by Linda Byler
Lizzie plopped down by the pine tree to look at the view. Mandy sat down beside her, and they said nothing. The wind sighed in the pine branches, reminding them of the ridge.
“I miss the ridge,” Mandy said quietly.
“Me, too.”
“I don’t know what got into Mam and Dat,” Mandy said fervently. Her big green eyes searched Lizzie’s face worriedly. “I mean, we used to be more carefree or something.”
“I know what you mean. But you know what? They could start by telling Emma not to chew with her mouth full. See, Mandy, that’s why I go pout. Mam doesn’t understand, but she likes Emma a lot better than me. I am always being scolded for something; Emma never is. Her mouth was completely full of popcorn and do you think she got scolded? Oh, no.”
Suddenly Mandy sat bolt upright, her green eyes flashing. “Lizzie!”
Lizzie was surprised into speechlessness.
“You act so childish. You know you heard me knock on your door when you were upstairs in your room the first time. You should be spanked. Who do you think Dat was favoring when he gave you that nice smile every time it was your turn to read German? You are the one who was Dat’s pet, then. It’s always that way when we read German. It was so good for you what Mam said. How do you think me and Emma feel when you’re rattling off your verse twice as fast? You know what’s wrong with you, Lizzie? You’re childish and jealous. You’re so jealous of Mam and Emma, it’s a wonder your face doesn’t turn green. You can just be mad at me if you want to, but for once in your life, you’re going to hear it. You know we have a nice Mam and Dat. They would never favor one of us over the other. Get it out of your head!”
Lizzie stared at Mandy, her mouth open in disbelief. Mandy! Quiet little unassuming Mandy. Lizzie was shocked, then ashamed. She felt so ashamed, she didn’t say anything for a very long time. Mandy was sifting pine needles through her fingers, her chin on her knees. The trucks and cars droned far below them on the highway, and the breezes played with the pine branches above them.
“You had better think about it, Lizzie. I hate when you don’t talk, and you do it more and more often.”
Lizzie looked up at the sky. She blinked her eyes and chewed her fingernails. She thought about what Mandy had said. Pouting was her way of getting back at Emma or Mam. She never felt like pouting because of Dat. Maybe pouting was just jealousy. Maybe she just wanted attention, like a three-year-old.
“I don’t know why I pout,” Lizzie said miserably.
“I do.”
“You don’t.”
“Yes, I do. You pout so everybody will get worried and think, Oh, now what did I do to hurt precious Lizzie’s feelings?”
“You don’t know.”
“Mm-hmm, I do.”
Lizzie cast a sideways glance at Mandy. She started to smile before she said, “Mm-hmm, I do!”
Mandy flopped back onto the soft pine needles and burst out laughing. Lizzie put her head on her knees and laughed with her. The laughter was a wonderful healing of all the bad feelings that had been pushing their way between them, maybe even the whole family.
“So, I’m childish,” Lizzie gasped. “Why don’t you spank me?”
“I’m going to,” Mandy said, rolling over and preparing to smack her. But Lizzie was off, running down the hill as fast as she could, with Mandy in pursuit. They came to the thick hickory leaves before Lizzie rolled into them, her breath coming in painful gasps.
Mandy delivered a few good blows on Lizzie’s legs, before she stopped to regain her breath, too.
“Whew!”
“Whew!”
“That was fun!”
“Let’s hitch up Billy!”
“Let’s do!”
They were up and running, Lizzie’s sides aching. She felt so very much better, running around outside, just being twelve years old again. She forgot all her petty little jealousies, thinking instead how Emma and Mandy must have felt when she sat there absorbing Dat’s praise.
It was sad, having to worry about the responsibilities of growing older, but she could still have Mandy and Billy. As long as things didn’t get too serious, she supposed she could handle it.
chapter 19
The Renno Farm
Mam and Dat did not buy their milk at the store in cardboard or plastic containers like some people. They thought it was much too expensive, so Lizzie and Mandy—or sometimes Emma, if she wasn’t too busy doing something else—would walk down to the highway where there were a group of houses. They would turn to the left instead of going straight across and walk along the highway for a short distance until they came to the Renno farm.
