A Surprise for Lily (7 page)

September 28th

Dear Cousin Hannah,

It's been two weeks since you moved away and I still can't get used to it. I keep looking at your desk, expecting you to be there, but instead there sits a horrible boy named Harvey Hershberger. He is too horrible for words. A different kind of horrible than Aaron Yoder, but horrible all the same. Harvey likes to have everyone laugh at him, all the time. He can be funny, but he doesn't know when to stop and Teacher Judith is too soft on him.

I wish you still lived down the road and I wish you still went to school with me, but I do hope you like your new school. Write me soon and tell me all about the girls in your school. No boys, though. I've had my fill of boys.

Something interesting happened in school this week, if you want to call “trouble” interesting. It all started on Monday when Harvey Hershberger brought some long stick pretzels to school. During recess, the boys strutted around, pretending to be smoking them. It took a while for Teacher Judith to notice, and when she did, she didn't like it. But just as she started to scold them, they quickly ate those pretzels up. They acted like eating those pretzels was what they'd been doing all along.

On Wednesday, we were studying German spelling (you remember how boring that always was!). Harvey, Aaron, and Sam were whispering like thieves and
suddenly, a funny smell, like burnt flour, came from behind me. When I turned around, I saw Harvey had lit his pretzel to smoke it. Aaron and Sam whispered to Harvey to pass the matches. Soon, they all had smoking pretzels. It smelled awful.

Finally, Teacher Judith smelled it. She demanded that Harvey hand over the pretzels and the matches. All three boys had to stay in during recess, which was a relief to the rest of us. All except Effie. She thought Teacher Judith was being too hard on them (as if that were even possible!). She keeps making fun of Teacher Judith when she's sure the teacher can't hear her. Today, she imitated how Teacher Judith snores. If it's even partially true, I do feel a tiny little bit sorry for Effie's family. The snoring sound was awful, Hannah! Worse than a herd of pigs.

On Friday morning, all three members of the school board arrived at school. They made Harvey, Aaron, and Sam stand at the front of the schoolhouse while they gave a long lecture about the sinfulness of smoking. Then the boys had to apologize and promise they would behave from now on.

Fat chance of that!

Aaron, Sam, and Harvey laughed about getting in trouble during lunch recess, so I don't think they were very sorry at all. But I doubt they will try to smoke pretzels again.

Effie had said she wanted to try to smoke a pretzel, but changed her mind after the school board came calling.

Hannah, can you imagine how you would have felt if you had been scolded by the school board in front of the entire class? How awful!

You won't believe what Joseph's dog did last Saturday! I had been cleaning out my closet and found Sally (remember Sally? She was my rag doll). I put her on my desk chair to play with her later, when I finished with the Saturday cleaning. Dozer must have sneaked into my room and grabbed her, because I found her out in the backyard, all chewed up. I was so mad! I yelled so loudly that Mama came running. He's a horrible dog, Dozer is.

Mama is calling so I'd better close. Write soon, Hannah. Remember our promise to write every week. I'll try and do better. I want to hear all about your new home. I guess you could tell me about the boys in your school if you really have to.

Your cousin,
Lily

L
ily's back ached. She had been sitting on a hard, backless bench for hours. Today was Communion Sunday, which lasted all day long. Once it was over, there would be special services to ordain a bishop. Lily's church had been sharing a bishop with another district, and it was time to ordain one of their own.

The new bishop would be chosen from the three ministers in Lily's church: Effie's father, Henry Kauffman; Aaron's father, David Yoder; or Lily's Uncle Jacob. Lily gave some thought to the choice. She decided the new bishop would probably be David Yoder. Henry Kauffman might be the oldest, but he had a wife like Ida. No one in Cloverdale would ever want Ida Kauffman to be a bishop's wife! She would consider it her duty to spy on church members and inform her bishop husband about what people were doing wrong.
Actually, Lily thought, trying to stifle a grin, Ida Kauffman already did consider that to be her duty.

David Yoder would make a fine bishop for Cloverdale. He was a very kind man and his wife was very kind, too. It was a pity that Aaron Yoder was their son. Lily felt sorry for David Yoder and imagined that he was sorry about Aaron, too. But she did think he would be a good bishop. Uncle Jacob would be a good bishop, the best of all, but he was young. He had just become ordained as a minister last year.

Yes. Lily was confident that David Yoder would be the choice.

Henry Kauffman was preaching a very, very long sermon, and finally came to an end. Now would be the time for
Zeugnis
, when the other ministers shared their thoughts about the sermon the minister had finished preaching. Today, there were several benches filled with visiting ministers and bishops who wanted to witness the ordination. Lily swallowed a yawn. She knew it would take a long time for each to have a turn and share his thoughts. That was one thing she had learned about ministers: they were never shy to share their thoughts.

