Rebecca's Promise (25 page)

“You will get three pieces. Only three,” Leona said.

He grunted his dissatisfaction. “I need more than that to do my chores.”

“Then you can eat more oatmeal. That’s better for you anyway.”

“It doesn’t taste as good as bacon.”

Leona shook her head. “None of us can always have things that taste the best in life. You might as well learn that now as later.”

Elmo shrugged his shoulders, having heard that lesson before.

“So how’s school going?” Rebecca asked Lois.

“Oh, okay,” she ventured cautiously. “I got a hundred in English last week.”

“That’s because she’s a
girl,
” Elmo said, reaching for the eggs. He slid three onto his plate.

“There’s nothing wrong with English,” Rebecca replied before Leona had a chance to speak up. “Everyone should learn it.”

Elmo snorted. “Some of the boys draw ugly faces on their English workbooks.” He laughed at the thought. “Henry has a huge dragon on his. It’s breathing fire and roasting a girl.”

“That’s horrible,” Leona gasped. “Doesn’t teacher pay any attention to what you boys are doing?”

Rebecca, with a little more recent school experience, chuckled at the description. “How does the picture look?”

“Come to think of it, it was a pretty good drawing,” Elmo said. “The dragon had real long spines, all the way up in the air. They hung down right at the end. His fire went out in a great swoop and swirled right around the girl. The girl looked like,” he glanced at Lois, with a grin on his face, and turned to whisper in Rebecca’s direction with his hand on the edge of his mouth, “Lois.”

“The wicked boy,” Lois snapped. “He’s always in trouble. Now he’s making fun of me.”

Leona was gasping again. “I can’t believe you. Both of you. How can you talk like that? It’s not right.”

Elmo shrugged his shoulders again. “I was just answering Rebecca’s question.”

“You ought to say it better,” Leona said.

“I just told it the way it was. I didn’t know there was a better way.”

Leona sighed, piling the last of the eggs onto the serving plate as Rebecca shut the burner off.

“Do you know why I asked you about the drawing?” Rebecca asked Elmo.

“No,” he said, a fork full of eggs halfway to his mouth. As he paused, egg dripped back onto his plate. He quickly completed the trip, chewing while he waited for the answer.

“Because apparently Henry is good at drawing. Which could be considered just as girly as English.”

Elmo’s face lit up with glee. “I never thought of that. Wait till I tell him.”

“Don’t do that,” Rebecca said. “There’s nothing wrong with being able to draw.”

“You just said it’s girly. What boy wants to be girly?” Elmo said.

“I didn’t say it’s girly. I said it could be considered as girly as English. The point is—neither is girly. They just are what they are. If a boy can do either well, then they’re boyish.”

Elmo was still grinning. “I’m still going to tell him. Wait until he hears this. He’ll never draw again.”

“You will do no such thing,” Leona said, glaring at him. “You will behave yourself. Leave such things alone. If Henry can draw, you ought to be glad for him instead of trying to get him to stop.”

“This is all getting too complicated.” Elmo put the last of his eggs in his mouth and reached for the oatmeal. “You always complicate things all up.”

“That’s so you can learn,” Leona said. “Most things in life aren’t simple.”

“They are if they’re just left alone.” Elmo topped off his oatmeal with a large spoonful of brown sugar and slowly stirred in some milk.

“Well, you children will learn what’s right. You will all grow up to be decent church members like you ought to be. Now finish your breakfast and get going with the chores. There’s no sense being late. See, it’s already after seven o’clock.”

“Okay,” Elmo mumbled, bent over his oatmeal, “I’ll not tell Henry anything about his drawing.”

“The rest of you, gather up the wash from your rooms. Make sure your rooms are straightened up before you change for school. I’ll pack your lunches.”

“You think the wash will dry on the line today?” Rebecca asked, as she began clearing off the table.

“I thought of that too,” Leona muttered. “I sure hope so because I don’t have a place for it inside, and we
have
to wash.”

She wrinkled up her face and said, “Rebecca, I’m so glad you could come early.”

W
atching the children walk down the road toward school, swinging their lunch pails, brought back memories for Rebecca. Elmo walked behind the younger ones, who ran ahead, as if he already felt his responsibilities as the oldest of the family.

“They do grow up fast,” Leona said from nearby, having walked up to watch too. The two smallest boys, Leroy and James, were leaning on the front window.

“I was just thinking about walking to school,” Rebecca said. “It’s funny how the simple things make the memories.”

“Yeah,” Leona agreed. She smiled at James and Leroy as they tired of watching out the window and went into their room to play. “Yet it’s probably times like this that will bring tears later. Simple things. I rarely have time to watch them go. You think the Lord sometimes gives us trouble so we’ll slow down and notice what’s really important?”

Rebecca frowned. “I don’t know. You know more about those things than I do. There does seem to be plenty of trouble in life.”

“You have trouble?” Leona laughed at the thought. “You haven’t even had children yet.”

“No, that’s true,” Rebecca allowed, thinking of her own trouble.

“I guess the Lord gives us what trouble we need,” Leona concluded.

“You think He gives us the strength to bear it?” Rebecca asked.

“Always has for me,” Leona said. “I don’t know what everyone else would say, but that’s been my experience. And I think the plain life
has less trouble in it too. I don’t know how the English handle it with all the things they have going.”

