“Da, I vill add some class,” the elegant woman said.

Decked out in her fur and velvet, with the crown piece on her head, Miss Surimanda Baikal was my image of an empress. When compared to the Zambezis, the Nyles, and the Timmses-Well, one could hardly compare a swan to six moorhen, could one?

“Velcommen to zee PennDutch Inn,” I cried, my arms extended in an only slightly overly exuberant greeting (after all, someone as handsomely dressed as this woman would be able to afford a lot of ALPO). “Who cares if your untimely arrival is, at the very least, extremely inconsiderate? Of course you’ll just have to make do with PUS tonight-that’s previously used sheets-because laundry day is not until tomorrow. But look on the bright side: for the distinct pleasure of going beddy-bye whilst wrapped in the scent of a previous guest, I shall levy a surcharge of only fifty percent.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Agnes muttered.

I gave my friend the Mennonite version of the Evil Eye, which amounts to a twitch followed by a glassy stare. “I couldn’t agree more,” I said. “There are those who would kill to get their hands on that most exclusive, that most prized, of all DNA, which must surely be lurking in those sheets; I should be charging one hundred percent over the nightly rate, not fifty.”

The foreigner’s green almond-shaped eyes grew as round and large as gingersnaps. “Borat slept at your inn? I take!”

“Why, Magdalena, you dirty dog, you,” Agnes said, but I could hear the admiration in my friend’s voice.

As the old saw goes, those who assume, make a donkey out of everyone-or something like that. Believe me, I have long since made peace with being an equid, or some part thereof.

“Do we have a deal?” I said.

“Dah!”

“Then let’s get this show on the road; time’s a-wasting.”

The regal stranger seemed to withdraw, not unlike a turtle, into the safety of her velvet and furs. “What show?”

“It’s just an expression, dear, an Americanism.”

“And if you stay very long,” Agnes said. “I’m afraid you’ll be treated to a great many original Magdalenaisms.”

“Thanks a lot, friend.”

Miss Surimanda Baikal emerged, smiling. “Ah, you are the Golden Girls, no?”

“Excuse me?”

“Like the TV show. Only this one”-she pointed to Agnes-“is more healthy, like a good Russian babushka, and you are like the crabby one, Dorothy.”

Agnes twittered behind a plump, healthy hand.

“I don’t watch television,” I said archly. “And be forewarned, my dear, although I have the patience of Job, I have the memory of Methuselah-well, at least I hope he kept his wits about him all those years. My point is that although I am a good Christian woman, and was born and bred amongst the gentle folk known as Mennonites, hereabouts it is said that I possess a tongue that can slice through a stick of butter left outside on a tree stump overnight in the dead of winter. Alas, this is no mere metaphor.” I paused to catch my breath and lean forward for emphasis. “Furthermore, there is room for only one of me at the PennDutch Inn-perhaps even in all of Hernia-if you get my drift.”

Miss Baikal hadn’t stopped smiling. “This is threat?”

“Oh no, dear, just a statement of fact.”

Agnes suddenly inserted a great deal of herself between me and the exotic stranger. “ Magdalena, why would anyone leave a stick of butter out on a tree stump overnight?”

“What?”

“You just said-”

I stepped around her. “You will follow my rules, Miss Surimanda Baikal?”

The beautiful visitor grinned broadly. “Dah, I like rules. Is very Russian!”

9

“If that woman is Russian,” Peewee Timms said, “I’ll eat my hat.”

It was all I could do to keep from revealing to Peewee that the thick black man-made thatch atop his head looked very much like a hat: a scaled-down version of the bearskin hats the Beef-eaters wear when they guard Buckingham Palace. Peewee had signed up for general barn chores, but had expressed a special interest in working with my two cows.

Matilda Holsteincoo III and Miss Cowabunga (my newest acquisition), like females everywhere, are quite discerning when it comes to who gets to squeeze their teats and when. As Mose had taken the day off, and Peewee wanted the “hands-on” milking experience, rather than use the electric machines, it fell to me to be his instructor (Freni was chained to the stove, and the only contact Gabe wants with a cow is on his plate).

“Put your head right up against her stomach; she likes knowing that you’re there. Gently caress her udder before sliding your fingers down her teats,” I said. “Now start squeezing with your thumbs, then your index fingers, middle fingers, ring fingers, and so on. The point is that you are gently pushing the milk down- away from her. Concentrate so that you don’t accidentally start squeezing the other way. Get a rhythm going.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It hurts her to have a full bag. It’s like you and a full bladder.”

“Yes, but-”

“She’s a cow, for goodness’ sake; modesty doesn’t play into this.”

The first squirt that hit the pail startled Peewee into letting go so that his rhythm was broken, but soon he and Cowabunga were working in tandem, and it was a beautiful sight to behold.

“You’re a natural,” I said. “It’s like you’ve done this before.”

“Maybe I have-in another life.”

“Don’t be silly, dear; there’s only this life. Reincarnation is-Well, it’s simply an impossibility.”

While still maintaining contact with Cowabunga’s stomach, he managed to turn and look at me. The strong flow of milk remained consistent.

“Yeah? How so?”

“Because of the gift of salvation, that’s why.”

“Come again?”

I sighed, despite my best effort to be patient. “Let’s suppose that you were saved by faith in Jesus Christ in your past life, but that in this life you were a steadfast heathen who refused to believe. Worse yet, what if that in this life you believed in some other deity-like a Hindu god-when you died. What would happen to your soul? Would you go to Heaven or to Hell? Since the answer to the latter is impossible to sort out, it’s quite clear to me that the Good Lord, whose foresight far exceeds mine, would have avoided this conundrum altogether by giving us only one life.”

Peewee had the temerity to burst out laughing, although the flow from Cowabunga did not let up even then. “But that presupposes that all Hindus are headed for Hell! Isn’t that being a tad judgmental of you, Miss Yoder?”

“Indeed, it is not! It isn’t me who makes the rules; they’re in the Book.”

“Ah, but not everyone goes by your book. Take that so-called Russian woman-or the aforementioned Hindus, for that matter-what if they never had the chance to read your book?”

“That is a problem,” I conceded, “which is why I give generously to the church mission fund. I once briefly considered becoming a missionary myself, but they wanted to send me to the Congo. The Congo! Can you imagine that?”

He smiled but said nothing.

“It’s not that I couldn’t have survived,” I said defensively.

Still nothing.

“So what makes you think she’s a fake Russian?” I asked.

“She doesn’t speak Russian, that’s why.”

I stared at him. “How do you know?”

“I was a Russian major in college. Russia was still the big bugaboo then-communism was going to take over half of the world, and we needed to be prepared. Nobody anticipated China. Anyway, I went into advertising and never used my Russian except to eavesdrop on the odd conversation, and the one trip we took to St. Petersburg, but I still remember enough to make myself understood.” He snorted with laughter. “So I used the basic introduction stuff on Her Imperial Highness, but I may as well have been speaking Swahili. She made some excuse in English about not feeling well and then hightailed it out of there like a deer coming face-to-face with a wolf.”