Life with Lily Read online

  Mama brought Lily’s stiffly starched white apron into her bedroom. She helped Lily slip into it.

  Lily went to the living room and opened the little drawer in the table beside Mama’s rocking chair. In it were pretty flowered handkerchiefs. Lily was allowed to bring two to church. She chose two with purple flowers to match her dress. She lifted her apron and tucked them carefully into her pocket on the front of her dress.

  Mama came to the living room to inspect Lily’s face. Lily had already washed it, but Mama wet a washcloth and washed it again. She tied Lily’s prayer covering in a neat little bow beneath her chin and handed Lily her big black Sunday bonnet to wear on top of it. It was heavy. Lily couldn’t see anywhere except right in front of her when she was wearing it. She didn’t like it. She often wondered if this was how Jim felt when he had to wear blinders.

  Papa had hitched Jim to the buggy and drove to the house where Mama and Lily and the boys were waiting. Jim’s ears were twitching and his tail was up. He seemed happy to be going out. As Lily joined Joseph in the back seat of the buggy, she wondered if Jim enjoyed seeing his friends at church, just like she did. Mama climbed into the front seat, next to Papa, and held Dannie on her lap. Papa clucked to Jim and they started down the driveway.

  Usually, Lily and Joseph liked to kneel on the seat and peer out of the back window of the buggy. Not on church Sundays, though. Mama didn’t want them to wrinkle their clothes before they got to church. Lily could only see the sky and the treetops through the little window by her seat. She listened to the steady clip-clop of Jim’s hooves on the road and the rolling sound of the buggy wheels. Lily listened to the wheels to find out how close they were getting to Mandy’s house. She could tell what kind of a road they were on by the sound of the wheels. If they rolled over a gravel road, the wheels made a crunchy sound. It changed to a nice singing sound when the buggy turned onto an asphalt road.

  Papa began to sing a church song in his deep clear voice and Mama joined him with her sweet soft soprano. Lily liked hearing them sing and hummed along. Their voices faded as they neared Mandy’s home.

  Papa guided Jim right to the house and turned him so the buggy wheel wouldn’t be in Mama’s way. Mama got the bread she had baked yesterday and took it into the house. She hurried back out to fetch Dannie and her satchel filled with diapers and pretty toys. She opened the back door of the buggy for Lily to hop out. Joseph would stay with Papa.

  As Lily and Mama entered the house and removed their heavy black bonnets, Mama tipped up Lily’s face to inspect it one more time. Satisfied, they went to shake hands with the rest of the women who stood in the kitchen, waiting for the bishop’s wife to give the signal for the women to find a seat. In the living room were rows and rows of backless benches. The women and girls filed in and sat on one side of the living room. As Lily sat down, she leaned forward to look at Hannah, seated next to Aunt Mary, on the other side of Mama. Hannah returned Lily’s smile, but then they both looked away. The ministers were coming in and everyone had to be quiet and serious until after church was over.

  The bishop slowly made his way through all the benches filled with women. He shook each person’s hand. The two ministers followed behind him. Lily felt so grown up as she held out her hand to greet them.

  After they sat down, the men and boys filed in and sat on benches that faced the women. The deacon stood, held his left arm straight and stiff, and piled songbooks on it from his hand all the way up to his shoulder. Lily wondered how he kept them from falling as he made his way through the room to give each person a songbook.

  One of the men announced a song number and everyone began to sing. The ministers rose and went upstairs while everyone else kept on singing. Mama followed the words with her finger so Lily could try to follow along. She thought the squiggly German letters looked funny. Voices rose and fell all around her, singing in high German.

  The ministers came back into the room—the silent signal that the time of hymn singing was over. Everyone tucked their songbooks under their bench as the first minister rose and started to preach. Lily’s legs soon grew tired of dangling from the bench. She wanted to swing her legs but knew she had to hold still. She reached into her pocket to bring out a handkerchief. She folded it into a triangle, then folded the ends into the center. She rolled it up and twisted it around to make a little mouse with a tail. She tickled her nose with the tail. She unfolded the handkerchief. This time she folded it a special way to make a little cradle with twin babies inside it and gently rocked the cradle back and forth. She glanced over to see what Hannah was making with her handkerchief, then sighed with envy. Hannah looked so pretty with her satiny blonde hair and her blue eyes. Lily wished her own hair looked like Hannah’s. Even if her hair was straight dull brown instead of blonde, she wished she could have at least had waves. She reached with her finger to trace a scallop line along the front of her hair. Maybe that would help her hair look wavy. Mama nudged her and frowned, so Lily quickly dropped her hand to her lap and played with her handkerchiefs.

