A New Home for Lily (15 page)

S
aturday was a dry, sunny, chilly day. Papa came in from the barn and found Mama in the kitchen. “I think I'll try climbing up on the roof and take those lightning rods off the peak before we get a serious snowstorm.”

Lily was disappointed. “Why can't they stay on the roof? They aren't in anybody's way.” She had always thought those lightning rods were the only pretty thing on their ugly olive green house. The long rods stuck up high in the sky with funny green balls on the top. She imagined that they looked like a steeple on an English church house. Maybe God would think their home was an extra special place.

“They might not be in our way,” Papa said. “But we trust in God to protect us during thunderstorms, not in lightning rods. So we need to take them down.”

After lunch, Papa went to get his ladder. He propped it outside the kitchen wall and climbed up on the roof. Lily
watched the ladder disappear as Papa pulled it up onto the roof. She listened to his footsteps as he walked across the roof and propped the ladder against the attic roof. The ladder made funny creaking noises as he climbed. Then there was silence.

Lily helped Mama wash and dry the lunch dishes. Mama fixed a bowl of lukewarm water and sprinkled some baking soda into it. She swished it around with her hand until all the baking soda was dissolved. She stuck her elbow into the water. Mama said if she couldn't feel the water with her elbow, then she knew it was just the right temperature for baby Paul's bath.

Mama spread out a blanket on the countertop and put a towel on top of that. She laid Paul on it while she undressed him for his bath. Lily pushed the sleeve on her dress up as far as she could and stuck her elbow into the water to test it. How strange! Her elbow was wet, but she couldn't feel the water.

Mama carefully placed baby Paul into the water. He kicked and wiggled and waved his little starfish fingers. He liked taking baths. It was one of the few times of the day that Paul didn't cry. He was a wailer, especially in the evening. His face would turn bright red and he would stiffen his little body and let out window-rattling yells. Lily and Joseph and Dannie would run upstairs whenever the baby pitched his fits.

But bath time was a nice time with baby Paul. Mama took time to make sure he was clean and sweet smelling.

Suddenly, there was a loud thump on the roof, then a strange sliding, scraping sound. Lily looked out the window to see Papa fall to the ground.

Then there was silence. Mama and Lily stood frozen for a moment that felt far longer.

Mama wrapped the baby in his blanket and handed him to Lily. “Sit in the rocking chair with him until I come back,” she said. Her voice sounded strange to Lily: firm but frightened.

Lily wished she could run out to Papa and see if he was hurt. She hoped baby Paul wouldn't start his hollering. She could hear Mama's voice through the window, but she didn't hear Papa's voice answer back.

Not much later, the door opened and in walked Papa, holding onto Mama. Papa's face looked pale and tight. “I'll be fine, Lily,” he said. “I think I'll just go lie down for a little while.” Mama helped him to their bedroom and onto the bed. Papa never went to bed in the middle of the day.

When Mama came back to the kitchen, she took Paul from Lily and started to dress him. Her face looked worried, which
made Lily feel worried too. What if Papa was hurt more than he had wanted her to know? Papa never complained. Never.

When it was time to do chores, Mama asked Lily to stay in the house and keep an eye on baby Paul while she milked Pansy and the goats. It worried Lily even more that Papa stayed in bed instead of doing the chores. Maybe tomorrow, he would be all better.

But the next day, Papa still stayed in bed. And the next, and the next. He didn't go to his carpentry job. The only time he got out of bed was when Grandpa Miller came by to take him to the doctor. They were gone a very long time, and when Papa came back, his face looked white and strained. The outing had exhausted him. Grandpa spoke quietly to Mama about what the doctor had said. Lily tried to eavesdrop, but she couldn't make out what Grandpa was saying. Each day, she could feel the worry in the house spike up a notch. What if Papa never got better?

Mama looked tired. She had to do Papa's chores on top of her daily chores. Grandpa Miller and Uncle Jacob stopped by as often as they could to help, but they couldn't come every day. Lily and Joseph did all they could, but much of the work was too difficult for them. Mama had to milk Pansy and the nanny goats. Twice a day, Mama came in from the barn and told Papa they should sell those goats.

Lily couldn't help but think that Papa wouldn't have gotten hurt if they had stayed in New York. Their house at Singing Tree Farm didn't have lightning rods.

