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Smicksburg Tales 1,2 & 3 (Amish Knitting Circle, Amish Friends Knitting Circle & Amish Knit Lit Cirlce ~ Complete Series: 888 pages for Granny Weaver Lovers and 30+ Amish Recipes

Page 12

by Karen Anna Vogel


  1 c. cold water

  Cream: sugar, salt, shortening, vanilla and eggs. Sift: flour, soda and cocoa. Mix ingredients together and slowly add sour milk and water until right consistency. Can add flour to mixture if too gooey. Drop by teaspoonful. Bake at 350. Put two cookies together with Whoopie Pie Filling recipe.

  Christmas Butter Cookies

  3 c. powdered sugar

  ½ c. white sugar

  2 c. butter

  2 tsp. vanilla

  3 eggs, beaten

  6 c. flour

  Cream together butter and sugars, add vanilla and eggs. Mix well and add flour and baking powder. Roll thin and cut. Bake at 350 degrees. Top with frosting.

  Basic Cookie Frosting

  3 egg whites

  ½ tsp. cream of tartar

  4 c. powdered sugar

  Water

  Beat egg whites and cream of tartar. Add powdered sugar and beat until stiff. Add enough water so that you can dip the cookies in the frosting.

  Butterscotch Cookies

  2 cups brown sugar

  3 eggs

  1 cup shortening or lard

  4 cups flour

  1 tsp. baking soda

  1 tsp. cream of tartar

  1 cup nuts

  Mix all ingredients except nuts. Stir the nuts in by hand. Roll the dough into tubes 2 inches thick and cut in thin slices. Press with fork or potato masher to make design. Bake at 350 for 8-12 minutes.

  Episode 6

  Old World Christmas

  Granny heaped venison stew into two bowls and placed them on her oak table. She took Jeb’s hand and bowed her head for silent prayer, thanking God for the hot food on such a bitter cold January day. She thought of the shawls being knit for tornado victims in Missouri and hoped they warmed the hearts as well as the bodies of the women who received them.

  She looked over at Jeb, hunched over his bowl, looking too worn out. “You’re worried about Ruth and Luke, jah?”

  “She’s not listening to our advice. She’ll be safe living next to her parents and Luke is much better on medicine. She should have been to the doctors with him, not me.”

  Granny poked at her stew. “She’s a woman, Jeb. She’s hurt. Feels betrayed and needs time.”

  “But the bishop said they need to be under one roof by Old Christmas or we’ll need to give her a warning.”

  Granny huffed. “Well, you men all agreed to that…”

  Jeb’s head shot up. “What’re you saying? Women aren’t involved with church leadership.”

  Granny didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say. All men were on the church ministerial team and how could they understand Ruth? Her heart was broken by verbal battery and then finding her husband was looking at pornography…. Yes, Luke was sorry and seeing a doctor, and for him, all was in the past. But for Ruth, damage had been done and no medicine but time and real love from her husband could heal it.

  “You’ll talk to Ruth tonight?” Jeb asked. “When your ‘little women’ come over to knit?”

  Granny reached over for Jeb’s hand. “What can I say? You’ve been goot to me, love. I can only imagine her pain, but not really understand it.”

  She felt him squeeze her hand and look at her fondly. “You’re easy to love.”

  Granny withdrew her hand. “Are you saying Ruth isn’t?”

  “Well, she’s been awful critical of Luke.”

  “No excuse for him to treat her so –“

  “I’m not making excuses, Deborah. There’s no excuse for how poorly he’s treated Ruth. Don’t get your dander up. I was trying to tell you that you’ve always supported me…”

  She got up and hugged Jeb around the neck. “I’m sorry…old man. My nerves are shot over Ruth.” She went over to get her silver teapot and poured more Meadow Tea into their mugs. “Roman’s talking nonsense, too. Trying to find an old letter from Lizzie in a woodpecker hole, of all things. Why not just ask her what she wrote?”

  “I’m thinkin’ maybe Lizzie met a fellow out there in Lancaster. Maybe talking about wedding plans.”

  Granny froze, her mug almost up to her lips. “Never thought of that. Maybe she’s been writing to someone and that’s why she and Melvin aren’t courting.”

