A New Home for Lily Read online

  Back and forth, back and forth. The man and his tractor worked all afternoon, leaving beautiful furrows of black, moist earth behind. Then the tractor noise stopped and it seemed so strangely quiet. A knock came on the door and Mama went to answer it. “It’s getting late,” the man said, “so I wondered if it would be alright if I parked the tractor up there on top of the hill until tomorrow. I’ll come back in the morning to do the harrowing.”

  Mama told him that would be fine. The man drove off in his truck and left the tractor parked at the top of the hill.

  As soon as the man disappeared down the road, Joseph turned to Lily with excitement in his brown eyes. “Let’s go look at the tractor!”

  He didn’t even wait for her to respond. He ran out the door and started up the hill. Lily jumped up and ran after him. When they reached the tractor, they walked around it, taking in every part of it. They had never been so close to a tractor before. It had the name FORD on the side. The man had unhitched the plow and backed up to the harrow, but he hadn’t fastened it yet. Joseph climbed up on the tractor. He sat on the seat like he owned it.

  “I don’t think you should be sitting on the tractor,” Lily said.

  “You worry too much,” Joseph said. “I’m not hurting anything. And it’s fun to pretend to be driving it.” He grasped the steering wheel and made engine sounds, as if he were driving.

  It did look like fun. “Let me have a turn,” Lily said as she climbed up. Joseph sat on the fender to give Lily room to sit on the seat. This was fun! She held the steering wheel with both hands and pretended to drive over a big field. She made sure not to touch any levers. She did not want the tractor to start up its noisy engine.

  Then it was Joseph’s turn again. His pretend tractor noises grew louder and louder. When it was Lily’s turn, she leaned forward as if she were going very fast. She accidentally-on-purpose pressed her foot against a pedal. The tractor rolled slowly forward a little bit. Lily and Joseph grew still.

  “What did you do?” Joseph asked.

  Lily showed him how she had pushed the pedal in with her foot. The tractor rolled forward some more.

  Joseph scrambled off the fender. “Let me do it too!” Lily let him sit on the seat. Joseph pushed his foot on the pedal and the tractor inched slowly forward some more. It was much more fun to be on a tractor that moved.

  They took turns making the tractor roll until they reached the bottom of the hill. The road was right in front of them. There was no way they could get it back to the top of the hill where it had been. They looked at each other in dismay. What should they do?

  “Let’s hide!” Lily said. Together they scrambled off the tractor and ran to the old building. They hurried up the rickety old stairs and crouched behind some dusty, cobweb-covered furniture. There was a sudden silence except for the wasps in the eaves. The loft didn’t seem as exciting as usual today. Lily felt as grimy as all the dusty things around her. She wished she had never even seen that tractor.

  What would Papa say when he got home from work and saw what they had done? Lily wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. She knew he would not be happy.

  Joseph read her mind. “Maybe Papa will think that the tractor rolled down the hill by itself.”

  Maybe. They brightened at that thought.

  It wasn’t long before Papa came home. On any other day, Lily and Joseph would run out to meet him. Not today. They peeped out the window and watched as he got out of the truck and waved goodbye to the driver. Dannie met him on the porch. Then the door closed behind them.

  Lily knew what would happen next, just as if she were in the kitchen. Mama would be happy to see Papa was home. They would talk about their day while Dannie would look through Papa’s lunch box for a leftover piece of sandwich or cookie. Then Papa would get the milk pail and it would be time to do the chores.

  Lily wished she could be in the house. It was always a happy time when Papa came home from work, but today she and Joseph were hiding out in this dusty old loft. She looked over at him. He looked pitiful. His eyes welled up with tears.

  Papa and Dannie came out of the house. Dannie held on to the side of the handle of the milk pail. He thought he was helping, but Lily knew Papa was just pretending that he was a big helper.

  It must be nice to be as little as Dannie. It would be a relief not to have to worry about getting in trouble.

  Papa stopped outside the old building. “Lily! Joseph!” he called. “Chore time.”

  Lily and Joseph wiggled out of their hiding place. They had to go when Papa called them. Joseph had cobwebs stuck in his hair and Lily felt dirty and grimy all over.

