Just Plain Pickled to Death by Tamar Myers Page A

the hymnbook further away than your arm can reach, your body is telling you something.
    I made a dignified retreat and retraced my steps across the pasture. At least I thought I had.
    “Ach, du heimer,” Freni gasped when I walked in the back door. “What is that smell?”
    I glanced down to see that one of my steps had been ill-placed.

Chapter Eight
    “How did lunch go over?” I asked Freni.
    “Ach, that Leah! Just like a Troyer to want mustard on a tongue sandwich.”
    “She was born a Miller,” I reminded her. “And what’s wrong with mustard?”
    “On fruit?” she asked incredulously.
    I fled the kitchen before she could tell me her rationale.
    Three of the aunties were still in the dining room. However, they weren’t eating—they were quilting. I keep a quilt-in-progress stretched out on a frame in one corner of the room and allow my guests to try their hand at the craft. Actually, I encourage them to do so. Amish and Mennonite quilts, even poorly made ones, are very popular with tourists. As long as machines rule the world, “handmade” items will continue to fetch a premium.
    “Everything all right?” I asked graciously.
    Auntie Veronica’s nose rose and twitched a few times.
    “You tell us,” Auntie Leah boomed.
    “I left my shoes on the back porch,” I said quickly. “And that’s not what I was talking about.”
    I caught Veronica stealing a glance at her own tiny tootsies. “Well, if you were asking about our rooms,” she said, “I’d have to say no.”
    “Sorry, dear, but you’re not getting mine. We’ve already been over that,” I said for the benefit of the other two.
    “You see what I mean?” she said to her sisters. She turned to me. “There has been no maid service yet today, Magdalena. Are you going to make poor little Aaron change my sheets again?”
    I smiled patiently. “Of course not, dear. For the next week we’re all on the ALPO plan. You get to do your own room. And cheer up. Usually I charge extra for that, but on account of you’re family, this time I won’t.”
    Veronica did not beam with gratitude. “I would have stayed in a hotel, you know, but Van Doren’s Guide to Gracious Living doesn’t list a five-star establishment for Bedford County.”
    “Well!” I said. What else could I say? Robert Van Doren had not been amused by the ALPO plan, and when I shut off the hot water in the middle of one of his twenty-minute showers, he was possibly even irritated.
    “I would have stayed in any hotel,” Leah barked, “except that the Bottomless Pit has drained me dry again.”
    “The Bottomless Pit?” I asked politely.
    Six pairs of eyes narrowed. “Family business,” Veronica hissed.
    I started to leave.
    “Kissed a bitch,” my namesake whimpered.
    I ran that through my brain until it came out “missed a stitch.” Then I generously showed her how to rectify the problem, complimented them all, and set off in search of Auntie Lizzie, the sane one.
    She wasn’t in the parlor, but all four uncles were. They were sprawled out and snoring like overslopped hogs—except that hogs don’t wear suits and ties eighteen hours a day. It surprised me to see Elias among them. I hadn’t dawdled much on the way home, and the pasture route is a lot shorter than using the lane. Still, he appeared not only to have beaten me back but to have fallen into a deep sleep as well. No doubt it had something to do with the water back in St. Louis.
    I silently retraced my steps, and was just reaching for the doorknob when I felt something brush against my skirt. Actually—and it pains me to say this—it felt like something pinched me on my left buttock. I glanced behind me, and while it may have been only my imagination, it appeared to me that Uncle Rudy’s left arm was not where it had been a moment before. He, however, was still snoring as loudly, if not louder, than the others.
    “Do that again, buster, and you’ll have to use your toes to help you count,” I whispered.