A Stranger's Wish by Gayle Roper Page A

slashed the air with tiny claws, then wiggled and squirmed until Jake let him go. Falling over himself in his haste to escape, he raced for the safety of the barn.
    Jake watched the kitten until he disappeared from sight. “I guess you could say that Father and Mom have bent tradition some, but they haven’t actually broken the Ordnung . And our family’s still intact.”
    I was impressed. While I had no difficulty understanding why Mary was more concerned about her son’s spiritual welfare than his physical condition, I knew I had only the vaguest comprehension of the magnitude of the accommodations she and John were making to ensure family unity.
    Jake laughed. “It’s really funny on off-Sundays when there’s no church.”
    “Off-Sundays?” How had I missed that?
    He grinned at my surprise. “Every other Sunday there’s no service. Then Andy and Sally and their kids and Zeke and Hope and their kids all drive up in their cars, and everybody climbs out in their jeans and Phillies T-shirts. Sally and Hope have the latest hair styles and manicured nails. Sally brings the ham she had in her electric oven while she was at church, and Hope has a store-bought pie still warm from her microwave.
    “Then Sarah and Abner pull up in their buggy, Sarah wearing her rimless glasses and carrying cheese and bread she baked Saturday because Sunday baking isn’t allowed. Abner and their boys have on black pants and suspenders, and their little girl has her hair pulled back in a knot just like Sally’s and Mom’s and Ruth’s. The contrasts are a riot. It took Abner a while to get used to us.”
    I could just imagine. “I think it’s wonderful that your parents have managed to keep you all together.”
    “It is. And you have no idea of the pressure some people put on them. If their Christian character weren’t so consistent, I don’t know what would happen to our district.”
    A buggy rattled by on the road, the driver a white-haired gentleman whose beard reached almost to his waist.
    “It’s Abraham, the patriarch,” I said, enchanted. “Though I doubt Abraham wore a straw hat.”
    “With a brim three and a half inches wide, not a quarter of an inch wider or narrower,” Jake said as he waved to the gentleman.
    There was a barely perceptible nod in return.
    “That’s Big Nate Stolzfus from over the way,” he said. “He’s one of the ones unhappy with my father, especially since he took such a strong stand with his own son Dave, the one who’s the race car driver.”
    I studied the old man with his set face, my imagination gripped by his story. Could a broken heart be hiding under his frosty exterior?
    Jake stared at the man too, but with no pity.
    “Dave Stoltzfus was one of my best friends, but I haven’t heard from him since he left. It’s like he wants no part of his past, even those of us who sympathized. Sometimes I read about him in the paper, and once I saw him on ESPN .”
    Jake’s voice became hard again. “They wanted him to confess to the congregation his sin of liking fast cars, but he wouldn’t do it. All the terrible grief and pain, and for the life of me, I can’t see the difference between Dave’s gasoline-powered car and Big Nate’s kerosene-powered motor on his well. It’s that kind of hairsplitting that drives me wild! Dave says he refuses to be a Christian if he has to be so bound, and I agree with him completely.”
    I was startled by Jake’s vehemence.
    “But I’m a Christian,” I said, “and I’m not under any of those laws. It’s not being Amish or keeping the Ordnung that makes a person a Christian. It’s believing that Jesus died for your sins.”
    “You sound just like Jon Clarke.” The way Jake said it, it wasn’t a compliment. His dark scowl returned, and he said nothing for a few minutes.
    Then, “Is that big, grumpy guy who helped you move in a permanent fixture? The one with the curly hair?”
    As a change of subject it was a bit heavy handed, but I