Covenant (Abram's Daughters Book #1) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Beverly Lewis

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

130 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Book 1 of Abram's Daughters series from bestselling author Beverly Lewis. Years of secrecy bind the tiny community of Gobbler's Knob together more than the present inhabitants know, and the Plain folk who farm the land rarely interact with the fancy locals. So when Sadie is beguiled by a dark-haired English boy, it is Sadie's younger sister, Leah, who suffers from her sister's shameful loss of innocence. And what of Leah's sweetheart, Jonas Mast, sent to Ohio under the Bishop's command? Drawn into an incomprehensible pact with her older sister, Leah finds her dreams spinning out of control, even as she clings desperately to the promises of God. The Covenant begins a powerful Lancaster portrait of the power of family and the miracle of hope.

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 septembre 2002
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781585586844
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0432€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 2002 by Beverly Lewis
Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
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.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5855-8684-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.
Cover design by Dan Thornberg, Design Source Creative Services
Dedication
For three devoted sisters: Aleta Hirschberg, Iris Jones, and Judy Verhage. My aunties, ever dear.
Contents
Part One
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Part Two
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Part One
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth.
John Keats
Prologue
LEAH
Growing up, I drank a bitter cup. I fought hard the notion that had I been the firstborn instead of my sister Sadie, my early years might’ve turned out far different. Fewer thorns over the pathway of years, perhaps. But then, who is ever given control over their destiny?
When I came along my parents already had their daughter perty, blue-eyed, and fair Sadie. Dat needed someone to help him outdoors, so taking one look at me, he decided I was of sturdier stock than my soft and willowy sister. Hence I became my father’s shadow early on, working alongside him in the fields, driving a team of mules by the time I was eight plowing, planting, doing yard work and barn work, too, some of it as soon as I could walk and run. Mamma needed Sadie inside, doing “women’s work,” after all. And my, oh my, Sadie could clean and cook like a house a-fire. Nobody around these parts, or in all of Lancaster County for that matter, could redd up a place faster or make a tastier beef stew. But those were just two of Sadie’s many talents.
Truth be known, my sister was at war with the world and its pleasures . . . and the Amish church. At eighteen, she was taking classes with Preacher Yoder, along with other young people preparing to follow the Lord in holy baptism, to make the lifetime vow to almighty God and the church. Yet all the while offering up her heart and soul on the altar of forbidden love.
Still, I kept Sadie’s dreadful secret to myself. Ach , part of me longed to see her get caught and promptly rebuked. Sometimes I hated her for the unnecessary risks she seemed too willing to take, not just foolish but ever so dangerous. I was truly worried, too, especially since I was nigh unto courting age and eager to attend Sunday night singings myself when all this treachery began. What would the boys in our church district think of me if word got out about shameless Sadie?
“Promise me, Leah,” she whispered at night when we dressed for bed. “You daresn’t ever say a word ’bout Derry. Not to anyone.”
Even though I wished Dat and Mamma did know of Sadie’s worldly beau, I was sorely embarrassed to reveal such a revolting tale. I struggled to keep the peace between Sadie and myself, but against my better judgment. Soon, I found myself wondering just how long I could keep mum about my sister’s sinful ways. Truth be told, I wished I knew nothing at all about the dark-haired English boy my sister loved beyond all reason.
In those early days I was forever worrying, so afraid I’d be stuck playing second fiddle to Sadie my whole life long. Living not only under the covering of my steadfast and God-fearing father, but daily abiding in the shadow of my errant elder sister. The cross I was born to bear.
Sometimes at dusk I would slip away to the upstairs bedroom I shared with Sadie. Alone in the dim light, I gazed into a small hand mirror, looking long and hard by lantern’s light, yet not seeing the beauty others saw in me. Only the reflection of a wide-eyed tomboy stared back a necessary substitute for a father’s son, though I was a young woman, after all. And as innocent as moonlight.
Abram’s Leah . . .
