A New Home for Lily Read online

  Everyone was on the edge of their seat, waiting for Papa to finish the story.

  “He said he has four tons of coal in his basement that he can’t use. He said he was driving down the road and something told him that the people in the green house could use that coal. So he stopped and offered it to us.”

  Mama’s eyes went wide. “But, Daniel, we don’t have any extra—”

  Papa held up his hand. Another smile lit his face and his blue eyes sparkled. “I asked him how much he wants for it, and he said he didn’t want a thing. If we would remove the coal and clean his basement, that’s all the pay he wanted. He gave me his name and address and said to pick it up whenever I was ready.”

  Lily was surprised to see Mama start to cry. “Oh, Daniel,” Mama said in a whisper. “We really can trust God to supply all our needs. Here I was worried that we couldn’t afford to buy coal since you haven’t been able to work these past few weeks. I should never have worried.”

  Lily hadn’t even thought that there might be money worries because of Papa’s back injury. She had never worried about money before. It was a new thought for her, but then she noticed Mama’s happy tears. God did supply coal for them, just in time.

  It wasn’t long before Papa’s back had improved enough to hitch Jim to the spring wagon. He hauled load after load of coal into the wagon, brought it home, and shoveled it into the coal bin.

  When the last load of coal had been unloaded, Lily knew she had never seen a pile of coal quite that big. Even though the lightning rods were gone from the rooftop, Lily decided that this olive green house wasn’t so ugly after all. Maybe God did think their house was extra special since He sent such a kind and generous stranger to their door. The proof was in the pile of coal.

  The very next morning, big fluffy snowflakes started to swirl through the sky and drift gently to the ground as Lily and Joseph walked to school. Winter was coming, but Papa was well again, and they would all be warm until spring.

  26

  Lily’s Verses

  After each student had finished reciting the Bible verse they had memorized for the week, Teacher Rhoda would give them a new verse to memorize. The next week, they would recite and get a new one. It was part of the rhythm of each week and Lily loved it.

  “Next week’s verse will be Proverbs 24:17,” Teacher Rhoda said.

  Lily wrote the reference on a piece of paper and slipped it into her dress pocket. Tonight, after supper, Mama would help her find it in Papa’s big German and English Bible.

  But Teacher Rhoda had more to say. “And I decided to have everyone choose a poem to memorize too. It can be any kind of poem you’d like to choose: funny, sad, happy, thoughtful. It must have at least eight lines. You will have three weeks to get your poem memorized. At the end of those three weeks, I will have a special prize for everyone who recites their poem without forgetting a single word.”

  This, Lily thought, would be easy. She loved to memorize. She was already imagining how pleased Teacher Rhoda would be as Lily went to her desk to claim her prize.

  Later that evening, Mama helped Lily find the verse in Proverbs to copy: “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth.”

  “That’s a very good verse,” Mama said. “We should copy it off and hang it on the wall above the table so we can see it every day.”

  “May I do it?” Lily asked.

  Mama smiled, nodding. “I’ll get a piece of paper and a marker for you.”

  Lily spread the paper out on the table in front of her. She wrote out the verse in her best handwriting. When she was done, she felt she had done a very nice job with it. She found several tacks in the desk drawer, then stood on the table and tacked her paper on the wall.

  She stood back and admired her verse. Mostly, her handwriting. It wouldn’t take long for all of them to memorize that verse. She wondered if Mama might let her copy more verses. Each week, she could post a new verse.

  Mama liked that idea, so Lily sat at the table and read more verses in the book of Proverbs. Each verse seemed to stand alone. She could pluck a verse out and write it down. In other books of the Bible, verses were all connected to each other. She found several more verses that she liked. She copied them down carefully and put them in a safe place where the paper wouldn’t get wrinkled by little brothers before she was ready to tack one on the wall next Friday.

  On Monday morning, the third grade girls met in a corner at the back of the schoolhouse to talk before the bell rang. “What poem did you choose to memorize?” Beth asked.

