Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 This may not be your Fantasy, but it's one of mine.  I'll go ahead and tell
you, there's not much sex in it, but that's not what it's about.  You might
want to keep looking...

   "Weird" Al Yankovic - "Amish Paradise" (Bad Hair Day) Trigger Warning:
Boring.

   ;

   Arden (m/f Tran)

   Merwin, "Huh!" splitting behind the forge.  Coal forge, but they use
wood to get it going.  Hot summer day, so he stripped down to the breeches,
and put on his hat.  Before stepping out, under the light of day, the eyes
of God, carrying the ax choked up by the broad head, and setting a log on
the stump.

   "Huh!" I looked down, feeling the hot sun on the front of my dress.  The
flat front, like an apron, and the tight plaits under my prayer bonnet.

   Man's work, he's not a man, yet.  Come Rumspringe, he will be.  16, old
enough to be baptized, or not.  "Huh!" I have friends, modern friends, out
in the world.  We're not Amish, we have radios, and a television, even a
pickup truck, we run a farm.  Horses too, but they come to see us, and our
ways.  I have been out there, and seen their ways.

   Our community is more like a museum, than a cult.  Some would call it a
cult, but that's what Rumspringe is all about.  So we can go out, into the
world, see what they have, how they live, not just in movies, and
commercials, so we can make a choice.  To come back, live simply,
reverently, or stay out there.  In sin.

   I suppose it is a little sinful, watching him work, but then he sat on
the stump.  Gripping the splits he made to tap out planks.  Pry one off,
and split off a stick.  Kindling, on the side of the quarter, then more
until he had a handful.  A faggot, that's what it means.  I know what my
worldly freinds mean, when they say it, but he carried them back in, took
off his hat under the eaves, and wiped his face with his shirt, first.

   Then, his father had the kindling set up, in the forge.  It was a warm
morning, it would only get hotter, but he was not done.  Merwin, bent over
the crank, to spin the blower, and pump air over the tinder.  The kindling,
and wood, then coal his father carefuly placed around it.

   I spat in my hands, and rubbed them together.  As I had seen him do, I
suppose so the worn smooth wooden handle doesn't slip, and picked it up. 
Set the half on the stump, and hoisted the heavy blade over my head. 
"Hup!"

   It was just a half, but the ax stopped.  I had to twist it, so the half
stood up on a corner, and try to finish the split.

   It's hard work, man's work, but I don't care.  Dare I say it, God does
not care, if a girl splits wood.  Nowere in there does it say that a woman
must cook, and sew, a man split, and hammer iron.  I read it, all of it, my
favorite book, and it just does not say that there.

   He did not finish.  "Nh!" There, it split.  I'm not as strong, as him,
as Merwin.  "Huh!" I'm only twelve, and he has a couple years on me. 
Rumspringe for him, but.  I'm not going to grow any, sitting, and pulling a
thread.  Any more callouses than between my finger and thumb, or the rough
line inside my knuckle from the back of the Kochsmesser.

   We're not Amish, we're Hutterites, and keepers of the old ways.  It's a
simple life but it can be a dull one, I'm just sick of sewing.  I don't
know if I even want to be, any more, if it means spending the rest of my
life pulling thread, I'd even go so far as to say I hate it.

   However, there is nothing to say in the Bible that a woman has to make
cheese.  Card, spin, and weave wool, or sew linen into quilts.  I don't
want to milk cows for the rest of my life either.  Nothing to say I can't,
split wood, or even swing a hammer.

   Merwin doesn't like it, the hot forge, nor the work.  See the use in
shoeing horses, when they just keep the grass low in the feild, and someone
has to carry on the tradition.  The ferrier will need an apprentice some
day, soon.  Merwin told me, he doesn't trust anyone else, but we talked
about it.

   "I don't want to stay." He's almost old enough, to leave.  If he can
find a worldy family to take him in, and learn to live their ways.

   I'm not so sure, it depends on the Ferrier.  He's going to need someone,
to take over.  Some day.

   Nothing to say it couldn't be me.

