He said that Uncle Otto could outwork any man he knew. And once Mam and Dat got to know Ellie, it wasn’t a problem anymore.”
“Your grandfather sounds like a wise man.”
“And a good one. He’s been good to me. My brother will inherit my father’s farm, but my grandfather has promised his to me. I was supposed to take up his trade, his and my dat’s, of smithing, but I’m not sure it’s what I want to do.” He lifted a dripping colander from the soapy water and rinsed it under the tap.
“Were you trained as a blacksmith?”
He nodded. “Ya. I was, but I think everyone is beginning to realize I may not be cut out for it. Grossdaddi has arranged for a new apprentice, Jakob Schwartz from Indiana. He’s arriving tomorrow.” Taking a clean towel, Thomas carefully dried the colander and put it in the cabinet under the sink. “Jakob’s little, like Ellie, but Grossdaddi says he has the makings of a fine smith.” He glanced at her. “You need the strength in the arms. Height doesn’t matter.”
Leah removed her oversize work apron. She was wearing a dark plum dress with a starched white Mennonite prayer kapp. “I suppose I should get these sandwiches out there.”
“The platter is heavy. Let me,” he offered.
“I can do it. I’m used to lifting heavy objects. Once, one of our parishioners brought home a quarter of a cow.” Leah rolled her eyes. “I didn’t ask where he’d gotten the beef. There was always a running feud between the farmers and the indigenous people.” She picked up the tray.
“What was it like, living among them?”
“Wonderful. Awful. I never knew what kind of day we were going to have, one where nothing happened or one where the world turned upside down.” She chuckled. “A fine missionary I turned out to be. I could never even pronounce or spell the name our people called themselves. They are listed in our rolls as the St. Joseph tribe or the St. Joes.”
“I’d like to hear more about them,” Thomas admitted. “I’m curious as to what they’re like.”
She gave him a surprised look and set the tray down. “Really? You’re one of the few to ask. Since I’ve come home, I mean.”
He nodded. “Ya, I’m sure. But I’ve always been interested in the English world.” He grimaced. “That didn’t sound right, did it?”
She chuckled. “Ne, Thomas, it didn’t. I wouldn’t expect you to know, but I can’t imagine a life more un-English than our village. But to them, it is all the world. Like us, most of the St. Joes want to remain apart, with their customs and their jungle.”
He felt a flush of tingling warmth at the way she said his name, slow and sweet. He shifted his feet, suddenly feeling the conversation was getting too serious. “But what about that mysteriously acquired beef? Did you eat it?”
She laughed. “We all did. It was the season when protein is scarce. There were hungry people to be fed, so I asked the women to light the cook fires and we had a feast. Our refrigeration unit was very small, just used for medicine. Daniel was concerned that it would set a bad precedent, but I said, ‘Eat the cow or let her go to waste, and that doesn’t sound very sensible.’”
“And did Daniel eat the meat?”
Leah shook her head. “It didn’t keep me from enjoying every bite.”
Thomas laughed, then grew more serious. “This has got to be hard...coming home. Starting again.”
“Ya,” Leah agreed.
Thomas’s throat tightened. Leah had suffered a great loss. He had to admire her courage. “So I guess this—” he motioned toward the gathering beyond the door “—is as awkward for you as it is for me?”
“It is,” she said. “I didn’t want to come.” She shrugged. “But Sara is very persuasive.”
“Truer words,” Thomas agreed as he picked up the platter of sandwiches. “So...back we go to meet Sara’s likely candidates and hope for the best.”
“Ya.” Leah’s smile was mischievous. “And be prepared to hear a lot more about Holsteins.”
Thomas pushed open the sliding wooden doors to his grandfather’s forge to catch some of the midmorning breeze. It was stifling inside, and he’d started to beat the last of the wrought-iron hinges into shape. Returning to his task, he used long-handled tongs to lift a smoking hinge into the sunlight to get a good look at it before plunging it back into the glowing coals.
His grandfather watched, faded blue eyes narrowed with concentration. “Goot,” he said. “A little more. Feel the shape in your mind, Thomas. Strike hard and true.”
Thomas swung the hammer again and again. The shock resonated through his body, but he paid it no mind. He was used to it. He didn’t mind hard work. It was this work he disliked.
Patience, he told himself.
Again and again he struck hammer to iron. Slowly the iron yielded to the shape he wanted. He knew it was good and he should have been pleased, but he took little pleasure in the forge. He much preferred digging in the soil or building with wood and brick. He’d been born to a family with a tradition of blacksmithing going back to the old country, but he had no heart for it. Never had.
“Ya.” Obadiah nodded. “Ya. That is the way. Was that so hard?”
Thomas placed the finished piece beside the others to cool and turned toward his grandfather. The gray-haired man held out a small bucket. Thomas took it, drank and then dumped the remainder of the cool well water over his head. It ran down his neck and shirt to wet his leather apron and forge trousers, but he didn’t care. The pants and shirt would dry soon enough and both trousers and apron were scorched and riddled with holes.
His grandfather chuckled. “Always with you the heat, Thomas. The heat never bothers me.”
And it never did. For sixty-five years Obadiah Stutzman had labored in a forge, and the flames and red-hot metal had only made him tougher. Past eighty now, his shoulders were still formidable and the muscles in his arms were knotted sinews. Thomas loved him as he loved his mother and father. He couldn’t imagine what life would be like without Grossdaddi watching over his shoulder, hearing the raspy voice hissing in Deitsch, “Strike harder, boy. Feel the iron.” Thomas had always wanted to please him, but spending his life within the walls of this forge, he didn’t know that he could do it.
Thomas walked to the open doorway and squatted on the hard-packed earth, letting the warm sunshine fall full on his face. He ran a hand through his damp hair and let his muscles rest from the strain of swinging the hammer.
In the distance, a calf bawled, its call quickly answered by the mother’s deeper mooing. The farmyard stretched out in front of Thomas, familiar and comforting as always. Chickens squawked and scratched, earnestly searching for worms or insects. One hen was trailed by six fluffy chicks and a single yellow-and-brown duckling. Thomas smiled at the sight, knowing that when they came to the first puddle the foundling would terrify its adopted mother by plunging in and swimming. Maybe I’m that duckling, he thought, always ready for fun, never quite fitting in or doing what I’m expected to do by my family.
His grandfather came to stand beside him. “A sight you look,” Obadiah said. “Goot thing your mother is to the house. Doesn’t see you without a hat to cover your head in God’s presence.”
Thomas glanced guiltily at the wall where his straw hat hung on a peg. He never wore it in the forge for fear of it catching fire. Grossdaddi wore an old felt dress hat with the brim cut off over his thinning gray hair, but Thomas wasn’t ready to be seen in such a thing, so he worked bareheaded.
“When do you expect Jakob to get here?” he asked. His father had told him at morning milking that the new apprentice was