Running Around (and Such)

by Linda Byler

  “Now, now,” Mam laughed. “Exactly what you vow and declare you will never do is usually what you end up doing.”

  “Not me,” Lizzie stated firmly.

  “Lizzie, you better start thinking about a husband. Four more days and it’s your very first weekend to go with me to Allen County. Ephraim Yoders are having the supper for all the youth. Imagine that! Everything is planned already! I’m so excited to be able to take my younger sister along.”

  Lizzie smiled at Emma appreciatively. “Do you really feel that way?”

  “Why, of course, Lizzie.”

  In that moment, Lizzie realized how good a sister Emma had become to her. Emma helped her style her dresses, she was teaching her how to sew and how to make her coverings fit well, and now she was actually looking forward to taking her along on Sunday evening. Emma was a dear a lot of the time, no doubt about it. She seemed less bossy and more generous and unselfish than ever, devoting her time and energy to helping Lizzie successfully join the young people’s social events.

  “Lizzie…” Mam began a bit hesitantly.

  “Hmmm?”

  “I worry about you starting to run around.”

  “Why?” Lizzie turned to Mam, her anticipation still brightly evident.

  “I just do. I suppose that incident with that…that English man, whatever his name was, just put a fear in me. You’re not very…how can I say it? You need to be very careful, Lizzie. Remember how we talked about the thin line between friendliness and flirtation?”

  Lizzie sighed and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Mam, here we go again. Aren’t we allowed to flirt a little after we’re 16? I bet you did.”

  Mam pursed her lips as she told Lizzie in no uncertain terms that finding a husband was not about flirting with handsome boys or thinking the decision was entirely up to her or depended on her appearance. Neither, she said, did fanciness and style have anything to do with it. Lizzie should learn to pray sincerely for God’s will in her life with a humble spirit, Mam said emphatically, so that God could lead her to the right man.

  Lizzie wasn’t against praying. She had just never been sure how to do it right. Ever. She had always put her patties down, as Amish children were taught to do. At mealtime, Amish people never prayed out loud like English people did, so Lizzie always felt especially ill at ease when she heard someone praying aloud.

  Concentrating seemed to be Lizzie’s problem. Dat told them to thank the Lord for their food and to look down at their plates as they prayed. Lizzie often forgot to pray because she was peeping at someone or thinking other thoughts. She didn’t know why, but it seemed she could never stop her mind and pray a long prayer during patties down. She tried hard though. Emma dropped her head far and moved her lips as she said her silent prayer. Lizzie often watched her sideways, fascinated by her goodness.

  Chapter 30

  AS MAM TALKED EARNESTLY, Lizzie’s spirits fell into a downward spiral. She wished it would all make more sense. “Well, Mam, you know I don’t understand what you mean. If I comb my hair flat as a pancake and make my dresses as long as yours and sit on a chair with my hands folded my first weekend, no boy is ever going to look at me, you know that. That’s what you mean by being humble, isn’t it?”

  Emma burst out laughing and Mam joined her helplessly. As Emma showed Lizzie a dress pattern that she recommended and Lizzie picked the fabric for her first “running-around” dress, Mam resumed the conversation. She first tried to explain to Lizzie how important it was to obey God’s will, which basically, for a young person, meant letting her conscience guide her and trying to do what was right in all matters.

  Every so often, Mam and Dat got all worked up about the girls’ spiritual lives.

  That whole year after Emma turned 16 and Lizzie’s 16th birthday approached, the girls were learning how to live a new life, trying to live the way that Jesus taught. They learned the rules of the church, and they promised to obey and help build the church.

  Mam even had tears, talking to them about all of this. Lizzie could tell that Emma took it very, very seriously. But the whole business depressed Lizzie to the point of tears. This would not be fun. They had to be so careful. What if they said or did one thing wrong ever again in their lives? And if they grew into old people, imagine the hopelessness of their situation, unless they all stayed at home and read their Bibles almost continuously.

  Mam read her Bible a lot, urging the girls to as well. Emma read her Bible every evening before she blew out her kerosene lamp, but half the time Lizzie wasn’t sure where her Bible was. Mam would have a fit if she knew.

