An Amish Christmas With the Bontrager Sisters

by Hannah Schrock

  But Jeramiah didn’t have a barn. Never inclined towards animal husbandry and rearing, Jeramiah had had no ambitions for a barn of his own. He tilled and planted the little land he had around him in the summer but mostly he preferred to work in the English town.

  The boppli’s cries grew more urgent and Sarah looked frantically about for a tiny bundle on the ground. The thought of the poor kinder, cold and frightened, made her heart wrench with pity. She stumbled forward, the ground freezing her feet. She found the barn door ajar and wrenched it open to seek its relative warmth.

  A bundle lay in the scattered hay, tiny fat arms pushing up into the air in protest as the cries grew louder still. The animals were pushed back into the dark corners of the barn as if they were scared of the boppli. Silly goats, Sarah thought as she knelt down on her knees and picked the child up.

  The boppli was beautiful, pink cheeked and pouty mouthed and his eyes were a sea of sadness.

  “Mother,” the boppli said. “Mother, I’m sorry,” and he began to cry in earnest.

  Sarah’s blood froze in her veins. She found the talking boppli horrifying, a terrifying work of the devil to lead her astray. She wanted to drop the boppli to the ground and run. A heavy hand came out of the dark and grabbed her by the shoulders. Sarah screamed.

  “You mustn’t,” Eli said gently but Sarah was ripped from her nightmare as consciousness filled her mind.

  The cold light of early morning peaked in through the windows and Sarah sat up with a jerk. She was late. Her feet scuffed the cold floor for her slippers. Jeramiah would be angry if he didn’t get his breakfast and had to go to work on an empty stomach.

  She was nearly dressed when she remembered that Jeramiah had left two months ago, that she no longer lived in her own home but with her Mamm and Daed and Martha. Sarah’s fingers grew heavy and the buttons on her skirts became impossible to manage. She let her hands fall heavily by her side.

  She let her knees buckle and fall to the floor painfully. She clasped her hands and prayed like she used to when she was a child, leading her younger sisters in prayer before bedtime. Every morning Sarah prayed like a child, in earnest, breathlessly and with feeling, for the safety of Jeramiah, for his safe return back to the faith, for the happiness of her children and for the safe delivery of the child Gott had blessed her with in His infinite wisdom.

  Sarah needed these moments of devotion to help her build herself back up, little by little every day. She got up on steadier feet and walked out the bedroom door. Mamm was baking fresh bread and frying eggs at the wood stove. Martha was tending to Isaac and Ruth, her gaunt children who became fearful every time she came in the room. They had never seen her this unhappy and they were loath to ask where their Daed was, lest it make Mamm cry again.

  “And how are my kinder doing this morning?” Sarah asked with as pleasant a smile as she could muster.

  “Gut,” they said enthusiastically, taking their cue from their mother’s good mood.

  “Eliza has a corn husk doll she made with her Mamm,” Ruth said through a mouthful of buttered toast. “Can we make one as well, Mamm?”

  “Of course we can,” Sarah said. “But you will have to find me the corn husks on your way back from school. And have you been helping Grossdaed?” she asked Isaac.

  “Ja,” Isaac said. “I help every day before and after school. I collected these eggs in the barn,” Sarah thrilled at the pride in his voice. She found it incredible that her children still had the will to go on, to feel happy and accomplished when she felt broken.

  “They are wunderbaar,” Martha said fondly tussling Isaac’s hair. “Now come, finish your breakfast. We are going to be late.”

  Sarah cleared the table while Martha got the children and herself ready for a day of work. Sarah had decided, when she had moved in with her parents after the Ordnung, that her presence around the house would be a boon to Mamm and Daed. Isaac could help Daed around the barn and fields and she could take on the duties of the house to provide Mamm with some rest.

  “Sit Mamm,” Sarah said gently taking the skillet from her. “I’ll make us some eggs and then you rest with some coffee and I shall start the laundry.”

  “You will do no such thing,” Mamm said, taking a seat. “Not in your condition.”

  Sarah froze. The egg she had cracked against the bowl lay in it, shells and all.

