The Christmas Quilt: Quilts of Love Series (7 page)

“But he—”

“You will save it for the proper time and place, which is not my home or any home on Sunday.”

Rachel’s face blushed red.

“Am I clear?”

Rachel drew herself up to her full height, and Annie was struck again by how tall she was, tall and exceptionally beautiful.

“Tell me you understand, Rachel.”

She pressed her lips together until they formed a white line. “Oh, I understand.”

He motioned, a ladies-first gesture. Rachel left the room, heading straight for the bathroom.

“Do you think she’ll be all right?”

“Today? Yes. But something is wrong she’s not speaking of. I’ll ask the bishop to meet with her, but I doubt she’ll be any more open with him. I’ll also write her mother.” His last words were added softly as he touched her arm gently and they returned to the sitting room.

Jacob and Reba were back from the barn. As they began a time of silent prayer, Adam slipped in through the mudroom. Within a few moments they all began eating and soon they put the rough start to their meal behind them. It wasn’t too hard, at least on the surface. Reba entertained them with tales from the veterinary practice. Charity updated them on how David was doing, and Rachel’s boys chimed in with stories from the schoolhouse. Soon the snow began to fall outside—not a heavy snowfall, but enough to cast a special glow on the day.

A fire crackled in the big cast-iron stove, and its coziness dispelled any earlier gloom. Eli challenged Matthew to a game of checkers and Jacob sat by the fire, showing Zeke how to whittle a piece of wood into a whistle.

Adam was pretending to read
The Budget
, but it was soon obvious from the sounds behind the paper that he was asleep.

Though Rachel didn’t actually participate, she did sit near the window and read.

Leah waddled out of the bathroom and up to the counter as Annie was setting out the desserts. “Little guys must be taking up a lot of room inside me. I can’t believe I had to go again.”

She glanced from Annie to Rachel, who stood and walked to the other side of the room, to watch Matthew’s checkers game.

Annie and Leah were carrying the leftover lunch food to the refrigerator in the mudroom when Leah started giggling.

“Are you going to share with me what you’re laughing about?”

“I wish you could have seen the look on your face, and on Samuel’s face, when Rachel said my knitted booties were horrid.” Leah’s giggles turned into full laughs and she had to put her dish down so she could hold her stomach. “Oh my, that was priceless.”

“Leah Weaver.” Annie lowered her voice to a whisper. “Here I was worried that Rachel Zook had hurt your feelings.”

“Didn’t hurt my feelings. Doesn’t keep her from selling the things I make, and I can use the money. Maybe we can fashion a sign saying
horrid little booties
.” Leah giggled again, then wiped her eyes and grew serious as they moved to the window, propped their elbows on the ledge, and studied the falling snow. “And did you see the way Adam jumped to my defense? It was nice.”

The silence stretched between them for a few moments.

“My life isn’t perfect by any measure,” Leah added. “But hers must be awful lonesome.”

“Lonesome?”

“Sure. You can be surrounded by people and still be lonesome. No one to speak to once the boys are in bed. No one to watch the snow fall with if you wake early in the morning.”

Annie reached forward and touched the windowpane. The temperature outside was dropping, and she was glad she’d be spending the evening beside Samuel. “You’re a pretty smart girl, you know that?”

“Doesn’t take smartness to understand why someone snaps or to see that Samuel’s sister-in-law is afraid of something.”

Annie was so surprised at Leah’s words that she jerked her head up, bumping it on the window shade that was half pulled down.

Smiling, Leah reached out and straightened Annie’s prayer
kapp
.

As they stood there, the sounds of their family in the room behind them, Annie thought about Leah’s observation. The idea gained merit the longer she considered it.

“What would Rachel have to be afraid of though?”

“I don’t know. Some days I’m afraid of what people will think about me being as big as a house. Other days I’m afraid that my marriage might be broken, and I’m certainly afraid I’m doing things wrong.”

Leah’s words stayed with Annie as they walked back into the sitting room and helped themselves to a small piece of dessert.

It didn’t occur to her until later in the evening that the fight had actually begun with Rachel and Eli. Why would Rachel be picking a fight with Eli?

She’d been so worried about Leah the last few weeks, but now she wondered if maybe Rachel was the one who needed rescuing.

But how did you rescue someone who was afraid, especially when they wouldn’t give you even a clue as to what had given them such a fright?

7

A
nnie spent Monday morning doing the laundry that had piled up from the previous week. Since there was only she and Samuel, there wasn’t a lot to do, but she was still surprised at how dirty a man’s clothing became when he spent the day working in the fields or in the barn.

She accessed their basement by going outside via the mudroom and down two steps. It had long narrow windows running the length of the south wall. Annie couldn’t have explained it, but there was something she liked about the basement. Maybe it was the shelves of food—canned and winking at her along the north wall.

