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

by Prairie Christmas Collection

  She threw the covers over her head. She should get up, but she was so tired. She’d stayed up most of the night worrying.

  Something icy cold snaked down into the burrow she’d made and cupped her face. She sat up with a start. Joel stood beside the bed, grinning at her. He held out his hands to her. They were bright red. “Lizzie, my dear, I do believe it’s winter.”

  She leaped up and took his cold hands in hers. “Oh, Joel, are your hands going to be okay?” She held them to her face and rubbed them, trying to warm them. Panic bubbled up inside her. She’d never seen hands so brilliantly crimson. “You poor thing. They’re probably frostbitten!”

  His body shook a bit, and she looked up suspiciously. She hadn’t been married to him nearly five months without learning something about her husband.

  Sure enough, his eyes danced with hidden laughter.

  She dropped his hands and glared at him. “Joel Evans, you tell me the truth this instant. What is going on?”

  He crossed to the stove, which was burning cheerfully with new logs, and picked up the mittens she’d knit for him.

  She’d knit them from thick wool, intended to keep his fingers safely warm while he was out on the cold Nebraska plains. She specifically had chosen a merry red that would, she hoped, be a cheerful note when the prairie winter seemed endless, as she knew it would.

  But now they dripped onto the floor, vivid scarlet drops pooling on the raw wood planking. “I’m afraid your wool wasn’t colorfast, Lizzie.”

  She’d been so anxious to show him what a good wife she was going to be that she’d failed to prewash the wool, or at least rinse the mittens out with saltwater before giving them to him. Her eyes filled with tears. She had let him down. “Oh, Joel, I’m so sorry!”

  “No problem,” he said, coming to her to give her a hug. “If my hands have to be another color, red is as fine a hue as there is. Besides, it’ll wash off.” He smiled at her. “So what do you have planned for today?”

  “I thought I’d go through the wedding trunk your mother packed,” she answered. “There were some Christmas decorations in there, I believe.”

  Joel frowned. “She didn’t try to pass off that set of glass ornaments on you, did she? The ones that came all the way over from England on a packet ship and managed to arrive unscathed, not a single one broken?” From the way he said the words, the box of ornaments were clearly a family tradition, and the story of their arrival was near-legend.

  “I don’t think so,” Elizabeth answered. “But I can’t be sure until I go through the trunk again.”

  “Well,” he said, grinning at her, “if you do find them, do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “Drop them. They’re hideous.”

  Elizabeth waited until Joel went back to the barn. He was worried that the increased cold might signal bad weather, and he wanted to make sure the animals were secure with food and dry hay.

  She pulled the trunk out from the corner where it usually sat. Something tiny and dark scurried from the light, and she breathed a sigh of relief as it scuttled through the space under the front door, nearly flattening itself in the process.

  It was probably a field mouse. By now she should be used to them. The trick was, as Joel put it, to encourage them to live elsewhere when the house was the warmest place around in the dead of winter. She’d tried not to shudder as he talked about the mice. She’d nodded knowledgeably and agreed that they were an unavoidable nuisance, but inside she shivered with revulsion. Mice.

  Fortunately no rodents had gotten into the trunk. Everything was still packed as nicely as it had been when Mrs. Evans ordered Joel to put it in the wagon.

  Somehow it didn’t surprise Elizabeth that his mother could pack this well. Even the table linen remained unwrinkled. Joel had built the house well, but keeping anything clean, let alone white, was a never-ending task. Dirt seemed to sift through even the tiniest crack in the door. Wisdom borne of experience living on the prairie told Elizabeth fancy white linen was silly.

  Or was it? She shook out the linen tablecloth and studied it. It would look pretty on their table. The least she could do was make their home an inviting place. She laid the beautiful piece aside and investigated further.

  She had gone through the trunk when they’d first arrived, being careful not to disarrange anything that Mrs. Evans had so meticulously packed. Elizabeth had glanced through the recipes and found them to require ingredients not available on the farm, and she’d cautiously retied the ribbon around them and placed them back in the trunk, thinking one day she would use them. That day had arrived.

