Wonderland Creek

by Lynn Austin

  “I’m good.” He stopped at the parlor door and leaned against the doorframe, studying me.

  I waited as long as I could for him to say something or tell me why he was here before finally breaking the silence. “Did you want something, Ike? Another book?”

  “Nope.”

  “Another picnic?”

  “Nope.” He grinned like a boy with a secret.

  “Did you find the treasure?” I asked in a stage whisper. He shook his head. “Well, what brings you here, then?”

  He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Nothing. I just came to watch you work.”

  “What?”

  “You watched me play my fiddle; now I’m watching you work.”

  I could feel my traitorous cheeks growing warm. “That was different, Ike. At least the wedding was interesting. I’m not doing anything interesting, and there’s no music.” I picked up the file box, fumbling as I pretended to search for a card.

  “That doesn’t matter. You’re very nice to look at, you know.”

  I put down the box. “Seriously, Ike. It’s hard to concentrate when you’re staring at me.” He walked closer, still smiling, his arms folded across his chest. I didn’t know what to expect from him next, and that thought alone was disconcerting. “There must be something more productive for you to do than stand there.”

  “Why? You got something you need me to do around here? Like I said, I’m willing to help you go through Mack’s clothes and things.”

  “Um . . . it’s still too soon for that. I didn’t realize until the other day that Miss Lillie raised Mack. He’s like a son to her.”

  “Hmm. I see what you mean.” He hadn’t taken his dark brown eyes off of me for a second.

  I opened the desk drawer, rifled through the pencils, closed it. I picked up a book, opened it, closed it again. Ike continued to stare, smiling slightly as if watching me was the most entertaining thing he’d done all week. I cleared my throat again.

  “I need to put these books back on their proper shelves now.” I stood and picked up the stack I had finished carding. I would have to walk right past him to get to the non-fiction section. Ike stopped me, resting his hand on my arm, and I felt the heat of his fingers through my sweater. “You want to go out in the kitchen where nobody will see us and kiss for a while?” he murmured.

  Leaping lizards!

  “As tempting as that sounds,” I said, clearing my throat again, “I think I’ll have to say no. I’m supposed to be on duty. And I have all these books to put away.”

  “Okay. How about if we kiss in there?” He tilted his head, gesturing to the non-fiction room. Was he joking?

  “There are too many windows, Ike. This house isn’t very private. And you never know when the packhorse ladies will return.”

  “Then I’ll just have to sit here and stare at you some more.” He followed me the way Belle had followed Mack and sank down in Lillie’s chair to watch me put away the books. I couldn’t imagine Gordon coming into the library to watch me work—and I certainly wouldn’t have gone to the funeral parlor to watch him. Life certainly moved at a slower pace here in Acorn than it did back home.

  Ike was still watching me when I put the last book on the shelf. I needed to give him a job to do. “Do you know anything about bats?” I asked, turning to him.

  “Sure. I read a book once that told all about them.” He jumped up from the chair as if willing to help me find it. “They’re interesting animals. Did you know they eat three times their own weight in insects every night?”

  “Is that right?” I took a step back as he inched closer to me. “Well, there’s a bat that flies around my bedroom every night, and I want to get rid of it.”

  “Why? I’ll bet you don’t have any insects in your room, do you?”

  “That’s beside the point. The bat needs to live someplace else. Would you happen to know how to get rid of it?”

  “Sure. I can kill it for you.”

  I felt a pang of remorse. The bat was annoying but it hadn’t hurt me in any way. “You don’t have to kill it, do you, Ike? As much as I don’t like it flying around my bedroom at night, I would still hate for it to die. Couldn’t you set it free somehow?”

  “You flatlanders are the funniest people I ever met,” he said with a chuckle. “Tell you what, I’ll try and see how it’s getting into your room, and maybe I can block off the opening. Then your little friend can live, okay? He just won’t be able to get into your room.”

  “Okay.”

  He offered me his arm. “Let’s go up and have a look around.”