They were never allowed to drive Dolly or Bess, and certainly not Billy after they had him, because they would have had to pull out onto the highway on the other side, and Mam said it would be far too dangerous, with all those trucks on the road. So they had to walk, carrying the little tin gallon jug with a lid on top, to have it filled with milk from the milk cans in the cooler.
It was a job, just an ordinary everyday chore they didn’t dislike, but weren’t too excited about, either.
On Saturday morning, Mam and Emma were cleaning, as usual. Lizzie was supposed to be helping more than what she was actually getting accomplished. The main reason she wasn’t getting more work done was the Saturday morning paper. She kept reading the comics, or trying to get a bit of crossword puzzle done if no one yelled at her. It wasn’t that Lizzie was being rebellious; she was actually in quite a good mood.
But cleaning just wasn’t very interesting, with Emma going ahead and doing most of the important things. She almost always went over Lizzie’s dusting, clucking her tongue in that annoying way, which meant “Lizzie, why don’t you grow up and dust as well as I do? You will never learn, no matter how often Mam tries to tell you”. This morning was no exception.
Lizzie found the paper when she cleaned out the magazine rack, and since it made her too tired to hold the paper while sitting in a chair, she spread it on the floor, her chin in her hands, her knees bent, and the rest of her sticking up in the air. She was not bothering anyone or being in Emma’s way, just innocently reading the paper, while Emma took the furniture polish and sprayed it on the dust mop. She began swishing it vigorously along the glossy hardwood floor until she came to Lizzie and stopped.
Lizzie saw the dust mop out of the corner of her eye and looked up. “What?”
“Move.”
“Go around me.”
“Move, Lizzie.”
“No.”
“I’m going to tell Mam. Mam!”
Lizzie didn’t even stand a chance. Emma didn’t even give me time to move out of her way, she thought.
“Mam!”
“What?”
“Look at Lizzie!”
There was silence as Lizzie got to her feet, quite guiltily. She was expertly folding the paper in half, then in fourths, before placing it back in the magazine rack. Her sentence, however, was handed to her quite promptly.
“Lizzie, you are too old to be lying in the middle of the floor reading the comics while Emma does all the work. I don’t know what to do with you if you don’t help better with the cleaning. Mandy is even cleaning the basement all by herself and there you are,” Mam said, her hands on her hips and her cheeks quite red.
“Well, what shall I do?” Lizzie asked.
Mam sighed. “Why don’t you and Mandy go for milk and then you can both clean the basement when you get back? I need milk for the cornstarch pudding I’ll be making.”
“Okay,” Lizzie agreed. “I’d rather go for milk than clean any day.”
“That’s not hard to figure out,” Emma snorted, picking up dirty socks and shaking dust fuzzies off them before putting them in the clothes hamper.
“Too bad we’re not alike,” Lizzie sang out, watching Emma’s stiff back entering the bathroom door.
Emma turned around and told Lizzie there was no way she was ever going to be fit to be a wife if she didn’t learn to clean h
er house while she was still young.
Lizzie ignored her, although she knew what Emma said was true. For one thing, if she was married, it would be her own house and her own stuff. That would be entirely different. Here, as soon as one room was cleaned, Jason got all his toys out again, and the twins pedaled around in their walkers. You could never tell if it was cleaned or not. When she had her own house, there would be no babies. She didn’t like them.
So Emma just didn’t have to worry one bit about her housecleaning abilities. What about the pantry before Mommy Glick came, huh? But she didn’t say it, knowing Mam was in no mood for the girls’ bickering this morning.
Lizzie yanked open the basement door and yelled for Mandy. “We have to go to Samuel Rennos for milk!”
“I’m not done yet,” Mandy replied.
“I have to help you when we get back,” Lizzie told her.
