A Cozy Country Christmas Anthology (8 page)

“Didn’t have much schooling, but ranching had
taught me how to shingle a roof and fix a water pump. Lots of folks
too busy making money to potter around the house, so I set up shop
and put my kids through college doing a little of this and a lot o’
that.”

His eyes crinkled as a soft smile curled his
mouth. Dorothy guessed he was traveling back through time to a home
populated with children, pets, and his beloved Rose.

“You know, I’ll betcha we filled that bottle
with pennies more times than a steer has burrs in its tail.”

She blinked. “Are you talking about the milk
bottle? Why did Rob have to put in a penny yesterday?”

“Family tradition, Dot. My wife and I started
over, dirt poor, in a new town. Most days Rosie and I didn’t have
two cents to rub together. But the rule was no complainin’ over
rain squalls—we had to save our breath fer the gully washers!”

Dorothy coughed. “Gully washers?”

“Downpours that wash away the landscape and
overwhelm a soul.”

She felt her lips tremble and Ham reached out
to squeeze her hand. After a moment, his age roughened voice
continued. “As a reminder we was hitched for life, whenever Rose
crabbed about toting water from the well or I turned up my nose at
beans and cornbread three days running, we had to put a penny in
the bottle and do somethin’ nice for the other. In for a penny, in
for a pound. The young’uns learned right quick that scratching at
each other would short them a penny and they’d earn the privilege
of making all the beds for a week. “

“What happened when the bottle filled
up?”

His head nodded with the rhythm of age.
“Treat money. The kids allus voted to buy double-scoop chocolate
strawberry cones.” Turning back to his saddle buffing, he ventured,
“Are you havin’ trouble with my stiff necked grandson? Fergive an
old man’s killed-a-cat curiosity, but I noticed a mite of tension
between the pair of you, on the order of two mount’in lions eying
each other over a plump goat.”

Her fingers trailed over the age-softened
leather. “Ham, how do you let go of someone who’s already let go of
you?”

“Death’s the only final lettin’ go I ever
heard tell of.” He rubbed with vigor, head bobbing with each swipe
of his arm. “Love ain’t a rope you kin just drop and walk away
from. Strong winds make a house on the prairie look dingy. “

He paused to rub his forehead. “Look, sweet
pea, Robbie’s a proud man. If he don’t see a fresh coat of paint on
the house, he thinks it’s all weathered away. You’ve gotta chip
through the grime—show him that underneath the soil, the paint’s
still fresh and new.”

Love likened to a coat of paint? Had she been
standing back in awe of a fortress’s strength when all that stood
between her and Rob was a few layers of dirt?

After Rob’s return from the grocery store,
they packed a lunch and went for a drive to a nearby lake. Rob
rented a small motorboat and went fishing with Ham while Dorothy
remained in the shade and did some serious thinking. Not the
yearning and regrets type of thinking but about what it took for
Ham and Rose to keep their partnership strong.

The rest of the day and throughout the
evening, Dorothy kept quiet, encouraging the flow of memories
between Rob and his grandfather. They went out for ice cream again
after supper and this time Dorothy stepped out of herself and
talked to Ham’s friends and neighbors. This time she tried the
chocolate-strawberry cone. Ham winked at her.

She kept looking up to meet Rob’s puzzled
gaze. Each time, she offered a tranquil smile, and, instead of
regrets, the lightness of hope bubbled inside Dorothy. No more hand
wringing and sighing, she told herself. You’re going to be a woman
of action from now on. He’s got to see it to believe it.

Cuddling next to Rob that night, she felt at
peace as she traced the lines in the upturned palm of his right
hand which instinctively closed around hers. He sighed in his sleep
and she leaned in close, pressing a kiss on the corner of his
mouth. He snorted, then smiled. She sighed but this was a sigh of
contentment.

After a breakfast of bacon, eggs and milk
that wasn’t ‘clabbered’, they had a checker tournament that lasted
until lunchtime. Dorothy spent the last half hour of their visit
with Ham under the pine tree, rubbing the saddle with polish under
his watchful eye.

“I’m sending you a cell phone, Ham, so I can
talk to you while you’re out here polishing,” Dorothy said.

