by Kelly Long
Katie snatched a snickerdoodle from the cookie jar and broke it in half. She stepped into the great room and held the cookie in front of her. “Here, Beth. Yum, yum. Come get a cookie.”
Beth immediately slowed down, changed direction, and strutted over to Katie. She snatched the cookie out of Katie’s hand with her rubbery lips. Katie grabbed the red ribbon around Beth’s neck and held on tight.
Titus grinned at Katie as if she had just worked a miracle. A toothpick had somehow managed to stay intact between his nice white teeth. “Look, Mammi,” he said. “She’s done it.”
Anna propped her hands on her hips and scolded Beth with her eyes. “Bethlehem C. Helmuth, you are a very naughty goat. And you scared poor Sparky to death.”
Titus got to his feet and took the goat from Katie. “I’m sorry, Mammi. She keeps escaping the barn. I should probably keep her tied up, but it makes me sad that she can’t roam free, at least around the barn.”
Anna sighed with her whole body. “Thank the gute Lord that Katie knows how to catch a goat. Beth might have broken something.”
Titus turned his full attention and his heart-stopping blue eyes to Katie. “Denki for catching the Christmas goat. I hope she didn’t scare you.”
“I’ve tussled with a few stubborn cows in my day,” Katie said. “Beth is cute.”
Titus nodded. “She is pretty cute, even though a goat tried to eat me once.”
He strolled out of the house with Beth in tow, and Katie helped Anna and Felty put the room to rights. Titus came back shortly thereafter without a goat and with a bucket of milk.
“I got almost half a gallon of milk from Beth this morning,” he said, placing the milk on the floor next to the table.
“What are we going to do with all this goat’s milk?” Anna said. “We’ve already got more than we need from the cow.”
Katie smiled. “I could make cheese. Mozzarella, ricotta. Goat cheese is delicious.”
“What a gute idea, Katie,” Anna said. “We have enough milk. You could probably sell some.”
Titus nodded and slid his beanie off his head. “People pay lots of money at fancy stores for goat cheese. That’s what they told me at the dairy.”
Katie fingered her kapp string. “I do need to make some money for my wedding.”
Titus cleared his throat and stared down at the beanie strangled between his fingers. “So, you and Adam are engaged?”
“We . . . uh . . . plan to get engaged at Christmastime.”
No one mentioned that it was already Christmastime. Katie decided not to point that out. She felt her face get warm. Why should she be embarrassed about getting engaged to Adam?
Anna waved her hands in the air and spoke a little too loudly. “There’s still plenty of time to make that decision. There are so many other people you have to get to know and so many crochet projects I need to finish.”
“If you need money for your wedding,” Felty said, “why don’t you make more than cheese to sell? You’re a fine cook, Katie. I know one or two neighbors who would buy your snickerdoodles.”
Katie drew her brows together. “I don’t know. I should probably be spending my time making cakes and goodies for Adam.” The way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, Mamm always said. “No girl who can cook will ever be without a husband if she just tries hard enough, Katie. Boys will take a full belly over a beautiful fraa any day.”
“You can only cook so many cakes for Adam Wengerd,” Anna said. “What about all those other people who need a Christmas cake?”
Titus gave her a half smile. “You should start a bakery. It might help you feel closer to home.”
“Oh, Titus,” Anna said, clapping her hands in delight. “You are smarter than a raccoon in the rain. Katie could start a bakery to pass the time while she’s waiting for Adam to pop the question.” She looked at Katie with such eagerness in her eyes that Katie couldn’t have contradicted her if she’d wanted to.
Anything would be better than sitting around waiting for Adam to propose, and starting a bakery would feel like a little slice of heaven right here on Huckleberry Hill. She couldn’t keep her lips from curling. “Do you think I could? I mean, how would people know about my bakery? What if nobody wanted to buy anything?”
Titus’s eyes widened with excitement. “If you make me a list of things you want to sell, I’ll go around the community and ask people what they want to buy. Lots of the mothers would be happy for some help with their Christmas baking.”