  At last she found what she was looking for. Mrs. Evans had told her she’d placed them in there. Her fingers closed around the ribbon-bound packet. Even this, Mrs. Evans had prepared with her special touch. Ribbons!

  And on the front of the bundle was, in Mrs. Evans’ recognizable flowery script, “RECIPES.”

  Her hands trembled as she untied the packet. It had to be in there. It had to be. She began to pray in an undertone as she sorted through the recipes, “Please, God, let it be here. Creamed chicken on toast points. No, no, not it. I want this to be special for Joel, God, a Christmas that won’t make him regret marrying me. Curried corn. How awful. Who would curry corn? Lord, please, oh, please let it be here. Here’s apple bread. Close but I don’t think that’s it. Please, please, please. Fruitcake. Aunt Susan’s fruitcake. Thank You, Lord!”

  She sagged back in relief, the dear recipe in her hand. Here it was, the recipe that would make all the difference in the world to her. She scanned through it, her eyes widening at some of the ingredients, her head bobbing in agreement at others.

  Such a recipe! She’d never seen anything like it before. Aunt Susan’s spidery handwriting was clear and readable, though, so everything on it must be right. Candied orange rind? She shuddered. It sounded dreadful.

  So this was fruitcake.

  Joel banked the straw against the lower parts of the barn’s interior walls. The wind whistled through incessantly, it seemed. He was using hay bales around the edge of the house. Here in the barn, where the planks didn’t quite meet on the northeast side, he’d piled more bales, too.

  Actually, with the animals generating heat, the barn was a fairly cozy place. A bit fragrant, perhaps, but warm.

  He stroked the twin noses that poked through the slats of the stable walls. As soon as Joel had decided to stay on the prairie and try his hand at farming, he’d bought the two horses. He’d trained them himself, or, as he sometimes said laughingly, they’d trained him. They were like children to him. As inquisitive as children, at least.

  “Come on, Day. You, too, Lily.” The team followed the sound of his voice as they moved restlessly in their stalls and whinnied at him from the front where the gate was lower. “You need to get out and run a bit. Don’t want you going soft on me.”

  The horses understood all of it, it seemed to him. He turned them into the corral and watched as they ran with the absolute joy of being outside.

  He knew how they felt. He loved it there.

  And he loved Elizabeth.

  He didn’t know anyone could be as blessed as he was at this very moment. He paused to thank the Lord for her and for all that she had brought into his life. She was such an unexpected gift.

  Gift!

  “Run all you want today, girls,” he said to the horses. “Tomorrow we’re going into town. We have some Christmas shopping to do.”

  What could he get her? He frowned as he kicked a clump of snow away from the corral’s gate. He was not a creative man. But Christmas was Christmas, and it was almost there.

  Whatever thinking he might have ahead of him, he’d better come up with something quickly.

  Their dinner seemed almost formal that night. Perhaps it was the embroidered linen she’d put on the plank table. Or perhaps it was the way that Elizabeth and Joel watched each other.

  “You’d better give me that shirt tonight,” Elizabeth said at last.
>
  “What shirt?” Joel paused, his fork suspended midway between his plate and his mouth.

  “The one you have on. Look how long the sleeves are! Why, they’re almost to your knuckles!”

  He glanced guiltily at his fingers and quickly popped the bite of meat into his mouth before hiding his hand under the table. He’d washed his hands before dinner—repeatedly. He’d even tried the strong lye mixture that he used in the barn, but the dye from the red mittens was stubborn. The last thing he wanted to tell her was that he hoped she liked red hands—because his were apparently going to be red for quite a while.

  Chapter 3

  Elizabeth tucked an extra blanket around the basket of eggs that were cradled on her lap. The air was still and crisp, with no hint of wind or storms, but on the prairie, it never hurt to take some extra precautions. Besides, it was cold.

