Iron Snout Cheats

[Lavonda Busing]

Walkinghome in the dark from an eveningspent in mischief, a young man spied coming toward him down theroad a person with a lamp. When the wayfarers drew abreast, theplay-boy saw that the other traveler was the Blind Man from hisvillage. "Blind Man," the youngster shouted across the road, "whata fool you be! Why, old No-Eyes, do you bear a lantern, you whosemidnight is no darker than his noonday?" The Blind Man lifted hislamp. "It is not as a light for myself that I carry this, Boy," hesaid, "it is to warn off you fools with eyes."

The Captain shook hands with the black-hatted Amishman while the womanstood aside, not concerning herself with men's business. "It's been apleasure to have you and Fraa Stoltzfoos aboard, Aaron," the Captainsaid. "Ship's stores are yours, my friend; if there's anything you need,take it and welcome. You're a long way from the corner grocery."

"My Martha and I have all that's needful," Aaron Stoltzfoos said. "Wehave our plow, our seed, our land. Captain, please tell your men, whotreated us strangers as honored guests, we thank them from our hearts.We'll not soon forget their kindness."

"I'll tell them," the Captain promised. Stoltzfoos hoisted himself tothe wagon seat and reached a hand down to boost his wife up beside him.Martha Stoltzfoos sat, blushing a bit for having displayed an accidentalinch of black stocking before the ship's officers. She smoothed down herblack skirts and apron, patted the candle-snuffer Kapp into place overher prayer-covering, and tucked the wool cape around her arms andshoulders. The world outside, her husband said, was a cold one.

Now in the Stoltzfoos wagon was the final lot of homestead goods withwhich these two Amishers would battle the world of Murna. There was theplow and bags of seed, two crates of nervous chickens; a huge, roundtabletop; an alcohol-burning laboratory incubator, bottles ofagar-powder, and a pressure cooker that could can vegetables as readilyas it could autoclave culture-media. There was a microscope designed towork by lamplight, as the worldly vanity of electric light would illsuit an Old Order bacteriologist like Martha Stoltzfoos. Walled in byall this gear was another passenger due to debark on Murna, snufflingand grunting with impatience. "Sei schtill, Wutzchen," Stoltzfooscrooned. "You'll be in your home pen soon enough."

The Captain raised his hand. The Engineer punched a button to tongue thelanding ramp out to Murnan earth. Cold air rammed in from the outsidewinter. The four horses stomped their hoofs on the floor-plates, theirbreath spikes of steam. Wutzchen squealed dismay as the chill hit hisnose.

"We're reddi far geh, Captain," Stoltzfoos said. "My woman and Iinvite you and your men to feast at our table when you're back in theseparts, five years hence. We'll stuff you fat as sausages with onionsoup and Pannhaas, Knepp and Ebbelkuche, shoo-fly pie and scharifercider, if the folk here grow apples fit for squeezing."

"You'll have to set up planks outdoors to feed the lot I'll be bringing,Aaron," the Captain said. "Come five-years' springtime, when I bringyour Amish neighbors out, I'll not forget to have in my pockets a tootof candy for the little Stoltzes I'll expect to see underfoot." Martha,whose English was rusty, blushed none the less. Aaron grinned as heslapped the reins over the rumps of his team. "Giddap!" The cart rumbledacross the deck and down the ramp, onto the soil of Murna. Yonnie, theAyrshire bull, tossed his head and sat as the rope tightened on hisnoseband. He skidded stubbornly down the ramp till he felt cold earthagainst his rear. Accepting fate, Yonnie scrambled up and plodded afterthe wagon. As the Stoltzfooses and the last of their off-worldly goodstopped a hillock, they both turned to wave at the ship's officers. Then,veiled by the dusty fall of snow, they disappeared.

"Hardly alone," the Captain said. "There are four million Murnans,friendly people who consider a white skin no more than a personalidiosyncrasy. Aaron's what his folks call a Chentelmaan, too. He'llget along."

"He came out here for dirt," the Captain said. "Soil is more thanseed-bed to the Amish. It feeds the Old Order they're born to. Aaronand Martha Stoltzfoos would rather have built their barns beside theSusquehanna, but all the land there's taken. Aaron could have taken ajob in Lancaster, too; he could have shaved off his beard, bought aChevie and moved to the suburbs, and settled down to read anEnglish-language Bible in a steepled church. Instead, he signed ahomestead-contract for a hundred acres eighty light-years from home; andset out to plow the land like his grandpop did. He'll sweat hard for hispiece of Murna, but the Amish always pay well for their land."

