Jacob's Return

by Annette Blair

  Esther’s laughter rang out, and Rachel smiled to hear her sister happy again.

  “Not bad,” Jacob said. “For a man who could not make coffee, or find his coffee pot, some months ago.”

  “Ya. I’m goot. Nein?”

  “Nein,” Esther said, patting his cheek.

  Ruben’s smile turned to a frown when he understood the insult, then he raised a brow. “Tonight, I will show you, then you will know.” And Esther’s blush seemed to satisfy him.

  It took three sittings for everyone to eat, but the bridal party remained seated throughout.

  When people finished eating, they brought out their song books, the Lieder Sammlungen, to take turns serenading the couple. But Ruben and Esther must only listen; it would be considered a bad omen if they sang too.

  Disregarding Simon’s frown, Rachel sang to her heart’s content. The songs — hymns really, though not so solemn as at service — kept a happy, quick pace when heartily sung.

  Ruben and Esther sent sweets from their table to special friends, or to the singers. Every time Daniel let out a yell, they sent something to Fannie.

  “Do you think she’s pinching the boy?” Ruben asked. “So she can taste everything?”

  After a while, the young people went to play games in the barn. Skip to Ma Lou, There Goes Topsy Through the Window, and Little Red Wagon Painted Blue, were favorites. They allowed for hand-holding and partner-swinging, but not for dancing, which was frowned upon.

  After supper, the final song, the Guter Geselle, the Good Friend, was sung, and Rachel hated to see the wonderful day end.

  Emma cried for having to leave Daniel behind, then finally, she and Aaron were sleeping soundly in the back of the buggy.

  Simon had left about two hours earlier than she and Jacob, when most of the adults had left, and Fannie had put Daniel, Emma and Aaron to bed upstairs and went home too.

  Most of the younger, unmarried, guests stayed until midnight. As attendants, she and Jacob stayed with Esther and Ruben, who could not go to bed until their guests left.

  Ruben had grumbled, on and off, for the remaining two hours, about those thoughtless youngsters, making Esther laugh.

  Rachel did not think she had ever seen her sister laugh so much. Daniel, her first husband, was a good man, but quiet. Ruben was anything but.

  “A good day,” Rachel said, as Caliope trotted before their buggy at a slow, soothing pace, the late November night crisp, but not cold. “You’re quiet, Jacob.”

  “Look at the stars, Mudpie, there are millions of them, and they are all ours tonight.” His hand sought hers and she took it. Just for a minute, she thought. It would hurt no one if they touched for a minute.

  “They’re happy,” she said.

  “I am happy for them.”

  “Yes.” Quiet times she and Jacob shared, like these, often the most comfortable, restful moments of her day, Rachel treasured. She was especially grateful for this time, now.

  “Your condition is beginning to show. You look more beautiful than ever,” Jacob said.

  “He is kicking.”

  Jacob looked at her, his eyes wide. “Now?”

  Understanding his longing, probably because he missed this with Aaron and Emma, Rachel raised their clasped hands and flattened them over her abdomen.

  When the baby moved, he smiled. “He is all arms and legs and happy energy. He has enjoyed the day too.”

  She stopped herself from saying more than she should and nodded. “We are nearly home,” she said.

  Jacob understood Rachel’s warning, and moved his hand back to the reigns. He stopped the carriage by the front door, so he could carry Aaron inside and help Rachel put the twins to bed. “I’ll go settle Caliope now. Thank you for a lovely day.”

  He watched Rachel go to her room before he went out to drive the buggy to the barn. Tonight, two needs warred within him — one, to free Rachel from Simon; the other, to free her from himself.

  Jacob only wished he could be certain which freedom was best.

  Today he’d tried to set her free from her guilt, but without success, he suspected.

  As he brushed Caliope down, Jacob worried that his need to free Rachel from a husband who did not cherish her was more selfish than anything. Simon did seem more caring lately. Jacob wanted to believe it would last. Besides, to free her from her husband, of all people, did not count among his rights.

  Only one freedom was his to grant — the freedom from himself. And would that be good for Rachel?

