Home on Huckleberry Hill

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  Anna hooked her arm around Jethro’s elbow. “Now, dear, we’ve spent enough time looking at my new bedroom. We don’t want to miss the birthday party. Mary Anne is making her famous rat-a-tat-two-ee. It’s some kind of soup, but you don’t have to worry about a thing because it doesn’t have rats in it. Felty is grilling hamburgers, and Lia made six loaves of honey wheat bread. She even brought raspberry jam. Sarah and her boys cut fruit all afternoon.” She pointed to a huge bowl of watermelon and strawberries sitting on Jethro’s card table.

  Jethro would trust Sarah Beachy with his life, but he had seen the dirt under Pine’s fingernails when he’d handed him the tray with Mary Anne’s birthday present. Jethro wasn’t going to take any risks with that fruit salad. “Looks delicious,” he said. Should he warn Anna?

  “Lily baked three different kinds of cake, and I made a special treat just for Mary Anne.”

  Jethro tried not to look concerned. It usually didn’t turn out well when Anna tried to make something special. “What treat did you make?”

  Anna clapped her hands. “I’ve only partway made it. You hollow out a grapefruit and pour cake batter into the rind, then you wrap the rind in tinfoil and set it in the coals to cook. It’s her own personal vanilla birthday cake with just a hint of grapefruit flavor. She’s going to be so excited.”

  Jethro smiled. It didn’t sound too bad, especially because Anna had used a cake mix. Things usually went awry when she tried to concoct her own recipes.

  Anna patted his arm. “Do you have a birthday present for Mary Anne? You’re not going to make any headway without a birthday present.”

  “Jah, I’ve got one, and she’s going to love it.”

  “Gute. I think I might have thought about giving up on you if you hadn’t brought a present. I can work with thick, but I can’t work with completely oblivious.”

  Jethro followed Anna out from under the canopy, and she immediately led him to the Englischers sitting on the Green Bay Packer chairs. The two women smiled at Jethro as if they already liked him. Maybe they wouldn’t be so friendly if they knew who he was. The man seemed a little more reserved, but not inclined to dislike anybody. “Jethro, this is Alice Swanson and Dennis and Judy VanderSleet from the senior center. They’ve decided to move into the woods with us for a few days.”

  “I brought three of my grandchildren with me,” Alice said, waving her hand in the direction of the campfire. “They wanted an adventure.”

  Jethro tried not to act anything other than happy that more people had moved into the woods, but he’d already swallowed so much pride, his gut was bulging. It was nice that people wanted to support Mary Anne, but it was almost as if they were saying, We’ve decided to camp here because you’re a rotten person. There was only so much humiliation a man could bear.

  Jethro swallowed yet another lump of pride in his throat. “It is wonderful gute to meet you. I’m glad Mary Anne has gute friends. If we get any more campers, we’ll be able to start our own town.”

  Alice laughed, and despite his distress, Jethro immediately liked her. She laughed like she meant it, not just because she was trying to be nice. “You’re not as bad as I thought you’d be, Jethro.”

  Jethro tried to ignore the weight pressing into his chest. Jah. Alice, Dennis and Judy, Sarah Beachy and her sons, Mary Anne’s cousins—they all thought he was a monster.

  Alice leaned to her right so she could see past Jethro. “He’s not so bad, Mary Anne,” she called.

  Jethro turned and caught sight of Mary Anne. Finally. She was tending to five Dutch ovens standing in a row a dozen feet away from the nearest tent and down the slope from the barn—in almost the same place Anna and Felty’s RV used to be. Gray and smoking charcoal briquettes surrounded the Dutch ovens, with several briquettes sitting on top of each lid.

  Mary Anne held a lid lifter in each hand and wore the prettiest blue dress Jethro had ever seen. The color matched her eyes perfectly, and the glow of her smile took his breath away as she glanced at him. “He’s not bad at all. I never said he was.”

  Alice raised an eyebrow. “Then why in the world are you living in a tent?”

  Alice had a point there. But Mary Anne was just being kind. Jethro knew exactly what she thought of him. That she was willing to move into a tent spoke volumes about their relationship. He was hoping to change that. Soon.

