Courting Buggy: Nurse Hal Among The Amish

The Courting Buggy

by

Fay Risner

Cover Art 2014

By Fay Risner

All Rights Reserved

Published by Fay Risner at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 by Fay Risner

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not
purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com
and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.

Party Potatoes Recipe 2014

All Rights Reserved

James Dustin Morrison

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to the actual
persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or local
areas are entirely coincidental. Excerpts from this book can not be
used without written permission from the author.

Booksbyfay Publisher

[email protected]

http://www.booksbyfaybookstore.weebly.com

Maybe it has something to do with our aging
process, but eventually, we learn how important family is to us.
Those of us who have been fortune enough to have an Aunt Tootie in
our lives decided to remember and smile fondly. Holidays seem to
bring out the warm feelings for our extended family and memories of
relatives that we wish were alive to enjoy a family gathering with
us. In my case, my family often thinks about our grandmother, Veder
Bright, and my mother, Sylvia Bullock. We invoke stories about them
at gatherings. They were two great cooks that loved to feed their
family any time, and we miss both of them very much.

That's why the following recipe seemed like a
natural to add to this book. This was a recipe handed down through
three generations of James Dustin Morrison's family. That's the
best kind of recipe to share with others, because the recipe not
only came through loving hands, creating the dish puts those
special people that touched and formed our lives right there with
us while we're cook.

Years ago, cooks didn't have published
cookbooks. They kept handwritten recipes from relatives and friends
in a drawer. The Party Potato recipe belongs to James Dustin
Morrison's grandmother. She passed it on to Dustin's mother and his
mother gave him a copy. He couldn't have picked a better time than
Thanksgiving of 2013 to share his culinary efforts with the Bullock
family. That's because my husband, Harold, my son, Duane, and I
were lucky enough to be a part of their holiday feast. We enjoyed
Dustin's Party Potatoes, and the sentiment behind the dish made it
even more special. I appreciated that Dustin was willing to share
the recipe with all my readers so that you might enjoy his Party
Potatoes, too.

Shared by James Dustin Morrison

From the kitchen of his Mom and
Grandmother

Ingredients

5 pounds of potatoes

One large bar of Cream Cheese

One 6 oz. Tub of Sour Cream

Garlic salt or powder to taste

Squares of butter on top of finished potatoes
(1 to 1½ sticks)

Instructions

Peel potatoes, cut in half and boil. Combine
softened cream cheese and sour cream in a mixer. Add the cook
potatoes and some of the potato water. Add garlic salt or powder to
taste.

Oven temperature 350 Time 30-40 min Serves
8-10

On November 1, 2013, I entered the National
Novel Writing Month contest (NaNoWriMo). By the end of November,
The Courting Buggy draft was pulled over the finish line by Mike,
Jim Lindstrom's sorrel horse. You now have the finished project, my
published book.

Fay Risner

Chapter 1

John Lapp stepped out of the barn and
observed the sky. The west was dark from the recent rain, but the
sun beat down overhead now. He felt the sun's warmth on his face.
It felt good. He closed his dark brown eyes and threw his arms
above his head, stretching the kinks out of his joints. The hour
before, a black rain cloud poured large, cold drops on him as he
ran into the barn. He was thankful to see the sun back. Even more
thankful for peaceful calm times like these when all was right in
his family's world.

Laugher from the end of the driveway caused
John to glance toward the gravel road. His two sons sauntered
toward him. Daniel's growth spurt had shot him up almost as tall as
his brother, Noah. John's youngest son must have found something
Noah said funny. He elbowed the grinning Noah who usually was the
serious natured one of the two.

The boys acted like they were up to
something. John waited for them to get to him. “How was your visit
with Jimmie Miller?”

“Gute,” Noah said.

“Jah, we had fun,” Daniel replied. The eleven
years old boy had his jacket buttoned shut. The black material
moved in and out over his chest.

John pointed at Daniel's jacket. “What do you
have rutsching around in there?”

Daniel asked, “Remember we talked about some
day getting another dog?”

“Jah,” John answered.

“Did you see Jimmie's dog and her litter of
pups when we had the Sunday meeting at their farm a month ago?”
Noah inquired.

“Jah, if I remember right she was a black and
tan coon hound with a mess of pups. Ain't so?” John recalled.

“Jah, and Jimmie is ready to wean the pups
and give them away. He gave us one to bring home on approval.”
Daniel added reluctantly, “If you and Mama Hal do not like him we
can take the pup back.”

“Bring him out of your jacket before he
suffocates, and let me see him,” John said.

Daniel unbuttoned his coat and handed the
fat, cream colored puppy to his father. “He's cute, ain't so?”

The puppy's spiked tail quivered back and
forth. He let out a series of yips at John like a wind up toy.

“Right now he is. Is he pure coon hound?”
John asked.

“Jah. Bred to Jimmie's cousin Morgan Miller's
black and tan coon hound,” Noah said.

