Huckleberry Christmas

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  Tyler picked up the bowl and mouthed, Do you want these?

  “Mommy.”

  He spooned eggs onto Toby’s tray and watched as Toby gathered them up in his chubby little fingers and popped them into his mouth. He spit each bite out, played with it, and put it back in his mouth for further tasting.

  Beth finally lifted her head and wiped an errant tear from her cheek. Tyler’s throat sank to his toes. He hadn’t meant to make her cry. “Beth, I’m really sorry.”

  She held up her hand as if to stop traffic. “I’m fine. I cry when I’m angry. Don’t apologize.”

  “I cry when I’m angry too.”

  Beth twisted her lips into a wry grin. “You do not.” She shook out his exquisitely folded napkin and blew her nose on it. “In a few days, we’re going to laugh about this. Well, I’m going to laugh about it. You’re going to sort of smile about it.”

  Tyler confirmed her prediction by smiling. He couldn’t help it. She was so cute.

  “Look at that,” Beth exclaimed. “You’re smiling already.”

  “I’m thinking of bacon.”

  “Even if we’re mad at each other, we shouldn’t let this food go to waste.”

  Tyler wasn’t mad. He felt like smacking his own forehead. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  They said silent grace, and Beth helped herself to a pancake. Her lips curled in pleasure when she bit into it. “Hmm. Delicious. They taste like bacon and maple syrup.”

  Tyler didn’t know if he should eat. Would she be cross if he saved her all the biggest pieces of bacon? “My mamm’s recipe.”

  Beth smothered her eggs with pepper but no salt. “Do you know yours is the second proposal I’ve had in the last twenty-four hours?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Alvin Hoover.” She picked up the sunflower that she had beat the petals off of. “He brought sunflowers.”

  Tyler had never felt so foolish in his entire life.

  “I’m sorry I overreacted. You caught me off guard, that’s all. I thought I had you figured out. I didn’t want you to turn out to be like all the others.”

  “The others?”

  “Wallace Schwartz proposed at the market where I bought groceries. He had three children and five cats that needed a loving mother’s care. Yost Byler was a sixty-year-old bachelor. He wanted someone to look after his ailing father. He tried a little harder than Wallace. He brought me zucchini from his garden and Mary Ellis romances from the library. But when he started knocking on my bedroom window late at night, that’s where I had to draw the line.”

  Tyler managed a smile, even though he felt like a creep. “Were there ‘other’ others?”

  “Amos’s twin brother Isaac ran them off.”

  “I’m glad somebody watched out for you.”

  “Not Isaac. He told everyone that I was engaged to him.”

  Tyler’s mouth fell open. “What did you do?”

  Beth’s dimple disappeared, and her hand trembled slightly as she put down her fork. “I begged him to leave me alone, but he was nasty about it, insisting I had a duty to marry him because he is Amos’s brother. Then his mamm said if I truly loved their family, I would agree to a marriage. The pressure made me miserable. When Mammi’s letter came, I packed my bags and got out of there right quick.”

  Beth had asked if Tyler ever got mad. Jah, he did. He couldn’t stand the thought of anyone bullying Beth. He balled his hands into fists and took several calming breaths. “I’m not like the others.”

  She laid her hand on his arm. His skin tingled at the touch. Any widower, bachelor, or young unmarried man, for that matter, would be a fool not to wish for Beth as a wife. Of course her suitors were many. “Oh, I know you’re not like the others. Alvin told me he wanted to take care of Toby and me, but he didn’t mean it. The other men saw how marrying me would benefit them. They didn’t take the trouble to find out how I felt or what I wanted or what would be in my best interest. You, on the other hand, are willing to sacrifice your entire future to help a struggling widow.”

  “I don’t see it as a sacrifice.” He looked into those deep blue eyes. Not a sacrifice at all. “But I didn’t really consider your tender feelings either.”

  Beth withdrew her hand and snorted dismissively. “Jah, tender. That’s twice in the last couple of weeks I’ve almost bit your head off.”

  “I shouldn’t have asked. I don’t usually rush into things. I’m sorry.”

  She jabbed the dead sunflower in his direction. “Enough apologizing.”

