Running Around (and Such) (9 page)

Mam told them the doctor’s diagnosis of her condition. She had acute pneumonia, the worst kind. The doctor wanted to keep her in the hospital for another three to four days to see if her cough stabilized. He warned Mam that it would take months to gain back her usual strength and that she should take it easy as much as she could.

Emma plucked at the crisp white sheet covering Mam’s legs. Lizzie knew she worried about the farm. The herd of cows Dat was buying would not arrive for a few weeks, so that would give them time to finish cleaning up. There was so much painting to be done, but Dat assured Mam that would have to wait until she felt better.

Mam sighed and turned her head.

“We’re making you too tired, talking about all this work, aren’t we?” Emma said.

“No, I just wish I wouldn’t have to be here in the hospital.”

There was silence while Dat gazed out the window. She would help Emma, Lizzie decided, and try not to complain about anything. She wished their house was not so ugly. She knew they had the sloppiest house of anyone in Cameron County, and now they couldn’t paint or fix it up for months.

Suppose someone came to visit? She wouldn’t even go to the door. It just wasn’t right, having Mam in the hospital and they couldn’t do a thing to improve their awful house.

“Why can’t me and Mandy paint?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mam said. “You’re hardly old enough to do the woodwork. I don’t know if you could use a roller on the walls or not. Maybe if Emma did the trimming.”

Lizzie’s face lit up with enthusiasm. “We can! Me and Mandy can use rollers and Emma can use a brush along the edges!”

“We watched you when you painted the new house!” Mandy chimed in.

That seemed to cheer Mam immensely. She told the girls how to set the roller pans on newspaper, and how much paint was the right amount when they put the rollers in them. She decided they were allowed to do their rooms upstairs, but the woodwork would have to wait. She didn’t want the girls working with that high gloss enamel. Besides, they would not be able to do it without making a mess on the walls.

When a nurse came in to take Mam’s temperature, Dat said it was time to leave. Visiting hours would soon be over. Mam smiled, even if her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Lizzie thought she must be the bravest person in the whole world right at that moment.

T
HAT FIRST SPRING IN
Cameron County, Lizzie’s life seemed to take on new meaning. Mam was home from the hospital. And Lizzie loved every minute of that one day a week when she went to school. She would get up in the morning, fret and worry about her looks, her hair, how her dress was made, how her covering fit, and whether her complexion was normal or if she was breaking out with those dreaded pimples.

The warm sun and frequent rains meant that their new garden was full of produce. Lizzie ate crisp, red radishes and long, thin spring onions that crunched like a pretzel but tasted even better.

At lunchtime, Dat would spread butter on a thick slice of homemade bread, sprinkle salt beside his plate until he had made a little pile, then select a spring onion. He would dip the onion in the salt, bite it off and quickly take a bite of the buttered bread, and then chew the two together.

Lizzie piled four or five spring onions on a piece of bread and folded it over to make a thick onion sandwich. Sometimes she put mayonnaise on both sides of the bread, which was absolutely delicious, but so fattening. Lizzie couldn’t always be careful. As hard as she worked here on the farm, she had to eat enough or she’d feel weak and her head would start to hurt. She wasn’t exactly thin, but she enjoyed good food so much, she didn’t always care if she was as thin as Mandy and Emma.

The morning before Emma’s sixteenth birthday, Lizzie was out hanging laundry on the wash line while Mam worked in the garden. Mam was still recovering from her time in the hospital, but she liked to spend sometime outside each day in the garden. The sunshine made her feel better, she said.

“Lizzie, come look at all these peas!” she called.

Lizzie dropped the towel she was holding and headed to the garden. She stopped in one row and reached down, separating a few pea stalks to have a closer look. Sure enough, thousands of pea pods were hanging in thick clusters, all ready for picking.

“There’s a bunch of them!” Lizzie said.

Mam rushed into the house and came back with Mandy, Emma, and even Jason, each carrying a bucket or basket.

At first it was fun picking peas. The buckets filled up fast, and they ate many tender green peas straight from the pod. They chattered and laughed and threw peas at each other as they watched little toads and snails crawl through the dirt.

