Chapter Twelve
As a steady rain settled in on Wednesday morning, Lydianne greeted her scholars downstairs in the cloakroom. “Let’s hang up our wet wraps and start our day with an old, old story about rain,” she said cheerfully.
Billy Jay made a face as he slipped out of his raincoat. “But I hate the rain! We had to ride to school in Dawdi’s old rig today—and he said we probably wouldn’t be goin’ outside for recess. Is that true, Teacher Lydianne?”
“You’d be soaked in thirty seconds,” she pointed out.
“And then you’d be sittin’ in your chair for the rest of the day with your wet clothes drippin’ all over the floor,” Stevie said without missing a beat. “Some of us would probably say you’d wet your pants, you big baby.”
“Well, no, we wouldn’t be saying that,” Lydianne countered, quickly steering the boys away from a conversation about bodily functions. “But we will be talking about all sorts of animals, and the biggest boat you ever heard of, and the promise God made when He created the rainbow.”
“Noah’s ark!” Gracie exclaimed. “I know that story!”
“Me, too!” Ella chimed in, clapping her hands. “I wanna hear about how all the animals marched onto the ark two by two—”
“And think about how much poop was on the ark!” Billy Jay blurted with renewed enthusiasm. “Noah probably had to muck out the stalls every day—”
“And throw all that poop overboard!” Stevie declared with wide-eyed wonder. “There woulda been camel poop and bear poop and . . . and dinosaur poop!”
“Ewww,” thirteen-year-old Linda put in, holding her nose. “I’m glad I wasn’t living on that stinky ark. That’s enough about manure, boys, or I’ll let you take my place at shoveling out the stable when we go home today.”
Lydianne smiled to herself. She’d discovered the advantage of having older girls in the schoolroom who kept Stevie and Billy Jay from getting too far out of hand. At least the boys seemed interested in the special project she’d been saving for a rainy day, and she hoped it would keep them occupied during recess when they’d be staying indoors—without a chance to run off any steam outside.
“I brought us a special story rug to sit on,” she said as she led the scholars up the stairs and into the classroom. “I like to think of it as a magic carpet, because stories take us to faraway, fascinating places. Today we’ll go all the way back to Bible times in the Old Testament.”
Lydianne’s magic carpet was actually a colorful braided rag rug her dear, deceased mother had made—large enough that it had nearly covered the floor of the small attic room where she and her older sisters had played when they were children. Her heart thrummed with memories as she watched the Flaud sisters and the Miller girls nimbly sit on the rug, carefully tugging their cape dresses over their crossed legs before patting the places between them. The four younger scholars situated themselves in those spots and looked eagerly at Lydianne.
Easing onto the rug, she carefully arranged her long, loose skirt so she was modestly covered. Lydianne held up a big picture book she’d recently bought for the schoolroom’s library. “Long, long ago, God tried many, many times to tell humans how they should love Him and live in peace together,” she began, paraphrasing the text as she focused on the colorful illustrations. “He became so disappointed in their wicked, sinful ways that He was sorry He’d ever created them.”
The classroom fell silent as the kids thought about what this statement meant. Pleased that they were taking the story seriously, Lydianne turned the page.
“God so was tired of His people’s violence and meanness that He figured the only way to fix it was to wipe everything away,” she continued, shaking her head sadly. “He decided to destroy the world He’d created—even the animals and the birds.”
“With a big ole flood,” Gracie whispered solemnly.
“That’s right,” Lydianne said, flipping to the next page. “But whose family did God save?”
“Noah’s!” Stevie cried out. “He was one of the gut guys!”
“And God told him how to build this big, huge ark that would float on all that water He was gonna send,” Billy Jay put in.
“And Noah had to bring in every kind of animal, two by two,” Ella continued the familiar story. “There was lions and tigers and g’raffs and horses and cows and goats and chickens—and thank gutness there was puppies, too, or I wouldn’t have Brownie to play with!”
Lydianne nodded, her heart overflowing with love for the bright little blonde who so closely resembled her father. “God didn’t give Noah and his family a lot of time to prepare for the flood. Noah and his sons began to build the ark of cedar wood, higher and higher, with a single door and just one window, near the top,” she told them, pointing to the details in the pictures. “The neighbors all thought Noah was crazy to build such a boat, because they lived nowhere near the ocean. But Noah, a man of deep faith, believed what God had told him.”
Turning the page, Lydianne smiled at the rapt expressions on her scholars’ faces. “Then Noah called out to the animals, and they came to him, because God had spoken to them, too. It was already starting to rain when the last of the animals showed up.”
Gazing at her students, she asked, “Meanwhile, what do you think Noah’s wife and daughters-in-law were doing? What would you need if God said you’d be living in a boat during a flood that might last a long, long time?”
After a moment’s silence, Lorena’s face lit up. “Food! Noah’s wife and daughters-in-law surely had to be preparing the food they’d need—”
“And think of all the feed those animals would eat,” Kate said in an awed voice. “They probably didn’t have baled hay for their herds—and how would they provide the leaves and grass the deer and other wild animals needed?”
