by Linda Byler
Mam looked genuinely surprised, shocking to Lizzie, and Mandy squealed, clapping her hands excitedly.
Emma looked at Lizzie with disbelief written all over her face. “Lizzie,” she breathed. “I can’t believe you’re saying these things. You always seem so self-assured. You didn’t even seem shy on Sunday evening. I wished I could have been so talkative on my first weekend. To tell you the truth, I was even envying your ability to make friends. Just like you were with Amos. I would never have talked to a boy that much my very first weekend. You just have a way of making up to people.”
“E…Emma!” Lizzie burst out, incredulous.
“I really have a hard time believing what you’re saying, Lizzie! You certainly didn’t act like you felt that way.”
Mam smiled. “Lizzie, I hope you realize that the first time you’re with the youth is only a very small step on a much longer journey. You know that I believe that God already has a husband picked for you. We just don’t know who it will be yet. So certainly, one game of Ping-Pong…”
“Two!” Lizzie broke in.
Mandy giggled and Emma rolled her eyes as Mam continued. “Well, two games. That is certainly not going to have a big effect one way or another in your seeking for your life partner.”
“See, Mam?” Lizzie said miserably. “Right there’s the trouble.”
“What?”
“‘Seeking your life partner.’ That’s not the girl’s job. We can’t do one thing about it. We just have to sit around and act like we don’t even care if we get a husband or not. The boys are the ones who can do something about it. If we’d ask a young man for a date, they’d all have a fit. I bet the whole church, or anyone who found out anyway, would have a fit. It’s so one-sided it isn’t even right.”
Mam sat down, lifted her hands, and laughed, taking off her glasses and wiping them clean with the corner of her apron as she always did. “No, Lizzie, you certainly don’t want to go ask Amos for a date,” she said, still chuckling.
“Who said I would even want to ask him?” Lizzie retorted.
“Well, it sounds to me as if you’d like to. But you’re going way too fast and haphazardly as usual. Just because a young man is handsome, and you feel attracted to him, doesn’t mean that you need to know immediately, right this second, whether he feels the same, or if you’re even suited for each other, or if it’s God’s will. You need to let feelings develop over time and learn to pray about it. Ask God to show you the way, Lizzie. You have to slow down. You’re far too immature at this stage in your life to be choosing your husband,” Mam said wisely, as usual.
“What does he look like, Lizzie? Is he cute?” Mandy asked, leaning toward Lizzie, her green eyes shining. “Does he like you?”
Emma looked at Mam and shook her head in disbelief as Lizzie punched Mandy’s arm. “Stop it.”
The really good thing about growing older, Lizzie decided that evening as she got ready for bed, was that Mam’s talk about God’s will made a lot more sense than it had a year ago. She had come to really believe that her future was not based on nerve-wracking life or death, right or wrong, decisions. She was beginning to understand that God had plenty of time to let you grow up in knowledge and understanding. You couldn’t run ahead of him, trying to figure things out on your own, because that gave you the blues.
So she would try and calm down, enjoy her weekends in Allen County, and not insist on knowing right away who her husband would be. Mandy told her that she thought too much and tried to figure things out that were none of her business, which was true. But how could you stop thinking? It just happened.
And another thing. How in the world was God going to show her the way? Mam was just so much further advanced in knowing God than she was, that it wasn’t even funny. How did God talk to a 16-year-old girl when that girl’s thoughts of him were still not very clear at all?
God was supposed to be way up in heaven, and who even knew if he was there for certain? Nobody did. They just hoped he was or believed he was. They didn’t know for sure.
Lizzie closed her eyes tiredly. She found the turmoil of a budding faith to be a bit too overwhelming. It was much easier just to have fun and be young and enjoy life than to become too serious too soon.
Mam, on the other hand, believed that Lizzie’s thoughts were probably very much like the egg under the cluck. Her faith was being well cared for and nurtured into growth by a very loving heavenly father whom she did not yet feel very close to.
Chapter 37
SUNSHINE AND WARM BREEZES found their way into the house and barn. Clyde and Bess ran back and forth across the pasture. Milking cows wasn’t even quite as distasteful on these lovely spring mornings.
