by Linda Byler
Edna showed them the huge, round sawblade that cut the logs into lumber. She explained that the pieces of lumber that had bark on one side were called ‘slabs,’ and showed them the cutoff saw that sawed the long slabs into small pieces of firewood. Most wonderful of all, the long pipe was where the sawdust was blown out over the bank, where it lay in a huge pile below.
Lizzie stood at the top, craning her neck to see below. There was a sea of tiny little wood particles in a huge, soft pile. She couldn’t imagine what Uncle Eli would do with all that sawdust.
“Jump down!” Edna said, smiling.
Lizzie looked at her with narrowed eyes. “No!”
“Yes! Do. You may!”
“Well … no, I’d hurt myself,” Lizzie said skeptically.
“No, you won’t. Go ahead. Step back, run, and jump out as far as you can.”
“Did you ask Uncle Eli?”
“No, but he doesn’t care. He lets us jump in the sawdust pile.”
Emma stepped forward. “Lizzie, don’t. You have your good dress and apron on. You’ll ruin it.”
Lizzie’s heart beat rapidly and her face flushed with excitement. “No, Emma, these are not our Sunday dresses. They’re our school dresses; you know that.”
“Lizzie, if you jump down there, I’m going in right now and telling Mam. You aren’t allowed.”
“She won’t care.”
Edna sat down in the weeds, pulling one and chewing on the end.
“Your mom won’t mind if you just jump once,” Edna offered.
“My mom doesn’t care.” said Nancy. With that, Nancy stepped back a few paces, and took off running. Her skirts billowed out as she made a flying leap, landing far below in the soft sawdust. She called up, “You won’t get hurt, but you have to get out soon, because the sawdust is hot underneath.”
Lizzie stepped back and propelled herself forward as fast as she could. Her feet pummeled the ground before she launched herself into the sawdust pile below. She felt her skirts flying out the back, but only for a moment, before her feet were firmly embedded in warm sawdust. She opened her mouth and laughed with the joy of jumping so high and not getting hurt one little bit.
Edna and Mollie stood on top of the bank, bent over laughing, slapping their knees. Emma was marching off down the hill, her mouth in a straight, tight line, to tell Mam what Lizzie had done.
Edna gasped, and between giggles she called to Lizzie, “If you come up here in a hurry, you can do it again, before your mom comes!”
So Lizzie floundered out of the sawdust, scrambling her way to the top as fast as she could. She was breathing hard, and sawdust was stuck in every pleat of her dress and apron. She stepped back again, repeating the process of running and jumping. This time she jumped a big farther, almost tumbling head over heels, because she jumped too far. It wasn’t quite as funny this time, because she almost got a mouthful of sawdust.
She scrambled out and was hurrying to the top when she caught sight of Emma coming out of the house with Mam behind her. Emma was talking rapidly, waving her hands, and Mam was walking fast.
They reached the top at about the same time, and Mam said loudly, “Lizzie, look at you!”
“What?” Lizzie looked down at her dress, smoothing her apron. Sawdust fell out of her hair, and she was beginning to feel itchy. Mam looked at Lizzie, then at Edna. She peered down over the edge of the bank, looking at the sawdust pile below.
“Does your dad let you jump down there?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah, we’re allowed to.”
“I wish you wouldn’t because Lizzie and Emma have their school dresses on. Could you find something else to do, do you think?”
Lizzie faced her mother eagerly. “Mam, Mam, please, please, may we jump?”
“No, Lizzie, because how will you get all that sawdust out of your hair, and stay clean enough to go home?”
Lizzie was horribly disappointed, because she knew Mam did not want her to jump. Emma was always the troublemaker.
“We can go find something else to do,” Mollie volunteered.
“Let’s go to the river!” Edna said.
Emma said she was not going to the river, not ever, unless Mam or Dat went along. It was too far, and they had to cross a busy highway.
“Well, you girls decide,” Mam said, and walked off down the hill to the sand-colored stone house.
