“Jason, please. Just do as
you’re told,” Heidi pleaded worriedly. “You cannot let them know that you are
an Anabaptist supporter. Please, Jas, for my sake and the children don’t make a
fuss about it.”
Jason
slammed his fist against the thick wooden table, making the dishes rattle. Anne
and Daniel looked up from where they were playing beside the fireplace to see
what all the excitement was about.
“Lower
your voice,” Heidi whispered as she began to clear the table. Jason scraped back
his chair and stretched out his legs. Then he tucked him in again, and folded
his arms across his brawny chest. He scowled.
Heidi
carefully stepped around the contented children to retrieve the hot water
hanging from a hook over the fireplace, and prepared her dishwater.
“I've
known Stephen all my life,” Jason growled when his wife’s long dress brushed
against his leg. “Ever since he’s gone and got rebaptised he’s been more
likeable than ever.”
He
sunk lower into the chair. “Shh,” his wife cautioned, “The children are
listening.”
He
sighed, ignoring her comment. “Now that we are working in the same shop, it
gives us plenty of opportunity to discuss what it truly means to be a
Christian.
“Jason!
That’s not safe!”
“Will
you quit worrying all the time? There are more important things than being
‘safe’! There’s this hunger of my soul that longs to be satisfied. I want to be
sure me, you, and the children make it to Heaven, you know!”
Heidi
didn’t answer but she clattered the dishes more loudly than was strictly
necessary.
“Well,
he’s been found out. Someone tattled on him, and he was apprehended.”
Heidi
groaned, and her hands fell silent.
“So
he’s is prison, now?”
Jason
nodded. “Not only that but—“this time he did lower his voice—“he will be
executed.”
“Oh,
no! What about Mary, and the little ones? Aren’t they expecting their second
baby in a few months?”
Jason
nodded grimly. Daniel leaped up and placed his hand on his father’s shoulder.
“Are you talking about ‘Uncle’ Stephen, Papa? Is he going to be killed?”
Jason
turned and hoisted his son on to his lap. He brushed a lock of white blond hair
off his face.
Anne
also joined them and Heidi wrapped her arms around her little girl and caressed
her son’s smooth cheek.
“Not only that, but the
authorities are insisting that I play the drum to drown out whatever the
‘martyrs”—for that’s what they are!!—have to say.
“Oh,
Jason, surely you didn’t object!”
“I knew better than to object
vehemently, but I sure they know how I feel. “
He got up and reached for a
bottle of homemade brew in a cupboard by the door. Maybe if I let myself get
just a little bit intoxicated it won’t bother me so much.
Heidi cast him a stony glare.
She never did like it when he drank too much, but this time, he promised
himself, he wouldn’t. Heidi sent the
children off to bed, and Jason checked on the farm animals one last time and
went for a long walk beneath the star lit sky. It did little to soothe his
agitated spirits.
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