Clear up till my early twenties, I was identified by Dat’s first name. To English outsiders, the two names together might’ve sounded right sweet, even endearing. But any church member around here knew the truth. Jah , the People were clearly aware that Leah Ebersol was dragging her feet about marrying the man her father had picked out for her. So because I was stubborn, I was in danger of becoming a maidel in short, a maiden lady like Aunt Lizzie Brenneman, although she was anything but glum about her state in life. For most young women, not marrying meant denying one’s emotions, but not Lizzie. She was as cheerful and alive as anyone I’d ever known.
As for Abram’s Leah, well, I possessed determination. “Grit . . . with a lip,” Dat often said of me. And I do remember that I had a good bit of courage, too. Never could just stand by tight-mouthed, overhearing the womenfolk speculate on “Abram’s rough-’n’-tumble girl” them looking clear down their noses at me just ’cause I wasn’t indoors baking pies or doing needlework. Goodness, that’s how Sadie spent her time . . . and Hannah and Mary Ruth, and of course, Mamma.
Puh! ’Twas Dat’s fault I wasn’t indoors making ready for supper and whatnot. I was too busy with farm chores milking cows twice a day, raising chickens for both egg gathering and, later, dressing them to sell. Whitewashing fences, too. Oh, and sweeping that big old barn out in nothing flat every Saturday. I wasn’t one to mince words back then. I was as hardworking as the next person. Just maybe more practical than most young women, I ’spect. Sometimes I even wore work trousers under my long dress so dust from the haymow or mosquitoes from the cornfield wouldn’t wander up my legs of a summer. Come to think of it, my second cousin, Jonas Mast, was the boy responsible for sneaking the britches to me promised to keep the deed to himself, too.
Ach, I was a lot of spunk in those days. A lot of talk, too. But now I try to mind my p’s and q’s, make apricot jam and pear butter for English customers, and get out and weed my patch of Zenith hybrid zinnias purple, yellow, and green in my backyard. More often than not, I find myself saying evening prayers without fail.
’Course now, nearly all that matters in life is the memories. Dear, dear Mamma and unyielding Dat. Kindhearted Aunt Lizzie. Happy-go-lucky Mary Ruth and her too-serious twin, Hannah competitive yet connected all the same by invisible cords of the heart. And Sadie . . . well, perty is as perty does. The four of us, Plain sisters, attempting to live out our lives under the watchful eye of the Lord God heavenly Father and the church.
Ofttimes now before twilight falls, when the sun’s last rays shift slowly down over the golden meadow, if I step outside on my little front porch and let my thoughts stray back, I can hear a thousand echoes from the years. Like a field sprinkled with lightning bugs, they come one by one. Bright as a springtime morning, radiant as a pure white lily. Others come tarnished, nearly swallowed up by blackness, flickering too hastily, overzealous little lights . . . then gone.
The night air seems to call to me. And though I am a sensible grown woman, I surrender to its urging. A vast landscape in my mind seems to reach on without end as I peer across the shadows into another world. Another universe, seems now. There I see a mirrored image that I treasure above all else the reflection of a smiling, thoughtful young man, his adoring gaze capturing my heart on the day our eyes locked across a long dinner table, when all of us spent Second Christmas with Mamma’s cousins over near Grasshopper Level. ’Twas a red-letter day, though Dat soon made me want to forget I had ever smiled back.
A lifetime ago, to be sure. These days, I simply breathe silent questions to the wind: My beloved, what things do you recall? Will you ever know that I am and always will be your Leah? . . . daughter of Abram, sister of Sadie, child of God .
Chapter One
SUMMER 1946
G obbler’s Knob had a way of shimmering in the dappled light of deep summer, along about mid-July when the noonday sun standing at lofty attention in a bold and blue sky pierced through the canopy of dense woods, momentarily flinging light onto the forest floor in great golden shafts of luster and dust, causing raccoons, moles, and an occasional woodchuck to pause and squint. The knoll, where wild turkeys roamed freely, was populated with a multitude of trees maple, white oak, and locust. Thickets of raspberry bramble had sometimes trapped unsuspecting young fowl, stunned by the heat of day or the sting of a twelve-gauge shotgun during hunting season.
“ Steer clear of the woods ,” the village children often whispered among themselves. They warned each other of tales they’d heard of folk getting lost, unable to find their way out. The rumors were repeated most often during the harvest, when nightfall seemed to sneak up and catch you unaware on the heels of a round white moon bigger than at any other season of year. About the time when all over Lancaster County, fathers came in search of plump Thanksgiving Day t