Read Life with Lily for Free Online Page B

thought she had never seen anything look so pretty.
    Papa gently shook the tree. Plums dropped to the groundlike fat raindrops! Lily helped pick them up and put them into the pails that Papa had brought along. Lily wished she could eat plums right away, but she knew they had a job to do. The plums were to be gathered and taken into the house.
    Joseph picked up a few plums too, but he was more interested in watching birds flit from branch to branch. “I wish I could fly like a bird,” he said wistfully, gazing at a robin as it flew to the very top of a tall ash tree and peered down at them.
    Papa chuckled. “Running and walking are the best ways for little boys to get around.”
    Once the pails were filled to the brim with sweet, juicy plums, they headed back to the house. Papa carried the pails into the kitchen. Mama put Dannie down for his nap and started right to work. She cut each plum in half, removed the pit, and dropped it into clean canning jars. She boiled sugar and water into syrup to pour over the plums. Then, she fit each jar with a lid and placed it carefully in the canner, filled with steaming hot water.
    Mama saved a bowl of plums to eat fresh. She filled another bowl with plum halves and poured a thick layer of sugar over them. She set the bowl on the back of the kitchen counter. Lily wondered what she was going to do with those.
    Mama noticed. “Watch and see, Lily,” she said. “Soon, you’ll find out.”
    Mama lit the burner in the oil stove and set the pot of sugared plum halves on top. She stirred and stirred as the plums turned into a thick jam. Mama spooned the jam into little jars and set them on the sink to cool. She took a big square of paraffin wax and carefully shaved pieces off of it into an ugly old battered bowl that she used for melting paraffin. Once it had melted, Mama carefully spooned a little bit ofparaffin on top of the plum jam in each of the little jars. The paraffin would harden as it cooled, sealing the jam safely to keep it fresh until it was time to eat.
    Lily helped Mama put lids on the jars and carry them to the cool, dark basement, lined with shelves for canned food. Lily thought the glass jars on the shelves looked so pretty. They were filled with sparkling red jam and pieces of plums. In a few days they would go back to the woods to gather more ripe plums. Lily hoped Mama would make more jam. Sweet jam on toast was the best thing to eat. The very best thing of all.

    One afternoon in June, Lily and Joseph lay on their backs in the soft grass, watching fluffy white clouds float lazily across the sky. Lily liked imagining all the different shapes the clouds could be. If she squinted her eyes just right, she thought she could see a rabbit. And then a horse. Another cloud looked like a tree with a face.
    â€œDo you see that tree with a face?” she said.
    Joseph sat up and looked at the trees in the yard. “No, I don’t. Which one is it?”
    Lily laughed. “Not a real tree!” She pointed to the sky to help Joseph see which cloud looked like a tree.
    â€œIt looks like a big head of lettuce to me.” Joseph lay back on the grass and folded his hands behind his neck. “I was watching those big birds fly instead of looking at the clouds. I wish I could fly like that. It looks like fun.”
    Lily watched the birds. It did look like fun to fly. The birds sailed effortlessly through the sky, hardly moving their wings at all. She yawned. She felt a little sleepy and her eyelids started to feel droopy.
    Suddenly, Joseph jumped up. “I’m going to do it!”
    Lily’s eyes flew open. “Do what?”
    â€œI’m going to fly! I’ve watched the birds long enough that I think I know how.”
    â€œBut you don’t have any wings,” Lily pointed out. “Or feathers, either.”
    Joseph didn’t pay her any mind. He ran behind the barn, so Lily jumped up and ran after him.