An Amish Country Christmas (19 page)

Chapter Four

Tom paused at the top of the stairs to inhale the sweet fragrance of cinnamon as the
stronger scent of hot coffee called to him. What a blessing it was to have Nazareth
and her sister cooking for him, and to have Vernon here as a friend and an advisor.
He couldn’t recall the last time he had laughed so often and so loudly as they had
last night, and he said a quick prayer of thanksgiving. The sound of Vernon’s footsteps
made him turn. “
Gut
mornin’ to ya, Bishop.”

“And you’ll soon hear people calling
you
that,” Vernon replied as he lightly placed a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “I hope you
never tire of the blessing and the responsibility that comes with the calling. And
meanwhile—for today, anyway—I want to enjoy just being Vernon Gingerich, a man on
retreat with three fine friends.”

“I can understand that, for sure and for certain.”

“And does your armload of winter clothing indicate how many layers you’ll be dressed
in when we shovel snow?” Vernon teased.

Tom laughed as they started down the stairway. “Wouldn’t ya know, I found a note under
my door this morning, askin’ me for some long johns and work pants because Naz and
Jerusalem intend to help us dig out,” he said. “And I’ll warn ya ahead of time, there’ll
be no talkin’ them out of chorin’ with us. They’re . . .
determined
, as women go.”

“Not the type to shy away from being useful, even if it entails backbreaking labor,”
Vernon remarked. “I’m not surprised they won’t use the deep drifts as reason to stay
in the kitchen, although their cooking would certainly justify their remaining in
here where it’s warm—”

“Don’t look for that to happen, Vernon!” Jerusalem called from the kitchen.

“
Jah
, we’ve got our goats to tend,” Nazareth added.

“And besides that, when have we had so much snow to play in? Have you fellas looked
outside?”

Tom smiled as he entered the warm, cozy kitchen behind Vernon, who seemed eager for
his first glimpse of the Hooley sisters . . . or at least he’d certainly taken a shine
to the older one. And wasn’t that a happy result of yesterday’s conference? Tom wouldn’t
let on to his longtime friend, but he had secretly hoped Vernon might be attracted
to Jerusalem. Living alone was no picnic, and after the happiness and guidance the
bishop of Cedar Creek had given to so many, he deserved another woman to share his
life.

“We’ve put out a few things for a first breakfast,” Jerusalem remarked as she gestured
that they should sit down to eat. “When we come back in, there’ll be French toast
made with Tom’s favorite cinnamon swirl bread—”

“Along with bacon, ham, and fried apples,” Nazareth chimed in. When she smiled at
Tom, he felt like a kid of sixteen again. “By the looks of those drifts out there,
we’ll be workin’ up an appetite. But what a picture it makes, with the sun just comin’
up over the new-fallen snow.”

Tom looked out the window at the splendor stretching before him: flawless, rounded
drifts for as far as he could see mounded around the barns and nearly as high as the
fences in some spots. A rosy pink horizon meant they had all slept later than usual.
It was a blessing that his dairy cows were the only creatures who might mind the wait.
No one else would care or comment about how the four of them were taking the morning
at a more leisurely pace . . . or how he intended to revel in this day with Nazareth
while Vernon and Jerusalem provided a measure of propriety. He wished he could express
his true feelings, speak his heart to this charming, compassionate companion.

But God was in control of how his life played out, and He had a reason for Tom’s living
alone, and for the
Ordnung
’s restriction on remarriage.

Patience
, he reminded himself as he met Nazareth’s eye.
Not your place to know the whys and wherefores of the Almighty.

After they bowed in prayer, Tom savored another taste of the butterscotch twists they
had enjoyed yesterday, along with a thick slice of buttered cinnamon swirl bread immersed
in a bowl of warm milk, with sugar sprinkled on top. Nazareth had once teased him
about soaking every sort of baked treat in milk or cream, but as a dairy farmer’s
son, he’d acquired a taste for the simple home-grown foods that had been plentiful
when other staples were not.

“You know, that looks tasty,” Vernon remarked as he, too, poured warm milk in a bowl
and then let a slice of bread sink into it. “Almost like having ice cream for breakfast,
but I bet it keeps you warm while working on a winter’s day.”