When Sunday evening rolled around, Lizzie wore a new lavender dress, almost the color of the delicate crocuses bordering the porch. Emma looked very pretty in a shade of green which matched her eyes and made her hair appear darker still.
When the driver came to pick them up, Lizzie was surprised to see Stephen sitting in the back seat. His skin was already tanned to a dark shade of brown, and his hair was bleached lighter by the spring sunshine. He is certainly not unattractive, she thought.
After climbing into the van, Lizzie smiled back at Stephen and said, “Why are you going along to Allen County?” she asked.
“To run around,” he told her abruptly.
Marvin laughed loudly at this, and Stephen looked at Marvin, his eyes twinkling. They made Lizzie feel as if she was an annoying little 12-year-old. She turned around and resolved not to talk to Marvin the whole way to Allen County. That Stephen. He may be nice-looking, but when he and Marvin were in one of their moods, they irritated Lizzie to distraction.
Well, she liked Amos anyway, so there was no real problem. As she looked out the window at the light green beginning to appear on the mountain, she was filled with the joy of springtime. No use being grouchy, she thought, as she observed the beautiful tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths growing in neat rows along the bases of the well-kept houses they passed. She loved looking at new homes, at their landscaping and green lawns cut so evenly that they looked like indoor synthetic green carpet. That’s what my yard will look like when I get married, she thought happily. No old farm for me.
That Sunday, the day itself was as light and joyous as a feather. Not a heavy, white, waxy chicken feather, but a downy, light blue feather that floated to the ground from a bluebird’s wing. The whole earth was full of color and joy, the warm breezes blowing the girls’ hair loose from beneath their coverings.
They all decided to go for a long drive to a nearby lake before going to the regular Sunday supper. Marvin, Stephen, and Amos, with Mary, Barbara, Lizzie, and Ruthie, traveling in two different teams, headed out Barbara’s driveway and onto the highway. Amos had his hands full with his feisty little horse who was clipping along at an alarming rate. He didn’t say much as he held onto the reins with both hands, his arms outstretched in an effort to hold him back.
Ruthie and Lizzie rode with Amos, while Stephen and Marvin took the other girls with their team and followed them. Lizzie was secretly a tiny bit disappointed because she didn’t want Ruthie to go along with her and Amos. She wasn’t convinced that Amos didn’t like Ruthie. That was the annoying part of liking someone too much; there was always the chance that he wouldn’t like you back. What if she wanted Amos to ask her out on a real honest-to-goodness date, the serious kind, and then maybe in a year or so he would ask her to get married? Of course, this would have to involve living in Cameron County, not Allen, and in a new house, not on an old farm. But there was no use thinking too far ahead, not on a day like today, Lizzie reminded herself.
Ruthie was sitting between Amos and Lizzie. The only way three people could sit comfortably on a buggy seat was for the person in the middle to sit on the edge of the seat while the two others sat as far back as they could. Lizzie had been a bit miffed when Ruthie plopped herself beside Amos, where Lizzie had already been seated. But if she leaned over far enough
, it seemed as if it was just she and Amos driving together without Ruthie being there. That was a mean thought, Lizzie knew, but she thought it nevertheless.
“My arms are getting really tired hanging onto this crazy horse!” Amos said, laughing.
“I’ll drive!” Lizzie blurted out.
“You!” Ruthie gasped.
“I love to drive! He can’t be worse than our old horse Billy was when he was younger,” Lizzie said, glancing at Amos.
“You want to try?” Amos asked, a bit incredulously.
“Sure.”
They exchanged seats, which was no easy feat with Ruthie in the middle, squeaking and exclaiming about her apron getting wrinkled if they didn’t settle themselves soon. Amos apologized profusely, which irritated Lizzie so much that she had a notion to loosen the reins entirely so the horse would run away and throw them all out into a field.
No doubt about it, this horse had a mouth of iron, as Dat described a horse that wanted to run too fast. Lizzie bit her lip and clamped her hands down hard on the reins. It felt so much like driving Billy in Jefferson County that she burst out laughing. This was an absolutely exhilarating feeling, with the powerful little horse lunging into his collar and the breeching across his rump flapping up and down with every frenzied step he took.