Rob nodded, his baffled gaze locked on his
wife. “That’s a great idea. We’ll keep in touch at least once a
week. And we’ll be back. Soon.”

“Make it before the snow flies, Robbie. I’ll
be knee deep in wider women, crocheted mittens and casseroles come
winter.”

After stowing the overnight cases in the
trunk, Rob enfolded his diminutive grandfather in a gentle hug.
“Goodbye, Ham. Expect us within the next month.”

“We’d love it if you could come back with us
for a visit sometime soon, perhaps stay for a week or as long as
you’d like,” Dorothy added.

Ham beamed. “Thanks for the invite, Dot. I
just might take you up on it. Long as you got room for my saddle
and my saw horse.”

He bustled into the house before returning to
present Dorothy with an object wrapped in a brown bag left over
from yesterday’s shopping trip. She felt the smoothness of glass
through the paper and the rasp of a leathery palm.

“Don’t forget the lovin’ that goes with the
givin’ and may the rains wash the dust from yer home,” he
whispered, winked and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek.

As a child, Dorothy remembered accepting a
“blind man’s dare”, walking across unfamiliar territory with eyes
closed, hands clenched behind her back. The memory of that
excitement, coupled with the fear that at any moment she could trip
and skin a knee or bump into an obstacle with the dare ending in
disaster, rose up in her. The stakes were much higher now, the
prize more precious than the cheers of her playmates.

On the trip home, she tried to relax as she
watched the scenery glide past the windows, planning for the
future, their future. Rob kept sneaking sidelong glances at her and
she realized that she was no longer the desperate pursuer, but a
mystery, and her relationship with Ham was something her husband
could not get his head around.

She cradled her gift on her lap until they
reached the outskirts of the city and moved into heavier traffic.
With Rob distracted, she unwrapped the bottle and said a quick
prayer.

As the car idled at a red light, Dorothy
turned Rob’s face toward her, smiled at his startled expression,
and kissed him hard on the mouth.

He sat motionless. Then he drew a deep breath
and tugged a penny from the pocket of his shorts. Leaning forward,
he dropped it into the bottle, the metal of the coin ringing
against the milky glass.

“Ham gave me that coin when we were out on
the water. He told me that a wife wasn’t a seed you could drop on
the ground, walk away from and expect a bumper crop.”

Dorothy gave a giggle and rubbed her stomach.
“I’m growing.”

He placed his hand on her “baby bump” and
then bent to kiss her. She met him with equal passion and they
clung to each other until impatient horns of the other drives
startled them apart.

As the car glided into motion once more, Rob
chuckled. “That coin was the continuation of a wonderful family
tradition, Dorothy. My way of saying that I’m definitely in for a
penny.”

“And I’m in for a pound.” She felt her lips
stretch into one of the biggest smiles of her life. “I hope our
kids like chocolate strawberry cones as much as we do.”

THE END

Breath of
God

Betsey knew, without opening her eyes, she’d
overslept. The sleepy twitter of birds in the trees outside her
window had given way to energetic debate, indicating that they were
well along with the business of their day.

She sat up. Sunbeams spilling across the hand
braided rug confirmed her fear. She was late! She hadn’t made
breakfast; she had to get Erik up and both of them ready for
school—

“Betsy!” Karl Swenson’s shout silenced the
birds and jolted his daughter out of bed.

Tangling her foot in the quilt, Betsy crashed
to the floor. Wincing, she scrambled up and grabbed her dressing
gown before rushing down the stairs.

Her father stood in front of the stove,
glaring into the interior where a fire should be burning. The
familiar fragrances of fresh milk and corn wafting from his
clothing in place of the scent of coffee only served as an
accusation to her dereliction of duty.

Betsy rubbed the sore knee resulting from her
fall and hung her head.

“The stove is cold.” Karl’s thick accent
emphasized his disgust.

“I overslept, Papa. I’m sorry.”

“The chickens were making such a noise I
checked and found out they hadn’t been fed or the eggs collected.”
He pointed to a pail near the door, with brown eggs piled
inside.

Betsy gulped and looked down at the
floor.

“Are you sickening for something?” The dairy
farmer took a step closer and peered at his daughter; the bushy,
sandy brows which reminded Betsy of sheaves of wheat drew together
in a frown. “Your eyes are as red as Mrs. Jeppson’s Sunday
hat.”

