Lizzie's Carefree Years

by Linda Byler

  They splashed, kicked, and laughed as the hot afternoon sun bore down on the river. Lizzie was still a bit cautious about getting her head wet, because she most certainly was not going under water; she didn’t care what Debbie and Edna said.

  She was astounded when Mandy pinched her nose tightly with her thumb and forefinger, dipping her whole head underwater. When she lifted it, water streamed from her hair and into her eyes, which were held tightly shut. Debbie clapped her hands and cheered, while Mandy wiped the water from her eyes, laughing.

  If Mandy can do it, so can I, Lizzie thought. She held her nose, but forgot to take a deep breath. When she lowered her head and the water rushed around her ears, she was so shocked at the caved-in feeling, she gasped. Suddenly, her mouth and nose were filled with river water. It felt as if a whole gallon of cold water was running into her throat, and it smelled like mud and fish.

  She came up, spluttering and coughing. To her chagrin, everyone started laughing, pounding her back until she almost fell in again. It was awful. Water ran out of her nose and she could not catch her breath. She gasped and coughed, water flying in every direction as she struggled to keep her footing.

  “What happened?” Edna asked.

  Lizzie shook her head, continuing her coughing.

  “Were you trying to be a fish? Are you sure there are no minnows in your ears?” Esther teased.

  Even though Lizzie felt like crying, she laughed bravely with the others. She would have to remember to take a deep breath. She looked out over the surface of the river, amazed that the water could seem so friendly. It did not scare her anymore, even if she swallowed some. That was her fault, not the river’s, because she had forgotten to hold her breath.

  “Minnows can’t get in your ears, can they?” she asked, after she had caught her breath.

  “No,” Lavina said. “Stop telling her that.”

  “Are you going to try going underwater again?” asked Edna.

  “Not today,” Lizzie said, shaking her head.

  But by the time the afternoon was over, she had ducked her head under the water twice, without swallowing any. She was so happy about learning to like the river that she could hardly contain her joy.

  As they packed their food back into the containers, Lizzie told Debbie she didn’t know which was the most fun, skating or swimming, playing on the ridge or sled riding, riding Dolly or driving her in the cart.

  “Debbie, I mean it; since we live here, there are so many fun things to do, I can hardly stand it!” Lizzie said, emphasizing her point by throwing her arms wide.

  “Do you like to live here?” Debbie asked.

  “Oh, I love it. There are so many things to do, a day is hardly long enough. But you know what, Debbie? There is one thing we didn’t do yet this summer,” Lizzie said, catching her tee-shirt and tugging.

  “What?”

  “Build a tunnel in the hay!”

  “Yay!”

  “We forgot!”

  So the walk home did not seem long, even if they were hot and tired. They planned the tunnel and the house at the end of it, what they would call it, and what kind of food they would have to eat.

  As they walked closer to Debbie’s house, she became very serious.

  “What about Jeanie?”

  “She’s too little.”

  “Mom’s going to yell at me if we don’t let Jeanie play, too.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  After discussing the matter seriously, they decided Debbie would ask her mother if she could spend the night with them. They would not mention the hay house at all. Besides, Dat had not told them they were allowed to sleep there. He was pretty particular about his barn and haymow, so they better not plan anything for sure before Dat said it was okay.

  “Bye!” Debbie waved as she turned into her short drive.

  “Bye, Debbie!” Lizzie and Mandy waved back, saying good-bye to their cousins as they crossed their own yard.

  “Thank you for taking us!” Lizzie shouted.

  “You’re welcome!” Edna yelled, walking backward to wave at them.

  Lizzie hopped and skipped for a short time, because she didn’t know how else to express her happiness. She guessed if she didn’t skip, she’d just have to turn a cartwheel, and she was far too old for that. Surely she was having the best summer of her life.

  chapter 11

  Grape Kool-Aid & Chocolate Cake

  Lizzie and Mandy had more chores in the summertime, because there was the yard and garden work. Mam’s garden had lots of weeds in it this summer, which really wasn’t her fault with the twins being born and all.

