Huckleberry Summer (Huckleberry Hill)

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  “I’m glad to know you’re concerned for my well-being.”

  She rubbed her arms to wipe away the chill. “Thank you for worrying about me.”

  “I worry about you all the time.”

  Lily had no idea what that meant, but the way he looked at her made her feel shy and uncomfortable. She searched for a change of subject when she sensed a wet clump of hair sagging at her neck. As she put her hand to her head to assess the damage, her wet hair tumbled from its bun and cascaded over her shoulders. “My kapp,” she said. “What happened to my kapp?”

  Aden’s eyes strayed to her hair, and he reached out his hand to . . . touch it? Instead, he pursed his lips and pulled away.

  Breathing heavily, Erla approached Lily’s rock dragging her garbage bag behind her. “Are you okay, Lily?”

  Aden stood up.

  Erla glued her eyes to his face. “I would have gone into the water for her,” she said, opting to talk about Lily instead of to her. “I saw her reaching for something and then she fell in.”

  Lily managed to smile, even though Erla wasn’t as concerned about Lily’s mishap as she was about making googly eyes at Aden.

  “Denki, Erla. I am gute,” Lily said, as she plucked a piece of dark green slime from her hair. Nothing that a long bath and a quart of hand sanitizer couldn’t fix.

  Erla twirled her braid in her fingers and playfully tilted her head to one side. “I found some sort of metal pipe half-buried over there. Can you help me get it out?”

  Aden glanced doubtfully at Lily. “Will you be okay?”

  He was leaving her? That thought summoned more disappointment than she would have imagined. Now she was being ridiculous. She didn’t expect him to carry her around the pond, did she? Although that would have been very nice.

  She shook her head a few times to clear her brain.

  “No?” he said.

  Lily bobbed her head up and down. “I am fine.” She most definitely needed a drink. “I will get some coffee from your mammi.”

  Aden walked away with Swivel-Hips Erla and left Lily sitting by herself on the rock. She felt like a forlorn, waterlogged kitten.

  She watched as Aden and Erla got on their hands and knees and started digging in the dirt like a pair of children in the sandbox. They laughed together as if they were old friends and as if Lily had not nearly died in a tragic pond accident.

  The banks of the pond hummed with activity. Some boys pulled long strands of wire and wood from the water. An old fence? That must have been what the horse caught himself on the other day. Two women planted something on the banks near the algae. Tyler still worked on his machine while Anna sat under a tree, knitting. No doubt she was trying to keep up with the demand for pond-cleaning scarves.

  Pilot emerged from the water near Lily with something in his mouth. Maybe it was the elusive Styrofoam cup. He jogged to her and dropped his catch at her feet. Lily bent over and picked up the muddy lump of fabric.

  Pilot smiled at her.

  Her kapp.

  She wrung it dry and shook it out. Slimy leaves and twigs clung to it like cockleburs. She couldn’t very well put it on. She’d have to soak it in bleach for hours at home. Lily turned it over in her hand. Might as well make a new one.

  She put her arms around Pilot’s neck. He tried to lick her ear. “Denki, you stupid dog.”

  Lily combed through the strands of her hair with her fingers. She had lost her pins and elastic bands in the water and wouldn’t be able to fashion her bun back into place, let alone modestly cover her head. Should she let it be? No one would think worse of her knowing she’d lost her kapp in the water.

  That didn’t matter to Lily. She hadn’t stepped one toe out of line during rumschpringe. She had never worn Englisch clothes, never gone a day without her kapp pinned securely into place. Her dat would have been severely disappointed if she had.

  Her head must be covered with something other than this dirty rag that used to be her kapp.

  With regret, she realized she had to go home immediately. Propriety called for it. The Ordnung demanded it.

  Her face got hot. Loose like this, her hair looked like an unruly pile of hay or a wild forsythia bush in springtime. Dat said girls who wore their hair down were showing off. She didn’t want to be accused of pride, even for a minute.

  Lily made her way to Aden and Erla. Aden watched her walk the whole twenty-foot distance. He smiled and held up a dirt-encrusted muffler for her to see. “Look what we found. I think if we search hard enough, we’ll be able to find all the parts to that car.”

