Free Big Decisions by Linda Byler

there.
    Finally, at the bottom of a sloping hill, “Bigler Road” appeared on a flat green road sign, and Lizzie tugged slightly on the left rein. Only a mile anymore, and she would top the familiar little rise before the road sloped down to Mandy and John’s farm.
    A small, red-brick house was situated under towering maple trees with two barns behind it. John had built the new round-roofed dairy barn next to the old structure, but both were painted red, so the new one looked as if it had always been there, really. There was an implement shed on the left, opposite the house, and various corncribs and other outbuildings here and there.
    Lizzie looked appreciatively at Mandy’s neatly mown grass and the growth of new petunias arranged neatly around the flower beds. Mandy was a good little worker, she surely was, Lizzie noted happily. That was all the time she had to think anything, because the door of the brick house was flung open and skinny little Mandy appeared, her smile stretched across her face as far as it could go.
    “Lizzie!” she yelled in a tone of voice that conveyed gladness and disbelief at the same time.
    Lizzie leaned forward as far as she could, as if that would get her there sooner.
    “Surprised you, didn’t I?” she called, savoring this moment she had been waiting for.
    Bess stopped, and Lizzie hopped out of the buggy as Mandy ran to meet her.
    “Oh, Lizzie, I’m so-o-o glad to see you. I didn’t have real homesickness—not really. I just wished so much one of you would come see me today or tomorrow, because I’m not really busy this week.”
    Mandy helped her unhitch Bess, chattering happily as they led her to the water trough for a long drink. Barn swallows swooped and chirped about the forebay, as Lizzie looked around at the almost, but not quite, finished barn.
    “John still busy?” she inquired.
    Mandy was tying Bess in a new box stall, but Lizzie could hear her sigh as she said, “I mean it, Lizzie, he works all the time, constantly, steadily, except to eat his meals.”
    Together they walked back to the house, and Lizzie admired her neat lawn.
    “Of course, you know it was you and me that kept our yard looking nice, so what would you expect?” Mandy said, batting her long, thick eyelashes.
    Lizzie slapped her arm playfully.
    “ Gros-feelich , are we?” she laughed.
    “Just a little.”
    After touring Mandy’s house, which was small, but filled with new furniture and pretty accessories, Lizzie pronounced it the cutest, homiest farmhouse she had ever seen.
    “Do you like it?” Mandy asked, clasping her hands together eagerly.
    “Oh, I love it, Mandy. It’s so cute, it’s almost like a little doll house.”
    “We’re going to need an addition built on if we have children, though.”
    They settled on Mandy’s new sofa facing each other, Mandy with her blue dress smoothed over her pulled-up knees, as she always sat. Her thick, heavy brown hair was smoothed back tightly, like married women wore their hair, which only accentuated her large, heavy-lashed green eyes. Lizzie thought she looked better than ever, with a rosy glow on her cheeks, a picture of health and contentment.
    “You look so nice, Mandy. Almost beautiful. Marriage becomes you, I suppose. Are you as happy as you look? Like Emma?”
    Mandy smiled genuinely. “Of course, Lizzie. There you go again, asking me a million questions in that worried, eyebrow-tilted expression of yours.”
    “Well, see, I guarantee you that things can’t be absolutely perfect after you get married. How can you move away from Mam and Dat and Jase and never get homesick, never wish you weren’t married? Mam told us over and over, there’s more to marriage than a happily-ever-after story. And here are you and Emma, acting as if it’s the greatest thing that ever happened to you, living on your farms!”
    Mandy laughed long and heartily. “What a pessimist!”
    “I’m not!”
    “Yes, you are !”
    Lizzie shrugged and then sat