The warm breeze swooshed through the window of the buggy until Lizzie’s hair flew across her eyes and her covering slid helter-skelter. She remembered the first time Dat had let her drive Teeny and Tiny, the miniature ponies. She had started to giggle when the ponies went too fast, just like now. There was something about a horse going this fast that made Lizzie laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Ruthie asked.
“I always have to laugh when a horse runs too fast. It just gives me the giggles,” Lizzie answered.
“It isn’t funny, Lizzie. Let Amos drive.”
“She can handle him,” Amos said, glancing at Lizzie behind Ruthie’s back. The twinkle in his eyes caught hers, and they looked at each other rather long, Lizzie thought. She could tell he admired her for driving his horse, or she hoped that’s what he meant when his eyes smiled at hers.
Springtime was unbelievably wonderful. Lizzie’s heart sang as the little horse kept up his rapid trotting for the next mile. Was it true that a young man’s thoughts turn to love in the springtime? At least she was sure that she had impressed Amos by driving his horse, and that felt like butterflies flitting across her heart. She bet it wouldn’t be long until he asked to come see her at her home like when Joshua came to see Emma.
When they stopped at the lake, Lizzie was awestruck by the weeping willows and their branches drooping at the water’s edge. The softly moving limbs rustled gently while the water lapped at the new shoots of grass. Lizzie thought of Cinderella’s long skirts that swayed whenever she danced with her Prince. She supposed God designed willow trees to be graceful and able to talk with the gently rippling water in the spring. God actually had lots of good springtime ideas—butterflies, crocuses, baby birds, tulips.
Suddenly she realized that she had wandered alone to the far side of the lake. She turned around and hiked quickly in the direction of the hollering and laughing.
When Lizzie reached the group, Ruthie was clutching a tiny bouquet of purple violets and smiling up at Amos who was smiling back at her. Jealousy, unlike anything Lizzie had ever felt before, clamped its iron jaws around her heart until she thought she would suffocate like a mouse in a trap. She knew instinctively that her feelings were wrong. Mam had always taught the girls that jealousy came directly from the devil.
She turned away, detouring around Amos and Ruthie to find Barbara and Mary unhitching their horse, with Marvin still sitting in the buggy. They were laughing and teasing him, and Lizzie had to laugh in spite of trying desperately to fight off her jealousy of Ruthie. Marvin held a bag of potato chips and calmly munched on them, his feet on the dashboard as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
“Marvin!” Lizzie called, laughing.
“What? Oh, Lizzie! How’s my niecely?” Lizzie’s heart grew warm with fondness for Marvin, for the pet name and for the genuine sense of safety he gave her, as well as the admiration and love she felt for him.
“Come join me, Niecely!”
Gratefully, Lizzie climbed into the buggy beside him, grabbing his bag of potato chips. “Share your chips, Marvin!”
“You want a Pepsi?”
“Do you have extra?”
“Sure!”
Lizzie took a long drink of the refreshing soda until her eyes watered, her nose burned, and she burped.
“You mean you still can’t drink soda like a lady?” Marvin teased.
Lizzie hiccuped, smiled, and ruefully shook her head. “Nope, Marvin. You know I’m not used to drinking soda.”
They sat in companionable silence, watching the little wavelets slapping themselves to nothing on the pebbly shoreline. The weeping willows danced gracefully above them, the sky full of puffy clouds as white as cottonballs against the blue sky. Out on the lake, two people pulled on oars, pushing their streamlined orange canoe against the little waves. It was all so peaceful that the perfect spring scene here by the lake brought a lump to Lizzie’s throat. If she hadn’t had these troubling thoughts about Amos, Stephen, and Ruthie, the day would have been wonderfully perfect.
“Marvin, do you think Amos likes Ruthie?” she asked, nervously toying with her Pepsi can.
Marvin looked at Lizzie, noticing the anxiety in her eyes. “Why should you care?” he asked bluntly.
