rs are gentle people, or I would be
hanged now, or stoned to death like the wicked in the old days. _Ich hot
iere Gotterin awgepockt_: I raped their Goddess!"

* * * * *

Martha burst into tears. When Aaron stepped forward to comfort her, she
struck his chest with her balled fists. "Stoltz, I wed you despite your
beer-drinking from cans at the Singing, though you play a worldly guitar
and sing the English songs, though people told me you drove your gay
Uncle Amos' black-bumpered Ford before you membered to the district;
still, house-Amish pure Old Order though my people are, I married you,
from love and youngness and girlish ignorance. But I do not care, even
in this wilderness you've brought us to in that big English ship, to
hear such vileness spoke out boldly. Leave me alone."

"I'll not."

"You'd best," she said. "I'm sore offended in the lad I'm wifed to."

"Love, _Ich bin sorry_," Aaron said. "The Book, though, says just what
our neighbors told me: Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set
you free. I have found the truth, the truth of our dark-skinned friends.
I did not want to wound the ears of _da Oppel fuun mein Awk_,
apple-of-mine-eye sweet Martha; but I must speak out the truth."

"It is not good enough," Martha sobbed, "that you accept this
brown-skinned, jewel-bedizzened woman-god; but you must make love to
her; and I, wed to you by the Book, nine months gone with _Kinndt_, am
to make no fuss."

"I loved the Mother-god with the plow, and accidentally," Aaron
bellowed. "_Haagott!_ woman; have you no funny?"

"I will birth our child in my lap from laughing," Martha said, weeping.
"Aaron, do what you will. I can hardly walk home to my Mem to bear a son
in my girlhood bedroom. We are like _Awduum uuu Ayf_, like you said; but
the serpent in this Eden pleases me not."

"When I spoke of colts, and the borning of them," Aaron said, "I forgot
me that mares are more sensible than human women. Martha, _liebe_
Martha, you wed a man when you married me. All your vapors are naught
against my having seen the light. If to stay here, on this land already
watered with my hard sweat, I had to slaughter cattle in sacrifice to
the Mother, I'd pick up the knife gladly, and feel it no blasphemy
against our God."

"Aaron Stoltz," Martha said, "I forbid you to lend honor to this god!"

Aaron sat. He unlaced his shoes and tugged them off. "Woman," he asked
softly, "you forbid me? M