No Use Dying Over Spilled Milk Read Online Free PDF Page A

have made us clean out the chicken coop. In a Yoder house, one did what one was told.
    Eventually the boys tired of taking turns and began bellowing in unison. Who knows how long the racket would have lasted had not a sixth voice, even louder and higher-pitched than the others, joined in. Fortunately only Susannah and I picked up on the interloper. Immediately my pointed shoes found a home.
    “Well, excuuuse me!” Susannah said, but without need of another hint she left the dinner table and went outside. She should have been grateful, because I know she was dying for a cigarette by then. Undoubtedly Shnookums needed to be fed too, for his stomach couldn’t be larger than a thimble.
    With Susannah’s departure the din dimmed dramatically, and I managed to demonstrate that I was an appreciative guest by consuming a respectable portion of the meager repast Lizzie had provided. Not that there wasn’t a lot of food, but canned sardines and bread are not your typical Amish supper. Not being a connoisseur of finned things, I concentrated on the bread and its accouterments. The whimpers and snuffles around me were not enough to deter my appetite.
    “This apple butter is the best I’ve ever eaten,” I said, spreading a fourth slice of bread. Truthfully I’d tasted far better, but the good Lord knew my motive for stretching the truth was pure.
    Lizzie beamed. “It’s the extra cinnamon. And just a pinch of ground cloves.”
    “And this bread! Even Freni Hostetler can’t make a loaf this light.”
    Lizzie blushed deeply. “It’s store-bought. What with the wedding to cook for and Levi passing last week, I didn’t have time to bake.”
    I nodded. Amish weddings, I knew, demanded copious amounts of food. I had no idea who Levi was or what he had passed, but if it was important enough to cause an Amish woman to stop baking, it had to be a matter of consequence.
    Suddenly Isaac stopped whimpering. “Is Uncle Levi still dead?” he asked.
    Samuel patted his eldest son’s head. “Yah, he’s sleeping in the ground. But soon he’ll be with God.”
    I carefully swallowed a rather large bite. I had heard nothing at the gathering about a man named Levi dying recently. Of course, I had spent most of the time avoiding conversations, and the gal from Goshen, an outsider like me, was apparently in the dark as well.
    Lizzie seemed to sense my curiosity. “They’re talking about Levi Mast. Samuel’s first cousin. He died last Tuesday. Exactly a week ago.”
    “Oh, I’m so sorry.” I turned and looked sympathetically at Samuel.
    “Yah, he was a good man,” my kinsman said. He didn’t return my glance.
    I took another big bite, chewed it slowly, and swallowed. “How did he die?”
    The room was suddenly as silent as the cemetery where Levi Mast slept. Seven pairs of eyes, and that included the baby’s, were trained on Samuel’s face.
    It was a rather handsome face, topped by a salad bowl of blond hair and ringed at the bottom by a light brown beard. Like all Amish men, Samuel had no mustache.
    “It was a farming accident,” he said slowly.
    I could tell he was hedging, practically begging for a question or two. “What kind of an accident?”
    “Silo,” Samuel mumbled.
    I nodded. Levi Mast wasn’t the first farmer to slip and fall off a silo ladder. Jacob Berkey back in Hernia fell twenty feet from his and would undoubtedly have been transformed into a paraplegic if he hadn’t landed on his wife, who had come to call him to dinner. Thank goodness Rachel Berkey had a strong constitution and drank plenty of milk. The clever way she sewed her aprons did a lot to camouflage the fact that her posture was no longer ramrod-straight.
    “A tragic thing,” Lizzie said. She wiped at least a pint of apple butter off the baby’s face and sighed deeply. “On his wedding day a nice young man like that turns into a pretzel.”
    Suddenly seven pairs of eyes were trained hungrily on her face. It would be vain of me to say Lizzie is