That was all behind him now. John King had seen to that. Would Reuben ever be able to smile again?
He shifted his weight on the bench to get comfortable, if that was possible tightly sandwiched between two young men he didn’t know. Should he try to make friends with them, or would they prove as disappointing as John had?
More than anything else, Reuben wanted to be liked again. He wanted people to admire him, respect him. And he didn’t want to be laughed at. Was there any hope of that in Bonduel?
Although Mammi and Dawdi’s house had a nice big room—as did many Amish homes—specifically for the purpose of holding church services, the space was still filled to overflowing. Each home in the district took a turn hosting the gmayna, and Mammi and Dawdi held church here every six months or so. Reuben had helped them clear the sofa and Dawdi’s recliner from the room and had helped the men set up benches last night. The table had been pushed to the side and the kitchen chairs had been lined up along the wall to make room for benches. The front door was open, and some of the men sat on Mammi’s porch, craning their necks to see into the house. It wasn’t even sixty degrees, but no one seemed to mind the cold. Wisconsin springs were no match for hardy Amish folks.
After Reuben had raked the yard clean yesterday, he had helped Mammi sweep and mop her formidable wood floor and cleaned the toilets until they sparkled. Mammi had been impressed with Reuben’s toilets. If there was one thing his mamm had taught him, it was how to use a toilet scrubber.
The Vorsinger started them on the fourth verse of “Das Loblied,” and Reuben glanced up from the Ausbund. The girls and women were sitting on the neatly lined up benches directly across from him.
A girl on the end of one of the benches leaned sideways so Reuben could see her face from behind the girl sitting in front of her. He caught his breath. She smiled as if her being there was the most natural thing in the world. His heart galloped so fast, his lungs couldn’t keep up.
He stared at her breathlessly until she winked at him, and then he thought he might burst into flames.
What was she doing here?
Fern King, John’s pesky little sister, was sitting in Anna and Felty’s great room as if she had a right to be there. As if her brother hadn’t betrayed Reuben a mere three months ago. As if she lived just down the road instead of hundreds of miles away.
If Reuben had been at anyone else’s house, he would have stood up, stormed out of church, and marched home. Instead, he was forced to sit there—his throat on fire, his jaw clenched so tightly his teeth were likely to crack—while Fern eyed him with that smug smile she always wore, as if Reuben were someone she barely put up with. Ach! She was fully aware that Reuben had been putting up with John’s baby sister ever since she had been old enough to tag after him.
“Rube! Wait for me. I want to come.”
“John, Mamm says you have to let me play with you.”
“I want to shoot the BB gun too. Dat says to give me a turn.”
He scowled at her, which only made her smile wider. If she had come to gloat, she’d be sorely disappointed. Reuben didn’t plan on giving her the time of day, let alone a chance to exult over him in his grandparents’ own home. He still had some pride left.
He refused to glance in her direction for the rest of the service, but she might as well have been the only person in the room. Until gmay ended, he could think on nothing else but Fern and her aggravating smile. He barely registered the sermon about the Golden Rule. He couldn’t even remember singing the last hymn. His anger was so thick, he could have chewed on it.
Finally the service ended, and the women congregated around the counter and the kitchen table, readying food for the fellowship supper. The men carried the benches outside and assembled some of them into tables. Throwing on his jacket, Reuben didn’t waste time lollygagging inside. He had no intention of being cornered by Fern King. If she’d come all the way to Wisconsin to scold him, he wasn’t going to give her a chance to say anything.
An older man with a graying beard took the other side of Reuben’s bench, and they lifted it together on top of another bench to form a table. “Reuben Helmuth, isn’t it?”
“Jah.”
“I’m Menno Glick. I knew your dat before he married and moved to Ohio. How is he?”
“He’s in very gute health. Hasn’t spent a day of his life in the hospital,” Reuben said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fern amble onto the porch and lean on the railing. She was waiting to pounce. He could see it in her eyes. Reuben turned his face from her, wanting to growl like a bear and scare her away.
