by Lois Lenski
“I hate to call you in,” said Miss Martin, “and I hate to go in myself. But we all have work to do.”
“Here, Miss Martin,” said Ruby, “see what I brought you.” She gave her a bunch of purplish-pink pasqueflowers, which grew wild on the prairie.
“The first crocuses!” smiled Miss Martin. “Where did you find them?”
“Daddy picked them on the side of Twin Butte when he was riding herd,” said Ruby.
“When the crocuses come out,” laughed Jacob, “that’s the time to go barefoot!”
“It’s good to see crocuses again,” said Miss Martin. “They are the earliest wild flowers in the prairie country. Now we know that spring is here.”
They came into the schoolhouse. Miss Martin filled a glass with water and set the bouquet on her desk. The boys crowded into the front hall and took off their coats and muddy overshoes.
“Teacher says it’s spring!” sniffed Emil. “We can’t even move our tractor. It’s standing hub-deep in mud.”
“Boy, have we ever got the water!” cried Jacob. “The creeks are overflowing, and our dam’s flooding the spillway.”
“The ice in the Big Muddy’s expected to go out any day now,” said Konrad.
“I thought we’d be in the fields, seeding, by this time,” said Darrell.
“The brown prairie grass is turning a little bit green,” said Peter.
“I sure hope this sun keeps on shining, so we can get in the fields,” said Jacob. “Once we start, we won’t stop for anything—but rain. Nothing sweeter than the hum of half-a-dozen tractors all night long…”
“We got to get our wheat seeded early this year,” said Darrell, “so we can make a good crop. I’m gonna hurry home tonight and fan grain. We got all the machinery to overhaul…”
The boys came in, and all the children took their seats.
“Jeepers creepers! It’s hot in here,” cried Darrell. “Miss Martin, can we open the windows?”
Miss Martin nodded and the boys opened several.
“Hear the meadow larks!” cried Delores.
The cheerful whistling sounds came in sharp and clear. The children looked up from their books to listen. “The song of the meadow lark never sounded so sweet before,” said Miss Martin.
The children smiled, remembering the long, hard winter.
“I’m sure glad summer is coming,” said little Hulda.
“Yah!” scoffed Emil. “One hundred and ten every day and no trees and no shade to sit in.”
“Who wants trees, anyway?” cried Delores. “They just fence you in. I like to see the whole big wide prairie and nothing else.”
“And windstorms and hail storms—that’s what summer brings,” said Darrell. “Hope our crop don’t get hailed out this year.”
“Or et out by grasshoppers,” added Jacob.
“Or dried up by drouth,” said Emil.
“Last summer, the wind blew our chicken coops down,” said Peter, “and smashed them all to pieces. It blew the feathers off all our chickens too.”
The children laughed. They knew, as well as their parents, the hazards and difficulties of prairie farming.
That day after school, all the children crowded round to see Ruby get started for home on her new pony.
“Let’s see you get on,” said Fernetta.
“I’m tired of riding behind Daddy,” bragged Ruby, “and I’m sick of bobsleds—I got dumped out so many times. I hate riding in jeeps and tractors, and that crazy old cart of the Sticklemeyers—that’s the worst of all. I’ll never ride in it again.”
“If I remember right, Buckskin wouldn’t take you,” sniffed Fernetta. “You were one too many—Buckskin didn’t like you.”
“Buster likes me, if Buckskin don’t,” said Ruby.
“Since when do you know how to ride alone?” asked Peter.
Ruby tossed her head. “I always knew. I been riding since I was a baby.”
“Jeepers!” laughed Emil. “She’ll be ridin’ in the rodeo this fall.”
Darrell tightened the cinch and Ruby got on Buster like an experienced rider. The pony began to dance a jig and Ruby began to scream.
“You go ride by her, Darrell, and get Buster started off home,” called Delores, from the cab of the truck. Phil had come over to get her.
“Oh shoot!” answered Darrell. “Let Buster buck her off. That would serve Ruby right.” But he rode Nellie over, took Buster’s rein and led the pony as far as the railroad tracks. Then he turned him loose and rode south, while Ruby and Buster went trotting amiably off on the road going west.
Weeks rolled by, final tests came, and then it was time for the school picnic on the last day of school. Because of rain the night before, the plan for going to Oak Creek had to be given up and the picnic held in the schoolhouse. Everybody came, young and old. The women brought huge kettles filled with food—potato salad, baked beans, cheese and meat sandwiches, ripe olives, salads of various kinds, and elaborate layer cakes, trimmed with fancy frosting.
Miss Martin and the girls put the two tables together and covered them with flowered cloths. While the coffee was being made on the kerosene stove in the teacherage kitchen, the men and children waited on the front steps. Peter Hummel brought out the lasso rope, and Johannes Wagner gave a rope-jumping demonstration. The older boys, Philip Wagner and Hans and Fritz Holzhauer, jumped too, but none could jump “pepper” as fast as Johannes. He jumped until he was out of breath and had to sit down on the steps to rest.