  “And I don’t think you’re helpless. You are smart and feisty, and you can do anything you put your mind to.”

  A soggy piece of pancake flew through the air and hit Tyler in the cheek. Beth giggled. The side of his mouth curled in amusement as he took his cheery yellow napkin and wiped the side of his face.

  “I guess Toby’s done,” Beth said, laughing as if nothing had upset her. She carried flailing Toby to the sink and washed his face and hands before letting him loose on the floor. Toby immediately toddled to Tyler and wanted to be picked up. “Mommy,” he said.

  Tyler bounced Toby on his knee and played peekaboo while Beth finished her breakfast. She ate five pancakes. At least some of his plans hadn’t turned out disastrously.

  “Tyler,” Beth said, nibbling on the last strip of bacon, “I hope you’re not too unhappy.”

  “No,” he replied insincerely. In all his planning, he hadn’t anticipated feeling so disappointed.

  “If you’re eager to find a wife, I’d be happy to help. I grew up here and know many of the girls in the other districts who you might not be familiar with. I could arrange meetings if you think it would help you choose a suitable wife.”

  Tyler pretended to be deep in thought. Did he want a wife? That was why he had proposed to Beth. She wouldn’t have him, so why shouldn’t he look elsewhere?

  Even though it went against all his carefully laid plans, he was beginning to suspect that not just any wife would do.

  “Okay,” he said. “If you think you are a gute judge of character, I’ll let you find me a wife.”

  Beth’s eyes sparkled. She pulled a paper and pen from Mammi’s pencil drawer. “Gute,” she said, sitting back at the table and writing something at the top of the paper. “What qualities do you want in a wife?”

  Tyler rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Most importantly, she must have a temper. I will not even consider levelheaded girl. I want a wife with fire in her bones.”

  Beth jotted down some notes. “Oh, you are in for trouble.” She looked up at the ceiling as if expecting trouble to fall from the sky.

  “I like trouble.”

  “You do not. You’re saying that to make me feel better.”

  Concern for Beth’s feelings made him frown. “Is it working?”

  She didn’t look up from her paper. “Jah. It is.”

  The front door opened an inch at a time, and Anna and Felty stuck their heads through the crack as if they were spying on someone. Felty stood above Anna so that their heads appeared to be stacked on top of one another.

  Anna raised her eyebrows, her eyes wide with curiosity. “Are we interrupting?” she whispered loudly.

  With Toby tightly in his arms, Tyler leaped to his feet as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t, relieved that Anna and Felty had come to diffuse the tension floating in the air. This whole proposal thing had turned out to be a disaster. “We are just finishing up. Do you want some pancakes?”

  “Tyler fixed me a very nice breakfast,” Beth said. “We’ve had a wonderful-gute visit.”

  Jah. Wonderful-gute. He’d made Beth cry, Toby had hurled pancake everywhere, and Beth had butchered a perfectly good sunflower.

  Anna glanced up at Felty with a smug gleam in her eye. “I told you.”

  Felty, looking unconvinced, sauntered into the great room. “You’re a wonder, Banannie.”

  “I didn’t expect you back so soon,” Tyler said.

  Anna sat at
the table and helped herself to a pancake. “Roy got a flat tire halfway there.”

  Felty patted the pocket of his trousers, where he always kept his small notebook. “Even though it was half a trip, I saw some gute license plates.”

  Anna reached out and patted Tyler’s arm. “Felty has played the license plate game with himself every year for the last forty years. He hopes to see all fifty state plates every year.”

  “I have eight yet to find before the end of December.”

  “Anyway,” said Anna, “we’re back because Roy didn’t want to drive all the way to Green Bay on his spare. I worried about ruining your special day, but there was nothing for us to do but turn back and hope you’d had enough time to ask what you needed to ask.” Her lively eyes danced as if she already knew all the answers to the questions in her head.

  A frown flitted across Beth’s face. She knew full well what Anna hinted at. But as Tyler had already observed, she couldn’t stay upset or serious for long. She leaned toward her mammi and grinned mischievously. “We’ve decided that I am going to find Tyler a wife.”