At long last, the closing hymn was announced and everyone started to sing in the familiar slow, rhythmic way. Lily's church sang the same hymns, in one voice, the same way all their great-great-grandparents used to sing.

Today, just once, Lily wished they could speed up the hymn. Wasn't anyone else eager to find out who the new bishop would be?

After the last hymn ended, everyone went outside to get some fresh air before it was time to head back inside. Lily joined the other girls in the kitchen who were waiting to get a drink of water. Effie was beside herself with excitement.
She was beaming, positively beaming. “I can't wait to see who the new bishop will be,” she said. “Becoming a bishop's family means that family is the most important one in the community. My mother said so, just this morning.”

Aunt Lizzie, Uncle Jacob's wife, would never say such a thing. Neither would David Yoder's wife.
Dear God,
Lily prayed silently,
please don't let the bishop be Effie's father. Please, please, please.
She didn't think she could stand Effie any more proud or puffed up than she already was.

Lily filled a glass with water and drank it as slowly as she could before it was time to head back into the room filled with benches. A visiting bishop cleared his throat and got slowly to his feet. His eyes swept the room filled with people. He looked kind and compassionate, almost as if he felt sad to ordain a new bishop today. “We all know why we have gathered back together this day,” he said. “If all the visiting ministers and bishops would join me in the basement, we will be ready to start taking your votes.”

Lily watched Henry Kauffman, David Yoder, and Uncle Jacob. They sat on the front bench, heads bowed, bearded chins to their chest. Lily wondered if they were all praying that God would let one of the other two ministers become the bishop. She almost giggled out loud. How could God answer such a prayer? If so, someone's prayer couldn't be granted.

All the men went down to the basement and lined up. One by one, they whispered their vote, their choice of whom they'd like to see as bishop, to one of the visiting ministers. After the last man sat down, it was the women's turn to vote. Afterward, everyone sat quietly, waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting. It felt like a heavy silence. Lily didn't dare wiggle or move an inch. It almost seemed irreverent to breathe.

The sound of heavy feet on the basement steps broke the silence. The bishop led the way back to the front of the room. He carried three hymnals in his hands, each held shut with a rubber band. That meant all three of the ministers were chosen to be in the lot. Effie could hardly keep the smile off her face. She stretched and craned her neck to see the hymnals. Lily wanted to pinch her.

“The votes have been cast,” the bishop said. “Now I ask Henry Kauffman, David Yoder, and Jacob Miller to come forward and take a hymnal.”

One by one, the three men rose from the bench and chose a hymnal, then sat down again. The bishop read a few verses from the book of Acts in the Bible. It described how an apostle had been chosen, after Jesus had returned to heaven, to replace Judas Iscariot as the twelfth disciple. The bishop closed the Bible and read a prayer from the little black prayer book.

It was finally time.

Everyone leaned forward on the benches. The only sound in the room came as the bishop took the hymnal from David Yoder's hands and opened it. He paged through it and handed it back to him. Empty. Next he took the book from Henry Kauffman. Effie wiggled in her seat. The bishop paged through the hymnal and handed it back to Henry. Empty. Effie slumped.

There was only one hymnal left. The bishop took the hymnal from Uncle Jacob's hands and opened it. He held up a slip of paper for everyone to see. “The lot has been found,” he said in a shaky, choked up voice. It almost sounded as if something terrible had happened. “God has chosen Jacob Miller to be our new bishop.”

Aunt Lizzie started to cry. Other muffled sobs started around the room. The bishop placed his hands on Uncle
Jacob's head and prayed a prayer of blessing. Effie had stopped wiggling and acted very bored.

Men and women rose from their seats to shake hands with Uncle Jacob and Aunt Lizzie and to whisper words of encouragement to them. Lily wove her way through the crowd to join the girls outside.

Effie squinted her eyes at Lily. “Jacob Miller took the book that my father was supposed to get,” she said in her peevish way. “Jacob Miller doesn't have any idea about being a bishop. His wife is too busy with little children to pay any attention to the church members. She'll never make sure they're living according to the Ordnung.”

Lily stared at Effie. “Uncle Jacob did not take your father's book! He took the last book. And I think he will make a
very good bishop. Aunt Lizzie will make a good bishop's wife. She's nice and not bossy and nosy like . . . some other people.” Like . . .
your mother
!

Effie was furious. “My mother is one of the most valuable members of the church! She should be the bishop's wife! She'd be much better than your Aunt Lizzie!”

Lily opened her mouth to tell Effie just what she thought of Ida Kauffman when she felt Mama's firm hand on her shoulder. “Time for us to go home, Lily.”

As Lily followed Mama to the buggy, she turned back to look at Effie. Effie squinted her mean little eyes at Lily, and Lily squinted right back.

