When Strawberries Bloom (9 page)

“Boy, I’m tired! Wish school was over this week,” she mumbled.

“Why?” Emma asked, straightening her back.

“I could sleep later in the morning.”

“You won’t be sleeping late too many mornings if we have a wedding at our house,” Emma said, blushing.

“Who’s having a wedding?” Mam asked without turning around.

“We are, Mam. Joshua asked me to marry him this fall,” Emma said.

“What?”

Mam’s spatula clattered to the floor as she whirled around, her eyes wide. Emma was laughing with tears in her eyes.

“Really, Emma? For real?” Mam quavered.

“Yes, for real, Mam.”

Mam returned to her pancake turning, but Lizzie knew she only went back to her duty to hide her emotions. After awhile, when the pancakes were arranged on a plate, she turned.

“So, Emma, this is what you always wanted, isn’t it?” But there was a catch in her voice, and her eyes glistened.

“Yes. You know it is,” Emma said, almost shyly.

The breakfast table that morning was absolute bedlam. Everyone congratulating Emma, everyone asking about the wedding plans, everyone talking at once while no one listened.

Dat was very excited. His eyes weren’t bothering him as much these days, and Lizzie hoped that whatever had ailed a few weeks ago was gone. Dat could hardly wait to tear down the dilapidated old washhouse, add a new basement for the laundry, and build a large, new living room. He loved to remodel, fix things, and make them look nice. Mam always said Dat was never happier than the times he was building something.

They planned, laughed, and talked until Lizzie had only 20 minutes to put on her cape and apron. She flew up the stairs, threw on her clothes, and hurried down just in time to grab her coat as the school van pulled up.

That evening as Lizzie and Emma swung on the newly painted porch swing, Lizzie suddenly became a bit wistful. She could not imagine life without Emma, and that thought suddenly took away some of the excitement of preparing for her sister’s wedding.

“Emma, doesn’t it make you one teeny bit sad about moving away from here?” Lizzie asked.

Emma looked over at Lizzie.

“You sound sad, Lizzie. You’re such a strange duck!” She pinched her arm affectionately.

“Emma, it isn’t funny. Don’t you kind of … well, just sort of wish you weren’t getting married and could live here with me and Mam and Mandy for always?”

“Li-i-zzie!” Emma shrieked.

“Well, don’t you? Not a teeny weeny bit, even?”

“Of course not!”

There was a quiet calm as the porch swing creaked and Emma slid one foot along the concrete floor in a rasping noise.

Well, Lizzie thought, either I’m not ready to get married or else I’m just different. If I knew I had to move to Allen County, 50 miles away, into an old farmhouse with some strange person I hardly knew, I would most certainly have the blues.

She looked out over the pasture that led to the creek near Charlie Zimmerman’s house, then back at the new living room and the freshly painted washline poles. She loved her home so much, there was no one going to get her to move away.

Mandy came through the door with a cereal dish held in one hand and a spoon in the other. She backed up to the porch swing and looked down at Lizzie.

“Slide over.”

“If you give me a bite of whatever’s in your dish.”

“Okay.”

Lizzie sat tightly against Emma, and Mandy wiggled in on the other side. Lizzie peered into her dish. Chocolate cake and vanilla pudding. Mmmm!

“One bite!” Mandy said, knowing Lizzie’s appetite.

“A big one.”

Mandy cut off a huge piece of cake, loaded it with vanilla pudding, held it in front of Lizzie’s face.

“Open wide!”

Lizzie did, and her mouth was promptly filled with a huge bite of cake, the whole spoon, and vanilla pudding squishing everywhere. Lizzie made funny noises, and Mandy threw back her head, howling with glee, as Lizzie struggled to keep everything in her mouth. After she had swallowed, Mandy jumped up, knowing from experience she would catch it from Lizzie.

Sure enough, Mandy tore down the steps and across the yard with Lizzie in hot pursuit. After racing circles in the yard, Lizzie plunked down on the porch swing beside Emma, panting.

Emma grinned.

