The Christmas Courtship

“That,” Joshua said, his tone conspiratorial, “and I want to see how long it takes to get around the neighborhood that Rosemary had one of her stepsons buy thirty pounds of whole wheat flour and a huge bag of chocolate chips.” He laughed. “Bet she’ll have Rosemary baking cookies for the whole county.” He raised his eyebrows. “Something new for the Amish telegraph.”

Phoebe met Joshua’s gaze over the grocery cart and smiled, not just because she liked his silliness, but because she was pretty certain she’d made her first friend in a very long time.

Chapter Two (#u7d13ba64-4916-5017-8a57-c36d8c275e38)

Her cousin Rosemary’s home looked just like Phoebe thought it would. It was a rambling white clapboard farmhouse, two stories with multiple additions, rooflines running in several directions and two red chimneys to anchor the proportions. The land was flat, no hills and valleys like home, but beautiful in its own way even in the dry bareness of autumn. There were barns, sheds and small outbuildings galore, painted red, all dwarfed by the enormous old dairy barn that Joshua explained housed Benjamin’s harness shop. There, the family not only made and repaired leather goods like bridles and harnesses, but also sold items like axle grease, horse liniments and other items Amish and English customers were in need of.

“We sell eggs, too,” Joshua said as they drove up the crushed oyster shell driveway, past the parking lot, where there were two black buggies tied to a hitching post, an old pickup and a little blue sedan parked. “My sister Bay—” He glanced at Phoebe, the reins in his gloved hands. “I’m just going to tell you now, we dropped the step part ages ago. So, when you hear one of us say brother or sister or daughter or son, we might mean that we’re not actually related by blood, but we’re all family now.”

“Got it.” She nodded and smiled to herself, happy for them, a little sad for herself. In the home where she’d grown up, her stepfather had never let her forget that she was a stepchild, which had somehow translated to mean she was something less than his own children. Phoebe’s father had taken ill when she was just a baby and died. Her mother had remarried a year later and Phoebe had become the stepdaughter of Edom Wickey, an authoritarian, dogmatic man who easily saw all of the ills of the world but never the good.

“So, anyway,” Joshua went on, pulling Phoebe back into the conversation. “My sister Bay Laurel, we call her Bay, sells eggs and sometimes frying chickens out of the shop. I think they’re adding jams and such. Oh, and she sells our sister Nettie’s quilts, too. Only Nettie doesn’t just do quilts. She makes these hanging things.” He gestured in the air with one gloved hand. “I guess Englishers put them on their walls? Like for—” He seemed to search for the right word in Pennsylvania Deutsch, then switched to English. “Decoration?” He clamped the reins with both hands again. “Don’t get me wrong. They’re beautiful, but I don’t get having something that just hangs there and serves no purpose. They can be beautiful on a bed and more useful, right? She does all kinds of patterns—the old ones like Garden of Eden, Jacob’s ladder, Joseph’s coat. But she’s made some of her own patterns, too. She made this one that looked like a nest but was made of tree limbs that—” He went quiet and lowered his head. “I’m talking too much again.”

“You’re not. Ne, you’re not,” Phoebe insisted, reaching over and touching his arm. The moment she felt his warmth through the thick denim of his homemade coat, she snatched her hand back and gazed out the side window of the buggy.

Amish men and women didn’t whisper and laugh together in grocery stores, and they certainly didn’t touch casually. She could almost hear her stepfather’s angry scolding ringing in her ears.

Suddenly tears welled in her eyes. Hoping Joshua didn’t see them, she blinked them away. She didn’t know why she was suddenly so emotional. She was here in Hickory Grove because she wanted to be. She was here because she knew it was the right thing for her. And for John-John.

“Here we are,” Joshua announced as he reined in the bay and the buggy rolled to a halt. If he noticed she had touched him, or her response, he didn’t show it.

Phoebe glanced up to see two half-grown puppies that were a rich chestnut color bounding down the front porch steps, barking excitedly.

“That would be Silas and Adah. Chesapeake Bay retrievers. My brother Jacob raises and sells them,” Joshua explained.

