A Surprise for Lily

by Mary Ann Kinsinger

  “Fifty!” Papa shouted.

  Lily’s hands flew to her mouth. What was Papa thinking?! To spend fifty dollars for one little book? Mama would not be happy with him.

  But the bids kept on going. The price of that book went higher and higher. Everyone stopped to listen as the bidding continued. Two hundred dollars. Three hundred. Lily loved to read, but no book could be that interesting. And yet the price kept on rising! Four hundred dollars, four hundred twenty, four hundred twenty five, four hundred thirty. Going . . . going . . . gone! The book was sold to Uncle Ira for four hundred and thirty dollars. Another uncle called out, “Ira, you’d better read that book every day for the rest of your life to get your money’s worth out of it.”

  Ira grinned, pleased, placed the book beside him, and went on to the next book. He held it up. “Can I get ten dollars?” No one said anything. “Can I get five?” Still no one spoke. Lily looked at the money in her hand that Papa had given her. “I’ll pay three dollars,” she said.

  “I have three dollars,” Uncle Ira said. “Anyone want to bid four?”

  Still, no one said anything. “Going . . . going . . . gone! Sold to Lily for three dollars.”

  Lily was so pleased! She had bought her first thing at an auction. Lily paid for her book as the auction continued. Papa bought a cuckoo clock that he remembered from his boyhood, Grandpa’s hand drill, and an ugly chocolate brown and royal blue quilt. Mama whispered to her, “That quilt used to be on Papa’s bed.” When the auction was over, everyone gathered their things, said their goodbyes to Grandma, and started for home.

  Everyone helped load the last of Grandma’s things into a little trailer. Mr. Tanner’s station wagon would haul the trailer back to Cloverdale with them. Lily was excited. It would be fun having Grandma living with them.

  After a long drive, the Lapps arrived at Whispering Pines late at night. The boys were tucked into bed in their clothes. Grandma looked at the two rooms Papa had emptied for her. She shook her head. “It’s too much for me. I don’t need to take up so much room. You have a growing family. The sewing room will do just fine.”

  Grandma was adamant. So the next morning, Papa put the living room furniture back where it had been. Grandma’s furniture was moved into the sewing room and she settled right in. Soon, it seemed like she had always been with them.

  Dear Hannah,

  Thank you for your letter telling me that Tom the hired boy is planning to get married soon. It’s hard to believe that his fiancée is so terribly ugly. Maybe she has a wonderful personality?

  So, Teacher Judith is not coming back next year. No one knows why, not even Effie (not really, though she made up lots of outlandish reasons so we would think she knew). My hunch is that it had to do with the fact that she never stuck around to listen to Mama’s English lessons. She always had an errand to run.

  I’m trying not to worry about who our new teacher will be, but I find it difficult not to worry about it. A teacher makes such a difference. Good teachers are so wonderful and bad teachers are so awful. Mama says to trust that God will provide just the teacher that Cloverdale needs.

  You would hardly know Dannie had been so sick in May. Mama makes him take a long nap each afternoon, but most of the time he is as noisy and bothersome as he always was. It’s wonderful.

  Mama has been napping right along with Dannie—she said it’s to encourage him to slow down and rest. While she is resting, Grandma Lapp is teaching me how to crochet. I have made so many white doilies this summer that Dannie said the living room looks like it’s been covered with cobwebs.

  Grandma Lapp is teaching me how to bake. I made a batch of popovers the other night, but they didn’t pop like they were supposed to. Joseph called them popunders.

  Mama is calling so I had better go. And yes, even though I enjoyed visiting my Lapp girl cousins in Kentucky, you will always be my most-favorite-of-all cousin.

  Love,

  Lily

  26

  Grandma’s Stories

  Early on a June day, Lily helped Mama pick peas from the garden. She sat on the front porch swing beside Grandma Lapp to help her shell them for dinner. Joseph and Dannie tried to help but the peas flew all over the porch when they popped open the pods. More peas ended up on the porch floor than in the bowl, and soon Grandma shooed them away. Joseph took off to Papa’s shop to work on a project, and Dannie went to play in the sandbox.

