I drove up to check on the foundation Moise dug for his new home just a few yards from the new barn.  The start of work on the Millers’ new home is a big deal.

I cautioned him to take the new driveway seriously; it could be an icy nightmare for horses and cards and trucks in the winter. We considered some alternative approaches.

Moise asked me a bunch of questions about my foot and the upcoming surgery. He also asked if I could drive him and Jacob to Hoosick Falls in the morning so they could take a bus to Bennington Vt. just a few miles away. “We’d love you to drove us; we’ll have a lot of fun.”

He said he thought a short drive would be fine for me; he understood I couldn’t go on a long one. I didn’t know what my doctor might say, bud. The fun we had would be good for morale. I think these rides were our Amish-style equivalent of a night at the bar watching baseball on TV.

I never turn down a chance for the Three Unlikely Amigos to get together. But I was confused.  Bennington is only ten minutes away from Hoosick Falls.

Why not just ask me to drive them all the way?

“We can’t,” said Moise. “If there is a bus or train, we have to take them; we are not allowed to be driven if there is other transportation. Others only drive us as a last resort.

I shook my head, “you guys have more rules than my sixth grade English teacher.” Moise laughed. They also have a lot of integrity. If Bennington were 100 yards from Hoosick Falls, they still wouldn’t accept a ride because they aren’t supposed to. They do not bend the rules or duck from their faith. If it’s poring, as I suggested it might be, then so be it. Time to suffer as Jesus did.

Then my cell phone rang, and I went to answer it; I saw it was Maria. I noticed Moise get a wicked and mischevious gleam in his eye.

He leaned over to get close to the phone and said loudly as if he didn’t know I was on the phone: “Hey, Johnnie Boy, why don’t you come right over to the house and let me take a look at that food. I  take care of your bone spur with a few tools I  have.”

We both could clearly hear the gasp coming out of my cellphone. “Just kidding,” Moise added in a few seconds, but he was clearly enjoying himself.

“Well,” I said, as Maria joined in the laughter, “I was glad to see you can do fun. I’ll be happy to drive you to Hoosick Falls so you can catch a bus for a ten-minute ride. And I’ll pick you up in the afternoon when you take the bus back to Hoosick Falls. I’m sure you and Jacob are up to no good.”

Moise was pleased with himself for getting Maria to gasp. “Well,” he said, “I took good care of Tina when I had to take off part of her leg.” She gasped again.

That’s great, I said, “but you’ll never get near my toes. I don’t intend to limp for the rest of my life.”

As it turned out, he won’t need me to drive him in the morning; Jacob had already asked a neighbor to do it a couple of days ago. I was disappointed, but my food wasn’t. There will be a lot more rides to come.

Moise is going full steam on his new house. With his son Joe, his two big draft horses, and his new dirt scraping and digging machine, he is beginning to dig out the house’s foundation; it will, he said, be at least six feet deep.

The concrete backs are all stacked on the hill. This work fills him with joy; he can’t stop smiling.

When he gets the foundation dug to six feet, he’ll pour concrete into it. When the horses drag some dirt to the barn, Moise and Joe took their shovels and shoveled the dirt to the sides, deepening the road from the street up to the barn.

Moise will come by the house and tell me when to pick him up for the trip to Hoosick falls with Jacob and when to pick them up on the way home.

So we can all have fun, after all, in the silly and timeless way of guys. I keep underestimating Moise and our friendship.

Moise is heading to Bennington to buy building supplies for his new home. He is full of joy and anticipation when he talks about it.

Friendship has always been a hard thing for me to find and accept. Two of my friends died recently; one is near death. Moise appeared like an angel out of the mist to fill a void in my life, perhaps in his.

Were there ever two more unlikely friends to come together in mid-life and beyond? When I first came to the country and spent a year on my mountain, I wrote that life is full of crisis and mystery.

I’ve decided to sit back and enjoy it.