An Amish Country Christmas

by Hubbard, Charlotte; King, Naomi

  “And James has closed his shop until after the holidays.”

  Nate shrugged. “Not many other carriage makers around here. And it’d be best to leave the buggy close to home so it’s easier for you to pick it up when it’s fixed, ain’t so?” he asked. “We can hitch your buggy behind the sleigh, with your horse tethered behind. Clyde’s strong enough to get us there—”

  “But we were figuring on spending the rest of the day—”

  “Maybe longer, so we brought along a change of clothes.”

  “—having a gut time with you fellows.”

  “And, truth be told, I’m not wild about Noah finding out what we did to this buggy we share with him. We didn’t tell him we’d be taking it, see.”

  Nate followed the twins’ ping-pong ball conversation as he reached into the bin of cookies one of the girls—Mary, he was guessing—offered him. As he bit into a ginger snap that woke up his mouth with its bold spices, he certainly understood why the twins didn’t want to be seen at home after they’d ducked out of the house. There was really no need to disappoint them, was there?

  Bram had already grabbed a wrench, unfastened the broken wheel, and set it inside the buggy. He came up and snatched a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cookie from the plastic bin, slinging his arm around the girl who held it. “Let’s think about all the possibilities over breakfast somewhere. Not a Plain café, though, or we’re bound to see folks who know us or know our families.”

  “They’ll all be closed today, anyway,” Martha pointed out, and the way she focused on Nate made his heart skitter. “But if we park the buggy behind James’s shop and slip Taffy into his stable—”

  “That would work!” Mary piped up. “The Grabers won’t be home from visiting kin in Queen City until a day or two from now! We’ll pay James for a little hay along with fixing the wheel.”

  “See there? It’ll be just that easy to stay out and around for however long you girls would like,” Bram said as he chose a frosted sugar cookie. “Me, I’m just real glad you’re both willing to spend time with us again, after the wild ideas I was tryin’ to sell you on yesterday morning.”

  Nate, carried along on this wave of good cheer, nodded. “And I hope you two can forgive the way I took your switch-around so seriously. It’s not like you were trading places on your wedding day, when the vows would be forever.”

  The sisters grinned mischievously at each other. “Now there’s an idea!”

  “Jah, I’ll keep that idea in mind in case we need it someday!” Martha stood on tiptoe to leave a noisy kiss on Nate’s cheek. And didn’t that make the morning sun sparkle on the snow in a million shiny-bright diamonds?

  “Breakfast!” Bram declared. “I want to save these cookies for when we’re sleighing later. Awfully nice of you girls to treat us.”

  “So breakfast will be Bram’s treat,” Nate teased. “Let’s hitch up your rig and get ourselves along. I know of a place outside of Roanoak that serves up a never-ending stack of pancakes, and we can decide what we want to do after we drop off your buggy. Sound gut?”

  “Oh, you don’t know how gut,” Martha replied.

  “Jah, it’s like starting our birthday all over again with a fresh slate. A lot better than yesterday!” Mary answered happily.

  Nate smiled at both girls, but especially at Martha. It is better than yesterday. And you can be the hero if you get past the way Roberta dumped you last spring.

  Roberta? Who’s Roberta?

  Nate chuckled as he tied the shafts of the buggy to the back of his sleigh. Once Bram had fastened Taffy behind the buggy with a lead rope, they took off like a Plain parade headed back toward Cedar Creek. With Martha beside him and Bram cozying up to Mary in the backseat, it promised to be a Second Christmas such as he’d never imagined when he’d gotten up this morning.

  And wasn’t it just like the Coblentz twins to make life fun again?

  As Mary sat beside Bram in a booth at Flo’s Down-Home Diner, she closed her eyes over a bite of chocolate chip pancake smothered in warm strawberry syrup. The four of them were talking and laughing as though yesterday’s conflicts hadn’t happened, and the rest of the day shone bright with promise. Bram and Nate were devouring three eggs apiece alongside their pancakes. A large side order of bacon sat in the center of the table, and as Nate reached for a couple of slices he gazed at her with a . . . curious expression on his face.

