Plain Girl, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
1. Esther
2. A Night Visitor
3. What Happened to Dan
4. The Girl in Pink
5. The First Step Away
6. Sweet Water–and Bitter
7. Esther Asks a Question
8. Sarah and The Bright News
9. Dan–with Buttons
10. More About Dan
11. A Wedding–and A Friend
12. Esther Does Some Work at Night
13. The Answer
14. Christmas at Home
About the Author
Copyright © 1955 by Virginia Sorensen
Copyright renewed 1983 by Virginia Sorensen Waugh
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to the following address: Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.
www.HarcourtBooks.com
First Harcourt Young Classics edition 2003
First Odyssey Classics edition 2003
First published 1955
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Sorensen, Virginia Eggertsen, 1912-
Plain girl/Virginia Sorensen; illustrated by Charles Geer,
p. cm.
"An Odyssey/Harcourt Young Classic."
Summary: Despite her father's objections, a young Amish girl secretly looks forward to attending public school, where she makes a best friend and gains a new perspective on her family's way of life.
[1. Amish—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 5. Pennsylvania—History— 20th century—Fiction.] I. Geer, Charles, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.S72P1 2003
[Fic]—dc21 2003049938
ISBN 0-15-204724-7 ISBN 0-15-204725-5 (pb)
eISBN 978-0-547-54354-3
v1.1012
FOR ANNA MARIE SMITH
and with warm gratitude to Anna Beckstine,
who first told me the story of a Plain Girl.
1. Esther
"Esther!"
Esther jumped in surprise. Mother's voice was not usually so loud. She came hurrying into the garden, where Esther had just finished picking corn. "Here, I will take them in'" she said, and held out her full black skirt for the fresh ears to be dumped into it. "Now you may go and gather eggs for supper."
She did not say what fine big ears Esther had picked, as she usually did, or even seem to notice. Before she disappeared into the kitchen she called back, "I left the egg-basket out by the chicken coop."
Well, Esther thought, something was the matter. Unless Mother and Aunt Ruth had made fifty puddings since noon there were plenty of eggs in that house for a dozen suppers. They had not made puddings at all, as she knew, but apple pies for which no eggs were needed.
Somebody must be at the house just now, somebody Mother did not want her to see.
As always, whenever anything out-of-the-way happened, a question jumped into Esther's mind: Was it something about Dan?
Before she was halfway to the chicken coop, she knew at least part of the trouble. An automobile stood by the front gate. Two strange men without any hats on their heads at all, or any beards on their chins, sat in the seat, looking toward the house. She hurried inside with the hens and closed the door quickly behind her. But she went at once to the wired opening across the front and looked out.
It was a shining black car with a colored picture painted on the door. There were words too, but she could not read them so far away. They were not huge words like the ones she saw on cars sometimes when she went to market with Father and Mother, like POTATO CHIPS, HANDY LAUNDRY, DRINK OBERT'S ORANGY ORANGE! If these two men had something to sell, Esther thought, they'd as well drive away before Father came out of the barn. Father knew exactly what things he needed and where to get them. Besides, Esther knew, he wasn't going to like an automobile sitting right in front of his own gate.
The bam door opened. Father came out. On Father anger showed very plainly because it almost never happened to him. Now his beard looked so stiff and fierce that he did not seem like Father at all. Esther stood so quiet inside the coop that the chickens forgot she was there and began to peck about her shoes. Surely, now those men saw Father looking as he did, they would drive away.
But they did not. Instead, one of them opened the door and leaned out and called, "Mr. Lapp?"
Father nodded. Once. He did not move toward them one single step. It was as if he said, "If they want to speak with me they can do the walking. It isn't as if I wanted to speak to them."
"Oh, dear," Esther thought. "I wish they would go away." Now Father would not say a single word at supper and so neither would Mother. Aunt Ruth would not dare to speak, then, and of course a little girl never spoke unless she was spoken to. It would be as bad as it had been right after Dan went away.
But the men did not leave. Instead they both climbed out of the car and came through the gate and straight toward where Father stood. The first man carried a paper in one hand, reading as he walked. When he came close to Father, he looked up and said, "I understand you have a daughter, Esther Lapp?"
Esther jumped from the window so quickly that the chickens at her feet flew in every direction, squawking. Then she stood still, against the door.
"Yes," she heard Father say. "I have a daughter Esther."
The man cleared his throat. Now the chickens huddled together, very still under the perches, and Esther crept forward toward the window again.
"From our records, we find that she is almost ten years old," the man said. Esther could see his face quite well now, looking very pink without any beard, like a young unmarried man. Yet he was old, for his clipped hair was gray over his ears. "Why hasn't she ever been to school?"
