Lizzie and Emma

by Linda Byler

  Mam was busy sewing their new school clothes, even dresses and little black pinafore-style aprons for Mandy, because she would be in first grade this year. That was another reason Lizzie did not want to return to school in a few weeks. What if Mandy cried? What if she stood in singing class and burst into sobs like Lizzie had done? Mandy was so little, pale, and skinny that if she cried, there was just no way Lizzie could stand it. It just ruined Lizzie’s whole summer, worrying about Mandy entering first grade.

  Not just that; there was another thing that really worried Lizzie. Mam spent longer hours in the harness shop and snapped at Dat more often, leaving Dat sighing at the supper table.

  It was still warm in the kitchen at supper, with a hot, dry breeze blowing through the window. Mam’s face was flushed and perspiring, making her look more tired than ever. Lizzie figured their money from selling Teeny and Tiny was all gone, because they ate a lot of potato soup, and they got only one new school dress. The other dresses were old Sunday dresses that Mam lengthened.

  She wished they could do something fun before school started. Her friend Betty’s family had gone to the zoo, and Betty told Lizzie it was the most amazing thing she had ever seen. The elephants were as big as a house, and walked around grabbing people with their waving trunks. Lizzie asked Mam if that was true, and Mam said probably not the people, that Betty had meant they grabbed chunks of hay and put it in their mouth. Lizzie told Mam that Betty stretched the truth; anyhow she always did. Mam told Lizzie she shouldn’t be jealous—that was from the devil. Lizzie wasn’t jealous, really; she just wished with all her heart they could go to the zoo and see the elephants.

  “Mam,” Lizzie said, leaning on the harness shop counter.

  Mam didn’t answer, so Lizzie just watched them working for a while. It was almost time to close the shop after a long, hot day, and they were trying to finish an order of halters. Dat’s shirt was wet across his back from perspiration, and he was bending over his sewing machine as he sewed.

  Mam had her back turned, snipping threads and riveting the halters on a machine. Her face was red and flushed, her mouth drawn in a tight line, her dark hair escaping the confines of her covering. They weren’t talking, bantering back and forth as they always did, and the shop seemed strangely quiet and hostile without Dat’s happy whistling.

  Lizzie rested her chin on her hands and wished Dat would whistle. Jason and Mandy came in through the back door, the screen door slamming as they entered. Mandy’s dress had a huge rip in the hem, and her face was smeared with dirt. Jason was wearing a shirt that was much too small for him, and his diaper was loose and falling down. Lizzie knew he was soaking wet, as usual. His face was grimy and his nose was running, with his curls sticking out much worse than they should have if someone would have bothered combing them.

  “Mam! Mam!” Jason slapped Mam’s leg.

  “What, Jase?” Mam snapped, barely noticing that he was there.

  “Annie, I think he needs a clean diaper,” Dat said, watching Jason after he turned from the sewing machine.

  “Lizzie, go change Jason,” Mam said.

  Lizzie sighed and walked behind the counter, grabbing his hand. He looked startled, peered into Lizzie’s face, and pulled away.

  “No,” he said, quite plainly.

  Lizzie was not in the mood to run after him, because it was too warm in the shop and everybody was too grouchy. She grabbed his arm and pulled, causing him to sit down in the middle of the scattered leather and thread, and howl loudly.

  “Come on, Jason!” Lizzie yelled.

  Dat whirled around on his stool, glaring at her. “Stop that, Lizzie! Now go on and listen to your mother, or I’ll have to make you,” he growled. He ran a hand through his unkempt hair, turning back to his sewing.

  Lizzie stooped and picked up a wailing Jason, wrapping her arms around his grimy little stomach. She shuffled around the counter with him as Mandy followed.

  “Stop your yelling!” Lizzie said, between gritted teeth. “Or I’ll smack you as hard as I can!” She tightened her hold on his stomach as he kicked and screamed in protest. His curls stuck against Lizzie’s mouth, but she kept on struggling up the stairs, her head held high so she could breathe. As she entered the living room, she could hardly make her way to the bathroom because of toys, afghans, pillows, bottles, spilled juice, and clutter everywhere.