  “I think Fannie had everything to do with that. She’s just a burst of sunshine, and the Lord, the real matchmaker, opened Melvin’s eyes to notice her. Was hoping Roman and Fannie would be a pair, but…”

  “Won’t you please talk to Roman? He’s acting so foolish, looking in all the oak trees he and Lizzie hid letters in a decade ago.”

  “I did. Told him to write to Lizzie and ask her what the letter said and he did. No reply.” Jeb pulled at his beard. “I never thought he’d react this way to an old letter. One he never read.”

  “He’s reacting out of love. Look at how someone reacts. That’s their real feelings. He still loves her. I know it.”

  Jeb groaned. “You and your Jane Austen books….”

  ~*~

  Granny welcomed the women into the knitting circle one by one, and couldn’t help notice all the different emotions each woman brought to her home. Fannie was love-struck, Ella tired but happy, Ruth depressed, and Maryann somber. “There’s Meadow Tea warming on the stove to warm yinz up, but let’s get to knitting now and not linger. We need to get more shawls done. Downright freezing out there.”

  “Well, I was warm in the buggy,” Fannie giggled. “Snuggled up against Melvin.”

  Granny beamed. “Yinz look goot together.”

  “Jah, you sure do,” Ella said. “Glad to see you not only found love, but you haven’t made one joke about yourself since you’ve been courting.”

  Fannie threw a ball of black yarn up in the air and caught it. “He’s goot medicine. Helping me transform my mind; he really thinks I’m pretty, but not just on the outside.”

  “Transform?” Ruth asked.

  “Jah. He showed me in the Bible we need to take our thoughts captive and transform them. So when I think I’m fat, I catch the thought and take out one of the nice things Melvin’s said about me from the little carved box he made.”

  “I thought it was filled with Bible verses,” Granny said.

  Fannie sighed and grinned. “Oh, he made me another box. Didn’t I tell yinz? One for scripture and one for compliments. He’s so sweet.”

  “And it works?” Ruth asked, head down, intent on knitting.

  “Jah. Kind words can bring healing in a mighty way.”

  Maryann looked over at Ruth. “If it worked for Fannie, it’ll work for you. You need Luke to come home.”

  Granny cringed at Maryann’s bluntness and lack of empathy. Maryann had a kind husband and had no idea what Ruth had gone through. “Let the Lord be the one who leads, Maryann. She still has a few days to make up her mind.”

  “But to be Amish is to listen to instruction. To heed what the Good Book says. We are not to separate.”

  Ella put her hand on Ruth’s shoulder and glared at Maryann. “We’re all believing Ruth will make the right decision –”

  “I heard from Lizzie,” Fannie interrupted. “Well, I read the letter she sent to her daed. She loved the Moravian stars in Lititz and is learning how to run a bed and breakfast. Problem is, there’s an offer on the house they want to buy. Melvin found out. So they might not get it. Wonder why she’d stay longer if they knew there was no house to be had?”

  “Could find another house,” Granny said. “But it’s almost two weeks now. When’s she coming home?”

  “That’s another thing.” Fannie sighed. “Jonas got a letter saying she won’t be home for at least two more weeks.”

  “What?” Granny asked. “Isn’t she needed at the store? Roman can’t keep spending time there. I’m plumb worn out watching the girls.”

  “Jah, she is missed. It’s only Melvin, Roman, and me that volunteer. Roman said the other day Lizzie is sorely missed.”

  Ella looked over at the pendulum clock on the wall. “I wonder how
little Moses and Vina are?” She turned to Maryann. “You say Becca has lots of experience with babies?”

  Maryann nodded. “She and Zach will be fine.”

  “I love the names you gave the twins,” Fannie said. “Moses was adopted in the Bible, like you said, but I’ve never heard of Vina. Most unusual, although it’s pretty. Is it a family name?”

  Ella pulled cream yarn from her ball. “Jah.”

  “Who’s side? Yours or Zach’s?” Granny asked.

  “Neither. We decided to name the girl after her mamm.”

  Maryann clucked her tongue. “Now why would you do that? Her mamm wasn’t a moral woman.”

  “Wasn’t, a moral woman, but is one now,” Ella snapped. “We’ve been writing and I know more about her; she needs lots of love and help.”