  Mama placed her hand on Lily’s. It was time to kneel and pray. Lily slipped her handkerchiefs back into her pocket and knelt with everyone else. She rested her head in the cradle of her arms and then very quietly lifted her head to peek at the women who sat behind her. After a time of prayer, the next minister started to preach. He had a singsongy voice that made Lily sleepy. Leaning against Mama, she fell asleep. Before she knew it, Mama nudged her awake. It was time for church to be over. Finally, finally, Lily could go play with her friends!

  In the blink of an eye, the men converted the benches to tables. Women sliced bread and filled bowls with sweetened creamy peanut butter to set in the center of the tables. Seated next to Mama, Lily ate a nice thick slice of bread with gooey, sticky peanut butter spread on top. Of all the food served at church, nothing was as good as church peanut butter.

  After everyone had eaten, the men took the benches outside and set them up so the children could slide on them. Lily loved sliding on the benches. She was waiting in line to take another turn when Mandy called the girls over.

  “Let’s go play with our dolls,” Mandy said. “The boys can play on the slides by themselves.”

  Lily and the other girls ran to get their dolls. Mandy led the girls to a big willow tree behind the house. Not far behind the tree there was a railroad track. The girls sat under the long sweeping willow branches for a long time, playing with their dolls.

  “This was a nice secret,” Lily said. She didn’t think it was a terribly exciting secret place, but she remembered that Mama told her to be extra nice to Mandy.

  Mandy dismissed that comment with a flick of her hand. “This tree isn’t my secret. This is what I use for my playhouse. The secret place is over there.” She pointed to the railroad tracks. “We can sit on the train tracks to play church.”

  “But what if a train comes through?” Lily asked. She didn’t think they should be playing on the tracks.

  “Not on Sundays,” Mandy said. “The engineers have to go to church so they don’t drive their trains on Sundays.” She lifted her chin. “Everybody knows that.”

  Lily didn’t know that. Nor did the other girls, but they all followed Mandy out to sit on the tracks with their dolls and play pretend church. Mandy acted like the deacon and the minister and the bishop, all rolled into one. She started to sing a church song and everyone joined in. They knew the songs by heart. They had been singing them all their lives.

  Suddenly, Lily felt the tracks wiggle, then rumble. Something seemed odd. She stopped singing to listen more closely. There was no mistake. A train was coming!

  Just then, the train came into sight. It blew its whistle to make the girls move off the tracks.

  “Train!” Mandy yelled.

  The little girls bolted off the tracks and ran to the willow tree. All but Lily! She couldn’t move her feet. She was frozen! The train kept speeding toward her. The engineer kept blowing the whistle. The girls were screaming and screa
ming, but Lily couldn’t budge! The big blue engine came barreling toward her. The engineer was trying to get the train to stop. The wheels of the train made strange screeching sounds as the engineer leaned out of the window to wave his arms.

  “Get off, get off!” he yelled.

  Suddenly, Papa’s big strong arms whisked Lily away just before the train went thundering by.

  The breath Lily hadn’t realized she was holding whooshed out of her. As Papa held her close to his chest, she burst into tears.

  “There, there,” he said, trying to comfort her. “You’re not hurt.”

  She buried her face against his shoulder and sobbed. Papa carried Lily up to the house and told Mama that it was time to go home. His face looked tight and pale.

  Mama didn’t ask Papa why he wanted to leave so early. Papa hitched up Jim as Mama found their bonnets and joined him in the buggy. Papa drove the buggy past clumps of men who were visiting with each other. He drove past the boys who were sliding on the benches. He drove past the little girls, holding their dolls under the willow tree.

