A Surprise for Lily Read online

  “The votes have been cast,” the bishop said. “Now I ask Henry Kauffman, David Yoder, and Jacob Miller to come forward and take a hymnal.”

  One by one, the three men rose from the bench and chose a hymnal, then sat down again. The bishop read a few verses from the book of Acts in the Bible. It described how an apostle had been chosen, after Jesus had returned to heaven, to replace Judas Iscariot as the twelfth disciple. The bishop closed the Bible and read a prayer from the little black prayer book.

  It was finally time.

  Everyone leaned forward on the benches. The only sound in the room came as the bishop took the hymnal from David Yoder’s hands and opened it. He paged through it and handed it back to him. Empty. Next he took the book from Henry Kauffman. Effie wiggled in her seat. The bishop paged through the hymnal and handed it back to Henry. Empty. Effie slumped.

  There was only one hymnal left. The bishop took the hymnal from Uncle Jacob’s hands and opened it. He held up a slip of paper for everyone to see. “The lot has been found,” he said in a shaky, choked up voice. It almost sounded as if something terrible had happened. “God has chosen Jacob Miller to be our new bishop.”

  Aunt Lizzie started to cry. Other muffled sobs started around the room. The bishop placed his hands on Uncle Jacob’s head and prayed a prayer of blessing. Effie had stopped wiggling and acted very bored.

  Men and women rose from their seats to shake hands with Uncle Jacob and Aunt Lizzie and to whisper words of encouragement to them. Lily wove her way through the crowd to join the girls outside.

  Effie squinted her eyes at Lily. “Jacob Miller took the book that my father was supposed to get,” she said in her peevish way. “Jacob Miller doesn’t have any idea about being a bishop. His wife is too busy with little children to pay any attention to the church members. She’ll never make sure they’re living according to the Ordnung.”

  Lily stared at Effie. “Uncle Jacob did not take your father’s book! He took the last book. And I think he will make a very good bishop. Aunt Lizzie will make a good bishop’s wife. She’s nice and not bossy and nosy like . . . some other people.” Like . . . your mother!

  Effie was furious. “My mother is one of the most valuable members of the church! She should be the bishop’s wife! She’d be much better than your Aunt Lizzie!”

  Lily opened her mouth to tell Effie just what she thought of Ida Kauffman when she felt Mama’s firm hand on her shoulder. “Time for us to go home, Lily.”

  As Lily followed Mama to the buggy, she turned back to look at Effie. Effie squinted her mean little eyes at Lily, and Lily squinted right back.

  On the way home, Lily couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit smug. It would be nice to have her uncle for the bishop. Effie’s father was only a minister. Maybe she would stop trying to boss Lily around, seeing as how Lily’s uncle was the bishop.

  And then she realized she was starting to think just like Effie.

  10

  A Talk with Mama

  Every Saturday afternoon, Mama brushed out and washed Lily’s long hair. It was awful! She dreaded it. Her hair reached below her waist now—it had never been cut—and it was always full of snarls. Lily felt like crying, but she was halfway to turning eleven. Too old to cry about tangled hair. But oh! how it hurt.

  The only thing that helped to distract Lily was when Mama told her stories about her childhood. “Tell me a story, Mama,” Lily said, wincing from the pain.

  “I think you already know most of them by now,” Mama said, gently combing out a section of Lily’s hair. “Have I ever told you about the big snowball bush we used to have outside our house?”

  “I don’t think so,” Lily said. She felt herself relax, ever so slightly, as she anticipated Mama’s new story.

  “When I was a little girl, I had a best friend named Dorcas. She lived right across the road from us. We sat beside each other in church and played together during every school recess. We used to spend time at each other’s homes. Our favorite times were when we had permission to stay overnight.” She pulled some tangles out of the comb and tossed them in the sink.

  “One summer afternoon, we hatched a plan as we sat under a huge snowball bush at Dorcas’s house. It was loaded with big white balls of flowers. Whenever we bumped it, it showered petals on the ground that looked like snow. Dorcas got a funny look on her face. She had an active imagination, and I knew she was thinking up something clever to do. Sure enough, she was brewing up an idea.