  “And you plan to do that?” Maryann asked. Her face was set like flint on Ella. “Help her? How?”

  Granny cleared her throat. “Maryann, raise your kinner as you see fit and let Ella and Zach do the same.” She shifted in her rocker. “So we’re going to the doctors tomorrow, Maryann? Just you and me with Lizzie gone.”

  “Jah, if you insist, but I still think it’s a waste of time.”

  “You have time since Christmas dinners are over and just need to prepare your heart for Old Christmas,” Ella sighed. “I love that sacred day, the last of the twelve days of Christmas when kings came and worshipped Jesus. Something so…sacred. I think it’s the fasting and focus on God.”

  Granny’s eyes glistened. Ella was the one girl she felt appreciated her Amish heritage the most. Many fasted, but to Ella, it was a true act of worship from a heart that cherished her Amish upbringing. Granny had no fear that Moses and Vina would learn of their heritage, observing all religious holidays the People held dear. “Ella, I do believe you’ll be reading the Martyrs Mirror to the twins as wee ones. Your heritage means so much to you.”

  Ella looked around the circle. “I think we all do, jah? Or we wouldn’t have been baptized.”

  “Jah, you’re right,” Granny said, not wanting to embarrass Ella with her praise.

  Again the circle was quiet and only tapping of sleet on the windows could be heard.

  “Yinz don’t think I take my baptismal vows seriously, jah?” Ruth asked, face red.

  Granny gasped. “Ach, we didn’t mean anything of the sort. Not at all, Ruth.”

  Fannie chimed in. “Ruth, we’re all praying for you. Lots of casting off prayers I’ve been doing at night. We all love you, you know that, right?”

  Ruth looked at Fannie and her chin quivered. “Danki, Fannie. If you say words can heal, you seem to be proof of it. Maybe Luke needs a compliment box, too.”

  Fannie beamed. “How about I ask Melvin to make him one? Tell him to fill it with genuine words of love before he comes home.”

  “I only have two days.”

  “I think Melvin has some at the store. Sells all sorts of things.”

  Granny put her yarn in her lap. “And I’ll have Jeb deliver it. Jeb wrote him a little book on how a goot man should treat his wife. Luke says he reads it. Maybe along with the box, it will all work out.”

  A tear trickled down Ruth’s cheek. “I want to believe it. I’d like to have the man I courted back, but at times I feel so hopeless.”

  Granny got out of her rocker and went to embrace Ruth. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. That’s in Proverbs.” She held Ruth by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Your heart is sick by disappointments and lots of painful words. How about you give Luke a trial period to heal it…to make it like a tree of life?”

  “He might make it worse, Granny. I’m so afraid.”

  Fannie got up. “But you’re not alone, Ruth. If you let Luke back in, if he says or does another cruel thing…I’ll sit on him.”

  Ella moaned. “Fannie, no more cutting remarks about your weight!”

  “It was a joke. Just trying to cheer Ruth up and let her know she’s not alone…”

  Granny watched as one by one the girls got up to embrace Ruth and encourage her. No, Ruth would not be alone if she had to live with Luke again. Her “Knit Pickin” friends would be with her, as Luke used to call them.

  ~*~

  Roman looked out the windows to his parents’ dawdyhaus. The warm glow of the oil lamps was in sharp contrast to his pain. Lizzie didn’t write back and he still couldn’t find the letter she’d written years ago. Did he miss something? Another clue?

  He took the oil lamp over to the hope chest and looked at the bottom again. Oak 11/5/1996. He put the lamp closer, but there was nothing else written. He closed his eyes, trying to think of which tree she could possibly mean? Better yet, why did he care so much?

  He thought of his first buggy ride with Lizzie. She was so light and carefree. She laughed openly and her smile came from her heart. She never flickered either, until their wedding day approached; three years of bright light from her eyes were snuffed out somehow.

  All he thought about was himself back then. When she called the wedding off so coldly, he cowered, feeling rejected; he was afraid to ask why the sudden change in her countenance. If the pride of a young man hadn’t been wounded, he might have seen a wounded fiancé.

