A Big Year for Lily by Suzanne Woods Fisher, Mary Ann Kinsinger Page B

heavy paper and put them on the table. Lily looked at all of the paintbrushes. There were so many different sizes. How could anyone know which one to use?
    Mama picked up one of the paint instruction books and flipped through it. She opened it up to a brightly colored page. “I think you could paint some roses.” She sat in a chair next to Lily and helped her select the correct brush. She explained how to paint the rose.
    Lily carefully followed Mama’s instructions. When she finished, she held it up to admire it. It didn’t look quite as pretty as the one in the instruction book but it had been fun to paint. Soon, she would be the best artist in the family. She had no doubt of that. She set to work on another rose.
    Too soon, Papa called out in his deep, kind voice, “Bedtime for little lambs.”

    Lily gathered the paint supplies and put them on the back shelf of the pantry, where Dannie wouldn’t get into them. Or at least Mama would hear him first. She thought Papa might like to see her beautiful painted rose, so she placed it on his desktop. Her eye spotted Mama’s pretty hand-painted plate, resting on a shelf above the desk. It had been there as long as she could remember. She studied it carefully. Its rim was covered with red and pink roses. She was sure she could paint a picture just like it. Maybe better. It couldn’t be that hard to paint.
    â€œLily, we’re waiting on you,” Papa called from the other room.
    Lily quickly ran to join the rest of the family and listen to Papa read the evening prayer from the little black prayer book. She half listened to Papa’s deep voice, and half thought about what life would be like after she became a famous artist. Ice cream after dinner, every single day. A closet full of purple dresses. New books. Store-bought bread and deli meat in every school lunch.
    She couldn’t wait!

16 Tummy Troubles
    L ate one afternoon in early November, Lily was helping Mama tear an old dress into strips to make rag rugs. She heard a familiar squeaky sound and knew the mailman’s truck was at the mailbox. She tossed the dress onto the floor and ran out the door as fast as she could. She wanted to get to the mailbox before Joseph did.
    Joseph was hammering away in the woodworking shop, working on a project. He had heard the squeaky truck, too, and bolted out the door. He could run faster than Lily and beat her to the mailbox by just a few steps. So frustrating! She was the eldest and should be the first for everything.
    Joseph pulled the mail out of the mailbox and slowly—oh so slowly—looked through every letter before handing it all to Lily with a smug grin. The thrill of beating her to the mailbox was over. He went back to the woodworking shop, hands in his pockets, whistling a tuneless tune.
    Lily looked through all of the mail: a few letters, a catalog, and a picture postcard. She loved postcards. It was tempting to read what was written, especially since someone had drawn little pink flowers and twisty green vines in the bottom corners of the postcard. But Mama had told her that reading other people’s mail was as bad as eavesdropping. Personally, Lily felt eavesdropping had some benefits. How else would she learn some interesting news? Just the other day, she discovered that Grandma had bunions. She wasn’t sure what they were, but they sounded like a new type of vegetable from her garden.
    Sometimes, Lily wished she weren’t so curious, but she was. She was born that way. As she walked back to the house, she was sorely tempted to read the postcard, but of course it wasn’t right. And she knew Mama was watching from the kitchen window.
    Lily waited patiently as Mama read the postcard. “What does it say?”
    Mama looked up. “Your cousin Esther is getting married and we are invited to her wedding.”
    â€œUncle Ira’s daughter, Esther?”
    â€œYes, do you remember her?”
    Lily tried to