An Amish Country Christmas

by Hubbard, Charlotte; King, Naomi

  “Jah, I can remember how your dat would eat us out of house and home at your age,” Uncle Abe said with a chuckle. “Your mamm probably cooks a lot of lamb, what with him raising them, ain’t so?”

  “Oh, not so much,” Nate replied. The glance he sent to Bram felt as heavy as the meal they were eating. “He sells off everything he raises, as there’s a lot of call for mutton amongst foreign folks in the big cities.”

  “And it’s not like lamb’s a big favorite at our house,” Bram added. “Mamm turns up her nose at the smell of it—”

  “Well then, your mother’s never learned to eat what the gut Lord has provided.” Beulah Mae rose stiffly from her chair, achy from spending so many hours on her feet, no doubt. “I recall some years when I was a girl and the cows and hogs died of infections, so we couldn’t butcher them. Went months without fresh meat, we did.”

  Oh, but this conversation was going nowhere . . . just like the four of them. Had his aunt really been so young and fresh and exciting that Abe had slipped away from their families’ Christmas rituals to court her? Martha had laid down her fork, as though looking ready for an excuse to leave, while Mary still picked at her food as she stole glances at him from across the table. Mary, Mary, quite contrary . . . oh, what I’d rather be doing with you right now, perty girl . . .

  “Maybe we’d best hold off on dessert until after our supper settles,” Beulah Mae said as she clucked over the four golden-crusted pies. “We can have some coffee in the front room, maybe play a game of—”

  “But I’ve been looking forward to your pie all day, Aunt,” Nate cut in. “Your rhubarb has always been my favorite.”

  “Did you bake a cherry one, or a peach?” Bram said in a rising voice. “Of course, no matter what kinds you made they’ll be like none we get at home. Mamm’s not the baker you are—but don’t tell her I said so!” he teased as he looked at his uncle.

  Abe chortled, making his white beard shimmy across the front of his deep green shirt. “You boys have something other than pie on your minds, and I can’t say as I blame you. Not every day a fellow gets a fine new rig— or a girl to ride it with. Let’s have that pie now, Beulah Mae. Blackberry for me, please.”

  The twins rose together to scrape the plates, as eager to move this evening forward as he and Nate were. His aunt planted a fist against her hip, glaring at the way Uncle Abe had overridden her idea, but she took a pie cutter from its peg on the wall. She was probably peeved because while she and Abe had cleared their plates, their four younger guests had stalled out over the second and third helpings she’d pressed upon them. Bram had been taught not to waste food, of course—but then, his parents didn’t insist that he reload his plate, either.

  He stole a glance at the kitchen clock while his aunt was cutting pie. Eight o’clock already, even if time had felt like it was standing still all afternoon and evening while they did what they had to do. It was such a pain to be polite! Yet as he caught Mary’s smile when she moved next to him to clear his place . . . inhaled her fresh scent as her deep red dress brushed his arm . . . Bram sensed she would make all this waiting well worth his while.

  “Wonderful-gut rhubarb pie, Aunt,” Nate said, closing his eyes over his first big bite.

  “Jah, this cherry’s mighty fine, too,” Bram said. His aunt made her pies in smallish pans, so it wouldn’t take them long to finish their dessert and move along.

  The girls were nodding in agreement over their slices of peach pie, forking up the golden filling that had oozed onto their plates, while Abe and Beulah Mae made short work of their dark slices of blackberry.

  “See there?” his aunt clucked. “If you boys were staying the night like you’d first told me, you could be having pie again before bed—and for breakfast if you wanted.”

  Uncle Abe chortled. “We’ve got plenty enough left to send a few pieces along with them.”

  “No, that’s not how it works. Pie freezes, if need be.” The woman at Abe’s left took her time catching her last crumbs between the tines of her fork. “I suppose you young folks’ll be dashing off now, leaving me with all the—”

  “No, no!” Mary insisted. “Matter of fact, Beulah Mae, you deserve some sit-down time in the front room by the fire while Martha and I wash these dishes—”

  “Because, jah, after you fixed us a fine meal like this one,” Martha joined in, “it’s our job to redd up. And if the boys think that’ll take longer than they want, well, the dishrag and tea towels will fit their hands same as they fit ours, ain’t so?”

  Abe laughed aloud at that, and Beulah Mae actually cracked a smile. “Best idea I’ve heard all day, girls,” she remarked wearily. “Denki for your help, and pass along my best to your folks for me . . . knowing, of course, that it might be tomorrow before you do that.”

