Simple Song , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Melody Carlson

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138 pages

English

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Katrina Yoder loves to sing, but her Amish parents view singing as vainglory and a sin. Katrina's best friend, Bekka, is convinced Katrina should try out for American Star, a televised singing competition that Bekka has been secretly watching. Katrina resists the temptation until her father's health worsens. He desperately needs a surgery the family cannot afford. Katrina decides she must go against her parents' wishes to win the money needed to help her father. But how will she handle herself as an Amish teenager out in the world?Teen girls will be swept into the excitement as Katrina ventures out of her quiet Amish world to become a reality television star. Will she be successful? And will she be accepted back into her community when it's over?

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 juin 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441241702
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0374€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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© 2013 by Melody Carlson
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-4170-2
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
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About the Author
Other Books by Melody Carlson
Back Ads
Back Cover
1
Katrina knew it was wrong to sing purely for pleasure. Sure, it was permissible to sing a lullaby when rocking a baby to sleep. It was even acceptable to sing simple songs while working in the garden if it helped to get the weeds pulled and if no one was around to hear. Music, she understood from the Amish Ordnung, was mainly meant for worship. But even in worship, one had to be careful because it was sinful to sing too loudly or too beautifully.
She’d learned that embarrassing lesson more than ten years ago when she’d allowed her voice to soar up joyfully during a hymn at church. Only seven at the time, she believed she was worshiping God with her whole heart. But her spirits plummeted back to earth when she discovered such vibrant singing was both sinful and vain.
“God does not want you to draw attention to yourself like that,” her daed somberly told her afterward. He claimed he had heard her singing above the others even though he was clear over in the men’s section on the other side of the barn. “Your voice is not for your own enjoyment, Katrina. And it is vainglory to distract others with it.” His discipline for her selfish display was being forbidden to sing for an entire month. That was a long month indeed. Because the truth of the matter was, Katrina loved to sing.
Yet Katrina did not feel like singing today. In fact, she barely raised her voice at all during the hymn. And she did not understand why her grandfather had encouraged singing at her grandmother’s funeral service. Music was never allowed at funerals, and there would probably be talk of it all over their settlement before the week was out. Even the minister had seemed shocked when Daadi Yoder humbly announced that it was his wife’s dying request to sing that particular hymn at her burial. It wasn’t even from the Ausbund hymnal.
Katrina blinked back tears as she watched the smooth pine box being lowered into the grave. Despite his injured spine, Katrina’s father had made the coffin for his mother, starting on it the very same day that she died, just three days ago. Although grieving was meant to be private, Katrina had witnessed her daed crying as he sanded the pine smoother than a coffin need be. However, the tears might have been from the pain in his back too. The poor man had been unable to walk or stand the next two days and had barely been able to get out of bed and dress in his black suit today. She’d witnessed the pain carved into his brow as he’d bowed his head to pray.
With tear-filled eyes Katrina turned away, gazing out over the countryside as she waited for the men to fill in Mammi’s grave. Looking past the somber dark line of buggies and horses, her eyes came to rest on the fertile green fields, broken by an occasional fence line or big red barn and plain white house. Dairy cows grazed peacefully over at the Millers’ farm. Just an ordinary spring day in Holmes County. Except that Mammi was dead. Katrina still couldn’t believe it. Mammi had always been one of Katrina’s favorite people. Katrina would dearly miss her grandmother and her sometimes peculiar ways.
As Katrina listened to the minister finishing his speech by saying how they had all been created from dust and were privileged to return to dust, she realized that he’d hardly said a word about her departed grandmother. It only made Katrina feel worse to think that now she’d never have the chance to know her mammi better. Especially since she’d always suspected there was some untold story attached to Mammi. Although Mammi never spoke of it, Katrina knew that she’d left the English lifestyle long, long ago. Preferring the simple life, she’d been baptized and married Daadi. But the question Katrina had always wanted to ask was, Why? Why did she choose one world over another? Now it seemed unlikely that Katrina would ever hear that story.