“I don’t,” Lizzie said forcefully.
“You do!”
“I don’t.”
“Then why do you ask?”
That was as far as the conversation went before Amos came walking over to the buggy. There was a light in his eye and a real spring in his step as he approached them.
“Hey, this guy told me we can take his canoe out. Wanna go, Marvin?”
“Why don’t you ask Lizzie?” Marvin asked. “I’m busy eating chips.”
Lizzie looked at Marvin and then at Amos, becoming flustered immediately. “Well, I…”
“I can ask Ruthie,” Amos said.
“No! I’ll go. I just didn’t want to go unless you wanted me to. I mean, you didn’t ask me. Marvin just said I could go. If you’d rather ask Ruthie, please do. It’s not like you have to ask me to go along.” Lizzie stopped, noticing the strange look Marvin was giving her. His eyebrows were drawn down, and his eyes seemed to plead with her to be quiet. Why couldn’t I just be quiet? Lizzie thought miserably.
The canoe looked awfully long and narrow. But after she was seated, she wasn’t frightened because there was much more room than she first thought. Amos clambered in. He held onto the oars and tried not to rock too much before he found his seat, facing Lizzie.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Mm-hmm,” Lizzie said, clamping her teeth down hard to keep her voice from shaking. She certainly hoped he had rowed a canoe before.
He lifted the smooth wooden oars into the oarlocks, set them evenly on each side, and pulled. The muscles in his strong, brown arms bulged as he heaved on both oars.
Lizzie’s nervousness evaporated easily, and she laughed out loud at the thrill of gliding so swiftly through the clear blue water. Amos was adept at handling the oars, which propelled them along at a surprising rate. Lizzie put her hand over the side and found the water to be alarmingly cold. She quickly put her hand in her lap.
“Is it cold?”
“It’s icy cold!”
“Can you swim?” Amos asked.
“Oh, yes!” Lizzie answered, hoping with all her heart that she had impressed him even more than when she drove his horse.
“Really? Come on! You can’t!”
“Of course, I can swim.”
Amos stopped rowing and they sat quietly, the canoe rocking gently from side to side. It was the single most blissful moment Lizzie had ever experienced. Here she was in the middle of a beautiful lake on thi
s extraordinary day. With Amos. She had to admit to herself, too, that it was especially sweet because he was with her and not Ruthie. The only thing that bothered her was the fact that Marvin told Amos to take her canoeing. Amos had not actually asked her on his own.
When they got back to the lake’s edge, Amos hopped out and held the canoe so Lizzie could step safely onto the grass. She felt warm and a little confused. And almost rapturous. She drifted off to catch her breath under a long-armed willow tree.
A moment later, she heard a step behind her and turned to find Stephen approaching her. How could he have crept up on her like that? He must be part Indian.
“What are you doing here by yourself?” he asked.
“I didn’t realize I was by myself. I guess I just walked over here to look at the weeping willow branches hanging in the water. Aren’t they the prettiest things you’ve ever seen?”
“No.”
Lizzie looked at him, puzzled at his curt answer. She found Stephen’s blue eyes looking intently into hers without a trace of laughter.
“You are,” he said.
Lizzie was shocked. She was so surprised that she could say absolutely nothing. In fact, she couldn’t look at him so she looked at her shoes, which felt much safer. And her shoes were really quite interesting. She tried desperately to think of a fitting comeback, even a joking one, but she was absolutely tongue-tied. When she looked up, he was gone.
She turned to walk back to the others, putting her hands up to her warm cheeks to cool them. Oh, mercy! Now Stephen had said that, and she liked Amos. How complicated was this whole husband thing going to become? She didn’t know Stephen liked her. Well, maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just thought she was pretty, and it was very nice of him to say that. He did intrigue her, but … there was Amos.
Amos had taken her to the middle of the lake alone. Was that, she worried, so indescribably special mostly because Ruthie had to watch?
She would ask Emma to give her honest opinion about whether, when you sit in a canoe with a boy and feel absolutely joyful, you are in real love. And did Emma think she should learn to know the mysterious Stephen better? Who was he really and how could she find out?
