An Amish Christmas Carol Read online

  An Amish Christmas Carol

  An Amish Christian “Classic”

  By

  Sarah Price

  2012

  The Pennsylvania Dutch used in this manuscript is taken from the Pennsylvania Dutch Revised Dictionary (1991) by C. Richard Beam, Brookshire Publications, Inc. in Lancaster, PA.

  Copyright © 2012 by Price Publishing, LLC.

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Contact the author on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/fansofsarahprice or

  visit her Web Blog at http://sarahpriceauthor.wordpress.com.

  Other Books by Sarah Price

  The Amish of Lancaster Series

  #1: Fields of Corn

  #2: Hills of Wheat

  #3: Pastures of Faith

  #4: Valley of Hope

  The Amish of Ephrata Series

  #1: The Tomato Patch

  #2: The Quilting Bee

  #3: The Hope Chest

  #4: The Clothes Line (2013)

  The Plain Fame Trilogy

  Plain Fame

  Plain Change (2013)

  Plain Again (2013)

  Amish Circle Letters

  Miriam’s Letter: Volume 1

  Rachel’s Letter: Volume 2

  Leah’s Letter: Volume 3

  Anna’s Letter: Volume 4

  Lizzie’s Letter: Volume 5

  Sylvia’s Letter: Volume 6

  Lovina’s Letter: Volume 7

  Ella’s Letter: Volume 8

  Mary Ruth’s Letter: Volume 9

  Miriam’s Package: Volume 10

  The Adventures of a Family Dog Series

  #1: A Small Dog Named Peek-a-boo

  #2: Peek-a-boo Runs Away

  #3: Peek-a-boo’s New Friends

  #4: Peek-a-boo and Daisy Doodle (2013)

  Other Books

  Gypsy in Black

  Postcards from Abby (with Ella Stewart)

  Meet Me in Heaven (with Ella Stewart)

  Mark Miller’s One Volume 11: The Power of Faith

  A Gift of Faith: An Amish Christmas Story

  An Amish Christmas Carol: Amish Christian Classic Series

  A Christmas Gift for Rebecca: An Amish Christian Romance

  Fields of Zombies: An Amish Parable (with Sam Lang)

  Find Sarah Price on Facebook and Goodreads!

  Learn about upcoming books, sequels, series, and contests!

  Dedication

  For those of us who have lost a loved one recently, the holiday seasons can be especially tough. We find ourselves left behind with an empty spot in our heart. We live through memories of happier days, filled with love and laughter that we shared with those who have passed before us. But, no matter whom you miss or how heavy that ache in your heart may be, just know that you are not alone. Even those who feel that there is not one person left to care for them must remember that there is, indeed, one who cares greatly for us and loves us: God.

  Table of Contents

  A Word from the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Amish Carols

  Christmas Joy

  Shepherds! Shake Off Your Drowsy Sleep

  The Angels’ Song

  One More Thing…

  About The Author

  A Word from the Author

  First of all, since you are reading this letter, I have to presume that you have purchased…or at least borrowed…this book. For that, I want to thank you.

  That brings me to my next point. Perhaps you may have noticed that there are a lot of books being published in the Amish Christian genre. I’m amazed at how many aspiring and talented authors have started publishing their books about the Amish. When I first published Fields of Corn in 2009, there were just a handful of authors on Amazon.com. Today, there are dozens!

  With that being said, I took a good look at the other books that are out there as well as my own books. I decided to try something new and different. You see, I am an author, a dedicated writer who has a passion for the written word and is often consumed with obsession over the act of writing. Being an author is not one bit different than any other profession.

  I’ve decided to raise the literary bar on my writing…and on your reading. This book is the first of what I hope will be many books that follow that retell literary classics from the perspective of the Amish. This will allow both you and I to refresh our memories about the classics while sharing the Amish culture and Amish religion.

  I’m hoping that this journey takes both of us to a new level, a new place that transcends a simple romance and becomes…well…an Amish classic. You will recognize similarities but you will also recognize difference in this retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I’m confident that the twist on this tale will warm your heart, keep you entertained, and satisfied your desire to learn more about the world of the Amish.

  After twenty-five years of studying and living among the Amish and having been raised Mennonite, I consider myself a good source of information about these amazing people. Their culture and their religion fascinate me. I must confess that writing these stories is not really work…it’s a joy, a true blessing, that I am able to share, with my readers, all of my experiences with, knowledge of, and passion for the Amish.

  Indeed, I have been blessed with a successful writing career and I cannot tell you how many mornings I wake up to lovely emails or messages on Facebook from my readers that just warm my heart. Sometimes I have to pinch myself for, truly, from the very earliest age, all I ever wanted to do was write.

  You have made that possible.

  So thank you for purchasing (or borrowing) this book. Thank you for reading it. And thank you for being as enthralled with the Amish as I am.

  With blessings and wishing for a wonderful holiday season, this year and every year!

