Read A View from the Buggy Online
Authors: Jerry S. Eicher
A View from the Buggy
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Cover by Garborg Design Works, Savage, Minnesota
Cover photos © Chris Garborg; hendrsd / Bigstock
A VIEW FROM THE BUGGY
Copyright © 2014 by Jerry S. Eicher and Nathan Miller
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eicher, Jerry S.
A view from the buggy / Jerry S. Eicher and Nathan Miller.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-7369-5686-4 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-5687-1 (eBook)
1. Christian lifeâAmish authors. 2. SimplicityâReligious aspectsâChristianity. I. Title.
BX8129.A5E33 2014
289.7'3âdc23
2013043550
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Contents
Jerry Eicher
Nathan Miller
Erma Louise Schrock
Marvin Wengerd
Janice Hochstetler
Joanna Yoder
Joanna Yoder
Malinda Hershberger
Â
Eldon Schrock
Oba Hershberger
Â
Oba Hershberger
Â
Sarah Bontrager
Aaron Miller
Regina Bontrager
Wilbur Hochstetler
Miriam Schwartz
Miriam Schwartz
Delores Schrock
Samuel Chupp
A Day in My Amish Country School
Rachel Miller
Harvey Yoder
Grace Ann Yoder
Levi F. Miller
Mose E. Helmuth
Rachel Troyer
Betty Gingerich
Sarah Bontrager
Levi F. Miller
Lori Miller
Louie Weaver
Norman Miller
Grace Elaine Yoder
Harvey D. Yoder
Aaron D. Beachy
Ruth M. Bontrager
Maria Kay Bontrager
Crist Renno
Levi F. Miller
Harvey and Grace Ann Yoder
Benuel M. Fisher
Rachel Troyer
Luke Weaver
Omer Miller
Kenneth Gingerich
Kenneth Gingerich
Kenneth Gingerich
Titus Yoder
Joanna Yoder
Nathan Miller
Jerry Eicher
Working with the Threshing Ring
Philip Stoll
Philip Stoll
Esther Weaver
Laura Yoder
Nathan Miller
Joanna Yoder
Jerry Eicher
Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away (Matthew 5:42).
H
UMILITY IS VALUED BY THE
A
MISH COMMUNITY
,
RIGHT UP THERE
after godliness. Every member is expected to readily admit to his or her shortcomings. So I will open this book of true Amish stories with a tale from my family's repertoire of less-than-stellar accomplishments.
County Road 96 runs through the center of the little Amish community in Belle Center, Ohio, where our family had moved upon our return from several years in Honduras. Our time in Honduras had been a mixture of good and bad, but our return home was disappointing to the whole family.
Dad had come up to the states some months earlier and made the down payment on the property that would be our new home. When he returned, he made a point of telling us that our neighbors, Eldon Yoder and his wife, Fannie, were friendly folks, as were other folks in the Amish community.
I was 16 at the time and mourned our move away from Honduras. This preempted any interest I had in who our new neighbors would be. But when we arrived in Belle Center, Dad was proved rightâthe Yoders were fine, generous people. This was made clear when, upon our arrival, Eldon Yoder offered to sell us Rose, his best horse.
Eldon Yoder was a short man with a bushy beard. His wife, Fannie, was always smiling. She was almost as tall as her husband, and a fluttering sort of woman. Fannie gave off a sense of eternal busyness, which contrasted with the easygoing nature of her husband.
If Eldon had any regrets about the sale of Rose, I never heard him
say so. And one would have heard such a thing in that small community. I hasten to add that Rose was a gentle, mild-natured horse when we bought her. This was one of her attractive qualities, Dad claimed. We didn't need a dashing horse. We had arrived back Stateside bruised in heart and soul. A troublesome horse was the last thing we needed. Maybe that knowledge was what had stirred Eldon Yoder's compassion to sell Rose to usâor perhaps it was simply our general bedraggled condition.
Sadly, the sale of Rose to our familyâthough well-intentionedâquickly turned into a disaster. What happened, we never really knew. But something went wrong as we proceeded that turned a kind gesture sour. Not intentionally, of course. It just sort of happened. Dad knew how to handle horses, and he didn't abuse them. He had been around horses all of his life.
I know we liked the calm and gentle Rose and expected that she'd be a fine horse for us. But to our surpriseâand no doubt Eldon Yoder's tooâshe was soon ruined beyond repair. Perhaps she didn't like this Amish family who had spent time in faraway Honduras. Whatever the reason, Rose began to balk. When hitched to a buggy, she simply refused to go.
This is not only a most inconvenient trait for an Amish horse to have, but a well-nigh intolerable one. The whole family would cram into the buggy outside whatever farm the church service had been held at that Sunday. People were milling around, talking with each other as the Amish do after the servicesâand there we were, right in the middle of the driveway, with Rose refusing to budge.
Dad would slap the reins and holler for Rose to go. Nothing happened! Rose stayed stubbornly in place. She'd even rear a little off her front feet, but she made no other movement. Next, we'd climb out of the buggy and pull on her bridle. This only angered Rose, causing her to rear higher and paw the air. We were the embarrassment of the Sunday afternoon church gathering.