Eicher Jerry S. - A View from the Buggy

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Cover by Garborg Design Works, Savage, Minnesota

Cover photos Chris Garborg; hendrsd / Bigstock

A VIEW FROM THE BUGGY

Copyright 2014 by Jerry S. Eicher and Nathan Miller

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eicher, Jerry S.

A view from the buggy / Jerry S. Eicher and Nathan Miller.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-7369-5686-4 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-5687-1 (eBook)

1. Christian lifeAmish authors. 2. SimplicityReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BX8129.A5E33 2014

289.7'3dc23

2013043550

All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of authors and publishers rights is strictly prohibited.

Contents

Jerry Eicher

Nathan Miller

Erma Louise Schrock

Marvin Wengerd

Janice Hochstetler

Joanna Yoder

Joanna Yoder

Malinda Hershberger

Eldon Schrock

Oba Hershberger

Oba Hershberger

Sarah Bontrager

Aaron Miller

Regina Bontrager

Wilbur Hochstetler

Miriam Schwartz

Miriam Schwartz

Delores Schrock

Samuel Chupp

Rachel Miller

Harvey Yoder

Grace Ann Yoder

Levi F. Miller

Mose E. Helmuth

Rachel Troyer

Betty Gingerich

Sarah Bontrager

Levi F. Miller

Lori Miller

Louie Weaver

Norman Miller

Grace Elaine Yoder

Harvey D. Yoder

Aaron D. Beachy

Ruth M. Bontrager

Maria Kay Bontrager

Crist Renno

Levi F. Miller

Harvey and Grace Ann Yoder

Benuel M. Fisher

Rachel Troyer

Luke Weaver

Omer Miller

Kenneth Gingerich

Kenneth Gingerich

Kenneth Gingerich

Titus Yoder

Joanna Yoder

Nathan Miller

Jerry Eicher

Philip Stoll

Philip Stoll

Esther Weaver

Laura Yoder

Nathan Miller

Joanna Yoder

Jerry Eicher

Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away (Matthew 5:42).

H UMILITY IS VALUED BY THE A MISH COMMUNITY , RIGHT UP THERE after godliness. Every member is expected to readily admit to his or her shortcomings. So I will open this book of true Amish stories with a tale from my familys repertoire of less-than-stellar accomplishments.

County Road 96 runs through the center of the little Amish community in Belle Center, Ohio, where our family had moved upon our return from several years in Honduras. Our time in Honduras had been a mixture of good and bad, but our return home was disappointing to the whole family.

Dad had come up to the states some months earlier and made the down payment on the property that would be our new home. When he returned, he made a point of telling us that our neighbors, Eldon Yoder and his wife, Fannie, were friendly folks, as were other folks in the Amish community.

I was 16 at the time and mourned our move away from Honduras. This preempted any interest I had in who our new neighbors would be. But when we arrived in Belle Center, Dad was proved rightthe Yoders were fine, generous people. This was made clear when, upon our arrival, Eldon Yoder offered to sell us Rose, his best horse.

Eldon Yoder was a short man with a bushy beard. His wife, Fannie, was always smiling. She was almost as tall as her husband, and a fluttering sort of woman. Fannie gave off a sense of eternal busyness, which contrasted with the easygoing nature of her husband.

If Eldon had any regrets about the sale of Rose, I never heard him say so. And one would have heard such a thing in that small community. I hasten to add that Rose was a gentle, mild-natured horse when we bought her. This was one of her attractive qualities, Dad claimed. We didnt need a dashing horse. We had arrived back Stateside bruised in heart and soul. A troublesome horse was the last thing we needed. Maybe that knowledge was what had stirred Eldon Yoders compassion to sell Rose to usor perhaps it was simply our general bedraggled condition.

Sadly, the sale of Rose to our familythough well-intentionedquickly turned into a disaster. What happened, we never really knew. But something went wrong as we proceeded that turned a kind gesture sour. Not intentionally, of course. It just sort of happened. Dad knew how to handle horses, and he didnt abuse them. He had been around horses all of his life.

I know we liked the calm and gentle Rose and expected that shed be a fine horse for us. But to our surpriseand no doubt Eldon Yoders tooshe was soon ruined beyond repair. Perhaps she didnt like this Amish family who had spent time in faraway Honduras. Whatever the reason, Rose began to balk. When hitched to a buggy, she simply refused to go.

This is not only a most inconvenient trait for an Amish horse to have, but a well-nigh intolerable one. The whole family would cram into the buggy outside whatever farm the church service had been held at that Sunday. People were milling around, talking with each other as the Amish do after the servicesand there we were, right in the middle of the driveway, with Rose refusing to budge.

Dad would slap the reins and holler for Rose to go. Nothing happened! Rose stayed stubbornly in place. Shed even rear a little off her front feet, but she made no other movement. Next, wed climb out of the buggy and pull on her bridle. This only angered Rose, causing her to rear higher and paw the air. We were the embarrassment of the Sunday afternoon church gathering.

Eldon Yoder would come by and talk to Rose. Hed speak in soft, soothing words of comfort. But his touch no longer did any good. Rose didnt plan to move for the Eichers until she was good and ready, and that was often a longer time than we cared to wait. The funny thing was that once Rose did take off, she hightailed it out of the lane so fast Dad could barely hang on to the lines.

This was a situation that couldnt continue for long. Dad tried every method of curing Rose he could think of. Every Amish horsemans trick in the book, Dad tried. Nothing worked.

A horse that wont cooperate isnt much good to an Amish man. So, sad to say, in the end, the inevitable happened. Dad had to sell Rose to the buyer of last resort: the local butcher shop. No one else wanted a balking horse.

It troubled us greatlythis gentle horse we had somehow ruined. We questioned the integrity of our souls. Werent horses a decent judge of ones character? Had we failed as a family to make Rose feel at home with us? No matter how hard we tried to figure out what had gone wrong, we came to a dead end every time.

Through it all Eldon Yoder and his wife, Fannie, were our greatest comforters. They assured us that this could have happened to anyone. Not one incriminating word was ever spoken by them against this new family who had come from the ends of the earth to settle in the community.