A New Home for Lily Page 10

Lily jumped up and hurried down the stairs. Papa was telling Mama about his day, so Lily tried to wait patiently until he was done. She knew it wasn’t polite to interrupt unless it was an emergency. This did feel like an emergency to Lily, but she doubted Mama would agree.

  When there was a little pause in Papa and Mama’s conversation, Lily wedged right in. “We want to sleep on the fresh hay in the barn tonight, Papa. Can we?”

  Papa was washing his hands at the kitchen sink. He finished rinsing and grabbed a clean dishrag to dry his hands. He turned to Lily. “Why would you want to sleep in the barn when you have nice comfortable beds in the house?”

  How strange. How could Mama and Papa have the same response? Lily explained about the story she had read. “It sounds like so much fun. Please, can we?”

  Papa and Mama exchanged a look. “Not tonight,” Papa said. “Mama and I will talk about it later. Right now it’s time to do chores.”

  Lily went to the barn with Papa. Her job was to hold Pansy’s tail to keep it from swatting Papa in the face while he milked her. But Lily’s gaze was fixed on the stack of hay. She couldn’t stop thinking about how much fun it would be to curl up in a blanket on the very top of that fresh, sweet-smelling hay. Oh, how she hoped Papa and Mama would give them permission to sleep out here. They just had to!

  At breakfast the next morning, Papa had his answer. “Mama and I decided you can sleep in the barn on the next Saturday night before our in-between Sunday. That way you can sleep as late as you like in the morning.”

  That was good news and that was bad news. Lily was thrilled that Papa and Mama gave them permission, but it meant a long, long wait. Next Sunday was church Sunday. She counted the days until the next in-between Sunday. Nine more days. That was a long time to wait. Joseph and Dannie were too little to realize how long a time nine days could be. They thanked Papa for saying yes and chattered together about what toys they would need to bring to the barn for the sleepover, as if it were happening tonight. Those little brothers had no sense of time whatsoever.

  Finally, the in-between weekend had arrived. On Saturday morning, Lily worked extra fast as she helped Mama with all of the cleaning. Lily wished Mama would work faster. She wasn’t hurrying any more than she did on normal Saturdays, and this was not a normal Saturday.

  As soon as lunch was over, Lily asked Mama if she could start taking blankets and pillows out to the barn. She wanted to fix their hay-nests to sleep on. She had given these nests quite a bit of thought.

  “You can get the blankets and pillows ready to go,” Mama said, “but I want you to wait to take them out to the barn until after supper. Papa and I want to help you.”

  Lily ran upstairs and yanked the quilt and blanket and pillow from her bed. Then she hurried to get them from Joseph’s and Dannie’s beds too. She folded them and piled them next to the kitchen door. All ready! They were just waiting to be taken to the barn right after supper.

  Lily never knew the hands of a clock to move around numbers as slowly as they did that Saturday afternoon. When it was finally time to eat supper, she thought she had never seen Joseph and Dannie eat so slowly. No one could leave the table until everyone was done with their meal. Didn’t those little boys understand? Hurry, hurry, hurry, she wanted to tell them, but she knew she shouldn’t. She sat and waited until everyone was done. Papa helped Dannie scrape the last bit of food from his plate. At last, supper was over. All that was left to do was to clear the dishes from the table and take them to the sink. Then, they could go to the barn and build their hay-nest beds.

  Papa pushed his chair back from the table and stood. He smiled at Lily. “Tonight, I will help Mama wash the dishes. Let’s all go out to the barn and get the three of you settled for the night.”

  Lily could hardly believe her ears. How wonderful! Not only was she going to sleep in the barn, but she didn’t have to do dishes tonight! She hurried to the door to pick up the pile of blankets and pillows. Mama and Joseph came to help her while Papa went to get the thick winter buggy robes. He said the hay would feel better if the buggy robe went on top, then the rest of the blankets.

  In the barn, Papa climbed up on the haystack and spread out the two buggy robes. Joseph and Dannie could sleep on one of them. Farther up the stack of hay, Lily would sleep on the other buggy robe. Once the blankets were spread out and the pillows puffed up, Mama gave each one of them a flashlight. “If you wake up in the middle of the night and change your mind, you can just come to the house.”

