Free Christmas Visitor by Linda Byler Page B

common sense pantry food. There was mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard — all expensive name brands.
    â€œOh, Mam! It’s as if someone followed me around the bent and dent store and wrote down everything I couldn’t find. Seriously. Coffee! Folgers. Just my favorite. I couldn’t find it last time. Even pancake syrup! Mrs. Butterworth. Who is doing this, Mam?”
    There were cans of navy beans and kidney beans, boxes of elbow macaroni and spaghetti, cake mixes and brown sugar, rice and flour and oatmeal.
    â€œNo name?”
    â€œNo clue.”
    Mam clucked her tongue and said she hoped the giver would be richly rewarded.
    They used more of the ham that day, made bean soup with the broth, and ate large bowlfuls for lunch with grilled cheese sandwiches.
    When Lillian woke, Mam said to try feeding her a bit of the bean soup, but she refused, turning her head from side to side, her lips squeezed tight. They opened a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup instead, and Lillian ate spoonful after spoonful. She was extremely pleased with herself and all the praise they heaped on her, but she only smiled and promptly fell asleep before she could say a word.
    When Mam’s driver came late that evening, there was a mutual reaching for each other, a hug born of necessity. It expressed the great appreciation Ruth had for her mother and was absolutely essential for Mam to communicate her love and support for her daughter.
    And so they stood, these two slight women, their coverings as white beacons of their subjection to God, and they drew strength from the warmth of human touch.
    Ruth stood by the door and waved as Mam got in the car. Then she turned to go inside, knowing she would need to face the emptiness again.
    Ruth’s table had a round, brown placemat in the middle with a candle on it. As she headed back to her kitchen, she noticed a scrap of paper stuck beneath the placemat and tried to brush it away. Instead, she pulled out a check written to Ruth Miller in her mother’s cursive hand, spaced perfectly as usual, and signed with her father’s scrawl.
    Again, Ruth got out her box of thank you cards and wrote her parents a note of heartfelt appreciation, grateful to know this time who to thank for the blessing. Then she put a stamp on it and hurried to the mailbox without a coat, her skirts flapping as she ran.
    The air was invigorating, bringing color to her cheeks as she thrust the card into the mailbox and flipped up the red flag. She shivered and turned to race back to the house before she noticed a builder’s truck bearing down, then slowing to a stop.
    â€œHello again.”
    She looked into John Beiler’s eyes and smiled. Maybe it was the air nipping about her. Perhaps it was the fact that she was alone, the children already asleep in the house, or perhaps it was just the wonder of having to — no, wanting to — smile back at him, completely without guilt or wondering what anyone would say. No one would need to know. Not Mam or Dat or Mamie Stoltzfus.
    â€œSo you have a habit of going to the mailbox without a coat in the evening?”
    â€œI’m afraid so.”
    He laughed then, and she continued smiling until the driver waved and John Beiler said, “Take care,” as the truck moved off.
    So. He was a builder. A carpenter, a contractor, or maybe a roofer or framer or mason. There were so many different occupations that all fell under the general term of builder.
    He was not a farmer. More and more, the Amish were moving away from farming since they were simply unable to complete with the huge dairy operations. However, many people Ruth knew still made a good living milking cows.
    She had so enjoyed her life on the farm and still missed the satisfying “ka-chug, ka-chug” of the clean stainless steel milkers hanging from the cows’ udders as they filled with creamy milk, the cash flow of the dairy farmers of Lancaster ­County.
    Her main concern