The girls all sat down in a circle in the weeds, chewing at the ends of the fat, juicy ones. Lizzie’s hair was disheveled, and the itchy feeling was getting worse. She scratched her back, then pulled at the neckline of her dress.
“Why don’t you want to go to the river?” Edna asked.
“It’s too far.”
“I know what. I’ll ask Esther to go along,” Edna said. Emma looked at her doubtfully, but she jumped up with everyone else and ran down the hill.
· · · · ·
The river was the most amazing thing Lizzie had ever seen. It was dark green, but sometimes when you looked at it slanted, it was blue or purple. It ran on and on, silently, without even one tiny sound, wide and deep and so scary that Lizzie shivered. She had never seen a river, and it made her feel afraid, but she was thrilled by the power of its relentless flow.
There was a grassy bank which was mowed, with trees along the banks. Edna said the Fish Commission kept the yard looking so nice. There were a few men fishing where a small stream ran into the river. Edna said they had to stay away from the fishermen, because sometimes if you were noisy, the men became angry.
A car rumbled past with a boat on a trailer. A man in the car backed the trailer carefully down a steep incline until it disappeared into the dark water. Lizzie held her breath as the men stopped the vehicle and scrambled out. One of them got into the boat, while the other unhitched some straps, pulling some levers, and the boat drifted slowly away on the current.
Lizzie could hardly stand the suspense. The man in the boat made his way to the back, flipped a few switches, and started pulling on a rope to start the motor. He pulled and pulled, as blue smoke rolled along the top of the water. Lizzie was almost panicking, because the current was carrying him farther and farther away. The man seemed quite unperturbed about this, steadily yanking on the rope. His partner was whistling quite merrily as he started the car and eased the trailer out of the river. Lizzie thought he was terribly mean to the other man, who was still patiently trying to start the motor. By now, he was actually really far away.
“Doesn’t he know how far away he’s going?” Lizzie asked, when she could stand it no longer. She imagined the poor man being swept helplessly out to the wide open sea, where waves would toss him unmercifully for days and days. She had seen a picture of a small boat with a strong wind blowing huge waves in a book once, and she had never forgotten the despair that picture evoked. It would be just awful to be at sea in a storm.
Esther looked at Lizzie and smiled. “Oh, he’ll get it started.”
Sure enough, there was a welcoming cough and a sputter, and the man sat down, steering the boat from the back, as he made his way back up to the launchpad to pick up his whistling friend. Lizzie was greatly relieved when both men were safely seated in the boat, the motor chugging purposefully, on their way upstream.
The girls sat in the grass, talking and laughing, but Lizzie was not joining in the conversation. She was looking at the huge, towering mountain, wondering what would happen if you had to sleep there because you were lost. It was so big that Lizzie decided she would never, ever cross this river and climb that mountain.
She watched as small, dark-colored birds swooped down so close to the running water, she thought they were diving in. But always they swooped back up again. Lots of insects skimmed across the top of the water, even dragonflies. There was an insect that looked like a long-legged spider that walked on top of the water. Or rather, it scooted along in short jerks, which looked really funny.
Lizzie heard a distant rumble, a steady sound that reminded her of a summer thunderstorm.
She glanced anxiously at the sky, but it was calm and blue, with puffy white clouds scattered like huge cotton balls. The rumble became louder, and Lizzie cleared her throat nervously.
“What is that?” she asked, biting her fingernails.
Esther sounded bored. “The train.”
Edna, Mollie, and Nancy went right on talking as if nothing was wrong. Emma glanced nervously at Lizzie, and Lizzie knew she thought it was terribly noisy to think it was only a train.
Lizzie jumped fitfully when the low, mournful sound of the whistle reverberated through the air. It seemed as if the sound was flung against the mountain, and the mountain threw it back at Lizzie. It was very loud, but in a way it was a pleasant, lonely sound. It was also a sad sound, which gave her goosebumps when it wailed again. As the train clickety-clacked along, it reminded her of Doddy Millers and going to Ohio. She missed them and wished they could go for another visit on the train.
