The Christmas Courtship

by Emma Miller

  Phoebe realized she was, too. Not because they had arrived, but because the wagon ride here was over, and she and Joshua would go their separate ways. Now she had to meet new people. Try to fit in with all these young unmarried folks. Folks who didn’t have a little one at home waiting for them.

  The buggy behind them pulled in next and half a dozen boys tumbled out, all talking and laughing. Ginger, Tara, Bay and Nettie were out of the wagon at once, walking to the back to fetch the food Rosemary had sent. There was gingerbread and homemade applesauce, as well as three gallons of Benjamin’s spiced apple cider.

  Phoebe folded her hands in her lap, suddenly so nervous that she wondered if she’d made a mistake agreeing to come. What was she going to say to people? How was she ever going to fit in with them?

  “You okay?” Joshua asked.

  She looked up at him, biting down on her lower lip. “I’m not used to... Where I come from there aren’t many get-togethers like this,” she finished lamely.

  “You’ll be fine. Everyone is keen to meet you,” he insisted.

  “We’ve got the applesauce and pies,” Ginger called, walking over to Phoebe’s side of the wagon. “You want to help us with the food table? I’ll introduce you around.”

  Phoebe hesitated.

  “Phoebe’s going to help me with the cider,” Joshua answered smoothly as he jumped down from the wagon. “You girls go on.”

  “Ya?” Ginger asked Phoebe, looking up at her.

  Phoebe smiled, relieved. Somehow facing the group beside Joshua made it seem less overwhelming. “Ya, we’ll get the cider and be along,” she told Ginger.

  “Okay, but be sure to come to find me later.” She lowered her voice so only Phoebe could hear her. “Mam wants me to be sure to introduce you to Eli Kutz. He’s here helping to chaperone tonight.”

  “Eli Kutz?” Phoebe asked.

  “Widower,” Ginger whispered. “And looking for a wife.” She nodded as if she and Phoebe shared a secret. Though it really wasn’t that big a secret, was it? Wasn’t every woman her age looking for a husband?

  “Mam’s already talked to him about you.”

  Phoebe knitted her brow. This was the first she had heard of it. “She has?”

  “Ya, but don’t worry. He’s a sweet man.” Ginger began to back away from her. “And only four children,” she added.

  Phoebe couldn’t resist a chuckle. “Does that make him a bargain?”

  Ginger shrugged. “It means he’s pretty desperate for a wife.”

  Phoebe wasn’t entirely sure how to take that, but before she could think of a way to ask, one of the young men from the next buggy called to Ginger.

  “Ginger, are you coming?”

  Ginger glanced over her shoulder at the handsome young man, then back at Phoebe. “Mam said Eli’s keen to meet you, so don’t let Joshua hog all your time.” With that, she turned and hurried off.

  “What was Ginger saying?” Joshua asked when his sister was gone.

  He walked around to the back of the wagon and Phoebe followed him. “She said not to let you monopolize all my time.” She left out the part about Eli, though why she wasn’t quite sure.

  He sighed and handed her one of the plastic jugs of apple cider. “And what did you say to that? Because I was kind of hoping you’d let me walk you around and introduce you.”

  Phoebe pressed her lips together, not sure how to respond. Did she tell him what she was thinking? It would be forward of her, but also honest.

  She looked up at him, meeting his gaze. “Do you have a girl?”

  He shook his head.

  She felt her heart give a little trip and suddenly her mouth felt dry. Was she really falling for him? “Sweet on someone?”

  He tilted his head one way and then the other, as if running the idea around in his mind. “You could say that.”

  Against her will, Phoebe felt a tightening in her throat. An overwhelming sense of disappointment. She looked down at the grass at her feet, illuminated by all of the twinkling lights in the trees. “Then you should go be with her.”

  He was quiet so long that at last she looked up at him and found him studying her.

  “I can’t,” he said very quietly.

