Home on Huckleberry Hill

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  Mary Anne shouldn’t be surprised that shame was his biggest concern. Her moving out embarrassed him. The gute news for him was that once things calmed down and everybody got used to the idea of them not living together, his embarrassment would fade and he’d find just as much joy in fishing as he once did.

  Dawdi tried to slide two tent poles together and nearly took his eye out. “This Swift-n-Snug tent isn’t very swift. I can only hope it’s snug.”

  Jethro strode to Dawdi’s side and held out his hand. “I can help.” There were two poles that folded compactly into seven equal pieces, connected with a cord that ran through the center of each. Dawdi handed them over, and Jethro easily connected the pieces. He and Dawdi spread out the tent, and then Jethro threaded the poles through the clips running criss-cross over the top of the tent. He had the tent up in less time than it took to say, “Mammi’s famous cheese and cabbage lasagna.” He took Dawdi’s hammer and drove the four stakes to anchor the tent, then brushed off his hands and stepped back to inspect his work. He glanced at Mary Anne and quickly looked away, as if he would catch on fire if he stared at her too long. “Is this to hold more of Mary Anne’s potato chip sculptures?”

  Dawdi raised an eyebrow. “How many potato chips does she have?”

  “Plenty,” Jethro said, as if he was talking about how many mosquitoes there were in Wisconsin or how many times the cow had kicked over the milk bucket.

  “This tent is not for potato chips,” Mammi said, and Mary Anne detected a hint of a scold in Mammi’s voice. Mary Anne was starting to like this whole solidarity thing. “Felty and I are sleeping here tonight so Mary Anne doesn’t have to sleep outside by herself. At times like these, a girl needs the support of her family.”

  Jethro scowled with his eyes, but the expression didn’t quite reach his mouth. He was trying to behave himself even if he was seething. “Anna, you’re eighty-two years old.”

  “Eighty-five.”

  “Eighty-five years old. You won’t get a wink of sleep, and you’ll ache in places you didn’t even know you had.”

  “I’m willing to sacrifice for my granddaughter, and I brought two casseroles.”

  Mary Anne wasn’t sure what the casseroles had to do with sleeping outside, but Jethro didn’t argue about it. He cupped his fingers around the back of his neck and sighed. “You two are reasonable people. Can’t you talk Mary Anne into moving back into the house?”

  Mary Anne gave him the stink eye. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”

  Jethro raised his eyes to Mary Anne’s face and quickly averted them. “I never wanted you to leave.”

  Dawdi stroked his beard. “Do you want Mary Anne back or do you just want her back in your house?”

  Jethro narrowed his gaze in confusion. “What does that mean?”

  Mammi’s eyes twinkled merrily. “Mary Anne is of her own mind, and we wouldn’t dream of trying to change it. We like her just the way she is.”

  Jethro all but growled. “I like her just the way she is too.”

  It was a nice thing to say, especially when he was so angry. But he didn’t really like her just the way she was. He liked who she had pretended to be to please him, that woman who cooked plain, sensible meals and kept his plain, sensible house and never said or did anything to upset his well-ordered life. It wasn’t who she ever wanted to be again.

  “Of course you do, even if she doesn’t currently live with you,” Mammi said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that Jethro’s wife had moved into a tent.

  Jethro wasn’t finished trying to convince Mammi or Dawdi to take his side. “Aren’t you concerned that your granddaughter is going against the Bible? A wife is supposed to submit to her husband.”

  Dawdi chuckled. “And you’re supposed to love your wife as Christ loves the church.”

  “I do,” Jethro said, with a little less conviction.

  Dawdi knelt to unroll his sleeping bag inside the tent. It was quite a feat for an eighty-seven-year-old man. “Like locking her out of the house?”

  How did he know about that?

  Apparently, Jethro wondered the same thing. He shot a glare at Mary Anne as if she had tattled on him. “She took my easy chair.”

  Dawdi finished spreading out his sleeping bag and stood up. “For sure and certain, I like my recliner.”

  Jethro picked up the other sleeping bag, untied the knot in the string around it, and spread it next to the other one in the tent. “Sleeping in here is going to be torture for your back, Felty. You need a cot.”

  Dawdi smiled, as if he was just humoring everybody. “Let us try it out tonight. Right, Annie?”

