Life with Lily (3 page)

O
n Saturday morning, Lily had eaten breakfast and helped Mama wash the dishes before the sun started to tint the eastern sky with its rosy colors. All that was left to do was to sweep the kitchen floor. Then they would be ready to have neighbors come for the frolic! As Lily held the dustpan for Mama to sweep the dirt pile into it, she heard the sound of buggy wheels in the driveway. She ran to the window and saw her cousins Hannah and Levi jump out of the buggy. Behind Hannah came Aunt Mary, Mama's younger sister.

Hannah was just a little older than Lily. She had blonde hair and dark blue eyes fringed with long, black lashes. Hannah was Lily's favorite cousin. They had special games they played with their favorite dolls. Levi had the same blond hair and blue eyes as his sister, but he didn't talk much, not like Hannah. Hannah did enough talking for both of them, Uncle Elmer—Hannah's father—always said. Levi was older
than Hannah and Lily, but he had a slight stutter when he talked that made him shy around grown-ups. He was more comfortable with Joseph and ran off to find him.

Uncle Elmer drove the buggy out toward the lumber piles. He unhitched his horse from the buggy and tied the rope to a tree. Then he walked over to talk to Papa, who was stuffing nails into the nail belt around his waist. Uncle Elmer strapped his nail belt on and started to fill it with nails.

From the window, Lily and Hannah watched as more buggies started to roll up the long driveway. The men would stop to let the women and children off at the house and then drive out to where Uncle Elmer had parked his buggy. Soon there was a whole row of buggies lined up side by side in the yard. Horses were tied to trees. Some of the younger boys went to get several bales of hay. They dropped handfuls of hay in front of each horse so it would have something to eat. For the horses, it was going to be a long day of waiting.

In the kitchen, women started to prepare food. Potatoes needed to be peeled. Chicken needed to be fried. Fresh bread needed to be baked so it could be served hot from the oven at noon. Lily and Hannah watched the women cook for a while, then ran outside to see how much progress the men had made on the barn. The first wall had been pieced together. It lay on the ground, ready to be lifted. The men lined up along one side. Walking slowly toward the barn's foundation, they lifted the wall. The wall went higher and higher until it stood straight to the sky. A few men quickly ran to make supports and props to keep the wall from falling while others went to work on building the next wall.

Odd noises filled the air. Hammers pounded nails, handsaws cut pieces of lumber into proper lengths. Men called orders out to each other. Lily couldn't decide where the best
place was to be: outside as the barn started to grow or in the house as food was prepared.

Mama came to the door and called, “Lily!” In her hands were large bowls. Lily ran to see what she wanted. Mama held the bowls out to Lily. “Set these bowls on the bench under the cedar trees and fill them with water. It's almost time to eat and the men need a place to wash up.”

Lily and Hannah dragged a water hose to the bench and filled the bowls with fresh water. When they were done, they stacked several towels beside each bowl. It was time to go tell Papa that dinner was ready. She ran to find Papa. He stopped hammering when he saw her.

“Mama says it's time to eat!” Lily said.

Papa turned and hollered to the men that dinner was ready. The sounds of pounding hammers stopped as everyone started removing their tool belts and walked toward the house. “Sure smells good,” they said as they passed Lily.

The men piled their straw hats on the ground under a tree and went to wash up. Their big hands scooped up water to splash over their faces. Lily and Hannah watched as they reached for towels to dry off. Water dripped from their long beards and trickled down the front of their shirts.

The men went into the house. The women bustled about, dishing up food and setting steaming bowls filled with mashed potatoes and sweet corn on the table, next to large platters of crisp fried chicken. Another platter held freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven. Beside each loaf of bread sat two little dishes. One held a round ball of homemade butter and the other was filled with sweet clover honey. On the kitchen counter was a row of pies: beautiful brown pecan pie, lemon and vanilla pie piled high with fluffy whipped cream, cherry pie with sugar sprinkled on the crust. Lily liked how the cher
ries peeped through the little holes in the pretty vine pattern that Mama had carefully made on each crust.

Lily's mouth watered as her eyes took in all the food. She wished she could sit at the table too, but there wasn't enough room. Only the men and the bigger boys could sit at the table. Once they found a seat, everyone grew quiet and looked expectantly at Papa. Papa bowed his head to pray a silent blessing.

As soon as he raised his head, everyone started talking and laughing as they passed bowls of food around the table. They spooned hearty helpings on their plates. Mama filled plates with food for the children and sent them outside to sit on the porch to eat. Once everyone was done eating, the men went back to work while the women started cleaning up the dirty dishes.

