A Simple Amish Christmas

by Vannetta Chapman

  Mifflin County, Pennsylvania

  December 1, 2009, 9:30 p.m.

  Samuel Yoder sat up straighter in the hard wooden chair, stared at the simple furnishings in his neighbor’s bedroom, and struggled against the fatigue that threatened to overwhelm him. A glance at Jacob Weaver told him that nothing had changed in the man’s condition. He still slept; his breathing remained labored but steady, his pulse beat within normal range.

  Sighing heavily, Samuel unfolded his lanky six-foot frame and walked to the room’s single window. He could see nothing in the darkness—the quarter moon did little to shed any light on Jacob’s fields.

  Samuel stared at them nonetheless.

  Memories of finding Mary and Little Hannah that other December night, so many years ago—frozen and gschtarewe in the snow—merged with finding Jacob last night. His left arm began to shake, and he massaged it with his right, knowing the tremor would pass in a few moments.

  The tremor always passed, though the memory remained.

  He couldn’t bring back his fraa and boppli. Their deaths were a burden he would always carry.

  The man behind him could still be helped, and for that he was grateful.

  If only he’d found his friend earlier.

  Perhaps the cold wouldn’t have settled in his lungs.

  Perhaps the infection wouldn’t have crept into his broken leg.

  If he hadn’t kept Jacob so long looking at the fields on his place, perhaps the accident wouldn’t have happened at all.

  A gentle tap at the door pulled his thoughts from questioning himself.

  “Are you sure you won’t eat something?” Rebekah peeked around the door, her voice hopeful, her round face creased with worry.

  “No, Rebekah. Danki, but I couldn’t eat now.” Samuel moved back toward the bed.

  “Was iss letz?” Anxiety sharpened her tone, and Rebekah hurried to her husband’s side, her hands smoothing the blankets covering Jacob.

  “Nothing’s wrong, nothing more than an hour ago. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Samuel sank back into the chair, ran his fingers through his beard. “It’s only that—”

  He stopped, realizing his confession would do nothing to ease her worry. Families looked to him to be the healer— though truth was he frankly claimed to be a farmer with a minimal amount of knowledge regarding herbs and medicinal workings.

  Still, his place was to ease pain.

  “What is it, Samuel? We have known each other too long for you to keep things from me.” Rebekah’s brown eyes pleaded with him, her hands still clasping those of Jacob. “I’d rather know whatever you have to say. God will see us through, but I need to know.”

  “It’s not about Jacob. Not really.” Samuel considered again adding the burden of his guilt to her shoulders. The Bible did command people to confess and be honest with one another.

  Taking a deep breath, he plunged forward with the truth.

  “I blame myself. It’s my fault he was traveling the main road. Jacob normally takes the back road home, but he’d stopped by my place to look over my fields. I’d been thinking about changing my western field to alfalfa hay, and I asked him to give me his opinion.”

  “So if you hadn’t asked him to stop by, he would have come straight home yesterday afternoon.” The words came out as a statement, not a question as Rebekah’s expression and tone changed instantly, from concern to one he knew all too well— he’d been scolded by her often enough as a boy.

  “Ya. I know what you’re about to say, but if I hadn’t kept him late talking about crops, he wouldn’t have been driving the rig home in the dark.”

  “And when did anyone have to encourage Jacob Weaver to stay and talk?” Rebekah placed her hands on her ample hips.

  Samuel cringed, knowing he was trying her patience. Perhaps he should have settled for dinner and kept his worries to himself, but she still didn’t understand that he felt he was responsible for Jacob’s current condition—one which might result in his being laid up until late winter or even spring. The thought of it turned Samuel’s stomach sour, and all notion of eating fled.

  “He won’t be able to work for months, Rebekah. Who will take care of things? Who will plant in the spring? I know Adam has already purchased his own place. You won’t be able to do this alone.”

  “And we don’t plan on doing it alone. Does the Scripture not say the Lord will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied?”

