The Only Way (The Amish Millers Get Married Book 4) (5 page)

The next song was
Das Loblied
, “The
Song of Praise,” from the Amish hymn book, the
Ausbund
.
Rebecca smiled to herself while singing the hymn in the
traditional, very slow manner.
Mamm will be happy that this
wedding is traditional
, she thought,
not that Martha had any
choice in the matter. I wonder if anyone from the community will
ever break away from tradition in their wedding?

Rebecca had a momentary pang of guilt for
thinking such thoughts, and then her thoughts turned to her own
wedding.
It will be right here, just like this wedding
, she
thought, but then suddenly felt downcast.
What if I never get
married? I won’t marry Elijah unless he’s truly in love with me,
but he’s never shown any sign that he is. I’m sure he just expects
to marry me—me, the last Miller girl, marrying the last Hostetler
boy. All my schweschders are married to his bruders, and the whole
community expects us to marry. I think Elijah is just falling into
everyone’s expectations for us.

Rebecca fell deeper into sadness for her
future, when, after around fifteen minutes of singing
Das
Loblied
, Martha and Moses reappeared, and this cheered her up.
Martha and Moses went to sit next to their
newehockers
, who
were sitting on the benches in front of the ministers. Moses took
up his position on the bench next to his
newehockers
, his
bruders
Noah and Jacob. The three of them were on the bench
directly opposite the bench on which Martha, and her attendants,
her
schweschders
Hannah and Esther, were sitting.

Rebecca wondered again what it would be like
to marry Elijah.
If I married Elijah, I’d have to have all three
of my schweschders as newehockers
, she thought.
Then Mamm
would be really annoyed with me for breaking tradition
. She
suppressed a chuckle.

Rebecca turned her attention back to singing,
as the third hymn had begun. Like the first hymn, this hymn was
also about the church as the bride of Christ.

One of the ministers then stood up and
launched into a talk about marriage in the Old Testament. Two hours
later, everyone present kneeled for a silent prayer, and then stood
up when Matthew chapter nineteen, verses one through twelve were
read out loud.

The bishop then started his talk, beginning
in Genesis. Rebecca shifted her weight on the bench and looked in
the direction of Elijah. Would she one day marry Elijah? She loved
him with all her heart, but did he love her back? She did not want
to spend her lifetime in a loveless marriage. Sure, Elijah would
make a wonderful husband, but she wanted more. She wanted his love.
Elijah was kind-hearted and sweet, and everyone expected the two of
them to marry.
He probably thinks it’s his duty to marry me
,
she thought with dismay. The pressure on the two of them to marry
had been considerable. Sure, it was always said in a joking, light
hearted manner, but it was there, nonetheless. With her three older
schweschders
married to his three older
bruders
, most
people considered it a done deal that Rebecca would marry
Elijah.

Rebecca was away with her thoughts of
marriage and Elijah when she heard the bishop say, “Now here are
two in one faith.” This meant that he had come to the end of his
talk and was starting the short, actual marriage ceremony. The
bishop continued by asking the assembly if anyone knew of any
reason why Martha and Moses could not be married. The bishop paused
so long that Rebecca nearly had a fit of the giggles. She
remembered this part of Esther and Jacob’s wedding, when she had
imagined that Jessie Yoder would run to the bishop with a fanciful
story.

The bishop finally spoke again. “If it is
still your desire to be married, you might in the name of the Lord
come forth.” He told Moses and Martha to stand in front of him.

The bishop then questioned Moses and Martha
in turn. “Moses, do you believe and confess with your mouth that it
is scriptural order for one man and one woman to be one, and state
that you have been thus led so far?” After Moses affirmed, he
repeated the same question to Martha. The bishop turned back to
Moses. “Moses, can you,
bruder
, state that the Lord directs
you to take this
schweschder
as your wife?” The bishop then
addressed the question to Martha.

