Rebecca's Christmas Gift. Emma Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ big loads of wash on Friday, but the clean clothes had never made it from the laundry basket in the utility room back upstairs to the bedrooms. “Amelia,” he called. “Wake up, buttercup! Time to get up!” Sockless, Caleb pulled on one boot and looked around for the other. Odd. He always left both standing side by side at the foot of his bed. Always.

      He got down on his knees and looked under the bed. No boot. Where could the other one have gone?

      Amelia, he had already decided, could wear her Sunday dress this morning. That, at least, was clean. Fannie had been kind enough to help with Amelia sometimes, and Caleb had hoped that he could impose on her again today. The least he could do was bring her a presentable child.

      “Amelia!” He glanced down the hallway and saw, at once, that her bedroom door was closed. He always left it open—just as he always left his shoes where he could find them easily in the morning. If the door was closed, it hadn’t closed itself. “Fritzy?” No answering bark.

      Caleb smelled mischief in the air. He hurried to the door, opened it and glanced into Amelia’s room. Her bed was empty—her covers thrown back carelessly. And there was no dog on watch.

      “Amelia! Are you downstairs?” Caleb took the steps, two at a time.

      His daughter had always been a handful. Even as a baby, she hadn’t been easy; she’d always had strong opinions about what she wanted and when she wanted it. It was almost as if an older, shrewder girl lurked behind that innocent child’s face and those big, bright eyes, eyes so much like his. But there the similarity ended, as he had been a thoughtful boy, cautious and logical. And he had never dared to throw the tantrums Amelia did when things didn’t go her way.

      Caleb reached the bottom of the stairs and strode into the kitchen, where—as he’d suspected—he found Amelia, Fritzy and trouble. Amelia was helping out in the kitchen again.

      “Vas ist das?” he demanded, taking in the ruins of what had been a fairly neat kitchen when he’d gone to bed last night.

      “Staunen erregen!” Amelia proclaimed. “To surprise you, Dat.”

      Pancakes or biscuits, Caleb wasn’t certain what his daughter had been making. Whatever it was had taken a lot of flour. And milk. And eggs. And honey. A puddle of honey on the table had run over the edge and was dripping into a pile of flour on the floor. Two broken eggs lay on the tiles beside the refrigerator.

      “You don’t cook without me!”

      Fritzy’s ears pricked up as he caught sight of the eggs. That’s when Caleb realized the dog had been gulping down a plate of leftover ham from Saturday’s midday meal that the neighborhood women had provided. He’d intended to make sandwiches with the ham for his lunch.

      “Stay!” Caleb ordered the dog as he grabbed a dishcloth and scooped up the eggs and shells.

      “I didn’t cook,” Amelia protested. “I was waiting for you to start the stove.” Her lower lip trembled. “But...but my pancakes spilled.”

      They had apparently spilled all over Amelia. Her hands, face and hair were smeared with white, sticky goo.

      Then Caleb spotted his boot on the floor in front of the sink...filled with water. He picked up his boot in disbelief and tipped it over the sink, watching the water go down the drain.

      “For Fritzy!” she exclaimed. “He was thirsty and the bowls was dirty.”

      They were dirty, all right. Every dish he owned had apparently been needed to produce the floury glue she was calling pancakes. “And where are my socken?” he demanded, certain now that Amelia’s mischief hadn’t ended with his soggy boot. He could see the wicker basket was overturned. There were towels on the floor and at least one small dress, but not a sock in sight.

      “Crows,” Amelia answered. “In our corn. I chased them.”

      Her muddy nightshirt and dirty bare feet showed that she’d been outside already. In the rain.

      “You went outside without me?”

      Amelia stared at the floor. One untidy pigtail seemed coated in a floury crust. “To chase the crows. Out of the corn.”

      “But what has that to do with my socks?”

      “I threw them at the crows, Dat.”

      “You took my socken outside and threw them into the cornfield?”

      “Ne, Dat.” She shook her head so hard that the solid cone of flour paste on her head showered flour onto her shoulders. “From upstairs. From my bedroom window. I threw the sock balls at the crows there.”

      “And then you went outside?”

      “Ya.” She nodded. “The sock balls didn’t scare ’em away, so Fritzy and me chased ’em with a stick.”

      “What possessed you to make our clean socks into balls in the first place? And to throw them out the window?” Caleb shook his finger at her for emphasis but knew as he uttered the words what she would say.

      “You did, Dat. You showed me how.”

      He sighed. And so he had. Sometimes when he and Amelia were alone on a rainy or snowy day and bored, he’d roll their clean socks into balls and they’d chase each other through the house, lobbing socken at each other. But it had never occurred to him that she would throw the socks out the window. “Upstairs! To your room,” he said in his sternest father’s voice. He could go without his noonday meal today, and the mess in the kitchen could be cleaned up tonight, but the animals still had to be fed. And Amelia had to be bathed and fed and dressed before he took her with him.

      Amelia burst into tears. “But...but I wanted to help.”

      “Upstairs!”

      And then, after the wailing girl fled up the steps, he looked around the kitchen again and realized that his worst fears had come to fruition. He was a failure as a father. He had waited too long to take another wife. This small female was too much for him to manage without a helpmate.

      “Lord, help me,” he murmured, carrying a couple of dirty utensils to the sink. “What do I do?”

      He was at his wit’s end. Although he loved Amelia dearly, he didn’t think he was an overly indulgent parent. He tried to treat his daughter as he saw other fathers and mothers treat their children. He was anxious for her to be happy here in their new home, but it was his duty to teach her proper behavior and respect for adults. Among the Amish, a willful and disobedient child was proof of a neglectful father. It was the way he’d been taught and the way his parents had raised him.

      The trouble was that Amelia didn’t see things that way. She wasn’t a sulky child, and her mind was sharp. Sometimes Caleb thought that she was far too clever to be four, almost five years of age. She could be affectionate toward him, but she seemed to take pleasure in doing exactly the opposite of what she was asked to do.

      With a groan, Caleb raked his fingers through his hair. What was he going to do about Amelia? So far, his attempts at finding suitable childcare had fallen short. He’d hired two different girls, and both had walked out on him in less than three weeks’ time.

      Back in Idaho, his neighbor, widow Bea Mullet, had СКАЧАТЬ