  She held his gaze, feeling a little light-headed. She remembered this feeling. She’d felt it in those early days and months when she and John had courted. She nibbled on her lower lip. “Why not?” she dared.

  He hesitated, then shrugged. “Because I’m already with her.”

  Joshua’s sweet words made Phoebe suddenly feel weak-kneed. And a little flustered. She glanced away, then back at him. She was too old for the games young people sometimes played. She’d been through too much. She was flattered that he liked her, that he would have the courage to say so. But she was also cautious. Because it was becoming obvious to her that she was sweet on him, too. And because her immediate thought was that he deserved someone better than her. A man like this Eli who Ginger had mentioned was more the type of man to marry a woman like her. “You don’t know me, Joshua.”

  “I know you well enough to know I like you, Phoebe. More than I’ve ever liked a girl before.” He held his hand, palm out, to her. “Don’t say anything.” He shook his head. “You don’t have to say anything. I just... I wanted you to know that. I wanted to—”

  “Josh! Are you coming with that cider or not?”

  Phoebe looked up to see Jacob standing a few feet away, his arms opened wide. “Edna’s waiting on the cider.”

  “Coming,” Phoebe called. She glanced at Joshua and smiled. “We’re coming.” And then, they walked side by side toward the others in a comfortable silence.

  * * *

  Joshua entered the cozy kitchen that smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg and stewed pumpkin. In his arms, he carried two cases of quart-sized Ball jars he’d brought up from the cellar.

  “I appreciate your help fetching those for us,” Rosemary told Joshua as he walked in. “I hate to take you from your chores. I know your father had a whole lot of things for you to do this morning.”

  “I don’t mind,” he told her. “I’m glad you asked me.”

  Rosemary was seated at the end of the kitchen table, folding bath towels. From there, she was able to direct Tara, Bay, Nettie and Phoebe through the process of canning stewed pumpkin and the last of the fresh cabbage they’d been storing in the cellar. His little brothers were playing happily with several pots and pans, wooden spoons and an old tin pie plate in the hallway near the kitchen door. They were free to play anywhere, but under the watchful eye of all the women, they’d be less likely to get into mischief.

  “I couldn’t find the lids, though,” Joshua confessed. “Sorry. I looked everywhere on those shelves where you said they might be.”

  “I know they’re there, but I can’t say where,” Rosemary fussed, rising from her chair. She began to stack the towels in a laundry basket neatly. “Everything is a hodgepodge around this house these days. Nothing in its place. After being off my feet all this time, I feel like I’ll never get caught up.”

  “I can go down and have another look,” Joshua offered, feeling bad that he hadn’t been able to find them. With the big orthopedic boot Rosemary was wearing, she shouldn’t be going up and down steep cellar steps.

  “Ne, no need. When can a man ever find anything?” Rosemary asked good-naturedly. “This morning your father asked me where the toothpaste was. On the sink, of course, next to his toothbrush.” She chuckled. “Ne, no need for you to go back to the cellar. One of the girls can run down and have a look. They’re probably on a different shelf than they’re supposed to be.”

  “Spice or no spice in this batch of pumpkin, Mam?” Nettie called from the stove, where she was dumping a large bowl of raw pumpkin pieces into a pot.

  “Just set the jars there on the table,” Rosemary instructed Joshua, pointi
ng. Then to Nettie, she said, “What was the last batch?”

  “Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger and clove,” Phoebe answered, placing two-pint jars into a divided cardboard box so that each jar had its own niche.

  “Then no spice. But be sure to mark the jars,” Rosemary warned, scooping a stack of plastic measuring cups up off the end of the table. She crossed the kitchen to hand them to her toddlers. “Here you go, sweets. Make your mam some pumpkin pie.”

  “Dank-ee!” James squealed.

  Josiah echoed a word less comprehensible but most definitely the English version of thank you.

  “You’re welcome,” Rosemary told the boys.