  “Ya, but—”

  “And do we or do we not believe the Scripture?”

  “Well, of course, but Rebekah—”

  “Don’t worry about my husband’s fields, Samuel Yoder. You’re a gut man with God’s gift for healing, but there are some things you don’t see clearly. Our fields will be fine.”

  Samuel pulled in a deep breath, stood, and walked around the old wooden bed with the hand-stitched quilt. Turning Rebekah toward him, he looked down into her eyes.

  Her face had been gently wrinkled by time, and despite her confident words her eyes brimmed with tears.

  “Rebekah, you’re going to need extra help caring for him. You listened to Doctor Stoltzfus at the hospital, right?”

  She nodded, tried to speak, but he pressed on.

  “The cold will settle into his lungs if we don’t help him up and see that he is moving regularly. He’ll catch the pneumonia. Perhaps we should have left him in the hospital.”

  “No. I’m glad they were able to set his legs, but he’d never agree to stay with the Englisch. You heard him yourself last night.”

  “Ya, but we plain folk are always in a hurry to come home when we are away. Now that he’s here…” Samuel again turned and glanced at the dark scene outside. “He might feel differently when he wakes tomorrow.”

  Rebekah swiped at her tears and shook her head resolutely. “We will go back to the hospital if you tell us his condition is worse, but I’d rather take care of him here—at home.”

  “He’s going to need constant care.”

  “Because of his breathing?”

  “Ya, and his legs. One was a clean break, as the doctor explained. But the infection in the other one will require that someone change the bandages regularly.”

  “Plus the medicines.” Rebekah scowled, not even attempting to hide her distrust.

  “My herbs would not be enough to fight the infection. We want him to walk again.” Samuel waited a moment, then continued. “He will need constant tending, and I don’t see how you can do it and still take care of the kinner, not to mention running the household and your job at the store—”

  He heard the front door to the house open, exclamations from the kinner, and then the softer murmur of voices.

  Looking quizzically at Rebekah, he saw her pull in a deep breath, then draw back her shoulders.

  “I’ve thought of those things,” she said, her voice taking on the resolute quality he had heard so many times before. It instantly reminded him of working in the field, of harvest time, of bowing to the task at hand. “Which is why I sent for help.”

  Before Samuel could think of what to say, the door to the room pushed open, and a woman stepped inside.

  She was not dressed in plain clothes, but neither was she dressed like any Englischer Samuel had ever seen before.

  A dark blue dress hung nearly to her ankles, but there was no apron adorning it. Although it was conservative in style, it was not Amish. A small white hat sat on top of her head, and beneath the hat spilled chestnut hair—hair he was sure had never been cut. It reached well past her waist and bounced and curled as she flew into Rebekah’s arms.

  Her cheeks were colored a rosy pink. At first he was distracted, embarrassed by her use of cosmetics.

  Then she stepped closer to his patient, never pausing to look at him, and he caught the smell of the cold December wind on her. No doubt she had run up the steps, causing the blush.

  After feeling Jacob’s brow, running a hand down his cheek, then t
railing her fingers to his wrist, she finally turned her attention to him.

  “How is my daed?” she asked breathlessly.

  Samuel could have fallen onto the bed.

  Was this woman Amish?

  And why was she calling Jacob Weaver her father? Surely she wasn’t—

  “You will remember our Annie,” Rebekah murmured softly, moving to encircle the girl with her arm. “She’s been staying a time in the city, to help with her cousins there. But now she’s home.”

  “Of course I’m home, Mamm.” The girl’s lashes glistened with tears as she again took in the sight of her father.

  Samuel attempted to speak, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Your father has been seriously hurt in a buggy accident, Miss Weaver. He just returned from the hospital a few hours ago.”

  “Annie. Please, call me Annie.”

  Nodding curtly, Samuel attempted to gather his wits.

  Had she joined the church before she left?

