The Treasure Hunt (14 page)

While Lydia stood watching the big steam tractor turning over the soil, Stormy yapped at any gophers he saw. Suddenly his bark changed into a kind of puzzled
yip-yip
.

Lydia hurried over to him. His nose was down to the ground. There in the grass, lay a quivering bundle of black and white feathers.

“A bird!” Lydia scooped it up in her hands. She could feel the violent beating of a tiny heart. Something was wrong with one of the bird's wings.

“Did the tractor hurt your wing?” she murmured to the tiny creature. “I'll take you home. As soon as your wing gets well, you can fly again.”

Back at the house, Lydia told Mother, “I've found a bobolink.” How well she remembered the high, ecstatic trilling of the bobolinks above the fields of North Dakota!

Mother peered into Lydia's cupped hands. “Hmmm. It does look like a bobolink. It's the first one I've seen in Colorado. How did you manage to catch it?”

“Oh, it can't fly. I think the steam tractor must have hurt it. Can I keep it in the barn until its wing heals?”

“I suppose so, but you'll have to put it in a box, or Greasy the cat will eat your bobolink for supper.”

“What? A bobolink?” asked Joe, coming in just then.

“Yes, a lame one. I'm going to help it get well,” Lydia told him. “His name is Bobby.”

Joe grinned. “First Stormy, then Bobby. You're gathering quite a menagerie.”

“What's a man-ash-ry?” Lydia asked.

“Oh, it's a collection of animals. Pretty soon we'll have a zoo on our farm.”

Undaunted by her brother's teasing, Lydia set to work making Bobby comfortable. She used a wooden packing box to make a cage. Across the opening she tacked a piece of screen that was left over from building the screen door. She gave Bobby some hay to sit on and some grain to eat.

At supper time, when Mr. Baumgartner was eating with the Yoder family, Mother mentioned the bobolink to Father. Mr. Baumgartner spoke up. “I doubt if it's a bobolink. You don't see those around here.”

“So there must be another bird that's black and white and yellow like a bobolink,” Mother said.

Mr. Baumgartner nodded. “Ever heard of lark buntings? They're common around here. Could I see the bird you found?”

“Of course,” said Mother. “Lydia will show it to you. She has it in the barn.”

Lydia felt her face grow warm. She was a little afraid of this big, yellow-whiskered man, but Father went along, and soon the steam tractor operator was peering into Lydia's homemade cage. “That's a lark bunting, all right. Bobolinks are much lighter colored on the back than this bird. Lark buntings are great singers—every bit as musical as bobolinks, I think.”

Lydia began hoping that Bobby, now named Bunny
since he was a bunting and not a bobolink, would sing for her. Bunny, however didn't sing. The only noise he made was an angry chirp whenever Greasy paid him too much attention.

As spring wore on, Bunny seemed to thrive, and so did the crops. With thankful hearts, the farmers received timely rains, and the grain fields grew tall and green. Ben's sugar beets were doing well too.

In June the grain turned golden. One Saturday evening after a walk through the fields, Father announced, “By Monday we hope to start cutting the grain.”

That Sunday afternoon, clouds with an eerie pinkish glow rolled up and blotted out the sun. Lightning flashed, and a clap of thunder followed. “We're going to have a storm,” Lydia said, moving away from the window. She wished it were nighttime so she could pull the blankets over her head.

Outside on the porch, Stormy began whimpering loudly. Lydia asked, “May I let him in? He's afraid of thunder.”

Mother looked at Father, who nodded. Just as Lydia opened the door, torrents of rain began to fall. Stormy slunk gratefully inside and lay down under the table. His body quivered.

Father stood at the window. “Hail!” he said suddenly. Then Lydia heard it, rattling on the roof.

“Those hailstones are the size of plums!” Joe shouted above the din.

In minutes the yard was white with ice, and still the hail came down, and the thunder crashed. Mother moved closer to Lydia. She understood how an eleven-year-old girl felt at such a time.

At last the noise subsided. Father said quietly, “The crops. They're smashed.” His voice sounded hollow.

Lydia went to the window. The devastation was hard to grasp. Where there had been beautiful fields of waving, golden wheat, there was nothing but acres of flattened, shredded stalks.

“The L
ORD
gave, and the L
ORD
hath taken away; blessed be the name of the L
ORD
,” Father quoted from Job.

The kitchen was silent as the four of them continued staring out the window. The clouds had sped away, and already the sun was melting the drifts of hailstones.

“How do you think Ben's sugar beets look?” Joe asked finally.

“Pitiful, I'm afraid. Unless the hailstorm missed his place,” Father replied.

“I guess we'll just have to pan for gold if we can't grow crops,” Joe blurted out.

Father stared at him. So did Mother. Father said sharply, “We didn't come to Colorado to find gold.”

Joe studied the toes of his boots. “But why not? What's wrong with gold?”