  Two days a week, a girl named Sadie Peachey came to help with the work. She hoed the garden, picked and canned tomatoes, mowed the grass, and cleaned flower beds. Sadie was a hard worker, and Emma often worked with her, learning things like canning pickles, or turning basket after basket of beautiful red tomatoes into a thick juice.

  Lizzie hated working in the garden. For one thing, the soil had lots of stones in it. Big round ones. Actually, big enough to toss to the side where they had to haul them away with the express wagon. Stones that weren’t really big enough for that just annoyed you when the edge of the hoe hit them, sparks flying from it, the impact hurting your hand on the hoe handle. If it was an old hoe that had a rough wooden handle, you always got a splinter in the palm of your hand.

  Lizzie would yell, dropping her hoe, and would try to pick out the splinter with the nails of her thumb and forefinger. Often she ended up banging the screen door, complaining loud and long to Mam, who extracted the splinter with a tweezers. Lizzie would try her best to make it sound as horrible as possible, but usually Mam clamped her mouth firmly, slapped a Band-Aid on the small hole where the splinter had penetrated, and Lizzie found herself back out in the garden hoeing.

  It was just not right, Lizzie often decided. The sun was so hot it made you feel like dropping down and never, ever hoeing one more time in your life. The long rows of string beans irked her, because no one really liked them. Beans were just something you ate because they were vegetables, and, of course, they were good for you. The same way with pickles. They were so unnecessary. Sour, disgusting things. The only way a pickle tasted good was if it was buried under a pile of sweet Lebanon bologna, cheese, and mayonnaise. And Mam always canned quart after quart of those little saccharin pickles that turned olive green and salty after a while. Dat ate so many of them, with tomato soup, cheeseburgers, or hot dogs; Lizzie could not believe they were very good for his stomach.

  The thing about those saccharin pickles that irked her most was Mam’s odd notion that you could only pick the small ones. A saccharin pickle was supposed to be small. What in the world was the difference? Why couldn’t you wait to pick the cucumbers until they were big, then cut them into pieces? They went a lot farther that way and you didn’t need to pick them every other day. But no, Mam said they turned mushy in the jar if you did that; it was better to pick them small.

  So besides hoeing, picking cucumbers was just as bad. The stalks were thick and long, with large prickly leaves that gave you a rash if you picked them too long. Plus, the little green cucumbers were exactly the same color as the leaves, so it was impossible to find them all. Then, if Mam helped and she found too many big ones, she scolded Lizzie thoroughly, which hurt her feelings terribly even if she knew it was partly guilt, because she could have done better.

  So there were very few things about a garden that made any sense to Lizzie. Corn-on-the-cob was about the only thing she would grow if she ever married and had her own garden. That was so delicious it almost made up for string beans and pickles.

  Red beets weren’t quite as bad as pickles, because you let them grow together in a nice long row. Then one day when the beets were big enough, Mam pulled them, trimmed off the tops, and washed them in a big bucket under the spigot in the yard. The fun part was peeling them after they were cooked. Some of the small ones you could squeeze with your hand, and that was i
t—they were peeled. Mandy and Lizzie peeled red beets at the sink in the basement for a long time, because Mam canned lots of them for pickled eggs. Dat loved them, sprinkling salt and spreading mayonnaise on each half.

  So when there was gardening to be done, Lizzie was almost always reluctant to start. This morning was no different. Mam was tired, since the twins had not slept well, and she had school sewing to do as well. Emma was washing, whistling over the steady whir of the gas engine that powered the washing machine, happy as always, loving every minute of her time doing laundry.

  But Mandy and Lizzie were not happy, because Mam had given them instructions to hoe around the tomato plants and clean the area where the string beans had been.

  School would be starting next week, so the garden work was winding down, but they still had to clean part of it, which Lizzie thought was absolutely unnecessary. Why couldn’t the weeds grow for a little while? The frost would soon kill them. Besides, they wanted to make a house in the hay so Debbie could come over to sleep overnight.

