by Linda Byler
The first pitch was too high, but she swung anyway, misguided by nervous energy, sending a foul ball just shy of third base. No one said anything. There were no groans or calls. A strange silence hovered over the ball field. Lizzie was one of the new girls, so everyone had to be nice.
Lizzie had never wanted anything quite as badly as a good solid hit to show all of them what a good ballplayer she was. But she was far too nervous. She knew she had to calm down and relax.
The second pitch she let pass on purpose, taking a few deep breaths to get her bearings. The third pitch came in fast and low. She swung with every bit of strength she could muster.
A solid THUMP! and Lizzie was off. The girls screamed and the boys yelled as loud as they could as she ran for first base. Somewhere out beside the road the boys scrambled in the tall grass, still looking for the ball as she rounded first base and streaked for second.
“Go! Go! Go to third!” Everyone sounded hoarse from yelling. Just as she reached third base, one of the twins caught the ball at the pitcher’s mound, and she knew she had to stay. She was panting and her heart was swelling as the third baseman said, “Good hit for a girl!”
Lizzie tried to think of some witty answer, but nothing came. So she just smiled at the boy whose name she didn’t even know.
Sharon was up to bat next and made a good solid hit, sending Lizzie to home plate. Her teammates crowded around, asking her if that was how she always hit. Lizzie told them demurely, no, not always. But she knew there was a good chance she probably would quite often.
By the end of the game, Mandy and Lizzie had both established themselves as good baseball players. Mandy was very quick, dashing fearlessly to catch grounders and tagging people out quite easily, amazing even the boys.
It was so exciting and so much fun to be a part of a serious baseball game that Lizzie felt like hopping and skipping the whole way home.
And when Viola told Lizzie that she and Mandy were good for the team, Lizzie forgot all about her jealousy. Touching Viola’s sleeve she said, “You are, too. You were picked first.”
After school, Lizzie and Mandy walked slowly up the lane towards their house. Lizzie swung her arms and smiled.
“I think I’m going to marry Joe or John,” she said.
“Lizzie!” Mandy shrieked.
“I’m serious. They’re so cute,” Lizzie said happily.
“They would never want us. We’re way too … I don’t know how to say it, plain, or fadutsed, or whatever. We don’t near know how to dress and do our hair like Sara Ruth and Sharon.”
“We can learn!”
“Don’t you know it’s just common knowledge among the upper graders that Joe likes Viola and she likes him?” Mandy said, eyeing Lizzie skeptically.
She stopped and looked at Mandy, her mouth open in surprise. “Who said?”
“Sara Ruth.”
“They can’t like each other—he couldn’t date a Mennonite!”
“Lizzie, you’re so bold, even thinking they would even notice us. We’re just like … country mice going to the city!”
Lizzie’s heart sank along with her happy plans. Well, she would not always be a country mouse. It was a horrible feeling to be left out and way behind everybody else, just because she wasn’t as pretty and her dresses were plain. How would she ever marry? There were lots and lots of Violas in the world.
“Don’t worry, Lizzie. We’re too young. Mam would have a fit if she knew how you talked,” Mandy said. “We don’t have to worry about such things now!”
Lizzie knew Mandy was right, as she usually was. But no wonder she doesn’t worry, Lizzie thought. She’s thin and pretty and her complexion is as smooth as silk.
Chapter 11
LATER THAT WEEK THE girls were allowed to go with Dat to the hospital in Falling Springs.
Jason and the twins weren’t old enough to go, so they stayed with Uncle James and Aunt Becca who lived about five miles away. Aunt Becca drove her horse and buggy over to pick up the younger children and take them home with her. Dat said the way Becca drove her horse, she’d be over in a hurry and be back home just as fast.
Lizzie laughed because she loved the way Aunt Becca drove a horse. Becca’s horse was little, with deep lines running down his haunches. Lizzie thought this made it look as if he had lots of loose skin on his behind and his haunches flapped up and down along with the breeching on his harness.
