The Scryer ✔️

~THE WAY WE WERE~

I suppose I should tell you a bit about who we are, or rather, were.

Both Jimmy and I were born in the sixties to Amish communities. Shocking, I know.

I can remember the first time I saw him in church after having heard a disembodied voice come from out of nowhere whispering, pointing him out to me...a rowdy little boy with a bowl-cut (as is our tradition) blonde hair named John.

I was seated between my mother and father when I heard the angels told me that he was there and I leaned over Papa to see the boy fidgeting in his seat between his parents. He was the seventh child and the youngest of their family. I remember distinctly, my father clearing his throat quietly, gently commanding that my attention return to the service.

When the service had concluded, families filed outside and the boy was turned loose. He started running past my brothers as well as the other children and stopped to look at me in my little blue dress; I remember it as if it had happened yesterday; he looked me over as if I were an alien and then shrugged his shoulders. We were about the same age and definitely the same height. "Wanna play," he asked.

I looked up toward my father, whose left brow was raised and a stern look on his face. I looked into little John's Stolzfus' blue eyes and shook my head as I took my father's hand.

At school, I walked up to him as he was kicking a ball with one of his brothers, might have been Joseph, but I'm not really sure, but I had intercepted the ball, much to their surprise. As the only girl in a family of boys, I did know how to play kickball...I was constantly getting fussed at by mother for it, because I was in a dress. My father seemed to think it was charming. The Stolzfus brothers didn't have a clue how to deal with a little girl, especially one who was a tomboy; both stopped and stared at me and I stared back, putting my hands on my hips, like I'd seen Mam do whenever she was annoyed. I finally picked up the ball and threw it right at John and to his credit, he caught it, nearly throwing him off balance. Then, he smiled as he threw the ball to me and I caught it and threw it to his brother.

Finally it was my oldest brother David who came to retrieve me, shaking his head.

"We won't tell Papa about this, Hannah," he said to me. I curled my lip at him. "Playing with us is acceptable, but not with other boys."

"You're not Papa," I said.

"I'm the oldest and while we're here, you are my responsibility. So, I'm as good as."

I sighed heavily and threw the ball back to John and shrugged my shoulders. He shrugged his too. I turned to follow my brother, sulking the entire way back to the schoolhouse. When I turned to see what they were doing, they were playing Old Billy Goat, climbing up on the spare straw bales, trying to knock each other off. John Stolzfus had won and he lay atop and watched us enter the schoolhouse.

The following years flew it seemed. I learned how to bake and cook and clean and other boring menial chores like washing clothes and dishes. I always felt like my hands were in the dish water; I even kept a dish towel on the band of my apron. As a result, my hands were always soft and definitely, very clean.

Our community is fairly progressive as far as the Amish go and in church, I was part of the choir and often hosted practices at our house. My mother didn't seem to mind, as she loved hearing voices raised in song and it was she who gifted me with the nickname, Birdie.

One afternoon, none other than John Stolzfus, who I learned sometime prior was not only the seventh son, but the son of a seventh son, accompanied Mary our first soprano to choir practice for the Sunday singing. I looked up into his blue eyes and smiled. "Good afternoon John Stolzfus," I said quaintly as I set out the refreshments for our guests on the kitchen table.

"Hello Hannah Zook," he replied, tilting his head and removing his hat, feeling the stares of my brothers and father on him as they prepared to return to the fields.

"It's hot outside. Would you be caring for some lemonade then? I just made it.

He smiled warmly as he fidgeted with the brim of his hat. "Yes please? I've been outside all day helping with the preparations for Brother Zook's barn raising." He then turned to my father.

"Uncle Zephrim asked that the people gather after chores. I have all the drawings prepared and the foundations for the cellar and the main building is being laid today."

My father nodded. "Tell your Uncle that the family will be there with breakfast."

Everyone in our community was well aware that John Stolzfus wasn't the farmer-type. It wasn't that he was better than them, or that he couldn't do it, but rather that he was gifted with the ability to see numbers and diagrams in his head...he was a builder or as those on the outside would say, an architect. He could see all the minute details in his head and then transfer them to paper using pencils, and rulers, protractors and triangles so that the other men could see them as well. His drawings were beautiful.

John nodded and smiled. "Thank you, Brother Zook, I will certainly do that! Sister Zook, might I take this refreshing treat to the porch?"

My mother smiled and nodded. "Of course, please do!"

I found it odd that he didn't say anything to Mary...didn't even give her a nod in her direction. I knew that he didn't have any sisters and I was baffled; surely he knew how to treat a girl? Mary was my best friend and I knew they were related, but still...it was rude. Especially when he secretly smiled at me on his way out the front door and I smiled nervously, especially after feeling my cheeks growing hot.

David, sporting his newly growing beard put his arm around my shoulders. "They're cousins, Birdie," he told me, whispering in my ear. He took the glass from my hand and finished my lemonade for me. I curled my lip and smacked at his chest with the back of my hand.

"Just because you're married now! And anyway, I already knew that, duh!"

His new wife Rebecca, or as we called her in the house, Becca, giggled shyly as she continued to knead the dough for bread for our evening's meal. David approached her and poked a finger at the flour on the board and smiled as he tagged her nose with it...it was as good as a kiss goodbye.

He then turned to me and grinned as he circled his strong, well muscled arms around my neck, squeezing, then rubbing his knuckles on my kapp, causing it to fall to my shoulders and messing up my hair that had been pinned neatly beneath it. "T'will be your turn soon enough, Birdie," he said as he glanced and nodded in the boy's direction as he headed off to enjoy his lemonade beneath the shade of our covered porch.