So it was that. They had seldom spoken of it, but Esther had heard what was said when Ruth first came to help in the house and give her lessons. Father had known it might happen. Now here it had come. But his voice sounded very clear and steady and she saw how straight and proud he stood under his broad stiff-brimmed hat.
"We have taught Esther here at home," he said. "She is able to read and write very well now. In English. And in German too."
"That may be so," the man said, and glanced at his companion. "But it happens, Mr. Lapp, that we have a compulsory school law in Pennsylvania. I'm sure you remember—we have talked about this matter before."
"Quite some time ago now," said the other man. "Before, I believe, the trouble was about your son." He looked at the paper in his companion's hand. "Our records show that you were arrested and fined three times before he finally went to school. Daniel Lapp. Isn't that your son?"
Father did not answer, and Esther began to tremble from her head to her toes. The name Daniel was never mentioned in that house or in that yard or any place where Father might happen to hear it. She herself had heard him say, right after Dan had gone away, "We will not speak of Daniel here again."
The strange man did not know that. He even repeated the name, looking straight into Father's face. "You finally sent Daniel to school, and he finished," the man said. "We understood you meant to send your daughter without trouble when the time came."
"Esther is learning here at home," Father said slowly in a heavy stubborn voice. "We Amish people believe in the law; you should know it. But we do not believe in a bad law that forces men to send their children to learn bad ways. We are able to teach our children everything they will need to know here on the farm." A silence fell. Only the chickens moved around Esther's skirt, looking stiff-legged and pop-eyed and silly.
"Believe me, Mr. Lapp, we're sorry about this," the first man said. "But until you people provide a good school of your own—one the Superintendent can approve, mind you—every Amish child must go to the school provided. The one in this neighborhood is a very good school; my own boy goes there. This fall we have a splendid teacher—"
"It is not the teachers that are bad," Father said.
Again the silence. They seemed to know what Father had meant to tell them, and looked awkwardly at each other. It was not that the teachers were bad, or the school, or the children. It was only that there ■were so many different children at the school, with different ways and different clothes. So many different things put strange ideas into an Amish head sometimes. It had happened to Dan; Father was afraid it would also happen to Esther.
The first man broke the silence in a determined voice, looking at the paper and speaking his words as if he read them out. "We are to inform you, Mr. Lapp, that your daughter Esther must be in school from the age of eight until she is seventeen. Her case has been overlooked too long already." He glanced at Father's fierce beard, which stood out upon the air when his head was held so high. "The only excuse provided by law, Mr. Lapp, is dire financial need—" His glance swept over the neat farm and the great bam and the strong house, and Esther knew he was thinking there was no need here or ever would be.
Father turned his back. The other man spoke then, in a determined way, clearing his throat at the beginning like a preacher about to begin his sermon. "On September the 8th, next week," he said, "the school b
Father had started for the barn while he talked. Suddenly he stopped short and spoke over his shoulder. "Esther will not ride in the school bus," he said. "That is not in the law. I will take her back and forth myself!"
He disappeared. The barn door closed quietly after him. No matter how angry Father might be, he would never slam a door.
"Well!" the first man said.
The two stood for a moment, looking around. "You have to admit they're wonderful farmers," one of them said. "Look at those fields. And never a machine on the place."
His companion nodded and they began to walk back toward the gate. "All the Plain People are good farmers," one of them said. "I wish we had as many here as they do in Lancaster County. They're all rich, the best farmers in the world and they know it."
"They're not afraid of hard work," said the other man. "Only of school."
They laughed and got into the car again. To turn it around they had to drive it into the yard and back it up. Esther could see the picture quite clearly for a minute, a blue design like a shield. She could read the words too: the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Father came out of the barn again, looking at the cloud of dust the car left behind it on the road. Esther felt sorry about how he felt. But about going to school—she was not in the least sorry for that. Gathering the eggs while the chickens fluttered and scolded her, she told herself the truth. Dan had loved the school and now she was glad that she would see the wonderful things he had described to her. Books with colored pictures on every page. Bright crayons and chalk and paper to fold and cut. Pictures on the walls, curtains at the windows made of paper with crinkly edges. That wonderful little machine that brought music out of little black plates by scratching with a needle ...
So many things! She was so excited she stumbled over the doorsill and almost spilled the eggs. She had passed the schoolhouse many times when she was with Father and Mother, in the wagon. Crowds of children laughed and played and ran together, tossing balls.
In the yard near the house she stood still, looking in the direction of the school. Sometimes in the winter she had heard the bell ringing from its little white tower. On a clear cold day she could hear it very well over the fields and the meadows.
If only Father did not mind so much! she thought.
2. A Night Visitor
At supper it was just as Esther had expected. Father did not speak of the strangers who had come, or of the school, or of anything else. He prayed in silence before and after supper, and then he went out to the barn again.
"The calf is not well," Mother said, watching Father anxiously as he disappeared through the big painted doors. Esther knew that Father went out there because he wanted to be alone.
