A Child's Christmas Wish

by Erica Vetsch

  Kate nodded. “Twenty-five pieces, all of them different.” Her voice was husky, but her face kind. “Beginning on December first, one piece each day was added, and we knew we were one day closer to Christmas.”

  Liesl nodded, bouncing up to her knees. “And on the last day, Christmas Day, the Baby Jesus is born, and He goes in the manger.”

  “Yes, and that’s how I knew, when I was a little girl, that it was finally Christmas.”

  “Where did the pieces come from?” Oscar asked.

  “My grandfather carved them. Sheep and donkeys and camels and shepherds and Mary and Joseph and the stable...each one beautiful. He brought the set with him from Switzerland when he was still a young man, and my father brought it to Minnesota, and I brought it to my husband’s home when I got married.”

  And she’d lost it in the fire.

  “And now it’s gone.” Liesl shook her little head. “Grossmutter looked so sad when she told me that. It makes me sad. I wish I had little donkeys and sheep.” Then she leaned over and took Kate’s hand. “But—” she shot a look at her father “—I still want a baby for Christmas. That’s my one thing that I am going to wish for.”

  Clearly she hadn’t forgotten or changed her mind, and she wanted to make sure there was no confusion on the matter.

  Oscar turned toward the hall and rolled his eyes. He’d have to talk about toys and books and maybe even a kitten, anything to distract her from the baby wish.

  * * *

  Early the next morning, Kate helped Grossmutter clean up the breakfast dishes and then shrugged into her coat to go help with the morning chores at their farm. She really needed to get some new clothes. Her one dress was limp, and her coat still smelled of smoke.

  She stepped outside. Her breath plumed in white puffs, and hoarfrost covered every blade of grass and tree branch in lacy, icy fur. The sun topping the trees would soon melt the delicate artwork, but while it lasted, it was beautiful.

  Oscar drew the wagon up to the porch and leaped down to help her. “You don’t have to come, you know. Martin and I can do the chores.”

  Kate shook her head. “I have to make a batch of cheese today. I will be staying over there until the afternoon when Grossvater will come get me. It’s you who doesn’t need to come. I will have all day to do the chores and tend the cheeses.” They were already treading on his good graces by extending their stay at his home by several days. He didn’t need to be away from his farm helping them when they could take care of things themselves.

  “I’m coming.” Oscar steadied her as she climbed into the wagon. “You work too hard.”

  “There is much to be done, and I am the one to do it.” She settled into the seat beside him, pressing her hand against her lower back. The baby had been restless last night, and she hadn’t gotten much sleep. And it wasn’t just the baby keeping her awake. Grossvater had told her not to worry, that God would take care of them, and in the daylight, she could hold fast to that truth, but when night came, and she was alone in her room, fears seemed to grow like mushrooms. It was as if, when she laid down in the dark, her fears perched heavily on her chest, making it hard to breathe.

  They rolled into the Amaker farmyard, and the hoarfrost on the blackened ruins of the house covered some of the travesty. Kate averted her face, bracing herself against the thrust of grief that welled up.

  “Kate, you go to the Käsehaus,” Grossvater said as he headed toward the barn. “We will bring the milk to you.”

  When she entered the low-ceilinged cheese house, Kate took a deep breath, inhaling the milky, earthy, salty smells she had come to love. When she was a girl, she had helped her grandmother and mother make cheese, but always on a small scale, only for family use. When she had married Johann and come to the Amaker farm, Grossmutter had taught her how to make large quantities of cheese to sell. She enjoyed cheese making most days, but now, with so much depending upon the sale of the cheeses she’d made, the task was no longer as pleasurable.

  She knelt before the brick firebox and raked out the old ashes before laying a new fire. Opening the dampers to get it going quickly, she moved to the large, brass kettle that could hold sixty gallons of milk when full.