  Apparently Joel thought so, too. He stopped and gazed at the front of the wagon, his mind clearly engaged on imagining something.

  “You know,” he said, “I saw some willow down by the creek. Come spring, I think I’ll go down there and get some saplings. They might be flexible enough to build an arch over the front of the wagon. Then we could …”

  He chattered on as he got into the wagon. With a light flick of the reins, Joel let Day and Lily know it was time to go.

  Elizabeth only half listened to Joel. The gait of the horses on the frozen ground jostled the eggs, and she had to hold onto the basket tightly. Occasionally, though, her fingers strayed to her pocket where the precious recipe was safely nestled. What if she lost it? She should have made a copy of it, but there hadn’t been time. She would just have to be extra careful with it.

  How much the ingredients for the fruitcake would cost worried her dearly. Since the sunny days of August, she’d put aside some of her egg money in a credit at the store, planning to use it for Joel’s Christmas gift. She hoped that she’d have enough accumulated to trade evenly.

  “… And that’ll shelter us from the elements when we go into town. What do you think, Lizzie?”

  Guiltily, she realized she had missed everything Joel had been talking about. Something about willow saplings, bending them, elements …

  She took a wild stab at it. “It’ll work quite nicely, I think.”

  He rewarded her with a smile. “You don’t have a clue what I’ve been talking about, do you? What’s up, Lizzie dear? Christmas secrets?”

  Her fingers brushed the recipe. “Yes, Joel, Christmas secrets.”

  She loved this man so much, it seemed impossible for her heart to hold any more joy. All she wanted was to make him happy, to keep him smiling. And in return, she knew that he wanted the same for her.

  It wasn’t as easy as she’d dreamed it would be, though. In her adolescent reveries, she’d been the perfect wife, serving perfect meals … and knitting perfect mittens. Mittens that didn’t bleed bright red dye over her husband’s hardworking hands.

  He wore his old leather gloves today, since yesterday’s fiasco forced him to stop wearing the red woolen mittens. She hoped his hands stayed warm enough.

  Maybe she could purchase some more yarn, and she could knit him some new mittens that wouldn’t bleed on his skin. It was a good thought. She settled back and watched the dazzling winter sun create glitters of diamonds on the new snow.

  Mr. Nichols, the owner of the general store, stood behind the counter patiently as she smoothed out the precious recipe.

  “I’ll need a pound of candied fruit peel, a pound packet of raisins, a small container of thick molasses, and a cone of brown sugar. I’ll also need cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, and allspice.”

  “A tin of each?” Mr. Nichols asked, frowning slightly.

  Elizabeth consulted the recipe. “I need no more than a teaspoon of each. Is it possible to get less than an entire tin?”

  The shopkeeper rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I think I can do that.” He gathered the supplies and put them into the basket that had held her eggs. “Anything else?”

  She looked at the recipe again. Eggs, flour, baking powder, salt, and lard she had. She shook her head. “I believe that’ll be all.”

  “Good thing you brought in your eggs,” he said. “Demand’s high with Christmas coming, and not everybody’s hens are laying as well as yours. Cold weather gets to them, I guess.”

  He licked the tip of his stubby pencil before he began totaling the charges. When he gave her the sum, Elizabeth almost lost her breath. She hadn’t expected it to be this much.

  She looked longingly at the wool she’d laid aside. She didn’t have enough money to buy all of the ingredients for the fruitcake and still afford the yarn for new mittens for Joel. Sadly she pushed the skein of yarn aside. It was a terrible muddy, brownish-gray color, ugly but serviceable. Joel needed mittens, but perhaps she could set the color in his red ones. That way he could have mittens and his fruitcake.

  She’d seen the reminiscent glow in his eyes as he revisited his Christmases in Boston. If there was anything she could do to recreate even a part of those Christmases, she would do it.

