An Amish Gift

by Cynthia Keller

  “It’s apple season in the fall. That’s when we get the really crunchy ones.”

  “Do I have to finish it?”

  Jennie shook her head. “Leave it for me. I’ll use it with the others to make applesauce.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Homework?”

  “Not much.”

  “Why don’t you take Scout for some exercise in the front yard? Throw him a ball.”

  At the sound of his name, Scout got up from under the kitchen table and came over to Jennie.

  “Okay.” Willa didn’t sound excited, but she told Scout to come with her, and the two left.

  Jennie could hear her daughter entreating the dog to fetch the old tennis ball they kept outside for this purpose. Deciding to set the table early, she opened the silverware drawer and was gathering forks when she heard Willa scream the dog’s name in the front yard.

  There was a screeching of car brakes, a moment of quiet, then another screech.

  “No!” Willa shouted. “Scout!”

  Jennie ran to the front door. Willa was kneeling by the dog, who lay on his side in the middle of the street. She looked up at her mother in horror.

  “He was hit by a car,” she shouted as Jennie raced over to them. Her voice took on the edge of hysteria. “He ran into the street to get the ball. I didn’t mean to throw it there, I swear. And the man just drove away, really fast.”

  “It’s all right, Willa, it’s not your fault.”

  Jennie dropped to her knees. Come on, Scout, please, she begged silently, please be okay. The dog’s eyes were open and he was breathing shallowly. At least he was alive.

  “Stay here with him,” she ordered Willa, running back into the house.

  With shaking fingers, she frantically looked through the county phone book for the number of an animal hospital. She spoke to a nurse, then grabbed her car keys and drove the car closer to where Scout lay. They gently moved him into the backseat, his head on Willa’s lap. Jennie sped to the vet’s office as her daughter tried to talk soothingly through her tears to the whimpering dog.

  “Will he be okay, Mom? Will he?”

  “I hope so, honey.”

  When they got to the hospital, the staff took over, putting Scout on a gurney and wheeling him in at once for X-rays. Jennie and Willa were left to sit in the waiting room, both of them teary-eyed and afraid of the news they might get. A receptionist called Jennie over and handed her a clipboard, asking her to fill out the attached forms. As she made her way through the questions, her heart sank. No, she checked off, they did not have pet insurance. Yes, she and her husband were financially responsible for the dog and agreed to pay the charges incurred. She left the completed forms on the desk and sat down, wondering what it was going to cost and how on earth they were going to pay. There was absolutely no room in their budget for such an emergency.

  After a seeming eternity, the doctor came out to speak to them. “Your dog has a broken leg and some broken ribs, but we think he’s going to be okay. We just have to finish with some of the other tests.”

  “Oh, Mom.” Willa was overjoyed, and they both let out sighs of relief.

  “The ultrasound indicates there’s no internal bleeding. We’ve done blood work to check his organ functions. We’ll keep him here—if everything checks out, I’m guessing it’ll be for two nights. Let’s talk tomorrow to discuss the next step.”

  Jennie thanked him. On the ride home, Willa and she were acutely aware of Scout’s absence in the car and how close he had come to being killed. The house that night was far too quiet, in her opinion, not that Scout was prone to making much noise. Everyone was reflective for the next two days; no one even seemed to have the desire to argue.

  At last it was time to bring Scout home. Jennie stood near the receptionist in the waiting room, and the doctor came out to see her. The family would need to give Scout pain medicine and keep him from extensive activity, but he should be fine after his leg and ribs healed. They were to change the bandage every few days and, after he was better in a few weeks, bring him back for a final check. Jennie thanked him and he left, saying Scout would be brought out but she should see the receptionist first.

  The receptionist presented her with the bill.

  She almost gasped aloud. Three thousand dollars. She ran her eye over the itemized charges. Tests, medicines, lab work, even a bandage change. It was a long, expensive list.

  “How will you be paying for that, Mrs. Davis?” the receptionist asked.