  Lizzie never told anyone, but the Bible scared her a lot. It just seemed too holy, too righteous, and too impossible to follow. She often wished she wouldn’t feel that way, wondering if she was normal. Emma said the Bible comforted her, which went beyond Lizzie’s understanding. That made her feel so guilty that she could never, ever tell Emma how she felt about all the talk about spiritual things.

  As Mam launched into one of her speeches that just gave Lizzie the blues, Lizzie quietly slipped out of the room and went up to her bedroom.

  She heard steps coming up the stairway, so she quickly closed her door. Nobody had to know where she was.

  “Lizzie, are you in there?” Mandy called.

  No answer.

  “Lizzie?”

  She still didn’t answer.

  The steps turned, the sound ebbing away before starting down the stairs. Good, Lizzie thought. Mandy can go play with Jason.

  Lizzie rolled over, searching for a book to read. She had read them all so many times she hardly knew what to read anymore. If only Mam could spot more mystery books, but they were getting harder to find. Lizzie just loved those books about teenagers not much older than she and Emma solving exciting mysteries, some of them even a bit dangerous. They were all interesting, good, clean books that Mam approved of. They weren’t allowed to read just anything.

  The last book she read was about a huge colony of bats living in a cave—vampire bats. If one of them bit a horse or a human being, the bats gave them a disease called rabies, which caused you to lose your mind and die a slow, painful death.

  After Lizzie finished that book, she wouldn’t go outside after dark. There was an electric pole light at the corner of their yard, which was actually the neighbors’. Every night in the summertime, a cloud of insects whirled around the light. Bats often swooped in among them. Dat told Lizzie they didn’t have rabies; well, only rarely. Bats also have radar that warns them of an approaching object, which makes them steer clear of people.

  Lizzie told Dat that vampire bats are thirsty for blood; in fact, they’ll sit on horses and drink their blood. Mam said she should quit reading those mysteries if she was going to be afraid of bats. Besides, very likely none of what they had in them was true.

  Lizzie’s Uncle Marvin had often told her about the time a bat flew into Aunt Rachel’s room and sat in her hair. Rachel screamed and screamed, picking up the horrible creature and throwing it against the wall with all her strength, where it slid to the floor, quite dead. The bat was probably rabid, or why would it have become tangled in Rachel’s hair? Evidently its radar wasn’t working, which meant it had already lost its mind. So Lizzie remained unconvinced of Dat’s reassurances, refusing to go out at night for a very long time.

  She found her Tom Sawyer book, but she had read it so many times that it was boring now. She kept looking. My Friend Flicka. Oh, that was a different one. She had only skipped through it before. So happy to have something to read, Lizzie rearranged the pillows, flipped on her back, opened the book, and started in. She was soon transported to a horse ranch in the West, where she worked alongside a family who owned a great herd of horses and cattle.

  All at once she became aware of her name being called quite anxiously. It sounded as if it came from outside in the yard. She listened a while but didn’t answer. Then she heard someone at the foot of the stairs.

  “I did look up there!”


  “Well, where could she be? Lizzie!”

  It was Mam, and her voice sounded as if she was close to tears. For an instant, Lizzie felt like remaining quiet, but her conscience made her do what was right. Putting her book aside, she yelled, “What?”

  “Where were you?” Mam asked weakly. Lizzie could hear the great relief in her voice. “We looked all over the place for you.”

  “I was up here.”

  “Then you didn’t answer when I called you the first time,” Mandy said.

  Lizzie didn’t say anything.

  “Come on down now, Lizzie. We’re having a snack,” Mam said.

  Lizzie sat up, fixed her hair and covering a bit, and checked her face in the mirror before starting downstairs. She was so pleased that Mam was worried. That was so good for her, because now she would be more careful about what she said and would like her every bit as much as Emma.

  Dat and Jason were making popcorn. Lizzie was instantly hungry. Mam had made a pitcher of ice-cold chocolate milk and put out pumpkin whoopie pies and blueberry pie. Lizzie sat in a chair, smiling at Emma, feeling quite pleased because everyone had been worried.

