Life with Lily (7 page)

G
ray morning light filled the house. Mama gave Lily and Joseph a small piece of cloth to dust the furniture in the living room. Lily loved helping with the Saturday cleaning. She sang happily as she swished her cloth back and forth over the slats in the back of Mama's hickory rocking chair. They wanted the house to sparkle for Sunday. Not one speck of dust would be allowed to stay. Not one speck.

After every little piece of the rocking chair had been dusted, Lily helped Joseph finish dusting Papa's rocking chair. Then they dusted the little lampstand that stood between the two chairs.

Mama carried the oil lamps to the kitchen. She trimmed the wicks, filled them with oil, and washed the chimneys until they were clear and sparkling. Lily helped her put each lamp back where it belonged.

Next it was time to refill the kitchen canisters. Lily scooped
flour into the big canister while Mama filled the others: white sugar, brown sugar, and cocoa powder in the little one. Lily placed the lids on the canisters. Mama wiped the outside surface and set them in a neat row along the back of the countertop.

Mama checked the woodstove to make sure the fire had died down. Only a few little red coals glowed in the ashes. She raked them carefully to the side and asked Lily to pull out the ash handle. Lily grasped the wooden handle at the bottom of the stove and pulled it out.
Whoosh!
A little pile of ashes dropped down into the ash pan at the base of the stove.

With the wood poker, Mama pushed the rest of the ashes into the little hole in the bottom of the firebox. After all of the ashes had fallen into the ash pan, Lily pushed the wooden handle back in and closed the little hole. Mama carefully spread the remaining ashes and red coal over the bottom and added a few scraps of wood to start the fire again.

Now it was time to clean the stove top. Mama got several pieces of emery cloth. She set a chair at the back of the stove for Lily to stand on, then folded an old rag and placed it on top of the emery cloth. Together, Mama helped Lily press as hard as they could in one direction. They rubbed the emery cloth across the stove top until it was shiny. If they rubbed the wrong way, they could make ugly scratches. Lily rubbed and rubbed until her arms felt tired. She didn't like the sound of the emery cloth on the stove top. Its screechy noise made her teeth shiver.

Next came Lily's favorite part of Saturday cleaning: time for Mama to sweep and mop the floors. Lily and Joseph were allowed to sit in Papa's big rocking chair and look through picture books. It was the only day they got to sit in Papa's chair and the only time they could look at those particular
books. Lily wished the floor would take a long time to dry, but it never did.

Because then came the worst part of Saturday cleaning. “Time for your hair, Lily,” Mama said, too soon.

Every morning Mama would comb Lily's hair back to make the part that was visible nice and neat. It was only taken down on Saturdays. All that combing back done during the week made awful snarls. Lily dreaded having her hair brushed out. Sadly, she slid off the rocking chair, put the special books away, and walked into the kitchen. Joseph ran to his room for this part because he didn't like to watch Lily get upset. If she cried, then he would cry.

In front of the sink, Mama placed a tall stool. She handed Lily a box filled with toys that were only played with while Lily had her hair done. A big matchbox filled with pretty pink and purple pop beads. Little books filled with pretty pictures and cute stories that Mama read while Lily turned the pages. A small Rubik's cube that Lily twisted and turned but never could get all the colors lined up. A little beaded purse filled with different cute key chains. Best of all, a tiny porcelain doll with blue eyes, pink cheeks, and a bright red mouth. Mama had sewed a tiny purple dress for the doll. It was so tiny there had not been any room for buttons, so the back of the dress was sewed shut. Lily wrapped the doll into one of her flowered handkerchiefs and held it while Mama unwove her braids. Lily's hair fell down to her knees in a river of crinkles.

And then came the terrible, awful part. It had been a week since Mama had brushed out Lily's hair. It was filled with snarls and tangles. Lily tried to ignore how much it hurt to have her hair brushed out. She tried to concentrate on the special toys, but before long, she couldn't think of anything
else. She started to cry. Big tears splashed down on the porcelain doll in her arms.

