Autumn in Indiana, Plain and Simple

Weariness showed in John Bontrager's face. He was finishing up the afternoon milking of 18 Holsteins and apologized for the stalls not being cleaner. "There's just so much to do, I didn't get around to it." He had been up since 4 a.m.

John and his wife, Amy, an Amish couple in their mid-twenties with a young son and daughter and an old 160-acre dairy farm to run, were showing my friend Karen and me around their homestead near the town of Shipshewana in northern Indiana.

A light rain fell as we walked from barn to barn, getting a primer on generator-powered hay balers and how to hitch a team of four, six or eight draft horses to a wagon. In the main barn, we stopped.

The rambling wooden building, built by John Bontrager's ancestors in 1915, was empty -- the horses still out to pasture -- and eerily silent. We looked up at hand-hewn beams, each more than a foot square, soaring three stories above our heads. It felt like a sanctuary.

Visiting the Bontragers' farm and spending the night in an Amish guesthouse were part of our fall getaway to the Midwest. Our destination -- Elkhart and LaGrange counties, near the Michigan border -- is home to 25,000 Old Order Amish, making it the group's third-largest U.S. settlement (after Lancaster, Pa., and Holmes County, Ohio). It is also the setting for two weekly auctions, a slew of antiques malls, mom-and-pop shops and a hectic schedule of community festivals.

The Old Order Amish, founded as a small group in Switzerland, migrated to the United States in the early 18th century, and even today its 188,000 adherents famously maintain a separation from the modern world. Members shun cars, do not have electricity in their homes, dress in "plain style" and do not attend school beyond the eighth grade. Shielding their families from outside influences, they say, avoids temptation and allows them to lead simple lives with a strong focus on faith and community.

Our introduction to Amish society started quickly. The first night at our rural B&B near Shipshewana, our host wondered if we might like a carriage ride the next day with her Amish neighbor. In addition to offering buggy rides, Ben Borntreger -- it's not unusual in this society for there to be small variations on some common surnames -- has a guesthouse that he sometimes rents to visitors.

Borntreger, 56, was amiable and forthcoming, full of information -- and surprises. He picked us up wearing a pink shirt, not the dark colors we'd expected. The interior of his carriage was upholstered in red velvet-like fabric and red carpeting -- kind of flashy, we thought, but he assured us it was the norm.

The carriage came equipped with battery-powered running lights, dome lights, a clock and a speedometer. We clipped along at 7 mph, but Borntreger said he has had the horsepower up to 18 -- "just for fun." He gave the hand-cranked windshield wipers a turn. "The rain doesn't bother us -- we don't go fast enough," he said. "It's the wet snow."

Borntreger's carriage horse, Royal, is a Standardbred who didn't make it as a racehorse. The Amish buy these well-mannered horses, saving them from being destroyed, Borntreger told us.

Borntreger is representative of a changing Amish culture. He said he no longer farms his 80 acres, instead allowing a neighbor to grow hay and getting paid a percentage for each bale. He gives buggy rides and arranges farm tours in summer, sleigh rides in winter. He also installs cabinets for an Amish woodworker, organizes auctions and hosts the occasional overnight lodger. We would return to his guesthouse to sleep.

* * *