Amish Christmas Twins

by Shelley Shepard Gray

  “I think so,” Thomas said around a yawn.

  “ ’Course we did,” James said. “Maem made egg sandwiches, remember?”

  “Us, too,” Paul said. “With ham and cheese.”

  He slid a cast-iron skillet onto the left-front burner, dropped in a pat of butter. “You will find mugs in that cabinet. Help yourselves to coffee.”

  As they ate the scrambled eggs he’d made them, the boys struggled to keep their eyes open. “How late do you usually sleep?”

  “Six or seven.”

  “Or eight.”

  Thomas yawned again.

  If this was a sign of things to come, it promised to be a long, tedious morning. Jube made more noise than necessary, putting the dishes into the sink, hoping to snap them to attention. On the way to the barn, he said, “There is a sink on the back wall. That is where you will wash up.”

  “Wash up, to milk cows?”

  “Yes, then you will wash their udders, and wash up again before you will filter and bottle the milk. Can’t risk contamination, now can we?”

  While they took turns at the utility sink, Jube checked on Goliath. “That gash is nearly healed already. This is good. I am glad.” He stroked the bull’s forehead. “Maybe you will remember this next time you decide to have a temper tantrum.”

  He heard one of the boys say, “He said more to that animal than to us!” No surprise there. Since Ira’s accident, he hadn’t exactly been talkative. Over time, he’d come to realize that the less he spoke, the fewer things he had to apologize for, and by now, he rather liked his quieter, less complicated life.

  “Do you always keep Goliath in here with the cows?”

  “Only at night. Not even he could withstand a black bear attack.”

  “But people say bears are more afraid of us than we are of them. . . .”

  “People are wrong.”

  “So, if a bear showed up, you would shoot it?”

  “Only if it posed a threat. Last week, I fired warning shots into the air when a sow and cubs came too close to the pasture.”

  “I heard people say bears are not meat eaters.”

  “People are wrong,” he said again, and lined up two hay bales. His plan was to recite a quick lesson in washing cow udders, then show the boys how milking was done.

  But before he could begin, Pete said, “I expected it to stink in here.”

  “Cleanliness is key. While the cows are out, I shovel dung, spread fresh hay. Once a week, I hose down the stalls.”

  “What do you do with the dung?”

  “Load it into a wheelbarrow and dump it on the back lot.”

  They looked none too happy about the prospect of hauling manure, so he launched into the cleaning-and-milking lecture.

  “Sounds time consuming.”

  “Not really.” Jube filled a shiny stainless bucket with warm water, dropped in a clean, dry rag, and pocketed a small spray bottle of iodine teat tip. “Besides, it is necessary work, and best for the cows. A very satisfying expenditure of time, in my opinion.”

  Thomas nodded. “And it is not like you have a wife or children taking up your time.”

  The comment stung, Jube admitted, because he’d given up on the idea of having a wife and children of his own. Giving up, however, hadn’t smothered the dream.

  Instantly, Abigail came to mind. Once, and only once, Jube had seen her with her hair down. He’d stopped by to talk with Ira, caught a glimpse of her at the kitchen sink. Thick dark hair, unbound by braids, spilled down her slender back like a mahogany waterfall, and long-lashed brown eyes grew big and round when she peeked over her shoulder and saw him. “Ira,” she’d scolded, “are you out of your mind, letting Jube in here while I am still in my nightclothes!” Ira had quickly shut the door, but not soon enough to keep Jube from seeing her flushed cheeks and embarrassed smile. He’d always liked Abigail, but at that moment—

  “If the cows fall asleep while we are milking them, will they fall over on us?”

  Pete’s question snapped him back to attention. “No.”

  All four youthful faces relaxed.

  “What say we get started, eh?” Carrying the bucket, he stepped up beside the first cow. “This is Daisy. She is the most fidgety, so I will milk her myself.”

  “They all have names?”

  As he recited them, each cow turned toward him.

  Thomas said, “They recognize their names?”