  Ike wore such a mischievous look on his face that I froze. I had stepped into very dangerous territory. My mother always emphasized the danger of putting myself in a compromising position with a man—especially an attractive one. And Ike’s kisses could easily make me forget propriety.

  “Um . . . we’d better not go up there together. It wouldn’t look good at all if we were seen alone in my bedroom. Besides, Lillie is sleeping up there. Can’t you get rid of the bat without my help?”

  “I’m trying to get you alone, Alice.” He bent to nuzzle my neck the same way that Belle had nuzzled Mack’s. I squirmed away, even though the shivers his lips sent down my spine were quite enjoyable.

  “I know exactly what you’re trying to do,” I said with a nervous laugh. “You’re not being very subtle about it.”

  “That bat is probably hanging upside down someplace right now. They like to sleep during the day. And they usually bring their whole family with them once they get inside a house. In fact, they’ll have even more babies every spring. You sure you don’t want to come up with me and at least see where this bat family is living and how they’re getting in?”

  “No. I’d rather be down here where it’s nice and safe while you do what you need to do.” Safe from Ike as well as from the bat. “In fact, I’d rather not be here at all when you’re working. I don’t think I could stand it if you chased a whole flock of bats out of hiding and they started flying all around and getting in my hair.” I unconsciously hunched my shoulders and brushed at my hair as if one of them was flying above my head right now.

  “You’re safe, Alice.” Ike smoothed down my hair and gave me a quick peck on my forehead before I could stop him. “When do you go off on your route again?”

  “Not until Tuesday.” I shuddered a second time because one week from Tuesday I would have to ride up into the woods at night for Mack.

  “Tell you what. I’ll come back while you’re gone and take care of it. I’ll check the attic, too. Is that okay, Miss Lillie?”

  I turned around to see her hobbling into the foyer behind me. I was very glad that she hadn’t caught us smooching in the non-fiction room or the kitchen.

  “Is what okay, honey?” she asked.

  “Alice wants me to get the bat out of her bedroom.”

  “We’ve always had bats. They don’t bother nobody.”

  “Alice doesn’t like them. She says she wants me to get rid of it.”

  “Do what she wants, then.” Lillie shrugged and hobbled toward the kitchen, leaning on her cane.

  Ike needed to leave. He was much too attractive, and I was much too attracted to him. I had work to do. “I’m going to go help Lillie now,” I said, sidling away from him. “You can’t watch me work anymore. Sorry.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, too. When can I see you again?”

  I had been thinking about Maggie’s loss of faith before Ike had arrived, and I suddenly had another thought. “Do you ever go to church, Ike?”

  “I have been known to go. Why?”

  “It’s Easter Sunday this weekend. I would like to attend church, but I don’t know where to find one. And even if I did find one, I have no way of getting there.”

  “I’ll take you—if you don’t mind riding in my truck again.”

  Beggars couldn’t be choosers. “I don’t mind. Thanks. And I’ll be happy to help pay for your gasoline, too.”

  “How about if
we go to that little church where the wedding was?”

  “Wonderful. See you on Sunday?”

  “Right. See you, gorgeous.”

  I invited Miss Lillie to come with us on Sunday, but she declined. “Big trip like that would be too much for me, honey. But you go ahead. I’ll be fine.”

  I rose with the rooster on Sunday morning, excited about finally attending church after all these weeks. My parents would be horrified if they knew how many Sundays I had missed. Father would say that the people in Acorn had been a bad influence on me—although I would have argued that in many ways they had been a very good influence on me. I certainly had worked harder than ever before in my life, and most of the work had been for the sake of other people. And I seemed to pray more and think about God more than I did at home.

  I waited on the library porch for Ike to arrive so we could make a quick getaway. He pulled me close on the seat beside him and drove through the vibrant spring-green hills and valleys with his arm around me. When we arrived, he helped me down from the truck yet didn’t release my hand. “You can’t hold my hand in church, Ike,” I whispered as we walked toward the church door.

