31
A Hurt Toe and an Escape from School

It was warm, too warm to be wearing shoes. Lily wiggled her toes inside her shoes as she sat in the shade under a big maple tree with the rest of the girls one Sunday afternoon after church.

Turning ten meant grown-up dresses, and it also meant wearing shoes to church. Every time—even if it was a warm spring day. Lily had become accustomed to wearing the dresses and the snug apron belt no longer bothered her, but she didn’t think she would ever get used to wearing shoes when the weather was warm.

She watched some of the little girls who ran around in their bare feet. She felt like telling them to run and jump and hop and enjoy being at church with bare feet before they turned ten and had to wear clunky, hot shoes, too.

Beth and Cousin Hannah were braiding a daisy chain. Effie was chattering away about everything she would do when she grew older. “I’m going to make Aaron Yoder come calling on me.”

Lily was horrified. First, Cousin Hannah had an un-understandable crush on Aaron Yoder. Now Effie? Why did the girls think Aaron Yoder was so special? He wasn’t!

Hannah did not like to hear Effie’s plans for Aaron. “You can’t make a boy come calling,” Hannah said. “Boys decide who they want to go calling on. Girls don’t ask boys.”

“Oh, but I promised to marry Aaron when I was in first grade,” Effie said. She smiled at Hannah, but her eyes weren’t smiling.

Lily sighed. This conversation was ridiculous. Just ridiculous. The little girls ran past them again. They seemed so lighthearted and happy as their bare feet skimmed along the neatly mowed grass.

Lily made up her mind. She was going to help the little girls play tag. Anything was better than sitting under this tree listening to Effie’s big plans for Aaron Yoder.

Quietly, she bent down, untied her shoes, and slipped them off. She rolled down her stockings and tucked them into the toes of her shoes to make sure she wouldn’t lose them. Effie was watching. Her eyebrows shot up as Lily stood.

“You can’t go barefoot in church now that you wear a cape and apron,” Effie said.

Lily wiggled her toes in the grass. It felt so good! “But Effie,” she said in her sugary-sweet voice, “church is over already.”

Surprisingly, Effie didn’t have a snappy retort. Lily ran to join the other little girls in their game. She was happy to leave her friends under the tree with their tiresome talk about boys. About Aaron.

The little girls were delighted to have a big girl join them. Soon, Lily was tagged it. She ran along a fence after Lavina, a little eight-year-old who was one of her favorites. Just as Lily reached out to touch Lavina, her big toe caught on a piece of wire and she fell flat on her face.

She sat up and tried to catch her breath. She looked down at her toe and squeezed her eyes shut. Her big toenail had been torn almost completely off and was now dangling by only one little corner. It hurt so much that she wanted to cry. She couldn’t cry, though, not in front of the little girls. She hobbled gingerly back to the tree, picked her shoes up, and headed for the house to show Mama what had happened.

Mama took one look at it and had Lily sit down in a chair. Someone brought a Band-Aid. Mama reached down to Lily’s toe and gave a quick jerk to remove the nail. She carefully washed her toe and bandaged it.

Lily sat beside Mama for the rest of the afternoon. Her toe throbbed painfully. It felt like it was on fire.

Listening to the women talk was even more painful. She heard Ida Kauffman whisper loudly to Alice, Beth’s mother, “Lily Lapp is such a tomboy. If she were my daughter, I would turn her into a proper little girl in a hurry.”

Lily cringed at the thought of being Ida’s little girl. Imagine if she ended up just like Effie! Two Effies! Lily shuddered.

On Monday morning, Joseph stood at the blackboard, trying to figure out a long division problem. Teacher Rhoda patiently explained the process one more time, but Lily could see that Joseph didn’t understand. He hated math and he especially hated long division.

At breakfast, Joseph had pretended to have a stomachache and said he didn’t want to go to school. Mama said she was pretty sure his stomachache would disappear after math period. Lily never liked long division, either, but it seemed to be harder for Joseph to catch on to it than it was for her.

Teacher Rhoda tried again with Joseph, going over a few more problems slowly and carefully. She sent Joseph to his desk to complete the rest of the assignment on his own. He walked slowly to his desk, head hung low, and opened his books. Lily watched as he worked. His tongue escaped the side of his mouth as he labored. Soon, her attention turned back to the book she was reading.

