Home on Huckleberry Hill

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  Mammi answered for her. “Ach, our hammock twisted itself into a knot with Felty and me inside it. I’ll never eat a taco again. Or a burrito.”

  Alice’s laughter filled the entire space. “I prefer enchiladas.”

  “We’ve slept in Jethro’s house for two nights, but it doesn’t seem right,” Mammi said. “We should be out camping with Mary Anne. True solidarity means sharing the misery.”

  “I think we’re wonderful miserable in Jethro’s bed,” Dawdi said. “The sheets are itchy. I don’t see any reason to move out. We’ve got our share of tribulation.”

  A scold pulled at Mammi’s mouth. “Now, Felty. Suffering for Mary Anne’s sake is a sign of our love. We don’t want Mary Anne to think we don’t love her.”

  Mary Anne smiled. “I know you love me, Mammi. It’s better for you to sleep in the house. It’s not that far from my tent.”

  Mammi squared her shoulders. “I wouldn’t hear of it. I’m determined to make myself miserable for your happiness. That’s what grandparents are for.”

  “Why were you sleeping in a hammock?” Judy said.

  Mammi snipped the end of her yarn. “There aren’t enough tents. And now that Lia has moved out to the woods with us, we can’t borrow Moses’s tent. Emma and Ben set up a tent yesterday too.” Mammi looked up at Mary Anne from across the room and grinned. “All this solidarity warms my heart.”

  Mary Anne tried to smile back. She was happy for the company and even more grateful for the support, but she hated that her relatives were living in tents when they could have been sleeping in comfortable beds and using their own private toilets. They were putting up with a lot of misery, as Mammi said, for Mary Anne. And in some ways—though she hated to admit it to herself—it was like a slap in the face to Jethro every time someone new set up a tent in the woods. She might not love Jethro anymore, but she didn’t especially like to see him humiliated—not that the cousins were out to purposefully humiliate Jethro, but Mary Anne felt it keenly all the same.

  She tightened her fingers around the palette. Why should she feel guilty? He’d practically ignored her for four years. He’d taken down her campsite and put locks on all the doors. He only had himself to blame for stirring up the wrath of the Helmuths.

  A quiet sigh escaped her lips. Mary Anne just wanted Jethro to go on with his life and be happy. If only she could make him understand. It wouldn’t do any gute for him to move into the woods or even try to be nice to her. She wanted to live her own life. She wanted to draw farm scenes on her walls and collect rocks. She wanted to make baby quilts and paint butterflies, buy expensive cheeses and experiment with strange recipes. Maybe she was more like Mammi than she imagined. Mary Anne wanted to create, and she couldn’t do it with Jethro’s disapproving eye always on her.

  She got a little carried away with the black, and before she knew it, she’d painted several black-red slashes across the bottom of the apple. That would never do. She mixed her colors again and painted over the dark.

  “We have a tent you can use,” Judy said, reaching for the scissors Mammi had just put down. “Don’t we, Dennis?”

  “We do,” Dennis said. “We haven’t used it for ten years, but I don’t think it has any holes in it.”

  Mammi bloomed like a morning glory in the sun. “You do? Well, that’s wonderful gute, Felty. We can move back into the woods tonight.”

  Dawdi heaved a sigh, for sure and certain missing Jethro’s bed already. Was it any wonder his apple looked like red, lumpy banana? “Wonderful gute. With all the suffering we’re going to do, Mary Anne will surely be the happiest girl in Wisconsin.”

  Mammi nodded her approval. “She will.”

  Bob Hennig glanced up from his painting. In forest green paint, he had written “Green Bay Still Life” across the top of his canvas, and his mug was so big, there wasn’t going to be any room for an apple. He’d definitely need a lesson about size and following directions. “You could use my RV.”

  Dawdi perked up like a horse on a bag of oats. “Your RV?”

  “I take it on fishing trips with my son, but I’m not going anywhere for a couple of weeks. Is there a road into Mary Anne’s woods? I could park it right there and you could sleep in it. It has a toilet and a shower too.”

  Mammi frowned. “Well, Bob. That’s wonderful kind of you.”

  “Wonderful kind,” Dawdi said.