Lizzie sat and watched the water gliding along. She wondered where it was going, and why it was blue and green and purple.
“Let’s go sit on the dock,” Edna suggested. So they found the wooden dock, plopping down on the wooden boards, and hung their bare feet in the cool water. It was the most delicious feeling, the water rushing over Lizzie’s bare legs, never stopping, almost like a faucet that never shut off.
“Do you go swimming here?” Lizzie asked.
“Oh, yes,” Edna yawned. “A lot.”
Lizzie couldn’t believe her ears. Edna could actually swim! How Lizzie longed to be able to learn how to swim, but Mam always told her Amish girls don’t learn to swim. She looked at Edna with wide eyes.
“You don’t,” she stated.
“What do you mean, we don’t? Of course, we do,” Edna said.
“You mean you go in deep water and swim? In water that’s so deep you can’t touch the bottom?”
“No, we stay in water that’s safe, and just doggie paddle, but it’s still swimming.”
“What’s doggie paddling?”
“Just paddling along under the water, kicking your arms and legs, and you stay afloat. It’s really easy. I’ll show you how sometime.”
“Could we go swimming now?” Lizzie asked.
“Of course not. We don’t have our swimwear, and, besides, it’s almost time for us to go back.”
“I wish I could learn,” Lizzie said.
“Someday, maybe you will,” Edna assured her.
“But how could I? We don’t have a river. We don’t have anything except small creeks, and we’re not allowed to swim in English people’s swimming pools. Are you?”
“No.”
“So, see, I’ll never learn,” Lizzie said, sighing.
· · · · ·
When they got back to the house, Ivan asked Lizzie if she still wanted to see a real bird’s nest with speckled brown eggs in it. Lizzie followed him eagerly to a huge tree with strange-looking white and beige-colored bark on it. The branches hung low to the ground, but Ivan climbed up about as high as the shop roof.
Lizzie heard the small branches cracking as he came back down, cradling a perfectly formed bird’s nest in one hand.
“Now, look!”
Lizzie bent her head and was amazed at the perfectly soft lining of the nest. There were four beautiful speckled eggs nestled in perfect harmony, with one egg having as much space as all the rest.
“See this? The bird uses the softest material to line the inside, so the eggs don’t break. This bird has pieces of string and horse hair woven in, along with different grasses and pieces of hay and straw.”
“Can I touch them?” Lizzie asked.
“Oh, no! Huh-uh! Never touch eggs in a bird’s nest, because you might hurt them.”
“They’re so pretty. I never saw a bird’s nest before.”
“Now you did.”
And with that, he scrambed up the tree, returning the nest in the exact same position.
“What kind of bird lays those speckled eggs?” Lizzie asked.
“These are cardinal eggs,” Ivan replied.
“What’s a cardinal?”
“You know, those bright red birds with a crest on top of their heads.”
“Oh, yes, I know.”
“I hope they all hatch. I’m going to watch them every day until I know what happens to them.”
Lizzie looked over at Ivan. He really meant it, she could tell. He must really be a nature lover, caring so much about these birds.
“I wish we lived here,” she blurted out suddenly.
Ivan looked at Lizzie, and he could tell she really meant it.
“Why?”
“Because.”
“No, really—why?”
“Well, there’s so much more to do and see here. We don’t have any mountains or rivers or ridges or sawdust piles or birds’ nests or … or anything.” Suddenly Lizzie felt shy, because she hadn’t meant to say all that to Ivan. But after this wonderful afternoon, Lizzie’s world was not so small anymore. There were lots of things in Jefferson County—almost too many to imagine. Even swimming. In her greatest dreams, she had never thought it was possible to learn to swim. And now … you could never tell.
chapter 18
The First Day of School
“O come, angel band,
Come and around me stand;
O, bear me away on your snowy wings,
To my immortal home:
O, bear me away on your snowy wings
To my immortal home.”