  “Where were you, Lizzie?” Mam asked.

  “In my room.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Reading.”

  “Didn’t you hear us looking for you?”

  “Hm-mm.”

  “I bet you did,” Emma said.

  “No, not until someone was calling for me in the yard.” She unwrapped a pumpkin whoopie pie and took a huge, soft bite. The icing stuck to her cheek, and she wiped it away with her hand. Mmmm. Mam made the best whoopie pies.

  The popcorn was ready, and Dat poured it into a huge, stainless-steel bowl, adding salt and melted butter. Everyone took a colorful plastic dish and dug into the bowl, shaking them down, piling more on top to make their dishes heaping full.

  This was one of Lizzie’s favorite snacks. Buttery, salty popcorn, washed down with cold chocolate milk. Amazing how you could have a whole mouthful of popcorn and the minute the chocolate milk hit it, the popcorn all dissolved and went to nothing. Kool-Aid, iced tea, or water did the exact same thing. She supposed that if they were English and drank Pepsi, it would dissolve popcorn, too. That was because popcorn was mostly air.

  “Where’s church next time?” Emma asked around a mouthful of popcorn.

  “At Levi Kanagy’s,” Mam said.

  See? There Emma talked with her mouth heaping full and Mam did not say one word about it, Lizzie observed to herself.

  “I wonder,” Emma said, clearly thinking about the main subjects of conversation for the last few weeks, “if everybody’s sins are all forgiven when they’re baptized, what happens when they sin again?”

  “That’s a good question, Emma,” Dat said. “Actually, that’s when the power of Jesus’ blood goes into effect. After you profess to believe in Jesus, you become one of God’s children, and your sins are forgiven when you repent and pray to be forgiven. That happens over and over again as we go through life.”

  Okay, Lizzie thought. Well, that makes everything seem much more possible. It didn’t seem quite as dangerous to join church if you had a chance of making some mistakes afterward.

  Lizzie wished they’d simply stop talking about all this serious stuff. Everything had been strict enough around the house lately. It just gave her the blues. She didn’t know why things had to change so much when you got older.

  “You girls probably think Mam and I have become a bit hard on you recently. We don’t mean to be, but watching the youth join church this summer, and seeing how fast you’re growing up, kind of puts fear into us. We want to do all we can to help you girls be the mature young women you should be as you join the youth and go to singings on Sunday evenings.” Dat said this so soberly, it sounded as if there were tears in his voice.

  That was nice, what Dat said, Lizzie decided. She believed him, and she felt like trying hard to please Dat and Mam in everything. But that was enough now.

  Chapter 31

  Lizzie’s intensive sewing lessons continued during the week after her birthday. One morning, after the breakfast dishes were done, Lizzie and Emma spread out dress fabric on the kitchen table while Mam baked cookies

  “It’s not straight,” Lizzie wailed, as she started to cut into the fabric.

  “Hold your scissors upside down, Lizzie. You’re left-handed.”

  “Ow! Ouch. That doesn’t work either. It cuts right into the soft part of my thumb.”

  “Well, it’s one way or another, Lizzie,” Emma said measuredly.

  “Mam!” Lizzie screeched.

  “What?”

  “Didn’t anyone ever invent scissors for left-handed people?”

  Mam dried her hands on a dish towel and went to see what Lizzie was yelling about. After watching her attempts, which were more like chewing the fabric than making a clean, slicing cut, she nodded.

  “I see what you mean. Yes, I’m sure we can find a left-handed scissors for you at a fabric shop somewhere. Next time we go shopping we’ll look for one.”

  So with a black cloud of impatience and frustration already forming over Lizzie’s head, sewing at the machine went quickly from struggle to disaster.

  “Not so fast, Lizzie!”

  “Yes, you have to zigzag the seams. If you don’t, they’ll ravel apart, leaving long strands of thread dangling. Lizzie, you have to!”

  Mam winced when she heard the chair thump on the floor, and Lizzie came charging toward the counter. Her hair stood out wildly every which way, her covering was crooked, and bits of fabric stuck to her bib apron.