  “‘Let’s gather up these flowers and shake the petals into a pail,’ Dorcas said. ‘On Sunday evening, as my sister and her boyfriend come home from the hymn singing, we could be waiting for them by the register in my room. It’s right above the living room door. When they walk up to the door, we could dump the whole pail right on top of them.’

  “I thought it sounded like a wonderful idea! All I needed to do was to convince my parents to let me stay at Dorcas’s house for the night. I tried to pretend it was just an ordinary summer night, so they wouldn’t suspect that we had something up our sleeves. But I was so excited when they said yes!

  “On Sunday afternoon, Dorcas and I spent an hour plucking blossoms off and shaking the petals into a big five-gallon pail. When it was full, we made sure no one was looking as we sneaked it into the house and up to Dorcas’s bedroom. When it was bedtime, we changed into our nightgowns and waited for her sister to get home. The time got later and later, but we didn’t have much of a problem staying awake. There was always so much to talk about.”

  “Even though you saw each other every single day?” Lily asked.

  “Even so. Just the way you and Hannah liked to talk to each other.” Mama stroked the comb through Lily’s hair one more time, looking for tangles, and found some.

  Ouch! Lily winced.

  “Dorcas and I sat on the floor to play games until we heard a horse and buggy drive into the driveway. We blew out the lamp and rolled the rug back to uncover the register. Dorcas carefully lifted it out. It left a square hole in the floor and we could see straight down into the living room. We tried not to giggle as we held the pail over the register, just waiting for them to come in the house.”

  By now, Lily had forgotten all about her tangled hair.

  “The door opened and Dorcas’s sister and her boyfriend walked inside. The boyfriend put his hat on the table while Dorcas took off her bonnet and hung it on the wall peg. We could hear them whisper to each other. They walked to the living room . . . and just as they passed beneath the hole in the floor, we dumped that pail of petals right down on top of them. They both looked up in surprise and saw us before we could duck away!”

  Mama separated Lily’s hair into three strands and started to make a braid. “Dorcas’s sister was furious. She marched upstairs and told us to go downstairs and clean up the mess. It wasn’t nearly as fun to clean up as it had been to dump the flower petals on them. After we were done, she sent Dorcas back upstairs and told me to go home.” She tied off the ends of Lily’s long braid.

  “I ran across the road and tiptoed up the porch steps. I was hoping to get inside the house and up to my room without waking up my parents. I knew they wouldn’t be very happy with what we’d done, and I hoped Dorcas’s sister wasn’t going to tattle. I turned the doorknob carefully, but it was locked. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go back to Dorcas’s house. If I woke up my parents, there would go my hope that they wouldn’t find out what had happened. So I decided to sleep in the buggy in the barn. I curled up on the floor of the buggy under a buggy robe and tried to go to sleep.”

  “Wasn’t it scary out in the barn?”

  “It was scary!” Mama said. “Much scarier than I thought it would be. The barn was pitch dark. The buggy smelled like a horse. And I kept hearing the animals move around in their stalls. I was cold and uncomfortable, and sure I would never sleep at all. But I must have finally fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, it was bright and sunny, and I heard the barn door open. My father was starting mo
rning chores. Very carefully, I slipped out of the buggy and ran to the house. Somehow, my mother spotted me coming out of the barn. She opened the door as I tiptoed up the porch steps. So I had to tell her everything that had happened. If I’d known I was going to get caught, I would have just knocked on the door and slept in my comfortable bed all night instead of sleeping in a stiff buggy.”

  “Did you get in trouble?” Lily asked. It was hard to imagine Mama ever getting into trouble.

  Mama twisted Lily’s braid up into a bun and fastened it with several hairpins. “No, I think my parents decided that sleeping in a buggy had been punishment enough. Dorcas and I decided it was worth the trouble. For the rest of the summer, whenever we remembered the look on their faces when those petals showered down on them, we doubled over in fits of giggles.” She pinned a cleaned, ironed prayer covering on Lily’s clean, smooth hair. “Some things are just worth the trouble.”