   ;

   Merwin (fm NS)

   "Ooch." Checked her hands, "Blisters." She cut a lot of wood.  In her
dress, blouse, and prayerbonnet, didn't remove a stitch, but I pulled a
needle out, and sat with her.  On the bench out front, the schoolbus left.
English school, come to stare at the Hutterites, buy some old world style
bread, and cheese.  Puzzles made out of iron, and horse shoes.

   I make horse shoes, for tourists.  I believe she's sweet on me, but I'll
be gone soon.  She knows that.

   "Mh!" She nodded, but I lanced the blister in her palm, and rubbed some
lanolin in it.

   "You think your da would take me, as apprentice?"

   "Sorry, what?" She looked up at me.  I shook my head, "Well, I could ask
him, but.  I don't know, if he would teach a girl.  So young." She's only
12, and comely enough, for a 12 year old, but, "You want to be a ferrier?"
She nodded, "Why?"

   "He started teaching you when you're younger."

   "Yes, but I am his son.  It's how they did it in my family.  You know
that.  My father is slow." Sorry, for the worldly people reading this, that
means Conservative.  For Hutterites.

   "Yes, however, you know how you are not planning to come back, from
Rumspringe?"

   "I'm not leaving.  It doesn't work like that.  Like the Amish on those
TV shows.  We don't go out and party, do drugs, and have premarital sex, we
just." Amazing that I even have to explain this to a good Christian girl,
but you know how worldly things have a way of getting in, and distracting
you?  I thought that's all this was.  "Find a wife, or a family.  On the
outside world." We have sattelite.  We're not prisoners here, I can borrow
the truck any time, in fact I do on the weekends, to pick up things from
town.  I do not believe that The Learning Channel really teaches, anyone
our ways, very accurately.

   "Nhm."

   "What?" She started to cry, "What is it?"

   "Well if you don't go.  Why, then, he will not need another apprentice."

   "I do not think he would teach you, even when you are older."

   "Why not?"

   "Because you're a girl." She just cried harder, so I knew not what else
to do.  But to hold her, until she felt better.

   "What if I wasn't?  What if I was a young man?"

   "Uh?" I shook my head again, "But you can not.  Just, be a man like
that."

   "I know, it is forbidden."

   "No," she always was different.  "I mean, you can't.  It's impossible."

   "No it's not.  They have these new things, sex changes?"

   I gasped, looked around.  Fortunately the forge is far from the other
buildings, except the stables, but just to be seen, with a 12 year old,
talking about sex.  She just kept crying, quietly.  I shouldn't have
started it, but in my defense I was trying to talk about not having sex,
before we're married.  Not her, and I, I mean Christians in general.  We do
not do that, it's not our way.  So, I just held her, to make her feel
better, until it stopped.

   "I swear, I'll get stronger.  Tell him, I am not weak for a girl.  Soon
I will be strong enough to lift the hammer, and turn the blower.  You will
tell him, won't you?"

   "I will try," I promised, "But I do not think he will agree to it.  I'm
not as slow as him, you know that, but.  I don't know about this." Sex,
"Change that you want.  To go through, I do not think it would be right, by
God."

   "I don't care!" she ran off.

   "Huh!" I shook my head.  Thought she was just a tomboy, but.  I had not
seen, that show.  Commercials for it, Jazzy her name is.  She was a boy,
and now she lives as a girl, out in the world.  I don't know what to think,
nor how to feel about it, but she is my friend, and I care about her.  Even
as close to blasphemy as she got, it pains me to see her hurt so, and while
I suppose you could say she always had a rebelious streak, one might even
go so far as to call her a tomboy, I had no idea.

   I can be sure my father would not, understand.  I do not know if even I
can, but I will try.

   Better head, home, though.

   ;

   Arden (fm...)

   "Welp," he came to my house, "I talked to pa."

   "And?" I was so excited.

