Chapter 10
Papa and Mama exchanged worried glances and turned to Stella for an explanation, but she couldn’t begin to offer a motive for James’s strange behavior. She shrugged and excused herself from the table.
Weaving her way through the other diners, she went to the lobby. The expansive room was empty, save for an elderly couple waiting at the front desk.
Hurrying through the front doors, Stella stepped into the cold night. Wisps of snow blew across the boardwalk, and she shivered involuntarily. Looking both ways down the darkened street, she spotted a lone figure at the north end of the building.
It was James. He stood, leaning against the brick facade, his head bent against the bitter wind. Though the frigid air bit painfully through her light wool dress, she went to him.
“James? Is everything all right?” What a silly question. One glance at his face told her that something was terribly wrong. “James, what is it? What’s wrong?”
Without looking at her, his voice a monotone, he asked one question. “Stella, how long has this tradition been going on in your family?”
“The tip, you mean? The five-dollar note?” He nodded.
“Why, as long as I can remember, I guess. What on earth does that have to do with anything, James? What is going on here? Why—”
“Did your family ever eat at the hotel in Barton’s Grove? At Christmastime?” he interrupted.
She wrinkled her brow and tipped her head to one side. “I’m sure we did. We lived there for several years while Papa ran the mill. But I was little. I–I don’t remember for certain. Why?”
James stood straighter, and for the first time, he seemed to notice that she had come out into the bitter winter night without her coat. He quickly removed his jacket and wrapped it around her. Keeping his right arm around her shoulders, he gently turned her toward the hotel. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “I … there’s something I want to tell you.”
They went back inside, and James led her to a narrow settee in a quiet corner of the lobby. Her mind was reeling, unable to imagine what had precipitated James’s strange conduct.
He took her hand and looked into her eyes, confusion and awe oddly mingled in his expression. “Do you remember when I told you about that Christmas when I was working at the hotel in Barton’s Grove? How I prayed that God would make it possible for me to enroll in the academy?”
“Yes. It was when your boss gave you the envelope—the money, right?” A hint of a memory began to niggle at her consciousness. There was some connection here that she couldn’t quite fit together. “That was at Barton’s Grove?”
James nodded. “But the money wasn’t from Mr. Browne, Stella. It was a tip, a gratuity left on the table in an envelope with my name on it—by a family who had dined there that evening.” His words gathered steam as they spilled out.
Stella gasped, and a broad smile spread across James’s face.
“Oh, James, are you thinking what I’m thinking? Do you really think it could have been us—our family—that you waited on that night?”
A faraway look came to his eyes. “You know, Stella,” he said, “for the longest time I wanted so badly to know who my benefactors were. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would show such generosity to a stranger. For a time, I suspected that Mr. Browne just made up that story because he knew I wouldn’t accept the money as charity from him. But he always insisted that he knew nothing about it. Finally I just quit asking and accepted the money for what it was—a gift from a God who loved me more than I could imagine.”
“James,” she breathed. “This means that you and I met each other before—before I ran into you on campus.”
“You know,” he laughed, “the night I got that envelope, I was so bowled over by God’s answer to my prayer that I could scarcely think straight. I wracked my brain to remember something—anything—about the people I waited on that night. But the only thing I ever recalled was this family—a family with a baby and a pretty little towheaded daughter who chattered like a magpie through the entire meal.”
Stella didn’t know if James was teasing or not. Neither did she care, but she gave his arm a playful punch for good measure. She was still trying to wrap her finite mind around the amazing possibility they’d just stumbled upon. “Oh, James, can we tell Papa? Can we tell the others the story?”
He thought for a moment. “I think it’s only right that they find out—after all these years—just how much your little tradition blessed a certain young man.”
He took her hand in his, and a little shiver of joy ran its fingers down her spine.
