The Waiting Read online

  Cal winced. “Eight. Ray Smucker is coming today too.”

  She shuddered. Those Smuckers were legendary for contrariness.

  “I have confidence in you, Jorie,” he said kindly. “But . . . there is a big stick up on the wall, just in case you need it.” He pointed to a large ruler, hanging by the blackboard. He put on his straw hat and tipped it. “Looks to be another hot day today. Good for the hay.”

  She scowled at him. “Bad for the scholars.”

  He grinned. “Don’t forget. School lets out at four.”

  Forget? How could she forget when school let out? She was already counting the hours.

  Jorie spent the first hour taking enrollment and reassigning seats. The front row was the first graders, the populous eighth grade took up the last three rows. When she got to the sixth grade, she saw a hand waving, frantically reaching to the sky to catch her attention. “Esther Swartzentruber?”

  Esther sprang up. “I just thought you should know that Ray Smucker is eating an apple.” She spoke with great authority and jerked her pointed chin in Ray’s direction. “In class.”

  “Oh?” Jorie said. “Thank you, Esther. Please sit down.”

  Esther sat down, pleased with herself. She had her mother Sylvia’s fragile elegance, with sharp brown eyes and finely cut features. Jorie knew Esther also had Sylvia’s capability to slice peoples’ hearts to ribbons.

  Jorie looked at Ray. The chair was too small beneath his bottom and his knees did not fit under the desk, so he stretched out his long legs into the aisle and crossed his ankles. On his face was a look of defiance. “Ray, please put your apple in the trash.”

  Ray didn’t budge.

  “Ray, didn’t you hear me?” Her voice was steady but forced.

  Ray met her gaze. “Soon as I’m finished with it,” he said, letting a broad smile escape. “Don’t want to be wasting it.” He took another bite of the apple.

  Jorie hesitated on the edge of a decision. She knew this was her make-or-break moment to earn the scholars’ respect. She walked down the aisle toward Ray, who sat there, defiantly eating his apple. “You must not have had enough for breakfast today.” She spun around. “Does anyone else have any apples in their lunch?”

  Twenty hands shot up. “Please get them.” The scholars rummaged in their lunches and handed Jorie the apples. She walked up and down the aisles, collecting the apples in her apron. “Here you go, Ray. Eat up.” She put the apples on his desk and went back to the front of the class to resume roll call.

  Ray looked victorious. At least, until the eleventh apple. By then, he was looking a little sick of apples. By the fifteenth, he was barely chewing, and by the twentieth, he grew still and his face was pale.

  “Whoa, pal,” Eli Graber said, seated next to Ray. “You’re looking a little green there. You’re not going to puke, are you?”

  “No,” Ray answered, clearly annoyed.

  Suddenly, his eyes went wide. A wrenching heave rolled up from his stomach and he vomited in the direction of Esther, seated in front of him. Esther froze, her shoulders hunched up by her ears, then she screamed as if an arrow had pierced her back. Ray wiped his mouth with his sleeve, glared at Jorie, staggered outside, and took off down the road.

  Jorie came to herself with a start. “Ephraim, go get a bucket of water and a rag.” She turned to Esther. “Stand still, Esther, so I can clean you up. Really, he hardly got anything on you. In fact, take off your apron and you’ll be as good as new.” The rest of the children started to gag from the smell and clumped by the windows, trying to breath in great gasps of fresh air.

  “Er is sich alles verblut!” Esther shouted, pointing at a first grader. He is all bloody! “Er is am Schtarewe!” He is dying!

  Jorie looked to see Tommy Fisher, standing against the wall, start to cry. A red rivulet ran down his chin from one nostril, dripping blood onto his light blue shirt.

  Maggie came up to Jorie and quietly whispered, “Aw, he was just picking his nose.”

  Jorie grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk and slid down onto one knee in front of Tommy, working fast. She rolled the tissue tight and stuffed it up into his bleeding nostril, trying to staunch the flow. “You’re not going to die, Tommy. Now hold this,” she said, putting his hand up on his nose and leaning his head back.

