A Big Year for Lily Read online

  Lily glanced over at Hannah, embarrassed and mad. At least, this year, she had an ally against the monkeyshine of Aaron Yoder. But Hannah sat there with a big smile on her face, as if it was funny!

  Anger flooded through Lily. “It’s not funny!” she snapped at Hannah, and her cousin’s smile faded.

  This was only the first day of school and already Aaron was being difficult. And Hannah was not being an ally at all. Despite Lily’s rule to never turn around in her desk, she turned around. She meant to stick her tongue out at Aaron, but as she turned, her elbow hit her brand-new book on top of her desk and knocked it to the floor. Before she could pick it up, Aaron put his dirty bare foot on it.

  Teacher Rhoda noticed. She came back to their seats to see what the commotion was all about. “Aaron, get your foot off of Lily’s book,” she said sternly. Aaron slowly lifted his foot and tucked it back under his desk while Lily picked her book up. She looked at it sadly. It had Aaron’s big, dirty bare footprint on it. He was an awful boy.

  The morning melted away. By midafternoon, an autumn haze drifted across the stifling schoolroom. Lily was relieved when school was dismissed. What a disappointing day. She plucked her bonnet from the hook at the back of the schoolhouse, pulled her lunch pail off the shelf, and headed out the door with Hannah.

  Levi and Joseph started to run, but Lily didn’t feel like running home from school. She trudged alongside of Hannah.

  “I take back every bad thing I ever thought about school,” Hannah said in a far-off voice. She had a strange dreamy look on her face and Lily worried if she might be getting sick. “Isn’t Aaron Yoder the most wonderful boy in school?”

  Wonderful? Wonderful? Why, Lily was just this moment thinking he was the worst boy in the state. The world. The universe.

  Hannah swung her lunch pail at her side. “He can run faster than any of the other boys at school. And his eyes are such a pretty blue and his hair so nice and curly.” She sighed a little. “Lily, do you think he likes me?”

  Lily stopped in her tracks. “Why would you want him to like you? He isn’t nice to any girls. Didn’t you see what he did to my covering?” Her black covering was still squashed. “And don’t forget my book.” How terrible! To have to live with Aaron Yoder’s dirty footprint on her beautiful new book, all year long. “And his hair looks like a wren has moved in and is building a nest.”

  Hannah giggled. “You should have seen how surprised you looked when you couldn’t sit up because he was holding his hand above your head.” She giggled harder. “It was so funny!”

  Why was Hannah sticking up for Aaron? Lily shot her a look of irritation.

  “You were right, Lily. School is exciting,” Hannah said. “And the best part is that Aaron Yoder sits across the aisle from me, and I can look at him whenever I want to.”

  Lily shook her head in despair. How sad. Poor Cousin Hannah. She had been without school for so long that she had lost all logic.

  All of Lily’s wonderful plans for this school year were evaporating, like a wisp of steam over a teacup. She was so sure that everything would be better this year with Cousin Hannah by her side. Instead, everything was worse.

  5

  A Trip to Town

  Lily was feeding baby Paul cereal in his high chair and getting very frustrated. He waved his arms and kicked his feet, demanding, “More, more!” He never stopped eating, that baby. She couldn’t feed him fast enough. She glanced out the window to see if Papa had already put the harness on Jim and hitched him to the buggy. Papa was going to town today and had asked Lily if she wanted to go along. Of course! Of course she did.

  “More, more!”

  Lily turned her attention back to feeding the baby. She filled the spoon halfway and dodged Paul’s waving hands to feed him another bite. Lily could hardly hold still, she was that excited. She had gone to town only once since they had moved to Pennsylvania. She knew Papa would wait patiently for her, but she still wished that Paul could be done with his breakfast. She tried giving him bigger and bigger bites, hoping his tummy would finally be full.

  When the last spoonful was scraped from the bowl, Lily decided Paul had eaten enough for two babies. She lifted him out of the high chair and set him on the floor. He went toddling off to find his toys and Lily hurried to find her shoes and stockings. She wriggled her feet into them and stood up, feeling odd. She had been barefoot for months now, ever since late spring. Shoes felt heavy and clumsy. But it would never do to go barefoot to town.