To help distract her, Mama sang a funny song about a little boy and his dancing colt. Lily tried to choke back her tears so she could listen, but the brush hurt too much. She wailed even louder.

Finally, after Mama was satisfied that every snarl had been removed, Lily hopped up on the countertop to have a shampoo. She leaned her head over the sink as Mama poured warm water on her head, then gently added shampoo. Lily liked this part of getting her hair done. It felt good. Mama rinsed the shampoo out of Lily's hair and soaked up the extra water with a towel. Lily would sit back on the stool and Mama would brush out her hair again. Lily felt as if her hair had re-snarled and re-tangled, clinging even tighter to her scalp. Tears prickled her eyes.

Mama saved a special story about a horse for this second brushing out. This little horse pulled a milk wagon and sneezed every time he trotted by flowers.
Kerchoo!
Kerchoo! Kerchoo!
Lily tried not to cry too loudly so she could listen to Mama pretend to sneeze like a horse. Mama finished by braiding Lily's hair and fixing it into a tidy little bun on the back of her head.

“There! You're all done,” Mama said as Lily slid off the stool. Mama sounded as relieved as Lily felt. Lily put away the special box of “hairdo” toys, happy to think it would be a whole week before she had to have her hair done again. A week seemed like months and months to six-year-old Lily.

By the time Lily had put away the toys, Mama was already making bread dough and Joseph had come back to the kitchen. Mama let Lily and Joseph stand next to her and help punch and knead the bread dough until it was just
right. Sometimes, she would give Lily and Joseph a piece of dough to make into a little loaf. If it was the Saturday before church, Mama baked six loaves of bread. Everyone brought food to share for lunch after church. Lily and Joseph took turns punching the dough until it turned from sticky to elastic. Mama covered the bowl with a towel and set it on the floor next to the stove. It would stay warm and start to rise in that little nook.

One Saturday morning, a knock came at the door. When Mama opened it, Nate Mast stood there with his daughter, Mandy. She was thin and fair and pale, with freckles sprinkled over her nose and cheeks like a dusting of cinnamon. Mandy was just a little bit older than Lily but she liked to act as if she was the boss of everybody. Mama said Mandy needed extra patience and understanding because she didn't have a mother. She meant, “Lily, you need to be nicer to Mandy.” So Lily tried to be sweet and patient with Mandy, but it wasn't easy.

Nate Mast asked Mama if she had any extra eggs to sell.

“I think we should have plenty for you,” Mama said. She turned to Lily and said, “Keep an eye on Dannie while I go to the basement to wash and crate the eggs.”

Nate followed Mama to the basement to help her while Mandy stayed in the kitchen with Lily. “Let's go to your room to play with your dolls,” Mandy said.

Lily wasn't sure if that was a good idea. Mama had told her to keep an eye on Dannie. She peeked into the living room and saw Dannie playing with his wooden blocks beside the toy box. He seemed happy. Lily decided that if he started to cry, she would hear him upstairs and could hurry down to take care of him.

Mandy followed Lily upstairs to her room to play with the
dolls. Lily opened her closet and took out her dolls. The two girls sat on the bed and played with the dolls.

“It will be our turn to have church at our house soon,” Mandy said. “Bring your dolls along so we can play with them after church. I found a secret place where we can play.”

“Where?” Lily asked.

Mandy put her fingers to her lips. “You will have to wait to find out.”

“Mandy!” Nate Mast's voice bellowed up the stairs. “I've got the eggs. Let's go.”

Lily and Mandy bolted off the bed and galloped down the stairs. Lily stopped so abruptly when she reached the kitchen that Mandy bumped into her. Flour was everywhere! Dannie had crawled into the kitchen, straight to the jar of flour on the floor. Lily might have forgotten to put the lid on the jar. Flour was in his hair, on his face, all over his clothes. Then he had crawled to where Mama had set the bowl of bread dough to rise in the warm corner behind the stove. He was happily sitting beside the bowl of bread dough, pressing his wooden blocks into the dough. Mama was still in the basement, but Lily knew she would not be happy.

