A Surprise for Lily (2 page)

M
ama went out to the garden before breakfast to pick some green beans. When she came back inside, she had an exasperated look on her face. As the family gathered to sit at the table, Mama asked, “Does anyone know where one of my gardening boots went?” She set a platter of scrambled eggs in front of Papa. “Last evening, I set both of them next to each other on the front porch when I finished up in the garden. This morning, I can only find one boot.”

But no one had any idea where Mama's boot was. After breakfast, Lily, Joseph, and Dannie searched high and low for the boot. It was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished into thin air.

“I hope it turns up soon,” Mama said. “I don't mind work
ing in the garden in my bare feet, but it's a different story for the sweet corn patch. Too many rocks in it.”

And snakes
, Lily thought.
Don't forget about snakes.

Several days later, Lily spent most of the afternoon writing a circle letter to her same-aged girl cousins. She held it up for one more admiring read-through before she folded it and stuck it in the envelope. Her cursive handwriting was excellent. Just excellent. It was too bad there wasn't a school prize for the student with the Most Excellent Cursive. She would surely win it and wouldn't that make Effie Kauffman mad? Lily smiled at the thought.

Dear cousins,

Greetings of love sent to you all. Hope my scribbles find you all healthy and happy. We are all doing fine.

Last week was our in-between Sunday. Mama and I packed a picnic lunch of sandwiches, fresh cherries, and popcorn. Then we went on a drive in the spring wagon. Papa wants to build more seats for it someday but for now we made little blanket nests in the back to sit in.

Joseph, Dannie, and I had fun seeing who could spit cherry stones the farthest while Papa drove the wagon. Paul is still too little to spit stones so Mama had to take the stones out of his cherries for him.

Papa drove along some new roads. It's always fun to see where we end up. At one place there was water coming out of the side of the hill beside the road. Papa stopped to give Jim a drink. We all took a turn getting a drink. It was very cold.

Joseph, Dannie, and I have been busy picking potato bugs in the garden. We get a nickel for every dozen we pick. I don't like touching them so I use a twig to scrape them off the leaves and into an empty can. Joseph and Dannie don't mind touching them, but you know boys.

It's dry here. We all hope it rains soon. It's hard work to water everything in the garden. Papa carries five-gallon pails with water to the edge of the garden and then Joseph, Dannie, and I water the plants with it.

There is a frog living under some of our tomato plants. It hopped out on my toes once, and I screamed so loud that Papa came running out of his shop. I don't like frogs, but Mama says it eats bugs. I wish it would eat the potato bugs.

Only a few more weeks until school starts for the new term. We're going to have a new teacher this year. I haven't met her yet because she's from another district. But I do know her name: Teacher Judith. Isn't that a pretty name? I can hardly wait for fifth grade to start!

Love,
Lily

Satisfied, Lily ran to the mailbox to put the letter in it before the mailman came by. Sitting under the mailbox was the biggest dog she had ever seen. In its mouth was Mama's lone boot. She turned right around and ran to the house, shouting for Mama. “Come quick! Your other boot. There's a dog chewing on it!”

The dog followed Lily all the way to the house and sat on the porch as if he'd been invited for tea and cake. Joseph
tried to shoo it away. The dog leaped down the porch steps, Mama's boot still in its mouth.

“Hey!” Joseph yelled. “Come back here!” He ran after the dog to try to get Mama's boot back. The dog turned to see what the ruckus was all about. Just as Joseph got close to him, the dog ran off. It was funny to watch. The dog would stop and turn, daring Joseph to catch him. Just as Joseph drew close and nearly caught him, off he would run again. Over and over, that dog teased Joseph.

Lily and Mama watched from the porch. “Lily, you'd better go with Joseph and help him get the boot back.”

Lily ran after Joseph, who ran after the dog. Down the
driveway, across the road, and into the woods. As soon as Joseph and Lily were almost near enough to grab the boot out of the dog's mouth, the dog would run off again. Deeper and deeper into the woods they ran. Gasping for air, Lily suggested it might be wise to give up and go home.

“Not yet,” Joseph said, puffing and panting. “I'm sure we can catch him soon.” So they kept going, crashing through underbrush and hopping over fallen branches.

Lily was hot and sweaty and worried they were too far from home. The big dog seemed to know exactly where he was going, trotting along a trail as if he had all the time in the world. Up ahead, the dog disappeared into an old abandoned train tunnel. Lily and Joseph stopped at the mouth of the tunnel, debating what to do.

Joseph, naturally, wanted to go exploring. “If the dog can go into it, so can we.”

Lily wasn't convinced. The tunnel was long and dark and scary, and it smelled musty. But then a breeze of cool air floated out of the tunnel's entrance. It did feel good, that cool air. Joseph took a few steps into the tunnel. “Come on, Lily,” he said. “I can see the other end of it. I see a patch of light ahead.”

