“Say your last prayers,” Tiny said mercilessly.

“See you in Heaven, Yoder,” Melvin said, and then slipped around on my left and loped across the lawn.

30

1 tablespoon fresh or dried lavender flowers

⅔ cup granulated sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

⅛ teaspoon salt

Sanding sugar (natural, white or colored) for decorating

In a small food processor (or with a mortar and pestle), grind lavender flowers with the granulated sugar.

Combine the butter and lavender-sugar in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer or wooden spoon, cream together until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Add flour and salt and blend until combined taking care not to overmix (dough should be soft but not sticky). Separate dough into two balls and wrap in plastic, flattening each into a flat disc and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours or overnight. (The dough can also be frozen for months and baked in batches by bringing it to temperature in the refrigerator overnight.)

Preheat oven to 325°F and line baking sheets with parchment paper or leave them ungreased.

Remove only one disc at a time from the refrigerator, and roll dough on a lightly floured surface with a floured rolling pin to approximately ¼ inch thick. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters and place on prepared baking sheets. Decorate with sanding sugar and/or lightly press a lavender sprig or leaf into the cookie and top. (To keep intricate shapes intact, refrigerate baking sheet with shaped cookies for 10 minutes before baking).

Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to lightly brown around the edges. Carefully remove and cool on wire racks. Repeat with remaining dough.

Courtesy http://www.eatwisconsincheese.com/

31

“Don’t I get a last meal?” I said. “I want Swiss steak, mashed potatoes, baby peas with onions-frozen, not canned-pickled beet salad, hot yeast rolls with real butter and strawberry jam-Hey, aren’t you going to tell me to shut up?” My plan wasn’t going to work without getting her temper up to its boiling point.

“I want to hear what you’d have for dessert-if I were to feed you your last meal.”

“That depends; are you a good cook?”

“This is theoretical, Miss Yoder. Now tell me.”

“No can do, dear. For something as important as the last part of my last meal, I need to deal in facts. Can you cook?”

“No! But I can get something from the bakery, ding dang it!”

“I’ll thank you not to swear in front of me, Tiny-although in this case, it is behind me. Which is exactly where I tell the Devil to go stand whenever he tries to tempt me. Tell me, Tiny, do you see the Prince of Darkness back there?”

“Hunh?”

“Don’t worry; you will soon enough. Would it be a Mennonite bakery, or one owned by someone from another denomination?”

“What difference does that make?”

“In all modesty, Mennonites excel when it comes to cooking. Eating too. If you want the very best, go to a Mennonite bakery-but you probably won’t find a devil’s food cake there. Ha-ha.”

“Very funny-not! And now you’re babbling. Just shut up, Miss Yoder, or I’ll shoot. I swear that I will.”

“Well, that is your intention, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she hissed. Good, she was getting up a proper head of steam, of the kind that made her less likely to see straight, much less shoot straight.

“Say, Tiny, I’ve been thinking: if you shoot me at this close range, it’s going to be really, really messy. Brains and blood everywhere.”

“That’s okay; I’m washable.”

“No doubt that you are, but did Melvin tell you that bleached blond hair absorbs blood like a sponge, and that unless you do something to protect those beautiful locks of yours, you’ll be carting my scarlet DNA around in your ponytail until you snip it off, or it grows out. In fact, you’re going to have to shave your head starting in about five minutes if you don’t want my murder to be traced back to you. You see, the hypoglucimides in the hemoglobin travel right up the bleach- stripped hair shafts and into the facaelumgaefolicum of the aqualuminatorus resulting in the condition known as Pincus scalptorium. In layman’s terms it’s called pink scalp.”

“Why, that rat,” she said, hissing again, despite the dearth of “S”s.

“Indeedymouse.” I think it’s important to point out that lying to save one’s life is a whole lot different from lying just for the sake of lying; it certainly isn’t as much fun. Besides, I really can’t be faulted for the fact that Tiny was so gullible.

Or was she? “Where did you learn all that medical terminology, Miss Yoder?”

“I’ve donated extensively to the Bedford County Memorial Hospital,” I said. At least that part was true.

She thought a moment, and all the while the gun barrel never left its soft nest behind my ear. “Well, if you think-even for an instant-that I’m going to go after Melvin now, instead of you, you’ve got another think coming.”

What was it about that man that gave him so much power over women? Allow me to amend that: some women?

“Very well,” I said. “Suit yourself. I’m sure, what with your moderately good looks, you’ll have no trouble making friends in prison.”

“Well, I’m not going to prison, so there! You’re going to help me protect my hair.”

“And then you’ll kill me? That hardly seems fair!”

“You do a lot of whining, Miss Yoder. It’s no wonder your cousin doesn’t like you.”

“Why, that is an absolutely true, but unnecessary, thing for you to say! But, since I’m at your mercy, what choice do I have, but to protect those bleached blond locks of yours?”

“Miss Yoder! That’s the second time you’ve referred to my hair as ‘bleached blond.’ How dare you be so presumptuous?”

“Hey, if it looks like a dead woodchuck-I mean, what are the chances it’s not, right?”

“Grrr!”

I reckoned that was the precise moment that Tiny was at the zenith of her tizzy. Keeping my hands straight down to my sides, I leaned back, slowly and stiffly, a veritable sinking tower of Yoder -and I mean sinking, not stinking. The farther back I went, the more I felt the tip of the pistol barrel move in relation to my ear. First it seemed to be caught in the soft spot, and then it slid over the hump to graze along my temple.

There are only so many degrees a body can lean without falling altogether, but it wasn’t until I came close to reaching the critical point that Tiny seemed to notice what was going on. “Hey,” she yelled. “What the-”

“Timber!” I cried, and took her down with me as I plummeted backward.

As for what happened next, I owe it all to my parents, who were dairy farmers. You see, what most folks don’t realize is that the milk you buy in the supermarket is taken from a cow that has given birth in the not too distant past, and that is being kept in a perpetual state of nursing. We refer to these cows as “freshened.” At any rate, in order for there to be milk available to sell, the calves must be removed from their mothers and weaned early. It was my job, after school, to care for these unhappy “orphans,” and more often than not, this job required a good deal of wrangling.