  To leave her, to take his babies away from her, from Datt, would hurt Emma and Aaron; it would hurt them all. Especially him.

  Leaving her would destroy him. But he, more than anyone, did not matter.

  It was Rachel who did. What would be best for her?

  Jacob filled a bucket with oats and extra molasses and left Caliope to enjoy her late supper. As he picked up the lantern, he noticed slats from the lambing pen on the floor. Aaron’s Pokey was missing.

  A crash turned Jacob on his heel. “Mein Gott, do you animals have something against the press? One would think Simon had paid you to....”

  His words hung in the air.

  Oh, it could not be.

  But two animals damaging the press? Different animals at different times? And at such particular times?

  The first accident had followed upon the heels of Simon learning he and Esther would not marry. The second accident, now, tonight, after Esther’s marriage to Ruben, to someone other than himself … him and Rachel spending the day together so openly, so happily.

  The more he thought about it, it seemed less and less like the animals, and more and more like … a child’s tantrum at not getting what he wanted. More like revenge. Hate.

  A strong word, hate.

  Did Simon’s emotions run so deep then? And where was this hate of his directed? Toward the press, toward the brother his wife would have married if not for his interference, or toward Rachel, herself?

  Jacob held the lantern higher. Pokey had stepped into a splash of lead letters and splintered wood. The sheared, broken armature lay on the ground.

  How could a little lamb cause such damage? Jacob lifted the piece, ran his hand along the turned, thick oak. Snapped clean. On purpose? Oak? Solid, hard, sturdy … by a lamb?

  Should he tell Rachel what he found and allow her to think the animal caused it? Should he tell her his suspicions? Or allow her to come to her own conclusions?

  He could be wrong. He should at least give his own brother the benefit of the doubt. Datt would be so hurt if … One thing for certain. His leaving at this point, might not set Rachel free; it might place her in danger.

  If Simon’s anger ran this deep, if he transferred his ire to the press because he could no longer hurt Rachel, then she needed looking after, both her and the baby.

  In six weeks, the most holy season of the year would be upon them. He would stay at least for Christmas and Second Christmas. It would be Emma’s and Aaron’s first with the family.

  Jacob hoped it would not be their last.

  Chapter 15

  Jacob was pleased Rachel intended to keep alive the Christmas traditions his mother had started.

  When he saw her preparing Mom’s secret recipe fruitcake, his mother seemed close again, his anger over her death, less sharp.

  Jacob laughed when Rachel admitted his mother had taught her the recipe fourteen years before, when she was only eight, and still Mom had always called it a ‘secret’ recipe. When Rachel said she would teach Emma to make it when she was eight, Jacob hoped, with all his heart, that she would have the chance.

  Mom’s fruitcakes — tied up in white muslin cloths like a bad case of toothache, mellowing in blue-rimmed crocks in the summer kitchen the whole month before — had always been the first sign of the season for Jacob, and this year was no exception. Most would be given to friends to symbolize the gifts of the wise men, but one or two would be theirs to savor.

  For the past two weeks, the women
had been going from house to house to make their favorite Christmas treats together, Springerlies, Pfeffernussen Kuchen and Tangled Jackets.

  In a little while, Fannie, Priscilla and Esther would come to help Rachel bake, and new Christmas memories would arrive upon the wings of frosted gingerbread angels smelling of anise, nutmeg or peppermint. Lively Pennsylvania Dutch chatter — everyone speaking at once, yet understanding everything said — would complete the tradition.

  Jacob daringly suggested that Rachel make some of Mom’s souse, because pig’s feet jelly on toast seemed to belong to Christmas morning. After her swat over the work he was giving her, he went out to milk.

  “It snows, it snows,” Fannie said as she stomped her shoes on the rag rug at the kitchen door. Over one arm she carried a basket of walnuts from her Pop’s trees. “Ach, Rache. Wide as a barn, you are. Mein Gott. That’s some big baby you got there.”

  “Just what a woman likes to hear,” Rachel said. “A barn, Fannie?”

  Fannie looked embarrassed, but Rachel laughed.

