Their Pretend Courtship, page 4
“Did I hear you say tomorrow is opening day for the blohbier bauerei?” Lior asked her. “I don’t know where my mind is—I’d completely forgotten.”
“Jah. I plan to go picking at around nine or ten o’clock. I can take the three older buwe with me, so they can help me pick.”
“Wouldn’t you rather go by yourself so you can talk to Jonas without your bruder interrupting?”
“Mamm, you sound just like Uri, trying to rush my courtship,” Eliza complained. “I wish neither of you knew Jonas asked to be my suitor.”
An injured look crossed Lior’s face. “My intention wasn’t to interfere in your courtship, Eliza. I only want you to feel free to socialize without always having to take care of your breider.”
Eliza regretted hurting her mother’s feelings. She wished she hadn’t reacted so strongly, especially since it was really Uri’s meddlesomeness she found so exasperating, not her mother’s. “Denki, I appreciate that you were trying to be helpful, Mamm. But I honestly didn’t intend to go to the bauerei to socialize with Jonas. I want to pick blohbiere so we can get started making jam, as well as all the other treats the buwe like so much. Besides, Jonas is going to be too busy to stand around chatting with me.”
“Oh, he might be busy, but any suitor worth consideration will go out of his way to spend time with the weibsmensch he’s courting, even if it means working twice as hard when she’s not around.”
Lior’s comment was almost exactly the same as what Uri had said, but this time Eliza didn’t take offense because she noticed the dreamy expression on her mother’s face. She assumed Lior was thinking about being young and courting Eliza’s father. Henry Keim had died when Eliza was six. Since she hardly had any memories of him, she loved hearing her mother reminisce about what he was like or tell her stories about things he’d done.
“When you and Daed were courting, did he always take time to chat with you, even if he was busy?” she asked.
“Jah. And so did Uri. I remember when he spent an entire afternoon taking me on errands because our gaul had thrown a shoe and the farrier was in Canada visiting relatives. It was your twelfth birthday and the weather was bitterly cold. I decided to walk into town because I needed to pick up the winter boots I’d ordered for your present, as well as purchase cocoa so I could make your favorite chocolate-buttercream frosting for the birthday cake. I’d just recovered from the flu and Uri didn’t think I should be walking so far in that kind of weather. He insisted it wasn’t a problem for him to take me into town. I didn’t find out until much later that he’d had a big order to fill for a customer by the next morning, so he’d worked until midnight to make up for the lost time.”
“I didn’t know he did that,” Eliza said. Although the anecdote was admittedly sweet, she was disappointed that her mother had told a story about Uri instead of her father.
“Jah, he did a lot of thoughtful things like that when we were courting.”
It’s too bad he doesn’t still do thoughtful things like that for you, Eliza thought. But once you married him, he probably figured he didn’t have to try so hard to win your affection anymore. That was another reason she had no intention of getting married—she doubted most men could sustain the romantic, thoughtful gestures they practiced when they were courting.
“Lior!” Uri called from the other room. “I’m hungerich. Is lunch almost ready?”
“Jah, it’s all set.” Lior turned to her daughter. “Could you please go round up the buwe?”
Eliza hurried outside and circled the house, where she spotted the boys at the bottom of the small hill in the backyard. “Mark, Eli, Samuel, Isaiah, Peter! Time for lunch!” she called. All of them except Samuel charged past her to go inside. The six-year-old had just rolled down the hill and he must have still been dizzy because he only took a few cautious, crooked steps like a newborn foal before falling onto his bottom. Eliza had to stifle a giggle as she went over to help him up again. As they walked, she held his sweaty palm to keep him steady.
“Denki, ’Liza. The ground is tipping,” he said.
“The ground isn’t tipping—you are. It’s called being dizzy,” she explained. “I’m surprised you don’t have a bauchweh, too.”
“Neh, my bauch is empty, so it doesn’t hurt. What did you and Mamm make for lunch?”
