Return to Huckleberry Hill

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  Dorothy left the door open behind her, and Reuben turned to Fern. “She wouldn’t think of poisoning me, would she?”

  He loved how she laughed at all his jokes, even if they were as limp and bland as week-old celery. “She wants to talk. That is a gute thing.”

  They followed Dorothy around the side of the house where she opened a screen door and led them into her kitchen, or rather her family’s kitchen. Her fabric shop was attached to her family’s home. A cut of forest-green fabric was spread across the table with a pattern piece pinned over the top of it. Dorothy folded the pattern into the fabric and slid it off the table. “My latest project,” she said, placing the fabric on the cupboard near the fridge. “My niece is starting school in September, and I’m making her a new dress. She’s growing like a weed out of her old ones.” She lifted a blue-checked apron from the hook behind the door and quickly tied it on. “Now, Fern, let’s see. You need something hardy and warm to stick to your ribs. Do you like grilled cheese?”

  Fern glanced at Reuben. “Is grilled cheese okay with you?”

  Dorothy grunted her disapproval. “I don’t care what Reuben wants. Do you like grilled cheese?”

  Fern gave Reuben a lopsided, apologetic grin. He shook his head slightly. So Dorothy didn’t particularly like him. Fern shouldn’t feel bad about it. “I love grilled cheese,” Fern said.

  “And tomato soup?”

  “With milk?”

  Dorothy pulled a loaf of bread from the cupboard. “Of course.”

  “My favorite,” Fern said.

  Dorothy insisted that Reuben and Fern sit while she fixed grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Reuben’s mouth started watering when he smelled the rich aroma of kaffee in the pot on the stove. Dorothy didn’t like him, but by the smell of it, she knew how to make gute kaffee. That talent made up for a lot of shortcomings.

  “We’re thinking of maybe getting the knitting group back together,” Fern said. Maybe she was hoping that would soften Dorothy up.

  Dorothy turned one of the sandwiches on the griddle. “Ach. I don’t mind about the group. I was doing it as a favor to Anna, but I don’t especially enjoy knitting. I’d much rather quilt, to own the truth.”

  Dorothy laid a plate of three grilled cheese sandwiches, each cut in half, on the table, then came back with bowls and the pot of soup. She poured the kaffee, and Reuben thought he’d gone to heaven as steam rose from his hot mug. He still felt a little damp. Strong kaffee would warm him to the bone. Fern needed kaffee too. He wasn’t altogether sure her teeth had ever stopped chattering.

  After Dorothy sat down and they said a silent prayer, Dorothy ladled soup into the three bowls and Fern and Reuben helped themselves to a sandwich. Reuben bit into his and nearly sighed out loud. Dorothy had used two different kinds of cheese and bits of bacon. It was almost as gute as Mammi’s Spam, olive, and mayonnaise casserole, and that was saying something.

  Dorothy sipped on her kaffee and didn’t touch either her soup or a sandwich. “Now, Reuben. You say you want to make restitution for acting like a five-year-old the other day. Are you serious about that? Because if you’re not willing to do what I ask, then I’m not going to bother asking.”

  Reuben swallowed hard. She was going to ask him to milk the cows with his feet, he just knew it. “I’m serious.” He really wanted everyone in Bonduel to like him, even stern Dorothy Miller.

  She gave him the once-over with her gaze and must have decided to believe him. “What I’m about to tell you—and you too, Fern—is a secret. I can’t have you repeating it. The gossips would have a heyday if they found out.”

  Reuben swallowed harder. “Okay,” he said. His agreement sounded more like a question. What had he gotten himself into?

  “I have five sisters and three brothers, and I’m smack dab in the middle of the family. It hasn’t been easy. I’m thirty-four years old yet, and I’m the only one who isn’t married.” She took another sip of kaffee. “Reuben, I want a husband, and you are going to help me.”

  Reuben accidentally inhaled his sandwich. Wheezing and coughing, he very nearly choked and died in Dorothy’s kitchen. Fern gave him five gute slaps on the back before he could speak. He wanted Dorothy’s forgiveness, but he drew the line at marrying her. It was too much to ask. Surely Dorothy could see that. “Doro . . . Dorothy,” he sputtered. “I’m flattered that you would think of me, but I can’t marry you. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’re too old for me.”

