Their Pretend Courtship, page 9
“Ach. Would you mind keeping an eye on them, Mary? I need to rearrange these biere so they don’t tip over if Eli shifts positions in his sleep.” She gestured to the pails they’d brought to transport the berries home.
“Sure. ’Bye, Jonas.”
“‘Bye, Mary.” He lifted the jug in a sort of wave, and as Mary walked toward the boys, he asked Eliza, “You need a hand with those?”
“Please. I just need to make sure they’re nice and snug.”
Jonas set down the muffins and plastic jug. They both reached for one of the pails at the same time and his palm momentarily covered Eliza’s. On Sunday, he’d taken her hand when she’d asked him to help her out of the canoe, and again when he’d assisted her out of the buggy. So why did his touch suddenly make her feel so tremulous? And why didn’t the feeling pass even after he’d lifted his hand from atop hers and reached for a different container?
“There,” he said, after expertly repositioning the pails. “They should be nice and secure now.”
“Denki.” Eliza looked into his eyes, which were more green than gray in this light. “And denki for coming to check on Mary. That was thoughtful of you.”
“No need to thank me. I do hope the, ah, incident with the snake won’t keep her from returning to the bauerei.”
“I think she just has to get over feeling lappich about being afraid of a fake snake.”
“She has nothing to feel lappich about—I’m the one who was preparing to fend it off with a stick.” Jonas chuckled at himself. “It looked like a rattlesnake I saw out on the prairie in Kansas once.”
“Really?” Eliza gulped. “Did you fend that off with a stick, too?”
“Neh. I backed slowly but surely away. And as soon as I’d put enough distance between us, I hightailed it out of there like a black-tailed jackrabbit.”
“Schmaert mann!” Eliza said with a chuckle. She appreciated Jonas’s candid admission of how fearful he’d been, and she wished she could ask him more about the wildlife in Kansas. But she could see that Mary was having a difficult time wrangling her brothers. Gesturing toward the group, she remarked that she probably should get going now.
“Jah, me, too.” Jonas bent down and picked up the plastic jug and container of muffins. When he straightened up again, he said, “But I look forward to continuing our conversation the next time we see each other.”
“You want to talk more about snakes?” Eliza teased. She couldn’t help herself; she just felt very lighthearted all of a sudden. But she made Jonas blush.
“Neh, I meant—” he began.
“It’s okay. I know what you meant—and I feel the same way. I’m really looking forward to talking more to you, too, Jonas.” And for the first time since he’d asked to be her suitor, there was nothing phony or exaggerated about her sentiment.
Chapter Seven
“Mamm?” Eliza placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder. Lior was snoring softly, her head tucked into her folded arms on the table. “Mamm?”
She roused and rubbed her eyes. “Did I fall asleep?”
“Jah. Why don’t you go lie down while I get supper ready?” Eliza suggested. Over the week, her mother had become increasingly fatigued as the flu drained her energy. Now, on Saturday, she could barely keep her head up.
“I can’t. I’ve got to finish reconciling these accounts.”
Eliza doubted she had the presence of mind to calculate the charges for Uri’s customers accurately. How could he possibly expect Mamm to do the bookkeeping in her condition? she wondered. He should just wait until Muundaag. Better yet, he should do it himself.
“I can take care of the books after the buwe go to bed,” Eliza offered.
“Denki, but neh. You’ve got your hands full looking after your breider.”
Peter, Isaiah and even little Samuel had spent the better part of the day helping Uri clean the workshop. Eli was now sick with the flu, too, just like Mark. So all five of the boys would undoubtedly be exhausted and go to bed early, leaving Eliza plenty of time to work on the accounts. So she knew her mother was just making an excuse; the real issue was that Uri didn’t want anyone except Lior to manage his books.
Eliza understood it was useless to try to persuade her to relinquish the responsibility. But with some persistent coaxing, she at least managed to convince her to lie down until supper was ready after all. “You’ll be able to think more clearly once you’ve had a gut rest and a bowl of hinkel supp.”
