A Courtship on Huckleberry Hill

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  The wind suddenly whipped up as if it had lost its temper, blowing Elsie’s bonnet right off her head and hurling ice and dirt into the sky. Grasping at children right and left, she shoved them toward the school. “Go to the cellar. Run to the cellar.” Oh, how she wished she’d brought the bell with her. She could barely hear herself.

  As soon as the wind started howling, the children realized something was wrong. They screamed and cried, grabbing on to each other and running for the school. Elsie braced herself against the wind and did her best to shield her eyes from flying debris as she grabbed the nearest child and dragged him to the school. Just to the side of the cement stairs were two heavy doors that led to the cellar. They were locked with a combination lock, because Elsie didn’t want anyone going down there and getting into mischief. She quickly entered the right combination and tore the lock from the doors.

  Jethro helped her open the doors, and she ushered the terrified children down the steps. The wind tore the kapp off her head as she looked in the direction of the ball field. A dozen or so boys and girls were still out there, but they had seen the whirlwind and were running back toward the school. Wally had fallen behind the group, limping badly and waving his arms above his head. She couldn’t hear anything but the wind, but she could tell that Wally was calling to Reuben, who was at the front of the group. Whether Reuben heard him was anybody’s guess. Wally was wearing his Cheetah foot today. He could run faster than Elsie with that thing on. Elsie caught her breath as Lizzy Jane Mast tripped and fell. Wally hooked his elbow around hers and dragged her to her feet, then pushed her forward toward the others.

  Wally hadn’t fallen behind. Reuben was leading the children to safety, and Wally was taking up the rear, making sure no one got left behind. Elsie’s eyes stung like fire, but she couldn’t look away. “Come on, Wally. Come on,” she whispered.

  Clinging fiercely to each other, Prissy and Lydia Ruth struggled toward Elsie. She grabbed Lydia Ruth’s shoulders and nudged the sisters into the cellar. Danny and Perry, with a first grader, between them, fought their way forward. Elsie and Jethro pulled them the rest of the way.

  It sounded like a speeding freight train was heading right for them as Reuben and Wally and the others made it to the cellar. Covering their eyes, the older children ducked into the cellar, with Wally taking up the rear. “Everyone in,” Elsie yelled, pushing Ida Mae down the stairs.

  “Miss Stutzman,” Jethro screamed, pointing to the merry-go-round.

  Elsie’s stomach lurched. Maizy Mischler sat on the merry-go-round with her arms and legs clamped around one of the bars. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth gaped open in a terrified, silent wail. “Maizy!”

  Before she could take a step toward Maizy, Wally shoved Elsie aside with such force she stumbled backward and fell to the ground. “Wally!” Elsie yelled, but it was too late. He was going out for Maizy, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

  “Wally!” She was furiously angry. Saving Maizy was her job. She was the teacher. She should be risking herself, not Wally. She was terrified to the point of being sick. Would Wally or Maizy survive this? And would she ever be able to live with herself if they didn’t?

  “Jethro, Ida Mae,” she screamed. “Get inside now!”

  “I need to help you close the doors,” Jethro said. She should have shoved him down the steps, but she could see the determination on his face, and she had no strength left for a fight. The only strength left to her was prayer.

  Fighting with all his might against the beastly wind, Wally made it to the merry-go-round in mere seconds. Elsie had never seen him move so fast. How could he even see which direction he was going?

  Wally tried to tug Maizy from the bar, but Maizy wouldn’t budge, holding on like her life depended on it. Elsie held her breath. Dear Heavenly Father . . .

  Wally leaned down and said something in Maizy’s ear. In a swift movement, Maizy let go of the bar and wrapped her arms around Wally’s neck. With his arms clamped around her, he turned and tried to outrun the storm. His limp was achingly profound, and pain overspread his face with each step, but he kept moving, doing battle with the wind and his own agony.

  Holding fast to the door handle so she wouldn’t be swept away, Elsie reached out her hand and grabbed onto the sleeve of Wally’s coat and pulled with all her might. With Maizy in his arms, Wally stumbled into the cellar, where waiting arms pulled him and Maizy in. Each holding one side of the door, Jethro and Elsie jumped into the cellar together and slammed the doors shut.