  Lily said goodbye to Mama and the boys and darted out the door. This was going to be a perfect day. Joseph and Dannie could help Mama with all the Saturday housecleaning. They could watch baby Paul while Lily enjoyed a long ride to town and back with Papa.

  Papa was just tucking the tie rope under the seat as Lily hopped on the buggy. He gathered the reins in his hands, clucking “giddyup!” to Jim as he guided the horse out of the driveway and down the road.

  It was a beautiful morning. Lily watched birds flit from branch to branch in the trees along the road. Leaves were starting to turn from green to orange, a hint that summer was ending and autumn was coming. The trees were so filled with heavy leaves that branches seemed to touch overhead. It seemed as if Lily and Papa were driving through a long tunnel. Sunlight peeked through the branches to light their way. A few squirrels darted around with nuts in their mouths. They were trying to find the perfect spot to bury them. Once winter came, if they could remember where they buried their nuts, they would dig them up. If they couldn’t remember, a new tree would grow. Lily grinned. She wondered how many trees along the road were once forgotten nuts.

  As Jim trotted down the road, Papa started to whistle. The buggy went past neighbors’ farms. Lily looked at the lazy cows, grazing or laying under trees, chewing their cuds. One or two would look over to watch them pass by, then go back to chewing. Horses were more interested in who passed by their fence. They would neigh to Jim, then canter alongside the fence, as if they had challenged him to a race. Lily knew that Jim would ignore them. He wouldn’t even neigh back. I have more important things to do today and don’t have time to play your games, Jim must have been thinking.

  Lily sighed happily. She was sure there was no better place in the world to be than right there on the front seat of the buggy beside Papa. He asked about her first week of school. She told him everything: all she had learned, and even the part about Cousin Hannah thinking Aaron Yoder was so wonderful. “She doesn’t know yet that he’s the worst boy in school.”

  An amused look danced in Papa’s eyes as she described her dilemma with Hannah and Aaron. But he didn’t scold her for complaining about Aaron, or take Hannah’s side. He just listened carefully. He was a fine listener, Papa was.

  Too soon, they reached town. Papa guided Jim to the hitching post. They would walk to the stores and carry their things back to the buggy. Papa’s first stop was the feed store to buy feed for Pansy the cow. For Jim, too. The clerk behind the counter added up the bill. As Papa counted out his money, the clerk told Lily she could pick out a lollipop.

  Lily looked at all the lollipops and chose a purple one. She slipped it into her dress pocket hidden under her apron. She hoped it would taste as good as it looked. Purple things usually did not disappoint.

  Papa hoisted the bags of feed onto his shoulders, as if they were light as feather pillows, and walked back to the buggy. He set them in the back of the buggy and drew a shopping list out of his pocket.

  “Next is a trip to the fabric store,” he read. “Mama needs half a yard of denim to patch the boys’ pants.”

  “I think boys have knees as hungry as their tummies,” Lily said. “They always seem to have holes in their pants’ knees. Mama says they have hollow tummies.”

  Papa laughed out loud. “Here I thought it was the grass they crawled on to play with their toys. All this time they had hungry knees. We’ll have to tell Mama when we get home.”

  Lily was so pleased that Papa had laughed. She hadn’t
even known she was making a joke, and Papa had laughed! She couldn’t stop grinning as she followed him inside the store. She stopped abruptly as her eyes took in the rows and rows of fabrics. All sorts of beautiful fabrics with flowers and other designs. She had never known there were such beautiful patterns. She spotted a pretty cream fabric sprinkled with tiny purple roses. Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a dress in that fabric? She reached out to touch it. It felt nice and soft. Papa noticed. “Don’t touch anything, Lily,” he said.

  Lily drew her hands away and held the sides of her apron so she wouldn’t be tempted to touch more fabrics. But they were all so beautiful! Papa told the girl behind the counter what he wanted. Lily thought it was sad to buy only a piece of ugly denim when there were so many other pretty fabrics to choose from.

  Papa paid for the denim and handed the bag to Lily. “Here, I’ll let you carry this back to the buggy.”

