Whispers of a New Dawn by Murray Pura Read Free Book Online Page A

of Grandma’s homemade medicines will work on what ails you, my dear.”
    Ruth prayed in German for several minutes. Becky didn’t understand any of it but by the time her aunt said amen she was calmer inside even if she still didn’t feel like going to bed. Once she was sure by Ruth’s breathing that she was asleep she peeled back the sheets and got to her feet. Moving quietly and quickly she left the room and went down the staircase and out the front door of the dark and silent farmhouse. The moon was half full, and she stood by one of the fields looking at the silver lighting up the heads of the tall hay.
    So I will pray in English—if you don’t mind. I’ve always felt you wanted me to fly and be a missionary pilot. Are you having second thoughts? Do youhave a new plan? Is Moses part of it? I really can’t think straight—half of me doesn’t object to becoming Amish if he is the man I lie with every night and get up and face the day with every morning. It would be nice to have a sign from you, Lord. I would be grateful if you showed me something, anything, just so long as I understand what you’re showing me when I see it. Thank you. I love you. Amen…and good night .
    She made her way back to her bed and for the next several hours slept off and on, until four when she joined her mother for the milking. She heard her uncles—Luke, Daniel, and Harley—arrive in their wagons and saw Moses pull up in a buggy as she glanced through the open barn door. He looked around after greeting her father and her uncles and she felt like he expected to see her. Her mother noticed that Becky had her head up and was staring out at the farmyard.
    “Finish your work. You’ll see him at breakfast.”
    Becky leaned her head into the cow’s side. “At breakfast? With all the noise and talk there will be at the table today I’ll be lucky if he even hears me say hello.”
    Lyyndaya smiled as she worked the teats of her cow. “No matter. Your father thinks they will be at it tomorrow too. Just him and Moses. Would that sort of breakfast table suit you better?”
    Becky stopped milking. “Just Dad and Moses tomorrow? Why?”
    “He only needs one other pair of hands Thursday.”
    “And he chose Moses?”
    “Yes.”
    “Out of the goodness of his heart?”
    Lyyndaya picked up her bucket and milking stool and lantern and moved to another cow. “No doubt he was thinking of you.”
    “Me?” Becky started working on her cow again. “Ha. That probably means he wants to grill him. Am I right?”
    “This isn’t some sort of gangster movie.”
    “He will though. I know Dad. ‘What makes Moses Yoder tick?’ That’s what’s on his mind. Not me.”
    “Both of you are on his mind. Believe me.” Lyyndaya glanced at her daughter. “Moses’ mother, Emma, once vied with me for your father’s affection.”
    Becky stopped milking again. “What?”
    “Keep working. Ruth and Grandmother will have breakfast ready at six-thirty, after the men have put in an hour’s work on the fences.”
    Lyyndaya watched to be sure Becky returned to milking her cow. “I tell you this because it would be just like Lydia Yoder to speak with you about it, thinking she’s doing us all a good turn. So I was young and Emma was young, a great beauty, and we both fell in love with Jude. You know the story about him going overseas. Even then he wasn’t sure which of us he should marry…if he returned alive. He was shunned because he went to war and we couldn’t write him and he couldn’t write us. Emma and I were good friends, despite being rivals for Jude, and we prayed for him and wrote him letters anyway, letters he never saw.”
    Lyyndaya got up and emptied her bucket into a milk can. Then she took her stool to another stall. Becky poured her milk into the container and moved to a different stall as well, carrying her lantern with her. She waited for her mother to finish the story, listening to the sounds of the dairy herd and the small creaks