When Strawberries Bloom Read Free Page A

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

    T HE 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