English Shade Read online

  “I don’t know, Rose. Is ten percent going to be enough?”

  Rose scolded him with clicks of her tongue, saying, “Stop fretting, Amos. I’m nervous enough, as it is.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the retirement account, Amos. I haven’t been able to put enough into it, lately. If sales don’t pick up, soon, it’s going to stretch us out a few more years. A place in Florida in three more years? Forget about it.”

  “All right, Rose. I hear you. But if the bishop learns that we’ve got even a small retirement account? You don’t even want to think about that.”

  Rose eyed the signs in the front windows. “Do you want to make the sale more than ten percent?”

  Amos stroked his chin whiskers pensively. “No. We’d just be throwing money away.”

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  At Rita Barrow’s desk, in the back of the Barrow’s furniture store in Nokomis, Rollie Kent dropped his call to Rose. ‘This is working,’ he whispered to himself.

  Rita Barrow, standing next to her desk again, asked, “What, Rollie? What’s working?”

  Rollie looked up, then, and realized that he had been whispering again. Got to stop that, he thought, and said instead, “The routes, Rita. The trucking routes are working out nicely.”

  “Just keep it up, Rollie,” Rita said, moving past Rollie to sit at her desk.

  Rollie framed a broader smile. “Anyway, here’s your cut.”

  He handed her a white business envelope of cash, and she slipped it furtively into the back of the center drawer of her desk.

  Then reaching for her desk phone, Rita nodded and said, “I’ve got to make some calls, Rollie. Can you settle up with Richard? He has the Linder’s share.”

  “Sure,” Rollie said, and he stepped outside to his truck, where Richard Barrow was directing the men who were unloading the last of Rollie’s delivery.

  “Is that about it, then?” Rollie asked.

  “This is the last piece,” Richard said. “Here’s that check for the Linders.”

  Barrow handed a business envelope to Rollie, and Rollie asked, “Two weeks, then? Friday afternoon in two weeks?”

  “Yes,” Barrow said, “but tell the Linders that the roll top desks aren’t moving as fast as they used to. Everybody wants the smaller desks these days.”

  “Right,” Rollie said. “OK. Sure.”

  Richard Barrow touched Rollie’s shoulder and spoke earnestly. “Just tell Linders, or maybe even Ivan himself, too. The smaller desks are moving better than the rolltops.”

  “OK,” Rollie said, smiling. Back in his truck, he whispered with an even broader smile, ‘Like your customers are ever going to spot the difference, Richard.’

  Then remembering, he cautioned himself again not to whisper so much.

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  Inside his Nokomis store, Richard Barrow casually propped a hip on the front corner of his wife’s desk, making a sigh as he rested himself there beside her.

  “All done?” Rita asked.

  “Yep.”

  “You gave him the check for Linders?”

  “What else was I going to do with it?”

  “Same arrangement?”

  “Forty percent of what they think we’re getting in sales.”

  “You ever going to tell them?”

  “No. And they’ll never come down here to check.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nope.”

  “So, our profits should be steady for the next couple of months.”

  “So long as nobody spoils our pricing setup.”

  “Who would?”

  “Like I told you, Rita. That big fellow and his wife? The ones who were just browsing today? I think he knows me. Or at least I think I know him. I just can’t place him right now.”

  “Relax, Richard. Nobody is ever going to figure our angles. Not as long as all those Amish folks stay up in Ohio.”

  “Really, though,” Richard said, “we might be pushing these prices too high. Even if they don’t find out.”

  “I don’t think so,” Rita said and smiled larcenously. “People down here expect Amish goods to sell at a premium. And these east coast snowbirds? They don’t know any better.”

  Chapter 9

  Friday, June 5

  7:05 PM

  “No, those were desert lands,” Small said, explaining to his preachers James and Jonas Rupp. They were his brothers, James the oldest of nine, and Jonas the youngest. Small trusted that James would catch his meaning more quickly then Jonas, who tended to take everything rather literally, being less inclined than James to recognize subtleties and nuances.