  Dorothy turned bright red, and Reuben was sure her eyes would pop out if someone tapped her on the back real hard.

  “I’ll milk a thousand cows with my feet,” he blurted out, for fear she’d have a stroke sitting there at the kitchen table.

  Fern clapped her hand over her mouth, and Reuben could hear the high-pitched rumble of laughter stuck in her throat. Why was Fern laughing? There was nothing funny about a middle-aged woman wanting to marry him.

  Dorothy banged her kaffee mug down on the table with such force, kaffee jumped from the mug and splattered in an interesting polka-dot pattern on the tablecloth. “Reuben Helmuth,” she said, with an indignant click of her tongue. Before she launched into the lecture Reuben knew was coming, she glanced at Fern, caught her breath, and pressed her lips together into a tight line.

  Fern’s laughter spilled out of her mouth like water babbling in a brook, and Dorothy couldn’t seem to resist. Her rigid expression cracked, then crumbled, as she too exploded into hysterical laughter.

  Reuben’s gaze darted from Fern to Dorothy and back again. He’d obviously missed out on the joke.

  “Fern warned me that you thought very highly of yourself,” Dorothy said. Tears ran down her face, and her sigh came from deep within her throat. “Ach, du lieva, I haven’t laughed that hard since my brother Benji stuck a quarter up his nose and couldn’t get it out.”

  Reuben leaned back in his chair and cocked a very annoyed eyebrow. “You’re not asking me to marry you?”

  Dorothy giggled and swiped her hand across her eyes. “Nae, but that look on your face was worth a thousand proposals.” She patted Fern’s hand. “Ach, Fern. I like him—in spite of himself.”

  Reuben didn’t know if that was a compliment, so he kept his mouth shut. Best not to say anything he’d have to apologize for later. He did not like to be laughed at.

  Fern laid her hand over his, and her smile had such affection in it, he almost forgot what had irritated him. That smile of hers could coax the sun to rise and warm the very air around him. For the thousandth time, he found himself grateful that she had come to Bonduel. Even though he didn’t need her here, she had a way of smoothing out the rough spots.

  Then again, if she’d never come, he wouldn’t be sitting in Dorothy’s kitchen trying to negotiate an apology. He frowned. Was Fern his saving grace or a wonderful nuisance?

  Dorothy picked up her napkin and dabbed at the spots of kaffee on the tablecloth. “There is a bachelor I’ve had my eye on for a decade.”

  “A decade?”

  Dorothy sent him a prickly stare that should have given him a rash. “Try getting someone to ask you on a drive when they won’t even talk to you, Reuben Helmuth. I’ve tried everything I know to get him to notice me, but nothing is working. He’s as silent as the grave, and I’m getting desperate.”

  Dorothy was a patient woman. If Reuben had been in the same situation, he would have been desperate about eight years ago. “So you want me to ask this person to propose to you?”

  “Well, stuff and nonsense, you can’t go charging in like a bull in a china shop. I want him to take me on a ride, then maybe bring me some eggs from his chickens, then ask me to go fishing or take me out on the lake in a canoe. I’ll make him a cake, and he’ll hold my hand.” She took another sip of kaffee. “I’d like a wedding by September.”

  Reuben tried to smile, but he couldn’t manage more than a grimace. “It wonders me how I’m going to talk him into holding your hand.”

  Dorothy crumpled
her napkin in her fist. “Ach, du lieva, Reuben. If you prime the pump, I’ll do the rest. Melvin just needs a little nudge to get things moving.”

  If Dorothy had been trying to attract his attention for ten years, Melvin would need more than a nudge. He’d probably need a whole can of axle grease and a crowbar.

  Fern’s ears seemed to perk up. “Melvin Raber?”

  “Do you know him?” Reuben said. How was it that he had been in Bonduel three months longer than Fern, and she knew so many more people?

  Fern shook her head. “He’s Eva’s bruder. I’ve never met him, but she’s worried he’ll die a bachelor.”

  “He turned thirty last month,” Dorothy said. “A little young, but my mamm is always telling me I seem younger than thirty-four. My dawdi was twenty years older than my mammi. They were happily married for fifty years, and she died first.”

