A Surprise for Lily (12 page)

L
ily and Beth were eating their after-school snack at the kitchen table. Mama mentioned how low they were on bread for school lunches and started to pull out ingredients for bread making. Watching her, Lily hatched an idea. Papa had said to look for ways to help Mama while she was a part-time English teacher. “Can Beth and I bake bread all by ourselves?” she asked Mama. She looked at Beth and got a big smile in return. “We think we know how.”

Mama's face was a mix of
That sounds like more work than help
and
Why not?
The
Why not?
won. “I suppose you could give it a try. It would give me time to get some other things done this afternoon. I was going to make four loaves, so if you need help with measuring ingredients, just ask me.”

How hard could it be? Lily had watched Mama make bread dozens of times. Making bread was easy. One cup of warm water, one teaspoon salt, one tablespoon sugar, and
one tablespoon of butter for every loaf of bread. Easy. Today she would need four of each. And Beth could help with counting so they wouldn't mix anything up. Beth was excellent at math. Just excellent.

Mama went upstairs with baby Paul, and the girls got right to work on baking bread. After the butter had melted into the warm water, it was time to add the flour. One cup of flour for every loaf. Lily carefully measured two cups of flour into the bowl as Beth mixed. Then Lily sprinkled another cup of flour on top and Beth mixed it in. Then another. They counted each cup out loud so they wouldn't mix anything up. As soon as the dough became too stiff to be stirred with
a wooden spoon, it was time to knead it. Now the fun part could begin.

Lily and Beth punched their fists into the dough, lifted it, turned it, then punched some more. They pretended the dough was the boys' faces in the upper grades and punched down with even more vigor. It was still sticky, so they added more flour. They kept on punching and adding flour until they had a nice big ball of bread dough that was no longer sticky.

Lily covered the bowl with a kitchen towel. She set the bowl in the warm corner of the sink beside the stove so the dough would rise faster. As she set the timer, she felt pleased with herself. She knew they could do it!

“All done?” Mama asked when she passed the girls on the stairs. Lily and Beth were going upstairs to play in Lily's room.

“Yes, it was easy,” Lily said. “Can we make bread every week?”

Mama smiled. “I don't know about every week, but it would be nice if you could do it every once in a while.”

It wasn't long before Lily and Beth heard the timer ring. The girls ran downstairs and washed their hands. It was time to punch the bread dough down again. Lily lifted the towel off the bowl and looked at the bread dough. It still looked exactly the same as when she had covered it. She was puzzled.

“Why didn't the bread dough rise?” Beth asked. “We did everything right.”

Mama crossed the kitchen and peered over the girls' shoulders. “Did you remember to put the yeast in?”

Yeast? Beth and Lily looked at each other, mouths opened to a big
O
. They had forgotten all about adding yeast. The bread dough was ruined.

“Go throw it over the fence,” Mama said, not unkindly.

Lily scooped the big ball of dough out of the bowl. Beth held the door open for her, and the girls went outside.

Joseph and Dannie ran over to see what the girls were up to. “Another one of Lily's kitchen DIS-AS-TAHs!” Joseph yelped, howling with laughter. Naturally, Dannie laughed, too.

“Whatcha gonna do with it?” Joseph said.

Lily scowled at him.

“Your mama told us to pitch it over the fence,” Beth said. She was more patient with the boys than Lily, but then, she didn't have any little brothers.

“Pitch it to me first,” Joseph said.

Lily tossed the dough to him. Joseph caught it and pitched it back to Dannie. He tossed it to Beth who tossed it to Lily. She liked how the dough felt—like a big, soft rubber ball. She caught it and pitched it back to Joseph. Finally she had a cooking mistake that was fun!

“Girls!” Mama called from the kitchen door. “Come in and help me start supper.”

Lily pitched the dough over the fence. Dozer sniffed at the dough and took a bite. Lily wished she would have had time to see how he liked her yeastless dough, but Mama needed her. Both her and Beth.

Lily loved having Beth stay with her. Everything was double the fun, even the kitchen DIS-AS-TAHs. It was just the way Lily imagined having a sister would be. Beth was Lily's almost-sister.

On Saturday, the whole church had plans to gather at the Rabers' and rebuild their house. On Friday evening, Lily and Beth helped Mama do all the usual Saturday cleaning so they would be ready to leave first thing in the morning.

Right after breakfast, the Lapp family plus Beth piled into the buggy. Dannie sat on the front seat, squeezed between Papa and Mama and Paul, so that Beth could fit in the back with Joseph and Lily.

