Love Finds You in Amana Iowa by Melanie Dobson Read Free Book Online

made privacy in Amana almost impossible. Each member had their own room in which to sleep, but they worked and worshipped together. And sometimes they talked about each other like they were a giant family as well.
    The two women slipped into the stone house, and Friedrich glanced back down the path. No one else was coming toward them. “Two men visited us today in the fields.”
    “Vagabonds?”
    He shook his head. “Soldiers.”
    Matthias frowned. “What were they doing here?”
    “Recruiting.”
    “Metz said none of our men would be going to war.”
    “The man was a colonel,” Friedrich said. “And he played a powerful argument.”
    “It doesn’t matter how powerful an argument. It matters what is right.” Matthias’s voice was strong, determined, but Friedrich barely heard his words.
    “There was a colored man with the colonel,” Friedrich said. “He was beaten by his owner in Georgia.”
    “Slavery is a terrible, terrible evil.”
    “An evil that should be stopped.”
    “This isn’t our war,” Matthias said.
    “Why not?” he probed. “This is our country. I can’t understand why this isn’t our war as well.”
    “Slavery is wrong,” Matthias agreed. “But instead of brothers battling each other, the slaves should flee to safety, like our people did when we left Germany.”
    “There is no place for the slaves to flee.”
    “They can run north. To freedom.”
    Friedrich fidgeted on his seat. “But what if they can’t run?”
    “The colonel is playing with your emotions, Friedrich, so you’ll follow him instead of following what God has ordained for our community.”
    His thoughts raced. “What is God’s plan for us?”
    Matthias was quiet for a moment. They’d both heard the same words, the inspired testimonies from their Werkzeuge —the men and women God used to communicate to their society. Brother Metz had begged the leaders in Washington to cast themselves down in the dust of humility so that peace would be preserved, instead of stirring up brothers to war against each other. His words went unheeded.
    “We need to pray for peace,” Matthias said.
    Friedrich shook his head. “It’s too late for peace.”
    “It’s never too late—”
    “The Confederate Army just killed four thousand men in Pennsylvania.”
    “Four thousand—” Matthias’s voice faded away as he looked across the street, toward grapevines that had entwined itself around the trellis. Brother Schaube walked by them with his wife and son. He tipped his hat, but Matthias didn’t seem to notice.
    Seconds passed, the number of casualties walled between them. Matthias’s eyes stayed on the grapevines, his voice low. “How many Confederates did the Union soldiers kill?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “It is happening just as Brother Metz said it would. Instead of seeking peace, the brothers are fighting themselves. Killing each other.”
    “For their fellow man.”
    “Ach,” Matthias snapped. “For the pride in their Union.”
    The bell tolled from the tower, announcing their evening prayers, but Friedrich didn’t stand up. He held Matthias’s letter out to him.
    “They want us to fight.”
    “We are not to fight,” Matthias said as he stood. “We are to pray.”
    Friedrich remained on the bench, still holding the letter out to Matthias. “We’re supposed to report to the enlistment office in Marengo on Monday.”
    Matthias sighed as he took the envelope, but he didn’t open it up. “They cannot make us fight, my friend. The Bruderrath will hire substitutes for us and we will continue to build our Kolonie, where God has called us.”
    As the chiming faded away, Friedrich stood up and followed Matthias to the stone house. His friend opened the door for a woman whose shoulders and head were covered with her shawl, and then the two of them entered the large sitting room. The woman walked to the left, and both men sat on a pine bench on the right.
    Brother Schaube led them in prayer for their country and