Mandy pointed to the mess, laughing and laughing. Her father frowned and hurried Mandy out the door. Lily wanted to slap Mandy. She thought it was partly Mandy's fault that they had gone upstairs instead of watching Dannie like they were supposed to.

Lily moved the bowl of bread dough away from Dannie. She pulled the wooden blocks out of the dough and set them on the sink. Dannie squealed, happy to have a playmate. Lily had to laugh at him. He looked more like a snowman than her little baby brother.

Lily turned around and saw Mama standing at the top of
the basement door, staring at the mess in the kitchen. Without a word, Mama began to clean up. Lily wished she would say something. Oh, but the silence was terrible!

It took Mama and Lily a long time to get the kitchen and Dannie clean again. When Mama finished, she turned to Lily. “Didn't I ask you to watch Dannie?”

“Mandy wanted to go upstairs to play dolls!” Lily said.

Mama looked sad. “Lily, you have to learn to say no to a friend if she asks you to do something that you know you shouldn't.”

Lily looked down at her bare toes. Mandy was a friend who often had exciting ideas that got Lily into trouble. She knew she had to say no to Mandy's ideas sometimes, but it was so hard!

Mama glanced at Dannie again and started to chuckle. “For such a little boy, he sure made a big mess, didn't he?”

Lily was relieved. Mama was laughing again! They dumped the bowl of dough out and started all over again. The bread for tomorrow's church service didn't get baked until late that evening. Lily went to sleep that night to the sweet smell of baking bread. Her dreams were filled with snowmen that looked like Dannie.

M
onday through Friday, Lily waved goodbye to Mama and Joseph as they dropped her off in front of the little red schoolhouse in the morning. The school day passed swiftly. At recess and noontimes she played with Hannah and Mandy. She liked school and she loved Teacher Ellen.

Teacher Ellen made learning about numbers and letters fun and easy. During recess, she would join the children on the playground and teach them new games. Best of all, Friday afternoons were devoted to art. Teacher Ellen would give several suggestions for pictures and the children would draw, paint, or sketch. The finished pictures would hang on the wall to be admired. The schoolroom looked cheerful and happy. Lily was glad that Teacher Ellen had come all the way from Wisconsin to be the teacher for Pleasant Hill School.

Lily enjoyed school so much that she was sorry when Saturday and Sunday came along. She wished every day was a school day.

“Time to wake up, Lily.”

Lily sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes when she heard Mama's voice. She still felt sleepy.

“Hurry and get dressed,” Mama said, jiggling Dannie on her hip. “Breakfast is almost ready. Soon, we need to leave for church.”

Lily jumped out of bed and slipped into her dress. She spun around so Mama could button the back. She followed Mama and Dannie downstairs to the kitchen. Papa had come in from the barn and was washing up at the sink. Joseph sat at the table, waiting to eat. Joseph was always ready to eat.

Papa spread butter on a piece of bread and cut it into small strips so Lily and Joseph could dip the bread into their egg yolks. “Looks like it will be another beautiful day today,” he said.

Lily glanced out the window. The sun was beginning to light the sky. No clouds! She was glad it would be a sunny day. She liked playing outside with her friends after church. Today, church was going to be at Mandy's house and she would discover the secret place where they could play with their dolls. She hadn't stopped thinking about that secret place.

As soon as breakfast was over, Papa gathered the dishes from the table while Mama swirled soap into hot water in the sink. Lily stood on a little bench next to the sink. Mama washed and Lily dried and Papa put the dishes in
the cupboards. When the kitchen was sparkling clean again, Mama went upstairs to help Joseph and Dannie into their Sunday clothes. She told Lily to change into her purple dress. Lily skipped into her bedroom and carefully removed her purple dress from the hanger in her closet. She loved purple. She wished she could wear this dress every day, but it was saved for church Sundays.

Mama brought Lily's stiffly starched white apron into her bedroom. She helped Lily slip into it.