The weather was so hot and humid that the mere mention of soup made Eliza wish she could go dip her feet in Little Loon Lake again. Thinking about the lake made her think about Jonas, which in turn made her curious about what he had planned for their “special” date.
After setting a glass of water on her mother’s nightstand and checking on Eli and Mark, Eliza returned to the kitchen and began preparing soup for her mother and youngest brothers. She was also making meat loaf and mashed potatoes for Uri and the three older boys. She intended to make plenty so she could reheat the leftovers tomorrow, since cooking full meals was prohibited on the Sabbath.
As she peeled the potatoes, Eliza’s thoughts strayed again to her date with Jonas the following day. Ordinarily, she might have used her mother’s illness as a convenient excuse to stay home and avoid spending time alone with a suitor, especially so early in a courtship. But in this instance, even though she had a legitimate reason to cancel her date with Jonas, she decided not to.
Uri isn’t working tomorrow, so he can take care of Mamm and the buwe. Maybe if he has to manage the household on his own, he’ll have a better sense of how challenging it can be, she thought. Then he won’t insist I get married and move away or find a full-time job outside the haus.
But Eliza knew that was the wrong attitude to have toward her stepfather. Furthermore, the real reason she didn’t want to miss her date had very little to do with Uri—it was that she honestly did hope to get to know Jonas better. In her eager anticipation, she wondered whether she should take her own advice to Mary and make a blohbier dessert for them to enjoy during their outing. And since he was going to the trouble of planning a special activity for them, she resolved to make the dessert a special one, too.
Eliza was leafing through her recipe cards when the mudroom door opened and Uri stumbled into the kitchen, leaning on Peter and Isaiah’s shoulders. His expression was grim and his breath labored. Eliza’s stomach dropped and she was instantly wracked with guilt for all of the ungenerous thoughts she’d been entertaining about him.
“What is it? Are you injured?” she asked as she helped ease him into a kitchen chain.
“I think I have the flu,” he answered grimly. “It just hit me like a ton of bricks.”
“Oh, neh!” Eliza uttered, both in sympathy for Uri and in disappointment for herself. Now there was no way she could go out with Jonas tomorrow.
* * *
On Sunday afternoon, Jonas set the bag containing marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate bars beside him on the buggy seat. He’d already put his tackle box and two fishing rods in the back of the carriage. After agonizing over what “special” activity he and Eliza could enjoy together, he’d finally decided to take her fishing in Crooked Creek. Afterward, they’d roast marshmallows over a campfire.
Fishing isn’t exactly a popular courting activity, he conceded a few minutes later as he guided his horse along the main thoroughfare. Most people usually don’t roast marshmallows or have campfires until after dark, and I intend to take Eliza back to her home long before then. But unless another, better idea struck him between now and the time he arrived at her house, he had no choice but to carry out his plan and hope she’d enjoy herself.
Otherwise, she might not give me the chance to go out with her again, Jonas thought. But his desire to show Eliza a pleasant afternoon wasn’t simply because he was worried she might break up with him. He also wanted her to have a good time because he wanted to have a nice afternoon with her. Just because their courtship wasn’t real didn’t mean they couldn’t have schpass as friends. And it didn’t mean he had to dread spending time with her, either.
Jonas hadn’t seen Eliza—or Mary, for that matter—back on the farm since the incident with the rubber snake. But since then, he’d reflected on the conversation they’d had that morning many times. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but something about Eliza seemed different as they’d talked that day. She seemed more natural somehow, as if she wasn’t making such an effort or being flirtatious. And he didn’t feel as if he had to work so hard to come up with small talk, either.
It reminded him of the few times they’d socialized together shortly after he had arrived in New Hope, before he’d had any notion of pretending to court her. On those occasions, he’d share what he missed about Kansas and she’d tell him what she enjoyed most about living in Maine.