The Hooley sisters exchanged a knowing glance as they ate their bread slathered with
butter and strawberry jam. “Shovelin’ a path from here to the barn’ll work up some
heat, I’m thinkin’,” Jerusalem said.

“And thanks for bringin’ us some clothes, Tom.” Nazareth patted his wrist in that
sweet way she had. “Our
mamm
used to give us fits for dressin’ in the boys’ pants to help with the chores. We
had a slew of older brothers, ya see, so she didn’t think Jerusalem and I needed to
work outside or in the barns.”

Jerusalem let out a short laugh. “But then, Mamm was never one for haulin’ out the
sleds after the work was done, either. And she didn’t know how much fun it was to
hitch up the biggest horses and ride the plow blade behind them.”

Vernon smiled as though he, too, recalled times from his childhood. “Looking back,
I suspect our mothers were too busy raising us to take much time for fun. While I’m
sorry God didn’t bless Dorothea and me with children, I was grateful that she could
enjoy playing with our nieces and nephews all the more because of it.”

“Oh,
jah
, we love bein’ aunts!” Jerusalem replied with a big grin. “It was our nephews, Ben
and Luke and Ira, who brought us out from Lancaster County to help them get settled
here in Missouri.”

“And I’m glad they did,” Vernon replied quickly.

“Hear, hear,” Tom chimed in.

They stacked the dishes in the sink, and while the sisters changed into layers of
winter clothing, Tom tested the doors to see which one was the easiest to open: deep
snow had drifted against the front of the house, so going out through the mudroom
was impossible. He and Vernon grabbed the shovels and barely squeezed out the back
door from the kitchen because even there, high peaks had formed.

“Must’ve gotten a foot or more,” he grunted as they shoved their blades into the drifts
nearest the door.

“Good moisture for the pastures when it melts, though. Dry as it’s been out our way,
we can use all the water God will bless us with.”

“
Jah
, here, too. Lots of fellas ran out of grazing grass before last summer was even half
over and had to start feedin’ hay to their herds,” Tom remarked. “Hard on your pocketbook
when that happens. I suspect some of my neighbors are runnin’ short on hay by now.”

“And with the drought burning out the crops, feed prices are the highest we’ve seen,
too. I won’t be surprised if more of my members turn to outside work to make ends
meet,” Vernon said. “And anything that takes a man away from home every day makes
it harder for him to raise his family the way we Plain folks believe is best.”

They were making quick, short jabs into the drifts as they spoke, tossing the snow
to the sides as they made their way toward the dairy barn. Even though the topic was
serious, Tom enjoyed talking with another man who understood the difficulties of maintaining
a herd. “I’ll have to store today’s milk in the big tanks, as it’ll be at least tomorrow
before the trucks will make it down our roads to—
ach
!”

Tom jumped when a snowball hit the middle of his back, and as they turned toward the
house, Vernon’s black felt hat flew off his head. Feminine laughter rose up from behind
a tall, curling drift and then two more snowballs hit their coats.

“You girls are incorrigible!” Vernon called out.

“
Jah
, we’ve heard that before,” came Jerusalem’s reply.

“All work and no play makes Tom a dull boy,” Nazareth added.

“Hah! Well, we can’t have that.” Tom stuck his shovel into the wall of snow they’d
been cutting through and grabbed a fistful of snow. “What’s
gut
for the goose is
gut
for the gander.”

“They won at Scrabble so we can’t let them show us up again this morning,” Vernon
declared as he, too, reached for some snow. “Hmm! Powdery as this is, how in the world
did they form—”

Before either of them could pack a solid ball, two thickly padded figures in brown
work pants, barn coats, and stocking caps rushed down the path they had cleared to
grab their shovels. Jerusalem and Nazareth were laughing as they attacked the snow
with the metal blades.

“Time for your break, boys,” Nazareth announced. Her breath came through her scarf
in wisps of white as she tossed her first shovelful to one side, where the snowbank
rose as high as her waist.

“Can’t let you old codgers be havin’ heart attacks,” Jerusalem chimed in. “What with
the roads bein’ snowed shut, we couldn’t get the ambulance here.”

“You’re calling me
old
? Might be snow on the roof,” Vernon retorted as he patted his white hair, “but the
fire’s still burning below.” He retrieved his black hat and then playfully whacked
it against Jerusalem’s backside to get the snow out of it.

