4

A New Barn for Papa

On Saturday morning, Lily had eaten breakfast and helped Mama wash the dishes before the sun started to tint the eastern sky with its rosy colors. All that was left to do was to sweep the kitchen floor. Then they would be ready to have neighbors come for the frolic! As Lily held the dustpan for Mama to sweep the dirt pile into it, she heard the sound of buggy wheels in the driveway. She ran to the window and saw her cousins Hannah and Levi jump out of the buggy. Behind Hannah came Aunt Mary, Mama’s younger sister.

Hannah was just a little older than Lily. She had blonde hair and dark blue eyes fringed with long, black lashes. Hannah was Lily’s favorite cousin. They had special games they played with their favorite dolls. Levi had the same blond hair and blue eyes as his sister, but he didn’t talk much, not like Hannah. Hannah did enough talking for both of them, Uncle Elmer—Hannah’s father—always said. Levi was older than Hannah and Lily, but he had a slight stutter when he talked that made him shy around grown-ups. He was more comfortable with Joseph and ran off to find him.

Uncle Elmer drove the buggy out toward the lumber piles. He unhitched his horse from the buggy and tied the rope to a tree. Then he walked over to talk to Papa, who was stuffing nails into the nail belt around his waist. Uncle Elmer strapped his nail belt on and started to fill it with nails.

From the window, Lily and Hannah watched as more buggies started to roll up the long driveway. The men would stop to let the women and children off at the house and then drive out to where Uncle Elmer had parked his buggy. Soon there was a whole row of buggies lined up side by side in the yard. Horses were tied to trees. Some of the younger boys went to get several bales of hay. They dropped handfuls of hay in front of each horse so it would have something to eat. For the horses, it was going to be a long day of waiting.

In the kitchen, women started to prepare food. Potatoes needed to be peeled. Chicken needed to be fried. Fresh bread needed to be baked so it could be served hot from the oven at noon. Lily and Hannah watched the women cook for a while, then ran outside to see how much progress the men had made on the barn. The first wall had been pieced together. It lay on the ground, ready to be lifted. The men lined up along one side. Walking slowly toward the barn’s foundation, they lifted the wall. The wall went higher and higher until it stood straight to the sky. A few men quickly ran to make supports and props to keep the wall from falling while others went to work on building the next wall.

Odd noises filled the air. Hammers pounded nails, handsaws cut pieces of lumber into proper lengths. Men called orders out to each other. Lily couldn’t decide where the best place was to be: outside as the barn started to grow or in the house as food was prepared.

Mama came to the door and called, “Lily!” In her hands were large bowls. Lily ran to see what she wanted. Mama held the bowls out to Lily. “Set these bowls on the bench under the cedar trees and fill them with water. It’s almost time to eat and the men need a place to wash up.”

Lily and Hannah dragged a water hose to the bench and filled the bowls with fresh water. When they were done, they stacked several towels beside each bowl. It was time to go tell Papa that dinner was ready. She ran to find Papa. He stopped hammering when he saw her.

“Mama says it’s time to eat!” Lily said.

Papa turned and hollered to the men that dinner was ready. The sounds of pounding hammers stopped as everyone started removing their tool belts and walked toward the house. “Sure smells good,” they said as they passed Lily.

The men piled their straw hats on the ground under a tree and went to wash up. Their big hands scooped up water to splash over their faces. Lily and Hannah watched as they reached for towels to dry off. Water dripped from their long beards and trickled down the front of their shirts.

The men went into the house. The women bustled about, dishing up food and setting steaming bowls filled with mashed potatoes and sweet corn on the table, next to large platters of crisp fried chicken. Another platter held freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven. Beside each loaf of bread sat two little dishes. One held a round ball of homemade butter and the other was filled with sweet clover honey. On the kitchen counter was a row of pies: beautiful brown pecan pie, lemon and vanilla pie piled high with fluffy whipped cream, cherry pie with sugar sprinkled on the crust. Lily liked how the cherries peeped through the little holes in the pretty vine pattern that Mama had carefully made on each crust.