“Come and eat!” called Mama Wagner, and everybody came, filling the benches by the tables and some of the desks. The food was good, and they all talked with their mouths full. The littlest children ran in and out, tumbled and fell, shouted and screamed. After leaving the table, they came running back, took large pieces of cake in their hands and got crumbs all over the desks and the floor. The coffee pot was soon emptied, and more put on to boil. “Come, Miss Martin,” begged Delores in the kitchen. “Come and sit down and eat. They all want to hear our story—about bur ride on the Galloping Goose.”
“I’ll take care of the coffee,” said Mama Wagner, coming out. “You go in and visit a little, Miss Martin.”
“There’s nothing much to tell,” Miss Martin said, as they made room for her at the head of the table. “I just had to get Delores to the doctor—that’s all.” She told the story as simply as she could.
“I didn’t know I could cause so much trouble,” said Delores gently.
Just then Mama Wagner came in from the kitchen, holding her hands mysteriously behind her. Papa Wagner called out: “More coffee, please.”
“Me too.” Christy, sitting on his father’s lap, held out his cup.
“Christy drinks coffee?” asked Mrs. Englehart.
Delores flushed red. “Papa did it. It’s Papa’s fault. Papa started him.”
“I give mine coffee when they’re babies,” said Mrs. Sticklemeyer, “and it ain’t killed one of ’em yet.” Everybody laughed.
“Well, this is not coffee,” Mama Wagner said. “The coffee’s not on the boil yet, that old kerosene stove’s so slow. But I got something else.” She brought out a large bunch of red, pink and white crepe paper roses, and shyly held them put toward Miss Martin.
“We wanted…it was right you should have … something for … to remember …” Mama’s words were getting all mixed up. She was not used to making speeches. She began to tremble and tears came to her eyes. “These flowers, they ain’t much, I don’t have time like Grandma Wagner does to make them out of that chenille stuff…and it costs too much money if you’re not sure of a good wheat crop. We didn’t know if you would like it… just old paper flowers that collect the dust, but they’re pretty anyhow, when they’re new. I always say a woman’s got to have something else to do besides work all the time…”
“Ach! Now, why don’t you stop talking and give them to Teacher?” interrupted Johannes. “We got to get back to our seeding, me and the boys.”
Mama thrust the flow
ers out. “It’s not much for what you did for our little girl, but we give you our thanks.”
Miss Martin took the bouquet, and the next minute she and Mama Wagner were locked in a close embrace. Delores put her arms around them both. Then she took the flowers from Miss Martin put them in an empty milk bottle and set them on top of the old piano that wouldn’t play anymore.
“Look!” cried Delores, pointing. “Right under George Washington’s picture.” Everybody clapped and began to say nice things to Miss Martin.
“We hope you won’t ever have such a bad winter again,” said Mrs. Sticklemeyer.
“It comes only once in fifty years,” laughed Pete Hummel.
“Picnic’s over!” Johannes pushed back his bench and stood up. “Come on, boys. Let’s get back to work. Seeding-time is here again.”
“Ach! What music to hear!” cried Al Sticklemeyer. “Let’s all hope and pray for a good crop.”
The men stalked out, while the women gathered up kettles, dishes, left-over food and children. Miss Martin tried to be everywhere at once, clearing things up, piling books in piles, and passing out report cards.
“Did I pass?” “Did I pass?” clamored the Children.
“Everybody passed,” said Miss Martin. She smiled as she watched the children go rushing out. She smiled, although her eyes were filled with tears. “Another school year is over,” she said softly.
“Yes,” said Delores, “the best year of all.”
A truck out in front began to honk noisily. Papa Wagner was anxious to be off.
“Miss Martin, you coming back next year?” asked Delores quickly.
“I don’t know, Delores,” said Miss Martin. “The school may be closed. You may have to go to school in town. That’s what you’ve been wanting…”
“Oh no,” said Delores. “I like it better here, even with all the snowstorms.”
“But you must grow up, Delores, and go on to better things.”
The truck honked again. Darrell put his head in. “Pop’s mad—waiting so long for you, Delores,” he called. “We gotta get home. Come on”
“Miss Martin…”
“It’s been a hard year,” Miss Martin said, “but a good one, hasn’t it? One we will always remember.”
Delores kissed her and ran out.
A sudden gust of wind came up, and the school door blew shut behind her.
The End
A Biography of Lois Lenski
Lois Lenski was born in Springfield, Ohio, on October 14, 1893. The fourth of five children of a Lutheran minister and a schoolteacher, she was raised in the rural town of Anna, Ohio, west of Springfield, where her father was the pastor. Many of the children’s books she wrote and illustrated take place in small, closely knit communities all over the country that are similar to Lenski’s hometown.
After graduating from high school in 1911, Lenski moved with her family to Columbus, where her father joined the faculty at Capital University. Because Capital did not yet allow women to enroll, she attended college at Ohio State University. Lenski took courses in education, planning to become a teacher like her mother, but also studied art, and was especially interested in drawing. In 1915, with a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate, she decided to pursue a career in art, and moved to New York City to take classes at the Art Students League of New York.