“Yes, Stella, I’ll tell your father what he could not possibly have known on that long-ago winter night.” A twinkle came to his eyes as he continued. “That the anonymous boy he prayed to bless with that envelope would someday come to him asking to become a part of his family.”
It took a moment for his words to register, and even then, she wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. “I don’t … what are you … ?” she stuttered.
He slid from the settee and knelt before her, gazing into her face. “Stella, I know we haven’t known each other very long, and right now all I have to offer you are two feet to walk beside you and these hands to hold you.” He held his hands palms up before her, as though they held all the promise of his offering. “But I have come to love you with all of my being, and if you will still have me when the day comes that I can provide you with everything you deserve, I intend to request your father’s permission to ask you to be my wife.”
At that moment, Stella knew in the deepest part of her soul that this was the man God had made for her. The knowledge filled her with joy. “Oh, James,” she breathed. “Yes! A thousand times, yes!”
She bent to receive the tender kiss he offered as a promise of his love—a token of the thousands upon thousands of kisses they would share in the hopeful ribbon of years that spooled out before them.
Epilogue
Dakota Territory, 1876
That was a fine, fine dinner, my darling,” James said, wiping his hands on the white linen napkin, then rubbing his midsection contentedly. Stella laughed, looking around the elegant dining room of the Clairemore Hotel, where they sat at a small corner table. “Well, I certainly can’t take any praise for the meal. But you are right. That new chef the hotel hired is marvelous.” She patted her husband’s hand. “Thank you, Dearest, for the break. It was nice not to have to cook tonight.”
“Thank your father,” he told her with a wry smile. “This little tradition was his idea.”
“I will do that—when I see him at Christmas dinner next week.” She intertwined her fingers with his across the table. “I think I might even have the house plans ready to show Papa by then.”
“I certainly hope so.” That familiar, endearing glint she knew so well came to James’s eyes. “As much as I do love her,” he continued, “I am growing a little impatient with my architect. I am very anxious to begin filling up all those carefully drafted bedrooms with children.”
She smiled and squeezed his hand. “I’m nearly finished with the plans. Truly. But before I turn my drawings over to the builder, I want them to be perfect.”
“Well, I couldn’t say about the design of our house. …” He rubbed a warm thumb across the back of her hand, then brought it to his lips and kissed each fingertip. “But as long as you are living within its walls, it will be perfect as far as I’m concerned.”
Their waitress came just then with a pitcher of water in one hand and a fresh pot of coffee in the other. They waited in silence while she served them.
The dining room was crowded, and the girl seemed harried and tense. Stella watched their waitress surreptitiously as she replenished their water glasses. The young girl’s shoes were scuffed and worn, and her uniform was a size too small. Her hands were red and chapped as though perhaps she spent the hours after the restaurant closed scrubbing pots and saucepans in the kitchen.
James leaned away from the t
able so the lass could reach his coffee cup more easily. “Thank you, Miss,” he said, then cleared his throat. “I’m sorry—what did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t say, Sir. But it’s Annie.”
“Well, Annie, we thank you for your service this evening.”
“Quite welcome, Sir,” she replied. “You folks have a merry Christmas now.”
“And you,” James and Stella said in concert.
Annie gave a half-curtsy and, with a weary sigh, moved on to the next table to pour coffee.
Smiling at his wife, James reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a small ivory envelope. Stella watched as he lifted the flap and inspected the contents. Apparently satisfied, he sealed the envelope and placed it on the table in front of him. Withdrawing a fountain pen from his pocket, he wrote Annie’s name across the face of the envelope in his fine, precise script. He put away the pen, but his hand returned and lingered for a moment over the name he’d penned, as though he were asking a blessing upon it.
Then he pushed his chair back from the table, rose, and held out a hand to his wife. “Come, my love. Let’s go home, shall we?”
Christmas Cake
by Janet Spaeth
Dedication
For Megan and Nick, simply because I love you.
