A Big Year for Lily

by Mary Ann Kinsinger

  Papa pulled Jim to the side of the road. A policeman came up to the buggy. “There won’t be any school today,” he told Papa. The two men talked a little more and then Papa turned Jim and the buggy around to head for home.

  “Couldn’t we get my box of crayons out of the schoolhouse?” Lily asked.

  Papa turned to look at her. “Your what?”

  “My box of sixty-four crayons,” Lily said. “I don’t want them to be burned.”

  Papa gave her a sharp glance. “I would never ask anyone to go inside a burning building just to get a box of crayons.”

  Of course. Of course he wouldn’t do that. Lily felt embarrassed that she had even asked such a thing. What was she thinking?

  As soon as they reached home, Dannie ran inside to tell Mama the exciting news about the fire trucks and the burning schoolhouse. He always had to be first, Dannie did.

  Mama looked concerned. “I’m grateful the fire didn’t start when the children were in school.”

  Lily hadn’t even stopped to think about something like that. How terrible it would be to be trapped inside a schoolhouse with a fire on the roof. She felt another pinch of guilt. She had been getting all kinds of pinches of guilt today, and it was only morning.

  Later that day, Papa hitched Jim to the buggy and went to pick up Grandpa Miller and Uncle Jacob. They wanted to see if there was anything they could do at the schoolhouse. They were gone a long time. Lily kept running to the window to see if Papa was coming home. She wanted to hear if the firemen had been able to stop the fire.

  Mama was sewing at her sewing machine. She gave Lily a headscarf to hem by hand. As Lily sewed, she felt very sorry for herself. This had been a terrible day. First, the fire at the schoolhouse. Second, she didn’t know if her box of crayons had survived. Third, she had to sit home and hem a headscarf by hand. She hated to sew. This day was almost too much to bear.

  When Lily heard the squeak of buggy wheels in the snow, she dropped the headscarf she had been working on and ran to the window. Papa was pulling up to the barn. “I’m going to help Papa unhitch,” she said, and darted down to the basement to get her coat and boots before Mama could tell her to stay inside and finish the headscarf.

  By the time Lily reached him, Papa had already unhitched Jim and was pushing the buggy into the barn. Lily followed Papa into the barn as he led Jim into a stall. She blinked her eyes to try to adjust to the barn’s dim light. Papa curried and brushed Jim, a way to thank him for being such a good buggy horse. Lily stayed quiet as long as she could—at least a full minute. But she had to know! “Did the firemen save the schoolhouse?”

  “It didn’t burn to the ground, but the damage is bad. We need to tear down the entire building and build a new one. Everyone is planning to lay all their other work aside so by Monday, Lord willing, there will be a new schoolhouse for all of you children.”

  So it was true. Lily’s box of sixty-four beautiful crayons had been ruined. She knew it wasn’t right to care more about the crayons than she did for the schoolhouse. The thing was—the crayons had been her very own, and the schoolhouse had been shared with everyone.

  She walked slowly back to the house, kicking and scuffing the fluffy snow. It was only Tuesday. Monday was a long way off. She hoped that Mama wouldn’t ask her to do more hand sewing. There was nothing that she hated as much as hand sewing. Even putting up with Aaron Yoder and Effie Kauffman at school was better than hand sewing.

  24

  Starting Over

  Early Wednesday morning, Lily helped Mama pack lunch for Papa. He was going to help the rest of the men in the community build a new schoolhouse. It would take a few days to complete, so each day would be a work frolic. Usually, large meals were part of the frolics, but not this time. Each person was asked to pack his own lunch to take along.

  Lily spooned some peaches into a dish and carefully covered it. She set it into a corner of Papa’s lunch box while Mama fit in several sandwiches. There was still space to tuck a few cookies. Then Lily closed the lid. She hoped Papa would have enough to eat so that he wouldn’t get too hungry before suppertime. She worried that the men wouldn’t be able to work very fast if they got too hungry. She wanted them to work quickly so she could go back to school.