Waves of song rolled across the classroom on the first day of school. Emma sang heartily along with everyone else, her voice lowering and rising in perfect unison. Lizzie tried hard, and for awhile she could sing well, except she kept glancing down at the top of Mandy’s head, wishing so much she could have stayed at home with Mam. She just knew Mandy was going to cry like she herself had on her first day.
Lizzie pulled a pin from her apron, and pushed it back in. She swiped nervously at a stray hair that hung down the back of her neck. She adjusted a hairpin in the bob at the back of her head and tried to look at Mandy’s face by leaning to the side. She helped sing awhile, until she couldn’t stand the suspense of wondering when Mandy would burst into tears and start chewing her thumbnail.
Lizzie wished with all her heart they wouldn’t be singing this song. It was almost as bad as “When the Stars Begin to Fall.” Every time they sang this song, she could only think of the little blue book Dat read on Sundays. It was written in German, so Lizzie couldn’t read it, but the old-fashioned pictures always made her feel sad and fearful, because someone was dying and the angels hovered around his bed. The angels weren’t very pretty, and neither was the man lying in the bed, because it was always so black and white. If the angels looked more beautiful and the man on the bed a bit less fierce, Lizzie would not have minded this song as much.
Lizzie had asked Dat what the book was about, and he told her somberly it was the “Hots-bichly,” a booklet about the “Heart of Man.” It was no comfort to Lizzie to know that if you died, that’s what it looked like.
The song ended, just as Lizzie tore a hole in the cuticle of her thumb. She had chewed it down until it hurt so bad that she caught her breath and wrapped her other hand tightly around her thumb.
“Someone else may pick a song,” Teacher Katie said brightly. Lizzie thought she said it too cheerfully, as if she was trying to convince herself that she was happy on the first day of school. She couldn’t have been too happy, or else she wouldn’t have picked that mournful song. It irked Lizzie.
“Two-eighty-four.”
Lizzie quickly thumbed the pages till she found the right one. She sighed with relief when she found the title, “Life’s Railway to Heaven.” That was good.
“Can you start it?” asked Teacher Katie.
Abner shook his head, grinning sheepishly. So Teacher Katie started the song on a high, clear note, with the pupils following, singing along lustily, because this was an old favorite that everyone knew well. She
leaned sideways and peered as close to Mandy as she could without getting too far out of line.
She could not believe her eyes. Mandy’s eyes were shining, and her voice rang out as she sang the chorus, smiling at the little girl beside her, who was also singing along. Mandy actually looked happy! Lizzie was so relieved that her knees even felt weak after the song ended. Her love for Mandy swelled in her heart, because she was actually not going to cry.
After singing class, it took a while until everyone found their seats, because it was so different from the year before. Either that, or usually Lizzie forgot lots of things over the summer, especially where she was sitting the year before.
Mandy hesitated, lifting her big green eyes questioningly at Teacher Katie, as she stood quietly by a small desk. Lizzie could tell that Mandy was uncertain what to do, or where she should be seated. Lizzie wished Teacher Katie would hurry up and tell Mandy where to sit. She knew Mandy felt like crying being so unsure of herself. Mandy’s hand stroked the top of the desk selfconsciously, but she just remained calmly standing beside one desk, her thin little body pressed against the side, as if it made her look smaller.
“Now, first grade!” Teacher Katie called loudly.
Lizzie relaxed, relieved to know that she had noticed her first graders.
“Can you find your name on a desk?”
The first grade watched Teacher Katie shyly, before they looked at each desktop for their name tag. Lizzie could have cried with relief to see Mandy point triumphantly at a name tag, quickly scooting into a seat and folding her hands on the desktop. She looked at the little girl beside her and smiled timidly.
“Good! Good!” Teacher Katie stood by the first graders’ desks, pushing up her sleeves and smiling. Mandy smiled up at her teacher, her huge green eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Can you all write your names?” the teacher asked.
“I can,” Mandy said clearly.
Lizzie cringed in her seat, because Mandy was not supposed to speak without raising her hand first. But how was she supposed to know? Lizzie thought it wasn’t fair, asking new pupils a question without telling them they needed to raise their hands first.