Running Around (and Such) (24 page)

The popcorn was ready, and Dat poured it into a huge, stainless-steel bowl, adding salt and melted butter. Everyone took a colorful plastic dish and dug into the bowl, shaking them down, piling more on top to make their dishes heaping full.

This was one of Lizzie’s favorite snacks. Buttery, salty popcorn, washed down with cold chocolate milk. Amazing how you could have a whole mouthful of popcorn and the minute the chocolate milk hit it, the popcorn all dissolved and went to nothing. Kool-Aid, iced tea, or water did the exact same thing. She supposed that if they were English and drank Pepsi, it would dissolve popcorn, too. That was because popcorn was mostly air.

“Where’s church next time?” Emma asked around a mouthful of popcorn.

“At Levi Kanagy’s,” Mam said.

See? There Emma talked with her mouth heaping full and Mam did not say one word about it, Lizzie observed to herself.

“I wonder,” Emma said, clearly thinking about the main subjects of conversation for the last few weeks, “if everybody’s sins are all forgiven when they’re baptized, what happens when they sin again?”

“That’s a good question, Emma,” Dat said. “Actually, that’s when the power of Jesus’ blood goes into effect. After you profess to believe in Jesus, you become one of God’s children, and your sins are forgiven when you repent and pray to be forgiven. That happens over and over again as we go through life.”

Okay, Lizzie thought. Well, that makes everything seem much more possible. It didn’t seem quite as dangerous to join church if you had a chance of making some mistakes afterward.

Lizzie wished they’d simply stop talking about all this serious stuff. Everything had been strict enough around the house lately. It just gave her the blues. She didn’t know why things had to change so much when you got older.

“You girls probably think Mam and I have become a bit hard on you recently. We don’t mean to be, but watching the youth join church this summer, and seeing how fast you’re growing up, kind of puts fear into us. We want to do all we can to help you girls be the mature young women you should be as you join the youth and go to singings on Sunday evenings.” Dat said this so soberly, it sounded as if there were tears in his voice.

That was nice, what Dat said, Lizzie decided. She believed him, and she felt like trying hard to please Dat and Mam in everything. But that was enough now.

Lizzie’s intensive sewing lessons continued during the week after her birthday. One morning, after the breakfast dishes were done, Lizzie and Emma spread out dress fabric on the kitchen table while Mam baked cookies

“It’s not straight,” Lizzie wailed, as she started to cut into the fabric.

“Hold your scissors upside down, Lizzie. You’re left-handed.”

“Ow! Ouch. That doesn’t work either. It cuts right into the soft part of my thumb.”

“Well, it’s one way or another, Lizzie,” Emma said measuredly.

“Mam!” Lizzie screeched.

“What?”

“Didn’t anyone ever invent scissors for left-handed people?”

Mam dried her hands on a dish towel and went to see what Lizzie was yelling about. After watching her attempts, which were more like chewing the fabric than making a clean, slicing cut, she nodded.

“I see what you mean. Yes, I’m sure we can find a left-handed scissors for you at a fabric shop somewhere. Next time we go shopping we’ll look for one.”

So with a black cloud of impatience and frustration already forming over Lizzie’s head, sewing at the machine went quickly from struggle to disaster.

“Not so fast, Lizzie!”

“Yes, you have to zigzag the seams. If you don’t, they’ll ravel apart, leaving long strands of thread dangling. Lizzie, you have to!”

Mam winced when she heard the chair thump on the floor, and Lizzie came charging toward the counter. Her hair stood out wildly every which way, her covering was crooked, and bits of fabric stuck to her bib apron.

“Mam, why do I have to zigzag? That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard of. The fabric is already sewed tight with a straight stitch twice, so why do I still have to zigzag? I’m not going to.” And with that, she flounced back to the sewing machine, leaving a trail of loose threads floating behind her.

Emma’s patience was already stretched to the limit, so when Lizzie came huffing back, she put her hands on her hips and announced quite firmly, “If you don’t do it right, I’m not going to help you anymore.”

