Rebecca's Return by Jerry S. Eicher Page A

ministers don’t know everything.”
    “So what do you know?” she asked undeterred.
    “Not a thing,” he said puzzled. “Family came with a perfect church letter—never made trouble either.”
    “So what’s wrong with that? You should be happy.”
    “Nothing to do with happiness.”
    “You worried then?”
    “Don’t know—just strange, that’s all.”
    “You think Da Hah will have trouble for us then?”
    “That’s in His will—only He knows.”
    “But you feel it?”
    Isaac shook his head. “It’s all in His will. He will give us the strength to bear whatever comes.”
    “You’re just getting old…feeling our last one leaving.”
    “Ya. It might be that.”
    “And we will grow old—just the two of us. That’s not too bad, is it?”
    He allowed a smile to spread across his face. “Not with your cooking.”
    “You’re a shlecht one,” she said, pretending to glare at him, but bending to kiss him on the forehead.

C HAPTER T EN

     
    R achel Byler was cleaning the kitchen, having first made certain that Reuben was comfortably settled in the living room. Reuben had looked strangely at her, puzzled by the attention, then let it go and relaxed in his recliner. He had now found the Milroy, Indiana, section of the paper and was engrossed in the news. The scribe for the area was usually Margaret, Emery Yoder’s wife. Not that it really mattered because there wasn’t much room for personal expression in the writing, just a recounting of who had visited and other general happenings. Occasionally diversions were made, slight ones, only detectable if you knew what was going on under the surface. He, of course, did and always went to his home community’s article first.
    Tonight Reuben scanned the article, finding a listing of visitors at the Sunday service two weeks ago. It usually took that length of time to get the letter from the scribe to Ohio, then printed in the paper, and mailed back to the subscribers. Still it was an efficient way of communication between the Amish communities. Reasonably priced too—which was important.
    Margaret said that Bishop Jesse Raber, his wife, and brother-in-law from Daviess County had been visiting. There followed some more names, but he just scanned those.
    On Monday night Jacob Weaver had a scare, Margaret continued, when a young calf took a fright, while the youngest boy of the family was tending to it. The boy was doing his chores in the calf pen, laying down a fresh bed of straw. The family dog had entered the calf pen and was following the boy around. This frightened the calf and made it jump against the wall, causing the gasoline lantern that was set on the floor to tip over. When the lantern tipped over, the glass globe apparently absent or broken, the flame ignited the straw.
    The carelessness of youth, Reuben thought, unless maybe the Weavers made a practice of not placing globes on their lanterns, making it easier to light the lantern. Whether or not the Weavers were using lanterns in that condition doesn’t matter because this was just a case of carelessness and not a church offense. Carelessness. Da Hah can handle that on His own—without my help. With that decision made, Reuben continued to read.
    He wondered whether Margaret would put things in the paper that were a church offense. He doubted it, but one never knew. It might slip out inadvertently, he supposed. Not that he wanted such a thing to happen, as many readers far and wide would read the account. The offense would then also have to be dealt with quickly, hopefully with word of the ministry’s quick action trickling back around.
    Anyway, the young boy yelled for help and had most of the fire stomped out by the time his father arrived. Reuben thought about fires and how they could easily—when burning out of control—take down a barn and destroy livestock in no time at all. He was sure Weaver had a long talk with his son.
    Farther down, right after a mention of the snowstorm, Margaret