A New Home for Lily (19 page)

Mama turned the letter over. “Aunt Mary wants me to tell you thank you again for those paper dolls. Hannah plays with them every day.”

Lily hadn't played with her paper dolls since Hannah had left. Not one time. She had packed them up and put them away. But maybe now she would be able to see her beautiful paper dolls again. Maybe Hannah would even give them back to her, since she would be living right next door in the ugly brown house. Lily brightened at that thought.

L
ily sat at the supper table. She peered into her bowl of chili soup. It was made with tomato juice, water, and beef broth, sweetened with brown sugar, with bits of meat and lots of kidney beans floating in it. It was thin and watery, and Lily thought it was the worst thing Mama cooked. Lately, she seemed to be making it so often. The most awful part of Mama's chili soup was those hideous kidney beans.

Lily wished Papa hadn't given her such a big helping. Everyone else was nearly done with supper. She had been working on this bowl of soup for the entire meal and had hardly made any difference in the amount that was left to eat.

She filled a spoon with several disgusting kidney beans. She put them in her mouth, then quickly gulped down water to swallow them like pills so she wouldn't have to taste them. She looked down into the bowl again. It was hopeless. Swallowing the kidney beans whole didn't seem to make much
of a difference. Her bowl was still full. She knew she would have to stay at the table until she had eaten all of her soup.

Joseph helped Mama clear the table off and do the dishes while Lily tried to keep eating. She took one tiny awful bite after another. She definitely did not want to have any soup left in her bowl by the time Papa said it was bedtime. It had happened before: Mama would put her bowl into the refrigerator and Lily would have to eat it for breakfast. She couldn't think of anything worse than having to eat this awful, watery chili soup first thing in the morning.

It was growing dark outside. Papa came in from feeding the animals in the barn. He looked at Lily's bowl. “You're getting there. Try taking bigger bites and you will be done sooner.” He spread several pieces of paper on the table and started sketching on them.

“What are you doing?” Whatever Papa was doing was much more interesting than Lily's soup.

Papa glanced up at her. “I'm drawing plans to build an addition to the house. I'm trying to figure out how much money I'll need to buy the materials to build it.” He scribbled down a few notes on the paper. He glanced over at Lily. “That's part of the reason we have chili soup so often. It's nutritious and it doesn't cost very much for Mama to make it. That way, we can save a little more money for the house.”

Lily looked down at her soup. If eating this lumpy broth would help Papa and Mama build an addition to the house, she would try to do her part. She would eat this awful soup. She took several huge spoonfuls, willing herself not to gag on those slimy kidney beans. Finally, the last bit of soup had been eaten and she could go wash her bowl. Hooray!

She sat next to Papa to watch him sketch the plans.

“I want to add a big kitchen,” Papa said. “Over at the
other end, I'll build a big pantry with lots of shelves. Room for the refrigerator too. That way we won't have to have our refrigerator out on the porch any longer. Won't Mama be happy to have it indoors again?”

This was exciting! The ugly olive green house was going to turn into something pretty and cute and finally feel as if it belonged to them. Maybe Papa would even paint the outside wood a beautiful purple. Purple was Lily's favorite color. The best color of all.

Papa pointed to one corner of the sketch. “Over here at this end, I'll make a nice room that Mama can use for her sewing and quilting. And then I'll make a cement porch along this side of the house. Someday we'll enclose it for a laundry room and summer kitchen.” He pulled out another sheet of paper with a floor plan sketched out. “We'll have a full basement underneath—not a little one like there is now—and then I can put some woodworking machinery in it and start making furniture.” He rolled up that sheet of paper. “That way I can work at home with my family. Won't that be nice?”

Oh, that was the most wonderful news of all! Lily couldn't wait until Papa was finished with the addition and could stay at home each day. Then she had a horrible thought. She wrinkled her nose. It would mean she would need to eat lots and lots of thin chili soup. She made up her mind to eat it bravely no matter how awful it was.

The next week a man arrived at the house with a big crawler-type tractor to start digging earth away for the new basement. Before he could start digging, Papa had to cut down some small trees that were in the way. Lily felt sad as she watched Papa cut through the trees. They would start to creak
and pop. Then, with a mighty roar, they would fall to the ground with a shudder and everything was quiet. Strangely quiet. Even the birds were silent. The man fastened the trunk of the tree to his crawler and pulled it into the pasture. Later, Papa would cut it up for firewood. But now, he had more trees to cut.

When the last tree had been pulled away, the man started to dig the earth. It was slow work, even with a big crawler. Every bucket load of earth had to be taken out to the pasture behind the barn and put on a pile.

While the man worked on digging the hole for the basement, Papa took Lily and Joseph out to the pasture to look at the tree stumps. They knelt beside one and Papa showed them tree rings. He told them that each ring stood for one year of a tree's life. Lily started to count the rings of a stump. There were sixty-eight. This tree had been sixty-eight years old. It made Lily feel sad, even more sad than when she saw the tree fall to the ground. The tree had spent a long time growing big and tall. In only a few minutes, it had been cut down. It would never make another ring.

Papa seemed to understand how she felt. “It had to be done, Lily. We need more room in our house and those trees were in the way.” He rose to his feet. “But after we're finished building, we can plant new trees to replace the ones that had to be cut down. Those trees will grow up to be big and strong.”

Such a thought made Lily feel much better. “Can we choose what kind of trees to plant?”

