The next day he went to the public library with the paperwork he needed to get a library card—a bill for his continued once-a-week-phone-call counseling session. Might be odd, but it proved his residency. He got his card. He checked out a children’s picture book of snakes. On the way back to the house, he stopped at Alice’s house and knocked on the door. He saw her peek under a curtain corner at him.
“Alice, I see you there.”
“Why do you keep terrorizing me? Why me? Go bother someone else!”
“I’m not trying to scare you. I’m really not. I don’t have any snakes with me. I promise. I just want to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
Fair enough. “Could you listen, then?”
Silence, which he took as a yes. “Alice, I went to the library and found some books that might help you get over your fear of snakes. It’s a common thing, apparently, this fear of snakes. Lots of people are afraid of snakes. It’s nothing to feel bad about, Alice. But it’s something that can be cured.”
An eye peeked back around the curtain.
Encouraged, he continued, a little louder. “I read about a doctor who has a method for curing people. Little by little, you get accustomed to snakes.”
The curtain closed.
“Hold on. Alice, I’m not going to insist on anything. I just want to help you if I can. So I brought a book for you.”
The curtain twitched.
“It’s a children’s book about snakes. There’s pictures, and some information about snakes. Things you might find interesting, like . . . um, let’s see . . . did you know they don’t have eyelids? I didn’t know that.” He turned the pages. “Cobras are very protective of their young. That’s interesting, don’t you think? That a mother has an instinct to protect her babies. Alice?”
She wasn’t talking, but she wasn’t shouting at him to go away either. “Alice, it might not be easy at first, looking at these pictures of snakes. But try to go through it a couple of times. Notice different things about them—their colors, their sizes. See if it doesn’t make you feel less anxious about them.” The psychiatrist-author warned that even a drawing of a snake could elicit a gut-wrenching feeling at first. But with more pictures and photographs, this became less and less upsetting.
He set the book on the doorstep. “I’ll just leave it here for you to look at, Alice. When you’re done with it, set it back down on the step and I’ll come get it. I need to return it in a week or else there’s a cranky librarian who might send a hired gun after me.” Why did he say that? His humor, it was really off the mark.
“Is her name Betty?”
Luke perked up. “She’s the one. She scares me.”
Silence. Then, “Me too.”
Well, now this was an interesting turn of events. He thought he should stop now, before he said something stupid. He set the book down, said goodbye, and walked to the buggy. By the time he had backed the horse out of the driveway, he happened to glance over at the little house. The book he’d left on the doorstep was gone.
In the cool of the barn, Amos listened to Luke’s update on Alice Smucker with interest. He wouldn’t have expected her to give an inch for Luke. It gave Amos hope. Alice might actually want to try to get well. Everyone in the church felt worried about Alice and tried to coax her out of her house, but she’d only been getting worse, not better.
Still . . . Luke Schrock? Acting as a counselor? That didn’t sit well either. No indeed.
Amos leaned his back against a bale of hay. “Luke, keep moving down your list of fence mending. Don’t get stuck on Alice and avoid the rest of the list.”
“David told me the same thing. I’ll keep going. It’s just that . . . I don’t want to give up on Alice.”
“Who’s next on the list?”
“Big Teddy Zook.”
“What happened with him?”
“It wasn’t that big of a deal. Just something stupid. You know what Fern says. Stupid and teens go together like bread and butter. Salt and pepper.”
“There you go again.”
“What?”
“Dismissing a regrettable action as nothing more than boys will be boys. I don’t buy that thinking. I think each one of us needs to understand we’re responsible for our own actions, whatever age we are.” Amos leaned back in his chair. “So, what happened with Teddy Zook?”
“He came into the Bent N’ Dent one day when I was in the store. He had an egg in his coat pocket, a small egg, and showed it to Ruthie. An egg! I have no idea why. But I went up to him and gave him a huge bear hug. Smashed his egg.” He frowned. “I do remember he cried and cried, a big guy like him.”