As Jim clip-clopped down the road, Lily asked Papa why a house took so long to build. “It took a little less than a week to build the schoolhouse,” she said. “Most of a barn can be built in a day.”

“Houses are a little different,” Papa said. “They're much bigger than a schoolhouse and not nearly as simple as a barn. It takes time to do everything right. Once it's completed, though, Beth will have a very nice new home.”

As Papa turned Jim into the Rabers' driveway, Lily saw all kinds of people scurrying around the property like bees around a hive. The house looked like a skeleton made up of two-by-fours and a roof. It needed walls and windows and doors to become a home. And love.

Papa strapped his tool belt around his waist and disappeared into a cluster of men. The air was filled with the sounds of hammers hitting nails and men shouting orders to each other. The women gathered in the buggy shed to prepare lunch on little kerosene stoves. Along one wall of the shed were pieces of furniture and stacks of boxes.

“What's in the boxes?” Lily asked. They looked so interesting.

“They're filled with things people gave us to replace what we lost in the fire,” Beth said.

Wouldn't it be fun to snoop through all those boxes? Lily would like to see what people donated to Beth's family, but she knew better than to suggest such a thing. Plus, Ida Kauffman was standing nearby.

All day long, people worked hard. By the time the sun
started to set, the walls were up and windows and doors filled the gaping holes. But Lily could see that there was still a lot of work to be done before it became a home.

Later that evening, Lily woke to the sound of voices downstairs. She went down to get a drink of water. Papa and Mama were still up, sitting at the kitchen table and talking. When they saw her, their conversation stopped abruptly, which made Lily all the more curious. What had they been talking about? She went right to the cupboard and reached for a glass.

“Lily,” Papa said, “everyone is helping the Rabers since they lost nearly everything they had.”

Lily nodded. It was nice that people were helping Beth's family. She filled up the glass with water and took a sip.

“So Mama and I thought it would be nice if you chose something special to give to Beth.”

Mid-gulp, Lily started to sputter and cough. She thought it was wonderful that everyone was helping Beth, but she didn't want to give up one of her own special things. If she had to, she could buy something new to give to Beth. Something new would be easier to give than something she loved. Lily put the glass of water down. “Beth liked Pete best.”

“Who was Pete?” Mama asked.

“Pete was Beth's pet parakeet,” Lily said. “I could buy her a new parakeet.” She hoped Papa might offer to give her the money to buy it because she had very little money. Zero, in fact.

“We'll give that some thought,” Papa said. “But for now I want you to go back to bed. Think long and hard about something you already have that you can give to Beth.”

Lily trudged upstairs. Beth was sound asleep as Lily climbed into the nest bed she had made on the floor. She lay there for a long time, trying to think of something she wouldn't mind parting with. The problem was that she loved everything she had.

It dawned on Lily that Beth had loved her own things just as much.

Lily changed her mind. She would give Beth a candy bowl. No, no. She would do better than that. She would give Beth her very favorite candy bowl. It was a small way of letting Beth know she cared.

The next Saturday, the Rabers' new house was finished and ready to be moved into. Lily was nearly as excited as Beth. Papa dropped the family off and drove away on a mysterious errand. When he returned, Jim was pulling the spring wagon instead of the buggy. Lily ran over to see what could be in the back of the spring wagon. Papa had built a table and chair set! Jonas Raber thanked Papa over and over. Papa seemed embarrassed. Pleased, though. Jonas helped him carry the table into the kitchen.

Beth and Lily ran through the house to explore every room. They both liked it much better than Beth's old house. When the girls went into Beth's room, Lily gasped. Beth's room had been painted a light pink. Soft white curtains hung at the windows. It looked so beautiful that Lily felt a little ping of jealousy. She tried to squish it down, right away, but it was very hard not to feel jealous. It was a wonderful bedroom for an eleven-year-old girl.

The first thing Beth did was to put Lily's candy bowl on
top of her dresser. “There, now it seems perfect,” Beth said. Lily thought that was a very kind thing to say. She thought it looked perfect even without a candy bowl.

All afternoon, people bustled around the farm, carrying in furniture and boxes that had been stored in the buggy shed and the barn loft. By evening, the house looked like a real home. People were starting to leave as Mr. Tanner drove up in his station wagon. Papa went over to talk to him and then came back to the house holding a pretty pink bird cage. Inside was a beautiful green parakeet.