  Poem? The poem! Lily had completely forgotten! She had been so excited about choosing Bible verses to hang on the kitchen wall that she forgot all about the poem. She would have to tell Mama she needed a poem as soon as she got home from school today.

  “I already have most of my poem memorized,” Effie said.

  “What is it about?” Beth asked.

  “About Jesus, of course,” Effie said, as if everybody should know that. “Those are the only kinds of poems that we should memorize.”

  Effie’s father was one of the ministers for the church. She liked to remind everyone of that fact.

  “My poem is about two little kittens,” Beth said.

  “Mine is about trees and wind,” Malinda piped up. Her eyes darted to Effie, anxious, hoping for approval.

  Effie frowned at the girls. “You have to find one about Jesus. You don’t want Jesus to think that you like kittens or trees and wind more than Him.”

  Beth rolled her eyes, but Malinda, naturally, looked worried. She often looked worried. Beth didn’t seem to care if Effie approved of the poems they had chosen to memorize. Lily hoped Mama would find her a poem that would have kittens or trees in it. A little part of her was secretly thrilled that Beth wasn’t listening to or obeying Effie’s instructions. For once! Effie thought she was the boss of everyone.

  Before bedtime, Lily told Mama that she needed to find a poem to memorize. Mama was quiet for a moment, thinking hard. Then, right out of the blue, like she had learned it last week, she rattled off,

  I know that cows have little cows

  And dogs have little dogs,

  That pussy cats have little cats

  And frogs have little frogs

  I know that birds have little birds

  And fish have little fishes

  So why can’t sinks have little sinks

  Instead of dirty dishes?

  Lily clapped her hands. “Oh, I like that! Would you write it down on a piece of paper so that I can memorize it?” She was sure no one would have a poem like that. It was perfect, just perfect. Lily did not like washing dishes. It seemed as if that was all she ever did! She thought that little sinks would be so much better than stacks of dirty dishes.

  Early the next morning, Lily showed her poem to Beth, Malinda, and Effie. Beth and Malinda read it and laughed and laughed. They thought a big sink filled with little sinks would be better than a big sink filled with big dirty dishes. Washing dishes wasn’t their favorite chore either.

  Effie’s forehead scrunched together in a big, scolding frown.

  It was Friday evening. Lily looked through her stack of verses she had copied from Proverbs and chose a new one to tack to the wall. Usually, Lily showed Mama first, but it had been a long day with baby Paul. He had cried and cried all day. He seemed to cry all the time. Mama was in her room, trying to rock baby Paul to sleep, and Lily knew she shouldn’t disturb them.

  Lily read the verse a few more times before she tacked it up to the wall. It was a good one. And her handwriting, she noticed, was quite lovely. Clear and slanted cursive. It was too bad that Joseph was too little to read cursive. Maybe next year.

  On Saturday afternoon, Effie’s mother stopped by with pumpkin muffins. Ever since baby Paul was born, the Lapp family seemed to see rather a lot of Ida Kauffman, but there was a lot of her to see. To Lily, Ida Kauffman had a way about her that felt like the sun slid behind a cloud. Birds st
opped chirping. Dogs stopped barking. Cows stopped mooing.

  Ida said she wanted to see the new baby, but as soon as she walked into the kitchen, her sparse eyebrows shot up at the sound of baby Paul’s unhappy wails. She planted her fists on her hips. “That baby has colic,” she said. “You should feed him goat’s milk.” As if that explained everything.

  Ridiculous! Lily had never heard of anything so ridiculous in all her life. Babies didn’t drink goat’s milk. Everybody knew that. Babies drank baby milk. She thought Mama was being very polite to Effie’s mother, who sounded just like Effie did: she liked to act as if she knew everything. Since her husband was the minister, she liked to be involved in everybody’s business.

  Lily wished she could be as nice to Effie as Mama was to Effie’s mother. “Sit down, Ida,” Mama said, waving the teapot. “I’ve got some tea left over and some English muffins. Would you like one with raspberry jam?”