“Did Ruthie have something to do with why you smashed the egg?”
“Probably.” Definitely. A way to get her attention.
“You need to go find Teddy Zook. Talk to him. No, better still, listen to him. Find out why that egg was important to him.”
“Do you know why? Could you give me a heads-up?”
“I know why. That’s why I won’t give you a heads-up.” He rose. “Keep cleaning up your messes, Luke.”
After supper, Luke scootered over to Big Teddy Zook’s. Teddy was a giant of a man, six foot six inches in his stocking feet, and nearly as wide as he was tall.
Luke found Teddy working in his father’s carpentry shop. The roar of a diesel engine filled the small shop, providing electricity for the various saws and tools. Teddy stood at a lathe. Luke took in a deep breath of wood scents, sawdust, varnish, and diesel gas. He saw projects in varying stages of production: a header for a bed, a coffee table, a spice cabinet. The room was extremely tidy, well organized, with tools hung against the pegboard. Masking tape outlined the shape for each tool, clearly marking a space for each one.
Luke waited until he had finished his task and the sound of the diesel engine died down. The power of the lathe combined with Big Teddy, gentle giant that he was, made for an intimidating sight. Luke sure didn’t want to startle him.
Teddy had been working on shaping a table leg out of a long block of wood. He held it up against an identical one, and Luke, standing by the door, could appreciate the precision of the spooling. Impressive. He didn’t realize Big Teddy Zook had that kind of craftsmanship. Come to think of it, he didn’t even know Teddy was a carpenter. He’d never thought much about him.
Teddy set down both table legs, took off his safety glasses, and stretched. As he turned, he spotted Luke at the door. “You,” he said in a flat voice.
Luke took a step inside. “Yes. Me.” He took another step. “What you did there, with that spooling, it looks really good.”
Teddy eyed him suspiciously, frowning. “Why are you here?”
So many frowns. “You mean, why am I in Stoney Ridge? Or why am I standing in your carpentry shop?”
“Both.”
“Same answer to both questions, I guess. I came to apologize, Teddy. Not sure if you remember or not, but a while ago, we were in the Bent N’ Dent, and I purposefully smashed that egg you had.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember. I remember like it was yesterday.”
Long memories, these Amish. “Well, I hope you can forgive me.”
Teddy narrowed his eyes. “That’s not hard for you, is it?”
“It is kinda hard, actually. I mean, it’s humbling to ask for forgiveness.”
“But we all have to give you our forgiveness, don’t we? That’s part of being Plain.”
“Well, I can’t insist on it if you don’t feel it. But I want you to know that I’m genuinely sorry.”
“Why? What makes you sorry about that day?”
Big Teddy wasn’t as dumb as he thought. “I’m sorry because I broke something that you felt some kind of attachment to. And I didn’t care. I see that now.” He took off his hat. “Do you mind telling me why that egg was important to you?”
Big Teddy crossed his arms and appraised Luke for a long moment. So long that it made Luke very uncomfortable. He would’ve liked t
o know what Big Teddy was thinking. “Follow me.” Big Teddy took two long strides and brushed past Luke at the door. He had to jog to catch up with him. Teddy was on his way down the hill to a grassy marsh area that wove through the Zook property. He stopped and lifted his hand toward the murky-looking water. “There’s a Massauga rattlesnake in there.”
“Rattlesnake?” Luke gulped.
“It was, anyway. Till you came along.”
Ah. “That egg?”
“Yes. I’d found it that very day. I couldn’t believe it when I found the egg, intact and recently laid. I’d stopped into the Bent N’ Dent to get a box for it, and some newspaper to keep it insulated and protected. I should have left it where I found it, but I saw an eagle circling and was worried about it. So I tucked it in my pocket. I showed Ruthie the egg, because she’s interested in that kind of thing.”
She was? Luke had no idea.
“And then, you had to do your typical Luke act.”
The Luke act. Ouch.
