Abraham

Book 2: Petersheim Brothers

by Jennifer Beckstrand

Genres: Amish & Mennonite; Christian Romance; Clean & Wholesome Romance

Synopsis

Known as "The Peanut Butter Brothers" for their Wisconsin family business, hardworking Andrew, Abraham, and Austin Petersheim have their plates too full for romance—until their little siblings decide to play matchmaker . . .

With their house full to bursting since Mammi and Dawdi moved back in, the Petersheim twins know the only way to get their bedroom back is to get their older brothers married off. But Abraham is so shy, he'll barely speak to girls. Still, they've noticed how he looks at Emma Wengerd at church. Emma is so talkative, Abraham's quiet ways wouldn't matter a bit. Soon, the boys have hatched a scheme that sends Abraham right to Emma's door—and her chicken coop . . .

Abraham doubts that pretty, popular Emma would be interested in him. Yet when he finds himself by her side, having to straighten out the twins' mischief—more than once—he can't help imagining a future with her. And the more time they spend together, the more Abraham realizes that perhaps no matter how many boys buzz around Emma, with faith, it's only the right one that counts . . .

Release date: November 26, 2019

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 303

Sample

Mamm was out to get him. Alfie was sure of it. Why else would she put her two youngest sons to sleep in the cellar and make them walk to church in March? March! In Wisconsin! Alfie’s fingers were going to freeze off, even wearing these goofy mittens Mammi had knitted him.

Alfie blew into his hands to warm them, which only got him a mouthful of lint and little drops of spit on his mittens. If any nine-year-old had a harder life, Alfie would sure like to meet him. He’d give him a big hug and feel very sorry for him.

Alfie and his twin bruder, Benji, trailed behind the rest of the family on the way to church or gmay. Benji often fell behind because he liked to look for birds and he was never in any especial hurry to get to church. Alfie trailed because he was mad at the whole family and they needed to know it, especially Mamm. If she felt she had to turn back seven times to yell at Alfie to keep up, then it was just what she deserved.

Mamm and two of Alfie’s older bruderen, Abraham and Austin, walked ahead, not looking the least bit cold or caring that their little bruderen might fall behind and get lost. Dat had taken Mammi and Dawdi in the buggy and left Alfie to walk, even though there was plenty of room for one more little boy in that buggy.

Alfie slid closer to Benji, who was purposefully shuffling his feet through what was left of the snow on the side of the road. “We need a plan.”

Benji made a face. “I thought we already had a plan.”

“We did. We need another one.”

“But we already got Mary and Andrew married,” Benji said.

Alfie smiled in spite of his lint-covered lips and his sour mood. “We totally rocked that plan.”

Benji puckered his lips so hard his nose wrinkled. “What does that mean?”

“Willie Glick’s Englisch friend Max says that all the time. It means we did a gute job.”

Benji nodded. “So why do we need another plan?”

Benji was a wonderful nice bruder, but sometimes he didn’t think things through very well. Alfie sighed loudly enough to scare the birds from the nearest tree. “Benji, we’re still sleeping in the cellar.”

“So?”

Alfie slid his arm around Benji’s shoulders and encountered something sticky at the back of Benji’s head. He pulled his hand back. “Benji, what have you got in your hair?”

Benji touched the back of his head, and a grin grew on his face. “That’s where that went.” He winced and tugged and pulled a half-eaten sucker off the back of his head. He smiled triumphantly and held the sucker in the air. It had hair on one side of it. “I fell asleep eating this last night.” He stuck the hairy thing in his mouth. “It still has its flavor.”

Alfie growled. “Oh, sis yuscht, Benji. This is why we can’t sleep in the cellar anymore. We get stuff in our hair, and Mamm doesn’t even check.”

Benji picked a piece of hair out of his mouth. “We have to sleep in the cellar. When Dawdi had his stroke, Mammi and Dawdi moved into Mamm and Dat’s room, and Mamm and Dat moved into our room.” Benji frowned. “We need to take care of Dawdi. Mamm said so.”

“But there isn’t a room for us.”

“I like taking care of Dawdi. He calls me Benny because he can’t say his j’s yet. He’s getting better, and he let us borrow his binoculars.”