“But that’s so stupid!”

“Do you want to have sloppy-looking pieces of thread sticking out of your neckline or from under your cape on your very first weekend?” Emma shouted.

Lizzie narrowed her eyes, considering. “No-o-o.”

“Okay, then settle down and watch me turn this knob. You have to stay on the
edge
of the fabric. You can’t just zigzag anywhere you feel like.”

Lizzie’s sigh of resignation assured Mam that she was well on the way to learning how to sew, so she relaxed as she started a batch of homemade bread. Susan and KatieAnn pushed their chairs up to the kitchen cabinets. Mam let them stir the yeast into the water, her heart melting as it always did when they wanted to be her helpers.

The treadle on the sewing machine thumped fairly rhythmically without too much noise between the two girls until Emma showed up at Mam’s elbow, looking peeved.

“Mam,” she whispered, “Lizzie’s dress is going to be way too fancy. She cut her sleeves so wide, she can hardly gather all the fabric neatly at the bottom of the sleeve.”

Mam’s heart sank as she looked at Emma. Dat was already asking Mam why she allowed Lizzie to comb her hair so stylishly. She was increasingly in that difficult position between Lizzie’s strong will and Dat’s fear of what other people would say about his stylish daughter.

Mam strode purposefully over to the sewing machine. “Lizzie,” she said quietly, peering over her shoulder at the alarming length of fancy ruffles which Lizzie was arranging along the bottom of the sleeve.

Lizzie jumped nervously. She had thought it was Emma coming to watch her make the sleeves. “What?”

“You can’t have so many ruffles, Lizzie. That’s just not allowed. Emma’s dresses aren’t cut or gathered like that. You’re going to have to take some fabric out. Dat will have a fit. It simply looks too fancy.”

“Emma’s dresses have exactly this many gathers,” Lizzie snorted defiantly.

“No, Lizzie, they don’t. And if that’s how you’re going to be, you may as well close the sewing machine right now and wear a dress that you already have for your first weekend in Allen County.”

Lizzie set her jaw in a firm line and held her shoulders stiffly as she sat gazing out the window without moving a muscle.

“It’s up to you,” Mam said, turning to go back to her bread.

Tears welled in Lizzie’s eyes as the battle between giving in and having her own way raged. Why did Mam have to have all these plain ideals for her daughters? And Dat was worse yet.

Well, they would soon find out that she was not nearly as good and well behaved as Emma. Why would she be? She never was when they were little girls. And besides, Mam didn’t understand how important it was that she was right up there, dressed like all the other girls, especially since she always felt a bit different, coming from Jefferson County and living on this ugly old farm. Why, the barn wasn’t even painted, and they weren’t nearly as classy as almost everyone else in their church district.

She knew, too, that her fight to look good would be a long battle. She didn’t necessarily want to outdo the other girls. She just wanted to look pretty and be noticed as someone who was tastefully fancy. Was that so terribly wrong?

It made Lizzie sad, though, to think of hurting Mam and Dat. For a moment, she looked at Mam and thought about all she had to overcome, living on this terrible run-down farm. She had recently asked Mam, “Do you like it here now? I mean, better than you did that first year?”

Mam had gazed across the living room, seeing nothing as she struggled for the right answer. “Yes, Lizzie, I do,” she said quietly, but there was a sigh in her voice, a kind of hollow undertone that wouldn’t quite go away when she tried to use words to cover it.

Lizzie couldn’t help wondering if Mam believed it was God’s will for them to move here. Not only were they trying to make a livable farm and home on this heap of a place, but Dat’s and Mam’s daughters had to travel to another county for friends, both girls and boys.

She wanted to ask Mam how God’s will could work if there were no Amish boys to marry in Cameron County and very few in Allen County. How will Mandy and I manage to get married if there aren’t boys?

“Mam,” she said when she got her nerve back.

“Hmm?”

“What does ‘God’s will’ mean?”

“It just means he will be able to guide our lives.”

“Oh.”