  “Did you think your Mamm drew these fine lines?” Mamm pointed to the wrinkles abundant on her face, “Or colored her hair with chalk?” she pointed to the streaks of white in her dark hair. “Did you think I would not know that my daughter is with child?”

  Sarah sat down beside her mother, taking her gnarled hands in her own calloused ones.

  “Or did you not know it yourself?” Mamm asked gently.

  “I did know,” Sarah said blinking furiously at the tears that threatened to brim from her eyes. “I wished… oh Mamm, I wished I was wrong and then I… I hoped Gott would take it away,” she said in a horrified whisper. “I’m a horrible mother,” she sobbed.

  “Nee,” Mamm said patting her hands. “You are human. When I was heavy with Martha I prayed every day for a soh. It was Gott’s will that I should have a dochder, but that didn’t mean that for the first few weeks I felt that Gott had abandoned me. It is our human failing that we are unable to see Gott’s great plan for us. You are just being tested at the moment and you feel that this blessing is a curse.”

  “Gott does work in mysterious ways,” Sarah nodded, brushing away her tears. “That He chose to give me a boppli and not Emma, who has been yearning for one for so long.”

  “Emma has her own tests to go through,” Mamm said, getting up heavily from the chair. “You make breakfast, I’ll gather all the sheets to be cleaned. We’ll do it together,” she said, and in a rare show of affection Mamm kissed Sarah’s head.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Family Bontrager

  Martha sneezed. She tried to run but it was useless because she had to stop every few seconds to sneeze in her handkerchief again. The pollen on the summer air made her eyes water. When she had been with her English fiancé he had gotten her allergy medicine but now she had to rely on the season changing to get rid of her allergy.

  She dabbed at her pink nose and walked briskly towards the street corner where the wagon stopped to take people back to the community. She was late and Mr. Lapp didn’t wait around for people who were late.

  Martha was sure she had missed it.

  “… not be waiting,” Martha heard Jane King’s voice and stopped in her tracks. She leaned her back against the wall of a commercial building selling insurance. She peeked around the corner and saw the wagon, full to the brim with people and Jane King and Jacob Lapp standing outside talking.

  Jane was frowning while Jacob looked around up and down the sidewalk as if waiting for someone.

  “I just don’t want anyone walking home,” Jacob said stuffing his hands in his trouser pockets.

  “She isn’t right for you, you know,” Jane said. “I’m just saying this because I know your family will not approve. No one’s family approves.”

  “None of this is of your concern,” Jacob said gently. He smiled a little to take the sting out of his words.

  “Martha Bontrager disgraced herself and her family when she ran away, not once, but twice! That’s how determined she was to lead an English life with that Englischer,” Jane spat. “She says they were engaged but some of us think she was lying to legitimize her life of sin. We don’t even know if she is pure,” Jane lowered her voice but Martha still heard every hurtful word. “Those sisters court nothing but bad luck and you’d do well to not look there for a wife.”

  “I can only wish that Gott will open your heart to kindness and take the bitterness from your tongue,” Jacob said lightly but made no move to get in the wagon. “As long as I am driving this wagon no one will walk home.”

  Martha wiped the tears from her face and turned away. She didn’t think she could face a wa
gon full of her community members at the moment. One foolish mistake in her rumspringa and she was marked for life. Her own shame and isolation she could endure, but to paint her sisters with the same brush was beyond her endurance.

  She ignored the scratching in her throat and the bouts of sneezing as she walked down the main street till the dirt road that would take her home.

  *

  There had been no word from Jeramiah. Five months to the day he had left yet no letter had arrived, no note asking after his children. It was like there was a veil between him and his family that neither could permeate.

  Emma saw her sister grow big with child, yet her own womb lay barren. But that didn’t worry Emma as much as Sarah’s failing health did. It looked as if the boppli was leeching all of Sarah’s strength from her, the boppli growing big in the womb and Sarah shrinking to a husk of her former self.

  “Something is very wrong,” she confided in Jarron. “I think Sarah is ill.”