Hearing that there was an end to the tunnel was encouraging news. The last thing Lily wanted to do was to get lost in a dark tunnel and never be seen again. She took a few steps in, then a few more. And then she hurried to catch up with Joseph. The farther they walked, the darker the tunnel became. Water dripped from the ceiling, making spooky
plink plunk
noises as it landed on the dirt floor of the tunnel.

They kept walking until they were stopped by a large mound of dirt that had fallen from the roof of the tunnel. At this point, Lily's fears rose up again and she hesitated.
“What if more dirt falls on us?” More importantly, what if the ceiling caved in and they were buried alive?

“It won't,” Joseph said, scrambling over the dirt. Lily followed him—what else could she do?—and they kept going toward the light at the other end of the tunnel. Finally, they reached the exit. The bright sunshine hurt their eyes. The big white dog lay under a tree, chewing on Mama's boot. He raised his head and looked at them as if to say, “What took you so long?”

Joseph ran off to catch the dog, and wouldn't you just know what happened next? That dog waited until Joseph reached out a hand to grab the boot and off he ran. Now Joseph was mad. He was all the more determined to get Mama's boot back.

Joseph followed the dog and Lily followed Joseph. They came to a clearing and spotted a little log cabin tucked against a grove of trees. The dog went up the porch steps of the log cabin and lay down at the feet of an old, old, old man. Lily thought he might be even older than Great-Grandma had been, and she'd been ancient. He had the longest, scraggliest beard she had ever seen, and she had seen a lot of beards in church. This old man's beard flowed down his chest, like a river of gray crinkles. It looked as if he had never had his hair cut. His white hair was braided and hung down his back. It touched the porch floor.

The old man noticed Lily and Joseph. “Ah, visitors,” he said at last. “Rufus likes me to have company.” He stroked the head of the big white dog.

Joseph spoke up first. He was always doing that, and it made Lily mad. “We followed your dog all the way here. He ran off with our mama's boot.”

The old man laughed and slapped his hands on his knees. “So that's where he got the boot. The other day he brought a boot home and I put it in the woodshed. If you don't mind getting it, you can take the pair of them back to their rightful owner.”

Joseph found the boot in the woodshed, just like the old man said. Lily stayed right where she was, watching everything. Just in case.

“Say, would you like to stay and eat with me?” the old man said. “I have some venison stew on the stove. There's plenty to share.”

Joseph looked like he was just about to say yes, so Lily quickly intervened. “We need to get home,” she said. “Papa and Mama might be worried about us.”

The man nodded. “You tell your Papa and Mama to come for a visit, anytime. Tell them my name is Teaskoota, and I'm a Shawnee Indian. Might be the oldest man alive. It gets a little lonely up here, and Rufus ain't much for small talk.”

Rufus was sprawled out on the porch, sound asleep.

Lily and Joseph started toward home. They each held one of Mama's boots. Before they left the clearing, Lily turned to look at everything again. It was like a picture in her history book: a log cabin, a little log barn. A small pasture with oxen in it, enclosed with a wooden split-rail fence. She wondered why anyone would live such a lonely, old-fashioned life.

“Come on, Lily,” Joseph said.

Lily waved to Teaskoota and followed Joseph back into the woods, through the long dark tunnel, and along the dim trail. She was glad when she saw the sign for Whispering Pines. Papa and Mama looked relieved to see them come up the driveway. Papa said he was just about to go looking for them. Mama was delighted to see the boots in their hands.

When Lily and Joseph told them about Teaskoota and his log cabin, Papa nodded as if he knew all about him. “That's the man whom Aaron Yoder helped a few summers ago. Remember? Everyone thought Aaron was lost and spent days looking for him.”

Lily remembered. She had often thought about that old man and had wished Aaron Yoder had just stayed with him. But now that she met Teaskoota and discovered how nice he was, how kind he was to them, and how happy he was to have company, she wouldn't wish Aaron Yoder on him. She wasn't heartless.

A
little brown mother wren sat on the roof of the wooden birdhouse that hung in a tree near the clothesline. She chattered at Lily, warning her to stay away as if she had babies in the snug little birdhouse. It was August, and her wren babies were long gone.

Lily picked up the last wet shirt from the laundry basket and handed it to Mama to hang on the clothesline. As she started back to the laundry room in the basement, she turned the basket upside down to dump the excess water out. Rounding the corner of the house, she saw a dark green minivan pull into the driveway. She dropped the laundry basket and ran back to Mama. “We have visitors!” she said.

Mama wiped her hands on the sides of her apron and hurried over to see who had arrived. Lily was curious about the visitors, but shyness swooped in and she ducked through the basement door. She ran over to the shop where Papa was
working. He shut the sander off when he saw her by the door. “Papa, we have visitors!”

