Free Abram's Daughters 02 The Betrayal by Unknown

with you. Dat's allowing Mary Ruth to do some light housekeeping and cooking for our English neighbors, the Nolts the new parents 1 wrote you about. It's puzzling to me because he was so steadfast about keeping us younger girls separate from the outside world after Sadie attended public high school. Do you think this is wise, letting one so young and innocent work for English folk?
    As for me, I'm ready to follow the Lord in the ordinance of baptism and can hardly wait for that most holy of days when 1 will bow my knees before the bishop and the church membership.
    Oh, Jonas, I can hardly wait to see you again! To think we'll be joining church together.
    All my love, Your faithful Leah
    She folded the letter and slipped it into the envelope. In no hurry to leave the quiet woodland setting, she leaned her head against the locust tree and stared high into its leafy structure. Her life was about to change forever. No longer would she live under the protective covering of her father, though she would always love and respect him and Mamma both. Her place amongst the People would be that of Jonas's helpmeet and wife, and the mother of his children in due season.
    Since Dat had read to her Catharina's final testimony of faith, Leah had been thinking constantly of the Anabaptist
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    martyrs. She struggled with the thing that separated her from i lie dedicated church members right here in Gobbler's Knob the terrible secret she kept locked away inside. She
    11uly felt the Holy One of Israel was calling her to repent of i he sisterly covenant made last year, though she dreaded what Mich a thing might do to her and Sadie's relationship.
    In the end Dat would understand if she broke her vow to Siidie. With his concern about Sadie's rumschpringe, he would undoubtedly accept the dire revelation of his firstborn's misconduct as true, but would it cause him undue grief?
    Mamma, though she would agree with Dat, would undersiund why Leah had made the covenant in the first place.
    And what of Aunt Lizzie? Leah felt her cheeks burn, knowing Lizzie was unyielding when it came to the tie that hinds. She'd made her promise to Sadie, as well.
    The battle within Leah's heart between doing what she knew was the right thing and keeping her word to Sadie was < ausing her to lose her appetite. She found herself whispering iote but fervent prayers, not just at mealtime and bedtime, but ;ill the day long.
    Walking barefoot to the Nolts' house, Mary Ruth heard a pair of woodpeckers hidden in the trees that rimmed the road. I 'hough she couldn't see them just now, she knew they were
    11inch larger than the bats Dat sometimes spotted in the barn rafters of a night. Their wedge-shaped tails steadied their black bodies as they flew from tree to tree, driving hard bills Jeep into tree bark in search of a succulent insect dinner.
    She kept to the left side of the road, still baffled by her lather's voluntarily allowing her to work for fancy folk. To be
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    sure, Aunt Lizzie had played a part. Seemed most anything Lizzie wanted lately she got, especially if Dat had much to say about it.
    Awful surprising, she thought as she headed off to her first day on the job with the nice Englishers and their infant son. When she'd gone to meet them with Aunt Lizzie yesterday after supper, she'd noticed right away the baby's dark hair, unlike his blond and blue-eyed parents, though neither of them seemed to pay any mind. Dottie Nolt had quietly shared with her that baby Carl was indeed adopted, not common knowledge. Now in their midthirties, the Nolts were pleased to have a little one to love as their own. Mary Ruth thought they must be churchgoers because Dottie had told her yesterday they were planning to have their baby dedicated to God in church soon. There was something awful special about knowing they wanted to raise their little one with the Lord God's blessings. It made her respect them, English or not, though she scarcely knew them.
    "Hello again,