Little Amish Lizzie

by Linda Byler

  Lizzie walked into the kitchen all by herself, standing against the kitchen cupboards with her hands tucked behind her back. She scuffed her sneaker against the brown linoleum and wished Hannah and Emma would get stung by one bee, at least. It was too bad to wish they would get stung by a hundred. That would be awful.

  Actually, she liked Hannah, and besides, Hannah had been stung lots and lots of times, anyway. Just Emma could be stung a few times.

  Aunt Vera stopped mashing potatoes in a cloud of steam. She bent over Lizzie and whispered, “What’s wrong with my Mousie?” Her kind eyes twinkled down at Lizzie, and she looked directly into them.

  “You’re angry, aren’t you?” Aunt Vera asked quietly.

  Lizzie nodded her head.

  “What happened?” Aunt Vera asked.

  “Well, we were down at the duck pond and …” Lizzie’s lower lip trembled, so she bit down on it, hard.

  “And then what?” Aunt Vera started mashing potatoes again, the steam enveloping her head as soon as she took the lid off the huge stainless steel kettle.

  “Oh, nothing,” Lizzie said, and walked away from Aunt Vera. How could she listen if her head was in a cloud of steam? She wandered into the living room, where the men were seated, talking and drinking steaming cups of coffee. Uncle Homer smiled at Lizzie and she smiled back, going over to sit beside Leroy.

  Leroy looked bored, reading an outdoor magazine. He was tall and lanky, with eyes that were often half-shut, because he was bored with the men’s talk.

  Lizzie wished he’d talk to her, so she sat over close to him and coughed. He didn’t notice, so she coughed louder. Leroy looked away from the magazine and watched her with his sleepy gaze.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” Lizzie answered.

  “Are you Lizzie?” he asked.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Are you the one Mom calls, ‘Mousie’?”

  “I guess.”

  “Why does she call you that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where are Hannah and Emma?” Leroy leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Out by the beehives,” answered Lizzie.

  “Why aren’t you with them?” he asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “Are you scared of the bees?” Leroy asked, watching Lizzie closely.

  “No, of course not,” Lizzie said.

  “You sure?” Leroy smiled.

  “Yes.”

  “I bet you are. Do you want me to go with you, and we’ll go find them?” he asked.

  “If you’ll go with me, I’ll go,” she answered.

  “Alright.” Leroy pulled himself up from the chair, and Lizzie had to look almost as high as the ceiling to see his face. He was even taller than Dat, Lizzie thought.

  She felt almost as tall as Leroy when she walked out across the pasture to find Hannah and Emma. And when he asked her if she saw all the swans down at the pond, she felt even taller. Just wait till Hannah and Emma see me walking across the pasture with Leroy. They’ll wish they would have been afraid of the bees, too.

  Hannah and Emma were not down by the beehives. Leroy said they would better not get too close, because the bees were active, buzzing around the hives. They stood side by side, watching the bees, until they heard someone calling from the house.

  “Dinner! Leroy, come for dinner!” Aunt Vera called.

  So Leroy and Lizzie walked back along the pasture, Lizzie pondering all the way how terrible it would be to have a hundred bees sit on your head.

  When they reached the kitchen, Aunt Vera and Aunt Franie were seating everyone at the table. Hannah and Emma were on the bench, waiting for them. Lizzie slid in beside Emma.

  “Where were you?” Emma asked.

  “Oh, me and Leroy went to see the bees out in the pasture,” Lizzie said.

  “I thought you were scared,” Emma sniffed.

  “Not with Leroy.” Lizzie smiled.

  “Now you think you’re big, I can tell,” Emma said, poking her elbow in Lizzie’s side.

  “I talked for a long time with Leroy,” Lizzie told Emma happily.

  “So.”

  And when they “put patties down,” Lizzie forgot to say “thank you” for her food. She was too busy thinking about how good it was for Emma that Leroy had talked to her.

  chapter 21

  Home Again

  Lizzie loved going to Doddy Millers in Ohio, but it felt so good to be home again. Being with Dat, checking on Dolly and hearing her welcoming nicker, smelling the good harness smell from the shop, and hearing Mam’s washing machine whirring all made Lizzie happy to be home.