On the way home, Lily couldn't help feeling a tiny bit smug. It would be nice to have her uncle for the bishop. Effie's father was only a minister. Maybe she would stop trying to boss Lily around, seeing as how Lily's uncle was the bishop.

And then she realized she was starting to think just like Effie.

E
very Saturday afternoon, Mama brushed out and washed Lily's long hair. It was awful! She dreaded it. Her hair reached below her waist now—it had never been cut—and it was always full of snarls. Lily felt like crying, but she was halfway to turning eleven. Too old to cry about tangled hair. But oh! how it hurt.

The only thing that helped to distract Lily was when Mama told her stories about her childhood. “Tell me a story, Mama,” Lily said, wincing from the pain.

“I think you already know most of them by now,” Mama said, gently combing out a section of Lily's hair. “Have I ever told you about the big snowball bush we used to have outside our house?”

“I don't think so,” Lily said. She felt herself relax, ever so slightly, as she anticipated Mama's new story.

“When I was a little girl, I had a best friend named Dorcas.
She lived right across the road from us. We sat beside each other in church and played together during every school recess. We used to spend time at each other's homes. Our favorite times were when we had permission to stay overnight.” She pulled some tangles out of the comb and tossed them in the sink.

“One summer afternoon, we hatched a plan as we sat under a huge snowball bush at Dorcas's house. It was loaded with big white balls of flowers. Whenever we bumped it, it showered petals on the ground that looked like snow. Dorcas got a funny look on her face. She had an active imagination,
and I knew she was thinking up something clever to do. Sure enough, she was brewing up an idea.

“‘Let's gather up these flowers and shake the petals into a pail,' Dorcas said. ‘On Sunday evening, as my sister and her boyfriend come home from the hymn singing, we could be waiting for them by the register in my room. It's right above the living room door. When they walk up to the door, we could dump the whole pail right on top of them.'

“I thought it sounded like a wonderful idea! All I needed to do was to convince my parents to let me stay at Dorcas's house for the night. I tried to pretend it was just an ordinary summer night, so they wouldn't suspect that we had something up our sleeves. But I was so excited when they said yes!

“On Sunday afternoon, Dorcas and I spent an hour plucking blossoms off and shaking the petals into a big five-gallon pail. When it was full, we made sure no one was looking as we sneaked it into the house and up to Dorcas's bedroom. When it was bedtime, we changed into our nightgowns and waited for her sister to get home. The time got later and later, but we didn't have much of a problem staying awake. There was always so much to talk about.”

“Even though you saw each other every single day?” Lily asked.

“Even so. Just the way you and Hannah liked to talk to each other.” Mama stroked the comb through Lily's hair one more time, looking for tangles, and found some.

Ouch!
Lily winced.

“Dorcas and I sat on the floor to play games until we heard a horse and buggy drive into the driveway. We blew out the lamp and rolled the rug back to uncover the register. Dorcas carefully lifted it out. It left a square hole in the floor and we
could see straight down into the living room. We tried not to giggle as we held the pail over the register, just waiting for them to come in the house.”

By now, Lily had forgotten all about her tangled hair.

“The door opened and Dorcas's sister and her boyfriend walked inside. The boyfriend put his hat on the table while Dorcas took off her bonnet and hung it on the wall peg. We could hear them whisper to each other. They walked to the living room . . . and just as they passed beneath the hole in the floor, we dumped that pail of petals right down on top of them. They both looked up in surprise and saw us before we could duck away!”

Mama separated Lily's hair into three strands and started to make a braid. “Dorcas's sister was furious. She marched upstairs and told us to go downstairs and clean up the mess. It wasn't nearly as fun to clean up as it had been to dump the flower petals on them. After we were done, she sent Dorcas back upstairs and told me to go home.” She tied off the ends of Lily's long braid.

“I ran across the road and tiptoed up the porch steps. I was hoping to get inside the house and up to my room without waking up my parents. I knew they wouldn't be very happy with what we'd done, and I hoped Dorcas's sister wasn't going to tattle. I turned the doorknob carefully, but it was locked. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't go back to Dorcas's house. If I woke up my parents, there would go my hope that they wouldn't find out what had happened. So I decided to sleep in the buggy in the barn. I curled up on the floor of the buggy under a buggy robe and tried to go to sleep.”

“Wasn't it scary out in the barn?”

“It
was
scary!” Mama said. “Much scarier than I thought
it would be. The barn was pitch dark. The buggy smelled like a horse. And I kept hearing the animals move around in their stalls. I was cold and uncomfortable, and sure I would never sleep at all. But I must have finally fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, it was bright and sunny, and I heard the barn door open. My father was starting morning chores. Very carefully, I slipped out of the buggy and ran to the house. Somehow, my mother spotted me coming out of the barn. She opened the door as I tiptoed up the porch steps. So I had to tell her everything that had happened. If I'd known I was going to get caught, I would have just knocked on the door and slept in my comfortable bed all night instead of sleeping in a stiff buggy.”

