Beep, Beep, Beep…the jarring beep
of the alarm rudely interrupted my dreaming. Ugh. Five thirty in the morning
always seemed to arrive too quickly. Just because my parents sent me to bed by
eight o’clock, didn’t mean I was actually sleeping. We were always so busy most
of the day that I never got to finish my books. I couldn’t help it if the most
exciting parts always seemed to be happening right before I went to bed.
“Squeak,” the fifth step made a
distinctive sound whenever people used it. I had learned from my eight years of
experience that I had just enough time to turn off the flashlight and pretend
to be sleeping as Mom and Dad headed to bed. I’m pretty sure they didn’t
realize that I was reading until the wee hours of the morning, but it was
getting so hard to wake up so early.
I hit the snooze button, and
snuggled back under the warm covers. I could hear cupboard doors opening and
the sound of mom down in the kitchen starting breakfast. Soon the smell of
sausage, eggs, and pancakes would fill the house. I loved pancakes!
Our family is made up of seven
people. Everyone but me and my little sister would be out of bed already. Dad
and Ronnie, my nine-year-old brother, would already be out doing the chores.
Jessica, my eleven-year-old sister would be out gathering eggs. Amanda my
twelve-year-old sister would be out milking the cow.
I could hear my six-year-old
sister, Becca, lightly snoring from the top bunk. Becca never woke up to the
alarm. She never woke up to shaking, either. In fact, mom said she didn’t think
Becca would wake up to a tornado destroying our house. It usually took mom
coming up to get Becca out of bed. I reached over and turned the alarm off. I
couldn’t risk Mom hearing that I had hit snooze.
Sigh. I
sprang out of bed and into the shockingly cold air. I couldn’t help it; I began
to shiver uncontrollably. I quickly crossed the room to the closet. Why
couldn’t they have heat upstairs like the neighbors? The woodstove did a great
job of heating the house all day long, but as the coals died down overnight,
the old farmhouse steadily got colder. There were times during the winter that
dad would get up in the middle of the night and add wood to the stove to keep
the pipes from freezing solid, but once spring hit, he wouldn’t bother. At
least I couldn’t see my own breath this morning.
I reached into the left side of the
closet and grabbed a dress from the hanger. There were about seven work dresses
hanging in the closet. They were all the same pattern with some variation of
floral print so it really didn’t matter which one I chose. I opened the top
drawer of the dresser and grabbed some clean socks. I sat on the beautiful rug
that mom had made from dad and Ronnie’s old jeans and quickly slipped the socks
onto my feet. I quickly strode over to the bunkbed I shared with Becca and
half-heartedly shook her a few times. At least I could tell mom I tried. I
tromped down the stairs and burst into the kitchen. I needed to set the table
for breakfast. Everyone would be coming in hungry very soon.
“Good morning, Sunshine!” Mom was
the only person that ever called me sunshine. She said I had been a sunbeam
since the day I was born. She likes to show me a picture from when I was two,
my hair a crazy mop of blond pin curls, smiling like crazy while helping her make
cookies. It is the truth; I don’t really get angry very often. Ronnie is pretty
much the only one who can make me mad. I swear he thinks it fun to try to get
to me.
“Good morning, Mom!” I smile at her and headed
for the cupboard that holds the dishes. “Mom, I tried to wake Becca up, but she
didn’t even budge.”
“That girl,” Mom sighed, “I don’t
know what to do to help her wake up easier.” Mom turned the heat down on the
eggs and quickly ran upstairs to get Becca awake enough to get dressed. Becca could
seem awake, and even talk to you, but within seconds of you leaving the room,
she would be back asleep. Mom wasn’t messing around this morning. As I set the
table for breakfast, I could hear her getting Becca up. The closet opened and
soon both of them where in the kitchen. I couldn’t help but smile. My sister’s
hair was a crazy blond mess and she didn’t exactly look like she was awake and
ready for breakfast. Mom would comb our hair into braids later.
