Ellie (6 page)

Read Ellie Online

Authors: Mary Christner Borntrager

Tags: #Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #test

BOOK: Ellie
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7
Missy's Visit
"Ellie," said Missy one day, "my mother said if it's alright with your mother, I can go home with you from school and spend the night."
"You mean sleep at our house?" asked Ellie, very much surprised.
"Yes," answered her friend. "Do you want me to?"
"Oh, yeah," said Ellie, forgetting her grammar. "That will be fun. I will ask Mama tonight." She could hardly wait until time to go home.
"Mama," Ellie called out as soon as she entered the kitchen that evening. "Mama, can Missy come home with me and sleep here all night? Her mama said if it's alright with you, she can. Can she?"
"Ellie, slow down once," said her mother. "You rattle on so I can hardly make out what you are saying."
So Ellie told her mother again what Missy had said.
 
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"Ach, my, I don't know," exclaimed Mrs. Maust. "We better ask your papa."
Ellie was disappointed. Now she had to wait until the chores were done and supper was over with, and everything cleared away. That seemed like forever to Ellie, but wait she must. Had she not been so busy with all her various evening tasks, she might not have stood the suspense.
Finally the time came when Papa was relaxing in his favorite rocker reading the
Farm Journal.
Mother was busily mending stockings, and Ellie was minding the twins. She looked up at Mama and said, "Did you ask him yet?"
Mother smiled slightly at her daughter's anxious look and shook her head. "Wait until we have put the twins to bed."
What! She had to wait longer yet. And, oh, sometimes it took so long before those babies would cooperate. Well, there was nothing she could do except hope her little sisters would go to bed without fussing tonight.
At last, the house was quiet. The boys had gone upstairs and were already asleep. Ellie could hear the ticking of the old shelf clock. It seemed to keep time with the beating of her heart as she looked at her mother again. When, oh when, would she ask?
"Jake," said Lizzie at long last, "Ellie wants to know if it's alright if her little crippled friend from school comes home with her and stays all night. She said the girl's mother said she can, if it's alright with us."
"Well," Jake said soberly, "I don't know if it is
 
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such a good idea to bring an Englisher into our home. Ellie might not do her work and just want to play. You know you need her to help you, Lizzie."
"I'll make-do," answered his wife. "How can we say no, Jake? Ellie tells me the other schoolchildren are sometimes mean to this girl. If it were not for the schoolmarm, she would really have it hard. We always teach our children to be kind, especially to those less fortunate and to the handicapped."
"Well, then," answered Ellie's papa, "this once. We will try it this one time. But mind, Ellie, you do your work and help your mother like always."
"Yeah, Papa, I will," she promised. Ellie was so happy she could have kissed them both, only she never did, because in an Amish home one does not show open affection. Well, babies are okay to kiss, but not after they become a little older and are not babies anymore.
Ellie could hardly wait to tell Missy the good news. She went to bed, but sleep wouldn't come.
Next day at school, the two girls were especially happy. Missy was going to ask her mother that very night how soon she could visit Ellie at her house.
At last the big day came when Missy arrived at school with a small overnight bag. It was hard all day for the two girls to keep their minds on their schoolwork. Missy was wearing her yellow dress again. It was Ellie's favorite, and she was sure her parents would like it, too. How little she understood the ways of her people.
Mrs. Maust had been baking bread and was just taking the last loaves out of the oven as the two girls
 
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entered. How good it smelled! Mother looked up from her work and said, "Ellie, hurry and change your dress. The babies have been extra cranky today. Bring a pail of water from the pumphouse, then fix some bread and apple butter for the twins. I believe they are hungry."
"So am I," replied Ellie. "Can Missy and I have some, too?"
"Yes, if you do what I told you."
Missy just stood there holding onto her overnight case. No one told her where she might put it. The babies were sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by pots and pans and a few wooden spoons. These were their toys. They stared at Missy.
"How cute they are," Missy said under her breath.
"Come," said Ellie, "you can put your stuff upstairs in my room. Didn't your mother send your chore dress along?" asked Ellie.
"I don't have any," said Missy. "I just wear the dress I wore to school all evening. Then in the morning, I wear a clean one again."
"You must have lots of dresses then," remarked Ellie. She had never heard of wearing a different dress each day. Missy's parents must have lots and lots of money.
Missy smiled. "I think I have seven or eight good dresses for fancy, and I guess ten for school. I forget how many are just to wear around home."
Ellie was trying to imagine such a store of dresses when she heard her mother call. Quickly she slipped into her patched and faded everyday dress and told her playmate they must hurry downstairs. But
 
