Old Order Mennonite Memoirs

The warm water in the calf bucket relieved my cold hands. Rubber gloves didn't do much for protection against the frigid temperatures that suddenly came back to Morrisons Cove. Extra coats and gloves weren't needed earlier in the week, especially not on Wednesday.

It was the day I had gone to Zimmerman's Bernina Sewing for a quilt class. Having been the only student, I was also on my own to eat my packed lunch. The outdoors called me, so I ran outside to answer. In a little corner of lawn beside their lane, the sun shone warmly on my side as I sat beside a large tree trunk. Blue jays called from the nearby woods and a mountain stream sang a merry little song. Sometimes we come to unplanned but happy places in our lives, like a picnic in January.

Since this was close to my daughter's home, she and her three children came to meet me when my assignments were done. Together we walked in the sunshine to their home among the tall oak trees. It seemed like we should do something outdoors, but it was mid-January, too early for gardening, so we went indoors. In the short time I was there, Tyson, age 7, and I worked on two pages in his dot-to-dot book. We didn't get finished with our pictures because there were around 900 numbers per page. It was somewhat brain-befuddling.

Since then I've been thinking about numbers and how important they are in our lives. To do the homework of my quilt piecing, numbers were vital, representing inches and amounts for the perfection of my pattern. Numbers are necessary to piece comforter tops, both for size and amount of patches.

The correct numbers, representing temperatures, took away our mud. With frozen ground (poor man's concrete), my husband was able to haul some manure without getting stuck. Numbers jotted in his records document how many loads and how many acres.

Numbers, correctly punched on the phone, connect me to my grandchildren for story time. Numbers, on a calendar, mark anticipated days to be together. Not only for me and my grandchildren but also for youth and their hosts along Harley Drive for Saturday evening singing. For some young girls of the Cove, numbers, representing days and miles, meant arrival at Hungerford, close to Wharton, Texas, where they planned to help with rebuilding after storm damage.

The numbers in my new recipe, Texas Rangers Steak, were important and so were the numbers on my stove to set for timed-bake while we bundled up to attend services at Piney Creek church. All the correct numbers were on the thermometer to make a sheet of ice underfoot. Even the sermon was about numbers: 1 John 4, but mostly about love.

Numbers are notorious, writes Paul Giganti Jr. in a little book on our shelf. (Notorious means generally known and talked of.) Lots of things come 1 at a time and 2 makes a pair of mittens. On a tricycle, 3 wheels keep you from tipping over and in a four-square game, it takes 4 squares to play. 5 fingers on each hand come in very handy and a 6-pack of soda pop is enough for you and your friends. In a week, there are 7 days and on a spider there are 8 legs. 9 players make a baseball team and 10 toes on our feet, help us walk. A dozen eggs are 12 and a day is 24 hours.

When the author writes about 100 pennies making a dollar, I thought of another book called "A Place for Zero," written by Angeline Sparagna LoPresti in 2003. In the story a country called Digitaria is ruled by King Multiplus and Queen Addeleine. Numbers live there with things to do but Zero is sad because he is nothing. With no value, he couldn't play Add-em-up like the others did. It is a delightful story where they discover what a zero can do when he simply stands beside the other numbers.

In the book I mentioned first, the author puts 6 zeros beside a 1 and calls it a notorious number because a million of anything is very, very many. The character of the story is lying on his back, gazing at the stars.

In God's book, Psalms 147:4,5 says "He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord and of great power: his understanding is infinite."