  In high summer she could make a new batch of cheese nearly every day, but now, in the fall, she was down to one batch a week, and this would be the last for the year. When the cows were grazing in the lush fields, their rich milk took on wonderful flavor, but now that the grass was brown and they were eating mostly hay, the cheeses wouldn’t taste quite as good. Normally, the end-of-season cheeses would be for family use, but this year, they would most likely be sold at a reduced cost to earn something to help tide the Amakers over.

  Or to pay the mortgage on the cattle. Or the farm. Or go toward a new house. Or replenishing their wardrobes, food for the winter months, household goods...the list seemed endless.

  Kate scrubbed the kettle with a mixture of vinegar and a touch of carbolic to make sure it was really clean, and slanted the damper on the fire to direct heat to the kettle to dry and warm it up.

  Grossvater and Oscar appeared in the doorway with the loaded milk cart.

  Grossvater also carried a pail. “I skimmed the cream off.” He set the bucket on the workbench and draped a square of cheesecloth over it. “I will take the cream to Oscar’s for Inge to make butter.” He looked into the wood box. “I will bring wood. Oscar...” He straightened with a wince. “Kate is going to need someone to help her with the lifting. I am not much good for that these days, but I can take care of the chores at your farm if you would stay and help her?”

  “Oh, Grossvater, we don’t want to impose upon Mr. Rabb. I can take care of things here. I will work in smaller batches if I have to.” Kate worried her bottom lip.

  “That’s a good idea, Martin.” Oscar put his hands into his coat pockets. “I’ll stay and help her.”

  “We will bring you some lunch, Inge and the little one and I.” Grossvater drew his handkerchief out and blew his nose, coughing a bit. Kate cast him a worried glance. Last winter he had caught a cough before Christmas and it had lasted for months.

  “Don’t worry about getting wood. I’ll do it.” Oscar followed him outside, returning with a huge armload of firewood, doing in one trip what would’ve taken Kate three or four. The wagon clattered out of the yard, and Kate removed her coat, hanging it on a peg by the door. The fire had already heated the small room, and it would only get warmer as she worked.

  “You really didn’t have to stay. You must have your own things to do.” Her lips felt stiff, and she twisted her fingers together. It chafed to be the one on the receiving end of charity when she was used to being the giver, helping others.

  “Work is slow now that the harvest is over. What should I do first?” Oscar asked. “I don’t know anything about cheese making.” He seemed sincere. And he could be a tremendous help to her.

  “Would you pour the milk into the kettle? I need to see how much there is so I can mix the things I need to add.” She took down her apron, slipping the loop over her head. A smile came as she tied it behind her back. When she wasn’t nearly eight months pregnant, she could wrap the apron strings all the way around and tie them in front.

  Oscar lifted the milk cans easily, tipping their contents into the massive kettle. “Looks like about forty gallons.”

  “Do you have your pocket watch?” Kate asked. “I need to keep track of the time.”

  He slipped a silver watch from his pants’ pocket and handed it to her. She flicked the cover open, and her eyes were drawn to the photograph tucked into the lid. A lovely woman with dark eyes looked back at her. This must be his wife. She’d been beautiful, and Kate could see more than a hint of resemblance to Liesl. She noted the time on a chart she kept on a clipboard on her workbench, and set the watch on the paper.

  Kate poked a few small pieces of
wood into the fire. “We need to warm the milk to about ninety degrees.” She adjusted the damper handle, lining it up with the mark on the brick to allow the right amount of heat to divert to the kettle base. Forty gallons of milk would yield sixteen two-pound cheeses.

  “What else can I do?” Oscar took off his coat, too.

  “While the milk is heating, I need to go downstairs and brush and turn the cheeses that are curing.” Kate dug a match out of the box on the wall and lit the lantern, carrying it by its handle and descending into the cellar under the building. Oscar followed.

  She put the lantern on the table in the center of the room as Oscar let out a whistle. Wooden racks stuck out at right angles to the wall all around the room, shelf after shelf of cheeses, from small one-pound rounds to immense forty-pound wheels.