“But . . . but that’s so kind of you,” she said, as if that would dissuade him from helping her. She didn’t want to take advantage of him.
“Kind?” His lips vibrated as he blew air from between them. His toothpick stayed put. “I’m not kind. It would be a sin to keep all your talent a secret. Your food could bring so much happiness to people.”
Katie had known Titus for twenty-four hours, and he had already shown himself to be one of the kindest boys ever. How many boys would take care of a Christmas goat for their mammi? Titus was thoughtful and kind to his grandparents, and he didn’t look at her as if he judged everything she did with a critical eye.
That was her mamm’s job. And Adam’s, it seemed. The dread she had been trying to tamp down all morning surfaced before she could gather her thoughts. Titus was wonderful nice. She felt comfortable with him, and she didn’t feel the least bit comfortable with Adam. But surely that was because Adam was her intended fiancé. There were no expectations with Titus, so they could just be friends.
She would learn to love Adam. He had all sorts of interesting stories, and he didn’t expect her to talk much, which was gute because she didn’t like the pressure of trying to carry on a witty conversation. Adam was very handsome, with his chestnut hair and caramel-colored eyes. She couldn’t imagine why some girl in Bonduel hadn’t already snatched him up. Surely Katie was the most blessed girl in the world. She couldn’t have been happier.
“Is everything okay?” Titus said, studying her face as if he didn’t like what he saw in her expression. “Are you missing home again?”
“I think maybe I am.”
He winced. “It was me, wasn’t it? I’m sorry about what I said about sin. I didn’t mean you are a sinner. It’s just an expression, but you have probably only committed like one sin in your whole life . . . not that I’m saying you have ever committed a sin.”
Katie frowned. Titus took too much on himself. “Nae, Titus. You haven’t done anything wrong. I was just thinking about home.” The home she would be making with Adam. Would it be happy? Did it even matter?
Titus gazed at her with genuine concern and stuffed his hand in his pocket. “I’m sorry you’re so sad about leaving home. I hope you don’t mind, but I wrote you a poem.”
“For me?”
His blush traveled to the tips of his ears. “It’s not very gute, but I hope it might make you feel better.”
Warm electricity traveled clear to her toes. Titus had written a poem for her? She already felt better. “Oh. That is so nice of you.”
He pulled a sheet of lined paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and gave her a sheepish glance. “Katie came to Bonduel with a suitcase full of gadgets. Being in Wisconsin is the greatest adventure she’s had yet.”
“What a clever rhyme,” Felty said.
Anna immediately shushed her husband.
“She’s lonely for her family, and her heart feels sort of melty. But now she’s made some new friends; Titus, Anna, Beth, and Felty.”
Titus glanced at Katie doubtfully before continuing. “And so when she is very sad and thinking of Augusta, I hope that she will think of us, and not cry on her custard.”
CHAPTER 5
Felty Helmuth loved to sing. He sang while milking the cow. He sang while setting the table. He sang to Anna while she sat in her rocker and crocheted. And he loved the Christmas songs, even if he made up his own words to almost every one.
Katie put the finishing touches on Adam’s cake while Anna sl
id cookies onto a plate with her spatula and covered them with plastic wrap. Felty readied all the bakery deliveries in three large cardboard boxes on the table, all the while singing at the top of his lungs.
“O little inn of Bethlehem, how much we are like you. Our lives are crowded very full with all we have to do. To our King we’re not unfriendly, we love without a doubt. We have no unkind feelings, we simply crowd Him out.”
Maybe Titus had gotten his knack for poetry from his dawdi. They were both very clever with a rhyme. Her heart swelled. Nobody had ever written a poem for her before Titus. The thought was thrilling and exhilarating, like jumping into a cold river on a hot summer day.
Had she ever met such a smart boy? She bet there wasn’t a boy in Augusta who would have been able to rhyme gadget with had yet. It was brilliant.
After all, the bakery had been his idea, and it couldn’t have been going any better. She already had as many orders as she could manage, even with the Helmuths’ help.
