When Strawberries Bloom Read online

  Finally, Jonas Beiler looked at Lizzie and cleared his throat.

  “So your father says you’d like to try teaching school?”

  Lizzie’s heart jumped to her throat. But she looked steadily at him, meeting his clear gaze.

  “I’d like to,” she said.

  “Well, that’s good. We are going to need a teacher this fall because the Mennonite girl, I forget her name, is getting married. So …”

  He left that sentence hanging in the air, and Lizzie felt as if she had been holding a balloon which the wind had suddenly whipped away, completely out of her grasp. He had only mentioned the fact that they needed a teacher; he hadn’t really asked her to teach the school.

  Just as suddenly, the departing balloon drifted back firmly into Lizzie’s hands when Jonas said, “Would you consider being the new teacher in the fall then?”

  “Yes!” Lizzie breathed, her eyes shining.

  “That’s good,” Elam Glick said, smiling.

  “Yes, we’re glad you want to,” Elmer Esh added.

  “You’ll need these,” Jonas said, handing her a small orange booklet and a few other papers.

  Lizzie flipped through the pages as the men talked about the date school would be opening, the book order, the rules of conduct for a teacher, and many other things that Lizzie hadn’t considered before. But nothing deterred her. Not one thing they talked about gave her the blues. She was so thrilled about sitting right there in the kitchen, reveling in the delightful knowledge that the school board had really honest-to-goodness asked her to be a teacher.

  Before the men left they each wished der saya for her, or God’s blessing, which brought tears to Lizzie’s eyes. Wasn’t that the nicest thing in the whole world for a school board to say? She didn’t feel worthy, but their words made her feel as if she could conquer anything. She would do her very, very, absolute best to become the teacher they expected her to be.

  After saying good-night to them, Lizzie turned to Mam and clasped her hands to her chest. “Ma-am!”

  “Looks like you’re a teacher, Lizzie!”

  Emma and Mandy clattered down the stairs, congratulating her as she twirled joyously around the kitchen. Jason thought she was making an awful fuss about it, and the twins danced funny little steps of their own.

  “Jason, you may as well not look so sour! I’m going to be your teacher, too, you know!”

  “I know!” he said, but Lizzie could tell he was pleased. She loved Jason, grown boy that he was now. He was turning out to be a good-looking young man and his curly hair was his most adorable feature, she thought.

  Lizzie could still remember the day Jason was born.

  “Emma, look at your brother. His name is Jason, and he looks a lot like Lizzie,” Dat had said.

  Emma whispered, “Jason? Aww, he’s cute! Can I hold him, Dat?”

  Dat had smiled and lowered the blue bundle into Emma’s lap while Emma stroked the little cheeks and touched his downy hair.

  Lizzie peered under the flap of the soft, woolly blanket. She was suddenly overcome with horror. He was so ugly and so bright red she couldn’t imagine ever letting Mam take him to church. His eyes were closed, but he had lots of deep wrinkles around them. Lizzie could not imagine how he could ever see around all that skin. His nose was big and puffy, and his mouth was much too big for his face.

  She felt Mam come up behind her and put her arm around her shoulders. Lizzie leaned against Mam and tried hard to smile—at least to smile enough to be nice. But she wished so much her new baby brother wasn’t so ugly.

  “Isn’t he sweet, Lizzie? You may hold him, too. Emma, may Lizzie hold Baby Jason now?” Mam asked.

  “I–I don’t want to hold him. Emma may.” And much to her shame, Lizzie started to cry.

  “What’s wrong? Come, Lizzie.” Mam sat down on a soft chair and just held Lizzie till she finished crying. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”

  But Lizzie never did tell Mam the real reason she cried. She just told her that her head hurt, because it wasn’t nice to say Jason was ugly. But he really was.

  Now Jason had grown into a strong young man with even features and wild curls that caught the eye of more than one girl Lizzie knew. He was a good brother, and Lizzie hoped he was well-behaved at school because he was about to become her student.

