A Big Year for Lily (10 page)

L
ily looked longingly out the kitchen window. Snow swirled in thin, dancing ribbons through the trees. A light layer dusted the ground. The first snowfall of the year, and it was only the first week of December. She was aching to run out and play in the snow. Joseph and Dannie were already making little paths in it. Then they would pretend the paths were roads and run along them.

If only Saturday cleaning didn't have to be done every week. Then Lily could be out playing with them instead of dusting the furniture.

Upstairs, Mama was rocking baby Paul to sleep. Lily knew that as soon as Mama came back downstairs, she would have more chores in mind. She quickly whisked the dusting cloth over the front of Papa's big rolltop desk, dropped the cloth on his chair, and tiptoed quietly down the basement stairs.

She slipped into her coat and boots and ran outside. Joseph and Dannie were delighted to see her. After making a few
more paths in the snow they decided to play horse. Dannie was youngest, so he would be the first to be a horse. Lily found her jumping rope on the porch and put it across Dannie's shoulders and under his arms. Joseph held the end of the rope and clucked “giddyup,” and they trotted down one of the paths. Lily waited patiently for her turn, watching under the pine tree until they came back. The pine tree was the pretend barn. Its branches almost touched the ground on three sides. On the other side was the big air tank. The hook on the end made a nice place to tie their pretend horse.

When the boys came back, Joseph looped the rope through the hook. Dannie neighed and tried to paw his feet like a real horse. “The snow on the tank will be our pretend hay,” Lily said.

Dannie licked a little. “It's good!” He licked some more.

Lily was getting ready to harness up Joseph when she heard a weird noise. Dannie had licked a patch of snow all the way down to the air tank. His tongue was stuck to it!

“Hold still while I get Mama,” Lily said. She ran as fast as she could to the house, quickly kicked off her boots, and ran up the basement stairs. “Mama, Mama! Dannie needs you.”

Mama had been mopping the floor and quickly put the mop back into the pail of water. “What's wrong with Dannie?”

“His tongue is stuck to the air tank,” Lily said.

Mama quickly filled a pitcher with water. “Stay in the house in case Paul wakes up.”

From the living room window, Lily watched Mama run to the air tank to rescue Dannie. Before she could reach him, Dannie fell to the ground with a howl. He cried so loud she was sure baby Paul would wake up and start to wail.

Mama scooped Dannie up in her arms and carried him
back to the house. As soon as they got inside, Lily asked if she could see Dannie's tongue.

Dannie stuck it out, in between sobs, and Lily gasped. She squeezed her eyes shut. Dannie's tongue was skinned and raw. Joseph examined the tongue. “He'll never be able to eat again,” he said confidently, which made Dannie cry louder.

“Yes, Joseph, he will,” Mama said.

“How could Dannie ever taste anything with his taste buds torn off?” Lily asked.

“His tongue will heal,” Mama said. “It will hurt for a while, but after it's healed he should be able to taste and eat just fine.”

At lunchtime, Papa put all of Dannie's food through Paul's baby food grinder. He would have to eat baby food until his tongue had healed enough to eat real food.

Lily felt a tiny bit responsible for Dannie's tongue accident. If she had stayed inside instead of sneaking out to play, Joseph and Dannie might not have thought of playing horse. If she hadn't said that the snow on the tank could be pretend hay, Dannie might not have thought to lick the snow off the air tank. But then she decided not to feel too badly. One thing she had learned about brothers—they were always thinking up things they shouldn't be doing.

O
ne morning Mama carefully set a gallon of fresh milk into the cold water to cool. “Daniel, we need more ice in the refrigerator,” she said.

“I'll go start the ice compressor right away,” Papa said. He took the gas can to the tank of gas under the pine trees to fill it up. Moments later, he returned to the house with a puzzled look on his face. “Was someone playing with the valve on the gas tank?”

Lily looked at Joseph who looked at Dannie who looked at Lily. Then they all looked at Papa and said, “No.”

Papa stroked his beard. “I can't understand. The tank was filled up just a few weeks ago. This morning, there was barely enough gas to fill the gas can.”

“Could it have a leak?” Mama asked.

“I checked,” Papa said. “I couldn't find any sign of a leak.” He shook his head. “It's a mystery to me. Now I'll have to
order more gas. Hopefully, the gas truck can make a trip out tomorrow to fill the tank up or else we won't be able to keep ice in the refrigerator.”

Thin gray clouds scuttled across the bleak sky. Lily held the ends of her shawl tightly in her hands, hoping to keep warm while walking home from school. She and Joseph were walking straight into a stiff, cold wind.

“Hurry, Lily,” Joseph said as he ran ahead.

Lily tried to hurry, but it wasn't easy to run while one hand held her shawl together over her coat and the other hand held her lunch box. Joseph was far ahead of her, so she decided to let her shawl flap all it wanted to. She let it go and ran the rest of the way home. She couldn't wait to get inside the house and sit in the cozy kitchen. She hoped Mama would have a mug of steaming hot chocolate waiting for her.

