Annie felt the heat creep up her neck, past her cheeks, to the very roots of her hair. “I appreciate the invitation. It’s very, um, sweet. I haven’t really thought about… that is to say, I don’t know yet when I’ll be able to—”
“It’s all right, Annie. You needn’t be deciding now.” David handed her the rope with one hand, touched her shoulder with the other. “Take the rope. I’ll keep my eyes open for other projects I could use his help on. Your father’s a skilled farmer. I’m sure lying up in the bed is taking its toll on him.”
“And on me,” she mumbled as she turned and headed back toward the house.
Rebekah arrived home from her work at the store to find her bedroom filled with several projects from the barn. When she stood in the doorway, hands on hips, and cleared her throat, both Annie and Jacob began explaining at once.
“Now, Rebekah. Don’t be thinking I spilled any of this tool grease on your lovely quilt.”
“Indeed he didn’t. I took your lone star quilt off and stored it on the chest by the window.” Annie jumped up from the chair and set her needlework down in the basket. How had she not heard her mother’s buggy pull up? “I covered Dat with an old blanket we found in the closet.”
Stepping past her mother, she whispered, “I’ll explain more when you take your tea.”
Rebekah removed her coat and sailed into the room. “Looks to me as if someone couldn’t go to the barn, so they managed to bring the barn into my bedroom.”
Annie couldn’t hear the rest as she fled to the kitchen, set the kettle on the stove, and began pulling out bread and fruit.
“What’s going on in there?” Charity asked, leaning back against the counter.
“Nothing. David brought in a few things for Dat to work on is all.”
“What do you two talk about?” Charity asked dreamily, playing with the strings of her kapp and stepping closer to Annie.
“Me and Dat?”
“No, gegisch. You and David. It’s obvious he’s sweet on you.”
“Charity Weaver. David is in the barn all day working. We don’t talk about anything.”
“Then why are you blushing?”
“I am not blushing.”
“Who isn’t blushing?” Rebekah asked, walking into the room.
“Annie. All I did was ask her about David, and she started blushing as if she’d been standing over the stove for an hour. Look at her cheeks and tell me they aren’t red.”
Annie raised her eyes to the ceiling and prayed for patience.
“Stop teasing your schweschder, and take some of this fresh bread and fruit to your dat.”
“Sorry, Mamm.”
Drawing a deep breath, Annie turned and smiled at her mamm, offered her the hot cup of tea.
“Danki,” she said.
“Does David make you blush?” Rebekah asked.
“David confuses me. He seems like the same boy I went to school with, except taller…” she hesitated, suddenly realized that her thoughts had careened toward Samuel whenever she was around David.
“And?” Rebekah studied her over her steaming tea.
“And today he asked me to go on a buggy ride with him.”
Rebekah grinned, reached out, and squeezed her hand. “What gut news. Did you say yes?”
“I don’t know if it’s gut or not, and I didn’t say anything. It was like being asked by your bruder. I’ve never thought of David in that way—in any way other than as a friend.”
“Things change, but sometimes our perception of them stays the same.”
Annie selected an apple from the bowl of fruit, rolled it back and forth in front of her.
Rebekah cleared her throat and changed the subject. “Care to tell me why your father’s looking so froh in there, working as if he were in the barn?”
“He was driving me crazy this morning, so I went outside and asked David if he could find a few projects.”
“Looks as if he did.”
“Ya.” Darting a look at her mother, Annie was relieved to see her smiling. “You don’t mind?”
“I’ve been married to your dat for twenty-five years. I’ve never seen him stop working and can’t imagine how you kept him in that bed for nearly a week.” Rebekah finished her tea and stood up. “Just try to keep the animals out of the house.”
6
In addition to the nativity scene, they had placed a single candle in each window—battery-operated, of course. Annie smiled at the simplicity of their decorations. Her Englisch friends would look at their home and be aghast.
No tree?
No knickknacks?
No gifts?
Annie knew Adam would be cutting sprigs of greenery to bring in as First Christmas grew closer—what her Englisch friends had referred to as Christmas Day. For the Amish, First Christmas was only the beginning of the celebration. It was the day they focused on the spiritual aspects by attending services, reading Scripture, and singing hymns. Second Christmas they gave gifts to each other, though those were quite simple compared to the lavish things she’d heard her co-workers speak of.
Though they didn’t decorate a tree, evergreen boughs placed around the house signaled that the celebration was near. As for knickknacks, they didn’t need them to clutter the room. And as for the gifts, she understood better than anyone that small presents were being worked on each evening—she was busy embroidering as fast as possible.
She’d just turned off the last of the Christmas candles and was climbing up the stairs for bed when a knock at their front door splintered the quietness of the evening.
Adam paused, his hand on the gas lantern, about to extinguish its light. He turned, hesitant as their mamm walked back into the living room.
Rebekah, Adam, and Annie all stared at one another, each wondering if they’d perhaps imagined it, when the knock sounded again.
“Hurry and answer the door, Adam—before whomever it is freezes to the front step.” Rebekah’s voice brooked no nonsense.
Annie reversed her way down the steps and moved toward her mother.