Father thought a while before replying. “The Bible says we are to make a living by the sweat of our brow. In other words—by working hard. I suppose panning for gold can be hard work too, but the Bible also says, ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.' ” He paused. “Faith in Jesus is the greatest treasure, Joe. If we seek for earthly treasure, I believe there's a danger that we don't leave enough room in our hearts for the greatest treasure of all.”

Joe nodded. He gazed out across the glittering yard to the slashed wheat fields and thought to himself,
The power of God. Nothing else could have done this.
Suddenly Joe wanted a clear conscience before such an almighty God, and so he blurted out, “I-I've panned for gold.”

“When?” asked Father quietly as though he wasn't really surprised.

“Last summer…and last fall. I quit in the winter. I knew you didn't approve.”

“Do you understand now why I don't approve?” Father asked searchingly.

“Yes, I think I do. But I…I only wanted to help, you know…because the crops failed and all.”

“We appreciate that you wanted to help,” Father said softly. “And you do help. With your strong arms and willing heart.” He smiled at Joe, and Joe smiled back.

That was the evening Lydia decided to set Bunny free.
“I'm pretty sure his wing is healed,” she said as she carried the box out of the barn. Carefully she pried off the screen.

At first Bunny didn't understand what was happening. He had been in prison for so long that he hardly remembered his flying days. Then with a flutter of wings, he burst free and landed on the roof of the chicken coop.

There he stayed for a minute, flexing his wings as if to make sure they were all right. Then he soared high into the sunset sky, winging westward toward Pikes Peak.

“Come on, Bunny, sing!” Lydia shouted. “We want to hear a song from you. You never sang for us in the box.”

It came floating down to Lydia and Joe—a series of crystal, trilling notes that went on and on as if the little songster could hardly stop!

“He's happy to be free,” Lydia said breathlessly, tipping back her head to watch the tiny speck in the sky.

As for Joe, he thought he knew how that little bird felt.

19

The Hundred-Mile Trip

S
am and Polly's baby was born the week after the hailstorm. On the baby's first day, Father took Mother to see little Manasseh. On the second day, Father hitched up the team again to take Lisbet to be Polly's help for a few weeks. Much to Lydia's delight, she was allowed to go along.

As they turned onto the Peachys' lane, Lisbet exclaimed, “There comes Barbara with the children.”

“She's just like me,” Lydia said with a chuckle. “She can't wait to see her new nephew.”

Abner and Noah were manfully tugging a little homemade wagon. On it sat one-year-old Hannah, chortling with glee as the wagon lurched over the rutted road.

All of them arrived at Polly's door together. From inside they heard Polly's voice calling, “Come in.” She looked properly surprised to see so many family members at once. “We must be having a sisters' gathering today,” she said.

Lydia went shyly over to the rocking chair where her sister sat with the baby. Manasseh looked like a doll, only better because he was real! His tiny red face was all scrunched up, and in a moment he let out a lusty cry. Lydia nearly jumped. To think that such a small baby could make so much noise!

Lisbet and Barbara took turns exclaiming over the baby and decided which grandpa he resembled. Then they all sat down for a visit while Barbara's three children played in the yard.

“On the way over here this morning, I felt almost like I was on the way to a funeral,” Barbara confessed. “Those fields—They are such a sorry sight. To think that by now they would have been filled with rows of stocks…”

“It's a scene of disaster,” agreed Polly. “Has Ben been talking about…about what he'll do to make money since his sugar beets aren't much good anymore?”

Barbara nodded. “In fact, he's made up his mind. He's starting off tomorrow for Ordway.”

“The other Amish settlement in Colorado? What will he do there?” Polly asked.

“Haven't you heard? They're begging for seasonal workers over there. They have acres of melons, cantaloupes, and sugar beets ready to be harvested,” replied Barbara.

“And they had no hail?” Lisbet asked.

Barbara shook her head. “No hailstorm there.”

“Well, with our new baby and all, Sam won't be going
far away for work. He went to town today to see about getting work at the lumberyard.”

“Jake is going to work for a carpenter,” Lisbet told them.

“Will it be hard for you if Ben goes so far away?” Polly asked Barbara. “Ordway is a hundred miles away.”

“In a way it's hard, yes, but I'll probably end up going too. If he finds a place for us to stay, he'll send for us, and I'll help pick melons,” Barbara answered with a smile. “In this summer weather, even a tent would be good enough for us to live in.”

“A tent!” cried Lisbet enviously. “I wish I could go too.”

“Me too,” echoed Lydia.

“Wait, Lisbet. I thought I'd hired you for my maid,” Polly protested.

In the end Joe got to go to Ordway. This is how it happened. Less than a week after Ben had left, Barbara drove to her in-laws' home. She was a fearless driver and had no problem hitching up two horses on her own.

After Father helped Barbara tie up the team, she went to the house with the three children. “I received a letter from Ben. He said that there's lots of work at Ordway, and he has a tent for us to live in. He even sent money for our train fare, but…we really can't afford to spend that money. I've decided I'd like to drive over there.”