Esther helped with the dishes and swept up the crumbs on the floor. But there wasn't much to do. Since Mother's young sister Ruth had come to visit, after Dan went away, and then stayed and stayed and stayed, the work seemed always done. Aunt Ruth was a wonderful housekeeper, as Mother herself was. Now there was always a cupboardful of pies. Except when church was held here, the pies never entirely disappeared as they used to when Dan was at home.
"What an appetite!" Mother used to say with a proud laugh, looking up at Dan who stood almost as high as the top of a door.
Tonight Mother and Ruth did not talk much either. Usually they chattered endlessly, about gardens and cooking and hens and lambs and babies. Or about what had been sold at a farm-sale in the neighborhood, and at what bargain prices. Or about where church had been held last week and where it would be held the next. Or about a Sing in somebody's barn on Saturday night, or an apple-paring on Wednesday. Until recently, they often talked about a quilting for a bride. Or about what girls might be married in November.
Nobody had said so, but now it would not do to speak of the quiltings and the marriages. Esther knew this without being told. The sad look on Ruth's face told it all without words.
When the work was finished, Ruth went out as she often did lately and sat on the back porch with her knitting. Even as the dusk gathered she could go on with her stitches, so nobody ever thought she was sitting out there wasting her time.
"Aunt Ruth," Esther said in a low voice, and sat very near as she loved to do, "did you see the men who came today?"
For a long moment Ruth seemed not to hear. She looked out toward the barn and over the wide fields and along the road, keeping her fingers busy and counting with her lips how many stitches she was making. At last she stopped counting and said gently, "Yes, Esther, I saw them."
"You said you went to school where you lived," Esther said.
"Yes," Ruth said again. "That was a long way from here, but it was still Pennsylvania. We had the same laws there."
"Mother went to school too," Esther said.
Ruth counted again for a time, and then she spoke slowly as she did when she was explaining something in a lesson. "It was different there, Esther, because there were many Amish in that neighborhood. We had a school of our own. When I go back again, I am going to study, I think, and learn to be a teacher myself. We need more Amish teachers; you've heard the preacher say so."
She had stopped knitting entirely and looked so sad and lonesome as she spoke of going away that Esther instantly had a lump in her throat. "You know enough to be a good teacher already," she said. "All those letters you taught me! Did you know, Ruth, that I am almost through with both Genesis and Exodus?"
"You do very well," Ruth said. She smiled. "You won't need to worry about school. You'll be able to read as well as anyone there."
But even her smile looked sad. Esther knew why Ruth did not want to go away again, even to her own home where she had lived a very happy life until she was eighteen. It was because of Hans.
"Maybe you can come back here and start a school for us," Esther said eagerly. "Then it will be the kind of school Father wants."
Ruth reached out and pressed her hand. "Perhaps I can," she said. Then, quickly, she began to knit again. There seemed nothing more to say. Lately it had become harder and harder to talk to Ruth. When she had first come she had been eager and gay and full of laughter; she never sat like this, in the dusk. Was it always like that, Esther wondered, when a girl grew up and had to think about young men? She was glad she was only starting to be ten and didn't have to be in love. Love seemed to be the trouble every time when a girl looked sad. Sarah Yoder looked even sadder than Ruth last Sunday, sitting after church in this very place. When Esther happened to come out of the house, she had asked suddenly, "Esther, hasn't your Mother heard from Daniel at all?"
It was good Father hadn't heard her ask such a thing. Before Esther had time to shake her head, even, he had come outside with the men.
Poor Sarah! Everybody had known she liked Daniel more than she liked any other boy. And that he liked her most of all the girls. People often laughed and teased them, for Dan always sat beside her after the Sings and she was the one he took home in his buggy, every time.
But he did not love her very much, after all, surely. Or would he have gone away? Now, even in meeting, Sarah looked as sad and as lonesome as Ruth did this minute, clicking her needles and counting stitches and looking at the rising moon. Hans had not gone away, of course, but then he had not come to see Ruth here at the house, either. Quite often, Esther had seen him driving his buggy past, along the road, but he had not come and turned the light of his buggy into Ruth's room at night the way a young Amish man does when he wants to marry a girl. Now it was beginning to be September and Ruth must go back home, and the month for being married—which was November—was not very far away.
Last Sunday, after meeting, Father had looked directly at Hans during supper. "Only one woman can make pies as well as my own wife," Father had said, "and that is her sister Ruth."
Everybody had laughed but Ruth herself, who blushed and turned away. Esther did not know whether Hans laughed, because he lowered his head over his plate.
What Father had said was true; he would not have said it otherwise. Besides being able to cook, Ruth had a huge chest at home, Esther knew, all carved with birds and flowers; it was filled to the top with beautiful things Ruth herself had made.