As the dogs ran around the front of the buggy, Phoebe realized each was missing one rear leg. They appeared to have been born that way. She took in her breath sharply, not because she had never seen an animal with a disability, but because it didn’t seem to hinder their speed or frivolity one bit.

“Ya, only three legs apiece. That’s why Jacob couldn’t sell them. Or wouldn’t.” He wrapped the reins around the brake lever, and the bay danced in its traces. “And he couldn’t stand the idea of seeing them put down, even though our vet said he wouldn’t be unwarranted to do it.” He glanced at her. “My brother named them after these neighbors we had in New York. Silas and Adah Snitzer. They were brother and sister. One was blind, the other deaf. They took care of each other. Led a full, good, Godly life.”

Phoebe knitted her brow. “You don’t think your neighbors would mind having dogs named after them?”

“They passed away a few years ago. Were in their nineties. Died within a day of each other.” He smiled, seeming lost in the memory of them. “But I think they would have liked the idea that Jacob named his dogs after them.” He chuckled and then slammed his thigh. “Well, guess we best go inside and get you settled. That’s my brother Jesse there on the porch. Rosemary’s boy.” He pointed. “Waiting for us, I suspect.”

Phoebe looked over to see a boy of ten or so with neatly trimmed brown hair and a sweet, lopsided smile hurrying across the covered porch toward them.

“I’m warning you now,” Joshua said as he opened the buggy door and climbed down. “He’ll talk your ear off if you let him.” He chuckled. “Not unlike me, I guess.”

Phoebe smiled but didn’t say anything as she opened her door.

“Want to take Toby up to the barn?” Joshua called to his little brother.

Jesse bounded down the porch steps and across the driveway, pulling a black wool watch cap down over his head.

On Phoebe’s side of the buggy, Joshua offered his hand to help her out of the buggy, but instead of taking it, she handed him her canvas bag. “If you could take this? Danke,” she said, feeling as if she needed to avoid making physical contact with him.

“Sure.” Joshua caught the bag as she practically tossed it down. “Jesse, this is your cousin, Phoebe.”

Phoebe climbed down quickly. “Nice to meet you, Jesse.” A gust of wind caught the edge of her cloak and whipped it open. Dry brown and gold and orange leaves blew around her. “Goodness.” She grasped the edges of the heavy wool and pulled her outer garment tightly around her. “I didn’t expect it to be so cold here. I was thinking that because it’s farther south...” She let the sentence go unfinished, feeling now like she was the one who talked too much.

“Cold snap,” Jesse told her. “Nice to have you with us.” His words sounded rehearsed, as if his mother had told him what to say when they met. But his smile was genuine.

Jesse turned to his big brother. “I should take Phoebe inside? I can take her bag, too. We’re having chicken potpie for dinner.” Beaming, he went on faster. “I hope you like chicken potpie. It’s my mam’s recipe. She puts peas in it. Most people don’t, but my mam does. Only Mamdidn’t make it ’cause she’s laid up so my sisters made it.”

“See what I mean?” Joshua said to Phoebe. He turned to his little brother. “Ne, I thought I’d take her in. Can you manage Toby? He needs a good rubdown and a scoop of oats.” He handed Phoebe her bag and walked around to the back of the buggy to unload the groceries. “I’ll be up directly to help you with her harness.”

“I got it,” Jesse insisted, grasping the gelding’s bridle. Bags in hand, Joshua closed the back of the buggy and his little brother began to lead the horse away, walking backward so he could still see Joshua and Phoebe. “I’ll be in shortly. I can show you around if you want, Phoebe. Show you where you’ll be sleeping and where the towels are and such.”

“Thank you. I’d like that,” she called to him as he made his way up the driveway.

“I think he likes you,” Joshua said. He led Phoebe up the front steps to the wide porch, the puppies nipping at his heels.

“Some say I have a way with children,” she answered absently, glancing at the door that led into the house.

She was suddenly nervous to see her cousin Rosemary again, to meet the rest of the family. They had to all know why she was there. Know what she had done. Her mother had said that Rosemary Stutzman Miller was as nonjudgmental as a soul could be, but it had been years since the cousins had seen each other. What if Rosemary had changed? That sometimes happened as folks aged. They became more rigid in their beliefs and ways. It had been like that with her stepfather. He hadn’t softened with age. He’d grown more rigid.