  Erla propped her hands on her hips. “Do you want to take it to the scrap pile for us, Lily?”

  Aden couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Lily’s hair. That was exactly why she needed to go home. Her improper appearance probably shocked Aden to the core. She smoothed her hand over her hair self-consciously.

  “I’m sorry. I have to go,” she said.

  He frowned. “Are you cold?”

  She showed him her kapp. “It’s ruined. Look at my hair.”

  “I’m looking,” he murmured.

  Erla waved off her concerns. “You look fine. Technically, you don’t need to cover your head unless you’re praying. Technically.”

  Aden looked at Erla. “Lily is more of a letter-of-the-law kind of girl. She’s not comfortable unless she is strictly obedient.”

  Lily studied Aden’s face. Was he laughing at her? No, he seemed sincere. Maybe he knew her better than she thought.

  With a mild expression, he took his scarf from around her neck, draped it over her head, and tied it loosely around her chin. “Cum,” he said. He nudged her forward and walked along beside her while carrying the muffler. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  Lily felt better with something covering her head, even if she did look a little strange with a scarf over her ears in the middle of the hot summer. They walked to Anna and Felty’s tree where Anna kept faithfully to her knitting, and Felty lay with his eyes closed and his hands propped under his head, softly humming “I Need No Mansions.”

  Anna saw them coming. “Lily, are you all right? I saw you fall into the water.”

  “My kapp is ruined.”

  “That scarf looks so lovely. It matches your golden hair.”

  “Mammi,” Aden said, “can I borrow a strand of yarn?”

  “Of course, dear.” She took a skein from her bag and cut a foot-long length of yarn.

  “Here,” Aden said, placing the muffler on the ground. He surprised Lily when he slipped the scarf from her head and gathered her hair into three equal parts. She willed herself to breathe normally as his fingers brushed against her neck in an attempt to capture all the errant wisps. A boy should never touch a girl’s neck. It sent a spark of electricity all the way to her toes.

  Should she protest at his closeness? Her mind raced through the eighteen articles of the Confession of Faith. She couldn’t remember a thing about boys fixing girls’ hair.

  She cleared her throat. Two times. “You know how to braid hair?”

  He cleared his throat. Three times. “I have many secret talents, and three little sisters.”

  His touch was gentle, as if he ran his fingers through other people’s hair all the time. Once he’d fashioned the braid, he tied Anna’s yarn around the end of Lily’s hair.

  “Do you have those one kind of fasteners, Mammi?” Aden asked. “You know, the ones that look like small tongs.”

  “Bobby pins?” Anna said.

  “Jah.”

  “Every mammi worth her salt carries at least five bobby pins wherever she goes.”

  With great effort, Anna rose from her perch on the ground.

  “No need to get up, Mammi.”

  “This is no time to sit,” she said. She produced a medication bottle from her bag, but instead of pills, it contained an ample supply of bobby pins. “The bobby pins are in the thyroid bottle.”

  She handed Aden some bobby pins, but Lily held out her hand. “I can
do it,” she said.

  Aden grinned. “I can do it.”

  Lily felt like a baby doll in the care of an attentive six-year-old. He wrapped her braid around itself and secured it into a bun with the bobby pins.

  “Very gute,” Anna said, as she began pulling pins from her kapp. “You can wear my kapp.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Lily said.

  “Stuff and nonsense,” Anna said. “Aden wants you here with him instead of at home for want of a kapp.”

  Lily had already blushed beyond her capacity to blush any redder.

  Anna removed her kapp. After such a gesture of kindness, what could Lily do? She gratefully took Anna’s kapp and pinned it into place.

  Anna rummaged through her bag and pulled out what looked like a knitted white doll blanket with strings. “This is my experiment with knitting kapps,” she said. She draped it over her head and tied the strings under her chin. She looked like she was wearing a floppy doily.

  Lily felt compelled to return Anna’s kapp. Anna couldn’t possibly walk around Cobbler Pond wearing a doily on her head.

