I’m good.” Zachary slid down, broke off a section of the hay bale and stuffed it through the railing. Closing his eyes, the horse chewed contentedly. “He’s pretty neat. For a horse. But buggies are dumb. Why don’t you buy a car?”
“I had a truck once, but I sold it when I bought Jericho.”
Zachary’s eyes got big. “You had a truck?”
“A blue Ford F-150 pickup,” James answered.
Zachary watched Jericho eat, seeming to be fascinated. “Horses are too slow.”
“Depends on how big a hurry you’re in, I suppose. Sometimes, you notice things you’d miss if you were in a hurry.”
“It must be boring. Being Amish. No video games or Saturday cartoons.”
“No, we don’t have those things. But we do lots of things for fun. Baseball, fishing, ice-skating, hayrides, family picnics and work frolics.”
“What’s a work frolic?”
James noticed that while Zachary’s voice gave the impression of boredom, his blue eyes sparkled with curiosity. “Well, say someone needs a new barn. Either lightning has struck his old one and burned it down, or a family is starting out on a new farm. A work frolic would be when the whole community pitches in to help build that barn. There might be as many as fifty or more men all working at once.”
Zachary frowned. “Sounds like a lot of hard work.”
“If you’re with friends, all laughing and joking, it is fun. There’s nothing like watching a barn rise up from an empty pasture in one day.” He smiled. “And then there’s all kinds of great food. Fried chicken, shoofly pie, ice cream. And we have games after we eat—tug-of-war, softball, even sack races. Winter is a slow time, because of bad weather. But if you’re here in May, you’ll see lots of work frolics.”
“Oh, we won’t be here,” Zachary assured him. “We’re going back to Wisconsin. I’ve got friends there. In my old school.”
The boy’s voice sounded confident, but the expression in his eyes told another story, and James felt a tug of sympathy in his chest. “Must have been rough, leaving all those buddies behind.” He leaned on the stall gate. “Coming to a new place where everything is strange. I can see how you wouldn’t much care for it.”
“I’m not saying this to be mean, but the whole Amish thing?” Zachary said. “It’s kinda weird.”
James nodded solemnly. “I can see how you’d feel that way. Everybody dressing differently, eating different food.”
“The food’s not bad.”
“I guess your mom’s a good cook.”
“The best. Great. But Darlene wasn’t,” Zachary clarified. “She and her daughter lived with us at the trailer until we got evicted. Darlene couldn’t even cook mac and cheese out of a box.”
James grimaced as much from the idea of Mari and her son being evicted as the thought of macaroni and cheese out of a box. “I don’t think I’d enjoy her cooking,” he told Zachary.
“Who would?” Warming to his tale, Zachary elaborated. “One time, Mom got this coupon for a free turkey. If you buy enough stuff, the supermarket gives them to everybody. It’s not charity or anything.”
“No,” James agreed. “It wouldn’t be if anyone could get one.”
“Right. But you had to buy so many groceries and save the receipts. Anyway, Mom got this turkey for Thanksgiving, but she had to work, so Darlene tried to cook it herself.” Zachary made a face. “Can you believe she didn’t take the guts out? She just stuffed the bird in the oven with the plastic bag of guts inside and ruined it.”
James chuckled. “Sounds bad.”
“It was.” The boy kicked at the bottom rung of the stall rhythmically. “You said you sold your truck. How come they let you have a truck? Mom said Amish drive buggies.”
“They do. If you want to be a part of the Amish community and the church, you have to agree to follow the rules. And the rules say no cars and no electricity.”
“They think cars and TV are bad?”
James shook his head slowly. “Not necessarily bad, just worldly. Things like electricity link us to the outer world. They take us away too easily from the people and things that mean the most to us.”
“So how’d you have a truck? I’d guess you got in big trouble.”
“Some but not much.” James took his time answering, taking care with the words he chose. “When you become a young man or a young woman in the Amish community, you get to decide how you want to live. Do you want to be Amish, or do you want to join the English world? No one can force you to be Amish, so many Amish young people go out into the world to see if they like it better than this one. That’s what I did. I left Seven Poplars and got a job working construction.”
“You just packed up and went?”
James nodded again. “I did. My sister begged me not to go. She’s older than I am, more like a mom than a sister, because our mother died when I was little.”
“No mom. Tough,” Zachary said. “My father died, but I never knew him, so I didn’t care much.”
“Your mom didn’t remarry?” James asked.
“Nope. And she doesn’t go out with guys like Darlene did. Mom says I’m her guy.” He gave a little smirk.
James smiled to himself. He was glad to know that Mari wasn’t attached; maybe because he didn’t like the idea of her being with someone who clearly hadn’t been taking good care of her. He tapped the toe of his boot against the stall. “Listen, I have to get back to work, but I was wondering if you’d be interested in helping us out today. We need somebody to sweep, fetch nails and tools. Stuff like that.”
Zachary’s eyes narrowed. “Would I get paid?”
“If you do the work, sure. I know you’ll be going back to school soon, but—”
“I’m not starting school here,” Zachary interrupted. “I tried to tell Mom that.”
“You and your mom butt heads a lot?”
“No, not so much. I mean, she’s great and all. Really. But when she can find a job, she works a lot. Overtime. Sometimes two jobs at the same time. So a lot of times, I was with babysitters and after-school care. Mom thinks I’m a kid still. She’s kind of bossy.”
James had to press his lips together to keep from chuckling. “My sister can be like that.”
Zachary grimaced. “Girls.”
“Hard to understand them sometimes.”
“Yeah. But I could probably help you out until Mom figures out we don’t belong here.”
“I don’t know your mother well, but she seems like she cares a lot for you. Like she’s trying to do the right thing.”
“She’s the best. But this was a bad idea, coming here. It’s better back in Wisconsin. You’re probably nice people and all, but we like cars and TV and electric. I hate it when the electric gets turned off in our trailer.”
“Gets turned off?” James asked.
“You know.” Zachary frowned. “When you can’t pay the bill.”
Now it was James’s turn to frown. He could imagine how hard it must have been for Mari as a parent, trying to care for her son. “That happen a lot?”
“Mom does her best. Electricity and car insurance are expensive. We make out all right. It’s just that Mom lost her job and then we got kicked out of our trailer for not paying. But something will come along. It always does.” The boy reached