Alfie sighed again, more quietly this time so Mamm wouldn’t suspect they were making plans. Mamm was the suspicious type, and sometimes she was very smart. “We thought that if we found a wife for Andrew, he’d move out and we’d get our room back. But Andrew got married, and Mamm turned his room into a sewing room. She’d rather sew things than give her little buwe a decent place to sleep.”

Benji scrunched his lips to one side of his face. “It’s not a sewing room. It’s her I-want-to-be-alone room.”

“What do you mean?”

“When she wants a break from Mammi, she goes to her sewing room. I heard her tell Aunt Beth.”

This was why Alfie needed Benji to help with the plan. Benji noticed things no one else did. He listened to grown-up conversations when the grown-ups thought he was doing his chores. “But even though our plan with Andrew worked, we need another plan because the cellar is no place for two growing buwe.”

Benji grinned. “Our plan for Andrew was a real gute plan. I liked when we stole the cat and used the walkie-talkies.”

“We didn’t steal the cat. We borrowed it.”

A worried look crossed Benji’s face. “You got stuck in a tree, and they had to call a fire truck. I thought you were going to die.”

Alfie grunted. He’d almost been eaten by a cat and stung by a hundred bees in that tree. His heart still jumped when he remembered how the branch he had been sitting on creaked every time he took a breath. It was wonderful scary, but he’d never tell Benji or he might not go along with the plan. “I wasn’t going to die. I just couldn’t climb down because Bitsy’s cat hissed at me every time I tried.” Alfie glanced in Mamm’s direction, then pulled Benji to a stop. “We need a new plan. We’ve got to find wives for Abraham and Austin if we’re ever going to get out of that cellar.”

Benji shook his head. “I don’t want you to climb any trees in our new plan.”

“We have to climb trees. It’s the best way to spy on people.”

“But what if you fall?”

“I won’t climb so high next time.”

Benji took a deep breath, bit off the last bite of sucker from the stick, and looked up at the sky. “I guess that’s okay. But I get the top bunk if Mamm puts the beds on top of each other.”

Alfie thought about that for a second. Would he rather sleep in the bottom bunk upstairs or stay in the cellar with the spiders and worms? “Okay. Mamm took the bunk beds down when Abraham and Austin moved into our room. Maybe she’ll leave them that way as a sign of her gratitude for getting Abraham and Austin out of the house.”

Mamm didn’t even look back. “Alfie and Benji, move those feet before the grass grows under them.”

Mamm thought she was so smart, but there were still patches of snow everywhere. No grass would be growing today. Still, when Mamm used that tone of voice, it was best to go along with her. Either that or end up cleaning the grease from behind the stove with a toothbrush. Alfie and Benji both hurried their steps but not by much. They had important plans to make.

“So we have to find wives for Austin and Abraham?” Benji said.

Alfie kept his eyes on Mamm and nodded slowly. “And right quick. The spiders get really bad in the spring, and I’m not sleeping with a can of bug spray under my pillow again. It makes a lump.”

“Okay. We should find someone for Abraham first. After Andrew, he’s the oldest.”

Alfie smirked. “Austin would be easier. He already knows lots of girls, and he thinks he’s so handsome.”

“Nae,” Benji said. “Mamm says always do the hardest job first—to get it over with.”

Alfie rubbed the side of his face where he hoped his whiskers would be someday. “I’ve never seen Abraham talk to a girl except Mamm and our cousins and stuff. It’s like he doesn’t even dare.”

Benji looked worried. “He’s wonderful shy. If we brought a girl over, he might run away and hide. I don’t want him to be sad. He always gives me extra butter on my toast for breakfast.”

Benji was mostly a gute partner, but sometimes Alfie ran out of patience. “Benji, you can’t care about people’s feelings when you’re making a plan.”

Benji sucked on his empty stick. “Okay, but Abraham won’t get married if he runs and hides every time he sees a girl. We have to be sneaky.”

“We’re good at being sneaky. Just look at how we got Andrew and Mary together.” Alfie nodded in Abraham’s direction. “Who should we pick for Abraham?”