  “Why not?”

  “It isn’t appropriate.” I didn’t want to mention that the warmth of his touch would have been much too distracting.

  I would describe the simple church service as “lively” and quite unlike the stately, dignified Easter services I was accustomed to back home. It included much more singing than ours did, and the congregation might have taken the biblical command to “make a joyful noise” a bit too literally.

  “I should have brought along my fiddle,” Ike whispered. It wouldn’t have been at all out of place in this rollicking Easter celebration.

  It seemed strange to be in church after so much time. Everyone was so joyful as they praised the Lord, and I felt as though I had played hooky from school for too long and needed to catch up. I missed my father’s calm, thoughtful preaching. This minister yelled his entire sermon, as if the congregation was hard of hearing. I missed my mother and the sound of her clear alto voice singing alongside me. And even though the congregation back home irritated me at times with their plodding, intrusive ways, I missed them, too. I knew all of the people in their customary pews by name. Here I was a stranger. And homesick.

  “Happy Easter, Alice,” Ike said afterward, when we’d climbed into his truck. “Let’s celebrate.” Before I could stop him, he leaned close to kiss me. I pulled away. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know . . . It just doesn’t seem right or proper. We’re supposed to think about God on Easter Sunday.”

  “I am thinking of Him. I’ve been thanking Him all morning that I met you.” He leaned close to kiss me again, and although I knew I should have stopped him, I didn’t really want to.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be kissing right outside the church building,” I murmured when we came up for air. “In broad daylight.”

  “No one knows us here.” He tried to continue where we had left off, but this time I did stop him.

  “We should go.”

  “Okay.” He gave me a smile and one final kiss, then started the truck engine. He whistled all the way home. Ike Arnett had to be the most cheerful person I had ever met.

  We couldn’t talk much because of the noisy truck, so I sat back and enjoyed the ride. As we neared Acorn and drove past the mine, I shivered involuntarily. One more week until Mack’s midnight break-in. I dreaded the ride up into the woods at night, and I worried for Mack’s safety. Ike had his arm draped around my shoulder and had felt me shiver.

  “What’s wrong? Are you cold?”

  “A little.”

  He pulled me closer and rubbed my arm. “Sorry. There’s nothing much I can do about the missing back window. And the truck doesn’t have a heater.”

  “That’s okay. We’re almost there.” When we arrived in Acorn, Ike didn’t even slow down as he roared past the library.

  “Hey, you passed the library.”

  “I know. Didn’t I tell you? You’re invited to my family’s house for Easter Sunday dinner. It won’t be much, but they all want you to come.”

  “You never mentioned it.” I felt a wave of panic. My mother always prepared a big ham dinner for Easter, but what if Ike’s mother fed me something disgusting like squirrel or possum or rabbit? It was too late to decline, now that she was expecting me. “Um . . . what’s for dinner?” I tried to ask casually.

  “My brother shot a wild turkey the other day. They live all through these woods, you know.”

  Turkey sounded safe enough. We pulled off the main road just past the post office and drove down the same dirt road that Ike and I had taken to the orchard. Ike’s house sat perched on a little hill at the end of the road above the town. It was a clapboard house, not a cabin, and like the library, it was bigger than most of the other homes in Acorn. In fact, it was nearly the same size and age as the library, with an almost identical floor plan. The kitchen addition on the back of Ike’s house was larger than Mack’s tacked-on kitchen and it was connected to the dining room by a wide archway. They were the two nicest houses in Acorn, built by the two notorious great-grandfathers, the men reputed to have found a treasure and buried it somewhere. Could there be any truth at all to the legend?

  Ike’s living room was neat and cozy, with a fireplace just like the one in Mack’s house. Framed photographs filled the mantel, and an embroidered sampler hung above it. The sampler looked familiar, and halfway through the afternoon I finally figured out why. It was just like the one that hung above Lillie’s bed: “There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24. I guessed that when the young girls in Acorn had been learning how to embroider, that verse had been more popular than the traditional Home Sweet Home.