“Be the showoff. Take center stage. You can never let anyone else be the center of attention, can you?”
Luke didn’t know how to answer that. He had no defense for it, because . . . it was true. Especially if Ruthie had been anywhere nearby. He’d always been conscious of her whereabouts, and would seek to draw her attention to himself, no matter what.
“It was the last egg I’ve been able to find. Since then, the Massauga rattler was put on the Pennsylvania endangered species list.”
“Because of me?”
“Probably not just because of you, but you sure contributed to it. This was the last known snake in the entire Lancaster area. I keep hoping I’ll find another out here. So far, no luck.”
“What would you do if you found the snake?”
“Notify the game warden. They would harvest it to protect it. Improve its chances for successful breeding.”
“Maybe I could help you look.”
Teddy gave him a look as if he didn’t think he was capable of tying his own shoelaces, much less hunt for a rattlesnake. “It’s no job for a novice.”
“You can teach me what to look for.” Luke lifted his palms in the air. “Teddy, I’m serious. I’d like to help. If there’s a chance that we might be able to find the snake, well, that would be something, wouldn’t it?” He could hardly believe his own ears. Was he really offering to help find a rattlesnake? A rattlesnake?
“I don’t know. They’re very tricky, those rattlers. They shy away from people.”
Oh, that was a relief to hear. “Work at Windmill Farm comes in fits and starts. When a crop is ready to be harvested, I can’t do much else. But when there’s a break and I have a little spare time, I’ll come over. Most likely, it’d be after supper. Would that be a good time to look for a nest?”
Teddy shrugged. “Good a time as any, I suppose. That’s when I usually hunt food for my other snakes.”
“Your other snakes?”
Teddy let out a long-suffering sigh, as if he was speaking to someone who was very, very slow-witted. “Follow me.”
Luke followed Teddy back up the hill to a small shed behind the carpentry shop. It was lined with cages, each one filled with a snake. Different snakes, all shapes and sizes. Luke’s jaw dropped. “Teddy, what’re you doing with all these snakes?”
“I raise ’em. Sell ’em to farmers to help cut down the rodent population. Field mice, rats, moles, gophers. It’s been a nice little side business. These snakes, they’re like pets to me.”
Luke put his hands on his hips and walked along the rows of caged snakes. “How’d you ever get interested in raising snakes?” Of all pets, why snakes?
“My mother, actually. She loved snakes, and taught me to love them. Most folks are scared to death of them, but they’re much more scared of people.” He opened one cage to reach in a hand and pull out an enormous snake.
Luke backed up a foot or two. “Whoa. Isn’t that a rattlesnake?”
“No. Looks a little like one, but it’s an eastern hognose. One of the best rodent controls God gave to farmers. It’s nonvenomous, obviously.”
Luke peered at its diamond-shaped scales. “What’s so obvious about it not being venomous?” It looked plenty dangerous to him.
“Don’t you know anything about how to identify snakes?”
“Nothing. Not a thing. All I know is that garter snakes are good for the garden.” He’d learned that much from Izzy.
“Well, look at the head. How would you describe its shape?”
“Hmmm . . . kind of round.”
“Good. Now look at the pupils in its eyes. What do you notice about them?”
“Uh, they’re round too.”
“Right. Round pupils, like a human’s. So look at the snake in the cage next to you. How is its head shaped?”
“It’s more like a triangle.”
“Yes. What about the eyes?”
“Huh. The pupil is more like a slit.”
“Exactly. A vertical pupil. That’s one way to tell it’s venomous.”
Luke jumped a foot in the air. “Is that one a rattlesnake?”
“Copperhead. Northern copperhead. She could kill you in one bite. A beauty, ain’t she?”
Beautiful. Huh. Luke had never considered snakes to be beautiful, not once. He would place himself closer on the scale to Alice Smucker’s fear of snakes than Teddy Zook’s love for them. But he did appreciate that Teddy cared about them. The cages were clean, big, and airy, protected from the elements.
