Lizzie's Carefree Years

by Linda Byler

  A large tractor and trailer came slowly around the bend in the road, pulling a white mobile home. It was a nice one, as mobile homes go, with black trim and black shutters. There was a large bow window on one end, making it look very new and modern.

  “Where is that trailer going?” Lizzie asked.

  “I know exactly what it is. Remember Janet telling Mam about Jim’s old aunt who was coming to live with them?”

  “Oh, yes, I remember.”

  “See, it’s slowing down. They’re looking for the Zeigler place.”

  Sure enough, the trailer slowed to a stop in front of their house. Mr Zeigler came out of his garage door immediately, signaling to the driver to stop. They talked a while, but before the girls could tell where the trailer was going to be placed, Edna and Danny came walking up the driveway. They called for Mandy, grabbed their lunchboxes, and joined them.

  “Good morning!” Emma said.

  “Hey, who’s that?” Danny asked, pointing to the tractor and trailer.

  “They’re going to put that trailer in beside Jim’s house,” Lizzie informed him.

  “Who’s going to live there?”

  “Some old lady. An aunt to Jim Zeigler.”

  “All by herself?”

  “I guess.”

  They continued on their way to school, other subjects and interests taking the place of the black and white mobile home and the old lady who would live there. But that evening when they arrived home from a day of school, they were amazed to see the trailer completely set up, with the white skirting neatly put around the bottom. It was nestled between two trees, with a few bushes in the front yard, so it looked as if it had always been there.

  The girls asked Mam how they could set up the new trailer so quickly.

  “Oh, they’re not finished yet. The electrician and the plumber still need to put in water and electricity. I really wonder what the old lady will be like,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Janet told me she’s eccentric.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Just that she’s a bit different. She doesn’t conform to the usual standard of things.”

  “You mean she’s strange?” Lizzie called from the pantry, where she was lifting lids of Tupperware containers, looking for molasses cookies.

  “Kind of, yes,” Mam answered from the sewing machine where she was sitting.

  “Well, then we aren’t going to be neighborly,” Lizzie said, still looking for the cookies.

  Mam adjusted the shoulder of a green dress, put it under the presser foot of the sewing machine, and proceeded to treadle, the machine whirring and clunking in its usual rhythm.

  “Mam, who ate all the molasses cookies?” Lizzie called.

  “Probably you,” Mam answered.

  “I’ll bake some,” Emma volunteered.

  “Good! Then Lizzie and Mandy can get the laundry off the line and our work will be finished. I’d like to finish this dress, then I made four today,” Mam said, returning to her sewing.

  Lizzie gave up finding cookies and ate pretzels. She dipped them in mustard, which tasted alright, but not nearly as good as a stack of molasses cookies would have.

  “Right, we’re not going to be neighborly?” she asked.

  “To whom?” Emma asked, peering into Mam’s recipe box for the cookie recipe.

  “That old lady.”

  Mam stopped the sewing machine, snipping off the threads attached to the new green dress. “Lizzie, let me explain something to you. We should never decide who we’re going to like and who we aren’t. Love thy neighbor as thyself, you know. The Bible doesn’t say we can only love certain ones. That’s everybody. Besides, if you’re kind to strangers, we never know when we’re entertaining angels unaware. Suppose this old lady was sent by God to see what we make of having her here?” she asked.

  Lizzie didn’t say anything. She knew how Mam was. When they were small children living in Randolph County above the harness shop, they often had homeless men stop in. They were called tramps, and Mam never turned them away. She always fed them, talking to them as she would to a friend, sending them on their way with a sandwich in their pocket. She often had tears in her eyes as she watched them walk on, wondering what would become of them. Dat was even a bit more suspicious about tramps than Mam was, but he always agreed to giving them a meal.

  Emma stirred the eggs into the sugar and butter, saying, “You don’t even know what she’s like, Lizzie. Maybe she’s a cute little lady whom we’ll just love to go visit.”

  “I know. But I’d rather just have Debbie,” Lizzie said.

