I had just dropped off a box of netting for our Amish blueberry patch. Moise and Barbara were not home, and Little Sarah, who comes up to my waist, came rushing out to greet me.

“Hi, Jon,” she said, “how are you?”

The girls all know to look into my car; if there are any packages or boxes for them, they carry them into their temporary home before I can turn around.

If they can help it, they won’t let me lift a thing.

It isn’t that I can’t carry them myself; it’s a part of their very consistent and deeply felt etiquette, a central part of their faith. They don’t have credit cards, they don’t buy things they can’t pay for.

And perhaps the girls think I’m too old to carry big boxes. Sometimes, they are right. I feel I’m adopting the mantle of the crazy and doddering grandpa.

As I started to get back into the car, Little Sarah came out again.

“Have you settled up?” she asked, “what do we owe you?.” I was surprised and impressed to see her keep an eye on business. She’s about six or seven years old.

“I can settle up with your mom and dad tomorrow when they get home,” I said. She nodded. Next time, I’ll settle with her if she wants.

The Amish etiquette is new to me, but I’m figuring it out. As a matter of faith, the Amish are scrupulous about paying their bills on time and their debts instantly.

These past few weeks, Moise has been overwhelmed with work on his farm, his brother-in-law’s new farm, his son-in-law’s new farm, and his two daughter’s new homes and barns. He has a lot of his own stuff to do.

To help him out, I took control – with his blessing- of the blueberry planting – searching for good prices, figuring out how to get discounts and avoid shipping fees (the Amish way, but it was also my grandmother’s way) and making sure we had the ancillary things – water lines to the well, strong and effective netting, enough peat moss for 44 plants, and printed instructions for all of these things.

These were not, I know, things that Moise delegates to outsiders, and I wanted to do them well and efficiently. I briefed him on everything I was doing, the cost, the shipping, the watering, etc.

He lit up when I told him of the half-off blueberry bush sales I found and the free shipping I managed to finagle.

He and Barbara insisted on paying me for each thing the minute it arrived.

But there are some things I can’t take money for.

This morning I got a death call about a friend of John, Moise’s son, an Amish woman in Missouri. I took the information, printed it out, and rushed it to the farm.

This is an important task. Since they don’t have access to phones, the information must be clear and accurate – and immediate.

Often, they have just a few minutes or hours to arrange transportation to someplace that might be a thousand miles away. Lots of Amish people have the same name, so details and addresses must be clear.

If I mess it up, it could be difficult to fix it.

“What do I owe you?” said John. He offered to pay me for bringing the message, just like Moise always wants to pay me for driving him to the bus station.

Moise is beginning to understand that I will happily accept payment for the things I  purchase for him – of course, I would – but I won’t accept payment for the things a friend or neighbor would do, like running to the hardware store or dropping some letters off at the post office, or bringing books to the children.

So he tries to pay me for those in smaller ways.  It’s the Amish way – we figure it out rather than fight about it.

I’m no longer allowed to pay for donuts or cookies. Moise asked me what Maria’s favorite pie is, and I told him it was rhubarb pie.

As I drove away this morning, one of the girls rushed out to the car holding a warm, just out-of- the- oven rhubarb pie. I called Maria, she was thrilled.

They are settling in their own Amish way, but the pie is just as precious as money, even more so to me.  It’s the small things that matter.

Maria and I are salivating over that pie, we’ll start the process of eating it at lunch.

We’re even.