"Cultures skid backwards when they're transplanted," the Captain said."Murnan culture was lifted from Kano, a modern city by the standards ofthe time; but, without tools and with a population too small to supporttechnology, the West African apostates from Islam who landed here fourhundred years ago slid back to the ways of their grandparents. We wantthem to get up to date again. We want Murna to become a market. That'sAaron's job. Our Amishman has got to start this planet back toward themachine age."

"Not so odd," the Captain said. "The Amish pretty much invented Americanagriculture, you know. They've developed the finest low-energy farmingthere is. Clover-growing, crop-rotation, using animal manures, those aretheir inventions. Aaron, by his example, will teach the natives herePennsylvania farming. Before you can say Tom Malthus, there'll be steelcities in this wilderness, filled with citizens eager to open chargeaccounts for low-gravs and stereo sets."

"Since the Thirty Years' War, back when 'Hamlet' was opening in London,these people have been breeding a man who can fit one special niche insociety. The failures were killed in the early days, or later went gayand took the trappings of the majority. The successes stayed on thefarm, respected and left alone. Aaron has flirted with our century; heand his wife learned some very un-Amish skills at the Homestead School.The skill that makes Aaron worth his fare out here, though, is an Amishskill, and the rarest one of all. He knows the Right Way to Live, andlives it; but he knows, too, that your Truth-of-the Universe issomething different. And right, for you. He's quite a man, our AaronStoltzfoos. That's why we dropped him here."

"Precisely," the Captain said. He turned to the Exec. "As soon as we'velifted, ask Colonel Harris to call on me in my cabin, Gene. Our Marineshad better fresh-up their swordsmanship and cavalry tactics if they'reto help our Inad Tuaregs establish that foundry on Qureysh."

"Whoa!" Aaron shouted. He peered back toward the ship, floating up intograyness, the cavitation of her wake stirring the snow into patternslike fine-veined marble. "Gott saygen eich," he said, a prayer for hisdeparting friends.

His wife shivered. "It's cold enough to freeze the horns off amooley-cow," she said. She glanced about at the snow-drifted littletrees and clutched her black cloak tighter. "I'm feared, Stoltz. There'snaught about us now but snow and black heathen."

"It's fear that is the heathen," Aaron said. "By the word of the Lordwere the heavens made; and the host of them by the breath of Hismouth." He kissed her. "I welcome you to our new homeland, wife," hesaid.

Stoltzfoos slapped the team back into motion. "What we need for ourjourney home are a few of the altie lieder," he said, reaching back inthe wagon for his scarred guitar. He strummed and hummed, then begansinging in his clear baritone: "In da guut alt Suumer-zeit ...

"... In da guut alt Suumer-zeit," Martha's voice joined him. As theyjolted along the path through the pine trees, heading towardDatura-village, near which their homestead stood, they sang the otherhomey songs to the music of the old guitar. "Drawk Mich Zrick zu AltVirginye," nostalgic for the black-garbed Plain-Folk left at home. ThenAaron's fingers danced a livelier tune on the strings: "Ich fang 'nneie Fashun aw," he crowed, and Martha joined in:

"It's a new world, and for now a cold world; but it's God's world, withhome just up ahead," Aaron shouted. He pulled the wagon up next to thearctic tent that was to be their temporary farmhouse, beside the wagonloads of provision he'd brought before. He jumped down and swung Marthato earth. "Light the stove, woman; make your little kitchen bright,while I make our beasts feel welcome."

The Amishwoman pushed aside the entrance flap of the tent. Enclosed wasa circle some twelve feet wide. The floor was bare earth. Once warmed bythe pump-up "naptha" lantern and the gasoline hotplate, it would becomea bog. Martha went out to the wagon to get a hatchet and set out for thenearby spinny of pines to trim off some twigs. Old Order manner forbiddecorative floor-coverings as improper worldly show; but a springycarpet of pine-twigs could be considered as no more than a wooden floor,keeping two Plain Folk from sinking to their knees in mud.

The pots were soon boiling atop the two-burner stove, steaming thetent's air with onion-tangy tzvivvele Supp and the savory pork-smellof Schnitz un Knepp, a cannibal odor that disturbed not a bitWutzchen, snoring behind the cookstove. Chickens, penned beneath thebed, chuckled in their bedtime caucus. The cow stood cheek-by-jowl withYonnie, warming him with platonic graciousness as they shared the hayAaron had spread before them. Martha stirred her soup. "When the bishopmarried me to you," she told Aaron, "he said naught of my having tosleep with a pig."

After grace, they sat on cases of tobacco to eat their meal from a tableof feed sacks covered with oilcloth. "The man in the ship's littlekitchen let me make and freeze pies, Stoltz," Martha said. "He said we'dhave a deepfreeze big as all outdoors, without electric, so use it. Eattill it's all, Maan; there's more back."

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