“The Amish youth like to go up on the wall, but I’ve never seen the point in it,” Matthias said. “We know what the English world is like, so I don’t see any use in staring out at it.”
“I’m new here, Matthias Miller. I’m like the English tourists, staring at our homes. I want to see it all.”
Matthias chuckled. “All right, then. This evening, when work is done, we’ll go stand on the wall and stare at the English world.”
Jed smiled as he toured the tiny structure. Matthias’s house was small and comfortable—more of a Dawdi Haus than a full-sized Amish home. In Amish culture, the Dawdi Haus is usually a smaller home, attached to or near the main house, which the farmer moves into when he retires and sells the farm and main house to one of his children. A large Amish family may sometimes have two or three Dawdi homes where the parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents live and continue to participate as valuable members of the family.
It wasn’t common for a new farmer to start with a Dawdi Haus, but these were interesting times on this new world, and Jed understood the necessity. At some point in the next few months, the community would show up at Jed’s land and would build a similar house for him to live in. He heard his father’s voice telling him to be thankful for all graces, and this made him smile the more.
“Why are you smiling like a cat, Jedediah?” Matthias asked. “Are you laughing at my tiny house?”
“I love it,” Jed said. “I want one too.”
Matthias nodded. “Well, you’ll get one soon enough. In fact, the Church will be here to build my barn in a month’s time. I’ve already been here awhile, and my turn for a barn is coming up quickly.”
“A barn raising!” Jed said, and slapped Matthias on the shoulder. “I haven’t been to one since we put up the Stolzfuses’ barn last summer.”
“Not last summer, Jed,” Matthias said. “A long time ago. You’ve been asleep for years.”
Jed laughed. “Still. I’m looking forward to putting up a barn. You get out of practice, you know?”
Matthias showed him to his tiny room. It didn’t take long. “On cold nights you’ll want to do like me,” Matthias said. “I sleep on fleeces in the kitchen near the wood stove. Not too many freezing nights this time of year, but sometimes.” Matthias placed a full mason jar in Jed’s hand. “Lard, for the lamp. Use it sparingly.”
Once he’d shown Jed the room, Matthias left, and Jed checked out his new, temporary home. The small bed was of standard Amish make: instead of an Englischer mattress, ropes were stretched across the wooden frame to serve as springs, and these supported five boards, planed smooth, which in turn held piles of lamb’s fleeces. The bed was pushed up against a wall, with little room to spare at the foot, and there was no dresser or other furniture, save for seven pegs that were set into the wall across from the bed at eye level. There was a single lamp that looked to be a fat lamp, and that was to suffice for his lighting.
Jed hung his spare set of clothing on one of the pegs, then sat on the bed and pulled off his boots. He placed the jar of lard under the bed, stretched out on the fleeces, and closed his eyes.
Matthias had told him that the Yoders would be bringing by supper for a week or two, until Jed was settled in. “We’ll have many meals out as well,” Matthias had told him. “We work away a lot, so we eat very well.”
Since he had an hour before supper, Jed decided to rest and try to calm himself of his excitement. He could hardly believe it: he was finally in New Pennsylvania! His dream was now within reach. He pressed his eyelids together and tried to imagine what his farm would be like.
But with his eyes closed tight, what he saw in his mind’s eye was something else altogether. Jed saw the window from his barn back home. And strangely, it wasn’t in the barn—it was sitting on a dirty old sofa in a dark room, lighted only by a lantern. Jed stared for a while at the old coffee can pane he’d used to fix the window, and then he fell asleep, and everything went black.
Jed was standing in a darkened room, and the wall screen was there—a bright flat light that started out in two dimensions, and then grew until it surrounded him on every side like a cocoon. Then there were images on the screen, and they looked so real that he thought he was somewhere else entirely. His brother Amos was there, only he was an old man. And he seemed to be on trial. An Englischer read out crimes that Amos was supposed to have committed. Theft. Rebellion. Mass murder. The prosecutor offered evidence of these crimes, and Amos did not refute him. And images, like memories, flashed on the screen: of bombs, and war, and innocent people dead and dying. And then Amish men stood up, elders that Jed didn’t recognize, and they offered testimony too. They said that Amos was guilty, and that he’d become as murderous as the Englischers, making war and killing.
Don’t believe it, Jed. These are all lies.
Who are you? Jed thought.
It’s Dawn. I’m your friend.
I love you.
I know.
Later that evening, Jed and Matthias stood up on the great wall, facing east. It had taken them almost an hour to climb to the top, and Jed was exhausted. He’d been awakened from his nap by Matthias when the Yoders had shown up with the evening meal. After they’d supped, Matthias harnessed the horses and pulled the buggy out of the barn. It had taken forty-five minutes of driving to reach the wall.
“I don’t come here much anymore,” Matthias said. Darkness was falling, but from the top of the wall the two Amish men could see to the horizon. The blue of the gloaming was on the land, and lights were coming on in scattered country houses out in the English territory.
“Why not?” Jed asked.
“It’s just the English. They come to stare at us. I don’t spend much time staring back at them.”
Gazing out over the landscape outside the wall, Jed examined the English homes, just their outlines as the light of day disappeared into the night. “The English are not unlike us in many ways,” he said.
“That’s a strange thing to say.”
Jed looked over at his friend. “They just want to be happy, Matthias. They’re just confused about what to do about it.”
Matthias nodded. “I guess I never thought about it that way.”
“I do,” Jed said.
“I suppose they could start by ending all of their wars,” Matthias said.
“That might be harder than we think.”
Matthias thrust his hands down into the pockets of his broadfall pants. “What can be hard about choosing not to kill one another?”
“I don’t think the English want to kill each other,” Jed said. “At least most of them don’t. They’ve been told what to want and what to think just like we have. They value different things.”
“The elders say the English will always be at war. It’s the way of their kind,” Matthias said.
“I hope they’re wrong,” Jed said. And as he spoke the words, a blinding light—brighter than that of the sun—erupted in the distance. In a microsecond, the bright cloud broke over the horizon, turning night to day, and Jed instinctively pulled off his hat and covered his face. He turned to Matthias, who was doing the same thing.
Matthias tried to speak, but found that he could not. “What…?”
The bright light was somehow turning even brighter, and surrounded them in a glow that made it look like noon up on the wall.