An Amish Country Christmas

by Hubbard, Charlotte; King, Naomi

  “But even from here, it’s easy to see that the barns and outbuildings need some major renovation—not to mention the house. Might be better to knock them down and start fresh.” Nate sighed. “That would take a lot of time. And a major chunk of change.”

  “Jah. Not sure Dat would be so keen on that,” came his brother’s response.

  Nate pulled himself out of his musing then to look at Martha. “Our place in Willow Ridge is mostly pastureland, where Dat’s sheep graze, or else it’s been cultivated in garden plots for Mamm’s vegetable business. We boys have known all along we’ll have to find our own places and ways to make our livings,” he said. “Dat’s offered to pitch in on land for us, when the right place came available.”

  “It would be a long while before we could live here, though,” Bram said sadly. “We’d have to get my auction barn and your stables up and runnin’ first, generatin’ more income, before we could even think of affordin’ houses.”

  Oh, but her thoughts were thrumming as she drank in this information! Martha turned and shared a long look with her sister. “Just so happens our dat and older brother are master carpenters,” she reminded the boys.

  Mary’s secretive grin said she knew exactly what Martha was hinting at. “And while we’re not supposed to talk it up amongst the fellows we run with,” she continued in a conspiratorial tone, “our dat has promised us both new houses as wedding presents. But he and Mamma want us close by—like, in Cedar Creek. Not nearly so far away as Willow Ridge.”

  “But then, maybe that’s neither here nor there, far as the plans you fellows are making for yourselves,” Martha added with a nonchalant shrug.

  “Jah, too much information, no doubt.” Mary looked out over the property again, playfully lifting her nose in the air. “Sounds like you boys have things all figured out, without us telling you what to do.”

  “Like we’ll ever figure you out,” Bram teased.

  “Jah, if we were to talk up the way we could provide our husbands with houses, why, we’d have fellows lined up from here until next Christmas, wanting to court us.” Martha gazed straight-on into Nate’s wide eyes, noting how bottomless and brown they looked . . . liking the way she saw herself reflected in them.

  “Not that either of you fellows would fall for a girl just to get a new house. Ain’t so?” Mary, too, was drilling into Bram’s eyes with hers, daring him to reply.

  “You’re right, Martha. A lot of men would think they had it made in the shade, hooking up with you.” Nate slung his arm across the sleigh seat. “But I went down that road with a well-dowried gal before, so I know better this time.”

  “And, hey—what’s so hard about movin’ a house trailer onto this place?” Bram asked as he bit back a grin. “A couple of bachelors like Nate and me could get by just fine, parking a pre-fabricated—”

  “House trailer?” Mary cried. “Oh, please.”

  “Now I get the picture,” Martha chimed in. “And I’m not sketching myself into it as the missus, either. Nope, what with my plans for a bed and breakfast, I’ll be asking Dat for a lot of bedrooms in my place. He’ll be fine with that, figuring I’ll fill them with grandkids.” She turned toward Mary then, as though Nate and Bram had vanished into thin air. “And Sister, you’ve always said you wanted to cook for our inn if I’d run the business end—”

  “So, jah, that means we’d have to live across the lane from each other in our new houses,” Mary said with a nod.

  “Or even at opposite ends of the same really big house, with our guest rooms in the middle,” Martha continued, suddenly inspired by this teasing talk. The boys were playing along, so it seemed a good time to sound out her ideas . . . to let the Kanagy brothers know where she and her twin were coming from. “We’ve always been a package, you and I.”

  “We’ve never lived apart and I don’t want to start any time soon. So your idea of a double-type house with central guest rooms—and a big area for holding church on the main floor—now, that sounds perfect to me!” Mary clapped her gloved hands together. “And you know, if the right fellows come along, they can have their own shops or—”

  “Long as we had space for a big garden—”

  “And a few milk cows, and chickens for eggs—”

  Nate playfully hooked Martha’s neck in the crook of his elbow to muffle her next remark against his coat. His chest vibrated with laughter. “Well, at least we’re not short on gut ideas. Amongst the four of us, I think we’d figure a way to get by.”