“Aebier-jam-and-peanut-butter sandwiches. I know those aren’t your favorite, but guess what?”
“What?”
“Tomorrow I’m going blohbier picking, so pretty soon we’ll have blohbier jam and peanut butter sandwiches, instead of aebier. You can kumme with us and help me pick this year. I think you’re tall enough now.”
“I can? Wait until I tell the other buwe.” Samuel dropped Eliza’s hand and started to run. He staggered for a few steps and she thought he would take another tumble, but he quickly straightened out and made it to the porch without falling.
Watching him, she couldn’t help but smile. Although her little brothers were a handful, they were also a delight. They’re one of the few reasons I’m glad Mamm married Uri, she thought.
After Eliza’s father, Henry, had died in a tree-falling accident, Eliza and Lior had moved back in with Lior’s parents. Lior’s father had passed away two years after that, and her mother perished within months of him. So Eliza and Lior had lived by themselves from the time Eliza was nine until she was thirteen. The two were very close, and in some ways, they felt more like sisters than mother and daughter. As far as Eliza was concerned, they could have happily lived alone like that forever.
Lior’s parents had left her a small house and their modest savings. Times were tight, but it wasn’t as if Eliza’s mother urgently needed to get married for financial reasons. But Eliza supposed she must have been desperate for adult company—that seemed the only logical reason she would have ever courted someone like Uri. And he’d clearly fooled her into thinking that he’d be as kind and considerate a husband as he’d supposedly been as a suitor.
Not that he was ever really mean... But in Eliza’s eyes, he was never really pleasant, either. Although she felt guilty for thinking it, sometimes it seemed to Eliza that her stepfather had always resented how close she and her mother were. That’s probably one more reason he’s so eager to marry me off and get me out of the haus. He’d rather have Mamm all to himself, even if it means she’ll have no one here to help her with the buwe.
Well, he could pressure Eliza until the cows came home, but there was no way she was ever going to get married. And pretending to court was as close as she was ever going to come to actually courting.
But considering how closely Uri is monitoring this courtship, I’m afraid I’m going to have to do a better job of pretending. And I can’t do that unless Jonas starts showing more interest in me.
* * *
It was only ten o’clock on Monday morning and the parking area near the barn was already almost filled with Englisch vehicles. Jonas realized he was going to have to set out orange cones and rope off a section of the yard to indicate additional spaces the customers could use. While he was thrilled that the business was off to such a great start, he felt a little overwhelmed.
Despite their best preparations, Jonas and Freeman had suffered an unexpected setback yesterday. After they’d worshipped together and eaten lunch, Jonas had announced he was going to the phone shanty to call his family in Kansas at two o’clock, the way he usually did on off-Sundays.
“When you’re done talking to Mamm, are you going to pick up Eliza and take her canoeing or on a picnic?” Freeman had asked.
“Whether I am or not, it’s none of your concern,” Jonas had replied. Even though he’d had no intention of going anywhere with Eliza, he didn’t want Freeman to know that. “I hope you’re not going to be checking up on me throughout my courtship, because I won’t appreciate it.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll back off. I just want to make sure Eliza doesn’t feel ignored, that’s all.”
Jonas would much rather have gone hiking in the gorge with Freeman and other singles from their district, but if he had done that, his brother definitely would have known that Jonas hadn’t gone out with Eliza. Of course, there’d been the possibility that she might have shown up for the hike by herself, but there was nothing Jonas could have done about that.
When he’d arrived at the phone shanty, he’d discovered a message on the voice-mail system from Emily, the young woman Jonas and Freeman had hired to work the cash register on the farm. She’d said she was visiting relatives in Serenity Ridge and her return trip to New Hope was going to be delayed because her mother had the flu and was too sick to travel. Emily had said she wouldn’t be able to come to work until Tuesday or Wednesday morning.
