Huckleberry Harvest Read Online Free PDF Page B

she would have been content with a nice pot of boiling water just to break up the monotony. Last Friday, the new stove had arrived half an hour after Noah and the other boys had hauled the old one out of the house, but Noah had taken one look at it and insisted the deliverymen put it back on the truck. Dawdi had ordered a stove that couldn’t be converted to run on liquid propane gas, so another one had to be ordered. No one in the Amish community would have allowed a delivery on the Sabbath, and today was Labor Day, so the stove would supposedly be delivered tomorrow after a very long weekend of cold cereal for every breakfast, bread and cheese at every supper, and tuna salad with pickles for dinner.
    After milking and other chores, Mandy borrowed Dawdi’s buggy and made a beeline for Kristina’s house. Surely Kristina had a working stove and food in her fridge. Mandy thought she might die for a warm cup of cocoa with marshmallows floating on top or even a piece of slightly warm toast.
    Hopefully Kristina would offer to feed her something. Anything. Especially if it hovered above the temperature of lukewarm milk.
    Noah had stayed after the other boys had left, patching the hole in the roof where the stovepipe had been. Mandy’s tongue had gone dry when she had overheard Dawdi asking Noah to reshingle the entire roof once he had installed the new stove. She was only going to be on Huckleberry Hill for a month. Would she have to endure Noah’s presence for the entire visit?
    At least he wouldn’t be in the house making a pest of himself. She could easily ignore him altogether even if he clomped around on the roof all day. At least she wouldn’t have to endure the painful silences that prevailed when he was in the same room with her.
    Mandy turned the horse down the road to Kristina’s house. She planned on spending the entire day with Kristina, offering her comfort and talking her out of ever trying to get back with Noah. Kristina and Mandy had grown up together in Charm and had been best friends for as long as Mandy could remember. Kristina’s dat had bought a piece of land at a gute price and moved his family to Bonduel last year. Mandy had cried so hard when she said good-bye that her eyes had stung for days afterward. She and Kristina wrote every week and told each other the secrets they never shared with anyone else.
    Mandy loved Kristina, even if she was a bit melodramatic at times. To Kristina, life was either absolutely, gloriously marvelous or dismally, depressingly horrible, with no emotions existing between the two extremes. Dat said Kristina was needy. Mandy was just happy to be needed.
    As she got closer to Kristina’s house, Mandy spied her friend ambling down the road barefoot with a sunflower dangling from her fingers. Mandy reined in the horse as she reached Kristina’s side. Kristina paused and slumped her shoulders.
    “What are you doing?” Mandy said.
    Kristina sighed mournfully. “Just taking a stroll and thinking about the boy I love.”
    “Really, Krissy. You’ve got to stop. He’s not worth the aggravation.”
    Kristina slid open the door, jumped inside the buggy, and pulled her phone from her apron pocket. “He won’t answer my texts. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
    “How do you even get service out here?”
    “They just put in a new cell phone tower in February. Almost everybody gets service now.” She punched a few buttons on her phone before her demeanor altered almost immediately and she acted as if she’d just been invited to a surprise birthday party. “Oh, Mandy. I’m so glad you’ve come. We’ve got to get to Coblentz’s pasture immediately.” She shut the door and tapped impatiently on the dashboard. “Hurry. I don’t want to miss him.”
    Mandy didn’t even so much as jiggle the reins. “What is going on?”
    Kristina was so eager, she seemed to bounce like a ball. “Noah. I found out he’s helping Jethro Coblentz fix his corn picker. If we hurry, we can