“And what about acorns for the squirrels? And bird seed? And puppy chow?” Ella asked with a worried frown.
Billy Jay’s eyes widened. “Do ya s’pose some of the big animals ate some of the smaller animals while they were in the ark all that time?” he whispered. “Wild animals do that.”
Lydianne smiled at their astute questions. “The Bible doesn’t go into those details,” she replied.
“But maybe God didn’t allow any of the animals on the ark to die, because He wanted them to be alive after the flood waters receded,” Lucy speculated. “God can do anything—and He wanted a peaceable kingdom where lions could lie down with lambs instead of having them for dinner—”
“Maybe He made it so the predatory animals didn’t want to eat the other ones,” Kate put in thoughtfully. “Otherwise, a lot of species would’ve become extinct.”
“Excellent points,” Lydianne said, smiling proudly at her older girls’ insights. “Here again, the Bible doesn’t spell out a lot of things that went on in the ark. We can figure that the women might’ve baked bread and gathered grapes and olives and other grains beforehand. We do know that Noah and his family and all those animals lived together while it rained for forty days and forty nights. The Bible says the water covered the entire earth—even the trees and the tallest mountains.”
Billy Jay exhaled loudly. “That’s a long time not to go outside and play, Teacher Lydianne,” he murmured. “Do you s’pose all those monkeys and chickens and pigs got crazy like we do when we’re cooped up?”
Lydianne chuckled along with her students. It was a real blessing that the boys were enthralled by the untold possibilities in this story, thinking beyond what the Bible presented. “What did Noah do then?” she asked. “How did he find out if it was safe to leave the ark?”
“He sent out a dove, and when it came back with an olive branch, Noah knew the water had gone down enough that the trees were uncovered,” Lorena recounted.
“And how did God mark His promise with Noah—His covenant—that He would never again destroy His creation with a flood?” Lydianne asked as she closed the storybook.
“It was a rainbow! Up in the sky!” Ella crowed ecstatically.
“So every time it rains,” Gracie put in confidently, “God sees the rainbow, and it reminds Him to stop the water before the whole world gets flooded again.”
As Lydianne rose from the rug, her heart was filled with happiness. She hoped the retelling of this favorite Bible story would keep her scholars busy and engaged during this run of rainy weather.
“Let’s start our day with a special Noah’s ark spelling list. It’s written up on the board,” she instructed. “We also have some math problems involving the size of the ark—and what a cubit is—and we’ll explore some Bible history about what people wore and the food they probably took into the ark with them. Later on, we’ll have some special projects—like coloring a big poster for our wall, and molding clay animals, and maybe even building a model ark!”
As the day went on and the rain showed no sign of letting up, Lydianne unrolled the huge poster of Noah’s ark surrounded by pairs of animals—with a large rainbow that stretched across the sky. To use up some of the kids’ energy, she allowed them to play a relay game that raced them up and down the stairs a few times, and then they began coloring the poster. It didn’t surprise her that Ella placed her chair where she could work on the wide stripes of the rainbow.
When Billy Jay and Stevie were losing interest in coloring, Lydianne gave them modeling clay and suggested they make animals to display on the table below the spot where the completed poster would hang. That afternoon she unwrapped an ark kit she’d found in the bookstore, and soon Lucy and Lorena were helping Billy Jay and Gracie fit the wooden pieces together.
By the time parents began arriving in their rigs to fetch the children, Lydianne believed that she and her scholars had shared their best day yet. As the buggies headed toward the road through the pouring rain, a blessed peacefulness settled over the classroom. She felt drained, yet elated. She wanted to rest her head on her folded arms for a bit—except the last time she’d done that, Jeremiah had come to the schoolhouse and invited her to the Shetler reunion.
Considering the steady downpour that drummed on the schoolhouse roof, Lydianne doubted he’d show up again today, but how could she know? Jeremiah certainly hadn’t been harvesting his corn, as he’d mentioned at church this past Sunday, so chances were good that their busy bishop was out taking care of other business. He might stop by to ask her about why she’d turned him down—and she certainly couldn’t give him a full, detailed answer.
With a weary sigh, Lydianne straightened the room, gathered her books, and started for home. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she didn’t have to elude Jeremiah Shetler? He was such a compassionate, handsome man, that any woman would be blessed to have him as her husband—
But that one afternoon when I gave in to my love for Aden has made me a maidel forever. What man could respect or trust me, if he discovered my secret? And if Bishop Jeremiah learns I bore Ella out of wedlock, I’ll be shunned, and I’ll lose my teaching job. How can I possibly remain in Morning Star after that?
Lydianne swiped at a tear and quickly made her way through the rain toward the pole barn, where her buggy was parked. She might as well accept her fate and go home alone—because that was how she was destined to spend the rest of her life.