Huckleberry Harvest (9 page)

Mandy used a bicolored blue and green yarn. It made a pretty pattern on the finished pot holders. Mammi alternated between bright yellow yarn and fluorescent pink. She liked her pot holders to pop, she said.

For the three meals they’d cooked so far, the new stove and oven had worked wonderful gute. The kitchen had not caught fire, neither had it blown up. Mammi’s Eggs Benedict yesterday for lunch was as runny and undercooked as if she’d made it on her old cookstove. Dinner last night had consisted of baked potatoes smothered in something Mammi called Thai peanut sauce, which wasn’t too bad except for the layer of cooking oil that floated atop the mashed peanuts.

Mammi had made Eggs Benedict once again this morning for breakfast, and Mandy was beginning to hope that all the chickens would run away and there’d be no more eggs to poach. She feared if she had to eat another runny egg white, she might get deathly ill.

Maybe she’d volunteer to make breakfast tomorrow morning.

Every time she looked at that stove, Mandy thought of Noah and the way he’d smiled at her when she picked up the crescent wrench. Her fingers paused in her knitting. She liked it when he smiled at her.

Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she concentrated harder on her task. Why did he have to be so aggravating the rest of the time? If he was going to take offense at every little thing she said, she wanted nothing to do with him, attractive smile or not.

Mammi pulled at the ball of yarn in her lap. “I was not happy about giving Buddy one of my pot holders. The Mennonites are lovely people, but if I’m going to feed a good meal to a boy, he’d better be someone my granddaughter can actually marry. He should have told me he was Mennonite before I invited him to lunch.”

“Maybe he didn’t think you cared,” Dawdi said with his head buried in his paper.

“Of course I care. Any boy with a lick of sense would have been able to tell that. I invited him home to meet my Amish granddaughter. He should have known I’d want an Amish boy.”

“You’re right, Banannie. He did seem a little thick.”

In between stitches, Mammi glanced at Mandy. “What did you think of Stephen?”

Mandy smiled a pleasant sort of noncommittal smile. “He’s quiet.”

“There’s something very appealing about a shy boy,” Mammi said. “It shows humility. Felty was shy when we were in primary school together.”

Dawdi’s paper rustled slightly. “Only shy around you, Annie. My tongue tied in knots anytime you came within ten feet. You were wonderful pretty. Still are.”

“Now, Felty,” Mammi scolded, but her eyes twinkled as she said it. She finished off another pot holder and clipped the yarn. “You must choose a boy soon, Mandy, or we’ll be knitting pot holders till Christmas.”

“How many more boys are you planning on introducing me to?” Mandy asked. Surely a dozen pot holders would be enough. They’d run out of boys before they ran out of pot holders.

“Maybe you’ve already met the right one,” Dawdi said, still engrossed in his paper. It wondered her how he could follow the conversation while reading.

Mammi lowered her knitting and regarded Dawdi thoughtfully. “You could be right, Felty. Maybe she hasn’t given them enough of a chance.”

Dawdi peered over his glasses to look at Mandy. “Noah did a fine job with the stove, don’t you think?”

“Jah,” Mammi said. “Such a gute boy.” She looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought. “Maybe I should have given Adam Wengerd a blue pot holder. I think he got brown.”

“It was a very nice brown pot holder,” Mandy said. On Friday before he had left the house, Adam Wengerd had asked Mandy to go riding with him this coming Thursday. She had agreed reluctantly. She didn’t want a Bonduel boyfriend, but she couldn’t very well turn him down when he’d come to Huckleberry Hill that day by special invitation from her mammi. But Mammi need never know about her coming date. Mandy didn’t want her to get her hopes up.

Mammi was still deep in thought. “Davy Burkholder isn’t fond of pie. Do you think we should invite him over for cake?”

“Noah loved Mandy’s pie,” Dawdi said.

“What if we had your cousin Titus put in a good word with Freeman Kiem?” Mammi said. “He probably doesn’t realize we’ve only got four weeks left.”

Mandy had a date with Freeman scheduled for tonight. She hadn’t told Mammi about that one either.

“Maybe we should just forget about it,” Mandy said. “I didn’t come to Bonduel to meet a boy. I came to see Kristina and spend time with my grandparents.”