That’s the kind of light, relaxed conversation I hope we have today, Jonas mused, turning down the side road leading to her house. As agreed, he waited at the end of the lane for her, a common practice for young Amish men and women who didn’t want their families to know they were courting. With the exception of telling his brother he was Eliza’s suitor, Jonas intended to do his best to protect their privacy. So he was caught off guard when Peter and Isaiah came loping down the lane at quarter past two, fifteen minutes later than Eliza had agreed to meet him. Samuel was trailing them in the distance.
“Guder mariye, Jonas,” Peter and Isaiah greeted him.
“Hello, buwe,” he replied, wondering the best way to explain why he was idling in his buggy at the end of their lane. However, he quickly learned there was no need for an explanation.
“Eliza wanted me to give you this.” Peter reached up and handed him an envelope. Puzzled, Jonas tore it open. The note inside read:
Jonas,
My mother, Uri, Eli and Mark are all ill with the flu, so I’m afraid I have to stay home and take care of them. I’m sorry. I know you had something special planned and I was really looking forward to spending the afternoon together.
I hope to see you again soon.
Eliza
PS Don’t worry, the boys are too young to suspect we’re courting.
Jonas pushed back his hat to scratch his head. He couldn’t help it—the first question that entered his mind was, Is her familye really so sick that she has to stay home to care for them? Or did she have a change of heart about going out alone with me and her familye’s illness was just a convenient excuse? He regretted not trusting Eliza enough to take her at her word, but he still had his doubts.
“Let’s go back to the haus,” Peter told Isaiah.
“But Eliza said we should wait to see if Jonas wants to give her a message, too.”
“Bobbelmoul!” Peter elbowed Isaiah. “She said we weren’t supposed to ask for a message—we were only supposed to wait to see if Jonas offered her one. Otherwise, it’s rude, like asking for a piece of kuche when you go to someone’s haus.”
Jonas smiled to himself. He could tell from Eliza’s words to her brothers that she was hoping for a response from him. And that meant she truly must have been disappointed she’d had to cancel their plans. “I actually would like you to give her a message, but I need a second to think what I want you to tell her.”
Isaiah raised his hat and slid a pencil from behind his ear. “Eliza said if you wanted to give her a message, you should write it instead of tell us because we might get distracted chasing a toad or a butterfly and we’d forget by the time we got back.”
Now Jonas was really grinning. Eliza is so hopeful I’ll reply to her message that she even made sure her breider took a pencil with them so I could write back to her. He hopped out of the buggy and accepted the pencil from Isaiah. Jonas was about to start writing when he noticed Samuel shuffling toward them, his head hanging so low that his chin nearly touched his chest.
He called hello and when the little boy glanced up, Jonas could see that his eyes were watery and his eyelids were swollen. He couldn’t tell if he was coming down with the flu, too, or if he’d been crying. “Are you okay? You look a little under the weather.”
Samuel tipped back his head and squinted at the sky, obviously confused by the idiom. “What weather? It’s sunny out.”
Jonas suppressed a chuckle, but Peter and Isaiah laughed aloud...although not unkindly.
“Jonas doesn’t mean the real weather,” Isaiah explained knowingly. “It’s just a saying. It means you look like you’re about to cry.”
Samuel’s eyes flooded even as he protested, “I do not.” He dropped his head again and kicked a pebble to the side of the driveway.
“He’s upset because he didn’t get to carry Eliza’s note,” Peter said quietly.
“Or the pencil,” Isaiah added.
“I am not.” Samuel lifted his head, his chin quivering. “I’m sad because Daed is sick and he can’t take us to the lake and now I’ll never get to go canoeing.”
“Remember what Eliza told you?” Peter asked. “She said you can go when Daed gets better.”
“What if he doesn’t ever get better?” Samuel wailed.
Recognizing that the child was at least as upset about his father’s illness as he was about his canceled canoeing excursion, Jonas was struck with an idea. I could take the buwe fishing this afternoon. I’m sure it would be helpful to Eliza. But first, he needed to get her approval. Jonas didn’t want to present the idea only to have to disappoint Samuel again. “I think your daed—and your mamm and breider—will recover from the flu in a little while. And we should pray about that every day until they do,” he suggested, touching Samuel’s shoulder.