  “Siss am schneea, It’s snowing,” Esther said as she deposited two-month-old Daniel in Rachel’s arms and began to unwind the tawny wool blanket their mother had knitted twenty years before, from around him. And suddenly the formless bundle with tiny blue eyes peeping out, became a wiggling angel happy to be free.

  Ruben stepped into the room, missed the rug entirely, and stomped his shoes on the floor to get the snow off. “Iss kalt. Brr,” he said as he carried Daniel’s cradle into the toasty kitchen and set it near the quilt where Aaron and Emma played. Then he curled his finger in a come-along way, to draw the twins from their quilt and nearer to him, and when they stood side by side looking up expectantly, he removed his hat and shook snow all over them.

  Delightful shrieks turned to downright giggling as the twins tried to get the snow off before it turned to cold water and trickled down their necks.

  Esther shook her head. “Two little boys I got.”

  But Rachel didn’t think Es minded a bit. A sparkle lit her sister’s eyes these days, one Rachel had never seen before, not even when Es became Daniel’s bride.

  Ruben walked over and kissed Es’s cheek, his face ruddy with embarrassment, then he turned to leave after doing the same with Daniel and the twins. “Back in time for supper,” he said as he went out the door.

  “Always in time to eat,” Esther said, which started them all on stories of men and mealtimes.

  With so much to cook and bake, they even used the cavernous fireplace where cooking used to be done before Levi bought his wife a fancy new coal-burning stove. Hands to her back, pushing her belly out, Rachel straightened after placing a cake in the low brick oven.” Ach, poor Hannah, leaning over like this to cook all day for years; no wonder she was bent with age.

  The four women, despite one baby and two toddlers, moved in harmony. Batter got mixed and baked. Cookies got cut and decorated, and spoons were licked by Aaron and Emma, and sometimes by Rachel, who for some reason, found the taste of everything wonderful this year.

  Luscious chocolate fudge poured into greased pans to cool and set, made mouths water. Aaron dipped a finger in for an early taste, then got his burned finger plunged into a bowl of cold water and covered with butter.

  Later, Simon came in and snatched a fresh-cut piece of fudge. Without thinking, Rachel smacked his hand with the back of a wooden spoon, and while her heart pounded with fear, he retaliated by kissing her cheek.

  Her face flamed. That was the most playful thing Simon had ever done. And in front of everyone!

  Maybe he really was changing.

  Before he left, he grabbed her hand-slapping spoon and held it in the air out of her reach. And she laughed.

  Simon made her laugh!

  He snatched three more pieces of fudge then, handed one each to the twins, and popped the last into his mouth. With a wink and a tip of his hat to the ladies, he went back outside.

  Most of the treats got taken downstairs to the unheated summer kitchen to cool or be stored. Everything kept better down there and tomorrow was Christmas Eve anyway.

  Priscilla arrived late, more than an hour after school should have been finished. “Down the snow flutters still,” she said as she came in. Once free of her heavy shoes, outer bonnet and cape, she went over to sit on the quilt with Aaron, took Daniel from his cradle and sat him in her lap facing everyone. “Sorry to be so late. Those kids! I worry so. None of the words they’ll remember, in the pageant tomorrow. Weeks, we’ve been practicing already.”

  Rachel went to pour the water from the noodles into the zinc-lined sink. “You like teaching, don’t you, Pris?”

  “Like nothing, ever. No insult meant, but I’m glad you left, Rache.” She slapped her forehead. “Oh, foolish me. I almost forgot to invite you already.”

  “Invite me to what?”

  Priscilla looked at her as if she were daft and Rachel wondered for a minute how she succeeded in teaching the children anything when she forgot so much. She grinned at the notion.

  “To the pageant, of course. You’ll come? All of you and the twins?” Priscilla looked concerned. “It’s important to the children you should come.”

  “Of course,” Rachel said and wondered if the new teacher was nervous about making mistakes in front of the old one.

  But if Priscilla was nervous, it didn’t last long. She began to clap Daniel’s hands. “Botsche, botsche, kuche. Der Baker hot gerufe.”

  The twins sang the English words, “Paddy, paddy the cakes,” and clapped with little Daniel.