To the left were rows of vegetables—squash, beans, carrots, corn, and peas. They all waited there for her to choose from each evening. It was like having her own grocery store, and though the canning had been hard work, she loved walking downstairs and selecting one for their dinner. The right side of the shelves held berries from Leah’s bushes and preserves Annie had made with her mother. There were other fruits as well. Items she’d traded with women from church.

There was abundance.

Every time she came into the basement, to fetch one of the jars or to do the laundry, she was reminded of the harvest and of God’s goodness. The words she’d read with Samuel the day before echoed through her mind. “I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth.” It was from the book of Jeremiah, from the Old Testament. Jeremiah was one of her favorite books, though there was much violence within its pages. What she clung to were the promises there, despite what Jeremiah and God’s people endured.

The jars of food, the windows with the light, even the smell of washing powder—all of it combined to make the basement a cheery place. So even when she came down to do the loads of laundry, Annie found she was in a good mood. She was grateful.

Although it was cold outside, the snow had stopped and the temperatures were above freezing. She’d try hanging the clothes out on the line and see if they’d dry. They probably would.

She filled the machine with two small buckets of hot water, tapped from the water heater, which was a wood-burning one—same as her parents had. Samuel always checked the room on Mondays and made sure everything was ready for her before he went to the barn. Actually, the basement was almost warm, given the water heater, the windows, and the size of the room—about the length and width of their living room.

After measuring a half-cup of laundry powder, Annie pushed their bed sheets into the machine. One yank on the starting cord was enough. The gasoline engine had been stalling, but Adam had come by and serviced it a month ago. This time it started up immediately. She added the soap powder to the water as the agitator began moving the sheets back and forth. Annie glanced at the battery-powered clock on the wall, noting when ten minutes would be up.

A large sink was positioned under the south wall with a cold-water faucet. Next she went through the process of filling both washtubs with rinse water using a small bucket. One she added fabric softener to and the other she added bleach to. By the time she had both of the washtubs ready, the ten minutes were up and she began running the sheets through the wringer and into the first tub of rinse water.

It took several times through to work all the soap out, but in the end their sheets smelled fresh. This was her third and final load for the day. The first two loads sat by the door, waiting for her to carry them outside.

After she’d moved the sheets to her basket, she wrapped up in her coat and scarf and carried the basket outside. In the summer, she would have combined all three loads into one basket, but Samuel had cautioned her about carrying lighter loads—because of the baby. She didn’t think wet laundry weighed so much, but caution was a good thing.

As she walked over to the clothesline, the sun was fighting through the high clouds, and she was certain everything would be dry by afternoon. She could hang things in the basement, but preferred the freshness of laundry hung outside.

She was pinning the second sheet to the line when Samuel appeared at her side. “Ready for me to dump your rinse water?”

“
Ya
. How do you always know when I’m done with a load?”

She smiled and slapped at his hand as he reached for the other end of the sheets. “Don’t think about it, Samuel. Those sheets took me thirty minutes to clean. Let me see your hands.”

“Maybe I’ll empty that water for you,” he said with a wink.

“
Danki
,” she called after him.

He waved as he moved toward the basement. Watching Samuel dump out the water from her washtubs, then stack them back inside the basement, Annie wanted to make him something special for lunch.

And she wanted Leah and Adam to experience the home life she had. She wanted life to always be like this.

It would seem that Adam was feeling he couldn’t measure up as a father. And Leah felt unloved or unlovable as a wife. What were they going to do with those two? Or maybe, as Samuel had suggested, it wasn’t their place to do anything.

Maybe they were to pray and be the best family they could be. She continued pinning the sheets as her mind replayed their conversation from the night before, after everyone had left, when she heard a buggy approaching. Peeking around the sheets, she saw her sister, Charity, smiling and waving from her buggy.

Samuel came back out of the barn to see to her buggy, and Charity met her at the basement door as she was going back for the other two loads of laundry.

“Let me help you with that.”

“I’m sure you didn’t come to help me hang clothes,” Annie teased.

“Actually I did. I was hoping to make it here before you finished.” She ducked inside with Annie and they both came out carrying a basket. They had the rest of the clothes hung in five minutes.

Annie enjoyed watching Charity. She hadn’t changed at all in the last three years. Still slightly round and still completely beautiful. She seemed to grow more like their mother every day, both in how she looked and in her temperament. Annie was expecting an announcement that Charity and David Hostetler were to be married, but so far nothing.

Maybe today.

Maybe it was what Charity had come to talk to her about.

They hurried into the kitchen, out of the cold.

“Tell me the real reason you stopped by.” Annie began pulling out the leftover stew from a few days before and put water on the stove so she could make them a hot drink.

“I did want to help you with the laundry. I would have been here earlier, but Reba’s clothing was a real mess. You wouldn’t believe what her dresses look like after a day at the vet clinic.”

“Worse than the barn?”