Lily went to the living room and opened the little drawer in the table beside Mama's rocking chair. In it were pretty flowered handkerchiefs. Lily was allowed to bring two to church. She chose two with purple flowers to match her dress. She lifted her apron and tucked them carefully into her pocket on the front of her dress.

Mama came to the living room to inspect Lily's face. Lily had already washed it, but Mama wet a washcloth and washed it again. She tied Lily's prayer covering in a neat little bow beneath her chin and handed Lily her big black Sunday bonnet to wear on top of it. It was heavy. Lily couldn't see anywhere except right in front of her when she was wearing it. She didn't like it. She often wondered if this was how Jim felt when he had to wear blinders.

Papa had hitched Jim to the buggy and drove to the house where Mama and Lily and the boys were waiting. Jim's ears were twitching and his tail was up. He seemed happy to be going out. As Lily joined Joseph in the back seat of the buggy, she wondered if Jim enjoyed seeing his friends at church, just like she did. Mama climbed into the front seat, next to Papa, and held Dannie on her lap. Papa clucked to Jim and they started down the driveway.

Usually, Lily and Joseph liked to kneel on the seat and
peer out of the back window of the buggy. Not on church Sundays, though. Mama didn't want them to wrinkle their clothes before they got to church. Lily could only see the sky and the treetops through the little window by her seat. She listened to the steady clip-clop of Jim's hooves on the road and the rolling sound of the buggy wheels. Lily listened to the wheels to find out how close they were getting to Mandy's house. She could tell what kind of a road they were on by the sound of the wheels. If they rolled over a gravel road, the wheels made a crunchy sound. It changed to a nice singing sound when the buggy turned onto an asphalt road.

Papa began to sing a church song in his deep clear voice and Mama joined him with her sweet soft soprano. Lily liked hearing them sing and hummed along. Their voices faded as they neared Mandy's home.

Papa guided Jim right to the house and turned him so the buggy wheel wouldn't be in Mama's way. Mama got the bread she had baked yesterday and took it into the house. She hurried back out to fetch Dannie and her satchel filled with diapers and pretty toys. She opened the back door of the buggy for Lily to hop out. Joseph would stay with Papa.

As Lily and Mama entered the house and removed their heavy black bonnets, Mama tipped up Lily's face to inspect it one more time. Satisfied, they went to shake hands with the rest of the women who stood in the kitchen, waiting for the bishop's wife to give the signal for the women to find a seat. In the living room were rows and rows of backless benches. The women and girls filed in and sat on one side of the living room. As Lily sat down, she leaned forward to look at Hannah, seated next to Aunt Mary, on the other side of Mama. Hannah returned Lily's smile, but then they both
looked away. The ministers were coming in and everyone had to be quiet and serious until after church was over.

The bishop slowly made his way through all the benches filled with women. He shook each person's hand. The two ministers followed behind him. Lily felt so grown up as she held out her hand to greet them.

After they sat down, the men and boys filed in and sat on benches that faced the women. The deacon stood, held his left arm straight and stiff, and piled songbooks on it from his hand all the way up to his shoulder. Lily wondered how he kept them from falling as he made his way through the room to give each person a songbook.

One of the men announced a song number and everyone began to sing. The ministers rose and went upstairs while everyone else kept on singing. Mama followed the words with her finger so Lily could try to follow along. She thought the
squiggly German letters looked funny. Voices rose and fell all around her, singing in high German.

The ministers came back into the room—the silent signal that the time of hymn singing was over. Everyone tucked their songbooks under their bench as the first minister rose and started to preach. Lily's legs soon grew tired of dangling from the bench. She wanted to swing her legs but knew she had to hold still. She reached into her pocket to bring out a handkerchief. She folded it into a triangle, then folded the ends into the center. She rolled it up and twisted it around to make a little mouse with a tail. She tickled her nose with the tail. She unfolded the handkerchief. This time she folded it a special way to make a little cradle with twin babies inside it and gently rocked the cradle back and forth. She glanced over to see what Hannah was making with her handkerchief, then sighed with envy. Hannah looked so pretty with her satiny blonde hair and her blue eyes. Lily wished her own hair looked like Hannah's. Even if her hair was straight dull brown instead of blonde, she wished she could have at least had waves. She reached with her finger to trace a scallop line along the front of her hair. Maybe that would help her hair look wavy. Mama nudged her and frowned, so Lily quickly dropped her hand to her lap and played with her handkerchiefs.

