Amish Christmas Memories

by Vannetta Chapman

  Where was she from?

  In town, the main road was filled with other buggies as well as cars. She saw even more decorations, including festive window displays, city banners wishing everyone “Happy Holidays” and churches reminding people when their Christmas services would be held. It was only December seventh, but it seemed that everyone was getting ready for the holiday early.

  She was waiting at a signal light when a car of Englischers pulled up beside her, and a young child waved. She waved back as they pulled away. If it hadn’t been for the child, she wouldn’t have been looking in that direction, but she was...and so she saw the sign that said Montgomery Public Library.

  She was in the wrong lane. She had to drive another block before turning, but the entire time she could hear Caleb’s words in her ears.

  Amish women work hard, too. At least most of them do.

  He might not want to use the Englisch computers to learn about his new alpaca herd, but she was more than willing to look for a job on them. Something told her that if she wanted to move forward, the internet would be the place to start.

  Find a job. Earn some money. Remember who she was.

  It was a short list, and suddenly Rachel was sure it was one she could conquer.

  Chapter Four

  Rachel’s library search was not fruitful.

  First of all, the library was small—smaller than she had imagined. The room was about the size of Ida’s sitting room. The walls were lined with bookcases that were filled to capacity with books, but there wasn’t exactly a large variety of material and much of it looked quite dated. Worse, there were only two computers. Both were being used when she walked in, so she had to wait. While she did, she perused the bookshelves. There was a single shelf with books labeled Christian Fiction. She thought to check one out, then realized she didn’t have any identification.

  The librarian had been watching her—she was an older lady with shoulder-length silver hair and was wearing a bright red sweater that said Ho Ho Ho across the front. She stood about only five feet tall, and Rachel couldn’t help envisioning one of the elves she’d seen as part of a lawn display on her drive into town.

  “Problem, dear?”

  “Only that I don’t...well, I don’t have any identification. I’m staying with John and Ida Wittmer.”

  “You must be the girl Caleb found in the snow.”

  “Ya. Unless he found two, and I haven’t met the other one yet.”

  “I’m pretty sure it was you—Amish, young, pretty and with freckles.” She walked over to Rachel, patted her on the arm and smiled. “I mean no offense, dear. You’re quite the topic of conversation around our little township—a real Christmas mystery.”

  “I never thought of it that way.” Rachel turned back to the books, allowed her fingertips to caress the spines. Had she always liked to read? What were her favorite types of books?

  “You can pick out up to three items.”

  “But I don’t have an identification card.”

  “So you mentioned.”

  “I don’t even remember my own last name, and...and I don’t have a home address.”

  “For now, your home address is Ida and John’s place, which I know because they both have a card here.”

  “They do? I thought Caleb said...”

  “I’m well aware of Caleb’s opinion on the matter, but I suspect one day he will marry and perhaps his wife will be able to soften that stubborn spirit.”

  Rachel didn’t know how to answer that. From what she’d seen of Caleb Wittmer it would take more than a wife to change his attitudes—it would take divine intervention.

  “As far as your last name, we’ll just put Rachel for now. I make up the entire library staff—well, me and one part-time girl who works a few hours in the afternoon. So there’s no one to tell me what I can and can’t do. I’m Mary Agnes Putnam, by the way, but most people just call me Mary Agnes.”

  The woman was as good as her word. While Rachel picked out one novel and a slim volume of poems by William Blake, Mary Agnes printed her a library card on an old printer, which sounded as if it was in distress. Rachel looked over a few cooking books, several historical tomes and some children’s titles. As she was walking toward the checkout desk, she spied a pile of books with the word Self-help neatly printed and taped to the wall beside it. She dug through the stack and came up with Crocheting for Dummies. Maybe she’d feel useful if she could at least use Ida’s crochet needle properly.

  Mary Agnes checked out her material, and Rachel confessed, “I came in to use the computer.”

  “Indeed? We get that a lot around here.”

  “Maybe I should come back.” She glanced over at the two old gentlemen who were still at their monitors.

  “I’ll take care of those two for you. They’re playing chess—with one another—on the computer!” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “We have a chessboard on the game shelf, and even a table where they can play, but both Albert and Wayne say they need to learn to travel the information highway. That’s what they call it. So they play chess every day on the monitors. Fancy the things that people do.”

  Mary Agnes ran off the two men, who claimed it was time for their lunch, anyway. She showed Rachel how to log on and directed her to Montgomery’s virtual job-search board.

  But thirty minutes on the computer only increased Rachel’s frustration. She couldn’t fill in any applications with no last name. She didn’t know what her educational level was. Ida had mentioned that most Amish students attended school through eighth grade. Had she? Who knew? Maybe she’d lived in a district that went to school through twelfth grade like the Englischers. Did any Amish do that? She certainly couldn’t recall her employment history, though if she was twenty-five she must have worked somewhere.