Chapter 1
Elizabeth smiled as she heard Joel’s steps outside the door. He paused, and she mentally counted with him, one, two, three, four, as he stomped his feet on the wooden porch four times before turning the doorknob.
They’d only been married six months, and already she knew the rhythm of his daily life. He had to have a cup of steaming coffee first thing in the morning. When he ate, he started with the vegetables and worked around his plate, saving the meat for the last. And she could definitely count on those four stamps of his feet before entering the house.
It was a sign of his thoughtfulness. The early snow that covered their Nebraska homestead’s yard was easily tracked into the house, and Joel conscientiously cleaned his feet as completely as possible before entering.
She looked up at him as he entered the room. His face was red from the cold, and he puffed on his hands as he rubbed them together briskly. “Cold?” she asked unnecessarily.
“Yup.” His monosyllabic answer was lightened by a quick grin. “But it’s November so we can’t really expect different.”
She smiled at him. The past six months with him were wonderful and joy-filled. The other women in town had told her eventually those four stamps of his feet, the coffee, the pattern of his dining, and the predictability of his ways would drive her insane, but she doubted it. Not when she was this deliriously happy.
“Cat got your tongue, Mrs. Evans?” His eyes twinkled as brightly blue as the clear plains sky as he studied her.
“No,” she answered. “Just thinking that I am undoubtedly the luckiest woman on earth to have you as my husband.”
The corners of his mouth turned up in a lopsided smile. “Luck?” he repeated. “Luck, my dear wife, had nothing to do with it. I saw you, I lost my heart to you immediately, and determined you were the woman I wanted to marry. So I did.”
“Oh, you did?” She nodded, pretending to be seriously concerned. “And what about me?”
He stood towering over her, his hands on his hips. “Yes, what about you?”
What about her, indeed? In her memory she revisited their first meeting. She’d been leaving Sunday services at her grandfather’s church in Omaha when another member introduced the young man accompanying him. “This is Joel Evans, the son of an old friend.”
Her grandfather frowned slightly as the two young people’s gazes met and locked, but his friend had reassured him, “Not to worry, Cal. Joel’s just visiting from Boston. He’ll be here two more days, and that’s it.”
That evening both Joel and his elderly companion dined with Elizabeth and her grandfather, and by the end of the evening, both Elizabeth and Joel knew he would not be going back to Boston, not in three days, not ever.
They married six months later, after Grandfather was convinced their love was real and abiding, and that Joel had in his heart the same love of the Lord Elizabeth did. Within a month, they moved to the prairie farm so that Joel could try his luck at his dream: coaxing crops from the rich mid-western soil.
Grandfather had been loath to see her go, but despite his misgivings, they traveled on with his blessings.
It had worked out remarkably well. Soon after Elizabeth and Joel’s departure, Grandfather met a charming widow only a few years younger than himself, and they just declared their own vows last month.
He was no longer alone in the big house on Locust Street, which relieved Elizabeth’s mind, and if she were inclined to confess the truth about it, it also made him less fretful about his only relative living so far away.
She didn’t worry about whether he was eating enough vegetables, and he didn’t worry about whether she was safe from the winter winds. Instead, they committed their cares to the Lord and went on with their private earthly duties.
Elizabeth returned to the question at hand. “What about me?” she repeated. “I saw a man I knew I could love. A man I knew could love me. And after that, well, as they say, it all was history.”
“You went after me with a vengeance,” he agreed. “I had no choice but to give in.” He sighed and let his shoulders slump. “I didn’t have the strength to fight you.”
“Oh, you pitiful thing!” She stood up and wrapped her arms around his frosty neck. “And I’ve been torturing you ever since.”
They kissed, her lips warm against his still-cold mouth. This, Elizabeth knew, would never get tiresome, this age-old symbol of love. Their lips had barely parted when Joel clapped his hand to his pocket. “Lizzie! I almost forgot! A letter from my mother came today.”