  The smile lines around Anna’s mouth etched themselves deeper into her face. “I’ve already found Tyler a wife.”

  Beth lifted her chin but kept that playful glint in her eye. “Well, Mammi, it’s not me.”

  “Of course it is, dear. Who else?”

  Tyler wished for nothing more than to crawl into a very deep hole. The deepest hole in the world. Could his embarrassment be more complete?

  Beth glanced at Tyler and actually giggled. What was there to laugh about? “You are about seventeen shades of red, Tyler. We better stop talking about this or you’re bound to turn purple.”

  “Okay,” said Anna, wiping her mouth on one of Tyler’s garish yellow napkins. “But I don’t see why you won’t accept an entirely suitable husband.”

  Beth’s face lost its luster. She lowered her eyes and drew meandering, squiggly lines on her paper. “You know why.”

  Tyler felt a wrench in his gut. Beth would always adore the memory of her late husband. He certainly couldn’t and wouldn’t compete with that.

  Felty sat at the table and smacked his palm against it. “The very gute news is that I found Delaware. This is the best day I had all week, and it’s not even seven o’clock.”

  Tyler frowned. It was the worst day he’d had all year, and it wasn’t even seven o’clock. He hoped it wouldn’t go downhill from here.

  Chapter Eight

  Awkwardly holding a hunk of cheese in one hand, Tyler tapped on the door. He wasn’t sure if he should have brought cheese, but what other sort of gift should a dairy farmer bring on a first date? Should he have brought a gift at all? Eva Raber was from Ohio. Maybe she’d be offended.

  Tyler scratched at the hair tucked under his hat. Why had he agreed to this ridiculous scheme? He wanted a wife, but he certainly didn’t need help finding one. Beth had been so eager to help him, and he would have agreed to anything to keep her from bursting into tears at breakfast last week. If Beth wanted to couple him up with every single girl in Bonduel, then he’d endure every girl in Bonduel. Beth had seen enough of heartache in her life. He’d do just about anything to bring her a little happiness.

  Sarah Beachy, Beth’s mother, opened the door and propped her hands on her hips. “Tyler Yoder. Come in.”

  Sarah stood just shy of six feet tall, only a few inches shorter than Tyler. He followed her into the kitchen, and she motioned for him to sit at the table and then sat across from him. She studied him as if he were a Holstein she might consider buying. “I hardly see any folk from your district anymore, unless they’re having a baby. Last week when we made jam, I remember thinking, ‘Tyler’s put on some muscle since I last saw him.’ I always thought you were too skinny.”

  “Denki,” Tyler said, unsure of the proper response. Had he just thanked her for thinking he was too skinny?

  Sarah’s husband, Aaron, came into the kitchen, thumbing his suspenders and examining Tyler as closely as Sarah had. Aaron, a lean and slight man, stood almost three inches shorter than his wife.

  Sarah nudged a chair out from under the table for him. “Cum, Aaron. You remember Tyler.”

  Aaron sat and stroked his beard. “Jah, he looks fine. He’ll do fine.”

  Sarah rested her elbows on the table and clasped her hands together in front of her. “Beth tells us you asked her to marry you.”

  Tyler almost choked in astonishment. “Uh . . . jah . . . I did.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Sarah said. “Not without consulting us first.”

  Aaron nodded.

  “I apologize. I realize how foolish—”

  “She may have already been married once, but we’re still her parents and would appreciate being asked our opinion.”

  “Of course. I made Beth very upset and—”

  Sarah gave Tyler’s arm a motherly pat. “Aaron and I have talked it over and have decided it’s a gute idea. So, the next time you propose to her, you don’t need to consult with us. You already have our approval.”

  Tyler wondered if his eyes would pop out of his head. “You . . . you . . .” He gathered his wits. “Denki, but it doesn’t matter now. Beth told me she doesn’t want to marry ever again.”

  Sarah waved away his explanation as if she were swatting a fly. “Stuff and nonsense. She had a very hard time of it first go-around. She’s not sure she should give the good Lord a second chance. I keep telling her that the good Lord is her only chance.”

  Tyler thought about Beth’s tearstained face at the breakfast table and a lump lodged in his throat. He hadn’t meant to stir up painful memories for her. “I can’t imagine losing someone so close.”