  “Well . . .” Ida wavered, then sat down. “Don’t mind if I do.” From her chair, she gave instructions to make a cup of tea just so—two lumps of sugar and a dash of cream—when suddenly, Lily heard a loud, “Harrumph!” Ida jumped up from the kitchen table and said, “I suppose I should be going.” And away she went, out the door and down the driveway.

  Mama looked at Lily, astounded. “What just happened?”

  Lily shrugged. She had been walking baby Paul in a big circle around the kitchen and the living room, trying to settle him while Mama made the tea. “I don’t know!” She looked out the window and saw the rather substantial backside of Ida Kauffman marching down the road. My, she was a big woman. “Effie gets like that too. Right as rain one moment, mad as a wet hen the next.”

  Mama shot Lily a warning glance. She was always encouraging Lily to see the good side of others. Lily handed baby Paul back to Mama. For some people, especially people like Effie and her mother, it was very hard to find the good side.

  That evening, Mama gave baby Paul some fresh goat’s milk. Baby Paul didn’t yelp and holler at all that night.

  One thing, Lily decided. She had found something good about Effie’s mother. She might be right about Paul needing goat’s milk. But it was just that one thing.

  Sunday was an in-between Sunday. During the afternoon, Papa sat at the kitchen table playing a game of Sorry with Lily and Joseph while baby Paul napped. Dannie tried to play on Papa’s side. That was exasperating. He wasn’t old enough to play and only slowed the game down as Papa patiently helped him count and move around the board.

  A knock on the door surprised all of them. They hadn’t even heard a buggy drive up. In walked Uncle Jacob and his family. Lily was so pleased to have visitors on a Sunday afternoon. Uncle Jacob had interesting things to talk about and he always treated Lily as if she were a grown-up. She felt important. And the best thing of all was that no one worked on Sunday afternoon, and that included babysitters. Lily wouldn’t be asked to watch Noah and Anna.

  Mama popped some popcorn and made hot cider for everyone to drink while they visited. Lily put away the game of Sorry so that everyone could sit at the table. Uncle Jacob had barely settled in when he bolted out of his chair. “Well, I think it’s time we start for home.”

  Everyone was confused. The visiting had just begun. What had caused Uncle Jacob’s sudden change of mind? It was just like yesterday, when Effie’s mother had left in a huff.

  Then Mama’s eyes landed on the verse Lily had tacked above the table and she gasped. “We didn’t choose that verse for you,” she said, her cheeks turning pink. “Lily has been copying verses and placing a new one up each week. I didn’t get a chance to see the verse.”

  What was so bad about Lily’s verse?

  Papa stood and read it aloud: “Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbor’s house; lest he be weary of thee and so hate thee.” He looked at Uncle Jacob, and the two men burst out laughing.

  Lily was even more confused. First, her verse made people huffy, then it made Papa laugh. Mama hurried to take down the card from the wall. She told them about Effie’s mother, and Papa and Uncle Jacob laughed even harder. Lily did not understand men at all.

  After Uncle Jacob, Aunt Lizzie, Noah, and Anna went home, Mama asked to see the rest of the verses Lily had copied. “It would be a good idea to choose a different verse to hang on the wall,” Mama said. “One that wouldn’t accidentally hurt our visitors’ feelings.”

  Mama found another saying for Lily to copy down: “The way to a friend’s house is never long.”

  The day had finally come! Today was the day when all of the children would recite the poems they had memorized. One by one, each student walked to the front of the schoolhouse to take a turn. The eighth graders went first. Lily enjoyed listening to all the different kinds of interesting poems. When it was the fourth graders’ turn, Lily listened to Sam’s poem about camping in the woods, but she refused to listen to Aaron’s dumb poem about a little boy and a hornets’ nest. To her, Aaron was invisible. Even when everyone laughed at Aaron’s poem, Lily pretended he was invisible.

  So far, Lily noticed that no one had a poem about Jesus. Effie was wrong. Lily hoped Jesus would understand if she felt a little glad that Effie was wrong, for once.