Papa stopped for a moment in the yard. He picked up a bench and folded one leg in. He set the other end on top of an overturned washtub. A slide! Lily loved playing on Papa's homemade slides. She hurried to line up behind the other children. One by one, they took turns sliding down the smoothly varnished bench.

After all of the dishes had been cleaned and put away, the women brought chairs and benches out into the yard under the shade of the cedar tree. They sat and chattered while keeping one eye peeled on the children. And they could watch the barn steadily grow.

As the sun began to set, the barn was finished. It looked beautiful with its shiny white sides and its dark green tin roof. It was time for the neighbors to go home, do chores, and get ready for Sunday church. The men hitched horses to buggies and drove up to the house to pick up their families. Lily waved goodbye as the buggies rolled down the driveway.

Papa and Mama stood in front of the house and looked toward the new barn. “Makes it feel like it's really our home now that we have a barn,” Papa said. “Think we should go check it out?”

Lily and Joseph held Papa's hands and tried to match his steps. Mama followed with Dannie in her arms. Pausing at the barn door, Papa waited to let Mama step inside first. When they all stood inside, Lily thought the barn looked enormous! The stall for Jim had a nice manger for his hay and a little feed box where Papa could dump a scoopful of oats. Next to Jim's stall was a bigger pen with a low manger and a big wooden box on the floor. Next to that was a small pen with a long wooden trough.

“We'll fill those pens with a few piglets and a cow, and then we'll be set,” Papa said. “We'll have a real farm.”

Against a wall, Lily noticed a wooden ladder that led to a square hole in the ceiling. Papa said he would use the ladder to go up and throw hay bales down when he needed them. Lily saw a door near the ladder. She opened the door to discover a large room, with its floor covered in carefully raked gravel. “That room is for the buggies,” Papa said. The little open buggy, the top buggy, and the spring wagon.

Papa and Mama walked through the barn one more time. “Why don't we get Jim's stall ready?” Papa said. He went outside and brought back a straw bale. He set the bale down, reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocketknife, and cut the twine that held the straw together.

Papa gave one slice of straw to Lily and another to Joseph. He showed them how to shake the straw until it fell apart to make a fluffy pile on the floor of the stall. Soon, the floor was covered in thick straw and Jim could have a soft place to stand, instead of the tumble-down barn he'd been in. Papa
put a few slices of hay in the manger and Mama put a scoopful of oats into the little wooden feed box. Everything was ready for Jim.

Papa went out to the pasture and whistled for Jim. The big horse trotted up to the fence to see what Papa wanted. Papa held out his hand, filled with sweet-tasting oats. Jim ate gently from Papa's hand as Papa reached for the halter and led him into the barn and into his new stall.

Jim went right to the manger to eat oats and hay as if he had been coming into this new barn every day of his life. Papa chuckled as he went to get the currycomb and brush. “Jim doesn't know how lucky he is to move into this nice barn before winter!” He brushed Jim down, then closed up the stall for the night.

As the family walked back to the house, Lily was surprised by how quiet the farm was after such a noisy, busy day. She heard an owl hoot once, then twice. Another answered back. It seemed to Lily that birds kept on singing as if they didn't know that anything special had happened that day.

But it had! It had been a wonderful day.

S
pring was in the air. As Mama dug a long, shallow furrow in the garden, the hoe made pleasant little clinking sounds. Whenever Mama hit a stone, she would pause to set it beside the furrow and Lily and Joseph would run to pick it up. They put the stones in the wheelbarrow that stood at the edge of the garden.

After Mama created a furrow, she showed Lily how to plant sweet corn seeds. She dropped two seed kernels, placed her foot in front of the seeds in the furrow to measure off a distance, then dropped two more. Step, drop, step, drop. High up in a tree, a big black bird squawked angrily and another one answered back. Mama shielded her eyes and looked up at the bird. “Lily, have I ever taught you a little planting rhyme that my mother taught me?

One for the cutworm

One for the crow

One to rot and one to grow.”

Mama handed the bag of seeds to Lily. It was her turn to sow! Carefully, slowly, Lily walked along the furrow, dropping seeds in front of her toes. She loved wiggling her toes in the soft, cool earth. Step, drop, step, drop. The warm sun shone on her back as she made her way along the furrow.

As Lily finished dropping seeds into the first row, Mama set the stakes for a new furrow. She left enough space between furrows so that Papa could easily get the tiller between the rows after the corn grew tall. She fastened a string to the stakes and pulled it taut, then dug another furrow.

Lily liked it when everyone helped Mama in the garden. Joseph's job was to pick up stones. Baby Dannie's job was to sit in his stroller and play with his toys. Mama started to hum “Jesus Loves Me,” and soon they were all singing the words. All except Dannie. He only made “Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah” sounds. He thought he was singing.