  At last their uncle ushered his wife out to the front room. Nate rolled his shirtsleeves to his elbows and began filling the sink with hot, sudsy water. “I’ll wash and you dry, brother, just like when we were kids. Mamm insisted the cleanup wasn’t just for girls—since she didn’t have any,” he added for the twins’ benefit.

  “Jah? That’s different,” Martha replied as she stacked dirty plates alongside the sink.

  Bram snatched up a clean towel, happy to be helping here rather than enduring stories of long ago in the front room. “Our mamm grows several acres of vegetables and jack-o-lantern pumpkins to sell at farmers’ markets. Our aunt Miriam buys Mamm’s produce for her café, too,” he explained. “And with keepin’ her bees, sellin’ the honey at our roadside stand—and watchin’ out for Dat’s mamm, who lives in the dawdi haus—she’s got her hands full. But don’t think for a minute that we’ve been raised as sissies,” he murmured close to Mary’s ear.

  Her low laughter and flushed cheeks teased at him. “You think we would’ve invited sissies to stay over?” she murmured.

  Her blue eyes sparkled like snowflakes catching the sun. Bram was grateful that his brother washed dishes faster than anyone else he knew, and that Mary helped him dry while Martha wiped the table and stacked all the clean dinnerware there. Half an hour later, he and Nate were slipping out to the stable to hitch up Felix and Clyde before saying their good-byes . . . and riding off into this paradise of a moonlit winter’s night . . .

  Chapter Five

  Mary scooted closer to Bram on the seat of his courting buggy, wishing she’d thought to bring some old quilts. While the colored Christmas lights looked merry and bright, the rig didn’t have a top on it, so they were at the mercy of the wind. But what an absolutely beautiful night it was, with the stars twinkling in a navy velvet sky above a countryside that glowed a pale blue in the twilight. Nate’s sleigh had taken off in the other direction, so now only the clip-clop! clip-clop! of Felix’s hooves broke the serene silence as she directed Bram along the back roads of Cedar Creek.

  “I’ve been waitin’ all day for this,” he murmured as he wrapped his arm around her. “I thought the kids would never get their poems memorized—”

  Mary smiled. Joanna and Jacob had found all manner of distractions and questions to ask Nate and Bram this afternoon while practicing their Christmas Eve pieces.

  “—and then when we couldn’t find the footboards for those beds we were puttin’ together, I was ready to say we’d sleep on the floor!” he continued with a good-natured shake of his head. He sighed then. “Denki for bein’ a gut sport during supper, too. Hope you didn’t get upset when my aunt was actin’ so peevish.”

  “We’re all used to that, you know,” she remarked. “Every now and again Preacher Abe gets after Beulah Mae for being so testy, because folks expect a minister’s wife to rise above what irritates her and show Christ’s own patience. Not an easy order to fill when she’s got a restaurant to run. Plus she’s been catering holiday dinners for most of December.”

  “Jah, I’m surprised he lets her keep workin’ that way. Not all preachers allow their wives to be so busy, or away from home so much.”

  Mary shru
gged and it turned into a shiver. “She’s helping make ends meet. What with him not being paid as a preacher—since long before I was born and for the rest of his life—Bishop Gingerich doesn’t fuss about her outside work, so nobody else does, either.”

  Bram nodded and then gazed down into her eyes for the longest time. “Why on God’s gut Earth am I fussin’ over my aunt when I’ve got such a sweet somebody sittin’ at my side?” he murmured. “Windy as it is, I’m thinkin’ we should find a place to get in out of this cold. Would you like that, Mary?”

  Now there was a loaded question! She knew good and well the weather wasn’t Bram’s only reason for wanting to duck inside somewhere . . . and while she would enjoy a bit of snuggling, she sensed this fine-looking fellow was used to getting whatever he wanted from his girlfriends. “Well, I suppose we could warm up for a bit, before we—”

  “I know just how to do that, too, honey-girl,” he replied with a low laugh. “Unless my eyes and memory are failin’, this next road cuts back over toward Nissley’s Ridge. Uncle Abe had some clean, sweet-smellin’ hay in a back stall. We’ll be all cozy and out of sight there.”

