Lilly's Wedding Quilt - By Kelly Long
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In researching this novel I discovered the fact that Amish communities differ from one to another from both simple to larger-life activities. For example, there are dialectal differences in the spelling of such words as “dawdi” house, which may also be spelled “doddy” or daudi,” depending on the region in question. In addition, praying aloud at the dinner table may also, at times, be a voiced prayer when there is a particular praise offered.
The Amish man who was my main source of information, the truly forthright and dry-humored Dan Miller, told me that it would be difficult to find two Amish communities exactly alike. While all may share basic beliefs in the Lord, family, and work ethics, diversity still exists.
It is a lesson to me as an Englischer that though the Amish may appear to live “the simple life,” their differences provide a rich culture for both fact and fiction, and it is my honor to represent some small threads of their ways of life.
—Kelly Long
PROLOGUE
PINE CREEK, PENNSYLVANIA
In the moment between heartbeats he heard the ominous report of a gun, then lurched forward from a burst of blinding pain. He groaned aloud and stared down at the dark sleeve of his left arm in the moonlit winter night. He tightened his muscular thighs against the horse. Stay on. Stay on. The voice seemed both his own and that of a fading echo. He wavered, then concentrated on the saddle horn, the reins, and the lead of the other horse behind him. Primal and metallic, the smell of his own blood mingled in his senses with the distancing shouts of the shooter, and he managed a grim smile. He was now, among supposedly other intriguing things, a horse thief …