by Ruth Price
AN AMISH SECOND CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
AMISH MIRACLES SERIES
RUTH PRICE
Copyright © 2017 Ruth Price
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1979223508
ISBN-10: 1979223505
TABLE OF CONTENTS
AN AMISH SECOND CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
AN AMISH COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CAROL
ENJOY THIS BOOK? You can make a big difference
ALSO BY RUTH PRICE
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AN AMISH SECOND CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
‘Twas the dawn of Second Christmas,
and through the Amish homestead,
lingered smells of sweet cinnamon
and hot homemade bread.
With a hustle and bustle,
Mamm and Daed dashed to pack
food and gifts for Aunt Susie
and dear Uncle Jack.
But one little child,
slept snug in her bed,
forgotten as dawn’s rays
touched her sleep tousled head.
SOMETHING WET AND ROUGH rubbed against Mary Stoltzfus’s cheek. Sleepily, she wiped at her face. “Huh?”
Stumpy barked, his tail thumping against the thick Amish quilt. The room was cool and smelled faintly of kerosene. If it was nighttime, her sister Esther would still be snoring. But she wasn’t.
“What time is—?” Mary’s eyes popped open and she sat straight up, her heart overflowing with delight. “It's Zwedde Grischtdaag! Second Christmas!"
At age seven, Second Christmas was the most exciting day in the world for Mary. And even better, the whole family was taking the buggy to visit Aunt Susie!
Mary pushed the quilt aside and grabbed her heavy robe off of the bedpost. The sun was already rising, and she would have to hurry to get breakfast before they loaded up the buggy.
As Mary stepped into the hallway, Esther dashed past, tying her apron as she jogged for the stairs. "Mary! Hurry up and get dressed! We don't have much time."
Mary nodded. The hall was dim in the light of the flickering lantern that hung from a hook on the wall between Mary's parents room at the front of the house and the stairs. Above, through the skylight, the sky had taken on a faint milky glow, dotted with snow flurries which blew over the window glass and clung to the edges of the pane in clumps of grayish white.
Mary dashed for the bathroom with Stumpy at her heels. She had taken a full bath the day before Christmas proper, so she quickly washed in the sink, ran the wide-toothed comb awkwardly through her light brown hair and twisted it into a bun, which she pinned in place.
A halo of frost limned the windows. She peered through the wispy oval of clear glass onto sleeping fields. Stumpy, uninterested in the fields, stood up on his two hind legs while balancing on the edge of the sink with his one front paw. His left front leg was missing. He’d been born that way, the runt of the litter, and he didn’t notice the lack. Instead, he grabbed at the brush with his teeth and threw it onto the floor with a clatter.
Mary whirled around to see Stumpy and the brush having an epic stare down on the bathroom floor.
"Stumpy!" Mary wrested the brush from his jaws. Stumpy gave a playful growl, and soon they were involved in a human versus dog game of tug-of-war. Eventually, Mary managed to wrest the brush away from him, and with a laugh, plopped down onto the bathmat. She ran the brush over Stumpy’s fur as he licked her face.
Suddenly, a loud series of bangs sounded at the bathroom door. “Hey!” Someone, one of her brothers by the sound of his voice, pulled on the doorknob, rattling the bathroom door in its frame. "Who's in there? Hurry up! I have to help Daed feed the horses!"
"Sorry," Mary shouted back. She brushed her teeth and finished dressing as quickly as she could. When she opened the door, Jeremiah, the younger of her brothers still at home, stood, one hand on his hip and glaring down at her.
"Well, come on." A cowlick of brown hair hung between his eyes, and he pushed it back with an irritated glare. "Why don't you go into the kitchen and see if Mamm needs anything?"
Mary nodded. But when she reached the kitchen, Mamm and Esther were having a loud argument about where to put the casseroles.
"Can I help?" Mary asked hesitantly.
But neither Mamm nor Esther heard her. So Mary tiptoed by them and grabbed a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon from the pan that was cooling on the stove.
