Lizzie's Carefree Years

by Linda Byler

  “I’m not going.”

  “Then I’ll go,” Lizzie said, because she was the one who wanted the nails most. There were lots of boards coming loose, making everything look sloppy, and she did not like their neat little cabins to be falling apart like that.

  So everyone watched as she marched resolutely down through the pines by herself. She hated asking Dat for new nails, but she knew it was the only way to fix the cabins.

  When she reached the pallet shop, she heard the chugging of the diesels and the ‘swish-swish’ of the nails rocking back and forth in their steel boxes on top of the nailer. Lizzie opened the door and peeped in. Hmmm, she thought, that’s unusual.

  There was not a soul around, yet the nailer was going. She stuck her head through the door, looking to the right, then to the left. She looked at the huge steel boxes, rocking on top of the nailer. “Swish, swish.”

  Lizzie’s heart raced. She could climb up on that little stack of pallets beside the nailer and when the one metal box came down, she could grab a handful. Dat would never need to know. Quickly she clambered up on the stack of pallets, making her way carefully to the nailer, waiting breathlessly until the box was tilted just the exact angle she needed to reach a handful.

  “Swish.” Lizzie grabbed, and was rewarded with a huge handful of nails. She filled her pocket, and quickly grabbed another handful. She tiptoed across the pallet and climbed down as fast as she could, turning swiftly, and raced for the back door. Just as she slipped out she heard Dat coming through the break room door, but she had not been detected.

  “Whew!” she breathed. “That was close!”

  She scrambled up the steep embankment, the sharp nails in her pocket banging against her leg. She never stopped to fix the discomfort, because she did not want to be seen. She just kept going.

  Just as she was about to enter the pine trail, a movement beside the trail caught her eye. First, she thought it was another chipmunk, but its movement was too long and slithery. Then the eyes of a snake stared straight at Lizzie. It was the most awful stare she had ever encountered. It was so cold and sinister, shivers ran up her spine, and she screamed, all alone at the edge of the pines.

  The snake must have been just as terrified as Lizzie, because it slithered off into the tall brush beside the trail. Lizzie kept screaming until she realized no one would hear her, so she started crying. She felt so awful. She knew the reason she had seen that snake was because her pocket was bulging with stolen nails.

  Once, when she was younger, she had taken a bottle of orange soda from Dat’s harness shop. She had tried to persuade herself it wasn’t stealing, but she still had to tell Dat in the end. This time, she was sure God had sent that snake. She had so much fun playing on the ridge that she often forgot about God and the devil and the end of the world. But that snake reminded her of what she had done wrong. It really wasn’t that different from Eve, being misled by that snake.

  A great and awful fear fell on Lizzie’s shoulders. She could not—she absolutely could not go back down to the pallet shop and tell Dat about her pocketful of nails in front of the workers. Especially not in front of Ivan and Ray, because they would tease her unmercifully if they found out. So she sniffed and moaned under her awful load of guilt, making her way up the trail to Lovely Acres.

  Every shining moment of the day was overshadowed by fear, and all Lizzie wanted to do was go home and tell Emma. She always knew what was right and what was wrong.

  She didn’t say much when she came back, being subdued and quiet. She dumped the nails in an old coffee can, saying nothing. Mandy asked her what was wrong, so she told her she had a stomachache and wanted to go home.

  “You ate some of that medicine, Lizzie,” Edna gasped.

  “No, not for real. I just don’t feel good. Besides, I saw a snake on the trail, coming back up.”

  “A real one?”

  “Just a little one.”

  “Do you want to go home?”

  “Yeah.”

  Since it was getting late, they cleaned up, chattering and laughing as usual. All except Lizzie, who was furiously blinking back tears. All she wanted to do was sit on their bed with Emma in the soft glow of the kerosene lamp and ask her if it was actually stealing to take two handfuls of nails. She already knew what Emma would say, but Emma would tell her what to do. That was the nice, safe thing about having a big sister who was good. She could help Lizzie a bit when she did crazy things she should not have done. And Emma was so easy to talk to, because she fully understood that Lizzie was not the same as she was.

