by Linda Byler
But Lizzie could feel Bob’s agitation, and she was afraid he would wear himself out, raising and lowering his head, chomping down on the bit, prancing, stepping sideways, until the sweat turned to foam and flecks of foam coated his harness. If he would only calm down, he would use maybe only half of his energy.
She didn’t blame him. It would be awful to be hitched to that long wooden tongue with a horse he had never met before, with those leather blinders on each side of his face. He wanted to run the way he was used to, run free and swift, without that weight hanging on his collar.
What if one of the horses began balking and they began drifting backward? They were going up, up, always on a slight incline, very different from the rolling up and down terrain of Cameron County.
Lizzie could no longer remain quiet, so she brought up the subject to Stephen again.
“Don’t worry about it,” Stephen said shortly.
Lizzie glanced at him sideways and shrugged her shoulders. All right, be like that then, she thought. She was hurt. That wasn’t very nice of him to tell her off like that. She watched him again, but he was talking and laughing with Reuben without noticing that Lizzie was quiet. Actually, a bit miffed.
She wished Stephen would reassure her more verbally and help her overcome her distress about Bob. He probably wouldn’t be very comforting about anything, Lizzie thought as she realized the night would be very dark so far away from any towns or houses and the campground so far away from Mam and Dat and Mandy.
Golden leaves floated to the ground, and little wrinkled brown ones scudded across the road as the breeze pushed against the covered wagon. Stephen and Marvin discussed the best places to pull off on the side of the road to let the horses rest and drink water.
Just as Stephen had predicted, the horses slowed to a walk once the road turned gradually uphill, because they needed to conserve their energy for the long haul to the top of the mountain.
The five young people settled in and relaxed, laughing and talking about all kinds of ordinary subjects. Lizzie told them about Dat’s disease and how hard it was to think of him being unable to walk in the coming years, which brought quick sympathetic tears from Rebecca. She’s such a dear, Lizzie thought, and not only because she’s Stephen’s sister, just because she’s herself.
As the afternoon continued, Rebecca and Marvin got out of the wagon and were now walking behind it to make the load lighter for the horses. Up front, Reuben and Stephen were having so much fun while Lizzie sat in the back seat, her arms crossed tightly in front of her, and pouted. She tried not to pout seriously, just enough to make Stephen notice that he had hurt her feelings. But if he noticed, he gave no sign.
Bored all alone on the back seat, she cleared her throat and coughed. Nothing happened. Stephen kept having fun with Reuben, so she dug in her purse until she found her pack of chewing gum. “Anyone want a piece of gum?” she sang out.
“No, thanks!”
“Nope!”
Lizzie stuffed two big pieces into her mouth and chewed vehemently. She peered through the plastic side flap to see where Rebecca and Marvin were, but they weren’t even in sight. She sighed and flopped back against the seat.
“I’m bored,” she said loudly.
Stephen turned to look at her and laughed.
“You’ll soon be a lot more bored than you are now, if you get bored this quickly,” he said.
After he said that, Stephen laughed, bringing bright color to Lizzie’s cheeks. Now she wasn’t just hurt and bored. She was angry. How dare he? Her very own boyfriend.
“Let me off,” she said curtly.
“Why?”
“Just let me off.”
Stephen shrugged his shoulders, stopped the team, and watched as Lizzie climbed down over the back step.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, really noticing her this time.
“Walk.”
“By yourself?”
“Of course.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No.”
She soon found Rebecca and Marvin and had a good time walking with them along the leaf-strewn country road that wound its way to the top of the mountain.
They stopped almost at the very peak of the mountain and had a long, delicious lunch, while the boys watered the horses at the spring which bubbled out of the rocks. It was a beautiful spot, one Lizzie would never forget, sitting surrounded by thick foliage that provided a brilliant background to the sweating horses.
After lunch they climbed back onto the wagon and started down the opposite side of the mountain. Lizzie fought down her panic as the brakes, which were blocks of rubber, scraped and screeched against the back wheels, helping the horses hold the wagon to a safe speed.