  “Of course. Cows are intelligent and can be trained to do many things. They have excellent memories, too, and never forget a person who mistreats them.”

  “Then I guess we had better be gentle!” Pete said.

  When the laughter subsided, Paul asked, “Why are they all named after flowers, except for Robin?”

  “As a calf, she made noises like a baby bird.”

  It dawned on Jube that he only had one stool. Turning in a slow circle, he looked for something that could do double duty. There, in the barn’s far corner, he’d stashed several orange crates he’d bought last week. Fastened to the stall walls, they’d act as storage shelves for grooming brushes and hoof-trimming tools, but right now they could be milking stools.

  “Each of you grab a box,” he said, and after each boy returned with an improvised milking stool, Jube entered Daisy’s stall. Squatting, he tucked the three-legged stool under him. “The job will take about ten minutes, and she will give me about three gallons. But first things first . . .”

  He wrung out the rag and wiped Daisy’s udder. “We cannot allow mud—or, worse, dung—to fall into the pail.” He then spritzed each teat with iodine. “This helps avoid infection and reduce any chance of bacteria spreading. Some hand milkers wear gloves, but I find them cumbersome.”

  Peripheral vision told him that he had their full attention. Sliding the bucket directly beneath the udder, he said, “I will start with the teats farthest from me, take hold, and squeeze, sort of the way you get toothpaste from the tube. Steady, even pressure that is not too tight or too loose.”

  “What if Daisy gets really fidgety?”

  “He will talk to her, quietly,” James said, repeating what Jube had said.

  “Yes, good. And if that does not work?”

  No one spoke.

  “Then I might have to postpone milking for a few minutes,” Jube said, filling the silence. “I might feed her, or stroke her forehead.” Standing, he scratched between Daisy’s ears. “Good girl,” he crooned. “You are happy now, right?” She answered with a quiet grunt.

  On the stool again, he leaned his cheek against Daisy’s side. The first squirt echoed in the empty pail, and before long, he sat up straight.

  “How do you know when she is empty?”

  “If the udder feels slack, your job is done. Almost.” He gave each teat another squirt of the iodine and got to his feet.

  As they moved to Robin’s stall, Paul asked why Jube still milked by hand.

  “My grandfather and father milked this way. Here in Pleasant Valley, we have adapted to the New Order ways, with our washing machines and pickup trucks, running water and electric lamps. I like doing some things the Old Order way. Now, if I had dozens of cows, instead of only thirteen, I would use machines. For just these few, it is not worth the expense.”

  “But you have pasteurizing machines, right?”

  “No. The Department of Agriculture approved the sale of my raw milk to a handful of stores and restaurants that cater to what people call ‘health nuts.’ As soon as we have collected the milk, we will cool and filter it, and pour it into sterilized bottles, and take it to town.”

  “It will not spoil?”

  Of all the boys, James seemed most interested in the process. “Not nearly as quickly as pasteurized milk. We will still get it into town as fast as possible, and then my customers will refrigerate it.”

  An hour later, with only a minimum of problems, all thirteen cows had been milked. Jube and the boys used towels to keep the bottles from clinking against one another, and while l
oading the crates into Jube’s truck, Pete asked about the unfinished buggy in the big shed beside the barn.

  “I make them in my spare time,” Jube explained. “It takes months and costly materials, and because people know that, they are willing to pay five or six thousand dollars for one.”

  “No wonder our folks are doing all they can to hold on to their squeaky old buggies,” Thomas said. As his twin and their cousins nodded, he fist-pumped the air. “I just had the best idea for Phase Two: We’re supposed to find someone in need and I know just who it is—our parents—and what they need are buggies!”

  Jube didn’t understand; neither did Thomas’s brother or cousins. The boy explained that in addition to working for him, their parents had given the twins a second assignment . . . to give to someone less fortunate . . . which they hoped might cure the boys of the immaturity and self-centeredness that had inspired their many transgressions.

  “We still have last year’s birthday money, and everything we earned doing odd jobs last summer. This summer, too,” Thomas continued. “If we pay for the materials, will you teach us to make buggies for our parents?”

