Sweet as Honey Page 4

  “Fifty. Counting the field we rent out.”

  “Fifty?” he said, as if it were the best news he’d ever heard. He was a little kid. Who besides Lily and her sisters got excited about fifty acres? “Plenty of room for the bees.”

  “Jah,” she said, letting her lips curl into a smile. He had surprised her again. “I am impressed that you noticed.”

  “It makes sense. You’ve got blooming bushes and trees. Lots of flowers and lots of dandelions. Food for the bees. How many hives do you have?”

  Lily pointed to the orchard hives visible through the trees and started walking toward them. “Ten in the orchard, ten by the clover field, and the ten you see when you come over the bridge. We also have twenty hives at Chidester’s sunflower farm. He pays us a fee to pollinate his sunflowers.”

  “Genius,” he said under his breath as if he were in awe of pollination.

  “Another farmer grows clover on our acreage to the west. Aunt B won’t let him cut it until it blossoms and the bees get a feast.”

  Lily stopped about ten feet from the orchard hives. The trees were no longer blossoming, but the hives buzzed with activity as the foragers flew in and out, searching farther afield for their nectar. Rose had painted pictures of bright, friendly flowers of different varieties on each hive. On the one closest to them, she had painted a vine covered with tiny midnight-blue blossoms.

  “The hives are in full sun most of the day, except in the morning. They do better in full sun.”

  “The painting is wonderful-gute,” Dan said.

  “Rose loves to paint. She likes the solitude, and Aunt B says the different designs help the bees recognize which hive is theirs.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  Patches of morning sun filtered through the trees, speckling the beehives with purified light. “I love how beautiful the hives look when they catch the light.”

  “Really pretty,” Dan said.

  She glanced at him and quickly looked away. He wasn’t looking at the hives. Surely her face turned as purple as a plum.

  He cleared his throat as if he had a buggy lodged in there. “Can we go closer? I’m not afraid of getting stung.”

  “This is close enough. You might upset the bees.”

  “They hold grudges against boys who trample dandelions?”

  She giggled, actually giggled, at Dan Kanagy, the mean boy who called her Amtrak. “Bees are very gentle creatures, but that brown shirt of yours makes you look like a bear. You’ll make them nervous if you get too close.”

  He rubbed his hand down the side of his face. “I’ll have to remember that. No brown. What about green? Are they afraid of frogs?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “I’ll have to buy a green shirt. I don’t own one.”

  “White is fine,” Lily said, laughing in spite of herself. “As long as you don’t stand in the path of their entrance, you can stand right next to the hive and they won’t bother you. But if you want to work the hives, you have to wear a bee suit. At least a veil.”

  “I really like your bee suit,” he said, again with the sincerity she couldn’t account for.

  She didn’t know how to reply, so she reached up and plucked a leaf from the nearest tree and twirled it in her fingers. Of course he didn’t like her bee suit. He’d compared her to a spider.

  Dan stared at her for a few uncomfortable seconds while she adamantly twirled her leaf and looked anywhere but at him. “I should probably get going,” he said. “Denki for showing me your farm.” Flashing a sheepish grin, he reached out and took the book from her hand. “Can I carry your book home from school?”

  She pretended to think about it. “I don’t know. How do I know you won’t drop it in a puddle?”

  “I promise to get you and the book safely home. It’s the least I can do.”

  “The least you can do?”

  “For agreeing to discuss this book with me.”

  Oh, that. Lily didn’t mind so much anymore. She almost looked forward to it. Almost. And Paul never had to know.

  They ambled out of the orchard, past the barn, and up the flagstones to the front porch. Almost reluctantly, Dan handed her the book. “I’ll be going now.”

  “Denki for weeding the flowers.”

  “Lord willing, Poppy will be satisfied with what I did in her flower bed. If not, she can slug me if it makes her feel better.”

  Lily hated to be the one to break the news that slugging Dan always made Poppy feel better.

  “Ach! I almost forgot,” she said. “Wait one second.” She ducked into the house and grabbed two cookies from the cooling rack. She returned to the porch and handed them to Dan. “Have a cookie.”