  “Having a baby is hard at the best of times,” Jarron soothed. “And Sarah is having hers in the most terrible of circumstances.”

  “She doesn’t eat properly,” Emma admitted. “How does she expect to keep her strength up?”

  “If it will comfort you, we can take her to the English hospital in town,” Jarron said. “But I doubt she will seek English medication.”

  “We have to try,” Emma said. “For Isaac and Ruth. They can not afford to lose another parent.”

  With this thought in mind, Emma visited her parent’s house. Isaac could be seen leveling hay in the barn while a goat tried to eat the seat of his breeches. Emma laughed as Isaac tried to shoo it away but it always came back, eventually tearing the back pockets off.

  Ruth was in the kitchen with her grossmammi baking a cake and Sarah was in the corner next to the fire knitting a wrap for the new boppli. Sarah looked frail, her hands all skin and bones shook slightly and stumbled often. Her eyes had sunken into their sockets and her hair looked dry and coarse, not its usual lustrous self.

  “Something smells nice,” Emma said in greeting.

  “Ja,” Mamm smiled. “Ruth is making a honey cake.”

  “And what a big girl you are,” Emma said fondly and Ruth grinned.

  “Soon she will be pottering around the kitchen and I can put my feet up and rest,” Sarah smiled at her dochder.

  “You can take care of the boppli,” Ruth said importantly. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Sarah’s laugh became a wracking cough. Ruth rushed over with water. Mamm and Emma exchanged worried glances.

  “Ruthie,” Mamm said pleasantly. “Why don’t you take a few slices out to your bruder and grossdaed? Ask them how your first cake is.”

  Ruth took a plate full of sliced cake obediently.

  “May I have one as well, grossmammi?” she asked sweetly.

  “Seeing as you made it,” Mamm said, winking at her grossduchder, “you may have two.”

  Ruth giggled with delight and skipped out of the house.

  “Are you here to talk some sense into me?” Sarah smiled tiredly.

  “Jarron has taken an appointment with the doctors at the hospital,” Emma said gravely. “You must come with us.”

  “If it is Gott’s will,” Mamm intervened, “no English doctor or medicine can prevent it from happening.”

  “Gott also asks us to look for a cure if there is one,” Emma said. “Please Sarah, if not for yourself do it for the kinder. We must know what is ailing you so.”

  “I do want to know if the boppli is alright,” Sarah said, thoughtfully touching her bulging belly. “There are times at night when I can not feel him move.”

  “It is settled then,” Emma said. “I will go with you and we will find out if the boppli is alright and what is ailing you.”

  “I still think we should submit ourselves to Gott’s will,” Mamm sniffed, “your father will not approve.”

  “Poor Mamm,” Sarah said, her heavy eyelids dropping on tired eyes. “I came to be a comfort to you and look at what I have done. I am a burden to you in my sickness.”

  “Nonsense,” Mamm said. “Ruth and Isaac help and you are my dochdur, you can never be a burden.”

  “Sarah is right Mamm,” Emma said. “Her ailment must put the burden of housework on you. Let Sarah stay with me. I can care for her.”

  “But the kinder,” Mamm argued.

  “The kinder can come and help around the house after schul,” Emma said. “And Jarron can pick them up in his buggy before dinner.”

  “Poor Jarron will grow weary of riding around after the kinder,” Mamm objected.

  “You know he loves them like they were his own,” Emma blushed mortified and Mamm looked ashamed for her curt words. “He will be delighted to have the children stay with us.”

  “If that is what Sarah wants,” Mamm spread her hands in defeat.

  “As much as I love you Mamm,” Sarah said kindly, “I think it best if I live with Emma till the baby comes. I can not bear to see you up since cock crow to take care of me when your own bones are so weary.”

  Mamm brushed away the tears in her eyes and kissed Sarah’s forehead, then her hands. The door opened at that moment and Martha walked in with an almighty sneeze. Mother and daughters all joined in the laughter.

  “You’re home early today,” Emma commented.

  “I didn’t go in,” Martha said sheepishly. “Daed needed a hand with the calving.”