  “Mam, why do I have to zigzag? That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard of. The fabric is already sewed tight with a straight stitch twice, so why do I still have to zigzag? I’m not going to.” And with that, she flounced back to the sewing machine, leaving a trail of loose threads floating behind her.

  Emma’s patience was already stretched to the limit, so when Lizzie came huffing back, she put her hands on her hips and announced quite firmly, “If you don’t do it right, I’m not going to help you anymore.”

  “But that’s so stupid!”

  “Do you want to have sloppy-looking pieces of thread sticking out of your neckline or from under your cape on your very first weekend?” Emma shouted.

  Lizzie narrowed her eyes, considering. “No-o-o.”

  “Okay, then settle down and watch me turn this knob. You have to stay on the edge of the fabric. You can’t just zigzag anywhere you feel like.”

  Lizzie’s sigh of resignation assured Mam that she was well on the way to learning how to sew, so she relaxed as she started a batch of homemade bread. Susan and KatieAnn pushed their chairs up to the kitchen cabinets. Mam let them stir the yeast into the water, her heart melting as it always did when they wanted to be her helpers.

  The treadle on the sewing machine thumped fairly rhythmically without too much noise between the two girls until Emma showed up at Mam’s elbow, looking peeved.

  “Mam,” she whispered, “Lizzie’s dress is going to be way too fancy. She cut her sleeves so wide, she can hardly gather all the fabric neatly at the bottom of the sleeve.”

  Mam’s heart sank as she looked at Emma. Dat was already asking Mam why she allowed Lizzie to comb her hair so stylishly. She was increasingly in that difficult position between Lizzie’s strong will and Dat’s fear of what other people would say about his stylish daughter.

  Mam strode purposefully over to the sewing machine. “Lizzie,” she said quietly, peering over her shoulder at the alarming length of fancy ruffles which Lizzie was arranging along the bottom of the sleeve.

  Lizzie jumped nervously. She had thought it was Emma coming to watch her make the sleeves. “What?”

  “You can’t have so many ruffles, Lizzie. That’s just not allowed. Emma’s dresses aren’t cut or gathered like that. You’re going to have to take some fabric out. Dat will have a fit. It simply looks too fancy.”


  “Emma’s dresses have exactly this many gathers,” Lizzie snorted defiantly.

  “No, Lizzie, they don’t. And if that’s how you’re going to be, you may as well close the sewing machine right now and wear a dress that you already have for your first weekend in Allen County.”

  Lizzie set her jaw in a firm line and held her shoulders stiffly as she sat gazing out the window without moving a muscle.

  “It’s up to you,” Mam said, turning to go back to her bread.

  Tears welled in Lizzie’s eyes as the battle between giving in and having her own way raged. Why did Mam have to have all these plain ideals for her daughters? And Dat was worse yet.

  Well, they would soon find out that she was not nearly as good and well behaved as Emma. Why would she be? She never was when they were little girls. And besides, Mam didn’t understand how important it was that she was right up there, dressed like all the other girls, especially since she always felt a bit different, coming from Jefferson County and living on this ugly old farm. Why, the barn wasn’t even painted, and they weren’t nearly as classy as almost everyone else in their church district.

  She knew, too, that her fight to look good would be a long battle. She didn’t necessarily want to outdo the other girls. She just wanted to look pretty and be noticed as someone who was tastefully fancy. Was that so terribly wrong?

  It made Lizzie sad, though, to think of hurting Mam and Dat. For a moment, she looked at Mam and thought about all she had to overcome, living on this terrible run-down farm. She had recently asked Mam, “Do you like it here now? I mean, better than you did that first year?”

  Mam had gazed across the living room, seeing nothing as she struggled for the right answer. “Yes, Lizzie, I do,” she said quietly, but there was a sigh in her voice, a kind of hollow undertone that wouldn’t quite go away when she tried to use words to cover it.

  Lizzie couldn’t help wondering if Mam believed it was God’s will for them to move here. Not only were they trying to make a livable farm and home on this heap of a place, but Dat’s and Mam’s daughters had to travel to another county for friends, both girls and boys.