A Surprise for Lily (15 page)

Teaskoota chased the tom turkey out of the barn. Papa helped Dannie get up and brushed the dirt off his clothes. “I think that turkey scared you more than he hurt you,” Papa said.

Even as he was wailing, Dannie kept one eye on that tom turkey. “I don't like turkeys,” he said.

“They aren't used to little boys,” Teaskoota said. “Let's go sit on the porch and visit where no one has to worry about getting hurt.”

As Teaskoota and Papa talked about the weather and crops and animals, Lily felt disappointment settle over her. She had been so excited about this visit and everything went wrong. Her tummy was rumbling from hunger because the lunch of sour biscuits and burnt potatoes was terrible, her hand was burned, and Dannie was frightened. And now, all that was left to do was to sit, sit, sit and listen to grown-ups talk. It was no different visiting a Shawnee Indian on a Sunday afternoon than visiting an Amish bishop.

Dear Hannah,

I'm sorry it has been so long since I wrote to you. Ever since Mama started to teach English at school, I don't have much time for letter writing. I wish you could have had Mama for your English teacher, too. She makes learning fun and all the children like her.

All except Effie. She keeps telling everyone that Mama is getting fat and should stay at home. Yesterday she said she was sure that soon I will get a baby sister. When I asked her what made her think such a thing, she gave me one of her melting stares, like I was the dumbest thing that ever walked the earth. Then she told me that if I looked very closely at Mama's face, I could see she was hiding an important secret. I don't believe Effie. Long ago, I learned my lesson about Effie's superstitions.

But . . . it would be fun to have a baby sister.

Grandma Miller and Aunt Susie come over on Saturdays to help with the housecleaning since Mama is teaching. It makes the Saturday work go much more quickly.

Speaking of our Aunt Susie . . . here's another story for you. Do you remember that Aunt Susie is afraid of Band-Aids? Harvey and Aaron found out, so they covered their hands with Band-Aids at church and chased her after church was over. They've done it twice now. Last Sunday, I was holding Aunt Susie's hand to help her run away from the boys. It had been raining so we both slipped and fell in the mud. Aunt Susie hurt her wrist and cried. I was so mad at the boys! When Grandma asked what happened, I told her, in a very loud voice. So loud that I hoped those boys' parents would hear. I hoped they would get into big trouble.

But would you believe that Harvey's father, Abe Hershberger, who acts like he's the bishop over everybody, only laughed? No wonder Harvey is insufferable.

Your cousin,
Lily

P.S. The hired boy, Tom, does sound very charming, and I'm glad he's so nice to you and Levi. Just how old is he, anyway?

Early one morning, Papa came in from the barn after doing the chores, smiling from ear to ear. “There's a surprise out in the barn,” he said. “Anybody want to go see what it is?”

“We do!” Joseph and Dannie said. Lily was already at the door, getting her coat on. Joseph and Dannie started outside without their coats, but Papa put his hands on their shoulders. “The surprise isn't going anywhere. Let's slow down, get coats on, and walk along with Paul so he can enjoy the surprise, too.”

When they reached the barn, Papa slid open the door and waited until everyone was inside. He pointed to Pansy's stall. Curled up in the straw was a beautiful little calf. Pansy was so proud. She licked her calf all over. The calf tried to rise and stand on its wobbly legs. Pansy nudged it with her nose and licked it some more and the calf tumbled down again.

“Is something wrong with the calf?” Dannie said.

“No, it's fine,” Papa said. “It just needs a little time to
figure out how to use its legs. I think we should probably leave them alone for now.” He held the barn door open and shooed everyone up to the house. Lily couldn't wait to tell Beth and Malinda about the little calf. Effie would act as if calves were born every day at her house, but Beth and Malinda would want to hear all about it.

Pansy's beautiful calf grew quickly. It liked to bounce around the pen and run in circles around Pansy. She was a good mama and didn't mind. She just kept on chewing her cud, slow and lazy. Lily liked to pet the calf. When she was alone with Pansy and the calf, she called the calf Princess. Her real name was Nelly, which Lily thought was much too ordinary for such a pretty calf. Papa said he wasn't planning to sell Nelly. In a few years, Nelly would be old enough to provide milk. He thought they could use another cow to make all the cheese and butter a growing family needs.

