Jo Brown - An Amish Christmas Promise

“Our weather in Vermont is perfect for apples,” Jose said. “Warm summer days with cooler nights. When we get plenty of rain—” He scowled as if he’d found a worm in the core of the apple he was eating. “I mean regular rain, not flooding rain like they had along these valleys. When we get lots of nice, steady rain, the apples are juicy. After drier summers like this one, the apples aren’t as juicy, but they’re sweeter. Either way, they’re great for eating, cooking and making cider.”

Trisha, who’d worked with him in the past, laughed. “You sound like an ad for the Vermont apple growers’ association.”

“Hey, a guy’s got to be proud of what he does.” He turned to the other men. “Right?”

Michael hastened to agree rather than explain pride— hochmut —was seen as a negative among the Amish. He doubted the Englischers would be interested in hearing about plain life, and he didn’t want to cause any sort of gulf between the plain volunteers and the Englisch ones. He glanced at his friends and gave the slightest shrug. He got grins in return.

Noise met them before they reached the remains of Carolyn’s home. Generators rumbled, waiting for electric tools to be connected to them. The sound of circular saws battled the whir of gas-powered chainsaws cutting through the debris blocking the brook, creating pools where there shouldn’t be any. Small clouds of blue-gray smoke marked each spot where someone was slicing through wood that might once have been a house or a fence.

As they emerged from the trees separating her property from her neighbor’s, large land-moving equipment was being maneuvered toward Carolyn’s cellar hole. The tons of gravel deposited by the swollen brook onto her yard crunched under large tires and caterpillar tracks. Two skid steers, which looked like a kind ’s toys compared to the massive vehicles, were shoving fallen trees into a pile near the brook. He knew they would be burned later but were being shifted out of the way so the massive equipment could do its work.

Glen Landis stood near stone steps that had led to the house. From there, he could supervise workers removing the debris, filling in the old cellar hole and laying out the new foundation. Michael and James were put to work marking the location of the new house with sticks and bright orange string while the others focused on finishing the cleanup.

When the evaluation had come back on Carolyn’s house the day before yesterday, the decision had been clear. The old house, as Michael had suspected, had been built too close to the brook. Though it’d been almost twenty yards away, the building hadn’t been spared during what people were calling a thousand-year flood. He didn’t have much confidence in their timetable. The flood caused by Hurricane Kevin had been the fifth in the past hundred years.

Michael wondered if Carolyn had been consulted about the new location, which would set the front porch a few yards from the road. She had around six acres on either side of the brook, but most was wooded, so putting the house near its original location seemed the best idea.

Though he was focused on his task of trying to make a perfect rectangle with James’s help, Michael knew the instant Carolyn arrived in the clearing. Some sense he couldn’t name told him she was nearby. He couldn’t keep from smiling. She had a white crocheted shawl over the shoulders of the pink dress that looked to be far too big for her. It had, he guessed, come from the bins of donated clothing. She’d cinched it with a black apron, accenting her slender waist. Her gold locket twinkled around her neck.

She scanned the work site and smiled. That expression softened when her gaze caressed his, pausing for a single heartbeat before moving on. Was it his imagination that her smile had grown a shade warmer when their eyes connected?

“Is this the spot for the next stake?” James asked in an impatient tone that suggested he’d already posed the question once or twice.

Michael concentrated on his task. As much as he enjoyed looking at Carolyn, he couldn’t let his attention wander. He squatted and placed a laser level on the ground so the red line marked where the next few stakes should be driven.

His sleeve was grabbed, and he struggled to hold his balance in the awkward stance. Putting his hands on the dirt, he pushed himself to his feet when he realized Carolyn must have rushed down to them.

“Was iss letz?” he asked. When she opened her mouth, he said in Englisch , “What’s wrong?”

A flurry of emotions stormed across her face before she looked away to point farther down the hillside. “Where’s the wood we pulled out of the brook?”

He squinted through the bright morning sunshine. “Right there.” As he was about to add more, a skid steer moved toward the stack. The forks started to slide under the wood. “Did you tell them to move it?”

“No.”

Running at a pace that threatened to send him falling face-first, he managed to slide to a stop before he reached the one-man forklift.

The man inside was so riveted on his task, he didn’t see Michael waving his arms. Michael leaped forward and grabbed the end of one of the boards rising on the forklift.

A curse battered his ears, but he ignored it as he motioned to the man controlling the skid steer.

“Are you crazy?” demanded the man, poking his head out of the small vehicle.

“The owner wants to hold on to these boards.”

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