“I don’t know either,” Rebecca agreed. “Not that I know that much about it.”

“I don’t either. God help us once we think we know everything.”

Rebecca chuckled, “You think that’s ever going to happen?”

“No. But, oh my! I shouldn’t even say that. Like the preacher said on Sunday,
Wer denkt, dass er steht, Acht geben, damit er fällt.
Let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.”

“It’s a scary walk. This God thing.”

“But He helps us. He always does.”

“You weren’t there on Sunday,” Rebecca said, changing the subject. “The English driver was there. Her name is Mary. She’s an older girl—thirty or so, I would guess. Never married. Mennonite.”

“That’s surprising. The drivers are usually older people.”

“Yes, I know. But Mary isn’t. I got to know her a little on the trip. She’s a missionary in Haiti.”

“You didn’t get to know her
too
well, did you?” Leona raised her eyebrows. “Don’t want any of that Mennonite rubbing off on you. You’re doing fine mission work right now just by helping me out.”

“That’s what Dad would say,” Rebecca agreed, then continued. “Mary goes down for lengthy stays in Haiti. Six months at a time. She’s thinking of marrying a native.”

“Oh, no!” Leona’s eyes got big.

“Yes. Isn’t that something? She’s not that bad looking either. Said that Mennonite boys just never interested her. Something about being too boring.”

Leona gasped. “Now I have heard everything. I thought Mennonite life would be mighty interesting. What with all the modern things they have.”

“Just goes to show that everything gets boring after awhile, I guess.”

“So is she actually going to marry this native man? What if he runs away on her?”

“She seems to think he won’t. His name is Marcus. He’s been a Christian for a while already, she said. Pastors one of their churches down in Haiti.”

“Is he divorced?” Leona asked with suspicion.

“No, his wife died not that long ago.”

“Well, that sounds a little better. He might be more stable than most, then.”

“She didn’t say she was going to marry him—just that he had been looking at her.”

Leona gasped again. “Well, I would think so. A white woman has no business down there in the first place. I hope you haven’t gotten any ideas from her.” She glared at Rebecca. “You wouldn’t, would you? Go Mennonite?”

Rebecca laughed. “Of course not!”

“You never know. One has to be careful when making friends.”

“Mary’s nice enough.”

“
Those
are the dangerous ones.” Seeing the look on Rebecca’s face, Leona quickly changed course. “There are nice Mennonite people who are just fine. I know some. Although we have been blessed not to have too many as relatives, that’s when you are most tempted to let go of your convictions.”

“You say we don’t have too many in the family,” Rebecca stated and then asked, “Why do you think that is?”

“The blessing of the Lord, I guess. It sure takes His help to stay true to the faith even without having Mennonite relatives trying to persuade us.” Seeing that the breakfast cleanup still needed doing, Leona said, “Well! We had better get busy. The day is wasting away.”

“I think I saw the washing machine out in the garage, didn’t I?” Rebecca asked. “That’s what you’re using as your washroom?”

“Yes. But if it’s too cold out there, just leave the door into the house
open. There’s only one register in the garage. We keep it open just enough so things don’t freeze.”

Carrying the hamper that the girls had filled, Rebecca stepped into the garage, leaving the door open behind her. The brisk cold would have been bearable, but this definitely made it more pleasant.

Empting the hamper onto the floor, she went back for more. Five hampers later and with wash all around her, she began sorting things out—whites and linens together, colors, pants in a separate pile.

Stopping as soon as she had a pile big enough to start a load, she turned the dial on the back of the Maytag, dumped in a cup of soap, and waited until the tub had filled with warm water—little bubbles from the soap forming one on top of the other. She watched them float, her eyes glancing every now and then at the water level because there was no automatic shutoff. It would be nasty work to mop up the floor if she neglected to turn the water off on time.

When the level of the water was just right, she turned the knob to off, stepped back toward the gasoline engine, and choked and started it. On the second jerk, it roared to life, filling the garage with its racket. Stephen must keep things in shape, she thought, watching the little motor vibrating.

Stepping over the extended muffler, which took the fumes through the outer wall of the garage, she grabbed the handle, which tightened the belt that stretched from the motor to the Maytag, and pulled it down. Things snapped into place, the washer sprang to life, and the noise lessened a little as the motor pulled on the load.

To the roar of the motor and the swish-swish of the Maytag, she sorted the remainder of the clothing. With the heat generated by her own movements and that of the motor, she soon shut the door to the main house. That racket had to carry into the house pretty loudly, she figured. Now that it was warmer, Leona might be grateful for a quieter version of washday.

With the load done, she stopped the plunger by disengaging it with the pullout button on the side. She then swung the wringer into
place and set an empty hamper behind it. The two rollers churned without a sound when she turned them on. Ivory colored and made of soft rubber, they squeezed every drop of water from the clothing she fed through.

They could be murder on fingers if one got caught in them. Nothing would stop their roll except the on and off lever or the safety release on top, which was not obvious to the eye of untrained persons. Many an Amish child had his first introduction into terror when his hand followed the piece of wash into the wringer.

If mother was around, it was usually just a matter of a serious scare. If not, the entire arm would enter up to the shoulder. The machine would then spin on the armpit until the child’s screams brought an adult who knew how to hit the safety bar. First and second degree burns were not unknown from the experience.