Katie spread the last bit of chocolate frosting on Adam’s triple chocolate cake. No coconut, no chocolate sprinkles, and no fruit on top. At least three times a week, she made Adam a small cake that he could eat himself, no bigger than two cans of tuna fish stacked on top of each other.
She frowned. Things couldn’t have been going better with Adam. He had come to dinner six times in the last two weeks, and he’d spent last Saturday on Huckleberry Hill visiting with Katie while she kneaded bread and made cookies for her bakery orders. It didn’t seem to bother him that she said so little. He filled up any awkward silences with his own stories. He had a very interesting life, and he loved to talk about hunting and his students at school. Little Mahlon Zook had gotten a splinter just last Friday. Dinah Neuen-schwander had lost her coat. Marvin Glick couldn’t understand fractions.
Katie found it fascinating.
At least she tried to.
She ignored the fact that her heart felt as heavy as a plow in the mud. She was simply worried about being an old maid. That was all. But why was she worried? Adam was thrilled that she could cook, even when she forgot and put raisins in his oatmeal raisin cookies. If he didn’t like how she made something, he always let her know. He was helping her improve her recipes.
He also seemed very excited about the money the bakery was making, because she’d have more money for the wedding. He was already anticipating marriage. Tears stung her eyes. She was overjoyed.
She finished frosting Adam’s cake and slid it over to Anna, who placed it in a little cardboard box. Titus had found the boxes at Walmart, and they had turned out to be the perfect size for minicakes and blocks of fudge. Titus could deliver baked goods without smashing them.
While Anna boxed up the cake, Katie leaned against the counter and pulled a crumpled piece of lined paper from her pocket.
Katie makes delicious cakes and fudge and cheese and pies. She misses home but if she left, we’d all cry out our eyes. Each day the people look to see just what she has in store. Because of her delicious food, we’ll weigh a whole lot more.
She smiled to herself and stuffed the poem back into her pocket. Titus had written her seven poems since she’d been here, each one better than the last. She marveled that he still had any ideas or rhymes left.
Her heart fluttered like a moth to the light when Titus stomped into the kitchen wearing the Vikings beanie that Anna had made him. His coat collar was pulled up around his ears. A flurry of snow blew in with him. “It’s wonderful cold out there,” he said. “Like an icicle.”
“Titus, you’re such a dear to take care of our special Christmas goat,” Anna said, handing Felty the box with Adam’s cake in it. “It’s going to be the best Christmas ever.” Anna winked at Felty. “Isn’t it, Felty dear?”
“For sure and certain, Annie-banannie.”
Titus had been, in a word, wunderbarr these last two weeks. In addition to his poems, he had gone to several neighbors in the community, both Amish and non-Amish, and had taken orders for baked goods. Then he had made deliveries every day but Sunday, even in the bitter cold, and brought back the money for Katie. When she had expressed concern that he was spending too much time on a bakery that wasn’t even his, he’d simply shrugged and said that the world should not be deprived of Katie Gingerich’s baked goods. Even though she knew he would never do it on purpose, he always seemed to know how to make her blush.
Katie’s eyes widened. Titus carried a full bucket of milk in one hand. “Bethlehem has never produced that much in one milking before.”
Titus unzipped his coat and grinned—with a toothpick between his teeth, of course. “That fancy restaurant in Shawano wants as much mozzarella as you can make and as fast as you can make it. So I bought another goat.”
Anna’s jaw dropped to the floor. “Another goat?”
Titus nodded. “Katie needs the milk.”
“But you’re spending so much time already,” Katie said. “How can I ask you to milk another goat every day?”
“It only takes me seven minutes to milk Bethlehem. It’s not that much more time. And that restaurant in Shawano pays gute money.”
Katie could barely move her lips around her smile. “Jah. They do.” If the restaurant kept buying, she’d make almost three hundred dollars from her cheese alone by Christmas. There weren’t enough words to thank Titus.
“Such a gute boy,” Anna said.
