Rebecca's Christmas Gift

“My door was open?” he repeated, woodenly.

Fritzy, the traitor, wagged his stump of a tail so hard that his whole backside wiggled back and forth. He sat where Caleb had commanded him to stay, but it was clear that given the choice he would have rushed up to give the visitor a hearty welcome kiss.

“Ya. I’m guessing you weren’t the one who left it open.” She pulled off first one rubber boot and then the other and hung the rain-streaked slicker on an iron hook. “I’m here to help with the housework. And Amelia.”

She looked at him and then slowly scanned the room, taking in the spilled flour, the cluttered table and the floor. Her freckled nose wrinkled, and he was struck by how young and fetching she appeared. “Eli told you that I was coming, didn’t he?”

Eli? Caleb’s mind went blank. “N...ne. He didn’t.”

“Yesterday. He was supposed to tell you that I...” She shrugged. “Fannie sent me. Fannie Byler. She said you needed someone to...”

He couldn’t remember Eli or anyone mentioning sending another girl. Certainly not the Yoder girl. “They sent you?”

Rebecca’s small fists rested on her shapely hips. “You’re not still angry about Friday night?” Her smile became a chuckle.

“I’m not angry,” he protested. “But you’re...you’re too...too...” He was going to say young, but he knew she was at least twenty-one. Maybe twenty-two. Old enough to have her own child. “Inexperienced. Amelia is... Can be...difficult. She—” What he was trying to say was lost in the sound of Fritzy gagging. He groaned out loud. The ham Amelia had given him was far too rich for the dog’s stomach. “Outside!” Caleb yelled. “If you’re going to be sick, do it outside!” He pushed past Rebecca and dashed through the small utility room to throw open the back door.

Not quite in time.

Fritzy made it out of the kitchen but lost it on the cement floor in front of the washing machine. “Out!” Caleb repeated. Sheepishly, the dog bounded out into the yard, where he proceeded to run in circles and snap at the raindrops. Now that his stomach had yielded up the large plate of ham, Fritzy was obviously cured.

Caleb returned to the kitchen to deal with Rebecca Yoder. “You have to go,” he said.

“Ne,” she replied, smiling again. “You have to go. Roman and Eli will be waiting for you. There’s a big truck there already. Eli said yesterday they were expecting your saws this morning.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“You don’t?” She slowly scanned the kitchen. “It looks to me as if that’s exactly what you do need.” She tapped her lips with a slender finger. “I know what the other girls said, about why they quit. I know what they said about Amelia and about you.”

“About me?” The trouble was with his daughter. What fault could those young women have found in his behavior? He hadn’t done or said anything—

“They said you are abrupt and hard to please.” She sounded...amused.

“I am not!”

“Dat!”

Caleb turned toward the sound of Amelia’s voice. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, still in her wet and muddy nightgown, her face streaked with tears. In one hand she held a pair of scissors, and in the other, a large section of her long, dark hair.

“Amelia?” He grabbed the scissors. “What have you done?”

“I’ll tend to her,” Rebecca assured him without the least bit of concern in her voice. She walked calmly over to Amelia, as if little girls cut their hair every day. “This is women’s work. Isn’t it, Amelia?” She looked down at the little girl.

Amelia looked up at her, obviously unsure what to think.

Caleb hesitated. He couldn’t just walk out and leave his daughter with this girl, could he? What if that only made things worse?

“I’ll be here just as a trial,” Rebecca said. “A week. If we don’t suit, then you can find someone else.”

Caleb didn’t know what to say. He really didn’t have a choice, did he? The men would be waiting for him. “A week? Ya.” He nodded, on firmer ground again. He wouldn’t be that far away. It might be easier to let this young woman try and fail than to argue with her. “Just a week,” he repeated. He looked at Amelia. “Dat has to go to work,” he said. “This... Rebecca will look after you...and help you tidy up your breakfast.” He looked around the kitchen and shuddered inwardly. “I hope you are made of sterner stuff than the past two girls,” he said to Rebecca.

“We’ll see,” Rebecca answered as she gathered the still-weeping child in her arms. “Breakfast and clean clothing for Amelia...and two boots for you are a start, wouldn’t you agree?”

* * *

The strenuous task of unloading the heavy saws and woodworking equipment took all of Caleb’s concentration for three hours. But when the truck pulled away and he was left alone to organize the tools in his area partitioned off in Roman’s shop, his thoughts returned to Rebecca and his daughter. What if he’d been so eager to get out of the house and to his tools that he’d left Amelia with someone unsuited to the task? What if Amelia disliked Rebecca or was fearful of her? What if Amelia had been so bad that Rebecca had walked out and left the child alone?