Unfortunately, Fern wasn’t the type to spook easily.
“Your dat is like Felty, hardly sick a day in his life, except when he wore out his knees.”
Keeping an eye on Fern, Reuben made himself extremely busy with the benches. She didn’t spook easily, and she was persistent. She’d once camped out all night at the entrance to Reuben and John’s secret hideout just so they’d let her in.
He picked up a bench and carried it around to the side of the house, out of Fern’s line of sight. After setting the bench down, he jogged into the trees and made a run for the barn. He could hole up there until the fellowship supper was over.
Once he reached the barn, he realized it was a deerich, foolish plan. The barn was the first place Fern would look for him. He circled around the barn and took the back way to the trail that led to Mammi and Dawdi’s huckleberry patch, almost a two-mile walk from the house. Fern wouldn’t be able to find him.
He picked his way over the muddy trail. There were still patches of dirty snow surviving in the shade of the tall maples. In the shade, the air was as crisp as a Granny Smith apple. He was glad he’d brought a jacket.
Reuben had fond memories of picking huckleberries on Huckleberry Hill. On picking days, they would hike to the huckleberry patch, each carrying a bucket and a thermos of water. Dawdi would fill his pocket with raisins, and Reuben would stuff his mouth alternately with raisins and huckleberries. Mamm had frequently scolded him for eating a good portion of the huckleberry harvest, but Mammi had never minded. The berries were for eating, she always said. After picking, they’d have a picnic under the canopy of trees, then head for home, where Aendi Diana would make enough huckleberry pies for the whole family.
The huckleberry bushes were beginning to bud with their creamy white, bulbous flowers that looked to Reuben like tiny, upside-down butterkin squash.
This was a place where Reuben could forget about his humiliation for a little while. Maybe this was a place where he could heal.
Or maybe not.
He heard muffled footsteps and knew immediately who was coming down the trail. With a stifled groan, he turned and watched as Fern strolled toward him with that irritating smile on her face, heedless of the mud puddles or the obstacles on the path. And the foolish girl hadn’t even worn a shawl. Sure as rain, she was going to catch cold.
Unlike John’s carrot top, Fern’s hair was a deep auburn, like maple leaves in late autumn. Her hair brought out the reddish flecks in her brown eyes and the abundance of freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. He had once considered her pretty—even though she was John’s kid sister—but now that Reuben disliked her brother so much, he couldn’t be objective about Fern’s looks. She was too much like her brother, and her brother was a horrible friend.
He gave up trying to escape and folded his arms across his chest, waiting silently for her approach as he glared in her direction.
At the end of the trail, she stopped to catch her breath, letting her gaze travel over the huckleberry patch. “Beautiful,” she said, her eyes dancing with amusement. “I’ve always been a faster runner than you. It’s useless to run away.”
“You might as well turn around and go back the way you came. I won’t talk to you.”
She held a slice of bread in each hand. One was topped with cheese spread, the other with peanut butter. “Which one do you want?”
Wasn’t it jus
t like her to pretend nothing was wrong, to pretend that her brother hadn’t stolen his girlfriend. “I don’t want either.”
She held out the slice with peanut butter spread on it. “I snuck a taste of the peanut butter. It’s very gute. Extra sweet.” When he didn’t reply, she took a step toward him and raised the bread closer to his face. “Cum, Reuben. If you’re going to yell at me, you should at least eat something to give you the energy for it.” Her chin trembled, and he could see a flock of goose bumps on her arms.
Reuben shrugged the jacket off his shoulders and draped it over Fern’s arm. “Put this on and go back to the house. Give it to my mammi when you leave.”
She tilted her head and lifted both hands. “I can’t put it on. My hands are full.”
Oh, sis yuscht, that girl knew how to get on his nerves. He took both slices of bread from her, and she flashed a self-satisfied grin before sliding her arms into his jacket, which was way too big. She pressed the fabric close to her nose and breathed in. “You smell like cedarwood.”
