Pennsylvania-Dutch - Too Many Crooks Spoil The Broth Part 2

"Mags, I only want a hot shower before I hit the hay. Can you tape-record the lecture so I can play it back later?"

I tried not to let my irritation show. "You better shower and hit the hay in my room. Room 5 has been rented."

Susannah said a word that I refuse to repeat, and started toward the back, but I stopped her. "You need to clear your things out of Room 5 first. And give it a quick going over." I was being kind. I should have told her to bulldoze the room and then torch it.

Susannah started to protest, but her whining was eclipsed by the sounds emanating from her purse.

"What in the world is that?" I asked.

"Oh, Shnook.u.ms," she wailed, "Mommy is so sorry!" Apparently there wasn't room in her pocketbook for both her still-lit cigarette and that bizarre excuse for a dog I told you about. Susannah fled in search of water, leaving a faint trail of smoke.

I smiled bravely at Billy Dee. "Good help is hard to find these days."

He laughed, a good knee-slapping laugh. "I think I'm gonna enjoy my stay here, Miss Yoder."

I hope I didn't blush. "Magdalena, if you like. But let's get down to business, shall we? First of all, vegan, lacto, or ova?"

"Carne."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Meat-eater." He thumped his chest. "That's me. Good old-fashioned consumer of flesh. But I see the others have all checked in."

"The others? You know them?"

"Let's see. A tall, skinny dude, late twenties, eyes like a deer. Nice-enough guy, though."

"That'd be Mr. Teitlebaum."

"Yeah, the Jew from Philadelphia. Now the other two. One's young, kinda mousy. The other, well, how does anyone describe Big Red kindly?"

"That's them," I agreed enthusiastically, but I refrained from mentioning their names. I had over-stepped my bounds by identifying Joel Teitlebaum. My job is to check people in and out, not to play twenty questions with my guests. "You know these people?"

We're all A.P .E.S." 'What was that?"

We're all card-carrying members of the Animal Parity Endowment Society."

"I tend to vote Republican myself." That's not really true. I vote all over the board, but it seemed like the right thing to say to even the score.

He chuckled. 'What I mean is that we all belong to an organization that concerns itself with the rights of animals."

What kind of animals?" Dogs like Susannah's have no rights.

Well," he drawled, "in this case, deer."

I undoubtedly stared at him. I was in shock. Finally, after a few tries, I found my voice. "You're kidding!

You mean you're not here to hunt deer?" I fumbled around in my files. Sure enough, Billy Dee and all the others he'd just mentioned had stated on their applications that they wanted to be here for the opening of deer season. "But it says "

"Does it say why we want to be here?"

"You've got to be kidding," I said again. I was in no mood for jokes, but this had better be one just the same.

His face now lacked joviality, which made him look even more like a redneck, although he was acting less like one. "No, ma'am, I'm deadly serious. We're here to stop the deer hunt."

I was having trouble believing what I was hearing. Whose deer hunt? Those are state game lands out there. Tomorrow morning they'll be swarming with hunters. You can't possibly stop them all."

Billy Dee rubbed his hands together briskly. "Ma'am, we don't intend to stop them all. Just the Congressman and his party."

I started to feel light-headed. What with Susannah and Freni to deal with on a daily basis, I had all the conflict I cared to handle. I was also feeling duped, an emotion which in me inevitably leads to anger. I clutched the edge of the counter with both hands, closed my eyes, and slowly counted to ten. First in English, then in German. Then I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

Billy Dee Grizzle was still there. To his credit, he looked concerned. "You all right, ma'am?"

"I'm as fine as frog hair," I snapped. "You, Mr. Grizzle, seem like a fair-enough guy. Why couldn't you have been upfront?" Of course I knew the answer, but what difference does that make?

Billy Dee might have been just a little embarra.s.sed to defend his reprehensible actions, because he looked away when he answered. "Ma'am, sometimes the end does justify the means."

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through my nose. Living with Susannah had taught me how to control hyperventilation. To a point. "Not if the end involves my ruination, it doesn't."

He looked back at me. If Billy Dee's green eyes were the window to his soul, he had a far kinder soul than he let on. "Ma'am, we won't be doing any of our protesting at your place. I can promise you that. It's gotta be done out where the action is. We can't protest what they're about to do, or have already done. We gotta protest them actually doing it. Otherwise it don't count."

"That's a relief," I said with perhaps a trace of sarcasm. "I suppose that after you protest you'll all gather back here for an evening of parlor games?"

Billy Dee flashed another one of his big, white-toothed smiles. "Sounds like fun, ma'am. Especially if you'd care to join us. Seriously, ma'am, we won't be causing you no trouble. I'll keep an eye on things myself."

"The only trouble, Mr. Grizzle, is that there is someone else trying to keep an eye on things around here. An interested third party, you might say. A reporter."

Billy Dee's smile seemed to shrink just a little. "A reporter? Are you sure? For which paper?"

