A teenage boy lay in the open casket next to the bishop. During rumspringa—a period of time from age sixteen or seventeen until marriage—he’d bought a car and, after a night of drinking and partying, ended up killed in a crash.

“The world is the devil’s playground,” the preacher said. “This is what happens if you get a car.”

When the sermon, hymns, and prayers were over, the preacher sat down. Row after row, people in the barn filed past the casket and returned to their seat. The adults held their small children up and pointed when they got to the dead boy.

None of the Amish people in the front rows had tears on their faces. The longer I inspected their behavior, the more it seemed to me that the boy’s English friends really loved him and that maybe his Amish relatives didn’t care for him quite as much. Was he that bad if he had friends who cried in front of all the people?