  Something caused Lizzie to change abruptly. She took delight in every piece of furniture he could make. She’d brought catalogs over showing him pictures of the carved headboard she wanted. She wanted a double Amish rocker, too, so they could sit together and rock on the porch, and then when she had kinner, she could hold a boppli and have another one right next to her. So she had dreams of a future with him.

  He turned down the wick on the oil lamp, snuffing out the light. Something had snuffed Lizzie’s light and he’d find out, even if he had to go to Lancaster. He only had a few more trees to look in, and he’d do it as soon as the girls left for school.

  ~*~

  Suzy told Granny and Maryann she’d pick them up in an hour, having some shopping to do in Indiana. Granny gripped Maryann’s hand and they walked into the radiology center of the hospital. After filling out paperwork, they took seats in the waiting room.

  Granny looked up at the television that was mounted on the wall. Images of women with perfect bodies, with hardly any clothes on, made her blood boil. She looked around at the people in the room, all transfixed on the television, no one talking to each other. She looked back to the television and to her horror, saw a woman taking her clothes off, showing her naked from the back. She shot out of her chair. “What on earth?”

  “That’s what I say,” a full-figured woman with flaming red hair said. “The soap operas shouldn’t be shown in the daytime. Little kids could be watching.”

  Another woman with skin-tight jeans turned toward Granny. “We’re not Amish. We do watch television.”

  “I don’t,” a young man said. “Waste of time. And it’s gotten so immoral.”

  “Who’s for you to judge what’s moral and what’s not?” the girl in tight jeans asked.

  Granny put her hand on her heart, and muttered. “I thank God I’m Amish.”

  The lady with red hair walked over and sat across from Granny. “I admire how you live off the grid.”

  Maryann leaned forward. “Off the what?”

  “Off the grid. Off electricity. Live more simply.”

  Granny looked into the woman’s green eyes. She was sincere. “Well, I have a friend who’s not Amish, but has adopted some of our ways. She has electricity, but no television. Seems like she has it harder than we Amish though, because she has so many choices. She started to cut back when she moved up our way. Said she’d never seen how fussy her life was until she started to get to know some of us.”

  “So the Amish will talk to people who aren’t?”

  Granny snickered. “I’m talking to you.”

  The woman tilted her head. “I live here in Indiana. Could I visit you? See the inside of an Amish house?”

  “Just don’t go
stealing all my jewels.” Granny winked. She took a piece of paper and pen and wrote down her address. “Come and visit any time. I can show you a string of Amish houses.”

  The woman clasped her hands. “Thank you so much. My name is Marge.”

  “I’m Deborah…”

  ~*~

  Granny wrung her hand and sat next to Marge in a different waiting room. Why was she in one and Maryann in another? She turned to Marge. “I’m concerned. When the nurse said Maryann needed a test to see everything more clear-like, what did she mean? Didn’t they get a goot picture to begin with?”

  Marge scrunched her lips. “Not sure, but that happened to me once. I had a cyst. It was benign, thank God.”

  “Jah, thank God. So you think they’re checking Maryann for something unusual? Can they see cancer?”

  “Well, I’m not a doctor, but I am an LPN…licensed practical nurse. Work here part-time. They can see if a tumor or cyst looks suspicious.”

  Granny couldn’t remember when she wrung her hands. Suspicious? Cancer?

  She felt Marge’s hand on her shoulder. “Is she your daughter?”

  “Nee, but like one to me. She has eight kinner. She can’t be sick…”

  “Did she breastfeed her kids?”

  Granny never understood why the English bought milk for a baby when an ample amount was provided by the goot Lord. “’Course she did. Still nurses the baby.”

  “Then her chances are better. When you nurse, your chance of cancer goes down. I’m sure your friend’s alright. They’re very thorough here. Good hospital.”

  A nurse came in and told Marge she was free to go and that she could schedule an appointment for next year. She looked at Granny and told her the same. They could get dressed and were free to leave.

  “How’s my friend, Maryann?” Granny asked.

  “She’ll be out in a second.”

  Marge shook Granny’s hand. “So nice meeting you. We have each other’s addresses and can write. When the roads clear, maybe I’ll venture out into the country. Got a GPS for Christmas.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How about I come visit and show you. It’s hard to describe, but it’s a map that’s fun to watch. Promise you’ll write?”

 

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