  When Mary shivered again, she inadvertently shifted closer to Bram, no doubt giving him the idea she was ready for whatever he wanted to do in that stall. “Are . . . are you sure it’s a gut idea to slip into your uncle’s stable? What if he—”

  “Want to go to your place then?”

  Mary gasped. “Oh, no! What with my older brother Owen courting his fiancée tonight, and Jacob probably watching for us to come in, and Dat waiting to meet you—”

  “So where else might be gut, then?” Bram nuzzled the temple of her bonnet with a kiss.

  He had a point. Even though she knew everyone hereabouts, they couldn’t just sneak into a neighbor’s stable. This fellow’s intentions were a little nervy for a first date, but she really did want to see if Bram kissed as good as he looked . . .

  “Wherever you think we should go, Mary-girl. I’m all ears . . . and lips and hands needin’ to get warm. Know what I mean?”

  And how could she answer that? A no would make her sound like she’d not been out with a boy before, while a yes meant she was eager for anything Bram cared to try. Mary chuckled quietly. “If you’re sure Nate and Martha won’t be thinking the same thing . . .”

  Bram’s breath shot out in a burst of vapor when he laughed. “My brother’s not lookin’ to get serious any time soon, not after the way a Willow Ridge gal he was courtin’ married another fella. He’ll probably head to your place directly, because his sleigh’s no warmer than this rig.”

  A few minutes later they turned onto the road that followed the crest of Nissley’s Ridge, and then Bram slowed his horse . . . reached down to unplug the colorful Christmas lights. Very quietly he told Felix where to turn in, and then steered them to the back side of the barn, away from the house. It appeared that all the lights were out in the Nissley house, so Mary relaxed. The way they told it, other Amish kids did this all the time, after all—and it was better this way than to be sneaking into her bedroom at home, or taking the chance that any of her family might walk in on them in the front room. Bram deftly helped her down, clutching her gloved hand in his as he ever so quietly slid the barn door to the side.

  A couple of horses nickered and the musky scents of hay and manure greeted them. “Better let our eyes adjust so we don’t step in anything,” Bram whispered as he closed the door. But instead of looking toward that back stall he’d mentioned, he pulled her close and lifted her chin. “Mary, kiss me now. Kiss—”

  Oh, but he surely did know how to do that. Mary’s breath left her as Bram’s lips found hers and lingered there. With his mouth gently holding her captive he removed his gloves and then her bonnet, to frame her face with his hands.

  “Ohhhh,” he murmured, “I’ve got to have more of this. I knew it would be gut between us. Come on.”

  Was the barn spinning, or was she dizzy from his kiss? Mary tiptoed along behind Bram, her heartbeat thundering in her ears as she stepped around a pile of horse apples. If she got any of that on her shoes, it would be no secret where she’d been. She still felt twitchy, thinking somebody might walk in on them . . .

  “Here we go. I set up a few bales for us to sit on,” he said as they entered the last stall. “And behind them is a nice clean nest to cuddle in. Let’s take off our coats. Plenty warm enough for that now.”

  He’d set this up before dinner, figuring to bring her here after their ride! Mary didn’t know whether to break away and put him in his place or to admire the way he’d been planning ahead . . . wanting to be alone with her. Her pulse pounded as she slipped her coat off and he draped it over the stall wall with his. His fedora and her bonnet landed on top, and then he smiled at her in the darkness. “This is more like it, ain’t so?”

  When Bram sat down on a bale, he kept hold of her hand. She landed beside him and before she could say anything his lips were on hers again . . . not that she wanted to protest. He pulled her closer and her arms slipped around his waist, and somehow they drifted backwards into that nest of hay.

  “Mary, think of it,” he said as he held her. “With the experience I’ve gotten—the money I’ve saved up—I could be runnin’ my own auction business. Meetin’ you makes me want to jump the fence so those gut things could happen sooner, and—”

  As he kissed her again, Mary’s thoughts raced. She pulled away to gaze at him in the darkness. Bram was so handsome with his black, layered waves framing his face, and his expression beat anything she’d ever seen with the fellows she’d dated in Willow Ridge. “But Bram, you heard what Mamma said about us girls joining the church and—”

  “It’s a wider world out there than you know, Mary,” he insisted. “If we get out and spread our wings now, before we’ve said our vows, we can always join later. Or if we don’t join, we won’t be shunned for goin’ against the Old Ways.”