  Sighing in frustration, she logged off, picked up her three books and thanked Mary Agnes for her help. She stepped out into a day that felt more like fall than winter. She should go on to the store and pick up the items on Ida’s list, but then she remembered Ida telling her to take her time. What was it she had said?

  Do something whimsical.

  She couldn’t imagine what that might be, so she walked over to the parking area and checked on the buggy horse, who was contentedly cropping grass.

  Whimsical?

  There was a park bench in the middle of the grassy area on the north side of the library. No one else was around, so she made her way across the small area and sat down, eventually putting her head back and closing her eyes. The sun felt good on her face, and some of the tension in her shoulders eased—as long as she didn’t think about her predicament.

  Instead of worrying, she focused on the word predicament. She could practically see the definition printed on a page. An unpleasantly difficult, perplexing or dangerous situation. Now, why could she remember that and not her own name? She was puzzling over that enormous question when someone cleared his throat.

  She opened her eyes to find Bishop Amos standing beside her.

  “Oh. I didn’t hear you walk up.” She jumped up, but Amos waved her back onto the bench and sat down beside her.

  “This is one of my favorite places in Montgomery.”

  “It is?”

  “I can see and hear what’s going on, but I’m away from the sidewalk or street. Sometimes I bring birdseed and scatter it out in front of me.”

  “The sunshine feels gut.”

  “Ya? And how do you feel?”

  Rachel could have lied and said she was fine, but something about the way Amos asked the question and waited for an answer told her he was really interested. So she found herself confessing to her frustration at not being able to remember things, her guilt that Ida and John had done so much for her, and her conversation with Caleb over how she needed to get a job.

  “He said that, did he? That you should go
to work...today?”

  “Not in so many words, but it’s what he meant.”

  Amos was maybe the oldest bishop that Rachel had ever known. His skin looked like fine tissue paper, and the only hair on his head were wispy strands at the very top. He had giant white bushy eyebrows that wiggled up and down when he smiled, which he did a lot. Rachel had met him only twice, and already she knew that he was that kind of bishop—the kind, fatherly, compassionate type.

  “Caleb’s a good boy,” he finally said, folding both hands on top of his walking cane and leaning forward to stare down at the ground.

  Rachel glanced down to see what he was looking at and spied a trail of ants marching beneath their feet. Funny how she hadn’t noticed them before.

  “Can’t be easy, I imagine.” Amos paused, as if he was waiting for her to agree.

  “What can’t be easy?”

  “Being an only child in an Amish family. It’s unusual. You’re the odd man out. Might make a person keep to himself. Might make him more stubborn.” Amos glanced sideways at her and the bushy eyebrows arched up and down again.

  “Yes, I can understand that. What I don’t understand is why does he have to take it out on me? Why be so insulting? I’m not a lazy person.”

  “Of course you’re not.”

  “And I’d get a job if I could.”

  “Having something to do does add value to our days.”

  “But no one will hire me. I was just inside looking on the computers, and I can’t get past the first page of the application. It keeps reminding me to fill in all the boxes, when I don’t know what to put in them. You know things like ‘last name’ and ‘address’ and ‘place of birth.’”

  “A computer can be good for some things,” Amos admitted. “I myself like to check the weather on it.”

  He straightened up, popping his back in the process, and smiled at Rachel as if he’d answered all of her questions when, in fact, he hadn’t.

  “You use the computers?”

  “Ya. We’re not so backward here in Montgomery. Personally, I hope the day never comes when I see one in an Amish home, but many things are useful in small doses—automobiles, telephones, computers. They’re useful for certain things and certain times.”

  “What do you mean, exactly?”

  “Only that in some instances it’s best to do a thing face-to-face.”

  “You think I should go knocking on business doors and ask them to hire me? Why would they when I’m a complete stranger to them and have no references?”

  “I’ll be your reference.”

  “Thank you, Amos, but I don’t think—”

  “There’s a quilt shop here in town, owned by a nice Mennonite woman.”

  “I can’t remember if I know how to quilt.”

  “And there’s Gasthof Amish Village.”

  “What is that? I saw a sign for it as I came into town.”

  Instead of answering, he said, “I know the owner there as well as the person who manages the auction house.”

  “We have an auction house?”

  “Yes, I think one of those might be a good answer for your dilemma, Rachel.”

  “You mean for Caleb’s dilemma.”

  “Oh, you can’t do this because Caleb wants you to—or because you think it will please Ida or John or even me.”

  “I suppose I could use the money.”

  “More than that, you need to listen to your heart.” Amos tapped his chest. “Your heart is asking something of you, Rachel. Your job is to listen and pray—then and only then should you decide what you will do.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “In the meantime, I’ll check around. We’ll talk on Sunday and see if what your heart is saying matches up with any opportunities I’ve found.”

  He tapped his walking stick against the ground, bounded off the bench with the energy of a man twenty years younger and settled his hat onto his head. “Gotte be with you, Rachel.”

  “And with you.” The words slipped off her tongue, unbidden, remembered.