“He has a perfect plan for each of you, and if we pray and seek that will, everything will work out.”

“How do you know what it is?”

Mam paused. “You don’t always. Although, I suppose if we made more of a sacrifice, instead of seeking our own selfish desires, we could tell so much better.”

Lizzie’s mind conjured up Abraham sacrificing a lamb in the Old Testament. Now that was confusing.

“What do you mean, ‘sacrifice’?”

“It’s hard to explain, Lizzie. I guess the more we learn to give up our own selfish desires, the easier it is to discern and be content with God’s will.”

“What do you mean, we have to listen for God’s will for a husband? I mean, this is getting serious. I’m 16, and I still don’t understand.”

Mam put down her sewing and searched Lizzie’s face. “Lizzie, if you read your Bible more, and tried to be more mature about your faith, you wouldn’t be so confused.”

Lizzie’s face felt warm and she said quietly, “Right now, I don’t know where my Bible is.”

“Lizzie, I do not believe it!” Mam was shocked, as Lizzie knew she would be.

So Mam talked, explaining to her how she would understand more fully as the years went by. She had nothing to worry about because God knew her heart and would help her through every situation as life went on. It was all very comforting that day, sitting in the gaslit living room, with the rain and the dark, scudding clouds.

Lizzie’s heart felt lighter and quite unafraid as Mam talked. She still did not understand everything, although she was comforted when Mam said that finding the right husband was not a hit-or-miss kind of thing. Apparently it wasn’t like Lizzie thought. Mam said that if you prayed honestly, God would direct you to the right husband, although somehow it was still your own choice.
Of course
you could marry someone that you wanted to! she said.

Lizzie walked slowly into the living room, trying to make sense of that slim ray of light that had pierced her soul as Mam talked about finding a husband. She picked up the sleeve with all the gathers, then looked out the window and down across the fields that led to the creek. Her shoulders slumped as she slowly, slowly let out some of the gathers, the battle within far from resolved.

She threw down the sleeve when the thread snapped and yelled at the top of her voice, a sound mostly driven by frustration at her sewing and her own personal battle. “Emma!”

“Coming,” Emma said, dashing to her rescue.

As the afternoon wore on, Lizzie finally realized that it was perfectly possible for her to make a dress. It wouldn’t have happened without plenty of help from Emma, but she began to see how the pieces fit together. Everything made more sense than ever before.

When she pulled the new dress over her head, letting the soft blue folds of the skirt hang almost to the floor before Emma pinned the hem, she was so happy she felt like a princess. Whirling her way from the kitchen to the living room, she lifted her arms and told Emma she was Cinderella.

Emma grinned wryly. “Well, you’re not exactly Cinderella, scrubbing floors as your sisters while away the hours in luxury.”

Emma’s own patience had nearly run out. Now here was Lizzie, the cause of a whole afternoon of stress, suddenly happy as a lark, showing off, in Emma’s opinion, her still too-fancy sleeves. But Emma said nothing as Lizzie climbed up on a chair so Emma could pin up the hem.

“Shorter, Emma,” Lizzie commanded.

“Lizzie, your dresses are short enough. No.”

“I’m 16 now!”

“So?”

“Mam!”

Mam walked over, assessing the new outfit as Lizzie stood on top of the chair. In Mam’s view, the sleeves still looked a bit too fancy. She narrowed her eyes as Lizzie asked if she could have her dresses a bit shorter now because she was 16.

“Why would you want to, Lizzie? Your dresses are too short as it is.”

“They are not, Mam. They hang almost to my ankles.”

“Stop it. No.”

Mam turned to go back to her baking, and Emma pinned the hem securely. Lizzie hopped off the chair and glared at her.

“So, if I don’t get a boyfriend by the time I’m 25, it’s all your fault, Emma. Yours and Mam’s.”

“Stop being so childish. Joshua says that’s about the last thing he notices about me.”

“What?”

“The style of my clothes. Boys don’t always think about such things. They think more about a pleasing personality.”