Try to imagine not even knowing how to fall, because a hand was always, always there to catch you. Two sisters, five brothers, a hundred cousins. At her one-room Amish school, built on Uncle Christian's farm, a third of the pupils shared her surname. Her plain, aproned dresses and organdy prayer caps were her sisters' hand-me-downs, sewn by their mother. The clothes of every girl she knew were stitched identically, right down to the width of their Kapp seams.

But that was Beulah Glick's life before. What I wanted to know was why she'd left. How?

We were sharing a booth at the Plain & Fancy Diner, in blink-and-miss-it Gap, Pennsylvania. My first field interview, four years ago. Twenty-five and enthused about my new research topic, I'd read Hostetler, Kraybill, Huntington; I'd browsed the Pequea Bruderschaft Library. I'd never spoken to someone "in the ban."

Despite Indian-summer heat I was dressed in blue chinos and a buttoned poly shirt that showed my sweat -- not too city-slick, not too academic. Beulah sat rigid, arms locked to her sides, as though the booth were a plunging roller coaster. She wore a gray blouse and a brown knee-length skirt, misfitting store-bought clothes. Her hair was still yanked back, Amish-style, from a center part. The bald streak from years of tightening looked painful.

I ordered the farmer's special: three pancakes, three eggs, a side of scrapple. (In Lancaster County, appetite triumphs diplomas.) Beulah asked for coffee -- no sugar, no cream -- and, as an afterthought, two eggs. Waiting for the food, she barely spoke. Shyness around an unfamiliar man? Maybe shame? Or the meek temper of Gelassenheit. It's the personal submission the Amish strive for -- the self-denial for community's sake -- and a lack of it was Beulah's supposed crime. To me, she could hardly have seemed more yielding. When her eggs came, she only poked them with her fork.

I can't bring myself to touch my food, either. Why'd I bother smuggling it into the library? The air in here, freeze-dried, feels worse than outside's scorch. Saturday evening. Most of Harvard's fled.

Congealing in Styrofoam, shrimp pad thai fouls my carrel; Thai iced tea glares the shade of fake tans. And what I'm craving, believe it or not, is a hot dog. A humble hot dog, third-degreed on a stick. Let it fall from the stick, even; spice it strong with ash and mulch. I'd eat it anyway. That's the spirit -- summer camp!

Who'd have thought I'd wax nostalgic for wieners? Or s'mores? Or bug juice, toxic with red dye? First-night fare I used to rail against in staff meetings. ("Why pander to kids' preconceptions of camp? Ironwood's different. We should show them from the start.") But Charlie Moss was director; he called the shots. Comfort food is always best on first night, he insisted. We had all summer for Camp Ironwood values.

Not this summer. Not for us. Not for Max.

Max's cast -- well, half of it -- sits up on the shelf, propped against the tools of my trade (The Riddle of Amish Culture; Habits of the Heart). And where is Max himself, his wrist now healed, strong again? I haven't heard anything since camp ended.

Copyright © 2002 by Michael Lowenthal. All rights reserved.