  Mary’s mouth dropped open. It was way too soon for Bram to be suggesting—

  He seized the opportunity to kiss her again, more urgently. “I don’t want to do it by myself, though, honey-girl,” he pleaded. He leaned up on his elbow so he was gazing down at her, holding her close. “I knew you were different from anybody I’ve ever met, soon as I saw you, Mary. And now that we’re talkin’ this way, cuddlin’ and kissin’, I want it to go on and on—”

  “Off might be the better word for you, nephew. It’s one thing for you to be having such thoughts of breaking away from our faith, but another thing altogether to lead Mary down the path to perdition with you.”

  With a little cry, Mary struggled to sit up as Preacher Abe raised his lantern above them, lighting the entire stall. Her face was on fire. Abe had obviously heard the secret dreams Bram had poured out, but would he tell Bram’s parents? Or worse yet, tell hers? Oh, but Mamma would give her and Martha an earful for inviting such wayward boys to stay with them—and then Dat would have his say, too. No doubt in her mind that their parents would send the Kanagy brothers packing, first thing after they heard from Abe. “We—we’d best be getting home, Bram,” she rasped as she struggled to her feet.

  “Best idea I’ve heard since I came in to check on my lame mare,” the preacher agreed. “Mighty disappointing, to hear a nephew turning his talents—his ambitions—toward worldly ways. You’d do well to follow in your brother’s footsteps instead, Bram.” Abe watched them brush the hay from their clothing and escorted them to the door. He was still holding the lantern, watching them as Felix trotted down the lane toward the county blacktop.

  Mary hugged herself, saying nothing. Her fears were running amok, her thoughts racing ahead to what she would say if her parents challenged them about this incident. Preacher Abe and the bishop had been known to stop at folks’ houses at all hours of the night when they learned a soul might be in danger of straying from the fold. This matter was much too serious for Preacher Abe to leave a message on the phone, where it might not be discovered for a day or two. Her pu
lse pounded dully in her ears as she hunkered down against the brutal midnight wind.

  “Mary, I—” Bram exhaled, sending out a cloud of vapor. “It wasn’t my intent to get us—to get you—in hot water. I just wanted you to know how special you are—”

  “Um, we’ll soon find out how special your uncle thinks we are,” she remarked in a thin voice. “If he goes over home to tell Mamma and Dat—”

  “Then I’ll sign on for my instruction, soon as I get back to Willow Ridge,” Bram insisted. “I don’t want to lose you over this, Mary. I meant every word I said. And . . . and I want more of your kisses, too. Soon as I can get them.”

  Mary was too scared to answer that. When the courting buggy rolled up the lane and stopped a short ways from the front porch, she didn’t take the chance that Bram would go after more kisses in the barn. Mary hopped down into the snow, took off her shoes on the porch, and then entered the dark house in her stocking feet. What a relief that no one had waited up. Oh, the things she had to talk about when her twin came in . . .

  I sure hope Mary’s having a better time than I am, Martha mused as she looked away from her driver. Wasn’t Nate cold enough to at least sit against her? Why hadn’t she thought to grab some blankets on their way out? And after this frosty, disappointing ride, Clyde’s sleigh bells would alert everyone that they were home, too. Jacob and Joanna would get out of bed to pester them. Dat would probably be waiting up, reading the latest issue of The Budget so he could meet the Kanagy brothers. After the fun the four of them had shared earlier today, why was Nate being so quiet now that they were alone together?

  Was it something I said? Martha wrapped her arms around herself more tightly as the wind passed through her old coat. As she thought back over the day’s conversations, she recalled Bram saying his brother had been stiffed by a girl he’d been courting—but I’m not that girl, am I?

  As she gazed at his profile in the moonlight, she unwrapped a stick of gum in her coat pocket and then slipped it into her mouth. Nate Kanagy was a fine-looking fellow. Maybe not as flashy as his younger brother, but she was okay with that. Her parents would see his joining the church as a sign of maturity, which would be an improvement over their opinions of the boys she’d slipped out with in the past . . . including a few Mennonite fellows and even an English kid who’d picked her up in his sports car down by Cedar Creek where no one would spot them. Traditionally, Plain girls kept their boyfriends a secret and their folks went along with that until time to announce an engagement. Mamma and Dat had gotten word now and again of which fellows had driven her home from Singings, and to say they hadn’t always been pleased was an understatement. But if the sweet tingle of peppermint was the most exhilarating thing she’d felt on this sleigh ride, something was wrong here!