Till Morning Is Nigh (13 page)

The moment came a little sooner than I expected. Joe and Kirk came back in the room, Kirk with his head down and Joe prompting him on. Rorey stopped and stared at them, not about to back down.

“Sorry, kid,” Kirk told her. “If you wanna do stuff in honor of Mama—even make a cookie—it’s okay with me.”

She stared for a moment. And then she reached for the cooling rack and grabbed an angel with a walnut nose and a generous supply of sugar covering the wings. She handed it to Kirk.

“Mama wants you to have one too.”

After that, it was all right to eat them, with only a special handful set aside.

Samuel said Robert and Willy had been chopping wood in the yard. They came in quietly after awhile and didn’t say a word about the outburst. Joe and Kirk went out together to see that the rest of the chores were finished.

Berty said Lizbeth and Emmie had both been crying when they went into the bedroom. When I went and checked on them, they were both asleep. But even in rest, Lizbeth looked weary and distressed. It was hard for me not to be angry about how wrenching all of this must be for her. Not at God, but at George, even though he hadn’t asked for the loss of his wife any more than the rest of us had.

I felt so drained of energy that evening, I was glad I’d had another pot of soup simmering on the stove that didn’t need further attention. After dinner, we all gathered to listen to a radio show again. Emmie and Lizbeth were even up to join us, and I was glad for the togetherness and the peace. But everyone was so quiet, like we were all afraid to say much of anything. Appropriately, the show we listened to signed off with a new rendition of “Away in a Manger.” And strangely enough, that night it was Rorey who found the paper baby Jesus on the pillow beside her dolly.

Stay by My Cradle

A
ll week, Mary and Joseph kept progressing a little closer to the kitchen table “Bethlehem.” Most of the time, a group of the younger children would move them together, just a foot or two, with great ceremony.

“They’re getting closer,” Sarah would announce, and indeed they were. I thought their position on the hallway floor a little too precarious at times and would set them up out of harm’s way when I knew there’d be plenty of traffic shuffling through. But whenever I did that, they always returned to the same spot before much time had passed. I assumed it was Sarah who put them back, but I never saw for sure.

Likewise, when I moved angels, shepherds, and livestock off the table to make room for a meal, no one said anything. But I never had to put them back after cleanup. They just appeared, every time, when I was busy doing something else. Once I caught Harry and Bert moving them, but I know they weren’t responsible every time. And nobody admitted to moving baby Jesus at night. He didn’t show up in somebody’s bed all the time. Sometimes he was on Sarah’s dresser, the spot she’d designated for him. Sometimes he was just missing, only to show up the next day in the strangest of places. Samuel’s boot. Joe’s coat pocket. Even atop the tray of cookie angels.

Our wise men hadn’t moved because nobody was sure when they saw the star and began their journey. Finally Robert decided that they’d better get started. So he helped the littler kids erect a simple paper stable with rolled paper legs, so they could paste the tube holding the star to the back of it. I was proud of all the work they’d done, but they still weren’t satisfied. Franky, Sarah, and Katie fashioned the manger itself, while Rorey sat beside them, carefully tearing to shreds the sheet of the paper she’d colored yellow days ago. The stage was set.

The last few days before Christmas whisked by us without any more word about what had happened to George. It was hard not to give up, but Lizbeth still prayed every night that he’d come home to them. I knew Samuel was right that even if he did, we would need to stay close, keep a watch on things, and be here for the children.

Lizbeth and young Sam argued after the little ones were asleep, about whether Sam should go to town and buy the Christmas candy. Lizbeth seemed to feel it was too soon to accept that their father wouldn’t take care of that for himself, and even if he didn’t, it just wouldn’t be right for the familiar striped candy sticks to come from someone else. So Sam finally decided that he would get a completely different kind of candy, something new to all of them, just “so the little kids’ll have sweets” without duplicating his father’s tradition.