The bishop continued to question Moses.
“Moses, do you promise to support your
fraa
when she is in
weakness, sickness, whatever trials might befall you, and stand as
a Christian husband?” Again, the parallel question was put to
Martha.

The final question put to Moses and Martha
was, “Do you vow to remain together, and have love, consideration,
and forbearance one for another and not to part from one another
until beloved
Gott
shall finally part you in death?”

The bishop now picked up the German prayer
book known as the
Die Ernsthafte Christenpflicht
, “Prayer
Book for Earnest Christians.” This book was first printed in 1708,
and Rebecca knew it well, as did the rest of the community. He read
aloud, “The Prayer for Those About to Be Married.”

The bishop then read from the
Book of
Tobit
. Rebecca had found out only recently that Amish,
Mennonites, and Catholics approved of the
Book of Tobit
, but
that other Christians did not consider it canon. Martha had told
her, as Martha had lived for a short time with
Englischers
.
The bishop read from
The Book of Tobit,
chapter seven, verse
fifteen. “And taking the right hand of his daughter, Raguel gave it
unto the right hand of Tobias, and saith, ‘The
Gott
of
Abraham, the
Gott
of Isaac, the
Gott
of Jacob be with
you, and might He join you together, and fulfill His blessing in
you.’“

The bishop now came to the last words of the
actual marriage ceremony. “Go ye forth in the name of the Lord. Ye
are now
mann
and
fraa
.”

The actual marriage ceremony had taken about
four minutes and had come at the end of three hours of talks by the
ministers and the bishop. Martha and Moses returned to their seats
in the front row. Rebecca stifled another giggle as she thought of
Englisch
weddings where the bride and groom kiss in front of
everyone. She was glad she did not giggle, for not a sound could be
heard; one could hear a pin drop. Silence always prevailed at such
occasions.

Everyone then turned around to kneel in front
of their benches for the long, silent prayer which marked the end
of the wedding service.

Rebecca’s thoughts drifted away once again to
Elijah. Would he one day marry her? Would the two of them one day
stand in front of the bishop in this very barn? How would she ever
know Elijah’s true feelings for her?

* * *

On the one hand, Elijah was happy that his
bruder
, Moses, was now married to his true love, Martha, but
on the other hand he was a little sad that Rebecca might not love
him. He had thought of Rebecca throughout the entire service, and
had decided that he would ask her to marry him. He would rather be
married to Rebecca, even if she was only marrying him out of duty.
Surely her love for him would grow; surely Rebecca would come to
love him.

1 Corinthians 13:4-6.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy
or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own
way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at
wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Chapter
8

As the guests filed out of the barn, Rebecca
hurried to help prepare for the first sitting of the meal, nodding
a hurried greeting to the
Ecktender
, wedding-corner
attendants
,
who were likewise hurrying. The
Ecktenders
were her
onkels
and
aentis
. While
some couples in the community now had the wedding party’s dining
table in the center of the room, there was no way that Mrs. Miller
would tolerate what she called such a blatant and deplorable break
from tradition, so this wedding party would be seated in the
traditional
Eck
, the corner, of the room. In the
Eck
,
two long rows of benches and tables met at a right angle.

Rebecca joined Elijah in supervising the
setting up of the benches and the tables for the meals to come. The
meals would be served in shifts given the few hundred people
present. Elijah suddenly smiled at Rebecca which set her stomach
off into flutters. Rebecca felt slightly nauseous and allowed
herself a brief moment to wonder how being in love could make
someone feel physically sick.

It took three of the church benches to make
up one table. Elijah, guided by the careful chalk marks of the
previous day, helped Rebecca slip the legs of the benches into the
plywood trusses, his shoulder momentarily brushing hers as he did
so. This set off tingles coursing through Rebecca, right down to
her toes. She sighed aloud.

Elijah looked at her with concern and she
nodded to say she was all right. She loved the way they could
communicate without words. In fact, there were many things she
loved about Elijah; if only he felt the same way.