  Emma stuck her head around the kitchen door. She watched as Lizzie entered the bathroom and smiled to herself. Must be Mam made Lizzie change Jason’s diaper, and Emma thought that didn’t hurt Lizzie one bit. She went back to folding laundry, carefully lining up the washcloths in neat little squares. She kept smiling as Jason’s howls increased and Lizzie kept telling him to be quiet. After she was done changing him, she could help clean up the house, too.

  Suddenly there was a sickening thump. A hard, solid sound that Emma knew instantly was serious. Jason’s howls turned into a serious cry of pain, and Lizzie yelled for Emma, who dropped a washcloth and ran. Sure enough, he had fallen off the countertop, and already a big, purple bruise was forming on his cheek where he had hit the corner of the clothes hamper.

  “Lizzie, you have to watch him,” Emma scolded.

  Lizzie’s face was red with perspiration, and she was hopping mad. “Emma, why couldn’t you change him? You know I’m too little to do this. I can hardly handle him, and you know it!” she wailed.

  This was the scene Mam stepped into when she wended her tired way up the back stairs to make supper. Mandy sat on the recliner with large, scared eyes, while Jason cried in pain, Lizzie yelled, and Emma tried to fix everything, just like a little mother. Mam’s tired eyes took in the trash and toys all over the living room and the half-folded laundry, wondering what she would make for supper in thirty minutes.

  She took Jason from Emma, folding him in her arms, soothing his battered little cheek with tender fingers. “There, there, sweetie-pie. There, there,” she crooned, as his crying changed to soft little sobs. She sat down wearily, cuddling Jason against her as Mandy came to lay her head on Mam’s arm. She bent to plant a kiss on top of her head, one arm circling around her thin little body.

  “What happened, Emma?” she asked.

  Emma was back at the kitchen table, carefully folding the washcloths. She patted a neat square and turned to face her mother. “Oh, Lizzie was changing him and he didn’t want her to. He was crying and screaming, and I guess she wasn’t watching him right, because he fell off the countertop somehow.” Emma spread her hands helplessly, shrugging her shoulders.

  Mam sighed. She wiped her hand across her brow and closed her eyes for a moment. “Well, no doubt about it, I have to quit working in the shop so late in the evening. This just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t even have time to care for my little ones anymore,” she said.

  “Mam, I’m really hungry. Even our pretzels are all gone,” Mandy whined.

  “Yes, I know, Mandy. I used all my grocery money to cook for Elis’ and Juniors’. I guess I shouldn’t have, but …” Her voice trailed off wistfully. She got up and set Jason on the floor, where he promptly started crying again.

  The kitchen door opened and Dat came in, looking as hot and tired as Mam. He looked at Jason, walked over, and scooped him up. “Hey, what’s the matter here? Are you just as warm as the rest of us?” he asked, sitting at the kitchen table. “What’s for supper?”

  Mam smiled weakly. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, we could have potato soup,” Dat suggested.

  Quite unexpectedly, Mam burst out laughing. She just sat at the kitchen table and kept laughing until tears rolled down her cheeks. Dat watched her, and soon he began to laugh too. “What’s so funny, Annie?”

  “Oh, I was just thinking about an old rhyme, which, if we’re not careful, is going to be very true,” she said. “Soup for dinner, soup for supper, soup, soup, soup!”

  “Potato soup is good, Annie. If you make some, we could take the evening off and go for a drive with Red,” Dat suggested
.

  “Yes! Yes!” Lizzie shouted. “Let’s go for a picnic! Please! Let’s go for a long drive and roast hot dogs in a woods with a creek!”

  Dat looked at Mam and raised his eyebrows. Mandy hopped up and down, twirling around in the middle of the kitchen floor, while Jason clapped his hands and squealed, just because everyone else was excited.

  Mam shook her head. “We have no food for a picnic, Lizzie. My groceries are all gone, and our money is all gone, too. So what would we do for a picnic?”

  Emma was still folding clothes, but she stopped and looked at Mam. “We still have saltine crackers, Mam. We could put peanut butter and jelly between them. We still have some molasses cookies, too,” she said, taking the planning of this picnic quite seriously.

  Dat grinned. “I know. A pot of potato soup wrapped in an old quilt would be just fine. I’m hungry for potato soup!”