  Breathing a little hard, with sweat dripping down her back from either the excitement or the heat of the morning or both, Jorie closed up the enrollment book. “Grab your tablets and pencils and let’s go outside.”

  The class poured out behind her.

  Jorie supposed, with such a day as she was having, it was inevitable that she would get a visit from Sylvia Swartzentruber. She always found herself surprised by the fact that Sylvia and Mary Ann were sisters. They were as opposite as two women could be.

  Ben used to say that Sylvia looked as if she had a popcorn kernel stuck in a back tooth. “I would bet money on the fact,” he had said more than once, “that Sylvia has never once had a laughing jag. Not once in her life.”

  Jorie would scold him for saying such a thing, but she wouldn’t deny it.

  Sylvia wrinkled her nose at the lingering smell when she stepped into the main room of the schoolhouse. Then her eyes went wide at the sight of the window that had been shattered by a fly ball during a lunchtime softball game. “Caleb Zook donated the land and built this school,” she said, her voice as sharp as a pinch, “and within one day, you have already let this building fall into disrepair.” She huffed. “According to Esther, today was a complete and total disaster.”

  “Not entirely, Sylvia,” Jorie said. “I admit there were a few . . . unexpected twists and turns . . . but by four o’clock, things were pretty well organized.” All in all, she felt rather satisfied. The books were taken out of the cupboards and distributed, letters and numbers were written on the blackboard, and no other injuries had occurred.

  Sylvia cocked her head like a wary sparrow. “Esther told me you are planning to have a Christmas program. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Those things end up just filling their heads with nonsense and taking away time that ought to be put on lessons.” She crossed her arms against her chest. “Plus, it makes them vain and forward.”

  Jorie heartily disagreed, but she kept that opinion to herself. How could learning – any learning – be thought of as nonsense?

  “And the next time someone loses their breakfast on my Esther, I expect you to have the good sense to send her home to change her clothes. She came straight home, took a long bath, and is lying down with a frightful headache.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Jorie said.

  She breathed a sigh of relief as Sylvia, finally exhausted of scoldings, turned and left for home. She knew God loved each and every soul, but she wondered if even the Almighty Lord found it took a little more effort with Sylvia Swartzentruber.

  Matthew was almost done sawing up a large tree branch that had fallen during a heavy rainstorm so it could be split, seasoned, and used for firewood. He stopped to wipe his brow and noticed Jorie King drive a buggy up the long lane that led to the farmhouse and barn. He dropped the saw and took a few strides to the water pump. He quickly pumped some water and washed off his face, then smoothed his blond hair back under his black felt hat. He ran his hand over his chin, checking to see that he had shaved his whiskers properly. He wiped his hands on his pants and hurried to meet her, hoping she had time for a talk. Jorie King might be his brother’s girl, but his heart beat faster when he saw her. He knew it wasn’t the Plain way to believe in luck, but sometimes he thought Ben was such a lucky dog. He was always lucky. Lucky in life, lucky in love.

  Matthew had never seen such a color of hair as Jorie’s. When the sun hit it just right, like it did in church yesterday, it looked like it was nearly on fire. For a moment, his mind wandered to a daydream of liberating her hair from that starched bonnet and those nasty-looking pins, then his vision was interrupted when Jorie said, “Mary Ann told me yo
ur news, Matthew.” In a flash, she hopped down from the buggy. “What do you think about leaving us behind and living in the big scary city of Lebanon?”

  Matthew grinned and squared his shoulders, trying to look like a man. “Truth be told, Jorie, I think the federal government isn’t a bit interested in what I think about it.” He wouldn’t admit it to her, but he was disappointed he ended up getting sent to the Veterans Hospital in Lebanon, just an hour away by bus, to work in the psychiatric rehabilitation ward. He was worried Cal would ask him to live at home, but his brother never said a word about it. That was Cal, though. He believed a man had to make his own decisions in life.

  Matthew had his heart set on New York City. Once, while he was in town, he heard a song on the radio at the hardware store about New York City being a place where people never slept. Imagine that!

