A Hope Springs Christmas Read online

  On the other side of the creek, a dozen of his schoolmates began laughing and hooting, including Sarah’s twin sister, Bethany. Mortified, Levi had trudged home in wet clothes and refused to go back to school. Working beside his father in his carpenter shop was the only thing that felt normal to Levi.

  Less than a year later, both his parents were killed in a buggy accident. Levi was forced to sell his father’s business. No one believed a fifteen-year-old boy could run it alone. Jonas Wyse bought the property and started a harness shop and buggy-making business in Hope Springs. He hired Levi, who desperately wanted to earn enough to support his sister and little brothers. The two men quickly became friends. Within five years, they had a thriving business going making fine buggies. They stopped repairing harnesses and focused on what they did best. It was a wonderful time in Levi’s life.

  Then Jonas decided to marry Sarah and everything changed.

  Levi shook off his thoughts of the past. Sarah was his landlady and the widow of his only true friend. Levi was determined to treat her with the respect she deserved, but he sometimes wished he hadn’t promised Jonas he would look after her when his friend was gone. That promise, made on Jonas’s deathbed, was a binding one Levi could not break. Not if he planned to face Jonas in heaven one day.

  Levi’s gaze traveled to the colorful calendar on the shop wall. It was out of date by several years, but he’d never taken it down. His Amish religion didn’t allow artwork or pictures to decorate walls, but a calendar had function and even one with a pretty picture was permitted. The one he never removed featured a panoramic view of the Rocky Mountains.

  The dusty eight-by-ten photograph showed snow-capped mountains thrusting upward to reach a clear blue sky. Their flanks lay covered with thick forests of pine, aspen trees and spruce. It had long been Levi’s dream to move to Colorado. Several of his cousins from the next village had moved to a new settlement out west and wrote in glowing terms of the beauty there. The idea of raising a family of his own in such a place was a dream he nurtured deep in his heart.

  Colorado was his goal, but Sarah Wyse was the rope keeping him firmly tethered to Hope Springs.

  He had loved Jonas Wyse like a brother. When his friend pleaded with him to watch over Sarah until she remarried, Levi had given his promise without hesitation. A year or so wasn’t much to wait. The mountains weren’t going anywhere.

  It wasn’t until Sara remained unmarried for two years that Levi began to doubt the wisdom of making his rash promise. Five years later he was still turning out buggies in Hope Springs and handing over rent money to help support her while his dreams of moving west gathered dust like the calendar on the wall.

  He knew several good men who had tried to court Sarah, but she had turned each and every one of them aside. Levi had to admit none of them held a candle to his dear friend. But still, a woman Sarah’s age should be married with children.

  The thought of her with another man’s babe in her arms brought an uncomfortable ache in his chest. He thrust aside thoughts of Sarah and replaced them with worry about his sister.

  He hoped Grace was all right. He should go see, but he didn’t know what to say to her. Women didn’t think like men. Whatever he said would be sure to make her angry or make her cry. Perhaps it would be best to stay in the shop and wait until she called him for supper.

  Half an hour later, he heard Sarah’s aunt’s buggy drive away. He went to the window and looked out. Sarah was alone again, as she was every night. She sat at her kitchen table working on some stitching. Why hadn’t she remarried? What was she waiting for?

  She was a devout Amish woman. She wasn’t too old. She was certainly pretty enough. She kept a good house and worked hard. When the buggy shop needed repairs or upgrades he couldn’t do himself, she was never stingy about hiring help or buying new equipment.

  As he was looking out the window, he saw his sister approaching. He picked up a file to finish smoothing the edge of a metal step he was repairing.

  Grace opened the door. “Bruder, your supper is ready.”

  “Danki, I’ll be in shortly.” He glanced up. His sister didn’t leave. Instead, she walked along the workbench, looking over the parts he was assembling for a new buggy. She clearly had something on her mind. When she didn’t speak, he asked, “Is everything okay?”

  Her chin came up. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Because you were screaming at your boyfriend at the top of your lungs on a public street and giving our neighbors food for gossip. “Just wondering, that’s all.”

  “Levi, can I ask you a question?”

  He didn’t like the sound of that. “Sure.”

  “Why haven’t you married?”

  That took him aback. “Me?”

  “Ja. Why haven’t you?”

  Heat rushed to his face. He cleared his throat. “Reckon I haven’t met the woman God has in mind for me.”

  “God wants each of us to find the person who makes us happy, doesn’t He?” Grace fell silent.

  Levi glanced up from his work to find her staring out the window at Sarah’s house. Because her question so closely mirrored his thoughts about Sarah, he gathered his courage and asked, “Why do you think Sarah Wyse hasn’t remarried?”

  “Because she loved one man with her whole heart and her whole soul and she knows no one can replace him,” Grace declared with a passion that astounded him.

  She suddenly rushed toward the door. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Your supper is on the table.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need to talk to Sarah about something.”

  When the door banged shut behind her, he sighed. It was just like his sister to leave him in the dark about what was going on. He hoped Sarah could help because the last thing he wanted was a home in turmoil, and unless Grace was happy, that was exactly what was going to happen.

