A New Home for Lily Read online

  “It’s tradition,” she said.

  “But why?” Lily said.

  Mama sighed. “We don’t question why. Each church has their own way of doing things.”

  And didn’t that just say it all?

  Papa had found the box with Sally, Lily’s doll, and even though Lily was happy to see Sally, she was anxious to play with the new doll. She had already given it a name: Irene. It seemed like a perfectly lovely name for such a pretty doll. She was trying so hard to be patient. She only asked Mama about it twice a day. Surely, Mama could see Lily’s patience.

  One afternoon, Lily came home from school and was handed a bag by Mama. “Lily, I just don’t think I’m going to be able to make doll clothes for a very long time,” she said. In the bag were the doll and some fabric. “Take this bag to Grandma Miller and ask her to make the clothes for it.”

  Lily didn’t even wait for an after-school snack. She ran all the way to Grandma Miller’s house. Grandma had plenty of time to sew doll clothes. It wouldn’t be long until Irene was ready to be played with.

  Grandma opened the door to Lily, surprised to see her. Lily blurted out the story about the doll in the attic. Grandma looked at the doll and fabric and listened as Lily explained that this would be her very own doll as soon as it was wearing Amish clothes.

  Grandma smiled. “I’ll try to have it ready by Saturday.”

  Lily skipped all the way home. Only three more days and she could finally play with Irene. At last! It almost seemed too good to be true.

  On Saturday, Lily worked extra fast to help Mama with all the day’s chores. They finished cleaning the house in record time. “Can I go see if Grandma has finished the doll?”

  “You worked very hard today, Lily,” Mama said. “Today is a special day. You waited patiently for your doll to be ready, and I know how much you wanted to play with her. I think it would be nice if you stopped by Mr. Wilson’s Corner Store and treat yourself to some candy.” She handed Lily a quarter.

  Oh, what a wonderful day! The best day ever. A doll and candy! Lily already knew what she would buy. A Snickers candy bar. It cost a quarter. As she walked into the store, she spotted a box of Tootsie Rolls on the counter. Each Tootsie Roll cost five cents. Instead of the Snickers bar, Lily decided to buy five Tootsie Rolls so everyone in the family could have a piece of candy.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Mr. Wilson counted five Tootsie Rolls and put them in a little brown paper bag. Hurry, hurry, hurry! she wanted to say to Mr. Wilson, but of course she didn’t say it out loud. That would be rude. But she was that eager to see her new doll. When Mr. Wilson handed her the bag, she thanked him, walked carefully out the door, and then ran up the road to Grandma’s house. She could barely control her excitement.

  In the house, the doll was sitting by Grandma’s sewing machine. Irene looked beautiful. She was dressed in a pretty royal blue dress and a crisply starched white apron. Her black covering was tied neatly under her dimpled chin. The blue dress made her eyes look even more blue. As blue as a summer sky. And her pink cheeks looked like roses. Lily held Irene in her arms and hugged her against her chest. Sally was no longer Lily’s favorite doll. Irene was much more like a baby and so much prettier than her old limp rag doll.

  Lily thanked Grandma Miller for sewing such nice clothes for Irene. She was eager to get home and play with her new doll. At the door, Grandma handed her an envelope. “Please give this to your Mama when you get home.”

  Lily tucked the doll beneath her shawl to keep Irene from getting cold. Spring was nearly here, but the air was still cold.

  When she reached home, she showed Irene to Mama. Even Joseph and Dannie were interested in seeing her. Lily started up the stairs to get her bag filled with doll toys and her doll blanket when she remembered the Tootsie Rolls in her pocket. And then she remembered the envelope Grandma had given to her.

  Mama opened the envelope and read the letter. She looked surprised, then sad. She folded the letter and slipped it into her pocket. “I think it might be a good idea to wait to play with your new doll until Papa comes home.”

  What? More waiting?

  Lily thought it was a terrible shame not to be able to play with her lovely doll. She sat on the corner of the sofa and watched out the window for Papa to come home. She wanted him to hurry, but then, a part of her didn’t want him to hurry, either. She had a funny feeling about what might be in Grandma’s letter. It didn’t seem like good news.