“I had homework.” Betsy blushed because she
hadn’t been doing schoolwork; she’d burned the kerosene lamp by her
bed into the early morning hours and wept over the last chapters of
Ivanhoe. The love story, so beautiful, had her tears watering the
pages like spring showers.

“I have fed and milked the cows. I have a
field of corn that needs to be picked. Is a man expecting too much
to want food on the table when he comes in for his breakfast?

Six year old Erik, blonde and stocky like his
papa, appeared in the doorway with his suspenders trailing to the
floor and one shoe on. “Time for breakfast?”

Karl Swenson ignored the hopeful question
from his only son. “School foolishness again keeping you from your
chores. Clothes need washing. The bread box is nearly empty. Apples
are rotting on the ground in the orchard. You stay up late and ruin
your eyesight on books. I have no breakfast.” His voice rose with
each sentence.

Betsy bit her lip and kneaded a fold of her
nightgown. Not just books—she had discovered magazines and several
were even now hidden under her bed. Her teacher had encouraged her
to borrow them, declaring they would open her eyes to the wide
vistas beyond a Minnesota farm. A fascinated Betsy had spent hours
studying pictures of faraway places.

“I’m sorry, Papa,” she apologized again,
scurrying to the stove. “I can scramble eggs now and I’ll do the
baking as soon as I get home from school.”

Karl slammed his hand down on the oak
harvester table. “You have no time for school. Things must be done
around here, today.”

Betsy almost dropped the iron skillet. “No
school?? But, Papa, I have three more years until graduation—”

Her father’s cheeks looked as ruddy as Mrs.
Jeppson’s Sunday hat. “No school!” He spat the words in her
direction and stomped out of the house.

Her head pounding, Betsy ordered Erik
upstairs to finish getting dressed and followed him up to get ready
for the day. Back in the kitchen, she lit the stove and toasted
bread. After they’d eaten a hasty breakfast, she set him to work
sweeping the hearth and polishing the fireplace andirons with a
soft rag torn from an old sheet.

As she cleaned the kitchen, Betsy wondered
why she’d been so foolish. This wasn’t the first time she’d
neglected her chores, but she’d never dreamed of Papa becoming so
angry. Her stomach ached at the memory of his declaration regarding
school. Why had she stayed up so late last night?

As she got out the washtubs and lye soap,
Betsy blinked back tears, her eyes burning from the strain of hours
of reading by the kerosene lamp. Papa had a right to be so angry. A
man needed a full belly to strip corn from the stalks by hand under
the hot September sun.

Filling the tubs meant many trips to the pump
in the yard. Anyone who did the laundry developed strong arms doing
the washing and hauling water. With each pail she heated on the
stove and poured into the tubs, Betsy felt as if she were drowning
her dream of becoming a teacher.

With her mother gone, Betsy lost all support
for higher education or even finishing high school. Papa had been
indentured as a farm hand at the age of eleven when he arrived in
America from Norway and had difficulty reading a newspaper in
English. He didn’t understand his daughter’s passion for
knowledge.

Betsy put the sleeve of another work shirt
into the wringer and turned the crank. If only she hadn’t neglected
her household duties in favor of the glorious escape of reading.
Now Papa would ban her Saturday afternoon visits to the library in
town and she would never get to finish the serial in her favorite
magazine. A tear splashed into the rinse water as Betsy squeezed
out one of Erik’s shirts, remembering just in time that the buttons
would never survive a trip through the wringer.

The clothes line stretched like a tightrope
between an elm and a maple tree in the back yard. Papa and Mama had
taken her to the circus once when it came to town. She’d never
forgotten the winking sparkles on the performers’ costumes and the
scent of roasted peanuts. Her favorite memory, however, was hearing
Mama’s giggles and Papa’s deep belly laugh at the clowns and their
silly tricks.

She couldn’t remember hearing him laugh since
Mama... Betsy sighed as she lugged the basket of damp clothing and
the tin can filled with clothes pins to the end of the clothes
line.

Lefse, an orange and brown barn cat named for
his exploit as a kitten of sneaking into the house and devouring
half dozen of the flat pastries, wound around Betsy’s legs and
mewed complaints of starvation.