  Dannie, she meant. Certainly not Lily or Joseph.

  Papa and Mama tucked them in and said good night before going back to the house to do the dishes.

  Lily and Joseph and Dannie talked and giggled for a little bit. Soon, they ran out of things to talk about. Lily stared at the rafters in the barn ceiling. The sun was beginning to set. Streams of light shone through cracks in the barn wall. The cobwebs that dangled off the rafters looked thick and dusty. She hoped the spiders would stay in their webs. She didn’t want any of them crawling over her face while she slept. Just the thought of it gave her the shivers. A few wasps buzzed lazily near the pitch of the roof.

  The goats munched the hay in their manger. Their sharp teeth made a loud crunching sound. The chickens made soft, sleepy clucking noises as they settled on their roosts to sleep.

  There were so many strange night noises. During the day, the animal noises in the barn were familiar and peaceful. Tonight, she thought they sounded creepy and scary. Soon, she heard the whiffling sound of Joseph’s snore. Then Dannie’s deep, steady breathing. How could they sleep? She wasn’t sure she could sleep at all. She started to think this idea wasn’t so wonderful. Her bed in the hallway seemed very appealing.

  A strange piercing squeal filled the air and then a thump! Lily bolted up in her hay-nest. She reached under her pillow to get her flashlight. She shined the spotlight on a big tomcat. He had caught a mouse and was playing with it. The terrified little mouse squealed and tried to escape. The cat swatted it with its paws, let it run, then caught it again. The shine of the flashlight woke Joseph and Dannie. They sat up to see what was happening, but then they went right back to sleep.

  Normally, Lily did not like mice, but she did feel sorry for this little mouse. It was horrible. She wished the mouse could make an escape.

  At long last, the cat grew bored with the game and the horrible squeals stopped. But then new sounds started: the cat was eating the mouse. Lily pulled the covers over her head and held her hands over her ears to try to block the sound.

  Sleeping in the barn wasn’t nearly as much fun as Lily thought it would be.

  Lily was glad when the first streaks of dawn tinted the eastern skies. She hadn’t slept at all. Not one little wink. She clambered off the haystack and rolled up her blankets. Joseph and Dannie woke and hurried to pack their things. They ran back to the house, glad that the night of sleeping in the barn was over.

  Inside the house, everything was quiet. Papa and Mama were still sleeping. Lily set the table for breakfast. The three of them sat at the kitchen table and waited patiently for Papa and Mama. They tried to be very quiet so they wouldn’t wake them. The in-between Sunday meant that Papa could sleep late.

  A little while later, Mama came into the kitchen. She looked surprised to see them sitting there. “Did you sleep well?” she asked.

  “I slept well,” Joseph said, rubbing his eyes.

  “Me too,” Dannie said. He had hay in his hair.

  Lily scowled at them. “There were too many barn noises.”

  Papa came into the kitchen, yawning and stretching. He picked up the clean pail to go milk Pansy. Even on an in-between Sunday, the cow needed milking and the animals needed to be fed. “Do you want to sleep in the barn next Saturday night?”

  “No!” Lily, Joseph, and Dannie said at the same time, as if it had been rehearsed. But it wasn’t.

  Papa and Mama grinned at each other. “Why not?” Papa said.

  “My bed is more comfortable,” Josep
h said. “And I got cold.”

  “Too cold,” Dannie echoed.

  And cats, Lily thought, don’t catch mice and chew them in our bedrooms.

  18

  Sunday Church at the Lapps’

  Grandma Miller and Aunt Susie had come to help Mama clean the house to get ready for church on Sunday. It was the Lapp family’s first time to host church in Cloverdale. Everything had to be extra sparkling clean. Grandma said that they couldn’t let one speck of dirt or dust remain.

  That seemed like an impossible task to Lily. How could anyone live on a farm, with two little brothers, and not have one speck of dirt or dust in the house? She hoped Grandma’s eyesight wasn’t too keen. It was hard work to get ready for church—all the furniture had to be cleaned. The insides of every drawer needed to be washed out. The silverware needed polishing. The pots and pans were scrubbed and scrubbed until they looked brand-new. All this work wore Lily out.

