Blossoms on the Roof (11 page)

15

Fire!

P
olly's nose twitched. She breathed deeply. She turned this way and that. The smell was everywhere. Smoke! Yet no smoke curled from the chimney. The smell was in the wind.

Trembling, Polly ran to Mother in the garden. “Do you smell it too, Mother. Do you?”

Mother got up from her knees. She sniffed once or twice as Polly watched her face.

Mother looked toward the west and saw that the horizon was not clear and blue. It was dark and smudged. “Those are not rain clouds,” Mother said, and Polly could hear a little tremble in her voice.

“Where is Father?”

“There.” Mother pointed toward the haystack.

The oxen lumbered up with a load of hay, and Ben began unloading it. Father and Ben did not go back to the
slough for another load. Instead, Father tied up the oxen and hurried over to the garden with Ben right at his heels.

Polly had not often seen Father's face looking like that, and his voice sounded strange when he said, “There must be a fire coming this way. The wind is from the west. How many buckets do we have, Mother?”

“Two.” Her answer came quick and tense. “And the washtub.”

“We want to draw all the water we can,” Father said, just as tense as a spring ready to uncoil. “When the fire goes by, we'll need to watch the haystack and put out any sparks that catch fire. We can beat them out with feed sacks.” Turning to Ben, he said, “Right now we'll wet the house roof. Where are the buckets?”

Working fast, as if their lives depended on it, Ben and Father drew buckets of water.
Splash!
They emptied them on the grassy roof. Water dripped down from the ceiling. Polly whimpered to Mother, “I thought this roof was supposed to keep the rain out.”

“This is more than just a shower,” Mother reminded her. “Father and Ben are pouring whole pails full of water on our roof.”

“I hope they stop soon,” said Polly, watching the drips land on her bed.

“Polly,” said Mother, “we are glad if our house can be saved. If the grass catches fire, the poles might burn too, and then we wouldn't have a roof anymore.”

Polly felt ashamed. To think she was worried about a little water when the whole prairie was on fire!

Although Jakie could not understand what was going on and did not grasp what Mother told him about the fire coming, he was afraid so Mother just sat and held him and Lisbet.

Polly didn't really want to go outside—and yet she did. After a minute outside, she was back inside clinging to Mother. “I saw it. I saw the fire,” she whispered.

Mother opened her arms wider and held her tight along with Jakie and Lisbet. “Can you be brave, Polly? Can you stay in here with the little ones when the fire comes? I have to help put out sparks.”

Slowly Polly nodded. She wanted to do her part.

Right there with her arms around the three of them, Mother asked God to keep them safe. Afterward Polly went to the window. She couldn't help it. She had to see the fire.

“Mother,” she shrieked, “a deer ran right past our window! And there's two more coming across the field, and rabbits, and—”

Mother came to her side. “Those are antelope, Polly. And maybe that animal behind them is a wolf.”

“Is the wolf chasing the antelope?” Polly asked in utter bewilderment.

“Those animals are not after each other at all. They only want to escape from the fire.”

It was true. Now a coyote scuttled by, and it paid no attention to the other animals, not even the rabbits. The animals did not notice Father and Ben either. They just raced past, tongues hanging out and eyes wild with fear.

Birds, too, fluttered ahead of the smoke cloud. Suddenly a large winged shape plummeted from the sky. The bird had gray wings and a long black neck. It waddled along frantically until it came to the haystack and lay down.

“Mother, there's some kind of duck on our haystack,” Polly cried.

Mother was putting on her bonnet to go outside. “I will watch out for that duck,” she promised. “Now, Jakie and Lisbet, you be good while I'm out there. You can watch me fighting sparks with this bag.” She smiled as she held up an old feed sack.

Polly wanted to cling to Mother, but instead she smiled bravely and helped Jakie and Lisbet climb onto a chair near the window.

The fire had almost reached the firebreak, and Polly wondered,
Will the fire stop or will it jump across and into the field with the new, little flax plants?

The flames paused as if they were puzzled. Then they turned and ran both ways along the firebreak. Soon fire was burning all around the Yoder homestead. Even in the sod house, Polly could feel the terrible heat.

Out in the billowing smoke, three shapes dashed
around with their sacks, beating down the sparks.
Will they be able to save the garden…and the haystack?
Polly wondered and worried.

Then the fire was racing away to the east. “I hope the other homesteads have firebreaks too,” Polly said to Jakie in a trembling voice.

“I want Mother,” Jakie whimpered. Of course Lisbet began crying too. No matter how hard she tried, Polly couldn't cheer them up anymore.