  When Lily spotted Papa coming up the driveway, Mama told her to stay in the house with Joseph and Dannie while she spoke to Papa privately.

  Afterward, Papa came into the kitchen to wash his hands and face. He crossed the room to where Lily was reading a story to Joseph and Dannie. He picked up her new doll and looked at it carefully. Then he sat down on the sofa. He held Irene in his lap. “Grandma Miller said that she doesn’t think it’s wise for a little girl to play with a doll that has a real face, hands, and feet.”

  Lily felt tears prick her eyes. She was afraid of something like this. She knew her doll was too good to be true. “But Papa, other girls in my school have dolls who look just like Irene. Beth does, and Effie does too.”

  Papa nodded. “We realize that other little girls in this community might have dolls like Irene. Still, we don’t want to offend your grandma. She thinks those kinds of dolls make girls vain. Besides, Lily, you already have a doll that you love very much.”

  Sally, he meant. But Sally was so . . . threadbare and worn-out.

  “Mama and I talked it over and we decided to sell this doll. We will let you keep the money. Then someday we will take you to a thrift store and you can buy a whole pile of books with it.”

  One tear leaked down Lily’s cheek.

  Papa wiped her tear away. “You will be able to read those books a long time after you have outgrown dolls. I think that’s the best thing to do.”

  Lily didn’t think it sounded like a good idea at all. She had waited patiently for Irene and she was never patient! She wanted to play with that doll more than she had ever wanted anything before.

  Tears were coming faster than she could blink them back. She knew she was much too big to cry about a doll, but it simply didn’t seem fair. It didn’t matter if she bought a hundred zillion books with the doll money. She would rather have Irene. She would rather be back in New York. If they had just stayed there, she would never have seen Irene and discovered what she was missing. None of this would have happened. Everything about Cloverdale, Pennsylvania, was awful. Everything.

  6

  Cherry Pie Barn

  The snow was melting away. Winter was fading and spring would be here soon. Today, Mama’s youngest brother, Uncle Jacob, was moving to Pennsylvania with his family. He had already bought a little house close to Grandpa and Grandma Miller so that he could work at Grandpa’s sawmill. Lily didn’t remember Uncle Jacob from New York. He had married and moved to his wife’s community when Lily had been a baby. She was eager to meet Uncle Jacob. She had never seen Mama so excited.

  On Saturday, Mama and Lily had joined some of the other women in the community in a work frolic to clean Uncle Jacob’s house. Joseph and Dannie had to stay at home with Papa.

  Uncle Jacob’s house didn’t look very dirty to Lily. Still, every inch had to be scrubbed spotless. Effie’s mother, Ida Kauffman, stood by the front door and gave people jobs to do as they arrived. She directed some women to wash the walls and ceilings. Others cleaned the insides of closets. It reminded Lily of school recess, with Effie bossing everybody around.

  Lily helped Mama wash the kitchen cupboards. Grandma and Aunt Susie washed windows. Aunt Susie was Grandma’s youngest daughter. She was all grown-up but seemed like a little girl. She was born with something called Down’s syndrome, and Lily loved her.

  Soon, the house began to sparkle. It was cleaned from top to bottom and ready for the move-in. Lily hoped the men wouldn’t track in muddy puddles like they had done on her family’s moving day.

 
; Several days later, Lily and Joseph came home from school and couldn’t find Mama or Dannie. The house was strangely quiet. On the kitchen table, Lily found a note from Mama: “We went to Uncle Jacob and Aunt Lizzie’s to help unload their belongings. There is chocolate milk in the refrigerator. Help yourselves and then come join us at Uncle Jacob’s house.”

  Lily found the chocolate milk and poured it into two glasses. Joseph gulped it down and started to head out the door as Lily grabbed him by the collar and made him wait. She wiped his face with a clean washrag, just like Mama did. It would never do to arrive with a chocolate milk moustache. Uncle Jacob would think Joseph was a messy boy. He was messy, but Uncle Jacob didn’t need to find that out today. Satisfied that they looked presentable, they ran down the street to Uncle Jacob’s.