  “Denki.” He took them from her and bounded down the steps. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Only after he turned his buggy around and drove down the lane did Lily remember Aunt B’s warning. Would Dan keep showing up on her porch if she fed him? Like a stray cat?

  For sure and certain Dan wasn’t going to show up all that often.

  Maybe stray cats weren’t fond of cookies.

  Chapter Five

  Paul sat on his front porch step with his arms resting on his knees and his fingers laced together as if he’d been there ever so long.

  Lily pulled in front of his house and tied the reins. With canvas bag in hand, she jumped out of her buggy and ambled up his sidewalk. She could tell he was irritated. He gave off an unmistakable aura of annoyance, not unlike how a baby gave off the unpleasant stink of a dirty diaper.

  “You’re late,” he said. “Of all the stuff, Lily. I told you to be here at eleven fifteen.”

  “Your letter said eleven forty-five.”

  She shouldn’t argue with him. Paul hated to admit when he was wrong. His insecurity came from being raised in a home where his dat always had to be right. Paul had grown up fighting for every shred of justification he could get.

  His lips formed into that pouty, petulant frown he got when he thought Lily was trying to be smarter than he was. “I think I should know what my letter said. Of all the stuff, Lily, you need to stop making excuses for yourself. It wonders me if you had your nose in a book and lost track of time.”

  Lily was tempted to pull the letter out of her apron pocket and show him the numbers he’d written clear as day, but Paul would be humiliated that he’d been wrong. It wasn’t worth winning the argument, especially when it meant so much to his manly pride.

  “I apologize for making you wait. I know how busy you are.” That must have been the reason he’d sent her a letter instead of coming to the farm in person. Things were busy at the store. It surely wasn’t that he couldn’t be bothered to take the half-hour buggy ride to see his girlfriend. A letter mailed in the morning usually got to Lily by the next day. Paul used the post office as an easy and convenient way to communicate with her.

  Paul seldom came to the farm. He was afraid of bees, and even though he never said it, Lily knew he felt uncomfortable around Aunt Bitsy. She wasn’t a typical Amish woman and anything out of the ordinary made Paul uneasy.

  His expression softened. “I forgive you. At least you remembered to wear your glasses.”

  Lily nudged the cumbersome glasses over the bridge of her nose self-consciously. Paul’s dat liked Lily better in glasses than contacts. He thought the contacts were worldly and vain. Whenever she went to Paul’s house, she put on her glasses to appease the Glicks.

  She secretly rejoiced that it would be impossible to pop the braces back into her mouth. Paul’s dat probably liked those better too—braces or a mouthful of unruly teeth. That or no teeth at all.

  Lily pursed her lips. Vain or not, she liked being able to chew her food.

  Paul shrugged himself off the porch step. He stood a couple of inches taller than Lily with curly, brown hair and dark, well-defined eyebrows. He was of a stocky build, solid as a tree at the shoulders but a little soft around the belly.

  Aunt B said he was chubby. Not that Lily wou
ld have expected anything different from Aunt B. Whenever a boy came calling, Aunt B would find seventeen things wrong with him before he even climbed out of his buggy. It was her way of protecting her girls, and for as mother-bearish as she could be at times, they loved her dearly for watching out for them.

  “That one’s too big for his britches,” Aunt B had said of Paul. “And his britches are already pretty big.”

  Even Rosie had giggled at that remark, though she felt so guilty about it afterward that she made a cake and asked Lily to give it to Paul and apologize.

  Lily smiled at the memory. Paul might have been a little “big for his britches,” but who didn’t struggle with pride? Lily was proud of her teeth. Paul was proud of his humility.

  She forgave him for all of it. In school when the boys teased her, Paul had been her friend. He’d encouraged her to ignore Dan Kanagy. Those Kanagys were a bad lot, and Dan was the worst of them, Paul had said. He’d never stood up to Dan when he teased Lily—that was Poppy’s job—but sometimes Paul would whisk Lily to the far end of the playground so she wouldn’t hear Dan’s insults. Paul had been a true friend. Lily had been trying to show her gratitude ever since.

  “Let’s go get some supper at the restaurant,” Paul said, stepping off his porch and taking a few steps in the direction of the center of town. “We can discuss business while we eat.”

