Huckleberry Harvest (19 page)

Noah tossed his potato on the plate, stood, and put a hand on his dat’s shoulder. Mandy rose to her feet too. “Dat,” Noah said, “this is Mandy Helmuth. Mandy, this is my dat Wayne.”

“Have we met before?” Wayne asked.

Mandy’s face flushed, and she saw the muscles in Noah’s jaw twitch. She would never in a million years say yes to that question. He’d been too drunk to remember their first meeting, but Mandy would never shame Noah or his dat by mentioning it. “I’m from Charm. I’m here visiting my grandparents.”

“Felty and Anna Helmuth?” Wayne said, self-consciously glancing again and again at Noah’s face. “Very gute people. Felty gave me my first job harvesting his soybeans.” His gaze strayed one more time to Noah’s black eye before he lowered his eyes and fell silent.

Noah eyed Mandy doubtfully. “Dat, we—”

“I just got finished scolding Noah,” Mandy blurted out, desperate to spare Wayne’s feelings. “I told him he shouldn’t wander around in the dark. It’s too easy to bump into something and end up with a black eye.”

“What?” Wayne raised his head, and his face seemed to light up from the inside. She’d opened a door for him. He walked through it. “Oh, jah. We all need to be more careful in the dark. Noah doesn’t like to waste the battery, so he seldom switches on the light at night.”

Noah peered at her with unmistakable tenderness in his eyes. She thought she might burst at the pure joy of that look.

“Mandy cut a potato for me,” Noah said.

Wayne nodded. “I wish we had some tobacco for that bruise.” He took off his hat and hung it on the hook in the entryway. “But we are very grateful for the potato.” He gave Mandy a genuine smile. He and Noah looked most alike when they were happy.

“I could go to the store for some chewing tobacco,” Mandy said.

“That will get the tongues wagging,” Noah said. “People will spread rumors that Helmuths’ granddaughter chews tobacco.”

Mandy giggled. “I don’t think anybody would believe it. I’m not a gute spitter.”

Wayne laid the heart-shaped wooden basket on the table. “I came in to show Noah what I made. I’ve been cutting round baskets for years, but the tourist shop in Green Bay asked me to try a heart.”

Mandy smoothed her finger over the wood. The Amish made collapsible baskets like this all the time. The body of the basket was a single piece of wood cut with a jigsaw and then fitted with a handle. Mandy was always fascinated at how one piece of wood could be cut to form such a clever thing.

“It’s very pretty,” she said. “I’m sure tourists will love the new shape.”

“It turned out well, Dat.”

Mandy could tell Wayne was pleased even though he only smiled with his eyes. “I might try some other shapes now that I know how to make a heart template.” He picked up his basket and placed it on the counter behind them. “Would you like some
kaffe
, Mandy? I’ll make all of us a cup.”

“How about some lemonade, Dat?”

Wayne looked at the jug on the table. “Even better.”

He pulled a cup from the cupboard and all three of them sat down. Chester planted himself next to Noah and peered at Noah’s plate of potatoes as if he thought they might be good enough to eat.

Wayne poured himself a full glass and took a drink. “Gute lemonade,” he said. “Did you make it?”

Mandy nodded. “I promised Dawdi I’d save some for Noah, but we ran out. I wanted to make sure he got his fair share.”

Wayne scooted his chair closer to the table. “It’s very pleasant having you in our house, Mandy. It’s not often Noah invites girls over.”

Noah got a funny look on his face. Was he blushing? “I never invite girls over, Dat.”

Wayne propped his elbows on the table and stared at Mandy with a kind expression on his face, much like the one she often saw from her dawdi. “At any rate, I’m glad you’ve stopped knocking on our door and running away before we could open it.”

Mandy tried to hide her confusion. Should she know what Noah’s dat was talking about? “Knocking on the door and running away?”

Noah’s laughter rumbled in his chest. Soon it exploded from his mouth. He pulled the potato from his eye and laughed uncontrollably while Mandy and Wayne stared at him in amused silence. “Nae, Dat,” he was finally able to squeeze out of his mouth. “This isn’t that girl.”

It only took Mandy a moment to realize who it was who had been knocking at Noah’s door and running away. Was there anything Kristina hadn’t done to try to win Noah’s heart?