  Thankfully, the largest wheels didn’t need to be brushed or turned. “Those were made more than a year ago and will be ready to sell soon. The smaller ones here—” she indicated four racks on the right side of the cellar “—are newer, made this summer. They all need to be turned over. And this row needs a fresh brushing of brine.” She moved to the brine barrel in the corner and dipped out a small pail. “If you could start flipping each cheese over, I’ll follow with the salt brine.”

  They worked as a team, and Oscar took the brush out of her hand to tend to the cheeses on both the highest and lowest shelves himself. “How many cheeses are in here?”

  She shrugged. “Two hundred? Maybe more. All in the Emmentaler style. Grossmutter comes from a village near Emmental. The cheese has a nutty, rich flavor, a good rind and many small holes.” Kate poked one of the cheeses that had been curing for a couple of weeks. The top and sides were domed a bit, and it rocked slightly. “The bulging sides mean the air holes have occurred. That’s a good sign. A flat-sided Emmentaler cheese is no good.”

  “You go first.” Oscar indicated the stairs, and for good measure, he carried the lantern and held her elbow, guiding her up ahead of him. He really was worried about her and this baby. Johann had died before she’d even known she was expecting, so she hadn’t been cosseted or fussed over.

  She could get used to this, as long as he didn’t overdo.

  Picking up her clipboard, she reached up into her bun to take out the pencil she’d stuck there. Keeping careful records made for good cheeses. She measured and mixed the cultures she would need to add once the milk had simmered long enough. “Would you check the temperature? It shouldn’t be over one hundred degrees, and closer to ninety is better. We don’t want to cook the milk, just warm it through.” A thermometer was clipped to the side of the kettle, but she found her hand to be a better judge. “Like bathwater warm, not tea-brewing warm.”

  He quickly touched the outside of the kettle, and then returned his hand to the metal, nodding. “Warm but not hot. What are you making there?”

  She lifted the brown stone jug that held her rennet mixture. “Rennet separates the curds from the whey, the milk solids from the liquids. It’s made using the lining of a calf’s stomach. And I need to add the culture that will produce the air holes in the cheese, too. Sort of like the way yeast makes bread rise.” Kate made careful notations on her clipboard. “I have to keep track of what I put in when, how long the batch cooks, how long I’ve stirred it. Otherwise, I might forget something important and ruin a whole batch.” And money was too dear to do that.

  When the milk had simmered long enough, she handed Oscar a long, metal spoon. “I’ll pour this in, and you stir. Make sure you reach all the way to the bottom of the kettle.” Grateful for his help, she slowly sprinkled the culture powder over the surface of the warm milk.

  When the culture had been stirred in long enough to bloom, she poured her rennet solution in. “This one really needs to be mixed well or the curds won’t form correctly.”

  Oscar mixed faithfully while she checked the temperature with her little finger. Warm but not hot. Perfect.

  “I’m hoping that the sale of the cheeses this year will be enough to pay off the loan Johann took out from the bank on the herd. If it isn’t, I don’t know what we’ll do.” And they still had to pay the mortgage on the farm itself, though with what, she didn’t know. She checked the time and lifted the flat, tin cover for the kettle. “We’ll let that rest for a quarter of an hour or so.”

  He put the paddle-like spoon into the washtub on the workbench. “So everything is mortgaged, land and livestock?”

  She nodded. “Johann got the loans to build the new house and to buy a blooded bull to improve the herd. The bull was a fine-looking animal, but he was very mean. If Johann had known how mean, he never would’ve brought him here. Johann was an experienced herdsman, but the bull got loose one day from his pen and attacked Johann, cornered him between the fence and the barn wall. Grossvater had to shoot the bull to get to Johann, but by then it was too late.” Now, months later, the shock and first grief had worn off, but the persistent ache remained. The “what if” questions that never seemed to fade.

  What if Johann had never bought that bull in the first place?

  What if he had been able to fend off the attack?

  What if...

  She rested her hand on the baby. “He didn’t even know he was going to be a father.”

