The Lopsided Christmas Cake (14 page)

“What are you baking?” Elma asked when she entered the kitchen that Wednesday morning and found Thelma putting something into the oven.

Thelma closed the oven door and smiled when she turned to face Elma. “I mixed a batch of dough for surprise muffins. I put a teaspoon of strawberry jam in the center of each muffin.”

“Sounds good. Should I fix some oatmeal to go with them, or would scrambled eggs be better?”

“We have a lot of eggs in the refrigerator, so I think you should scramble some eggs.”

“Okay.” Elma went to get the eggs. “I’m surprised Mom and Dad aren’t up yet. They’re usually such early risers.”

“I know, but with all the ruckus last night, between the cat and the rat, we were all up later than normal.”

Elma took the egg carton over to the counter—a place she’d made sure to clean thoroughly before going to bed last night. Who knew what kind of horrible germs that old rat had left behind, not to mention the cat’s dirty paws? “It’s hard for me to say this, but I’m glad we let Tiger come into the house last evening. As far as I’m concerned, he can come in every night.”

Thelma smiled. “I’m glad we’re in agreement on this. Between him being up here, and Misty in the basement, we shouldn’t have any more mice or rats to deal with from now on.”

Elma wrinkled her nose. “I certainly hope not. Those creatures are ekelhaft.”

“I agree. They’re downright disgusting.” Thelma went to the cupboard and took out four plates. “Guess I’ll set the table while the muffins are baking.”

“Should I wait to cook the
oier
till Mom and Dad are up?” Elma asked. “I sure wouldn’t want to serve them cold eggs.”

“That’s probably a good idea.” Thelma motioned to the teakettle whistling on the stovetop. “Let’s have a cup of tea while we’re waiting for them.”

“That’d be nice.” Elma beat the eggs and added some milk, then she set the mixture aside and took a seat at the table, while Thelma fixed their tea.

“Poor Grandma and Grandpa. So much needed to be done around this place. I guess it was too much for them to keep up.” Elma blew on her cup of tea. “I wish Mom and Dad didn’t have to go home next week. They’ve been such a big help already, and since there’s so much yet to be done, a lot more could be accomplished if they could stay longer.”

“You’re right,” Thelma agreed, “but they have a store to run and need to get back to Sullivan. Plus, I don’t want them working the whole time they’re here, but it seems that’s what they want to do for most of their visit.”

“I know, and we can’t reject their offer of help. That would hurt their feelings.” Elma sighed. “I’m sure going to miss them when they leave.”

“Are you feeling homesick?”

“Maybe a little. I was doing fine till Mom and Dad came. Then I started missing the familiarity of home and being with our folks.”

Thelma patted Elma’s arm. “I’m sure things will be better once we develop some close friendships here. It’s not like we can never visit Mom and Dad again. They said they’d try to come here for Christmas, and if they can’t, then maybe we can hire a driver and go there.”

“What’s that smell?” Mom sniffed the air as she entered the room. “Is something burning?”

Thelma jumped up. “Ach, my muffins! I hope they’re not ruined.” She dashed across the room, grabbed a pot holder, and flung open the oven door. A puff of smoke billowed out. Thelma groaned while waving the smoke away with the pot holder. “Oh no, they’re not fit for any of us to eat!” She set a folded towel on the counter and placed the muffins on that.

Elma grimaced. Even the tops of the muffins were burned.

“Look at it this way,” Mom said cheerfully. “The
hinkel
will have something to nibble on.”

Elma snickered, but Thelma frowned. “I’m not sure even the chickens would eat these,” she muttered, dumping the muffins into a plastic container. “I should have kept an eye on that oven. Now, thanks to me, we won’t be eating my surprise muffins.”

“It’s all right, Sister. It could have happened to me. We’ll still have scrambled eggs.” Elma pointed to the bowl of eggs she’d mixed up.

“You know what I think you girls need?” Mom moved over to the stove.

“What’s that?” they asked.

“A lesson in cooking on an antique woodstove.”

“Or maybe,” Dad said, entering the kitchen, “what our daughters need is for each of them to find a husband who can cook.”

LaGrange

Joseph’s hands shook as he fumbled with the harness he was working on. He’d made oatmeal for breakfast and had managed to scorch it, so he’d ended up eating nothing and drinking three cups of coffee instead. Not the best way to begin his day, but with all the work he had facing him, he didn’t want to take the time to cook another batch of oatmeal.

“Probably would have ruined that, too,” he muttered under his breath. He heard a commotion outside and stopped to look out the window. Usually when someone came to visit, his dog, Ginger, alerted him. Grinning, he watched the golden retriever sitting at the base of the oak tree in the yard between his house and shop. With tail wagging, the dog kept her head tipped toward the branches high in the tree.

Glancing up, Joseph saw a big black crow, squawking loudly as it looked down at Ginger. “Crazy critters,” Joseph muttered. He tapped on the window. “Knock off the noise, Ginger!”

As the crow flew off and the dog wandered toward the barn, Joseph returned to the table. Normally, Ginger’s barking didn’t get on his nerves, but today he felt kind of gloomy and a bit lonely, too. He had been on his own since he’d bought the small log-cabin house and harness shop eight years ago. Even though his folks and sister, Katie, lived in the area, their homes weren’t close enough that he could take his meals with them every day. In addition to Joseph’s inability to cook, he tended to be a procrastinator, which meant he often put off grocery shopping. That led to the problem of not having enough food in the house, which was the situation he’d been faced with this morning. At first, Joseph had planned to fry some eggs, but when he’d opened the refrigerator, there weren’t any eggs. His next choice was cold cereal, but there wasn’t any milk.

