The Doctor's Blessing by Patricia Davids

What was she up to now?
    “Yes, we do. You need to meet someone who can tell you what being Amish really means.” There was new excitement in her voice.
    “I think I already know,” he replied dryly.
    “No, you don’t. You’ve been on the outside looking in. We’re going to take a drive to an Amish farm about thirty-five miles from here.”
    “Won’t they shun me, too?”
    “They’re not from the same church district as the Amish in this area. When I explain why we’ve come, they’ll be happy to educate you.”
    “What if we get a patient in?”
    “Wilma can call us and we’ll be back in forty minutes or less.”
    This was a waste of time. “I don’t see what good it will do. I’m not going to change my mind.”
    Crossing her arms, she gave him a challenging stare. “Okay, then why not come with me? What have you got to lose? ThePlain People mean a great deal to your grandfather. Why not learn why?”
    Phillip stared at her thoughtfully. What did his grandfather see in these people? Why had he chosen to remain here instead of living near Phillip and making up for thirty-four years of lost time with his only living relative?
    Maybe Amber was right. Maybe it would be worthwhile to understand them better.
    If his stepfather were here, Michael would be telling him to keep his heart open to God’s whispering. Perhaps this was one of those times.
    “Okay. I’m game,” he admitted slowly.
    Within ten minutes they were traveling northeast on a winding rural highway in Amber’s beat-up station wagon. As they left the town limits, they had to slow down for an open-topped buggy. The high-stepping horse pulling it looked like a thoroughbred trotter.
    When the opportunity arose, Amber pulled out and passed the buggy. Phillip said, “That animal looks more like a race-horse than a farm horse.”
    “He may have been on the track at one time. The Amish frequently buy trotters and pacers who can’t make the grade on the racetracks. They’ve already been trained to pull racing carts. It’s a short step to teaching them to pull the family buggy. The one we just passed most likely belongs to a young man of courting age. A high stepper and an open buggy are cool.”
    “The Amish version of a sports car?”
    “Sort of.” She smiled at him and he relaxed.
    Glancing covertly at Amber as she drove, Phillip realized their on-again, off-again battle was starting to take its toll on him. He was friendless in a strange land. Amber was the one person he’d met that he wanted to count as a friend—and perhaps even something more.
    They continued down the highway, slowing occasionally to follow behind a buggy or horse-drawn cart until it was safe to pass. Outside his window he saw farm after farm dotting the rolling landscape of fields and pastures. For the most part, the houses were white and the barns were red. It was easy to tell which farms belonged to the Amish. The lack of power and phone lines was a dead giveaway.
    After traveling in silence for a quarter of an hour, he turned in the seat to face her. “What should I know about the Amish?”
    “Wow, there is so much it’s hard to know where to begin. They immigrated to this country, mostly from Germany and Switzerland in the seventeen hundreds to avoid religious persecution.”
    “I thought they were Dutch.”
    “Because their language is called Pennsylvania Dutch?”
    “That might lead a person to believe they came from Holland.”
    “The common explanation was that they were known as the Pennsylvania Deutsch, or ‘German,’ and that the word Deutsch morphed into Dutch over time. What they speak is a form of German.”
    “You speak it, too.”
    “It was spoken in my home when I was growing up.”
    “Was it hard growing up in an Amish community not being Amish?”
    “Not really. Like most kids I accepted my home life as normal. I knew I dressed differently than my cousins and that I went to a different school. That didn’t matter when we were playing