  Dat was making a new little pony spring wagon in the evening after the shop was closed. Lizzie was so excited about it, because Dat told her he might buy two miniature ponies to hitch up to this little spring wagon.

  “How big are they?” Lizzie asked for the hundredth time.

  “Oh,” Dat answered patiently, “about this high.” He showed Lizzie with his hand held very low above the ground.

  “You mean they’re so tiny?” Lizzie jumped up and down and squealed. “Oh, Dat, that is going to be so cute!”

  Dat just smiled and told Lizzie he had to finish the little spring wagon first.

  “When? When are you going to buy them?” Lizzie wanted to know.

  “I told you, Lizzie, we have to work on this first.” He was drawing with a pencil on a piece of plywood and Lizzie could not imagine how he would ever finish it.

  “How are you going to make the wheels? Won’t that be hard to do?” Lizzie asked.

  Dat pushed back his straw hat and scratched his head. “Now how do you think I would make wheels, Lizzie?”

  “I don’t know, Dat,” she replied.

  “I’ll have to buy them from a buggy maker. They know how to make wheels out of wood, and I don’t.”

  “How do they make them?” asked Lizzie.

  “Oh, they soak wood in water until they can bend it, then they put a steel ring around it.”

  “How does the steel ring stay on?” Lizzie wondered.

  “He puts bolts through the steel into the wood,” Dat answered.

  “Oh.” Lizzie didn’t really understand that, but she was glad Dat wasn’t going to make the wheels. That would take him too long. She sat on an old wooden crate with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. Her hair was not combed yet today and it was sticking out in every direction. She was wearing an old dress that was ripped at the hem, making it longer in the back. But Lizzie didn’t mind, because Mam was busy doing laundry, folding clothes, and cleaning up the house since they had come home. Lizzie did not have to worry what she looked like. That was one good thing about coming home from Ohio.

  Dat was measuring and sawing, whistling under his breath while he worked. Dat always did that, and Lizzie wished he would whistle louder.

  “Dat, why don’t you sing about Yugli?” Lizzie asked.

  “You mean ‘Yugli, vitt doo beer shidla’?”

  “Yes! Do sing it, Dat. Do!” Lizzie sat up straight and squirmed on the wooden crate. “Sing it!”

  So Dat stood up straight, laid down his pencil, and started to sing Lizzie’s “Yugli” song.

  Lizzie was delighted. She looked intently into Dat’s face while Dat sang the song in his familiar fashion. He sang it fast, and Lizzie’s foot tapped in tune to the singing. Dat’s eyes twinkled at Lizzie, and when he came to the part about the bull, they both burst out laughing.

  Dat caught his breath, picked up the pencil, and started back to his work.

  “Sing it again!” Lizzie said.

  So Dat launched into another rendition of the old favorite and Lizzie thought Dat was the best father anyone could have. She loved him with all her heart.

  Dolly’s head hung over her door and she nickered to Lizzie. Lizzie turned on the crate and thought that was because she enjoyed Dat’s song, too.

  Mam and Emma walked across the
lawn and into the little barn. “Melvin, your sister Sarah just stopped in and asked if it’s alright if they come to sing tonight. What do you think?” she asked.

  “Well, it’s up to you, Annie. If it suits you alright, it’s fine with me.”

  “Okay,” Mam smiled. “Fine with me. I’ll go tell her.”

  “Why didn’t she come along out to the barn? I want to show her this little spring wagon I’m making,” Dat said.

  “She’s holding Jason and reading a story to Mandy. You know how she loves the little ones,” she said.

  Dat stood up and smiled at Mam. “Yes, she’ll soon have a houseful of her own, I’ll bet.” He grinned. “Is Aaron coming tonight?”

  “Oh, of course,” Mam said.

  “Well, maybe I’d better clean up the barn if we’re going to have company,” Dat said.

  So Lizzie helped sweep the floor, while Dat put away his tools. He stacked the pieces of plywood neatly against the wall, along with the wooden sawhorses he had been using. Every tool was cleaned with an old rag and put carefully on its hook or in the toolbox.

  Lizzie loved to watch Dat clean things, because he did it so thoroughly. She thought she would be particular in everything she did when she grew up. Emma told her every day she was sloppy, but that was Emma. Little girls were allowed to be sloppy when they were still small, Lizzie thought.