Joshua shifted the sacks of groceries in his arms, opened the door and stepped back. “Ne! Get back, you two,” he said, laughing as he caught the pups with his booted foot, blocking their entry into the house. He looked up at Phoebe. “Go on in. If I let these two in again today, Rosemary will have me washing dishes for a week. I already accidentally let them in this morning. They made it through the kitchen, down the hall before Jesse caught them.”

“Really?” Phoebe asked, unable to hide her surprise. “You and your brothers do dishes?” She’d suspected the Miller household was less conservative than her stepfather’s, but the Amish stuck to the old ways, and male and female tasks were laid out very explicitly.

“Ne, not usually.” He laughed again. “We stick mostly to outside chores, but there’s no telling what Rosemary will say if I let these two drag mud through her house again.”

Phoebe nodded, then walked into the mudroom that looked like so many others she’d passed through. It even looked a lot like her mother’s, with rows of denim jackets on hooks, wool cloaks and an assortment of scarves and hats and bonnets on pegboards on the wall. On the floor were piles of boots and shoes in a great array of sizes, some set down neatly, others dropped carelessly. But the moment she stepped into the house, something had immediately felt different about it. Maybe it was her imagination, or maybe it was just the smell of baking apple pie, but Phoebe immediately felt herself relax. Because, somehow, she knew that in this house with its three-legged puppies and chatty little brothers, she would find the acceptance she had never found in her own home.

Talking to the dogs, Joshua closed the door behind Phoebe with his foot. Standing alone in the mudroom, she removed her cloak and black bonnet, found a free hook to hang them on and, travel bag in hand, entered the large but cozy kitchen.

“Goodness, this is hot. Mam, I think we need new pot holders!” a pretty strawberry blonde hollered from the far side of the room, startling Phoebe. Holding an enormous pie in her hands, she tried to close an oven door with her foot.

“I’ll get it.” Phoebe dropped her bag and hurried to help.

“Thank you,” the young woman said, gingerly setting the pie down on a sideboard. She shook her hands, still holding on to the pot holders. “I’ve been telling Mam for weeks that these were worn-out. Someone is going to get burned one of these days.” She grinned. “You must be Phoebe.”

Phoebe nodded.

“I’m Tarragon. Call me Tara.” She dropped the pot holders on the counter and walked to a massive farmhouse sink. “You’re my mother’s cousin.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Which I guess makes us cousins, too.”

Tara smiled again, and Phoebe couldn’t help but smile back. Tara was cute as a button, with green eyes and a small, upturned nose. She was wearing a calf-length pink dress and white apron, with a green scarf covering her hair and tied at the back of her neck. Wispy red tendrils peeked out from the scarf around her ears. On her feet, she wore a pair of denim blue sneakers with athletic socks. She looked like a fluttering little songbird in the bright airy kitchen, and Phoebe suddenly felt like an old crow. She was dressed in a black dress, thick black tights and clunky black shoes. She wondered if it was a mistake to think she could ever belong here, make a home here for herself and John-John.

“Ya,” Phoebe managed. “Cousins.”

“Mam!” Tara hollered, startling Phoebe again. No one ever raised their voice in her house. Words were always spoken softly and soberly.

“Cousin Phoebe’s here! Pie’s done!” Tara continued loudly. “The blue pot holders are going in the ragbag!”

“She’s here?” came a voice from down the hall. “Send her in!”

“Mamjusthad surgery on her foot. Did Joshua tell you? She’s supposed to be keeping it elevated.” Tara rolled her eyes. “That’s not been easy.” She pointed in the direction of the hall. “She’s in the parlor. She was so excited when your mother wrote to her about you coming to stay with us.”

Phoebe heard the back door open and close, and Joshua’s voice. “Jacob’s going to have to start kenneling those dogs or teach them to mind people better.” He walked into the kitchen carrying the bags of groceries. “See you met Tara,” he said to Phoebe.