  As they left Mandy’s house, Papa told Mama what had happened. Lily didn’t hear Mama’s response, but she knew she would never again play on a railroad track no matter what Mandy Mast said.

  13

  Teacher Ellen’s Accident

  Lily’s only disappointment with school was that she was the youngest child in the entire schoolhouse. Mandy Mast liked to point that fact out, often. Lily’s turn always came last: choosing the game to play at recess, or picking the hymn to sing in the morning, or standing at the end of the line of scholars when they lined up. The last one to get a drink of water at the pump before going inside after the bell rang. The last one to wash her hands at lunchtime. Always, always last.

  But other than Mandy Mast, Lily looked forward to her days at school. And most of all, she loved art. They had art every Friday. Sometimes, if they did very well with German class on Wednesdays, Teacher Ellen might let them have an extra hour for art.

  On a crisp, autumn Friday afternoon in late September, Teacher Ellen stood in front of the classroom with a big smile on her face. Her eyes swept the room as the students waited eagerly to see what she had planned for today’s art project. Every week she had something new planned and Lily never could guess what it might be. Sometimes Teacher Ellen wanted them to draw a picture. Other times, they painted. Lily stretched her neck to see what was on Teacher Ellen’s desk, but she couldn’t see anything.

  “Today we will be doing something a little different for art,” Teacher Ellen said. “I have a stack of old calendars here. Isaac, please come up and pass them out so that everyone has one.”

  Isaac was the nicest boy in school, so Lily didn’t mind that he was always given the job of passing out papers. That was another thing Lily was too little to do: pass out papers. Only the big boys and big girls were given the task of passing out papers. Lily couldn’t wait until she was a big girl and could pass out papers.

  Lily watched Isaac walk from desk to desk, handing each student a calendar. He handed Lily a beautiful calendar filled with pictures of mountains and lakes and other scenery. Lily glanced over at Mandy’s calendar. It had birds on it. It was nice, but not as nice as hers. She thought Isaac might have given her the prettiest one.

  After everyone had a calendar, Teacher Ellen told them to choose their favorite picture and carefully tear it out. Lily chose a meadow filled with wildflowers. A big snow-covered mountain loomed in the background. She tore it out carefully as Teacher Ellen explained the next step.

  “I have brown and black construction paper,” Teacher Ellen said. “I want you to cut strips of paper. We’ll glue the paper strips around the picture to make a frame, and one through the middle. It will seem as if we are looking out a window.”

  As the students cut and pasted, Teacher Ellen walked up and down the aisles. She put two small pieces of fabric, plus a needle and a thread, on everyone’s desk. “After you are done making your window frame, I want you to make a curtain for your window with the fabric pieces. You can stitch the fabric right to the paper. I have some ribbon in a basket on my desk. You can line up and choose a ribbon to make little tiebacks to draw the curtains back from your windows.”

  Not another lineup! That meant that Lily had to choose last from the basket. She was happy to see there was one purple ribbon, but she was sure Mandy would choose that one. But amazingly, she didn’t! The last ribbon left in the basket was the purple one. Lily sighed with happiness.

  Lily did not like to sew by hand. She did not like it at all. But she wanted Teacher Ellen to be proud of her picture. The schoolhouse was quiet except for the sound of scissors and pasting, and needles and thread swishing through layers of paper. Teacher Ellen helped Lily tie her purple ribbon tiebacks into a bow because she wasn’t good at tying bows yet. And then, her beautiful window picture was done.

  Isaac and two other big boys helped Teacher Ellen tape the windows along the wall. Hers really did look like a window with soft white curtains—outside was a flower-filled meadow and mountain. Lily admired each one, even Mandy’s bird picture. Everyone’s window looked different. Lily thought it was the best project they had ever made during art period.

  During recess, the scholars divided up into two teams to play softball. Teacher Ellen said she would pitch for both teams. Today the batting lineup started with the youngest. Even though she would finally be first in line for something, playing softball was never good news to Lily. She didn’t like playing softball because she could never hit the ball. The rest of the time she had to wait for a turn at bat, bored. It was much more fun to play tag or some other running game. Lily looked forward to the day when it would be her turn to choose the game at recess. They would not have to play softball that day!