  “And we’d be close to our families—but not too close,” Bram added. “I like that part. But meanwhile, I’m for taking down the Realtor’s phone number so we can do more than just jaw about our future. Lots of details to consider before any of us set our hearts on havin’ this place.”

  “Might be several other fellows with plans for this acreage, too, considering how land doesn’t come up for sale all that often,” Nate observed. “It appears to be mostly English in this area, with Amish sprinkled along the back roads until you get into Plain settlements like Cedar Creek or Bloomingdale.”

  Martha heard her sister opening the cookie bin, and when she glanced back, Bram was writing the phone number on a napkin Mary had handed him. “How about treats all around, to celebrate our . . . interesting talk?” she suggested.

  “I’m for that! It’ll hold us until we get some of that chocolate coconut cake later.” Nate lifted Martha’s chin with his finger. His smile looked a little nervous, but he seemed really happy. “And it is interesting talk, because you girls shared your plans and listened to ours, too.”

  Bram chuckled as he finished writing. “Jah, gives us a better idea what we have to aim for and what we have to prove, if you twins are to take us seriously. And who ever thought I’d be concerned about such a thing?”

  Mary was holding her breath as the four of them stepped onto their back porch about half an hour later. Oh, how the ideas were flying through her mind now! It was too early to think her future was all tucked up as neatly as a crimped piecrust—certainly too soon to mention their ideas about that run-down farm to her family. Yet she felt her face lighting up with a smile like she hadn’t known since she was a kid celebrating single-digit birthdays. She didn’t let go of Bram’s hand as they preceded Nate and Martha into the kitchen, either. “We made it back in time to help set on supper,” she announced as the wind blew fresh snowflakes inside with them.

  “And look who we ran across!” Martha chimed in. “We told the boys we could scrape up enough leftovers to fill their plates, too, most likely.”

  Their mother turned toward them as she kept stirring a bowl of biscuit batter, her eyebrows rising. “Well, now. After I found your note this morning, I didn’t figure on seeing you girls again for a while. Welcome back, boys,” she said. “Why do I suspect you had a hand in corralling these daughters of mine before they got lost or found trouble on the roads? It’s not like they’ve ventured far beyond Cedar Creek—that I know of, anyway.”

  Mary glanced at Martha and decided to come clean. She could see Noah, Dat, and Jacob in the front room working a jigsaw puzzle, so she spoke loudly enough that their brother could hear. “Truth be told, we did have a little trouble,” she admitted, “but Nate and Bram got us—and the buggy—back here in gut shape.”

  “Jah, I’ll pay James to fix the wheel and we’ll be squared away,” Martha said. “We’ll fetch Taffy after supper.”

  Noah had come up out of his chair like his backside was afire. “Wheel?” he demanded as he stopped in the kitchen doorway. “And what did you do to my wheel?”

  “Ah, but you share that rig with Mary and Martha until you’re ready for your own courtin’ buggy,” Joanna pointed out as she set plates around the table.

  “That doesn’t mean I like it when they take my ride without tellin’ me!” their brother retorted. He raked his hand through his collar-length red hair. “And now they’ve done enough damage that I might not be drivin’ it for days yet! Not what I wanted to hear!”r />
  “Could be, if you mind your mouth and your manners, you might have your pick of the other rigs, son.” Their dat gave Noah a warning look and then stepped past him, extending his hand. “Nate, Bram—gut to see you fellows again. Looks like the four of you young folks patched things up, and I’m glad for that.”

  “Kissed and made up is more like it!” Joanna said with a giggle.

  Mary raised an eyebrow at her little sister. “Keep talking like that, and you won’t have to worry about any boys kissing you.”

  “Puh! Boys’re a nuisance.”

  “They’re not half so bad as know-it-all girls,” Jacob stated. He went to the stove to see what his mamm was cooking and got his hand smacked for trying to stab a chunk of beef from the stew pot with a fork.

  Mary turned toward their guests as the four of them hung their wraps on pegs behind the door. “Welcome back to Coblentz chaos,” she remarked wryly. “See what you’ve missed, not having younger kids at home?”