  They walked over to the barn to help Papa. He had brought Jenny in from the pasture and tied her in the stall. As he started to milk her, Lily held her tail. Everything was quiet. Too quiet. On any other evening, they would be interrupting each other to tell Papa about their day. They would talk and laugh and sometimes Papa would sing. But not today. Even Dannie seemed to sense something was wrong. He sat quietly on a hay bale, stroking a kitten. He didn’t say a word.

  After Papa finished milking Jenny, he hung the milking stool on the wall peg. He turned Jenny out into the pasture and gave the cats a bowlful of fresh warm milk. He set the big pail of steaming milk on the ground. “Well, Lily and Joseph,” he said. “You’ve been rather quiet tonight. Is there something you want to tell me?”

  As usual, Joseph blurted everything out. He told Papa all about how they had wanted to see the tractor after the man went home. He explained how they climbed on it to pretend to drive it. Then he admitted that they had discovered how to make it roll downhill. “We didn’t mean to!” Lily chimed in at last. “It just happened.” Again and again.

  Papa listened to them with a sober expression on his face. “I hope you realize that you should never have touched that tractor. Making it roll down the hill was very dangerous. It could have rolled out on the road. You could both have been hurt. I’m glad nothing happened, but I do expect both of you to tell that man all about it when he comes tomorrow. You need to tell him you’re sorry for touching his tractor and that you won’t touch it again.”

  Lily and Joseph nodded, relieved. She hoped the man wouldn’t be too mad at them. She decided she was not going to try to drive a tractor again.

  But she definitely wanted to get back up in that cobwebby loft and see what treasures she might discover.

  12

  Jenny the Cow and Mayapples

  Each morning and evening, Papa would milk Jenny, the cow. It was Lily and Joseph’s job to bring Jenny in from the pasture and lead her to the barn before Papa got home from work. It was an easy job for them. Jenny knew that dinner would be waiting for her in the barn so she would wait by the fence and moo for Lily and Joseph to hurry. Papa always said that Jenny could tell time better than a clock. Those moos would start bellowing right at the time when Papa was due home. Every time.

  But not today. Jenny didn’t moo for Lily and Joseph to come get her. She wasn’t standing by the fence like she usually was. Lily thought Jenny might have found some good green grass to graze behind the barn. She and Joseph ran through the tall grass to find the cow. As they came around the corner of the barn, Lily stopped abruptly. Jenny was lying on her side. Her mouth was open, her tongue was hanging out of her mouth, and her ribcage was jerking in a funny way. It seemed as if she was struggling to breathe.

  Joseph started to cry. Lily felt tears prick her eyes, but she knew she had to be calm for Joseph and for Jenny. “Let’s go tell Mama that something is wrong with Jenny,” she said. They ran to the house and bolted up the porch stairs.

  Mama was ironing her Sunday dress. The room smelled of steamed cotton and starch. Dannie was playing with his farm toys on the kitchen floor.

  “JENNY IS DYING!” Joseph said. He started to cry again, which set Dannie to wailing.

  Calmly, Mama set the iron on its stand. “Tell me what she is doing.”

  “She is lying behind the barn with her mouth
open and her sides moving in a funny way,” Lily said.

  Mama bit her lower lip. That meant she was worried.

  “Let’s go have a look at her and see if we can get her up,” Mama said.

  She picked up Dannie and took Joseph by the hand. The four of them walked out to the area behind the barn. Jenny looked even worse than she had moments ago. Her legs stuck straight out instead of being tucked underneath her like they usually were when she lay down to rest and chew her cud. Her eyes, normally so calm and gentle, looked wild and frightened. Her long rough tongue hung out of her mouth. Joseph and Dannie started sobbing all over again. Lily tried to be brave and not cry like her little brothers. She started to go to Jenny to pat her, to help her to feel better and know she wasn’t alone, but Mama held her back from touching her.

  Mama was worried. “I’ll have to run to the neighbor to call the vet right away. I don’t know what is wrong with Jenny but I think she needs help. Lily, I want you to keep Dannie in the sandbox and mind the boys until I get back.”