   "Well, he said, well first he told me of this woman.  He knew back in
Virginia?" He is from there, his father is.  He moved here, to find a wife,
our communities do this to exchange the blood.  For centuries, enough
generations in one place, and eventually we are all related.  So, it thins
the blood, and though Rumspringe sometimes ends up with people leaving,
rarely do we get new blood in, from out in the world.  So, we move, to
different communities.  "She was a ferrier, well her family had horses, a
stable, and she shoed them.  So, he agreed, a woman can be a ferrier, and,
he says he can take you on, as apprentice."

   "Truly!?" I was so happy, I hugged him.

   "Now, it's hard work, but I don't mind having less of it, for what you
do."

   "There really is a female ferrier?"

   "Many, I suppose." I followed him, back on toward the stable, and the
forge.  "He courted her, told me that's how he learned the trade.  She
taught him, but her father did not want her to leave.  His farm, to join
the church, so he came here, and married my mother."

   "Oh, how fortunate!"

   "Yes, I never imagined, but." He stopped, looked around.  "You would not
mind if, we talk a little bit?" Took off his hat, and held it.  I looked
up, under the trees, you could see some clear sky, and morning light
through the leaves, but I suppose it was all right.

   "What about?"

   "Huh, I don't know." He turned it.  His hat, hand to hand like a wheel,
fidgeting nervously, "How to talk about this, but you know how you know
something's wrong, so you don't want to think about it?"

   "No?" Idea what he's on about.

   "Huh, well I do.  It's just, ever since we talked about, you know.  You.
Changing.  I started to thinking about it er.  Um, or stopped trying, not
to think about it."

   "What?"

   "It's just so sinful," he wandered off, shaking his head, and putting
his hat back on.

   "What is?"

   "You know, dresses?"

   "Yes?" I made them.  This one, spun the flax, wove the linen, and
sticthed it myself.  All of my dresses.

   "Well, I always thought, about how.  They must be, so comfortable?"

   "Not really."

   "No?"

   "Look here." I showed him, "If I step this far." The skirt pulled tight,
"It stops me.  Why, I imagine back in ye olde days." He laughed, "A man
must've thought, why don't we put them in dresses, so they can't run away."

   "I hate pants."

   "Ah," I stopped.  "Huh?" Shook my head.

   "You know, they are all so hot, and uncomfortable?"

   "No?  I never wore them."

   "Never?"

   "No, never."

   "Huh!"

   "Come on," I took his hand, "We got work to do."

   All I ever wanted, was good hard work.  I know it sounds odd, just to
say, if I ever got up the guts to tell anyone before, but what's a day's
work get you sewing?  Or cooking, I know we have to eat, need clothes to
wear and such like, but at the end of the day, the food goes down the
toilet, and the wash hangs on the line to dry.

   Look there, point at the workbench.  The nails and the tools hanging
over it, the fullers, and tongs, and other things I don't even know the
names of yet.

   I got stuck splitting wood.  So, Merwin didn't have to, and he was happy
enough of that.  Why I could point, "See?" To the pile I just done split,
and stack it up.  Merwin did, stacked it up to maybe a quarter chord, while
I took in the faggot for my boss to show me.  How to set it up, and light
the coals.

   My hands hurt, the blisters had not time to callous, not yet.

   "Now lookee here." He set down the bucket of coals, and pulled out the
spade.  The iron spade, he made with his own hands.  "Take up the crank,
and get it going good, but watch me."

   He put his hand on my shoulder.  Proudly.  Like his son, who never
appreciated what I always wanted, what I finally had in my own two hands.

   "If'n yer gonna do this, some day, I'ma gonna have to lern ya." The way
he talks, he's from Virginia.  "Now," he held up the spade half full of
coals, and dust, and showed me.

   The old iron spade, he made with his own hands, like most everything in
here.  All the rings in the tack shop, and all the shoes on the horses, for
decades, kicked off for someone to pick up, and bring back.  To be
reforged, and the bands around the barrels.

   Iron, this is good work.  Work that'll last, and be here long after
we're gone.  Immortal as the soul, old iron that was here before the ships
ever sailed from the old world.

   This is his legacy, and some day it will even be mine.

   "That's good, slow down now.  Bank it, now pay attention."

   He picked up a rough bar, and set it in with tongs.  Hand wrought iron
tongs, in the hands what wrought them.

