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

and groans of the barn. Finally Lyyndaya picked up where she had left off.
    “You’ve heard the story about how your father enlisted to spare the other young men here persecution during the war and also to ensure the safety of the Amish community in Paradise. At the time, however, we didn’t know why Jude had done what he had done, why he had joined the army and gone to France as a fighter pilot. Many felt it was because flying was such an obsession to him he couldn’t resist the temptation. As time went by, Emma simply stopped believing in him and didn’t want him as a husband even if he did return and repent. So she took up with another man in the community who she felt was more righteous and more Amish. She was, after all, Bishop Zook’s daughter. Who can blame her? No one understood what Jude was doing or why.”
    “But you didn’t stop believing in him, did you?”
    Becky had stopped milking. Lyyndaya was going to tell her to keep going but then she stopped milking too and looked at nothing, her eyes light and dark in the glimmer of the lantern.
    “I loved your father. And he told me when we met again that he realized long before he returned that it was me he loved, not Emma. He had one last letter I had written before the shunning and he read it overand over again before he took to the air every morning. The skies were dangerous in 1918 and my words in the letter and God’s words in the Bible gave him hope and strength. Yes, I believed in him. I knew he must be doing something holy and good that none of us could comprehend but that one day God would bring it to light. And so he did. Your father was a hero and he saved lives here in Paradise as well as in France. He even saved his enemies’ lives.” She looked over at Becky and half smiled. “Who knows? Perhaps you will do something like that too. Save lives. Oh, what am I saying? You’ve already done that by having airlifted patients, brought in medical supplies—”
    “It’s not like what Father did. He had to be brave in a time of war when others were trying to shoot him down. That’s different. That takes another kind of courage. I don’t know if I have it.”
    Lyyndaya stood up. “I don’t want to find out. If you truly have feelings for young Moses then I would be far happier if you married him and settled down here and grew wheat and corn and raised a crop of grandchildren for me. Even if you had to give up flying I would like that far better than you ending up in the skies over France like your father, with German bullets whistling by your head.”
    “Mom, they’ll never let women fly combat aircraft. Not in this war anyways.”
    “Who knows how quickly that might change!”
    Lyyndaya had tears shining in her eyes and on her face. Becky quickly got up and went to her, helping her mother to her feet and taking her in her arms. She stood a half-foot taller so that Lyyndaya’s head rested on her daughter’s chest.
    “Mom. It’s okay. They say America will never get into the war in Europe.”
    “They said that in 1914 too. But three years later there we were. All because the Germans sank American ships.”
    “The Germans won’t do that again, Mother. We’ll stay out of this conflict. Everyone says so.” Becky kissed her mother on the top of her head. “And I won’t go over. I have no desire to do that. I won’t fly Red Cross planes. I won’t nurse on the battlefield or anything—I’m no Clara Barton or Florence Nightingale. I don’t know what’s going tohappen between Moses and me. Maybe I’ll go Amish or maybe I won’t. But I don’t feel I have to take off into the air and prove I have as much courage as Dad did during the Great War. That’s not in me. I may be a daredevil stunt flyer but I’m not going to play a game like that.”
    “Oh, this is so foolish, standing here in the barn crying.” Lyyndaya swiped at her eyes with her fingers but didn’t pull away from her daughter. “The milking needs to be finished, soon