“Can you believe your grandfather did that?” Cooper asked Katrina. She had chosen to walk back to the farm, hoping it would give her a chance to deal with her emotions, but she was touched when Cooper had offered to go with her. Cooper wasn’t officially courting her yet, but some people thought it was just a matter of time. However, Daed would be quick to remind her not to put her buggy in front of her horse. The question of joining the church was supposed to precede any discussion of marriage.
“Did what?” she absently asked.
“Had us sing that hymn.” Cooper adjusted the brim of his straw hat, tipping it down to shield his eyes from the noonday sun.
She nodded. “ Ja , that was odd. But then my grandmother was a bit odd.”
“I heard my grandmother saying that you are just like her.” Cooper made a chuckling sound, which he tried to conceal with a cough.
“Just like her?” Katrina turned to peer curiously at him. “I am like an old gray-haired woman, am I?”
He looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s all right. But I would like to know what your grandmother meant by that comment.”
“She meant that when your grandmother was young, she looked and acted like you.”
“Your grandmother knew Mammi back then back when my grandmother first came to our settlement?”
“Sure.”
Katrina’s curiosity was aroused now. “What else did your grandmother say?”
“Not much.”
“How did she say Mammi looked and acted?” Katrina was not ready to let this go.
“Like you.”
“Cooper.” She shook her head in disappointment, feeling the strings from her white kapp swishing against her cheeks. “Is that all you can tell me?”
“That’s all I know of it. If you want more information, perhaps you should speak to my grandmother.”
“Perhaps I shall.” Katrina held her head high as she walked, hoping to send him the message that she was dissatisfied that he hadn’t shared more freely with her.
“See,” Cooper pointed at her. “You’re acting just like your grandmother now. I’ve seen her do that very thing. My mamm would call that ‘acting superior.’”
Katrina felt worried. “Do you think I act superior, Cooper?”
His lips curled in a smile. “I think you are superior,” he said quietly.
She glared at him now. “That you would say such a thing!” She stormed off, hurrying on ahead to where her aunt was walking by herself.
“Aunt Alma,” Katrina said as she linked arms with the older woman, “how are you doing on this sad day?”
Aunt Alma looked at Katrina with red-rimmed eyes. She had obviously been crying. “Not too well, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sorry,” Katrina told her. “I’m sure you will miss your mamm more than I can imagine.”
Aunt Alma nodded. “She was my best friend.”
Katrina knew this was true. Aunt Alma had never married, never left home. And even though Uncle Willis and Aunt Fannie lived in the same house, Aunt Fannie had never been very friendly with Aunt Alma. But then Aunt Fannie was not too friendly with many in their family. Sometimes Katrina wondered why Uncle Willis had married such a woman.
“I was just wishing that I’d known Mammi better,” Katrina admitted. “I never dreamed she would pass away so suddenly.”
Aunt Alma sighed. “Nor did I. She was only seventy-four. Daed is eighty-eight and still as healthy as a horse.”
“Can you tell me more about Mammi?” Katrina said suddenly. “I mean, you knew her so much better than I did. I’d love to learn more about her . . . and how she came to live here. You were a little girl when she came to the settlement, weren’t you?”
“ Ja . Even though I know Mamm wasn’t my mother by birth, she was the only mamm I ever knew, and she always treated me as if I were her very own.” She sniffed. “I will be so lonely without her.”
Katrina pulled her arm more snugly around Aunt Alma’s. “Don’t worry,” she told her. “I’ll still come over to visit.”
Aunt Alma looked surprised. “Even though your mammi isn’t here?”
“Certainly!” Katrina smiled at her. “I will come to see you.” Aunt Alma seemed encouraged by this as they turned to walk down the long driveway that led up to the family farm. Many carriages were parking along the drive and over by the big red barn. Already family members were clustered in front of the house. Others were milling about, everyone dressed in black women huddling together in their white kapps and men off to the other side in their yellow straw hats all waiting to assemble together and share a meal. The dinner was meant to be a celebration of God’s goodness in providing Mammi with eternal life. However, Katrina did not feel like celebrating.
“I would be glad to tell you all I know of Mamm.” Aunt Alma spoke quietly as they came into the yard. “But it will have to be later, Katrina. Fannie expects me to help serve dinner.”
“I know.” Katrina looked over to where men were setting up tables outside. Fortunately the weather was fair today. “I’m working in the kitchen too.”
“Perhaps you can help me to clear out Mamm’s things after dinner. Daed asked me to handle this for him. I’m sure there isn’t much to be done, but we can talk as we work together.”