Huckleberry Hill

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  Dat kept wagging his finger as if Lia wouldn’t pay attention otherwise. “I sent you up here to make sure Moses falls in love with Rachel, and you’ve been sneaking off with Moses and leaving Rachel to do all the work. I won’t stand for it, Lia. If you can’t find some love in your heart for your sister, then you can come back home.”

  Rachel settled back into the sofa and got that smug look on her face she had whenever Dat took her side of a disagreement—which was every time.

  Lia’s mouth went dry. Moses had come knocking at the bathroom window almost two weeks ago. Lia had been gone most of the day, and she had never seen Rachel so livid as when she returned home. Rachel had stomped her feet and gnashed her teeth and screamed at the injustice of it all. It took Lia a full hour to calm her down and even then Lia knew this outburst would not be the last she heard about it. She had no inkling that Rachel would summon their dat. But it shouldn’t have surprised her. Dat came to Rachel’s rescue all the time at home, as if she were that five-year-old who had nearly died. Of course he would take the day off to set things right for his favorite child.

  Would it do any good to defend herself? “It was not an outing. I helped the midwife deliver a baby. Rachel would not have wanted to help with the baby.”

  Rachel folded her arms in stubborn denial. “Yes, I would have. I tried once, but that woman wouldn’t even let me in the house.”

  “Sarah is very particular about who she lets help her. I am sorry, but she did not want you to come.”

  Dat glared at Lia. “And you think you are better than your sister because the midwife lets you help?”

  “Nae, not at all. I have read the books. I know a little of what to do.”

  “And you think Rachel is not smart enough?”

  Lia heaved a great sigh. “Rachel does not know how to be a midwife.”

  “Neither do you,” Rachel snapped. “Just because you’ve read the books doesn’t mean you know anything.”

  Lia felt the sweat trickle down the back of her neck. She was foolish to think Rachel would ever see reason. “If you are so set on being a midwife, why don’t you talk to Sarah and ask her to help you?”

  Rachel stared at Lia as if she had said the stupidest thing in the world. “I don’t want to be a midwife. I want to be with Moses. Even Anna sees the sense in it. While you are delivering slimy babies, I should be with Moses. The first time you were away, he took me to his cheese factory. I helped him make cheese.” Rachel turned to Dat. “He told me I am delicate.”

  Lia wanted to throw up her hands in surrender. There was no making sense of Rachel’s reasoning. “So you don’t want to come with me to deliver babies?”

  “Yes, I want to come. Moses will be more than happy to drop you off so he can be alone with me. He told me so.”

  He told her so?

  “But, Dat,” Lia said. “Moses is doing me a favor when he comes to pick me up. How can I impose on his kindness like this? He might refuse to drive me if it becomes a burden.”

  Dat knitted his brow. “A burden? Driving you all over the county might be a burden, but I don’t imagine he sees spending time with Rachel as a burden.”

  “I don’t feel good about asking him. He is busy with his factory.”

  Dat stood up and glared at Lia. “You will take Rachel with you whenever you leave this house or you will come back to Wautoma and forget about being a midwife. Do you understand? If I hear you’re leaving Rachel out or treating her unkindly, I will bring you back home so fast you won’t even remember how you got there.”

  Lia felt as if she’d been shoved to the ground with the heel of Dat’s boot. “Dat, you are not listening. Moses is not at my beck and call and—”

  He pointed an accusing finger in Lia’s direction. “You will not argue with me.”

  Lia bowed her head and squeezed her eyes shut. She would be absolutely mortified to ask Moses if she could bring Rachel along. He had made it clear last time that he did not want to take her. But Lia couldn’t bear the thought of giving up on midwifing. What was she to do? “Yes, Dat.”

  “And it wouldn’t hurt you to quit thinking of yourself and help Rachel make pies and goodies for Moses. Men like women who can cook.”

  As if nothing were amiss between them, Rachel’s expression brightened considerably. “Oh, Lia. Wouldn’t it be fun to plan a picnic? If you helped me make the food, I could take Moses to the top of Huckleberry Hill and we could watch the sunset.”

