Tom jumped when a snowball hit the middle of his back, and as they turned toward the house, Vernon’s black felt hat flew off his head. Feminine laughter rose up from behind a tall, curling drift and then two more snowballs hit their coats.
“You girls are incorrigible!” Vernon called out.
“Jah, we’ve heard that before,” came Jerusalem’s reply.
“All work and no play makes Tom a dull boy,” Nazareth added.
“Hah! Well, we can’t have that.” Tom stuck his shovel into the wall of snow they’d been cutting through and grabbed a fistful of snow. “What’s gut for the goose is gut for the gander.”
“They won at Scrabble so we can’t let them show us up again this morning,” Vernon declared as he, too, reached for some snow. “Hmm! Powdery as this is, how in the world did they form—”
Before either of them could pack a solid ball, two thickly padded figures in brown work pants, barn coats, and stocking caps rushed down the path they had cleared to grab their shovels. Jerusalem and Nazareth were laughing as they attacked the snow with the metal blades.
“Time for your break, boys,” Nazareth announced. Her breath came through her scarf in wisps of white as she tossed her first shovelful to one side, where the snowbank rose as high as her waist.
“Can’t let you old codgers be havin’ heart attacks,” Jerusalem chimed in. “What with the roads bein’ snowed shut, we couldn’t get the ambulance here.”
“You’re calling me old? Might be snow on the roof,” Vernon retorted as he patted his white hair, “but the fire’s still burning below.” He retrieved his black hat and then playfully whacked it against Jerusalem’s backside to get the snow out of it.
“Never doubted it, Bishop. But we can take our turns with the shovels,” she said with a laugh. “Keeps the blood pumpin’, ya know.”
“Yes, I do know about that. Flirt.”
“Not me. I’m a workin’ girl, helpin’ out every chance I get.”
Tom chuckled. While he had watched Vernon in action as a young fellow during their rumspringa, he had forgotten how easily this man bantered with women . . . how his blue eyes drew them like magnets. It was food for thought that this esteemed leader of their faith still admitted to his sexuality, as Vernon was a bit older than he and the Hooley sisters. He kept his language clean, but there was no mistaking the meaning beneath his turn of phrase.
After a few minutes of indulging the women’s need to be useful, Tom and Vernon reclaimed the shovels. When they got to the barn doors and could slide them on their tracks, Nazareth and her sister hurried inside. He and Vernon cleared more space around the door to keep the barn from being drifted shut anytime soon. They also shoveled the area around the little shed that housed the diesel generator, which ran Tom’s milking machine. By then it felt good to be in the dim, musky building and out of the wind.
As he shut the door, Tom had to smile: the sisters had lit the lanterns and they were baby-talking to the four goats while they scraped the manure from the back stall. In a few moments, the sound of milk hitting a metal bucket echoed in the back of the barn.
“Jah, you’re a gut little girl, Bessie,” Nazareth said in a low sing-song. “Givin’ us lots of nice milk today.”
“And are ya stayin’ warm here in Tom’s barn, Billy?” Jerusalem asked the buck. She was rubbing his forehead with her knuckles so he wouldn’t feel the three females were getting all the attention. “Mighty glad we got ya here ahead of this weather. Can’t imagine how you’d be doin’ if we’d left ya at Hiram’s.”
“Ah, but we wouldn’t have forgotten ya, Pearl,” Nazareth continued as she slipped a rope around the goat’s neck and then around a slat of the stall. The bucket scraped the barn floor as she positioned herself for milking. “And you, Matilda, are gettin’ to be a chubby thing, ain’t so? Won’t be long before that baby pops out.”
Tom smiled at Vernon. It was a shame Nazareth had never married, as she would have made a wonderful mother. “Guess I’d best get to my cows and stop listenin’ in on their goat chatter.”
“I won’t interrupt your routine, as it’s been years since I milked,” Vernon replied. “Guess I’ll do some mucking.”
“We’ll be needing a few bales dropped down from the loft, if ya don’t mind,” Tom said, gesturing to the storage area above them. “Fork down some of the loose stuff, too, to use on the floor.”
“I can do that.”