But if Papa had ever gotten hurt at Singing Tree Farm, the church in New York would have helped them more than this church did. She was sure of it. Sometimes, Lily thought that
everybody in this church was as snooty as Effie Kauffman. Everybody except for Beth. And Malinda. And Teacher Rhoda. And Marvin Yoder. Otherwise, everything and everybody was better in New York. They should never have left. She made the mistake of complaining to Grandma Miller and was silenced with a look. Grandma didn't tolerate any whining.

One afternoon, Lily and Joseph came home from school and there was Papa, in Mama's rocking chair, rocking baby Paul by the kitchen stove. He was out of bed, at last! Little by little, day by day, he was able to do more and more. He did some exercises that the doctor had given to him. Mama would warm towels in the oven and wrap them around Papa's back. He had a funny limp when he walked. Lily thought Papa walked like Great-Grandma used to walk, before she had her stroke.

But Lily could see that Papa was feeling much better. Once, she even heard him whistle. She loved Papa's whistle. To Lily it meant all was well.

One evening, just as the family sat down to the supper table, they were interrupted by a knock at the door. Slowly and carefully, Papa eased out of his chair to see who was at the door. She craned her neck to see and saw a stranger. The man's voice was so low and quiet that Lily couldn't hear what he was saying.

When he left, Papa came back to the table with a broad grin on his face. “I don't think you could ever guess what that was all about.” He couldn't stop grinning.

“Well, tell us, Daniel,” Mama said as she spooned some peas onto Dannie's plate.

Papa took his time answering. “I don't know the man, never even heard of him before. He had never heard of us either.” He buttered some bread, still smiling.

Now Joseph, who never stopped eating, suspended his fork in the air. “What did he want, Papa?” He shoveled the forkful of food in his mouth.

They were all watching Papa now. Even baby Paul was cooing in his bassinet. Something good had just happened and they couldn't tell what.

“When I answered the door to the man, he told me that he had a hip replacement this summer and wasn't able to walk up and down his basement stairs to fire his coal furnace this winter. He said he installed an electric furnace so he has heat, but . . .” Papa stopped to take a bite of bread.

Everyone was on the edge of their seat, waiting for Papa to finish the story.

“He said he has four tons of coal in his basement that he can't use. He said he was driving down the road and something told him that the people in the green house could use that coal. So he stopped and offered it to us.”

Mama's eyes went wide. “But, Daniel, we don't have any extra—”

Papa held up his hand. Another smile lit his face and his blue eyes sparkled. “I asked him how much he wants for it, and he said he didn't want a thing. If we would remove the coal and clean his basement, that's all the pay he wanted. He gave me his name and address and said to pick it up whenever I was ready.”

Lily was surprised to see Mama start to cry. “Oh, Daniel,” Mama said in a whisper. “We really can trust God to supply all our needs. Here I was worried that we couldn't afford to buy coal since you haven't been able to work these past few weeks. I should never have worried.”

Lily hadn't even thought that there might be money worries because of Papa's back injury. She had never worried
about money before. It was a new thought for her, but then she noticed Mama's happy tears. God did supply coal for them, just in time.

It wasn't long before Papa's back had improved enough to hitch Jim to the spring wagon. He hauled load after load of coal into the wagon, brought it home, and shoveled it into the coal bin.

When the last load of coal had been unloaded, Lily knew she had never seen a pile of coal quite that big. Even though the lightning rods were gone from the rooftop, Lily decided that this olive green house wasn't so ugly after all. Maybe God did think their house was extra special since He sent such a kind and generous stranger to their door. The proof was in the pile of coal.

The very next morning, big fluffy snowflakes started to swirl through the sky and drift gently to the ground as Lily and Joseph walked to school. Winter was coming, but Papa was well again, and they would all be warm until spring.

A
fter each student had finished reciting the Bible verse they had memorized for the week, Teacher Rhoda would give them a new verse to memorize. The next week, they would recite and get a new one. It was part of the rhythm of each week and Lily loved it.

“Next week's verse will be Proverbs 24:17,” Teacher Rhoda said.

Lily wrote the reference on a piece of paper and slipped it into her dress pocket. Tonight, after supper, Mama would help her find it in Papa's big German and English Bible.

But Teacher Rhoda had more to say. “And I decided to have everyone choose a poem to memorize too. It can be any kind of poem you'd like to choose: funny, sad, happy, thoughtful. It must have at least eight lines. You will have three weeks to get your poem memorized. At the end of those three weeks,
I will have a special prize for everyone who recites their poem without forgetting a single word.”

This, Lily thought, would be easy. She loved to memorize. She was already imagining how pleased Teacher Rhoda would be as Lily went to her desk to claim her prize.