  They found lots of people carrying furniture and boxes into the house. Joseph saw Papa and ran off to join him. Lily ducked into the front door, darting between men who carried heavy boxes. She looked around to see if she could find Mama. Boxes were stacked on the floor. Furniture was pushed against the wall. There were dirty puddles on the floor, tracked inside from the rain. Lily sighed. All of her housecleaning was for naught.

  Lily slipped into the kitchen. There was Mama, unpacking dishes and placing them into cupboards. Next to her was another woman. She held a baby on one hip and tried to work with her free hand. She looked exhausted. Lily felt sorry for her.

  “Lily,” Mama said, “meet your aunt Lizzie.”

  When Aunt Lizzie saw her, she brightened. “Hello, Lily, would you mind taking care of baby Anna for me?”

  Lily was thrilled! Holding a baby was much more fun than unpacking dishes. Aunt Lizzie must think Lily seemed very grown-up if she let her take care of her baby. Lily carried Anna into the living room and sat on the couch. What did babies like to do? Dannie liked to play patty-cake when he was a baby. Lily held Anna’s hands and started to chant, “Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker’s man.” Anna smiled a big toothless grin.

  A little boy clambered onto the couch. “I’m Noah,” he said. Lily thought he looked to be about Dannie’s size and age. Noah watched Lily play with Anna. He squeezed in front of the baby. “I want to play patty-cake too.” He held his hands out to Lily.

  Lily shook her head. “I can’t right now,” she said. “I have to take care of baby Anna.”

  Noah slid off the couch and ran to the kitchen. Soon, he was back with Aunt Lizzie, pulling on her skirt. “I want her to play with me too.”

  Aunt Lizzie gave Noah a weary smile. “Your cousin Lily has her hands full right now. Maybe she could tell you a story.” She turned to Lily. “It would be a big help if you could keep an eye on Noah for me too.”

  Lily tried to think about the kind of story a boy like Noah might enjoy. She wished she had a picture book to read to him. Noah stood beside her, staring at her with his big blue eyes, eager for her to start the story.

  Whenever Mama would wash and braid Lily’s hair, she told a story about a horse that sneezed each time it smelled a flower. That would be a good story to keep a busy little boy’s attention, Lily decided.

  As soon as Lily finished the story, Noah hopped off the couch and started crawling around the room pretending to be that horse. He sniffed at the boxes and sneezed loudly. He didn’t pay any attention to where he crawled. His pants became soaked from crawling through puddles on the floor. A man nearly tripped over him when he came into the living room with more boxes. Lily yanked Noah out of the way just as baby Anna rolled over and nearly fell off the couch. This went on for the rest of the afternoon.

  Lily had never been so happy to hear Papa say it was time to head home and do the chores. It was hard work trying to take care of two little children. Now Lily understood why Aunt Lizzie looked so tired. Lily was worn-out.

  But Mama wasn’t at all tired. She chatted happily all the way home. She had invited Uncle Jacob and Aunt Lizzie for Sunday dinner. Lily hoped that didn’t mean she would be expected to take care of Noah and Anna. She thought that Joseph and Dannie had too much energy, but she had never seen a little boy with as much energy as that Noah. He couldn’t hold still for more than a minute. And he talked and talked and talked! It made her head hurt just thinking about it. Poor Aunt Lizzie.

  Lily and Joseph followed Papa out to the barn to help with chores. Dannie liked to help with chores too, but the barn was too cold tonight. Papa told him to stay in the house with Mama. When Lily saw the disappointment on Dannie’s face, she felt sorry for him. But Papa was right. Jim and Jenny snorted out big white clouds of air each time they breathed.

  Papa got the milking stool off the peg on the wall and sat down beside Jenny. He washed her udder with warm soapy water before he started to milk her. Lily scooped several handfuls of oats into Jim’s grain trough as Joseph scooped grain and corn sweetened with molasses into Jenny’s trough.

  “When you’re done there, Lily,” Papa said, “come and hold Jenny’s tail so she won’t swat me in the face.” Jenny looked back at Papa, batting her big black eyelashes at him as if to say, “Who, me?”