“I don’t know why you don’t give up. You can never catch Mandy anyway.”

“She’s so skinny,” Lizzie panted.

Mandy ran up to the porch swing, backed up, and said, “Slide over.”

The peaceful swinging resumed as Mandy finished her cake and pudding.

“Emma, you’re going to miss us when you move!” Mandy said.

“You’ll come visit me, I hope.”

“Yes.”

“But you know very well how I always was, Mandy. This is what I wanted since I was a little girl, not much older than eight years old. To be alone in my old farmhouse, cooking and cleaning, baking good things and washing my very own dishes—it’s just too good to be true.”

“What if you get homesick? What if Joshua is mean to you?” Lizzie asked.

“He won’t be. You don’t understand, Lizzie. You were never in love.”

“Oh, yes, I was!”

“With who?”

“You know. Remember?”

“Well, yes. But I mean, you’ve never dated anyone seriously for years like I have. I feel actually closer to Joshua than I do to you and Mandy. Or Mam, for that matter. I just look forward to spending the rest of my life with him. Growing old together and having a whole pile of children.”

Suddenly, Mandy sat up very straight, blinking her large green eyes seriously. “I think I’m falling in love.”

“Mandy!” Lizzie shrieked.

Lizzie looked closely at Mandy. She could tell Mandy was dead serious. She had that certain set to her upper lip when she was not joking at all. Lizzie called it her “professor” look, all smart and wise and knowing.

“John Zook comes to church every two weeks,” she said, as matter-of-factly and rock-solid as a mountain.

Lizzie’s heart sank. Don’t tell me that Mandy will be exactly like Emma, she thought. Oh, please.

“I think he’s very handsome, and I think he likes me,” she said.

“How do you know? You never said a word to him, and he never talked to you either,” Lizzie said.

“Oh, I just know,” Mandy said. She started to hum in the most grating manner.

Emma got up, saying it was time for her to give KatieAnn and Susan their baths. Mandy and Lizzie continued to swing, watching the pasture as if their life depended on it. The tension between them was as thick as Mam’s potato soup. Lizzie was still secretly hoping John would ask her for a date, and that’s all she thought about Monday evenings. Well, she just had a feeling she knew why he didn’t ask her out. It was because he was very likely Mandy’s “meant to be.”

“Lizzie,” Mandy sighed, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you may as well not like John Zook. From the first moment I saw him, I had a little feeling that someday, if it was the Lord’s will, John Zook would be my husband, just like Emma and Joshua.”

“I don’t like him anymore,” Lizzie said, surprisingly quiet and reserved.

Mandy looked at her sharply. “You used to.”

“Let’s not talk about it, okay?”

“If you don’t want to, all right.”

The thing was, Lizzie had some thinking of her own to do. For the last few weeks she had been busy thinking of Emma’s wedding and pushing all thoughts of boys and dating aside. Uncle Marvin’s words about Stephen were stuck somewhere out of reach, failing to wake her conscience or reason. She wanted John to ask her, just as she had wanted Amos to. And now Mandy said she liked John, and it was almost scary with that Mandy, once she said something in that wise way of hers.

She sighed. Oh, well … if John liked skinny, big-eyed Mandy, then so be it. I’ll just never get married. They are building the new Amish school, the school board has already asked me to be the teacher, and I can hardly wait to get started at the end of the summer. So if that’s what God has for me, fine. At least if I’m an old maid, I can pack two whole sandwiches in my lunch with all the mayonnaise I want, and who is to care if I weigh 200 pounds?

She sniffed, and she shook her head.

“What’s wrong with you?” Mandy asked.

“A fly flew up my nose.”

They giggled and continued to swing.

T
HE SUMMER BEFORE EMMA’S
wedding was full of one busy day following another. Lizzie and Mandy often did the milking alone, since Dat was working on the new addition. Mam’s garden was full of vegetables for Emma as well as for the wedding. Earlier that summer, Dat had plowed a large area behind the house, past the apple trees, and planted potatoes and sweet corn. Mam called it her “patch.” Lizzie said it was more like an acre than a patch. It was huge, and often she and Mandy spent hours hoeing and weeding on hot summer days.