He and Fern had spent too much time together over the years. She could probably identify forty essential oils by their smell. He would have been impressed if he weren’t so irritated. He tried to give back her slices of bread, but she slipped her hands behind her back. “They’re all yours.”
While he didn’t want her to think she’d won any sort of victory, he really was hungry after three hours of sermons and songs and prayers. He took a bite of the peanut butter slice and then the cheesy one. Her smile only got wider. Leave it to Fern King to think she’d beaten him.
It was hard to frown and chew at the same time, but that didn’t stop him from trying. “You’re not welcome here, Fern. You can gloat just as easily from Sugarcreek as you can from Bonduel yet.”
“Why would I gloat?”
“Because your brother got the girl I love.”
Her smile disappeared as she took another step forward. He took a step back. “For sure and certain, Reuben, I feel terrible about what happened. I came to see if there was anything I could do to make it up to you.”
He took another step away from her. “How did you know I was here? I only told my mamm and dat where I was going.”
“I pried it out of your mamm three days ago. She’s worried about you. As soon as she told me where you’d gone, I hitched a ride with a funeral van headed to Appleton. I had to see if I could help.”
Reuben very nearly snorted. “I’m fine, and it’s none of your business.”
She reached out to . . . he didn’t know what she reached out to do. Touch him? He wouldn’t allow that. He’d stepped away from her so many times, he was practically strolling backward. She dropped her hand to her side, and the sleeve of his jacket immediately swallowed it. “I know how bad it must have hurt, and I’m sorry, that’s all.”
“You’re feeling sorry for me? Don’t make me laugh.”
She looked him up and down as if he were a tree she was planning to chop down. Then she grinned. “Still as stuck-up as ever, I see.”
Fern loved to insult him by telling him how stuck-up she thought he was. As if he cared about her opinion. “Just because I won’t trip all over myself to lick the dust—or the pig manure—off John’s boots doesn’t mean I’m a snob. It wonders me why I ever let him be my friend.”
Fern seemed to be laughing at him with her eyes. “You wanted some admirers from among the poor of Sugarcreek.”
Reuben narrowed his eyes. “I don’t care how much money your dat makes.”
“Ach, but you do, Reuben Helmuth. John is a wonderful-convenient friend. You can always feel superior to him because your family is wealthy, and ours is poor.”
Reuben couldn’t even begin to defend himself against that accusation. His family was rich. So what? It wasn’t his fault Fern was ashamed to be poor. “Maybe John made friends with me so he could steal my girlfriend.”
Fern arched an eyebrow. “You two have been friends almost since the moment you could talk. I doubt there was a secret plan to steal Linda Sue at the age of two.”
“At least you admit he stole her.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” she said.
“Go ahead and mock me. Better yet, go back to Sugarcreek and join the whole community in mocking me. That should make you happy.”
Fern smiled and huffed out a breath. “I don’t rejoice in your pain, Reuben. I am very sorry about the way things turned out, but you don’t know the whole story. Linda Sue was very unhappy. Go back to Sugarcreek and talk to them.”
“I never want to lay eyes on John again. Don’t you think I’ve been humiliated enough for a lifetime?”
Fern shook her head as if he were a lost cause. “Can’t you find it in your hard heart to forgive them?”
He ground his teeth together. “If you hate me so much, why are you here?”
She surged forward, and before he could react, she wrapped her fingers around one of his suspenders. “Because I don’t hate you, you silly goose. You may be arrogant and selfish and prone to hold a grudge, but you’re like a big brother to me.”
He backed away again, and his suspender slapped him in the chest when she let go. “You don’t make me sound like a very nice big brother.”
Fern giggled. He pulled his frown deeper into his face. She truly enjoyed poking fun at him. “You are the nicest, Reuben. You have many faults, but I care about you, and I know you care about me.”
“I don’t care one whit about you.”