  Lizzie flopped down in a kitchen chair, moaning to Mam that it was too hot to hoe. Mandy asked why the weeds couldn’t grow for a while.

  “Because,” Mam said tiredly, heating yet another bottle on the stove.

  “Well, we wanted to make a hay house, Mam,” Lizzie said. “Debbie wants to come over once yet, before school starts.”

  “Did Dat say you could?” Mam asked, putting her smallest finger into the saucepan to test the temperature of the baby’s formula. She always used her smallest finger. Lizzie never knew why.

  “Yes, he did. If we don’t rip any baling twine off the bales,” Mandy said happily.

  “Isn’t it too hot up there?” Mam asked doubtfully, pouring the warm milk into a bottle.

  “Not if we open both barn doors.”

  “Then someone will fall out.”

  “Hah-ah, Mam.”

  Mam fell silent, reaching for KatieAnn and settling herself in the blue platform rocker.

  “Mam, is Debbie allowed to come over tonight? And . . . please, please, please, would you make a chocolate layer cake with white icing for her? You know how she loves it,” Lizzie asked.

  Mam’s eyes narrowed. She watched Lizzie for a while before she sighed.

  “Alright, Lizzie, it’s a deal. I’ll let you have Debbie over and I’ll make a cake, but what about you moaning and groaning about working in the garden? It just isn’t right, the way you two run around having fun while Emma works almost all the time,” she said, running a hand through her uncombed hair.

  “Mam!” Lizzie burst out.

  “What?”

  “You know it’s not fair to accuse me and Mandy of not helping Emma. If I went out there and offered to help her, she would never let me. She is so different, Mam,” Lizzie wailed.

  “She loves to wash,” Mandy chimed in.

  “I suppose you’re right, girls. But I’m always afraid I’m not raising you two as I should. I have never seen two girls who are eleven and nine years old, run around and play like you do with Edna and Debbie. How are you ever going to learn responsibility?” she finished.

  “Mam, Emma thinks about getting married lots of times. She told me the other evening she can’t wait till she has a house of her own. She wants an old farmhouse with patchwork quilts on the bed and a whole pile of children. I don’t even think about things like that.”

  “Me, neither!” Mandy said, rolling her large green eyes for emphasis.

  Mam started by smiling, then shaking quietly with laughter, and finally throwing back her head, opening her mouth, and laughing a real, deep genuine sound of merriment, which the girls had heard very seldom since the twins’ birth.

  “You two!” she gasped, wiping her eyes.

  Lizzie and Mandy giggled appreciatively, because if Mam was in such a good mood they probably would not have to hoe weeds.

  But they were wrong. Only after the gardening was done, were they allowed to make a hay house, and Mam was firm. So it was after lunch by the time Mandy and Lizzie could even start on the house in the haymow. It was stifling under the tin roof of the barn, so they slid back the huge doors on each side. A nice breeze soon cooled the interior, so they started to work. They lifted heavy, prickly bales of hay, piling them in a neat square in the farthest corner, so they could build a tunnel to the house.

  When Debbie came over late in the afternoon, she found Lizzie red-faced and disheveled, her face shiny with sweat, hay sticking from her hair, with red scratches all over her legs. Mandy didn’t look much better, except her face was not quite as alarming in color.

  Debbie giggled. “Look at you!” she laughed.

  “What?” Lizzie asked.

  “You’re so red!”

  “You would be, too, if you built this house.”

  Debbie giggled again. Lizzie and Mandy showed her through the tunnel and into the nice square house built of hay bales. Debbie was so thrilled, because her mother had said she could stay for the night. They planned where the imaginary couch, bed, stove, and table would be, then ran down the steps to ask Mam for sheets and quilts. They were not allowed to have anything woolly or anything the hay would stick to. But, since it was summertime and the nights were warm, they didn’t need a lot of covers.

  “Oh, you made a chocolate layer cake, Mrs. Glick!” Debbie squealed.

  “Yes, I did, Debbie. Just for you,” Mam beamed.