Lily’s mouth watered as her eyes took in all the food. She wished she could sit at the table too, but there wasn’t enough room. Only the men and the bigger boys could sit at the table. Once they found a seat, everyone grew quiet and looked expectantly at Papa. Papa bowed his head to pray a silent blessing.

As soon as he raised his head, everyone started talking and laughing as they passed bowls of food around the table. They spooned hearty helpings on their plates. Mama filled plates with food for the children and sent them outside to sit on the porch to eat. Once everyone was done eating, the men went back to work while the women started cleaning up the dirty dishes.

Papa stopped for a moment in the yard. He picked up a bench and folded one leg in. He set the other end on top of an overturned washtub. A slide! Lily loved playing on Papa’s homemade slides. She hurried to line up behind the other children. One by one, they took turns sliding down the smoothly varnished bench.

After all of the dishes had been cleaned and put away, the women brought chairs and benches out into the yard under the shade of the cedar tree. They sat and chattered while keeping one eye peeled on the children. And they could watch the barn steadily grow.

As the sun began to set, the barn was finished. It looked beautiful with its shiny white sides and its dark green tin roof. It was time for the neighbors to go home, do chores, and get ready for Sunday church. The men hitched horses to buggies and drove up to the house to pick up their families. Lily waved goodbye as the buggies rolled down the driveway.

Papa and Mama stood in front of the house and looked toward the new barn. “Makes it feel like it’s really our home now that we have a barn,” Papa said. “Think we should go check it out?”

Lily and Joseph held Papa’s hands and tried to match his steps. Mama followed with Dannie in her arms. Pausing at the barn door, Papa waited to let Mama step inside first. When they all stood inside, Lily thought the barn looked enormous! The stall for Jim had a nice manger for his hay and a little feed box where Papa could dump a scoopful of oats. Next to Jim’s stall was a bigger pen with a low manger and a big wooden box on the floor. Next to that was a small pen with a long wooden trough.

“We’ll fill those pens with a few piglets and a cow, and then we’ll be set,” Papa said. “We’ll have a real farm.”

Against a wall, Lily noticed a wooden ladder that led to a square hole in the ceiling. Papa said he would use the ladder to go up and throw hay bales down when he needed them. Lily saw a door near the ladder. She opened the door to discover a large room, with its floor covered in carefully raked gravel. “That room is for the buggies,” Papa said. The little open buggy, the top buggy, and the spring wagon.

Papa and Mama walked through the barn one more time. “Why don’t we get Jim’s stall ready?” Papa said. He went outside and brought back a straw bale. He set the bale down, reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocketknife, and cut the twine that held the straw together.

Papa gave one slice of straw to Lily and another to Joseph. He showed them how to shake the straw until it fell apart to make a fluffy pile on the floor of the stall. Soon, the floor was covered in thick straw and Jim could have a soft place to stand, instead of the tumble-down barn he’d been in. Papa put a few slices of hay in the manger and Mama put a scoopful of oats into the little wooden feed box. Everything was ready for Jim.

Papa went out to the pasture and whistled for Jim. The big horse trotted up to the fence to see what Papa wanted. Papa held out his hand, filled with sweet-tasting oats. Jim ate gently from Papa’s hand as Papa reached for the halter and led him into the barn and into his new stall.

Jim went right to the manger to eat oats and hay as if he had been coming into this new barn every day of his life. Papa chuckled as he went to get the currycomb and brush. “Jim doesn’t know how lucky he is to move into this nice barn before winter!” He brushed Jim down, then closed up the stall for the night.

As the family walked back to the house, Lily was surprised by how quiet the farm was after such a noisy, busy day. She heard an owl hoot once, then twice. Another answered back. It seemed to Lily that birds kept on singing as if they didn’t know that anything special had happened that day.

But it had! It had been a wonderful day.