The child nodded. “That’s what Eliza said, too. At breakfast we asked Gott to make them all better. And at lunch. But Daed is still sick and he can’t get out of bed.”
Noticing that Samuel was more worried about his father than he was about the other members of his family, Jonas assumed it must have been rare for Uri to be ill. He remembered how frightened he’d been the first time he’d ever seen his own daed laid up in bed; until then, Jonas had naively believed his tall, strapping father was impervious to almost any illness or injury. “It’s gut that he’s getting lots of rest because that’s what will help him feel healthy and strong. But it might take a few days before he’s one-hundred-percent better.”
“Eliza said it might take this many.” Sniffling, he held up six fingers. “That’s how many years old I am, too.”
“You’re six?” Jonas pretended to be surprised. “I didn’t know you were six. I thought you were only five. But if you’re six, maybe you can help me with an important task.”
That seemed to perk Samuel up. He wiped his cheek and asked, “What task?”
“I need to ask Eliza something. I was going to write her a note, but I really need to talk to her in person. While I’m hitching my gaul could you run and ask her if she has a moment to kumme out to the porch so I can speak to her?”
Samuel nodded, but he looked crestfallen, as if he was disappointed because the task wasn’t as important as he’d hoped it would be. So Jonas leaned down and whispered, “And here’s the hard part—you have to be really careful not to let anyone else hear you, because we don’t want to disturb their rest.” It was true that he didn’t want the child to wake anyone up, but Jonas also didn’t want them to know about his request to talk to Eliza in private. If she agreed to allow him to take her brothers fishing, then he’d leave it up to her to explain why he’d dropped by the house in the first place. “Do you think you can do that?”
“Jah. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse. Just like when we’re in kurrich and I need to ask my schweschder a question,” Samuel solemnly promised before he pivoted and shot up the driveway.
“Could you two show me where I can tie my gaul?” Jonas asked Peter and Isaiah, who readily led him to the hitching post. Then they accompanied him to the porch steps before meandering around to the backyard, leaving Jonas alone to nervously await Eliza’s arrival.
* * *
Eliza hummed as she pushed the rocker back and forth, cradling her youngest brother. Three-year-old Mark was the last of her “patients” to finally fall asleep. But she was concerned that if she set him down, he’d wake up again and start crying, which just might make her start crying, too. She’d been up half the night caring for her family and she was exhausted.
Even in her feeble condition, her mother had tried to help Eliza comfort Eli and Mark when they’d woken up crying and feverish in the middle of the night. But Lior’s legs were so weak that she’d barely made it halfway up the stairs before collapsing into a sitting position. She’d made such a racket that Eliza had feared she’d actually fallen down the staircase. Surprisingly, Uri had never even roused; he’d been so wiped out that he’d been sleeping ever since he’d returned from the workshop on Saturday afternoon.
Thankfully, Eliza had already had the flu earlier that summer and so had the other three boys. I don’t know what I would have done without them this morning, she thought. Peter had helped her make breakfast, Isaiah had read to Eli and Samuel had kept Mark entertained with a hand puppet so he wouldn’t fuss and wake up Lior and Uri. The three boys couldn’t have been more helpful. Yet after their brief home-worship service, Eliza had snapped at Peter for dropping their copy of the hymnal, The Ausbund, as it had narrowly missed her bare foot. And then she’d scolded Samuel for whining because Uri couldn’t take him to the lake.
Of all people, I should be more understanding about how disappointed he is, because I felt the same way when I realized I couldn’t go out with Jonas, she silently chastised herself. She just hoped Jonas didn’t feel equally let down, especially after making special plans for their date. Eliza glanced toward the window. I suppose the buwe would have kumme inside by now to relay a message if Jonas had asked them to pass one along.