  “Am I right that you baked most of those fabulous cookies, Mary?” he asked.

  She blinked. Nate was studying her very intently, so she squirmed a little and her face got hot, even as she sat close enough to Bram that their thighs brushed. “Jah, that would be me.”

  “And I like that about you, Mary. Enough that I want to get to know you better—even though I’m pretty sure it’s Martha who makes my clock tick,” Nate continued in a low voice. “What say you sit up front in the sleigh with me this afternoon while your sister spends some time with Bram? If we’re eventually going to pair up, I’m thinking we brothers and sisters need to understand each other before we make any commitments.”

  Martha’s eyebrows rose. “So, you’re saying it’ll be like when we girls decided to switch around on you—”

  “Except this time everybody knows about it,” Nate finished. “Truth be told, I still have trouble telling you apart.”

  “And this early on, I’m all for keepin’ things light.” Bram scraped the last of his eggs onto his fork, grinning. “I say let’s do it! We all need to be gut friends with each other, first and foremost.”

  Martha rolled her eyes. “This, coming from the fellow who was all set to hire both of us girls yesterday. And rent us an apartment, too.”

  Mary giggled as she elbowed him. “Don’t believe for a minute we couldn’t keep your head spinning so fast that you’d never know which one of us was which, Bram. You wouldn’t stand a chance, you know.”

  “I figured that out on the way home yesterday. Had plenty of time to think about what a fix I would’ve been in, had you two gone along with my ideas.” Bram smiled at Martha, his dark eyes sparkling, and then he grinned at Mary. “But when you called me this morning, I was just happy—and relieved—that you’d set that all aside. I thought I’d really messed things up.”

  “Oh, jah, you had! Big time,” Martha remarked as she took a slice of bacon.

  “But we didn’t tell our parents the part about jumping the fence with you,” Mary continued, twinkling with this happy chatter. “So all we heard about for the rest of our birthday was how badly we had messed up, letting you two hard-working boys from a gut family leave us behind.”

  “But don’t let it go to your heads.”

  “We’re just in this for some fun, after all. But we really do appreciate your coming to our rescue—”

  “And feeding us this wonderful-gut breakfast.”

  Mary smiled to herself. She and her twin could still make both of these boys strain to keep up with the way they finished each other’s sentences and followed the same train of thought with their rapid chatter. Nate’s suggestion was indeed a way to keep from getting too attached too soon . . . a way to double date and keep all their options wide open.

  So when Nate urged Clyde into a trot again and they headed north to Cedar Creek, Mary felt bubbly and light. She loved the happy sound of the sleigh bells. The same farms they’d passed in the darkness now glowed in the late-morning sunshine and cardinals called from tree to tree. It felt comfortable to sit with Nate, to sense that he was coming out of his shell—maybe setting his misfortune with his former fiancée behind him, at last—even though she knew she’d be happier with his brother. Martha looked contented, too, bundled up in the blanket Bram had brought along. They had about half an hour before they got to the carriage shop.

  “I know!” Mary said. “Let’s play a game of True Confessions. I’ll ask a question we all have to answer, and then it’ll be somebody else’s turn to ask something.”

  “Oh, that could get wild in a hurry,�
� Bram remarked.

  “Jah, but it’s only a game. All in fun,” Nate said.

  “But here’s our chance to share our deep, dark secrets—or not!” Martha said. “What’s your question, Mary? Make it a gut one, now!”

  “Hmmm.” Mary thought for a moment. “What’s something your brother—or sister—does that really sets you off?”

  Beside her, Nate laughed loudly. “That one’s easy! Bram gets these hair-brained ideas that he blurts out before he thinks twice. So then he not only steps in it, he puts his foot in his mouth!”

  “Ewwww,” Martha teased.

  “Jah, well you, brother Nate, take yourself waaay too seriously,” Bram retorted. “It’s like you were born under a big black cloud and you don’t know how to have any fun.”

  Mary raised her eyebrows as she looked up at their driver. “Maybe it takes spending time with a couple of sisters like us to change all that.”