  Lily tried to match her steps to Papa’s long strides. He slowed down so she could keep up with him more easily. She chattered happily as they walked. She had so much to tell him! About how she was looking forward to seeing her friends in church tomorrow. About all the ideas she had for her friends to play after church was over. Lily hardly gave Papa a chance to answer anything before she launched into talking about something else. It was a wonder to her—to be able to talk to Papa without interruptions from any little brothers.

  The next stop was the grocery store. Mama needed sugar and flour and a few other items. Lily pushed the cart for Papa up and down the aisles as he selected everything that Mama had written on the shopping list. Lily hoped Papa might buy some of the interesting things in the store instead of only the same old regular food that they always had. Store-bought cookies, for one. Puffy white marshmallows, for another. Sadly, Papa kept to Mama’s list.

  After Papa paid for the groceries, he handed Lily a light bag to hold while he carried everything else in his strong arms. Back at the hitching post, Jim waited patiently. Papa set the bags on the ground while he carefully stacked everything inside the buggy.

  He took a big five gallon bucket out of the back of the buggy and popped the lid off. It was full of water. Lily watched as Papa lifted the pail up for Jim. Jim drank half of it and then gently blew the water droplets off his velvety nose to let Papa know that he had had enough. Papa dumped the rest of the water out on the street and put the pail back inside the buggy. He untied Jim, then paused and looked at Lily. “It’s awfully warm today. How would you like to have an ice-cream cone?”

  Of course she would! Of course. “Ice cream is one of my favorite things!”

  Papa grinned and tied Jim back up. “Then let’s go get you one.”

  Could this day get any better? Lily skipped happily beside Papa as they walked to a nearby ice cream shop. Papa ordered a big vanilla ice-cream cone and handed it to Lily. She admired the pile of swirled ice cream and then waited for Papa to give her a spoon to eat it. He turned to leave the store and she hurried to keep up with him. He must have forgotten that she would need a spoon.

  “You’d better start eating it before it melts,” Papa said as they walked back to the buggy.

  “But how? I don’t have a spoon.”

  “You don’t need a spoon when you have a cone to hold the ice cream. You can lick it.”

  “Like a cat?”

  Papa laughed. “Just like a cat.”

  Twice now, Papa had laughed! But Lily wasn’t trying to be funny. She thought it seemed odd to lick ice cream. Tentatively, she tried it. Oh my. Oh my goodness. This was better than a spoon! She would never want a spoon for ice cream again. Licking was too much fun.

  Papa held her cone as she climbed onto the buggy. Then he handed it back to her as he untied Jim. It was finally time to go home. The trip to town had gone much too fast.

  Jim trotted up the road, Papa whistled merrily, and Lily quietly licked her ice cream. It was almost all gone except for a few bites inside the cone. Her tongue couldn’t reach the bottom. What a shame to let that ice cream melt. Here’s where a spoon would have come in handy.

  She tossed the cone out of the buggy. Maybe a squirrel or a bunny would come along and finish the last few bites of the ice cream.

  Papa stopped whistling. “Why did you throw your cone away?”

  “I couldn’t lick the rest of the ice cream.”

  “The cone was something you could eat. And even if it wasn’t, you shouldn’t have thrown it out of the buggy.”

  Lily had thought the cone was made from cardboard. She was sorry she wasted it. She would always wonder what it would have tasted like. How sad.

  But maybe Papa would take her to town again. And maybe he would buy her another ice-cream cone. Next time, she would eat the whole thing.

  As Jim turned into Whispering Pines, with Papa whistling, Lily thought this was the most perfect day of her life. Thrown-out cone and all.

  6

  The Lesson of the Bumblebee

  Cloverdale was having an Indian summer—unusually warm days. Today was Aaron Yoder’s birthday and he had brought in homemade soft pretzels as a treat. Salty pretzels. Under normal conditions, Lily would not accept anything from Aaron Yoder, but she had seen his mother deliver those pretzels, still warm, to Teacher Rhoda during first recess. Soft pretzels topped Lily’s list for favorite treats. She tried to save part of her pretzel for lunch but it was too delicious. It made her thirsty, too. In fact, all of the children were thirsty after the pretzels. They lined up for a turn at the water pump and drank and drank to their hearts’ content.