  * * *

  Caleb was in the back pasture, mending yet another section of fence that the alpacas had managed to push through.

  “Worse than goats?” Gabriel asked.

  “Maybe not worse, but as bad...” Caleb wiped the back of his arm across his brow. Sweating in December was probably a bad sign. His mother would say it meant a blue norther was waiting around the corner.

  Gabriel moved next to him and held the fence post in place while he twisted the strands of wire. When they’d finished, they sat on top of a stack of small hay squares, watching the alpacas.

  “Strange animals,” Gabriel said.

  “Indeed.”

  “Are they growing on you?”

  “I haven’t asked to get my money back yet, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Is that an option?”

  “Probably not.”

  Gabriel pulled a piece of hay from the bale and stuck it in his mouth. They’d been friends as long as Caleb could remember. Gabriel was the brother Caleb had never had.

  “Ida stopped by to see my fraa, told her that Rachel had taken a real liking to the animals. Even named them all.”

  “And what did Beth think about that?”

  “That it was a gut sign. That maybe it meant she wouldn’t run away.”

  Caleb snorted. “Why would she run? She’s living a pretty sweet life here.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Nein.”

  “Only—”

  “I suggested she get a job.”

  “Huh-oh.”

  “And she took offense.”

  “I wonder why.”

  “Come on, Gabriel. We are Plain and we work. It’s what we do. It’s not like we can sit around all day and watch television or play on our cell phones.”

  “Saw my cousin with one of those the other day. I’ve no idea how he affords it.”

  “My point is that my comment wasn’t out of line. I was trying to be helpful.”

  “Ah.”

  “What does ‘ah’ mean?”

  “It’s what Amish men do, according to Beth. We give our opinion, even when no one has asked for it, and then say that we’re trying to help.”

  “Only Amish men?”

  Gabriel laughed, and the easiness of it, the way it went all the way to his eyes, stirred an unfamiliar sense of envy in Caleb. Between the two of them Caleb had always been the first to do things. He was the first to shave, the first to ask a girl on a date and the first to be dumped by a girl. He’d joined the church a year before Gabriel. He was two inches taller than his best friend and twenty pounds heavier—muscle, not extra poundage. He was smarter in school, faster in sports and a better farmer.

  None of that mattered.

  They were best friends in every sense of the word.

  Maybe he’d considered himself special in some way because he was an only child. It could, after all, be both a blessing and a curse.

  Gabriel was the middle child in a family of seven. He’d always worn well-patched hand-me-down clothes. He didn’t purchase his own buggy until he’d married, and he’d never had his own bedroom. None of that seemed to bother Gabriel, though.

  Things didn’t matter to Gabriel. People did.

  He’d met Beth and they’d courted and married and had a child. In one year, he’d achieved everything Caleb had dreamed of, everything that had slipped through his fingers when Emily had walked away after proclaiming him stubborn and strong-willed and impossible to be with. He hadn’t shared that last part with Rachel. The memory of those words still stung, and perhaps that was why he had stopped courting. Finding someone to share his life with hadn’t happened, and he was beginning to doubt it ever would.

  “Beth has another t
heory.” An alpaca had wandered closer to them. Gabriel reached out to touch it, but the animal jumped, screeched its cat sound and bounded away.

  “Why am I worried?”

  “It’s about Rachel.”

  “Beth has only met her once. How can she have a theory?”

  “I suppose it’s actually about you.”

  “Worse still.” Caleb crossed his arms, fighting off the urge to be offended. “Well, let’s have it. Beth has proved her wisdom by marrying you. Perhaps I should listen to her.”

  “Compliments won’t make this any better.” Gabriel sat up, propped his elbows on his knees and interlaced his fingers. “Her first theory is that you were used to being an only.”

  “An only?”

  “Only child. And we both know your mamm has always wanted a daughter around the house.”

  “Remember the year she set me up on dates once a month? Talk about a nightmare.”

  “But now she has a girl in the house...one that Gotte practically brought to your doorstep.”

  “She wandered here. Remember? If I hadn’t seen her when I did, she probably would have kept on walking.”

  “If you hadn’t seen her, hadn’t rescued her, she might have died there in the snow. Remember it reached into the twenties that night, and you said yourself she had no coat.”

  Caleb didn’t pretend to understand the how or why of Rachel’s appearance, so instead he motioned for Gabriel to continue.

  “So now your mamm has a daughter, your dat has someone to dote on and suddenly you’re not the center of their attention.”

  “A welcome relief, I can tell you.”

  “Uh-huh, and yet your mood hasn’t exactly improved.”

  “So I’m what...jealous?”

  Gabriel shrugged. “It’s only a theory—Beth’s theory, not mine.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “If you say so.”

  “And her second theory?”

  Gabriel stood and brushed hay from his pants. When he glanced up, there was a twinkle in his eye and a smile tugging at his lips. “Easy. That you’re falling for Rachel.”

  “Falling for her?”