  Lily hurried over to hold Jenny’s tail. A big gust of wind whistled through the cracks between the boards in the barn walls. Snow blew through the cracks and Lily shivered. Papa noticed how cold she was. “I’ll do something about those cracks before another winter comes.”

  Lily wished he would do something about the cracks right away, but Papa said there wouldn’t be many more cold days. He stood and stretched, then put the milking stool back on the peg and picked up the pail of warm, steaming milk to take back to the house. Lily and Joseph followed behind. As another blast of cold wind hit Lily in the face, she wondered about Papa’s prediction that spring was here. The calendar might say March, but today it felt like January.

  Early Saturday morning, Papa hitched Jim to the wagon and hurried off to town. He returned with a stack of thin boards. He said they were batten strips, and he piled the boards on the ground beside the barn. Lily thought that was a funny name for such thin, narrow boards. Mostly, she hoped Mama wouldn’t need her in the house so she could help Papa outside. Being indoors was fine, but being outdoors with Papa was better.

  “Go ahead, Lily,” Mama said, smiling at the way Lily was staring out the window at Papa. “I don’t think much dusting is going to get done with you wondering what Papa is up to.” She laughed. “Just be sure to stay out of Papa’s way as you watch him work.”

  Lily dropped the dust cloth and hurried outside. She hoped she could do more than watch Papa. She wanted to help him.

  Outside, Papa was nailing a batten strip over a crack between the boards on the barn wall. He nailed in several nails, then stepped up on the stepladder to climb to the top, nailed in more nails, then climbed down to the bottom. There, he pounded more nails in the strip to make sure it was tightly fastened to the barn. Then he climbed halfway up and started the process again. Nail the middle strip, climb up the ladder, hit some nails, climb back down again, hit more nails. Over and over.

  As Lily watched him, she was pretty sure she could nail those boards on the bottom so Papa would only have to take care of the nails in the middle and the top. She ran to find another hammer and came back to help.

  Papa was already up the ladder, working on the top of the next strip. Lily picked up a strip and leaned it against the wall. She found a nail and held it firmly with her left hand on the bottom of the strip. She took a hammer and gently tapped the nail, taking care so she wouldn’t hit her thumb with the hammer. The nail made only a tiny little pinprick hole. It tumbled to the ground when Lily let go. She picked it up and pounded harder. This time, the nail stayed in the board. But the next whack with the hammer sent it tumbling to the ground.

  Papa grinned when he saw what she was doing. He climbed down the ladder, tools clanking in his carpenter’s apron. “It’s a little harder than it looks,” he said. “But keep trying on this board. I’ll keep working on the other ones.”

  Lily tried harder, but she couldn’t
pound a nail all the way into the board. Sometimes, it went in a little deeper, but with the next blow, the nail would bend and twist. It would have to be pulled out. Fortunately, the nails always seemed to come out of the board much easier than they had gone in.

  This was hard work! She took hold of the nail and hit it as hard as she could with the hammer. The hammer slipped and whacked her thumb. Ouch! Lily dropped the nail and hammer and held her thumb in her other hand. Tears stung her eyes.

  Papa came down the ladder to take a look at her thumb. “You had better run inside and let Mama put something on it to help it feel better,” he said.

  Lily went to the house, tears slipping down her cheeks. She had not been able to help Papa at all. Not one nail.

  Mama crushed an aspirin into a small bowl with warm water. She told Lily to hold her thumb in it until it started feeling better.

  Lily sat at the kitchen table with her thumb in the water. This was boring, even worse than helping Mama clean the house. She could hear the steady bang, bang, bang from Papa’s hammer as he kept working on the barn.

  After a while, the throbbing in her thumb started to subside. Lily went back outside to see what the barn looked like. Papa had already finished one side of the barn. Lily thought it looked funny. The barn had been red. The unpainted batten strips that Papa had placed over the cracks reminded Lily of a big cherry pie with a lattice top.

  Papa noticed Lily at the foot of his ladder and asked her how her thumb was feeling. “It’s a little better,” she said. She looked up at the wall. “I think we should call our farm ‘Cherry Pie Barn.’”