Emma's Gift

by Leisha Kelly

  I nodded my head in agreement. I’d have to think on it. Maybe we had something.

  “Oh, Lizbeth, I know!” The thought came so sudden it surprised me. The little oak cross that Samuel had carved, sitting upstairs in our room. Of course, I’d have to ask Samuel about it, but I was sure he’d be willing. Maybe it’d look nice on a table or something at their house. Samuel could make me another one sometime.

  I ran right upstairs to get it, surely making Robert and Willy and Kirk wonder what I was about.

  “It’s perfect,” Lizbeth told me when I brought it to her. “If you don’t mind it bein’ gone, it’s just the sorta thing for a pastor’s mantle. Or in a winda or somethin’.”

  I started to put it in a drawer, under the dishtowels, but Lizbeth protested immediately.

  “Mrs. Pastor might find it there if she goes to helpin’ us with the dishes tonight, an’ you jus’ know she’ll offer. We oughta wrap it in paper afore they get back so there ain’t no chance them seein’ it. You got paper?”

  I was a little surprised at her enthusiasm. “I’ve got paper. Plain brown or white, though. Not colored, unfortunately.”

  “That don’t matter so much. It’s havin’ somethin’ to give ’em that’s important.” She grew quiet, looking at me. “I wanna give my Christmas candy to your two, and I sure wish I had somethin’ more for you all.”

  There were tears in her eyes. Seeing it, there were very nearly tears in mine. “Lizbeth, thank you. But what came from your father, you need to keep. Samuel and I have something for the children.”

  I was glad that we had worked so hard last night and all that morning getting things ready for the Hammond kids. I’d finished Rorey’s doll dress but not the ties. And Emma Grace! I’d completely forgotten to locate the dress Emma’d been making and see if it was finished. But there was nothing I could do now until the kids were asleep.

  “You’re kinda like Emma,” Lizbeth said when I brought her the paper. “I can tell you’re fond a’ givin’.”

  I smiled. That was about the highest compliment I could imagine. “You too, Lizbeth. You’re fond of giving too.”

  She continued cutting the corn bread, and I started making a double batch of Grandma’s soda bread, because it was faster than yeast and would do fine for stuffing. “Oh, what should we serve for dinner tonight?”

  “Let’s heat all the leftovers and make a dishpan full a’ popcorn.” She made me smile again. There’d always been some unspoken distance between us, but now, like a miracle, that distance was gone.

  Kids and snow and the fresh smell of pine all came bursting through the door together. It was a fine tree, not too big like Joe had said, but plenty big enough when we didn’t have much to decorate it with anyway.

  Emma Grace laughed when they came tramping through with their boots and their coats still on to see how it’d look by the sitting-room window.

  “Oh!” Pastor exclaimed. “I completely forgot to think how we’re going to get it to stand up.”

  “If Samuel were here, he’d nail a couple of boards to the base of the trunk, like an X,” I offered.

  “I can do that!” Franky exclaimed and headed straight for the door.

  Juanita looked at me in question, but Lizbeth shook her head. “Let him do it. He prob’ly can.”

  I had to agree. “He knows where Samuel’s tools are by now too.”

  Lord, how we were all like one big family. But such a thought frightened me, and I wished Samuel would get back. I wished George were here. But they’d come. Samuel had promised me they’d come. At least by morning these children would have their father again.

  “Now we gotta trim it pretty!” Sarah exclaimed. “Mommy, are you making popcorn?”

  “Not yet, honey, but I will. We can make a paper star for the top too, and you and Rorey can color it bright for us.”

  “Do you have any buttons?” Juanita asked me. “Or yarn?”

  “Well, yes. We have both. Not much variety in yarn, though. Only three or four colors.”

  That was enough for her, and she sat down with Harry and Bert to sort out the biggest and brightest buttons while Franky made the tree stand and Robert helped him sand the base of the trunk smooth so the tree wouldn’t lean.

