The young Mennonite men tell why they might leave

So the boys start questioning the guy. He was standing there by himself. So they were asking him how it happened and all that. Well, he said, a week before they married us, he said, the elder, that's what he called him, the boss of the whole manna village and all the acreage around and everything.

He is the one, the elder they call him. He says the elder told the rest of them to go and spend every Saturday until they build us a home. Well, they didn't build only one home, but they built two homes right along the same one another.

And we was helping them to build a nice house. He said, we have a kitchen, a living room, two bedrooms, and a bath. And the other house is made indenting. It's all free work. Everybody chipped in and done the house.

this year work and women cooked and baked and they furnished the food and we had a fun and we built a homes and that's when the homes were finished that's when we found out that the elder picked out the brides for me and my cousin so the other fellow was his cousin and he says they married us the two days after the house was complete they furnish little furnish and everything.

My cousin, he is working out on the fields every day with the horses. We have no tractors, no cars, no other. And I was working in the manufacturing place in the shop where we make a manna freezers, a manna, frigidaires, or, you know.

And so I'm walking there. But we never see a penny of money. Well, how do you live? Well, we live. We can go in the store and buy anything we need. And if we start to be too frivolous and buy something that we wouldn't have to have, they just simply don't give it to us in the grocery box.

And we have men that do nothing else but make shoes for all of us. This is the kind of shoes we get there for church and for going away or working, same shoes until they worn out and they give us another pair.

And the clothes are made by seamstresses that do nothing but make overalls and jackets. And the children in school, they have to make these buttons. Let me show us the buttons, get six buttons on his jacket. And he had a homemade shirt on, too.

And here he was going on a three -week's visit, first visit he ever had. In these seven years, they were married. and he said we work every day we get our three meals a day and we go sleep and we're tired and next day same old thing we haven't got no choice of anything the elder is the boss and he said I resented very much and he said I don't think I'm going back with my family no more he says I can see how other people live and I think that's just holding my freedom.

Well, meantime, the other fellow come from the back end. His little girl wanted to drink because she seemed the other fellow's boy had a drink and he had to share with them. So then this one that didn't look so bright, he went and he bought a bottle apart and brought her to the child.

Then he stuck around. So they stuck, the girls, got into this act and the boys too, you know, and they start asking him, his name was Jim. He was introduced, you know, this first one, he says, that's my cousin, Jim.

So then they start asking Jim questions, but he seems like he wasn't as half as bright as the first guy. And he was well -pleased the way things were. And the girls, they couldn't help. they giggled and giggled and they may not at the boys because the girls knew what the boys wanted to ask so they asked this one that wasn't too bright he said did this elder tell you when to go to sleep with your bride and when to have children because how come that you have same age the five -year -olds the three and a half -year -olds and a year -old babies

both your wife's got the same. Well, the goofy one, he said, I don't know why it happened, but it seems like there was only a few days difference when my children were born and my cousins, see. So then he was a little red in the face, and then he walked back to his wife, and his smart one was standing there yet.

Well, he said, I wouldn't have gave you that kind of answer. you know he isn't too bright that cousin of mine and I didn't tell him that I'm going to leave but he says I want to own a car and I want to own a house and everything he said you know what got me is I caught the elder two times with my wife at noon when he didn't expect me home I come about half an hour earlier than I should have and there was the elder with my wife and he says I didn't like it and I wouldn't and I won't take it, and

so I'm going to not even go back. And the boy says, that's the way to think. He says, think like the rest of us. He says, why shouldn't you? You're the boss, and it's your wife. And, you know, so that's how it all ended.