  Lily took Joseph and Dannie over to the sandbox while Mama ran through the field to the neighbor’s house to use their phone. She was only gone a few minutes. When she came back, they went out to check on Jenny again. She still looked like she was suffering. Worse.

  When the vet arrived, he gave Jenny a big shot to help her. He crouched down to listen to her heartbeat with his big stethoscope. Suddenly, Jenny’s sides stopped moving.

  He rose to his feet. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to save her,” he said to Mama.

  Jenny was dead.

  Lily felt a big lump start to rise in her throat. She would never be able to feed Jenny again or hold her tail while Papa milked her. Jenny wouldn’t bat her big eyelashes at Papa anymore. It didn’t seem possible that Lily would never see Jenny graze happily in the tall, sweet grass in the pasture. Or lie in the shade of a tree to chew her cud. There would be no more of Jenny’s fresh sweet milk or homemade butter and cheeses. Tears started leaking down Lily’s face. Soon, she was sobbing as loud as Joseph and Dannie.

  “What happened to her?” Mama asked the vet, raising her voice to be heard over the children’s wails.

  “Do you have any mayapples in your pasture?” the vet said. “Some people call them umbrella plants. They produce a little poisonous apple under their leaf. Every spring, I hear about a cow or two that eats a mayapple. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything I can do.”

  After the vet left, Mama led everyone back to the house. Lily tried to stay busy by helping Mama. She tried not to think about Jenny. She would let Joseph tell Papa the bad news about Jenny when he came home. She couldn’t say it out loud. She was hardly past bawling over that silly, wonderful cow.

  Papa was quiet for a long time when Joseph told him the news. Grandpa Miller had bought Jenny for Mama’s birthday. Lily fought back an urge to point out that their farm in New York didn’t have mayapples, and if they had just stayed there, Jenny would still be alive. But Papa looked so sad that she didn’t want to say anything that would make everyone feel worse, if that were possible. Finally, Papa went over to the neighbor’s house to call someone who would take Jenny’s body away.

  That night, no one said anything at dinner. There was nothing to say.

  On Saturday morning, Papa hitched Jim to the buggy. He said he was going to see if any of the neighboring farmers had a Jersey cow to sell. Joseph and Dannie went with Papa, but Lily was needed at home. Saturday was the day for cleaning house. Lily liked helping Mama work, but on days like today she wished she had been born a boy. Or at least, she wished she were still Dannie’s age so that she could go with Papa too. That would be much more fun than dusting furniture and washing windows and wiping up muddy footprints made by two little brothers.

  When Papa and the boys came home, they had some happy news to share. Mama set a plate of cookies on the table. Everyone sat around the table to hear Papa’s story.

  Papa’s eyes were twinkling. “Well, I found a cow. A gentle little Jersey. I paid cash for her and the farmer said that he will bring her over to us on Monday.”

  Lily missed Jenny, but she was happy to hear that they would be getting another cow soon. They would not have to go without milk, butter, and cheese. She hoped the new cow would have pretty eyes with long, dark eyelashes like Jenny.

  Papa pushed his chair back from the table. “I’m going out to the pasture to dig up all those mayapple plants. We don’t want to risk losing another cow.”

  “Can I help too?” Lily said. She had been inside most of the day.

  Mama smiled. “We’re almost done with our Saturday cleaning. I think I can finish it up by myself so you can run along with Papa and the boys.”

  In the barn, Papa got the wheelbarrow and two garden hoes. Dannie sat in the wheelbarrow for a ride while Papa pushed it, and Lily and Joseph each carried a hoe.

  When they reached the pasture, they checked under all the trees. Papa said mayapples liked to grow in the shade. He pointed out a mayapple plant so the children knew what it looked like. Whenever they found the plant, Papa would take a hoe and chop the plant down. Then he would dig his shovel deep into the dirt until he had removed every bit of the root so that it could never grow again.

  Lily tried digging with the other hoe, but the ground was hard. Papa always had to finish digging the roots out. Papa didn’t seem to mind that she couldn’t do it as well as he could and said, “Every little bit that you chop and dig is a bit I don’t have to do.”

