“Wunderbaar. Kum, help me sort through these. We’ll make three piles—the bigger pieces, the medium-sized pieces and the scraps.” They worked in companionable silence for several minutes, the only sounds were the muted scratches the pine switches made as she and Jesse shuffled them around.
Finally she dusted her hands. “I think that should do it. While I move this pile of larger pieces to the kitchen table, would you fetch Dinah’s Christmas box from the sideboard?”
Jesse did as she asked and then took a seat beside her at the table. He looked over the small branches and sprigs set out on the table with a what-do-we-do-now look on his face. “How did you learn to make wreaths?”
“My mamm taught me.” She picked up a couple of the cuttings. “I can teach you if you want to learn.”
He sat up straighter. “What do you need me to do?”
“You see where I’m holding these two sprigs together? If you would take it from me and hold it just like that then I’ll have my hands free to tie them together with a bit of green wire we’ll pull from Dinah’s Christmas box—jah, just like that.” Phoebe fetched the thin green wire from the box, cut a length and twisted it around the woody parts that overlapped. Then she tested it to make sure it was secure. They repeated the process several more times and each time Phoebe gently tugged the connected pieces into a curve. Then she turned back to Jesse. “What do you think? We can add either three or four more cuttings depending on what size we want.”
Jesse nudged his glasses farther up on his nose. “I think we should add four.”
She grinned. “I believe you’re right, let’s make it big and full.” Then she gave Jesse a challenging look. “Would you care to swap jobs, I’ll hold the pieces and you twist on the wire?”
Jesse nodded enthusiastically and held the partially completed wreath out to her. “Jah.”
He studied the stack of cuttings. “Which should I pick?”
“It’s up to you. We can make any of them work.” When he still hesitated, she added, “Look for one that’s full and that has a sturdy main stem.”
Jesse’s gaze sharpened and he pulled one from the stack and held it out.
“That’s perfect,” Phoebe said as she took it from him. Then she put it in place and held it out for him to secure with the wire. Once he’d done that she instructed him how to shape it so that the end result would be a circle.
After that it went quickly. Jesse selected cuttings with growing confidence and then placed, secured and shaped them as she’d taught him. Before long they had a nearly completed circle of green.
“Now let me tell you how to finish it off and secure the ends together.” And as Edna had done with her, she talked the boy through doing it himself rather than doing it for him.
Once that was done, she had him set it on the table and they both studied it for a moment. Finally she cut a glance his way. “What do you think?”
He rubbed his neck. “It’s okay I guess.”
“You’re right, it’s just okay. But we want it to be wunderbaar.”
“Do we need to redo it?”
“Not at all. We just need to make it look fuller.”
“How do we do that?”
“The trick to making it look fuller is to take some of those smaller sprigs, especially the ones that have pinecones attached, and weave them in.”
Jesse popped up from his seat. “I’ll get them.”
When he returned with his armload, Phoebe again showed him how to add them in and the two of them worked together until it was pleasingly full. “I think this is enough. It doesn’t have to be perfectly even all around, in fact I like it better if it isn’t.” She adjusted one of the added pinecone sprigs. “It gives it a touch of character and uniqueness.”
She hid a smile as Jesse rubbed his chin and nodded. “I can see that.”
“We just need to add one of those red bows from Dinah’s box and it’ll be complete.”
Jesse reached into the box and pulled one out.
Phoebe tugged one of the ends and fluffed the folds until it looked almost like new. Again, she felt a little imperfection helped give it character and a sense of familye history.
She talked Jesse through how to attach the bow and then stepped back and admired the finished product. “You are a quick learner,” she told the boy. “Next year you’ll be able to make these on your own for the familye.”
Jesse’s smile faded at that. “I wish you were staying with us forever.”
His words touched her in a way that was bittersweet. “I’m afraid that’s not possible but I’ll think of you all often after I leave. Besides, it seems Seth is looking for a fraa so there may be exciting changes to your household after I leave. I’d be honored, though, if you would write to me occasionally to tell me how you and your brieder are getting on.”
That didn’t bring the smile back to Jesse’s face as she’d hoped but he nodded.
Phoebe gave him a bracing smile. “Now, it looks like we have enough cuttings to make another, smaller wreath. Shall we?”
While they worked Phoebe found herself imagining this household with someone new in the role of lady of the house, part of the Beiler familye—cooking the meals, interacting with the six brieder, taking care of things like these wreaths and the greeting card garland—in other words, making this house a home.
And no matter how hard she tried, her stubborn mind—or was it her heart—kept putting her image in that role.
Chapter 28
The next morning, almost before Phoebe had the breakfast dishes done, Edna’s shveshtra and six nieces descended on the Beiler home with mops, brooms, rags and other cleaning supplies in hand.
Mark and Daniel had both stayed home from their respective jobs to provide assistance with the repair work and any heavy lifting that might be required.
They divided up the house among them. Edna took two of Trudy’s dechder upstairs. Trudy and Hilda took two of Hilda’s dechder and began work on the first floor. That left Phoebe to tackle the basement with the other two girls, along with Mark and Daniel.
While Priscilla and Annie, cousins who both looked to be in their late teens, worked on cleaning the shelves of canned goods and bulk supplies, Phoebe sorted through the odds and ends that could be moved out to make more room for the church benches. As she identified items—like the outdoor games, drying racks and miscellaneous hardware—she called for Daniel and Mark to carry them out to the spare room upstairs or to one of the outbuildings.