Wayne sprouted a good-natured smile. “We always knew it was her because we could hear her giggling as she ran away.”

Mandy wasn’t sure why her face felt warm, except that maybe she was embarrassed for Kristina. Kristina never seemed to be embarrassed for herself.

“She did it three or four times a week over the summer,” Wayne said. “Since August we ain’t heard a lot from her.”

“I’m sorry,” Mandy murmured, feeling compelled to apologize on Kristina’s behalf. She was her best friend, after all. Didn’t she bear some of the responsibility?

Wayne must have sensed her distress. He studied her face and patted her hand reassuringly. “Mind you, I don’t bear her no ill will. Noah’s a handsome boy. I don’t wonder that the girls get
ferhoodled
over him. This girl who knocks is probably head over heels in love with Noah. She just doesn’t know how else to express her affection.”

“She . . . it’s not the best way. . . .” Mandy stuttered, not wanting to be disloyal to her best friend but believing that Wayne was being very forgiving of Kristina’s behavior when in reality she probably deserved a gute spanking.

“Noah keeps to himself. The girls just don’t know what to do about that.” Wayne leaned back in his chair. “There’s another girl who sneaks over and spies on Noah from the shelter of the trees across the road.”

Mortified, Mandy slapped her forehead as Noah chuckled softly. “Same girl, Dat.”

Mandy couldn’t help it. A giggle escaped from her lips. Her best friend, the spy. She was soon laughing harder than Noah was.

“Did I say something wrong?” Wayne asked, with more distress than was warranted.

“Nae,” Mandy managed to say between giggles. “It’s just . . . that . . . Kristina is my best friend.”

Wayne raised his eyebrows. “
Ach
. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“It wonders me how she ever gets her chores done, chasing Noah around all the time,” Mandy said.

Noah studied her face, and his eyes smoldered with warmth. Her whole body seemed to tingle like a glass of bubbly soda. She had to look away.

The giggling finally subsided, and to avoid Noah’s eyes, Mandy glanced at Noah’s fater as he took another drink of lemonade. He was not what she had imagined about a man who got drunk on a regular basis and gave his son dark, ugly bruises. She had expected him to be more like the man she’d met outside the bar on a cool autumn evening. Belligerent, unstable, and wicked beyond saving. This meek, gentle man sitting next to her wasn’t any of those things.

She thought of Jesus’s admonition in Matthew:
If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?

Surely God had not given up on Noah’s dat. He still had time to turn his life back to God. And she still had time to help him. She formulated a plan before she stood from the table.

Getting to her feet, she grinned at her hopeless patient. “Noah, your eye is never going to get better if you don’t keep that potato pressed to it.”

He groaned, picked up a new slice of potato from the plate, and laid it over his eye. “I’m not going to get a lot of work done wearing a potato.”

Noah’s dat finished his lemonade. “Will you stay for supper, Mandy? Noah makes gute sandwiches.”

“Jah, I know he does,” she said, winking in Noah’s direction.

He seemed to catch his breath and hold it.

“Since Noah is hurt,” she said, “why don’t I make supper?”

Noah stood up and marched to the fridge. “I can do it. You’re our guest.”

“With one hand?” Mandy teased.

He grinned. “If you can find me some tape, I’ll attach this potato to my head so I’ll have two good hands.”

“You fed me on Saturday,” she said. “It’s my turn to feed you.”

“You brought lemonade.”

“I’m cooking supper.” Mandy scooted next to Noah and nudged him with her shoulder, pushing him away from the fridge and out of her path. He chuckled and cheerfully glided in the direction she nudged him. She was glad he cooperated. If he hadn’t wanted to move, she and a Clydesdale horse couldn’t have made him go anywhere.

She opened the small fridge to see what they had on hand and flashed Noah a look of mock horror. The inside of the fridge was immaculately clean and astonishingly empty. Half a gallon of milk, a jar of horseradish sauce, some pickles, and a stick of butter sat in the door while six apples and a carton of eggs sat on the shelves.

She slowly turned her head and looked at Noah with raised eyebrows. “I see that you don’t have steak.”

Noah twisted his lips sheepishly. “I was going to go the store tonight.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I wouldn’t want you to starve.”