  Lily opened another pod and carefully removed the little peas inside. She threw the empty husk into a five-gallon pail and started all over again. She sighed as she looked at all the peas left to be shelled. Three heaping bushel baskets full. “I think shelling peas is the most boring thing in the world,” she said.

  Grandma smiled. “I don’t think anyone could ever say pea shelling is exciting, but it is relaxing. As for the most boring job in the world, I think your papa might have an opinion about that.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Has he ever told you about the summer of cow watching?”

  Lily brightened. A story was on its way! Grandma could spin wonderful yarns.

  “Your papa was the youngest boy in the family. Boys run in the Lapp family, you know.”

  Oh, yes. Lily knew that.

  “Daniel was always trying to keep up with his seven older brothers. Most of the time he would play with Menno, who was just a year older than him, but that didn’t keep both of them from trying to tag along after the others. There came a summer that was especially hot. The cow pasture had been grazed until the grass was almost shorter than our mowed yard. Grandpa didn’t want to start feeding hay until winter, but we knew we needed to do something to keep the livestock fed.”

  All the time Grandma was talking, she was shelling peas. Lily could talk or shell peas, but not both at the same time.

  “Our neighbor had a field of clover right next to our pasture,” Grandma continued. “He had retired from dairy farming and turned his farm into a hobby farm. He had a lot of different little animals like calves, rabbits, ducks, chickens, and a few horses. He didn’t need all that land to raise crops. He had noticed we needed more grazing land for our cows, so he offered to let them graze on his field of clover. Grandpa went to look it over. The grass looked fine but the fence only went around three sides of the field.

  “Grandpa decided to accept the neighbor’s offer to graze the cows in his clover field. We waited to turn the cows out until after breakfast, and then he instructed the boys to station themselves along the edge of the field to watch the cows. If cows came too close to the edge of the field, their job was to chase them back. Grandpa figured that with eight boys, that should work. The cows could graze all day, and the boys could bring them home in the evening at milking time.

  “Your papa was glad to be a part of the big boys’ work. Day after day, the boys packed a lunch and took the cows out to the clover field. The cows were happy to have all that good green grass to eat and hardly ever tried to wander away.

  “The boys whittled little wooden whistles and other toys, but mostly, they sat and watched the cows. It wasn’t too long before the boys grew bored with their job. And then one day, I was canning tomato juice when I saw Menno come running toward the house as fast as he could. I ran outside to see what was wrong. ‘Molly stepped on Daniel’s stomach!’ he said.”

  Lily leaned forward in her chair. “What happened next?”

  “I quickly ran to the field with Menno. He said that Daniel had fallen asleep in the tall grass under one of the trees and Molly didn’t see him when she walked over to the shade to chew her cud. She stepped right on his stomach and wouldn’t step off.

  “When I got to your papa, he was still lying in the grass under a tree where he had fallen asleep, moaning and groaning like he was in terrible pain. Molly was a big old Brown Swiss cow and I was afraid with all that weight that she had torn something inside of your papa. I told Menno to run over to the neighbors to call an ambulance because I was afraid to move him. I was right, too, b
ecause when we got to the hospital the doctors wanted to do surgery right away to fix everything.

  “Your papa spent the rest of the summer inside, in bed or on the couch. Folks brought him books, puzzles, and toys so he would have something to do while he recovered, but I know he would have rather been able to rejoin his brothers with cow watching.”

  Lily reached down for another pea. Why, the buckets were empty! They had shelled all of the peas while Grandma told the story of Papa and the summer of cow watching. She didn’t mind doing a boring job when she could sit beside Grandma on the swing and listen to stories while they worked.

  Lily finished sweeping the kitchen and hung the broom on the nail inside the broom closet. It was a rainy day and she was at loose ends. She wanted to do something today. Mama was helping Papa in the shop all day. Lily hurried to Grandma Lapp’s room. She was sitting on her rocking chair crocheting an afghan. “Do you have any ideas for something to do today?”

  Grandma dropped her hands in her lap, giving Lily’s question some thought. “Would you like to try to bake a pie?”

