Fire in the Night by Linda Byler Read Free Book Online

generations know the fulfillment of a hard day’s work, when sweat flowed from a brow that was content? Would they find peace in doing without earthly wants and desires? Would they recognize that true happiness springs from self-denial? Would the will to do for others motivate their days? Or would the Amish church eventually weaken with the fires of the world, seeking after earthly possessions?
    As a minister, David Beiler made the comparison in his mind. He sent up a prayer asking God to give him strength for the work in the years ahead.
    Then didn’t that Samuel sei Emma and all her sisters, some from clear below Kirkwood in Chester County, get a driver and start making doughnuts at one o’clock that morning? She was something else, Mam said.
    They carried in huge plastic trays of plain and cream-filled doughnuts, some covered with powdered sugar and some dunked in big, plastic Tupperware bowls of glaze (even some of the ones that had cream filling on the inside). The women all smiled and nodded, their coverings white and neat, their dark hair combed sleekly. Their dark brown eyes were alight with interest, looking as if they’d had a good night’s sleep and hadn’t worked at all.
    Oh, it was a fine coffee break, and it bolstered Mam’s spirits.
    There was tray after tray of these doughnuts and containers of chocolate chip cookies and Reese’s peanut butter bars and oatmeal bars with a white glaze crisscrossed over the top. There were blueberry muffins, pecan tarts, and fruit bars that oozed cherry-pie filling.
    Hannah, of course, had breezed into the house soon after six o’clock. She came bearing a bag filled with milk filters containing coffee grounds that bulged comfortably after the ends had been sewed shut. She set huge stainless steel kettles of cold water on low burners, placed two filters of coffee grounds on top, and left them to brew. It shouldn’t boil, just heat to a high, rich coffee temperature until shortly after nine o’clock, when the forenoon schtick (break) was served.
    Henry Schmucker called to the men to take a break—the concrete crew, the men still cleaning up the blackened debris, and those building the oak walls on the ground. The rich odor of freshly cut wood was pleasant after the smell of the hovering, wet smoke.
    Henry was Mam’s brother and a good foreman at a time such as this. Dat said he was a mover and a shaker. Things got done when Henry was around, he said.
    The men filed past the long, folding tables picking up large Styrofoam cups of good, black coffee, grabbing napkins with a doughnut or two plus perhaps a bar or a cookie. They stood in jovial groups, talking and laughing, the air permeated with the purpose of the day.
    A barn raising was something, now, wasn’t it? English men wearing jeans, t-shirts, and baseball caps worked alongside Amish men wearing varying yellow straw hats.
    The dreaded photographers, the bane of every Amish barn raising, arrived with their large black and gray instruments of intrusion slung jauntily over their shoulders or around their necks. Sarah knew their air of assured professionalism and superiority raised the ire of peace-loving folks.
    She was the first to see them as she walked to the mailbox with the letter for the gas company Mam had given her. How could she know the cameras would instantly begin whirring and clicking? The photographers eagerly captured the long, easy, stride of the tall, young Amish girl clad in a rich shade of blue. The black of her apron, the green maple trees as a lush background, the white letter in her hand, the early morning light a natural wonder—it was irresistible. Sarah was an added bonus to the barn raising.
    Returning to the break area where the food was being served, she helped herself to a filled doughnut, bit into it, leaning forward as the powdered sugar rained down. Even with a napkin, eating a powdered doughnut required a certain skill, especially when wearing black. A small breeze could waft the