As Joseph sat holding his cup of coffee, a thought popped into his head.
I think there’s a package of cheese and crackers in my other jacket that I wore last week.
Setting his mug on the workbench, he walked over to the coatrack. He put his hand into the pocket, but it came up empty. Joseph checked the other pocket, and this time he pulled out the sealed snack. “Wish this were a hot meal instead of cold crackers,” he mumbled, heading back to the bench.

Mom would say I was being too picky.
Joseph bent down to pick up a leather strap from the floor.
And if Katie had been in my kitchen this morning, she would have said that I needed to find a good
fraa
who could cook.
He sucked in his bottom lip.
Maybe I do need a wife, but who’s gonna want someone with ears that stick out and who can’t talk to a woman without stuttering?

Topeka

I
can’t believe it’s time for us to go home.” Mom dabbed at the tears on her cheeks. “It seems like we just got here, yet it’s been a whole week.”

“Jah, and about all we did was work. I wish we had an extra week to sit and visit,” Thelma said in a tone of regret.

“Don’t worry about that,” Mom assured her. “There will be plenty of other times to visit.”

“I hope so.” Elma shivered as she stood between Mom and Thelma, while Dad put their suitcases in their driver’s van. Not only was it four in the morning, but a steady breeze made the air quite chilly. “I feel bad that you wouldn’t let us fix you some breakfast before you leave.”

“That’s okay,” Dad called. “We’ll be stopping somewhere to eat along the way, and we appreciate the fruit you gave us to snack on.”

Elma tried not to cry as she held Mom’s hand. “We’ll miss you and Dad, and we appreciate all the things you did to help out.”

“It was our pleasure.” Mom sniffed. “If you need anything, please let us know.”

Dad came around from the back of the van and gave each of the twins a hug. Then he reached into his pocket and handed Thelma some cash. “This should give you enough to hire someone to do a few repairs around here. I’d start with that saggy porch, if I were you.”

“Danki, Dad,” Elma and Thelma said.

“If you need more, let me know.” Dad turned to Mom then. “Are you ready to hit the road, Kathryn?”

“Not really,” she said tearfully, “but I know we need to go.”

The twins hugged their parents one last time and waved as the van pulled out of the yard.

Elma slipped her arm around Thelma’s waist. “We need to get to work, or we’ll be blubbering and wiping tears away the rest of the day.”

“I agree. It will be easier not to miss them if we keep busy.” Thelma sighed. “I sure hope they can come here for Christmas.”

“Same here.”

Thelma held the money Dad had given her. “Now that Dad gave us this, should we see about hiring someone to do the porch?”

“Jah, but we have so many other things going on right now, I think we should wait on that awhile.”

“You mean like canning the rest of the beets you and Mom picked yesterday?”

Elma nodded. “Mom was certainly a big help in the kitchen and out here.” She gestured to their weed-free garden.

“I hope we can remember everything she told us about cooking and baking with that old woodstove,” Thelma said. “I’m wondering if we should have written it all down.”

“You may be right,” Elma said as they walked toward the house. “The biscuits I baked last night turned out pretty tasty, thanks to Dad putting in a new stove thermometer.”

When they entered the house, Thelma touched Elma’s arm and said, “Speaking of baking, I keep forgetting to tell you that I signed us up for the cooking show that takes place the first Saturday of October.”

Elma’s mouth dropped open. “You did what?”

“I signed us up for the—”

“Without asking me?” Elma could hardly believe her sister would do something like that.

“When I told you about the cooking show, you seemed interested, so I assumed—”

“You should never assume anything.” Elma strode into the kitchen and flopped into a chair at the table. “And I think you misunderstood what I said before, which was that I would give it some thought.”

“Have you?” Thelma’s wide-eyed expression and air of enthusiasm made it hard to say no.

“I don’t see how we can bake anything when we haven’t truly mastered that old stove.” Elma placed her hand above her eyes. “Besides, we are up to here with other projects to do.”

“I know, but this is for such a good cause. I’m sure we can find something special to make. If we do everything Mom said with the stove, I think it will turn out fine.”

Elma drew in a quick breath and released it slowly. She’d always had a hard time saying no to her sister. “Oh, all right. I’ll do the cooking show with you.”

Thelma clapped her hands. “Great! Why don’t we try making Grandma’s Christmas cake? In fact, since it’s so early and we don’t have to open the store for a few hours, we can make the cake right now.”

Elma pushed away from the table. “If you insist, but let’s get some breakfast first, because I’m
hungerich.
”

“I’m hungry, too.” Thelma opened the refrigerator door. “We still have plenty of eggs. Do you want them fried, boiled, scrambled, or poached?”

“Why don’t you boil them this time?” Elma suggested. “If you do several, we can have them for a midday snack or sliced on a salad.”

“That’s what I’ll do, then.” Thelma took out a carton of eggs. “Do you want to get out the ingredients for the cake, while I put the eggs on to boil?”

“Sure.” Elma left her seat and took out Grandma’s cookbook to look for the recipe. Then she went to the cupboard and gathered all the ingredients. “I’m glad we bought some Jell-O last week when we went shopping, or we wouldn’t be able to make this cake.”

“That’s true. The red and green Jell-O ingredients are what make the cake taste moist and look so colorful and appealing.” Thelma grinned. “I’ll bet this cake will bring a fairly good price when the bidding starts. I mean, who wouldn’t want a delicious festive cake such as this to get them in the mood for Christmas?”

“It’s hard to think about Christmas when we have so many other things to do,” Elma said, placing a measuring cup on the counter. “I know some of the stores start decorating for the holiday as early as October, but it’s not until after Thanksgiving that we even start making out Christmas cards. And we never do any holiday baking until a week before Christmas.”

“That’s true, but this is different, and our cake will be different, because I’m sure it’ll be something that no one else will have at the cooking show to auction off.”

Elma shrugged. “I hope you’re right about that.”