Sometimes when they turned a corner, Lizzie had to bite down on her lower lip and clutch the seat, because it seemed as if they were only on two wheels. When Aunt Becca clucked to her horse after picking up Jason and the twins, she started off so fast that the children’s heads flew backward. Gravel scattered beneath the buggy as it rounded the corner past the barnyard. Dat laughed and shook his head.
“There she goes.”
Emma laughed with Dat. “How can she stop that horse?” she asked.
“Oh, she’ll get him stopped.”
Sure enough, Becca tugged the reins just in time and the little horse stopped at the very end of the lane.
After Becca left, the girls only had an hour to get ready to go to the hospital. Emma picked up the twins’ toys and straightened the house while Lizzie and Mandy went upstairs.
“Which dress are you wearing?” Lizzie asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t matter too much.”
“I know. But most of our dresses are still all from Jefferson County.”
“Guess I’ll wear that new lavender one.”
“Are you nervous about going to church, Mandy?” Lizzie asked, taking the hairpins out of her hair.
Lizzie could hardly believe that only a few days had passed since they had first arrived in Cameron County and so they hadn’t attended church yet.
“Sort of, I guess.”
“We probably don’t have to go because Mam’s sick and can’t go with us.”
“I hope not.”
“We don’t know one single person except our Glick relatives.”
“I dread it.”
“Me, too.”
Lizzie yanked at a tangle in her hair. She pulled out the hairbrush and gazed at it. “Look at all this hair! I’ll be bald!”
Mandy giggled. “You can lose a bunch of hair before you’ll be bald.”
“Can you roll your hair?” Lizzie asked.
“Not really.”
“Do we have to, just to go to the hospital?”
“I don’t know.”
“I hate to wet my hair down and roll it.”
“Ask Emma.”
So Lizzie yelled down the stairs, asking Emma if they had to roll their hair.
“Of course you do,” came Emma’s exasperated reply.
“Why?”
“Because we live here now. That’s how we have to do.”
“I can’t get it right!” Lizzie wailed.
There was no answer, so Lizzie knew Emma wasn’t going to extend any mercy to her. She went back to her dresser, peered closely into the mirror, and yanked her hair back as hard as she could. Lifting both arms, she grasped some of the hair growing along her forehead and twisted it back.
A big mound of hair above what she was already twisting poofed up and away from her head. She tried to smooth it back, but lost the whole part she had been holding, so she had to start all over.
She snorted, stamping her foot impatiently.
This was going to be impossible, that was all there was to it. She dashed to the bathroom and wet her hair until water ran off the tip of her nose. Using the palms of her hands to flatten her hair, she ran back to the bedroom, picked up the fine-toothed comb, and raked it along each side of her head.
“Are you done?” Emma asked, popping her head in the door.
“No!”
“Here.” Mandy came over and stood in front of Lizzie. She took the comb and used it to push some of Lizzie’s wet hair up and away from her forehead. “Now try rolling it.”
Lizzie leaned over the dresser, h
er face inches from the mirror, and gently twisted her hair back. Mandy stood back and watched, her arms crossed.
“Go ahead, laugh. You’re going to anyway!” Lizzie snapped.
Mandy turned and hurried out of the room, her shoulders shaking.
Good, she’s gone, Lizzie thought as she tilted her head to one side, trying to roll the other side the same way. The sides looked all right, but in the front, at her part, one roll went straight up and the other roll hung down. When she pushed the bobby pin in place, both rolls stood up and away from her head, making her look like a frog.
She sighed, tears close to the surface. The driver was coming any minute. She pulled her hair back securely and started twisting it into a bob again. She was not, absolutely not, going to call for Mandy. Mandy, her younger sister, could roll hair perfectly. Well, not perfectly, but much better than Lizzie could.
She pulled her hair back as tightly as she was able, only to discover that her rolls of hair now lay flat along the side of her head. So that was how it was done! She finished twisting her hair on the back of her head and stuck in hairpins as fast as she could. She grabbed her good covering and flopped it on top of her head, turning to look for a black belt apron.
“Driver’s here!” Mandy yelled from the bottom of the stairs.