  During lunch recess, Lily discovered a problem. A very, very serious problem. The girls’ bathroom was not working. A small sign taped up to the door read Out of Order. Lily and her friends discussed using the boys’ bathroom, but unanimously voted against it. Too many germs.

  By the start of afternoon classes, Lily was in trouble. Just the sound of someone at the water pump made her remember how badly she needed to go to the girls’ room. It became a very stressful situation. She crossed her legs. She squeezed her hands. She couldn’t think of anything but getting to the bathroom. Fast.

  It wasn’t until the second recess that Teacher Rhoda went out to use the bathroom and discovered the sign. She pulled it off the wall and went inside. Lily and her friends ran over to wait for her to come out. “We thought the bathroom was broken,” Lily said.

  “Girls,” Teacher Rhoda said, “think about it. First, it was a note written in a boy’s handwriting. Second, what could possibly be out of order in an outhouse?”

  Oh. Oh!

  Out on the front porch, Papa dipped the little paintbrush into the jar of white paint. Now that Mama had finally chosen a name for the farmette, Papa was working on a sign. With careful, elegant strokes, he painted letters on the big green sign that sat on top of two wooden sawhorses. The sign would be posted at the end of their driveway. As he finished the letter N, Lily started to giggle. If Papa stopped now, the sign would read Whispering Pin. A whispering pin would be funny. Imagine all the things a pin could tell a person: “Oh my . . . her underwear is a little threadbare!” or “Goodness gracious, she is getting rather plump!”

  Papa whistled a happy tune as he painted E and S to make it Whispering Pines. Then he started on smaller letters underneath the farmette’s name. Lily hummed along quietly as she watched him. Joseph and Dannie had wandered off to play in the sandbox. They had been watching Papa paint but quickly grew bored. Lily was glad. She liked spending time alone with Papa.

  As Papa dipped his paintbrush into the jar, a fat bumblebee circled and buzzed around Lily’s head. She jerked away, but then the bee landed on a freshly painted letter. Its fuzzy black feet were covered in white paint. It walked across the sign and made tiny bee footprints across the green sign.

  Lily wanted to swat it away but was afraid that she would ruin Papa’s beautiful sign even more than the bumblebee already had.

  “Look, Papa,” she said. “A bumblebee is ruining your sign. It’s making lit
tle white tracks over the green background.”

  Papa tried to shoo the bumblebee away but its feet seemed to be too heavy with paint to be able to fly. He reached into his pocket and got his big red handkerchief and carefully lifted the bumblebee off the sign. “There. Now it can’t make any more tracks.”

  “But it ruined your sign,” Lily said.

  Papa only smiled. “I don’t think anyone will notice those tracks unless they look closely.” He dipped his paintbrush back into the jar of paint and started to paint another letter. “You know, Lily, the sign is a lot like the people we meet. If we want to find fault with it, we can look much closer and see things like those little tracks. In fact, by looking too closely, you’ll notice that some of the letters aren’t exactly perfect. If we focus on those little faults, we’ll forget that the sign is actually a pretty good sign.”

  Papa put the paintbrush down. “I could brush some more green paint over those little tracks, but I think I’ll just leave them. That way whenever you and I see this sign, it can remind us to focus on the good things in the people we meet instead of any little faults they might have.”

  Aaron Yoder and Effie Kauffman, he meant. Each day, Lily had come home from school with new complaints about Aaron and Effie. Perfectly reasonable complaints.

  Papa kept on painting and before long, he was satisfied the sign was done. Whispering Pines was on the top in nice big letters, curved like a rainbow. In smaller letters underneath were the words, Solid Oak, Cherry, and Walnut Furniture.

  “I’ll go get the posts ready for our sign,” Papa said. “Want to come with me?”

  Lily quickly put her chair back inside the house and followed Papa to the end of the driveway. Joseph and Dannie dropped their toys in the sandbox and hurried to join them. They watched with interest as Papa used his posthole digger and shovel to dig two deep holes. Digging, apparently, was more interesting to little boys than painting. Once the holes were deep enough, Papa put a long post into each hole. As he held the posts straight, he asked the children to drop stones into the holes around the posts.