  Unlike most Amish households, his father and stepmother had decided their little ones would learn both English and Pennsylvania Deutsch from birth. Generally, Amish children only spoke Deutsch at home and didn’t learn English until they went to school at six years old. It tickled Joshua to hear his little brothers already babbling in both languages.

  Joshua was half tempted to drop to the floor and “make a pie” with them, but he knew he should head outside. He had plenty to do. In an hour, he was supposed to take a shift at the cash register in the harness shop, relieving Ginger, and before that, he needed to check the latch on the chicken coop. Tara had told him this morning at the breakfast table that it was sticking again, and she was concerned it might not latch properly. An open chicken coop at night in cold weather was an invitation to every fox in the county. Only a week ago one of their customers at the harness shop had lost a dozen guinea hens to the pesky marauders when one of their children had accidentally left the coop door open all night.

  “Phoebe, did I tell you,” Nettie said from the sink, “that Eli Kutz was at the shop yesterday asking about you?”

  “Was he?” Phoebe asked, her back to Nettie.

  “He said he enjoyed talking with you at the harvest supper. I think he was hoping to catch you at the shop. He asked if you ever worked the register.”

  Joshua couldn’t tell by Phoebe’s tone of voice if she was interested. He knew his stepmother thought Eli would be a good fit for Phoebe, but that didn’t mean Phoebe agreed with her. He’d seen her and Eli talking at the harvest supper, but she hadn’t mentioned Eli to him. Of course, it didn’t surprise him that Eli would be interested. Why wouldn’t he be, a woman as pretty as Phoebe? As smart and fun.

  Not really wanting to hear any more about Eli, Joshua wandered over to the stove and breathed in the aroma of the nearest kettle. “Smells good,” he told Phoebe. “We having pumpkin pie for dessert after supper by any chance? Looks like there’s enough still left in the pot.”

  Phoebe wiped another jar of freshly packed pumpkin and slid it into the box. “Nettie made up the crust this morning after breakfast.”

  “Excellent. I hope you’re making half a dozen pies, because I can eat one all by myself.” He started to lower his finger into the simmering pot of pumpkin, but Ginger tapped his hand with a wooden spoon.

  “Out of that or there won’t be pie.”

  “It doesn’t taste good yet, anyway,” Nettie warned him, fishing a hot quart-sized Ball jar from a pot of boiling hot water with a pair of tongs. She set the jar carefully on a tray on the counter and fished out another. “No sugar or milk added yet.”

  “But there’s some cooked cabbage if you’re hungry,” Phoebe suggested.

  Bay picked up the tray of hot canning jars and moved them to the counter beside the stove. “Don’t encourage him, Phoebe.” She eyed her brother. “He can wait for supper. You feed him one bowl of cabbage and all those boys will be in here wanting a bowl. You don’t know how much they can eat. Or what a mess they will make in this kitchen in the midst of our canning.”

  Joshua wrinkled his nose, contemplating scooping a little of the pumpkin out and adding sugar. It just smelled so good with all those spices. “Don’t like cabbage much.”

  “No?” Phoebe wiped the lid of another jar. “Me, either. Unless I add a little red wine vinegar.”

  “Vinegar?” Realizing he was still wearing his knit cap, Joshua pulled it off and slipped it into his coat pocket. Then he wondered how bad his hair looked and ran his fingers through it.

  Since the harvest dinner, he and Phoebe had been spending quite a bit of time together. It just seemed like they clicked. He always had something to tell her and found himself trying to steal moments here and there to be alone with her. And if he didn’t know better, he would think she’d been doing the same. He’d been really nervous after telling her he was sweet on her that night, but he was beginning to think maybe she felt the same way about him.

  Or was that too much to hope for? What if she had taken to Eli Kutz the same way he had apparently taken to her? He wondered if he should ask one of his stepsisters to try to feel Phoebe out. See if she liked him or was just being polite, but somehow that didn’t seem right to him. All the young women he knew were always gossiping about this boy or that, who they liked, who they didn’t, but that seemed to him like games he didn’t want to play anymore.