Teddy slipped the Eastern hognose snake back into its cage. “Want to help me feed them?”
“With what?”
“Frozen mice. They only eat one every few days. Then they need time to digest, so you leave ’em alone. They don’t like to be bothered while they’re digesting.”
That wouldn’t be a problem.
Teddy waited for an answer. “So, you gonna help?”
Luke gulped. “Uh, sure. Sure. Right. Absolutely. Can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.”
twelve
Luke hadn’t forgotten Alice, but he did think Amos and David might be right about one thing. He was fixating on Alice to avoid the rest of the fence-mending list. It was nearly the end of July, and he was only halfway down the first page. Even worse, new names were added to it. Like . . . Izzy and her farm stand. Even if it wasn’t his fault that the first one was destroyed, it was his fault that the new one hadn’t gotten built yet. On the way home from helping Teddy feed his snakes—and that was not an experience for the squeamish—he thought about ideas for a new and improved farm stand.
Back in the tack room, he sketched a couple of different versions, then decided to show Izzy and see what she thought of them. Amos and Fern were working on a jigsaw puzzle on the front porch and Izzy was inside, baking zucchini bread. There was an abundance of zucchinis from the garden, more than anyone knew what to do with. Lately, they’d been eating zucchini ribbons in place of pasta noodles, shredded zucchini pancakes in place of potato pancakes, zucchini salad in place of cucumbers. Luke was pretty well done with zucchini, but he had to admit the cinnamon scent of this zucchini bread might change his mind.
“Izzy, could you take a minute and look at these?” He set out four sketches on the kitchen table.
She’d just finished washing a bowl, and dried it with a rag as she walked over to the table. “New farm stands?”
“Yes. As long as we’re building a new one, I thought it would be good to make it larger, so you could even sell things like your zucchini bread.” He pointed to one sketch. “I wondered if you might like some shelves. Or in this one”—he pointed to a different sketch—“I designed it so you’d have more counter space.”
“What does Amos think?”
“I haven’t shown them to him. I wanted to see what you wanted first.”
Izzy gave him a strange look. “The farm stand belongs to Amos and Fern. They should decide what’s best.”
“I know. But you’re the one who’s
made such a success of the stand. You’re the reason the tour buses stop each day. And you plan to be here for a long while, don’t you? You should have what you want.”
The look on Izzy’s face grew stranger still, as if she was caught in between a laugh and a cry. Suddenly she set the bowl on the table, dropped the dish towel beside it, and hurried out of the room, bolting up the stairs.
What had he done? What had he said that was so wrong?
Izzy threw herself on her bed and buried her face in her pillow. What was the matter with her? Why was she so upset? It was sketches of a farm stand, that’s all it was! She could tell how pleased Luke was as he set them on the table. He grinned real big, then lifted his hat a little and peered at her from under it, almost shy. The next minute, he was looking at her and she thought he must have asked her a question, and she wasn’t even listening. A well of emotion rose up and she ran from the room like a child. Mortifying!
About ten minutes later, Fern knocked on the bedroom door and came inside. She sat down on Izzy’s bed. “Luke says he upset you.”
Izzy turned her head to the side to answer. “He did.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
How could she? She didn’t know herself. “He was showing me sketches for the new farm stand. He’d put so much time into them, Fern. So detailed, so carefully thought out.”
“I noticed. He showed them to us.”
“He asked me what I thought, what features I wanted, and I couldn’t respond. I just . . . lost it and ran up the stairs.” Like a silly, stupid, overly emotional girl. Slowly, Izzy rolled over to sit up. “It’s not Luke’s fault. He didn’t do anything wrong.” She wiped her face. “I didn’t expect to feel emotional over something as small as whether I’d like counter space or shelves.”
Fern rose and went to the window, her arms folded against her. “Do you think it might have something to do with the fact that no one’s ever asked you what you wanted before? Sounds to me like you’ve had very few choices in your life.”
Mending Fences Page 11