  “But we can’t accept,” Mammi added. “It doesn’t seem fair to live in an RV while die youngie suffer in tents. It’s not real camping, and I can’t see that it’s in keeping with the spirit of solidarity.”

  “Nine million people own RVs,” Bob said. “You can’t tell them it’s not real camping. They’d get offended.”

  Dawdi abandoned his painting altogether and dragged his chair across the room next to Mammi’s. “He could park it right next to Mary Anne’s tent, and we could still do all our cooking outside. Wouldn’t it be nice not to have to hike to the barn to go to the bathroom?”

  Mammi drew her brows together and nibbled on her bottom lip. “But what about the suffering, Felty?”

  Alice chimed in. It was probably obvious to everyone that an eighty-five-year-old woman might end up in a body cast if she camped out much longer. “You’ll suffer plenty, Anna. RV toilets are disgusting, and it can get pretty stuffy in there at night. Plus, you won’t be able to hear the crickets to lull you to sleep. It’s a little crowded in an RV. You and Felty will do a lot of bumping into each other.”

  Dawdi nodded, as if resigned to sleeping in the RV. “It’s going to be miserable.”

  “You won’t have to set up another tent,” Judy said.

  “An RV’s not likely to get blown away in the wind.”

  Concern lined Mammi’s face. “We had a tornado once at the school. In an RV we might get knocked about a bit in a tornado.”

  “That’s plenty of suffering for me, Mammi,” Mary Anne said. “I’ll never doubt your love, even if you sleep in the RV.”

  Mammi’s expression relaxed. “I suppose it would be okay if we slept in Bob’s RV as long as we cook over the fire.”

  “Of course,” Dawdi said, slapping his knee. “I love your tinfoil dinners, Banannie.”

  “What would you think if I came camping for a few days?” Alice said. “It sounds like you’ve got quite a party going on over there.”

  Mammi nodded vigorously. “You’d be welcome.”

  “My grandkids tell me we never do anything fun,” Alice said. “I’ll bring them with me.”

  Mammi smiled. “Mary Anne needs all the solidarity she can get.”

  Mary Anne chuckled. She liked the solidarity for sure and certain, but she’d have to start sending people to the house to use the bathroom. It was gute Mammi and Dawdi now had their own toilet. That would help.

  That toilet in the barn probably couldn’t take all those extra flushes.

  * * *

  Jethro set his fishing pole on the bed and stowed his tackle box in the closet. He might be sleeping in a tent, but he was keeping his fishing pole in the house. He didn’t want it to get ruined out in the woods. Besides, neither of the beds in the house were being used. He might as well spread out the contents of his tackle box too for all the good it would do him.

  His heart skipped around like a wild colt, and he felt almost giddy with excitement. It was an emotion he hadn’t felt in a long time, not even when he had bought his fishing pole. He’d caught two fat trout in the river, and he was going to give them to Mary Anne. He couldn’t wait to see her face light up when she saw the size of them. She could eat fish for three whole days, even if she shared some with Anna and Felty. Jethro didn’t even expect her to cook any for him. He wanted her to have both fish all to herself. For sure and certain she’d be happy at the money she would save on fish from the grocery store.

  Two trout, no matter how plump, probably weren’t going to make Mary Anne fall in love with him again immediately, but he hoped they would soften her up a little. When they were court
ing, he would bring her asparagus from the field by the ditch and goat cheese from the dairy. Anna and Felty had even let him pick berries from their huckleberry patch to give to Mary Anne. She liked making huckleberry pie.

  Jethro loved the way Mary Anne’s eyes used to dance whenever he came into a room. With her golden hair and shocking blue eyes, she looked like an angel when she smiled, and he loved how her face bloomed into freckles whenever she spent too much time in the sun. He used to tease her that he wanted to kiss those freckles one by one. His toes curled inside his boots. Maybe she’d let him do that kissing thing if she really liked the fish. He cleared his throat. Mustn’t get his hopes up, even with a pair of trout in his hands.

  Jethro walked out the back door in the muted light of the approaching sunset and looked toward the woods. Mary Anne’s tent was the easiest to spot, with the bold, bright butterflies painted on the outside. Even though she’d ruined his tent, he liked that she was painting again. After she’d lost the baby, painting seemed to make her sad, and Jethro had advised her to quit. There was no use dredging up all those bad feelings.