  Then came the third graders. Malinda and Beth each recited their poems without a single mistake. Not one. Then came Effie’s turn. She flounced to the front of the classroom and turned around, fixing her eyes on Lily. She opened her mouth and recited:

  I know that cows have little cows

  And dogs have little dogs,

  That pussycats have little cats

  And frogs have little frogs

  I know that birds have little birds

  And fish have little fishes

  So why can’t sinks have little sinks

  Instead of dirty dishes?

  Effie had stolen Lily’s poem! Everyone in the class laughed and laughed about little sinks. Lily’s face turned red and she felt tears stinging her eyes. What was she supposed to do for her poem? She wanted to run out the door and flee for home, but she didn’t have time. Teacher Rhoda called out Lily’s name. It was her turn. Slowly, she shuffled to the front of the schoolhouse and turned to face everyone. Effie sat in her chair with a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary smile on her face. There was nothing for Lily to do except recite her little poem.

  She said it quickly and didn’t make a mistake, but no one laughed. They had heard it already. She went back to her desk and sat down, refusing to look at Effie. Lily wouldn’t give Effie the satisfaction of knowing how upset she was. But she was.

  27

  Thanksgiving Pudding

  The goat milk cured baby Paul from pitching fits all evening long, and now Lily thought he had turned into the sweetest baby in the world. She had only one complaint about him: he was always asleep in his little bassinet in the kitchen. Other than sleeping too much, which Mama said wasn’t possible, he was a very nice baby. Lily liked to hurry home from school every afternoon and warm her hands by the stove. Then Mama would let her sit on the rocking chair and hold baby Paul. Lily never got tired of watching him. She loved his chubby pink cheeks and his tiny fists that peeped out from under the blanket and waved in the air.

  Lily would have liked to spend all afternoon holding Paul. But after a few minutes, Mama would take the baby and tuck him back into his bassinet. It was time for Lily to help make supper. Chores didn’t stop even when a new baby arrived.

  One evening after supper, Mama asked the family to come to the kitchen table. She had spread a newspaper out on the middle of the table and dumped a bowl of hickory nuts on it. In front of Papa’s seat was a wooden cutting board. Papa pounded nut by nut with a hammer until they cracked open. Then he would pass the cracked nuts to Lily or Joseph to scoop out the nutmeat. Lily hated this chore.

  It had been fun to gather the hickory nuts in the woods. Papa had found several hickory nut trees, so Lily and Joseph and Dannie had searched in the grass and leaves until they had found enough nuts to fill a big bowl. Papa s
aid they should leave the rest of the nuts for the squirrels because they would need those nuts to eat during the long, cold winter. “There’s plenty of food in the basement for us,” Papa explained. “We don’t need to take a lot of nuts away from the squirrels.”

  Lily was glad there was a limit to nut collecting. Trying to get the nutmeat out of the shells was long, hard, boring work. Hickory nuts were the worst nuts of all, and her fingers would be stained brown. She wondered how the squirrels managed to get nutmeat out of those shells with only their big front teeth as tools.

  Finally, the last nut was cracked and shelled. Papa scraped all the nutshells into the trash can while Mama covered the bowl of nutmeats and put them into the cupboard. They would stay there until Thanksgiving.

  Lily loved Thanksgiving almost as much as Christmas. On Wednesday, school was dismissed an hour early. Lily and Joseph ran all the way home to help Mama get everything ready for tomorrow’s big meal. When they burst into the kitchen, Mama was toasting the hickory nuts on the stove. They smelled good, all nice and sweet and cozy. Lily couldn’t wait until tomorrow.

  For the first time, Mama let Lily help her make the special Thanksgiving pudding—layered with different flavors of orange and vanilla. It was as beautiful to gaze at as it was to eat. Mama told her to put the bowl in the refrigerator, and then she went upstairs to tend to baby Paul. Lily opened the refrigerator, but it was jam-packed with other dishes Mama had prepared. At first, Lily wasn’t sure what to do, but then she had an idea. A brilliant idea. Just brilliant. It was cold outside, even colder than inside the refrigerator. So Lily simply set the big bowl of pudding on the porch and covered it with a kitchen towel. And then she saw a bright red cardinal at the bird feeder and she forgot all about the pudding.