Christmas Visitor (5 page)

No one was aware of the state of her bank account. No one would need to know. Times were difficult for many people. They all had enough to do, simply staying afloat, paying mortgages, and providing for their own large families.

“Arme vitve, vine nicht (Poor widow, do not cry).”

Is that really what she was? How had it happened? How had she been toppled from her pedestal as Ben's loving wife? Toppled and broken into a million pieces. Would she ever find a way out of this labyrinth of personal fear of failure? Could she survive financially, as a lone parent, raising these fast growing and maturing children? And these boys. They so desperately needed a father figure in their lives.

Well, the fifty-seven dollars would hold them a few weeks. Then she'd either have to beg from her parents, or…or what?

The quilt was almost finished. She had four hundred yards of thread in it so far. At seventy-five cents a yard, that would be three hundred dollars. The gas bill was almost a hundred and forty dollars, and the telephone maybe fifty or sixty.

She'd go to B. B.'s Store, the bent and dent grocery in Quarryville. If she was especially careful, she could make do on seventy or eighty dollars.

The horse feed was about all gone. Well, they'd have to wait till another quilt was finished. In a few more years, the boys would be fourteen and fifteen and able to earn a few dollars, but until then…she didn't know.

She rolled on her side and punched her pillow into a different shape. Then she stretched out her arm, her fingers searching for Lillian's small form, and checked the rise and fall of her daughter's breath, feeling that comforting, even rhythm that assured Ruth she was alright.

Mamie was a treasure, asking her to go Christmas shopping with the others. Should Ruth have been honest with her? So far, she had no clue how they would celebrate Christmas
—
with gifts, anyway. Perhaps this year she would tell the children they would receive gifts from their grandparents and the teacher at school, but since their dat was no longer here, they wouldn't have Christmas gifts at home.

How could she manage?

Elmer and Esther would understand. She pictured Elmer with his shoulders held too high and his hands in his pockets, the “little man” stance he'd developed in the past five months. Ruth ached with love for her eldest son.

How could she
—
if she had a chance
—
replace Ben? How did one go about procuring a replacement for a husband? She guessed she couldn't. At least not outwardly.

There came a time, though, when she had to wonder what God had in store. Did He think it was best to stay alone? Was there anyone who would even consider taking the wild leap into the chaotic lives of six children and their mother?

She remembered the emotion her sister, Verna, had shown. But that Vern was something else
—
slightly unstable. Ruth thought of the wrinkled, yellowing handkerchief, knowing it wasn't laundered properly and had never seen an iron.

None of the sisters knew why Verna was that way. Verna herself claimed she was adopted. She didn't care one whit about her yard or garden or housework. She bought all her canned goods at B. B.'s Store in Quarryville, saying she could buy them cheaper than she could can them herself.

She pieced quilts and bought Little Debbies for her children, or Nutter Butters or Chips Ahoy. Her oldest, named Ellen
—
Mam had a fit about that fancy name
—
did the washing just as fast as she could without paying much attention to the outcome.

The thought of her sister and her questionable laundry was the deciding factor between sleep and more tumbling thoughts of worry. Ruth barely had time to pull Lillian's softly breathing form against her own before giving into asleep.

Ruth walked toward the house, leafing through her mail as the October wind caught her skirt and whipped it around her knees. The gas bill, a few cards from folks in the community who remembered to send lines of encouragement
—
sometimes containing crisp twenty dollar bills
—
some junk mail, an offer for a credit card, which was tempting.

Hmm.

A letter with no stamp? Without her full address? She struggled to pull the storm door completely shut and then laid the mail on the kitchen table before hanging her black sweater on the row of hooks by the wringer washer.

Shivering, she sat down to open her mail. She found nothing unusual, but she was grateful for the cards with the usual verses, a token of care sent by people she did not know.

She saved the one without a stamp for last, somehow savoring the mystery of it. She blinked and caught her breath. The envelope contained a plain sheet of notebook paper from an ordinary composition book with the loose fragments of paper still hanging from the holes where it had been torn from the notebook.

One, two, three….She almost stopped counting as her heart started beating wildly in her chest. Ten. There were ten one hundred dollar bills. There was no greeting and no name.

She hadn't planned on crying. It just happened, starting with her nostrils burning and a huge lump in her throat that was relieved only when the splash of tears began. She folded her arms on top of the mail on the oak table and let the wonder of this generous gift overtake her.

“Mam?”

Elmer's concern forced her to lift her head. She felt guilty now to be indulging in these senseless tears.

“I'm sorry, Elmer.”

“What's wrong?”