  Jethro looked to his left and nearly dropped his precious fish. If he’d been chewing gum, he would have swallowed it. A shiny white monster of an RV was parked on the dirt path that led to his barn. It was a newer model, and Jethro didn’t doubt that that thing had cost more than his house. But the RV wasn’t the only addition to their already crowded campsite. At least seven new tents had sprung up like toadstools under the trees. For three days, there hadn’t been one tent within fifty yards of Jethro’s. Now there were five. He had no idea what to make of it. Not only were there five tents near his, but a Porta-Potty stood in the midst of them like a shepherd keeping watch over his flock.

  He tucked the paper bag containing the fish under his arm. He’d have to get to the bottom of the growing population of tents before giving his fish to Mary Anne. And who had brought a Porta-Potty?

  Jethro marched to his tent, unzipped the flap, and stuck his head inside. No one in here. Okay. At least he still had a place to sleep. He rezipped his tent and studied the tent right next to his. It looked familiar. “Hallo?” he said.

  Someone unzipped the flap from the inside, and Jethro’s mamm and dat crawled out of the tent. Mamm pinched her lips as if she had a sour stomach, and Dat didn’t look much better. It was plain they were both in wonderful bad moods. “So,” Mamm said. “You finally decided to come home. Where have you been? Anna says you get home at five o’clock every day. It’s almost seven.”

  Jethro held out the paper bag but didn’t open it, even though those fish were something to be proud of. “I went fishing with my friend Randall.”

  Mamm narrowed her eyes. “Your Englisch friend?”

  Jethro gritted his teeth. It wasn’t against the rules to have Englisch friends. Why was she so testy? “He has a nice truck,” was all he could think to say. Jethro glanced at the olive-green tent he and Dat had taken on many a camping trip when Jethro was a boy. “What are you doing here?” He suspected he wasn’t going to like the answer.

  Mamm folded her arms across her chest. “The better question is, what are you doing here?”

  “I live here.”

  “Not in this tent you don’t,” Mamm said. She had the uncanny ability to make any sentence sound like an accusation. “We’d heard you’d moved out to the woods, and we were shocked. I told Chris, ‘Jethro hasn’t done anything wrong. Why would he have moved into a tent?’”

  Jethro hadn’t wanted his parents to find out he was living in the woods. They were furious with Mary Anne. How would they ever understand? “I’m not going to sit in my comfortable house while my fraa lives in a tent.”

  Mamm opened her mouth to argue and promptly closed it again. She seemed to be digesting his words. “I suppose that’s quite thoughtful of you.” She paused, and a line appeared between her brows. “But the tent was her choice, not yours.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Until she moves back home, I’m staying here.”

  “You don’t have to pay for her mistakes,” Dat said. “If she’s wicked enough to leave her husband, she should suffer the consequences alone. This isn’t your fault.”

  “Maybe it is.” Jethro slumped his shoulders. It was probably more his fault than he wanted to admit.

  Dat pointed to Mary Anne’s side of the camp, where two new tents had appeared since last night. There were six tents in all, plus the giant RV, which could probably house a dozen people. “Mary Anne’s relatives are supporting this nonsense—as if they hope to prove Mary Anne is right and you’re wrong. I sincerely hope one of them doesn’t die while camping and go straight to hell for their wicked ways.”

  “It’s not as bad as all that, Chris,” Mamm said. “Mary Anne has done wrong. We’re here to help her see there’s a right way to treat her husband and a wrong way. I can’t see that she’s going to hell just yet. There’s still time for repentance.”

  Dat hooked his thumbs around his suspenders. “But the Helmuths need to know they can’t get away with supporting sin. They’re standing by a woman who’s left her husband. We’ve come to show the Helmuths there are still people who believe in righteousness. We aren’t afraid to stand up to evil, and neither are the rest of the men who came with us. They’re going to see we won’t turn a blind eye to such behavior. When the fraaen understand how their husbands feel about wives moving out of their homes, they’ll learn a valuable lesson.”

  Jethro shuffled his feet. “Maybe the Helmuths just want to show they love Mary Anne.” He couldn’t blame them. He loved her too.

