As the World Churns by Tamar Myers Page B

liberal. Both churches have undergone many changes over the centuries, but their relative differences remain.
        The
First
Mennonite
Church
is the most liberal branch of the Plain People in Hernia and its environs. The most conservative is the
Old
Order
Amish
Church
. Its members are the ones seen riding horses and buggies. Then there are the Black Bumper Amish, who are allowed to drive black cars just as long as the chrome is painted black. I belong to a conservative branch of the
Mennonite
Church
, the one to which the Good Lord would belong if he were living on earth today. I drive and use electricity, but dress conservatively, like the Good Lord intended, and wear my braids neatly tucked beneath a white organza prayer cap. For the record, I do not consider myself better than anyone else in Hernia, not even the Presbyterians. I believe that in Heaven, we will all be together-except for some Baptists, who will have their own neighborhood.
        Oops, I may have fibbed: try as I might, I can’t help feeling that I am a little bit better than Samuel Nevin Yoder, the owner of Yoder’s Corner Market. Sam is-or at least was, until certain recent disclosures-a first cousin of mine. We are the same age, which means I sat in front of him all through grammar school. Not only did Sam dip my braids in the inkwell on his desk, he often sat on my lunch bag, regularly passed gas loudly before pointing to me, and on at least three occasions clapped the chalk-filled erasers on my ears. It wasn’t until high school that I learned that Sam had done all these things because of a crush on me.
        As early as our sophomore year in high school, Sam proposed marriage, urging me to elope with him to
South Carolina
, where kinship and age were both less of an issue. I hotly refused. In the intervening decades, Sam married a Methodist woman, Dorothy, and even became a Methodist himself, but his crush on me has never waned.
        One might think that his feelings for me would result in a price break at his store, but then one would be wrong. As a result, shoddy merchandise aside, I almost never shop at Yoder’s Corner Market, but I do stop by regularly to get the scuttlebutt on the latest Hernia happenings. As mayor of this little burg, I see that as my duty.
        The market’s front door has a string of sleigh bells attached to it. “Well, well,” Sam called out, in a voice so nasal one would have thought he was a native of Manhattan, “if it isn’t the blushing bride.”
        “Good morning, Sam.”
        “Honestly, Magdalena, you’re positively glowing. I haven’t seen a face that radiant since my Dorothy was a girl.”
        “She had oily skin, dear-but it cleared up nicely, don’t you think?”
         “Everywhere but on her back. So, what can I do you out of?”
        “Not my money, that’s for sure. Sam, I suppose you heard about Doc.”
        “Agnes Mishler called last night. Around ten, I think it was. If I get my hands around the son of a-”
        His last word was muffled by the gasps of several Amish women who were shopping among the stacks. Just how they knew to anticipate it is beyond me. As for moi , I married a man from the Fallen Apple. Enough said.
        I moved closer to my cousin, but not within kissing range. “What about your customers? Anything you’ve heard so far this morning that might raise a red flag?”
        “You know I don’t gossip about my customers.”
        The Amish women murmured their appreciation.
        “If your lips were any looser,” I said, “the next time you sneezed, they’d fly right off your face.”
        Not only did he take that as a compliment, but he had the nerve to grin. “Well, Connie Betz said she hoped Doc had a long recovery.”
        “That way she can visit him in the hospital, and her husband won’t be any wiser.”
        He looked crestfallen. “Is that so? How did you know they were an