  But there was a fun part. Whitewashing the basement. Lily loved dipping a paintbrush into the whitewash and painting the walls with it. It was fun to watch the gray cinderblocks transform into clean, shiny white walls.

  After taking a break for lunch, Mama told Lily and Susie to go outside to wash the basement windows. “Grandma and I will finish whitewashing the basement.”

  That was a disappointment. Washing windows wasn’t fun, not like whitewashing. Lily had to wash the kitchen and living room windows every Saturday. Basement windows would be a little different, but they were still windows. Windows were windows.

  Aunt Susie helped Lily fill a pail with hot water and added a big splash of vinegar. Lily found two sponges and several old rags they could use to dry the windows.

  They went outside to start to wash the windows. They were so close to the ground that they had to bend over to wash them. At least it didn’t matter if their sponges dripped water everywhere. In the basement, they couldn’t spill a drop of whitewash. Not a single drop.

  As Lily and Aunt Susie finished up one side of the house, they went around the corner for the other windows and nearly bumped into the billy goat, munching grass. “Oh, that pesky goat!” Lily said. “I’ll have to run and tell Mama that he got out again.”

  Aunt Susie started to work on washing windows as Lily ran to the basement. “Mama! The goat escaped from the pasture again!”

  Mama sighed. She did not like those goats. She laid her paintbrush down and followed Lily outside. As they rounded the corner of the house, they saw Aunt Susie bent over, drying the window she had just washed. The billy lowered his head and started to run at Aunt Susie.

  “Look out!” Mama shouted.

  Too late! The billy charged right into Aunt Susie’s backside. She fell down, knocking over the pail of water. The billy looked surprised too. He shook his head as if he wasn’t sure what had gotten into him. Lily wondered the same thing. That billy was a nuisance, but he had never butted into anyone before.

  Mama untied her apron and snapped it at the billy to chase him away from Aunt Susie. She seemed stunned for a moment, then frightened. Lily helped her scramble to her feet and move away from the billy. Mama went to get a rope to lead the billy goat to the barn. He would have to be tied up until Papa came home from work. That billy, Mama grumbled, had caused enough excitement for one day.

  Before the sun had risen, Lily’s family was up. Church would be at the Lapps’ house in just a few hours, and Lily could hardly contain her excitement.

  Yesterday, Jonas Raber, Beth’s father, had brought the wagon filled with church benches to their house. He had stayed long enough to help Papa carry all the furniture that had been in the kitchen and living room upstairs and place it in the hall. Lily had to climb over chairs and a sofa to reach her bed.

  After Jonas left, Papa and Mama carried the benches into the house and set them up to get ready for church. Lily and Joseph and Dannie tried to walk on top of the benches to cross the rooms without touching the floor.

  Papa put three kitchen chairs in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room for the ministers to sit on. A little table stood next to the chairs. Mama put her best water pitcher on it and two glasses. Ministers often got thirsty after they preached for a long time and would need a drink.

  “I have an idea,” Lily said, trying to be helpful. “The ministers shouldn’t talk so long.”

  Mama silenced Lily with a look.

  Papa placed the big German family Bible on the table next to his little black prayer book. Everything was ready. All they needed to do now was to change into their Sunday clothes and wait.

  When the first buggy rolled into the driveway, Papa, Joseph, and Dannie went outside to the barn to be with the rest of the men until it was time for church to start. The women came inside and removed their shawls and bonnets and placed them on Papa and Mama’s bed. They visited quietly in the kitchen until the bishop’s wife gave the signal that it was time to sit down.

  Everyone found a seat. The men and boys on one side. The women and girls and babies on the other. The ministers filed in and shook hands with everyone. When the first song was announced, the ministers stood and walked to Mama and Papa’s bedroom. Earlier this morning, Lily asked Mama what the ministers did when they went to a bedroom during the hymn.

  “I think they probably pray and discuss what they are going to preach about,” Mama said, not sounding at all certain.