  Lily stepped up to the plate with the bat. Teacher Ellen took a few steps forward and pitched slow and gentle. Lily swung and missed. Strike one. She swung and missed again. Strike two. As Lily swung and missed for the third time, she dropped the bat and walked over to the rest of her teammates. Softball was no fun. No fun at all.

  It was cousin Levi’s turn at bat. As he picked up the bat, Mandy Mast whispered loudly, “It’s L-L-L-Levi’s t-t-t-t-t-urn!”

  Teacher Ellen overheard. She stopped the game and walked up to Mandy. “We do not make fun of anyone in our school,” she said sternly. “I want you to go apologize to Levi.”

  Mandy mumbled a quick “sorry” to Levi, but Lily didn’t think she sounded at all sorry. Just sorry Teacher Ellen happened to hear.

  Lily felt badly for Levi. His stutter wasn’t nearly as obvious as it had been when school started. She thought it seemed that the less nervous Levi was, the less he stuttered. She hoped that someday his stutter would disappear for good.

  Teacher Ellen wound up her arm to pitch to Levi. He swung the bat and Thwack! he hit the ball way out in the field. Levi dropped the bat and ran all the way to first base. Second base. Third base! He looked so pleased! Lily was happy for him.

  Levi might have a little trouble talking smoothly, but he made up for that in almost everything else. He could hit a ball farther than any boy his age. He could run faster than any boy his age. He was always friendly and willing to help anyone he could. All of those things, Lily thought, were much more important than a little stutter.

  Rain came down like a curtain of water. Lily stood inside the schoolhouse and looked out the window, watching for Mama to arrive in the buggy to pick her up. Mama was late and Lily was one of the few students left in the schoolhouse. Isaac and his younger brothers had brought umbrellas to school. They could walk home in the rain.

  Lily watched as Isaac and his brothers walked across the school yard to the road. Isaac led the way while his younger brothers followed behind him, like baby ducks following the Mama duck. Lily wouldn’t mind walking all the way home in the rain if she had a pretty umbrella. Maybe a purple one with polka dots or flowers.

  A buggy turned into the school yard. It was
Mandy Mast’s neighbor, Naomi, coming to give Mandy a ride home. As the horse passed Isaac and his brothers, it stopped abruptly and snorted. The horse tossed its head angrily and jumped forward a little. Then it reared up and pawed at the air with its front hooves.

  Isaac realized that the umbrellas were scaring the horse, so he yelled to his brothers to close them. “Fast!” he yelled.

  Too late.

  The horse dropped back down on all four hooves and broke out in a run. Nostrils flaring, it dashed past the schoolhouse. Naomi held on to the reins as hard as she could to try to stay in control. Lily’s eyes went wide as she watched the horse go crazy. Mandy started to cry. The horse and buggy rounded the schoolhouse. The buggy tipped dangerously on two wheels as it rounded the bend. Then the horse galloped out the school yard, across the yard, and into a farmer’s hayfield. Poor Naomi!

  Lily saw Jim pull Mama’s buggy into the school yard. She grabbed her bonnet and lunch box, then ran outside and climbed into the buggy. She told Mama what had happened and pointed to poor Naomi, stuck in the hayfield.

  Mama jumped out of the buggy and tied Jim to the hitching rail. “Lily, you stay here. I want to make sure Naomi is all right before we start for home.”

  Lily wasn’t sure what Mama could do with a scared, frightened horse. She watched Mama cross the road to go to the hayfield. In the pouring rain, Mama held the horse’s bridle and gently stroked his nose. Lily could see that the horse was jumpy and nervous. Mama guided the horse back to the schoolhouse and waited until Mandy was safely in the buggy. The horse trotted out of the school yard and started down the road, but it was still twitching its tail more than usual. Lily hoped Naomi and Mandy would get home safely without passing any more umbrellas.

  Poor Mama was soaking wet. On the way home, she said, “Isn’t it nice that our Jim doesn’t mind umbrellas? Sometimes, little things can spook a horse. Your Papa is very good at training horses and I’m glad for it!”