“That would be nice,” Papa said. “We can each choose a special tree. But I want to plant a row of pines too.”

Lily already knew what kind of tree she would pick. An enormous weeping willow. Its nice, long feathery branches would touch the ground, and she could sit underneath it and
pretend it was a house. Aunt Susie or Beth could come to play and it would be a good spot to play dolls. Maybe even read a book.

Lily, Joseph, and Dannie took turns swinging on the rope swing that Papa had made on the big chestnut tree in front of the house. A man with a big blue truck stopped beside the road. “Is your daddy at home?” he called out to them.

“Papa is at work,” Lily said, “but Mama is at home.”

Mama must have seen the truck from the kitchen window because she came flying out of the house, wiping her damp hands on her apron.

“I brought your load of cement blocks,” the man hollered to her from the truck. “Where do you want 'em?”

Mama showed the man where Papa wanted the blocks. Lily watched as the man backed the truck up next to the house. He guided the crane on the back of his truck to unload big stacks of blocks and set them carefully on the ground. Lily wondered what kept them all from falling and crashing to the ground. One by one, the stacks swayed from the crane and were safely placed next to each other on the ground.

After the truck was empty, the man drove away. Lily and Joseph and Dannie ran over to see the blocks, but Mama told them to stay away from them. It would be too tempting to climb them and end up getting hurt.

That evening, Papa poured a bag of cement into the wheelbarrow and added water. He took a hoe and mixed up the cement and water until it looked like thick gray pudding. After he was satisfied, he scooped some wet cement on a board. He took a big cement block and placed it onto the footer he had built earlier. He spread wet cement on the top
and edges of the block. Then he placed another one tightly against it. It was slow, tiresome work, and Lily, Joseph, and Dannie soon grew bored. They watched Papa as long as they could, then they ran to their swing. Swinging was so much more fun than watching Papa build a basement wall, block by block.

Each evening, Papa would hurry with the chores and work on laying more blocks until the sun set. Lily thought the walls grew so slowly. It was going to take a long time for Papa to finish them. She felt sorry for him. He worked so hard all day, and now he had to work so hard at night. And building a basement was such a slow, boring job!

On Friday evening, Papa came home from work and said that David Yoder had offered to come help him on Saturday. “We should be able to make nice headway laying blocks for a change.”

Lily was glad to hear that Papa would have help, but she felt a small tug of worry. David Yoder was Aaron Yoder's father. What if Aaron came with him? That would spoil her whole day.

Aaron was known for telling whoppers. Lately, all he talked about was going to run off and live with an Indian. He said he had seen an Indian near an old railroad tunnel and was going to find out where the Indian lived. Even Sam, who hung the moon on everything Aaron said or did, said he might be sun-touched. What if Aaron talked Joseph into running off to find the old Indian? It wasn't hard to talk Joseph into crazy adventures. No one, especially Joseph, should listen to Aaron Yoder.

The next morning, Lily was relieved to see David Yoder drive his buggy into the driveway alone. She would not have to worry about Aaron today.

All morning long, Lily helped Mama clean the house, and then they started to cook an extra-special lunch as a way to thank David Yoder. Mama had hard-boiled some eggs and told Lily to cut them in half and remove the yolks. Lily followed her directions carefully and smashed the yolks with a fork until they were nothing but fine yellow crumbs. After mixing in salad dressing and spices, Lily spooned the yellow mixture back into the hollow egg whites. She dusted a sprinkling of red spice on top of the eggs, just like Mama did. The red spice looked so pretty against the yellow egg that she sprinkled some more. Lily felt very pleased. She had made stuffed eggs all by herself.

Mama told her to set the table with the blue willow dishes. They were prettier than their everyday dishes but not as pretty as Mama's special Sunday china. Lily carefully set the table. Papa would sit at his usual place at the head of the table. Mama would sit right next to him, on his right side, and Lily would sit next to her. Dannie and Joseph would sit in their usual places. Today, David Yoder would sit at the foot of the table.

Lily took special care to make sure everything was set very neatly. David Yoder was an important man. He was one of the ministers in their church.

When lunch was ready, Lily ran down through the basement and out the door where Papa and David Yoder worked on laying blocks. Lily was surprised to see how much they had done already. It was much faster with two people working on it.

“Time to eat,” Lily said.

Papa looked up. “We need a few more minutes. We just have to finish using the rest of the cement so that it doesn't dry out.”

Lily ran back inside and reported to Mama what Papa had said. Mama pushed the food to the back of the stove to keep it warm. Lily set the platter of stuffed eggs on the table near Papa's plate. She hoped he would ask who made them and then David Yoder would know that she was only eight years old and already a good cook. Almost as good as Mama.

It wasn't long before the men came in and washed up at the sink. Mama dished out the food into serving bowls while Lily filled the water glasses. She took care not to spill a single drop.

After a short silent prayer, Mama passed the food around the table. Papa picked up the eggs and slid several onto his plate before he passed them to Mama. David Yoder took a bite out of an egg, chewed, then stopped, as if he couldn't believe how delicious the egg was. Lily couldn't contain herself any longer. “I made these all by myself,” she said. Somebody had to say it!

David Yoder's face had turned beet red. Mama took a bite of a stuffed egg and her eyes shot wide open in alarm. “Lily, what spice did you sprinkle on the eggs?”

“The red one on the counter.”