  “What if I can’t get him to budge?” Melvin had stood firm for more than a decade. Who was Reuben to think he could unstick him? More to the point, who was Dorothy to think Reuben could unstick anybody?

  Fern reached over and clutched Reuben’s forearm. “We’ve got to try, Reuben. The future happiness of two families is at stake.”

  The pressure kept mounting. First a quality paint job on Sadie Yoder’s fence, now the happiness of an entire generation of Rabers and Millers. Reuben nodded, more to reassure himself than Dorothy. “I’ll do what I can, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

  Fern bloomed like a brilliant orange poppy. “Ach, Reuben. That’s wonderful kind of you.”

  “Ask your mammi,” Dorothy said. “She and Felty have found matches for at least a dozen of your cousins.” She picked up the last half a sandwich on the plate and handed it to Fern. “You’d better eat this, or it’ll go to waste.”

  Mammi and Dawdi had a reputation for sticking their noses into family members’ love lives. It was a wonder that they hadn’t tried to match him up with somebody yet. But Dorothy was right. His grandparents might at least have an idea of what he could do.

  “Don’t feel bad if you fail,” Dorothy said, “which you probably will.” She obviously didn’t have much faith in him. He didn’t blame her. “I will still forgive you for being rude and forgetting your manners. From the first time I saw you, I didn’t expect much.”

  It was a gute thing Reuben had just swallowed the last bite of his sandwich. He would have choked for a second time. Did Dorothy always speak her mind? Would Melvin be happier being a bachelor? Of course, Fern spoke her mind, but whenever she scolded him for being proud or self-centered, there was always affection behind it, and he never took it real hard. Would he ever make friends with that kind of disapproval from Dorothy? He decided to ignore her kick in the teeth. “I will do what I can with Melvin yet.”

  Dorothy studied his face and nodded. “Warn me if he’s going to come over so I can make him a cake.” As if she were finished with the conversation and ready to have him gone, Dorothy gulped down the rest of her kaffee and plunked her mug decidedly on the table. “Now. Fern, I made some gute mozzarella that I want to send home with you as well as a loaf of seven-grain bread. What about apples? Do you have apples?”

  Fern’s gaze flicked in Reuben’s direction as she hopped to her feet and cleared the bowls and plates. “I don’t have apples,” she said, as if she didn’t really want to talk about it. Reuben furrowed his brow. Did she like apples? He couldn’t remember.

  “They’ve been in the root cellar all winter,” Dorothy said, “but they still have plenty of vitamins.” She filled a bag with the cheese, the bread, and a few apples, plus four oatmeal-raisin cookies from her cookie jar. Dorothy must have recognized how thin Fern was looking.

  If Fern would eat more of Mammi’s perfectly gute food, she wouldn’t be near as skinny. It was her own fault for being a picky eater.

  Dorothy stood at the door as if she wasn’t going to allow Reuben and Fern to leave. “Remember. No telling anyone about this.”

  “We won’t make a peep,” Fern said, locking her lips with an invisible key and tossing it behind her back.

  “Find out what his favorite color is and favorite pie and also favorite animal.”

  “His favorite animal?” Reuben said.

  “You never know when that information might come in handy.”

  Maybe Reuben should just send Melvin a questionnaire. It might speed things up a bit. Dorothy had been waiting for ten years. She’d probably be grateful if she didn’t have to wait another decade.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fern glanced at the bird clock that hung in Anna’s kitchen. She still had more than an hour before she had to leave. There was plenty of time to teach Reuben how to purl. She turned her gaze to Reuben and grimaced inwardly. She’d taught Reuben how to hold the needles correctly, but he still held them in his fists as if his fingers were as thick as cucumbers. When it came to knitting, he truly was a lost cause. But Anna would be heartbroken if Fern didn’t at least attempt to teach Reuben how to knit. If he could manage to make a pot holder, Anna would probably be satisfied.

  Fern bent over her own knitting. A pot holder might take Reuben weeks. Lord willing, Anna would figure out for herself that Reuben was not meant to knit and release him before he accidentally started a fire or something.

  Not that anyone could conceivably start a fire with yarn and a pair of knitting needles, but Reuben’s attempts at knitting would surely bring some sort of disaster upon them.