  Everything went dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sam’s heart hammered so hard, he could feel it over the thump of Rowdy’s hooves against the road. Once the storm had passed over them, he hadn’t even waited to help Mamm hitch up the buggy. She would come as soon as she could, but Sam had to get there immediately. Some of the people he loved the most were in that schoolhouse.

  They’d all seen and heard it. The violent thunder brought all the neighbors to their windows to see the funnel cloud that had hovered over their pastures and farms and headed straight for the school. The sight had all but ripped Sam’s heart out. Lord willing the tornado had hopped right over them or changed course or died out before it got there. Nobody ever heard of a tornado touching down in Wisconsin in March, had they?

  Sam’s gut clenched until the pain doubled him over. Danny, Perry, Wally. And Elsie. They had to be okay.

  He pushed the horse hard, but it still took too much time to get there. He passed Benjamin Hoover in his wagon headed in the same direction, and Rose Mast and her parents on foot. Maybe it was rude, but he didn’t offer to give any of the Masts a ride.

  Every minute was too precious to delay.

  The school yard was as quiet as summer vacation. A gentle breeze nudged the swings back and forth, and hail dotted the softball field like so many wildflowers. Not a soul to be seen anywhere. His hand relaxed around his saddle horn. They were probably all inside without a scratch, doing long division or writing poetry. His gaze scanned the ball field. It had missed them. Praise the Lord, the tornado had missed them.

  Unless . . .

  He sucked in his breath. Where was the merry-go-round?

  He jumped off his horse and ran into the schoolhouse and up the stairs. No one here. Panic pressed into his chest like a vice. Every window on the right side of the room was shattered, and papers and glass were scattered all over the floor, as if the tornado had forced its way into the room and blown everything about.

  There was only one place they could have gone. With dread filling every space inside him, Sam tore back down the stairs and slammed the door behind him. He leaped off the small cement porch and grabbed the handle of the cellar door. It wouldn’t budge. They’d secured it from the inside. Gute girl, Elsie.

  He rapped on the door with all the force of his blistering emotions. “Elsie, are you in there?”

  Wood slid against wood, and the doors bounced up and down before two hands pushed at them. Sam finished the job, practically tearing them off their hinges to open them. His knees buckled. Elsie gazed up at him, squinting at the bright light, whole and alive. Her hair was loose, falling like a waterfall around her shoulders, and blood crusted just above her eyebrow.

  His heart started thumping. “You’re hurt.”

  “We are all as right as rain.” Her smile was like a thousand soothing embraces. “But we are wonderful glad to see you.”

  A dozen other faces peered out at him from the cellar.

  He reached out his hand. “Is everybody okay? Danny, Perry, Wally? Are you in there?”

  “We’re here,” Perry called from deep within the cellar. “We’re alive.”

  Sam thought he might faint with relief.

  Several of the children were crying. Most were shivering with cold and fear.

  “We need to get everyone in by the stove.” Elsie took off her coat, wrapped it around the little girl standing next to her, then picked up the girl and handed her out to Sam.r />
  “It’s not much warmer in the school,” Sam said. As soon as they got everyone out, he’d cover the broken windows and stoke up the fire.

  Jethro, with unruly hair and a rip in his sleeve, heaved himself out of the cellar and started helping other children out with him.

  The little girl in Sam’s arms clamped on to him like a barnacle.

  “I’ll take her into the school,” Ida Mae said, prying the girl from him and grabbing the hand of another little one. Ida Mae’s kapp dangled from her head like the pendulum of a clock, held suspended by a single pin. “Mary, take Max’s hand,” she said to the girl at her side. Mary grabbed onto the boy next to her, who in turn took the hand of the boy next to him. Ida Mae walked her little train into the school.

  Danny appeared at the bottom of the steps. Sam caught his breath, reached into the cellar, and yanked his bruder out by the armpits. “Danny!”

  “Sam!”

  Sam fell to his knees and squeezed the air out of his bruder. “You’re okay. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “We almost died,” Danny said. “Especially Wally.”

