A Courtship on Huckleberry Hill

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  It felt like a sharp blade pierced Sam’s chest. He flung his bat to the ground and sprinted to the pitcher’s mound. She swayed unsteadily as she put her hand to her forehead. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to sit on the ground. “I’m so sorry. So sorry.”

  She gazed at him with a muddled expression and managed a smile. “If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”

  “Is it broken?”

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t hear anything crack. It hurts, but it doesn’t feel like I-wish-I-were-dead kind of pain.”

  “Here,” he said, nudging her head down so she faced the ground and her nose dripped onto the dirt. He placed his hand on her forehead to hold up her head. “Pinch the bridge of your nose. Do you feel dizzy?”

  “Nae, but everything is spinning.”

  “You’re not funny.”

  She put her hand over the top of his. “Do you think you could go into the school and get some tissues and a cold pack? The tissues are on my desk, and there is a small box of instant cold packs in my bottom drawer.”

  “I hate to leave you alone out here.”

  “I promise not to die while you’re gone.” She grabbed his arm before he pulled away. “If you hurry.”

  “Really, Elsie. You’re not funny.”

  He heard her laughing softly as he ran for the school.

  He went fast. When he came back out, Elsie hadn’t moved a muscle.

  With her head still down, she motioned to the cold pack. “Squeeze it until you hear a crack.” While he did that, she took the handful of tissues he gave her and pressed them against her face. Blood immediately soaked the pile. It was a good thing he’d brought the whole box.

  She held the cold pack against the bridge of her nose with one hand and dabbed at the blood with the tissues in her other hand. Only then did Sam notice her top lip had swollen to twice its size. “Ach. You have a fat lip.”

  She felt along her upper lip with her tongue. “Oh, sis yuscht. Gute thing it’s Friday. The scholars would never be able to understand me with fish lips.”

  Sam felt sick about the whole thing. “What can I do? Do you need some Motrin? Can I rub your shoulders? Or your feet?”

  Elsie slowly raised her head and gave him an encouraging smile. The movement made her wince. “Sam, it’s okay. You do not need to rub my shoulders or my feet.”

  “I’m never playing softball again. First Wally, and now you.”

  She grabbed another handful of tissues from the box. “I’ve had worse. A ball knocked me out cold once. I couldn’t play for a whole year. Did you see my fast reflexes? I could have lost my teeth.”

  “Jah. I’m impressed.”

  “That was a wonderful-gute hit.”

  “Denki. I’m never hitting again,” he said.

  She lifted her head again. “It would be a shame to rob the world of your talent.”

  The look of pity on her face made him grin. “Maybe I’ll just stand in the outfield the rest of my life.”

  She dabbed at her nose. “It stopped bleeding.”

  He couldn’t resist. He traced his thumb along the fine line of her jaw and up her cheek. It felt heavenly. The world stopped turning for a moment as they stared at each other. He was close enough to catch the scent of lavender that floated around her. Lavender and blood. She definitely smelled like blood. “Your face is a mess,” he said.

  She cleared her throat and scooted back a few inches. “Is it my nose? I’ve always been too proud of my nose.”

  “Vell, it’s swollen, but I don’t think there’s any permanent damage. But there’s smeared blood everywhere.” He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket. Thank the good Lord Maggie liked to iron. She always stuck a clean handkerchief in his pants pocket when she folded laundry. “Just a minute.”

  He jogged to the water spigot and got his handkerchief wet, then brought it back to the softball diamond and knelt next to Elsie, who didn’t seem inclined to go anywhere. Slowly, gently, he worked the handkerchief around her face, being careful of her nose and her swollen lip. She held perfectly still with her eyes glued to his as he wiped up the blood as best he could. She hissed only once, when he got too close to her lip, and then he was done. He stuffed the damp handkerchief in his pocket.

  “Denki, Sam, that was very nice of you,” she said, her voice shaking like a match in the wind. She looked down at her apron. The blood didn’t really show, because the apron was black, but it was stiff where blood had fallen. “What I really need is a bath and the washing machine.”