“I take it you two are planning to take this
pup coon hunting when he's older?” John surmised.

“That is the plan,” Noah agreed.

“It is all right with me to keep him, but
this pup is not the breed your Mama Hal might have had in mind when
we talked about getting another family dog like Patches. You show
her the puppy. If you get her approval then it is all right with me
to keep him,” John said.

“How about we let Mama Hal name the pup?
Think she would like that gute enough to let us keep him?” Daniel
asked.

“Might work in your favor. Give it a try,”
John agreed. “I'm headed to the house. No time better to show the
puppy to Hal and Emma.”

John trod behind the house and into the mud
room with the boys behind him. When John entered the kitchen, Hal
marched at him, wringing a corner of her white apron. “I don't know
how I could have done such a thing. John, this is awful. I don't
know what to do about it.”

John stopped short and speechlessly watched
his wife pace around the kitchen. Daniel grabbed Noah's arm. He
whispered, “We better stay out here until Dad gets Mama Hal settled
down. This does not sound gute for our puppy.”

“Jah,” Noah hissed solemnly. “I have been
pondering this. Maybe we should not bring up that our dog is a coon
hound unless Mama Hal comes right out and asks its breed. She can
not tell one breed from the other when they are puppies.”

“Gute idea,” Daniel whispered back. The puppy
squirmed in his arms. He nearly dropped the pup before gathering
him in a tighter grip.

In the kitchen, Emma was mixing cake batter
at the table. Her gray green eyes shifted nervously back and forth
from the batter to her upset step mother. Hal made a lap around the
room and back to John. “This is just not fair. How could this
happen? I don't know how I could do such a dumb thing? Do you,
John?”

“I can not answer that until you tell me what
you did. What did you do?” John implored, wondering what could be
so bad to cause Hal's face to flush as red as her hair.

“I got a letter from my parents today.
They're coming to visit us, because I invited them,” Hal groaned.
She grabbed the letter off the table and waved the sheets of paper
at him.

John looked confused. “What's wrong with
that? I like your folks.”

At that news, Noah and Daniel edged into the
kitchen. Standing behind Noah to conceal the pup, Daniel said
gleefully, “Dawdi Jim and Mammi Nora are coming. That is gute
news.”

“Nah, it's not gute news,” Hal narrowed her
eyes at the boys. They quickly ducked their heads and studied their
bare feet. Hal continued, “It's very bad news. Why did I do it,
John?”

“The mystery of that will only be solved if
you tell me the whole story. Come sit down.” He grabbed Hal by the
elbow and led her to the table. “You are all worked up, ain't so?
Now tell me why is it not gute news that your folks are coming if
you invited them?” John asked patiently. I
was I thankful just a
few minutes ago?
So much for it being peaceful around
here.
He took Hal by her shoulders and pushed her down into a
chair.

“Because my mother asked Aunt Tootie to come
with them, and Aunt Tootie is coming. Isn't that awful?” Hal cried,
dropping her hands limply in surrender onto her apron.

“Who is Aendi Tootie?” Daniel asked.

“My mother's sister,” Hal answered.

“Does she have a husband?” Noah asked.

“Not anymore. She's been a widow for years,”
Hal told him.

“If your aendi is anything like your mother
we will be looking forward to her visit,” John said truthfully.

“You hit the nail on the head,” Hal barked at
him. “That's the problem. Aunt Tootie is nothing like my mother.
She will say or do something to upset people in the Amish community
and get our whole family shunned. That's the way she is. She
doesn't think what she's going to say. Words just shoot out of her
mouth. She doesn't think before she acts. She just does things.
Weird things.”

Emma took a stab at placating Hal. “Hallie, I
do not see how she can be that bad. We will be all right.”

“Nah, we won't. I'm sure of it,” Hal
declared, rubbing her forehead to ease the throb.

“Consider the family warned and calm down,
Hal. Surely nothing can happen to get us in trouble in the short
time your relatives will stay,” John reasoned.

“Wrong! They're going to stay a month at
least, and maybe more if they think they're having fun,” Hal
groaned.

“Maybe it would have helped if Mammi Nora had
given you a whiff of a warning they were bringing your aendi with
them,” Emma groused as she poured the batter in the cake pan.

“Nah, any other relative maybe, but it
wouldn't have helped this time. Not when it's Aunt Tootie they're
bringing,” groaned Hal with both hands to her face.

John said, “Now, Hal, hospitality is a virtue
commanded in the bible.”

“God never had my Aunt Tootie sit at his
table! If he did just once, he'd have given inviting her again
second thoughts the next time she showed up,” Hal fumed.

John spoke a cautionary slow, “Hal.”

Noah interrupted. “When are they coming?”

“They will drive in sometime next Tuesday
afternoon,” Hal said quietly.

John rubbed the side of his face. “That is a
week from today. That soon?”