  Mamm seemed to dig in her heels without moving. “Well, then. We love you just as much as they love Mary Anne. They need to see you have allies.”

  Mary Anne wouldn’t like it. She hadn’t liked it when he’d moved into the woods, but Mamm might have a point. Jethro didn’t agree with Dat that Mary Anne was sinful, but when she saw him camping all by himself, did she think it proved he was wrong and she was right? Did she believe that because no one had come to support him, everyone agreed with her?

  Jethro eyed the other tents. “Who else is here?”

  Dat pointed to the tents standing in a circle around the Porta-Potty. “David Eicher, even though he’s wonderful busy being a minister. Norman Coblenz, Adam Wengerd, and Willie Jay. He came all the way from Appleton because he’s so upset about what Mary Anne did to you.”

  Mamm nodded. “Naoma was very understanding. She’s taking up Willie Jay’s chores because she knows how important this is to all of us.”

  Jethro furrowed his brow. Willie Jay had talked him into tearing down Mary Anne’s camp. Mary Anne wouldn’t have asked for a divorce if it hadn’t been for Willie Jay. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe their being here would make things worse. Then again, how much worse could they get? He’d be foolish to turn away friends who only wanted to support him.

  Dat patted the wall of the Porta-Potty. “We all pitched in, and David rented this. He thought it would be better if we didn’t share a bathroom with the enemy.” He glanced at Mamm, then Jethro, and cleared his throat. “I mean, no one is the enemy. We’re all here to help Mary Anne.”

  Jethro wasn’t sure about a lot of things, but he was sure Mamm and Dat and the others weren’t here to help Mary Anne. It would be okay as long as they stayed away from her and left Jethro to court her on his own. He didn’t point out that the Porta-Potty had no shower. They were all going to stink something wonderful. Well, Mamm and Dat were going to stink. Jethro planned on showering in the house. He couldn’t make Mary Anne fall in love with him if he smelled like a skunk.

  “Where’s David? And what about Willie Jay?”

  Mamm brushed her hand down her apron. “Norman and Adam went home to eat dinner. David and Willie Jay went to the market to get food. I’ve agreed to cook for all of us.”

  Jethro nodded, his stomach already tying itself into a knot. He’d eaten nothing but cold cereal and McDonald’s for several days. He was suddenly overjoyed tha
t Mamm and Dat had decided to come camping.

  Mamm took a look around and heaved a great sigh. “I hope Mary Anne comes to her senses soon. I don’t think I can stand to be here for more than a week.”

  Dat patted Mamm on the shoulder. “It won’t be long, now that we’re here. Lord willing, you’ll help her see a better way.”

  Jethro didn’t want to discourage them, but Mary Anne wasn’t going to budge in a week. Of course, he might be underestimating the power of his gift. Who could resist two fine trout from the Wolf River? He held out the bag to show Mamm and Dat. “I caught some fish.”

  “Wonderful gute,” Mamm said. “I’ll fry them up for dinner.”

  “I thought I’d give them to Mary Anne.”

  Mamm frowned. “Okay, then. They’ll remind her what a gute provider you are.”

  “She always liked it when I brought home fish. I’m hoping it might make her remember some of the happy times we had.”

  “If she has any goodness left in her, she’ll be touched,” Dat said.

  Jethro showed his parents a gute place to build a fire and pointed out where they could collect firewood. “If I’m not back in ten minutes,” he said, “it’s because Mary Anne has invited me to eat with her.”

  Mamm grinned. “No one can resist that smile of yours. We won’t wait.”

  Jethro straightened his jacket around his shoulders and headed for Mary Anne’s tent. It was a little late, and there was the risk she’d already eaten dinner, but it couldn’t be helped. He hadn’t gotten off work until five, and catching the fish had taken almost an hour. If she’d already eaten, she could put the fish in her cooler and cook them up tomorrow. That might be even better. She’d probably invite him to dinner if she had a little more time to prepare.

  As he got nearer her tent, Jethro could hear the sewing machine humming inside. Mary Anne never spent one moment in idleness. The coals in the fire pit were still warm, but it was obvious she’d already cooked dinner and cleaned up after herself. Sometimes she ate with Mammi and Dawdi, sometimes with the cousins, but never with him. Maybe his fish would change all that.