Silently she handed the money to him and watched through blurred vision as he counted, then whistled softly.

“We're rich!”

“What?! What?!”

Roy came bouncing over with Barbara at his heels. That was the one thing Ruth would never understand
—
the way Barbara did that, always going where Roy went, only to be constantly irritated by his antics.

“Somebody gave us a bunch of money!”

“Let me see.”

It was October eleventh, the day most Amish people set aside as a day of fasting and prayer in order to prepare themselves for the fall communion services. Ruth had always relished this rare day of relaxation to spend with Ben and the children. The day was an uninterrupted one, sanctioned for the reading of the German articles of faith or the prayer book, the traditional books read and re-read by generations of Old Order Amish.

There was no breakfast for Ruth on fasting day, but she prepared buttered toast and Honey Nut Cheerios for the children. Lillian, of course, refused them, saying she wanted Trix. In her frustration, Lillian kicked the bench from her perch on the blue plastic booster seat and cried, squeezing her eyes shut and turning her head from side to side until the other children laughed at her. Then she lifted her face with her eyes closed and just howled because they were laughing, and Ruth had to shush the older ones. She took Lillian away from the table and talked to her firmly, saying there were no Trix in the house and if she wouldn't eat Cheerios, she would have nothing at all and would be just like the three little pigs who were lazy and the wolf blew their house away.

That made Lillian sit up straight and open her eyes. She told Ruth that a wolf could not blow houses away, but the story had served to get her mind off the Trix. She ate her Cheerios, and general peace was restored.

Ruth read her Luscht Gartlein (Love Garden), her soul blossoming and unfolding, as it received the simple German words about the wise ways one could live a good and Godly life. The reading of the German took more of her time, but she savored the pronunciation and the meaning of these words, remembering the agelessness of them.

At noon, she fried corn meal mush, cutting the squares from the aluminum cake pan and frying them in vegetable oil. It was Elmer's favorite for fasht dag (fast day) lunch. Ruth heated milk in a small saucepan and then poured it over a bowl full of saltines and covered them with a plate while she fried eggs.

Esther set the table, adding salt and pepper, ketchup, butter, and strawberry jelly to the spread with plates, knives, and forks. There was no orange juice, and grapes had been too expensive to can juice, so they drank cold water for their lunch on fasht dag.

When Ruth bowed her head before they ate, she remembered to thank God especially for the gift of one thousand dollars that had come with the early morning mail delivery.

The cornmeal mush was delicious. The boys devoured every last slice and ate two eggs each and all the buttered toast they could hold.

Esther didn't like mush, so she wrinkled her nose and said it was greasy and disgusting. Elmer said that was great if she didn't eat it so he'd have more. Roy nodded his head in agreement, his straight brown hair sliding back and forth with each movement.

Esther said just doddies (grandfathers) and mommies ate mush. Roy said they did not either. Anyone could eat mush if they felt like it.

Esther said rich people ate bacon, and Elmer said they were rich. Roy nodded his head again. Esther looked at Ruth and said, “Right, Mam, we're not rich?”

“We are rich, Esther. We have each other and God takes very good care of us.”

After that wonderful fasht dag, the coal bin was filled with three tons of coal, the gas bill was paid, and Ruth planned to go Christmas shopping with Mamie.

A few days before the shopping trip, the boys hitched Oatmeal to the cart and went back to the farm for two gallons of milk. It was a gray sort of day, chilly and overcast with the clouds bulging with rain that hadn't started to fall. Elmer said later that was why he didn't see the oncoming truck
—
it was gray, too.

Ruth saw the whole thing from the kitchen window and clutched Benjamin with one hand as she clapped the other across her mouth to stifle a scream. She was completely helpless as she watched Elmer pull out directly in front of a pickup truck. She saw him come down hard with the leather reins on the pony's haunches, scaring poor Oatmeal out of her wits. The driver also hit the brakes, and Oatmeal lunged forward, spilling both boys out onto the road.

Roy came screaming and crying, completely beside himself with pain and fear and holding his left wrist with his right hand. Ruth laid crying Benjy into his playpen and asked Esther to watch him, please. She'd be back.

The driver of the truck was middle aged, lean, and sensible but most definitely shaken up and unhappy with his circumstances at that moment. Elmer was running down the road after his surprised pony, Roy was yelling senselessly, and some very black tire marks stretched along Hoosier Road. But thank God, no one was seriously injured.

The driver's name was Dan Rogers, and he offered to call the police, although his truck wasn't damaged. Ruth grasped her sweater at the waistline and shivered as her teeth chattered. She told him it was fine, she'd have the wrist checked by their family doctor.

