ACCLAIM FOR KELLY IRVIN
“Kelly Irvin’s Through the Autumn Air is a poignant journey of friendship and second chances that will illustrate for readers that God blesses us with a true love for all seasons.”
—AMY CLIPSTON, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ROOM ON THE PORCH SWING
“Irvin’s fun story is simple (like Mary Katherine, who finds ‘every day is a blessing and an adventure’) but very satisfying.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ON THROUGH THE AUTUMN AIR
“This second entry (after Upon a Spring Breeze) in Irvin’s seasonal series diverges from the typical Amish coming-of-age tale with its focus on more mature protagonists who acutely feel their sense of loss. Fans of the genre seeking a broader variety of stories may find this new offering from a Carol Award winner more relatable than the usual fare.”
—LIBRARY JOURNAL ON BENEATH THE SUMMER SUN
“Jennie’s story will speak to any woman who has dealt with the horror of abuse and the emotional aftermath it carries, as well as readers who have questioned how God can allow such terrible things to happen. The choice Jennie makes to take a chance on love again and to open her heart to God after all she has suffered is brave and hopeful, leaving readers on an uplifting note.”
—RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4-STAR REVIEW OF BENEATH THE SUMMER SUN
“A moving and compelling tale about the power of grace and forgiveness that reminds us how we become strongest in our most broken moments.”
—LIBRARY JOURNAL ON UPON A SPRING BREEZE
“Irvin’s novel is an engaging story about despair, postnatal depression, God’s grace, and second chances.”
—CBA CHRISTIAN MARKET ON UPON A SPRING BREEZE
“A warm-hearted novel that is more than a romance, with lovable characters, including two innocent children caught in the red tape of government and two people willing to risk breaking both the Englisch and Amish law to help in whatever way they can. There are subplots that focus on the struggles of undocumented immigrants.”
—RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4-STAR REVIEW OF THE SADDLE MAKER’S SON
“Irvin has given her audience a continuation of The Beekeeper’s Son with complicated young characters who must define themselves.”
—RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4-STAR REVIEW OF THE BISHOP’S SON
“Once I started reading The Bishop’s Son, it was difficult for me to put it down! This story of struggle, faith, and hope will draw you in to the final page . . . I have read countless stories of Amish men or women doubting their faith. I have never read a storyline quite like this one though. It was narrated with such heart. I was full invested in Jesse’s struggle. No doubt, what Jesse felt is often what modern-day Amish men and women must feel when they are at a crossroads in their faith. The story was brilliantly told and the struggle felt very real.”
—DESTINATION AMISH
“Something new and delightful in the Amish fiction genre, this story is set in the barren, dusty landscape of Bee County, TX . . . Irvin writes with great insight into the range and depth of human emotion. Her characters are believable and well developed, and her storytelling skills are superb. Recommend to readers who are looking for something a little different in Amish fiction.”
—CBA RETAILERS + RESOURCES FOR THE BEEKEEPER’S SON
“The Beekeeper’s Son is so well crafted. Each character is richly layered. I found myself deeply invested in the lives of both the King and Lantz families. I struggled as they struggled, laughed as they laughed—and even cried as they cried . . . This is one of the best novels I have read in the last six months. It’s a refreshing read and worth every penny. The Beekeeper’s Son is a keeper for your bookshelf!”
—DESTINATION AMISH
“Kelly Irvin’s The Beekeeper’s Son is a beautiful story of faith, hope, and second chances. Her characters are so real that they feel like old friends. Once you open the book, you won’t put it down until you’ve reached the last page.”
—AMY CLIPSTON, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A GIFT OF GRACE
“The Beekeeper’s Son is a perfect depiction of how God makes all things beautiful in His way. Rich with vivid descriptions and characters you can immediately relate to, Kelly Irvin’s book is a must-read for Amish fans.”
—RUTH REID, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A MIRACLE OF HOPE
“Kelly Irvin writes a moving tale that is sure to delight all fans of Amish fiction. Highly recommended.”
—KATHLEEN FULLER, AUTHOR OF THE HEARTS OF MIDDLEFIELD AND MIDDLEFIELD FAMILY NOVELS
OTHER BOOKS BY KELLY IRVIN
EVERY AMISH SEASON NOVELS
Upon a Spring Breeze
Beneath the Summer Sun
Through the Autumn Air
THE AMISH OF BEE COUNTY NOVELS
The Beekeeper’s Son
The Bishop’s Son
The Saddle Maker’s Son
NOVELLAS BY KELLY IRVIN
A Christmas Visitor in An Amish Christmas Gift
Sweeter than Honey in An Amish Market
One Sweet Kiss in An Amish Summer
Snow Angels in An Amish Christmas Love
The Midwife’s Dream in An Amish Heirloom
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
Tell Her No Lies
Over the Line (available June 2019)
ZONDERVAN
With Winter’s First Frost
Copyright © 2019 by Kelly Irvin
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Irvin, Kelly, author.