  “Listen to him,” James said, “spending all of our money without even asking us!”

  “Yeah, but it really is a great idea,” Pete said, and Paul echoed the sentiment.

  Their harmonic pleading prompted Jube to say, “I admire you for wanting to help your folks out, but as I said, it takes months to complete just one buggy. And you hope to make two? Before Christmas?” He shook his head. “I am a ‘where there is a will, there is a way’ sort of man, but, boys, in this case, there might not be a way.”

  “Because of chores and school and what we still owe you in work hours?” Thomas wanted to know.

  Jube appreciated that the Hartzes and the Briskeys wanted their sons to trade boyhood pranks for responsible behavior, but he’d already committed enough of his own time to that plan.

  “Would you teach us? Please?”

  Four young, fresh faces stared up at him. Jube didn’t want to say no, but how could he say yes?

  “If we had more time—”

  “ ‘Where there is a will, there is a way,’ ” James quoted.

  Not all that long ago, Jube had been a wide-eyed, eager boy who didn’t believe in “impossible.” “If we have any hope of succeeding, we need to ask if this idea is God’s will,” Jube said. But what they heard was Yes.

  During the drive to Oakland, they talked nonstop about the project. The discussion continued as they delivered bottled milk to Jube’s customers, and all the way back to his place. Half a mile from his driveway, he asked if they’d like him to drop them off at home.

  “No, thank you, Mr. Quinn. We will walk.”

  “Thomas is right,” James said. “That will give us time to talk about what to say if our parents ask about the Christmas project.”

  He had to hand it to them. They’d tackled the milking, and everything that went with it, without a word of complaint. Something told him that, even without this unusual assignment, they would become responsible, productive men. What sort of man would he be if he didn’t help them meet the fast-approaching Christmas deadline?

  “Need us to do anything before we head home?” Pete asked.

  “No, but thanks.”

  “What about firewood?”

  Before he had a chance to reply, all four boys were racing back and forth, carrying logs and stacking them neatly beside the wood stove, and on the porch, where they would stay dry in the event the clouds over Backbone Mountain had a mind to drench the Alleghenies. They built a fire, too, and when they finished, Jube invited them into the kitchen for sandwiches to tide them over until suppertime.

  “It is hot in here,” Pete said, and opened the door.

  The temperature outside had dipped into the high thirties, but the inside thermometer now read seventy, and Jube gladly agreed.

  As they ate, the boys pummeled him with buggy-building questions:

  “What kind of wood do you use for the carriage?”

  “How do you make the wheels?”

  “Is the chassis iron?”

  “Will the seats be cloth or leather?”

  Jube laughed, and promised that as they worked tomorrow he’d give them a step-by-step how-to lesson. “We will work out the details of your work schedule, too, because it would not be right to let the project interfere with your other responsibilities.”

  They got up to leave, and as they slipped into their jackets, Thomas extended a hand.

  “Thank you, Mr. Quinn, for . . . for saving my life, and . . . and for everything today.”

  His brother and cousins did the same.

  “See you in the morning,” he said.

  Odd, he thought, stacking the sandwich plates, that he’d already grown accustomed to their incessant chatter.

  But wait....

  Who were they talking to out there?

  Jube went to the door.

  “Abigail?”

  * * *

  “What brings you here?”

  Using his free arm, he held open the screen door. She walked into the kitchen, put her tin beside the salt and pepper shakers. “Cookies. I baked them yesterday, and thought . . .”

  He looked confused. Surprised. More than a little wary. And who could blame him, when the woman who’d accused him of contributing to her husband’s death had shown up, uninvited, and barged into his house, offering cookies of all things!

  Abigail slid the brown-wrapped package out from under the tin, held it out to him. “Your shirt.” She willed her hands to stop shaking. “It is washed and mended and pressed.”

  His blue eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at it. “Thanks, but that was not necessary. I could have taken it to—”

  He’d saved her life. Thomas’s, too. “It was the least I could do.”