“Hannah Yutzy’s real nice, and she knows how to make doughnuts.”

Alfie shook his head. “Frieda Miller is tall. Abraham needs someone tall.”

Benji drew his brows together. “But she’s so old.”

“So she’ll be in a big hurry to get married if she doesn’t want to be an old maid. She’d probably settle for Abraham.”

“Settle? What does that mean?”

“She’s given up waiting for a better offer.” Alfie sighed. Sometimes Benji was so thick.

Benji slowed his pace. “That’s not true. Abraham would be a gute husband. He’s tall and he plays basketball and he gives us piggyback rides. And sometimes he tells Mamm not to be mad at us because we’re just little buwe.”

“But if he won’t talk to girls, how will we find him a fraa?”

“He stares at Emma Wengerd during the sermons.”

Alfie stopped short. “Emma Wengerd?”

“Jah. He stares at her like he’s very hungry and she’s a bag of potato chips.”

Benji was a gute partner. He noticed things. Alfie’s heart felt like it was beating in his throat. “She only lives three houses down, and she’s not short. And she talks and talks all the time. She probably wants a boy who will just sit and listen to her. Abraham wouldn’t have to say anything.”

“And she’s pretty. Lots of boys like her.”

Alfie shook his head. “That’s not good. Emma can marry any boy she wants. She wouldn’t pick Abraham.”

“He plays basketball. Girls like that.”

“It’s not enough,” Alfie said.

Benji scratched his red nose with his mitten. “She raises strange chickens. Maybe Abraham could talk to her about eggs. He likes animals. He wants to be a vegetarian.”

“It’s veterinarian, Benji, and he can’t be one. It’s not allowed.”

Benji gave Alfie a sour look. “He can’t go to school, but he can learn how to take care of animals like Dwayne Burkholder. I heard him telling Dawdi about it.”

Alfie couldn’t argue with that. Benji heard a lot of conversations Alfie never paid attention to. “Okay. They can talk about chickens. But how do we get them together to talk about chickens?”

Mamm turned around and started walking backward. “Alfie and Benji, catch up this minute or you’ll be oiling the buggy every day for a week.”

Alfie and Benji glanced at each other and started running. Oiling the buggy made your arms hurt, and Mamm would never let you get away with only doing the parts you could reach from the ground. Making plans was at an end.

But they’d made a gute start.

They had a girl, and they had chickens.

Add in the walkie-talkies, and there was no way they could fail.

The whole plan was a total failure.

Abraham would not cooperate, and Alfie was getting very annoyed about it.

It had been a month since he and Benji had made their plan and put new batteries in their walkie-talkies, and Abraham and Emma hadn’t even so much as said hello to each other. There certainly wasn’t any kissing going on.

Four different times they’d asked Abraham to fetch eggs from Emma, but Abraham always told them to do it themselves. Abraham was not following the plan.

Alfie hated to admit it, but it was time to get help, and Bitsy Weaver was the only person they could trust besides Dawdi. They told Dawdi all their secrets, but Dawdi could barely say Alfie’s name, let alone offer advice on how to get Abraham and Emma together.

Alfie and Benji trudged up Bitsy’s lane after school. The air was finally getting warmer, and the dandelions had started popping their heads out of Bitsy’s grass. That also meant the honeybees on Bitsy’s property were flying around, trying to sting little boys. Alfie swatted at a honeybee that came too close.

“Don’t hit them,” Benji said. “Or they’ll sting you.”

Alfie scowled. “I know.” And he did know. But when he got around a bee, he sort of panicked.

“Bees don’t want to sting you. They just want to get honey from the flowers. If they think you’re trying to hurt them, they’ll sting.”

“I know, Benji,” Alfie snapped. “I just don’t like them in my face. Don’t you think I should try to get them off my face if they land on me?” Alfie marched up Bitsy’s porch steps with Benji trailing behind him. “Remember, Benji. We don’t have to tell her our plan. We just need to ask her advice.”

“Our plan is stupid,” Benji said.

“It is not. Abraham’s the one who’s stupid. He’d rather choke than talk to Emma.”