Papa brushed the sawdust off his arms and shirt and went outside. Lily stood inside the door and peeked out to see if she knew who had come. She saw an Amish couple climb out of the green minivan. Papa hurried over and shook hands with the man, and then they both slapped each other's back. Why, it was Papa's older brother, Uncle Ira!

Then Lily noticed a tall, gaunt woman standing next to Mama.
Oh, boy.
Lily would never forget her: Aunt Tillie, Uncle Ira's wife.

The driver of the minivan got out of the car to talk to Papa,
then everyone started to walk toward the shop. Lily dashed back to the basement laundry room so they wouldn't catch her spying on them. She grabbed Mama's wooden stick and fished clothes out of the steaming hot water in the washing machine. Just as Mama and Aunt Tillie came into the basement, Lily tried to lift a wet shirt out and drop it into the clean rinse water.

“My goodness, Rachel, you already have a big girl,” Aunt Tillie said. “She's in here doing the laundry all by herself.”

Lily tried to hide her delight at Aunt Tillie's compliment but was not very successful. She didn't expect something nice and friendly from Aunt Tillie's mouth. She reminded Lily of a skinny version of Effie's mother, Ida Kauffman.

“Lily is a fine helper,” Mama said, amused by Lily's giant grin. She took the wooden stick from Lily's hands and fished the clothes out of the hot soapy water of the washing machine to drop them into the tub filled with cold rinse water.

Aunt Tillie put down her things and pitched right in with the laundry. It didn't take long to finish rinsing and hanging the clothes on the line. And soon it was time to make lunch.

As everyone gathered for lunch, Uncle Ira introduced the driver of the minivan to Lily, Joseph, and Dannie as an English man named Bill. He was quite intrigued by Papa's woodshop and had spent most of the morning watching Papa work.

Bill took several bites of Mama's chunky potato salad. “Nice little business you have, Daniel,” he said. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and repeated himself. “Really nice little business you have there.”

Pleased, Papa said, “It helps put food on the table.”

Aunt Tillie and Uncle Ira did the rest of the talking during lunch, catching up Mama and Papa on all the latest news with the Kentucky Lapp family. “Things have been awful dry in Kentucky this summer,” Uncle Ira said. “Quite a few families are thinking of moving north to better farmland. Our married children already have their farms for sale and hope to move before winter.”

Aunt Tillie made a sour face.

There
was the Aunt Tillie whom Lily remembered from a visit to Kentucky years ago!

“It's a shame, that's what it is,” Aunt Tillie said, tsk-tsking with her tongue. “It's so hard to have to start over in a new place when you're a young family without a lot of money. I'm trying to talk Ira into moving with them. That way, we'd be there to help them out if they need anything.”

Uncle Ira concentrated on his lunch. He mopped the last bits of food from his plate with a piece of bread, almost as if he didn't even hear Aunt Tillie. But Lily had a hunch that once Aunt Tillie made her mind up about something, she would get her way.

As Mama cleared the plates, Papa said, “Since you'll be here for a few days, I thought it might be fun if we go to the rock bed tomorrow.”

Lily sat up a little straighter in her chair. Papa had such good ideas. She had been to the rock bed only once in her life, soon after her family had moved to Cloverdale. Beth's parents had invited them to a picnic at the rock bed.

Aunt Tillie made yet another sour face. “What's a rock bed?”

“It's a small field in the middle of the woods,” Papa said. “About the size of a school playground. It's covered completely
with one huge rock that's been cracked in several different places. One edge of the rock bed is almost three feet high but most of it is much higher than that. You have to see it in order to be able to grasp how majestic it really is.”

Uncle Ira's bushy eyebrows lifted. “That sounds interesting.”

Aunt Tillie turned to Mama. “Rachel, what do you have planned for us to do while the men are out rock climbing?”

Papa and Mama exchanged a look. “I thought we could all go,” Papa said.

“Oh no!” Aunt Tillie said. “You won't catch me clawing my way up over a pile of rocks.”

Lily had to clap her hand over her mouth to keep down a giggle at the picture that came to mind: Aunt Tillie in her dark dress and stern face, clinging to the side of a rocky cliff with those long, bony fingers.

“We don't have to do any actual climbing, Tillie,” Mama said. “I think you'll enjoy it.” There was a firmness to Mama's voice that surprised Lily. She wondered if Mama didn't want to have to spend a day alone with Aunt Tillie. At least, that's what was on Lily's mind.