Tom smiled as he coaxed his cows into the stanchions. The morning chores went faster because he wasn’t doing them alone, and when he saw the devilish grin on Vernon’s face as he climbed to the loft, he figured his friend might have something . . . mischievous in mind, and that it probably involved Jerusalem. Sure enough, as he was hooking the milking machine to the last cow in line, a startled squawk rang out.
“Now what on God’s gut earth—?” Jerusalem cried out. “Vernon Gingerich, that was an ornery thing to do, droppin’ straw on my head! Do I look like a cow to you?”
Now how’s he gonna get out of that one? Tom glanced up at the figure in the loft as the whole barn got quiet. Every creature there seemed to wait for Vernon’s answer.
“Even in Tom’s clothes,” the bishop began in his low, unruffled voice, “you’re as radiant and wondrous as that angel who appeared to the shepherds, telling them the good news of Jesus’ birth.”
Tom heard a quiet snicker, Nazareth’s most likely. Another squirt or two of goat’s milk hit her bucket.
“Nice try, Vernon,” Jerusalem said as she brushed the loose straw from her shoulders. “But let’s don’t forget that those shepherds were scared outta their wits by the sight of that angel. That’s why all the angels in the Bible go around sayin’ ‘fear not’.”
“And like those shepherds, I stand in awe of a woman so well versed in her faith that she shines . . . and who’s kind enough to play along with a prank that probably wasn’t my finest idea.” Vernon leaned on his pitchfork, gazing down into the stall below him. “Will you forgive me, dear Jerusalem?”
Tom shook his head, wondering how—once again—Vernon had turned a touchy situation to his own advantage by allowing a woman to decide his fate.
“Well . . . since you asked so nicely, I suppose I could. But don’t let it happen again,” Jerusalem warned.
“I wouldn’t dream of upsetting the woman who’ll be cooking my breakfast.”
Jerusalem’s laughter rang around the rafters of the barn. “Jah, Hiram never knew how close I came to tinkerin’ with his food a time or two. But let’s not talk about him anymore. He’s history.”
“Gut idea, Sister,” Nazareth replied. “No need to spoil all this fun we’re havin’.”
Tom had released the first cows and was wiping udders on the next group, hooking them up to the milking machine. Had Vernon set up that little situation to impress Jerusalem? To get her attention? Tom decided not to ask, even when he and Vernon were alone, for what man hadn’t put his foot in his mouth a time or two?
When the women finished tending their goats, they insisted he and Vernon come in for breakfast before they plowed the lane—mostly because Jerusalem and Nazareth wanted to ride on the horse-drawn blade. And in snow this deep, their added weight would keep the wide plow bar steadier so fewer trips would be needed.
Tom moved with swift efficiency through the rest of the morning’s milking, feeling more lighthearted than he had in years. Lettie had taken no interest in the outdoor chores unless he absolutely needed her assistance, after their sons had married and moved away . . . but there was no need to think about her, either, was there?
She’s history. Best to move on, because a whole new future has opened up . . . And even though that future included a lot more responsibility for all the souls in Willow Ridge, Tom felt confident that he could handle whatever came his way. God was always at work in earthly affairs, even when situations didn’t appear to be going well. He’d gained even more respect and trust from his district’s members these past few months wh
en Hiram was behaving so arrogantly—as well as more experience at dealing with renegade behavior.
Thank you, Lord, for standin’ by me whenever I’ve needed Ya . . . even when I didn’t know I needed Ya. This time with Vernon—and with Naz and her sister—has been yet another gut gift from You. I feel so happy, like a man restored . . .
As he entered the kitchen behind Vernon, Tom closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. The aroma of cinnamon, and French toast frying in butter, and maple syrup warming on the stove—and bacon—made him all the more grateful for Nazareth’s company. She was still wearing his old work clothes, with his blue bandanna handkerchief tied snugly over her head and coiled hair, yet she looked so at home in his kitchen, as though she’d cooked here for years...
And Lord, Your will be done . . . but if there’s any way this fine woman and I can be together and still follow Your path . . .