  “Nothing we can’t handle,” Bram answered.

  “We can always hitch them up to Clyde and send them off on a ride—without the sleigh,” Nate teased.

  “Jah! I wanna do that!” Jacob crowed. He came over to gaze up at the Kanagy brothers with a hopeful expression on his face. “I could stand on the snow saucer and off I’d go! Lickety-split, wherever I wanted!”

  And wouldn’t that be a sight, that huge Clydesdale hauling a kid on a snow disc? Mary was glad everyone was laughing . . . and that Noah had backed away from the touchy subject of the broken wheel, too. While Mary spooned the biscuit batter over the bubbling stew to make dumplings, Martha brought some salads out of the fridge and then checked the sideboard.

  “We’ve got about half our birthday cake left,” she said as she removed the lid of its pan. “And Mamma made a pumpkin roll, I see. It’s a gut thing we came back for supper!”

  After they all sat down and bowed for a silent prayer, Mary was pleased that the conversation seemed so relaxed. Nate and Bram dipped beef stew and dumplings into their soup bowls and then filled their plates with scalloped corn, fruit-filled green gelatin, stewed tomatoes and other dishes that were ordinary yet made more special because the Kanagys were eating with them. When Bram glanced at Mary, she felt her cheeks heat up.

  I could get used to seeing this fellow across my table. But it was best not to let on, so soon after she and Martha had met these fun-loving brothers. Better to let Dat lead the conversation with them, as their parents seemed sincerely pleased that the boys were back for a second visit.

  “And what-all did you do while you were out and around?” he asked Nate as he sopped up beef gravy with his slice of bread. “Seeing your fine new sleigh puts me in a mind to have James refurbish the old one out in our shed. Been a while since I took out across snowy pastures just for the fun of it.”

  “I’ve already gotten a lot of gut out of it, jah,” Nate replied with a shy smile at Martha. He exchanged a glance with Bram that made Mary’s heart skitter, and then looked at Dat again. “Do you know anything about a piece of land for sale out on Double E, about fifteen minutes from here? Looks like they’re taking sealed bids on it.”

  Dat’s eyebrows rose as he thought about which property that might be. Or was he reading between Nate’s lines, as to why he was interested in that farm? “I seem to recall folks saying the owner’s widow couldn’t make the payments, and then her heirs haggled over the place for a few years after she passed away. None of them made a go of it, and none of them live there, but that’s the last I can recall about it.”

  “That would explain why the buildings aren’t in very gut shape. The next big storm might take the barns down, from what I could see.” Nate spooned more stewed tomatoes onto his plate and took another slice of bread.

  “It was a hobby farm,” Dat continued as details came back to him. “And when folks don’t know much about making gut use of the land—and when nobody lives there for a long while—a place goes downhill mighty quick.”

  “Probably critters in the house by now.” Bram helped himself to more scalloped corn, keeping his expression and voice low-key.

  Mary shuddered at the thought of walking in on snakes or raccoons . . . all the more reason to knock the buildings down and start fresh. It was difficult to rid an old place of animals once they’d eaten holes in the walls, and it wouldn’t do to have such intruders scurrying across the attic or inside the walls—especially if they were to have paying guests! She met Martha’s gaze and then noticed the speculative expression on their mother’s face.

  “You boys looking to buy a place?” Mamma asked.

  Oh, but that hammered the nail, didn’t it? Their mother didn’t dilly-dally around when it came to getting information. Mary took another slice of bread and passed the basket to the kids, noting the looks on Nate and Bram’s faces. It told a lot about a fellow when he was faced with a question he hadn’t figured on answering yet.

  Nate leveled his gaze on Mamma. “If Bram and I are ever to support families, we’ve got to find property. And what with land not coming up for sale very often—”

  “Not to mention gettin’ so pricey that a fella can hardly afford a farm on his own,” Bram added in a low voice.

  “—we brothers have to stick together, have to jump in when we find a place that’ll work for us,” Nate continued in a quiet, confident voice. “It’s not likely that an acreage will be on the market in Willow Ridge any time soon.”