“Did you get in trouble?” Lily asked. It was hard to imagine Mama ever getting into trouble.

Mama twisted Lily's braid up into a bun and fastened it with several hairpins. “No, I think my parents decided that sleeping in a buggy had been punishment enough. Dorcas and I decided it was worth the trouble. For the rest of the summer, whenever we remembered the look on their faces when those petals showered down on them, we doubled over in fits of giggles.” She pinned a cleaned, ironed prayer covering on Lily's clean, smooth hair. “Some things are just worth the trouble.”

Some things definitely were, Lily agreed. But not combing out hair.

Lily looked down at the English book spread out on her desk. Teacher Judith had told the fifth grade to do their next lesson but she hadn't explained how they were supposed to do it.

Lily tried to read the instructions again, but they made her feel even more confused and helpless.
Put parentheses around each prepositional phrase. Draw one line under the subject, two lines under the simple predicate, and three lines under every superlative
.

It was like reading another language!

Lily tried not to panic. From fourth grade, she remembered that a noun was a person, place, or thing. She tried to think back to other lessons that Teacher Rhoda had given. She felt pretty sure that a simple predicate was a verb but she didn't know what a superlative or a prepositional phrase was.

She used to like English. Teacher Rhoda had made it fun. She remembered an assignment that was especially easy: circling adjectives.

She could think up a lot of adjectives to describe her English lesson:
hard, awful, confusing, frustrating
. Teacher Rhoda would have been happy to know that Lily was thinking about adjectives, but that wouldn't help her with superlatives right now. What in the world was a superlative?

Lily raised her hand. Teacher Judith walked over to her desk to see what she needed. “What is a prepositional phrase and a superlative?” Lily asked.

“Read your instructions,” Teacher Judith said and walked away to help someone else.

An odd thought dawned in Lily's mind. It almost seemed as if Teacher Judith didn't know English grammar. If that were true, what more could Lily do? Her only hope was to guess at the answers. She hoped she guessed enough right answers to get a passing grade.

The next day, Lily walked home from school slowly, feeling ashamed. She didn't want to show her report card to Papa and Mama. Right in the middle of a row of As and Bs was a big fat F in English. She had never received an F before. Never! Why, she had never even had a C before. She wondered if F meant Failed. That's how it felt.

But then she cheered up. The problem wasn't her. The problem was that Teacher Judith didn't know English. Lily hoped Papa and Mama would understand how hard it was to figure out grammar when your teacher didn't know what it was.

Papa and Mama exchanged a concerned look when they saw the F in Lily's report card, but they didn't say anything more about it. At bedtime, Papa sent the boys upstairs and said, “Lily, we want to have a little talk before you go to bed.”

Lily went into the living room and sat on a stool by the woodstove. Papa and Mama sat in their chairs. “Do you have any idea why you received an F in English?” Papa said. “You've always had As in English.”

“I don't know how to do the lessons,” Lily said. “Teacher Judith never explains how to do them. She just tells us to read the instructions, but I don't understand them. No one does. All of the upper grades failed. Beth and Malinda got Fs, too.” She was sure Effie did, too, but Effie refused to show her report card to anyone.

“Everyone?” Papa said.

“Even Aaron Yoder got a D,” Lily said. Everybody knew he always got the best grades in school.

Papa and Mama sat quietly for a few minutes. The only sound was the crackling of the fire in the stove. Finally, Mama said, “You can go to bed now, Lily. Papa and I will think of some ways we can help you.”

Lily was relieved that Papa and Mama understood about Teacher Judith. She wondered what they would try to do about it. Maybe, they could take the report card to school and ask Teacher Judith to change the F to an A. That would be an excellent solution.

A few days later, Lily came home from school and found an English book waiting on the kitchen table for her. “Show me what lesson you're working on in school,” Mama said.

Lily paged through the book until she came to the lesson she was supposed to do the next day. Mama looked at it and sat down next to Lily. She explained how to do all of it. When Mama helped her understand what the big words meant, Lily could understand it easily. She felt light and happy. She didn't dread school tomorrow. She was sure she could get a good grade with Mama as her teacher.

The next day, Teacher Judith assigned the fifth grade an English assignment. Lily pulled out her book and set right to work. It didn't take long to finish it. She was surprised how fun it had been to do her lesson now that she knew how to do it. Mama made everything so clear.

Each evening, Mama explained the next day's lesson to Lily. Her grades in English were back to As, while the rest of the upper grades were failing. Lily felt a little sorry for Beth and Malinda, but not Effie. It was a pity their mothers couldn't help them at home like Mama was doing for her.