  Lily groaned inwardly. She hadn’t brought enough money. Paul’s family owned a large and prosperous market and Amish restaurant in the center of Bienenstock. Lots of tourists shopped at the market, which stocked everything from jams and quilts to Amish butter and chiming clocks. The restaurant was adjacent to the market and equally as popular. Paul and Lily ate there often, except that Paul ate for free and they made Lily pay. Today, she didn’t have the money.

  Besides, she was eager to avoid Raymond Glick’s scrutiny. When Lily went to the restaurant, Paul’s dat liked to glare at her while she ate.

  “Let’s talk business here,” she said. “I have to get home soon.”

  “I need to eat, Lily. If you’d been here on time, I wouldn’t be starving, but now I’ve got to have something to eat or my blood sugar will crash.”

  Paul often mentioned his blood sugar. He’d never actually told Lily what it meant except that it always seemed to be an emergency when he was hungry.

  Lily slumped her shoulders. Nothing mattered at the moment but Paul’s health. She could always order a roll and a glass of water. They only charged her a dollar for a roll. A dollop of jelly cost twenty-five cents. Extra butter was complimentary. “Okay. I’m sorry I was late.”

  Paul smiled and gave her arm an affectionate pat. “I’ve already forgiven you, Lily. Don’t dwell on it.”

  The family restaurant was one block up and three blocks over. They usually left Lily’s buggy at Paul’s house and walked.

  Paul took off quickly down the sidewalk. “Come on before my blood sugar acts up yet.” He got ten feet ahead of her before he noticed she lagged behind. “Cum, Lily. I’ll starve to death before we get there.”

  She picked up her pace and tried to think of something to get Paul’s mind off food. “Did you buy that fishing pole you had your eye on?”

  He laughed as if Lily wasn’t in on the joke. “It’s called a fly rod. Nobody calls what I got a fishing pole. Dat hired a driver to take us to Green Bay. Four hundred dollars. It’s a beauty.”

  Four hundred dollars? Business must be wonderful-gute.

  His smile faded slightly. “We’ll have to wait until the season winds down to try it out. Things at the store are busier than ever.”

  “I’m glad,” Lily said.

  “It means I might have enough money to buy the piece of ground right next to my dat’s house. I can build my own house soon.”

  Lily pretended not to understand what it meant if Paul built his own house. He had been dropping subtle hints about settling down and what they would do when they were married ever since they’d turned eighteen. It got harder and harder to avoid the conversation she knew Paul wanted to have.

  She supposed it was inevitable, her and Paul. After all, they had been friends since eighth grade, and she owed him a great debt of gratitude. She simply wasn’t ready to marry yet. Her family needed her. The beehives needed her. The books needed her.

  “Since business is so gute, I hope you’ll buy our honey again this year,” Lily said.

  Paul scrunched his lips into a frown. “I already promised, Lily. No matter how bad things get for us, we will always buy your honey. Only for you, because you and I are so close.”

  She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Paul had always been a faithful friend. He wouldn’t let her down. Her family needed that money from honey sales, and Paul’s family had always been so kind to buy every bit Lily’s hives produced, in good years and bad. “Denki,” she said.

  A shadow seemed to pass across his features. “But I have some bad news. We’re not going to be able to pay you as much as we did last year. Dat is saving up for a new freezer and we have to cut back. We can only pay you a dollar a pint.”

  “A dollar a pint? But that’s almost fifty cents less than last year.”

  “I’m really sorry, Lily. That’s the best I can do. The good news is that we will probably be able to sell most of it.”

  The good news didn’t cheer Lily at all. She had figured their income from the price they got last year. She did some quick numbers in her head. If they got a good amount of honey in the first extraction, it would probably be enough to fill the liquid propane tank for another couple of months.

  What would Aunt B say? She’d always had such confidence in Lily’s ability to manage the family’s finances—confidence that Lily feared was misplaced. Aunt B might change her mind about letting Lily do the books from now on. It seemed they were getting deeper in the hole when Lily should have made them rich by now, or at least comfortable enough not to have to always be squeezing every penny.

  No roll for her today. Maybe she could get by with a pat of butter.