   "Uh huh?"

   ;

   Merwin

   "Huh!" I set down the draw knife, and felt my thumb up the plank. 
Smooth, no sign of splinters.  So unlike rough black wrought iron, I never
had the guts to tell him.  My father, he had his heart so set on me
learning the trade, but now.

   You know, I even thought about becoming Amish?  See, they come here from
the city for our bread, or cheeses.  Some of the worldly women like our
linens, our sheets, real linen from our field of flax, but I.  I would like
to learn to make furniture, and folks tell about the Amish.  How they make
the best, and if I want to learn, then that is where I would go.

   There's no rivalry with the Amish.  They may be, live even a little more
simply than I, have grown up, but I could grow accustomed to it.  "Huh!" If
they would have a sinner, like me.

   The blower whirred, and the flames roared as it picked up speed.  Arden,
rolled up her sleeves, but that was about it.  In her blouse, her prayer
bonnet off, but her hair braided up in a coil on the crown of her head.

   Hard to imagine her as a man, in that dress.  Blue, not one of those
black Amish dresses, almost like nuns, walking alongside the road, with
their baskets, or their books.  You know, I had to hear it from her?  I
thought she was crushing on me, like they say in the movies, or on the TV.
When really she was jealous, and wanted my life.  Ask me why, I went in for
a knife, but didn't stay.

   Don't have to stay with her there.  In her dress, breaking her back in
the heat, she does not know what she's in for but I'm willing to let her
give it a try.

   Mother has an old Amish table.  Traded it, down the road, I forget what
for, but I always thought it had the most beautiful legs.  I crossed mine,
remembered lifting the tablecloth, to look at them.  Feel the smooth
curves, and the dark laquer, something you can't hammer out of iron.  No
matter how you polish it, it will always be iron.  Cold, dead, a waste of
the fine lace, trimmed around the edge, like a slip.

   Under a dress, "Huh!" I crossed my legs, shook my head, but now despite
the sinful nature, I stopped trying not to think about it.

   How that must feel, the finest linen, and dare I hope for a little trim?
Just a band of lace around the hem, and how that would feel.  On my legs,
under the dress where no one would see it.  "Huh!"

   Except God.

   Like she said, no where in the good book does it say a damned thing
about it.  A man, wearing, something like that.  Damn these pants, damn
them all to hell, but I know the tightness in the.

   Well, my crotch.  That's got to be sinfull as all hell, but I can't help
it.

   Idyl hands, so I ignored it, and tried to remember the table leg.  I bet
I can figure it out.  The best example I have, to strive for.  If I can do
that, maybe one of the Amish masters could show me.  Accept, and teach me,
how to make something as beautiful as that some day.

   Nice day, out here.  Out of the heat, at least I have some idea what I'm
in for.  Hell, I know what that's like.  I'm sure my own pit will ring with
the sound of cold iron, on hot iron, on cold iron.

   I hate that sound.

   If I'm going to burn in hell, I might as well enjoy my life, until
then...

   ;

   Arden

   "Why don't you use contractions?"

   "Huh!" I set down the tongs, and dried my palms on my jeans.  Let the
apron flap back down, and dipped out some water.

   To think, "Hah!" dropped he ladle back in the barrel.  "We do," some
school kid, I sat down to look him in the eye.  "And don't, we do not use
them as much, because we aren't in as much of a hurry when we talk.  I
suppose."

   Summer camp, I looked out on Merwin, surrounded by girls, watching him
whittle.

   Who knew?  He's a woodworker.

   "Can you make me a puzzle?"

   "I suppose."

   "Now, Jack." His mother stopped him, "They're not giving puzzles away,
come along to the gift shop."

   I shrugged, and picked up the tongs, gave the blower a few spins, not
likeing the color of the bar.  I dropped it back in, stirred it around to
the hotter coals in the bottom, and took up the crank.  In both hands, I
bent to it.

   A lot more work, with the old man retired, but it's a labor of love.

   "Huh!" That Merwin, "Huh, huh, huhuh!" The blower spun up.