  Before Sam could ask, Elsie ascended the steps with another young scholar in her arms. “I’m going to pinch Wally’s ear, and then I’m going to make that boy clean desks for the rest of the school year. For the rest of his life.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “What did he do?”

  Two identical girls climbed from the cellar together, and their faces bloomed into smiles. “Dat!” they yelled at the same time.

  Benjamin Hoover scooped them into his arms. “Where’s Mark? Have you seen Mark?”

  “I’m here,” Mark called, stepping out of the cellar on shaky legs.

  Benjamin knelt down. “Are you hurt?”

  “I scraped both knees.”

  Other parents arrived, and the scene in the school yard was both heartwarming and sobering. Faters hugged their children as if there was no tomorrow. Maters fussed and fretted. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Where does it hurt the worst?”

  “It was the loudest noise you ever heard, Dat. The little kids were bawling.”

  “We’ll put a bandage on that when we get home.”

  “It’s okay. We can buy you another hat.”

  “Wally and Maizy almost died,” Jethro told his mamm.

  Sam’s mouth went dry. What had happened with Wally?

  Perry emerged holding hands with Rose’s schwester Prissy. Did they like each other? More likely a scare like this drove the most unlike pairs together. Perry let go of Prissy’s hand, and Sam pulled Perry’s head to his chest. “You okay, bud?”

  Perry nodded as best he could with Sam’s palm pressing against the side of his face. “My hat blew away.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “And my gloves.”

  Prissy ran to Rose and her parents, who hugged her in pure relief. Rose caught Sam looking at her, and she puckered her lips in that coy, flirtatious thing she did. She came closer. “Are your bruders all right?”

  Sam nodded. “And your schwesteren?”

  “They’re shaken up, and Lizzy Jane has some scratches, but they’re not hurt bad.” She leaned even closer, and Sam felt compelled to lean away. “It wonders me why the children were allowed outside in such weather,” she whispered, her gaze darting to Elsie and back again.

  Sam shook his head. “She shouldn’t have let them go outside.”

  “One of them could have been hit by lightning.”

  Sam turned from Rose as Wally, with Maizy Mischler hanging on to his neck like a tie, shuffled to the bottom of the cellar stairs. Sam clenched his jaw. Wally’s eyelids were so puffy, his eyes were tiny slits on his face. Three long red scratches traveled down his right cheek, and a spot of blood trickled from his nose. From the bottom step, Wally looked up at Sam and grinned so wide, Sam could count his molars.

  “Hey, kid,” Sam said.

  “Hey, Sam.” His voice was raspy, his breathing labored.

  Wally tried to climb the stairs, but when he put weight on his artificial leg, he winced in pain. Sam and Elsie each grabbed on to one of his arms and pulled him up.

  Maizy’s mamm was there before Sam even thought to look for her. “Oh, my darling,” she said. Maizy reluctantly let go of Wally, heaved a great sob, and buried her face in her mater’s neck.

  Wally smoothed his hand down Maizy’s back. “It’s okay, Maizy. The big wind is all gone.”

  Sam shot out his arm and pulled Wally to him. Wally resisted for a second, then seemed to lose all strength as he sagged against Sam’s chest. “It’s okay,” Sam said, not really knowing if it was. Danny said they had almost died, “especially Wally.” The thought was a knife straight into Sam’s chest.

  Wally raised his head and nudged himself away from Sam. “I’m okay,” he said, sniffing his tears away as if they didn’t exist. Elsie pulled a handkerchief that had somehow survived the wind from her apron pocket and handed it to him. “Your nose is bleeding.”

  Wally dabbed at his nose and examined the handkerchief. “Totally rad.”

  He often said strange phrases he picked up from his video games. Sam seldom knew what they meant.

  Wally took a deep breath and wiped the rest of the moisture from his face. He was fourteen years old, and apparently fourteen-year-old boys didn’t cry. “Where’s Reuben? A tin can conked him in the head while we were standing in left field.”

  Sam pointed to the porch steps. “Over there with his dat. I don’t see any blood.” He lightly touched Wally’s cheek. “But you’ve got some nasty scratches.”