  “How is your quilt coming along?” Emma asked passing Martha a slice of honey cake.

  “Slowly,” Martha said with a fond smile. “I enjoy working on it between customers at the shop.”

  “It took you long enough to decide on a pattern,” Mamm teased.

  “I finally persuaded Martha to keep it simple,” Sarah added. “So she’s decided on a bear paw pattern.”

  “If our Martha’s at it, it will be wundrbaar,” Emma said but Martha only looked guilty. Emma was intrigued by this strange emotion on her sister’s face. “Sarah and the kinder are coming to stay with us,” Emma told Martha.

  “I figured as much,” Martha nodded. “Mamm can hardly take care of all of us and I am at the shop most days. It was very kind of you to suggest it and if you need me for anything,” Martha touched both Emma and Sarah’s hands, “ja, anything, you let me know.”

  They basked in the moment of filial unity. The door opened once more and Daed walked in with the children. He looked at his family. His aging wife, his three daughters, one stained with the actions of her youth, one finally with a husband who was in good health, and his first born struck down with spiritual and physical maladies, and he saw how strongly they were smiling in the face of adversary, as one family. It filled his heart with Gott’s wonder.

  “Don’t you women have anything better to do?” he asked gruffly, enjoying it heartily when they burst out laughing.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Gott's Will

  The English hospital was just like Emma remembered it, stark, white and sterile. It smelled of disinfectant and other artificial English made smells. They had been coming to the English doctor for nearly a month now and Emma was finding it exceedingly difficult to persuade Sarah to come. But she couldn’t in good consciousness blame Sarah, the amounts of tests and needles that had prodded Sarah without any conclusive answer made Emma just as angry and disheartened with English medical science.

  They were sitting in the waiting room now. Jarron had fallen asleep under a magazine about cars. Emma smiled at his slack mouth and the curls that dusted his brow. He had always loved cars, his shiny red pickup still purring in Emma’s memories. He’d taken such good care of that car. It mustn’t have been easy for him to give up the English ways he had known all his life to choose the plain Amish life, but he had and he had chosen her to be his wife and for that she would be forever grateful to Gott.

  “Mrs. Yoder?” the nurse called and Emma helped Sarah to her feet. Sarah nearly staggered from the weight of her belly but Jarron st
eadied her as well. They walked into the doctor’s office, a slight bespectacled man who was frowning down at a piece of paper in his hands.

  “Mrs. Yoder, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, good afternoon,” Dr. Pierce said. “Would you like some water?”

  They shook their heads in the negative and the doctor took a seat behind his desk. His heavy gold watch flashed under the overhead lights.

  “Mrs. Yoder,” Dr. Peirce began. “I’m sorry to inform you,”

  “Not my baby,” Sarah said shakily.

  “No,” Dr. Peirce assured, “but what I am about to tell you will affect the baby.”

  He removed his glasses and rubbed them on his lab coat as if preparing himself to deliver bad news.

  “We found malignant tumors in your womb,” Dr. Peirce said. “The cancer is stage two but it has worsened due to the strain the pregnancy is placing on your body.”

  “What can we do?” Emma asked leaning forward, the knuckles on her hands turning white as she gripped the arms of her chair.

  “I would recommend terminating the pregnancy to start,” Dr. Peirce said delicately.

  “Nee,” Sarah said firmly.

  “Mrs. Yoder,” Dr. Pierce tried to reason. “You are putting your body at risk, the future of your living children at risk.”

  “I will not murder my boppli,” Sarah said getting up on shaking legs. Jarron supported her again.

  “It is essential for your treatment,” Dr. Pierce insisted.

  “I don’t need your English treatment,” Sarah said. “Jarron, please take me home.”

  Emma followed her frail sister and her husband out to the buggy. The sky was an angry shade of grey as storm clouds gathered from the East. The wind whipped Emma’s apron up and she felt dust spatter her face.

  “Daft,” Sarah said as Emma put a blanket on her knees, “the whole English lot of them. No offence Jarron, but you did gut to leave this preposterous English life. Murder my child and then he expects me to live a happy life?”