Christmas at Promise Lodge Read online

  “I don’t see the harm of sitting with your mamm during church and the wedding,” Mattie said gently. “What with Laura, Phoebe, and Deborah—and your dat—all sitting up front, you and your mother could keep one another company. There’ll be a lot of folks here that neither one of you knows.”

  Mary Kate looked down at her clasped hands. “Jah, there’s that, but—”

  “And it might be a long while before we have another big event—unless Rosetta and Truman Wickey decide to get hitched,” Phoebe said with a teasing glance at her aunt.

  Rosetta waved them off, but she was smiling. “Don’t hold your breath for that wedding, seeing’s how Truman’s Mennonite and I’m Old Order Amish.”

  Laura let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t see why that’s such a big deal,” she protested. “Everybody knows you and Truman are sweet on each other. In some Plain settlements, folks are fine with interfaith marriages.”

  “Well, that’s an issue to take up on another day,” Mattie remarked in a purposeful tone. Her nieces meant well, but their romantic notions about Truman and Rosetta would get Bishop Floyd going on another one of his lectures. As bishops went, he was very conservative and insisted on following traditional Old Order ways. “Our concern now is for Mary Kate, and we want her to enjoy our special day instead of feeling she has to hide herself away. Think about it, all right?” she asked softly.

  Mary Kate nodded. “You and your sisters keep telling me I should have some fun before the baby gets here. I’ll give it my best shot—unless I chicken out, come time for church.”

  Squeezing the girl’s shoulder, Mattie left her sister and the girls and strode through the lobby to the front door. When she stepped out onto the lodge’s big front porch, she stopped for a moment to take in the plowed plots where they’d grown vegetables all summer for their roadside produce stand . . . the small white structure alongside Christine’s red dairy barn, where the Kuhn sisters made several varieties of cheese . . . the new road that wound between homes and barns belonging to Noah and Deborah, Preacher Amos, the Peterscheim family, and the Lehmans—as well as the two partly completed homes, one for their newest residents, Preacher Marlin Kurtz and his kids, and the other for her older son, Roman. Every morning she stood here gazing toward the orchard, Rainbow Lake, and the tree-covered hills that provided such a rustic, lovely setting, amazed at how their colony had progressed since spring.

  Denki, Lord, for Your providential care, Mattie prayed. We ask Your blessings on Noah and Deborah today as they become husband and wife. If You’d bless Mary Kate with health and healing and more confidence, that would be a gift, as well.

  When she saw Amos Troyer stepping out onto his porch, Mattie waved and started walking toward him. His new home was modest and small compared to the others, because as a widower he wasn’t going to raise another family—although it was no secret that he hoped Mattie would marry him someday soon. Truth be told, she savored her independence after enduring a husband who’d mistreated her, but she enjoyed Preacher Amos’s company.

  “I’ve got a surprise for your breakfast,” she called out as she approached his tidy white house. “The Kuhn sisters were kind enough to make us some biscuit sandwiches—”

  “Did somebody say biscuits?” Roman hollered as he came out of Noah’s house, which was next door to Amos’s. Queenie, Noah’s black-and-white Border collie, rushed out into the yard, barking excitedly.

  Behind Roman, Noah was stepping outside, buttoning his black vest over his white shirt. “Hope you’ve got more than one of those sandwiches, Mamm,” he said with a laugh. “The pizza Deborah made for us last night is long gone—and she’s not showing her face until church starts.”

  “You poor, starving things,” Mattie teased as she started up the walk toward her sons. “Deborah deserves a wedding day away from the stove.”

  “Or you could get by on bacon, eggs, and toast like I do,” Preacher Amos teased as he strode across his small, leaf-covered yard. He stopped a few feet away from Mattie to take in her new dress—and the plate in her hand—with an appreciative smile. He lowered his voice before Roman and Noah reached them. “Of course, if you married me, Mattie, I wouldn’t be threatened by starvation or depression or any of those other maladies a man alone endures.”

  “Jah, so you’ve told me,” Mattie teased as she removed the napkin that covered her plate. “Maybe someday I’ll feel sorry enough for you to give up my cozy apartment in the lodge.”