  They did not have long to find out. About a week later a blue and orange moving truck pulled into the new drive leading to the trailer. Men dressed in navy blue suits with orange caps carried furniture into the trailer. The old lady arrived about the same time as her furniture, in a black car driven by a man who walked bow-legged, like Jim Zeigler.

  Emma and Lizzie were watching everything from the front kitchen window. Mam said they had to stay back, because it was impolite to stare out a window at your neighbors, but she didn’t get much work done for a while, either. It was just too interesting.

  The bow-legged man walked around the car, opening the door for the old lady. At first, Lizzie thought it was a child, until she saw her bent back. She was very small and thin, with her gray hair pulled back tightly into a bun on the nape of her neck.

  “She has a ‘bob!’” Mandy said in awe.

  “She does!” Emma echoed.

  Instead of going into the trailer, the man opened the back door of the car, reaching in to pull out a large wire cage. He set it on the grass, pulling another one across the back seat, setting it beside the first cage before slamming the door.

  “She has dogs!” Mandy said.

  “I think they’re cats,” Mam said.

  Bending down, the old lady opened the door of the cages, letting out five cats. They were ordinary house cats—two black ones and three striped gray ones. She stroked and caressed her cats, holding one up against her face as the others rubbed themselves across her skirt. She did not go into her new home until she had snuggled every cat up to her face.

  “Five cats!” Lizzie shrieked.

  “And they’re all going to live in one little trailer,” Mam said, laughing. “Oh, well, she probably has a good vacuum cleaner.”

  The old lady had only moved in for a few days before Mam ventured across the road with a loaf of homemade bread and an apple pie. The girls watched as she walked up the steps of the small porch and pressed the doorbell. They waited breathlessly, until they saw the door of the trailer open and Mam stepped inside, the door closing behind her.

  It seemed to the girls as if Mam had been gone an awfully long time. Emma was beginning to glance at the clock with a worried expression, Mam walked up the steps to the porch. She was smiling to herself and she didn’t have the bread or the apple pie anymore.

  “What’s she like?” Lizzie asked.

  Mam sat down on a kitchen chair, threw her hands in the air, and burst out laughing. The girls laughed with her, just because it was funny to see how much Mam had to laugh.

  “Oh, my!” Mam finished, lifting her glasses to wipe her eyes with her handkerchief. “I’m not trying to make fun of her, bless her heart,” she said, still chuckling. “But she most definitely is an eccentric! She wants me to bring all of you over so she can meet you. Why don’t you put a clean shirt on Jason, Emma? I’ll wash the twins’ faces.”

  So they smoothed back their hair, put on clean aprons, and with Mam carrying Susan and Emma carrying KatieAnn, they all walked across the road to the black and white mobile home.

  The old lady threw open the door before Mam had a chance to ring the doorbell. Her wrinkled face was wreathed in smiles as she told them all to come in.

  She was thin, with a worn housedress hanging loosely from her small shoulders. Her hair was parted at the side, but combed back almost as tight as theirs used to be w
hen Mam rolled it. Her complexion was dark, with a round nose and dark eyes that were almost hidden by puffy folds of flesh. Her teeth were stained and yellow, but she seemed reasonably clean and certainly friendly.

  She sat down on the living room sofa, telling everyone to have a chair. Lizzie noticed her gnarled, work-worn hands picking at the folds of her dress, so she knew she must be nervous.

  “Girls, this is Mary Nobinski. Mary, this is Emma, holding one of the twins; Lizzie. Here’s Mandy; the little boy is Jason; and Susan, here on my lap,” Mam said, introducing them all.

  “How do you do? How do you do?” Mary said, evidently quite overwhelmed. She shook her head, as if in disbelief.

  “Oh, Missus,” she said, her swollen eyes surveying the children. She kept looking from one to the next, but made no attempt to hold the babies, touch Jason, or talk to any of them.

  The girls all said they were fine, smiling a bit stiffly, because it seemed as if she could not meet their eyes. Her eyes were not shifty or suspicious looking, certainly not evil or guilty, so Lizzie thought she must be a bit shy, as nervous as she was.