"Does it really matter?" I asked, suddenly feeling very weary. When even one reporter latches on to something, it's like inviting the whole world in for tea. Of course, this had been beneficial to me when that one reporter wrote that rave review of the inn. But I could well imagine what could happen if Miss Brown got caught up in the middle of the fracas that seemed inevitable between these two factions.

Of course It matters, ma am, said Billy Dee emphatically. "I know a lot of reporters, and maybe I'll be ,.", able to talk some sense into this one. You know, a little man-to-man talk." He either winked or had an erratic tic.

"I doubt whether Miss Brown is a candidate for a man-to-man talk."

"Miss Brown? Which paper did you say she was with?"

"I didn't. I mean, I'm not exactly sure." Already I'd done too much blabbing about one of the guests. If Susannah had done that, I'd be furious.

Well, don't you worry none anyhow, ma'am," said Billy Dee kindly. "Like I said, I'll keep an eye on things and see that they don't get outta hand."

I put Miss Brown out of my mind and took Billy Dee's word, and his credit card, and then showed him to his room. Despite the fact that he was a little rough around the edges, he was really a very pleasant man. Although he laughed a lot, he was always polite, which of course goes a long way to making up for such frivolous behavior. But don't get me wrong. I was not interested in Billy Dee as a man. I'm sure he wasn't even a Mennonite. Besides which, I really don't have time for such considerations, not with the inn to run, and Susannah to look out for. Those days are comfortably behind me.

After I dropped Billy Dee off at his room, I stopped by the kitchen to see how Freni was doing. "How's dinner coming along?" I asked cheerfully.

Freni was busy greasing loaf pans for the bread she was making, but she took time out of her busy schedule to glare at me. "I put dill seed in the bread dough. Does that make it whole grain or vegetable?"

I ignored her logic. "Another meat-eater just checked in," I said encouragingly.

"So, what's the score now?"

"Meat-eaters four, veggies three."

"And I grated some cheese into the dumpling batter, so you've got another fruit now," she said matter-of-factly. Clearly the woman was trying to be helpful.

"Where's Mose?" I asked. Usually at this time of day he could be found in the kitchen giving his wife a hand.

Milking.

"Still?" With just two cows now, the afternoon milking should have been done over an hour ago.

"Freni slathered grease into another loaf pan. "He's not doing the milking. One of the guests is.

"Which one?"

Freni shrugged. "All the English look alike to me." To Freni and Mose, anyone not Amish, or distinctly Mennonite, was an outsider, an "English" person. Even Susannah was English, now that she wore makeup and sleeveless dresses.

"Is the guest male or female?"

Freni gave me a look that, if harnessed, could have shriveled a bushel of apricots on a rainy day. "This is my Mose we are talking about, Magdalena. You watch your tongue. The guest was a very tall man. Skinny, like a clothesline pole."

Ah, Joel Teitlebaum."

"A nice man," she added with surprising generosity. Just then I noticed that the shortening Freni was using to grease the loaf pans was not vegetable shortening but lard she had rendered herself. "That's not vegetable!" I cried.

"It isn't meat," she retorted.

"But it comes from a pig!" Vegetarianism and cholesterol issues aside, I doubted Mr. Teitlebaum would have been thrilled if he knew its source.

"Grease is grease," said Freni stubbornly. "What matters is that the bread doesn't stick."

"What matters," I said tersely, "is that we are honest with our guests. Not to mention with ourselves."

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

Would you like to do the cooking yourself?" Freni always asked me that question three seconds before she threatened to quit.

"You're a superb cook!" I said and fled from the room with one second to go.

If I had been thinking clearly, not rattled by the conflux of hunters and A.P.E.S., I would have dashed into Hernia and picked up some fresh vegetables at the supermarket. Then I would have made a huge salad and everyone would have been satisfied. The English love their iceberg lettuce. It seems almost to have a pacifying effect on them.

Personally, I'm not much on eating raw green leaves. The fact that you have to put stuff on it in order to make it palatable seems absurd to me. Why not just down the stuff straight from the bottle and leave the leaves to the rabbits! But this is only my opinion. And if I had been less opinionated, and more accommodating, there might not have been a corpse clutching Mama's dresden plate quilt.

4.

The new dining room occupies the entire bottom portion of the new wing. It is actually much more than a dining room. In one comer there is a half-finished quilt stretched across a st.u.r.dy oak frame. Guests are invited to try their hand applying a few neat st.i.tches. Of course, if their needlework is lousy, Freni or I will rip out the st.i.tches within moments of their checking out. I do, after all, sell the quilts in some of the trendiest gift shops along the East Coast.

If quilting's not their thing, guests can always try spinning or weaving in the other back comer of the vast room. Neither Freni nor I knows anything about either of these two pursuits, although some of the guests appear to be rather proficient at it. One two-week guest spun and wove a very attractive scarf, which I in turn sold for fifty dollars at our own little gift shop by the front desk.

I must admit there isn't much for men to do in the way of indoor activities, so. I always suggest they shuck com. For that purpose I keep a bushel basket of ta.s.seled com beside each of the armchairs that ring the back fireplace. Except for the odd ear, the men never shuck any. It seems that they much prefer to nap after Freni's meals, than engage in any kind of activity. Any kind. Or so their wives sometimes confide to me.