So they set off, head scarves tied securely, their coats snugly buttoned around them. There was a stiff autumn breeze, making them bend their heads, their skirts whipping around their legs. Lizzie told Mandy it was time for Mam to buy tights—winter had to be close behind this cold wind.
After they turned left on the highway, the wind hit them from the side, but it was easier to walk, because it didn’t push quite as hard against them. They looked both ways before crossing the busy road, trucks humming past them as if they were little specks. It was much safer to walk out here, Lizzie thought. They could never get Billy to stop and wait until all the traffic was past.
The big gray farmhouse was close to the road. There were two porches, one on the side, and one on the front. There was a fence made of fancy wire all the way around it, which Lizzie always thought was an excellent idea. How would they keep their little children off the road otherwise?
They opened the yard gate, hurrying up the sidewalk to the south porch. They could smell a faint good odor before they knocked and opened the door.
“Come on in,” said Sylvia Renno with a smile. She was a dark-haired, portly woman in her thirties who had a big family, with children of all ages. Her kitchen was small, with long, narrow windows letting in plenty of sunshine.
There was a large black range against the farthest wall, the stovepipe looming up behind it like a big black soldier. The oven door of the wood-fueled range was partly open, and Lizzie could see long, low pans of shelled corn roasting inside.
So that’s what we smell, she thought. The children were seated on chairs or benches, holding large yellow ears of corn, shelling them with their hands, the kernels plunking into a huge stainless steel bowl.
One of the older girls was churning butter in a glass churn. It was a large churn, with wooden paddles hanging from a metal lid. There was a handle attached to these paddles, and when she turned the handle, the paddles went back and forth, back and forth. The milk in the jug made a funny, slapping sound. Lizzie almost pitied the milk, seeing it never had any rest. About the time it was pushed to one side of the churn, it was pushed back. No wonder it just gave up and became butter.
“So you need milk?” Sylvia asked, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“What is all the corn for?” Lizzie asked, her curiosity overcoming her good manners, as she forgot to answer her question.
“The corn? We’re roasting it for cornmeal. After it’s finished roasting, we’ll take it to the mill and have it ground. Doesn’t your mother make fried corn mush on cold winter mornings?” Sylvia asked.
“Sometimes,” Lizzie answered. “But we never roast our corn. Is it field corn?”
“Oh yes, just the good, heavy ears. It makes the best cornmeal.”
“It smells good in here,” Lizzie said.
Sylvia pulled on her coat, tying her head scarf as the girls followed her out the door. She opened the milkhouse door, pulling it shut behind them so the wind would not swing it out of her grasp.
“That’s some wind,” she remarked.
The interior of the milkhouse was painted a metallic gray. The concrete floor was damp and cold, with a ring of water around a metal drain in the middle. There was a big concrete trough along one wall, where huge steel cans of milk were set in ice-cold water. The air smelled fresh and damp, with a faint scent of soap, making it seem clean.
Sylvia reached up on a peg in the wall and deftly got down a rubber mallet with a sturdy wooden handle. It looked like a hammer, except it was much heavier. She banged it against one side of the lid, and then the other. A few more taps and she could easily lift off the heavy steel lid. She reached across the trough, getting down a shiny stainless steel dipper, which she used to stir the milk. That was because all the cream rose to the top of the milk, no matter if it was in a huge container like this, or a small plastic pitcher. That’s just how milk was.
After stirring it well, she dipped about six dipperfuls directly into the small jug, which she balanced expertly on the edge of the milk can with one hand.
Lizzie asked her what would happen if the little jug of milk dumped into the cold water.
Sylvia laughed, saying they would have to drain it, clean it well, and refill the trough. She was always careful, and it had never happened, although she wasn’t saying it never would.
After paying for the milk, Lizzie asked if they were allowed to set the jug on the milkhouse floor and look at the animals before they left.
“Samuel’s in the field husking corn, so yes, you may,” she said. “Just be sure and close the milkhouse door when you leave.”