  After the barn was cleaned, Dat had some grass to mow beside the barn. So Lizzie wandered into the kitchen, where Emma was helping Mam make something that smelled delicious. It smelled a bit like popcorn, except a lot sweeter, and it made her mouth water.

  “What are you making, Emma?” Lizzie asked, standing close to her and looking carefully into the bowl.

  Emma snorted and stuck her elbow into Lizzie’s stomach. “Go away, Lizzie—you stink!” she said.

  “I don’t,” Lizzie defended herself.

  “You smell like the barn. Mam, tell Lizzie to go wash her hands,” Emma said.

  “Lizzie, go.” Mam turned from the stove and bent to smell Lizzie’s hair. “You do smell bad. Where were you?” Mam asked.

  “Just in the barn with Dat.” Lizzie frowned.

  “Emma, are you done stirring that? Here, let me see.” Mam stirred the mixture in Emma’s bowl. “Lizzie, you go get the water started for your bath. And take down your bob, too, because I’ll have to wash your hair. We’re having company tonight and your hair smells like a pony. Now go.”

  Lizzie did not want to take a bath. She knew she didn’t smell that bad; it was just Mam and Emma. She knew if Emma wouldn’t have said anything, Mam would never have noticed how her hair smelled. Mam always took Emma’s side, that was all there was to it.

  “I don’t want to wash my hair. It doesn’t smell bad,” Lizzie pouted.

  “Go on, Lizzie. Now hurry. Boy, making caramel popcorn is a mess, or else this recipe isn’t correct,” Mam said.

  So that was what Mam was making. It did look like a big mess—great hunks of gooey, golden-colored popcorn all stuck in big blobs. But it smelled delicious. “Can I have some? I’m hungry!” Lizzie said.

  “No,” Mam said. “You’re supposed to go get your bath. Now go.”

  Lizzie sat on the kitchen chair and glared at Mam and Emma. She did not feel like taking a bath and washing her hair one tiny bit. Mam and Emma were busy, so they didn’t notice the fact that Lizzie just sat in the chair.

  Finally, when they didn’t see her, Lizzie walked slowly to the bathroom. She turned on the hot water, then remembered her clean clothes. She walked into her room and yanked open the top drawer for clean underwear. She grabbed some, and pushed the drawer in as hard as she could.

  Dat wouldn’t make her take a bath. Dat would not think her hair smelled like a pony. What was wrong with smelling like a pony, anyway? Ponies smelled good. And harnesses—Lizzie loved to smell horses and harnesses.

  Mam and Emma were just like that. They thought the same way. Oh, well, Lizzie thought, at least Dat thinks harnesses smell good. She bet she should have been a boy. But that would be awful, having curly hair like Jason’s. So Lizzie was very glad she was a girl after all, rather than look like Jason.

  · · · · ·

  Later that evening, the house was filled with Dat’s teenage sisters. They went to the youth’s singings, and two of them had boyfriends—Aaron and Samuel.

  They had gotten new songbooks, so they sang from those. Old songs and new songs and some Emma and Lizzie knew from school filled the kitchen. Then Dat got his harmonica and Sarah got hers. They played together, and sometimes they took turns. Aunt Sarah could really play. Lizzie could hardly hold her feet still; she played with so much rhythm.

  Lizzie thought Aunt Sarah looked pretty. She had really wavy hair, and it shone in little ripples under the gas lamp. Her hands went up and down on the harmonica and her dress glistened in different shades of purple. Lizzie never told anyone, but once she had wet her hair and tried to make them wavy with bobby pins, so she would look like Aunt Sarah. It hadn’t worked, so Lizzie decided your hair probably grew out of your head that way.

  Finally all the singing and harmonica playing came to an end. Mam looked flushed and happy, serving the caramel popcorn, chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, pretzels, and potato chips. She also served steaming cups of coffee and tall, frosty glasses of grape juice and ginger ale.

  Dat was enjoying the evening, Lizzie could tell. He loved being with his sisters, and tonight he was teasing them about getting married in the fall. “Sarah, how much celery did Mam plant in the garden this year?” he asked, his blue eyes twinkling at her.

  “Oh, I don’t know—not so much,” Sarah answered, a pink blush spreading across her cheeks.