  Mam laughed and got out of her chair. “Okay, potato soup it will be. Emma, you finish the laundry and I’ll get the food ready. Lizzie, you make sure everyone has clean clothes and wash Mandy’s face and hands. Jason’s, too.”

  “I can wash my own face,” Mandy said importantly.

  Lizzie ran off with Mandy to change into clean everyday clothes. They pitched their soiled clothes into the hamper and dashed into the bathroom to wash their faces.

  “Do we need to have our hair combed?” Lizzie yelled.

  “No!” Mam shouted.

  Mandy giggled as she splashed soapy water all over her face. “Lizzie, remember when you slopped all that water in the bathroom?” she asked, spluttering.

  “Don’t talk about that, Mandy,” Lizzie said, still smarting about the incident.

  When Dat led Red up to the house, everyone was ready to go. Emma carried the brown wicker picnic basket, and Lizzie brought a metal Thermos, ice jingling as it banged against her leg. Mandy brought an old quilt, as Dat opened the big door on the back of the buggy. They tucked everything inside, as Mam brought the soup wrapped in an old comforter. She dashed back up the stairs for a cardboard box containing soup plates, cups, and spoons, grabbing Jason on her way out the door.

  The girls piled in the back, and Dat and Mam sat on the front seat, with Jason on Mam’s lap. All the doors and windows were open, because it was a very sultry evening, the air heavy with late summer humidity. As they started off, Mam looked at the sky, her brow furrowed.

  “Melvin, do you suppose we’ll have a thunderstorm?” she asked.

  “I guess if one comes up, we will,” Dat teased, and Mam pushed him with her elbow. Dat smiled and waved to Aaron Beiler, who was sweeping his sidewalk.

  Lizzie sighed. She was so glad everyone was happy this evening. Everything in the whole world was fine, as long as Mam and Dat were happy. She really didn’t mind an awful lot that they had to eat potato soup instead of roasted hot dogs on a roll with ketchup, even if that was one of her favorite foods.

  Whenever Lizzie did roast a hot dog, she always burnt it until it was all black and wrinkled and greasy. If you piled on a lot of ketchup, it was the best-tasting thing, especially if the roll was nice and soft.

  The breeze was warm, but the air felt so nice as it blew through the buggy. Red’s mane blew in the warm air, but he was beginning to sweat. Dat was always careful to wash Red with the hose and a brush before they went away in the summer. When Dat did that, Red just became wet with sweat, but if Red was dirty, the clear sweat turned to a white foam that blew back into the buggy. Dat always told Lizzie he washed Red mostly because he didn’t like the white foam, because English people always pitied a sweating horse; and it did look cruel if a horse was covered with white foam on a warm day.

  Gravel crunched under the steel wheels as they turned onto a dirt road. Red’s feet threw little pieces of it against the front of the buggy, making pinging noises. They passed a tumbledown barbed wire fence, and posts sagging and weeds growing almost waist high. There were a few skinny cows inside the fence, and a barn that had no paint on it, just black boards, and a reddish-brown rusty roof. The house was under thick trees, but there wasn’t much left of it, except a few walls and broken windows.

  “Why is that farm so tumbledown?” asked Lizzie.

  “Oh, that’s old Clarence Heath’s place,” Dat said. “It’s just a shame. His wife left him years ago, they say, and it got the best of him. He hasn’t been right ever since. His one boy joined the Army and was killed, and I think he still has a daughter somewhere. It’s a pity. That used to be a nice place. They say he tried to burn the house down one night because he claimed it was haunted.”

  “What’s ‘haunted’?” Emma asked, absentmindedly digging her finger in one ear. She examined the tip of her finger, her head bent to the side to see better. Lizzie frowned at her.

  “Haunted? That means people claim to hear ghosts, strange noises, and people walking, but they can’t see anyone. That kind of thing,” Dat said.

  Lizzie sat straight up, her eyes opening wide. “You mean … You mean, they actually saw a ghost in that house?” she asked shrilly, her heart starting to beat faster. She strained to look out the back window for a look at this haunted house. She imagined long white ghosts hovering in the trees above it. There was no such thing as a ghost. There couldn’t be real ones. What did Dat mean, it got the best of that man? Did he mean the ghost or his wife or his boy or the Army? A whirl of scary thoughts flew around Lizzie’s head until she felt panicky.