Young Joshua Hooley stepped into their living room, stamping his feet and setting a battery-operated lantern on the floor. He wore a thin coat, hardly enough covering for a fall day and nowhere near enough protection for such a cold winter night.
“Joshua, is everything all right?” Rebekah hurried across the living room, pulling her nightgown more tightly around her.
“Ya. I mean, no. It’s not.” He sounded as if he’d run the entire way in the darkness, though now that she listened, Annie could hear his horse outside the house. “I’m here to fetch Annie.”
“Me?” Annie’s voice squeaked like a mouse caught in a trap.
“Come farther inside, Joshua. You must be frozen.” Rebekah walked over to the boy.
He couldn’t have been eighteen by Annie’s reckoning. When he pulled his hat off his head, brown hair stood out in all directions. He warmed his hands at the potbellied stove Rebekah opened up, and nodded to each of them in turn.
“Mrs. Weaver, Adam, Annie. Sorry to barge in so late. My mamm sent me over, asked me to bring Annie back.” A shiver passed over him as warmth began to flood through his body.
“Put some water to boil, Annie. We need to make Joshua some tea.” Rebekah pulled a blanket off the couch and wrapped it around his shoulders.
“Can’t stay but a minute, ma’am. Folks will be expecting me back. They asked me to hurry.”
“Hurry for what, Joshua?” Adam’s boots echoed as he walked across the living room floor. “Why do you want Annie to go with you?”
Joshua gazed another few seconds into the fire. When he looked up, he stared straight at Annie, his eyes imploring her. “It’s my bruder—little Daniel. He’s suffering with the fever real bad. If you could come and look at him—”
“Annie isn’t a doctor, Joshua.” Rebekah placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Ya. We know that.” Joshua started to say something more, but he stopped himself, closed h
is mouth, and waited.
“What is it, Joshua?” Annie walked over to the lad, who stood no taller than she was and couldn’t have outweighed her by much. He was still a boy really. “Why don’t your parents take your bruder to the hospital?”
“My dat doesn’t think things are so bad yet, but my mamm— she’s real worried. She sent me here to ask you to come, and Dat agreed it would be okay.”
“If you don’t want to go to the Englisch, Samuel should be the one to look at your bruder.” Adam plunged his hands into his pockets, obviously unhappy with the boy’s explanation.
But Joshua only resumed staring at the floor’s smooth boards.
“Joshua?” Annie waited until he looked up, until his blue eyes looked directly into hers. “Tell me why your parents didn’t send you to Samuel’s.”
He licked his lips, but didn’t hesitate with the truth, didn’t look away from her. “I can’t say for sure, but I suspect it’s because they weren’t able to pay him anything the last time or the time before that either.”
“Samuel doesn’t require payment for his services,” Adam insisted.
“Doesn’t matter though, does it?” Joshua looked from one to the other now. “He might not require it, but most folks give something. Even a child could see it’s the way things are done. My dat—he won’t be going back until he can pay what he owes, and that won’t be until spring.”
He sank onto the couch, ran his hands through his hair. “They argued about it yesterday, and again tonight. My mamm, she heard from the ladies in town that you had some medical training.”
Annie looked at her mother.
“Probably true. I mentioned in town that you were helping with your dat.”
“We hoped maybe you could do something, or at least talk some sense into my dat.”
Annie turned, headed upstairs.
“Where are you going?” Adam asked, his voice a low rumble.
“To change. I can’t go with Joshua like this.”
Adam shook his head in disapproval, but didn’t bother arguing with her. “You’re not going with Joshua at all. Their place is more than ten miles away, toward the northwest edge of our district. I’ll be taking you.”
“I’ll find extra blankets for you both.”
“Should I wait for you or go on ahead?” Joshua asked.
“At this hour? I want you to wait. We’re safer traveling together. The last thing we need is another buggy accident.” Adam shrugged into his coat and headed to the barn.
Annie had changed and was on her way out the door when her mother stopped her.
“Take this,” Rebekah said, pushing a quilted bag into Annie’s hands.
“What is it?”
“A few supplies—some aspirin, Tylenol, bandages, a thermometer, and the supplies you keep beside your dat’s bed.” She tucked a stray curl into Annie’s kapp. “The Hooley family is hard-working though a bit poor, and as Joshua mentioned they are somewhat proud. That child might need some of the items in here.”
Annie nodded, slipped the bag under her coat, and kissed her mamm’s cheek. “I feel like Florence Nightingale.”
“You’re a gut dochdern, and it’s a fine thing you’re doing. Just be careful.”
“If I’m a good daughter, it’s because of the way you raised me, and of course I’ll be careful. There’s no need to worry. Adam will be with me, remember?”
The cold wind slapped at her when she stepped out into the wintry night.
As they rode in the buggy toward the Hooley house, Annie prayed for wisdom.
She knew her own knowledge was quite limited. She wasn’t a doctor. She was a skilled nursing practitioner, more than capable of carrying out a doctor’s orders.
The problem was there was no doctor here to assess the situation, and she was breaking several laws if she were to even attempt to diagnose this child.