  Jethro strode toward Mary Anne, overjoyed just to be in her presence. He could have kicked himself for all the time he’d wasted living in the same house with her and barely even noticing. Six years ago, this beautiful, strong, feisty woman had chosen to share her life with him. If she saw fit to come back to him, he’d never take that sacrifice lightly again.

  And it was a sacrifice, an incredible risk for any woman to put her life in the hands of another, trusting that he would cherish and protect her and give her wings to fly. Jethro now saw her sacrifice for what it was, a sacred trust Gotte had given him. So far, he hadn’t been doing a very gute job of keeping that trust.

  Who was he kidding? He’d failed miserably.

  “Happy Birthday, Mary Anne.”

  Her smile was like balm to a festering wound. “I’m froh you could come to my party.”

  “Denki for inviting me. If you hadn’t, I think I would have been rude and invited myself. I ached all day to see you.”

  Was she blushing? “You always were the worst tease.”

  He raised his hands as if stopping traffic. “No kidding. I had to take two Motrin at lunch.” He stepped over one of the hot Dutch ovens so he could be closer to her. “Can I help?”

  She smiled as if she liked him near. “Give them about ten more minutes and we’ll be ready, then you can help me douse the hot coals. With all die kinner running around, I don’t want anyone to get burned.”

  He wanted her to smile at him like that all the time. It was time to show her the birthday present. “I . . . I got you a gift.”

  Her cheeks turned a darker shade of pink. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “There was nothing I wanted to do more.” He scanned the crowd of cousins for Pine and saw him standing exactly where he had been with the rectangular casserole dish still in his hands. Gute boy. Sarah’s sons were responsible like that. “Pine,” Jethro called, waving his hands to get the boy’s attention.

  Pine looked in Jethro’s direction and raised the dish, as if to show he’d taken care of it just like Jethro had asked. Jethro motioned for Pine to come to him, and Pine nodded and weaved around the groups of cousins blocking his path.

  Jethro couldn’t contain his excitement. “Mamm and Dat and I ate Cheetos until we couldn’t stand it anymore. I took Cheetos to work every day and shared them and gave the rest to Lily and Lia. I think Lia ended up burying most of her share.”

  Mary Anne’s lips curled in amusement. “I didn’t know you liked Cheetos.”

  He grinned. “I love Cheetos. Or I used to. I think if I give myself a year, I’ll be able to bear the taste of them again.” He took Mary Anne’s lid lifters from her hands and set them on the ground, then entwined his fingers with hers. It felt like heaven. “Cum. I’ll show you.”

  They walked around the Dutch ovens and met Pine on the other side. Pine held out the dish for Jethro to take. Jethro took one look and gasped. He coughed. He nearly choked. “Where . . . what happened to the Cheetos?”

  Pine frowned. “There were just a few leftovers in the bottom. I didn’t think you’d mind if I ate them.”

  “You . . . you . . . ach!” Jethro was struck dumb. A whole week of eating crunchy Cheeto after crunchy Cheeto, feeling like his tongue was going to dry up and fall out of his mouth, expecting to give himself a heart attack with all the sodium he’d consumed—not to mention the orange-stained fingers from handling about three thousand Cheetos. On Monday, Jethro’s Englisch friend Randall had asked him if he had jaundice. That stuff wouldn’t completely come off without fingernail polish remover.

  Gone. It was all gone.

  Pine must h
ave guessed he had done something wrong—probably by the look of abject despair on Jethro’s face. He grimaced. “I . . . I’m sorry, Jethro. I thought you needed the pan for dinner. I wanted to do you a favor by eating the leftover Cheetos.”

  Jethro’s knees got wobbly. He sank to the ground and sat cross-legged, as if he’d chosen where he was going to stay for the rest of the party. He very nearly crushed one of Anna’s chickens on the way down, and it squawked and flapped its wings and ran into the woods. For sure and certain there’d be another dead chicken by morning.

  Mary Anne leaned over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay, Jethro?”

  That present would have made Mary Anne fall in love with him again. But he couldn’t very well tell her that. He nodded and forced a pleasant look onto his face. He didn’t want Mary Anne to know how upset he was, but a smile was impossible. He propped his elbows on his knees and sort of cradled his face in his hands.