  That sounded like fun! Lily knew how to bake cake and cookies, but baking a pie was much harder. She had never tried to make a pie by herself.

  Grandma put the yarn in the basket by her rocking chair. “Your papa had a favorite pie when he was a little boy. Let’s go make it. I’ll help you make the pie dough and roll it out.”

  In the kitchen, Grandma told Lily just what to do. She carefully measured out three cups of flour and ran a knife along the top of the measuring cup to scrape off any extra flour. She measured one cup of butter, cut it into the flour, and mixed it in with her hands. She mixed and mixed until all the crumbs looked the same size, the size of a pea, then she mixed some more. After adding the water she mixed and mixed and mixed. This was going to be the best mixed pie dough there ever was.

  Grandma had gone upstairs to see if Paul was still napping. When she came downstairs, she asked Lily what could be taking her so long. Grandma peered into the bowl at the lump of dough. She poked at it with her finger and it left an indentation. “I should have told you not to mix it more than absolutely necessary. Otherwise it gets stiff.”

  Grandma dusted a little flour on the countertop and tried to roll out the dough. It kept tearing and cracking. Mama’s pie dough was elastic. This dough didn’t look like dough.

  Finally, Grandma gave up. “We’re getting nowhere fast,” Grandma said. “Go toss this lump of dough over the fence and I’ll start making a new batch.”

  Lily ran outside with the ball of dough and tossed it over the fence. Sure enough, Dozer appeared out of nowhere and ran off with it. When Lily got back to the house, Grandma had almost finished making the new batch of pie dough. This time when she tried to roll it out it behaved the way it was supposed to—easy to stretch and push and pull.

  Grandma fit the dough into a pie pan and showed Lily how to use her thumb and forefinger to pinch and twist the dough along the edges of the pie pan. Grandma’s fingers flew around her half of the pie pan. Lily’s fingers felt thick and clumsy. She went slowly and carefully, but her side didn’t look nearly as pretty and even as Grandma’s.

  “What was Papa’s favorite pie when he was a little boy?” Lily asked.

  “It’s called Milk Pie,” Grandma said. “It’s very simple to make. Take one cup of brown sugar and three tablespoons of flour and mix it together.”

  Lily measured the sugar and flour into a little bowl and mixed it together with a fork. “Does it matter how long I mix this?” Piecrusts were trickier than she had expected. Who knew you shouldn’t mix and mix?

  “No, not for this,” Grandma said, peering into the bowl. “I think it’s done. Go ahead and spread it on top of the dough in the bottom of one of the pie pans.”

  Lily dumped the sugar and flour mixture into a pie pan and spread it out.

  “Now go ahead and add a cup and a half of milk and a little splash of vanilla,” Grandma said.

  Lily measured in the milk and carefully tipped the bottle of vanilla to make sure there wouldn’t be more than a little splash. Vanilla was costly. “Now what?”

  “Carefully stir it around with your fingers,” Grandma said. “And it will be ready to bake.”

  Lily opened the oven door and Grandma slid the pie carefully inside. “It bakes for an hour and a half. Plenty of time to clean up the dishes we used and leave the kitchen spic-and-span for your mother.”

  That seemed like an awfully long time to wait for a pie. She couldn’t wait to see Papa’s face when she served him Milk Pie.

  As soon as supper was over, Lily set the Milk Pie in front of Papa. His dark eyebrows shot up. “Why, it looks delicious!” He had two slices and cleaned up the last crumb from his plate. “Just like I remembered it as a boy.”

  If Lily were honest, she would have to say she thought it was a very boring pie. She wondered why this pie had been Papa’s favorite. The only good thing she could think about it was that it was very easy to make, as long as Grandma made the tricky piecrust.

  27

  Papa’s Flight

  Lily and Mama were spading the flower bed in front of the house to plant rows of petunias and impatiens. Grandma sat on a chair with trays of flowers on her lap from the local greenhouse. She pulled one flower plant at a time from the container and handed it to Paul. Paul carried it slowly and carefully to Mama.