They also had a frolic on a Saturday in June, when they invited all of their relatives and friends to work on the addition to the house. Mam cooked and baked the week before, preparing huge amounts of food to feed the hungry workers. She made two roasters of fried chicken and filling. Emma was always proud of Mam’s culinary skills and worked diligently to learn all of Mam’s cooking and baking secrets. Lizzie didn’t care. She just ate the food.

Of course, Mam made cream sticks for coffee break in the morning. They were homemade doughnuts, with the dough cut in rectangles, fried in deep fat, a slit cut along each top, and filled with creamy vanilla frosting. Golden caramel icing was spread on top, resulting in achingly sweet, oblong, filled doughnuts, which in Emma’s words were so good it wasn’t even right.

When the men finished eating, they paid Mam warm compliments. She dipped her head, her cheeks flushed, basking in the words of praise. Dat acted so conceited when someone praised Mam’s cooking that the girls hid their smiles behind their hands. He wasn’t very tall, but he grew a few inches whenever that happened, Emma would say.

After the frolic was over, the addition was well on its way. Just like a miracle, a new basement and the skeleton frame of the living room with a new roof and windows were put in place. All through the summer, Dat and Jason kept steadily on, building and finishing the new living room until the day came when Mam went to town for a few gallons of primer and semi-gloss paint for the walls. Mam was thrilled with the light shade of blue she chose, saying this old farm was looking pretty good of late.

It was a happy summer, an exciting one, with Mam being more energetic and enthused than she had ever been since moving to the farm, Lizzie thought. And when Dat put down the hardwood flooring, rented a sander to smooth it, and then put on three applications of polyurethane varnish, she was almost in tears of gratitude.

“What a lovely, lovely, big living room!” she exclaimed, as she finished the final coat of varnish. “I’m almost afraid to have a wedding in this beautiful new room!”

There were five new windows, all freshly stained and varnished, letting in the fresh air and sunshine. Mam hung blinds in the windows. In Ohio they hang white cloth curtains and tie them back, but here in the East that was considered too fancy, she said. Mam had lived in the East long enough to appreciate the blinds, so she only said it a bit wistfully.

After all the furniture was put in place and Dat set the woodstove on the brick platform by the new chimney, it was just like a brand-new house. The twins squealed and shouted as they raced each other across the glowing hardwood floor, sliding in their stocking feet until they crashed into furniture and Mam made them stop.

Mam and Emma painted the porch railing, the kitchen, the brick part of the house, and every doorway and windowsill to match the living room. Dat shook his head, saying it was dangerous to be in the house because you’d be painted to the wall if you held still long enough. He was only joking, his eyes twinkling, and the girls knew he enjoyed getting ready for Emma’s wedding as much as Mam did.

They froze tiny little bags of corn, lima beans, and peas for Emma, in bags only big enough for two people. Emma beamed and giggled as she put one cup of vegetables in each bag, saying how cozy that would be, cooking supper for Joshua in their old farmhouse.

They filled little pint jars with pickles, red beets, grape jelly, and applesauce. They put peaches and pears in quart jars. Mam said two people could eat a whole quart of peaches before they spoiled. They canned beef, sausage, and little chunks of ham, all in pint jars that looked so cute, Lizzie found herself wanting to be married and making supper of her own.

Mam went shopping, buying sheet sets, towels, and washcloths. They made comforters from flannel patches—any color—orange, pink, blue, and hideous-looking patterns. Lizzie got all huffy about that, saying there was no way she would put anything like that on her bed.

“Oh, yes, Lizzie! This is exactly what I always dreamed of—patchwork comforters and quilts. Just wait until you see my old upstairs. It’s so cold up there in the winter that these warm blankets will be exactly what I need.”

“That’s right!” Mam agreed, around the pins in her mouth. “Just wait, Lizzie. Your turn will come, and these comforters won’t seem ugly then.”