Sarah's Christmas Miracle Read Online Free PDF

Sarah’s buggy bounced from side to side for a mile and a half. Just when she thought her kidneys might suffer permanent damage, the one-hundred-fifty-year-old farmstead loomed into view, the last house before the dead end. She remembered visiting here once a long time ago, and her response remained the same—sheer pity.
    Mrs. Sidley had passed away after the birth of her fourth son. Her husband and four boys scratched out a bare living on twenty hardscrabble acres of hilly, rocky ground. Even the three dairy cows looked forlorn as they chewed their cud beside the sagging fence.
    Sarah drove up the rutted driveway, got out of the buggy, and tied the reins to the barn’s hitching post. The house, in desperate need of paint, looked empty. Then Albert Sidley walked onto the rickety porch.
    Why is it that some homes look full of life even when owners vacation, whereas this house seems empty while inhabited? It appears to suffer from a terminal illness. Sarah tried to put these thoughts away as she stepped forward and stood in the thin sunlight.
    At first Albert didn’t seem to recognize her. Then, “Sarah? Sarah Beachy?” he asked, walking down the steps. His wool chore coat was frayed at the hem and sleeves, while his boots were caked with dried mud. And he had come out of the house in those boots.
    “ Jah , it’s me. I’m surprised you remembered.” She forced a nervous smile.
    Albert took a handkerchief from his back pocket to wipe his mouth and hands. “Of course I remember you. Hasn’t been all that long.” He approached with uncertainty. “Are you lookin’ for my pa?”
    “No, I was looking for you.” She stepped closer and ran her sweating palms down her skirt. What had seemed like a good idea this morning no longer did. Her courage began to wane. “I’d like to talk to you about my bruder .”
    Albert squinted at her, though the sun had disappeared behind a heavy bank of clouds. The sunny morning had changed into a gloomy, overcast afternoon. “Caleb?” he asked. “What would I know about him? It’s been four years or so.” He shuffled his boots in the dirt. Driveway gravel had long ago sunk beneath a layer of mud.
    “Five years, actually, but you were his closest friend, Albert. He trusted you and confided things he didn’t tell his family.”
    “That was a long time ago, Sarah. After he took up with those carpenters, he didn’t have much use for his old friends.” The pain of rejection could still be heard in his words. “He let me try my hand at carpentry one summer on his crew. They were building barns for Amish and English. I wasn’t any good with math, so the foreman wouldn’t hire me permanently with all that measurin’ and firgurin’. They wanted everything exact, and I had made a couple bad cuts. He said the next time I cut a board short, the price of that piece of lumber was coming out of my pay.” His mouth thinned into a sneer. “I don’t know why you can’t just lay one board atop another and cut it about the same.”
    Sarah had no answer to that, but she didn’t wish to alienate the sole person who might be able to help her. If anyone in Fredericksburg knew Caleb’s address, it would be Albert. “Well, that job didn’t turn out so good for Caleb either, as far as his family is concerned.”
    He gazed off to where two dogs chased a rabbit across a barren cornfield. When the rabbit escaped down a burrow, the dogs pawed the frozen ground, yipping with dismay.
    The Sidley harvest was sparse this year, judging by the number of dried cornstalks, she thought.
    Then Albert returned his focus back to her. “What do you hear from him? How’s he making out in the big city?” His tone had softened somewhat.
    “We haven’t heard from him since he left.”
    “That happens, I s’pose. My pa says not everybody’s cut out to be Amish. Some ain’t got the spine to turn their backs on the temptations of ease and comfort.”
    Sarah watched the two dogs lose interest and then