She sat back against the seat with Rebecca, put her fist to her mouth, and whispered, “Aren’t you afraid?”
“No. The horses are taking it easy. Stephen’s a good driver.”
But Lizzie was immensely relieved when they finally rolled into the campground. It was so good to be on level ground—on good, soft, green grass—that she chattered happily on about anything and everything. She felt so much better. She would never tell Stephen how absolutely petrified she had been.
After talking to the owner of the campground, the boys fed and watered the horses and then set up the girls’ tent and one for themselves. As the sun slipped behind the mountain, Marvin and Reuben started a roaring campfire while Stephen got out folding chairs. They all started roasting hot dogs and burning marshmallows to a black crisp.
Stephen brought his chair over close to hers and sat down beside her. Lizzie smiled.
“Are you having fun?” he asked quietly and only for her ears to hear.
“Oh, yes. Except for a while back there when you were mean to me,” she said, trying to pout prettily.
“Mean to you? When was I mean to you?”
“You and Reuben were laughing at me.”
Stephen sat back and looked at the stars twinkling down between the leaves of the treetops. “We didn’t want to make you feel bad, Lizzie, but I don’t like when someone nags at me when I’m driving a horse. Especially not two horses.”
“I’m sorry,” Lizzie whispered.
“That’s okay,” Stephen said gruffly. Stephen and Lizzie sat quietly side by side until it was time for bed.
Rebecca and Lizzie had a great time in their tent, settling in for the night. They arranged and rearranged their sleeping bags and adjusted their pillows. Finally, sometime after midnight they dozed off fitfully, each trying to reach a comfortable position on the hard ground.
In the middle of the night, Lizzie awakened to a shrill scream, which sounded so much like a genuinely terrified woman that she sat straight up and grabbed Rebecca, her eyes wide open in terror. The horses were going crazy, whinnying and snorting and stamping their feet as they strained on the ropes that held them to the trees.
“Rebecca! What is it?” Lizzie hissed.
“How would I know? I didn’t hear it. You woke me, grabbing my head!” Rebecca shouted.
Then at that moment another terrifying, high-pitched wail sliced through the thick darkness. The horses snorted again and whinnied restlessly.
Rebecca and Lizzie cowered in their tent, half whimpering with fright. This was awful. Was it a woman who was hurt and afraid, or worse yet, a huge mountain lion out there on the mountain somewhere, just waiting to rake its claws through the thin material of their small tent?
Just when Lizzie thought she would scream loud and long without any restraint whatsoever, she heard the boys’ tent zipper, and bright spots of light moved across the campground to the horses. The boys gently steadied the horses, calming them in soothing tones.
Another earsplitting scream rent the night air as the girls sank lower in their sleeping bags. Lizzie was close to tears as she wriggled out of her sleeping bag and quickly pushed up the tent zipper. Just as she was ready to call out to Stephen, she heard him tell Marvin that he was almos
t positive that sound was a bobcat.
A bobcat!
They aren’t even very big, Lizzie thought. About twice the size of a house cat.
Quickly she stuck her head out and called, “Are you sure, Stephen?”
“I think so, but just to make sure, we’ll walk around with flashlights after we get the horses calmed down.”
Lizzie crawled back into the tent, smiling to herself about how calm and grown up and handsome Stephen looked out there, taking charge of this terrifying situation. He would protect her, making her feel so much less afraid and alone. She guessed she could forgive him for being uncaring on the way across the mountain. She definitely was not going to bring it up ever again, that was one thing sure.
Stephen was her boyfriend now, and if she wanted to continue their friendship, she would have to learn to be quiet, keeping her thoughts to herself at certain times. Emma said that was important when you got married, and she believed almost everything Emma said.