  “Shade was a commodity in the desert,” Small continued. “A place of comfort, in Egypt. And God chastised Israel for accepting it also as a place of safety – under Pharaoh’s protection.”

  He was standing at the edge of Jonas Rupp’s corn field, resting an elbow – it was necessary to appear relaxed around the impressionable Jonas – on a weathered wooden fence post. Small had called them to this meeting by driving his buggy to each of their farms and announcing the time and place where they were to meet. That evening, it was just the bishop and his two preachers, brothers all, talking it through. Soon, Small intended, it would be the entire congregation that would understand the burden on his heart.

  “You’re talking about the English?” James asked. “Egypt’s world is the English world?”

  Small nodded appreciatively. “Isaiah, Chapter Thirty.”

  “Egypt’s shade,” James replied. “It’s a beautiful metaphor.”

  “Exactly,” said Small. “It’s God’s metaphor, written in the lives and history of the Israelites. We are the new children of the metaphor, and the danger for us is the English shade. We have sought comfort – and safety – in the English shade, and it is not what God requires of us.”

  James and Jonas Rupp, as different in temperament as they were, could not have looked more alike if Hollywood artists had painted seventeenth century caricatures side by side on a life-sized canvas. They each wore gray denim back-fall trousers, with side pockets bulging with small tools and sundries. Long-sleeved, light-blue shirts, closed at the necks with string ties. Black fabric vests with hook-and-eye closures, but hanging open because of the heat. Cream colored straw hats, broken through with ragged holes at the front of the crowns, from long and daily wear. And brown leather boots, battered with age, with plain flat soles that had been mended and replaced many times over by Herman Hartzler, at his tac and harness shop down the lane.

  But other than their identical appearances, the two brothers of Small could not have been more different. James was a dreamer and a deep thinker. Jonas was a man of rigid absolutes, who understood every conversation, every pronouncement, in literal terms. With Jonas, plain and straightforward talk was always necessary, whereas with James, a sly wink was often enough to convey even the most complicated notions.

  Small let his brothers ponder his words for a moment, and then he said, “We’ve all gotten too comfortable in the English shade, and it is not a Godly way to live.”

  “Are you talking about electricity again?” Jonas asked.

  “Yes, Jonas,” Small said, smiling wearily. “But much more than that.”

  “Comforts,” James said, nodding.

  “Like riding lawn mowers?” Jonas asked. “They’re very handy.”

  “Transportation,” James said.

  “Yes,” said Small to both James and Jonas. “But riding mowers aren’t proper vehicles, are they, Jonas.”

  Jonas passed a perplexed glance over to James, and he turned to Small, saying, “But they’re handy, Small. Riding mowers are really very handy.”

  Small gave an exasperated shake of his head, groaning deep in his throat. “The men are riding them into town, Jonas. Don’t you see the problem with that?”

  For his part, James nodded and said, “Sometimes they pull their families along on wagons hitched to the
back, Jonas.”

  “Really,” Small said to James and Jonas, both. “All the English have to offer us are conveniences. And there’s no Godliness in any of it.”

  “You’re not talking about electricity?” Jonas asked, still struggling to appreciate the whole of what his brothers were saying.

  Small sighed and took another tack. “Think about it, Jonas,” he said. “The English are mostly just tourists, anymore. And commerce is strong in that. Our people are relying on all the money that they make from tourism.”

  “It’s everywhere, now,” James said. “But it’s not just tourism, is it.”

  “It’s all manner of commerce,” Small said. “But is that all that God demands of us? Only that we be good merchants?”

  “You don’t want us to sell goods to the English anymore?” Jonas asked, unable to mask his confusion.

  Small lifted his brows and pointed his eyes briefly at the sky. “More than that, Jonas,” he said tenderly. “It’s so much more than that.”

  “Power tools and light bulbs.” James said.

  “And rental vans and drivers,” Small added. “Computers, banking and charge accounts in town, and English foodstuffs. We’re buying soda pop now, sometimes a dozen cartons at a time, and we use drivers and rental vans to take whole families into town to get it.”