  “What do you mean, Dat? What got the best of that man?” Lizzie blurted out. “You mean the ghosts? Can ghosts get you?” She was hot all over, then shivered, because she felt cold.

  Mam nudged Dat and gave him a warning look. Time to stop talking about these things, her eyes said. Dat acknowledged her look and nodded his head slightly. “Ach, Lizzie, it’s just people talking. There is absolutely no such thing as a ghost. When we say something got the best of him, it means he was never quite the same after his wife left him.”

  “Why did she leave him?” Lizzie asked. She pitied Clarence Heath so much she could hardly stand the thought.

  “I have no idea. Maybe they were fighting,” Dat said.

  “Why was his son killed in the Army?” Lizzie asked.

  “Look! Here is a perfect spot,” Mam said pointing.

  “Dat! Why was his son killed?” Lizzie insisted.

  “I don’t know, Lizzie. Okay, this looks nice,” Dat agreed, turning Red into a little lane that wound its way into a grassy woods. The trees weren’t real thick, yet there was plenty of shade to spread their quilt. Dat pulled on the reins, stopping Red under a huge, spreading oak tree. Red threw his head up and down, because he wanted to be rid of the rein that held it up.

  “Here we are!” Dat sang out, as he stepped down backwards. The first thing he always did when they stopped was unhook the rein. Red lowered his head gratefully, reaching out and stretching his neck. Then he lifted it as high as before, even if the rein wasn’t attached, his ears pricked forward.

  Mam spread the quilt, while the children scampered around the grass, dodging behind the heavy trunks of the old trees. Jason yelled as he fell down flat on his stomach, but he got up and toddled off again.

  It was so nice and cool under the massive trees, with the green grass soft and cool around the quilt. Mam was smiling as she unpacked the picnic basket, and Dat whistled softly as he tied Red to the branch of a maple tree.

  They all sat around the quilt as Mam ladled the steaming soup into their plates. Dat passed saltine crackers, which they crumbled into the milky broth. Mam had packed a container of applesauce, so Lizzie crunched extra crackers into her bowl of soup until they were all soaked and her soup was like a stiff pudding. Then she put a big spoonful of applesauce beside it, and every time she took a bite of soup, she added a bit of applesauce. It was delicious, out in the open air, under the big green trees.

  After they had eaten their soup, they ate crackers with peanut butter and jelly, washed down with frosty glasses of orange Tang. Mam passed a plastic
container of molasses cookies, sugar crystals sprinkled on top, with wide cracks across the top. Lizzie loved molasses cookies, because they were both crispy and chewy. It was the only cookie that could be like that.

  “Now, who missed hot dogs?” Dat asked.

  “Not me,” Lizzie answered.

  Mam smiled and shook her head. “Who would ever go on a picnic with potato soup, except us?”

  “It’s much nicer here than at home,” Dat answered.

  “Yes, it is a welcome break from the heat. And we’re so terribly busy, Melvin. If only the harness shop would pay better,” she said, her voice trailing off quietly.

  Dat covered Mam’s hand with his own. He looked at her, saying, “Annie, it will be all right. You wait and see. Things will get better. When cooler weather comes, people will be buying more shoes and saddle blankets and things. I just know they will.”

  “I know,” Mam said quietly.

  Lizzie hated to have this perfect evening spoiled, so she jumped up and told Emma and Mandy she was going to explore. They ran under the trees, finding mushrooms that looked like toadstools, little blue flowers that hung from the stems like bells, and fistfuls of pretty white and blue stones. They did not notice the darkening evening sky, until a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance.

  Dat called them back, as Mam hurried to pack the remains of the lunch. Emma hurried to help put everything in the buggy, as Lizzie found a container to put the beautiful stones in.

  Red was restless and eager to get started. He pranced a bit, tossing his head, but held still long enough for Mam and the girls to climb in and settle themselves.

  The woods seemed dark and sinister now, as lightning flashed in the distance, casting an eerie glow across the waving leaves.

  “I think we can beat the storm home,” Dat said. He called to Red, and they lurched out of the woods, up the grassy lane to the gravel road. Red sensed the storm in the air, so his ears flicked back and then forward as his speed increased. Dat had to use both hands to hold him as they raced along, gravel spitting against the buggy.