  The moment her sons joined them, the three sandwiches were snatched up. With a welling-up of love, Mattie watched Noah eat. Although he was twenty-one, it seemed like only yesterday when he’d been born. He and Deborah had known each other all their lives, had become sweethearts in school, had gotten engaged—until Deborah broke off their relationship, claiming Noah didn’t communicate with her or have a concrete plan for their future. The nasty incident involving Isaac Chupp had brought Noah out of his shell, awakening his protective feelings for Deborah, and all of them at Promise Lodge had breathed a sigh of relief when the young couple reconciled this past summer.

  “I’m proud of you, Noah,” Mattie murmured as she stroked his unruly brown waves. “I wish you all the happiness that marriage and your faith in God can offer.”

  Blushing, Noah eased away from her touch. “Denki, Mamm. I think Deborah and I have figured out how to stay together now,” he said as he offered his dog the last bite of his biscuit.

  Mattie shared a smile with Preacher Amos. “When you’re my age, son, you’ll look back to this day and realize how young and innocent you were,” she murmured.

  “And clueless.” Amos laughed. “We fellows like to believe we’ve got everything figured out and under control—until life starts tossing monkey wrenches into our well-laid plans. I’m a different kind of man than I imagined I’d be when I was your age.”

  “Did folks hitch their rigs to dinosaurs back then?” Roman teased. He, too, fed the last bite of his sandwich to Queenie and then rubbed between her black ears.

  “Puh! I didn’t have much money when I married,” the preacher reminisced, “but I drove fine-looking retired racehorses. Not that my bride always appreciated my priorities,” he admitted. “I hope you’ll give a thought to Deborah’s needs before you devote the household budget to your own whims, Noah. I had a spendy streak—”

  “But all the girls liked what they saw and thought you’d be a fine catch back in the day, Amos,” Mattie cut in with a chuckle.

  “Back in the day?” he challenged. The way he held her gaze made Mattie’s cheeks prickle. “Might be a little snow on the roof, but there’s still a fire down below.”

  “And with that, I’m going to finish getting dressed,” Roman announced, pointing toward the rigs coming through the camp entrance. “We’ve got guests arriving. I hope you two won’t be gawking at each other all during the service, embarrassing us all.”

  Mattie smiled, watching her two sons and the dog enter Noah’s white frame house. “I’m so glad we came to Promise Lodge,” she murmured to Amos. “So glad we risked buying this property so we’re no longer living in Obadiah Chupp’s shadow. If I’d still been shackled to that farmhouse in Coldstream, I couldn’t have given my boys plots of land where they could lead lives of their own.”

  “You’re an innovator, for sure and for certain,” Amos agreed. “The best thing I ever did was sell my place and come to the tiny town of Promise with you and your sisters. I feel like my life and my efforts matter now, as we build houses for our new neighbors. The land is like a paradise and the air smells cleaner—”

  “That’s because I showered this morning,” Mattie teased.

  She faced Amos, loving the way his laughter eased the lines time had carved into a masculine face weathered by the elements and life experiences. Her life would’ve been entirely different had her dat allowed her to marry Amos Troyer when she was young instead of insisting she take up with Marvin Schwartz, who’d come into a farm with a house on it. Amos had been a fledg
ling carpenter without two nickels to rub together.

  At fifty, Amos was five years older than she, but his strong, sturdy body showed no signs of softening with age or health issues. He was a man in his prime, and he’d made no bones about wanting to marry her now that both of their spouses had passed. Sometimes Mattie was on the verge of blurting out a yes when Amos talked of getting hitched—and then memories of Marvin’s abuse would come rushing back to her.

  No, she wasn’t in a hurry to take on another husband, another household. But if she ever did, it would be with Amos.

  “I hope you’ll allow me the honor of sitting with you at dinner as we celebrate your son’s big day,” he murmured, squeezing her hand.

  Mattie smiled up at him, gripping his fingers before releasing them. His silver-shot hair and beard shimmered in the morning light, and he cut a fine figure in his black suit and white shirt. “I’ll be happy to, Amos. God be with you as you find the words for your sermon this morning.”

