No longer able to run the chicken farm by herself, she began taking in sewing and soon developed a reputation for excellence at it. Although her fine work did nothing to enhance her social standing, or improve her relationship with her suspicious in-laws, it did keep body and soul together for her and her six children. Every Amish woman knows how to sew, and while most sew their own dresses and intricately pleated bonnets, no one in a six-county radius could do so as expertly as Mary Berkey. Eventually overworked Amish women were thinking up reasons not to make their outfits. So popular did Mary’s expertly sewn clothes become, that in one district the bishop saw reason to ban them, citing the sin of pride inherent in their ownership.

No sooner had I pulled into the long gravel drive than the front door to the white frame house opened and a passel of kids, ranging from ages seven to fourteen, piled out. Close on their heels came Mary, a tall, angular woman, with a pinched narrow face and cobalt blue eyes. When she saw that it was me, her thin lips parted, forming a sparse smile, and she waved.

“Don’t the children have school?” Tiny asked. It was a reasonable question.

“They’re homeschooled,” I said. I saw no reason to tell Tiny that the children were homeschooled because their mother was an outcast-an unofficial outcast, of course.

When we got out of the car, Little Jacob was immediately mobbed with friends. He’d played with the younger Berkey children a number of times, and they were all very fond of him. But as the ladies and I made our way up to the house over an uneven stretch of yard, badly in need of reseeding, Rudolph, the youngest Berkey, ran over and grabbed my arm. His sister Veronica, who had been chasing him, nearly knocked me over. The poor girl is built like a panzer, but alas, possesses only half the grace of a German tank-or of a war machine of any nation for that matter.

“Miss Yoder,” Rudy said-rather he shouted in the way some seven-year-olds do when they’re highly agitated, “why does the little Englishwoman have such big udders?”

“Don’t be rude, Rudy,” I snapped.

“But why?”

“They’re not called ‘udders,’ ” Veronica said between gasps. “They’re called ‘bossoms.’ ” She pronounced the word to rhyme with possums.

“Oh.”

“And that’s the way God made her,” Veronica said.

I must admit that Tiny had a pleasant laugh. “Actually, Dr. Sayeed was running a two-for-one special, and I thought to myself, why would anyone want just one? Of course I’d want two! But when you think about it, it really is like getting them for half price, right?”

I could almost hear the wheels turn in Veronica’s head as she began to process this alien information. But after a few seconds her brain spit it all back out. This was too much too soon-perhaps more than she’d ever want to know.

“Come on, Rudy, let’s go see if Little Jacob wants to play with your snake.”

Now that set off an alarm bell in my head. “That better be a real snake,” I hollered after them, “and it better not be poisonous.” One can never be too careful with one’s children if you ask me. If one must err, ’tis better to err on the side of over-protection, because one can always loosen up. Make your kids wear their helmets when they ride their bicycles, no matter how much they complain. So what if the other kids in the neighborhood don’t wear theirs? So what if they don’t like you for imposing this rule on them? Tough chocolate chip cookies, that’s what I say. Not wearing a helmet can result in a dead, or brain-damaged, child.

The brood’s mare-I mean, mama-stepped forward. “ Magdalena,” Mary said, reading my large- print mind, “still you overprotect him. But I tell you, it will make the boy rebel; it will not make him safer. Boys will be boys, yah?”

There is nothing in this world guaranteed to hike my hackles quite like criticism of my parenting skills. I have given this matter much thought and have concluded that the reason for this is that my child means more to me than anyone or anything else in the entire world, including myself, and ergo I must believe that I am doing my best by him. If not, then shame, shame on me, and there isn’t a healthy soul alive who enjoys a plateful of scorn.

“You raise your”-I swallowed the word “brats”-“and I’ll raise mine.”

“What did you say?”

I smiled broadly. “This is Surimanda Baikal from Russia, and Tiny Timms from New Jersey. For some reason Tiny is interested in dressing like an Amish woman. Of course, you’d have to put a lot of darts in the bust area-maybe even some clever metal scaffolding-but if anyone can do it, you can.”

“Yah, I can. Elma Gindlesperger-she had the glands too, you know. I made for her also the dress of much support. And a swimming costume as well.”

Elma was, of course, a Mennonite of the more liberal persuasion, and not of the Amish faith. “Poor, poor Elma,” I said.

“When her cruise ship sank, she managed to stay afloat for eight days before the sharks ate her-in sight of land!”

“This is very quaint,” Tiny said, sounding a mite miffed, “but do you mind if we get started?”

17

Tiny survived her bust-measuring ordeal, and Rudy’s snake turned out to be a baby garter snake, which is a completely harmless garden variety. Undoubtedly more dangerous than either of these two events was my visit to the state penitentiary.

The urgent call had come during my absence that morning. It was a matter of life and death, my sister said. If I didn’t make the two thirty afternoon visiting session, it proved I didn’t love her and she would never speak to me again. While there have been more than a few times when such a threat would have been greeted as a welcome challenge, I felt something quicken in the depths of me that stirred me to action.

Now, I do believe in women’s intuition, plain and simple. I’ve always maintained that a hunch from a woman is worth two facts from a man. I also believe that a woman’s voice should be heard, despite the admonishments of the otherwise brilliant, but undeniably misogynistic, apostle from Tarsus. That said, I followed my hunch, and was quite vocal until the warden relented and agreed to add me to the list of that day’s visitors.

However, since this was a maximum-security facility, I still had to endure the most rigorous and humiliating search imaginable. My torturer was a Goliath of a woman with an unpronounceable name embossed in black letters on a pearl gray badge. As her hands, which were the size of Virginia hams, moved up and down my person in the most familiar way, I felt compelled to speak out.

“My dear,” I said, “I haven’t felt anything quite like this since my wedding night.”

“Are you complaining, lady?”

“Au contraire, I’m trying very hard not to enjoy this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that if your left hand moves any closer to the South Pole, it could trigger an avalanche. Unfortunately, I always sing when that happens, and I’m not known to be very good at that-singing, that is.”

‘V’h’Neek’qQ”WA’a Smith glared at me. “Are you trying to be funny?”

“No, ma’am. I am trying to remain celibate.”

The Virginia hams stopped their needless probing. “For all I know, you’re packing a gun down there.”

I sighed, anger and relief mingling like smoke from a freshly doused fire. “Do I look like the type?”

“There isn’t any one type. And since you’re in that strange getup, with that little hat thing on your head-Hey, where are you from anyway?”

“Hernia?”

Ms. Smith howled. “Are you putting me on?”

“I fail to see the humor in this. At least I don’t have seven apostrophes in my name.”

“Hey! Don’t be making fun of my culture.”

“Your culture? Where are you from?”

“Da hood.”