Dan stayed long enough to watch Roy spread his fingers, lift and lower his hand, and rotate his wrist. Then he waited until Elmer returned with Oatmeal and the cart, apparently unharmed, although Elmer had telltale streaks of gray where he'd wiped fiercely at his little boy tears.

Ruth hugged both boys together, gathering them close in a thankful embrace. That night she spent a very restless night as Roy woke up continually, calling for his mother because of the pain.

In the morning, resignedly, she took Roy to Intercourse to Doctor Pfieffer, who did a quick diagnosis and said it was only a bad sprain as the x-ray showed no fracture. He put a splint on the wrist and wrapped it over and over.

Ruth wrote out a check for two hundred and fifteen dollars, signed her name, and took Roy home again. She settled him on the couch with a few books and then took Benjamin and walked down the road to Mamie's house. Ruth knocked on the front door and was greeted by the usual insane yipping of Mamie's brown Pomeranian.

Mamie opened the door, a men's handkerchief of a questionable cleanliness tied around her head, a torn bib apron sliding off one shoulder, and Waynie, as usual, stuck on one hip like a permanent fixture.

“I don't know why you think you always have to knock,” she said as her way of greeting Ruth.

“It's polite, Mamie.”

“Who's polite? What is that? Here, give me your precious bundle. Waynie, go play now. Trixie, shoo. Gay! (Go!) Waynie, Trixie!”

Waynie sat down and howled. Trixie continued yipping, and Benjamin's eyes grew very wide and uncertain.

“Ach my! My house is a total circus. Johnny, come get Trixie. Put her in the kesslehaus. Fannie, come get Waynie. Susan, where's Fannie? Well, here, Susan, give him a graham cracker in his high chair. Trixie! Johnny! Come get this dog!”

Ruth couldn't stop smiling, the warmth spreading through her like bright, summer sunshine. She loved Mamie so much she wanted to send her a card with a funny saying about friends or a bouquet of flowers, but as it was, she knew she could afford neither, so she unwrapped Benjamin and handed him to an eager Fannie. She was Mamie's oldest daughter, tall and slim, with a splattering of freckles and brown eyes. She had magically appeared after Susan, her younger blonde-haired sister, had taken away the wailing Waynie.

“He's teething,” Mamie sighed.

“Poor Waynie, he looks unhappy.”

“He is.”

“Well, Mamie, I came to tell you that I'll have to back out of the shopping trip. The boys had a near accident yesterday, pulling out in front of a pickup with Oatmeal, and I had to have Roy's wrist taken care of.”

“Oh no! Are they okay?”

“Yes, just a bad sprain in Roy's left wrist.”

“Well, good, but it really spites me you can't go with us. Do you want me to give you some money? Of course, I better not say that. Eph would have a fit. He can hardly get forty hours in down at the shed place, this time of year. Trixie!”

Mamie got up and lumbered after the tiny Pomeranian. Ruth had to wonder what kept the dog alive, being underfoot all the time.

“I don't know where that Johnny is. Now, as we were saying, if you can't go, will you be able to have Christmas gifts this year? Ach Ruth, I simply pity you so bad. I'm going to tell Davey that you're out of money.”

“No! Mamie please. Our deacon has enough to think about.”

“You want coffee?”

“No, I have to get back. Roy might need me.”

Ruth glanced around, trying not to notice the piles of dirty dishes, the messy stove top, the fly hanger above the table dotted with dead houseflies
—
not to mention the clutter all over the floor.

“Stop looking at my house.”

Ruth laughed. With Mamie, everything was easy. You could always be yourself and say what you wanted without having to attempt any unnecessary niceties.

“Why don't you wash your dishes?”

“You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I don't like washing dishes. Ever. I have to force myself to tackle a sink load of them. They need to come up with a dishwasher that runs on air.”

“Tell Ephraim to start designing one. He could.”

“Ppfff!”

Ruth smiled and then laughed.

“Mamie, you are the dearest best friend in the world. I just have to tell you how much I appreciate you.”

“Ach Ruth, now you're going to make me cry. Well, I feel the same about you. Just so you know.” Then Mamie held her head to one side, eyed Ruth shrewdly, and asked if she loved her enough to wash dishes.

“I'd love to wash your dishes.”

“I bet.”

Still smiling, Ruth walked home, richer in friendship than in money. That was sure.

All through the rest of the month of October, Ruth tried not to plan ahead unnecessarily or build up mountains of worry.

Of course, Mam and the sisters planned shopping trips for November, in between weddings and all the usual events planned around them.