Lily barely noticed that Teacher Rhoda gave Joseph permission to go to the bathroom. She turned around in her desk just in time to see her brother pause at the back of the schoolhouse. He grabbed his lunch box off the shelf and his straw hat off the hook. Then he bolted out the door.

Lily was shocked! What was Joseph doing?! Teacher Rhoda hurried to the door and called, “Joseph! Joseph!” But Joseph kept right on running as if his pants were on fire. All of the children ran to the windows to watch Joseph’s escape. Aaron Yoder burst out laughing when Joseph disappeared over the hilltop.

Lily glared at Aaron. This wasn’t funny! No one ever ran home from school during the day. Never! Joseph was going to be in big trouble.

Teacher Rhoda asked the third grade to turn in their arithmetic assignments and gave them new work. Soon everyone seemed to have forgotten about Joseph. All except Lily. She couldn’t concentrate on anything. Her stomach felt achy for him.

Soon, Lily heard a horse and buggy trot down the road, then slow to a walk as it neared the schoolhouse. Through the window, Lily saw Papa tie Jim to the hitching post. He helped Joseph down and the two of them walked, hand in hand, back to the schoolhouse. Teacher Rhoda went outside to meet them. Lily strained her ears trying to hear what they were saying, but their voices were too soft. Then Joseph came inside, head hung low, and put away his lunch box. Teacher Rhoda asked Ezra Yoder to help Joseph with long division at the blackboard while she took care of some other classes. Lily saw Papa drive Jim back down the road.

That afternoon, Joseph waited until his friends had left for home before he started for home. He was in a bad mood all day, and Lily knew he didn’t want to listen to any more teasing from his friends. She waited for him by the door. “What made you run away from school?”

Joseph scowled at her. “I kept getting the answers wrong! I tried and tried and tried. I told myself if I got it wrong one more time, I was going to run home. So when Teacher Rhoda said it was still wrong, I ran home.”

“Didn’t you hear her call to you?”

“Yes, but it was too late. I wanted to go home.”

“What did Mama and Papa say?”

Joseph kicked at a stone on the road. “I didn’t even get to eat a snack before Papa had Jim hitched up to take me back.”

After supper that evening, Papa sat down to help Joseph learn how to do long division. Papa did his best, but Joseph was an exceptionally stubborn student. When Papa’s frustration began to rise, Mama took a turn and tried to teach Joseph. Lily thought she might be able to help, too, if Mama lost patience. She had never seen anyone so determined to not understand math.

It had been a long week. It started on Sunday with Lily’s hurt toe—which still hurt. On Monday, there was Joseph’s escape from school, which Aaron and Sam still teased him about. Then it rained for three straight days, which made the playground a boggy mess. Finally, Friday had come and with it, sunshine. Mama had a big smile on her face when Lily walked through the kitchen door after school. She pointed to the kitchen table. “Your circle letter has circled back to you, Lily!”

Lily sat right down and read through her letters. Then she started a new one, using her very finest cursive, of which she was secretly proud.

Dear friends and cousins,

Greetings of love sent to each of you as this pack of letters lands on your doorstep.

I was so happy to find this fat envelope waiting on the table for me when I came home from school. I read all your letters right away, even before I helped Mama get supper ready.

Today was a sunny day. It was warm enough that we could sit outside to eat our lunches. I like when we can do that, but today there was a pesky fly that kept bothering us. It kept sitting on Beth’s sandwich while she was eating it.

Paul is getting so big. He likes being with me and he likes best when I can make bubble juice on Saturday after the cleaning is done. He likes chasing bubbles when I blow them. He tries to catch them. He thinks they are balls and always looks surprised when they pop. It is so funny!

We only have a few more weeks of school left. I like school but I like summer, too. We will have a bigger garden this year. Mama says it takes more food since we are all getting bigger. We already planted all the early things and Papa wants to put up chicken fences for the peas next week before they get too big and topple over.

Well, that is all my important news for now.

Love,
Lily

Lily hurried to address her letter and put a stamp on the envelope. Then she ran outside and put it in the mailbox for tomorrow’s pickup. The week, for Lily, had taken a very nice turn.