He pulled out a wrinkled envelope. The corner was torn, showing the distance it had traveled, but the elegant script of the senior Mrs. Evans was distinctive.
“What does she say?” Elizabeth asked, unconsciously smoothing down the front of her dress. Joel’s mother made her nervous. It wasn’t that she was indifferent or spiteful to Elizabeth—not at all—but rather that in her presence, Elizabeth felt tongue-tied and awkward. Mrs. Evans was so … so elegant. And Elizabeth was … not.
“She’s coming for a visit!”
“A visit? Here?” Elizabeth looked around her and sank to the chair. “Here? She’s coming here?”
“Yes!” Joel slapped the letter against his leg. “Yes! She’s coming all the way to Nebraska! She’s taking the train from Boston. We’ll pick her up in Omaha and drive her out here.”
“Here?”
“What’s the matter, Lizzie?” His forehead wrinkled. “Is something wrong? Don’t you want her to come here?”
“Oh, no, I mean, yes. No. Oh, Joel!”
His face clouded. “I thought you liked my mother.”
“I do, Joel, I really do. And I am anxious to see her again.”
He smiled at her. “That’s better.”
“When is she arriving?”
“She’ll be here in a couple of weeks! She’s coming for Christmas!”
This time Elizabeth didn’t dare let herself say it, but she thought it: Oh, no.
The house was still basic. It was simple. What it actually was, Elizabeth finally admitted to herself, was unfinished. The floorboards were planks of rough-hewn pine, covered with inexpensive rag rugs. She’d counted herself fortunate to even have flooring; many of the women she’d met in town bemoaned the fact that they still had dirt floors.
She’d seen the Evans house in Boston. There weren’t dirt floors there, and the floorboards were highly polished oak.
This house, this dear house, would seem like a hovel to his mother. And if she hated it, then perhaps Joel would see it through her eyes: the spaces between the planks, the knots in the rugs where Elizabeth had inexpertly tied the rags together, the cheapness of the thin yellow-edged drapes that had earlier
seemed so cheerful.
Could he still be happy here? Elizabeth formulated the only prayer she could: Please, God. Please.
Dimly Joel’s voice floated back in.”… And caroling and roasting chestnuts over the fire, and oh, my goodness, fruitcake.”
“Fruitcake?” Elizabeth asked, feeling stupid.
“It’s all the rage on the coast. Has been for a couple of years now. Aunt Susan makes a fruitcake that would …”
His voice faded back out, and Elizabeth let the feeling of dread settle in her chest. Caroling. Chestnuts. And now, fruitcake. Her beloved husband was going to hate Christmas out on the prairie. They couldn’t go caroling, not when the houses were spread as far apart as they were.
And they couldn’t do it alone, just the two of them. She’d need an extra bolstering of other female voices. Hers was, bluntly put, as pleasing as a saw on metal.
The nearest chestnut tree, as far as she knew, grew in the park near her aunt’s house in Indiana.
And fruitcake? Now that didn’t sound too bad.
Elizabeth sat up straight. Her husband was not going to regret staying in Nebraska with her. If he wanted fruitcake, then he would have fruitcake.
Just as soon as she found out what it was.
Chapter 2
A tiny swirl of cold crept under the quilt, and Elizabeth burrowed deeper.
Stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp.
Joel had already been out to feed the animals. She opened one eye and peeked out cautiously. Daylight flooded the room, telling her she’d clearly overslept. Dawn came late in winter.
She had no idea how long she’d slept, though. When they’d moved to the prairie, Joel said they were not bringing any clocks with them. “What’s the purpose of knowing it’s four-thirty-two in the afternoon?” he’d said. “In Omaha, that may mean something, but not to us. We won’t need a clock to tell us the cows need to be milked. Their lowing will let us know. We won’t need a clock to tell us when it’s dinnertime. Our stomachs will tell us.”
Tracie Peterson, Tracey V. Bateman, Pamela Griffin, JoAnn A. Grote Page 46