Growing boys, Papa meant. Those little brothers ate twice as much as Lily. They had bottomless pits for tummies.

Lily was sweeping the front porch when she heard Dozer bark and bark. Then she heard someone yell. She ran down the porch steps and around the corner of the house to see what was causing the commotion. Dozer was barking at Mr. Beal's cows over in the field. Mr. Beal yelled at him to get away, but Dozer paid him no mind. One of Mr. Beal's sons rode up to Dozer in his four-wheeler. He revved the engine and chased Dozer off.

Mr. Beal saw Lily and climbed through the fence. “Is your
father at home?” He was an interesting-looking man to Lily: short and bent, and he wore bib overalls with an old wool jacket that seemed almost to reach the ground, even in the summer. He had a blue work shirt buttoned up to the collar, a straw hat with a green see-through visor, and plain glasses so thick his eyes expanded when he looked directly at them. Normally, he was very nice. Right now, he looked mad.

“Yes,” Lily said. “He's working in the shop.”

Mr. Beal marched through the yard to Papa's shop. He was holding his fist tightly, but Lily couldn't make out what was in his hand. She ran inside. “Mama, Dozer is in trouble again. He was chasing Mr. Beal's cows and now Mr. Beal has come over to talk to Papa.”

“That dog!” Mama said. “I have never known a dog with such a nose for making trouble.”

Lily agreed. Dozer was nothing but a nuisance.

After Mr. Beal left, Papa came inside to talk to Mama. “Dozer ripped some tags off the ears of some of Mr. Beal's calves. He's not very happy about it. He said he had wanted to sell some of his heifers once they're five hundred pounds but since their ears are torn, their price will drop.” Papa took off his hat and turned it in a circle in his hands. “I thought we could give Nelly to him. We'll have to keep Dozer in the shop until he learns to stay at home where he belongs.”

NO!
Papa was giving away the beautiful Princess calf. It was all that awful dog's fault. Lily was furious with Dozer! She wished someone else had found him on that rock bed last summer.

That afternoon Papa and Joseph led the calf over to the Beals'. Lily sat on the porch steps and watched, still fuming at Dozer. When they returned, Papa sat next to Lily on the
porch. “It's much better to give up our calf and keep a good neighbor than to keep our calf and have troubles with our neighbor.”

Lily thought it would be better still to give away Dozer and keep the calf.

He was a horrible dog, Dozer was.

T
he minute Lily and Joseph turned up the driveway after school, Dannie bolted out of the house with a look on his face like he was about to burst with a secret. “There's a surprise out in the barn!”

“What kind of surprise?” Lily asked. She had learned from experience to be wary of Dannie's surprises. His last surprise involved a mouse in Lily's desk drawer.

“Come look for yourself!” Dannie said and ran to the barn. Lily and Joseph looked at each other and shrugged. They set their lunch boxes on the porch steps and hurried behind Dannie.

Inside the barn was a new horse, standing in a stall next to Jim. This horse was taller than Jim, with a burnt-orange-colored coat. Its ears were pointed forward and the whites of its eyes showed. Lily didn't like this horse, and she was pretty sure he didn't like her. She wondered why Papa would have
bothered with a horse like that. She hadn't even known he'd been thinking about getting another horse.

Papa walked up the barn aisle. “Well, what do you think?”

“He's the ugliest horse I've ever seen,” Lily said.

Papa nodded. “He may not be pretty, but I hope by the time I'm done training him, he'll be one of the best horses we've ever had.”

“What are you going to do with him?” Lily asked.

“I want to train him to be our buggy horse,” Papa said.

“But Jim is our buggy horse,” Joseph said.

“Jim is getting old.” Papa crouched down beside Joseph and Lily. “There are a lot of hills in Cloverdale. It's getting harder and harder for him to pull our buggy up and down all those hills. It's time we had a young, strong horse for all that pulling.”

“What's this one's name?” Lily asked. She reached out to stroke the horse's nose, but he jumped back and snorted air through his nostrils. That was one nervous horse. She hoped Papa knew what he was doing.