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Missy couldn't hurry, or she would fall. So Ellie helped her down each step.
''Why must you always hurry?" asked Missy.
"Because I have to help Mama with the work and the babies," she answered.
"You are so lucky to have such cute babies, I wish I'd have even one baby sister. And you have two. You are lucky."
Ellie didn't really know what she meant, but if Missy said it, she accepted it as something good.
"Don't you want to wear an apron over your dress so you won't get it dirty?" Mrs. Maust asked Missy.
"I don't have any," answered Missy.
"Well then, Ellie, go get your blue apron for Missy. She can wear that, or her dress won't be fit for school tomorrow." Lizzie Maust did not realize that the little English girl had a clean dress for tomorrow, folded away in her suitcase. Missy loved the quaint blue apron, even if it was much longer than the dress she was wearing. It had a roomy pocket, and she dug her hand down deep inside.
Ellie fixed some freshly baked warm bread with homemade butter and apple butter for each of the babies, and some for Missy and herself.
"Come," she said, "we will sit on the floor and feed the babies their bread and eat ours at the same time."
She forgot that her friend couldn't sit on the floor because of her leg brace. So they arranged a chair in front of the two little ones and began to enjoy their snack. At first the twins shied away from the new girl, but gradually their curiosity was aroused, and
 
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they began to play with the shiny chrome on her brace.
Missy could not follow Ellie when she gathered the eggs, or carried water and kindling wood, or when she filled the tank at the end of the cookstove with water, but she did hobble along out to watch her milk her two cows. Mr. Maust and his two boys were out in the barn when the girls came home from school, so they had not seen Missy before. The boys both stood and stared at her. Then they went on with the feeding, but every once in a while they would peek around the corners and whisper to each other.
Ellie took her little milking stool and sat down to milk Brindle.
"Aren't you afraid?" asked Missy. The cows looked huge to the city girl.
"Of what?" asked Ellie.
"Why, this big cow. He is much bigger than you are. He could step on you with his big legs and hurt you.
"Oh, no," answered Ellie, "and 'he' is a 'she.'"
When Jake Maust first saw Missy, he mumbled something under his breath and gave her a reproachful look. He did not approve of her cut hair and her bright yellow dress. But when he saw her limp after Ellie as she changed from milking Brindle to Roan, his heart mellowed somewhat. And when he heard the little Englisher ask Ellie how she knew when to turn the cow's faucets off, he chuckled aloud.
Things were so different here in the Maust home.
 
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There was no indoor plumbing and there were no pictures on the walls . . . no radio or piano, no electricity or telephone, no draperies at the windows. But everything was neat and clean.
Suppertime was different, too. A big kettle of hot soup was set in the center of the table. A dipper was placed in the kettle. Then after a silent prayer, all of them took turns holding their soup plates up to the kettle while Mother ladled out a portion for each one. Missy had never eaten any soup like this. When she asked what it was, Ellie's mother said, "Rivvel soup." It was made from milk, flour, eggs, a pat of butter, salted and peppered to taste. She liked it and took a second helping. Then, of course, there were half-moon pies. Everything tasted so good. There was more homemade bread and apple butter, too.
After everyone finished eating, they bowed their heads again in silent thanks. Then the two girls began to clear the table and wash the dishes.
"Do you want to wash or dry?" asked Ellie.
"I don't care," replied Missy.
"Well, why don't you wash and I'll dry, because I know where the dishes belong. I'll put them away. Then if we can get the babies to go to bed, we can play."
"Where are your toys?" asked Missy.
"I don't have toys, but we can play 'Pick-Out-of-the-Catalog,' or sometimes we play 'Hide the Thimble.' "
So the girls worked as fast as they could. Mrs. Maust made all of the family's clothes (except the stockings and men's underwear), so she was busy at
 
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the sewing machine making a chore coat for Sammie. She was glad when the girls finished the dishes and came to relieve Roy and Sammie of the care of Annie and Fannie. The boys just were not as good with them as their sister was.
"Why do the babies wear little caps on their heads?" asked Missy.
"Because they are Amish like we are, and we are supposed to," replied Ellie.
"Oh," was all Missy said.
Mother put her sewing aside at eight o'clock and helped her daughter get the little ones ready for bed. Now Ellie and Missy were free to play. Ellie brought out the big Sears Roebuck catalog, and her brothers came shyly to ask if they could play, too. They always wanted to pick from pages with boys' toys, and Ellie liked the girls' things, so Mother said to take turns.
All but onethe one who was "it"would close their eyes. Then the "it" person would choose an item she would like to have if she could pick it right out of the book. Then she would call out "ready." Each of the players would point to items they believed were what the picker had chosen, and would ask, "This? This? This?" until someone found the right one. Then the person who found the right object was "it,'' and so on.
Ellie loved the pages with dolls. When Missy pointed to a beautiful one with yellow curls and a pink dress and told Ellie, "I have one just like that," Ellie thought Missy must be the happiest girl in the whole world. And when Missy told Ellie that she

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