Unexpected News

 Watching the news last night, we were both dumbfounded to hear that one county away, an Amish woman was found murdered in her home. She was six months pregnant, and her two young children were in the home. Her husband found her when he came home at lunch time. The two children were unharmed.

We looked at each other with a sick feeling. I know that it is a different community than their Amish community, but I also know that Mattie and Levi both have what seems to be 1001 cousins. 

We worked down at the new house today. We didn't get the windows in, but we got them framed up. We had severe weather coming, heavy rains, possible hail and thunderstorms. So we just went ahead and framed the windows, but waited to cut the sheeting out and install the windows in their spaces. 

After considering things, Tim decided that he wanted to put in two more windows on the south side of the house. I agreed with him on one. He ignored my objection to the other. More 2 x 6s were required along with additional ziptape. He also needed to pick up some furring strips, so we decided to use the rainy afternoon to head up to the lumber store. On the way back, we figured to stop in at Levi and Mattie's to make sure they didn't need a ride to Spartansburg this week. 

We decided to frame the question just like that. They would know about it. I'm not sure how word gets through their community, but it does. We would see it on the news, but they probably got it word of mouth at about the same time. I know that they do not speak of things like this in front of the kids, so asking if they needed a ride to Spartansburg was all that we'd need to say. They would know what we were referring to, and if it was a relative, we'd made the offer. They could discuss it between themselves later and run down to the neighbor's house and give us a call. 

Mattie met us at the door. It turned out that it was not a relative, but she was glad we were there. There had been a serious accident. Her brother chopped down a large tree the previous day. As it fell, a large branch crashed down. He tried to run, but did not make it. The branch fell on him, badly breaking his leg and trapping him. 

His wife had been hanging out laundry when her daughter told her that 'fadder' had fell a tree. Clara stopped to look where her daughter was pointing. When she didn't see her husband, she went looking for him, and found him pinned under the branch, his leg bones broken through the skin. 

I shivered at the thought of it, and Mattie said, "I know!" 

I asked her where he was and she said that he was in  Erie. He had surgery and at least one rod had been put in. She thought there might be two but she wasn't sure about that.  He would be kept in the hospital and pumped full of antibiotics for at least three days to make sure that a bone infection did not set in, which could lead to possible amputation. Once that danger was past, he would be sent home. 

I mentioned that Tim had a therapy appointment the following day and we volunteered to take anyone up that wanted to visit him. 

I'm glad we stopped in. 

As we were leaving, Levi followed us out to the porch to quietly ask what we knew about the murder. I said that the police were not releasing much in the line of details, only that they were asking everyone in the community to come forward if they'd seen anything out of the ordinary. A red jeep had been seen going up and down the road. It was parked in the dead woman's driveway at about 10 AM. If anyone had a description of the driver, it had not yet been made known to the public. 

Levi stood with his hands in his pockets. The murder troubled him a great deal, we could tell. 

Truth be told, it troubles us as well.