  The trailer was very nice. There was thick blue carpeting in the living room, with mirrors on one wall, making the room appear to be larger than it actually was. The furniture was not as grand as Debbie’s mom, Marlene’s, but it was clean and presentable. The dishes were stacked neatly in the dish drainer on her countertop, and the table was cleared off except for a box of crackers and Mam’s homemade bread. There were lots of small china figurines, artificial flowers, and little lace doilies everywhere. Pictures of the crucifixion hung on the walls, as well as pictures of praying hands and Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Lizzie thought she must be a Christian.

  The cats were all over the house. They padded around on the carpeting without making a sound, their eyes blinking, whiskers tilting first one way and then another. Cats made Lizzie nervous. She never knew where they were for sure, until—bang!—there they were. That’s exactly how these cats were. One would quite suddenly appear at the side of Mam’s chair, or leap up on the sofa beside the old lady, making no sound, not even a whisper. It was creepy.

  “So these are all your children?” Mary was saying.

  “Yes. Yes, they are,” Mam answered.

  “You’re a busy lady. I can see that. A busy, busy lady,” Mary went on. She asked Mam to look at the pictures on her walls, telling her she was a Catholic. Mam smiled and nodded her head, saying she liked the picture in her dining room.

  “Now, Missus, when I need something at the grocery store, or if you have anything for me to do, you send these girls over, and I’ll be there. I cleaned schools and homes for forty-two years. Yessir, I did. Forty-two years. Hardly ever missed a day of work. Hardly ever. I washed down walls, cleaned windows, scrubbed floors, cleaned bathrooms, oh yeah. I don’t know much, but I know how to clean,” she said.

  “Well, maybe on Saturday morning you can help us with the cleaning,” Mam offered.

  Lizzie’s heart sank. She did not want this strange old person in their house. Why did Mam have to say that? It was alright to love your neighbor and all that, but you didn’t have to let them in your house.

  Suddenly Mary stood up, reaching down the neckline of her dress. Plastic rustled, and she held on to the belt of her dress as she fished around for something she was searching for. She gave the front of her dress a few good shakes, before retrieving a small plastic bag filled with money.

  Emma and Lizzie both knew they were not allowed to look at each other or they would burst out laughing, then Mam would say they were making fun of Mary. But, my!

  She searched for quarters with her gnarled fingers, before presenting one to each of them. As the girls thanked her, she beamed with pride, stuffing the small plastic bag down the front of her dress again, adjusting her belt as she sat down.

  Then Mam said they must go, but she would be welcome to come over on Saturday morning.

  “Good-bye, Missus,” she called, as they all filed down the porch steps.

  From that day on, Old Mary, as they called her, was a fixture in their lives. She was quite a big help, actually She always called Mam “Missus,” never using her given name, or even “Mrs. Glick.” It was always just “Missus.” Oh, how she loved Mam! She adored the ground Mam walked on, Dat said. Every Saturday morning, exactly at nine o’clock, she would knock on the kitchen door, eager to help clean Mam’s kitchen.

  She refused to use a mop, saying mops didn’t clean a floor properly. She would get down on her hands and knees, with a bucket of hot, soapy water and a thick rag, and proceeded to give the kitchen linoleum the best cleaning it ever had. She would start in one corner, wiping down the baseboard, before scrubbing the floor. On each area of the floor, she’d clean it well once, dip her rag back into the soapy water, and repeat the cleaning the second time.

  “Missus!” she called.

  “What?” Mam answered from the living room.

  “My dress is pulling up, isn’t it? How far can you see?” she asked.

  “Oh, it’s not up very far,” Mam replied, trying not to laugh. She never scrubbed the kitchen floor without calling out to Mam, “Missus! How far can you see?”

  If she needed groceries, Mam would take her along to town with her driver. She helped her find the items she needed, which Old Mary appreciated very much.

  One day Mam came home with a load of groceries. The girls helped her bring in all the bags, while Jason yelled, rummaging through every one, looking for candy. Emma had started putting things in the pantry when Mam started laughing.