  Some things definitely were, Lily agreed. But not combing out hair.

  Lily looked down at the English book spread out on her desk. Teacher Judith had told the fifth grade to do their next lesson but she hadn’t explained how they were supposed to do it.

  Lily tried to read the instructions again, but they made her feel even more confused and helpless. Put parentheses around each prepositional phrase. Draw one line under the subject, two lines under the simple predicate, and three lines under every superlative.

  It was like reading another language!

  Lily tried not to panic. From fourth grade, she remembered that a noun was a person, place, or thing. She tried to think back to other lessons that Teacher Rhoda had given. She felt pretty sure that a simple predicate was a verb but she didn’t know what a superlative or a prepositional phrase was.

  She used to like English. Teacher Rhoda had made it fun. She remembered an assignment that was especially easy: circling adjectives.

  She could think up a lot of adjectives to describe her English lesson: hard, awful, confusing, frustrating. Teacher Rhoda would have been happy to know that Lily was thinking about adjectives, but that wouldn’t help her with superlatives right now. What in the world was a superlative?

  Lily raised her hand. Teacher Judith walked over to her desk to see what she needed. “What is a prepositional phrase and a superlative?” Lily asked.

  “Read your instructions,” Teacher Judith said and walked away to help someone else.

  An odd thought dawned in Lily’s mind. It almost seemed as if Teacher Judith didn’t know English grammar. If that were true, what more could Lily do? Her only hope was to guess at the answers. She hoped she guessed enough right answers to get a passing grade.

  The next day, Lily walked home from school slowly, feeling ashamed. She didn’t want to show her report card to Papa and Mama. Right in the middle of a row of As and Bs was a big fat F in English. She had never received an F before. Never! Why, she had never even had a C before. She wondered if F meant Failed. That’s how it felt.

  But then she cheered up. The problem wasn’t her. The problem was that Teacher Judith didn’t know English. Lily hoped Papa and Mama would understand how hard it was to figure out grammar when your teacher didn’t know what it was.

  Papa and Mama exchanged a concerned look when they saw the F in Lily’s report card, but they didn’t say anything more about it. At bedtime, Papa sent the boys upstairs and said, “Lily, we want to have a little talk before you go to bed.”

  Lily went into the living room and sat on a stool by the woodstove. Papa and Mama sat in their chairs. “Do you have any idea why you received an F in English?” Papa said. “You’ve always had As in English.”

  “I don’t know how to do the lessons,” Lily said. “Teacher Judith never explains how to do them. She just tells us to read the instructions, but I don’t understand them. No one does. All of the upper grades failed. Beth and Malinda got Fs, too.” She was sure Effie did, too, but Effie refused to show her report card to anyone.

  “Everyone?” Papa said.

  “Even Aaron Yoder got a D,” Lily said. Everybody knew he always got the best grades in school.

  Papa and Mama sat quietly for a few minutes. The only sound was the crackling of the fire in the stove. Finally, Mama said, “You can go to bed now, Lily. Papa and I will think of some ways we can help you.”

  Lily was relieved that Papa and Mama understood about Teacher Judith. She wondered what they would try to do about it. Maybe, they could take the report card to school and ask Teacher Judith to change the F to an A. That would be an excellent solution.

  A few days later, Lily came home from school and found an English book waiting on the kitchen table for her. “Show me what lesson you’re working on in school,” Mama said.

  Lily paged through the book until she came to the lesson she was supposed to do the next day. Mama looked at it and sat down next to Lily. She explained how to do all of it. When Mama helped her understand what the big words meant, Lily could understand it easily. She felt light and happy. She didn’t dread school tomorrow. She was sure she could get a good grade with Mama as her teacher.

  The next day, Teacher Judith assigned the fifth grade an English assignment. Lily pulled out her book and set right to work. It didn’t take long to finish it. She was surprised how fun it had been to do her lesson now that she knew how to do it. Mama made everything so clear.