  Jubal put the dishes into the sink and, leaning his backside against the counter, said, “Are you on your way home from work?”

  “Yes. I thought about stopping by on my way to the inn, but I saw the neighbors’ van. It was very early, so I thought better of it.”

  Just a few minutes ago, Abigail had almost knocked on the doorjamb. But hearing the boys’ excited voices, she’d thought better of that, too. In the moments between arriving and deciding to leave, she’d overheard enough to figure out that for the crime of trespassing—and causing Jubal’s injury—they’d been sentenced to hard labor under Jubal’s watchful eye.

  “It is good of you to teach them, Jubal.”

  “Ben and Noah gave me no choice.” One shoulder lifted in a shy shrug. “Just between us? I like having them around.”

  “Because they are so full of questions?”

  Fool! she thought. You just admitted that you were eavesdropping!

  “Coffee is hot. Care for a cup?”

  “Oh. No. I . . . I need to pick the last of the vegetables, prepare them for the canning kettle, and I only have an hour or so of daylight left. I need to feed Patch, too.”

  “Patch . . .”

  “My cat. A calico. I found her behind the inn a year or so ago. She has the sweetest temperament. Very friendly. Pretty and funny, too. I suggested that Bill and Marybeth make her the Broadford Inn resident pet, but they were concerned about guests who might be allergic. When I left for the day, she jumped into the truck, and looked at me as if to say, ‘I will be your resident pet.’ ”

  Jubal laughed, a warm rumbling sound that made her remember how much she’d enjoyed his company . . . when Ira was alive. It would never have been right or proper to admit that secretly, she’d often preferred his company to Ira’s.

  He picked up the shirt package. “What kind of vegetables?” he asked, unwrapping it.

  “Peas, green beans, carrots, a few still-green tomatoes, a cucumber or two, some zucchinis. I have already put up the rest.”

  “ ‘Put up,’ ” he echoed. “My mother and grandmother referred to the chore that way. Do you have a root cellar, too?”<
br />
  “Yes.” She pictured the half-filled shelves. During her last trip down there, a cobweb had attached itself to her shoulders, face, and hair. It sent her scurrying up the stone steps and into the shower, and afterward, she’d returned to sweep every corner and dust every jar.

  “Scariest place on the farm,” he said, examining the shirt. “Dark, dusty, creepy. The stuff nightmares are made of.”

  Abigail laughed.

  “Why, if I had not seen the hole with my own eyes . . .” Smiling, he added, “But when did you find the time to fix it?”

  Her heart fluttered in response to his admiring expression. “Oh, I have never needed a full eight hours’ sleep.”

  “Burning the midnight oil, eh?” He turned, draped the shirt over a chairback, and winced.

  “Let me look at your ribs,” she said.

  “I’m fine,” he said, pressing a palm to his side.

  “I will be the judge of that.” And without waiting for his agreement or permission, Abigail moved closer. “Untuck your shirt.” When he hesitated, she met his eyes. “Would you rather I do it?”

  Jube groaned quietly but complied.

  Bending at the waist, she examined the bandage. “The tape seems to have held, but the gash bled a little. Not so much that it stained another shirt, thankfully, but enough that you need a clean dressing.” Straightening, she said, “Tell me where you put the gauze and tape I used yesterday, and—”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I can take care of it.”

  Jubal was visibly uncomfortable in her presence, and that bothered her, but if she let him have his way, infection could set in. And you’ve already hurt him enough. “We went all through this yesterday. The wound is in a hard-to-reach place. You simply cannot do it yourself.”

  A certain sadness dimmed his eyes—eyes as blue as wild chicory—as his frown deepened. Lord, if this is the moment You have chosen for my apology, show me a sign!

  “The things you need are right where you left them yesterday.”

  He nodded toward the dining room, and there on the sideboard was the platter where she’d assembled gauze patches, adhesive tape, peroxide, and scissors. Fetching it before he had time to change his mind, she slid it onto the table.