  “Have you had fruitcake before?” Mr. Nichols asked as he slid the now-filled basket to her.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  He rummaged under the counter and pulled out a tattered magazine. She recognized the name: Godey’s Lady’s Book. “Here,” he said, thumbing through it, “there’s an article about it. The missus showed it to me the other night.”

  Elizabeth scanned the page he showed her. According to the article, fruitcake was a favorite food of Queen Victoria’s, and now it was considered a delicacy of fashionable people.

  “You’re the first person to come in and get the ingredients for it,” Mr. Nichols said. “You’re quite a style-setter, Mrs. Evans!”

  “‘Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.’ “

  He gaped at her. “Excuse me?”

  Elizabeth laughed. “It’s from Ecclesiastes. This fruitcake that’s all the rage in England and now the East Coast is actually an old recipe from my husband’s family. What is old is new again.”

  A movement outside the store window caught her eye. Joel had stopped to talk to a few men, but he’d soon be in to pick her up. “Do me a favor, Mr. Nichols.” She leaned across the counter and lowered her voice. “Do not say anything about this to my husband.”

  He nodded in understanding. “Prices a bit steep, is that it?”

  “No, no, nothing like that.” She paused and couldn’t resist. “Well, except for that skein of wool. It shouldn’t sell for a penny over forty cents, and you know it.”

  The door opened a crack, and she could hear Joel bidding one of his companions a Merry Christmas. “Don’t tell him about this because it’s a surprise. A Christmas secret.”

  Mr. Nichols straightened up and winked at her. “No problem, Mrs. Evans. No problem at all.”

  “Well,” Joel said in a jovial voice behind her, “I probably should be worried that the shopkeeper is winking at my wife, but I’m hoping it means that she’s getting a good price on her groceries.”

  Groceries! She’d totally forgotten about them.

  “So what did you get?” Joel asked her, reaching for the basket and lifting one corner of the cloth she spread over the top.

  Faster than she thought possible, she reached across and lightly slapped his hand. “Joel Evans, you know better than to go snooping this time of year.”

  Joel laughed and put his arm around her. “Let’s go so we can get back home before dark.”

  As they left, Mr. Nichols called out, “Say, Joel, stop back by the next time you’re in town. I’ve got some good liniment for those hands. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen hands that chapped—and that red!”

  The little farmhouse, with its plank flooring and raw white walls, seemed especially cozy that night. The wind had finally picked up, blessedly after they’d gotten Day and Lily stabled, the cows fed, and the chicke
ns settled with fresh grain.

  The tips of Elizabeth’s fingers still tingled from the cold ride home. In her anxiety to leave the store before Joel saw the ingredients for the fruitcake and figured out her surprise, she’d left her gloves on the counter.

  Joel teased her about her vanity in not wanting to wear the extra pair that was on the floor of the wagon—big, rough cloth gloves so old that the fur lining was patchy with age—but she couldn’t tell him the real reason.

  She didn’t dare let go of the recipe. It was enough that she’d lost her gloves. If she lost the recipe, too, she’d be devastated. Too much was riding on it, so she’d kept her hands in her pockets, her fingers curled protectively around the precious piece of paper.

  She turned her chair to the fire and opened her Bible to her favorite passage. “Read it aloud,” Joel said from the other chair, which also faced the fire. He was nearly asleep.

  She barely needed to follow the printed words as she began her favorite chapter from the Bible. “‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels …’ “

  “1 Corinthians 13,” said Joel, not opening his eyes. He continued with her drowsily, ending with, “‘And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.’ “

  His head dropped to one side, and she studied his face. It was the face of a good, kind man, one whose love would indeed fail her not. She tucked the quilt closer around his shoulders and kissed his forehead.

  When she counted her blessings in her evening prayer, she would include this night as one of them.

  Chapter 4

  Did I tell you I might not be back until after dark?” Joel asked, returning to the house for the fifth time since hitching Day and Lily to the wagon. “Yes, you did, my sweet.” Elizabeth turned him around and pushed him out the door. “Now go, or it’ll be dark before you leave!”