Rebecca's Christmas Gift

“Gut, Dat!” Amelia hopped from one foot to the other, wriggling with joy. “But you forgot to count. Now my turn. You take turns.” She gathered up the beanbags and moved back about three feet. “One...zwei...three!” She burst into giggles as she successfully got one of the three into the target.

“A tie,” Rebecca proclaimed, and when he looked at her in surprise, she said, “Amelia gets a handicap.” She shrugged and gave a wry smile. “Both on the English and on her aim.” Rebecca stepped to a spot near the utility room door, a little farther from the colander than he stood, and lobbed all of the bags in. She didn’t forget to count in English.

“Rebecca wins!” Amelia declared. “She beat you, Dat. You forgot to count.”

Caleb grimaced. “I did, didn’t I?”

Rebecca nodded. “You did.”

“The lamb’s tail,” Amelia supplied and giggled again.

“Comes last,” Rebecca finished for her.

He chuckled and took a sip of his coffee. It was good and strong, the way he liked it. But there was something extra. He sniffed the mug. Had Rebecca added something? “Vanilla?” he asked.

“Just a smidgen,” Rebecca admitted. “My father liked his that way.”

Caleb nodded and took another sip. “Not bad,” he pronounced, and then said, “Since I’m new at this corn-bag tossing, I think I deserve a rematch.”

“The champion sits out,” Rebecca explained merrily. “So you have to play Amelia.”

Caleb groaned. “Why do I think that there’s no way I can win this?”

“I go first,” Amelia said, scooping up the bag. “Eins.” She tossed the first.

“One,” Caleb corrected. “You have to say it in English, remember?”

“Two! Drei!” she squealed, throwing the third.

“Three,” he said. “One, two, three.”

“I got them all in,” Amelia said. “All drei.”

“She did,” Rebecca said. “All three in. That will be hard to beat, Caleb.”

He pretended to be worried, making a show of staring at the colander and pacing off the distance backward. Amelia giggled. “Shh,” he said. “I’m concentrating here.” When he got back to his spot by the window, he spun around, turning his back to them and tossed the first beanbag over his shoulder. It fell short, and Amelia clapped her hands and laughed.

“You forgot to count again,” she reminded him.

Caleb clapped one hand to his cheeks in mock dismay. “Can I try again?”

“Two more,” Amelia agreed, “and then it’s my turn again.”

He spun back around and closed his eyes. “Two!” he declared and let it fly.

There was a plop and a shocked gasp. When Caleb opened his eyes, it was to see Martha Coblentz—the other preacher’s wife—standing in the doorway that opened to the utility room, her hands full, her mouth opening and closing like a beached fish.

Well, it should be, Caleb thought as familiar heat washed over his neck and face. The beanbag had landed on Martha’s head and appeared to be lodged in her prayer kapp. The shame he felt at being caught in the midst of such childish play was almost as great as his overwhelming urge to laugh. “I’m sorry,” he exclaimed, covering his amusement with a choking cough. “It was a game. My daughter... We... I was teaching her English...counting...”

Martha drew herself to her full height and puffed up like a hen fluffing her feathers. The beanbag dislodged, bounced off her nose and landed on the floor. “Well, I never!” she said as her gaze raked the kitchen, taking in Rebecca, the colander, the biscuits on the stove and the pumpkin lollipop on the table. Martha sniffed and sent the beanbag scooting across the clean kitchen floor with the toe of one sensible, black-leather shoe. “Hardly what I expected to find here.” Her lips pursed into a thin, lard-colored line. “Thought you’d want something hot...for your supper.”

Caleb realized that Martha wasn’t alone. A younger woman—Martha and Reuben’s daughter, Doris, Dorothy, something like that—stood behind her, her arms full of covered dishes. She shifted from side to side, craning her thin neck to see past her mother.

“Come in,” Caleb said. “Please. Have coffee.”

“Aunt Martha. Dorcas.” Rebecca, not seeming to be the least bit unsettled by their arrival, smiled warmly and motioned to them. “I know you have time for coffee.”

“Your mother said you were only here while Preacher Caleb was at the shop,” Martha said. “I didn’t expect to find such goings-on.”