  Lily pulled a pin out of her hair. “No, Anna. You take the kapp. I will go home.”

  Anna pulled her covering farther down her forehead. “Nae, nae. This is the perfect kapp for a day at the pond. What do you think, Felty?”

  Felty cracked one eye open and spied his wife. “Annie Banannie, you look like an angel from heaven.”

  Lily peered doubtfully at Aden, who sported a crooked smile. “You both look beautiful.”

  Lily didn’t know whether to be flattered or distressed. Did they look beautiful in the same kind of awkward, peculiar way?

  Aden took her hand and pulled her out of the shade. “Come into the sun to dry off.” Why was he holding her hand? He shouldn’t be holding her hand. What did the Ordnung say about hand-holding?

  He quickly released her once he’d dragged her into the sun. “Is everything all better now?”

  All better?

  Let’s see. He had risked his life for a car, flirted with Erla Glick, and held Lily’s hand. Twice. She had picked up four pieces of trash, fallen into the water, and worn a yellow scarf on her head, all while mentally reviewing the Confession of Faith from memory. He had braided her hair, carried her in his arms, and looked at her with those green eyes until her knees had turned to jelly.

  “Jah,” she said. “All better.”

  “Lily.”

  Both she and Aden turned to see Tyler jogging along the shore. He reached out and took her hands in his. “Are you okay? I heard you fell in. Did you get hurt?”

  Aden’s face became a cloudy day. He took a step back and folded his arms across his chest.

  Lily studied her hands in Tyler’s. Something didn’t feel quite right. No sparks. “I am gute. Aden’s dog pushed me in, and Aden pulled me out.”

  Tyler kept hold of Lily’s hands and regarded Aden with concern. “Your dog must learn to behave,” he said. “Lily has told me before how aggressive he is.”

  The clouds on Aden’s face darkened. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Lily would have done anything to make that look in Aden’s eyes disappear. “Pilot is just a puppy at heart,” she said, nudging her hands from Tyler’s grasp and stuffing them into her apron pockets. “He wants to be friends with everybody.” She looked at Aden. “He probably thought I was playing.”

  “You could have been seriously hurt,” Tyler said.

  Lily shook her head. “No harm done. Pilot is unruly, but he’s also the bravest, smartest, most lovable dog you will ever see. Do not say a bad word against him.”

  Aden’s expression brightened considerably. Lily’s heart beat a glad cadence. She hated to see Aden unhappy when he had done so much for her. He should be enjoying the success of pond-cleaning day.

  Tyler looked doubtful and then nodded. “If you say so, I’ll not disagree.” He held out his hands to her again. She hesitantly surrendered the safety of her pockets. “Do you want to see the aerator? It is almost put together.” He grasped her hands and pulled her forward as he walked backward. She had no choice but to follow.

  She looked over her shoulder at Aden. He stood like a mighty oak tree, tall and immovable.

  “Do you want to come?” she asked.

  “Nae,” he said. The clouds returned to his face.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lily and Aden strode together through the woods. Aden had insisted on carrying both of the buckets even though they were empty and didn’t weigh a thing. Lily wondered if she would feel the same sparks she did that day at the pond if Aden decided to hold her hand. No one was watching. It would be the perfect opportunity if he wanted to take it.

  She took a deep breath and attempted to think clearly. Why did she have such daydreams when her thoughts should be squarely centered on Tyler Yoder? That’s whom Dat expected her to marry.

  Besides, Aden wouldn’t think of holding her hand when he had been avoiding her all week. Today Anna had insisted that Aden take Lily to the other side of Huckleberry Hill to see if the huckleberries were ready to pick.

  Huckleberries won’t be ready for three more weeks, Mammi, Aden had said.

  But Anna had insisted that Aden hike to the other side of the hill to check on the berries and to take Lily with him. Aden couldn’t have refused without seeming rude, but Lily sensed that he had agreed reluctantly. Had he tired of her company, or did other people dominate his thoughts? Other people like Erla Glick?