“We don’t starve,” Wayne said. “Noah knows how to make
yummasetti
.”

Mandy closed the fridge and leaned against the counter. “Let’s start with a list of what you do have. Do you have flour and salt?”

“Jah,” Noah said, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “And we have sugar and horseradish.”

“I saw the horseradish. Do you have yeast?”

Noah looked through a few cupboards. “I don’t think so.”

“Please tell me you have vinegar and baking powder. I think I will die and go to heaven if you have vinegar and baking powder.”

“Then I hope we don’t have them. I don’t want you to die.”

He chuckled as she rolled her eyes a second time. He rummaged through a few cupboards and, with a wide smile, pulled a gallon jug from under the sink. “Vinegar.”

“Very gute,” she said, speaking to him as if he were a little boy who didn’t know how to follow directions. “Now do you know what baking powder looks like? It is a fine white powder usually in a white and blue tin.”

It was his turn to roll his eyes. He pulled a bright orange box from the cupboard. “Here it is,” he said, as if he’d just discovered gold.

“Nope,” she said. “That’s baking soda.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Jah, and if you want to truly be an expert cook, you’ve got to learn the difference or your quick breads will be ruined.”

“I would be horrified if my quick breads were ruined.” He peered at the label on the soda box. “We couldn’t use this anyway. It expired in 1997.”

Mandy took it from him and poured it down the sink. “It will help your sink smell better.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Since when do you go around smelling people’s sinks?”

“It’s one of my hobbies.”

He chuckled and continued his search through the cupboards. “Aha,” he exclaimed as he pulled out a small white tin labeled
Baking Powder
. He looked at the label. “It expired in—”

Mandy held up her hand to shush him. “What I don’t know can’t hurt me. Now go sit by your dat and put another potato on your eye.”

Mandy pushed her sleeves up. She didn’t have a lot to start with, but she could make do. After preheating the oven, she mixed up a quick batch of drop biscuits. While they baked, she decided to make an apple pie. Apple pie and biscuits wasn’t the most nutritious meal in the world, but she had an inkling that Noah liked pie. It would be good enough.

They didn’t have a pie tin, so Mandy formed the crust onto a cookie sheet. It would be more of an apple tart, but hopefully it would taste good.

Noah’s dat went back to his woodshop while the biscuits baked, and Noah fed Chester and tried to sweep with one hand while she made the pie-tart.

Mandy pulled the biscuits out of the oven when they turned golden brown. Noah sniffed the air. “I don’t think anything made in this kitchen has ever smelled so gute.”

“I know it’s greedy of me to ask,” she said, “but do you happen to have any jam?”

He pumped his eyebrows up and down as if he had a great secret, and disappeared down the hall. Did he hide jam in the bathroom?

Soon he reappeared, still pressing the potato to his eye and cradling two jars of jam in his arm, one purple and one orange. “This is huckleberry jam from your mammi,” he said, motioning to the first jar. “And this is apricot jam from a very spindly tree we have out back.”

“Jam grows on trees?” she said.

He nudged her with his elbow. “The bigger question is, does Noah know how to make jam? And the answer is, yes, I do.”

“I’m astonished,” she said, putting her hand to her heart as if he had truly shocked her.

“I know how to read directions. You can do anything if you just read the directions.”

Mandy scooped the biscuits onto a plate with a fork and set the table while Noah fetched his dat from the woodshop. Noah and his dat didn’t own a matching set of plates, so she set the table with a white plate with pink flowers, a plain yellow one, and a light-blue plate with stripes and a small chip on the edge. She set the butter and jam on the table along with a bowl of olives from a can she’d located while rummaging through Noah’s cupboards.

She paused before laying out the silverware. Was it rude to rummage through people’s cupboards?

Probably.

Noah and his dat couldn’t have been more pleased with their meager meal of drop biscuits, olives, lemonade, and apple pie. Noah ate like a starved man, and her heart did a little flip-flop every time he paused long enough to give her a warm look and a compliment about her cooking.

Mandy cut herself a tiny slice of pie and watched with pleasure as Noah and his dat polished off almost the entire thing. Noah cleaned his plate, put down his fork, and picked up the cookie sheet. “Mandy, you should eat the last piece.”