Title: With winter’s first frost / Kelly Irvin.
Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan : Zondervan, [2019] | Series: An every Amish Season novel ; 4
Epub Edition December 2018 9780310348191
Identifiers: LCCN 2018032840 | ISBN 9780310348177 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Amish--Fiction. | GSAFD: Christian fiction. | Love stories.
Classification: LCC PS3609.R82 W58 2019 | DDC 813/.6--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018032840
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is in the public domain.
Any internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America
19 20 21 22 23 / LSC / 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Tim, I love growing old with you.
Here’s to many more years!
Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will
sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain
you and I will rescue you.
ISAIAH 46:4
He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set
my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
PSALM 40:2 KJV
GLOSSARY*
Abrot: ministers’ council held at the beginning of each church service outside the main worship area
aenti: aunt
Ausband: Amish hymnal
bann: a temporary period of excommunication intended to cause a change of heart and end errant behavior in a church member
bopli(n): baby
botching: clapping game
bruder: brother
daed: father
danki: thank you
dawdy haus: grandparents’ house
dochder: daughter
eck: married couple’s corner table at wedding reception
Englischer: English or non-Amish
Fehla: failure (in this context, sin)
freind: friend
fraa: wife
Gelassenheit: a yielding to God’s will
Gmay: church district
Gott: God
groossdaadi: grandpa
groossmammi: grandma
gut: good
haus: house
hund: dog
jah: yes
kaffi: coffee
kapp: prayer cap or head covering worn by Amish women
kind, kinner: child, children
lieb: love (noun)
mann: husband
Meidung: avoidance, shunning
Mennischt: Mennonite
mudder: mother
nee: no
Ordnung: written and unwritten rules in an Amish district
rumspringa: period of running around
schweschder: sister
suh: son
wunderbarr: wonderful
*THE GERMAN DIALECT SPOKEN BY THE AMISH IS NOT A written language and varies depending on the location and origin of the settlement. These spellings are approximations. Most Amish children learn English after they start school. They also learn high German, which is used in their Sunday services.
JAMESPORT, MISSOURI, FEATURED FAMILIES
THE KAUFFMANS
Laura (widow, husband: Eli)
Children: Luke (deceased), Raymond, Kyle, Abraham, Aaron (wife: Deborah), Victoria, Marilyn, Lena, Ruby (husband: Martin)
Fifty-two grands, twenty-eight great-grands
Tamara Eicher (granddaughter, daughter of Ruby and Martin Eicher)
Hannah Kauffman (great-granddaughter, granddaughter of Aaron and Deborah Kauffman, daughter of Seth and Carrie Kauffman)
THE STUTZMANS
Zechariah (widower, wife: Marian)
Children: Robert (deceased), David (wife: LeeAnn), Ivan (wife: Nadia), Elijah (wife: June), Esther (husband: Joshua), Michelle, Martha (special child, deceased)
Forty-eight grands, twenty great-grands
Michael (grandson, son of Elijah and June)
Robert (grandson, son of Elijah and June)
Micah (grandson, son of Ivan and Nadia)
Dillon (grandson, son of Ivan and Nadia)
Anna (granddaughter, daughter of David and LeeAnn) (husband: Henry)
Donnie (special child, great-grandson, son of Anna and Henry)
Ben (grandson, son of Ivan and Nadia) (wife: Rosalie)
Children: Delia, Samuel, Christopher, Mia, and Mary
THE TROYERS/GRABERS
Jennie (Troyer) and Leo Graber
Children: Matthew, Celia, Micah, Mark, Cynthia, Elizabeth, and Frances
THE ROPPS/MILLERS
Mary Katherine (Ropp) and Ezekiel Miller
Mary Katherine’s children: Thomas Dylan, Dinah, Mary, Elijah,
Ellen, Josiah, Angus, Beulah, Barbara
Twenty-nine grands
Ezekiel’s children: Leah, Carlene, John, and Andrew
Nine grands
THE WEAVERS/GRABERS
Bess (Weaver) and Aidan Graber
Children: Joshua (father: Caleb Weaver) and Leyla
Abel and Jessica Danner (five children, grown)
Declan and Susie Yoder
Children: Wayne, Thaddeus, Mattie, Lucy, Kevin, Violet
Fred and Celeste Schwartz
Children (all adults): John, Jacob, Amanda, Sandra, Phillip
CONTENTS
Acclaim for Kelly Irvin
Other Books by Kelly Irvin
Glossary
Jamesport, Missouri, Featured Families
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Epilogue
A Note From the Author
Discussion Questions
About the Author
ONE
FRIENDS WARM A ROOM BETTER THAN ANY FIREPLACE. Laura Kauffman laid the pinking shears on the oak table cluttered with a pile of construction paper in a rainbow of colors, Elmer’s glue, scissors, crayons, pens, pencils, and markers. The sweet aroma of pumpkin-spice cookies fresh from the oven mingled with the scent of burning oak in the fireplace. The chatter of the women around her as they quilted lilted like sweet music.
