Seeing Your Face Again by Jerry S. Eicher

decision had appeared to hurt less. Now he wasn’t so sure.
    Alvin stopped pacing. At least he hadn’t stooped to asking Daett for money before he left. He would have a hard time surviving on the little money he’d saved since he’d turned twenty-one, but that was the way things were. He’d known the world out here wasn’t anything like the farm at home. Things wouldn’t be easy. But difficult or not, this was better than what would happen at home this spring. He didn’t want to face that. Daett would no longer be able to hide the facts of the farm’s failure when planting time came, and they couldn’t afford to let the land lie dormant for a year.
    Some Saturday afternoon, about the time the snow began to melt, Daett would make the trip to see Deacon Mast. The deacon would listen with bowed head. He would nod and express sympathy, but nasty repercussions would follow. A committee would be appointed, chosen by the harsh Minister Kanagy, if Alvin didn’t miss his guess. Daett would lose control of his checking account. Changes would be demanded in his farming practices. Changes that Alvin had asked for many times and had been refused. Daett would nod and agree, but he would do what he always had done once the men drove out of the driveway— nothing! After a time the committee would catch on. They would send in a hired hand, but still there would be no change. The best hired hand in the world wouldn’t be able to watch Daett ’s every move or change what the years had solidified in his soul.
    If Alvin had stayed, the blame would also descend on his shoulders. “Alvin should have known better.” The whispers would make their rounds. “After all, isn’t Alvin twenty-one and a man?” “You can’t teach one of Edwin Knepp’s boys anything,” they would say. And there were his brothers to prove the point. All of them had left farming when they married. Wallace and William, the twins, had taken construction jobs with crews who specialized in pole barns. Amos had a small harness shop outside of Beaver Springs. The business didn’t do that well, but it was better than Amos’s farming skills. Alvin had been the only brother left to take the farm into the next generation.
    If he hated farming, the matter might have been easier to bear, but Alvin didn’t. He loved the work, the early morning rising before dawn, the dew fresh on the grass, the neigh of horses eager to work, the smell of freshly mown hay in the summertime. He even liked the howl of the winter wind outside the house and the knowledge that the animals were safe and secure in the barn.
    His love for the farm was really why he left, Alvin told himself. He couldn’t bear the pain of losing the place. It tore at his emotions. He couldn’t bear to see so much drift away when it could have been prevented. And his attraction to Debbie had made things worse.
    His first glimpses of her had been exactly that—brief sightings of her car at first. He hadn’t known who was in the car that repeatedly drove slowly past the farm. He’d expected an older, local couple. Perhaps someone fascinated with Amish farms. The car came by too often to have been the usual drive-by tourists. Alvin knew what they thought, even though he seldom heard them from his perch on the rusty seats of his horse-drawn farm equipment.
    â€œHow quaint these people are!”
    â€œIt’s like living in the seventeenth century.”
    â€œSuch thrifty people!”
    Alvin flopped on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Debbie’s face had seemed like an angel’s when he’d seen his first sight of her through the car window. She had apparently considered herself caught and had rolled down the window to wave. He’d waved back. She was an Englisha girl and more beautiful than he’d ever thought a woman’s face could be. At first he’d told himself it was his