Suddenly, the door burst open and
Mandy and Jessica came bustling in. The milk pail was almost full to the top. I
ran to get the milk filter and funnel. Amanda put the pail down and disappeared
into the pantry to get the glass jars for the milk. A few minutes later she
came to the kitchen and placed the jars in the sink. “Thank you, Hollie,” she
said as she smiled warmly at me. “You’re always such a good helper!” She put
the filter into the funnel and began pouring the steaming hot milk through the
funnel into the jars. Each jar held one gallon and I watched as Mandy filled
three jars.
We had affectionately named our
Holstein, Darcy the dairy queen, but called her Darcy DQ for short. She had
recently had the cutest little calf and we were getting six or seven gallons of
milk a day now. She ate a lot of hay, but she turned that into the most
delicious milk. This was the time of year that mom made all kinds of delicious
things from milk. We had homemade ice cream every night after dinner, she made
the most delicious cream cheese spread for crackers, and there were wheels of
cheddar cheese aging in the spare fridge.
“Holly, will you get the lids for
the jars, please?” Mandy’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I trotted over to the
drawer where we kept the lids and grabbed three. As I began putting the lids on
the jars, Mandy took out last night’s jars so she could skim the cream for mom.
Amanda ladled the thick cream out of the milk jars into clean quart jars. Each
gallon of milk gave us a quart of cream. Mandy put the new jars into the back
of the fridge, carefully found a place for the cream, and put last night’s milk
into the front. Mom would probably give one of the gallons to the chickens. We
just couldn’t possibly use up seven gallons of milk a day, so we shared with
the other animals on the farm.
While we were busy taking care of
the milk, Jessica came in with the eggs. She wiped them off with a rag and
placed them into cartons. Some people from town saved egg cartons for us and
brought them to us when they came to get eggs. We had fifty chickens, so we got
fifty eggs a day. We kept a lot for ourselves, but sold the rest.
“Amanda, go call dad and Ronnie for
breakfast please.”
“Yes, Mom,” Amanda cheerfully
answered as she headed for the back door. “BREAKFAST,” she hollered as loudly
as she could.
In no time
at all, the two of them came bustling in the back door. Their coats were
quickly hung on the pegs by the back door and their work boots were put on the
back porch. Mom did not appreciate the boy’s barn-dirty boots tromping across
her clean floors.
We all
gathered around the table. It was my turn to sit by Mom. Mom and Dad have a
specific place they sit for meals, but us kids rotate like a volleyball team.
Every night we move one seat the right, or counter-clockwise. I really like that
we all get a chance to sit by mom and dad.
“Let’s
pray,” Dad’s said. We all bowed our heads and closed our eyes. At least I think
we all close our eyes. I have never had the courage to open my eyes and look
around.
My dad’s baritone voice filled the
quiet, “Father, thank you for all the blessing that you have given us. Thank
you for allowing the rain to fall on the just and the unjust and for caring
about the tiny sparrow that falls to the ground. You know what we need and we
trust you to provide. Thank you for providing food for us in abundance and
thank you for Mom, who works so hard to prepare food for us. Amen.”
“Amen,” we all replied.
As soon as that word left our lips, we began
reaching for the plates of sausage, bacon, eggs, and pancakes. I scooped some
eggs onto my plate and passed the bowl to Becca. Ronnie handed me the plate of
bacon, but I kept that one moving on. I’m not a huge fan of bacon. I took
several pancakes, slathered them with home-made butter, and topped them with
the real maple syrup mom orders from a family in Michigan by the five-gallon
bucket. We really are blessed. We have a barn full of hay and feed for our
animals, so much delicious food, clothing, and most of all, we have each other.
“Blessed indeed,” Mom would often say.
We cleaned
up breakfast and headed into the living room to start school. We don’t have a
church school in our small Mennonite community, so Mom homeschools us.
Honestly, I feel so happy that I don’t have to ride a bus like the neighbor’s
children do. I can’t imagine sitting in a classroom at a desk all day. I was
just finishing up my math work, when Dad burst in the front door.
“FIRE!” He
screamed. “The trash jumped the barrel. The ditch is on fire!”