In an illustration class at the League, Lenski met a muralist named Arthur Covey. She assisted him in painting several murals, and also supported herself by taking on parttime jobs drawing fashion advertisements and lettering greeting cards. In October 1920, she left New York to continue her studies in Italy and London, where the publisher John Lane hired her to illustrate children’s books. When she returned to New York in 1921, she married Covey and became stepmother to his two children, Margaret and Laird.
Early in her career, Lenski dedicated herself to book illustration. When a publisher suggested that she try writing her own stories, she drew upon the happy memories of her childhood. Her first authored book, Skipping Village (1927), is set in a town that closely resembles Anna at the start of the twentieth century. A Little Girl of 1900 (1928) soon followed, also clearly based on Lenski’s early life in rural Ohio.
In 1929, Lenski’s son, Stephen, was born, and the family moved to a farmhouse called Greenacres in Harwinton, Connecticut, which they would call home for the next three decades. Lenski continued to illustrate other authors’ books, including the original version of The Little Engine That Could (1930) by Watty Piper, and the popular Betsy-Tacy series (1940–55) by Maud Hart Lovelace. Lenski also wrote the Mr. Small series (1934–62), ten books based on Stephen’s antics as a toddler.
The house at Greenacres had been built in 1790 and it became another source of inspiration, as Lenski liked to imagine the everyday lives of the people who had previously lived in her home. In Phebe Fairchild, Her Book (1936), for instance, a young girl is sent to live with her father’s family on their farm in northwestern Connecticut in 1830‚ when Greenacres would have been forty years old. For its rich and detailed depiction of family life in rural New England, the book was awarded the Newbery Honor.
Other historical novels followed—including A-Going to the Westward (1937), set in central Ohio; Bound Girl of Cobble Hill (1938); Ocean-Born Mary (1939); Blueberry Corners (1940); and Puritan Adventure (1944)—all set in New England; and Indian Captive (1941), a carefully researched retelling of the true story of Mary Jemison, a Pennsylvania girl captured by a raiding Native American tribe, for which Lenski won a second Newbery Honor.
By 1941, Lenski’s stepdaughter, Margaret, had married and started her own family, and Margaret’s son, David, spent a great deal of time with his grandparents at the farm. Lenski’s Davy series of seven picture books (1941–61) was largely based on David’s visits to Connecticut as a child.
During this period, Lenski experienced bouts of illness, brought on by the harsh Connecticut winters. The family began to spend winters in Florida, where she “saw the real America for the first time,” as she wrote in her autobiography. Noting how few books described the daily life of children in different parts of the country, she began writing the Regional America series, starting with Bayou Suzette (1943). The seventeen books in this series depict children’s lives in every region of the United States, from New England to the Pacific Northwest, in rural and urban settings. Lenski traveled to each region that she would later feature in her books, spending three to six weeks in each locale. She collected stories from children and adults in each area, documenting their dialect, learning about their way of life, and otherwise getting to know the people that would become the characters in her books. The second book in the series, Strawberry Girl, won the Newbery Medal in 1946. The Roundabout America series (1952–66), intended for younger readers, was based on the same theme of daily life all over the country. Lenski was unparalleled in the diversity of American lifestyles that she documented; the combination of research, interviews, and drawings that she utilized; and the empathy and honesty that she employed in recording people’s lives.
Other popular series for children followed, including four books about the seasons—Spring Is Here (1945), Now It’s Fall (1948), I Like Winter (1950), and On a Summer Day (1953)—and the seven Debbie books (1967–71), based on Lenski’s experiences with her granddaughter. Lenski also published several volumes of songs and poetry, mostly for children.
In early 1960, Lenski’s husband died, and she soon sold the farm in Connecticut to live in Florida year round. There she wrote her autobiography, Journey Into Childhood (1972). Lenski died on September 11, 1974, at her home in Florida. The Lois Lenski Covey Foundation, which she established to promote literacy and reading among at-risk children, continues her mission by providing grants to school and public libraries each year.
Lenski in 1897, at age four, when she lived in Springfield, Ohio. She was born there on October 14, 1893.
Lenski photographed at age seven or eight, when the family lived in Anna, Ohio. The
family lived in Anna for twelve years. It was there that Lenski developed her love of country life and began drawing and painting.
Lenski with her family in Anna, Ohio. From left to right: sister Esther; brothers, Oscar and Gerhard; father, Richard; Lois; mother, Marietta; and in front, sister Mariam.
Lenski’s high school graduation photo, taken in 1911. Her English teacher predicted that some day she would “do some form of creative work.”
Lenski in her studio in Pelham Manor, New York, around 1925. She lived there with her husband, Arthur; stepchildren, Margaret and Laird; and later, her son, Stephen.
Lenski with Stephen, age three, in 1932.
Lenski with Stephen and Arthur in 1946, just after she had won the Newbery Award for Strawberry Girl. With them is their pet goat, Missy.
Eventually, Lenski’s declining health led her to move to a warmer climate. In this 1960s photo, she is in her studio in Tarpon Springs, Florida.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1951 by Lois Lenski
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