  When the last impatien had been planted, Lily brushed dirt from her hands and stood back to look at the flower bed. It wouldn’t be long before the plants filled in and covered the entire area with brightly colored flower petals.

  Mama had a satisfied look on her face. “Lily, please water the flowers while I go prepare lunch.” Grandma held Paul’s hand to follow Mama into the house. As Lily filled the watering can with water from the hose, she watched Grandma and Paul walk slowly up the porch steps. It must be nice for Paul to have someone who walked at the same speed as he did.

  Lily turned off the hose and picked up the watering can. She heard a noise and glanced back to discover Dozer had already dug holes in the flower bed. Mama’s little pink impatiens lay on the ground, sad and broken. “Dozer!” Lily dropped the watering can and ran toward him. “Shoo, shoo, get out of here you naughty dog.” She flapped her apron at him, but he darted away. Lily picked up the broken plants and replanted them. The flower bed didn’t look nearly as good as it did when Mama had finished it. She hoped they would still grow big.

  She glared at Dozer as she went inside the house for lunch. “I wish there was a way to teach Dozer to behave,” she told Mama. “He dug holes in the flower bed.”

  Grandma was sitting in her rocking chair with Paul on her lap, reading him a story. She looked up at Lily with a twinkle in her eye. “You should try flying at him.”

  Poor Grandma. She must be a little sun touched. “But Grandma, I can’t fly,” Lily said in her gentlest voice.

  “Your papa flew at some dogs once,” Grandma said. “Or maybe diving would be a better way to describe it.”

  Lily sat right down by Grandma’s feet. A story was coming!

  “We used to take eggs to sell in town every week when your papa was a boy. It was the boys’ job to deliver the eggs. Ira or one of the older boys would drive the horse and your Papa liked to ride along.” Joseph and Dannie appeared out of nowhere and sat by Grandma’s rocking chair.

  “There was one farm on the way to town that they didn’t like to pass. Three big German shepherd dogs would race down the lane and bark at them. They’d even jump at the horse. The horse hated going by that farm, too. It was getting to be a problem.” Grandma leaned forward on the rocking chair.

  “So one day, as the boys were taking another load of eggs to town, they decided to teach those dogs a lesson they wouldn’t forget. As they neared the farm, your papa stood on the back of the spring wagon with the horse’s tie rope. When the dogs got close enough, he would swing it at them and chase them away.

  “What happened next?” Josep
h said.

  “Yeah! What happened next?” Dannie echoed.

  “As usual, the dogs came barreling up the lane, barking up a storm. Your papa swung the tie rope and the clip happened to hit the springs on the bottom of the wagon. It sounded like a gun had gone off. That was the last straw for the horse. He jumped and threw your papa off the back of the spring wagon, head first, right at the dogs. They hadn’t expected a boy to come flying through the air toward them. Those dogs turned and ran home as fast as they could go.”

  “Was Papa hurt?” Lily asked.

  “Your papa picked himself up and brushed himself off. He had quite a few cuts and bruises from his dive off the wagon. Ira stopped the horse and waited for your papa to hobble to the wagon and climb back in before they went on their way.”

  “But that,” Grandma said with a smile in her voice, “was the last time those dogs tried to chase anyone.”

  28

  The Train Tunnel

  Early one summer morning, Lily was surprised to find Papa in the kitchen making breakfast and Aunt Susie sitting at the table, inspecting burnt toast and lumpy porridge. Aunt Susie held a piece of toast in the air and frowned. “Daniel,” she said in her slow, thick way, “I don’t think this is right. Toast shouldn’t be black.”

  “It’s just a little overdone,” Papa said. “Your stomach won’t know the difference.”

  “Where’s Mama?” Lily asked, rubbing her eyes.

  Joseph and Dannie tumbled downstairs and into the kitchen. They stopped abruptly at the sight of Papa in the kitchen.

  “She’s still upstairs,” Papa said, putting a container of milk on the table.

  Aunt Susie took a tiny bite of the blackened toast and spit it out. “I don’t think I can eat charcoal toast.”

  “Is Mama sick?” Lily asked.