  With my life’s blood, she wanted to say. She had no idea what she was going to do. She had about seven hundred dollars left from the money Shep’s brother had given her, and she had decided to hold on to it for an emergency or, with any luck, put it toward college for Tim.

  This qualified as an emergency, but even if she used the entire amount, it would barely make a dent in the bill.

  The receptionist smiled, waiting for an answer.

  “Is there someone I could talk to?” Jennie managed to get out. “About, you know, a payment plan or something like that?”

  The smile disappeared as the woman reached for the phone. “I’ll see if someone in billing can speak with you now.”

  Jennie sank down on one of the waiting room chairs, wishing she could crawl under it and hide. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so embarrassed. Now she would have to grovel to make some arrangement, and she couldn’t even guess what that might be. There wasn’t any extra money coming in that could go toward the debt. She doubted the billing people would appreciate her promise to pay it off over ten or fifteen years.

  She turned to gaze out the window, humiliated and furious at the same time. This was it. This was the limit. Trying to go along with Shep, letting him have his way about running everything alone, was one thing. Her agreeing to sit around and not work, an able-bodied person capable of holding a full-time job, was another. They needed a second income. Now. Whatever his difficulties with the idea of his wife working, they were no longer part of the equation. She was going to find a way to make some money. She would pay off this bill and make it so that every financial surprise didn’t leave them teetering on the edge of calamity. In her heart, though, she knew this decision would make things between her husband and herself worse than they already were. If that was even possible.

  Chapter 10

  “There’s a good boy.”

  Scout lay on the floor while Jennie removed his dirty bandage and replaced it with a fresh one, trying to move his injured leg as little as possible. When she finished, she stroked his back and murmured reassuringly to him. He put his head down and sighed, a sound that always made her and the children laugh because it seemed so human. She didn’t laugh at the moment; she felt sorry for him, medicated and groggy, limping, and doubtless in discomfort from his broken ribs.

  She tossed out the old bandage and sat down at the kitchen table to review her list. For the past few days, while everyone else was out of the house, she had been compiling ideas about what she might do to earn money. Her prospects were not encouraging. She wasn’t proficient enough with computers to be an assistant in an office. Home shows selling kitchen tools or clothing were out because they required finding people to host shows and invite customers; she knew barely a soul here. She didn’t have money to invest in inventory or fancy equipment. Nothing in the want ads seemed appropriate for her. She had spent hour after hour calling retail stores to see if there were any openings, but she’d come up with only a few part-time shifts at odd hours.

  “Help me out here, Scout,” she muttered to the dog. “There’s an answer somewhere, so why can’t I find it?”

  She glanced over at him, snoring gently. “You’ve been through enough this week, old buddy. I shouldn’t bother you with this stuff. It’s just …”

  Shaking her head, she put the list in a drawer where no one was likely to stumble upon it; no point in discussing any plans before they were fully formulated. It was time to concentrate on dinner. Tonight sh
e was keeping a long-overdue promise to Tim to make a carrot cake like the one he had been served at the Fishers’; Mattie had given her the recipe back in the fall. She sighed, recalling that it was well before Abraham died. She opened the refrigerator, reaching for the carton of eggs. First she would mix the meat loaf and get that into the oven.

  She heard the front door open.

  “Tim?”

  “Yeah, what?”

  “Hi, honey. Come in here and tell me about your day.”

  Her son appeared in the kitchen doorway, his backpack slung over one shoulder. He was eating a candy bar, half unwrapped.

  “What do you want to know?” He didn’t look eager to talk.

  “Anything you want to tell me.”

  “Boring day. Same as always.” He held up the half-finished chocolate. “This is the best thing that happened to me all day. How’s that for an exciting life?”

  She smiled as she set the eggs down on the counter. “Candy is one of the simple joys of life. Everybody loves a day with candy in it.” She stopped, the smile disappearing, her hand still on the egg carton. That was true, wasn’t it? Everybody loved candy.