“We came to bring you stuffed beef heart.” Dorcas offered him a huge smile. One of her front teeth was missing, making the tall, thin girl even plainer. “And liver dumplings.” The young woman had a slight lisp.

Caleb hated liver only a little less than beef heart. He swallowed the lump in his throat and silently chided himself for being so uncharitable to two of his flock, especially Dorcas, so obedient and modestly dressed. He had a long way to go to live up to his new position as preacher for this congregation.

“And molasses shoofly pie,” Martha added proudly, holding it up for his approval. “Dorcas made it herself, just for you.” She strode to the table, set down the dessert and picked up the questionable pumpkin lollipop by the end of the ribbon. Holding it out with as much disgust as she might have displayed for a dead mouse attached to a trap, Martha carried the candy to the trash can and dropped it in. “Surely, you weren’t going to allow your child to eat such English junk,” she said, fixing him with a reproving stare. “Our bishop would never approve of jack-o’-lantern candy, but of course, I’d never mention it to him.”

“Pumpkin,” Rebecca said, defending the lollipop. “We were going to wash off the face.”

Martha sniffed again, clearly not mollified.

Amelia’s lower lip quivered. She cast one hopeful glance in Caleb’s direction, and when he gave her the father warning look, she turned and pounded out of the room and up the stairs. Fritzy—cowardly dog that he was—fled, hot on the child’s heels.

Rebecca went to the stove and turned off the oven. “You’re right, Aunt Martha,” she said sweetly. “It is time I went home.”

Martha scowled at her.

“Eight on Monday?” Rebecca asked Caleb.

“Eight-thirty,” he answered.

Rebecca collected the colander and the beanbags, made her farewells to her aunt and cousin and vanished into the utility room. “See you Sunday for church.”

Martha bustled to the stove, shoved Rebecca’s pan of biscuits aside and reached for one of the containers Dorcas carried. “Put the dumplings there.” She indicated the countertop. “They’re still warm,” Martha explained. “But they taste just as good cold.”

Probably not, Caleb thought, trying not to cringe. He liked dumplings well enough, although the ones the women cooked here in Delaware—slippery dumplings—were different than the ones he’d been served in Idaho. He certainly couldn’t let good food go to waste, but he wasn’t looking forward to getting Amelia to eat anything new. The beef heart would certainly be a challenge. His daughter could be fussy about her meals. Once she’d gone for two weeks on nothing but milk and bread and butter. That was her “white” phase, he supposed. And the butter only passed the test because it was winter and the butter was pale.

“We wondered how you were settling in,” Martha said. “Such a pity, losing your wife the way you did. Preachers are generally married. I’ve never heard of one chosen who was a single man, but the Lord works in mysterious ways. He has His plan for us, and all we can do is follow it.”

“Ya,” Caleb agreed. The smell of the beef heart was strong, but fortunately not strong enough to cover the scent of Rebecca’s stew baked in a pumpkin or the apples and cinnamon.

Martha eyed the biscuits. “I suppose you can eat those with your supper,” she said. “Although my sister-by-marriage—Hannah Yoder, my dead brother’s wife—has taught her girls to cook the Mennonite way. Hannah was born and raised Mennonite, not Amish,” she said, wanting to make certain that he got her point. “Most prefer my recipe for baking powder biscuits. My Grossmama Yoder’s way. She always used lard. Hannah uses butter.” Martha curled her upper lip. “Too rich, by my way of thinking. Not plain.”

“Ne,” Dorcas agreed. “Mam’s biscuits are better.”

“But you’ll love Dorcas’s shoofly pie,” Martha said, patting her daughter on the shoulder. “Extra molasses and a good crumb crust. That’s the secret.”

“Ya,” Dorcas echoed. “That’s the secret.”

Caleb struggled to find something to say. Was he supposed to invite them to stay for supper? It was early yet, but he was hungry—hungrier than he could remember being in a long time. There was something about this mild Delaware autumn that put a spring into his step and made his appetite hearty. “I thank you for your kindness, Martha. And you, Dorcas. I’m not much of a cook myself.”

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