“No, no it won’t. But you have to know folks around here aren’t going to take this lying down. You folk are a blessing to us all, and I know we’ve got different ways, but we just can’t sit by and watch evil men hurt you and your kids. You know we just can’t.”
I told him that I would pray for him, but it was hard to hear those words from him. More anger, more violence, building and building. More armed men, even friends, could not be a good thing.
The sword has no handle, as Jonas Beiler used to say. When you take it up, the blade cuts into your hand. But now the sword is all around us. It seems to be everywhere, like a sharp harvest rising from the fields. It will touch us, whether we choose it or not.
October 24
Still cold this morning, close to a frost, so much colder than it was this time last year.
I look at my journal, and on this day last year it was almost eighty degrees. And the year before, eighty-two. But the year before was cold. So difficult to predict. I don’t know if those three acres of wheat will make it, not if it gets much colder. Already, the storm damage and the cold have taken a toll. That will be a loss, if it is so. The flour is most needed.
Dr. Jones came by a little before noon, riding on his bicycle. The message had gotten to him about Sadie, and he came by to look at her.
We talked for a while, and he offered his condolences, and said that Sadie seemed fine. She was in good spirits, though she seemed always to be humming that tune. We gave him some dried beef, and prayed with him a little, and he left us with some medication.
“I don’t have much left,” he said. “And I don’t know when I’ll be getting any more. So use it if she gets worse.”
YOUNG JON DID NOT come today. I realized it as the afternoon wore on, and there was no news. It was hard for him, I think. Seeing that death. It was hard for me. I hope that he will come again, and come soon.
As dusk came, a party of men could be seen in the darkness, walking the road, alongside a cart that was drawn by a horse. They were not simple folk, but as they grew closer, I realized that I knew many of them. They were neighbors, all of them, a dozen or more.
All were armed, mostly with rifles. They waved as they passed.
IN THE NIGHT, THERE are sounds from Sadie’s room. A thumping and a rustling, and I wake, to go and see what it is that she is doing. She is stirring in her sleep, and I am so alert, so aware of it that I cannot help but wake. I move down the hall, and open her door just a crack.
In the bed, in the half-light, I can see her shifting and twisting slowly in her covers. But she is not crying out, not struggling to breathe or screaming in the darkness. It is just a small voice, spoken from sleep. There are not words, though they sound like words.
And in there, for a moment, and then again, there is that tune.
I must remember where I heard it.
October 25
Sabbath today, and I feel spent. It is the funeral, I think, that has left my soul feeling depleted and empty. I felt the absence of Isaak, before we left, as we arrived at the Sorensons’, and throughout the service.
There was nothing different, nothing wrong, nothing flawed with the service. There never is. Simple, and as constant as a stone. It was as it is. But some days, my spirit is weak in me. I feel absent and without strength.
Yet still I go, and still I am part of it, and still I do not question that I am there. That is the strength of being part of the Order, of letting it be your guide. You go when you are joyful. You go when you are not. And by this, you find yourself standing on a firm foundation.
AT THE END OF the service, the deacons spoke to all gathered, about Isaak. It was Deacon Sorenson, mostly, as the others watched and listened. He told us about how word had been sent to Isaak’s younger brother, in Ohio. We would try to find a way to get Maisie and Grace to their family, and if it was God’s will, it would be so.
Then Bishop Schrock reminded us all that Isaak was one commissioned to preach, and that in losing him, we had lost a preacher. That would need to change, and the deacons had met to select another.
It can be done by choice, or it can be done by simple lot, but Asa said the choice was clear.
And he spoke my name.
I nodded, and acknowledged it.
It was not what I wanted to hear today, but perhaps it is always that way. Among the English, being a preacher meant you were important, that you were a leader. Here, it is a task. It is a simple demand of the Order. It is like plowing a field, or butchering a cow.
I hope that, for me, it is not too much like butchering a cow.
AFTER DINNER, WHICH SHAUNA and Mike had prepared for us while we went to worship, Mike wanted to talk with me. We stepped out into the night, and walked the drive.
“Are things still holding together, Jacob?”
I told him that I wasn’t sure what he meant.
“I mean, are you going to have enough. I know you say it. Shoot, I think you believe it. But Shauna and I been talking tonight, you know, about us staying here. It’s been so good, and you and Hannah have been so good for us.”
I told him it had been good for us, too.
“But really, Jacob, we’ve been down in the larder, looking at what you have here. How can it possibly work? We’re so many to feed. Maybe we should think about finding somewhere —”
I stopped him. My words back to him were plain. Where? Where would they go? There was nowhere, nowhere in the world that was not like this. If they left, they would face hardship. Here, they were family. They were our strength. Things were easier with them here. “You fill this house, Mike,” I said. “You fill it.”
And he knew what I meant.
Had he been the sort of man to embrace, he would have embraced me there.
I HAVE WOKEN AGAIN to gunfire. It is early morning, maybe two or three o’clock, and the night pops and crackles with it. It is distant, but it goes on for ten minutes, and it is the most that I can remember hearing. Hannah woke up with it, too, and together we spent those ten minutes in prayer. For our family, for God’s grace, for whoever was out there in the night facing death. After it stopped, she went back to bed, but I find that I am still awake.
Now I write, but I must sleep. I simply must.
I HAD FALLEN BACK asleep, I don’t know when, maybe four o’clock, and there was banging at the door of the house.
I woke with a start, and made my way downstairs through the cold house. Now? At this time of night? My heart raced, as it will when you are woken suddenly. Hannah woke, too, and I tried to tell her that she should stay upstairs.
She would have none of that, and came down with me to see who was at the door. I told her that she should not come, should be prepared to hide and take the children, but she scoffed at me.
“It could not be men with ill intent, Jay. Don’t be foolish,” she said. “We do not have locks on our doors. Why would they knock, when they could come right in.”
She was right. That’s the most difficult thing about marrying a smart woman.