  * * *

  After her aunt had gone, Sarah stared at the snow piled on the sill of her kitchen window. Dismal. There was no other word for it. Christmas would be here in less than a month, but there wasn’t any joy in the knowledge. The Christmas seasons of the past had brought her only heartache and the long winter nights left her too much time to remember. At least this year her only loss was her job. So far.

  She closed her eyes and folded her hands. “Please, Lord, keep everyone I love safe and well this year.”

  Second thoughts about inviting her brother for a visit crowded into her mind. He was all she had left of her immediate family. At times, it seemed that everyone she loved suffered and died before their time. What if something should befall Vernon or his wife or children while they were here? How would she forgive herself?

  No, such thinking only showed her lack of faith. It is not in my hands, but in Your hands, Lord.

  Still, she couldn’t shake a feeling of foreboding.

  She opened her eyes and propped her chin on her hand as she stared at the notebook page in front of her. The kerosene lamp overhead cast a warm glow on the mending pile and the sheet of paper where she had compiled a list of things to do.

  Clean the house.

  Mend everything torn or frayed.

  Make two new kapps.

  Stitch the border on my new quilt.

  She had already finished the first item and was on to the second. They were all things she could do in a week or less and she had a lot more time on her hands than a mere week. Spring seemed a long way off. Inviting Vernon and his family was one way to help fill the days.

  She added three more items to her list.

  Don’t be bored.

  Don’t be sad.

  Don’t go insane.

  Six days a week for nearly five years she had gone in early to open the fabric store and closed up after seven in the evening. Without her job to keep her busy, what was she
going to do? Work had been her salvation after her husband’s passing.

  Had it really been five years? Sometimes it seemed as if he’d only gone out of town and he would be back any minute. Of course, he wouldn’t be.

  She had tried to convince Janet to let her run the shop until spring, but Janet wouldn’t hear of it. Instead, her boss said, “Enjoy the time off, Sarah. You work too hard. Have a carefree Christmas season for a change.”

  Janet didn’t understand. Time off wouldn’t make the holidays brighter. Six years ago Sarah and Jonas learned he had cancer only a week before Christmas. He battled the disease for months longer than the doctors thought he could. He died on Christmas Eve the following year. A month later, her sister ran away, leaving Sarah, her parents and her brother to grieve and worry. Their father died of pneumonia the following Thanksgiving. Her mother passed away barely a year later. Vernon said they died of a broken heart after Bethany left.

  Bethany had been the light of the family. Her daring sense of humor and love of life were too big for Hope Springs and the simple life of the Amish. It had been two years ago at Christmas when Jonathan Dresher came to tell Sarah that Bethany was dead, too. Since that day, Sarah faced the Christmas season with intense dread, waiting and wondering what the next blow would be.

  She sat up straight. She wasn’t going to spend this winter cooped up in the house, staring at the walls and dreading Christmas. She had to find something to keep the bleak depression at bay. To her list, she quickly added Find Another Job! She circled it a half dozen times.

  The sound of her front door opening made her look up. Like most Amish people, she never locked her doors. Knocking was an English habit the Amish ignored for they knew they were always welcome in another Amish home. A brief gust of winter wind came in with her visitor. Sarah’s mood rose when she recognized her friend and neighbor, Grace Ann Beachy.

  “Gut-n-owed,” Sarah called out a cheerfully good evening in Pennsylvania Deitsch, sometimes called Pennsylvania Dutch, the German dialect spoken by the Amish.

  “Sarah, I must speak to you.”

  Sarah was stunned to see tears in Grace’s eyes. Fearing something serious had happened, Sarah shot to her feet. “Are you okay?”

  “Nee, I’m not. I love him so much.” Grace promptly buried her face in her hands and began sobbing.

  Sarah gathered the weeping girl in her arms. Matters of the heart were often painful, but never more so than when it was first love.

  “There, there, child. It will be all right.” Sarah led Grace to the living room and sat beside her on the sofa. The two women had been friends for years. They were as close as sisters.

  Between sobs, Grace managed to recount her evening with Henry Zook from the time they left the singing party. The whole thing boiled down to the fact that Henry had grown tired of waiting for Grace to accept his offer of marriage. The conversation soon turned to a quarrel. Henry, in a fit of anger, said Esta Barkman had been making eyes at him all evening. Maybe she was ready to settle down and marry.

  Sarah lifted her young neighbor’s face and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “If you love him, why don’t you accept him? Is there someone else?”

  Grace rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “There’s Levi and the twins and the business. How can I leave my brothers? Levi can’t manage the business alone. He can barely speak to people he knows. He’s terrible at taking care of new customers. They’ll go elsewhere with their business and where will that leave him? You depend on the income from the shop, too.”

  “Your brother could hire someone to replace you. I know Mary Shetler would welcome the chance to have a job in an Amish business.”

  “I’m not sure she would want to work with the twins, knowing what they did.”

