An Amish Christmas (13 page)

James put out an open palm under another horse’s muzzle. “Beautiful animals.”

“They’re like family to us, you know.” David moved past the horses. “Over here, you can see where we keep the buggies.”

They followed him into a partitioned area housing two buggies, with space for a third. They were identical from the back, gray with gray coverings and high, narrow wheels, plus a variety of red triangles and lights on the back to render them more visible at night. Meg looked into the front seat of one, surprised to see the woodwork on what was the equivalent of a dashboard. The rich dark wood was intricately carved and polished until it gleamed. It had been too dark the night before to notice.

David indicated the empty space. “The one that goes there belongs to my son Jonathan. He got his own when he turned sixteen.”

“No heating, I guess. Cold in the winter, riding in these,” James observed.

David smiled. “We use armstrong heaters. You know those?”

James shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

David threw an arm around James’s shoulders and pulled him tight. “This is an armstrong heater.”

James grinned. “Oh. Got it.”

Laughing, David led them outside. He pointed to the fields stretching out before them. “We grow lots of crops. Tomatoes and peas, which we sell. Hay for feeding. Catherine has a garden with herbs and about, oh, twenty vegetables. We pickle and can them, some for us and some to sell.”

Meg nodded. “Catherine showed me.”

“In the spring, we have a road stand. Tourists buy vegetables into the early fall. Also, we have chickens, so we sell their eggs.” David pointed to a white house across the road, then to another one some fifty yards away. “That is where my son and daughter live, those two houses. They have the cows. For dairy.”

The tour was interrupted by the appearance of a boy and a girl running up to where the trio of adults stood, only to come to a stop before them. They were both blond, with pale-blue eyes, and they regarded Meg and James with open curiosity. The little boy had on the same type of wide-brim hat the men wore, while the little girl was bareheaded, her fine blond hair neatly pulled away from her face.

“These are my children, home from school,” David said. “My son Aaron and my daughter Rachel.”

“Hello,” James said, smiling at them.

Meg took a step closer. “Hi. I guess you were at school this morning when we got up, so we didn’t get to see you then.”

They both nodded and continued gazing at her, their expressions friendly and direct.

“How old are you?” James asked.

“I am eleven,” Aaron answered. “My sister is eight years.”

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Meg said. Rachel gave her a wide grin. “Did you meet our children? They’re inside,” Meg went on.

The idea of other children clearly sounded exciting to them.

“May we go? Please?” Rachel asked her father.

“Yes, but after you say hello, you do your chores. Fun is later.”

They ran off, smiling.

Dinner that night was served at five o’clock to an even larger crowd than at lunch. With the exception of Benjamin, the son who was away, all the Lutz children were at the table. Meg was able to straighten out who were the two married ones: Joseph, the son who lived across the road with his wife, Sue, and their two children, and Annie, the daughter who lived in the house immediately next door with her husband, Nicholas, and their three children. All their children were under the age of five, and they were quiet throughout the meal, other than a few requests for assistance. The few who were old enough to comprehend that the Hobarts were outsiders stared at them with fascination.

After grace, all of them worked their way through fried chicken, ham with pineapple rings, rice, butternut squash, beets, and sauerkraut. Taking a bite of corn bread, Meg reminded herself that, unlike her, these people performed physical
labor all day long, so they could handle the calories they were consuming at meals. It also dawned on her that James must be unhappy with what they were being served. He had always been far stricter than she when it came to his diet. Just looking at the fat and cholesterol on his plate was probably enough to give him a heart attack. Normally, she thought, she would have been trying to figure out how she could find him something he would prefer to eat without hurting her hostess’s feelings. At the moment, however, she wasn’t concerned with his preferences.

What she was concerned with were her older children. Yet again, their behavior was making her want to wring their necks. Will refused to make eye contact with anyone at the table despite the obvious desire of Eli Lutz, the fourteen-year-old son who had helped them the previous night, to talk to him. Eli kept glancing over at him but seemed to know better than to initiate anything. Lizzie appeared to be barely enduring Amanda’s efforts to converse with her. Meg was surprised by Amanda’s persistent attempts to be friendly despite Lizzie’s continued rudeness.

With relief, Meg saw that Sam was deep in conversation with Aaron, the eleven-year-old Meg had met outside the barn. From across the table, where she sat with the women, eight-year-old Rachel watched the two boys with unwavering intensity.

Here’s what’s wrong with this picture, Meg said to herself: As a child gets older, his or her manners should get better, not worse. It was only her youngest child who displayed any manners at all. The older ones were clearly on the decline when it
came to even minimal politeness. What I thought of as typical teenage behavior, Meg rebuked herself, may have been typical or not—but that didn’t make it right.

As they were finishing dessert, Amanda, Eli, Aaron, and Rachel stood up in a row facing the table, joined by Annie Lutz’s five-year-old. Hands at their sides, with no musical accompaniment, they began to sing. Meg didn’t catch all the words, but she understood that it was a song primarily about gratitude. All the diners were silent, watching and listening, smiles on their faces. Old Samuel nodded in time. Even his wife, the unsmiling Leah, seemed pleased.

Meg was mesmerized by their sweet, pure voices. More startling to her was that they showed no signs of embarrassment or resentment at being forced to perform. Their faces registered only concentration on their task. Meg saw that her own children could hardly bear to listen to the performance. They looked as if they would give years of their life to be anywhere else. Even Sam squirmed uncomfortably.

When the children were finished singing, the two eldest sat down and the other three remained standing to sing a second song. Meg noticed that the five-year-old didn’t know all the words, but that didn’t stop him from participating as best he could. Next, David and Catherine Lutz sang together. Afterward, no one applauded. Almost everyone seemed to have enjoyed it all, but no comments were made. Meg’s children rolled their eyes at one another. Dinner was concluded.