Titus placed his bucket on the floor near the door. “Do you want to see the new goat, Katie, just so’s you know where you’re getting the milk from? She’s real pretty and doesn’t say a word. I think she’s a little unsure of Beth.”
“Of course. I’m finished with my baking for the day.”
Titus motioned toward the boxes on the table. “Are these my deliveries?”
“Jah,” Katie said. She snatched a piece of paper from the counter. “And here is the list of houses each item goes to.”
Titus twirled the toothpick in his lips as he studied the list. Shuffling his feet, he cleared his throat and turned a darker shade of pink. “Would you . . . would you like to come with me?”
“To deliver?”
He nodded. “I can hitch the horse to the sleigh.”
All of a sudden, Katie felt breathless. A sleigh ride with Titus Helmuth sounded like the funnest thing in the world. “I would like that very much.”
His eyes shone as if there were a propane lamp inside his head. “Really? It’s wonderful cold. Are you sure?”
Anna beamed. “What a gute idea. I bet the people who are buying all your delicious baked goods would like to meet you.”
Katie pressed her lips into a hard line. What if she couldn’t think of anything to say to her customers? She didn’t have a way with words like Titus did.
Titus’s forehead piled up with creases. “I don’t mind going by myself. They’re always happy to see me when I’m bringing them a loaf of bread or one of your cakes.”
Katie swallowed the lump in her throat. She really wanted to go, even if she had to speak to total strangers. She’d be okay if Titus was with her. “I’ll get my coat.”
She put on her coat and bonnet and wrapped the scarf Anna had given her around her neck. It was caramel brown, made with yarn as soft as baby hair. Anna had also made her matching mittens and three dishrags. Titus zipped his coat up and smiled reassuringly as he stacked two of the delivery boxes on top of each other and lifted them off the table. Katie grabbed the third box. Felty opened the door for them, and more snow blew in from outside.
“Have fun,” Anna said. “There’s no need to hurry back. I’ll start dinner.”
Katie tried to hide her distress behind her scarf. Under no circumstances should Anna make dinner.
Titus’s toothpick bobbed up and down. “Don’t worry, Mammi. We won’t be long. I don’t want Katie to freeze.”
They trudged to the barn and loaded their boxes into the sleigh, then Titus slapped his gloved hands together. “Do you want to see the new goat?”
�
��Jah. Very much.”
He led Katie to the corner of the barn where the two goats sat on a bed of hay. Bethlehem’s red ribbon was tied to a wooden post, but Katie could see that Titus had lengthened it so that Beth had room to roam around the barn without escaping. The new goat had the same floppy ears as Beth, and her coat was the same caramel brown with eyes to match. They could have been sisters. Beth had a white patch of hair that ran in a V right between her eyes. The new goat had white hair on the tip of her nose. Titus had tied a green velvety bow around her neck. Katie reached down and took the goat’s soft ears in her hands. The goat baaed a greeting.
“I like the ears,” Katie said. “They look like a funny haircut.”
“She’s a real nice goat,” Titus said. “More sensible than Beth and not inclined to wander. I named her Judy. It’s short for Judea, as in Bethlehem of Judea. I hope Mammi doesn’t mind if we have a second Christmas goat. I’m hoping it will make Christmas twice as special.”
Titus was so clever.
He hooked up the horse to the sleigh, and Katie held on tight as they practically flew down the hill. The bells around the horse’s neck jingled merrily, and Katie didn’t think she drew a breath until they got to the bottom.
Titus glanced at her with a frown. “Am I going too fast? I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I forgot how the swoosh and the wind takes my breath away. I like it.”
Titus gave her a wide grin, snapped the reins, and prodded Felty’s horse into a gallop. It was the most terrifying, most exhilarating feeling in the whole world. “Whee!” she squeaked and threw her arms into the air. Titus’s smile couldn’t have gotten any bigger as they made their way up the road.
Katie needn’t have worried about meeting people. At the first house they went to, it was obvious that everybody loved Titus. Erda Beiler greeted them warmly at the door, and when Titus introduced Katie as the baker, the old woman threw her arms around both of them and declared she wanted to adopt them.