  Grace was probably right about that. Mary Shetler had left the Amish and wound up living with an English fellow who turned out to be a scoundrel. Just fifteen and pregnant at the time, Mary had been terrified to learn her boyfriend planned to sell her baby. She had the child alone one night while he was gone. Planning to leave her boyfriend for good as soon as she was able, she hid her infant daughter in an Amish buggy along with a note promising that she would return for her.

  The buggy belonged to Levi Beachy. The twins had taken it without permission and sneaked out to see a movie in another town. It wasn’t until they were on their way home that they discovered the baby. Afraid their midnight romp would get them in trouble if they brought the infant home, they stopped at the nearest farmhouse and left the child on the doorstep in the middle of the night.

  Fortunately, the home belonged to Ada Kauffman. Her daughter Miriam was a nurse. She and Sheriff Nick Bradley finally reunited mother and child but not before Mary suffered dreadfully believing her daughter Hannah was lost to her.

  “All right, Mary was not a good suggestion, but I’m sure there are other young women who could work with Levi.”

  “Maybe, but what about the twins? They could burn the town down or who knows what if someone doesn’t keep an eye on them. I know I haven’t done a great job, but I’m better than Levi. When he’s working, he could be standing in five feet of snow and not notice. I can’t leave knowing no one will look after them.”

  “I’m sorry you feel trapped by your family, Grace. You know I would help if I could.”

  Grace grabbed her arm. “You can.”

  “How?”

  “Help me find a wife for Levi.”

  Chapter Two

  Sarah stared at Grace in stunned disbelief. “You must be joking. How could I find a wife for your brother? I’m no matchmaker.”

  “But you are,” Grace insisted. “Didn’t you convince your cousin Adrian Lapp to court Faith Martin?”

  “Convince him? Nee, I did not. If I remember right, I cautioned Faith against losing her heart to Adrian because he was still grieving for his first wife.” Sarah knew how it felt to mourn for a spouse.

  “And that was exactly the push Faith needed to see beyond his gruff behavior. They married, and they are very happy together. Besides, you’re the one who convinced me to give Henry a chance.”

  “I don’t remember saying anything to you about going out with Henry.”

  “If you hadn’t told me how your Jonas settled down from his wild ways after you were married, I never would have given Henry the time of day. But I did, and now I’m in love with him. I want to marry him. You have to help me. I will just die if he marries someone else.”

  Sarah leveled a stern look at her young neighbor. “That’s a bit dramatic, Grace.”

  Drawing a deep breath, Grace nodded. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave Levi and the boys, but I can’t expect Henry to wait forever, either. I’m caught between a rock and a hard place with no way out.”

  “I hardly think finding a wife for your brother is the answer.”

  “It’s the only one I can come up with. I’m afraid if I ask Henry to wait much longer he’ll find someone else.”

  Sarah took pity on her young friend and tried to reassure her. “Henry Zook will not marry anyone else. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

  “I believe he loves me. He says he does, but he wants an answer.”

  “Henry is used to getting his own way. His mother has done her best to spoil him. He will be a good man, but right now he has the impatience of youth. What you and Henry need is a cooling-off time.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  The last thing Sarah wanted was to see her friend pushed into something she might regret. “You two have been seeing each other almost daily. I think both of you could use some time apart. Rushing into marriage can cause a lifetime of misery.”

  Grace shook her head. “Oh, Sarah. I don’t know. What would Henry think?”

  Sarah could see that Grace’s dilemma was taking its tol
l on her friend. There were shadows beneath her eyes that didn’t belong on a girl who was barely twenty. Her cheeks were pale and thinner, as if she’d lost weight. There had to be some way to help her. Suddenly, an idea occurred to Sarah.

  “He can’t object if you tell him you’re going to visit your grandmother in Pennsylvania. I know you’ve wanted to see her for ages. It will give Henry a chance to miss you while you’re gone, and it will give you a chance to relax and think about what you want to do without worrying about Henry or about your brothers.”

  “But what if Henry doesn’t miss me?”

  “Wouldn’t you rather know that before you are wed?” Sarah asked gently.

  “Grossmammi has asked me to come for a visit many times. She’s getting on in years. I would like to spend some time with her, but that means I would miss the quilting bee for Ina Stultz and the hoedown that’s coming up.”

  “I’ll take your place at Ina’s quilting bee, and there will be other hoedowns. Of course, once you marry, that kind of fun is over.” To marry, an Amish couple had to be baptized into the faith, which meant their running-around time was ended. Barn parties and such gatherings would give way to family visits and community events that bound together all members of their Amish faith.

  “What about the business?” Grace asked.

  “Levi will understand that you need some time to make up your mind about marrying. Besides, he’s a grown man. He can manage without you for a few weeks. I can help if worse comes to worst. I used to work there every day.”

  “Oh, it’ll come to worse very quickly. I don’t doubt you could do all that I do, but what about your job?”

  “The fabric shop is closing for a few months, so I have some extra time on my hands.” A lot of extra time, but was working beside Levi the way she wanted to spend it?

  Grace’s face lit up. She grabbed Sarah’s hand. “You are so clever. You can work with Levi and find out what kind of wife would suit him all at the same time. I won’t feel a bit bad about leaving him, knowing you’re there.”