  Hugs,

  Sarah Price

  Chapter One

  It was Christmas Eve and Elsie sat in her rocking chair, bent over the afghan that she was crocheting. She rocked back and forth, the chair creaking against the worn wooden floor. With her foot, she tried to move the hand-woven rag rug that was under the chair so that the floor wouldn’t make such a racket. It didn’t work. Unless she stood up to move the chair, she couldn’t do it. Ignoring the noise, she continued to focus on the afghan.

  While her finger moved so quickly that anyone who tried to watch it would be want to figure out how she did it. The afghan was a series of blues: dark blue, sky blue, light blue, and pale blue. Blue was her favorite color, after all. The colors alternated with each row, neat shell-stitches that fanned out like seashell on the beach. She was currently working on the pale blue row, which was easier on her 75 year old, eyes, especially since the sun was starting to dip behind the fields outside of her front window.

  The clock chimed. One. Two. Three. Four. Each chime reverberated in the empty room and she lowered her hands to glance at it as if in disbelief that it was already four o’clock. She took a deep breath and let her head fall back onto the chair’s headrest. In just a few short hours, it would be Christmas, a day that, in the past, brought her great joy. However, this year, she was dreading the next 24 hours.

  Her aging blue eyes traveled to the window. There were no curtains on the window so that she would always have sunlight in the room. Now, however, the sun was setting. Elsie watched the sky turn from oran
ge to a deep red and the sun continued to set. She watched it for a good thirty minutes, her mind wandering to the past holidays when life was easier and she felt happier.

  Was it only seven weeks ago that her brother had passed away? The last of her sibling, she thought with a sigh. It seemed as if it was only yesterday that he had passed. She had hoped it would get easier with each passing day but, since she had never married, she had no more immediate family, and her days were spent alone for the most part.

  Stephen had been ill for a while but Elsie had taken care of him for several years. After all, she had told everyone in her church district, that was what family was for. So she had changed his bed, wiped his face, and cleaned his clothes while he had diminished as a person over the years.

  The signs had been subtle at first. He couldn’t remember who hosted the Sunday church service the week before last. Then he was questioning who was the bishop of their district, demanding that Elsie was telling him wrong when she said it was Jacob Beiler. Finally, the day arrived when he questioned Elsie about who she was and where was his mother, for she alone was the sole caretaker of him, he argued.

  “Nee, Stephen,” Elsie had soothed, wiping the applesauce from his face with a clean, blue and white napkin. “Mamm has been dead for ten years, bruder. It is your sister, Elsie, who tends your needs now.”

  He had waved her hand away from the hospital bed that was set up in the living room before the large picture window. Elsie had chosen to set up his sickbed in that room because it was bright and cheerful with a greyish blue paint on the walls and plants in the fall when she brought them inside from the back porch. Stephen also loved to watch the birds at the bird feeder each morning and afternoon. The light of the day didn’t bother him at all, he claimed.

  “I know you not!” he had shouted.

  Elsie had felt despair over his words. How could her bruder, the only remaining sibling of ten, not remember her? She was, after all, Elsie Smucker, the sister who had tended to all of their needs in their final hours. Sister Lizzie had died from a stroke but it was Elsie who wiped her brow with a cool cloth before she passed to join Jesus in the after life. Sister Anna had died in her home, softly asleep with a mild purr that, for some odd reason, had awakened Elsie from her bedroom next door. As for the other siblings, they had passed away on their on…two by their own hand which was something that wasn’t talked about among the family and three by sickness in their early adult years.

  There had been ten of them, growing up together and laughing away the casual years of their youth. No one had given much thought to the future, that was for sure and certain. And when Elsie was thirty years old, she had looked around with wide and surprised eyes, shocked to realize that all of her friends had married already and were on their third or fourth baby. What had she done during those formative years while they were starting a family?

  Nothing.

  “Oh help,” she whispered and shut her eyes at the repeat memory of her past. Yes, she thought, I did nothing but what a life I have lived.

  Her eyelids felt heavy as she thought back to years past. There were so many memories of winters past, of fast paced rides in horse drawn sleighs, of turns in homemade saucers that flew down the hills with lightening speed into the frozen stream, and snowball fights in the back fields of their parents’ farm, far enough from the house so that their mamm and daed wouldn’t see the pseudo-war that took place without the perimeter of their peaceful home.

  She didn’t know when things had changed, that was for sure and certain. For so many years, she had been just having fun, laughing with friends and enjoying life. Slowly, one by one, those friends had married off during the wedding season, November and December of each year. She had enjoyed those weddings, loving the happiness that exuded from her friend’s expressions as they stared at their beloved. But she, Elsie Smucker, had never found that love or happiness, not in her youth, that was for sure and certain.

  And then, one day, she realized that she was the last of her friends who had been married. Her friends were beginning to have swollen bellies from the babies growing within them. Elsie made as much as a fuss as she could over her friends but, without having experienced a life growing within her own body, she was at a loss. She could only imagine what they felt and that, by itself, was a hard stretch of her imagination.