  That’s how it was between Rachel and Lia. Since Rachel’s illness fourteen years ago, Lia felt too guilty or too worn down to put up a fuss, and Rachel was accustomed to being everybody’s favorite. Once she got her way, all was right with the world.

  “We are at the top,” Lia said. Huckleberry Hill wasn’t all that tall. Sunsets were viewed through the trees and only on cloudless evenings. Rachel liked the idea of a picnic at sunset, but Moses seemed too busy to wait around for a sunset.

  Dat turned his attention to Rachel. “That is a gute idea. You could make something using cheese from his factory.”

  They all turned when they heard the horse clomping up the lane.

  Rachel ran to the window and began to breathe rapidly. “It’s him, Dat. It’s Moses. I knew he would come.”

  Lia’s heart raced even as she scraped it off the floor. She didn’t even glance out the window as she went to the sink and turned on the water. Let Dat and Rachel make a fuss over Moses while she washed dishes and made a meatloaf for supper.

  “Lia didn’t exaggerate,” Dat said. “He is tall as a tree. And very good-looking. He will do very well, I think.”

  Rachel tapped rapidly on the window. “Yoo-hoo, Moses. Look over here.”

  Her tapping must not have achieved the desired results, because she pounded louder and raised her voice in hopes of catching his attention. “Moses, come here! Moses.” She stopped tapping and looked at Dat. “I guess he’s going straight out back. He told Anna he’d help her in the garden.”

  Dat wasted no time in putting on his hat. “Let’s go meet him, then.”

  He and Rachel hurried out the door and left Lia in what should have been welcome silence, but the solitude only succeeded in making her feel utterly lonely.

  No matter how she scolded herself or reminded herself of his indifference, Lia could not chase Moses from her head. Why, when she tried so studiously to be realistic, did Moses fill her thoughts every hour of every day? Why did a pang of jealousy squeeze her lungs every time Rachel talked about Moses? How could she be so foolish as to dream about him when he pined for a fiancée who was probably ten times more beautiful than Rachel and a hundred times less blunt than Lia?

  It didn’t matter. Rachel would drive Moses away with her persistence, and he would spend less and less time on Huckleberry Hill. Lord willing, he would not be too annoyed to drive her to do midwifing.

  With her hands submerged in dishwater, Lia prayed that Moses would take pity on her and keep coming back to pick her up. It was the most she could hope for.

  “Mammi, I can do that for you. You’ll hurt your knees.” Moses tromped out of the barn with an armload of rebar and was greeted with the sight of Mammi kneeling on the ground pulling tiny weeds from around the tomatoes.

  “I love playing in the dirt,” Mammi said.

  “And how will you get back on your feet once you’re done?”

  “That’s what I have a grandson for.”

  Dawdi sprinkled fertilizer around the raspberry bushes. “I told her to use a hoe, but she won’t have any of it.”

  “I slice up more tomatoes than weeds that way, even when I wear my glasses.”

  Moses dropped the rebar, and it landed with a thud next to the neat row of sagging tomato plants. They should have been staked weeks ago—another reminder of how much help Mammi and Dawdi needed here. If he secured the rebar in the ground today, they still had time to salvage the tomatoes.

  “Where is Lia?” Moses asked.

  “She offered to make supper. And pie.
”

  Moses’s mouth began to water. He still hadn’t really tasted one of Lia’s pies. The anticipation tortured him.

  Hoping he might catch a glimpse of Lia at the kitchen window, Moses looked to the house and saw Rachel shuffling quickly toward him followed by an older man who could only be her father. His hair and eyes were the same color as Lia’s, and he stood well over six feet tall. Moses knew it was Rachel’s father because they both wore that same self-satisfied smirk that always put Moses’s teeth on edge.

  Mammi glanced up from the weeding. “Remember,” she whispered loudly, “we’ve all got to do our best to make sure Owen has no reason to take our Lia away from us.”

  Moses nodded. Rachel staying at Huckleberry Hill without Lia was out of the question. She couldn’t be trusted with chores, and she’d probably burn down the house or ruin every meal with her sour disposition.

  Rachel, in bare feet, tiptoed over the dirt clods and stood in the sifted soil where Anna had planted cucumbers. “Moses, this is my dat, Owen Shetler.”