Chapter 18
MANDY THREW A PILLOW in Lizzie’s direction and let out a fierce yell. Lizzie reached down and picked up the pillow, firing it back at Mandy as hard as she possibly could. Tiny pellets of cold, hard snow whacked against the upstairs windows of the old farmhouse as another winter storm began to pick up speed, dropping icy snowflakes on the brown frozen landscape. Inside, Lizzie’s bedroom was suffused in the soft yellow glow of the kerosene lamp, the wick turned up as far as it would go without sending black smoke billowing out of the glass chimney.
It was the week before Christmas, a busy time in the Glick household. Mam loved Christmas shopping and Dat gladly let her go ahead with it. He was no shopper, he always said, which was just fine with Mam, as she certainly was. Mam always saved money somehow, somewhere, even if it meant doing with less grocery money through November.
Lizzie just knew that on Christmas morning there would always be three or four good-sized packages piled around the drop-leaf table in the living room for each family member, while Mam hovered about, her cheeks pink with excitement. Every year Lizzie had a long list of things she wanted. This year’s list included ice skates and new dresses and a warm robe, as well as things for her room, like a new picture for the wall and a nice new candle with an artificial flower ring around the base.
Oh, my! Nothing surpassed the spread of food at Christmastime. Mam was always a very good cook and a wonderful baker, but over Christmas she completely outdid herself.
Each year she would start by looking through all of her cookbooks, particularly her red hardcover Betty Crocker one. Then out would come her gray metal recipe box with the tattered yellow recipe cards that held all the wonders of Christmas. Among them was date pudding, which was so rich you couldn’t eat too much, although Lizzie always managed to eat so much her stomach hurt a bit.
There was hardly an end to the rich desserts and drinks Mam would cook and bake for weeks before Christmas. She made butterscotch pie, chocolate pie, sand tarts, Grandpa cookies, Christmas layer salad, banana pudding, and Christmas cake. Mam mixed ginger ale with grape juice, or she bought soda—Mountain Dew, Pepsi, or root beer—and vanilla ice cream to make root beer floats. Which, Lizzie discovered as a child, you should never eat with olives.
Sometime Mam roasted a turkey for Christmas, and other years she baked a ham. She would always arrange pineapple rings on the ham and baste it with a bit of the juice while it baked.
The best part of Christmas dinner was the Ohio filling. It came out of the oven moist and steaming with a golden brown crust on top. The crust was the best. It tasted like toast with too much butter, Lizzie thought. Mam’s version was from her native Holmes County, Ohio, and included potatoes, carrots, and celery chopped into tiny pieces, cubed bread, chicken, and chicken broth. It was so good. There was no other way to describe it except to say it was almost the best thing about Christmas food.
Mam made all kinds of cookies and candy, too. Rice Krispie treats and chocolate-coated peanut butter crackers were Lizzie’s favorites.
Lizzie and Mandy always worked very hard to clean the entire house for Christmas, while Mam baked and cooked in the kitchen. They didn’t decorate the house because that would be too worldly. Sometimes Mam allowed a few red candles on the windowsill or a candle set in the middle of the table.
Amish people did not believe in Christmas trees. Lizzie always wanted one though. Her favorite argument was that Laura Ingalls had one, decorated with popcorn and cranberries. Mam said Laura was English, but Lizzie said she wore longer dresses than her own. Mam said they were still English, and her nostrils flared a bit, and Lizzie knew it was time to stop pressing Mam on the Christmas tree issue. Christmas trees were fancy and not in the Amish ordnung.
At Christmas the festivities also extended to the youth gatherings, especially the large Christmas hymn-singing that all of the parents were also urged to attend. It was just a special time, where all the voices blended together as the group sang old German favorites.
They often sang the verses in German and the chorus in English of songs such as “Joy to the World” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” Lizzie’s favorite was “Stille Nacht” or “Silent Night” in German.
Dat loved singing, and especially at Christmastime he was in his element, sitting in the middle of the room at the singing, leading many of the songs with his beautiful voice. He knew all the words to all of the songs. Lizzie was secretly proud of Dat because she knew that when he started a song, the singing would become especially rousing. Dat was probably the community’s best voice.