He rode a horse into town alone for that, and on the same day we took the Posts three different kinds of bread, a pie, and a plate of cookies. They surprised us the following afternoon with a huge turkey, two crookneck squash, and four jars of home-canned corn. Here was our Christmas dinner! I tried to tell Barrett we’d only meant to bring them a gift to thank them for the use of their truck and for being such good neighbors. They didn’t have to reciprocate. But he said they were just giving a gift too, to thank us for Samuel’s help with the furnace and for being such good neighbors back to them. I sent Louise one of the button necklaces the children had made, plus a bag of mint leaves harvested last summer from the abundant supply behind the house.

Sarah and Katie had made Christmas cards for their grandmothers. I truly didn’t expect to hear back from either one of them, but we did. Samuel was amazed that his mother sent a card. She’d only written to us once before, ever. And Katie was excited and scared all at the same time to receive a card from her mother’s mother. She waited anxiously as I opened it to read to her, but there was no word in it about where her mother was now.

The day before Christmas Eve, Samuel took the children out to get a tree. Wisely, he went to the timber below the west pasture, avoiding the east timber between us and the Hammonds’ house with the little grave site it contained. The absences were hard enough to bear without visiting graves in this season.

I popped popcorn again, and the kids sat and threaded masses of it into a garland to circle around the tree. We put up Emma Graham’s lovely glass ornaments and the yarn people and button ornaments we’d made last year. The big paper star from last year’s tree had gotten pretty crumpled, so Rorey made a new one. Still, the tree looked a little bare, and last year’s paper chain was now gracing the mantel, so Lizbeth got the kids making more paper chain, colored bright. And I wrapped a big red towel around the tree base.

That night very late, Samuel was working in the barn, finishing Berty’s gift as I stitched on a cloth teddy bear for Emmie, cut from a worn-out old sweater. I’d already helped Samuel put the finishing touches on Harry’s clothespin soldiers, and they were stretched out on the table in front of me with their painted faces and wooden-spool stands drying.

But we still hadn’t figured out what to make for Franky, and we were running out of time. I thought I could just give him the hankies I’d made at his suggestion for his father, but I knew that would serve as nothing but a sad reminder. I was stewing a little about what else we could do when Samuel came in with his eyes twinkling merrily and one hand behind his back.

“Guess what I found.”

“What?”

“It was in the corner of the hayloft, underneath that stack of old boards I’d been meaning to move.” He pulled his hand forward. A hammer. A rusty, old, child-sized hammer. “It must have belonged to Emma Graham’s son.”

I took it in my hands, looking at him with question.

“I can clean it up. It’s perfect for Franky.”

“What on earth made you look in the hayloft?”

“Remember what he told us? About giving him some wood? I thought maybe we’d have to do that. I’d gone up to bring down some of those boards and pull the nails out, thinking to give him enough lumber and nails to make a little chair or box or something.”

“Oh, Samuel, do that. Along with the hammer. He’ll love it.”

I made fudge late that night so I could surprise the children with it Christmas morning—an extra big batch so I could give extra to Sam and the other big boys.

I was finally ready to go to bed when Berty’s quiet tears from a sitting room mattress caught my attention. He’d been so holiday-cheerful most of the time, but I really wasn’t surprised to think that now in the darkness so close to Christmas he was suddenly feeling overcome. I went to his side, and he climbed from the covers and into my lap.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

“I miss my folkses,” he told me. “Bof’ of dem.”

I hugged him, knowing all too well how he felt. I could remember a long-ago Christmas when I was just a little tike, after my mother had died and my father had gone away. It was too familiar, and I wondered why the parallel had never dawned on me before. I squeezed him tight, feeling strangely stricken.

“Is you crying, Mrs. Wortham?”

“A little bit.”

“Me too.”

Oh, I loved this child. His simple, direct way of dealing with everything. I loved all of them. Even Kirk and Rorey in their difficult times. How could their father stand to be away from them? Tomorrow would be Christmas Eve!
May the realization of that work on his insides and draw him back. If he is still alive. I pray that he is!

I tried to coax Berty to lie down again, but he didn’t want to let me go.

“Stay wif me, please, Mom. I need you.”

So I just kept holding him, tired as I was.

“Sing?” he asked me.

“Right now? Honey, I don’t want to wake anyone else.”

“You can sing real quiet. It’s okay.”