Lizzie pinned her apron as fast as she could, adjusted her dress, and ran down the steps. Emma stood in the kitchen, carrying a bag with extra clothes for Mam.
“Come, Lizzie,” she said. And she sounded so like Mam that it made Lizzie miss Mam unbearably much. She couldn’t wait to get to the hospital.
Chapter 12
DAT HELD THE DOOR for the girls as they entered the cool interior of the hospital. The glass doors were huge. Lizzie gazed at the tall ceilings as she followed Emma into the lobby. The vast windows looking out at the pink trees and the warm sunlight brightened the soft carpet.
Dat went to a desk that said “Information,” where a small, white-haired woman was adjusting the glasses on her nose.
“Hello,” Dat said. “Could you tell me which floor Room 377 is on?”
“The numbers go by the floors; the 300s are on the third,” she said.
Dat thanked her and herded the girls toward the elevator past a gift shop with pretty plants, balloons, cards, and flowers making a bright display along the windows. Dat stopped to look at the price of a bouquet of yellow carnations and white daisies.
“Dat, you should get it,” Emma said.
“Twelve dollars!”
“So? Mam probably doesn’t have any flowers because we don’t know our English neighbors like we used to in Jefferson County. Please?”
Dat reached into his pocket for his wallet, one Mam had made for him years ago. He held it sideways, checking to see how much cash he had, then he smiled and lifted the pretty cut-glass vase.
“I’ll have to write a check for the driver,” he said gruffly, but Lizzie could tell he didn’t mind. Dat was like that, she thought.
They found Mam’s room on the third floor. Tears sprang suddenly to Lizzie’s eyes when she saw Mam. Her face was ashen—even her lips were pale. She looked so thin and so sick, it made Lizzie feel awful.
“How are you feeling?” Dat asked, going to the side of her bed.
“Oh, I had a rough night, but I can tell the antibiotic is working.”
She smiled at Dat and then looked at the bouquet in Emma’s hand. “Ach my, Emma. Aren’t they pretty? You shouldn’t have,” she said, turning to Dat.
Lizzie and Mandy stood back, almost shyly. Mam didn’t seem like their ordinary, everyday Mam, lying in that hospital bed wearing a green hospital gown. That gown was about the ugliest thing Lizzie had ever seen.
“Mandy, come here. Come, Lizzie,” Mam said, patting the bed. So they sat sideways on Mam’s hospital bed, while Lizzie tried not to cry.
“What were you doing last evening when I was here?” Mam asked, tucking a stray hair behind Mandy’s ear.
Mandy told Mam all about the pickup truck and the strange man with tattoos and long hair. Mam shook her head at Dat.
“Ach my, Melvin.”
“There wasn’t a thing wrong with him. Not a thing,” Dat assured her.
“I guess,” Mam said. “And I’ve often told the girls we can’t judge a person by his looks, can we? But … I would feel better if you stayed at home as much as you can, Melvin.”
“I will,” Dat said.
Mam told them the doctor’s diagnosis of her condition. She had acute pneumonia, the worst kind. The doctor wanted to keep her in the hospital for another three to four days to see if her cough stabilized. He warned Mam that it would take months to gain back her usual strength and that she should take it easy as much as she could.
Emma plucked at the crisp white sheet covering Mam’s legs. Lizzie knew she worried about the farm. The herd of cows Dat was buying would not arrive for a few weeks, so that would give them time to finish cleaning up. There was so much painting to be done, but Dat assured Mam that would have to wait until she felt better.
Mam sighed and turned her head.
“We’re making you too tired, talking about all this work, aren’t we?” Emma said.
“No, I just wish I wouldn’t have to be here in the hospital.”
There was silence while Dat gazed out the window. She would help Emma, Lizzie decided, and try not to complain about anything. She wished their house was not so ugly. She knew they had the sloppiest house of anyone in Cameron County, and now they couldn’t paint or fix it up for months.
Suppose someone came to visit? She wouldn’t even go to the door. It just wasn’t right, having Mam in the hospital and they couldn’t do a thing to improve their awful house.