Lily noticed a buggy turn into the driveway. She shielded her eyes from the sun and saw Grandma Miller in her open buggy, driving slowly. Ever so slowly! Grandpa Miller sat in the back of the buggy, legs hung over the edge. In his hands was a rope. At the end of the rope was a fawn-colored cow with big brown eyes, walking behind the buggy. Grandpa hopped off the back and brought the cow to Mama. He handed her the rope.

“Happy birthday, Rachel.”

Tears filled Mama's eyes. “Oh, Daddy!” she said, her voice low and quivery. “A little Jersey cow. We've been hoping to get a cow someday!”

Mama led the cow into the barn, with everyone following close behind. Grandma Miller pushed Dannie's stroller. Mama put the cow into a pen Papa had made for the someday cow. “I think we'll call her Jenny,” Mama said.

Jenny
. Lily tried the name out loud a few times. The cow blinked twice and batted her big thick eyelashes at Lily when she heard the name. That settled it. Jenny had a name.

Grandpa climbed up the hayloft ladder and threw down bales of hay and straw. Lily and Joseph shook the straw into the pen to make a nice soft bed for Jenny. Mama put hay into the manger. They watched the cow settle into her new home, then they went back outside. Grandpa grabbed a shiny stainless steel milk pail he had hidden in the buggy and gave it to Mama. As Mama held it up, Lily and Joseph made faces into the pail and laughed at the funny way the pail twisted their reflections.

Then Grandma reached under the buggy seat and brought out a box. In it was a birthday cake covered with fluffy white frosting. Lily and Joseph exchanged a glance. It looked delicious! They were suddenly hungry. Practically
starving
.

Grandma noticed. She raised a thin eyebrow. “Not quite yet,” she told them. She turned to Mama. “I see you're planting your garden. Can we help?”

“I have several rows of sweet corn to plant and I still need to set out the tomato plants,” Mama said.

Oh
. Lily and Joseph exchanged a glance. The cake eating had just been postponed.

Grandpa found a shovel and got right to work in the garden. It didn't take long to plant the rest of the sweet corn. Grandpa and Mama made the furrows while Lily dropped the seeds and Grandma followed behind her to cover the seeds gently with fine soil. Joseph ran around picking up stones in the garden and picking up the toys Dannie dropped from his stroller.

Now it was time for the tomatoes. Fifty tomato plants! Grandpa set several big pails, filled with water, beside the
garden. He pushed the shovel into the ground and rocked it back and forth until there was a nice deep crack in the ground. Mama got a box of Epsom salt and showed Lily how to carefully measure a tablespoon into the crack. She covered the salt with a few inches of soil, then slipped the roots of a tomato plant into the crack. Joseph poured a cup full of water into the crack. Mama filled it up with loose dirt and packed it firmly and gently around the tomato plant. Over and over they planted, until all fifty little tomato plants were set in two nice straight rows.

When the last tomato plant was planted, Mama stood and brushed dirt from her apron. She laughed at the dirty
smudges her hands made on the apron. “It looks like we all need to go wash up.”

Grandma gazed at the garden. “It's always such a good feeling to have the garden planted.”

Lily stood beside her. The neat rows of tomato plants stood tall along the garden's edge. At the opposite end, green peas were already several inches tall, and rows of onions, lettuce, and radish were coming along nicely. Soon the sweet corn, beans, and potatoes would poke through the ground, and all of the brown dirt would be covered with a carpet of green.

Grandma said it was time to help start supper. “Uncle Elmer and Aunt Mary will be coming tonight to help celebrate your birthday.”

Mama looked pleased.

Lily kept one eye on the window as she helped set the table. She couldn't wait until Uncle Elmer's horse and buggy arrived! She wanted to show Hannah and Levi the new cow. What was taking them so long?
Hurry, hurry, hurry!
she thought.
I have a surprise in the barn!
But there was no sign of them.

She went to the kitchen to see what Joseph was so interested in. He stood on a chair, watching Grandma mix something in a bowl. Lily peeped into the bowl. Oh, what a beautiful sight! Grandma was stirring sugary pink frosting. She watched as Grandma folded a square of waxed paper into a triangle and then rolled it up to make a funnel shape. After Grandma had spooned frosting into it, she folded the top and squeezed. She had turned it into a pen! A big fat pen with pink frosting for ink. She wrote pink letters on top of the white frosted cake.

“What does it say?” Joseph said. Of course, he was just a little boy and he couldn't read yet.

Grandma smiled. “Happy Birthday, Rachel.”

“It should say: Happy Birthday, Mama,” Lily whispered to Joseph.

Grandma chuckled and added “(Mama)” under “Rachel.” Now it was perfect. The little ( )s looked like a hug for Mama.