  “Oh, that Old Mary!” she gasped.

  “Now what did she do?” Emma asked with a smile.

  “You’re not going to believe this. You know how she would never carry a purse? Well, we got to the check-out counter, and I paid for mine first. When it was her turn, she loaded everything on the counter, and started fishing down the front of her dress again.

  “The clerk waited patiently, and she shook the front of her dress and carried on the way she does, before finally coming up with her little plastic bag of money. She was a quarter short, so she fished around some more, finally holding the belt of her dress out and shaking, before two quarters fell out from under her skirts, rolling across the floor.

  “‘There we go,’ she cried, chasing the quarters in front of a gentleman who was standing in line. She handed them over to the clerk, whose face was a study in control.”

  Mam laughed quite easily about things Old Mary did, but never in a mocking or demeaning manner. She loved Mary, respecting the fact that she was a devout Catholic.

  She told the girls about Catholic people, asking Mary to show them her rosary beads. She explained the nuns’ and priests’ lives to them, too.

  Lizzie fell silent for a long time after hearing about nuns. Why would you go to some big school and wear a long dress clear up over your head and promise never to marry? That was so depressing that she couldn’t think about it very long or it made her too sad. She asked Mam why in the world any girl in her right mind would do something like that.

  “Well, Lizzie, I know it’s different from what we’re used to,” Mam said. “But I honestly think if they can give their lives to God, serving only Him and not themselves, they experience inner peace, more than we imagine. It’s not our way, but we can’t look at them as if that’s all completely wrong. God knows, Lizzie—we don’t have to.”

  “I know,” Lizzie said. “But I’m glad I don’t have to be a nun.”

  “When I was in the hospital with Jason, there was a group of nuns helping out for the day. I still remember that one girl’s eyes. They were so clear and calm, I decided she had to have the right spirit, to have eyes that portrayed such peace and contentment,” Mam told her.

  “You see, we think whatever we can buy or doing what we want will make us happy, when often just the opposite is true. Real happiness comes from a meek and quiet spirit, given up to God’s will,” Mam said.

  Lizzie
didn’t answer, not knowing what to say. She thought about her prayer not to marry a farmer and milk cows. “Does that mean we shouldn’t pray for things we want?”

  “Not necessarily. God just knows what we need, so He doesn’t always answer the way we think He should.”

  “Oh.”

  That was hard to figure out. If she prayed to please not marry a farmer, and God thought that would be good for her, He’d make her. That was just as depressing as being a nun, so she put all those thoughts behind her, wandered into the pantry, and found the chocolate layer cake. She was just cutting a sizable piece onto a small plate, when there was a knock on the kitchen door.

  “Missus!” Old Mary stuck her head in.

  “Come on in, Mary!” Mam said.

  “Here. You wouldn’t let me pay the driver, and I don’t feel right. You take this five dollars or I won’t be able to sleep. Come on now. Take it, Missus.” She shoved the five dollar bill at Mam.

  “No, no, Mary. You keep it. I had to go to town for groceries anyway, whether you went along or not. No, I don’t want it,” Mam insisted.

  So Old Mary stuffed the five dollar bill down the front of her dress, saying she wouldn’t take her money on Saturday morning for scrubbing the kitchen floor.

  Lizzie licked the frosting off the knife before looking at Mary. She was actually cute today, wearing a new aqua blue and white gingham housedress. Her hair, which was usually a bit greasy, was light and shiny, combed back a bit more loosely. Her complexion looked especially dark because of the aqua blue dress, and Lizzie decided she must have been attractive at one time.

  Mam patted her shoulder, turning her around, to let her know she may as well leave; the five dollars was hers. So Mary just said, “Oh, Missus,” and went out the door and down the driveway, before Mam could see her tears.

  chapter 23

  Sleeping in the Playhouse

  The weather turned suddenly much warmer in October the year Lizzie was thirteen. So much warmer, in fact, that Debbie suggested they sleep outside in the playhouse, one more time before it got too cold.