At last Mother came inside. Jakie stopped crying in mid gasp. Mother's face was black, and so were her hands and her dress! Lisbet started running to Mother and then stopped. She didn't know what to make of this mother covered in soot.

“I'm going to wash up,” Mother said kindly. “Polly, do you know what? That bird that landed on the haystack is a Canada goose. One of his wings is burnt. He can't fly anymore.”

“Oh, the poor goose,” Polly said.

“Maybe his feathers will grow back again. Polly, can you get more water? Father and Ben will want to wash too.”

Polly stepped outside with the water bucket. The world was a changed place. Ash and cinders lay everywhere. Instead of green grass, blackness lay beyond the flax fields, and the eastern sky still flickered with flames.

To the west the sky was now as clear and blue as ever. Not a trace of smoke remained.

16

Goodbye, King

T
he goose stayed. He seemed to consider the Yoders' haystack his new home. Polly planned to make him a pet so she went out to visit him every day. She named him King because he had a kingly way about him as he stretched his long neck and turned his head from side to side while gazing at her.

At first King was not friendly. As Polly sat on the haystack holding out choice bits of hay and coaxing the bird in a low voice, he always waddled sternly away, his injured wing dragging on the ground. Gradually, King seemed less wary. He began taking a few steps toward Polly before strutting away. “I think King is learning to like me,” Polly said excitedly to Ben when he drove up with a load of hay. In spite of the prairie fire, they could still make hay. Parts of the slough had been wet enough and did not burn.

Polly coaxed King with bits of hay.

“Huh? Who wants a wild goose for a friend?”

“I do,” Polly answered promptly.

“Flip is a better pet any day,” Ben declared, stooping to pat the dog's head. Flip bared his teeth and growled at King, which made King hurry away to the other side of the haystack.

“Bad dog,” Polly said severely to Flip. “You mustn't scare King.”

Flip wagged his tail as if laughing at her. He was glad the goose had disappeared.

“Why don't you help unload hay instead of playing with a goose, Polly?” asked Ben.

“Oh, sure! I didn't know you wanted me to help.”

“Well, Father's busy cutting more grass so I could use help.”

“Are you making two haystacks?”

“Yes. Father says we might buy a cow after we've sold the flaxseed. We must make sure there's enough hay for a cow and two horses this winter.”

Polly clapped her hands. “A cow! That would be nice. And I hope I can have new shoes. And we need to buy some sugar. I'm tired of doing without sugar.”

“We also need a new axe, and my shoes are too small for me too.”

As they worked, their pile of wishes grew almost as fast as the haystack.

But all this warm, dry weather—so pleasant for haymaking—was not good for the flax. As day after day passed without rain, huge cracks began to open up in the parched soil. Many flax plants shriveled up.

How hard Mother worked to save the garden! Polly helped too by carrying buckets and buckets of water from the well, but the thirsty soil swallowed up the water without a trace. The cabbages and potatoes and beans threatened to die.

“Why doesn't God send rain?” Polly asked one evening after Father's bedtime prayer.

“God knows best,” Father said. “We must not blame
Him for the drought. We knew before we moved out here that the West often has dry years. Apparently this is one of them.”

Mother added softly, “Let's not forget that we can still have the blessing of a happy heart, even if our crops don't grow.”

“But what will we eat this winter if nothing grows?” Ben asked.

Father looked at him quietly. After a while he said, “I haven't given up hope. We may still get a fair crop.”

Because of all the water they carried to it, the Yoders' garden did indeed produce some vegetables. But by late August, Father had to admit that the flax crop was a failure. Ben asked unhappily, “Won't we at least bring in the threshing rig to thresh what's there?”

Father shook his head. “Paying the thresher would cost more than what we'd get for the flaxseed.”

“You mean the flax is no good at all to us?” Ben asked bitterly.

Father gave him another of those long looks. “We won't let the flax go to waste. We'll thresh by hand what little seed there is.”

Mother said, “Don't forget that we're going to separate fibers from the stalks for spinning and weaving.”

So they set to work. After the seeds had been removed, Mother began the long process of extracting fibers. “First the stalks must be retted,” she explained to Polly. “See? The
outside of each stalk is hard and woody. That must come off, so we will soak the stalks in a tub of water.”

Once they had been well soaked, it was fairly easy to separate the fine fibers from the woody parts. Mother borrowed a flax comb from the neighboring Kanagy family to comb the flax. It looked like the comb Polly used for her hair, only it was much larger.