  Mammi nodded. “I went through labor thirteen times. How bad can it be?”

  Pretty bad, Mary Anne thought. She hated sleeping in a tent. It almost made her sad. She suddenly liked the idea of Mammi and Dawdi sharing her campsite, and they were only going to last one night, two at the most.

  Mammi picked up one of the casseroles from the ground. “We should build a fire so we can warm up this casserole. I’m hungry.” She glanced at Jethro. “Would you like to eat with us? Cabbage and cheese lasagna, my special recipe.”

  Jethro gave Mammi a weak smile, and Mary Anne could see the wheels turning in his head. He’d probably eaten all the anniversary leftovers, so he was forced to decide between cornflakes or cabbage lasagna for dinner. Mary Anne didn’t know which one she would have picked. She would have preferred the tinfoil dinner she had planned on making, but it would have to wait until the casseroles or Mammi and Dawdi were gone—or both.

  “I’d appreciate it if I could join you for dinner. I don’t know how to cook much of anything. Mary Anne is such a gute cook, I’ve never had to learn.”

  Mary Anne tried not to show her surprise. Two compliments from Jethro in one day. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened—probably about the time they had found out she couldn’t have children and he had stopped taking any interest in her at all.

  Mary Anne took a deep breath and turned her face away. She’d better be careful. Her hurt could so easily turn into bitterness. Maybe it already had. Maybe that was why she was living in a tent. “We’ll need more plates and cups,” she said, trying very hard not to sound smug. If he wanted to eat with them, he’d have to retrieve a few things from the house.

  Jethro pressed his lips together. He obviously didn’t like the idea of taking yet more things from the house, but if he wanted to eat, he’d have to be obliging. “Okay. And I’ll make a salad.”

  He helped Dawdi build a fire in the fire pit while Mary Anne and Mammi transferred the lasagna from the casserole dish to the Dutch oven. The lasagna—red and orange and green—sort of seeped out of the pan like a slug oozing from its shell, and Mary Anne tried not to breathe in the smell. She comforted herself with the thought that Mammi and Dawdi couldn’t last very long out here. She’d be cooking her own meals in less than forty-eight hours. And if Mammi and Dawdi managed to stick it out longer, Mary Anne would volunteer to be the camp cook. Solidarity was nice, but it didn’t taste very good.

  Mary Anne had hooked up a hose to the spigot by the barn, and she and Mammi washed and dried the casserole pan. Mammi wiped her hands on one of the dish towels Mary Anne had taken from the kitchen and then wiped the casserole dish and stowed it on top of one of the sleeping bags in her tent. Hopefully, she would remember to move it before she climbed in. Mammi gave Mary Anne a wide smile. “Now, dear. While we’re waiting for dinner to cook, I’d like a tour of your tent, and so would Felty.”

  “Jah, I would,” Dawdi said.

  Mammi got that tricky glint in her eye that meant she was up to no good. “And so would Jethro, for sure and certain.”

  Mary Anne felt her face get hot. She didn’t want Jethro looking down at her decorations and criticizing how she’d spent his two hundred dollars. He didn’t care about her rock collection or the stack of quilt blocks sitting on her cot. And she certainly didn’t want him seeing the sewi
ng chair and getting suspicious about how she’d gotten it. She wasn’t strong enough to withstand his disapproval. It was one of the reasons she had moved out in the first place.

  Mary Anne folded her hands almost casually. “Jethro will want to make his salad.”

  Mammi seemed so eager all of a sudden. “Stuff and nonsense. A salad takes three minutes. He has time before the lasagna cooks.”

  Ach du lieva. Mary Anne’s stomach fell to the ground. Mammi was a matchmaker at heart. Was she trying to get Mary Anne and Jethro back together? She would have to put a stop to that—without offending Mammi or making a big stink about it. Mary Anne was already making a big enough stink just living in a tent.

  Well, she’d been brave enough to move out of the house. She could muster the courage to insist on things her own way without making a scene in front of Mammi and Dawdi. She had as much a right to be happy as anyone. “Jethro can come too, but he isn’t allowed to say anything.”

  Jethro frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

  She squared her shoulders. “Just that. I don’t want you to say anything.”