  * * * *

  Christmas Eve dawned crisp and finger-cold. The pageant would begin promptly at two. Everyone in the Sauder house had been invited, and Rachel was especially surprised when Levi and Simon wanted to go. When they arrived, generations of families were pulling up in a line of buggies half a mile long.

  Her classroom — Priscilla’s rather — looked beautiful and a smile filled Rachel’s heart.

  Along one side, hooks with boys’ coats and black felt hats of every size, met a row of shawls and like-sized blue winter bonnets. For a minute, until her baby kicked, Rachel missed being a teacher. But placing her hand on her stomach, she knew she would not go back for anything.

  Most of the visitors sat on benches placed in rows along the sides and back, of the one-room school. Some sat at their children’s desks, while the students were off preparing for the pageant.

  Little Ruth Vost led Rachel to a chair in the front and center of the room. The twins came too; Aaron sat on the floor at her feet — Emma sat on her feet. Simon, Levi and Jacob stood in the back.

  A cord was strung across the front of the room, and a sheet of muslin, with painted hills and blue skies, was folded over it to form a curtain. In the room’s side windows sat lit candles with evergreens around their bases.

  When the visitors were all sitting, Priscilla turned down the lamps, the candles giving a soft glow to the overcast winter afternoon. Then she rang a bell and the room quieted.

  Rachel’s good impression of the new teacher grew.

  Elam Lapp stepped before the curtain and began by reading the Nativity in High German. Christmas Eve as it was meant to be.

  When Elam finished, Lena, Hannah, Mary-Rose and Amanda, first graders wearing paper angel wings, stood, three on each side of him and sang, “Ein Kindlein zart in der Krippen,” Away in the Manger.

  After the song, Priscilla came out. “What we wish to do today is called, “Cradle Rocking,” from a fourteenth century German Christmas custom I read about in a book Atlee lent me.” Pris smiled and nodded, and that’s when Rachel saw Atlee.

  “This custom replaced Nativity plays after they were banned,” Priscilla said. “A cradle with a doll or baby, to symbolize the Holy Child, would be rocked while the congregation sang and prayed.” She took a breath and looked for her place on her script. How hard Pris must have worked to perfect her speaking for this occasion. “By the sixteenth century,” Pris continued, “This custo
m too was banned. But since our people have never allowed themselves to be stopped, it seemed right, as we celebrate Christ’s birth, to honor our Amish martyrs for not giving up.”

  Pris blew out the candles.

  One edge of the curtain was pulled back, where a single lantern revealed Daniel in his cradle. No wonder he and Priscilla were so comfortable with each other.

  Behind the center of the curtain another light came on, outlining Mary and Joseph in shadow. An unseen hand rocked the Holy Child’s cradle while Daniel kicked and gurgled in glee.

  Ida Lapp began to recite:

  “Joseph, dearest Joseph mine,

  Help me rock my baby fine!

  What Gabriel foretold

  Is now fulfilled,

  Eia, Eia,

  The Virgin bore a child

  As the Father’s wisdom willed.

  Eia, Eia.

  Three wise men, judging by the shawls wrapped around Joseph, Jacob and Joshua Stutz, and by their camels — children on all-fours beside them — came from the opposite end of the room to recite:

  “Out of the Orient they came a’riding

  Three noble kings of humble heart and mild.

  They came to see the Blessed Lord of Heaven

  Descend to earth, to be a little child.

  Precious gifts of gold and myrrh and incense,

  Bringing God the gifts which God had made:

  Low the kings in homage bowing,

  At the feet of Mary laid.”

  Then the angels returned to the center of the room and sang:

  “To Christ our Lord we raise this song,

  Hol-di-ah-di-ay.

  Chimes are ringing, angels singing,

  Hol-di-ah-di-ay.

  Oh, look here! No, look there!

  Angels’ choirs everywhere.”

  Then the cast came from behind the curtain to end the program with, “Still Nacht, Heilige Nacht, Silent Night.”

  Rachel was not sure she could hold back her tears. Nor was she certain who made her more proud, the schoolchildren for being so good, or Priscilla, herself, for becoming such a good teacher.