  “I like that answer . . . and your attitude,” Nate replied quietly.

  The way he smiled at her made Mary appreciate his depth. If the brothers were to work closely with each other as they matured, it was good that Bram would have Nate to balance out his impetuous notions—even though she adored Bram’s spur-of-the-moment personality. “And what about you, Sister?” she said as she turned toward the backseat.

  “Oh,” Martha said in a dramatic tone, “it peeves me to no end that Mary always comes across as the sweet, obedient little do-gooder. So any time the parents find fault with something we’ve done, they always figure it’s me who fell short.”

  “And they’re right!” Mary teased. “And you still pout and whine about it just like you did back when Mamma smacked us with her fly swatter, when we were little. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, you know.”

  “That’s fine, if it’s flies you really want to catch!” Martha replied.

  When she stuck out her tongue at Mary, all four of them laughed. It was a welcome, jolly sound on a morning that could have gone so much differently. “Who’s next with a question?” she asked. “I’m liking this game a lot!”

  “How about this one?” Bram offered. “What did you do as a kid that your family thought was odd? For me, it was playing games like Sorry or Yahtzee all by myself,” he admitted. “When Nate went off to school or he was out choring, I would roll the dice or draw the cards and move two or three markers around the board to keep myself busy.”

  Mary blinked. “So there’s just the two of you boys? No other kids in your family to play with back then?”

  “Nope, just us.” Nate smiled as though he had indeed found his little brother an odd duck at times. “Which probably explains why, even today, Bram thinks he can deal all the cards and play all the positions without needing anybody else.”

  It occurred to Mary then how lucky they were to have Owen, Noah, Joanna, and Jacob in their family. She had never lacked for someone to play with while she was growing up—but then, with a twin, she had spent her life with a constant companion since before she’d been born. Maybe Bram’s independent streak was mostly a cover. Maybe he was lonelier than he let on . . .

  “For Mary and me,” Martha said, “it was the way she and I could communicate without even saying anything—”

  “Or we’d finish each other’s sentences and keep our own little conversation running.” Mary jumped in. Then she laughed. “Like I did just now, without even thinking about it.”

  Bram and Nate laughed loudly, nodding at each other. “Jah, no secret there,” Nate remarked. “But then, that’s the way of it with twins, they say. Like the two of you are different peas but in the same pod.”

  “Always have been,” Mary agreed.

  “Always will be.” Martha shrugged. “If you fellows find that peculiar, well—deal with it!”

  Beside her, Nate shook with pent-up laughter. “Jah, no doubt in our minds that you girls really don’t need us to have a gut time, or to get by. Between the two of you, you can pretty much handle whatever comes along.”

  “And we like it that way,” Bram said. “We know plenty of clingy, cry-baby girls out there tryin’ too hard to latch onto a husband because they can’t do much without somebody tellin’ them what comes next.”

  For a moment, only the jingle of the sleigh bells and Clyde’s steady footfalls filled the wintry air. This game was bringing out some interesting revelations . . . and just maybe the Kanagy brothers were deeper into this date than they might admit. Mary gazed up at Nate, whose expression told of mysteries he wasn’t yet ready to let go of. “How about you?” Mary asked him. “Any little quirks you care to reveal to us?”

  “Oh, the parents always thought it odd that I talked more to the horses and sheep than I talked to them when I was wee little.” Nate kept his focus on Clyde’s backside, thinking back. “I had a couple of imaginary friends who lived in the hay loft, you see, so I went out there a lot to visit with them. Partly to get away from Bram, who was a holy terror and always got me in trouble.”

  Bram laughed. “Jah, I was real gut at getting Nate in on my tricks and then leaving him to explain how something got broken, or was done the wrong way. And I was cuter, of course, so Mamm believed me.”

  “That’s how I recall it, jah,” Nate replied. “Except for the cute part. There were some who said that with your curly hair, you were almost too pretty. Like a girl!”