  Amos flashed her a boyish grin. “It’ll be God I’m listening to as I speak,” he said, “but it’ll be you I’m looking to for inspiration, Mattie. I hope today’s celebration turns out to be every bit as wonderful as you are.”

  Mattie flushed with pleasure, watching him walk to Noah’s new house to prepare for the service—the home Amos had designed and then built with the help of the other local fellows, with interior walls that could be removed to accommodate large crowds for church services. Amos’s hands were calloused from years of carpentry, but there was no softer, more loving heart on God’s green earth.

  * * *

  A few hours later, Amos sat on the preacher’s bench trying not to scowl. After a full-length church service they had progressed into the wedding, and he had preached the first sermon on the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians—about how love was patient and kind, an example of the humility Plain folks were to strive for. Bishop Floyd Lehman was now delivering the second, longer sermon before he would lead Noah and Deborah in their marriage vows, and his tone was becoming more strident as he discussed the duties of husband and wife to each other and to God. It was an appropriate topic, but some of the folks in the congregation appeared to be shrinking into themselves like turtles retreating into their shells, probably because the bishop’s resonant voice had risen to fever pitch.

  “As we consecrate the union of this young Amish couple, I must insist that the single and widowed men and women among us find mates immediately,” he exhorted. “Before the snow flies, I expect to see you—Matilda Schwartz, Christine Hershberger, Rosetta Bender, Amos Troyer, and Marlin Kurtz—standing before me to take your wedding vows! It’s unnatural for God’s children to live alone, or for women to engage in any business other than making a home for their families. Moreover,” he continued, gesticulating dramatically, “our colony cannot condone the intermarriages of Old Order members with those of more liberal Plain faiths. When we take on the ways of a lesser faith, we weaken the very foundation of our colony—and we risk losing our salvation in our Lord.”

  Amos gripped the edge of the preacher’s bench until his hands hurt. This was not the proper time to challenge folks by name, telling them to find mates. He couldn’t miss the way Truman Wickey, their Mennonite neighbor, had also tensed. Truman sat on the front pew bench of the men’s side, serving as one of Noah’s newehockers along with Roman, so his reaction was easy to see. Amos suspected that on the women’s side, Rosetta, Mattie, and Christine appeared equally perturbed.

  To Amos’s right, Preacher Eli Peterscheim shifted on the wooden bench as the bishop continued preaching. “That’s just wrong,” he muttered under his breath. “You can’t tell me God instructed Floyd to name names and set a deadline for marrying.”

  Amos agreed with Eli’s assessment. Why on earth had Bishop Floyd used this wedding sermon to single out the three women who’d founded their colony—and then named him and Marlin, as well? Why was Floyd so set on following the very strictest formula of the Old Order faith, when other communities allowed intermarriage and home-based businesses run by married women?

  On Amos’s other side, Marlin Kurtz, the colony’s new preacher, leaned closer. “That’s outrageous—I’ve only lived here a couple months,” he whispered. “I’ve had no time to court anyone while building a house and getting my kids settled in. Is Floyd always this intense?”

  Amos stifled a cough. “If the bishop thinks the unattached folks here are going to bang his door down, asking him to officiate at their weddings in the next few weeks, he’s in for a rude awakening.”

  And I probably am, too. Mattie will most likely dig in her heels and refuse to marry me now, just to spite the bishop.

  Sure enough, when Amos peered toward the side of the expanded front room where the women sat, he saw that Mattie’s lips were pressed into a tight line as though she might explode from suppressing her irritation with Bishop Floyd. Rosetta’s face was as red as an apple from the orchard, and Christine’s scowl could’ve curdled milk. Amos suspected the three sisters would express their opinions openly once they were out of church, and he prayed the bishop wouldn’t spoil this festive occasion by lashing out or ordering them to pay some sort of penance for challenging his decree. Amos predicted that Mattie’s frustration would get her into hot water one of these days, and unfortunately, Floyd Lehman would always have the upper hand and the last word.

