Free A Surprise for Lily by Mary Ann Kinsinger Page A

those pretzels was what they’d been doing all along.
    On Wednesday, we were studying German spelling (you remember how boring that always was!). Harvey, Aaron, and Sam were whispering like thieves andsuddenly, a funny smell, like burnt flour, came from behind me. When I turned around, I saw Harvey had lit his pretzel to smoke it. Aaron and Sam whispered to Harvey to pass the matches. Soon, they all had smoking pretzels. It smelled awful.
    Finally, Teacher Judith smelled it. She demanded that Harvey hand over the pretzels and the matches. All three boys had to stay in during recess, which was a relief to the rest of us. All except Effie. She thought Teacher Judith was being too hard on them (as if that were even possible!). She keeps making fun of Teacher Judith when she’s sure the teacher can’t hear her. Today, she imitated how Teacher Judith snores. If it’s even partially true, I do feel a tiny little bit sorry for Effie’s family. The snoring sound was awful, Hannah! Worse than a herd of pigs.
    On Friday morning, all three members of the school board arrived at school. They made Harvey, Aaron, and Sam stand at the front of the schoolhouse while they gave a long lecture about the sinfulness of smoking. Then the boys had to apologize and promise they would behave from now on.
    Fat chance of that!
    Aaron, Sam, and Harvey laughed about getting in trouble during lunch recess, so I don’t think they were very sorry at all. But I doubt they will try to smoke pretzels again.
    Effie had said she wanted to try to smoke a pretzel, but changed her mind after the school board came calling.
    Hannah, can you imagine how you would have felt if you had been scolded by the school board in front of the entire class? How awful!
    You won’t believe what Joseph’s dog did last Saturday! I had been cleaning out my closet and found Sally (remember Sally? She was my rag doll). I put her on my desk chair to play with her later, when I finished with the Saturday cleaning. Dozer must have sneaked into my room and grabbed her, because I found her out in the backyard, all chewed up. I was so mad! I yelled so loudly that Mama came running. He’s a horrible dog, Dozer is.
    Mama is calling so I’d better close. Write soon, Hannah. Remember our promise to write every week. I’ll try and do better. I want to hear all about your new home. I guess you could tell me about the boys in your school if you really have to.
    Your cousin,
Lily

9 Who’s the Next Bishop?
    L ily’s back ached. She had been sitting on a hard, backless bench for hours. Today was Communion Sunday, which lasted all day long. Once it was over, there would be special services to ordain a bishop. Lily’s church had been sharing a bishop with another district, and it was time to ordain one of their own.
    The new bishop would be chosen from the three ministers in Lily’s church: Effie’s father, Henry Kauffman; Aaron’s father, David Yoder; or Lily’s Uncle Jacob. Lily gave some thought to the choice. She decided the new bishop would probably be David Yoder. Henry Kauffman might be the oldest, but he had a wife like Ida. No one in Cloverdale would ever want Ida Kauffman to be a bishop’s wife! She would consider it her duty to spy on church members and inform her bishop husband about what people were doing wrong.Actually, Lily thought, trying to stifle a grin, Ida Kauffman already did consider that to be her duty.
    David Yoder would make a fine bishop for Cloverdale. He was a very kind man and his wife was very kind, too. It was a pity that Aaron Yoder was their son. Lily felt sorry for David Yoder and imagined that he was sorry about Aaron, too. But she did think he would be a good bishop. Uncle Jacob would be a good bishop, the best of all, but he was young. He had just become ordained as a minister last year.
    Yes. Lily was confident that David Yoder would be the choice.
    Henry Kauffman was preaching a very,