  She could make candy and sell it.

  Not that she knew anything about making candy, but surely she could learn. She envisioned trays with rows of chocolates and pastel confections, decorated in delicate lace designs of every color.

  “Hello? Are you still with us?”

  Her son’s voice snapped her back to the present.

  “Oh, sure, sorry.” Tomorrow she would research the idea further, see if she was on to something or out of her mind to consider it. “Lot of homework tonight?”

  He didn’t answer but crossed the kitchen to stoop down next to Scout and scratch behind his ears. “They couldn’t get rid of you so easily, eh, pal? You’re a lot tougher than you look.”

  I hope the same is true of me, thought Jennie, or we’re all going to be in big trouble.

  The next day, she spent the better part of the morning online, looking up recipes and candy-making techniques. Then she went to the library to take out books on the subject. Spreading them out on the kitchen table, she compared recipes, lists of necessary equipment, and the level of difficulty for various categories of candy. There was a lot more to working with chocolate than she had realized, like understanding the different types to get the result you were going for, and tempering it. She decided the easiest place to start was something more elementary, finally selecting peanut brittle as a jumping-off point. No exotic ingredients were needed, although she would have to buy a candy thermometer, clearly a basic tool of the trade. The recipe required throwing a few things into a pot until it reached a certain temperature, spreading the mixture onto a flat pan, and letting it cool. Simple.

  She jumped into the car and returned in under an hour with everything she needed. It seemed so easy, she thought, stirring the water, corn syrup, and sugar in a pot. When that started to boil, she added lots of Spanish peanuts and stirred some more. All she had to do was wait until it became a nice brown color, then add some baking soda. It was hard to tell exactly what color that should be, though. At last it started turning brown, but she wasn’t sure if it was brown enough. She continued to stir, and the smell of burning peanuts filled the air. Her heart sank. She had waited too long.

  Everything went into the trash. She hadn’t anticipated such a total failure, so she had to go back to the store for more peanuts. This time she got at least three times what she needed, and began again. She reread the recipe, triple-checked to make sure everything was ready in advance, and watched the mixture like a hawk. When she felt certain the moment was right, she poured in the small amount of baking soda. The hot mixture expanded and bubbled up faster than she had anticipated, spilling over the top of the pan. It took her so long to clean up the gooey mess, she had to stop for the day; Willa would be getting off the school bus, and Jennie didn’t want anyone to know what she was trying to do. She hurried around the kitchen, cleaning and putting away the ingredients before taking out the trash with her failed experiments. If she couldn’t do this one simple recipe, she thought, there wasn’t much hope for the future. Her visions of delicate chocolates and irresistible sugar creations receded into the distance.

  The next morning, as soon as everyone had left, she was back at the stove. This time everything went smoothly. With a broad grin, she broke the cooled and hardened brittle into pieces. At least they looked like peanut brittle was supposed to look. She bit into one. Delicious. She let out a whoop.

  “I did it!” she announced to Scout, who was snoozing nearby. “It actually tastes like peanut brittle.”

  He opened one eye, then shut it again.

  “Oh. You’re right,” she said. “That wasn’t nice, since I can’t give you any.”

  She placed the pieces on layers of waxed paper, then into one of the decorative tin containers she had purchased. The next step was to get some consumers’ reactions—those consumers being her children. She waited until they had finished dinner and were reluctantly clearing the dishes. It was just the three of them; as usual, Shep was working late.

  As casually as she could manage, she brought out the tin of brittle and opened it. “Kids, I made this today. Do me a favor and tell me how it is.”

  Tim was closer to her and grabbed a piece. “I didn’t know you could do this, Mom,” he said as he chewed.

  “But how is it?” She held the box out to Willa.

  “Give me a minute, will ya? Why are you all nervous?” He took another bite. “You know, it’s actually great. You did a fine thing here.”

  Willa gingerly nibbled at hers. “Yum. I mean, yum.”