Lily heard light footsteps clamber on the porch steps and turned to see Hannah at the door. She had been so interested in watching Grandma decorate the cake that she had forgotten to watch for Uncle Elmer's buggy! She ran to the door, grabbed Hannah's hand, and pulled her down to the barn to see the cow. Jenny kept her head bowed, blinking her huge brown eyes as if she was listening to Lily and Hannah's compliments about her.

After a few minutes, the girls grew bored, so they went up to the house, sat on the porch swing, and played with their dolls.

Lily couldn't wait for Papa to come home and discover there was a cow in the barn! It felt like a very long time before an old rusty pickup drove up the driveway. Papa hopped out of the truck and Lily ran to meet him. He always gave her his lunch box when he came home from his carpentry job. He saved a bite or two of his sandwich for her and Joseph to share. Today, there was even half of a cookie.

Papa lifted several large boxes from the back of the truck and set them on the grass. He waved goodbye to the driver of the truck. Then he turned to Lily. “Run into the house and tell Mama to come and see what I have.”

When Mama followed Lily outside, she looked at the boxes with a question in her eyes.

“Go ahead and open them, Rachel,” Papa said. “After all, it's your birthday.” He was beaming, positively beaming.

Cautiously, Mama opened the boxes. Lily and Hannah
gasped in delight. In the boxes were black-and-grey-speckled hens. “First a cow and now chickens!” Lily said. She was thrilled. Their home was turning into a real farm. Then she clasped her hands over her mouth. Papa didn't know there was a cow in the barn yet. She had told! She had told Mama's surprise.

Papa laughed out loud at Lily's mortified look. “Well, it's about time we were settled in to stay.”

Mama hooked her hands on her hips. “You knew? You knew about the cow?”

A broad smile creased Papa's face and his blue eyes twinkled. “Grandpa had told me he wanted to give you a cow for your birthday. It was a pretty big secret to keep, though.” He saw Grandpa and Uncle Elmer on the porch. “I have a hunch they wouldn't mind helping me build a little chicken coop before supper.”

Before
supper? But what about eating the birthday cake? Lily sighed. Postponed
again
.

Behind the barn, Papa selected a few boards from a pile of lumber. He measured and cut the wood, Grandpa and Uncle Elmer pounded nails. It wasn't long before a brand-new chicken coop stood proudly next to the barn. Papa built a little ramp on hinges for the chickens to get in and out of the coop. At the side was a regular-sized door for Mama to use when she gathered eggs or fed the chickens. Papa fastened a narrow board inside the coop for the chickens to roost on at night. Tomorrow he would build some nesting boxes and fasten chicken wire all around the coop so Mama's chickens would be able to be outside without being bothered by dogs or cats. Or worse.

Lily and Hannah ran to the house to tell Mama her chicken coop was ready. She met them with the stainless steel milk
pail. Her milking apron was already tied around her waist. She had another pail filled with warm, soapy water. Over her shoulder hung a clean rag. “It's time to go milk Jenny.”

Oh no!
The birthday cake eating had just been delayed
again
. Lily's tummy was rumbling. She couldn't stop thinking about that sweet pink frosting. What did pink taste like?

In the cool barn, Mama scooped two big cups of sweet molasses-coated grain into Jenny's feed trough. She plucked the three-legged milking stool from the nail on the wall. Mama sat on the stool and set the pail under Jenny, carefully washing her udder. Lily and Hannah's job was to hold Jenny's tail so she wouldn't swat Mama's face while she was getting milked. The first streams of milk made a pleasant zinging sound as they hit the bottom of the pail. As the pail filled with warm, frothy milk, the zinging sound disappeared. Out of nowhere, barn cats materialized, carefully watching Mama. Somehow, they seemed to know they would be getting a nice bowlful of fresh steaming milk once she was finished. That was the way it was with cats. Never around when you were looking for them, always around at mealtime.

Sweet and gentle, Jenny stood patiently as Mama milked her. After she finished eating her grain, she chewed her cud. When Mama had squeezed the last drops of milk into the pail, she poured milk into a dish for the cats. Lily liked watching their cute little pink tongues lap up the milk.

In the kitchen, Mama strained the milk through a piece of organdy cloth into a glass gallon jar. She set the jar in cold water in the sink so the milk would cool off quickly and stay nice and sweet.

Grandma Miller had supper all ready for them. The family gathered around the table and enjoyed Mama's favorite
birthday dinner: crispy fried chicken with clouds of mashed potatoes and green garden peas. And afterward . . . they all enjoyed the birthday cake with the pink icing. Lily, most of all.

Pink, she decided, tasted just like she thought it would. Sweet and happy and soft. Almost as good as purple.