But she’d be breaking moral laws to leave a child ill in the night if she could help him.
So as they moved through the snow and cold, she prayed, and tried to remember everything she could about high fevers—but she couldn’t help wishing Samuel would be there with her.
Samuel didn’t at first notice the lights of the approaching buggies. He was busy replaying the scene he’d left at Stephen Umble’s farm. By the time he realized he wasn’t alone on the country road, the two buggies were nearly upon him.
He clucked softly to his mare and pulled her to a slow trot, then a stop as the first, then the second buggy pulled up alongside his.
Young Joshua Hooley’s face stared out at him, pale and cold, eyes settling somewhere to the left of Samuel’s shoulder.
“Joshua, fine night to be out and about.”
“Ya, it is, Mr. Yoder.” The boy’s voice was respectful but clipped, as if he didn’t want to reveal more than was necessary.
“Little late though.”
“Ya, it is.”
Samuel unfolded himself from his buggy, walked to where Adam Weaver sat holding the reins hitched to his new mare. “Adam, Annie.”
“Evening, Samuel.” Adam’s tone was warm and friendly, but Annie confined her greeting to a single nod and stiffened her spine a bit straighter.
“Little late to see two buggies out following one another. Some social gathering going on I wasn’t aware of?”
“I wasn’t aware you attended social gatherings,” Annie said.
Samuel and Adam turned to stare at her.
“Not that I would have noticed if you attended or not.” Annie reached up, tucked a loose tendril of hair into her kapp.
Samuel felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as Annie’s cheeks colored rosily.
She’d avoided him each time he’d stopped by the Weaver place. Obviously, she was still angry at him about the scolding he’d delivered four days ago, which she had deserved. But he would have thought she had better control of her tongue.
Then again, her feistiness brought some sparkle back into his evening.
“Can’t say as I am in the habit of attending social gatherings. Can’t remember the last time I participated in any sledding or such. Didn’t realize it went this late or ever included a mere two buggies.” He stared at her pointedly. “Is that what this is about?”
“Actually, no.” Adam shushed his horse and took control of the conversation. “Joshua needed a hand at his place, so Annie and I are on our way over to help him out.”
Samuel stared at Annie a moment longer, but she suddenly was preoccupied with straightening the blanket around her lap.
Turning his attention back to Adam, Samuel nodded toward Joshua’s buggy. “Maybe there’s something I could do. I just finished putting stitches in Stephen Umble’s hand and was headed back to my place. I’d be froh to follow you over—”
“No!” Annie and Adam shouted the word at the same time.
“What we mean is, it’s kind of you to offer, but probably we have this covered.” Adam picked up his hat, then settled it back on his head. “You must be tired what with working all day and then driving the long distance out to Umble’s place. How’s the room coming along he was trying to add on?”
“Going well. His youngest son wandered in while Stephen was nailing up some shelves. He glanced down at the boy and nailed his hand instead of the wood. Didn’t hit anything major, but it bled quite a bit.”
Samuel studied Annie who was again staring out over the snow-covered fields. “Something you might have been interested in seeing, Annie. I seem to remember you were quite fascinated by the process of stitches and how it was done when you were a younger girl.”
Annie threw him a look much like a hammer slamming into a nail. Samuel wondered why it made him want to laugh. Usually he preferred solitude, but meeting these two on the road tonight had perked him up quite a bit.
Plus there was the mystery of what they were really doing out on this cold winter night.
“We best be going if we hope to be done and back home at a decent hour,” Adam said.
“True. All the more reason for us to move on. Nice talking to you, Samuel.”
“And you as well. Evening, Adam. Evening, Annie.” He didn’t have to call her by name, but when he did, manners forced her to return the parting.
She turned those brown eyes to gaze into his, and Samuel received a little more than he had bargained for. There was the anger he’d come to expect, but there was something else in addition. A pleading he didn’t quite understand.
A concern quite out of keeping with their bantering.
So he stepped out of the way, gently slapped the horse’s rump, and watched them as they trotted off into the night following Joshua’s buggy.
Why were they headed toward the Hooley place so late in the evening?
More pointedly, why was Annie headed there?
And why did he care?
Samuel walked back to his buggy and continued in the opposite direction, back to his home, which would be silent and dark. He’d realized of late that he avoided his own place, but what was to be done about it?
Life was difficult—didn’t the gut Book say as much?
His lot was still better than many of those he ministered to. He wouldn’t complain about it.
But as he allowed the mare to walk leisurely toward home, he no longer thought of Umble and his hand, or even what he needed to do around his farm the next day. Instead, he thought of a young lady in a buggy, blankets wrapped around her lap, cheeks reddened by the cold—and he wondered who had summoned her and for what purpose.
Mostly though, he thought about those brown eyes and the sparkle they’d held.
7
When Annie stepped into the Hooley household, three small heads popped up from the corner of the living room to stare at her. They were lying on a pallet on the floor, covered in quilts. Their hair shot out in all directions, reminding her of tiny haystacks, and their eyes stared at her as if she were a stranger from a faraway land.
A Simple Amish Christmas Page 6