But as the sun rose in the sky, the rows seemed longer and longer. Lizzie stretched and rubbed the small of her back. In the next row, Mandy was sitting on the ground between pea stalks, shelling one pea after another and gobbling them down. She wasn’t putting any in her basket.

“Mandy!” Lizzie yelled.

Mandy had a mouthful of peas and didn’t answer.

“Stop eating peas and help pick!” Lizzie shouted.

Mandy chewed, swallowed, and turned to glare at Lizzie. “Stop hollering!”

“Well, pick!”

“Pick, pick, pick. Pick, pick, pick. You sound like a chicken.”

“That’s enough, girls,” Mam called. “Finish your rows and then come inside to help me get ready for Emma’s birthday party.”

The girls nudged Emma and laughed as they rushed to finish their rows. Emma kept her head down as she worked, but Lizzie could tell she was excited, too. It must be just absolutely wonderful to turn 16, Lizzie thought, especially if you looked as slender and pretty as Emma.

When Lizzie and Emma were little girls, they were chubby, actually more than chubby as they got bigger and older. But when Emma turned 13, she stopped eating calorie-laden foods, becoming steadily thinner until she didn’t look one bit like Lizzie anymore.

Lizzie had continued to take three sandwiches in her lunch to school, more than the eighth-grade boys took for their lunches, and Emma was terribly embarrassed by this. Lizzie tried to watch what she ate, especially when Mam was around. But it was hard. Often, when Mam was upstairs working and Lizzie had to watch the twins, she ate two whoopie pies.

Once, after Mam had made creamsticks, Lizzie ate four. Creamsticks were homemade doughnuts, but instead of being round with a hole in the middle, they were cut in an oblong shape. After they were deep-fried, Mam cut a long slit in each of their tops, filled them with creamy vanilla icing, and then put golden caramel frosting on the tops. They were the very best thing in the world of desserts, but Mam didn’t make them very often because they were so much work, with two different kinds of icing and all.

Lizzie learned quickly that it paid to be careful what she ate around Mam and Emma, but it didn’t matter if they were busy and couldn’t see her. When things were stressful, nothing made Lizzie feel better about her upside-down world than a good whoopie pie or doughnut. They were so comforting.

The girls rushed to clean the house and prepare Emma’s favorite foods for her birthday meal. When the table was set, Emma and Lizzie went out to the woodshed to gather more fuel for the fire.

Emma went straight to the woodpile. Lizzie trailed behind her, admiring Emma’s blue dress and neat hair. It wouldn’t be long until Emma had a boyfriend, she thought.

The sight of the stacked wood sent Lizzie right back to a long-ago afternoon, when she had played Mrs. Bixler with Emma. “I’m going to see if I can find some wood to make me some high-heeled shoes,” Lizzie had told Emma. But Emma ignored her and continued to pick up wood.

“Hello!” Lizzie yelled in what she imagined to be a stylish, grown-up voice. “How are you, Emma?”

Emma turned to look at Lizzie’s feet. Sure enough, she had securely tied a block of wood with baler twine to the bottom of each foot.

Emma extended her hand to shake Lizzie’s. “Why, come in, Mrs. Bixler! I’m just fine. And where did you get your new high-heeled shoes?”

Lizzie held her head up high, and in a genuine, English-lady imitation said, “Oh, I just bought them at the store!”

Both girls collapsed on the floor in a fit of giggles. When Lizzie hit the floor and her high heels fell apart, they laughed even harder.

Emma sputtered, “L-L-Lizzie—your shoes!”

Lizzie gasped, “Well, they did feel like high heels a little bit.” She picked up the blocks of wood and twine, trying to reattach them to her shoes.

She looked at Emma. “There’s hardly any use, is there? These aren’t really high heels, and I’m not really English.” Lizzie squeezed Emma’s hand and loved her so much she thought her heart would burst.

Dear, bossy, big sister Emma. And now Emma had turned 16. Tonight the family gathered around the dining room table to celebrate Emma’s big birthday. Each person had a lovely glass dish filled with chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream while Emma opened her gifts. The birthday cake had two layers covered with vanilla frosting—everyone’s favorite—and they enjoyed every last morsel of it with spoonfuls of creamy vanilla ice cream.