   WhwhwhWhWH!

   That looks good, so I layed the hot end over the horn, and took up a
fuller.  Hammer fuller, rounded flat on the back to draw it out, over the
horn, like another fuller, I raised it from the back, and bounced it off
the thin edge.

   I suppose I can take them up again, for him.  Shaking my head, ask me
why he wants a dress, to wear in private.  He says, I don't know, but I
understand him.  Better, and he I.  Than anyone else around, I would say.
The community, or in town, I suppose there are some, but it is no sin.  To
us, any more than wearing jeans, to work.  I can't work in a dress, why the
skirt would catch sparks, and fire as I beat them off, but the bar is
cooled, so I stirred it back in, and the girls giggled.

   Out there, watching him whittle.  He held up a chain, carved out of
wood, I shrugged.  The hard way to make chain, and still not as strong as
iron.  Useless, but those worldly girls, they don't care about making
themselves useful.

   "Huh!" Dip some water out, and hold my head over the quenching trough.
Pour it over to wash the sweat out of my hair, and wring it.  Feel it soak
in, and cool me though the back of my shirt.

   Cotton, just a teeshirt, from the gift shop.  Homestead Farms on the
side.  The "Breast," where a breast pocket would be, but also.  The
uncomfortable lump, on the side of my chest.  Pulling up the apron bib, by
the straps, better check on the fire.  Crank it up a little more, but I
just have to draw out the end now.  The tip I left, drawing it out square
with the fuller.

   I'm not jealous.  Those girls don't know him, the way I have.  They're
just smitten, watching his hands, pull the knife, the strong tendons pull
in his arms with his sleeves rolled up, under the shade of his hat.

   My bicep swells, under the weight of the hammer.  Fuller end up, to
pound the end flat.

   I got work to do, anyway.  It's hard work, but doesn't pay too much
mind.

   I can keep daydreaming, of the future.

   Our wedding dress, when I make it for him.

   "Huh!" Hard work, but it's worth it.

   Arden Schmidt, that could be a man's name.  Arden, like my uncle Arden,
I don't mind taking his name.  His last name, that's what I am.  A smith, a
ferrier, it's a good name, for a man.  It's like sewing him slips, skirts,
dresses, and one day a wedding dress.

   I'm willing to do that, for him.  He's gonna make me a fine wife, one
day.

   ;

   Miriam

   I put my elbows up, on the bottom of the door, and just watched her
work. On shoes, or a shoe, in a teeshirt, jeans, and a leather apron.

   Arden.  "Are you a lesbian?"

   "Huh," she set down the hammer.  Closed the forge like a giant breadbox,
to hold the heat in.  Looked around, but I waited until we had the
smithouse to ourselves.  "No." She held up her hand, "I'm engaged."

   "Oh." I nodded.  "Me neither." Not yet, as long as I'm living at home.

   "Why?"

   "Huh, you know I.  Never, well I heard, the girls talk."

   "The other Amish girls?"

   "Mostly." No one else comes over here, to their farm.  Sorry, Heritage
Community, but we have horses, and horses need shod.  We actually use them,
on pavement, to drive our carriages.

   "They don't know what they're talking about."

   She shook her head.

   "Who're you engaged to?"

   I like her.  The look of her.  Not like a man, I think it's the beards.
They bother me, I just can't imagine marrying one, and kissing him, with
all that hair on his face.  I'd just as soon kiss a goat.

   "Merwin Schmidt?  Over at the carpentry centre."

   "The woodshop." They just opened up, to exchange techniques, and such
like, between our comunities.

   "Yeah, he runs it?"

   "How old are you?"

   "Fourteen?  Look, this shoe's about ready, you want to go get the mare?"

   "Sure," I headded back, around to the fence, and took her by the
hackamore.  Led her to the stall in back, where she came out with a bucket.
Half full of water, and fresh shoes, she stuck some nails in her mouth, and
picked up a hoof.  "Mhold herh?" Through a mouthfull of tacks, I combed my
fingers through her mane, and felt it whicker underneath, to calm her. 
While she worked, holding the hoof up therough the split in her apron,
between her knees, and started clipping the old tacks off.