  Fern and Reuben sat on the sofa, where Fern could guide every stitch Reuben made. Anna had her own knitting gathered about her in the rocking chair, and Felty sat in his recliner reading The Budget. Anna hadn’t asked him to join their little knitting party, and he hadn’t offered.

  Fern laid her knitting in her lap. She shouldn’t have brought it. Keeping Reuben from tangling his fingers into a knot commanded all her attention. “Wrap the yarn around the back needle,” she said, showing him how to scoop up a new loop for the hundredth time, irritated that when her fingers brushed against his, the touch tingled all the way up her arm. Reuben dominated far too many of her thoughts lately. Why should she care that he spent time with Sadie Yoder or smiled at the Yutzy twins as if they were his closest friends? Whom Reuben liked was none of her business. She was in town to help him forgive John and convince him to come home.

  How could she let the mere touch of his skin against hers or a bright, heart-stopping smile send a shiver snaking down her spine?

  They both laughed when Reuben’s entire first row slipped from his needles and landed on Anna’s dog, Sparky, who was napping at Reuben’s feet. Reuben stared down at his sorry attempt at knitting. “I think we can rightly say that I have made a blanket for Sparky.” Even though it was obvious he wasn’t going to learn to love to knit, he smiled at her, his eyes alight with something deep and warm.

  Fern’s heart thudded beneath her ribs. Reuben would do anything for his mammi. It was one of his best qualities.

  “You’re coming along just fine,” Anna said, slipping into the voice mammis reserved for hopeless grandchildren whom they loved no matter how bad they were at knitting. “You’ve only been knitting for twenty minutes, and you’re already better than Esther Shirk.”

  “You are very kind, Mammi,” Reuben said, plucking his hopeless little strand of yarn from Sparky’s fur. “But I’m not better than anybody.”

  “And that’s okay,” Anna said. “You’re only a failure if you quit trying. No matter how long it takes, Fern is going to teach you to be a knitter. She’ll probably have to spend several hours a day sitting right next to you on that sofa.” Anna let out the slack of a ball of yarn in her bag. She knitted so fast, her fingers fairly flew off her hands.

  Fern tried not to think about spending hours sitting on the sofa next to Reuben. He’d probably much rather be painting Sadie Yoder’s chicken coop or eating Clara Yutzy’s peanut-butter-chocolate drops. Why would he want to spend time with the pig farmer’s daughter who cleaned toilets three days a
week?

  “Do you think the knitting group will get back together again?” Anna said, glancing at Fern as if they shared a secret. “Reuben could join us. You said you’ve been to see Esther and Sadie.”

  Reuben took his eyes off his knitting and dropped a stitch. It didn’t matter. He dropped stitches whether he had his eyes on his knitting or not. “I apologized to both of them. Then I painted Sadie’s fence and her chicken coop yesterday and washed Esther’s second dog this morning.”

  Esther’s dog Zipper had been much easier to wash than Sweetie Pie had been. Zipper couldn’t have weighed more than eight pounds and was as cooperative as Sweetie Pie was contrary. Though the hem of Reuben’s trousers had gotten damp, Fern hadn’t gotten wet at all. It had been a much more pleasant ride home.

  “And both Sadie and Esther have forgiven you?” Anna said.

  “Sadie has,” Reuben said, with a conviction that ruffled Fern just a bit. Why was he so sure about Sadie? “Esther hasn’t decided that I’ve completely made it up to her yet. She might not come back to the knitting group.” Reuben studied his mammi’s face doubtfully. “She burned her blanket.”

  Anna shrugged. “Ach, vell. It was quite a mess. In gute conscience, I couldn’t have given it to one of the babies in the hospital anyway.”

  Reuben cheerfully knitted away, as if he weren’t making a mess of his own blanket. “But Sadie likes me. She invited me to come back next week to see how the dairy works, maybe milk some cows with her and her brothers.”

  Fern eyed Reuben. He was pleased with himself—that was certain. Painting the chicken coop must have gone very well yesterday.

  Well. Gute.

  Reuben had been wallowing in self-pity long enough. He needed friends. He needed acceptance. He needed someone to help him forget Linda Sue. Fern was very grateful, even though she couldn’t seem to swallow past the lump in her throat. Reuben would soon be back to his full glory—back to a time when the bishop’s daughter was his girlfriend and he was the most popular and well-liked boy in the district. She couldn’t wait.