  “Well, if you don’t know about the celery, surely you counted the heads of cabbage. Or how many chickens are being raised in the chicken yard,” he laughed.

  “You just mind your own business,” Sarah said, smiling. Aaron pretended to be upset with Dat, and hit his knee with his fist.

  “You’re pretty nosy, Melvin. Why do you ask about things that are just none of your concern?” he laughed.

  Dat hit Aaron’s knee and said, “Here. Now don’t you start telling me whose concern it is. I’ll surely have to help get ready for the wedding, and help the day of the wedding, and clean up after it. So don’t tell me it’s none of my concern.”

  They all laughed together, Emma and Lizzie joining in just because they were happy when Mam and Dat were so happy. Besides, Mam had confided in them that Aunt Sarah and Aaron might be getting married in the fall. Lizzie hoped so, because they would be invited all day. Marvin and Elsie would be there, of course, because Sarah was their sister.

  “Oh,” Aunt Barbara said. “You haven’t heard this new song, Melvin. It’s really a sad song, but we’ll have to teach it to you. You would like it.”

  So they all started to sing again. It was a long song, Lizzie thought, because they sang verse after verse. It was a sad song about a young girl who died and went to Heaven.

  Lizzie listened closely the first time, and felt very sad and lonely for some reason. The second time they sang it, Lizzie had a huge lump in her throat. She saw Aunt Barbara watching her, so before anyone could see her cry, she climbed off the bench and went into the dark living room. There she lay on the couch with her back turned and covered herself with an afghan. She held her fingers to her ears, trying to stop the sound of that unbearably sad song. Lizzie thought how awful it would be to die when you were young. She would have to leave Mam and Dat, and never see them again. Mam always said Heaven was a much better place than here in the world, but Lizzie did not think she would like it there without Dat and Mam. She knew Jesus was there, and Jesus was good and kind, but Lizzie didn’t really know who Jesus was, and she didn’t want to live with Him if she had Dat and Mam.

  Mam said God was in Heaven, too, but Lizzie was afraid of God. He was too big. He separated water, in the Moses part of the Bible story book, and He could do anything—even t
urn water into blood. And Lizzie didn’t understand how He could be very nice, because He sent all those horrible grasshoppers and frogs to the people who hardly did anything wrong.

  So she lay on the couch and thought terrible thoughts of sadness and loneliness, while great big tears squeezed from her tightly shut eyelids. She cried until big sobs and hiccups tore from her throat, feeling embarrassed that she had to cry in the first place. Her misery increased when she realized they were all singing, quite unaware of what had happened to her.

  And then Lizzie felt a soft touch on her shoulder, and Mam’s face bent low over her. “Lizzie, sweetie, whatever is wrong with you?” she asked, as she lifted the afghan from Lizzie’s little form. “Come, tell me what’s wrong. You’re sweating.”

  Mam put the afghan away, sat on the couch, and pulled Lizzie onto her lap. Lizzie kept her head bent so Mam couldn’t see her face, but Mam’s soft handkerchief wiped her eyes and nose. Then she just sat and held Lizzie against her chest. Lizzie slowly relaxed and her sobs turned to soft shudders.

  “Lizzie.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Lizzie, they’re done singing that song now.”

  “Oh.” Lizzie wondered how Mam knew what was wrong. Mam must be very kind to be able to know that Lizzie had the blues about that song.

  “Lizzie, it’s only a song. It probably isn’t true,” Mam said.

  “I know,” Lizzie whispered.

  “And Lizzie, not very many girls die when they’re young.”

  “Don’t they?” Lizzie sat up and leaned back to look at Mam’s face, in the dim light from the kitchen.

  “No, Lizzie. You’re not going to die. Every night before Dat and I go to sleep we pray for you and Emma and Mandy and Jason. Okay?”

  Lizzie lay back against Mam’s softness and sighed. That seemed so very safe. If both Dat and Mam prayed, that was a lot, and she was pretty sure God heard them. So He probably took it quite seriously. Mam had shown them a picture of a big angel helping two small children across a bridge, with really scary-looking water tumbling over rocks way down below. So Lizzie guessed Mam prayed like that, so angels would watch out for them. But angels were scary, too. Once, in a story, a man was so afraid of an angel, he fell on his face, so Lizzie knew they weren’t safe, either—not always.