  I set out food for everybody to help themselves when they were ready for it. Then I helped make popcorn chains spiraling all the way to that little tree’s top. Sarah and Rorey did the star up with yellow and orange, just as bright as they could make it. And Juanita showed the kids how to thread three buttons on colored yarn so they’d look real pretty tied with a bow and dangling from the tip of a tree limb. I wished we had pinecones and dried milkweed pods, because Grandma had made some nice ornaments with those too, but it’d be hard finding them now, and we’d lost our daylight anyway. Seems like I could’ve thought about all that earlier in the season.

  Juanita had started braiding yarn, and I had no idea what she was doing till I saw her tie off the head part and slide in one braided section for the arms. A yarn doll. The littlest one I’d ever seen. When she was finished, she pulled out a loop in back and hung it front and center on the tree.

  “Oh, make more!” Berty shouted. “Make more! Looky, Rorey! It’s a people!”

  Rorey was looking somber. “I just wish it was for keep.” One little tear trickled down her cheek, and I remembered Samuel’s observation—not one plaything in all their house. Juanita’s little yarn doll was enough to make her cry.

  “They’re for keep,” Juanita said. “We won’t need them after Christmas. Do you want to make one?”

  The little girl’s eyes went wide, and she didn’t say anything but stepped just as close as she could get. Juanita was busy for what seemed like hours then, helping one child after another and making yarn dolls enough for the tree and several more besides to jump and dance across our sitting-room floor. Finally the yarn was running low, and her fingers were tired. Pastor pulled out his Bible and read the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke.

  I started worrying just a little, with it dark outside and getting so late. Samuel must’ve decided to stay over at the Hammonds, but I knew better than to think that was good news. Pastor knew it too, I knew he did. But he kept on reading, letting the little ones edge up closer until the whole story was done and eyes were getting droopy.

  “Oh,” Juanita said. “Paxton, look at the wall.”

  We all looked. Apparently she’d just noticed our paper figures. They seemed brighter now in the flickering light of fire and kerosene lamps than they had when the sunshine was pouring through the windows.

  “That’s our Christmas story,” Sarah said.

  “You’ve done such a wonderful job.” Juanita was looking at me. “Oh, Julia, you’re a marvel.”

  “It was mostly the kids.”

  She got up and went straight for one of the bags we’d left in the kitchen. “This hadn’t ought to wait till morning,” she said. “Because the Christ was really born at night.”

  She came back with something small wrapped in tissue. She tried to hand it to me, but I gave it to Lizbeth, as the oldest child there. Juanita hadn’t said anything, but I knew this gift was meant for all of us.

  Lizbeth unwrapped it carefully, with her youngest siblings leaning impatiently into her. She gasped when she saw what it was. “Look. Look,” she told the kids. “But don’t touch.”

  It was a tiny glass nativity, the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, and my eyes filled with tears.

  “We can put it in front of the wall, Mommy,” Sarah declared with delight. “So the angels can be flyin’ around it!”

  “No,” Lizbeth said. “This here’s too perfect to risk gettin’ broke. It oughta go up on the mantle where everybody can see.”

  After all the children had looked at it up close, we set the precious little nativity in the center of the mantle above the fire, where Emma’s Seth Thomas clock had been. I got two little candles, set one on each side, and lit them.

  “That’s Christmas,”
Lizbeth said, having a hard time getting the words out. “Thank you, Pastor, Mrs. Pastor.”

  Harry wanted to sneak a look and see what else was in those bags. But we settled him and the rest of the little ones down for bed, upstairs this time, divided between the two rooms and bundled warm under blankets.

  Kirk and Lizbeth and Joe were up later than the rest. I had a lot to do, but I didn’t try to hurry them away.

  “We don’t know if Pa’ll really come or not,” Lizbeth finally said. “But we want to thank you for making it a pleasant time when it mighta been somethin’ awful over here.”

  “Pa was drinkin’ hisself drunk,” Joe told the pastor. “He ain’t in no kinda shape, an’ we maybe won’t be able to stay with him, ’least not when he’s like that.”

  “I understand.” The pastor got up, and for a moment I wondered if he was considering going over there, even in the middle of the night. But he just turned and asked the kids a question. “Do you know what a foundation is?”

  “What you put a buildin’ on,” Kirk volunteered. “To make sure it goes up solid.”