I petted his tousled brown hair. This little four-year-old claimed me with his whole heart. He even called me Mom. And who could blame him, really? I wasn’t sure I should encourage it. I wasn’t sure how to react with all of these Hammonds sometimes. But right now when it was surely already the wee hours of Christmas Eve morn, I couldn’t refuse him. “What do you want me to sing?”

I should have already known. The only song he’d had on his heart for more than a week now. “‘Away in a Manger.’”

I smiled. “All right. Do you want to sing along? Softly?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Dis time I listen.”

So I sang for him, as quietly as I could, through the first verse and into the second.

“Is that song wrote by a baby?” he asked me suddenly.

“No.” I laughed a little, wondering at his question. “Why?”

“Cause it says ‘stay by my cradle.’”

“I guess that can mean anybody’s bed.”

“Like this mattress right here?”

“Sure.”

“Then you is stayed by my cradle.”

“I guess I am.”

“I’m gettin’ tired again.”

“I should think so. I am too.”

“Can you stay by my cradle anyhow?”

Even in the darkness I knew the tears in his eyes. He clung to my hand as he eased himself back down into the covers next to Harry. “All right,” I told him, stretching myself at the mattress’s edge. “I’ll stay a little while.”

He cuddled to me. He wouldn’t let go of my hand until he finally drifted to sleep. And right about then, I heard the back door. Samuel coming in. Somehow I’d thought he was already in bed. I rose softly and met him in the kitchen doorway.

“Are we ready for Christmas?” he asked.

“I guess we have to be.”

“You’ve done a good job, Mrs. Wortham.” He kissed me.

“You’ve done a good job too.”

Tired as we were, we were both hungry, so I made us some cocoa and sliced a couple of chunks of apple fruit bread.

“I keep expecting George to show up,” Samuel told me.

“I’m hoping, I think,” I admitted. “I want him to come back for the children’s sakes, but I also want him to be in a decent frame of mind, not blind drunk or raging.”

“I understand.”

We didn’t say much else. And it seemed like nearly time to get up by the time we went to bed.

The next morning was Christmas Eve. Bright, sunny. Still white with snow but beautiful. I made oatmeal muffins, and then everybody got ready for special services at church. Before we were part of the Dearing congregation, they’d decided to have services on Saturday whenever Christmas Day fell on a Sunday. They still had services Christmas morning for families close by, but families like ours who lived miles out of town could spend Christmas morning with their families. I was especially glad the Christmas Eve service was in the morning so we wouldn’t have to get into town and back in the dark.

We’d finally returned Mr. Post’s truck, so young Sam went and hitched his father’s team and wagon and drove us all into town bundled under blankets. It was crisp and clear, and we sang Christmas carols on the way. Or at least some of us did. Kirk and Willy and Rorey and Harry had all gone solemn again, but there wasn’t anything I knew of to do about it.

Harry was a holy terror in church that morning, absolutely refusing to sit still. He was far from a baby at six years old, but I finally removed him from the sanctuary for a little talking to. But in the hallway, I really didn’t have the heart to scold him. How could I expect much different from him? A restless boy on Christmas Eve, thrust in with us after losing one, maybe both, parents? Really, he’d been behaving fairly well considering that. “Can you please be quieter so that other people can enjoy the service?” I asked of him.

“I don’t think so,” he answered honestly. “I don’t think my quiet’s workin’ very well today.”

“Apparently not. Still, it’s important that we try. Okay?”

Reluctantly he agreed. And he did manage to make it through the rest of the service with only mild disruption. The pastor didn’t seem to mind him slipping down in his seat, fiddling with his sister’s hair, or dropping his shoes on the floor in the middle of a prayer. Still, I was relieved when it was time to go home. We presented our gifts to the pastor and his wife before we left, and they were very pleased with them. Juanita hugged me, and for no reason at all I burst into tears.

“Oh, Julia, we’re so sorry we haven’t been to visit. Are you managing everything all right?”

I nodded, wishing I could find the words to assure her. But Lizbeth found them for me.

“She’s been managin’ everything real well, Mrs. Pastor. I don’t know how she puts up with all a’ us, but we appreciate it.”