The dining room table was covered with tinfoil-covered pans of casseroles, cakes, and a sack with loaves of bread to bring along for the Second Christmas feast. With no room at the table for her plate, Mary found a quiet corner and sat cross-legged on the floor with Stumpy at her side. She took a forkful of eggs and gave the next to Stumpy, and together they shared a quiet breakfast while the family dashed back and forth in the whirlwind of activity and chatter.
When Mary had finished eating and put her dishes back into the sink, she approached her mamm again. Mamm and Esther had come to an agreement about whatever it was they had been arguing about, and now mother was directing Esther and John, the older of her unmarried brothers, to take pans of food from the dining room table and out to put into the buggy.
"Can I help?" Mary asked.
"I don't know... These pans are awfully large for a snow pea like you,” John said, dismissing her in his usual kindly way. “Maybe—"
There was a thud and clatter followed by two sharp barks from the dining room.
"Stumpy!" Mamm yelled and ran toward the mess. "Get away from that table!"
Mary followed, a heavy feeling in her stomach. In the dining room, Stumpy sat on the floor with his chin bowed, resting on his one front paw. A tinfoil-wrapped tin of cookies lay upside down on the floor beside him.
Mary knelt beside the fallen tin. Carefully putting her hand beneath the tinfoil to feel the cookies, which still seemed intact, Mary said, “I think they’re okay.”
Mamm took a deep breath. Through gritted teeth, she ordered, "Mary, take that idiot dog and the basket and go look in the henhouse. And don't you to come back until the buggy is packed."
Mary nodded. Her throat felt thick. Stumpy had only been trying to help. Just like Mary. But as always, they were underfoot and thus cast out.
"Stumpy!" Mary called out, forcing a smile through her sadness. No sense in making poor Stumpy feel even worse about things. Especially on Second Christmas. "Come on boy!"
Stumpy lifted his head and pranced after Mary as she walked toward the back door. She got the basket for the eggs from the box next to the door, and she and Stumpy stepped out onto the back porch.
Crossing the frosted dirt, they walked toward the henhouse. Each step crunched beneath Mary's boots. Mary looked longingly at the fenced-in pasture where their two horses roamed. She knew it was foolish, but she couldn't help searching, hoping for a little white pony. In her mind's eye, the pony’s long mane rippled in the light breeze. She imagined braiding its tail, the soft tickle of the pony’s breath against Mary's hand as it ate apples.
She had asked two months ago if she might have a pony for Second Christmas, and her older sister Esther had laughed, not meanly, but in a way that made Mary feel small anyway. Ponies were expensive, and they were not needed on her family's farm. The two strong draft horses that pulled the buggy were more than enough for her family's needs. Still, looking out over the frosted field, in that split second, Mary had prayed for something different. Maybe it was because she felt the same as the imaginary pony that Mary longed for. She was small, not very strong, and made lots of mistakes. Much of the time, like Stumpy, she felt a bit useless.
By the time Mary made it to the henhouse, the sun was fighting a valiant battl
e to break through the heavy clouds. The chicken coop looked like a tiny wooden house, raised about three feet off the ground, with two windows on the front and a plank furling out from the tiny chicken-sized door out into a fenced enclosure.
As Mary approached the fenced-in area to the raised chicken coop, Princess, their oldest egg layer stuck her head out of the entrance to the coop and gave a loud call. Her brown and white feathers were fluffed out, keeping her warm in the cold air.
"Stay," Mary ordered Stumpy when they reached the fence. She knew from experience that if he got into the coop, he would chase the chickens around and cause all manner of problems.
While Stumpy waited obediently, Mary jiggled at the lock to pull the fence open. It had frozen so it took a couple of tries.
“Stay,” Mary ordered Stumpy again as she shut the gate behind her.
A large rubber container of chicken feed sat next to a small staircase beside the human-sized door to the chicken coop. First, Mary took two scoops of chicken feed and put them in the outside trough. From inside the coop, there came a loud tittering of hen caws. It reminded Mary of the quilting parties her mamm had over at the house some afternoons. Princess, a fat bird with bright white feathers, came out first. She looked down at Mary over her dainty beak before leading the other chickens down the ramp in a chorus of coos and caws.