  Dat smiled, pleased that Lizzie would be a teacher. That afforded him some status in the community, one of his girls being the first Amish teacher in this school. That fact made him smile, Lizzie knew. Mam was beaming as well, although when everyone quieted down she said she hoped Lizzie was aware of the responsibility that was involved.

  “I know, Mam!” Lizzie assured her. “I can handle 20 children. I know I can. I just wish it was the end of August and I could get started. I can already begin on some artwork, can’t I?”

  “Probably when you come home from work in the evening,” Mam agreed.

  That evening Lizzie did not sleep for a very long, long time. Thoughts and projects she would try the next year whirled through her head like a child’s pinwheel on a stick, turning in the wind until she couldn’t make sense of anything.

  She did remember to thank God from the bottom of her heart for the chance to be a real schoolteacher before she drifted off to a happy slumber.

  Chapter 3

  THE SUMMER FLEW BY, like a train going so fast you had to turn your head to be sure and see the engine at all. Lizzie continued working part-time as a maud, but only part-time because she also needed to prepare for the upcoming school year.

  Weekends in Allen County with her friends were still the highlight of her life, marred only by her growing obsession with Amos. He had become the center of her weekends—his attention, or lack of it, was now her main reason for going to Allen County. Of course, she didn’t want to miss being with her Uncle Marvin, who was Dat’s brother but almost the same age as Lizzie, and the mysterious Stephen, who was her friend, but who had also told her once that she was pretty but never mentioned it again.

  Sometimes Lizzie thought it was easier to think about Amos and Ruthie than it was to figure out what Stephen really thought about her. In fact, Lizzie had begun to think that if it wasn’t for Amos, she would have genuine fun with lots of other guys every weekend. But because she was never quite certain whether Amos liked her or Ruthie, she could think of nothing else.

  On the surface, Lizzie remained good friends with Ruthie. No one but Mandy knew about the cold, hard jealousy that so often consumed Lizzie. She wondered how long God would have patience with her awful feelings of jealousy. Every Sunday night when she came home, she asked Jesus to forgive her and wipe away her sins and make her as clean and brand new as tablet paper with no marks on it.

  Sometimes the whole sinning and forgiving thing was hard to figure out. How could Jesus keep forgiving her if he knew she’d just get jealous again the next weekend? Maybe he recognized that she was still young. She was pretty sure about one thing, though. After she became a member of the Amish church and gave her life to God really seriously, she either had to be dating Amos or quit going to Allen County on the weekend if she wanted to have any peace at all.

  On Sunday night she was so positive that Amos would ask her for a date that her heart beat so rapidly and loudly she was sure he could hear it. After the singing and while she waited on her driver, he sat in the yard beside her, just sat there, talking about lots of different subjects. His teeth shone white in the dark, his head outlined against the starlight, and Lizzie was so nervous, just waiting to hear him ask her for a real date the following weekend. But he didn’t. Lizzie was mad all week just thinking about it.

  Finally, Mam had had quite enough of Lizzie’s crabbiness, her pouting and short answers, her eyebrows raised in anxiety, her obviously being in the center of a great personal crisis of some sort.

  “Lizzie, I do wish you wouldn’t be so grouchy all the time. The twins are almost afraid of you,” she said after Lizzie had shouted at the two girls to leave her alone. The
twins stood against the sofa, tears in their eyes.

  Lizzie didn’t say anything. She just gazed miserably out the kitchen window. Mam sighed and went to the kitchen to make some lunch.

  “Oh, dear,” she said.

  “What?” Lizzie asked.

  “I’m out of butter.”

  “Do you want Mandy and me to drive Billy to Bittle’s?”

  “It’s late!”

  “Not that late. We can.”

  So Lizzie found Mandy, and together they led Billy from his stall and hitched him to the cart. It felt good to brush his coat and his oatmeal-colored mane and tail and to throw the harness across his round, sturdy little back.

  As they rounded the corner and headed out the lane in the buggy, Lizzie held tight to the reins so the buggy wheels wouldn’t slide. Billy always wanted to run, and to run fast, every time they hitched him to the cart, although he was much easier to control now than when he was a very young pony.