Now that the three benches were flat and
parallel with each other, and at table height, Elijah then clamped
them into place. He and Rebecca then hurried away in different
directions to make sure that all tables were now set up, and they
directed the people who had agreed to help the ushers to place all
tables in the prearranged spots. Now the only job which remained
was to place the remaining benches at each table and to place a
white cloth on each table.

Although this had only taken a few minutes,
Rebecca was flushed with heat, and she wiped a few tiny beads of
sweat from her forehead. She should not have been flustered by the
activity, as it had gone smoothly, so she could only assume that
her reaction was to Elijah’s close presence.

Now that the tables and benches were set up
in the correct places, Rebecca hurried out to the mobile kitchen to
help with the food preparation. Her stomach rumbled at the enticing
aroma of freshly brewed
kaffi
and roasted chicken.
Everywhere she looked, there was food: mountains of mashed potatoes
and gravy, hot, creamed celery with real cream, roasted chicken,
various salads, cheeses, bread, tapioca pudding, home-canned fruit,
pudding, doughnuts, cakes, pies, and copious amounts of ice
cream.

“Rebecca!” Mrs. Miller’s summons was shrill
and demanding.

Rebecca hurried over to her
mudder
.

Mrs. Miller leaned over and whispered to
Rebecca in a conspiratorial tone. “Please go and check on the
Ecktenders
for me. You know your
Aenti
Irene is
sometimes
ab im kopp
!” Her whisper rose to a high
shrill.

Rebecca nodded and hurried out of the mobile
kitchen, smiling to herself as she went. Her
Aenti
Irene, a
lovely woman, was her
daed’s schweschder
, and so considered
far too liberal by Mrs. Miller. Still, she had never heard her
mudder
refer to her as
ab im kopp
, “not right in the
head,” before; this was no doubt to the pressure of the wedding.
Perhaps Mamm thinks Aenti Irene is going to do something
horribly non traditional
, she thought with amusement.

Rebecca walked back in the barn and surveyed
the tables set up around the outskirts of the barn. The bridal
party’s
Eck
table was still set up correctly in the
corner.

Aenti
Irene was busy setting Martha’s
new china set on display. This was the traditional gift from the
groom to the bride. Rebecca did not think her
mudder
would
quite approve of the china set either. While it was functional, it
was no doubt a little too pretty for her
mudder’s
liking.
Mrs. Miller approved of white china, and perhaps white china with a
subtle pattern, but the pattern on this china was far from subtle.
The base color was the palest of pinks, and the china was decorated
with tiny, little pink rosebuds. Delicate leaves and fronds of
gently waving ferns provided the backdrop, but the worst thing of
all, Rebecca knew, would be the gold. A slender trimming of gold
edged each piece of china, and some of the leaves and fern fronds
themselves were actually gold. While the pattern might appear
subtle to an
Englischer
, Rebecca knew that it screamed
Unacceptable Break With Tradition
to Mrs. Miller.

Mrs. Miller’s closest friend, Mrs. Yoder,
scowled as she walked past and directed a disapproving glare at the
china. Rebecca wrung her hands with concern. She hoped that the
divide between the conservative and the not-so-conservative in the
community would not cause any problems at Martha’s wedding.

Aenti
Irene left the china to arrange
the
Eck Schissle
on the table. The
Eck Schissle
were
gifts which were given only on the wedding day. Unlike
Englisch
weddings, most Amish wedding gifts were not given
on the day of the wedding, but were given in the weeks afterward
when the bride and groom spent the traditional post-wedding time
visiting other
familyes
, before returning to the Hostetler
haus
where they would live for several months. The gifts
would always be practical; farming tools, quilts, and herb and
vegetable seeds.

As was traditional, the Hostetler
familye
, being the
familye
of the groom, were to
provide the place for the couple to stay for the first few months
after marriage, and the Miller
familye
, being the
familye
of the bride, were to provide the necessities for
the setting up of their household: the major appliances, furniture,
cutlery, crockery, linen, and quilts.