Tracie Peterson, Tracey V. Bateman, Pamela Griffin, JoAnn A. Grote

by Prairie Christmas Collection

  “Why are you leaving us, Boston?” He straightened as she walked past, his long legs easily matching her stride.

  “I don’t see that it’s any of your business.”

  “Maybe not. But you’re going to hurt a lot of people by your decision to go.”

  “I do not belong here. This isn’t my home and never has been.”

  “Do you really think you’ve given it a decent enough try?”

  Needled by his words, she stopped walking and spun to face him. “Just what difference does it make to you, Mr. Watson? I should think you’d be glad to see me go. I haven’t exactly been sociable toward you—toward anyone here.”

  A boyish grin lifted the corners of his mouth. “Not even to the hogs or the chickens?”

  She felt her own lips lift upward in a smile, surprising her. She wanted to remain annoyed with this man but found it difficult to do so. “No, definitely not to them. Incidentally, I discovered you were right about Mr. Stony Jack’s hog being able to ‘count.’ Although my stepfather explained away the incident as Mr. Stone teaching his animal to fetch objects rather than the hog itself being intelligent. Still, I suppose I do owe you an apology for that first day we met. I was upset and weary from the train ride, and I, um, acted rather supercilious toward you.”

  “Oh, now I wouldn’t have gone and called you conceited, exactly. More sure of yourself and everybody else than anything.” His grin widened.

  The man was a scholar? Amazing. Ivy hadn’t reckoned on him having enough schooling to possess any knowledge of the word she’d used to describe her bad behavior. “Then I’m forgiven?”

  “I don’t hold grudges.”

  “Thank you.” She hesitated. “About what happened in there just now—I would appreciate it if you’d keep this our little secret. I don’t wish for anyone to know of my plans.”

  “You planning on running away in the middle of the night?”

  “Of course not! I simply want to approach my mother with the news when I feel the timing is appropriate.”

  He studied her a long moment. Uneasy, she glanced away from the steady look in his eyes. “I’ll keep your secret,” he finally said, “but on one condition.”

  A sense of misgiving made her gather her brows. “What condition?”

  “That you let me take you to the church meeting next Sunday and go on an outing with me afterward.”

  “Church meeting?”

  “You hadn’t heard? A preacher is coming through here next week. We’ll meet in the schoolhouse for services.”

  “No, I hadn’t heard.” Ivy thought quickly. A few hours with the man seemed a small price to pay for his silence. “All right, I’ll go with you.”

  The warmth of his smile took her breath away. “I’ll be looking forward to it, Boston. Well, I should get back to work now. I have orders to fill. Afternoon.” With a quirky tip of his dusty hat in farewell, he headed down the road to his smithy.

  Ivy continued to stare after Craig until he reached the huge doors of the building, then she realized what she was doing. With a frown, she shook herself out of her trance and walked in the direction of her stepfather’s claim.

  Chapter 4

  I doubt he’ll come. The snow is too much like ice for a wagon.”

  At Crystin’s solemn words to Ivy, she looked out the window again, all hopes fading. The light from the morning’s gray skies revealed a world clothed in a blanket of white stretching as far as the eye could see. Crystin was right. It was doubtful Craig would show. Ivy smoothed the skirt of one of her best dresses, a rich maroon brocade embellished with black ribbons matching the one she’d woven into her hair. Around her neck she wore her garnet brooch on another black velvet ribbon, and her fingers went to the stone, tracing its square outline. She told herself that she was relieved Craig hadn’t shown, that this released her from their agreement. Yet the feelings coursing through her were not those of gladness.

  “Never mind, Ivy.” Her mother’s soft voice broke through her thoughts. “We have each other, and we can read from the Holy Bible as we always do.”

  Ivy glanced at her mother, and concern replaced disappointment. She didn’t look at all well. Her face was drawn, and her eyes had lost the luster that usually made them shimmer like precious sapphires.

  Ivy went to kneel beside her chair and took her hand. “Mama, aren’t you feeling well?”

  “Of course, I’m fine. Just a little stomach upset. Hand me my Bible, dearest.”