  “Yes. But people have a foundation too. What they stand on in times of crisis. Their faith in all that is good and orderly. Their trust in the God who holds the future in his hands.” He walked over to the tree. “Your father’s foundation has been shaken, because so much of what he knew was wrapped up in your mother, even what he knew of God. He feels like this tree, cut off from the world he understood, but he doesn’t see a purpose in it, or a hope. That’s where we’ll have to help.”

  “I don’t think I can,” Kirk said. “’Cause I don’t see no purpose neither.”

  “We may none of us see it. But we don’t have to see it now, as long as we believe there is one. As long as we know God is still in control.”

  “Well, he ain’t been real good to us lately.”

  “Shut up, Kirk,” Lizbeth said.

  But Pastor wasn’t ruffled in the slightest. “It’s natural to be upset. Don’t worry about that. It’s an awful thing that’s happened, there’s no denying. But I want you to know that God sees every bit. All of you, how you just go on. And your father, how he needs your prayers. God is our hope, and your father’s hope and comfort if he can accept that. I know that he knows the Lord. I made sure of that myself. But he needs to understand God’s presence with him as his sure foundation.”

  “Because Mama ain’t here to be it,” Joe interjected.

  “Yes. Yes, that’s right.”

  “It don’t none of it make any sense to me,” Kirk stated. “I don’t feel like trustin’, ’cause there ain’t nothin’ sure. Mama trusted, an’ she’s gone. An’ we don’t even know if we’ll make it t’ spring or where we’ll be if we do.”

  “God knows. You’ll make it. Every one of you will. George too, if he can plant his feet on the solid faith that God will never leave you nor forsake you, that he will always provide.”

  “He’s provided you,” Lizbeth whispered. “An’ that little nativity set.”

  Kirk turned on her, his eyes flashing. “That ain’t nothin’! You know that! That ain’t nothin’ by next week some time when we gotta live an’ eat and see if Pa’s gettin’ hisself another drunk!”

  “Whether he stays drunk or not,” Joe told his brother, “we gotta have confidence to make things work out. That’s what Sam says. He’s gonna work. We’ll all work. We’ll do what we hafta and be all right. You gotta live that out of ya, Kirky, or you’re gonna scare the little ones awful bad, an’ they don’t need no more a’ that.”

  Kirk was silent, but after a moment he gave a slight nod. “I know. I shouldn’t be bellyachin’. We’s supposed to be thankful. In ever’thin’, Mama said. An’ she tol’ me that one time when she had the stomach trouble an’ poison ivy all over her back, to boot.”

  That was a picture of Wila I’d never gotten. I’d seen Emma struggle through so much and still praise God. But Wilametta had done it too. And it made me glad inside that these kids remembered. They would help the little ones remember too. And that would help the same faith grow solid in them. Because nothing helps you gain something more truly than having to teach it.

  It must’ve been nearly midnight before all of the children were asleep. I went into Emma’s room, lit her lamp, and started searching for that baby dress. Juanita came up behind me.

  “I’ve finished Rorey’s gift and most of the others,” I said. “But I’ve a couple of ties yet. And Emma was making something for Emma Grace. I’ve just got to find it.” Finally, I pulled down a box from the top shelf in her closet. There were two pillowcases on the top. Embroidered. It wasn’t till I set the box on the bed, closer to the light, that I saw one said “Samuel” and the other said “Julia.”

  “Oh.” I sat clutching them to me. “Oh, Emma! Oh, look what she’s done!”

  There were pillowcases for Robert and Sarah too. Each with their names, Robert’s in blue, Sarah’s in cheery pink. Beneath the pillowcases was Emma Grace’s dress, looking finished except for the bottom hem. And twelve sturdy little mats made from braided strips of cloth the way Grandma used to do rugs. When could Emma have done all this without me knowing?

  “Placemats, maybe?” Juanita asked. “For the Hammonds? It would’ve been the right number.”

  “That must be it,” I agreed. “Oh, Emma, you were always so kind.”

  But there was something else at the bottom of the box. Another box, as long as a child’s shoe box, but not so tall. I opened it carefully, and we were both hushed.