Mammi leaned over and patted Mandy’s hand. “That’s sweet, dear. But don’t you worry. I’m not giving up, no matter what.”

Mandy hadn’t expected her to.

Dawdi folded his newspaper and attempted to lower the footrest by pushing with his feet. He grunted a few times, but the footrest wouldn’t budge. He finally reached down and pulled the lever on the side of the recliner. Mandy nearly jumped out of her skin as the recliner catapulted Dawdi into the air. For a brief second, he seemed to take flight before landing with his feet on the floor. “I love that chair,” he said. “It always gives me a good push.”

That chair might have been fine for Dawdi, but it had almost given Mandy a heart attack.

Dawdi plopped his paper in the kindling bin and thumbed his suspenders. “Noah’s coming today to put up a shelter over the propane tank.”

“Such a nice boy,” Mammi said. Mandy wasn’t altogether sure which boy she was talking about. Six of them seemed to be floating around in her head at the same time.

Mandy didn’t like to gossip, but surely her grandparents could tell her something about Noah’s dat. At least they could give her enough information so she wouldn’t bring up a forbidden topic in Noah’s presence. “Did something happen to Noah’s sister?” she asked. “He seemed uncomfortable when Buddy brought it up.”

Dawdi stroked his horseshoe beard, and a deep line appeared between his eyebrows. “Little thing died of a heart problem. I was still in my seventies. Maybe seven years ago.”

“Oh,” Mandy said. “That’s too bad.”

“Noah can’t talk about it. I suspect that wound will be fresh for many years.” Dawdi went behind Mammi’s rocking chair and put a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t stop knitting but tilted her head to nuzzle her cheek against the back of his hand. “We know a little of how that feels.”

Mammi and Dawdi had lost three of their thirteen children. Andrew had drowned when he was just a toddler, and Martha Sue and Bartholomew had been struck by a car on the way to school. More than fifty years had passed, but Mandy could see plain as day that it still hurt.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Dawdi’s lips curled into a sad smile. “We rejoice that our little ones are with Jesus. But we sure miss them.”

“Is Noah’s dat still grieving hard for his daughter?”

Dawdi nodded and looked away. “Real hard. His dat hasn’t been quite right since then. Noah does his best to take care of him.”

Mandy’s heart sank, and she repented of every unkind word she’d said to Noah on his porch that first day. He might have been insensitive to Kristina, but his burdens were bigger than Mandy could have imagined. She was ashamed of herself. No wonder Noah had reacted so sharply when she had mentioned his dat. Not only had her question upset him, but he had accused Kristina of putting her up to it. What did the breakup with Kristina have to do with Noah’s dat?

Mandy thought of their spying on Noah by the river and her surprise that Kristina would stoop to such childish tricks.

What about Noah’s dat? Just how badly had Kristina behaved?

Her heart leaped into her throat as someone knocked on the door. That would be Noah. How could she face him, knowing how unfair she’d been? Would he recognize the sympathy he saw in her eyes and resent her for it?

If there was one thing she thought she knew about Noah Mischler, it was that he would not want to be pitied.

Mandy stayed glued to the sofa while Dawdi answered the door. Noah would be working outside. She wouldn’t even need to make eye contact with him. She kept her attention on her knitting as Noah spoke to Dawdi.

“Just wanted you to know I’m here,” he said. “I unloaded the wood to the side of the house.”

“Okay,” Dawdi said. “Holler if you need help.”

Noah paused. “Could I talk to Mandy for a minute?”

Her heart galloped like a horse. What did he want with her? Just yesterday he’d told her to leave him alone. She knew too much about him. He’d get suspicious.

“Sure enough,” she heard Dawdi say. “She’s inside.”

“Would you ask her to come out?”

Come out? He definitely wanted to yell at her.

Mandy laid her knitting aside and slowly rose to her feet. Why hadn’t she gone for a long walk in the woods after breakfast? She could have avoided him all morning.

She dragged her feet all the way to the front door where Noah stood, looking too handsome to be real.

“Mandy,” Noah said, with a hint of anticipation in his voice. Was he looking forward to yelling at her?