“
Ya.
Much worse.”

Annie thought back to the evening she had helped birth the calf. “I suppose I can imagine. Is she working again today?”

“Every weekday and two Saturdays a month. But when she works on a Saturday, Trevor gives her Monday off.” Charity wriggled an eyebrow as she buttered four pieces of bread, then slid them onto a pan to place in the oven with the stew.

“Why the look?”

“You know why.”

“Tell me Reba isn’t sweet on Trevor.”

Charity sat down at the table and began flipping through Annie’s latest book from the library.

“You know you’re not interested in reading that. Now talk to me.”

“I’m not sure about Reba. I thought maybe she talked to you yesterday.” Charity pushed her
kapp
strings back behind her shoulders.

“
Nein.
She did speak with Samuel about some ointment for a horse.”

“Our little
schweschder
is hard to figure sometimes. The moment you think she has eyes for nothing except the four-legged kind, you’ll find a note in her dress pocket.”

“You’re kidding!”

Charity smiled, pulled a folded note from her apron, and slid it across the table. “Not that I’ve read it.”

Annie sat down and stared at the folded note with Reba’s name on top. “I’m impressed. You showed real restraint. How do you know it’s from Trevor?”

“If you hold it up to the light, you can see his signature.”

Annie shook her head and pushed the note back across the table. “And what are you going to do with it?”

“Place it on top of her folded clothes. Maybe if she knows I saw it, she’ll spill.” Charity laughed.

“This could be a serious matter. Trevor’s
Englisch
. What did
mamm
say?”

“She said
Gotte
has his eye on Reba and not to worry about her.”

“Sounds like
mamm
.” Annie jumped up when she heard the water on the stove begin to boil. “Tea?”

“
Ya.
”

“So what about you and David? I thought you might bring up the subject yesterday.”

They spent the next twenty minutes talking about David. He was still living with his parents, still working their farm and working a part-time job in town. He and Charity were regularly attending the singings together, and it seemed to her he might be getting serious. He’d kissed her twice.

They hadn’t talked about marrying yet.

They had talked about the price of farms, which was high. And twice he’d shown her ads in
The Budget
, ads for dairy farms in Wisconsin. Charity confessed the thought of moving made her stomach hurt and excited her at the same time.

After they shared lunch with Samuel, she walked Charity out to her buggy.

“Any word on Mattie and Jesse?”

“The bypass surgery was a success, and members of their family have taken turns sitting with him so Mattie could come home in the evening.”

“
Gut.
So he’ll recover fully?”

“The doctors say he should—if he’ll follow their directions.”

“Exercise, eat healthy, and watch your cholesterol.” Charity reached out and hugged Annie. “Don’t look so surprised. You’ve lectured us all.”

“Sure you won’t stay and quilt with me?”

“
Nein.
I have my own projects at home.
Mamm
went to Leah’s to help with the laundry first thing this morning. I want to get home and hear how she’s doing.”

“She seemed better by the time they left yesterday.” Annie hugged her again, then stood back as Charity picked up her mare’s reins.

She was pleased her mother had gone to Leah and Adam’s this morning. Pleased they lived close enough to help one another. Although Leah and Adam were having a tough spell perhaps it would make them stronger in the end.

Each family was different, and she would need to trust that Leah and Adam would find their way. But perhaps a word here or there would help. Maybe she could speak with Adam and nudge things along. After all, who knew her brother better than she did?

In the meantime, she would work on the quilt.

She had the rest of the afternoon to piece together her sample square. She’d neglected to do that once, on a quilt she was making for auction. She’d been making an Amish basket quilt and thought she was experienced enough to bypass the step.

Walking up to her sewing room, she thought back on how she had certainly learned her lesson that year. The basket quilt had been a disaster. It had taken all of her mother’s skill to help her fix it, and in the end, she’d needed to repurchase part of the fabric. All because she hadn’t made a sample square.

A costly mistake but one she’d never repeated. Every quilt she’d done since, she had taken the time to complete this step. Which was where she’d begin this afternoon. Surprisingly, she wasn’t the least bit sleepy—perhaps the napping phase of her pregnancy had passed. Glancing out the window, she could see their sheets snapping in the light wind. Samuel was walking toward the house, and more clouds were rolling in. Maybe they’d have snow again by evening, and this time it might be more than a mere dusting.

Fine with her. She had finished the laundry and had the entire afternoon to work on Leah’s quilt. While she sewed, she’d pray for the babies and for Leah and Adam. She’d complete the sample square, then once that was done, the rest of the quilt should be easy work.

Perhaps God would present an opportunity for her to speak with her brother. If she didn’t hear from Adam or Leah before Wednesday, she’d take them a meal when Samuel went to town. He wanted to see to some repairs around Rachel’s place and it would give her a chance to spend time with Leah.

Provided they didn’t have any other medical emergencies.