Tea with Jam and Dread Read Online Free Page A

Agnes continued, ‘you have a hard time getting behind the idea of there even being an aristocracy. The Bible says that we are all equal and God is our only king. Am I right?’
    ‘Stop reading my mind!’ I cried. ‘The Bible also says that we should kill witches!’
    ‘Mags, since you obviously know the Bible from cover to cover, then you are aware that your favourite book in the Bible was written by King David.’
    ‘She’s quite right,’ said the Devil, for He also knows the scriptures, and He is not averse to using them for His nefarious means.
    ‘Yeth, thath true,’ said Satan’s minions.
    ‘Yeth!’ I finally cried out, for Agnes’s edification.
    ‘Magdalena,’ Agnes said quickly, ‘it appeared to me that you were having some sort of spiritual crisis over this. You need to remember that we’re not really going to be going gaga over these guests; we’re going to do this because it will be fun. Think of it as a play in which you and I get to write our own starring roles.’
    ‘OK,’ I said, and just like that, all my inner turmoil ceased.
    ‘Fabulous! Now obviously, you’re the hostess. I, by the way, am your personal assistant.’
    ‘All right. Let loose the pure-bred hounds.’
    I meant that metaphorically, mind you. The hounds, in this case, referred to the aforementioned English aristocrats,
not
the hounds of Hell. Unfortunately, those few times when my words turn out to be prophetic are always when my choice of words leaves something to be desired.

THREE
    I n full disc losure, I have never been on Facebook, nor have I ever taken a ‘selfie.’ This is just as well, because I have a face that could
sink
a thousand ships. Any resemblance between my visage and that of a horse is purely coincidental, although Mama was particularly fond of a certain thoroughbred and was known to have spent a great deal of time alone in the barn with him. I’m just saying. The facts are that I have a long, narrow face and I tend to snort when I laugh. If you slapped a saddle on my back and hollered ‘giddy-yap’ I’d break into a full gallop. Indeed, one tourist from England even mistook me for Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. Surely by now you get the point: I am no raving beauty.
    I am a simple Mennonite woman of Amish heritage, and I live in the village of Hernia, in the south-western corner of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, USA. Both the Mennonites and the Amish are Christian denominations that had their origins in Europe around five hundred years ago. Both groups are opposed to infant baptism and they emphasize peace and nonviolence. The Amish are more recognizable because of their distinctive, old-fashioned dress, and the fact that they use horses and buggies for transportation. The Amish also forbid the use of electricity in their homes.
    My grandparents were Amish and my parents were Amish, but I am a Mennonite woman of Amish
ancestry
. There are other Mennonites who do
not
descend from the Amish, but that is another category. I am also what is known as an Old Order Mennonite – that is to say my denomination is very conservative, just not as conservative as the Amish.
    I am beginning to wonder if I should switch from being an Old Order Mennonite and join one of the more progressive Mennonite churches. Perhaps I feel this way because I married a Jewish doctor, one who is not only a humanist but who also happens to be a member of the Democratic Party. Don’t get me wrong – I am still a devout believer, with my heels dug deeply in, but if I keep sliding down this slippery slope of modernity and rationality I am afraid that someday I might find myself twerking shamelessly at some fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. That would indeed be calamitous, given that we Mennonites aren’t even permitted to have sex in a standing position, lest it lead to dancing.
    My best friend Agnes is also a Mennonite of Amish derivation, but she belongs to a modern-day branch of the church. She’s practically