Papa was in the kitchen when she reached the house. He took her lunch box from her so she could get warm by the stove. “I wouldn't be surprised if we wake up tomorrow morning and find quite a bit of snow on the ground. The air has that certain crisp smell—like a snowstorm is coming.”

As Lily sipped hot chocolate and felt the warmth of the cup seep into her cold hands, she thought about snow. There had been spurts of snow in the last few weeks, but nothing sled-worthy. She hoped the snowstorm would be a big one and make the world look like a winter wonderland instead of a drab, gray, cheerless place. Snow games were so much more fun to play at recess.

Lily woke when she heard a loud bang: the basement door shutting. Papa must be heading out to the barn to do the morning chores.

She hopped out of bed, hurried to the window, held the curtain back with one hand, and peered outside. Everything looked white. Papa's forecast had been right! It had snowed. And snowed! Whispering Pines was covered with a white blanket.

Lily dressed and went downstairs to help Mama make breakfast. “Can we make ice cream when we come home from school?”

“Not tonight,” Mama said. “Winter has only begun. There will be plenty of time to make ice cream.”

Lily wished Mama liked ice cream making as much as she did. When she was a grown-up, she was going to make ice cream every single day that it snowed.

Papa came in from milking Pansy. He handed a pail of steaming frothy milk to Mama. “I think I know why the gas keeps disappearing from our gas tank,” he said, a troubled look on his face. “There were tracks leading up to the tank. It looks like we have visitors during the night, and they're helping themselves to our gas.”

Mama's eyes went wide. “How awful!”

Lily shivered. It was creepy to think some bad people were on their property in the night while they were all sound asleep. “Are you going to call the police?”

Papa and Mama exchanged a glance. “No,” Papa said quickly. “I'll see if I can catch them myself.”

Lily wondered what Papa would do if he caught the thieves. A policeman would take the thieves to jail and lock them up. Thieves would stay in jail until they learned not to take things that didn't belong to them. She had read about it in a book,
so she knew it was true. Maybe Papa would lock them up in the woodshed. That would be a good place to keep the gas thieves. Lily imagined carrying bread and water out to feed them so they wouldn't starve. She pictured them handing out pieces of Papa's cut wood for the family to use in the house. She wondered how long it would take the bad men to repent of their ways. Maybe . . . until next summer?

That evening Papa didn't go to bed when it was bedtime. Instead, he blew out the lights and sat next to one of the kitchen windows so that he could watch and see who came to get gas. Lily and Joseph volunteered to stay up with him and help, but he sent them to bed. “No need for three people to be tired and cranky in the morning,” he told them. But Papa was never tired and cranky. Joseph was, but Papa never was.

The next morning, Lily hurried downstairs to see if Papa caught the thieves. He shook his head. “No one came to get gas last night. I'll watch again for a while tonight. I'm sure they'll be back. It seems like they have a habit of helping themselves.”

“Will you lock them up in the woodshed?” Lily asked.

Papa gave her a surprised look. “No, if I wanted to lock them up, I would call the police. There are other ways to deal with people instead of locking them up.”

Several nights later, Lily woke with a start. She heard Papa's hurried footsteps and a click as the basement door shut. It scared her to think of Papa capturing the gas thieves. What if they were very bad men? What if they had a big shotgun and pointed it at Papa like the neighbor in New York did?

She threw the covers back and went to the window to see what was going on outside. She could see two figures—older
than boys but younger than men—bent over the valve of the gas tank, filling up a gas can. In the moonlight, she saw Papa walk toward them, a gas can in one hand. For a long while, the big boys didn't know he was there. They startled when they realized they were being watched. Papa talked to them for a long while. Then, the boys walked off down the road. She saw Papa head back to the house with his gas can.

Lily felt disappointed. Nothing had happened! Papa had not caught the thieves. He'd only talked to them. Anyone could do that.

The next morning, while everyone was eating breakfast, Papa told the story of what had happened. “I caught the thieves in the act last night.”

With a mouthful of food, Joseph said, “Who were they?”

“They were Mr. Beal's teenagers,” Papa said. “I offered them a can of gas. I told them if they ever needed gas, they could come up to the house and ask for it and I would be happy to give it to them. That way they don't have to steal it.”

Lily tore her buttered toast into tiny pieces. She still felt disappointed. What if those bad boys kept coming back? It bothered her that anyone would steal from Papa. She knew how hard her parents worked. Those bad boys didn't work hard at all. “Aren't you even going to tell Mr. Beal what his bad boys did?”

Papa took his time answering. “They aren't bad boys, Lily. They did a bad thing. There's a difference.” He sprinkled salt and pepper over his scrambled eggs. “They seemed embarrassed to have been caught. I have a feeling our gas won't be disappearing any longer.”

Lily hoped he was right. A little part of her wished those bad boys had been locked up in the woodshed until they learned their lesson.