  Dat and Mam didn’t always understand that. She wondered where you could buy a book for parents to read about things like that, because Mam and Dat needed one.

  chapter 8

  Serious Matters

  Emma stood in front of the mirror, a soft pink towel wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair tumbled down her back in sleek, wet disarray as she struggled to make an even part in the middle of her head.

  Her nightgown hung to the floor in soft, satiny folds. Tossing back her hair, she turned to look at Lizzie, who was curled on the bed, her face turned to the wall. Emma ran her fingers through her yellow plastic hairbrush, extracting all the loose hair, then tossing it into the yellow wicker wastebasket.

  Lizzie was filthy. Her dress had dark smudges of pine tar on the back, and the hem was so soiled it was darker in color than the rest of it. Her legs were grimy with black earth—actually so stained that Emma could see the white line where her sneakers had been. Her hair was loose and straggly, with only a few remaining hairpins holding her hair in place. Her covering was long gone, Emma figured. She could not for the life of her see how Lizzie could stand to run around that woods, getting herself so dirty.

  “Lizzie, it’s your turn to take a bath. You may as well wash your hair right away,” she said quietly.

  “Mandy’s in the tub,” came the muffled reply, as Lizzie shifted her weight to be more comfortable.

  Emma’s eyes narrowed, and her mouth took on a firm look, as she surveyed the significant mound that was Lizzie. She certainly was not getting any thinner, which didn’t seem to bother her at all. Emma had been watching her weight lately, because she would soon be thirteen years old, and it bothered her to be as chubby as when she was younger. But not Lizzie. She took three sandwiches in her lunch to school, more than the eighth grade boys, and Emma was terribly embarrassed by this. She wondered how to approach Lizzie about going on a diet so she wouldn’t be offended. Oh well, sometimes you just had to tell someone what you thought, and if they flew off the handle, then they just did. Besides, Lizzie was her sister, and they told each other almost everything.

  “Lizzie, you’re so filthy. You’re going to make our nice yellow bedspread as dirty as you are.”

  “Mandy’s in the tub!” Lizzie yelled.

  “Oh.” Emma turned to check her complexion in the mirror. It was still smooth and soft, but lots of her friends were getting pimples and other blemishes on their faces. She could not imagine how that would be, having to put up with those nasty red spots on your face.

  Lizzie stirred, sitting up on the bed. She wiped both eyes with the palms of her greasy hands, blinked, and sighed a ragged sigh. She coughed, scratching under her chin as she cleared her throat—almost nervously, it seemed to Emma.

  “You’re really grouchy, Lizzie,” Emma ventured, though not unkindly.

  “So? You were staring at me, and I guarantee you were thinking how fat and grubby I look,” Lizzie said sourly, scratching her ribs.

  “Quit scratching yourself.”

  “Maybe I have lice.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  Lizzie was planning on pouting, showing Emma all the disapproval she possibly could. But somehow they happened to look at each other exactly the same way, catching the humor in each other’s eyes, and burst out laughing.

  “Lizzie, go take your bath. Then we can talk.”

  So Lizzie yanked open her drawers, gathering h
er underwear and clean nightgown before shuffling off to the bathroom. Mandy was finished, sitting at the kitchen table, eating a dish of orange Jell-O. Lizzie could have gagged—that’s how much she despised that slippery, low-calorie stuff. Skinny Mandy, she thought, feeling no better about her own size. She just didn’t feel happy. Not one bit. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t just because of the two handfuls of nails from the pallet shop. That was just silly. God really hardly noticed two handfuls of nails.

  After her bath, she felt better, so she went to the kitchen, where Mandy was finishing her Jell-O.

  “Mam, I’m going to bed. I’m really tired tonight.”

  Mam looked up from the book she was reading. “You do look tired, Lizzie. You play, or work—whatever it is—too hard up there on the ridge. I wish you wouldn’t drag up those heavy pieces of lumber, because you could ruin your back.”

  “They’re not that heavy, Mam. Don’t worry.”