  Each evening, Mama explained the next day’s lesson to Lily. Her grades in English were back to As, while the rest of the upper grades were failing. Lily felt a little sorry for Beth and Malinda, but not Effie. It was a pity their mothers couldn’t help them at home like Mama was doing for her.

  Dear Hannah,

  Thank you for your letter. I’m glad your papa found a good hired boy to help him at the farm. Next time you write, tell me more about your new school. You didn’t say if there were any girls in your grade. Only boys? If so, then I am doubly sorry for you.

  Effie Kauffman made a big fool of herself over Aaron Yoder this week, same as every week. She is convinced that she will marry Aaron Yoder one day even though he doesn’t like her at all. Last Friday afternoon, it was rainy and cold so we had to play in the basement for recess. The girls played hopscotch while the boys made up a game with the mop pails. They were trying to pitch tennis balls into them to score points.

  When Teacher Judith rang the bell, Aaron Yoder opened the furnace door to see if it needed more coal. When he tried to close the door, Effie stuck a mop handle into the crack between the hinges. It got pinched in the door hard enough that it made a notch in the mop handle. Aaron opened the door and Effie took the mop out and kissed the notch on the handle. She said that mop was now hers to use whenever the schoolhouse needed cleaning, and it would help her to think of Aaron—as if she needed any reminding.

  Aaron told her the only thing she kissed was a bunch of germs on a dirty mop. Naturally, Effie didn’t care.

  Isn’t Effie ridiculous to be thinking about getting married? She acts like she is eighteen years old, not eleven.

  When I grow up I want to live alone with a fluffy yellow cat for company. I want a little house, filled with books, that sits right next to an ice-cream store so I can read and eat ice-cream cones all day long. Doesn’t that sound nice? Much nicer than getting married to a boy like Aaron Yoder.

  I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news first: Teacher Judith does not know how to teach English and the entire upper grades, except for one student who is getting an A, are failing.

  Here is the good news: I am that one student.

  Your cousin,

  Lily

  11

  A Wedding

  One afternoon in November, Papa brought the mail to Mama. On the top of the pile was a postcard. Mama read the postcard out loud so that everyone could hear. It was an invitation to a wedding for one of Uncle Ira’s daughters.

  Lily didn’t even bother to ask if she could go to the wedding. Last year, Mama and Papa went to a relative’s wedding and left L
ily and Joseph at home with a babysitter. They thought going to school was more important than going to a wedding.

  This year, Lily agreed with Mama and Papa. Teacher Judith promised a wonderful prize to the student who had the best attendance this school term. So far, Effie and Lily were the only students who hadn’t missed a day of school. Effie pointed out, frequently, that Lily had missed the first two days of school because of her grandfather’s funeral, but the school term had just begun. In a tiny corner of Lily’s mind, she had a hope that Effie might end up with a bad cold or hacking cough once or twice and have to stay home. If that were to happen, Lily and Effie would be tied. Lily didn’t want to risk her chance for the prize.

  “Are you going to go?” Joseph said.

  Mama looked up at Papa and smiled when he nodded. “Looks like we are,” Mama said. “We’ll take Dannie and Paul with us again. Maybe Carrie Kauffman might be able to come stay with the two of you.”

  Lily and Joseph exchanged a worried look. Last year’s experience with Carrie as a babysitter was a disaster. Carrie didn’t know how to milk Pansy. Poor Pansy! Lily and Joseph talked her into letting them eat raw, salted potatoes for supper and their tummies hurt for days. But the worst of all was when Joseph spilled green paint over his hair. Weeks later, his hair still had a strange greenish tinge. Lily grinned. She still remembered Ida Kauffman peering at Joseph’s head during church and blinking rapidly, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Carrie doesn’t know how to milk a cow,” Lily reminded Papa. She couldn’t bear to hear Pansy’s sad moos from an overly full udder. And she never did have as much milk as she did before Papa and Mama went to that wedding.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” Papa said. “It’s getting close to the time to dry Pansy off. I’ll just let her dry off a month sooner than I planned. Chores won’t be difficult this time. By the time we leave for the wedding, all you’ll have to do is feed Pansy, Jim, and the goats. And gather the eggs.”