Crossing Read Online Free PDF Page B

them.”
    “So how have you been managing the farm by yourself, Mother?” Daniel asked.
    Zemira set down a platter of roast beef and a big bowl of mashed potatoes that had been kept on the woodstove, which still had coals enough to keep it warm. “You know this, Daniel,” she answered matter-of-factly. “You are not my only family. This community is my family, too, and since your father died, everyone in the valley has helped me.”
    The Amish were indeed loyal to everyone in their community. Anytime anyone needed help—with money, with children, with work, with the farm—the entire community helped. The settlement in the Shenandoah Valley was relatively small, now with twenty-two family farms, though that number was growing as they married and bought more land. But when Jacob Tremayne had died, all of the able men of the twenty-two families took turns taking care of the Tremayne farm and holdings. Zemira was still strong, and she herself still tended to the milking, the cows, the horses, the kitchen garden, and the cornfield. But the men of the Amish community had helped with plowing, sowing, seeding, harvesting, selling the goods at market, and with firewood and tending the livestock in the bitter winters. Zemira told Daniel of all the men and boys who had helped her for the last two years since Jacob had died.
    Yancy was quiet as he listened to his father and his grandmother. The roast beef and potatoes were delicious, and he ate hungrily.
    As they were finishing up, Zemira asked, “What do you want to do, Daniel? Will you be going back to hunting and trapping?”
    “No, Mother, I don’t want to do that.” Daniel hesitated, but he had rehearsed what he wanted to say, so he forged ahead. “I want to come back and join the community. I want to work this farm. I want us to be a family.”
    Zemira gave Daniel a direct look. “Do you think so, Daniel? You never took discipline well. It will be difficult for you.”
    “I’ll give it my best,” Daniel said firmly.
    “You’ll have to prove yourself. You know what that will be like.”
    “It’ll be hard, but if you’ll have me, I’ll be grateful.”
    “So be it then.” Zemira turned to Yancy. “What about you, Yancy? What do you think of learning to live with us?”
    Yancy shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t really know much about you—about the Amish. But I’ll tell you the truth, ma’am. It doesn’t sound like I’ll like it much.”
    “Call me Grandmother,” Zemira said softly. “And I’ll help you, Yancy. It’ll be so good to have family here again.”
    “You’ll have to help me, too, Mother,” Daniel said. “I know I want to be here, but I’m still not sure where I stand with the Lord, and with Amish ways. It’s been so long….”
    “It’s never too long, or too late, with the Lord, Daniel,” Zemira said. “You’ll see.”

CHAPTER THREE
    R ebecca! What are you doing? Daydreaming about a husband?”
    Shadrach Braun leaned up against the doorjamb and sipped his lemonade. It was August, and it was hot. He had been out working in the fields and had come in to cool off for a bit before they finished up and had to put the stock away. He was dressed as all Amish men dressed for work—dark trousers, plain white shirt, suspenders, straw hat. He was not a big man but was tightly muscled, with dark hair and dark blue eyes that sometimes looked like a muddy green.
    In the parlor his three sisters sat on low hickory benches, and his mother sat in her favorite rocking chair. Lois, the youngest sister at thirteen, and her sister, Judith, who was one year older, were plying their needles industriously, sewing pillowcases. Their mother, Adah, was making a chair cushion.
    Rebecca, the eldest sister, had dropped her pillowcase onto her lap and was staring out the window dreamily. She turned as Shad spoke. “Maybe I was just meditating on things of the Lord, Shad. That would be better than sewing another one of these dumb