‘God, why have you forsaken us?’

IT’S barely a town — a country crossing is more like it. Not much to it, really, except for a Thursday-night auction hall, a spring-fed swimming pool and a few homes framed by cornfields.

But those who live atop the little rise here have always felt a strong sense of place. Until Monday, when gunfire shattered their solitude, this was a place, they say, that danced with children’s voices.

“You could hear them laughing, shouting, playing baseball,” Ron Doutrich recalled, digging his hands into his jeans and gazing down, to where the steeple of a little Amish school peeks over the cornstalks.