Emma opened the largest package and found a pair of candleholders with blue candles for her bedroom. Another package contained fabric for two new dresses, a robin’s-egg blue and a light dusty green material. Emma was quite overwhelmed, and her cheeks flushed a beautiful pink color as she gasped, exclaiming over the pretty fabric.

After they finished celebrating, the girls washed the dishes while Mam bathed the twins. Jason went out with Dat to finish up the chores, making sure the barn doors were closed properly against the approaching chill of the night.

Suddenly Mam appeared at the kitchen door, looking at the girls and listening for a sound she thought she heard.

“Did someone knock?” she asked.

“No,” the girls answered.

But now there was a decided knocking on the kitchen door.

“I thought I heard someone,” Mam said, hurrying to open it.

“Come on in,” she said, stepping back to let a young Amish man into the kitchen.

“Hello. Sorry to bother you so late in the evening,” he said, smiling apologetically.

“That’s quite all right. It isn’t late yet,” Mam answered.

“Looks like you have plenty of help,” he said, nodding toward the girls who were clustered around the kitchen sink.

“Oh, yes. My girls are growing up so fast I can hardly keep up with them,” Mam laughed.

“That’s good. We need
mauda
here in Cameron County.” Lizzie’s heart sank way down, leaving her stomach feeling all hollow and helpless.

Mauda
! Oh, no! I’m not going. Emma can. Mam and Dat can’t make me be a
maud
. I’m not going to do it. I’ll run away, she thought. She had a wild impulse to run upstairs and hide under her bed where no one would be able to find her and make her go be a
maud
, or maid. Sometimes being a
maud
meant staying for weeks at a time in a family’s home, which really, Lizzie thought, was much like being a slave.

She had told Emma that one evening when they were discussing the fact that eventually they would probably need to be
mauda
, with so many young families moving into the community who would need help with housecleaning, canning, or assisting when a new baby arrived.

Emma said, no, that a
maud
was not nearly the same. Lizzie argued vehemently, saying it was the exact same thing, except there was no cruel overseer who cracked his whip above your head when you didn’t pick cotton fast enough. Emma told her she should be ashamed of herself, that slaves lived in little hovels or cabins with only bare necessities.

“Well, the reason I’m here is…,” the Amish man cleared his throat. “My wife needs some help housecleaning, and I think she wants to paint the kitchen, too.”

“Let’s see, you’re John King, aren’t you?” Mam asked.

He nodded.

“Well, I don’t see why not. Emma, would you like to go? When is it? Next week?”

“Monday till at least Wednesday. Maybe two of the girls could help with the painting on Wednesday,” John offered.

“Why, yes! Lizzie could go Wednesday, and Emma will go the rest of the time. Will you send a driver on Monday morning?”

Lizzie glared at Mam but said nothing. She hadn’t even waited till Emma said yes or no. But, really, what difference would it make whether she did say yes or no? It was all the same. Either they could go willingly or rebelliously. Either way, they had to go.

As soon as John King left, closing the kitchen door behind him, Lizzie put her hands behind her back and said staunchly, “I’m not going.”

“Lizzie!”

“I’m scared to paint other people’s houses. I’m afraid I’ll make streaks.”

Mam turned to look at Lizzie.

“Oh yes, Lizzie, you’re going,” she said. “The Kings will show you what to do.”

“Why must I go?” Lizzie wailed, flopping on a kitchen chair, her arms flung across the back in a gesture of rebellion.

Mam took a deep breath.

“Because. When you girls reach a certain age, you need to learn about working outside of our home. You need to earn some money and learn how to obey and do jobs you would ordinarily not experience at home. Besides, it won’t hurt you to give up your own will. That’s what a lot of your life consists of.” Mam paused, seating herself at the kitchen table, gathering Susan in a big hug on her lap. Not Mam’s favorite line again, thought Lizzie. It had been hard enough for Lizzie to learn to do her part at home.