  After Saturday, it seemed natural that Aden’s thoughts would stray to Erla Glick. Aden probably thought Erla’s bare feet and flirtatious smile were attractive, and he couldn’t help but adore the fact that she wasn’t afraid to get into the water and search for trash. Erla Glick wouldn’t have stayed onshore and wrung her hands while Aden risked his life to save a horse. Erla would have dived into the water and helped him. Lily must have seemed dull in comparison.

  Pilot romped among the trees and through the bushes and around Aden and Lily as if there was too much to explore and not enough time to explore it.

  Lily didn’t like the uncomfortable silence between them. “The pond looks so gute. You must be very happy.”

  Aden kept up a steady pace, one that with his long legs, Lily struggled to keep up with. “After you left with Tyler, they came to collect the scrap metal. We got two hundred dollars for that old car.”

  “Two hundred dollars? What are you going to do with the money?”

  “I might save it as a down payment on my own pond aerator. They aren’t cheap, and we can’t use Tyler’s forever.”

  “The pond has to have an aerator forever?”

  Aden slowed down slightly when he saw how breathless Lily became while trying to keep up. “Maybe not. It depends on how farmers around the pond use their land.”

  Lily tried unsuccessfully to grab the dog as he ran by her. “Pilot, come here.”

  He obediently loped over, jumped up, and planted his paws on her shoulders.

  “Get down, right now.” Lily pushed Pilot off her while sliding an arm around his furry neck. She did her best to hold the dog while she gently pried a burr from his floppy ear. “It’s a wonder he doesn’t come home every night with all sorts of plants and animals matted in his fur. He gets into everything.” She almost had the nasty seed dislodged from his fur, but Pilot wasn’t one to remain calm for long. “Hold still, you stupid dog.”

  “Stupid?” Aden said with mock indignation. “You told Tyler not to say a bad word against my dog.”

  As soon as she released him, Pilot bounded farther into the woods, only to return moments later and run a circle around Aden.

  “I asked Tyler to speak kindly of Pilot,” Lily said. “I never said I would.”

  Aden grinned.

  “That’s the first time you’ve smiled at me for a week. I thought your face was broken.”

  For a split second, disquiet registered in his eyes, then he turned around and resumed his breakneck speed to the hucklebe
rry patch. “I smile all the time.” To prove his point, he flashed her a painful grimace while picking up his pace.

  She used all her energy to keep up with him. Who could have a meaningful conversation while saving her breath for a footrace?

  At that speed, it didn’t take them long to reach the other side of the hill where the huckleberries grew wild. Lily gasped as they came to the clearing and a patch of sunlight illuminated the sea of pinkish berries amidst deep green bushes. She caught up to Aden, who didn’t even seem winded, and they stood in silence together, letting their eyes drink in the untamed beauty of the spot. Even Pilot stopped short of diving into the huckleberry patch. Standing at attention next to Lily, he must have sensed that this was a sight not to be disturbed.

  Aden set down his buckets and plucked a light red berry from the nearest bush. “Just like I told Mammi. At least two or three weeks before they’re ready.”

  Lily thought of all the delicious treats she could make with a bucketful of huckleberries. Was there such a thing as huckleberry tofu cake?

  Aden smirked. “It’s gute Mammi had us bring these extra-large buckets.”

  Pilot turned his attention to catching bees and butterflies in his mouth. Lily knew his location by the occasional cheerful bark and the rustling sounds he made in the bushes.

  “Ready to start back?” he said. Obviously, Aden was in no mood to linger in the berry patch.

  Lily pointed to a fallen log near the trail. “Do you mind if I check for a pebble in my shoe?”

  Aden nodded and followed her to the fallen branch. He set his sights down the trail as if he were in a hurry to be somewhere else. Lily sat on the log and took off her shoe. Would he notice if no pebble fell out when she turned it upside down?

  Her heart started galloping. Why did it always betray her? She didn’t often risk a conversation like this. It was always safer to not say anything and let trouble blow over. But she sensed that trouble wouldn’t blow over this time.

  And she had to know if Erla Glick was trouble.

  Lily slipped her shoe back on and took her time tightening the laces. “May I ask you a question?”

  “Okay.”