“Never doubted it, Bishop. But we can take our turns with the shovels,” she said with
a laugh. “Keeps the blood pumpin’, ya know.”

“Yes, I
do
know about that.
Flirt
.”

“Not me. I’m a workin’ girl, helpin’ out every chance I get.”

Tom chuckled. While he had watched Vernon in action as a young fellow during their
rumspringa,
he had forgotten how easily this man bantered with women . . . how his blue eyes
drew them like magnets. It was food for thought that this esteemed leader of their
faith still admitted to his sexuality, as Vernon was a bit older than he and the Hooley
sisters. He kept his language clean, but there was no mistaking the meaning beneath
his turn of phrase.

After a few minutes of indulging the women’s need to be useful, Tom and Vernon reclaimed
the shovels. When they got to the barn doors and could slide them on their tracks,
Nazareth and her sister hurried inside. He and Vernon cleared more space around the
door to keep the barn from being drifted shut anytime soon. They also shoveled the
area around the little shed that housed the diesel generator, which ran Tom’s milking
machine. By then it felt good to be in the dim, musky building and out of the wind.

As he shut the door, Tom had to smile: the sisters had lit the lanterns and they were
baby-talking to the four goats while they scraped the manure from the back stall.
In a few moments, the sound of milk hitting a metal bucket echoed in the back of the
barn.

“
Jah
, you’re a
gut
little girl, Bessie,” Nazareth said in a low sing-song. “Givin’ us lots of nice milk
today.”

“And are ya stayin’ warm here in Tom’s barn, Billy?” Jerusalem asked the buck. She
was rubbing his forehead with her knuckles so he wouldn’t feel the three females were
getting all the attention. “Mighty glad we got ya here ahead of this weather. Can’t
imagine how you’d be doin’ if we’d left ya at Hiram’s.”

“Ah, but we wouldn’t have forgotten ya, Pearl,” Nazareth continued as she slipped
a rope around the goat’s neck and then around a slat of the stall. The bucket scraped
the barn floor as she positioned herself for milking. “And you, Matilda, are gettin’
to be a chubby thing, ain’t so? Won’t be long before that baby pops out.”

Tom smiled at Vernon. It was a shame Nazareth had never married, as she would have
made a wonderful mother. “Guess I’d best get to my cows and stop listenin’ in on their
goat chatter.”

“I won’t interrupt your routine, as it’s been years since I milked,” Vernon replied.
“Guess I’ll do some mucking.”

“We’ll be needing a few bales dropped down from the loft, if ya don’t mind,” Tom said,
gesturing to the storage area above them. “Fork down some of the loose stuff, too,
to use on the floor.”

“I can do that.”

Tom smiled as he coaxed his cows into the stanchions. The morning chores went faster
because he wasn’t doing them alone, and when he saw the devilish grin on Vernon’s
face as he climbed to the loft, he figured his friend might have something . . . mischievous
in mind, and that it probably involved Jerusalem. Sure enough, as he was hooking the
milking machine to the last cow in line, a startled squawk rang out.

“Now what on God’s
gut
earth—?” Jerusalem cried out. “Vernon Gingerich, that was an ornery thing to do,
droppin’ straw on my head! Do I look like a cow to you?”

Now how’s he gonna get out of that one?
Tom glanced up at the figure in the loft as the whole barn got quiet. Every creature
there seemed to wait for Vernon’s answer.

“Even in Tom’s clothes,” the bishop began in his low, unruffled voice, “you’re as
radiant and wondrous as that angel who appeared to the shepherds, telling them the
good news of Jesus’ birth.”

Tom heard a quiet snicker, Nazareth’s most likely. Another squirt or two of goat’s
milk hit her bucket.

“Nice try, Vernon,” Jerusalem said as she brushed the loose straw from her shoulders.
“But let’s don’t forget that those shepherds were scared outta their wits by the sight
of that angel. That’s why all the angels in the Bible go around sayin’ ‘fear not’.”

“And like those shepherds, I stand in awe of a woman so well versed in her faith that
she shines . . . and who’s kind enough to play along with a prank that probably wasn’t
my finest idea.” Vernon leaned on his pitchfork, gazing down into the stall below
him. “Will you forgive me, dear Jerusalem?”