  Mam loved Debbie so much, and Debbie loved Mam, calling her “Mrs. Glick” until Mam told her to call her “Annie.” Debbie just was like that—so easy to love. For one thing, her soft, little, round form, tanned as dark as an autumn walnut in the fall, topped with a mop of naturally curly black hair, was just the most endearing sight. Besides, she had a great sense of humor. Topped with her soft giggle, she was just the most captivating little person.

  Sometimes Mam was grouchy and even Debbie was hard on her nerves. Then she would send her home, saying she had stayed long enough, and Lizzie and Mandy would feel bad for days.

  But that was how Mam was, and Debbie never stayed away very long at a time, always knowing Mam would be friendly the next time she appeared at their door.

  They carried all the sheets and old quilts, old pillows, and flashlights up the stairs and into their hay house. They spread them carefully on piles of soft, prickly hay, tucking the corners under.

  “This looks so cozy!” Debbie said, rolling into the center of the freshly made bed. Instantly all the corners came flying up and the cozy-looking bed went flat.

  “Debbie!” Lizzie yelled. “You ruined it.”

  Sheepishly, she climbed off hurriedly. “I didn’t know.”

  “Well, loose hay is not going to work for our bed—that’s for sure,” Lizzie said with a sigh.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, that’s alright, Debbie. We just need to use something that works better.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about a mattress?”

  “How could we ever get a mattress through this tunnel?”

  “We can’t.”

  They sat in a semi-circle, their chins in their hands, chewing on pieces of hay. Lizzie was tired, dirty, and so warm she seriously doubted if she would ever cool off again. This was so depressing, working so hard, and now they had no decent place to sleep.

  “I know!” Debbie shouted. “My camping mattress!”

  “Of course! We’ll pump air in after it’s in the house!” Lizzie yelled.

  So while Debbie hurried home, Mandy and Lizzie ran into the kitchen to pack their food.

  Mandy got a plastic pitcher, opening a packet of grape Kool-Aid and adding a cup of sugar and cold water from the icebox. They never had any ice, but that was okay; they didn’t think about it much.

  Lizzie wrapped bologna sandwiches in waxed paper, and half of the chocolate layer cake, potato chips, slices of cheese, and stick pretzels. Mam said they could have apples, too, but Lizzie wrinkled her nose. Mandy took one,
though. Debbie didn’t like apples, either.

  Now they were all set, so after Debbie appeared on the porch, lugging a heavy package with both arms, they carried everything back up to the hay house. They pushed and shoved, pulled and grunted, getting all the bulky packages into their little house.

  After they had pumped air into the mattress, it was actually very nice inside. The evening air had cooled the barn, and the little house was so secluded, yet had a secure feeling, because it was a house inside a barn. Dat and Mam’s house was close, so there really was nothing to be afraid of during the night.

  After they had everything in order, it was time to have their baths, then get their nightgowns on before they actually retired for the night.

  Dat shook his head in disbelief when he saw the girls. “You look like you went through a threshing machine!” he said.

  “You know what, Dat? We have a mattress that you blow up with an air pump. It’s Debbie’s,” Mandy said happily.

  “How are you going to see?” Dat asked.

  “With flashlights.”

  “Just so you don’t have any matches.”

  “We don’t.”

  After their baths, they scampered up the stairs, diving into the tunnel for the last time. They stuck the flashlights into cracks between the bales of hay and had perfect “electric” lights. They spread a sheet across two bales of hay for their table, spreading all the food on it before sitting down to enjoy their delicious picnic supper. Debbie ate a big piece of chocolate layer cake, washing it down with grape Kool-Aid, before she ate a sandwich.

  “Mmmm!” she said, closing her eyes as she licked the vanilla icing from her fork. “Your mom makes the best cake in the world.”

  Lizzie and Mandy agreed, because it really was the best. They ate so much cake and drank so much Kool-Aid, they could not believe the cake was almost all gone by bedtime. They told stories—true ones and made-up ones—until Debbie told a story that was so scary, Lizzie told her she was going to go sleep in the house if she didn’t stop it. She told her Amish people didn’t let their children hear such scary things, which wasn’t entirely true, but it made her stop.