  Ivy did so, and her mother opened the gilt-edged book she’d brought with her from Boston, reverently touching the pages as she skimmed through them. Her stepfather couldn’t read English, though he spoke it, but he also often spoke in Welsh to his girls to keep their language from dying. Still, Ivy noticed that he seemed to derive great satisfaction from listening to Mama read the English words in her soothing voice.

  “‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity….’ “As her mother continued to read the passage from Psalms, Ivy inwardly squirmed, though outside she remained as still as she’d been taught. Afterward, her mother closed the book, and no one spoke for a moment.

  “Dada, when will Uncle Dai come to see us?” Gwen asked.

  The question surprised everyone and seemed to hang in the air. Ivy knew the girls had been taught not to speak unless they were spoken to. She glanced at her stepfather to gauge his reaction. His face grew red, and he looked away toward the cookstove. “He chose the road to take. No one forced it upon him.”

  “But can he not just come see us?” Gwen insisted softly. “Nana says the same thing Mama does—family is important. Won’t you write a letter to Uncle Dai and ask him to come, like Nana wants? He can stay with Aunt Winifred, since they’re making their home into a boardinghouse.”

  “Gwendolyn! That is enough. I will have no more talk on the matter.”

  Ivy jumped. Even Old Rufus lifted his head off his paws to look at his master. Ivy had never before heard her stepfather raise his tone in anger, and she studied him curiously. Just what kind of man was this Uncle Dai to get such a rise from Gavin?

  “I’m sorry, Dada.” Gwen’s lower lip trembled, and her eyes grew moist. Gavin held out his hand to his daughter, and she went to hug him.

  Before Ivy could dwell more deeply on the subject of Uncle Dai, the sound of faint bells came from outside, growing louder. Old Rufus pricked his ears and padded to the door, fully alert, his tail wagging. He let out a bark. Crystin darted to the window.

  “It’s Mr. Watson!” she cried. “And he’s in a sleigh!”

  Ivy quickly rose to see, Gwen right behind her. Sure enough, Craig sat inside a sleigh being pulled by his dark gray horse. Bells rang from the harness, and Ivy wondered if Craig had made them.

  Crystin turned excitedly. “Can we go, Mama? Can we?”

  Ivy’s mother smiled and nodded. Amid many squeals, the girls grabbed their coats and shrugged into them, pulling scarves about their necks and hats over their ears. Ivy also went about the ritual of preparing to face the outside cold, but she did so more sedately than the girls.

  Inside, her heart mocked her with its rapid beats.

  Ivy met Craig at the door. “Hello,” she said, feeling at a strange loss for words. She motioned to Gwen and Crystin, who appeared at her side. “My sisters are coming with us.”

  “Of course they can come.” The smile he gave them was genuine. He bent down to scratch Old Rufus between the ears. “There’s room, but you two children might have to snuggle close like fox cubs.”

  At this, Crystin giggled. To be on the safe side, Ivy planned the seating arrangement so that the slight Crystin was sandwiched between her and Craig, and Gwen sat behind them. The ride to town was filled with the little girls’ excited chatter and Craig’s patient answers to their questions.

  Due to the nasty weather, the schoolhouse wasn’t crowded, but Ivy was surprised to see among the townsfolk there a family who owned a claim a few miles away. The Reverend Micha
els was young with bushy red eyebrows, long sideburns that swept down his jaws, and a decidedly Irish accent. He had a way of spearing a person with his intense blue eyes, and his words were full of something that convicted Ivy’s heart. The passages he read from 1 Corinthians about love seared her conscience, and she thought back to what her mother had read earlier.

  Perhaps Ivy never had tried to exhibit Christian charity or goodwill toward anyone while living in Leaning Tree and only expected to be treated kindly by others. Yet had she truly expected even that? She wasn’t sure what she’d expected; she’d been so angry with her mother and new stepfather those first few months after she’d moved here. Yet the anger had begun to subside at some point without her realizing it. When had that happened?

  After the rousing service, which lasted all morning, the people visited. Winifred pulled Ivy aside and asked how her parents were. Ivy explained that her mother wasn’t feeling well, and both Winifred and Bronwyn shared a smile. “It will soon pass,” Winifred said. “Give her tea with mint. It has helped me.” She blushed.