  Joshua looked at Phoebe. “I never thought of putting vinegar on it.”

  She lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “You should try it.”

  “Oh, goodness,” Rosemary exclaimed. “Who is that smelling up my kitchen?” She leaned down and tickled James at the nape of his neck. “Is that you, my little chick?”

  The boy giggled, and then Josiah leaned down to get his mother to tickle him.

  “Phew wee!” Rosemary went on dramatically. “Someone needs a diaper change.” She leaned down to pick Josiah up.

  “Mam! You shouldn’t be carrying him up those stairs. He’s too heavy.”

  “I can take them up to change them,” Phoebe offered.

  “Ne, I’ll do it.” Tara wiped her hands on a dish towel and crossed the kitchen toward her mother. “Give him here.” She took her little half brother. “And what about you, you little skunk?” She reached down and swung James into her arms. “Are you ready for a diaper change?”

  Rosemary kissed the back of the closest little boy’s head and Joshua smiled. In a lot of Amish homes, there weren’t such displays of affection. He didn’t know any family that didn’t love their children, but he liked the way his father and Rosemary were so demonstrative in their fondness. He thought he’d be the same way with his own children someday. If God blessed him with children. With a wife. He glanced at Phoebe.

  “I’ll be right back,” Tara called. “Just as soon as we get these skunks’ diapers changed.” She glanced at Phoebe. “If that case of pumpkin is ready to go to the cellar, could you take it down, and then check to see if you can find those lids? I know we bought more from Byler’s last month when they went on sale.”

  “I think I saw them,” Phoebe called after Tara as she and Rosemary and the boys went down the hall. “I’ll find them.” She glanced at Joshua and smiled, and then picked up the case of pumpkin. “Be right back.”

  Joshua considered offering to carry the case down. Or better yet, following her down. Maybe they could catch a few minutes together. He and Bay had been discussing selling a few plants that were good for building hedges and windbreaks, and he wanted to talk to Phoebe about it. She’d had some really good ideas when they’d talked the other day about his greenhouse. And she hadn’t been shy about telling him when she didn’t think his ideas were good. Or at least profitable.

  “I’ll help you look,” Nettie offered. “I want to see how well we’re set for summer squash. I was thinking about throwing a jar in the soup for supper tonight.”

  Joshua watched his sister and Phoebe leave the kitchen and then pulled his hat out of his pocket. “Guess I should get something done before my shift in the shop.”

  “Mmm,” Bay said, turning to him. She sighed, leaning against the counter as she crossed her arms over her waist. It was obvious she had something to say to him.

/>   He waited.

  Bay glanced at the floor and then back up at him. “I’ve noticed you and Phoebe are spending a lot of time together.”

  “We are?” He looked away. “Ne, not really.”

  “I see you talking with her on the back porch, in the yard, on the walk home from church. And I just—”

  “You what?” Joshua asked.

  “I—” She exhaled again. “You seem sweet on her, Josh.” She narrowed her gaze. “Does it not matter to you that her parents sent her away?”

  He shrugged. “Ne. Parents have disagreements with adult children sometimes. Her stepfather is a harsh man. He’s never treated her kindly. He’s not like my father, who loves you and your sisters as much as he loves us. Not all families are like ours, Bay.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t care what she did? The situation she—”

  “Stop!” he interrupted, holding up his hand to her. “I won’t hear idle, women’s gossip, Bay. ‘Do not let unwholesome talk come from our mouths,’” he quoted from Ephesians. “You know how Dat feels about that.”

  She turned back to the stove, picking up a wooden spoon to stir the pieces of pumpkin in the pot. She adjusted the flame beneath it. She seemed upset. “What she did, it’s not idle gossip, Josh. Ask Mam or your father, if you don’t believe me. If you think I would lie about such a terrible thing.”

  He felt short of breath. What was Bay talking about? What terrible thing could Phoebe have done that Bay would think it would change his feelings for her?