  Mary and her sister laughed. As the sleigh went gliding along the county road, familiar scenery was coming into view. It wouldn’t be long before they had to figure out how to park the buggy behind Graber’s Custom Carriages without anyone—especially Noah—discovering it before they could explain the broken wheel and pay for its repair. “Okay, so what’s our next question?”

  “I’ve got one,” Martha said. “What’s the most un-Amish thing about you?”

  The four of them got quiet then, considering their answers. This was a more serious subject than childhood quirks or sibling dynamics.

  “Well, I don’t believe in hell, or in the eternal damnation Bishop Knepp and the preachers are always throwing up to us in church,” Bram replied quietly. “I believe that God is more like the father who welcomes the prodigal home, even after the son in that parable has done a lot of unthinkable things.”

  Mary’s heart stilled and then swelled within her. Bram’s statement, made so sincerely and with a lot of forethought, defied the most basic of Old Order beliefs. She sensed his reply indicated that he would rather raise his children knowing the love of the Lord rather than the fear that compelled so many Plain folks to live such tight, stoic lives. When Mary noticed the expression on Nate’s handsome face, she saw that he, too, was surprised by his younger brother’s reply. Something in his eyes told Mary that he sensed how Bram’s statement of faith had touched something deep inside her, and that he understood why she felt closer to Bram in a lot of ways.

  “For me,” Martha ventured, “it’s wanting a houseful of interesting guests instead of filling my rooms with kids. Mary and I have talked of starting up a B and B someday—I’ve even been taking small business classes online, on a Mennonite friend’s computer. But Mamma’s not happy about that. And nobody who’s Old Order Amish would understand why I want to do more than raise a family.”

  Nate’s grip tightened on the reins and he sat up straighter. “You know, our mamm was only able to have the two of us boys,” he remarked quietly, “so she’s been tending her bees and raising her vegetables on every spare inch of our property, to sell the honey and produce at farmers’ markets. And I think she’s happier that way than she would have been raising a raft of kids.”

  “For sure and for certain,” Bram chimed in. “And what with the economy being so tough nowadays, Dat’s glad she can help support the family—even if he doesn’t come right out and say so.”

  Isn’t that an interesting thing to know? Mary tucked her hand in the crook of Nate’s elbow as they came within sight of the Cedar Creek Mercantile and James Graber’s shop. Nate’s admiration for Mar
tha’s idea was evident . . . a sign that he was probably better suited to her sister, if their relationship got that serious. And she sensed it might.

  Before they could finish out this round of answers, however, Nate pulled the sleigh behind the carriage shop. From what Mary could see, nobody was watching them from the Lambright place across the road, and the Grabers still appeared to be away, as they had anticipated. While the boys unhitched the buggy from the back of the sleigh, Martha scurried toward the stable behind James’s house with Taffy. Mary remained in the seat to write a note on a napkin.

  James,

  We hope your family had a wonderful-gut Christmas visit in Queen City! Martha and I will be back soon for this buggy, but meanwhile we hope you can repair or replace our wheel. Tell Noah we’re paying for it, too, if he raises any ruckus. We also owe you for Taffy’s room and board. Denki so much! Mary Coblentz

  By the time Mary had set the message on the buggy seat and picked up the bin of cookies on its floor, her sister was returning from the barn.

  “I think we did it!” Martha exclaimed as she grabbed their duffels. “I didn’t see anybody out and about.”

  “Most folks are probably finishing their dinner by now,” Nate said as he swung up into the front seat of his sleigh again. He seemed as tickled about pulling off this adventure as she and her sister were, so as soon as Bram and Martha had climbed into the back they were headed down the snow-packed blacktop again. “We could stop by Uncle Abe’s place,” he teased. “Aunt Beulah Mae would be real glad to feed us, and you know her leftovers would be gut!”

  “Keep on rollin’!” Bram crowed. “They’re kin and all, but I’m havin’ waaay too much fun today to go there!”

  Mary smiled to herself, relishing the feel of the crisp winter air on her cheeks. Just you wait, Bram. The fun you can have with us—with me—will only get better once you and I are together again.