“He doesn't have a name yet,” Papa said. “We'll have to decide on one. But in the meantime, I don't want you to get too close to him. He's not used to children. He's not at all trained. I need time to work with him and gentle him.”

Dozer had sneaked into the barn and sniffed near the new horse's stall, which made the horse panic and dance. Papa grabbed Dozer by the collar. “Joseph, you'll need to keep Dozer away from the barn for a while.”

“I think we should call that horse Nervous Ned,” Lily said.

Papa laughed. “Just give me some time, Lily. I think you'll grow as fond of him as you are of Jim.”

Lily knew
that
would never happen. She loved Jim. He had been her buggy horse for as long as she could remember.

When she went into the house, she asked Mama if she knew there was a strange, ugly horse in the barn.

Mama looked up from cutting cabbage for coleslaw and smiled. “Papa has felt that Jim is showing his age. He's been looking for a young horse for a while now and finally found what he was looking for.”

“When did we get Jim?” Lily asked.

“Grandpa Lapp gave Jim to Papa a few weeks before we got married,” Mama said. “I still remember how happy Papa was to get him. We both thought he was one of the most beautiful horses we had ever seen.”

“Jim's such a gentle horse,” Lily said. “Not like that Nervous Ned out in the barn.”

“He's just young and unbroken.” Mama put the chopped cabbage into a big bowl. She sliced off the tops of some bright orange carrots and rinsed them under the sink. “Papa can work wonders with a horse. You watch and see. He won't be nervous for long. Papa will use Jim to help train him.”

“I can't imagine petting that horse or letting him eat grass or oats from my hand the way I do with Jim. He was never jumpy like that new horse.”

“It did seem as if Jim always wanted to please us. I think he genuinely loves you children.” Mama handed Lily a carrot scraper and the carrots.

Lily went to the kitchen sink and peeled the carrots so that Mama could grate them into the cabbage. Carrot peels were splattered all over the sink. Lily handed the peeled carrots to Mama.

“Lily, did I ever tell you about how Jim gave me a scare when you were a baby?”

Lily grinned. She loved being in the kitchen alone with
Mama, hearing her stories. “I don't think I ever heard that story.”

“It was in the fall and a killing frost was due in that night,” Mama said, grating the carrots with a fast motion. “I was trying to gather the last of the tomatoes in the garden. I had spread a blanket on the grass beside the garden and you were sitting on it as I worked. We still didn't have a real fence for Jim's pasture. Papa had strung wire that Jim probably could have easily jumped out of, but Jim seemed to know he needed to stay inside. He had never tried to jump the fence.” She finished grating carrots and handed a big spoon to Lily so she could stir.

Mama went to the refrigerator and came back with a large jar of mayonnaise and a second spoon. She added large spoonfuls of dressing into the coleslaw as Lily mixed it all together. Mixing was Lily's favorite thing.

“On that day, I hadn't been in the garden for more than a few minutes when Jim started acting funny. He pranced nervously and pawed the ground and snorted. He grew more and more agitated. I stopped to see what could be bothering him. He reared up on his hind legs and tossed his head angrily. The next thing I knew, he jumped right over the fence and galloped toward you on the blanket!

“I was so scared. I was sure he was going to crush you. I ran to stop him but I couldn't get there in time. It was terrible! Suddenly, Jim stopped at the edge of the blanket and pawed the ground. He snorted some more, but he didn't step on the blanket. Then I realized what had caused the problem: There was a snake on the ground and Jim had killed it with his hoof. I think he had seen it slither close to you and wanted to protect you. He calmed down right away and I led him back to his pasture.”

Lily felt a warm, happy feeling rise from the bottom of her toes all the way to her head. Jim was a fine, fine horse. She would never love another horse. “Did he ever jump over the fence again?” Lily asked.

“No, he never did,” Mama said.

“Maybe it's good that Jim can take a rest now and then from the buggy rides, if Papa can ever gentle that ugly horse. But I'll still want my buggy rides with Jim.”