  By the time Uncle Elmer drove into the driveway with his horse and buggy, Papa had his tools and lunch box, ready to go. Lily stood at the window and watched as Papa tucked his tool belt under the seat and then climbed on the buggy. They drove down the road to pick up Grandpa and Uncle Jacob.

  Lily wandered around the house aimlessly trying to decide what to do for the rest of the day. Her favorite books and her doll didn’t seem very exciting. Since the fire, all she wanted to do was to color with her beautiful box of crayons. How sad. Why was it that the one thing you wanted most, you could never seem to have?

  Joseph didn’t mind that he couldn’t go to school. He and Dannie played in the snow for a while and built a snowman. After that, they set up their toy farms in the corner of the living room and became thoroughly involved in the game of pretend farming.

  Lily made another round through the kitchen and living room.

  Mama could tell Lily felt antsy. “You could work on your cross-stitching.”

  Oh no. Lily knew that she should enjoy cross-stitching as much as other little girls her age, but she hated it. It was so tedious to use a needle and thread by hand. Over and over, the same little x for a cross-stitch. “Maybe I could sew on the sewing machine,” she said, hoping Mama would forget about the cross-stitching. She liked the sewing machine because it was noisy and fast, but Mama didn’t have anything for her to sew on the sewing machine.

  Mama got the square of fabric that Lily had been working on to make a pretty pillow top. In each corner, there were several hearts made with little x’s and three flowers. Lily sat down and threaded her needle with purple embroidery floss and took several stitches. “Cross-stitching is not fun!” she said, mostly to herself, and jabbed the needle into the fabric again. She jabbed too hard and pricked her finger. A little drop of blood stained the fabric. “Ouch!” Lily quickly put her finger in her mouth.

  Mama crossed the room to see what had happened. She saw a drop of red on the fabric. “Let’s go take care of this right away before the blood sets in the fabric.” Mama hurried to get a bottle of peroxide from the medicine cabinet. She started dabbing the fabric with a cloth soaked in peroxide. Lily sat on the sofa, feeling more gloomy than she did when she started to cross-stitch. Mama was more worried about the fabric than she was about the gigantic hole Lily had poked into her finger.

  After Mama was satisfied that the blood drop on the fabric had been washed away, she came back into the living room. For a moment, she gazed thoughtfully at Lily. “I don’t think your mind is on the things you can do here at home. Why don’t you bundle up and go spend the rest of the day with Grandma and Aunt Susie.”

  Instantly, Lily felt a happy mood return. Mama did understand! She ran to get her coat, shawl, and bonnet and started up the road. It was snowing and the wind blew right in her face, but as long as she kept her head down and walked fast, she didn’t mind the cold too much.

  Grandma and Aunt Susie were pleased to answer the knock on the door and find Lily. “Come in, come in out of the cold,” Grandma said.

  Lily stepped inside and removed her boots. She was careful not to let any snow stay on the floor. It would never do to make melted snow puddles on Grandma’s floor.

  Aunt Susie took Lily’s wraps and hung them on a hook. “Do you want to help me color?” she asked, a hopeful look on her sweet, childlike face.

  Oh, how wonderful! She would get to color today, after all. Lily followed Aunt Susie to help her choose which coloring books to color in. Aunt Susie had a big stack of coloring books. Lily took her time looking at each one before settling on one with baby animals.

  They took the books and crayons to the kitchen table and sat down to begin coloring. Grandma was baking an apple pie. She looked at
Lily and said, “Your nose is still red from the cold walk you had to our house. It looks as if you need some hot chocolate.” She set two mugs of steaming hot chocolate on the table for Lily and Aunt Susie. Then, just for fun, she sprinkled a few mini-marshmallows on top.

  Lily felt warm and cozy and special as she stirred her hot chocolate and took a few tiny sips. This day had started so bleak and was improving by the minute. Papa was helping all the other men build a new schoolhouse, and she could spend all afternoon at her Grandma’s house, coloring with her favorite aunt. And no little brothers! It was pure bliss.