Meg tried to imagine the children of anyone she knew getting up and singing so gracefully and willingly. Impossible. Why, she wondered, was it so outlandish to think that children
could get up and sing without imitating rock stars or rappers, without trying to appear cool or amused by the irony of their own performance? Some kids would play the piano for their parents’ friends, and she could recall seeing girls perform a dance they had made up or planned to do for something at school. That kind of thing, yes, she thought; and always followed by extravagant praise. This was entirely different. It was a simple and somehow
vulnerable
performance. Traditional. Something that spoke of beliefs and prayers passed down from one generation to another. And so very beautiful.

Serving the evening meal, Meg saw, was far from the end of the day’s work for the women in the house. When the kitchen area was spotless, Catherine and her daughters began sewing. They had a pile of men’s black pants and jackets on the table and were repairing torn seams, replacing hooks and eyes, letting down hems. Amanda was stitching together pieces of black cloth.

“Amanda, are you making an apron?” Meg asked, taking a sip of coffee.

The girl looked up at her. “Yes.”

“We make our clothes,” Catherine explained. “Everything for the women and the children. Some families make their men’s summer hats as well, the straw ones, but we don’t do that. We buy those.”

Meg tried to tally up what it would mean to make or repair the wardrobe for a family of eleven. A wardrobe limited in style, to be sure, but a huge number of garments that required skill and precision, since they had to look a very specific way.

“I use a sewing machine, mostly,” Amanda added, “but I will not have time to do much tonight, so I am just working on it a little bit.”

Catherine could see the question forming in Meg’s mind. “It’s not electric. A treadle sewing machine. It was my mother’s.”

“Mom, look!”

Meg turned to see Sam coming toward her, the puppy trotting along behind him.

“He’s following me,” Sam cried happily. “He knows me!”

Catherine stood up and went to a kitchen cabinet. “Maybe you want to give him a treat.”

Sam took the piece of cracker Catherine handed him. “Here, Rufus. Here, boy.”

As Sam held the puppy close and fed it the small treat, the dog licked his face. Meg had never seen Sam look so blissful.

Which made her think of her other two children.

“Would you please excuse me?” Meg rose from the table. She found Lizzie and Will upstairs, sprawled out on the beds in Amanda’s room. Will was lying on his back, tossing a ball up in the air and catching it.

Her daughter sat up as soon as Meg entered the room. “Mom, thank goodness. Can you tell us what’s going on? When are we getting out of here?”

“I don’t know any more now than I did before. We have to see what happens with the car.”

“We could take a plane. Why do we have to wait for the stupid car? It’s horrible, anyway. Driving in that little car is, like, the worst thing in the world.”

“Is that so?” Meg made no effort to hide her lack of sympathy. “ ‘The worst thing in the world.’ That’s really saying something.”

Will raised himself up on one arm. “Come on, Mom. This place is a loony bin. You gotta do something.”

Meg looked from one to the other. “How about we do this: You two stop behaving like spoiled brats. For however long we’re here, you smile and act grateful for any little thing anyone does for you. I don’t care if you
are
grateful, but
act
grateful. Ask how you can help anytime you’re not occupied. And then actually help.”

“That’s not fair! We cleared the dishes when you—” Lizzie burst out.

“No, now you don’t speak. You only listen,” Meg interrupted sharply. “I don’t think you two understand how upset I am with you. I can’t believe how awful you’re being to the kids here. They want to talk to you. Talk to them!”

Will groaned. “They’re so lame.”

“It’s you and your sister who are ‘so lame,’ Will.” Meg didn’t raise her voice, but her anger was escalating. “I don’t see why these people are willing to put up with two sulky, self-absorbed teenagers when they don’t have to. But that’s going to stop.” Meg paused, then pointed to the bed Lizzie was on, the covers carelessly yanked up. “Whatever you do, please do it properly. These people keep their house a certain way. I won’t have you creating any additional work for them. They work hard enough.” She looked at her son. “That goes for you, too.”

“Take it easy, already,” Lizzie said. “We get it. You want us to become Amish.”

Meg’s eyes flared. “It would be a massive improvement over what you seem to have become. I don’t want you to become Amish. I want you to become people. Nice people.”

“Okay, Mom.” Will sounded a conciliatory note. “I’ll try.”

“Good,” Meg said sharply. “Lizzie?”

“All right, all right. We’re stuck here, so fine.” Lizzie’s voice turned exaggeratedly sweet. “I’ll be a perfect lady.”

Meg matched her tone to her daughter’s. “That would be lovely, dear.”

The three of them looked at one another in a tense detente. Then, with a quick sigh, Meg leaned down to kiss them good night. “I understand this isn’t easy, kids,” she said, smoothing back Lizzie’s hair. “But I’d like to see you rise to the occasion. I know you can do it.”

Wan smiles followed her as she turned to leave the room. She headed down the dark hall to the bedroom she shared with James, not eager to get into another argument.

She felt as if she had been dropped into a different world, one in which everything was inside out—especially her family. Overall, she decided, this had been one of the longest and strangest days she could ever remember.

Aside from the buggy’s constant bouncing, it was remarkably cozy in the back, Meg thought, adjusting the blanket on her lap. The temperature may have been low, but the sun poked through the clouds, making the day feel warmer. Plastic windows acted as a windshield and gave some protection from the elements. While David Lutz and James rode up front, Meg was content to sit behind them, looking out onto the passing farms. There were still patches of ice and snow glistening in the fields and along the road. She could hear bits and pieces of the men’s conversation, which seemed to be about crop rotation, but made no effort to follow it.