She supposed the wisest thing would have been for her to go back to the house and get dressed, but that would have taken more of Albert’s time, and the Yoder family had already put him out a great deal tonight. Her oversize wool scarf and dark blue, ankle-length bathrobe covered more of her than her everyday dresses. She might not be conventionally garbed for an Amish woman, but no one could say she wasn’t decently covered.

She was sure that Albert, a Mennonite born-and-bred, with more than the usual allotment of sense for a man, would understand her stretching the rules of proper dress due to the emergency. After all, wasn’t Albert practically a member of the family? His nephew, John, was married to her daughter Grace.

Albert had been a friend and veterinarian to the Seven Poplars Amish community for many years, and as long as Hannah had known him, he’d always treated her with the greatest respect. To put a fine point on it, Albert treated her as an equal, as a person with a brain in her head. She was certain that Albert wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with her under these circumstances.

It was a short walk from her mailbox to the driveway of the Kings’ farmhouse. Only one motor vehicle passed them, a small car, not the tow truck that Albert had called to bring the disabled buggy home. She and Albert kept their pace slow enough for David, who was often distracted and had to be reminded to stay on the shoulder. David never did anything quickly, and any attempt to hurry him would have triggered upset and possibly tears. Hannah had no wish to deliver him to his parents in an emotional dither.

Hannah liked David, and she liked his mother and father. They’d done a good job raising him, and she was sure that he’d never given them reason to think he’d sneak out with a girl to go to Dover. Tonight would be an awakening for the Kings as much as it was for her. David and Susanna, who had always been obedient, had suddenly become problem children.

Fifteen minutes later, Hannah and Albert were back at the spot where Hannah’s driveway met the road. David was safely in the care of his parents, and everyone had agreed that nothing good would come from trying to hash this mess out tonight. Albert had insisted on walking Hannah home, although that had felt silly. She was a woman in her late forties, a schoolteacher and a mother who’d been managing her farm and her affairs for years. She was certainly capable of following her own lane back to her home without an escort.

“Call me old-fashioned,” Albert said, trudging along beside her. He hadn’t been put out by her objection. If anything, he sounded amused. “I just wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t see you safely to your door.” When she didn’t answer, he went on. “It’s not the same world we grew up in, Hannah. You read the papers. All kinds of craziness going on.”

“I try to stay away from the world as much as possible,” she replied. It was what her Amish faith taught. Be not of this world. The Amish were a people apart, living not so much for today as for their future in heaven.

Albert was a member of the Mennonite Church, another Anabaptist sect that shared a long history with the Amish. The two faiths had separated before they came to America in the eighteenth century. The Amish believed that the Mennonites were too worldly, and Amish founders felt it necessary to remain separate. Today, the Mennonites did charity work with the general public and spread their religion through worldwide missions. The Amish kept to themselves and did not evangelize.

Hannah herself had been born and raised in the more liberal Mennonite faith, but she’d become Amish when she married Jonas Yoder. Although it had cost her dearly, she’d never regretted her decision.