  Grandma sent Lily home in plenty of time to help Mama prepare supper. Papa walked up the driveway just as the sun was setting and dinner was ready to be served. Lily had just set a bowl of fried potatoes on the table as Papa washed up at the sink. He had a pleased look on his face. “Is the new schoolhouse finished?” Lily asked.

  “Not quite,” he said. “Tomorrow we should finish up. On Friday, we’ll be moving in desks while the school board goes and buys new books. You and Joseph can go back to school on Monday.”

  Lily felt excited. She loved going to school. Having a brand-new schoolhouse would be fun. And new books would be nice, too. She wondered if Teacher Rhoda would make the children start all over again with the workbooks. That didn’t sound like much fun. But then a happy thought danced through Lily’s mind, something that hadn’t occurred to her: she would no longer have to see Aaron Yoder’s big, dirty footprint on her new book—the one he had stepped on, back on the first day of school.

  Monday was still five whole days away! Lily felt almost too excited to eat. Not quite, but almost.

  On Monday morning, Lily and Joseph didn’t bother to wait for Hannah and Levi. They were too excited to see the new schoolhouse.

  All of the other students felt the same way—they all arrived early. Everyone was excited to smell that fresh paint smell and be the first to walk on the new wooden floors. Beth and her brother Reuben arrived at school just as Lily and Joseph were about to enter the schoolhouse. “Wait, Lily! Wait for me. Let’s go in together!” Beth ran up to the door.

  Joseph went in but Lily paused by the door to wait for Beth. They held hands and walked over the threshold, barely able to hold their excitement in. It was beautiful! The walls had been painted a soft cream color. Shelves were built along the two sidewalls that went up to Lily’s waist. The shelves were already filled with library books to read when they had spare time, and new board games and puzzles to play with at recess on rainy days. Farther down were encyclopedias, dictionaries, and stacks of songbooks.

  The floor was painted a bluish gray. Lily checked her shoes to make sure they weren’t dirty before stepping off the rug and onto this pretty floor. She and Beth went to find their desks. They were still in the same places they had been, which was a little disappointing. Lily had hoped Teacher Rhoda might have moved Aaron Yoder’s desk far, far away. No such luck. Maybe, if everything was clean and shiny and a fresh start, Aaron would start over with Lily, being nice and kind and sweet. She doubted it, but she hoped.

  She opened the lid on her desk and paged through the new books inside.

  Beth squealed. “Oh Lily, come look at this!”

  Beth stood at the back of the room beside the little sink where everyone could wash their hands. Lily crossed the room to see what Beth was so excited about: beside the sink was a shiny new water fountain. It had a little handle to pull at the side, sending up an arching stream of cold water. Lily had never seen anything so wonderful. Beth held the strings of her covering to keep them from getting wet as she took a drink. Then Lily got a turn. They wouldn’t have to share a water cup at the pump in the school yard. They wouldn’t even have to go outside to have a drink. For the first time, Lily felt a little glad about that fire. New things were so much fun.

  Teacher Rhoda rang the bell and everyone found their seats. As she read a Bible story, Lily sighed happily. It felt good to be back in school with the other children. Everything looked and smelled new and fresh and pretty. She couldn’t wait to work in her new books with her new pencil and read all the new library books that were waiting on the bookshelves.

  But there was even better news! Last night, Papa had told her he would buy a new box of sixty-four crayons for her the next time he went to town.

  25

  Mama’s Pig Story

  On the way back from the mailbox, Lily leafed through a magazine that had come in the mail today. Most of it was advertisements and a few articles about farming. Then a headline on a page caught her eye: “Submit your humorous story and win!” She read on: If the magazine printed your story, it would pay you one hundred dollars.

  Lily tried to think of everything she could buy with one hundred dollars. Wouldn’t Papa and Mama be pleased if she were paid for something she wrote? She was sure she could write a funny story. How easy! Simple. Funny things happened to her all the time. Practically every day.

  Lily ran to her room and sat down at her desk with her writing tablet. Think, think, think. She tapped her pencil on her desktop. Then she drew a whole row of smiley faces along the top of her page and some flowers along the bottom. She noticed a dead bee on the windowsill and wondered how long it had been there. Think, think, think. What was something funny that had happened recently? Her mind was a blank.