She couldn’t sew anymore because of her arthritis, but she could make Christmas cards. A white candle with a yellow flame glued to green paper still needed the Christmas poem inside. Her friend Mary Katherine Miller—the writer among them—would handle that part. Laura’s perfect penmanship had also faded as the disease strengthened its grip on her.
Even so, at seventy-three she had no complaints. Only the certainty that she was closer to the end than the beginning. Her best friends, once widows like herself, had remarried. She served as the only remaining member of an unofficial club. She had no need to marry, of course. What a silly thought. She chuckled and reached for a piece of paper. Red this time. Bright and happy like this time of year.
“I cut out my donkey.” Elizabeth Troyer dropped her baby scissors and held up her contribution to the card making. The eight-year-old’s burro seemed to have an extra leg. Never one to sit still too long, she wiggled onto her knees and grabbed the glue stick. “It’s for Mary. So she can go to Bethlehem with Joseph and have baby Jesus.”
“He has too many legs.” Elizabeth’s sister, Cynthia, scoffed at the ragged animal. “And he’s red. Donkeys aren’t red.”
“I think he’s quite nice.” Laura smiled over their heads at their mother, Jennie Graber. She shrugged and smiled back, surely used to her daughters’ bickering. “Why don’t you make a big yellow star for the wise men to follow after the baby Jesus is born?”
They were so like Laura’s four daughters when they were that age. Now they were married and had children—and grandchildren—of their own.
“What wool are you spinning?” Mary Katherine nudged Laura’s arm. “You’re a million miles away and moving fast.”
“Like a tortoise on an icy highway.” Chuckling, Laura removed her silver-rimmed glasses and cleaned them with her apron. “I was just thinking about how much I love the Christmas season. Everyone is so cheerful and it smells and tastes so good. I think I’ll make some caramel popcorn balls and gingerbread men for the grands.”
“All of them?” Mary Katherine snor
ted. “What are there now? Twenty-eight great-grands? That’s a lot of popcorn. You’ll never get the smell out of the dawdy haus!”
“I like that smell.” The dawdy haus would smell like Christmas. Giving presents to all of them was beyond her means, but she could make a little something and hand it out when she visited on Christmas Day and Second Christmas Day. And it would keep her busy, which would keep her mind off the anniversary. “And it’s not like I don’t have the time.”
Eli loved Christmas. He loved gingerbread men. He often stole one—or two—before she had a chance to decorate them. She could smell it on his breath when he kissed her with an airy “sorry.” He wasn’t sorry at all. Worse than the children. His death during the night on Christmas Eve eight years ago made the season a strange mixture of bittersweet memories. More sweet than bitter as the years passed and the anguish faded into a well-worn, treasured memory box hidden away in the far corner of her mind. If God willed it, she would see her sweets-loving husband again one day soon.
Maybe they would make gingerbread cookies in heaven and he’d steal two or three. The kisses would be all the sweeter with son Luke and grandson baby Matthew sharing them too. Her parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and sisters and brothers and all the other family members who’d gone on before would be present for the great, unending celebration of the New World. If it were God’s will, she could look forward to seeing them all for supper every night and singing every morning.
At her age she’d find a train station full of folks waiting to meet her at the pearly gates.
How prideful of her to think she’d be standing at those pearly gates. If and when, Gott, on Your time, not mine.
Mary Katherine elbowed Laura again. “Was there more to that thought or did you doze off?”
“I’m old. I have to rest between sentences.”
“Like I was saying, I love the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas too. I’ve discovered—or maybe rediscovered—how romantic this time of year can be.” Batting her pale eyelashes in pretend coquetry, Mary Katherine stabbed her needle into the burgundy material. Her round cheeks dimpled. “Ezekiel has been sneaking around the back bedroom for a week now doing something he refuses to talk about. There’s strange noises floating down the hallway.”