Benji opened the screen, and Alfie knocked on the inside door. The door squeaked open a few inches, and the barrel of Bitsy’s shotgun poked out. Bitsy didn’t usually answer the door with her shotgun unless she was mad at somebody. Alfie took a step back just in case she accidentally shot him. Mamm would be mad if he got blood on the new shirt she’d just made for him.

Benji was wearing his old shirt. He didn’t care if he got shot. He pushed the door open. “Hallo, Bitsy. You don’t have to be scared. It’s just me and Alfie.”

Bitsy smirked. “I’m not scared, young man. There’s a stray dog wandering my property, and I don’t want him barging into the house.”

Benji drew his brows together. “Can he knock on doors?”

The gun sagged a bit. “That’s a gute point. It’s probably a good bet that the dog wouldn’t knock on my door.” Bitsy lowered her shotgun and stepped back so Alfie and Benji could go into the house. She wore a dark blue dress with a normal black apron and a white kapp, but her hair was bright blue, like a patch of clover.

“I like your hair,” Alfie said. It never hurt to say something nice to the person you needed help from.

Bitsy touched her hair. “Denki. It’s called Violet Fantasy, but it turned out bluer than I thought.” She pulled two chairs from the table. “Would you boys like some coffee cake?”

“Jah,” Alfie said.

Benji nodded.

They scooted onto the chairs while Bitsy pulled two glasses from the cupboard. “My coffee cake is well known for being moist, but it’s still better with a glass of milk.”

Bitsy set two slices of coffee cake on the table with the milk. Benji took a huge bite. “Itzzz weally goot, Bizzy.”

“Anything you have to say can wait until you’ve chewed and swallowed, Benji Petersheim.”

Alfie decided to eat first and ask for advice later. Bitsy might not be willing to help them if he talked with his mouth full.

“You boys caught me at a gute time. I was just about to go into town and report that dog to Animal Control.”

Benji took a big gulp of milk. “You mean the pound?”

“Jah. He’s gotten into my garbage and fussed with my chickens. He’s making a nuisance of himself.”

Benji stopped eating altogether. “But maybe he’s lost.”

Bitsy got up and handed each of them a napkin. “He’s not lost. He’s been abandoned.”

“We should help him find his owner.” Benji got that familiar look in his eye. He was a gute partner, but he got distracted too easy. People who made plans had to be focused. They couldn’t feel sorry for anyone, not even a dog. Even if they really, really wanted to.

“His owner is gone,” Bitsy said. “The Baxters lived just beyond the pasture across the road. They drove away and left that dog to fend for himself. It’s a rotten way to treat the family pet, but I didn’t know they’d left their dog until it was too late to show them my shotgun.”

Benji worried the edge of his napkin. “Why don’t you adopt him, Bitsy? If he goes to the pound, they’ll gas him.”

Bitsy raised an eyebrow. “Gas him? Wherever did you hear such a thing?”

“Max Burnham,” Alfie said. Max’s cousin worked at the pound, and he knew everything about everything. Max even knew where babies come from. He had told Willie Glick, and Willie Glick had told Alfie. That was something he wouldn’t be able to forget no matter how many times he said his prayers.

Bitsy brushed a crumb from the table. “Well, gas him or not, I can’t take him in. I already have four cats, and they are annoying enough. There will be no dogs in this house.” Most grown-ups would have tried to smooth things over with Benji to make him feel better, but Bitsy always told the truth, even when nobody wanted to hear it. Alfie liked that about her.

Benji pushed his coffee cake around his plate with his finger. “Maybe we could keep him.”

Maybe they could keep the dog. Alfie’s heart started pounding. A dog could find them if they ever got lost in the woods. A dog could fetch sticks and bring Dat his slippers. A dog would eat crumbs off the floor. Mamm would never have to mop again.

Bitsy shrugged. “That’s up to your mamm.”

Alfie’s heart sank to his toes. “Mamm would never let us have a dog. She won’t even let me have a goldfish.”

“I have a pet spider,” Benji said.

Alfie popped a small bite of coffee cake into his mouth. “He’s not your pet. He just lives in the corner of the cellar and kills other spiders.”