  He combed his memory for any mention Jacob had made of his oldest girl. Samuel had been away at the time she’d left— helping his bruder settle in Ohio. Jacob had mentioned her coming home a few times since, but Samuel was not one to visit socially if he could help it.

  The last time he’d seen Annie Weaver she had been a mere girl. “How badly is he hurt?” Annie asked, again holding her father’s wrist between her fingertips.

  “Annie will be caring for her daed,” Rebekah explained. “Tell her everything, Samuel.”

  Another tap on the door revealed Adam’s curly head. “Annie, come out and have some hot tea. You must be chilled from your trip.”

  Annie flew into her bruder’s arms, and Samuel found himself nearly flinching at their familiarity. He’d lived alone so long now, lived alone since that other December night.

  Watching this family so openly express their love for one another felt like salt poured into an open and still-fresh wound.

  “You’ve grown more, Adam.” Annie’s voice trembled as she stepped back and straightened her dress.

  “Doubtful, since I’m twenty-two now. Could be you’ve shrunk.” His playful voice stopped when he turned to look at their father. “Let’s go to the kitchen. Leah has some hot tea ready for you, and I’m sure you’re starved.”

  “I couldn’t eat,” she confessed, her hand skimming her flat stomach. “But some tea would be perfect.”

  Turning to Samuel, she studied him soberly. “Will you join us in the kitchen? I need to know what you’d have me do.”

  Samuel nodded, motioning Rebekah to his chair. “Let me speak with your mamm briefly, then I’ll join you.”

  Annie followed Adam out of the room, and Samuel turned his attention to his friend—not because anything had changed in his condition, but because he needed a moment to make up his mind about the young woman who waited for him.

  Annie followed her bruder to the kitchen table. Her younger siblings were already in their nightclothes and situated on the stairs, but they tumbled down to the first floor the minute she walked out of her dat’s room.

  “Annie, you’re home!” Charity cried.

  At sixteen, she looked the most like their mother with darker hair and full, round cheeks. Annie noticed her little schweschder no longer looked like a girl, with her full figure and her somber eyes. How could she have changed so much in the six months since she’d last visited?

  “Ya, I’m home.” She hugged her schweschder, laughing that they were the same height now.

  “How long are you staying?” Reba asked. She was fourteen and tomboyish. Reba still protectively cupped a hand over the pocket of her nightdress, no doubt because some critter she’d brought in from the barn was squirming in there. Annie was relieved to see that some things hadn’t changed.

  “Enough questions for Annie. I think your mamm would like you back upstairs.” Leah’s voice was softer than the night that had settled around the house.

  She was Annie’s height, nearly five and a half feet, thin as a willow, with beautiful blonde hair and a motherly disposition the girls responded to well. If anything, her future schweschder-in-law had grown prettier since Annie had last seen her, and even closer to the younger Weaver girls. They both hugged her, then moved back into Annie’s arms.

  Annie kissed each of them, promising she’d still be there in the morning when they woke.

  She sat at the table and allowed the simplicity of her parents’ kitchen to calm her nerves. Unlike her aenti’s home, the counters were mostly bare with only a few canisters stacked neatly to the left of the gas-powered stove. Her mamm’s spice rack hung on the wall above the counter. As she stared around the room, she suddenly realized it was the only thing on the wall.

  It was as if she was seeing it all for the first time.

  No Christmas decorations yet adorned the room, and she smiled to think she would be here to place the candles in the windows.

  A refrigerator, also gas-powered, hummed to the right side of the sink, and her mamm’s drying rack for dishes sat to the left.

  This room was where Annie had grown up.

  Sitting in it, waiting to hear her father’s condition, Annie wondered why she had ever left.

  “What could be taking so long?” she asked.

  “Adam, go and check.” Leah placed a mug of warm tea in her hands, sat beside her, and pulled her own chair closer—as if their proximity could somehow ease the blow of the terrible news.