Mama placed her hand on Lily's. It was time to kneel and pray. Lily slipped her handkerchiefs back into her pocket and knelt with everyone else. She rested her head in the cradle of her arms and then very quietly lifted her head to peek at the women who sat behind her. After a time of prayer, the next minister started to preach. He had a singsongy voice that made Lily sleepy. Leaning against Mama, she fell asleep. Before she knew it, Mama nudged her awake. It was time for church to be over. Finally, finally, Lily could go play with her friends!

In the blink of an eye, the men converted the benches to tables. Women sliced bread and filled bowls with sweetened creamy peanut butter to set in the center of the tables. Seated next to Mama, Lily ate a nice thick slice of bread with gooey, sticky peanut butter spread on top. Of all the food served at church, nothing was as good as church peanut butter.

After everyone had eaten, the men took the benches outside and set them up so the children could slide on them. Lily loved sliding on the benches. She was waiting in line to take another turn when Mandy called the girls over.

“Let's go play with our dolls,” Mandy said. “The boys can play on the slides by themselves.”

Lily and the other girls ran to get their dolls. Mandy led the girls to a big willow tree behind the house. Not far behind the tree there was a railroad track. The girls sat under the long sweeping willow branches for a long time, playing with their dolls.

“This was a nice secret,” Lily said. She didn't think it was a terribly exciting secret place, but she remembered that Mama told her to be extra nice to Mandy.

Mandy dismissed that comment with a flick of her hand. “This tree isn't my secret. This is what I use for my playhouse. The secret place is over there.” She pointed to the railroad tracks. “We can sit on the train tracks to play church.”

“But what if a train comes through?” Lily asked. She didn't think they should be playing on the tracks.

“Not on Sundays,” Mandy said. “The engineers have to go to church so they don't drive their trains on Sundays.” She lifted her chin. “Everybody knows that.”

Lily didn't know that. Nor did the other girls, but they all followed Mandy out to sit on the tracks with their dolls and play pretend church. Mandy acted like the deacon and the
minister and the bishop, all rolled into one. She started to sing a church song and everyone joined in. They knew the songs by heart. They had been singing them all their lives.

Suddenly, Lily felt the tracks wiggle, then rumble. Something seemed odd. She stopped singing to listen more closely. There was no mistake. A train was coming!

Just then, the train came into sight. It blew its whistle to make the girls move off the tracks.

“Train!” Mandy yelled.

The little girls bolted off the tracks and ran to the willow tree. All but Lily! She couldn't move her feet. She was frozen! The train kept speeding toward her. The engineer kept blowing the whistle. The girls were screaming and screaming, but Lily couldn't budge! The big blue engine came barreling toward her. The engineer was trying to get the train to stop. The wheels of the train made strange screeching sounds as the engineer leaned out of the window to wave his arms.

“Get off, get off!” he yelled.

Suddenly, Papa's big strong arms whisked Lily away just before the train went thundering by.

The breath Lily hadn't realized she was holding whooshed out of her. As Papa held her close to his chest, she burst into tears.

“There, there,” he said, trying to comfort her. “You're not hurt.”

She buried her face against his shoulder and sobbed. Papa carried Lily up to the house and told Mama that it was time to go home. His face looked tight and pale.

Mama didn't ask Papa why he wanted to leave so early. Papa hitched up Jim as Mama found their bonnets and joined him in the buggy. Papa drove the buggy past clumps of men who were visiting with each other. He drove past the boys
who were sliding on the benches. He drove past the little girls, holding their dolls under the willow tree.

As they left Mandy's house, Papa told Mama what had happened. Lily didn't hear Mama's response, but she knew she would never again play on a railroad track no matter what Mandy Mast said.