The Christmas Letters (2 page)

Bill writes that it is real hot in New Guinea, and that he has bought some little carved wooden animals from the Natives, for our Mary, and that he loves me. I know this is true, though it fills me with fear too, for Bill does not
really
know me, nor I him. Sometimes I wonder if it is possible for
any
person to know any other, I mean to
really
know them? Often I sit in this rocking chair by my little round window nursing Mary and looking out across the big slow river at the lights of town twinkling so far away, and I feel lonesome beyond words. But I will put my faith in God and trust him to take good care of me and my baby while we all wait for sweet Bill to come home.

So, Happy New Year 1945
From Your Loving,
Birdie

P.S. This is just about the only thing I can get Mrs. Pickett to eat, so I try to make it as often as I can, in spite of rationing.

BIRDIE’S BOILED CUSTARD

3 eggs

3 cups milk

½ cup sugar

½ teas. vanilla

Beat eggs, add sugar and milk. Cook in double boiler until mixture will coat a spoon. Add vanilla when cool.

Dec. 22, 1951

Dear Mama and Rachel,

First, good luck on Robert Tipping, Rachel! He sounds perfect, though I should think it would be a big responsibility to be a minister’s wife. Both of you, please keep me posted. I promise that I will be a better correspondent than I have been lately. My excuse is that I have been saving up my thoughts and news for this annual Christmas Letter, though it is worth my life to write it, as baby Ruthie is
already walking
and into everything, she leads me a merry chase! My little Mary is still as good as gold, however, playing nonstop with her brother Joe, they are not a bit of trouble but rather a blessing to me. It may be because they are scarcely two years apart in age—Joe was
Unexpected,
shall we say—that they are so close in temperament as well,
acting more like Twins than like Brother and Sister. Mary has always been a serious child. I think the circumstances of her birth, plus all that time alone with me when I was so homesick in the beginning, have made her grave beyond her years. And then her daddy’s homecoming was bittersweet at best, with the whole family mourning Dennis, so recently fallen at Corregidor. Mary never saw her Uncle Dennis, but she took all these events to heart, I believe, the way children will—for children
do
know everything happening in a household, whether anyone tells them or not.

But Joe’s birth brought Mary back out into the sunshine, affording her the greatest Joy. She did everything for him from the first, and as he’s grown, you cannot pry them apart. Everybody has marveled at it, the sweetness of brother and sister, their grave concern for each other at all times. Why, they even have a little language all their own, which they have had ever since Joe learned to talk, and sometimes they will still fall into it, especially if others are present and they want to speak privately to one another. It used to worry Bill, he is so down-to-earth. But I said, Where is the harm? As long as they are capable of speaking plain English when they need to?

And they
are
capable, they are smart as a whip, both of them, and doing fine in school. While at home they race
through their chores in order to have more time for these endless games of “Pretend” which they never tire of, games which come right out of their heads, where they are knights and ladies or Robin Hood or saints of old or the Hardy Boys or whatever. I swear, you can’t tell
what
they will come up with!

Ruthie by contrast is not reflective at all but very Active, she reminds me of a little puppy. I have had to go through the whole living room, putting everything breakable up where she can’t reach, something I never worried about with either Mary or Joe.

But concerning children, the big news is that Bill’s sister in Richmond has died of a fever and now his nephews are coming to live with us too. Bill invited them for the remainder of the year, he says they can help him farm. I just about died when he told me. For I have not got enough hands as it is, now that Mr. Pickett has disappeared and I am taking care of Bill’s mother full-time, and I have to say, she is the most Demanding woman in the world. She just lies in bed wanting first one thing and then another, for instance I have to keep her well supplied with snuff and ice water at all times. Of course Bill takes up for her, saying she is brokenhearted at the death of Dennis, not to mention Mr. Pickett’s desertion. Bill believes that his mother really is sick, too, saying that she has “congestive heart failure,” which I think
she has made up out of whole cloth, having read about it in a magazine. Oh, I know better than to say a word. Though secretly I think she is healthy as a horse, and will outlive us all.

But my Bill is so generous, he does not even have anything bad to say about his
Father,
which astounds me. He says his father had a run of hard luck, that’s all, and that Dennis’s death pushed him over the edge. I did not mention the grocer’s daughter who is rumored to have left town at the same time as Mr. Pickett. When I asked Bill what he would do if Mr. Pickett should just show up on the front porch one day, Sober for a change, and ask to come back home, why Bill said he would
take him in of course,
and chided me for feeling otherwise. “Birdie,” he said, “where is all that famous Christian charity I have heard so much about?” Bill was just grinning ear to ear, for he knew he had me there.

My dear Bill remains as good-natured and sweet as ever despite our financial problems. Those clear brown eyes of his are always fixed upon the Future, full of hope. Now he is trying something new, called soybeans. The government is urging everybody to plant them. They are the crop of the future apparently, to be used in a lot of different ways, though they are not a bit good to cook with, tasting awful.