Later that evening, Mama helped Lily find the verse in Proverbs to copy: “
Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth
.”

“That's a very good verse,” Mama said. “We should copy it off and hang it on the wall above the table so we can see it every day.”

“May I do it?” Lily asked.

Mama smiled, nodding. “I'll get a piece of paper and a marker for you.”

Lily spread the paper out on the table in front of her. She wrote out the verse in her best handwriting. When she was done, she felt she had done a very nice job with it. She found several tacks in the desk drawer, then stood on the table and tacked her paper on the wall.

She stood back and admired her verse. Mostly, her handwriting. It wouldn't take long for all of them to memorize that verse. She wondered if Mama might let her copy more verses. Each week, she could post a new verse.

Mama liked that idea, so Lily sat at the table and read more verses in the book of Proverbs. Each verse seemed to stand alone. She could pluck a verse out and write it down. In other books of the Bible, verses were all connected to each other. She found several more verses that she liked. She copied them down carefully and put them in a safe place where the paper wouldn't get wrinkled by little brothers before she was ready to tack one on the wall next Friday.

On Monday morning, the third grade girls met in a corner
at the back of the schoolhouse to talk before the bell rang. “What poem did you choose to memorize?” Beth asked.

Poem?
The poem! Lily had completely forgotten! She had been so excited about choosing Bible verses to hang on the kitchen wall that she forgot all about the poem. She would have to tell Mama she needed a poem as soon as she got home from school today.

“I already have most of my poem memorized,” Effie said.

“What is it about?” Beth asked.

“About Jesus, of course,” Effie said, as if everybody should know that. “Those are the only kinds of poems that we should memorize.”

Effie's father was one of the ministers for the church. She liked to remind everyone of that fact.

“My poem is about two little kittens,” Beth said.

“Mine is about trees and wind,” Malinda piped up. Her eyes darted to Effie, anxious, hoping for approval.

Effie frowned at the girls. “You have to find one about Jesus. You don't want Jesus to think that you like kittens or trees and wind more than Him.”

Beth rolled her eyes, but Malinda, naturally, looked worried. She often looked worried. Beth didn't seem to care if Effie approved of the poems they had chosen to memorize. Lily hoped Mama would find her a poem that would have kittens or trees in it. A little part of her was secretly thrilled that Beth wasn't listening to or obeying Effie's instructions. For once! Effie thought she was the boss of everyone.

Before bedtime, Lily told Mama that she needed to find a poem to memorize. Mama was quiet for a moment, thinking hard. Then, right out of the blue, like she had learned it last week, she rattled off,

I know that cows have little cows

And dogs have little dogs,

That pussy cats have little cats

And frogs have little frogs

I know that birds have little birds

And fish have little fishes

So why can't sinks have little sinks

Instead of dirty dishes?

Lily clapped her hands. “Oh, I like that! Would you write it down on a piece of paper so that I can memorize it?” She was sure no one would have a poem like that. It was perfect, just perfect. Lily did not like washing dishes. It seemed as if that was all she ever did! She thought that little sinks would be so much better than stacks of dirty dishes.

Early the next morning, Lily showed her poem to Beth, Malinda, and Effie. Beth and Malinda read it and laughed and laughed. They thought a big sink filled with little sinks would be better than a big sink filled with big dirty dishes. Washing dishes wasn't their favorite chore either.

Effie's forehead scrunched together in a big, scolding frown.

It was Friday evening. Lily looked through her stack of verses she had copied from Proverbs and chose a new one to tack to the wall. Usually, Lily showed Mama first, but it had been a long day with baby Paul. He had cried and cried all day. He seemed to cry all the time. Mama was in her room, trying to rock baby Paul to sleep, and Lily knew she shouldn't disturb them.

Lily read the verse a few more times before she tacked it up to the wall. It was a good one. And her handwriting, she
noticed, was quite lovely. Clear and slanted cursive. It was too bad that Joseph was too little to read cursive. Maybe next year.

On Saturday afternoon, Effie's mother stopped by with pumpkin muffins. Ever since baby Paul was born, the Lapp family seemed to see rather a lot of Ida Kauffman, but there was a lot of her to see. To Lily, Ida Kauffman had a way about her that felt like the sun slid behind a cloud. Birds stopped chirping. Dogs stopped barking. Cows stopped mooing.