Two days before Christmas, Lizzie and Mandy were wrapping their Christmas presents for John and Stephen. Picking out a gift for a boy was a new experience for Lizzie, and one she was decidedly not comfortable with. Mandy teased her mercilessly, which was quite funny for awhile, but now Lizzie didn’t think it was so humorous anymore.
She dreaded exchanging gifts with Stephen because she was worried about how to act properly and politely. She just didn’t know how and when to say the right thing.
What if she didn’t like what Stephen gave her? Of course, she would fuss over it and tell him it was beautiful even if it wasn’t. But Mandy laughed when Lizzie told her how she would react, being calm and polite no matter what she received.
“Your face is a dead giveaway,” Mandy said. “You can’t hide your true feelings.”
“That’s not true!”
“You’ll say, ‘Oh, how lovely!’ and promptly burst into so many tears that you’ll need a whole box of Kleenexes to keep blowing your nose,” Mandy continued, clinging to the pillow that landed in her face.
Lizzie flipped back her long, brown hair, which was still wet from the shower, and scowled at Mandy.
“So. You weren’t exactly thrilled with that cheap picture John gave you for your birthday,” she said.
“I was! Where did you get that idea? Huh? He gave me my water set, too, not just the picture.”
Mandy got up from her perch on the bed and ran a towel across her wet hair.
“You’re just jealous,” she said.
Lizzie shook her head vehemently. “Oh, no. Huh-uh. I wouldn’t want a water set. I’m not getting married anytime soon.”
“Then why are you dating Stephen?”
“ ’Cause I like him. He’s fun to be with.
“Is that all?”
“Well, for now.”
Mandy sat back down on the bed and straightened the gold bow she had tied around John’s gift. The enormous box was wrapped in a dull red paper and done up with a gold bow, which looked very masculine. It was the perfect paper for a young man’s present, Lizzie thought. She and Mandy had bought the same thing for their boyfriends, a small shaving cabinet with sliding glass doors and a wooden towel rack. They were very popular among the girls’ friends and considered the perfect expensive Christmas gift to give to their boyfriends.
Lizzie’s package for Stephen was wrapped in forest green paper. She was very happy with it, except she secretly thought th
e red looked more Christmasy. She would never admit this to Mandy, who was already too smug and self-assured about that package of hers.
“So, Mandy, you give John his gift Saturday evening, and I will give Stephen his Sunday evening, okay? Because you most definitely are not going to watch us exchange gifts or hear us or anything.”
Mandy laughed easily. “Oh, relax. We’re going to be down at the farm with his brother.”
“Over the entire holiday?”
“No, of course not. John says he has something special to tell me or show me. I’m not sure what he meant.”
“He’s going to ask you to marry him!” Lizzie said loudly.
“Hush, Lizzie! You’ll wake the twins! No, he’s not. I’m not even near old enough and haven’t joined the church yet.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot.”
They sat and talked awhile longer as the snow pinged against the windows and the soft hiss of the kerosene lamp made everything seem homey and cozy. They talked about Dat and how they hardly ever noticed there was anything different about him since his diagnosis. It always made them sad to think of Dat’s disease, but since Mam was so upbeat, encouraging Dat to keep doing all the things he was used to doing, it helped the girls to see that it really wasn’t so terrible to have multiple sclerosis.
“Not yet, Lizzie,” Mandy said wisely, shaking her head slowly. “But sometime it will be.”
“I know,” Lizzie said soberly.
They sat in comfortable silence, Mandy with her chin on her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. Lizzie plumped the pillows and flopped back, crossing her hands behind her head.
“So, what do you say when you give your boyfriend his present? Just, ‘Here,’ or ‘Do you want this?’ or ‘Open this,’ or what?” Lizzie asked.
Mandy rolled over and collapsed in a fit of laughter. She laughed until she could hardly get her breath, gasping and wheezing as she slapped at Lizzie.
Lizzie laughed with her, but only because she always had to laugh when Mandy did—that’s just how it was.