  She thought of dessert last night. Paul was eating the frosting off the cake top. When Papa told him to eat the bottom first, he turned his piece of cake upside down and kept eating the frosting. That was funny! Everyone laughed. But when Lily tried to write it, the story didn’t seem very amusing. Who wanted to read about a baby?

  She picked up the magazine and went to find Mama, hoping she might have a good idea for a funny story.

  Mama skimmed the article. “I’m not sure what you could write about,” she said. “Maybe you can make something up.” She turned back to the article to read it more thoroughly. “Lily, would you mind if I tried writing a story too?”

  “I don’t mind,” Lily said. Not a bit. She would be pleased if Mama had a story published in that magazine.

  That evening, as soon as Paul was tucked into bed, Mama set to work. Lily watched her at the kitchen table. Her pencil flew back and forth across the paper. Lily’s pencil never flew. It barely walked. Mama made it look so easy. Before long, she put her pencil down, satisfied. She handed the paper to Papa.

  He read it and laughed out loud. “You did a fine job, Rachel.”

  Mama seemed pleased at Papa’s praise. She let Lily read what she’d written. It was a story about the time Mama had helped catch a pig that had escaped from its pen. It was a very funny story and it was true.

  Mama took a long envelope from Papa’s desk and tucked her folded story inside. She addressed it in her neat, careful handwriting, stamped it, and propped it on top of the desk to take to the mailbox in the morning.

  Lily looked at it. The envelope looked fat and interesting. She hoped whoever read the story would like it as much as she and Papa had. She was sure that Mama would hear back from the publisher soon. So each day, she came home from school and asked Mama if she had heard from the magazine yet. Each day, Mama would smile and say not yet.

  Then Lily forgot about it.

  Weeks later, Mama met her at the door and held up an envelope for Lily to see. “They liked my story,” she said. “I got a letter in the mail today saying they want to publish it in their next issue.”

  “Did they pay you one hundred dollars?” Lily asked. A fortune!

  “Yes,” Mama said. “And I already know how I want to spend it.”

  Lily did too! Candy, books, games.

  “I want to buy a little coal water heater,” Mama said.

  What?! But, but, but . . . it should be spent on something fun! Lily thought. Something wonderful and delicious.

  Mama smiled at the look of horror on Lily’s face. “Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to heat water on the stove to wash the dishes? Or in the big kettle in the basemen
t for the laundry and bath time?”

  Lily had to give that some thought. It would be nice to have hot water come straight out of the faucet. Not quite as nice as one hundred dollars’ worth of candy, but it would be nice. “Does Papa know they liked your story?”

  “Yes,” Mama said. “He brought the mail to the house and watched me open the envelope. He already went to buy everything we need to set up the hot water heater.”

  Lily stopped to listen. No hum of Papa’s woodworking machinery came from his shop. The house seemed strangely quiet.

  Lily’s excitement grew as she ran to change into her everyday clothes. She hoped Papa would get right to work on installing the coal water heater the minute he returned home. Papa knew how to do everything. Tonight, she might get to have a hot bath, with hot water right from the faucets!

  When Papa returned from town, he started to cut copper pipes and fastened fittings to them. He installed the hot water pipes beside the cold water pipes that carried water throughout the house. He stopped only for supper, then lit the lantern and kept on working.

  Too soon, it was time for bed. Papa hadn’t finished and Lily was disappointed that she had to go to bed before there was running hot water. What about the hot bath she had planned? “Patience is needed in all kinds of things, Lily,” Papa told her. “Including plumbing hardware. The glue on the pipes needs to dry overnight before we fire up the water heater. We don’t want to have leaks just because we didn’t wait long enough for everything to dry properly.”

  The next morning, Lily woke as the first streaks of pink tinted the eastern skies. She hopped out of bed, dressed quickly, and ran downstairs to the kitchen. Mama was making breakfast. Papa had already milked Pansy and was ready to start the fire in the water heater. He smiled when he saw Lily. “Would you run to the shop and bring back some wood shavings?”