  They turned at the corner where the Yutzy family ran a small fruit and vegetable stand. This early in the season, they sold doughnuts and produce from out of town. Hannah Yutzy, her sister Mary, and their brother James were frying a fresh batch of doughnuts on their portable propane stove.

  “Lily!” Hannah shrieked.

  “Lily!” Mary repeated.

  Hannah was a tall, mousy brunette who only knew how to speak at two volumes—loud and ear-piercing. Mary, short and compact, was as enthusiastic as Hannah and even more giggly.

  Paul shoved his hands into his pockets, turned his back, and sauntered a few feet away as if he had no interest in the conversation or the Yutzy girls. Their small fruit and vegetable business competed with his family’s market. He tended to be protective where his family’s profits were concerned.

  Lily stepped inside their little enclosure and gave both Hannah and Mary a hug. James looked up from his pot of doughnuts and grinned. Lily smiled back. Was he blushing?

  “Ach du lieva, Lily,” Hannah exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you for ages. Ages.”

  The sisters’ enthusiasm always made Lily smile. “I missed you at the gathering at Miller’s.”

  Mary nodded. “On account of we was in Mexico getting my mamm’s goiter cut out.”

  Hannah propped her hands on Lily’s shoulders. “I love that green dress. It makes your eyes so bright.”

  She turned Lily toward Mary. “Don’t you think, Mary?”

  “Jah. Bright and green, like a Granny Smith apple. I haven’t seen you wear your glasses for ages. Just ages. Are your contacts broken?”

  Lily glanced at Paul who wasn’t paying the least bit of attention. “I like to wear my glasses sometimes.”

  Hannah sighed loudly. “It doesn’t matter. You’re so pretty, with or without.”

  Lily fixed her eyes in the direction opposite of Paul, not even daring a look his way. He disliked such talk. “How is your mamm since
the surgery?”

  Mary flicked her wrist in Lily’s direction. “She’s fine. She sits in her easy chair and orders me and Hannah around all day. She’s happiest when she’s bossing other people.”

  Lily raised an eyebrow at Hannah. “And how is Max?”

  The sisters exploded into a fit of giggles that made Lily want to join in.

  “Don’t even ask,” Hannah said, obviously eager to tell. “Diana Bieler told me that her cousin saw him kissing an Englisch girl. I forgave him, and we were back together for a week when I caught him kissing Diana at Walmart.” Hannah didn’t seem too broken up about it. She almost couldn’t talk through the giggling.

  Mary leaned her head closer and lowered her voice so that no one outside of a three-hundred-foot radius would have been able to hear it. “Hannah told Max that her lips would never touch his again, on account of she didn’t want Diana Bieler’s germs.” The giggling intensified. “You should have seen his face.”

  “And here’s the part where you come in, Lily.”

  “Me?”

  “Jah,” Mary said. “Diana gave Max her cold sore and he told Hannah that he’d been stung by one of the Honeybee Schwesters’ bees.”

  Lily widened her eyes. “He blamed my bees?”

  Mary nodded, her eyes bright with amusement. “Of all things.”

  So much mirth floated around that Lily couldn’t help but join in. “That’s it. Max is never getting one of my honey cookies ever again.”

  Hannah nodded. “That’ll show him. He loves your honey cookies.”

  Mary grabbed Lily’s hand. “We’re having a quilting frolic two weeks from next Monday.”

  “Nae, Mary,” said Hannah. “Three weeks from last Monday.”

  “Same thing,” Mary insisted. “Two weeks from next Monday. You’re invited, Lily. I know it’s laundry day, but will you come?”

  “Can I bring my sisters?”

  Hannah nodded. “And your aunt Bitsy. She makes the tiniest stitches I’ve ever seen. I don’t care what Eva Schrock says. Bitsy is as gute as any Amish frau.”

  Hannah had meant it to be a compliment, but the significance behind her words pricked Lily’s heart. Many people in the community saw Aunt B as an outsider. They were suspicious of her colorful hair and temporary tattoos and her fondness for having conversations with Gotte in public places. Aunt B had lived in the Englisch world for twenty years before coming back to the church. All those years immersed in wickedness made the gossips in the district nervous.