  We gathered around the dining room table, and after Ike’s father said grace, we dug in to eat. The food was very good, the turkey small but tasty. I’d never had corn bread stuffing before, but it was wonderful. Mrs. Arnett’s biscuits were so tender and flaky, they melted in my mouth, unlike the rock-hard cobblestone biscuits I baked. The table didn’t overflow with food the way ours did at home on Easter or Thanksgiving, but the food was good and I ate my fill.

  Ike was the youngest sibling from a large family of brothers and sisters, and the only one not married, yet. I couldn’t even begin to figure out who was who with sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and in-laws all milling around. No one in his family had ever learned the fine art of making proper introductions, so I was confused about who was who for most of the day. But they all knew exactly who I was—the new flatlander in town.

  “So,” his mother said when the meal ended, “I’m glad we finally got to see this young flatland gal that our Ike is so taken with.” All of the other conversations around the table suddenly halted. Even the children grew quiet as everyone stared at me. I tried to smile.

  “Um . . . the dinner was wonderful, Mrs. Arnett. Thank you so much for inviting me.” They continued to stare at me the same way that Ike had stared when he had come into the library to watch me work. “Um . . . the library is open every day but Sunday,” I said. “You’re all welcome to come in anytime and check out a book.”

  Silence.

  “Your son is very talented . . .” I paused when I saw Ike’s uncles and brothers elbow each other. They began to snicker. “On the fiddle, I mean.” They broke into loud guffaws. I decided to shut up. I looked over at Ike for help, but he seemed as amused as they were.

  One of the younger women—a sister or sister-in-law—took pity on me and said, “You want to help me dish up the pie, Alice?”

  “I would love to.” I quickly stood and followed her to the kitchen. But she had something else on her mind besides dessert.

  “I hope you ain’t gonna toy with our Ike and break his heart.” She held a very large knife in her hand—presumably to slice the pie, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “We’re just friends. He knows I’ll be go
ing home soon.”

  “Because flatlanders have come down here causing trouble before, you know.”

  I started to point out the good example of Maggie and Hank Coots, then decided it would only make matters worse. “The pie looks delicious. What kind is it?”

  “That’s shoofly pie, made from sorghum.”

  I had never heard of it before, and I was a little leery about eating anything with a fly in its name. But I tried a small piece and found it deliciously sweet—and it didn’t contain flies.

  After lunch, Ike and his father and uncles and a brother or two gathered on the front porch for a jam session. The whole family joined in singing and clapping on some of the songs, and my earlier discomfort fled as the music swept me away. I could see that Ike’s family was proud of him. They coaxed him to perform intricate fiddling tunes, then begged for more until his fingers must have been worn-out. “Ike’s turned out to be the best fiddler of us all,” his father told me.

  Toward evening, Ike walked me home, taking the beeline path through the orchard, which really was halfway between the two houses, I discovered. He stopped beneath the trees, as I hoped he would, to take me into his arms and kiss me thoroughly. “I been waiting to do that all day,” he murmured.

  “I had a good time, Ike. Your family is very nice.” I didn’t mention his knife-wielding sister or her warnings. “And they’re very proud of you, too.”

  “I sure wish I could get on The Grand Ole Opry program and make them even prouder.”

  “You know what? I have a feeling that you will someday.”

  “After we dig up the treasure?”

  “I don’t know about that,” I laughed. “Besides, I think you’re talented enough to get there on your own, without the treasure.” He kissed me again, then we walked, hand in hand, the rest of the way to the library.

  I enjoyed being with Ike. He made me feel cherished and pretty—and happy! But I didn’t dare fall in love with him. I could never live in Acorn for the rest of my life the way that Maggie had. Besides, Ike had made it clear that he wasn’t ready to get married, and I had no intention of getting my heart broken. One tragic breakup was enough for one lifetime. But I could enjoy the time that I spent with Ike, couldn’t I?