  Mammi’s smile got wider as Jethro’s frown got thinner. “I think she means you need to keep your mouth shut. I’ve always found that to be very gute advice in almost every situation.”

  Mary Anne tried to ignore Jethro altogether as she led the way into the tent. If she had her way, Jethro would be sitting in his house eating cornflakes. But Mammi had invited him to dinner, and Mary Anne couldn’t very well uninvite him when it was Mammi who had done the cooking.

  Jethro was the last to enter, and he turned and zipped up the screen layer of the door. “To keep the mosquitoes out,” he said.

  Mammi’s eyes flashed in Jethro’s direction. “You’re not supposed to say anything. Surely you haven’t forgotten already.”

  Jethro pressed his lips together and shot Mary Anne a scowl. She bit her tongue before she said something rude that would shock her grandparents. Something like, “Jethro, get out of my tent.” Her grandparents wouldn’t like it if she talked to her husband like that, even though she was sorely tempted to put him in his place.

  Jethro had to remove his hat to keep it from brushing against the top of the tent and knocking down all Mary Anne’s mobiles. Dawdi stooped over so as not to scrape his head.

  She should have ignored him, but she couldn’t keep from noticing how Jethro’s eyes traveled from her cot to the table she’d taken from the house to the bookshelf that was now full of pots and pans and canisters of flour and sugar and oatmeal, chocolate chips and shortening. His gaze rested on the fish-shaped pot holders she’d made him for his twenty-eighth birthday. He had never used them. Did he want them back?

  Mammi pointed to the ceiling, which wasn’t all that far above her head. “Ach, Mary Anne. Look at what you’ve done! They’re beautiful. Aren’t they, Felty?”

  Dawdi formed his mouth into an O. “What are they made of?”

  Mary Anne reached out and gave her Ruffles mobile a little twirl. “This one is made of potato chips.”

  Mammi’s eyes were wide with delight. “They’re so colorful.”

  Mary Anne lightly tapped one of the delicate leaves on her nature mobile. “Spray paint. I especially like the gold ones. I pulled some new leaves off the trees and gathered sticks and pinecones for this one, then sprayed them gold and taped them to the ceiling.”

  “Duct tape will leave residue—”

  One sharp look from Mammi, and Jethro shut his mouth. Resentment pulled at his lips as he eyed the seven mobiles Mary Anne had hung above her cot. Had he noticed that she’d used his fishing line?

  “This one is made of Ritz Crackers,” Mary Anne said.

  Dawdi carefully took one of the hanging crackers between two of his fingers. “I like blue. And green.”

  Mary Anne grinned. “Me too. I love every color. They’re all so glorious.” She pointed to the egg mobile, painted and decorated in every variety of pattern and color. “That is my favorite. I made a little hole on the bottom and top of each egg and blew out the yolk and egg white.” She curled her lips. “My cheeks hurt for an hour afterward.”

  Mammi clapped her hands. “It’s adorable, Mary Anne. Like Easter morning.”

  Jethro grunted, but he didn’t say anything, so Mary Anne wasn’t sure what it was specifically he disapproved of. It wasn’t hard to guess, though. Jethro disapproved of everything. He disapproved of the mobiles. He disapproved of the money she’d spent to buy the paint. He disapproved of the stolen fishing line and the time she’d wasted to make her creations and the residue on the ceiling of his tent. Mostly, he disapproved of Mary Anne and the fact that she was an embarrassment to Amish fraas everywhere.

  She shouldn’t have agreed to let him come inside. Making those mobiles had brought her so much happiness. The colors, the patterns, the textures invigorated her like nothing else had in a long time. And Jethro was being a stick-in-the-mud.

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Go make your salad, Jethro.”

  “What?”

  “I said, go make your salad. Mammi’s lasagna is almost ready.”

  He looked as if he’d eaten a lemon. “I’m dying to see the rest of your mansion.”

  “You’ll need to run to the market for some lettuce. The head in the fridge is probably slimy by now. And we don’t have any tomatoes or cucumbers.”

  “I know how to make a salad,” he said, the resentment dribbling out of his mouth like a cup of pebbles.

  Mammi reached up and gave Jethro a grandmotherly pat on the cheek. “You had better go, Jethro. Your bad attitude is ruining the tour.”

  Jethro’s indignation was almost as sharp as his surprise. “It is not.”