  Indeed, by the time she had turned thirty, her chances to marry as a young woman were over. The speculation began to surface that a widower would marry Elsie Smucker. That was a thought that she didn’t cherish one bit. She was happier alone and didn’t need a husband to complete her. Of that, she was sure and certain.

  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t dated. No, that wasn’t the case. She just hadn’t fancied any of the young men who did come calling. As for the men that she had considered suitable, well…they didn’t seem to fancy her one bit. Elsie reckoned it was fair and never complained. Instead, she continued to work at the market, selling her daed’s vegetables and meats alongside her mamm’s homemade cheese. On her off days, she helped tend her sisters’ children or, for a few years, cleaned a neighbor’s house on Mondays. As the years passed, she continued to live with her parents in the farmhouse, wishing with all of her might that life might have granted her a different journey. Yet, as soon as she thought it, she prayed forgiveness for she knew that the Lord had chosen this path for her. Who was she to question it?

  Her daed was almost 70 years old when he sold the farm to bruder Isaac so that he could raise his family and become a proper farmer. As the baby of the family, Isaac had only been a young man and his family just beginning. Daed was too old to work the mules in the field and muck stalls each day. So he purchased the small ranch house off Route 340 outside of Gordonville for living out his final years with his wife and sole dochder who still resided at home: Elsie.

  That had been over 25 years ago.

  Daed passed away at 80. Mamm followed five years later. She had only been 78 when she joined their daed in heaven. And that left Elsie alone in the house to continue taking care of her siblings and their families that were left behind when they passed.

  Now, at 75 years of age, Elsie Smucker was alone. Her world revolved around her meals, her crocheting, and her devotionals. She read them incessantly, wearing down the pages to the point that the edges were blurred from her fingers holding the book open. She read the Ausbund, too. She could read the words of each hymn and, without shutting her eyes, fall down a time warp to the past, hearing the voices since the songs during church service or gatherings. After all, 75 years was a long time to have listened to those hymns.

  She heard the familiar noise of an approaching horse and buggy pulling down the road. The horse’s shoes clip-clopped against the pavement and the gentle rattle of the buggy wheels followed. Her eyes traveled back to the window, wondering who was traveling at 4:30 on Christmas Eve. As the buggy passed, she could see two children hanging out the back window. They waved at her as they passed.

  She smiled.

  Long after the noise had faded, she still sat in her chair. She had always hoped that she’d have children. When she was younger, she had thought she’d get married young and have at least eight or more children before she was mid-thirty.

  Some dreams weren’t meant to come true.

  But she took comfort in the fact that she had loved her family, tending to their care as they aged and were too sick to stay at home. Most importantly, she had been by their sides during their final hours. Some of them, anyway. Yet, she had the nagging question that haunted her each night: Who will take care of me?

  It didn’t matter, she supposed. Not now. She had lived her life according to the Lord’s plan and she couldn’t second-guess the choices she had made. Perhaps she’d have to move to the home on the hill with the other Amish and Mennonites who were too sick to be at home with their families or didn’t have families to take care of them. Elsie looked around the house that had been her home for so long. While she didn’t mind not dying here, she tol
d herself, she certainly didn’t want to die there. Cold rooms. Sterile smells. Strange noises. Strangers. No, she much preferred to die alone…in this house if the Lord saw fit…and hopefully without suffering.

  “Best get some tea before starting supper,” she said out loud to no one.

  She shuffled into the kitchen and reached for the kettle to put onto the stove. It was empty. She could feel that by how light it felt when she lifted it.

  “Oh bother,” she mumbled and returned over to the sink. She flipped the handle and let the water run for a few seconds before she began to fill it. The room was darker now that the sun had set and she knew she’d have to light the kerosene lanterns soon. But she wasn’t in a hurry. They threw off such a loud hiss followed by heat that she wanted to wait before lighting them.

  Her eyes travelled to the window. Outside was a small bird feeder hanging from a metal bracket that her daed had hung so many years ago. Each spring, she painted it black with Rust-o-leum in order to keep it from rusting away. The bird feeder was empty. She frowned. Hadn’t she just filled it that morning?

  She shut off the water and started to turn back to the stove when a shadow passed by the window. It was a subtle movement but enough to catch her eye. She stopped in her tracks and turned to look outside. Nothing. She set the kettle on the counter and rubbed at her eyes beneath her glasses. What could have made that shadow, she wondered. Am I seeing things?

  Dropping her hands from her eyes, she squinted and looked one more time. There. By the birdfeeder. She could barely make out something that looked so familiar yet so strange. Elsie leaned against the counter and moved closer to the window. There it was indeed. A face. No body, just a face. Almost like a vapor lingering by the birdfeeder.

  I’m seeing things, she told herself, quickly backing away. I must be getting dementia!