  No one really knew because ministers never talked about it to anyone. Even Effie didn’t know and her father was one of the ministers. Lily thought they probably snooped through all the dresser drawers and closets. Why else did everything have to be so clean? She wanted to ask Mama if she agreed, but after her very helpful suggestion about asking the ministers not to talk so much didn’t seem to be appreciated, she thought twice.

  When the ministers came back out, everyone put their songbooks away. Lily tried to be still and listen to what the minister was saying, but what she really wanted to do was to play with her pretty flowered handkerchief that she kept in her pocket. Little girls in this Pennsylvania church weren’t allowed to play with handkerchiefs once they were old enough to go to school. In New York, they could, but not here. She made a special effort to ignore Aaron Yoder, even when he looked at her from across the room and crossed his eyes. She tried not to giggle when she imagined his eyes stuck like that.

  Lily watched the pendulum of the wall clock swing back and forth, back and forth. It made her feel sleepy and she started to nod off. Mama noticed and gave her a little nudge. Lily was too big to sleep in church. She had to sit up straight and listen to what the minister was saying.

  When the first minister finally finished his sermon, everyone knelt to pray. After the prayer was over, everyone stood as the deacon read a chapter from the New Testament. While he read, Mama and Lily slipped down to the basement and lit the oil stove. It was time to start the peppermint tea and coffee. Lily worked as slowly as she could, trying to stretch this task out as long as she could, until Mama noticed and lifted an eyebrow. It was more fun to be able to do something—anything—than head back upstairs and sit ramrod straight on that hard backless bench. Lily was getting hungry too. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of the delicious lunch she and Mama had prepared for everyone to share: special church peanut butter, stacks of homemade bread, pickles, red beets.

  At long last, church was dismissed. After the men ate, the women and children had a turn. Mama and Lily would be the last to eat today. Effie and her mother, Ida Kauffman, were first. As Effie filled up her plate, she leaned toward Lily and said, “It’s too bad your parents couldn’t afford sliced bologna and cheese.”

  Under normal conditions, Lily would have ignored Effie. But today wasn’t a normal condition. Lily was hungry and cranky. She knew how hard Mama had worked to make this special lunch. Lily stepped on Effie’s toe so hard that Effie howled. “Lily hurt me!” Effie wailed. Ida came sailing across the kitchen to comfort Effie.

  In her puniest voice, Lily apologized to Effie for be
ing clumsy, but Ida was not easily consoled. She took Mama aside and suggested that it was high time Lily work on becoming more ladylike. She lifted her nose and her spectacles gleamed. “And I understand that Lily has been sleeping in a barn this summer!” Ida Kauffman filled up every space, even in this large room.

  Lily was furious. Mama was quiet. Effie was pleased.

  19

  Lily’s Gray Jell-O

  One evening before bedtime, Mama finished tidying up the kitchen as Lily swept the floor. “Next week is Grandma’s birthday,” she said. “Papa and I thought it would be nice to invite them over for a special dinner on Sunday.”

  Lily stopped sweeping. “Can I help plan the menu?”

  Mama pointed to the broom. “We can sit down and figure it out as soon as we have finished up our evening work.”

  Lily carefully swept the dirt pile into the dustpan and dumped it into the trash can. She hurried to hang the broom and dustpan on a nail inside the basement door.

  Mama was already at the table with a tablet and pen. She wrote down the type of potato, meat, and vegetable she wanted to make.

  “Can I make Jell-O?” Lily asked. She loved Jell-O. She liked how it jiggled on the plate and how it felt as it slipped down her throat.

  Mama thought for a moment. “I think Jell-O would work if we mixed it with some fruit. Then we could serve it with Grandma’s birthday cake.”

  “Can I make it all by myself?” Lily asked. She wanted to show Grandma that she was growing up by making at least one thing all by herself.

  “Jell-O is fairly easy to make,” Mama said. “I think you can handle most of it, but I should measure the boiling water for you so you don’t spill any on yourself.”

  On Saturday morning, Mama sent Joseph and Dannie down the road to Grandma’s house with an invitation to come for a birthday dinner on Sunday. Lily stayed at home to help Mama with the cleaning. The house needed to be spotless for Grandma’s special dinner.