  Now Jonas was shifting nervously on his feet. He was tugging at his chin whiskers. “We’ve already gotten rid of our cell phones, Small.”

  James handed a knowing smile over to Small. He took off his straw hat, and he wiped his brow with a bandana from his side pocket. To Jonas he said, “I think Small has been worried about these matters for quite a long time.”

  The bishop nodded. He cleared his throat. “It is in my heart that we have gotten too lazy. That we’ve adopted too many English conveniences. The old ways were more Godly, and we’ve got to get back to that.”

  “Starting with what?” Jonas asked, with complaint evident in his tone.

  Small held a long pause, thinking the matter through. He was resolving himself to a turning point. He was committing himself to an entirely new way of life, to a more difficult one. Once satisfied, Bishop Small spoke.

  “In a desert, shade is a commodity. It is a comfort. In Isaiah Chapter Thirty, it is God’s metaphor for error. Shade was a false allure for the Israelites. It was wrong of them to think that if they were comfortable, then they were also safe.”

  James recognized the resolve he saw in Small’s countenance. “You’ve made a decision, Bishop.”

  Small nodded. “I have.”

  “Is it all the English conveniences?” James followed along.

  “Yes, and more, James. Much more, Jonas.”

  “What do you want from us?” Jonas asked.

  Small showed the shadow of a grin, and then he let it stretch to a broad and satisfied smile. He was over the barrier that had too long held him back. He knew his course, now. In fact, he had known it all along. It had just taken time for his resolve to mature into a decision that he could speak aloud. Perhaps, he thought, it had taken too long. He would have to answer to God for that, he knew. Because it was always the principal burden of leadership that a bishop should seek and understand God’s will for His people. Now he was certain that he had done that, and he realized that it was his visit with the Linders that had finally convinced him of his path.

  ‘Forgive me, Lord,’ he whispered. ‘I have been too slow with this.’

  Then to his brothers the preachers, Small said, “Sermons. That’s what I want. It’ll take three or four weeks to bring us all to an understanding of this. We’re going to have to start doing it with sermons.”

  “But, on what?” Jonas asked. “Sermons on what? Because this is big, Small. It’s bigger than anything you have ever asked of us.”

  “I know,” Small said heavily. “I know.”

  “Tell us,” Jonas complained. “Where can we start? Just tell everybody to sell their riding mowers?”

  “It’s too soon for that,” Small said, smiling fondly and also impatiently at his all-too-practical brother. “We have to start with the fundamentals.”

  “Isaiah, Chapter Thirty,” James said. “Egypt’s shade.”

  “Yes,” the bishop said. He laid a soft hand on Jonas’s shoulder and added, “Sermons, Jonas. On Isaiah, Chapter Thirty. That’s what I want first. Sermons on the false allure of Egypt’s shade. Sermons on the false allure of English ways.”

  He removed his hand from his brother’s shoulder, and he stepped back a pace to address both James and Jonas. “I have a plan for this,” he said confidently. “It’s going to take some time for me to explain it all to you, but I do definitely have a plan. You’re each going to be out in front of the people’s thinking on this. Many of them are not going to like it, and it’s not going to be comfortable for you. Leadership of this type rarely is. But, I am resolved that we must do this. We have to do it before it’s too late. I just hope we won’t lose too many souls because of it.”

  Chapter 10

  Friday, June 5

  8:30 PM

  When Professor Branden rang the bell at Cal Troyer’s parsonage beside the church, it was Cal’s daughter Rachel Ramsayer who opened the door. It was the side door of the house, off the kitchen, and Rachel, a dwarf woman of fifty years, held the door open and then ushered the Brandens over to the round kitchen table, with its red Formica top. Beside her chair, Rachel mounted the boxy step that her father had built for her – there were steps like this one throughout the house – and she sat at her customary high seat at the table, facing the door. Her short legs swung free above the green linoleum floor.