  Sam stood and offered his hand. She hesitated only for a second and then let him pull her to her feet. She seemed a little unsteady, so he put a firm arm around her waist and led her to the school. “Let me take you home.”

  “Ach, Sam, you are wonderful kind, but I have to finish my tree. Each time someone gets a hundred points, they’ll be able to tape a leaf to it. It’s got to be on the wall by Monday.”

  “Can I help? I know about trees. I used to be a lumberjack.”

  She curled one side of her mouth. “Jah, I can see that you did.” With his arm still around her, he helped her into the school and up the stairs. “I would love your help,” she said, “but do you have time? Isn’t there anywhere you need to be?”

  It felt as if someone had dropped a brick on his head. Or hit him in the face with a softball. He did have somewhere he had to be tonight, and it was a secret.

  * * *

  Cobbler Pond was a beautiful spot for a picnic, except at this time of year when the mosquitoes were trying to bite everyone they could before first freeze. Sam pulled to the side of the road where there was ample space for the buggy. Three or four buggies were already parked there. Sam wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone in Bonduel had been invited to the secret picnic.

  “Did everybody get bug spray?” Sam said, turning to his brothers in the back.

  “We got it,” Perry said.

  Danny made a face. “I got some in my mouth.”

  Sam shook his head. “It’s okay. You won’t die.”

  “But I can taste it.”

  “Eat a carrot,” Maggie said. “I brought a whole bag of them.”

  “That won’t help,” Danny whined.

  Anna Helmuth had invited his whole family, and probably every family within ten miles, but Mamm hadn’t felt well enough to come, so it was just the five of them. Sam was already irritated that he even had to be here, but he had told Anna he would come. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t cancel on her twice. It would be rude.

  He wasn’t planning on having a gute time. He wanted to meet the Helmuths’ granddaughter like he wanted a hole in the head.

  The worst part was that if it hadn’t been for this picnic, he could have spent at least another hour with Elsie Stutzman. He’d helped her hang her tree on the wall, and she’d been impressed that he hadn’t even needed a ladder. Elsie had three step stools positioned around the classroom for the times when she needed to reach something on one of the higher shelves. She had told him twice in an hour how much she liked that he was tall.

  She had pulled out her secret case of Diet Coke and given him one of her precious cans. They had laughed about softball and pitching and getting hit in the face and swapped scar and broken bone stories. Elsie had a scar on her ankle from sliding into second base. Sam had broken his collarbone at age eight when he fell out of a tree.

  He’d had a wonderful-gute time with Elsie, but he had been forced to pull himself away to make it to the secret picnic on time.

  He sighed. He was going to have to tell Anna and her granddaughter that he wasn’t interested. He wasn’t looking forward to the conversation, especially since Anna was such a sweet little lady, but it had to be done.

  Sam climbed out of the buggy and sprayed himself with repellent while Maggie and his brothers got out. It always took Wally a little longer with his crutches, but they were all used to it. Maggie cradled her giant bag of baby carrots in her arms. It was her ver
sion of a relish tray. It didn’t matter. Nobody ever ate the celery anyway.

  Sam and his family strolled the short distance to the pond from the road. Several families from the two districts had spread blankets on the ground and were pooling their food on a picnic table under one of the trees. Children ran everywhere as fraas arranged the food on the table and husbands put their heads together to hear the latest gossip.

  Anna was sitting in the center of all the commotion with two knitting needles in her hands. She kept sending him pot holders. She probably had to knit twelve hours a day to keep up. She wore a startling neon green sweater over a plain black dress. Anna was known for wearing unconventional colors, but no one had the heart to tell her that she was flouting the Ordnung. A middle-aged woman sat next to her, also knitting. Was she the granddaughter? Sam expelled a long, weary breath. He hated to hurt Anna’s feelings, but he refused to date anyone more than fifteen years older than he was.

  Anna looked up, caught sight of Sam, and waved as if trying to stop a bus with her arm. She handed her knitting to her possible granddaughter and pushed herself to her feet. It was quite an achievement for an eighty-year-old woman. She tiptoed around all the people sitting on blankets, and Sam held his breath when she nearly toppled over into a plate of deviled eggs. He quickly walked toward her. He had younger legs, and he’d never forgive himself if Anna broke a hip on his account.