  “I’m hoping you’ll be able to return for our Christmas program in December,” Jorie was saying, jolting him back to the present. “Ephraim will be the angel Gabriel, announcing the coming birth of the Christ child. We’ve already started to work on it.”

  Matthew’s heart soared. Jorie King wanted to see him again! “Well, I’ll be sure to – ”

  “If you’re looking for Mary Ann, she’s in her garden,” Cal said, coming toward them from the barn.

  Matthew tried not to scowl at Cal for interrupting.

  “It’s you I’m looking for, Cal, if you have a moment to spare,” Jorie answered.

  “What is it?” Cal asked, leaning against the fence. He shot his brother a look to give them a little privacy, so Matthew went back to the woodcutting. He used the hatchet to hack twigs off of the branch so he could keep one ear on the conversation.

  “It’s about one of the boys at school.”

  “Someone giving you a hard time? I hope it’s not Ephraim.”

  “No, nothing like that. In fact, it’s just the opposite.”

  “How so?”

  “Did you mean what you said in your sermon yesterday? About how husbands should be listening to their wives? That a wife’s opinion should be considered a gift of wisdom to the husband?”

  “Of course I meant it. What are you getting at?”

  “Ray Smucker came for an hour on the first day of school, just long enough to get on the attendance roll, and left.”

  “So I heard,” Cal said, eyes laughing. “He had a hankering for an apple. Or two. Ephraim said you handled it as calm as a summer day.”

  “Ray hasn’t been back since. I stopped by the farm and spoke to Lyddie.” She tilted her head. “Gideon told her that Ray doesn’t need any more schooling.”

  “Gid has never set much store in book learning. He only went through the fourth grade himself. He raised his older boys the same way, letting them miss months at a time when he needed them on the farm. Guess he feels they turned out all right.”

  “That was a different time,” Jorie said. “The school districts had a more lenient eye toward farming families. And Gid had a different wife for those boys. I know this is a late-in-life child for him, but Lyddie is young. She wants Ray to get some schooling. He’s older than Ephraim and hardly knows any English. How’s . . . ,” she glanced at Matthew, who ducked his head down, “will he get along in life without knowing English?”

  Matthew covered a grin. Those Smuckers weren’t known for being the brightest lanterns in the barn. They were a difficult bunch to deal with. They hardly knew any English, so they had to depend on others for dealings outside the Amish community. And they were always borrowing money from others and forgetting to pay back the loan. Cal loaned Gideon Smucker hundreds of dollars to buy tools and start up a blacksmithing business. Gideon started the business, then soon lost interest. Once or twice, he overheard Mary Ann gently chide Cal to remind Gid to pay back the loan, but Cal refused. He said their money belonged to the Lord, and it was the Lord’s business to remind Gid to pay back his debts. Mary Ann wasn’t inclined to challenge her husband, but after Cal left the kitchen, Matthew heard her muttering to herself that the Lord probably had better things to do with his time than be a debt collector.

  Matthew was surprised that Jorie even bothered worrying about Ray; other teachers sure didn’t waste any time worrying about a Smucker. Maybe it was because she was new to teaching this year and there’d been so much controversy about the Amish having their own schools. Cal felt Stoney Ridge had an example to make for other Amish communities who were having terrible times with the Department of Education.

  Just last week, Matthew saw some letters in the Sugarcreek Budget about fathers in Indiana and Ohio who were getting tossed into jail for not wanting their children to be bused to large public schools. Over a decade ago, the same thing had happened in Pennsylvania. Matthew’s father was one of those men who had been tossed in jail and fined, repeatedly, for not letting Cal go to high school. Finally, a superior court ordered Cal to go. He remembered how mad his mother was, banging pots and pans in the kitchen and telling his father they should up and move to Canada or Mexico. His father worked in a different way, much like Cal, moving calmly toward a goal. He started a letter-writing campaign to the governor. He wrote a letter every day and encouraged others to write too. The governor finally agreed to a compromise – Amish children over the age of fourteen went to a vocational school until they were sixteen. Cal said he was hoping the Pennsylvania Compromise would be so successful that it would clear the way for Amish brethren in other states.