  “Dad’s asleep, already,” Rachel said, as Caroline and the professor took seats at the table. “He goes to bed fairly early these days.” She shrugged her little shoulders and lifted her short arms tentatively. “All I can tell you is that he gets tired a lot. He just wears out. And he sleeps a lot more than he used to.”

  “Is it the time of day?” the professor asked. “Or is there anything that brings it on?”

  “Nothing, Professor,” Rachel sighed. “He wears out easily, anymore, over nothing at all. Over nothing, really, at all.”

  Caroline offered, “He told us the doctors said that he was free of the cancer.”

  Rachel shrugged again, and she glanced back briefly over her shoulder toward the bedroom hallway. “He wouldn’t admit to it,” she said, “but the surgeries really beat it out of him. I think he’s pretty much done with carpentry. With jobs, too. He’s surely not going to be climbing any ladders. Or helping Amish anymore at their barn raisings.”

  “He used to love that,” the professor said softly. “But now? Really, he shouldn’t be doing that anymore.”

  Rachel laughed. “Don’t let Dad hear you talking like that. He doesn’t want people to know. But you two? Of course you should know. He’s lost a lot of his pep. But you obviously came for a reason. Should I wake him up for you?”

  “No,” Caroline said, rising. “Not really. He wanted to know what Ivan Coblentz has been up to at his shop.”

  From the hallway behind Rachel, Cal said, “I still do,” and he stepped into the kitchen wearing long pajamas.

  Caroline smiled and reclaimed her seat.

  Branden, using an old friend’s instincts, blurted, “Troyer, you old wreck, what are you doing in bed this early?”

  Cal gave out a soft chuckle, and then he laughed heartily as he took the fourth seat at the table. “You’re the one with all the gray hair, Branden.”

  “So are you, old man,” the professor crowed.

  “My hair is pure white,” Cal retorted. “It’s a mark of distinction.”

  Cal’s hair was growing long again, after his cancer treatments, and he had pulled it into a short ponytail at the back. His full beard was trimmed short, and it appeared to be more of an unkempt stubble, rather than a serious attempt at style. In fact, he had rather a used, rugged look, as if he had neglected to attend to regular gro
oming. But his eyes were clear and alive with spark, and his voice was strong and melodious, sounding deeper and more resonant than when he had been suffering with the cancer protocols.

  Branden stretched out his hand to Cal, and they shook, each one challenging the other for length and strength of grip. When the professor released his grip early, Cal sang, triumphantly, “People with glass egos shouldn’t throw challenges.”

  “OK, OK,” Branden said, splaying the fingers of his right hand to rub them. “You’ve been swinging hammers for fifty years. I’ve handled nothing heavier than chalk.”

  “Boys,” Caroline scolded. “What? You’re still in the fifth grade?”

  Cal smiled somewhat mischievously. “Not by a long shot,” and the professor echoed the tone, saying “I could have taken him back then.”

  “OH, really!” Cal started, and Rachel cut him off, “Dad!”

  The two old friends finished their skirmish by smiling knowingly at each other, before Cal pushed up from the table to say, “I’m going to put on some coffee.”

  “Dad?”

  “It’s half-caff,” Cal said, defending himself. “Just half-caff.”

  While Cal pulled his canister from atop the refrigerator, Caroline ran water into the carafe and poured it into the back tank of the Mr. Coffee maker. As the pot chirped and grumbled, Cal took four ceramic mugs from the cabinet beside the kitchen sink.

  The mugs were distributed. The coffee was poured, and Cal and Caroline took their seats at the table.

  Blowing gently across his brew, Cal asked, “You visited Ivan’s shop?”

  “We did,” the professor said. “Just this afternoon.”

  “And?”

  “It’s the same old place, Cal. He uses only a few men, they all work slowly and carefully, and the goods are as fine as ever. And Jeremiah Miller has a decent position there. He’s one of Ivan’s best men on desks.”

  “They’re still using only the best wood? The best cuts?” Cal asked. “And good tools, too?”

  Caroline answered. “The very best. Jeremiah was quite proud of it all. He uses a wood-burning stylus to sign the back of each of his finished pieces.”