  Help us serve You, Jesus, even when our passions and loyalty blind us, Amos prayed. And help me walk in Your way if push comes to shove between Bishop Floyd and the Bender sisters.

  Chapter Two

  Mary Kate Lehman sat on the front porch swing of the new house, wrapped in a cozy old quilt. She gazed toward the white frame home where Noah and Deborah were being married—barely able to see it between the large old maple trees that shimmered in shades of gold, orange, and crimson as the late-morning sunshine struck them. She’d been ready to enter Noah’s house with the other ladies before the church service began, until her dat’s disapproving glare had sent her trundling awkwardly up the road, clutching her belly as she blinked back tears. Why did life have to be so hard, so harsh, after that English stranger had taken advantage of her?

  As an obedient bishop’s daughter, however, Mary Kate knew better than to voice such a question aloud. All her life her parents had insisted that she was to listen and obey rather than to question the path God had chosen for her. Sighing, she rocked back and forth in the swing. The sound of more than a hundred voices singing a hymn drifted down the road, telling her that the wedding ceremony was almost over. She’d planned to join everyone in the lodge for the wedding meal—she ate there on Sundays with her new friends at Promise Lodge—but the thought of so many guests and strangers staring at her gave her pause.

  In Amish society, there was simply no place, no explanation, for an unmarried girl who was eight months pregnant. She was grateful to Mattie Schwartz, Rosetta Bender, and Christine Hershberger for welcoming her so warmly to this new colony. At times they seemed more sympathetic to her situation than her parents or her older sister, Gloria.

  Mary Kate leaned forward, straining to see the guests as they came out of Noah’s house in a steady stream. Lots of people had arrived from Coldstream, where the Schwartzes and Preacher Amos had lived before, not to mention kinfolk of the Peterscheims who’d come from other towns . . . folks she didn’t know and would likely not see again. They would figure she’d crossed the line with an errant boyfriend, and they would judge her. She rose from the swing, resigning herself to a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk.

  She was slicing a ball of creamy, pale mozzarella cheese the Kuhn sisters had made when rapid footsteps clattered across the porch out front.

  “Mary Kate? Mary Kate, you won’t believe it!” her sister called out as she entered the house. Gloria burst into the kitchen, her dark eyes alight with excitement. “Guess who kept looking at me all during the church service?”

  Mary Kate shrugged, arranging the cheese on a slice of bread she�
��d spread with mayonnaise. “Could have been anybody, seeing’s how so many folks from out of town are—”

  “Roman Schwartz!” Gloria blurted. “It was easy to see him, of course, because he was in the front row with his brother and that Mennonite guy Rosetta likes.”

  “Truman Wickey.”

  “Jah, but the best part,” Gloria continued in a breathless voice, “was how Roman was sneaking peeks at me. I’m going back to the lodge now, because if I help refill water glasses or hand out the sliced pie, I can keep an eye on him—and convince him to ask me out! You’d think he’d take the hint after I’ve been talking to him all summer, but I feel like today’s going to be my lucky day!”

  Mary Kate gazed at her sister, unsure of what to say. Not so long ago she and Gloria had held similar conversations about the boys they saw around town or at weddings, but now that she was pregnant with an unknown man’s child, the prospect of attracting a boyfriend was a dream that would never come true—not that her sister noticed. Gloria was twirling a kapp string around her finger, smiling and batting her long lashes as she anticipated what she’d say and do when Roman finally noticed her. At twenty-two, Gloria had left a few boyfriends behind when they’d moved here from Sugarcreek, Ohio—and Mary Kate had no illusions about her sister’s ability to attract additional young men here in Missouri. Gloria had always been prettier than she, and more outgoing, and better at flirting and making small talk, and—

  Well, everyone knows she’ll be getting hitched before long, Mary Kate mused with a sigh. The Bible tells us of the haves and the have-nots, and Gloria’s got her share of blessings and mine, too.

  Gloria blinked. “Oh—Mamm wants me to ask if she can bring you some food from the wedding meal. We can fix you a plate—”