  Cal had just set the date for the work frolic to build the schoolhouse and was heading home from town when he nearly ran his buggy into Jorie, walking down the middle of the street on her way home from town. She was reading a book and didn’t even hear his buggy. Cal said he pulled over to see what the Sam Hill was the matter with her, noticed the book she was reading was Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, and offered her the teaching job, right on the spot. She didn’t accept at first, but Cal had made up his mind and, once decided, nothing could budge it loose. He kept on asking her until she said yes. Matthew wasn’t really sure why Cal was so all-fired determined to hire Jorie, especially since she didn’t really want to teach. There were at least three other girls he knew of who wanted the job, but Cal didn’t think they would inspire the scholars.

  “Matthew,” Cal said, jolting him out of his reverie. He pointed to the fallen tree limb. “The branch isn’t going to trim itself.” Then he turned back to Jorie. “Seems like this is a job for the deacon.”

  “I agree.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “So before coming here, I went and spoke to Jonas. He said he agreed with Gideon.”

  Cal kicked at the ground. “Aw, Jorie, I can’t go over there and start telling a man how to raise his son.”

  At Cal’s hesitation, Matthew noticed Jorie’s back stiffen a notch. She was exasperated, Matthew realized, and it looked like steam trying hard not to rise from a kettle. He thought being mad made her look especially beautiful. A stain spread up her cheeks and her eyes got all wide and fiery. Passion, he thought. She was a woman with passion. Not like most girls he knew. Girls like Fat Lizzie, whose large eyes followed him around during meetings. He was looking forward to meeting more girls like Jorie King while he was living in Lebanon. There was a big world to explore and the United States Government was going to help him do it.

  “But you’re a minister now,” Jorie told Cal.

  Cal took off his hat and raked a hand through his hair. “My job is to take care of our members’ spiritual needs.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Why shouldn’t you be teaching a man how to be a good father? Maybe then you won’t have to worry so much about spiritual needs.”

  Matthew stopped hacking off twigs and glanced at Jorie and Cal. He got a kick out of watching her speak her mind to Cal. With her hands hooked on her hips, Matthew couldn’t help noticing how small her waist was. His gaze drifted to her face. He wondered what it would be like to kiss those lips – they were so full. He had tried to kiss Cindy Yoder once, but she started giggling
and couldn’t stop. He had been looking forward to kissing since he was Ephraim’s age, but kissing Cindy was a dire disappointment. She was too young, only sixteen. He was pretty sure kissing a mature woman like Jorie would be different. He shook his head. His thoughts were going down twisted, dangerous paths.

  Matthew’s gaze shifted to Cal, who held his hat in his hands and was turning it around, fingering the brim. That meant his brother was thinking about what to do. He was thinking hard. The more times he turned his hat around, the stickier the problem. Jorie’s head was tilted up to look at Cal, much taller than she was, waiting patiently for him to respond. For a split second, he thought he saw something else in Jorie’s eyes. Some kind of feeling for Cal that made Matthew uneasy. Then the look in her eyes passed, and she turned her gaze to the setting sun.

  Maybe it was just a look of admiration. People often looked at Cal like that, as if they expected him to spout forth wisdom with a Solomonic flair. Yet Cal would be the first to say he was just a man, like any other man.

  Softly, Jorie added, “In the English system, a truant officer could arrest Gideon Smucker.”

  Cal bristled.

  She gripped her elbows and looked past him to the willow tree hanging its limbs over the little creek. “How many times have you said that the new superintendent is watching our school? You said we need to comply with what he’s asking of us or we may end up having to bus our scholars to that big public school.”

  Cal raised an eyebrow. “That’s pretty ironic coming from a teacher who seems to be spending most of her time outside of the classroom with those scholars.”

  “That classroom is stifling hot. Besides, we are studying. We’re studying nature. Making observations.”

  “And when the time comes for that year-end state exam, you’ll end up spending the month of May cramming those eighth grade heads with book learning.”

  “They’ll pass,” she said, drawing her five-foot-three self up tall. “They’ll all pass.”