   "There there.  Sally, it's all right.  She's just going to to your
nails." She looked at me, one eyed, and her hear turned to the sound of my
voice.

   "Myer good wif horses."

   "Why they sent me," for once I wanted to, hearing that they had a gay
girl.  Or so they thought, I don't know.  I also hear that they get
married, to hide it.  Their sin, then cheat on their husbands, but they're
not Amish.  They are Hutterites, I looked up at the Sattelite dish, they
had up on the roof of their schoolhouse.  Over at the garage, for their
pickup truck, and the trailer next to it.  "I'm not Amish." I decided, "I'm
going to be a lesbian, come Rumspringe."

   "Yo don shey?"

   Amazing how well she can talk, with a mouthfull of pins that way.

   "You know any?" She just shook her head.  "Huh, neither do I."
Unfortunately.  Way out here, I can't wait.  To get into the city, to stay.
Get some nice jeans.  Nice tight jeans, like she was wearing.  Of course I
would never, living at home.  Imagine what they would say about me. 
Walking around with them, tight over my bottom like that.

   Her nice bottom.  It is, a nice one.  If I'm one to say.  I know what
you're thinking, but I don't care.  I like the look of her in them.  I know
it's sin, but looking again isn't going to earn me another eternity.  I am
not so sure it is truly even a hell worthy sin, or not.  Even if it is, I
don't care.

   Tac tac tac,

   "Shh, ShshshH!"

   Tac tac tac.

   "Good girl, settle down.  She's almost done." With that one, but 3 more.
"There, that's a good girl, you want a carrot?"

   "Whihinh!" She nodded.

   "Yeah, I'll get you a nice sweet carrot after this."

   ;

   Merwin

   She brought her by, after work.  Instead of going home, she is still
with her family, until we build a house to live in.

   Miriam, an Amish girl, but she corrected me.

   "I am not Amish," as if insulted, "Not yet, nor will I ever be."

   "We're not truly Hutterites." In return, "As far as the colonies are
concerned.."

   "I was wondering about that, such as why you are a community, instead of
a Colony now.  Or why you practice Rumspringe."

   "That was a new addition, it was decided that it would." I bridged my
fingers, "Help tie our communities together, but we left, after the Nine."

   "Which?" She shook her head.

   "Oh, you did not hear about that?  Sorry, the Nine ex Hutterites, they
left the colonies up north, and wrote some books about it.  We're reformed.
Like the Lutherans?"

   She nodded, "So, another reformation." I nodded.  "I can stay here,
tonight?"

   "It is too far, to your farms?"

   "Oh, no.  I'm taking the horses back in the morning."

   "We ran long and late." He told me.  My soon to be husband, Arden?  "Got
to talking, distracted..."

   "Oh?" I set up a bed, "I will have to get a mattress, for you.  But yes,
you may sleep here tonight."

   "I am a lesbian."

   "Oh." I looked at him.  He nodded back.

   "I didn't tell her, thought it was better a conversations saved for both
of us."

   "Good thinking," I took some chairs as well.  "So, you don't know."

   "What?"

   "Well, first of all let me say that none of this leaves here. 
Understood?" She nodded, "Good, okay well.  It's about our marriage.  We
are not married yet, however like any family I suppose."

   "I'm a guy." Must have been holding that in for hours.  Finally, he
relaxed.  Leaned back, and put his foot up, on his knee.

   "Uh?" She looked back, and forth, "Huh?" Shook her head.

   "So, we're not homosexual, per se.  We're starting to work out our
personal relationship with God, but in a way, we are also at the beginning
of our own little reformation.  Private reformation, but together we are
deciding what we want to keep, with us.  What we want to take from the
Church, and what to leave behind."

   "Like the Nine." He got up, went to the book case, and half raised the
door to the top shelf.  Reaching under, and behind it, he felt, and pulled
one of them out.  "Here."
[Hutterites: Our Story to Freedom.

   The Nine.]

   "You can borrow this, if you'd like to read it."
   ;