Once doubt had crept into his mind, Caleb began to worry in earnest. The thing to do, he decided as he slid a chisel into place on a rack, would be to walk back home and check on them. It wasn’t unreasonable that a father make certain that his new housekeeper was doing her job and watching over Amelia. It was still spitting rain, but what of it? And there was the matter of the blister on his heel, where his shoe had rubbed against his bare foot for the past few hours. Putting a Band-Aid on the blister made sense. He couldn’t afford to be laid up with an infection, not with the important contract to fulfill in the next thirty-eight days.

Caleb surveyed his new workbench and tables. This was a larger space than he’d had on his farm back in Idaho. Once everything was in place—drills, fretsaw, coping saws, hammers, mallets, sanders, planes, patterns and the big, gas-powered machinery—he could start work. Many of his tools were old, some handed down from his great-grandfather. The men in his family had always been craftsmen and had earned their living as cabinetmakers and builders of fine furniture. Only a few of his family’s personal antiques had survived the fire: a walnut Dutch cupboard carved with the date 1704, a small cherry spice cabinet, and an aus schteier kischt, a blanket chest painted with unicorns, hearts and flowers that would one day be part of Amelia’s bridal dowry.

A tickle at the back of Caleb’s throat made him swallow. He didn’t want to think of Amelia growing up and leaving him to be a wife. He knew it must be, but she was all he had and he wanted to keep her close by him for a long, long time. Impatient with his foolishness—worrying about her marriage when she had yet to learn her letters and still slept with her thumb in her mouth—he pushed away thoughts of Amelia as an adult. What should concern him was her safety right now. He’d abandoned her to the care of a girl barely out of her teens. For all he knew his daughter might be neglected. She could be sliding down the wet roof or swimming in the horse trough.

Slamming the pack of fine sandpaper down on the workbench, he turned and strode toward the door that led outside to the parking lot. He swung it open and nearly collided with Rebecca Yoder, who was just coming in. In her hands, she carried a Thermos, and just behind her was Amelia with his black lunchbox. They were both wearing rain slickers and boots. Caleb had no idea how they had found Amelia’s rain slicker. It had been missing for days.

Caleb sputtered his apologies and stepped out of their way. He could feel his face flaming, and once again, he couldn’t think of anything sensible to say to Rebecca. “I...I was on my way home,” he managed. “To see about Amelia.”

His daughter giggled. “I’m here, Dat. We brought your lunch.” She held up the big black lunchbox.

“And hot cider.” Rebecca raised the Thermos. “It’s such a raw day, Amelia thought you’d like something hot.”

“Not coffee,” Amelia said. “I hate coffee. But...but I like cider.”

“There’s a table with benches in the next room,” Rebecca suggested. “Eli and Roman eat lunch there when they don’t go home. I know Eli’s there.” She pointed toward a louvered door on the far side of the room.

“I helped cook your lunch,” his daughter proclaimed proudly. “I cooked the eggs. All by myself!”

“She did,” Rebecca agreed. “And she filled a jar with coleslaw. There’s some chicken corn soup and biscuits we made. But Amelia said you liked hard-boiled eggs.”

“With salt and pepper.” Amelia bounced up and down so hard that the lunchbox fell out of her hands.

Caleb stooped to pick it up.

“Ooh!” Amelia cried.

“It’s all right,” he assured her. “Nothing broken.” He followed Rebecca and a chattering Amelia into the lunchroom. He didn’t know what else to do. And as he did, he noticed that under her raincoat, Amelia looked surprisingly neat. Her face was so clean it was shiny and her hair was plaited into two tiny braids that peeked out from under an ironed kapp. Even the hem of her blue dress that showed under her slicker was pressed.

“What...what did you two do this morning?” he asked Amelia.

“We cleaned, Dat. And cooked. And I helped.” She nodded. “I did.”

No tears, no whining, no fussing. Amelia looked perfectly content.... More than content. He realized that she looked happy. He should have been pleased—he was pleased—but there was something unsettling about this young Yoder woman.

Rebecca stopped and glanced back over her shoulder at him. Her face was smooth and expressionless, but a dimple and the sparkle in her blue eyes made him suspect that she was finding this amusing. “Do you approve?”

“Wait until I see what my kitchen looks like,” he answered gruffly.

Amelia giggled. “I told you, Dat. We cleaned.”