Fire. No. My brain tried desperately to make
sense of the words it has just heard. Fire. I couldn’t move. I just stared at
Mom.
“Everybody
grab an empty five-gallon bucket from the shed and run to the water pump!” Mom
said firmly. She was pale and looked so scared but she used the firm no-nonsense
voice she used to give us directions that were non-negotiable. That tone told
us to stop messing around and take action immediately. It was exactly what I
needed to get moving.
We quickly ran
outside. My hair whipped across my face and my skirt billowed up from the
strong South wind. The shed was near the garage. We all ran as fast as we could
to grab the buckets and then ran to the well. Becca and I were too small to
carry buckets, but we could help fill them with water. Everyone else formed a
long line between the well and the ditch on fire.
We don’t
have trash trucks that pick up our trash, we have a burn barrel. All the trash
that can be burned, is. The burn barrel was located north of the house but
south of the barn. The wind was driving the fire toward the barn. That barn was
full of dry hay and fifty pound sacks of feed. We filled the buckets with water
and Jessica carried them to Ronnie, who carried them to Amanda, who carried
them to Mom, who carried them to Dad. Then they were handed back the same way.
Dad dumped them onto the flames, but it didn’t seem to be making any
difference.
“Oh, God!
Please, please protect our barn.” I silently prayed as I filled each bucket.
“Shelley,
keep putting the water on the northern part of the fire. I’m going to try to
dig a firebreak.” Dad handed buckets to Mom and ran to get the shovel. Amanda
left the line to help Dad shovel. The rest of us just kept working at putting
out the fire. Nothing we were doing seem to even slow it down. The wind was
driving it quickly toward the barn. I have no idea how long we kept this up. Time
seemed to stand still.
“Jessica,
run to the house and get some old towels, QUICKLY!” Mom’s voice had such an
edge of desperation to it. The fire department would never make it in time to
save the barn, or the years’ worth of hay inside of it.
It seemed
like only seconds before Jessica was back with her arms full of old
towels. Mom took one and started beating
the fire. Ronnie kept pouring water on the dry grass that was ahead of the
fire. Jessica and I both grabbed towels and began mimicking Mom’s actions.
Becca took the hose and started filling the buckets.
The wind died down for a few
seconds, but that was enough for us to begin to win the battle. Thick smoke
filled the air and black ashes where falling like snowflakes from the sky. I
was so tired and my throat was burning, but we kept battling on. Dad and Amanda
both came and grabbed towels and began beating the flames. Suddenly, the
remaining flames reached the firebreak and the whole thing was over. We looked
at each other, almost not believing that the wild fire had happened at all. Sweat,
mixed with soot, covered all of our faces, and my mom and dad were panting. A
large swath of scorched earth covered the space between the burn barrel and the
outside of the barn.
“Fill all the buckets, we aren’t
done yet,” Dad’s voice still had the non-negotiable tone to it. He took the
full buckets and began walking through the area looking for smoldering spots.
When he saw wisps of smoke, he doused the area with water.
When he was satisfied that the immediate
danger was over, he gathered us together under the tree. “Thank you for obeying
so quickly,” his voice broke with emotion. “Everyone worked together and by the
grace of God we avoided disaster. We have so much to be thankful for right now.”
I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen my dad overcome with
emotion. This was one of them.
Jessica’s clear soprano rang out
the beginning of a hymn, “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.” Quickly,
Amanda’s alto and Ronnie’s tenor harmonized, “The darkness deepens, Lord with
me abide.” Soon seven voices were raised in thankfulness, “When other helpers fail
and comforts flee. Help of the helpless, Oh, abide, with me.” We fervently sang
all three verses. No other words were necessary. A hush fell upon all of us as
the hymn ended, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I looked around the circle
and realized how very right mom was. Blessed indeed. We had each other, so we
had everything we would ever need.
“Well, time to get back to work,”
the spell was broken as Mom brought us back to reality. Dad stood watch all afternoon, making sure
that the wind didn’t fan a hot spot back into a flame. From then on, we were
very careful to make sure that the trash was lower in the barrel and we didn’t
burn on really windy days.