  Mammi winked at Moses with a twinkle in her eye and then twisted her body to get a quick look at Owen. “Good to see you again, Owen.”

  Owen reached out to shake Moses’s hand. “Good to see you, Anna, Felty. And I’m glad to meet you, Moses.”

  “I invited Dat to stay for supper,” Rachel said. “His driver won’t be by till six. Lia is making meatloaf.”

  “Using Rachel’s recipe,” said Owen. “Rachel makes a meatloaf like nothing you’ve ever tasted.”

  Mammi smoothed the dirt around one of her precious plants. “Is that so? I hope you will cook for us sometime, dear.”

  Her father pressed his lips into a rigid line, and Rachel smiled sheepishly at him. “I get so busy with all the chores, and Lia insists on preparing the meals.”

  Owen rubbed his hands together. “Well, she will have to be less selfish in the kitchen so you have a chance to show Moses how you can cook.”

  Moses groaned inwardly. They both looked at him like a hungry wolf looks at a helpless little lamb with nowhere to run. He guessed their plan without even thinking hard. Owen would sing Rachel’s praises until the driver carted him away at six o’clock tonight, and Rachel would simper and blush and try to show Moses how delicate and charming she could be.

  “Rachel told me she helped at your cheese factory,” Owen said.

  Moses felt so hostile he didn’t know how else to respond but with a bald-faced lie. “She was a big help with the curd.”

  “Have you your own house?”

  “Jah, I bought it last year from my uncle plus three acres to go with it.”

  “That’s a gute amount of land to manage without having the trouble of a big farm. Especially where you have the factory and all. Last year Rachel planted roses on the south side of our house and tended them until they bloomed to overflowing.”

  Rachel pushed the dirt with her toes. “Mamm says I have a green thumb.”

  “Two green thumbs,” Owen insisted.

  Mammi looked like she would burst into laughter any second. “Would you like to help with the weeding, then? These old bones are creaking like a rusty gate.”

  Rachel glanced at Moses and pasted on her best smile. “Jah, sure. Do you have a pair of gloves?”

  “In the barn,” Felty said. “Top shelf above the clay pots.”

  Rachel tiptoed gingerly to the barn and disappeared after a look behind her to make sure Moses watched.

  “Staking the tomatoes?” Owen said.

  “Would you like to help?”

  “I used to lay roof for a living. I know how to drive a nail pretty gute.”

  Moses gave Owen his leather gloves and the hammer. “I’ll hold while you drive it.”

  Owen donned the gloves and raised the hammer. Moses twisted a section of rebar into the ground a few inches from the first tomato plant. Owen aimed true, and it only took him three hits to firmly drive the stake.

  Rachel appeared at the door of the barn holding a bright green pair of gloves. “Do you have smaller ones?”

  “Look in the brown bin,” Felty yelled.

  Owen chuckled. “That girl sure is petite. We have to buy child-size garden gloves for her at home. Not like Lia. There ain’t nothing small about Lia. She’s tall enough for birds to perch on her head like a telephone pole.”

  Owen’s voice grated like fingernails on a chalkboard. Moses interrupted him just so he would quit talking. “I think Lia has beautiful long fingers. And graceful, like a swan in flight.”

  Owen looked mildly surprised. “I suppose she does. She’s not favored like Rachel, but Lia has her own good qualities. Rachel is a beauty, ain’t not?” He leaned closer to Moses and lowered his voice. “I’ll tell you one thing about Rachel. She likes to go riding. Don’t matter where you take her, she just likes to be off somewhere with the wind in her face.”

  “I don’t have an open-air buggy,” Moses said.

  “That don’t matter. Take her riding anywhere.” He lowered his voice further. “And if Lia is any sort of a bother, you send the word and I’ll bring her back home.”

  There was the bottom line. As long as Rachel was satisfied with Moses’s attentions, Lia could stay. But if Lia inconvenienced her sister in any way, Lia’s dat would ship her home.