  “That’s too bad. It’s life-changing news.”

  “How did you take the news?”

  He frowned, and she wondered if she had overstepped.

  Finally, he shrugged. “When Gaelle told me she was going to have a baby, I had to sit down. My knees got wobbly and my head started to spin.” A rare smile twitched his lips. “She never let me forget that, either. She said she didn’t know which one of us had the more difficult time when Liesl was born.”

  It was the first time he had mentioned his wife by name. Gaelle. Pretty name.

  “What was your wife like?” Kate admitted to being curious, but more, she felt as if he needed to talk about it.

  He leaned on the workbench and crossed his arms. “Like Liesl. Always moving, always chattering, always interested in everything.” It was almost as if he was speaking to himself, and his eyes had a faraway look.

  “I haven’t been around children much,” Kate admitted. “Liesl’s like a little sponge, following Grossmutter or me around. She wants to try everything.” Kate smiled. “She seems very enamored of the idea of Christmas. She and Grossmutter are twins at heart, there. Christmas is Grossmutter’s favorite time of year.”

  Oscar’s eyes sharpened, and his lips tightened. “Mrs. Hale tucked a flyer into one of the grocery boxes one Saturday a few weeks ago, about some sales she would be having at Christmas and some of the community events. Liesl asked what it was, and I made the mistake of telling her. Now she can hardly talk of anything else. If it was up to me, I would let the day go by without any notice.”

  Kate blinked at the bleakness in his tone. Not celebrate the Savior’s birth? Why? But his expression forbade her asking any questions. It appeared the time of confidences was over. “Let’s check the milk.”

  Oscar removed the flat lid for her, and she stood on tiptoe to reach into the center of the kettle. “We’re looking for a clean break.” She slipped her little finger straight down into the coagulated milk and slowly bent it, pulling up. The mixture split in a straight line as her finger broke the surface. “Perfect.”

  Oscar poked the semi-gelatinous mass, eyebrows raised. “That was fast. Only twenty minutes?”

  “Now comes the hard part.” Kate smiled. She took one of the cheese cutters off the wall, a wooden frame with wires strung horizontally across it, about a quarter inch separating each strand. Lowering it into the mixture with one side in the center of the kettle, the other against the outer edge, she rotated the cutter in a circle, cutting the curds into half-inch layers. Then she took the other cutter, this one with wires strung vertically, and repeated the procedur
e, making cubes of the loose curd.

  “Could you bring me some water to wash these?” Kate asked, setting the cutters on the drain board. “We’ll let the curds rest for a few minutes while we wash up, which will help with separating the whey.”

  Kate was surprised how easy Oscar was to work with. He had never made cheese before, but he learned quickly, and he only needed to be told something once. When the curds had rested long enough, she gave him the large spoon once more. “We can take turns, but the curds need to be stirred for about forty minutes.” She checked the time and made a note on her clipboard.

  “You usually do this by yourself?” He bent to his task, scooping deep into the kettle, lifting the curds in long strokes.

  She nodded. “Grossmutter helps sometimes, when the cows are giving lots of milk, but most of the time, I work alone.”

  He stirred, digging deeply into the mass from bottom to top, his muscles moving under his plaid shirt. He was broader and taller than Johann had been, she noted. His movements were more deliberate, as if he thought about things before acting, unlike Johann’s quicksilver ways.

  Was it wrong to observe such things? To notice that Oscar was strong and steady, capable and helpful?

  They took turns stirring, but he wouldn’t let her go as long as he did. After forty minutes, she added more wood to the fire and opened the damper further. “Now we raise the temperature of the curds another thirty degrees or so and go on stirring for another half hour.”

  “More stirring?” He rolled his shoulders. “I’m in pretty good shape, but I’ll be feeling this tomorrow.”

  The curds, which had started out as half-inch cubes, were now the size of small peas, and much of the thin, yellowish whey had been released. “After this next round, it will be done cooking and you won’t have to stir it anymore.”