  “Sam Sensenig,” she said, clapping her hands and smiling as if he’d just agreed to marry her granddaughter. “You came. I told Felty you were a gute boy and that if you said you would come, you would come.”

  Sam had been sorely tempted to stay at the school with Elsie, but he’d always been as good as his word. His reputation was still intact. He took Anna’s hand in both of his. “Anna, I’m sorry. I have to tell you . . . I know you mean well, and I’m sure your granddaughter is a wonderful-gute girl, but—”

  Anna squeezed his hand, then reached up and gave him a pat on the cheek. It was a long way up. She was as short as Elsie. “Ach, Sam. I have some very bad news. You went to all the trouble to come, and my granddaughter isn’t here. There’s something wrong with her nose.”

  Sam pressed his lips together. Something wrong with her nose like “she has a cold” or something wrong like “it’s as big as a house”?

  Sam didn’t know if relief or disappointment was his greatest emotion. Anna’s knitting partner was not her granddaughter. But Anna would insist that Sam meet her granddaughter sometime. He’d be forced to go to their house for dinner or attend another secret picnic, and he didn’t think he could stand it.

  “Anna, I appreciate that you want me to meet your granddaughter, but—”

  Anna’s eyes sparkled. “Now, Sam, I don’t just want you to meet. I want you to fall in love.”

  Well, at least she wasn’t one to beat around the bush. “I’m sorry, Anna. I’m sure your granddaughter is a gute sort of girl, but I’m not going to fall in love with her, and to be honest, I don’t want to meet her. I don’t have the time or the temper for it.”

  To his consternation, Anna smiled a grandmotherly smile. “Ach, that is one of the things I most like about you. You’re honest to a fault.” She pulled her bright sweater tighter around her. “So tell me. Are you seeing a girl regularly? Do you have a girlfriend?”

  He had no idea why Elsie Stutzman crossed his mind when Anna asked that question. Wally’s teacher was not anyone he wanted to date. She was too—ach, he didn’t know—too short and too . . . skinny. How could he date a girl with no meat on her bones? “I don’t want a girlfriend, Anna. I don’t have the time or the money.”

  Anna waved her hand as if swatting mosquitoes. “Stuff and nonsense. Boys only use that as an excuse. When you meet the right one, you suddenly have all the time in the world. I know Rose Mast has her eye on you”—Anna leaned in and lowered her voice—“she is a wonderful-gute girl but a bit of a whiner. She’s not the one for you.”

  Sam agreed that Rose wasn’t for him, but Anna was mistaken. Sam and Rose were friends. Rose didn’t have her eye on him.

  Anna leaned in even farther. “I didn’t invite Rose to the secret picnic because I don’t want her to be jealous of my granddaughter.”

  Sam gave Anna a half smile. “I don’t think there’s any chance of that.” Only Anna could concoct a scheme where Rose—who wasn’t even interested in Sam—would be jealous of someone he hadn’t even met yet. “Anna, what I’m trying to tell you is that I don’t want to meet your granddaughter. Ever.”

  Anna lost her smile, and the lines around her eyes bunched in on each other. “But you’re perfect for each other, and she wants to get married so badly.”

  Didn’t Anna know that nothing made a boy less interested than a girl who was desperate to marry? “I’m sure there’s some other boy better suited to your granddaughter.”

  Something seemed to shift in Anna’s expression—as if she’d made up her mind and wouldn’t be moved. She patted his arm. “Sam, you’re stubborn, no doubt about it. But I’m stubborn too, and I know a good match when I see one. I’m not giving up.”

  Sam slumped his shoulders. He had no doubt Anna meant what she said.

  What else could he do? He’d been plain with her. He’d just have to hope that the granddaughter would find another boy and get married soon.

  Very soon.