“You tried to spray him,” Benji said, “and I saved his life. He’s my pet now.”

Bitsy nodded. “Spiders are gute pets. They feed themselves and don’t poop on the carpet.”

Benji sat very still before wrinkling his forehead like he did when he was upset. “We need to help that dog.”

Alfie wanted a dog as much as anybody, but they had to be sensible. They’d been asking Mamm for a dog ever since they could talk. “Mamm won’t let us.”

Benji started crying. “But he’s going to get gassed.”

Bitsy reached over and patted Benji’s arm. “He might not get gassed. They might find a nice family that wants to adopt him. People like chocolate labs. I’m told they’re cute.”

Benji caught his breath and suddenly stopped crying, as if someone had turned off a faucet. “Do girls like chocolate lamps?”

“Chocolate labs?”

“Jah.”

Bitsy folded her arms. “Well, I’m a girl and I don’t think he’s cute, but most girls love dogs. Do you remember Vernon Schmucker? Poor fellow had a face like a potato, and the girls ignored him. One night he brought a puppy to the gathering, and he was surrounded by girls all night. That’s how he met his wife.”

Benji jumped from his chair and threw his arms around Alfie, making Alfie spill milk down his new shirt. “Hey. Watch it.”

“Alfie, girls like dogs!”

Benji was a good partner, but sometimes he made no sense. “So?”

“If Emma Wengerd saw us walking our chocolate lamp down the street, she’d run out of her house to pet him.”

Alfie’s heart started pounding. Benji was the best bruder in the world. “We could bring Abraham with us.”

Benji got more and more excited with each word. “And they’d talk about dogs and chickens and maybe start kissing.”

Alfie set his milk on the table. “We’ve got to catch that dog.”

Bitsy cleared her throat. “It’s none of my business, but what about your mamm?”

“It’s none of your business,” Alfie said, immediately regretting it when Bitsy gave him a look that could have killed all the spiders in the cellar. “I mean . . . we need this dog, but if Mamm finds out, she’ll take him to the pound.”

Benji nodded. “He’ll get gassed.”

Alfie tried for his most pitiful face, the one he used on Mamm when she told him he had to muck out the barn. “You won’t tell her, will you, Bitsy?”

Bitsy scrunched her lips. “How do you boys plan on keeping the dog a secret? He’s big and lively and has to be fed three times a day. And he barks.”

Benji chewed on his fingernail. “We can do it. He can live in the woods.”

Alfie formed a plan in his head. Of course they could take care of their dog. A real bedroom was closer than ever. “He can come to school with us, and we’ll sneak food when Mamm’s not looking.”

“This plan is getting more and more complicated all the time.” Bitsy leaned forward. “Your mamm is going to find out.”

They had to get Abraham and Emma to fall in love with each other. Then it wouldn’t matter if Mamm found out about the dog. A lump caught in Alfie’s throat. Of course it would matter if Mamm found out. Alfie and Benji needed a dog, and not just to get Abraham and Emma together. Every boy needed a dog. Willie Glick said so.

Benji put his plate in the sink and walked slowly around the butcher-block island. “Maybe she won’t find out.” Benji was on Alfie’s side. He was the best partner anyone could ever ask for.

Bitsy narrowed her eyes. “I won’t have this dog of yours starve to death. What do you plan to do about feeding it?”

Alfie raised his eyebrows. At least Bitsy was considering they might be able to do it. “Leftovers.”

“You can’t feed a dog leftovers. It’s not healthy,” Bitsy said.

Benji started working on that fingernail again. “Does he eat eggs? Emma could give us some eggs.”

Bitsy groaned as if she was angry and in pain at the same time. She looked up at the ceiling. “Dear Lord, heaven help me, but I never could resist a freckled boy.” She stood up and went to the great room where she pulled a Bible from the bookshelf.

She quickly turned the pages. Alfie pressed his lips together. This was no time for scripture reading. If they couldn’t catch that dog, Abraham and Emma would never get married. “So, you won’t tell our mamm?”

Bitsy acted as if she hadn’t heard him. She was probably looking for that scripture about honoring your parents. “. . .