  By their reactions and words, Ivy felt a stab of dread. Oh no. Her mother couldn’t be in a family way!

  “It is the way of things,” Bronwyn said, her blue eyes wise. “She is still young and strong. She will be fine.”

  Ivy nodded, though inside she felt like a newly broken wheel cast aside from the stagecoach whose destination promised a better life. How could Mother do this to her? How could Ivy leave Leaning Tree now?

  “Are you all right?” Craig asked when they returned to his sleigh. Both Gwen and Crystin ran ahead and jumped in back, leaving Ivy no choice but to sit beside Craig. She did so stiffly, and he pulled up the bristly fur lap robe over their legs. She shivered when his arm and leg inadvertently pressed against hers in the confined space.

  “Cold?” He pulled the lap robe up farther before taking the reins.

  The warmth surging through her blocked out most of the chill.

  “How did you get this sleigh?” she asked, raising her voice above the wind that resulted from the vehicle’s movement once it was in motion. If they talked about inconsequential matters, she might be able to concentrate on those issues and not on the man sitting so close to her.

  “A customer asked me to fix it for him last year, but he ended up moving back East. When I reminded him about the sleigh before he left, he told me that if I could fix it, I could have it. It was in bad shape when he brought it to me. It had hit a tree, and the runners were twisted.”

  “Did you make the bells on the horse’s harness, too?”

  “My cousin did. He’s a silversmith who I’m trying to convince to move here. He’s considering it. The town is growing, and by this time next year, I’d be surprised if the population hasn’t doubled. We even have our own doc now.”

  Doubt edging her mind, Ivy looked at the ramshackle town. Either Craig had high aspirations or she was blind.

  “Still doubt that Leaning Tree amounts to much?” he asked.

  She shrugged, deciding it best not to comment. When he didn’t steer the sleigh left at the turnoff leading to her stepfather’s soddy, Ivy looked at him. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To a little piece of the future.”

  “Where?” Her brows shot upward.

  “You’ll see. Relax, Ivy. You did agree to an outing after the service, and we do have the girls along as chaperones.”

  Some chaperones. A glance over her shoulder revealed that Gwen and Crystin had their heads tucked underneath their lap robe. Occasionally, a giggle would escape from beneath the fur.

  “All right. I suppose,” she gave her grudging consent.

  Craig steered the sleigh by a copse of trees growing along the stream. White coated any remaining leaves and branches, and the water lazily trickled under a thin crust of ice.

  “See that?” Craig pointed to a tree whose trunk leaned at an angle toward the water. “That’s how the town got its name.”

  Ivy was interested despite her resolve not to be. She’d never been in this area before. Where her stepfather lived, there wasn’t a tree in sight, though a scant few grew on the outskirts of town. She’d recently heard her stepfather and Winifred’s husband discuss a man named J. Sterling Morton, who’d proposed an idea for everyone in Nebraska to plant a tree next spring. He felt the economy would benefit from the wide-scale planting. Ivy looked over the vast land of untouched white that the sleigh now faced. It would take a great many trees to make that happen! She tried to imagine all that empty white being broken up by forests of trees or even a small wood.

  “What do you see?” Craig’s voice caught her attention.

  What did she see? “Um, snow, and a lot of land. Gray skies above.”

  “Know what I see?” She shook her head, and he continued, “I see opportunity. A land that’s ready for growth and is just waiting to be farmed or used in other ways for the good of the community, even the nation. Miles and miles of rich, fertile soil ready for the first touch of that plow.”

  She turned her head to look at him. “Are you planning to trade in your anvil and become a farmer?”

  He chuckled. “No. But where there are farming tools, mules, and horses, there’s a need for a blacksmith. And where there’s virgin land, there’s a need for people with enough courage to carve out a promising future. People who won’t say no to a challenge, who keep on when all they want to do is quit.” His gaze briefly swept the land again. “And I believe you’re one of those people, Boston. I believe you’ve got what it takes.”

  Ivy jerked in surprise. “Surely, you’re teasing me.”