  Had Lia’s fater always treated her this way? She must have the patience of Job. Moses wanted to growl in indignation for Lia. Instead, he turned his back on Owen and trudged toward the house. “I need a Band-Aid,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

  He flung open the door more violently than he meant to. Owen Shetler had really gotten to him. Lia stood at the counter with her hands submerged in a bowl of ground beef. She smiled weakly at him, but she looked weary, like all the sunshine had seeped out of her.

  Moses felt that he should say something to make her feel better, but he’d really come in so she would make him feel better. She always did.

  “I came for a drink of water,” he said lamely, momentarily distracted by her deep chocolate eyes.

  “Are you staking tomatoes?”

  “Slowly. Your dat is helping, and Rachel is scouring the entire barn for a suitable pair of gloves.”

  One corner of her mouth twitched upward. “It’s one of her tricks to avoid work.”

  “Jah, I figured.”

  Lia’s eyes glistened with instant tears. “I am sorry. I should not have said anything against my sister.”

  Moses hadn’t expected tears. He’d never seen Lia cry before. “Don’t cry about it,” he said, frozen in place where he stood. “I promise I won’t tell a soul.”

  Lia sniffled softly and blinked back the moisture before anything trickled down her face. “Must be the onions.”

  Moses snatched a tissue from the box with the knitted cover and held it ready for any leakage. “The strategy is to make sure there is a pair of extra-small gloves for Rachel ready for every occasion. We’ll need latex, gardening, and rubber. Did I forget anything?”

  There was a smile. Weak, but better than the unhappiness that overspread her features a few moments ago. “Oven mitts.”

  “Smaller oven mitts. Maybe Mammi could knit a pair.”

  Lia pressed her hamburger mixture into a pan. “You’re annoyed.”

  “You always think I’m annoyed.”

  “You always are.”

  Moses ran his fingers through his hair. “Not always. Just today. I wish people would quit trying to marry me off to people I don’t want to marry.”

  Lia’s face clouded over. “Then I have news that will annoy you more than ever.”

  “Sounds like very bad news.”

  “My dat says I have to take Rachel midwifing with me, or he will make me come home.”

  “But Sarah doesn’t want her to come,” Moses said.

  “Oh, she’s not planning on accompanying me. She’s planning on being with you.”

  Moses had no reply for that. He clenched his teeth until he thought they might crack.

 
“I would never ask you to do that for me,” Lia said. “Is there another way to get me to the homes without you having to fetch me? One of Sarah’s sons might be able to pick me up, or I could borrow Felty’s horse and go myself.”

  Moses couldn’t go along with that plan. He liked being with Lia, maybe more than he would admit to anybody. Why should he let Rachel take that from him? “That will never do. I take all the credit for introducing you to Sarah. I should have the privilege of driving you places.”

  She blushed and looked away. “It is more appropriate to say ‘the burden.’”

  “You deserve to learn with Sarah. You’ve studied hard.” Moses searched for the words to reassure Lia. There was no way he would let her sister ruin things for her in Bonduel. “Don’t fret. I don’t mind spending time with Rachel.”

  Lia’s countenance fell further. “Oh, you don’t?”

  “She is really a very pleasant girl. And helpful. She can help me make cheese on the days we are together. I will buy a supply of small gloves.”

  He meant for her to laugh. Instead, Lia acted as if he had said something very hurtful. He didn’t like her reaction.

  “You’re annoyed again,” she said.

  “Because I hate trying to guess what you are thinking.”

  “I am thinking that you and Rachel would make a striking couple.”

  Moses grunted. “And you must keep learning from Sarah. I won’t allow you to quit or let your dat ruin things for you.”

  Lia sighed deeply. “I can never repay all you’ve done for me.”

  “A piece of pie will be all the thanks I need.”

  Mammi came huffing into the house with Isaac Weaver close behind. Isaac and his wife, Lindy, were Mammi and Dawdi’s closest neighbors. They had six small children and twenty head of cattle. Moses bought all Isaac’s milk for the cheese factory.

  “Isaac,” said Moses, “Gute to see you.”

  “Gute maiya, Moses.”

  “Lindy is feeling poorly,” Mammi said, rummaging through her kitchen cupboards.

  Isaac stood just inside the door. “I came for some raspberry leaf. I know Anna always keeps some about.”

  “Are the kinner feeling okay?” Lia asked.