“Look how he likes you! If you can get a ride to Landisville, Britta, you can babysit any time you’re available,” Polly remarked.

Mamma spoke up from her usual spot at the table. “I’m sure our wunnerbaar driver, Rachelle Good, would be happy to take her.”

Henry, the only man present, sat at the head of the table in what had been Dat’s chair. “That’s a long way to come to babysit,” he said. “But we’d be glad to pay the driver.”

Britta looked over at her mother. “It’s up to Mamma.”

Right away, Mamma nodded. “All right with me.”

Britta was excited at the possibility. Being with sister Polly and family helped to take some of the lingering sting from missing Allen and Sarah.

“Let’s ask the blessing,” Henry suggested, folding his callused hands and bowing his blond head.

Joey and his older brother, seven-year-old Junior, did the same.

While Britta prayed silently, thankful for this food, she also thanked God for her dear family on this special day after Christmas.

When the prayer ended, Henry cleared his throat and raised his head.

Without delay, Mamma began to pass the platters—roast beef, creamy mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green beans, butter noodles, coleslaw, homemade rolls, and bread pudding.

A feast, Britta thought, hoping she’d have room for a taste of everything on her plate. With three little kids, how’d Polly have time to make all this?

When dinner was finished, and Susie’s applesauce cake and coconut cream pie were served along with Polly’s chocolate pie and soft molasses cookies, Mamma rose and gave eleven-month-old Nellie Ann tiny bites of one of the cookies. Nellie Ann waved her arms happily, then gave Mamma’s cheek a pat with her dimpled hand.

Meanwhile, Susie sat next to Junior, who was as fidgety as any child Britta had ever known, and not only at the table—quite different from Joey, still seated next to Britta. This made her wonder what she had been like at their ages.

After desserts, Henry opened Dat’s old German Biewel and read the Christmas story from the gospel of Luke. Even tiny Nellie Ann seemed to listen to the beautiful account of the Christ Child’s birth and the angels’ visitation to the shepherds that holy night.

Later, when Polly slipped away to the front room to nurse Nellie Ann, Britta quietly followed and sat down on a nearby chair. “Do you remember when I was a baby?” she asked, feeling more comfortable talking to Polly than she had to Henry the day he’d cleared the broken branches.

Polly smiled. “Oh jah. For one thing, ya scarcely ever cried,” she said. “You were very sweet . . . still are.”

“Mamma’s said that, too—that I wasn’t a fussy baby.” Britta sighed. “I wish there was a picture of me when I was little.”