“Aren’t you the boy who pulled my buggy out of the mud and helped me wash it before Dat could find out? Aren’t you the boy who put more than one Band-Aid on my knees over the years?” She snatched one of his slices of bread and took a bite. “I tagged after you and John like a hungry mosquito, but you were still willing to teach me how to ice-skate. You held my hand on the ice, Reuben. I had a wonderful-serious six-year-old crush on you.” Her brown eyes got sort of soft, like chocolate tapioca pudding. “I don’t want you to be sad. You tell me how I can make it better, and I’ll do it. You just have to ask.”
Reuben looked away and stared at a very interesting tree branch to his right. “You’re John King’s sister. There’s nothing you can do but make it worse.”
“Jesus said to forgive seventy times seven. You need to forgive my brother.”
“Like that,” Reuben said, snapping his attention back to Fern. “You make it worse like that. You have no right to preach to me when your own brother betrayed his best friend. Go home and remind him of his own sins, and leave mine out of it.”
“Believe me, John feels very bad about how he handled things between you, but you left him no choice.”
“Go ahead and make it out to be my fault. That’s what John and Linda Sue did.”
Fern growled in exasperation. “I didn’t mean it that way. You, Reuben Helmuth, need to quit lying to yourself and try to see things clearly.”
“For someone who says she cares about me, you seem to have kept a very long list of my faults. I don’t need your sermon.” Reuben turned his back on Fern and marched down the trail toward Mammi and Dawdi’s house, completely disgusted with himself. He’d promised himself he wasn’t going to say a word, and he’d done at least half the talking. He should have given Fern nothing but his silence. She was John’s sister. He didn’t owe her anything.
He could hear her following him along the path and picked up his pace. Fern might be a fast walker but his legs were longer, and he’d rather get his fingers caught in the wringer washer than let her catch up to him.
He strode out of the woods, across the lawn, and up the porch steps. Inside the house, he waited at the window, gazing at the trail that led into the forest to make sure Fern made it back safely. With his jacket. Maybe he just wanted to make sure his jacket made it home okay.
It only took a minute of waiting until he saw her emerge from among the trees. She glanced around her, took the front flaps of his jacket in both her fists, and buried her nose in the soft fleece lining at
the neck. She must have really liked the smell of cedarwood.
Either that, or she was blowing her nose on his jacket.
She could be irritating like that.
Chapter Five
Fern King knelt beside her rickety bicycle, gasping in pain and chastising herself for being so impatient. A long, crooked gash zigzagged along her ankle, and blood trickled cheerfully down her foot and into the dirt. Oh, sis yuscht. It was going to smart for days. If she had been wearing shoes, her foot wouldn’t have slipped and she wouldn’t have scraped her ankle against the pedal, but shoes cost money and she never wore them if she could possibly help it. She had her pair for church and another sensible black pair that she wore during the winter. They lasted longer if she went barefoot all summer long.
Of course, no one could claim that it was summer yet, but it seemed wasteful to wear her shoes on a fine April day like this. Unfortunately, she hadn’t anticipated having to wrestle her bicycle up Huckleberry Hill.
Gingerly putting weight on her foot, Fern stood and retrieved the bottle of water Wally Schmucker had given her this morning. Fern had only been in Bonduel two days, but it was plain that Wally had to tiptoe around his wife something wonderful. But he also had a kind heart and didn’t want Fern to go thirsty, not when she hadn’t had a chance to get to the store for her own groceries. Fern had been grateful for anything Wally was willing to lend her, including his old bike.
She opened the bottle that Wally had sneaked out of the house and poured a generous amount of water over her bleeding ankle. It rinsed away the old blood, but new blood immediately rushed in to take its place. Ach, vell. It would stop bleeding eventually.
Fern tossed the half-empty bottle into the wire basket on the front of her bike. Grabbing the handlebars, she pushed her bike up the hill, limping all the way. The pain was bearable. She’d be fine.
Even when she had been riding, the trip had been slow going. Wally Schmucker had been very kind to let her borrow the bike, but the poor thing was obviously close to death. It squeaked like a closet full of bats and glowed orange with rust—gute thing she was up to date with her tetanus shot. The back tire wobbled precariously, even though Fern had taken a wrench to it this morning.
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