  Aaron grunted while Sarah snorted her displeasure. “Better days are ahead for both of you.”

  “Jah,” Tyler said. “I think Beth’s new business will do well.”

  Sarah rapped her knuckles in the table. “I mean for the both of you together. You’re a fine young man, Tyler, but you got too eager. Beth won’t jump into the pool until she’s checked to make sure it’s filled with water. Then she’ll have to be certain the water’s warm. And then she’ll want to know there’s a gute swimmer to catch her. You’ll have to be patient.”

  What exactly did they want him to be patient about? He certainly wasn’t going to ask a girl to marry him if she didn’t want to be asked. Tyler looked from Sarah to Aaron. “Are you . . . are you going to introduce me to your new neighbor?”

  Sarah slapped her thigh and jumped from her seat. “Oy, anyhow. I forgot about Eva. She’s waiting for you in the back.”

  Tyler grabbed his cheese and let Sarah lead him to the back door. He peered out the screen at a girl dressed in brown who sat at the picnic table nibbling her fingernails. The table had been laid with a red-and-white checkered cloth, paper plates and cups, and an unruly vase of sunflowers. Tyler groaned inwardly at the sight of his flower nemesis. He wondered if Eva ever got angry enough to snap off the heads of innocent flowers and use their stems as bullwhips.

  It didn’t matter if she did. He didn’t plan on giving Eva any reason to hurl, flail, or otherwise destroy the flowers. He’d come for an enjoyable, friendly picnic with a girl he thought he might want to get to know better. And under no circumstances would he ask her to marry him. Surely the flowers were safe.

  Tyler could hear Felty singing inside.

  “To be a child of God each day, my light must shine along the way. I’ll sing His praise while ages roll, and strive to help some troubled soul.”

  Tyler knocked, and he heard Anna call from inside. “Cum reu.”

  He opened the door and for a moment thought a stiff wind had come through the room and upended everything in its path. Beth, with a pair of scissors in one hand, stood at the kitchen table examining a piece of fabric and a pattern spread across the top of it. Piles of scraps sat on each kitchen chair, and fabric fibers and bits of cotton floated through the air like dandelion parachutes.


  While Sparky napped at her feet, Anna sat in her rocker stitching ties onto a crisp white kapp. Tiny scraps of white fabric collected at her feet or came to rest on Sparky as she let them fall. Sparky didn’t seem to notice the disturbance.

  Five bolts of sky-blue fabric sat on the sofa with a deep purple propped against the end table.

  Leaning forward in his recliner, Felty played ball with Toby. Their game consisted of Toby throwing the tennis ball wherever he wanted to and watching it bounce around the furniture. Felty would clap at the appropriate moments, and Toby would fetch the ball to throw again.

  “Tyler,” Beth said, blooming into a radiant smile that he didn’t deserve, considering how he’d made her cry two weeks ago.

  But he sure liked that smile and the dimple that came with it.

  He shut the door and hung up his hat. “Aden promised me he’d be here this time.”

  Beth snipped at an errant thread. “He brought a load of good oak yesterday. He had better get to work soon, or Lily won’t get that chest of drawers for Christmas.”

  As soon as Toby saw Tyler, he opened his mouth in a breathless smile, pumped his little arms, and ran to him. Tyler threw Toby into the air and twirled him around the room.

  Beth laughed at Toby’s delight and seemed to glow from the inside when she looked at her son.

  Propping Toby securely in one arm, Tyler reached into his pocket. “I have something for you.”

  “For me?”

  He held out his small stack of papers. “Three more women in my district want dresses. They wrote down their measurements, and I promised I wouldn’t look.”

  The blush seemed to travel up her face as she bit her bottom lip and grinned. Tyler had never seen a more appealing sight. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said.

  Anna tied a knot and cut her thread. “You should hire him as a salesman.”

  The warmth in Beth’s blush seemed to intensify. “Tyler, you’re so kind. You’ve brought me half my customers.”

  “Your dresses sell themselves. My mamm wore hers to gmay on Sunday, and everyone wanted to know who made it. I told them where they could get one just like it.”