“It’ll be on the table in about five minutes, fellas.” Jerusalem smiled at them, looking particularly perky in his loose blue sweatshirt with a red kerchief covering her steel-gray hair. “We got enough goat’s milk to make another batch of cheese, so be thinkin’ about what you’d like us to make from it.”
Tom settled into his chair at the table to put his shoes on, thinking he must be the luckiest man on the face of the Earth. His morning chores were done, his home smelled heavenly, he was surrounded by the love and laughter of good friends. He spotted a long white envelope on the countertop nearest the door.
“Guess I’d best solve the mystery of what that attorney sent me,” he remarked as he went to fetch it. “Probably another one of those advertisements offering to help me sue somebody—like I’d be interested in such a thing.”
“Jah, I wonder how my name gets on their mailing lists,” Vernon remarked. “It’s not like we Amish put any store in the English legal system.”
Tom’s fingers shook a little as he tore open the envelope. His eyes skimmed past the letterhead. Dear Mr. Hostetler, It is with sincere sorrow that I must inform you of the death of Lettie Marie Hostetler Redd . . .
Tom froze as solid as the hydrant pipe on the north side of the barn.
Chapter Five
Nazareth heard Tom suck in his breath. When he didn’t let it out again, she quickly shut off the gas burner. “What is it, Tom? You’re white as a sheet.”
No answer. He was staring right at her, yet didn’t seem to see her.
“My word,” Jerusalem murmured. “I hope it’s not serious-bad news—”
“Oh, my,” Tom rasped. The letter fluttered from his hand to the floor. “I—I think I need to sit down—”
“Seems like a fine idea,” Vernon said as he gently guided Tom to the nearest chair at the table. “We’ll get you a glass of water—”
Nazareth was two steps ahead of the bishop’s suggestion and moved the glass from her place to where Tom could reach it. Her mind spun with all sorts of emergencies and disasters that might have happened to his kids, or to kin that he’d mentioned in Indiana. But surely those folks would have called or written the news themselves rather than going through a lawyer. His expression had turned to a blank mask of shock, such a contrast to the joy that had shone in his eyes when he’d entered the kitchen moments ago. She wanted to snatch that letter up off the floor. But it wasn’t her place to butt into his business.
“If you’d like a moment alone,” Vernon continued with quiet urgency, “we’ll wait in the front room.”
Tom blinked, exhaling. “No, I . . . maybe you’d better look at that letter, Vernon, to be sure I’m not mistaken. It says . . . it says Lettie has passed on.”
Nazareth gasped and looked at her sister, who was gazing right back at her, wide-eyed. All the possibilities—the prayers and dreams she’d dared to imagine—danced in her mind, but this was no time for such girlish folly. Tom had loved his wife deeply and he’d been shattered by Lettie’s desertion and the divorce. He’d lived without her for nearly a year now, but that didn’t mean his broken heart had hardened against her. Lettie probably hadn’t had the faintest idea—hadn’t cared—that Tom, true to the Old Ways, had forgiven her even though he hadn’t understood why she’d left him.
Nazareth stepped behind his chair, gently placing her hands on his shoulders. “Tom, I’m so sorry,” she murmured.
“This is quite a shock,” Jerusalem whispered as she, too, stood behind Tom with a hand on his back. “You’d think somebody would’ve come by the house, or—”
“Do the kids know, Vernon? Does the letter say anything about when, or . . . how?” Tom asked. “It was like I forgot how to read . . . like my eyes couldn’t focus once I saw that first line of the letter.”
“Understandably so.” Vernon pulled a chair closer to Tom and then took a pair of rimless eyeglasses from his shirt pocket.
As the bishop read silently, Nazareth peered at the page but then looked away. Even if she could read the tiny typewritten print from here, it was wrong to look at it unless Tom asked her to. When the sizzling food on the stove began to smell too hot, Jerusalem went to turn off the fire under the fried apples. This was no time to be serving breakfast, but there was no sense in ruining the food, either.
After several moments, Vernon cleared his throat. “Well, my friend, this attorney was carrying out wishes Lettie informed him of a while back—that you and your four children be informed, should anything happen to her,” he explained. “She and the English fellow she married were killed instantly when an electric power pole landed on their car in a storm, about a month ago.”