Outside the gate, Stumpy barked and leaped up and down in tripod excitement. But the chickens were used to this. They barely gave him a glance as they swarmed to new feed and pecked vigorously at their breakfast. Mary gave Princess a quick pet while she ate, and then quickly got herself out of the way, not wanting to get accidentally pecked in the ankle or shin as the flock made fast work of the food.
While they were busily eating, Mary went over to the human door to the chicken coop and stepped inside with the basket on her arm. Milky morning light shone through the coop’s windows. Shelves of chicken cubbyholes sat along the left wall. The coop smelled of hay and chicken droppings. Mary took the pair of heavy gloves that were hanging on the hook and put them on.
Though the gloves were too large for Mary’s hands, and moving her fingers was awkward, she wore them to keep from being pecked. Luckily, all of the chickens had left in order to eat, so Mary was able to move from cubby to cubby, taking eggs one at a time and checking to make sure there were no droppings on them. Otherwise, the chickens would need to be dewormed.
She had almost finished when a couple of hens came clucking back. Mary quickly grabbed the last of the eggs, careful to leave a wooden egg behind in each cubbyhole to keep all of the hens from laying in the same place.
The egg haul had been slim, barely filling the bottom of Mary’s basket. Still, the eggs would give something for Mamm to smile at Mary and Stumpy about.
Mary refilled the chicken’s water, chipping a thin layer of ice off of the top first, and then refilled the inside food trough as well. When she had finished, the clouds were still thick, making it difficult to know how much time had passed. If anything, it seemed a little darker. Mary pushed her knitted hat down over her ears, and holding the handle of the basket to her side, left the chicken coop, closing the gate behind her.
But when she stepped outside the fence, Stumpy was nowhere to be seen. "Stumpy!" she shouted for him.
There was a growly whimper from the opposite side of the chicken coop. Mary jogged to the sound, and saw Stumpy, nose-down at the edge of the fence.
Something wriggled in his jaws!
"Stumpy!" Mary gasped. The dog lifted his head, and struggling in his mouth was a weasel. Mary looked at the chickens, and the fence, which the weasel had done a good job of digging a hole beneath to get to them.
Stumpy gave a quick shake of his head, and the weasel went still. Mary didn't like watching Stumpy kill, but if that weasel had made it through the fence, all of the chickens would've been dead. So Mary walked to her faithful friend and rubbed his head, petting him vigorously. "Good boy! Good Stumpy!"
Stumpy wagged his tail as he tossed the weasel aside. Tongue lolling, he lifted his head and pressed his nose against the basket.
Stumpy loved fresh eggs, and he seemed to have no trouble crunching the shell and digesting the bits. Mary smiled and placed an egg on the ground in front of him. It was Second Christmas, and he had saved the hens. Stumpy deserved a treat.
Stumpy pushed the egg once with his nose, barked, and then chomped the treat down. When he’d finished, Mary rested the handle of the basket in the crook of her arm, and they started back toward the house. As she walked, she noticed a dark smudge on the horizon. The clouds above were heavy and white, and the occasional flurry would brush across her face as she walked, but the smudge seemed more ominous.
Mary walked as quickly as she could without jostling the eggs too much. When she got to the buggy, her sister Esther was putting pans of food into the black storage box in the back. They had a large family buggy with two horses because even with her three oldest siblings being married and moved into their own homes, there were still four children in addition to Mamm and Daed. And Stumpy.
Stumpy ran past Esther to the front of the buggy where the horses had been harnessed. He stopped at the horses’ side and began barking loudly.
Mary followed, still holding the eggs. "What's wrong, Stumpy?"
The horses stamped nervously. Esther shouted, "Get that dog away from the horses."
Mary grabbed Stumpy by the collar and started to pull him away. But Stumpy was agitated, and he kept his gaze and nose pointed to the leather strap where the horse harness and tree of the buggy were connected. Mary squinted at it. Was something wrong? She’d watched her brothers and father harness the horses to the buggy many times, but she'd never done it herself, and she didn't know what it was supposed to look like. It was probably fine.