  “I’m enjoying the tour,” Dawdi said, studying one of Mary Anne’s eggs with his bifocals.

  “We were having a lovely afternoon until you came along. You’re making Mary Anne very uncomfortable.”

  Jethro was like a smoldering fire. “I’m her husband. She should love me, not feel uncomfortable around me.”

  Mammi sighed. “So true. It’s going to take some time to sort things out, Jethro, and now is not the time. We only have so long before the lasagna burns. I want to finish the tour, and you need to make a salad and quit making a mess of things.”

  Jethro’s nostrils flared, but he somehow kept his temper, unzipped the flap on the door, and ducked out of the tent.

  “Leave your frown in the house when you come to dinner,” Mammi said as he rezipped the door.

  It was almost as if the smoke cleared as soon as he left.

  Mary Anne stifled a smile. Her sweet little mammi had just put Jethro in his place.

  Thank the gute Lord for solidarity.

  * * *

  Mary Anne finished showing Mammi and Dawdi her living space. The tent in the back was for cutting and sewing fabric and sanding and painting furniture for Pammy to sell. She showed Mammi and Dawdi her rock collection and the book about rocks she’d borrowed from the library. They were impressed by her supply of oddly shaped chips and crackers. There were the tulip-shaped Ruffles chip and the Ruffles pig that didn’t look all that much like a pig. But she had also found a potato chip that looked like a dog’s head and a Cheetos puff in the shape of a little man with two outstretched arms. Mammi especially liked the Cheetos collection. She started talking about tuna Cheetos casserole. Hopefully, that would never really happen.

  She had also started making quilt blocks for the first quilt to sell on the computer. The quilt squares were almost done, and Mary Anne would need to find a place to set it up for quilting.

  When Mammi and Dawdi finished oohing and aahing over Mary Anne’s collections, the three of them decided they’d better get dinner on. Surely Jethro would be back any minute with that salad, and Mary Anne wasn’t about to let him in her tent again.

  Mammi stoked the fire, and then she and Dawdi sat down for a little rest before dinner.

  Mary Anne lifted the lid from the Dutch oven a
nd dipped her spoon into the cheesy concoction. A glob of cheese and a soggy cabbage leaf came out with the spoon. Mary Anne blew on it and took a taste. Not too bad, if you didn’t mind cabbage, and cheese made everything taste better. “The lasagna is ready,” she said.

  Mammi and Dawdi sat on a pair of camp chairs they’d borrowed from Jethro, enjoying the sunset that filtered through the trees in the west. Dawdi read a newspaper while Mammi did some knitting. Mammi hadn’t thought to bring a nightgown, but she was never without her knitting.

  Jethro had unlocked the house and let them get the folding table and four chairs from the closet, plus enough plates, cups, and forks for everyone. So Jethro wouldn’t have one more thing to scold her about, Mary Anne hadn’t set foot in the house, but had directed Mammi where to find the napkins and a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth to brighten up the table. Dawdi had set the table while Mary Anne had tended the fire and Mammi had tended her lasagna.

  “Dawdi,” Mary Anne said, placing the lid back on the Dutch oven. “How did you know Jethro locked me out of the house?”

  Dawdi lowered his paper and stroked his horseshoe beard. “Titus saw him at Walmart last night buying an assortment of locks. I figured it out.”

  Jethro had been in the house for nearly half an hour. How long did it take to make a salad? Maybe he had decided he’d rather eat cornflakes than sit at the same table with Mary Anne. That was fine with her. She didn’t even care about the salad. She’d rather be left alone.

  Mary Anne lifted the Dutch oven from the fire pit just as Jethro strode across the lawn and into the woods. He carried a plastic bowl in one hand and a bottle of ranch dressing in the other and kept his eyes to the ground.

  “Yoo-hoo, Jethro,” Mammi called, as if Jethro hadn’t seen them sitting there. “It’s time to eat.”

  Jethro deposited his bowl and his dressing on the table. Mammi had told him to leave his frown in the house, but he hadn’t heeded her advice. He frowned as if his face might break with the slightest touch.

  Mary Anne put the steaming Dutch oven on the ground next to the table. It was too hot and heavy to put directly on the folding table. It would either make it melt or collapse. “Let’s eat,” she said.