  Maybe he should move to Montana.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sam pulled onto the road with his mule team. Wally, Danny, and Perry were already at the school with some of the other boys, hopefully making progress on unearthing that rock. He feared the whole area might be one big rock shelf and that dislodging it would prove impossible. Not that it mattered. Besides softball, rock excavating was the first project Wally had shown any enthusiasm for in years, and Sam would go as far as humanly possible to get that rock out of the softball diamond.

  He got the team moving just as he saw Rose strolling up the road toward him. She waved to him and called out in her high-pitched voice, “Yoo-hoo!”

  He pulled back on the reins and stopped the wagon. “Hallo, Rose.”

  “Looks like you’re going somewhere important this morning.”

  “Wally and some of the other boys are smoothing out the softball field at the school. They’ve come across a rock they want me to pull out.”

  “Must be a big rock.”

  “I don’t wonder that it is.”

  Rose rested her hand on the lip of the wagon. “What do they need to smooth out the diamond for? I thought you weren’t going to make Wally play softball anymore. What did the teacher say when you talked to her at the singing? I hope you put her in her place.”

  Sam frowned. He shouldn’t have been so vocal in his dislike for the new teacher. He’d been wrong about her, and Rose’s ill feelings for Elsie were all his doing. “I . . . she . . . plain and simple, Rose, I was wrong. She is trying to help Wally. I just didn’t understand her.”

  Rose’s eyelid twitched. “So you understand her now?”

  “Better than I did.”

  Rose looked around as if to make sure no one was listening in on their conversation. “I’m afraid you’ve been fooled, Sam. That teacher can’t control her class, and the children are getting hurt because of it.”

  Sam furrowed his brow. “Who’s getting hurt?”

  Rose lowered her eyes and clasped her hands together. “I would never want to hurt your feelings and I know you’re nothing like your bruder, but Lizzy says that Wally has been bullying some of the little boys into giving him their money. She says the teacher doesn’t even notice. What kind of a teacher can’t even see when her students get picked on?” Rose gazed at Sam, her eyes full of sympathy. “I want you to know with all my heart that I don’t blame Wally. He’s just a little boy who needs some discipline and guidance. I blame that teacher for not protecting her students and for not teaching Wally the difference between right and wrong. You were right the first time. She is unfit to teach.”

  Sa
m secured the reins and slipped down from the wagon. Rose was a little too sure about the teacher, and he needed to make her understand, especially since Sam had been the one to set Rose against Elsie in the first place.

  When he jumped down, Rose bloomed into a smile. Was it his imagination, or did she sidle closer? Sam swallowed a mouthful of dread. Anna had said that Rose had her eye on him, but that was when they were children. That crush had died over a decade ago.

  “Rose, it’s my fault that you don’t like the new teacher, and I need to apologize. The new teacher and I had a talk.”

  “I know. I saw you.”

  “She knows that Wally is taking money from the other kids.”

  Rose raised her eyebrows. “And she lets him get away with it?”

  “She wants Wally to decide to quit on his own. If she forces him to stop, he’ll never learn anything. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “That doesn’t make sense at all. She should give him the ruler.” Rose seemed to remember who she was talking to and lowered her eyes. “I mean, you don’t want your bruder to steal people’s money, do you?”

  “Nae. I want him to have a change of heart. Elsie thinks she can help him.”

  Rose narrowed her eyes. “It’s not right to call the teacher by her first name.”

  “Okay. Miss Stutzman, then. She has a plan for Wally.”

  “Oh,” Rose said, drawing out the word as if Sam had just said something very important. “She has a plan. I can’t believe you trust her after all she’s done to Wally.”

  Sam tried not to get irritated. Rose hadn’t been there when Elsie and Sam had talked. She didn’t understand what Elsie—Miss Stutzman—was trying to do for Wally.

  Rose shaped her lips into a pout. It was her least attractive look. “All the boys in the gmay are ferhoodled. They wouldn’t be if they knew that she lets Wally bully the children at school.”

  Sam bit his tongue and gave Rose a brotherly smile. “You could ferhoodle all the boys if you paid attention to them. You’re a wonderful pretty girl, Rose, but you don’t give the boys any encouragement.”