Mama opened her mouth, then snapped it shut, as if she was going to say something but thought twice about it. Lily was about to ask her what she was going to say when Joseph and Dannie burst into the kitchen. Their noisy voices woke up baby Paul from his nap and he started to howl. Papa came upstairs from his workshop and soon the kitchen was filled with happy, noisy chaos.

But to Lily, those special times in the kitchen with Mama were always the best.

After considering all kinds of names for the new horse, including many outlandish suggestions from Joseph and Dannie, Papa decided to name him Bob. He worked with Bob every single day. His first goal in training, he told Lily, was to teach Bob not to be afraid of things. Lily and Joseph liked to watch the training sessions. Today, Papa held an umbrella and walked up and down the barn aisle in front of Bob's stall. Bob pawed the ground, watching nervously. Papa put the umbrella down and closed it. He talked to Bob and stroked his neck.

Jim looked over his stall door with mild interest, as if he thought it was all quite amusing.

Papa reached down, picked up the umbrella, and opened it in front of Bob's face. It surprised Bob and he jumped, backing up, trying to get away from it. “Whoa, Bob,” Papa said soothingly. He took hold of his halter and coaxed him to step forward again. He talked and petted Bob a little more, and then he closed the umbrella. Bob jumped and tossed his head.

Patiently, Papa kept on opening and closing the umbrella in front of Bob until he learned that it wouldn't hurt him. After a while, instead of jumping back, tossing his head, and pawing at the ground, Bob munched on the hay in his manger, bored as could be. Papa grinned at Lily and Joseph.

Papa went to his shop and brought back a big blue plastic tarp. Then he snapped it open and waved it in the air. Bob was frightened, jumping and snorting, and settled down only as Papa petted him and talked to him in a calm, gentle voice. He had a fine voice, Papa did.

Papa asked Lily and Joseph to hold the edges of the tarp and run through the barn in front of Bob. “Try to flap it as much as you can so it will make noise.”

Sure enough, Bob tried to jump away. His ears were pointed back and the whites of his eyes showed his fear. That was when Lily thought Bob was at his most ugliest. Papa kept on talking to him in a quiet voice. It wasn't long before the flapping tarp didn't even faze Bob. “It's important for Bob to be very comfortable with unexpected things when he pulls a buggy. Anything could blow or flap or make loud noises on the road. I want to make him used to all kinds of situations so he will act calm and relaxed on the road, too.”

Lily was glad Papa was taking time to train Bob so that he would be a nice, safe horse. She remembered a time when someone's buggy horse had been frightened of an umbrella and had bolted away from the schoolhouse. Mama had to go rescue the girl who was driving the buggy.

A week later, after many training sessions, Papa was able to put a harness on Bob and walk alongside him, holding the reins and teaching him to turn left and right and giddyup and whoa. He even let Dozer run beside them, barking and jumping like he usually did. Bob didn't flinch.

Lily was so proud of Papa. He was doing a fine job with Bob. She still didn't like that horse, but she could see there might be some hope for him.

The next week, Papa decided Bob was ready for something more challenging. “I think Bob understands everything I have tried to teach him so far. Now it's time to take him out on the road.”

Papa hitched Jim to the little open buggy and fastened Bob to the side of the buggy shafts. Bob would not be pulling the
buggy today. First, he would have to learn what to do on a road by going alongside an older, well-trained horse like Jim.

When Papa returned, he said Bob did very well. “A big dump truck passed us on the road. Its tarp was flapping in the wind, but you would never even have guessed that Bob noticed it. He kept trotting along, just the way Jim did. Bob didn't react to it at all.”

Lily was happy to hear that. Soon Bob could pull the buggy by himself and Jim could take a day off now and then.

It was a beautiful April afternoon with a gentle balmy breeze. Lily and Joseph dawdled as they made their way home from school. The ditch beside the road was filled with water from last night's rain. They took turns finding worms and dropping them in the water to see how far they would float.

They jumped up at the familiar sound of a horse and buggy coming around the bend. Lily dried her hands on her apron and picked up her lunch box.

“It's Mama,” Joseph said. Jim was trotting toward them with Mama and Dannie in the front seat of the buggy. Baby Paul was in Mama's lap.