  Wally hissed, and his eyes pooled with tears. “Jah. I know.”

  Elsie’s expression flooded with concern. She glanced at Sam and shook her head slightly. Then she propped her hands on her hips and pursed her lips in annoyance. “Ach, vell, young man, you might not see any blood, but”—she pointed to a spot just above her collarbone—“I’m going to have a big bruise right here. A very big bruise, and if I have my way, you’re going to be cleaning a lot of porta-potties before the year is out.”

  Wally regained his composure and grinned like a mischievous cat. “That tornado would have blown you away before you ever got to the merry-go-round, and there wasn’t time to explain. You would have just argued anyway.”

  Elsie was doing her best not to smile. “For sure and certain, I would have argued.” She brushed her hands briskly down her apron. “You pushed me!”

  Sam couldn’t help but chuckle at the positively outraged, positively adorable look on Elsie’s face. “What happened out there?”

  Elsie grunted in indignation. “I was herding everyone to the cellar as fast as I could when we saw Maizy all by herself on the merry-go-round. I was just about to run out and fetch her when Wally knocked me down and got her himself. I’ll probably be black and blue in places I’d rather not mention, Wally Sensenig. I hope you’re sorry.”

  His smile got wider, and he shook his head. “Not sorry at all.”

  Elsie lost her bluster as she bit her bottom lip. “You almost didn’t make it.”

  Sam couldn’t breathe at the thought of Wally’s courage or of what might have been. Six months ago, Wally wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help anyone, let alone risk his life. Sam wrapped his hand around Wally’s neck and pulled him so their foreheads were touching. “Gute job.”

  “I had to get Maizy. She’s my friend,” Wally said, his voice cracking in about a dozen different places.

  “Look!” Maizy’s mom inclined her head toward the playground even as she burst into tears. “The merry-go-round is gone.”

  In awed silence, they stared at the post where the merry-go-round had once been.

  “Ach, du lieva,” Elsie murmured under her breath.

  It was too much for Wally. His knees collapsed, and Sam lowered him to the ground before he fell. Wally propped his forearms on his knees and buried his face in his hands. Sometimes a fourteen-year-old boy had to cry. No one could blame him,
and there certainly wasn’t a kid at that school who would dare poke fun of him. Not after what he’d done to save Maizy. Nobody had more courage than that.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sam put his arms around Elsie’s waist and helped her from the buggy. Clinging to Sam’s strong arms to hold herself up, she tried to stand on her quivering legs. After supporting her through a thunderstorm, a tornado, a blow to the head, and a dark and terrifying time in the cellar, her legs had finally given out. “You okay?” he said, bracing his arm around her and practically dragging her to Mammi’s front door.

  She nodded. “You okay?”

  He nodded but didn’t look at her. He was just as shaken up as she was, though his legs seemed to be having an easier time moving than hers. He’d very nearly lost a bruder today, and that wasn’t something he was going to just get over.

  Elsie closed her eyes to try to shut out the memories.

  Two police cars, an ambulance, and someone calling herself a reporter had come to the school as parents were gathering up their children. Nobody had been hurt badly enough to want to pay for a ride to the hospital, so one of the policemen had talked to Andy Mast and gone away. Reuben Schmucker and Maizy’s mamm had talked to the reporter.

  Sam’s mamm had taken Danny, Perry, and Wally home in the buggy, while Sam had stayed for Elsie. They had walked all around the school yard as far as the pasture and found four hats and a kapp too dirty to salvage. In the pasture, they had found the backstop tangled with what was left of the merry-go-round. Wally and Maizy never would have survived that collision.

  Elsie opened the door, and Sam helped her to one of the chairs at the table. Mammi and Dawdi weren’t home, and Elsie was grateful they’d been spared the anxiety of the storm. They had hired a driver to take them to Green Bay to “see the sights.” At least that was what they told Elsie, though she didn’t know that there were many sights in Green Bay to be seen. She could only be glad that her grandparents were gone. She needed to explain Sam, but she’d rather do it when he wasn’t here. There was no telling how upset her grandparents would be that Elsie wasn’t going to marry the boy Mammi had chosen for her, whoever he was.