So, because they were short-staffed, opening day at the farm was a little more hectic than usual. Freeman had to stay at the cash register booth so he could weigh the fruit and collect money from the customers. Jonas, meanwhile, had been trying to manage the daily chores and upkeep of the barrens in between giving customers rides to and from the parking lot in the buggy wagon. He’d quickly realized that transporting Englischers such a short distance wasn’t a good use of his time, and decided they’d just have to walk, the way the Amish people did.
However, half a dozen customers complained that their children had been waiting all year to ride in the buggy wagon because it was such a novelty to them. Some Englischers even hinted that the horse-drawn ride was the reason they patronized the Kanagy brothers’ farm, instead of the U-pick farms closer to where they lived. So Jonas resumed shuttling them back and forth, and he even took an extra lap around the perimeter of the farm just for fun as a way of retaining customer satisfaction.
But now, he was ready to switch responsibilities with Freeman for an hour. As he neared the cash-register booth, Jonas noticed his brother was talking to an Amish woman who had several small children with her. He was approaching them from behind, so at first he couldn’t tell who it was, but when he got a little closer he recognized Eliza and her little brothers.
“Do you menner want your own baskets, or are you going to put the blohbiere you pick in your schweschder’s basket?” Freeman asked the boys.
“Our own,” the two tallest ones replied in unison, so Freeman handed them each a wooden basket that had a length of rope looped through the handle for tying the container around their waists.
“How about you?” Jonas’s brother crouched down to speak to the smallest boy. “Do you want your own basket to put your blohbiere in, too?”
“Neh,” he said seriously, shaking his head. “I’m not going to put mine in a bucket. I’m going to put them in my moul.”
Freeman and Eliza cracked up together. Then Freeman teased, “In that case, you’d better hop up on this scale so I can weigh you. Then, when you’re done picking, I’ll weigh you again.”
“Why?”
“So I know how much to charge you for all the blohbiere you ate.”
Once again, Eliza laughed. Actually, she cracked up harder than Jonas would have expected her to. It wasn’t that funny, at least not to Jonas, who had heard his brother make a variation of that same joke several times before now. He cleared his throat and stepped forward, interrupting their chatter. “Hello, Eliza.”
She glanced up from helping one of the boys tie the basket around his waist. “Oh, hello, Jonas. It looks as if you’re having a very successful opening day so far.”
“Jah. There are a lot more customers than we expected.”
“They probably want to get a head start on perfecting their recipes for the blohbier festival.”
The Englischers in New Hope hosted a blueberry festival the second weekend in August. Held on the town’s fairgrounds, the festival was an opportunity for farmers, bakers and vendors to sell blueberries by the pint, as well as blueberry jams and desserts. Nonedible items for sale included blueberry-scented candles, hand towels embroidered with blueberries, photographs of local blueberry barrens and other decorative household knickknacks. The festival also offered various activities and events, live music performances, a road race and, of course, a blueberry-pie-making contest—which was followed by a blueberry-pie-eating contest.
It would have been considered hochmut for Amish women to enter the baking competition, but several of them chipped in to share a rented space at the festival so they could market their blueberry confections and other handiwork.
“Are you participating in the festival, Eliza?” Freeman asked.
“Neh. My bruder love blohbiere so much that we have to use every bier we pick for jams or treats for our familye. There’s never anything left over for us to sell.”
“What about the rugs you make—don’t those have blohbiere on them?”
Jonas thought, I wasn’t aware she made rugs for sale—how is it Freeman knew that about her? It concerned him that his brother was so familiar with Eliza’s preferences and hobbies.
“Neh. They’re rag rugs, not embroidered,” she answered. “In order for me to be able to sell them at the festival, they’re supposed to be related to blohbier season.”
“Aren’t any of them the color bloh?” Freeman joked.
Eliza smiled. “Jah, but I don’t think that counts. You’d be surprised by how seriously the festival organizers are about these things. Last year they closed down the stall next to ours because the vendors were selling aebier jam, if you can believe it.”
