Mennonites Don't Dance Read Online Free PDF

much of a help yet, but Hazel sometimes let her press the sewing machine pedal from under the table while Hazel guided the fabric under the racing needle.
    This year the two of them were making new curtains, all in some shade of blue, for every room in the house. Hazel preferred pale, solid colours that let light in, rather than the heavy drapes Jonah’s mother favoured, or the traditional farmsy patterns often used by the local wives. Something Jonah discovered last year when he brought home a length of blue gingham from a yard sale. Hazel laughed, a sound that was light and watery, and said she’d use it to make tablecloths.
    â€œI love you for trying,” she’d said.
    â€œThen just wait a minute to see what else I have.” Jonah went back out to his truck and carried in a new sewing machine — the woman who sold him the gingham had decided she preferred her old manual Singer, a heavy black model that had to be pumped into action. She gave him a good price on the new one, but he would gladly have gone back and paid her twice when he saw the look on Hazel’s face.
    â€œWhat am I going to do with the old one?” she said, already making room on her sewing table for the new machine.
    â€œI’ll use it,” Jonah announced, pleased with himself.
    â€œYou?” Hazel crossed her arms loosely and laughed, a sound that made Jonah think of sun showers. “You’ve never made a stitch your whole life, let alone a straight row of them.”
    â€œI can learn to mend my own overalls, and you can save the good machine for your fancy material. Really, if I can drive a combine, I think I can do this.”
    The next day though, when he tried to make sense of the machine, he misthreaded the bobbin and forgot to lock down the presser foot. He stepped on the pedal as though he was starting a truck engine. When Hazel and Katie ran out into the porch to see why he had yelped, Jonah tried to keep them from seeing the mass of black thread that looked like a patch of crabgrass sewn into the seat of his pants. They all laughed until their sides hurt. Afterwards, they drove into Swift Current for ice cream. Katie’s favourite was pistachio. She liked that it was green.
    It had been weeks since Jonah first noticed the quietness in his ear. For the most part, he learned to compensate. So when the phone rang in their kitchen, he put it to his good ear and heard his mother’s voice.
    â€œCome over, will you,” she said. It wasn’t a question, and she hung up as soon as she said it.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with your hearing?” Jonah’s mother took one look at him on the back doorstep and asked this, before he could even say hello.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Jonah said, feeling suddenly exposed.
    â€œI’ve seen enough old people come towards me with just one ear or the other to know when they’ve gone deaf.”
    â€œIt’s nothing. Just some water from the shower.”
    â€œIf you say so.” She didn’t seem convinced but was unwilling to pursue the matter. “I heard Hazel’s up there making herself some new curtains, eh?”
    â€œBlue,” he said, unable to think of something more interesting. He looked around, taking in the perpetual sameness of his parents’ house. Even though his mother had recently changed her own curtains, they weren’t much different from the heavy yellow panels he’d known his whole life.
    The new curtains were from the house of an old farmer who had lately died. Jonah’s mother considered them her due for being enlisted, along with a few other church ladies, to help with the cleaning.
    â€œWell, here, then. I owe her for the Saskatoons she picked for me last summer. I have no use for fruit, but I won’t have her thinking I forgot the favour.” She went into the pantry and with the inside of her foot shoved a box across the kitchen floor. The cardboard was waxy and its