Ida said she wanted to see the new baby, but as soon as she walked into the kitchen, her sparse eyebrows shot up at the sound of baby Paul's unhappy wails. She planted her fists on her hips. “That baby has colic,” she said. “You should feed him goat's milk.” As if that explained everything.

Ridiculous! Lily had never heard of anything so ridiculous in all her life. Babies didn't drink goat's milk. Everybody knew that. Babies drank baby milk. She thought Mama was being very polite to Effie's mother, who sounded just like Effie did: she liked to act as if she knew everything. Since her husband was the minister, she liked to be involved in everybody's business.

Lily wished she could be as nice to Effie as Mama was to Effie's mother. “Sit down, Ida,” Mama said, waving the teapot. “I've got some tea left over and some English muffins. Would you like one with raspberry jam?”

“Well . . .” Ida wavered, then sat down. “Don't mind if I do.” From her chair, she gave instructions to make a cup of tea just so—two lumps of sugar and a dash of cream—when suddenly, Lily heard a loud, “Harrumph!” Ida jumped up from the kitchen table and said, “I suppose I should be going.” And away she went, out the door and down the driveway.

Mama looked at Lily, astounded. “What just happened?”

Lily shrugged. She had been walking baby Paul in a big
circle around the kitchen and the living room, trying to settle him while Mama made the tea. “I don't know!” She looked out the window and saw the rather substantial backside of Ida Kauffman marching down the road. My, she was a big woman. “Effie gets like that too. Right as rain one moment, mad as a wet hen the next.”

Mama shot Lily a warning glance. She was always encouraging Lily to see the good side of others. Lily handed baby Paul back to Mama. For some people, especially people like Effie and her mother, it was very hard to find the good side.

That evening, Mama gave baby Paul some fresh goat's milk. Baby Paul didn't yelp and holler at all that night.

One thing, Lily decided. She had found something good about Effie's mother. She might be right about Paul needing goat's milk. But it was just that one thing.

Sunday was an in-between Sunday. During the afternoon, Papa sat at the kitchen table playing a game of Sorry with Lily and Joseph while baby Paul napped. Dannie tried to play on Papa's side. That was exasperating. He wasn't old enough to play and only slowed the game down as Papa patiently helped him count and move around the board.

A knock on the door surprised all of them. They hadn't even heard a buggy drive up. In walked Uncle Jacob and his family. Lily was so pleased to have visitors on a Sunday afternoon. Uncle Jacob had interesting things to talk about and he always treated Lily as if she were a grown-up. She felt important. And the best thing of all was that no one worked on Sunday afternoon, and that included babysitters. Lily wouldn't be asked to watch Noah and Anna.

Mama popped some popcorn and made hot cider for
everyone to drink while they visited. Lily put away the game of Sorry so that everyone could sit at the table. Uncle Jacob had barely settled in when he bolted out of his chair. “Well, I think it's time we start for home.”

Everyone was confused. The visiting had just begun. What had caused Uncle Jacob's sudden change of mind? It was just like yesterday, when Effie's mother had left in a huff.

Then Mama's eyes landed on the verse Lily had tacked above the table and she gasped. “We didn't choose that verse for you,” she said, her cheeks turning pink. “Lily has been copying verses and placing a new one up each week. I didn't get a chance to see the verse.”

What was so bad about Lily's verse?

Papa stood and read it aloud: “Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbor's house; lest he be weary of thee and so hate thee.” He looked at Uncle Jacob, and the two men burst out laughing.

Lily was even more confused. First, her verse made people huffy, then it made Papa laugh. Mama hurried to take down the card from the wall. She told them about Effie's mother, and Papa and Uncle Jacob laughed even harder. Lily did not understand men at all.

After Uncle Jacob, Aunt Lizzie, Noah, and Anna went home, Mama asked to see the rest of the verses Lily had copied. “It would be a good idea to choose a different verse to hang on the wall,” Mama said. “One that wouldn't accidentally hurt our visitors' feelings.”

Mama found another saying for Lily to copy down: “The way to a friend's house is never long.”

The day had finally come! Today was the day when all of the children would recite the poems they had memorized. One
by one, each student walked to the front of the schoolhouse to take a turn. The eighth graders went first. Lily enjoyed listening to all the different kinds of interesting poems. When it was the fourth graders' turn, Lily listened to Sam's poem about camping in the woods, but she refused to listen to Aaron's dumb poem about a little boy and a hornets' nest. To her, Aaron was invisible. Even when everyone laughed at Aaron's poem, Lily pretended he was invisible.