  “No. You’ve got gumption. I noticed that the first day we met. While it’s true you weren’t happy to come here and felt forced into it, you made do and adjusted the best you could. I have a feeling that if you’d also adjust your thinking and try to see some good in this town, you might find that this could be more of a home to you than Boston ever was.”

  “I sincerely doubt that.”

  He shrugged. “Just don’t close your mind to the possibility. It may be that you coming here was all part of God’s plan.”

  His words irritated her, and she looked away to the sweeping vista. “Please take me home, Mr. Watson.”

  “Don’t you think you could learn to call me Craig?”

  “Only if you’ll stop calling me Boston!” The words shot out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  Craig laughed, a rich, exuberant sound that warmed her clear through and brought two small heads from beneath the fur lap robe. “I can’t promise I’ll always remember,” he said. “But I like the name Ivy, so I’ll surely try.”

  That wasn’t what she’d meant—she’d meant for him to address her properly by her surname. She opened her mouth to tell him so, then snapped it shut. Oh, what was the use? From what she knew of the man, Craig Watson would likely do as he pleased. Moreover, she did notice that the people in Leaning Tree weren’t big on formality. So maybe no one would make anything of it.

  Another pair of giggles brought her sharp focus to the girls, who quickly ducked their heads back underneath the blanket.

  Ivy watched her mother pull the flat iron from the top of the cookstove and continue to press the wrinkles out of Gavin’s shirt. She turned back to her own task of kneading bread dough. Since Winifred and Bronwyn had spoken to her after Reverend Michael’s message three weeks ago, Ivy had kept a close eye on her mother. Mama hadn’t told her she was expecting, but that was little surprise. Such things weren’t discussed in polite society, and her mother had been raised in Boston, too. What had happened to make Mama forget that? Why would she wish to leave behind a life filled with every luxury imaginable to marry a poor farmer?

  At the other end of the table, Crystin painstakingly used a pencil nub to write out a short essay on the discarded brown paper that had been wrapped around a parcel from the general store. By the light of a kerosene lamp, Gwen read the book on colonial life her teacher had lent her. Outside, the night w
as still and not as cold as it had been. December proved to be milder than Ivy expected, with few scattered snows. Yet she’d been warned that January had the teeth of a wolf—and being snowbound for days or weeks wasn’t an improbability.

  “What are you working on so diligently, Crystin?” Ivy’s mother asked.

  Crystin looked up from her paper. “We must write an essay on what we like most about Christmas and then tell what’s most important.” She looked in the direction of the sleeping quarters of the two-room soddy. “Will we go to Aunt Winifred’s and pull taffy, Dada?”

  Gavin walked into the room and sat at the opposite end of the table. He pulled a handmade pipe from his mouth and turned his blue eyes to his youngest daughter. “Much will depend on the weather.”

  “I hope we do,” Crystin said wistfully. “That’s one of the things I like best about Christmas.”

  “I like the Mari Lwyd,” Gwen said, putting down her book. She turned her gaze toward Ivy, who stood less than a foot away. “That’s where a big horse’s skull knocks on your door to ask a question, and if you get it wrong …” She mashed her elbows together, hands wide apart, then brought her palms to connect with a loud smack directed Ivy’s way. Startled, Ivy jumped.

  “Snap!” Gwen continued gleefully, a smug look in her eye. “Off with your head.”

  “Gwendolyn, I will have no more of such foolish talk,” her father said sternly. “Or perhaps you shall not get the pink sugar mouse in your stocking this Christmas. You are too young to remember the customs practiced in the old country.”

  “Did the horse’s skull really bite people’s heads off?” Crystin’s eyes were wide.

  “No.” Gavin directed another severe look at Gwen before explaining. “The Mari Lwyd was an ancient ritual for luck the townsfolk played among one another, a game of wits. No one was hurt.”

  “What’s your favorite Christmas memory, Dada?” Crystin asked.

  Gavin’s eyes grew misty. “I remember going with my brother, Dai, to the Plygain, since the time we were young men. It is a service where the townsmen sing carols and songs and read from the Bible. Always, it takes place in the dark hours of Christmas morning before the dawn.”