Freeman’s eyes got big. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
When Eliza giggled, Jonas decided he’d better do something to interrupt their banter a second time, so he told his brother it was his turn to shuttle the customers between the parking lot and the barrens.
“Sure,” Freeman said good-naturedly. “I’ll wait to give Eliza and her breider a ride, too. They’ve walked all the way from her haus so they’re probably hot and tired.”
Jonas didn’t want to appear rude by suggesting his brother should leave without her, but he really wanted to speak to Eliza by himself. Given the way Freeman was kidding around with her, Jonas was starting to feel nervous that she might decide she preferred his brother’s company to Jonas’s. I’ve got to arrange to spend time with her alone very soon, he thought. But how could he do that if Freeman whisked her away?
Thankfully, Eliza said, “That’s okay, there’s no need to wait, Freeman. The more worn out my breider are, the less likely they are to wander away and get lost in the blohbier bushes. Besides, I think I need a longer rope for my basket. This one doesn’t go all the way around my waist.”
“That’s because that one is for a kind’s basket. Just a second—I’ll find you an adult-size piece,” Jonas offered. But first, he turned to his brother and pointedly dismissed him. “See you later, Freeman.”
After Freeman had left and Jonas retrieved a longer piece of rope for Eliza, he was still at a loss for how he was going to manage to set a date with her in front of her little brothers. He could tell they were antsy to start picking berries and he knew he had to think quickly, but his mind drew a blank.
“Oh, neh, I’m all thumbs,” Eliza said, reaching around behind her back. “I tied my basket on too tight, but I think it’s in a knot, so I can’t loosen it. Could you please help me with it, Jonas?”
She’s been tying an apron around her waist every day since she was a maedel—certainly she should be able to work a knot out on her own by now, he thought. But then it occurred to Jonas that she was flirting with him. Once again, she’d presented him with a better solution for his dilemma than he could have ever thought of on his own.
“Sure, I’ll give it a try,” he said. As he loosened the knot, he was close enough to lean forward and whisper in her ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you yesterday, but may I take you for a ride next Sunndaag after kurrich?”
“I’d like that a lot,” she whispered back, turning her head ever so slightly. Her face was so close to his that if they’d actually been courting and no one else had been around them, he might have been tempted to kiss her cheek.
The unbidden thought was so disquieting to him that Jonas stepped back and said to her brothers, “If your teeth are bloh when you kumme back, I’ll know what you’ve been eating!”
When Eliza laughed just as hard at his joke as she’d laughed at Freeman’s, Jonas breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t have anything to worry about...at least, not until next Sunday, when he had to take Eliza out for the first real date of their fake courtship.
Chapter Four
“Stay on the grass, buwe, or else you’ll have to kumme back here to hold my hand and walk with me!” Eliza called for a second time to three of her brothers, Peter, Isaiah and Samuel. It was Thursday morning and the boys were gallivanting up ahead of her and Mary on their way to the Kanagy brothers’ blueberry farm. Even though the quiet country road had a wide, gravelly shoulder, Eliza felt they couldn’t be cautious enough around Englisch traffic. The boys obeyed and moved farther to the left, onto the grassy field. To Mary, she said, “Sometimes I feel like I’m herding goats.”
Mary chuckled. “Don’t you mean sheep?”
“Neh. It would be much easier to herd sheep.”
“I wish I had little breider to herd.” Mary was the youngest of seven daughters, all of whom lived out of state. So she didn’t even get to see her little nieces and nephews very often. “Better yet, I wish I had kinner of my own.” Unlike Eliza, she’d occasionally indicated that she was eager to get married and start a family, but she’d never had a suitor.
“One day soon, you will. But this morning, I’m hallich you’re here to give me a hand with my breider. When we went picking on Muundaag, Peter got stung by a bee and Isaiah accidentally spilled all of the blohbiere out of his basket when he bent over to pick up a snake.”