  “Nor here in Cedar Creek,” their dat added matter-of-factly. “I wish you boys all the best, if that’s what you’d like to do.”

  “If it’s God’s will that you have it, then the Lord will guide you toward making the best bid,” Mamma affirmed with a nod. “Do your homework on the real estate details. Pray on it. And we’ll put in a gut word for you, too, while we’re praying.”

  Bram’s face took on a glow as he looked at their mother. “Denki for that help, Mrs. Coblentz. Means a lot to have you backin’ us.”

  Mary tingled inside, suddenly so excited she had to move. As she went to the counter for their desserts, she could practically taste the breads and treats she’d bake when their bed and breakfast was up and running. It seemed a longtime dream was about to leap out of her imagination and into reality, right down the road from home!

  Too soon to be counting on that, her thoughts warned, but her heart spoke in a different tone. ‘Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door shall be opened . . .’

  And if she didn’t believe that someday the door to an inn would open, then who else would make her and Martha’s dream come true?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bram tucked Mary’s gloved hand into the bend of his elbow as the four of them headed to the stable to hitch Clyde to the sleigh. Snowflakes danced in the light from their lantern, just as his thoughts were whirling happily. “Hate to eat and run,” he said, “but if we’re to make an educated bid on that farm, we’ve got to set some wheels in motion.”

  “I’m thinking they already are,” Martha replied. “I didn’t want to say anything at supper that might back you fellows into a corner where you didn’t want to be—”

  “But it’s obvious Mamma and Dat think you’re on the right track,” Mary said. “We’ll be thinking of you, hoping the pieces fall into place.”

  As he stepped inside the dark barn, Bram pulled Mary close and kissed her. “We’ll do our best,” he murmured into her ear. She smelled sweet and clean, and he knew he’d be replaying today’s conversations in his mind all week, as inspiration for the enormous project he and Nate were about to take on.

  “How about getting together for New Year’s Eve?” Nate suggested. He had an arm around Martha, too, and as she hung the lantern on a hook, its glow lit their faces . . . their intentions. “By then, we should have an idea whether we’re in the running for that farm, or if we have to keep looking.”

  The twins exchanged a happy glance. “Jah, that would be fun!” Martha said.

  “What a fin
e way to start a new year, with the four of us together, ain’t so? You can catch us up on what’s happened with the land auction then, too.” When Mary stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, Bram knew it was too late to back down—not that he wanted to. He wasn’t sure how his attitude, his whole world, had changed in the course of the past few hours, but he suddenly longed to give this pretty young woman everything her heart desired.

  He and Nate hitched the sleigh to Clyde and then lit the sleigh’s lanterns and the Slow Moving Vehicle sign for their night drive home. As they headed from the lane onto the road, they waved at the two girls who stood on the front porch in the glow of their lantern. Bram memorized the moment, cherishing the energy and excitement of the kisses they blew.

  Beside him, Nate settled into the seat and urged the horse into a trot. “Well, little brother, did we just bite off more than we can chew? Will we be sorry we got those girls involved—got their hopes up so high?”

  Bram let out a short laugh. “Well, my hopes are flyin’ right up there with theirs. It’s Dat we’ve got to convince now,” he said. “We’ll be askin’ him to plunk down a lot of money based on a place we saw by happenstance, with sisters we’ve only known a couple of days.”

  “Jah, the situation’s a stretch for both of us, considering how I walked out on them Christmas morning,” Nate remarked. “But I think Mary and Martha are onto something, wanting to run an inn. There’s no place like that between Cedar Creek and Willow Ridge, and the two of them together have got the gumption to make it work. But for me . . . it’s got to be Martha.”

  “Hah! You don’t think I’m lettin’ you have another chance at Mary, do you?” Bram blurted. As a gust of wind whipped around them, he pulled the blanket higher, already missing the warmth his date had created when she’d cuddled with him beneath it. “The big question is, if we don’t get that farm . . . will the twins stick with us while we hunt for another place? Do you suppose Amos Coblentz will really put up a double house with extra rooms in the middle, and maybe help us with the barns, too?”