Even so, when she and Stumpy had made it back to the back of the buggy, Mary asked Esther, "Are you sure that the horses are harnessed right? Stumpy looked worried."
It was the wrong thing to say. Esther gave Mary a long look, and then laughed. “Stumpy is a dog. Stumpy doesn’t know anything about harnessing horses to a buggy.”
Esther was right, but still, it hurt. Mary couldn’t help being little, and Stumpy couldn’t help being a dog. It was like they both didn’t matter.
“Well, hurry up and get in,” Esther ordered. “We don’t have all day.”
Mary held up the basket of eggs. "I should put these inside," she said.
Esther looked up. "What were you doing in the henhouse?" Esther asked.
"Mamm told me to go. Me and Stumpy."
"Well, put the eggs and Stumpy in the house. He can come and go as he wants through the dog door."
"No! Daed said Stumpy could go with us. Aunt Susie wants to see him."
Mary wasn't sure if Aunt Susie wanted to see Stumpy or not, but she had gotten permission from her daed yesterday before evening prayers to bring Stumpy along.
"We can't have an excited dog with all the food."
"Daed gave his permission." Before Esther could continue the argument, Mary turned, with the basket of eggs still held in the crook of her arm, and strode quickly toward the house.
She lined the eggs up carefully in their tray on the refrigerator door and ran back out of the house to the buggy. Everyone else was already inside. As Mary climbed in, Stumpy darted around her legs and settled himself on the floor. He laid his chin on his paw and closed his eyes halfway. Mary squished herself onto the bench beside her sister. Her brother Jeremiah closed the buggy door and sat next to John. Her father and mother, both on the driver’s bench, started the horses moving.
"Are you sure we’re not going to get a storm?" Mary asked, thinking back to the dark smudge she had seen on the horizon as she went to the henhouse.
"Silly! It's barely even snowing, and we only have a half an hour to go to get to Aunt Susie's."
Mary nodded and pushed her gloved hands into her coat pockets.
The inside of the buggy was snug, warmed by the
heat of her family and a small heater in the front dashboard area. Thick blankets were draped over the laps of everyone in the family. The front of their buggy was enclosed with Plexiglas windows in front of the driver’s bench and covering the back opening. Mary snuggled down beneath the heavy quilts, and Stumpy settled himself at Mary's feet. As her older siblings started talking, Mary shifted on the bench and looked out the small back window. Soon they would be at Aunt Susie's!
Through hill and valley,
the horses did dash,
as a storm came up on them,
with a bang and a flash.
Snug in their buggy,
the family knew not,
the depth of their peril,
thanks be to Gott.
TEN MINUTES INTO THE ride, the snow started falling more quickly. Mary leaned forward so she could see it outside of the window. When they had left, the snow had fallen in lazy white flurries, but now it was thicker and blowing in slightly sideways. A layer of snow had already blanketed the tree branches in white. Looking through the back window, the buggy’s wheels cut twin grooves in the snow. Mary rested her fingertips on the window, and cold seeped through them, a refreshing contrast to the warmth inside the buggy.
"What are you looking at?" Esther asked.
"The snow!"
Esther didn't turn around, but she did look up and behind her. "It’s coming down pretty hard," she said.
Mary nodded.
The last time Mary and her mamm had gone to town, English Christmas music had flowed through the walls of the fabric store where they had stopped to pick up quilting materials “to keep our hands and minds busy through the winter.” More than one of the songs filtering through the speakers had been about the glories of a white, snowy Christmas. For Mary though, having a Second Christmas snowfall was so much better. If the snow had fallen yesterday, it might have grown too deep and thick for the buggy to pass through. But now they zipped along the road and the world behind and in front of them was painted anew by the hands of Gott.
Stumpy barked.
"Did you want to see the snow?" Mary asked, looking down at the dog who stared up with excited eyes. Stumpy barked again, and Mary shifted over, lifting the quilt so that he could scramble up underneath and then stand on his hind legs and lean one paw up against the window.