“A month?” Nazareth gasped. “You’d think somebody could’ve gotten word to Tom sooner.”
Vernon shrugged. “We don’t know all the circumstances. The letter mentioned they were out in Arizona when the accident happened, so it might have taken a while to identify them. Especially if the car caught fire.”
Nazareth winced and Tom’s body tightened beneath her hands. No matter how cruel Lettie’s leaving had been, no one deserved such a horrible death. “Oh, my. This brings pictures to mind I’ll be seein’ for a while, even though I wasn’t there and I never met Lettie.”
Beside her, Jerusalem sighed. “Wonder what God was tryin’ to say by takin’ Lettie in a car, with electricity . . . two of the worldly temptations we Plain folks avoid.”
Vernon caught Jerusalem’s eye with a silent admonition. “It’s not for any of us to speculate about, what the Creator’s intentions were.”
“Jah, you’re right about that Bishop. I apologize for bringin’ it up.” Jerusalem stepped away as though she could hold still no longer. Always a woman who had to be busy at something when bad news came along. “Can I pour anybody some coffee? Or make some tea?”
“So, what’s to happen to—does she need buryin’, then?” Tom’s voice was barely audible, but his question made Nazareth want to weep.
Vernon smiled sadly. “The two of them were cremated and scattered, again as part of Lettie’s wishes. Probably her way of sparing you and the kids having to arrange for her funeral.”
“Or her way of disappearin’ once and for all, without havin’ to come amongst us ever again.” Tom straightened in his chair, turning toward the stove. “Jah, I’ll take some of that coffee, Jerusalem. And let me say I’m mighty glad to have my best friends gathered around me at such a . . . time as this. If the kids were here, they’d be scrappin’ and fussin’ all over again, just like when I had to tell them about their mamm takin’ off.”
“Could be the snow postponed their mail delivery,” Nazareth murmured. “Otherwise, you’d think one of them would’ve called—”
“The only phone message this mornin’ was from my milk truck driver, sayin’ he’d be here to pick up my tanks as soon as the roads are cleared.” Tom looked at Nazareth, smiling wanly. “Truth be told, I can hold off talkin’ to the kids. And it’s fine by me that the roads out their way are most likely drifted shut like ours are. Gives everybody a chance to think things out . . . to let the old wounds settle down again. If
that makes me a thoughtless dat, then—”
“Nobody’d believe such a thing about you, Tom,” Jerusalem insisted as she brought them cups of coffee. “Lots of things in this life go better if we have a chance to pray over them before we turn our thoughts loose on anyone else.”
“Amen to that,” Vernon stated quietly. “And a moment of prayer for Tom and his family seems appropriate right now, too. It’s the least we can do—and the most powerful thing we can do.”
Nazareth bowed her head. Help me be the kind of friend Tom needs now, Lord, instead of pushin’ for what I’ve so wished could happen between him and me. Your will be done . . . and forgive me for bein’just a wee bit happy that maybe I’ll have the chance to be more than his friend . . .
Tom stirred beneath her hands so Nazareth lifted them from his shoulders. Vernon cleared his throat, and the powerful silence that had joined the four of them lingered for a bit as they blinked at each other.
“I feel better already,” Tom murmured. “And if Lettie’s affairs are already bein’ taken care of, well—there’s not a lot we can accomplish by sittin’ around feelin’ sorry. Mopin’ won’t get the lane cleared out, and there’s no reason not to enjoy that breakfast that smells so wonderful- gut, either. While it’s nice and hot.”
“We’ll have it on the table in two shakes of a goat’s tail,” Jerusalem said. She bustled to the stove to turn the burners on again while Nazareth refilled everyone’s coffee.
“It’ll be your call as to how we handle this, Tom,” Vernon suggested as the two of them moved to their places. “Everyone takes these situations in their own way, and your circumstances are different from most men’s.”
“Jah, there’s that,” Tom replied in a pensive tone. “And to ease my own mind, I think I’ll head to the barn after we eat . . . give all the kids a call. If they haven’t gotten their letters yet, it’s only right that they hear of their mamm’s death from me first.”
An Amish Country Christmas Page 17