  Annie laced her fingers around the warm mug and was staring down into it when Samuel stepped from her parents’ room.

  He was nothing like she remembered him, and of course she did remember Samuel Yoder.

  The last time she’d seen him, he had been tending to a kind who had cut open his arm on the school playground. She had been out of school already, but she’d stopped by to deliver a book she’d borrowed. She’d stared in fascination as he’d sewn up the boy’s arm just as her mamm mended a tear in a skirt.

  While the teacher had turned pale and pretended to have other duties to attend to, Annie had been completely absorbed by the procedure.

  She’d had so many questions, none of which she’d dared ask.

  What type of string did he use?

  How did he cleanse the wound?

  Where did he purchase the special needle?

  Was the procedure something she could learn?

  The picture had stayed in her mind as she’d worked first at the dry goods store in town, then at the small diner owned by her mother’s schweschder, and finally with the animals on their own farm.

  At the first two jobs her employers had gently suggested she try something more suited to her temperament. Since the owners were members of their church, they preferred not to fire her, but they couldn’t keep her on when her ineptitude for the work was so painfully obvious to all.

  Annie was relieved when the jobs came to an end.

  Working for her dat had been no better.

  Nothing had satisfied the desire born in her heart that day on the school grounds—nothing until she’d stepped into the halls of Mercy Hospital.

  Samuel walked across to their kitchen table and accepted the warm mug Leah handed him. “Danki,” he muttered, his voice low and vibrant—sending Annie’s stomach tumbling.

  When he raised his eyes to hers, Annie wondered if he even remembered that day so many years ago. From the surprised look he’d given her when she’d walked in, probably not.

  No doubt she’d changed.

  She studied him as he sipped the tea and spoke with Adam about the cold winds rattling their windows.

  In the past three years, he’d grown more handsome.

  Annie’s cheeks colored at the thought, but it was true.

  His hair remained coal black with no streaks of gray, though he probably neared thirty years now. Samuel was six feet tall, thin but not skinny—if anything he’d filled out since that day so long ago, but it wasn’t his slight change in weight that captured Annie’s attention as he conversed with h
er bruder.

  It was his eyes.

  They were without a doubt his most startling feature—reminding her of a mare her dat had once owned. The horse was an amazing blue-black color, the color of the sky at night.

  In the shadows thrown by the gas lamps, she could see worry lines radiating out from those compelling eyes, lines he was too young to sport. It occurred to her that Samuel’s burden of grief had only grown since she’d last seen him so many years ago.

  Certainly the blow he’d received as a young man had been heavy.

  She had been twelve at the time his fraa and boppli had died, and she could still remember standing beside the grave with her family while the two boxes were lowered into the ground side by side.

  As the December wind shook their windows, she tried to remember the details of the accident, but couldn’t. Something about a snowstorm and the horse losing its way.

  Does a heart not heal from such a terrible tragedy as he had suffered?

  The question had barely found its way from her heart to her mind when he cleared his throat and began questioning her.

  “Annie, do you realize the seriousness of your dat’s condition?” The question came out like an oral exam she’d once been given by a professor.

  “Mamm told me both legs were broken and he’d lain injured a while in the cold before he was found.”

  Samuel’s cheeks colored and he stared down into his tea. “Ya, that’s right. The breaks are quite bad. It looked to me as if his buggy might have been hit by one of the Englisch.”

  He eyed her clothes and his voice hardened a bit on the last word. When she didn’t respond, he continued.

  “The horse had to be put down.”

  Annie’s hand flew to her mouth. She turned to Adam.

  “It was the older mare Dat was so fond of, but Samuel’s right—it had to be done. There was no other option.”

  Folding her hands in her lap to still their shaking, Annie nodded. Losing a horse was a tragedy for any family, but her father had survived. Best to focus on what they had to be grateful for.

  “Your father was unconscious when I arrived.” Samuel met her gaze fully as the impact of his confession slammed into her.