  Mam smiled, saying, “Good-night, Lizzie.”

  “Good-night, Mam.”

  “You’re going to bed already?” Mandy asked, licking the back of her spoon.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “’Night.”

  “’Night.”

  Lizzie went off to her and Emma’s bedroom, flinging the towel off her head. She yanked the hairbrush through the tangles, grimacing horribly, because the snarls were just awful.

  “Ouch! Ow!”

  “Lizzie, use conditioner, then it wouldn’t be so hard to get those snarls out,” Emma said.

  “It takes too long,” Lizzie growled.

  “Well then, suffer, because it would make a big difference if you would use some.”

  “It stinks.”

  “Hah-ah!

  “Mm-hmm. I can’t stand that slimy stuff.”

  They fell into a companionable silence, Lizzie brushing her hair and Emma reading a Trixie Belden book, lying on her stomach on the bed.

  “Emma?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you think . . . do you suppose if a person would take two handfuls of nails out of a nailer, if their dat told them not to, do you think . . . I mean, do you even imagine God would have such a fit He would punish you a few minutes later?” Lizzie asked, chewing on her lower lip.

  “What in the world are you talking about?” Emma asked.

  “Put your book away, so you can hear what I’m saying,” Lizzie said.

  So Emma folded a corner of the page down to hold her place and slapped the book shut. She rolled over and sat up, pushing a pillow behind her back.

  “You took nails out of Dat’s nailer?”

  “Well, Emma, now you have to listen. It was this way. Our cabins are looking kind of tumbledown and we were out of nails to fix them up. Nobody else would go get nails. So I went.” Lizzie stopped, took a deep breath, and stared at the ceiling. “There’s a spider.”

  “Get him, Lizzie. I hate spiders!”

  “No, let him go. Those little black ones are cute.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I went. And there were no nails loose under the nailer, the kind we’re allowed to keep if we pick them up. So I crawled up on a half stack of pallets and took two handfuls of bright, shiny new ones out of the steel box that rocks back and forth.

  “And Dat said you’re not allowed to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then . . .” Lizzie paused. “You’re not going to believe this. Then I saw a real snake, looking straight at me. Emma, it wasn’t e-even funny. Snakes’ eyes look exactly like the devil, and I was so afraid and so guilty, ’cause I stole, so . . . Did God put that snake there, or what?” she finished miserably.

  “I don’t know,” Emma said wisely. “But probably the snake wouldn’t have bothered you or made you so afraid if you wouldn’t have been guilty about stealing.”

  “Do you still think taking something from your Dat is real stealing, not just taking? Remember the orange soda in the harness shop?” Lizzie asked.

  “Yes, I do. Well, Lizzie, you will never learn. As much as you suffered about that soda, what’s the difference? Dat said you can’t take those nails, and you did, so you stole and disobeyed,” Emma finished.

  “Should I tell Dat? He’s going to be upset with me. And I’m so afraid he won’t let us play on the ridge anymore that I just can’t tell him. See, Emma, Dat isn’t like he used to be in the harness shop. He’s so busy and so tense or something, that he doesn’t even have time to think about a few nails. He will never ever miss them. One teensy-weensy bit of nails towards the thousands of millions they use every day,” she said.

  Emma picked at the tufts of the yellow chenille bedspread, saying nothing.

  “Emma, don’t you ever do one thing wrong?” Lizzie burst out.

  To Lizzie’s surprise, Emma slowly and sadly nodded her head. And to her absolute astonishment, a tear slid slowly under her dark lashes, landing on her cheek, which turned a shade darker because of her shame. Slowly, Emma raised miserable eyes to Lizzie’s and whispered, “Yes, Lizzie, I do. I doubt if I feel one bit better than you do.”

  “Emma!” Lizzie was so bewildered.

  “Lizzie, I am honestly not one bit better than you. Remember how I always used to think I was? Well, maybe I was somewhat, but if you promise, cross your heart, you won’t tell anyone, I’ll tell you what I did.”