By the way we sent you a tin of peanuts on the train, I hope you got them in time for Christmas. It still never
really seems like Christmas to me down here, even now, for it scarcely snows and of course I never get over missing the mountains. Yet I hasten to say I am a Happy Woman, for the longer I live with Bill, the more I love and respect him, as he is a truly good man. He would give anybody the very shirt off his back, he is famous for it.

And Bill is
fun,
too, I hasten to add, for pure goodness can wear on a person over time. Why, just the other night, for instance, he came in and slipped up on me from behind, and kissed my ear and untied my apron, and announced that we were going dancing.

“Dancing!” I said. “Why, where will we do that?” for there is no place around here to dance.

“Right here,” Bill said with a whoop, “at Uncle Bill’s Hot Spot,” and then he produced the Christmas gift which he had bought for me in town that day, a beautiful brand new Philco Radio. He just couldn’t wait until Christmas to give it to me! He plugged it in and turned it on, and soon the kitchen was filled with the lively music of Benny Goodman. Bill twirled me around and then we were jitterbug-ging like crazy, you know that both of us are real good dancers. After that came another tune, and then another. We danced on and on as the children crept into the kitchen one after another, Mary and Joe holding hands, while all the water boiled out of my potatoes and they burned up, I even had to throw away the pan. “Never mind!” Bill said,
putting on my apron himself to cook us a big breakfast, bacon and eggs being the only food he knows how to cook. “Go on, honey!” he said to me. “Go take a nice long bath, I’ll call you when breakfast is ready.”

“Breakfast!”
Mrs. Pickett fluttered into the kitchen like a little old moth, clinging to the cabinets. “Why, what in the world! Birdie, where do you think you’re going?” The last thing I saw was her scandalized old face as I headed off down the hall to draw up a deep bath, where I had a good laugh all by myself, in a ton of bubbles.

So you see that Bill has not been beat down yet by all our misfortunes with the farm, and remains near Perfect in my eyes. I just wish he would come to church with me but I can’t get him to, at least not
yet.
So I take my precious children, and pray for us all, and remain

Your loving,
Birdie

P.S. Mama, it’s fine with me that you pass my Christmas letters around if you want to. And since I know you are expecting another recipe from me, here it is, courtesy of Mrs. Eugenia Goodwillie at church, who is fat as can be, and always wears this bright green hat. I wish you could see her! Anyway, here goes —we have got a real tradition now, haven’t we?

MRS. GOODWILLIE’S BIBLE CAKE

1 cup butter (Judges 5:25)

3½ cups flour (I Kings 4:22)

3 cups sugar (Jeremiah 6:20)

2 cups raisins (I Samuel 30:12)

2 cups figs (I Samuel 30:12)

1 cup water (Genesis 24:17)

1 cup almonds (Genesis 43:11)

6 eggs (Isaiah 10:14)

1 tsp. honey (Exodus 16:31)

pinch of salt (Leviticus 2:13)

2 tsp. baking powder (I Corinthians 5:6)

spice to taste (I Kings 10:10)

Follow Solomon’s advice for making good boys and girls and you will have a good cake (Proverbs 23:14).

Christmas 1956

To Mama and Daddy, Rachel and Robert, and Other Dear Family and Friends,

I know you will excuse the lack of a Christmas letter
from me last year, when you hear what we have been through, and do we ever have some Big News for you!

I was just thinking how God never sends us more than we can bear, and how what appears as Calamity can often be a blessing in disguise.

First, the Calamity of spring before last—which you know about already, but I want to tell you just how it was when it happened, so you will know how we felt at the time, and what it is like to be in a Flood. The first thing is, it does not happen all at once. It takes days. Days and days and days of too much rain, it is just a conversation piece for a while, as in, “Have you ever seen so much rain?” But then—and you are not sure exactly when this starts to hap-pen—you start feeling Blue, as there is never much sun to be seen, and the children start to get on your nerves. And then there comes the time that all conversation ceases whenever the rain starts up again on the old tin roof, and Bill puts down his newspaper, and stands, and starts to pace back and forth in the hall.

There are respites, of course. A morning, an afternoon of no rain for a change, when the men walk down to the end of the road and stand on the bank smoking cigarettes and looking out over the river, and nobody’s talking. By then the crops have been flooded out once, and it’s too wet to plant again. And it just
keeps on raining,
a light sprinkle, then a downpour, then a quick gusty shower, then another
sprinkle. . . . But it never stops, not really, and this goes on for a month. On flat land, a Flood is a long time coming.

And in the meantime, everything changes. The river goes from being merely the distant scenic backdrop of the landscape to become an awful Force in and of itself, still slow but growing in speed and power every day, inching up its banks, with brown churning eddies and whirlpools and currents now in its broad expanse, so that to stand and watch it is to watch some huge and strong and ever-changing Monster come slowly to life. The willows on the banks stand half-submerged, trailing their branches forlornly downstream. One day the old boat shed that stood at the end of the road is gone, simply gone, and then the end of the road is gone too. Now we sit on chairs in the yard to watch the river, and now it is almost like a movie, something different every few minutes, as somebody’s doghouse floats past, then a washtub, a chair, logs and debris, a roof, a man’s straw hat, a rocking horse.