Lily woke to the sweet smell of baked bread. Mama had gotten up extra early to bake rolls for today's picnic. After the breakfast dishes were washed, Lily helped Mama and Aunt Tillie prepare a picnic lunch. Lily shredded the leftover chicken from last night's supper, then mixed in the salad dressing Mama had scooped into a measuring cup. Mama added a few pinches of salt from the salt box. That was a mystery to Lily. How did Mama know the right amount of salt to add without measuring? Lily had to measure everything or she
ended up with disasters. “Dis-as-tahs,” Joseph called Lily's cooking mistakes.

After stirring the shredded chicken, chopped celery, and dressing, Lily spread it on Mama's fresh baked rolls. She could hardly wait for lunch. Chicken salad sandwiches would taste delicious on their picnic.

Aunt Tillie squeezed lemons for lemonade while Mama cleaned carrots and cucumbers from the garden. All that was left to pack were Mama's enormous chocolate chip cookies. By the time the picnic basket was filled and ready to go, Papa had hitched Jim to the spring wagon. He had placed blankets in the back for the children to sit on. Uncle Ira brought two kitchen chairs for Mama and Aunt Tillie.

The rock bed was ten miles away. It would take Jim at least two hours to get there. It was a heavy load for Jim to pull, and Lily was glad the sky was overcast and the air was cool. Papa worried about Jim. He stopped frequently to let Jim rest, which annoyed Aunt Tillie. “Seems like it's time you find yourself a new buggy horse, Daniel,” she told him more than once.

Lily didn't like to hear Aunt Tillie talk about Jim as if he were just an old thing to be replaced. Jim was as much a part of their family as Dannie and Paul.

Lily tried to block out Aunt Tillie's whiny voice. She loved long drives in the fresh open air, and she couldn't stop thinking about those chicken sandwiches that would be waiting for them.

Lily and Joseph and Dannie played I Spy until Dannie fell asleep. Then Joseph fell asleep and Lily was left to play I Spy all by herself, which wasn't much fun.

At long last, they arrived at the rock bed. It looked just as
big as she had remembered it. Papa tied Jim to a tree, then helped Mama and baby Paul out of the wagon. He put a slice of hay on the ground for Jim to enjoy while they had their picnic. He carried the picnic basket in one hand and Paul in the other as they walked to the edge of the rock. It towered above them. When they reached the edge that was only about three feet off the ground, Papa set the picnic basket down and handed Paul to Mama. Uncle Ira clambered up on the rock with a little push from Papa. Then Papa hoisted himself up. He reached down to help Lily, Joseph, and Dannie up. Then Mama handed Paul up to Papa, and he put him in Lily's arms. Then Papa helped Mama and Aunt Tillie up. Everyone looked all around the rock bed and Uncle Ira let out a long, low whistle. “I had no idea it would be like this.” Even Aunt Tillie seemed impressed, which was something to behold. It wasn't easy to impress Aunt Tillie.

Papa and Uncle Ira led the way across the rock. Each time they came to a crack, Lily held onto Papa's hand to step over it. Joseph didn't want any help. He jumped back and forth over every crack as if they were the best part of the rock bed. Dannie tried to imitate Joseph but Papa held tightly to his hand while he jumped.

When they reached the middle of the rock bed, Mama spread out several blankets and Aunt Tillie unpacked the picnic basket. During the short, silent prayer before lunch, Lily thought she heard something—a funny noise, almost like a sad little cry. She strained her ears to hear it again. A pitiful little sound came from across the rock bed. This time Papa heard and snapped up his head. “What was that?” he asked.

“What was what?” Uncle Ira asked.

“I thought I heard something,” Papa said. “It sounds like an animal is in some kind of distress.”

“I heard it too,” Lily said.

Everyone stopped to listen. There it was again! A sad, woebegone whimper. Papa walked around the rock bed and stopped at a big crack, peering down into it. “There's a little puppy down there!” he called back to them.

Joseph and Dannie dropped their chicken sandwiches and bolted over to Papa. Lily joined them. Joseph dropped to his knees to peer into the crack. “Let's rescue him!”

“We would need a ladder to get down to him,” Papa said. “I didn't bring one along.”

Joseph was horrified. “But we can't leave the puppy down there! It'll die.”

“He does look hungry,” Lily said. Joseph ran back to get the rest of his sandwich and tossed it down to the puppy. Lily was proud of Joseph's quick thinking. She knew how much he loved to eat. But she knew he loved animals even more than food.

Papa stroked his beard as he tried to think of what to do. “I'll drive down the road to the next farm and see if they have a ladder we can borrow.”

“I'll go with you, Daniel,” Uncle Ira said.

Joseph knelt at the edge of the crack and talked to the puppy in a soft, soothing voice. Lily took her sandwich and sat next to Joseph and Dannie by the crack. She felt sorry for the puppy as they waited for Papa to return. She wondered how long it had been trapped down there with no way to get out. Wasn't it amazing to think that today, of all days, was the day they had decided to drive to the rock bed? Just the day when a puppy needed to be rescued.