  “Really?” Jennie asked. “You swear?” she said to Tim.

  “Yes, I swear. What’s with you?” Her son rolled his eyes and left the room, grabbing a second piece as he went by.

  “I have a math test tomorrow,” Willa said, heading out, peanut brittle in hand. “But thanks, this is awesome.”

  Alone in the kitchen, Jennie was pleased if not satisfied by their reactions. She had made it too obvious that she wanted their praise. At least Willa would have noticed that and made sure to say something nice; Tim was happy to eat pretty much anything, so his reaction was a bit suspect anyway. She needed a more objective opinion.

  She checked the kitchen clock. Seven o’clock, not too late. Shouting out to the children that she would be right back, she drove to the Fishers’ house. The dim light of their battery-operated lanterns and propane-powered lamps was visible through numerous windows. Mattie and her relatives were in their respective parts of the house, all busy with some chore or another, she guessed. A barefoot Emma came to see who was knocking on the door.

  “Hello.” She greeted Jennie with a smile. “Are you here to visit with my mother? She’s sewing a new dress for Becky. She’s already as big as me, so we don’t have enough dresses for both of us!”

  “Does your mother make all your clothes?” Jennie’s curiosity momentarily trumped her purpose for being there.

  “Yes.” The little girl thought about it. “Not the hats for my brothers. But everything else I can think of.”

  Just another little hobby, Jennie thought, making the entire wardrobe for such a huge family.

  “Should I tell her to come?”

  “No, Emma, don’t bother her if she’s busy. I made this peanut brittle for all of you. Would you give it to your mother and tell her I hope you enjoy it?”

  Emma reached out for the tin.

  “Thank you,” Jennie said. “Could you ask her something for me? I’ve never made it before, so I’d like to know if it tastes good or not.”

  The little girl gave a solemn nod and turned around to follow Jennie’s instructions. Smiling, Jennie got back into her car. She would learn the truth about her peanut brittle soon enough.

  She didn’t hear anything the next day. It wasn’t as if Mattie would call on the telephone, so that left either a visit, she told herself wryly, or a
message sent by carrier pigeon. Early in the evening, unable to wait any longer, Jennie drove back to the farm. It was still light, and as she approached the house, she saw Mattie standing near the vegetable garden, talking with Peter and Sarah. She came around to where she was visible and called out hello.

  “Jennie,” said Mattie with pleasure, “I received your gift last night, but you did not come in. Why?”

  “You were busy.”

  She frowned. “Not too busy to say thank you for a gift.”

  “It was nothing. But if you got a chance to eat it, I would really like to know your opinion. Did you like it?”

  “It was good.”

  Peter and Sarah nodded in agreement.

  “Yes. It was. I ate so much, my stomach hurt,” Sarah said.

  “I ate more than you, and my stomach was fine,” Peter said. He glanced toward the barn. “Excuse me. I have to take a look at Maisie.”

  “A cow who is not so well,” Mattie explained to Jennie as he walked away.

  “And I’ll get back to my sewing,” Sarah said. “I’m working on a pillow cover.” She said good night.

  Jennie turned to Mattie. “You said you tried the peanut brittle?”

  She nodded.

  “And you liked it?”

  “Yes.” Mattie smiled.

  Three for three, Jennie thought. She had her answer. The Amish weren’t prone to hyperbole or empty praise. They didn’t brag about what they did; nor did they go on and on giving anyone else compliments. When they said good, that was exactly what they meant. It was probably the highest praise she could have hoped for.

  “You are worried that something was wrong with it?”

  Jennie was overwhelmed with the need to confide in someone. “Mattie, I have to find a way to make some money.” She paused. “We’re pretty much broke. Shep works hard, but the store doesn’t bring in enough.”

  Mattie looked sympathetic but didn’t say anything.

  “I came up with the idea of selling candy. So I made that to see if I could do it. I know it’s not unique or anything, but still. That’s what I’m really asking: Is it good enough to sell?”