“Why can’t me and Mandy paint?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mam said. “You’re hardly old enough to do the woodwork. I don’t know if you could use a roller on the walls or not. Maybe if Emma did the trimming.”
Lizzie’s face lit up with enthusiasm. “We can! Me and Mandy can use rollers and Emma can use a brush along the edges!”
“We watched you when you painted the new house!” Mandy chimed in.
That seemed to cheer Mam immensely. She told the girls how to set the roller pans on newspaper, and how much paint was the right amount when they put the rollers in them. She decided they were allowed to do their rooms upstairs, but the woodwork would have to wait. She didn’t want the girls working with that high gloss enamel. Besides, they would not be able to do it without making a mess on the walls.
When a nurse came in to take Mam’s temperature, Dat said it was time to leave. Visiting hours would soon be over. Mam smiled, even if her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Lizzie thought she must be the bravest person in the whole world right at that moment.
Chapter 13
THAT FIRST SPRING IN Cameron County, Lizzie’s life seemed to take on new meaning. Mam was home from the hospital. And Lizzie loved every minute of that one day a week when she went to school. She would get up in the morning, fret and worry about her looks, her hair, how her dress was made, how her covering fit, and whether her complexion was normal or if she was breaking out with those dreaded pimples.
The warm sun and frequent rains meant that their new garden was full of produce. Lizzie ate crisp, red radishes and long, thin spring onions that crunched like a pretzel but tasted even better.
At lunchtime, Dat would spread butter on a thick slice of homemade bread, sprinkle salt beside his plate until he had made a little pile, then select a spring onion. He would dip the onion in the salt, bite it off and quickly take a bite of the buttered bread, and then chew the two together.
Lizzie piled four or five spring onions on a piece of bread and folded it over to make a thick onion sandwich. Sometimes she put mayonnaise on both sides of the bread, which was absolutely delicious, but so fattening. Lizzie couldn’t always be careful. As hard as she worked here on the farm, she had to eat enough or she’d feel weak and her head would star
t to hurt. She wasn’t exactly thin, but she enjoyed good food so much, she didn’t always care if she was as thin as Mandy and Emma.
The morning before Emma’s sixteenth birthday, Lizzie was out hanging laundry on the wash line while Mam worked in the garden. Mam was still recovering from her time in the hospital, but she liked to spend sometime outside each day in the garden. The sunshine made her feel better, she said.
“Lizzie, come look at all these peas!” she called.
Lizzie dropped the towel she was holding and headed to the garden. She stopped in one row and reached down, separating a few pea stalks to have a closer look. Sure enough, thousands of pea pods were hanging in thick clusters, all ready for picking.
“There’s a bunch of them!” Lizzie said.
Mam rushed into the house and came back with Mandy, Emma, and even Jason, each carrying a bucket or basket.
At first it was fun picking peas. The buckets filled up fast, and they ate many tender green peas straight from the pod. They chattered and laughed and threw peas at each other as they watched little toads and snails crawl through the dirt.
But as the sun rose in the sky, the rows seemed longer and longer. Lizzie stretched and rubbed the small of her back. In the next row, Mandy was sitting on the ground between pea stalks, shelling one pea after another and gobbling them down. She wasn’t putting any in her basket.
“Mandy!” Lizzie yelled.
Mandy had a mouthful of peas and didn’t answer.
“Stop eating peas and help pick!” Lizzie shouted.
Mandy chewed, swallowed, and turned to glare at Lizzie. “Stop hollering!”
“Well, pick!”
“Pick, pick, pick. Pick, pick, pick. You sound like a chicken.”
“That’s enough, girls,” Mam called. “Finish your rows and then come inside to help me get ready for Emma’s birthday party.”
The girls nudged Emma and laughed as they rushed to finish their rows. Emma kept her head down as she worked, but Lizzie could tell she was excited, too. It must be just absolutely wonderful to turn 16, Lizzie thought, especially if you looked as slender and pretty as Emma.