  “I won’t. Promise—cross my heart,” Lizzie breathed.

  “You know I’m not very good at arithmetic in school? And you know how good Salina is?”

  Lizzie nodded.

  “Well, I copied four answers from her paper by looking over her shoulder. It was long column adding, and I always get them wrong—or a bunch of them, anyway. So I looked,” Emma ended, quite ashamed of herself.

  “Did you use the answers on your own paper?” Lizzie asked.

  “Yes. I should tell Teacher Barbara what I did, and Mam, but I dread it so horribly that I just don’t.”

  They sat in silence, Emma steadily picking at the chenille tufts, and Lizzie staring at the hairbrush in her hand.

  “You always pray, Emma. I’m sure God has already forgiven you. You’re usually a good girl,” Lizzie said.

  “Oh yes, of course, I prayed. But why does it still bother me so much?” Emma asked.

  “I hardly pray right,” Lizzie said.

  “You should.”

  “I know, but . . . I can’t understand, Emma. I always feel self-conscious on my knees. Almost like I’m ashamed of God, or like someone will come in and see me. Just like when you’re in the bathroom. Why do I feel that way?”

  “You always were like that,” Emma said.

  “I know. So I don’t pray very much.”

  “Did you ask God to forgive you for taking the nails?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know, Emma. Do you think He would even? Would He if I didn’t tell Dat?” Lizzie asked.

  “I think so.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We can’t really know. We can’t see God or know for sure. We just kind of depend on Him.”

  There was a long silence as the kerosene lamp glowed softly and steadily, casting a long shadow behind it. The little black spider crawled slowly across the ceiling, stopping and starting for reasons all its own. Lizzie drew her fingers through her hair, pulling it out and away from her face. She thought about God, wondering if He knew she wished she would not have taken the nails. He probably did. But should she tell Dat? She was so horribly afraid he would make them stop playing at the ridge. Everyone would blame her. Maybe he would let the others play anyway, and just make her stay at home for a few weeks. Or one week. Or maybe just two or three days. That wouldn’t be so bad.

  “I’m going to tell Dat,” she announced.

  Emma gave her a steady look. “Are you?”

  “Yes. Right now.”

  “Lizzie, wait. If you do, then I have to tell Teacher Barbara. I just can’t!” Emm
a wailed.

  “Emma, you don’t have to. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. If she knows nothing about it, and Salina knows nothing about it, and you probably still had some wrong, then don’t worry,” Lizzie said, trying her best to help Emma.

  “But God knows—that’s why my conscience is so bothered,” Emma said.

  “God might not care. He might not be the one who makes you feel so miserable. What is a conscience, anyway?”

  “I don’t know exactly. But if something bothers you, I think you need to do what is right.”

  “I know!”

  “What?”

  “Write her a letter!”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s much easier to write than looking someone square in the face and telling them you did something dumb like that,” Lizzie said stoutly.

  “Looking at answers isn’t dumber than taking those nails!” Emma said, a bit huffily.

  “They’re both dumb, that’s for sure,” Lizzie said gloomily. She threw herself down on the bed and put her chin in her hands. They could hear Dat and Mam conversing in low tones as Mam rocked Jason, the rocker squeaking with each backward movement. She still had the blue platform rocker with the carved swans’ heads for arms, and it only squeaked on the way back, not forward. It was so peaceful here in Jefferson County, since Dat was making more money. They did not have to worry that Mam and Dat would argue in the evening, because they had very little to worry about.

  Mam had told the girls they were planning to build a house on top of the basement house. They would live upstairs, and their basement would be just that—a basement. Mam was so happy, because they could have a large, new home, and she could have new windows that kept out the cold. She so loved African violets, and she told Emma she would fill the east windows with them.

  Lizzie remembered when times were not as good. She was always nervous, worrying about their conversation in the evening when she was trying to sleep.

  She heard Dat’s soft laugh, so she sat up and told Emma she was going. She opened the door quietly and slipped into the living room. Dat smiled at her, putting down his paper. She held his gaze, walking over to the sofa, and sat down beside him.