Ruth Scholl is born in 1963 into a scrupulously managed Christian commune in Michigan. She grows up with two brothers, a working father, and a homemaker mother who privately longs for the outside world and imagines whimsical names like Maybelline Raisinette. As a child Ruth is eccentric and prone to "buddling"—fussing with small tasks—and later spends much of her adult life performing odd jobs ordered by her church, including digging fencepost holes and paring down the community songbook. The family belongs to the Brotherhood, an Anabaptist network of Dorfs where local elders set standards that can be overridden by higher authorities. Rules are often cryptic and change frequently due to cost-saving measures and shifting alliances, yet they are enforced as absolute. Elders determine clothing, education, occupations, and residence. Heterosexual family life and traditional patriarchy are central, with the husband positioned as the coordinating head of the household.
As a child, Ruth is eccentric and absent-minded, and her mother often accuses her of "buddling," meaning "to waste time on little jobs; to fuss, to fiddle, to sit in a corner skinning twigs with the edge of a spoon instead of tidying up." When Ruth is older, her mother's warning turns prophetic: she spends much of her adult life doing odd tasks, only now at the behest of her church, which puts her to work digging fencepost holes.
Local standards of comportment and life style are chosen by each Dorf's board of elders, but these can be superseded by higher authorities that control larger regions of the church. The rules produced by this system can be cryptic, and they change frequently because of cost-saving measures and shifting political alliances among the Dorfs, but they're also treated as absolute.
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