We do, of course, actually eat in the dining room. The single, solid oak table that stretches almost two thirds of the length of the room is the same table we used when Susannah and I were growing up. It was built by my great-grandfather Jacob "The Strong" Yoder from a tree that occupied the site of the original farmhouse. This table can seat twenty people comfortably, twenty-six in a pinch. Incidentally, Jacob "The Strong" and his wife, Magdalena, had sixteen children and forty-seven grandchildren.

But enough of my family history. My point is that all the guests eat at the same table. I sit at my rightful place at the head of the table, which just happens to be the end nearest the kitchen door, and Susannah takes her rightful place at the foot. If she happens to be home.

Freni and Mose do not eat with us. Even if Freni could countenance supping with the English, her sensitivities would never allow her to watch them eat her food. Or not eat it, as the case may be. Freni and Mose live in what is called a "grandparents house" on their youngest son's farm, which is really only a stone's throw from here if you take the shortcut. They eat a late supper there. Although I am tempted to digress further and tell you a little about their rather strange relationship with this son, it really isn't your business, is it? Or mine, for that matter.

At any rate, it seems to work out fairly well, having the guests eating together at the same table at the same time. n.o.body ever feels lonely, although a few people have complained about feeling snubbed. But then, you can't have everything, can you?

Of course, I'm the one who determines the seating arrangement. It wouldn't do for perfect strangers to plop themselves down just anywhere. I at least know a little bit about each one, and try to maximize compatibility. So just ignore Susannah's complaints.

Speaking of which, Susannah is supposed to help me set the table, but I usually end up doing it all myself. I keep it simple. I don't use tablecloths. It's not that I'm theologically opposed to tablecloths, but you wouldn't believe the way some of our guests eat! Money does not equate with manners. If I used tablecloths I'd have to spend most of my time doing laundry, which is no way to run a business. Besides, not only does the bare, plank table seem authentically Amish, but the splinters it imparts go a long way to keeping elbows off the table.

Of course we use dishes. I will admit, however, that I am a little tight-fisted when it comes to sh.e.l.ling out for crockery. What is the point of using bone china when the guests are expecting to eat off hand-thrown clay pottery? Believe me, the ironstone I originally picked up at the Woolworth's in Somerset, and have been supplementing from garage sales ever since, works just fine.

And is it my fault if people a.s.sume that I, or one of many relations, made the stuff? I was not trying to be devious when I put tape over the manufacturer's name on the back. I merely needed someplace to write "Property of the PennDutch Inn."

Guests never quite know what to expect when it comes to their first meal at the inn; still, I do my best not to disappoint them. Atmosphere is what they're paying for, and atmosphere is what I give them. If I had my way, I'd begin each meal with everyone holding hands and bowing their heads for a prayer. After meals I would read the Bible to them, in German of course, and we'd sing a few ancient Swiss hymns. But not even Susannah would sit still for that.

Instead, I have to content myself with hostessing stuff. I greet each of the guests as they officially enter the dining room for the first time and take them to their seat. Normally I would speak to them in my fake German accent, which is frankly quite charming.

But on this particular day, the one just prior to deer-hunting season, I was in a quandary. Thanks to the rude Congressman, Garrett Ream, and the huffy Ms. Parker, my guests all knew my accent was a fake. The question now was whether or not I should resume this quaint affectation, or talk like the English. Reluctantly I decided to abandon my cultural heritage. Susannah, I knew, would be relieved.

"Good evening," I said pleasantly to Mrs. Ream, who was the first person to enter the dining room. People of her breeding are precise about time. "Allow me to show you to your seat."

Lydia Ream smiled her appreciation and followed obediently. "The Congressman and Mr. James will be down shortly. They're taking a call."

I seated Lydia to my immediate left. I had every reason to trust her table manners and I wanted to get a better look at her dress. I have never had to inst.i.tute a dress code at the Inn, because people of this ilk generally conform to acceptable standards. However, seldom do they dress as sw.a.n.k and spiffy as Lydia Johns Ream.

I guess you would call it a ball gown. It was floor-length, made of some kind of taffeta, and in front it was cut low enough to cause a chest cold. It was also bright red, a color our mother had always forbidden Susannah and me to wear for modesty's sake. Mrs. Ream was also wearing jewelry. Real jewelry. Diamonds and rubies and things.

"You look very nice," I said. I meant it.

"Thank you. I hope I haven't overdressed."

Thankfully, just then Ms. Parker strode into the room followed by her young protegee, Linda McMahon. I scurried to meet them, but before I could intercept them they had settled themselves at the far end of the table. Linda had seated herself on the far end, opposite Lydia's side, and Jeanette was seated at the very end, right in Susannah's chair.

"Good evening," I said perfunctorily, and then cut right to the chase. "This end seat is reserved."

"There is no card or sign to indicate that." Jeanette Parker did not display the slightest intention of moving.