  Mandy sat beside Lizzie, happy and talkative, content to let Lizzie drive as she talked about one subject after another, without too much comment from Lizzie. But as they turned onto the main road, Mandy glanced over at Lizzie.

  “What a crab you are this week!” she suddenly said.

  “Oh, be quiet. Can’t I be a crab all by myself without you noticing every little thing about me?”

  “It’s Amos, isn’t it?”

  “No!”

  “Mm-hmm. Oh, yes, it is, Lizzie. You know it is. What happened now?”

  “Nothing!”

  Mandy just shook her head. Billy trotted rapidly down the road, and the sisters waved at a lady mowing her lawn. It was one of those perfect summer evenings, not too hot or humid, not too windy, just perfect to be driving down the road with Billy. Lizzie wished she could tell Mandy the whole miserable story, but so far, she was too proud to admit even to herself that Amos was her problem. So they silently drove on through the little village situated on the side of a long, winding hill, with Billy lunging into his collar steadily until they reached the top.

  Lizzie had to hold him back as they started down the opposite side. Billy loved running downhill at what was clearly an unsafe speed. Even as Lizzie firmly held Billy back, the buggy slid to the left as they pulled into the gravel parking lot of Bittle’s Store.

  Bittle’s was a tiny store situated on the edge of a dairy farm. They sold milk, butter, cheese, and ice cream, among other things. It was a fairly new building, clean and shining on the inside, and the girls always loved driving Billy there because they could each buy a huge ice cream cone after they had made their purchases.

  Lizzie tied Billy to the adjacent hitching rack. She quickly grabbed a pound of butter before she met Mandy at the ice cream counter where she was already deliberating over the ice cream flavors. Finally, Mandy chose mint chocolate chip while Lizzie decided on butter pecan.

  “Let’s sit here at the picnic table,” Lizzie said as they left the store. “I always have a problem driving and eating my ice cream at the same time.”

  “I’ll hold your ice cream for you,” Mandy offered.

  “No, let’s stay here and eat it,” Lizzie said. She threw down the bag containing the butter on the picnic table before sitting down on one of the benches. A young man drove up to the store, got out of his car, and nodded at them before disappearing through the doors.

  “He looks like Amos,” Lizzie said.

  “Everybody looks like Amos to you,” Mandy said, taking her napkin and wiping her mouth.

  Lizzie didn’t answer. She just gazed across the rolling farmland, watching the black and white Holsteins grazing as she steadily ate her ice cream.

  After awhile, Lizzie said dully, “I wish I was still 15 like you!”

  “I’m 15, almost 16.”

  “So? You’re still not 17 like I am.”

  Mandy bit off a huge chunk of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Lizzie watched her with narrowed eyes.

  “Doesn’t that hurt your teeth?”

  “Nah. So what’s wrong with being 16?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. I mean, I have fun most times but … Mandy, why do you think a guy acts like he likes you and you’re really, really, really good friends, but he never asks you for a real date? You know, a date where I can go tell all my friends that I have a date?”

  “I don’t know, Lizzie. How can you expect me to know if I’m only 15. Almost 16.”

  Lizzie nodded. She wished that she could ask Mandy about Stephen, too. But what could she say? Amos’ interest in Ruthie really upset her, but Stephen bothered her almost as much. He told her he was pretty, but then went back to acting like they were just friends.

  Lizzie wasn’t sure what she’d do if Stephen asked her on a date. Amos was one thing. He was handsome and fun and interesting, but was he really her friend, she couldn’t help but wonder. Stephen was, even if he was too quiet and a little mysterious. What if he decided he didn’t like her as much as she was starting to like him? Or what if he wanted to get married? That had happened to Emma. Lizzie wanted to get married sometime. Probably. But not yet.

  Lizzie sighed. Customers drove up to the porch or drove away, some of them with ice cream cones and others with dishes piled high with the cold, creamy confection. Some carried gallons of milk or chocolate milk or bags containing ice cream or cheese and butter.