They thanked Sylvia, who returned to her work in the kitchen. They opened the door to the cow stable. There were no cows in it, being all out at pasture, but the girls could see where the cows were tied to be milked.
The cow stable was as clean as the milkhouse, with fresh straw for the cows to stand in. The middle aisle was swept spotlessly, and lime was spread on it to make it look nice and smell clean.
Here in Jefferson County the Amish people did not have milking machines and big tanks to keep their milk. They milked all their cows by hand, keeping the milk in cans, so they had smaller herds of cows.
Lizzie loved this farm even more than Doddy Glick’s farm. It was exactly like a child’s picture book of farm animals. Besides the cows, there was the horse stable, containing stall after stall of gentle brown Belgian workhorses. They were tied in their stalls, tossing their heads and making the chains rattle up over the wooden beam. They munched on some leftover wisps of hay, gently blinking their huge eyes, their black eyelashes sweeping softly over their eyes. Lizzie would have liked to stand there for hours, watching these wonderful, kind-looking animals.
There were pigeons cooing somewhere overhead, but no matter how long Lizzie stared up into the beams of the ceiling, she could never find them. Mandy said they were probably higher up, in the haymow, under the roof.
Beside the big barn, there was a smaller shed built on, where there were about twenty pigs—big pink creatures with snouts that were never still. A pig could hold perfectly still, not even blinking, and its snout kept right on moving, either right or left, up or down. Some of them were lying in the dirt, sound asleep, only an ear twitching occasionally. Others were snuffling around their feed trough, although there was no feed in it.
“Wonder why Samuel Renno doesn’t feed his pigs more often?” Mandy asked.
“I don’t think you feed pigs all they want. They’d eat until they die, I think,” Lizzie mused, although for some reason that didn’t seem right, either. Then she remembered. Doddy Glick’s pigs that were in a pen with the steers had feeders they pushed open with their snouts. Any time of day or night, they could push on these lids and put their head underneath, eating all the feed they wanted.
“No, Lizzie . . .” Mandy started.
“Oh, I know! Now I remember. Doddy Glick’s pigs! I guess these pigs just have to be hungry until Samuel Renno does his chores,” Lizzie said.
They found a pen of sheep, which had heavy coats of wool all over them except their faces. They leaned in over the fence,
trying to touch them, just to see what the wool felt like, but they always turned sharply and dashed away on their skinny little legs. Lizzie thought they must weigh an awful lot to be carried around on those dainty hooves, unless the only thing that made them look so fat was all the wool on their bodies. They were really strange-looking creatures.
Before they picked up the milk jug, they found the chicken yard, with colorful chickens scratching in the dust. The wind caught their tail feathers, looking as if they could blow away across the fence and into the wild blue yonder. It didn’t seem to bother the chickens at all; they just went about their business, pecking in the dirt and dust.
On the way home, Lizzie sighed. Imagine how that would be. They would go to the henhouse for eggs, fry their own cornmeal mush, and have all the milk they could possibly want for their own use. She was sure Sylvia baked all the bread for the family, too. They would butcher the pigs for ham, bacon, and sausage.
She wanted to be like Samuel Rennos so much that she wished she could turn back time and be like Laura Ingalls. That would be a lot better than buying bread at the store, and never making butter or anything like that. They would store their onions and pumpkins in the attic, just like Laura Ingalls did. She was going to have to talk to Mam and Dat about living more like Samuel Rennos.
Dat could at least buy a cow and Mam could churn butter. Lizzie would be so excited to milk a cow. She was almost certain Dat would know how, and he could teach her.
The little tin milk jug felt heavy after they crossed the highway, so Mandy took a turn carrying it.
“You’re really quiet. This wind is pushing us home!” Mandy said with a laugh, pretending to run.
“I was just thinking. I’m going to ask Dat to buy a cow,” she said.
“Why?”
“We should churn butter, roast corn, and have pigs to butcher.”
“What is wrong with you? If we get a stinking old cow, I don’t want to milk her. You wouldn’t either, Lizzie. I guarantee it.”