Almost none of it was working. Some was. But most was not. Among the plain folk, the Michaelsons, who had permission from the deacons and Bishop Schrock to put in a solar array last year, reported it was useless, shorted out completely.
The oldest Fisher boy told what he’d learned from his dadi, who’d gone to see the Johansons. Mr. Johanson was hurt bad, been working with some power equipment in their barn, got a bad shock. Burned his hand, knocked him clean across the room, or so the Fisher boy said.
They’d bandaged it, and put on salve, and then Joseph took him in the buggy and rode to Doctor Michaels’s house.
And from none of them came any word of the outside.
I asked Deacon Sorenson what he thought had happened. He thought for a moment, then another moment more.
“I suppose your Sadie knows,” he said, and he smiled, faintly. “But I do not.” The smile lingered on his face, an echo, meaningless.
THE REST OF THE day was spent in the workshop. Not much was new to learn, although the young men rode about quickly on their horses, telling what could be told. The fire still burned to the south, smoke still rising far off in a tall, faint column. By late afternoon, another fire was burning, a little closer, to the south – southwest.
Dinner was early, a good meal. We talked about what we had seen, and we prayed. What else was there for us to do?
As night fell, it fell darker and darker. The lights in the farms of the plain folk could be seen, but the roads were almost empty, and the skies were empty, and the glow from Lancaster in the south was gone. In the direction of the city, here and there, a point of light, and in many other places, what seemed like distant candlelight. The same to the west, to Ephrata, and even the faint lights of Lititz to the east were out. It was dark. So very dark. The light of the English no longer filled the skies.
There, in the deep black ink, were only stars. I watched for a while, because the skies were so different. Every constellation stood bright. Stars I had not seen, cannot remember seeing, were there and bright. The Milky Way was clear and visible. Amazing.
Up high, a plane, just one, lights blinking, was flying very very high and very fast. It was the first I’d seen. It moved southward, and I watched until it passed to the far horizon.
Then, with the cool coming, I came in to bed.
September 24
The morning was as it always was, except in the south that fire still burned. It is a little warmer again today but still feels like autumn. After the morning in the field, I went to my shop, and there Jacob and I worked for a while. But there was no word from Mike.
Joseph Fisher came by midmorning, and we talked. He had gone to his neighbor’s home the day before, and then taken the ride to town, taken Mr. Johanson to Dr. Michaels to have his hand looked at. The burn was very bad, and they were afraid of infection, and he had no feeling in his hand.
The roads were empty, except for plain folk and some on bicycles. So many cars were abandoned, some just left by the roadside, many just in the middle of the road.
Dr. Michaels was at home, and he was able to treat Mr. Johanson, rebandaging his hand and providing some antibiotics. He was usually at the community hospital in Ephrata on Thursdays, but as he told Joseph, nothing at the hospital was working. None of his equipment. None of the machines. The generators that provided them with emergency electricity did not work, and the ambulances did not work. Though Dr. Michaels could not start his truck to drive to town, he had ridden his bicycle those miles to the east in the morning. And then he had ridden back.
Everything in town was a mess, and nothing was working, but Dr. Michaels did not say much more than that, and Joseph did not ask. Dr. Michaels did not know much. He returned with Mr. Johanson to his home, with medicine for the burn and for the pain.
Joseph thought it was all very strange and terrible, and he asked about the lights in the sky and what they might have meant. “I have never seen their like,” he said. “What did you think of them?”
I did not share what Sadie had been saying, as I knew that tales move from ear to ear even among the plain folk.
I told him that God would provide for his people, but that I also knew that sometimes there were times of terrible hardship. I said I did not know exactly what it meant.
“Do you think they were angels?” he asked, and his earnest look was very clear. He had heard the talk.
I told him no, that I did not. They were something, I said. And all things are from God. But I did not think they were angels. They had the beauty of angels, I said. But they were more like the sunrise. Or a storm. They were not living as angels live.
I said there was a word for it, but that I couldn’t remember it. But I knew it was something I had seen.
“Yes, I think so, too,” he said. “Like a storm, whatever that was.”
We sat and talked for a while longer, and then he returned home.
IT IS LATE AGAIN, and I am awake, and the sky is dark. All sleep, but I do not. The night is not as cool as I thought it might be, as if summer pushes to return.
In the far distance, there is a light near Lancaster. But it is the light of a large fire, fierce and flickering. I watch for a while, as I write this.
September 25
Busy morning, it has been.
The morning filled with the gift of work, as always, and we prepared to go to the Michaelsons’ to help harvest, Jacob and I. We will go soon. Hannah busied herself with the remainder of the apples from our harvest, and with canning the beans and the peas that Sadie and Jacob harvested in the cool of the morning after milking and feeding was done.
Sadie seems so calm now, so at ease within herself. Quieter, perhaps. But not unhappy, and strangely focused. But I was distracted. I cannot help but look to the south. The smoke rises now from several places. It has not stopped.
And the skies are still quiet. This morning another airplane flew by and then another, very small and high and fast, but those are the only ones I have seen today. Friday is always a busy day for the English in the skies, and yet the lines of cloud that crisscross the heavens are gone. Contrails, I believe they are called.
I am wondering, this Friday, about Mike. He was to come and talk with me this morning, but he did not.
I must be off. Much still to do today. But I wonder at how Mike is.
THE MICHAELSON FARM IS a bustling one, such a large family can care for much land. Eight children, all as able and capable as their parents. And today many gathered to help them prepare the oats for harvest. Jacob accompanied me, this for the first time. We and the Fishers and the Sorenson boys and the four oldest Michaelson boys. Also there were the three Schrock boys . . . men now, really . . . and both Beiler boys. We gathered behind Jon Michaelson’s grain binder, and as his team drew it on, we gathered the bundles and shocked them.