  Balls. Little glass ornament balls. Tiny and delicate and all the colors of the rainbow. Each with its own tiny ornament hook. “Oh, Juanita,” I said. “If we’d have known about these when the kids were awake—for the tree—”

  “Better that we didn’t. Better to see their faces first thing in the morning when they see. Magical, Juli. Like a kiss of God.”

  My heart was thundering with excitement, and I knew she was right. My children were expecting something sure, but not such a surprise on our homemade tree. And the Hammond children were expecting nothing at all, except their father’s candy and whatever they might conceive to be in Pastor’s bags. They would remember this Christmas, I could not doubt it.

  Juanita hemmed Emma Grace’s dress for me so I could finish the ties. I pulled out the bag of things I intended to give the children and what I had of brown paper. Pastor started wrapping things carefully, though I never would’ve dreamed of asking him to.

  I told them about the sled Samuel had worked on and that I didn’t know if he’d had time to finish it or not before the Hammonds all came that day. But he’d give it to them anyway and finish it Christmas Day if he had to.

  Juanita admired the blouse I’d modified for Lizbeth, Rorey’s doll, and the ties I was working on. When her husband picked up Harry’s little cloth ball, she shook her head. “You’re just amazing, Juli, what you came up with for the kids.”

  “I didn’t know you were coming. There had to be something for them.” For some reason I wanted to cry, but then I wouldn’t be able to see to sew that way, so I fought back the feeling of tears and kept right on working, saying nothing more.

  “Some of the church ladies made up the most wonderful candies you could ever hope to see,” Juanita told me. “Made me wish I was that handy in the kitchen. Delores sent you a fruitcake, and Edith sent a canning jar of mincemeat and some peach preserves.”

  “I couldn’t ever imagine you all being so good to us.”

  “You’re family. That’s the way church family’s supposed to be.” She smiled. “Wait’ll you see what Bonnie and Erla and Betty Jaynes did. Knitted scarves, every one of them with different colors. One for each of the Hammonds.”

  I smiled. “You picked out the nativity, didn’t you?”

  “Tell you the truth, it was my Aunt Jane’s. We didn’t have a penny, honey, to shop with, or we’d have bought out the store.”

  “Oh, Juanita. Oh, Pastor! I didn’t know you were in need.”

/>   “There’ll be money from the church when we’re able,” Pastor said quietly. “But right now, I didn’t want to receive much for ourselves when there are so many needs in the congregation.”

  I didn’t know what to say. How far did their need go?

  “Say, do you have something here for Samuel?” Pastor asked me. And I had to get up to get it because I’d almost forgotten. When I handed him the jar of sloshy brown stuff, he gave me a strange look. “What’s this?”

  “Walnut stain. I soaked the crushed outer hulls. My Grandpa used to do that.” Neither of them said anything, and my mind turned again to their situation. “Do you have food at home?”

  Pastor chuckled. “We’re not home at the moment to be concerned about that.”

  That almost got me riled at them. “You should’ve told us! You shouldn’t be going in need like this. People will help!”

  “That’s just it. People can’t afford to help. They can’t afford to put much in the offering either, right now. And I don’t want to take what I know they need.”

  “You’re not the only ones with a gift from the church family,” Juanita added. “We tried to take at least something to every family where the father isn’t working.” She tied off her thread and held up the dress to show me she was done. “Edith was generous with her peach preserves. And I forgot to mention there’s a tin of homemade crackers from Doris and Wayne Turrey. Better than store bought, I think. We do have some of those at home. They insisted.”

  “I love you,” I told them. “Both of you. And Edith and the Turreys and all the rest.”

  “We know you do.”

  “Even Miss Hazel,” I added, not sure why I would bring her up.

  “Wait’ll you see what she sent,” Juanita said with a mischievous smile. “But that can wait till morning.”

  TWENTY

  Samuel

  George was sick when he woke up, leaning over a bucket in a matter of minutes.

  I sat up, not feeling particularly sympathetic. “Liquor doesn’t agree with you, does it?”

  “Shut up.”

  Young Sam rolled over on the floor in front of the fireplace where he’d slept, took a quick look at us, and jumped up. “I’ll feed the stock and start the milkin’,” he said. “We got to get an early start ’cause they’ll be waitin’.”