  Lizzie thought that milking cows wouldn’t be nearly so bad if you could operate a farm on this level. She could have fun milking a hundred cows a day in a fancy milking parlor and running a beautiful new store like this one with electricity and huge coolers with shiny new tile on the floor. Then Dat could hire men to do the milking, and all Lizzie would have to do would be to comb her hair nicely and look neat and pretty, smiling at customers all day while she rang up sales on the up-to-date electronic cash register.

  When they had finished their ice cream, Lizzie and Mandy climbed back into the buggy and headed towards home. Lizzie was glad she had eaten her ice cream on the porch of the store. Billy was in one of his running frenzies, as they called it, and it took all of Lizzie’s strength to hold him to a trot.

  He bent his head so he could hold the bit better, his ears turned forward, his mane thick and heavy, bouncing solidly along the nape of his neck. His muscular little haunches flapped rhythmically with every clacking step. He had never been shod, which meant he ran on the hard, unrelenting macadam with no iron shoes tacked to his hard little hooves. He never slipped or fell, being as surefooted a pony as Dat had ever seen.

  Once, when Lizzie’s family was attending a church service 13 miles away from their home, Dat had allowed Lizzie and Mandy to drive Billy. Little Billy moved in line with a row of other horses and buggies, running steadily up hill and down, his legs taking two steps to the larger horses’ one. Dat would tell this story to anyone who would listen, how his little feet went “Blip-blip-blip,” and how he kept up perfectly, arriving at church services without being winded.

  “He wasn’t even blowing. He could have run 10 more miles,” Dat would say, waving his hands for emphasis.

  Lizzie always felt like crying when Dat told that story, her love of this plucky little pony stirring up an emotion that choked her and melted into tears. He was the best, the strongest, the sweetest pony they had ever owned, and Lizzie hoped with all her heart he would live forever.

  They moved down the hill through the village at an alarming pace, Lizzie hanging on to the reins with all her strength. They hit the concrete bridge, bouncing off the seat as they flew across the creek.

  Mandy burst out laughing, and Lizzie joined in.

  “Don’t make me laugh, Mandy!” she gasped. “I can’t hold him!” But the harder they tried to hold back their laughter, the more helpless they became, until Lizzie actually was struck by a panicky feeling that Billy was running away.

  “Stop it, Mandy!” she shouted.

  “Wheeee!” was Mandy’s response, which caused Lizzie to fall into helpless giggles again.

 
; As Billy broke into a gallop going up the opposite hill, the sisters became serious as Lizzie wrapped the reins around her hands and pulled with all her strength. He slowed, but none too obediently, Lizzie thought, sensing through the reins that he would break into another gallop the second she let up on them.

  Mandy reached over and slapped her hand down on Lizzie’s arm. “Good driver!” she said, grinning.

  Lizzie grinned back. She was overcome with a feeling of love for Mandy. Dear skinny, green-eyed Mandy. The love of her life, besides Mam, Dat, Emma, and Jason. She loved Susan and KatieAnn too, of course, but not like Mandy. There was just something about having a sister close to your own age that was unlike any other blessing in life.

  When Lizzie said something funny, she knew instinctively that Mandy would find it hilarious. She always did. And when Mandy was joking or in a silly mood, no one caught on faster than Lizzie.

  The evening sun shed its warm golden light all around them and around the surrounding woods, fields, and houses. Even the telephone poles etched against the evening sky looked pretty as they wound their way home.

  Lizzie momentarily forgot her troubled feelings about weekends, Amos and Ruthie, and running around in general as she laughed happily with Mandy, skidding the pony cart wheels as they turned in on the country road that took them home.

  The following Sunday evening, not very long after Lizzie arrived at the supper crowd, Rebecca, Stephen’s sister, came running toward her.

  “Come here, Lizzie!”

  “You’ll never guess what?”

  “What? What? Don’t keep me guessing!”

  Lizzie’s eyes shone in anticipation, her heart beating, her thoughts going instantly to Amos. Maybe … just maybe …

  “Amos asked Ruthie for a date this weekend!” Rebecca said. “It’s her first one!”