  Mary Anne took the casserole dish from Pine. “It’s okay, Pine. I think he’s just a little ferhoodled.”

  A lot ferhoodled.

  Pine gave Jethro a look of uncertainty, shrugged his shoulders, and ambled away as quickly as he could while pretending he didn’t have anywhere in particular to go.

  Cradling the empty casserole dish in her arms, Mary Anne sat down next to Jethro in the dirt and nudged him with her elbow. A sympathetic smile played at her lips. “So, Pine ate my birthday present?”

  “It wasn’t his fault. I should have told him not to eat it.”

  “Nobody can resist a Cheeto.”

  He gazed sadly at the dish in Mary Anne’s arms. The only thing left of his present was a piece of paper towel cut perfectly to fit the bottom of the dish. A slight dusting of cheese and oil was the only clue to where each of his special Cheetos had been placed. He wanted to growl like a bear and then crawl in his tent and sleep for a week.

  She tilted her head to meet his eye. “Do you want to tell me about my present?”

  Jethro heaved a great sigh. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It looks like it might have been wunderbarr.”

  Jethro cracked a weak smile. It was a gute sign that she was trying to cheer him up. “Thirty-one bags of Cheetos.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Thirty-one?”

  “You like potato chips shaped like flowers. I thought you might like a collection of shaped Cheetos.”

  She grinned and pointed to the oil spot in the upper right corner of the paper towel. “What was this one shaped like?”

  He rubbed his fingers along the whiskers on his face. “The president of the United States. I found a picture at the library.”

  She pointed to a stain of cheese powder. “And this one?”

  “A giraffe. I almost ate it before looking closely.”

  “A giraffe? That would have been something to see. I found a rock once that looked exactly like a beaver.”

  He touched another oil spot. “This one looked like a rock. And this one was a man with his arms outstretched. It would have made you smile.”

  “It makes me smile just thinking about it.”

  “I found the letters T and S and Y, but the Y also looked like a tree. I thought you would want to decide what it was.”

  “It could have been two things at once.” A bright light glowed behind her eyes. “How long have you been working on this?”

  He couldn’t remember the exact day he’d started, but he could still taste Cheetos every time he brushed his teeth. “A few weeks. The Y was the first one I found. It was in the second bag I opened. I thought it would make you happy.”

  Mary Anne gave him the most dazzling smile he had ever seen, turning him inside out and upside down and rendering him unable to remember his own name. What would that smile have been like if Pine hadn’t eaten the Cheetos? His heart probably would have jumped right out of his chest. “I love it, Jethro. It’s the best birthday present anyone has ever given me.”

  “But Pine ate it before you could see it.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You wanted to make me happy. I can’t believe you spent all that time.” She looked away, as if something by her tent had caught her eye. “And money.”

  He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “I would spend every last dime on Cheetos if that’s what you wanted. Even the flaming hot ones, though my throat was numb for days.”

  She grinned even as her gaze lingered on his hand. “What about Ruffles? They’re my favorite.”

  Jethro chuckled. “Okay, but you have to spend your own money on pork rinds.”

  Mary Anne nodded and giggled at the same time. “Agreed.”

  “You two comfortable?”

  Jethro and Mary Anne looked up. Sarah Beachy stood in front of them with her hands on her hips. She didn’t look all that cheerful.

  “Comfortable enough,” Jethro said. Why was Sarah irritated? If anyone should be irritated it should be Jethro. Sarah’s son had eaten all his Cheetos.

  Sarah huffed out an annoyed breath. “There are forty hungry people waiting on the rata—the rata—the soup, and Mary Anne is playing in the dirt.”

  * * *

  Even though it had been outdoors around a campfire and the air had gotten chilly when the sun went down, it really had been a nice birthday party. Neither of Jethro’s parents nor Willie Jay had said one word to Mary Anne besides “Happy Birthday,” and almost everyone liked the ratatouille. It had too many green things in it for the young ones, but the adults finished off every last bite. Lily had gone home this morning and made three cakes: a German chocolate, a pineapple coconut, and an Oreo cookie cake. Mary Anne had gotten a sliver of each.