She found the courage to look him in the eye. If he was mad at her, she’d not back down. She’d admit her error and dare him to show her some forgiveness. When she met his eye, she didn’t see anger burning in his expression like she thought she would. Instead, his eyes were tinged with sadness, as if he expected
her
to yell at him.

“
Gute maiya
,” she said, feeling stiff and unnatural, as if he were a complete stranger she didn’t trust.

He shifted his weight back and forth. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

She nodded.

He attempted a smile. It came out more like a question mark on his face. “Outside?”

Mandy nodded again and pulled her black sweater from the hook. She put it on and stepped out onto the porch. She flinched as Dawdi, without warning, shut the door behind her. Alone with Noah Mischler again. How did this always happen?

“Hi,” he said, as if he suddenly felt bashful in her presence.

“Hi,” she replied.

With one hand behind his back, he fidgeted with his feet. “You know,” he stuttered, “I am such an idiot sometimes.”

“Okay?” she said, when it seemed he was done with the conversation.

“I am really, really sorry for getting mad at you yesterday.”

Oh. He wasn’t going to yell at her. “It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing. I attacked you and assumed things that I shouldn’t have.”

She tried hard to keep the sympathy out of her voice. “You assumed that I wanted to hurt you.”

He ran his hand across his eyes. “Jah, because of Kristina. But I’m not blaming her. There’s no excuse for my behavior. I just don’t like talking about my family, that’s all.”

“I wasn’t mad.” Well, not very mad.

“Because it’s exactly what you expected of me. Because I’ve treated you rotten.”

“I wasn’t very nice either,” Mandy said, cringing at the memory of their confrontation on his porch.

“You were acting off what Kristina told you. Of course you thought I didn’t have a nice bone in my whole body.”

She curled one corner of her mouth. “Maybe you do.”

He studied her face before breaking into a cautious smile. “Maybe I don’t.” He pulled his hand from behind his back. He held a paper plate covered with tinfoil. “I apologize from the bottom of my heart.”

Mandy took the plate and lifted the tinfoil to reveal two pieces of French toast smothered with syrup and powdered sugar. “Ach, du lieva. Oh, my goodness.”

He grinned sheepishly. “French toast is kind of a weird gift, I know, but it was all I could come up with on short notice. I was going to bake your cookie dough and bring the cookies, but I ate every last one yesterday.”

He must have liked them. She tried to ignore the tingle of pleasure skipping up her spine. “No, this is perfect.” Looking at the thick, golden-brown slices of French toast made her stomach rumble from her lack of an edible breakfast this morning.

She sat on the top porch step and tossed the tinfoil from the plate. “You don’t mind if I eat them, do you?”

“Right now?”

She grabbed the corners of one slice and folded it like a sandwich. The syrup dribbled off the French toast as she held the plate underneath her chin and took a hearty bite. She managed to keep the dripping syrup off her face and on the plate, but her fingers were a sticky, gooey mess. “Umm,” she moaned.

Noah sat next to her with a look of restrained astonishment on his face.

“Delicious,” she said between greedy bites of her messy French toast sandwich. “Crispy and soft with a touch of cinnamon and nutmeg.”

Noah chuckled. “I’m glad you like it.”

She giggled at his expression. “It’s just that, well, we had Eggs Benedict for breakfast this morning.”

He grinned. “Say no more. I’m glad you won’t die of starvation.”

When she’d polished off the second piece of toast and her plate was a pool of syrup and powdered sugar, he pulled four napkins from his jacket pocket and handed them to her. “If you need them,” he said, taking her plate so she could wipe her hands.

“Denki.” She swiped the paper napkins across her palms, but nothing less than a hose was going to wash the stickiness off. “I think I need some water.”

His eyes seemed to glow as he studied her. “You are the strangest girl I’ve ever met.”

“My freckles aren’t that bad.”

He smirked. “You know how to use a crescent wrench, you spy on people, and you’re not afraid to eat in front of a boy.”

“I don’t usually spy on people.”

“And you fall into rivers,” he said.

She nudged him with her elbow. “I don’t usually fall in rivers.”

“Gute thing. I don’t like getting wet.”

“I’m glad you jumped in anyway.” She thought of him cradling her in his arms and broke out with goose bumps. How far had he carried her? Her face flushed with heat. Far enough. “Denki for saving my life.”