  When the last mayapple plant had been dug up and piled into the wheelbarrow, they carefully dumped them all into a big garbage bag. Now the pasture would be a nice safe place filled with only good grasses for the new cow to eat when she came on Monday. Lily was getting excited to meet her.

  Late Monday afternoon, the farmer came with the new cow and led her to the pasture. He left before Mama had time to come outside to thank him.

  Lily and Joseph ran to the pasture to meet the new cow, but something seemed odd. This cow was too thin. Lily could count all her ribs. Her udder almost touched the ground.

  Mama came up behind them and she didn’t look happy. She was frowning. “At least the poor thing can eat plenty of grass until Papa decides what to do next.”

  When Papa arrived home from work, he went right to the pasture to see the new cow. He stood there awhile, just looking at her, frowning. “Run into the house, Lily, and bring me a cake pan and the milk pail.”

  Lily hurried to get the things Papa wanted but she had no idea why he would need a cake pan. Papa slid the cake pan under the cow’s udder and started to milk her. Now Lily could see why Papa wanted a cake pan. The cow’s udder was too low to the ground for a milk pail. It didn’t take long until the cake pan was full. Papa slid it out and dumped it into the milk pail next to his milking stool. It took a long time to milk this cow because he had to keep sliding the cake pan under the udder and emptying it.

  When he was finished, Papa said, “We can’t keep this cow. I’ll have to go call a cattle dealer and see if he can get us a good cow.”

  After supper, Papa went to the English neighbor’s to make a phone call. When he returned, he told Mama that the cattle dealer would come and pick up the cow tomorrow, take it to a livestock sale, and bring back a nice cow for them.

  As Lily lay in bed that night, she thought about what a mean trick that farmer had played on her papa. Lily wanted to march down the road and shake her fist at that awful man. She couldn’t believe it! He belonged to Lily’s own church.

  Papa often told her that whenever she had bad thoughts about a person, she should try to substitute them with good thoughts. Lily couldn’t find anything good to think about that bad, bad man. She yawned and rolled over. Maybe tomorrow.

  The next morning, the cattle dealer arrived at the house early and loaded the cow in his trailer. A few hours later, he returned. Mama hurried outside to talk to him. She didn’t want him to leave this cow without a chance to see it first.

  Lily liked
the cow the very instant she saw it. The cow was fawn-colored brown with big, gentle brown eyes. Thick, long black eyelashes too. Not too skinny and the udder was just the right size. Lily was glad when Mama paid the cattle dealer for the cow and asked him to unload it. This cow was going to stay.

  Now the family had a nice cow again. Lily and Joseph and Dannie tried out a few names: Joseph wanted to name her Eagle and Lily liked Cupcake and Dannie chose Kitty, which made no sense. No sense at all. Mama said that they would wait to pick a name until Papa came home from work.

  Papa was happy with the new cow. “I’ll let you pick out a name for her, Rachel.”

  Mama had already thought about a name for this cow. “How about Pansy?”

  “Pansy it is,” Papa said, pleased.

  Lily rolled the name over and over in her mind. Pansy. She liked it. Pansies were Mama’s favorite flower. It was nice to think that this sweet new cow with big brown eyes would be named after such a pretty flower. She would never forget Jenny, but there was room in her heart for Pansy.

  13

  Summer Lists

  It was a beautiful morning in late May. The rain that had swept through last night had left the air sweet and clean. Birdsong filled the trees. Squirrels chattered at each other. Dandelions made pretty yellow splashes of color in the fields beside the road, the grass looked so bright and fresh, and the sun made everything soft and warm.

  On any other school day, Lily would have wanted to run and skip and sing with the birds. Today, she felt too sad. Her right hand felt empty on the walk to school with Joseph. It wasn’t holding her lunch box with the big rubber band around it. They didn’t need to take lunch to school today. Teacher Rhoda was going to dismiss the class before noon because today was the last day of school.

  All in all, Lily had liked school. She wouldn’t miss Effie Kauffman and she wouldn’t miss Aaron Yoder. But she would miss seeing Beth each day. She would miss working in her books and learning new things. She would miss her teacher. Teacher Rhoda was kind, friendly, and patient. Lily thought she was almost as nice as Teacher Ellen, in New York, had been. Not quite, but almost.