  She sat in her camp chair, because Mandy wouldn’t think of letting her do the dishes, and tucked her fluffy blanket around her chin. It was really Jethro’s fluffy blanket, but he had laid it over her lap as soon as the sun had dipped below the horizon.

  Mary Anne gazed into the fire, trying to make sense of her swirling emotions. Flames licked at a single piece of firewood that hadn’t yet crumbled into the glowing coals. Judy and Dennis sat in the chairs across from her, but Alice had gone off to put her grandchildren to bed. Most of the other cousins had gone home or back to their tents. Mandy and Jethro finished up the dishes while Lois, Chris, Willie Jay, and Mary Anne’s grandparents sat around the campfire. They didn’t have any children who needed tending to, and Jethro’s parents seemed determined to outlast Mammi and Dawdi at the party.

  Were they planning to pounce after Mammi and Dawdi went to bed?

  Ach, vell. It had been a nice party. Maybe she should be the one to go to bed first.

  “Now, Mary Anne,” Mammi said, struggling up from her chair. “I secretly made you one more special treat for your birthday.”

  Mary Anne pretended to be enthusiastic, even though she’d already had three pieces of birthday cake and even though Mammi was the one who had made the special treat. It was a challenge just keeping Mammi’s food down in the first place. “You didn’t need to do that. I got three birthday cakes.”

  Mammi beamed like a lantern. “I know. But this is going to be the very best one.” She shuffled to the table and found an oven mitt and the tongs, then went to the fire and pulled a tinfoil package the size of a softball from the coals. “Hold this, dear,” Mammi said. She slid the oven mitt onto Mary Anne’s outstretched hand, unclasped the tongs, and dropped the tinfoil ball into Mary Anne’s oven mitt. It was surprisingly heavy.

  Mary Anne didn’t dare ask what it was. Surely Mammi hadn’t roasted a cow kidney or a soccer ball. Soccer balls were made of leather, which was technically edible. She wouldn’t put it past Mammi to try to cook anything if she had a mind to. “Denki, Mammi.” If she sat there holding it long enough, maybe someone would divert Mammi’s attention, and Mary Anne would be able to get rid of it.

  Of course, this was just wishful thinking. Mammi stood over her, clicking her tongs open and shut and looking as eager as a beaver under a pine tree. “Open it from the top, dear. Pu
ll back the tinfoil, but be careful because I don’t want you to burn your fingers. And don’t turn it upside down. There’s no telling what might happen.”

  Mary Anne didn’t want to guess what might happen, so she cautiously held the bottom of the ball in her oven mitt and peeled back about seven layers of tinfoil. Steam rose from whatever was in there, and she caught the aroma of vanilla and citrus. “It smells delicious, Mammi,” she said. At least that was true.

  Mammi clapped the tongs together like hands. “Ach! I just knew it would turn out. I’m a very experienced cook, but I’ve never made something like this before.”

  Mary Anne finished pulling back the tinfoil to reveal what looked like a grapefruit with batter oozing out of the hole sliced off the top of the rind.

  “It’s called ‘Cake in a Rind,’” Mammi said, beaming from ear to ear. “You mix up some cake batter, hollow out a grapefruit, and pour the batter into the rind. Then you put it in the coals and bake for ten minutes.” She furrowed her brow. “Or did the directions say thirty minutes? Ach, vell, it doesn’t matter now. It seems to be done.”

  Not exactly. The edges were flaky, but batter seeped out of the hole at the top of the grapefruit when Mary Anne gave it a slight squeeze. Nothing like a whole grapefruit full of raw batter to make your stomach want to roll over itself.

  Mary Anne pasted what smile she could onto her mouth. Maybe Mammi would go to bed in her nice new bedroom before Mary Anne ate her special treat. Maybe Mammi wouldn’t care to watch her eat every bite.

  “What a brilliant idea,” Judy said. “Dennis, we need to try that with our grandchildren. They’d love it.”

  “That looks very good,” Lois said. Willie Jay and Chris didn’t seem to have an opinion.

  Dawdi leaned back in his camp chair and stroked his beard. “Annie is the best cook in the world. The king of Mexico hasn’t never eaten hotcakes as good as hers.”

  Mammi pulled her chair closer to Mary Anne’s and sat down. “Take a taste and tell me what you think.”