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

by Prairie Christmas Collection

  This time the book opened to Proverbs and her eyes were drawn immediately to the verse that had always meant so much to her: “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing.”

  The words seemed to mock her. “A good thing?” How could she be a good wife if she could not give him the Christmas that obviously meant so much to him?

  “I should give up baking and become a stone-mason,” she grumbled to herself. “I seem to have a real talent for that.”

  She loved Joel so much, her heart ached with the joy of it all. More than anything she wanted him to be happy and comfortable, and now she had failed him.

  The clop of hoofbeats and the creak of wagon wheels told her Joel was home. For the first time in their marriage, the sound made her cry.

  Chapter 8

  The sun was just peeking over the horizon as Joel put the last touches on the wagon. He and his mother would be riding quite a distance, and he knew how hard the seat of the buckboard could be. If they didn’t get out frequently and stretch, they’d be numb from the waist down by the time they got to the house.

  There was one stop he’d have to make on the way back, and he knew his mother wouldn’t mind the delay.

  “I’m going to stop by Brother Jensen’s on the way back,” he said, “and pick up the book he got us to give to Mother. It’s a nice set of poems. She’ll like that.”

  He had another reason for stopping there, one he couldn’t share. He hoped Elizabeth would like his Christmas present.

  She stood beside him, silently watching. She seemed almost sad, and he hadn’t been able to get her to tell him why. She trailed after him like a shadow, not saying anything and yet full of unspoken questions. He almost jumped when she spoke at last. “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  She didn’t say more, and he paused before getting into the wagon. He turned to her. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to Omaha with me?”

  She shook her head. “No. Grandfather and his wife are away to spend Christmas with her family. And besides, I have to bake that lovely goose you brought back from Brother Jensen.”

  “Well, then.” He stood and looked at her as if memorizing her face. She was so beautiful, his Elizabeth.

  He wrapped her in his arms, and for the moment, time stood still. Together there was a power between them, much more than he had ever expected. This was love, but more than that, Elizabeth was his best friend. How did the Good Book say it? “This is my beloved, and this is my friend.”

  He tore himself away. “I have to go.”

  She nodded, and as he rode away, he heard her call, “Godspeed.”

  No clouds marred the clear blue of the sky. He couldn’t have chosen a better day to travel, and even the horses seemed to anticipate the ride. They tossed their heads, their manes fluttering, as if to tell him, Let’s go.

  Joel arrived at Brother Jensen’s house in good time. The pastor opened his door and limped to the steps, pausing to lean on his crutch.

  “Brother Jensen, you shouldn’t be out,” Joel scolded as he leaped out of the wagon. He wouldn’t unhitch the horses since his visit would be short.

  “I heard a wagon coming,” the pastor responded, “and my curiosity got the better of me. You heard that the book for your mother arrived?”

  Joel nodded. “I can’t thank you enough for suggesting it and then ordering it for me. I do appreciate it.”

  Brother Jensen beamed. “My pleasure. The book is charming, and I hope she’ll spend many pleasant hours browsing through the poems.”

  The fire in the farmhouse burned brightly, and Joel noted that the woodbox held a considerable amount of split logs. He’d fill it to the top before he left.

  “Lots of people have been by to visit,” Brother Jensen said to Joel, “it being Christmas, you know. That woodbox has never been more than three-quarters empty. I know you’re on an errand today, though, and don’t have time to chat. You’re picking up your mother, aren’t you?”

  “In Omaha,” Joel agreed.

  “I’ve got the book all ready for you.” He handed Joel a small volume bound in rich green leather and edged with gilt. “And the other—?” Joel prompted.

  Brother Jensen winked conspiratorially. “The other? Now there’s a gift that’ll be appreciated. Everything’s going to go just as planned, my son. Just as planned.” He gave Joel a hearty pat on the back. “Now you’d better get on the road. You have a long drive ahead.”

  Joel left the house and climbed into the wagon. He paused long enough to wave at Brother Jensen, framed in the doorway, and then, with a click of his tongue, he was off to Omaha.

  Elizabeth had the entire day ahead of her. In this magnificent spread of hours, she somehow had to come up with a Christmas present for Joel.

  Why hadn’t she let herself take the wool for the mittens on credit? It would have been only a week or two before she’d have been able to pay it off.

  “Because,” she told herself out loud, “you are your grandfather’s granddaughter.” She smiled as she recalled his words, There’s no credit in credit. She could almost recite the mini-sermon he gave on borrowing money. “A man should not take what he cannot pay for. It prevents him from being a foolish spender, and it keeps him from the poorhouse.”

  It was good advice, but for once, she wished she hadn’t listened to it.

  There was nothing to be done about it, though. The wool was still in the store, and she would purchase it with the next batch of eggs. Her husband would have his mittens, although not for Christmas.

  She fed the chickens. They surrounded her with their usual anxious pecking and jostling. She loved her chickens. Her favorite part of tending them was reaching into the hay and withdrawing a newly laid egg, still warm from the hen’s body.

  They hadn’t laid as many as usual, probably because of the cold weather, but she gathered what was there. “Now, my beauties, get to work. Remember, every egg you lay takes my Joel one step closer to new mittens.” They didn’t even look up from their feast. “Ungrateful creatures,” Elizabeth said, laughing.

  She returned to the house and did her morning tidying. A tiny brown field mouse scurried from behind the trunk as she moved it out to sweep behind it, and she chased the little creature outside.

  The Lord must have had a reason for the mouse and the mosquito, Joel had said one August evening, but why is truly one of His mysteries. Elizabeth agreed. She’d never get used to either one of them.

  The day sped by, filled with small tasks, and soon the time came to begin preparing dinner. The goose was truly beautiful. Elizabeth made the apple and raisin dressing that Joel liked, stuffed the goose, and put it in to bake. That, with the potatoes from the root cellar and the squash and the canned raspberries, would be their Christmas dinner.

  If only the fruitcake had turned out!

  It was too bad that the ingredients were so alien to the prairie. Now, if instead of candied fruit, there had been dried blackberries in the recipe …

  “Neglect not the gift that is in thee.” She could almost hear her grandfather’s voice reciting the line from the Bible he used to remind her to be resourceful. She would improvise a dessert. She could do it; she did it all the time. But this one would be special.

  A pinch of nutmeg and a heady dash of cinnamon were all that was left from her escapade with the fruitcake, but these remnants were added to a sweet batter she stirred up quickly.

  A grated apple, a handful of chopped nuts, a scoop of dried berries … all went into the mix. The spicy aroma soon joined the crisp scent of the goose baking.

  Stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp. The sound heralded her husband’s arrival. The door burst open, spilling Joel and his mother into the tiny house. The welcome sound of her husband’s feet was sweeter to her than his next words: “What smells so good?”

  “Is my son always this forgetful of his manners?” Mrs. Evans swept over to Elizabeth and enclosed her in a tight hug before releasing her and holding her at arms’ distance. “Let me look at you
! I must say, the prairie agrees with you. You are looking every bit as lovely as when I last saw you.”

  “And you, Mrs. Evans. Let me take your wraps while you tell me how your trip was.” Elizabeth helped her mother-in-law take off her coat.

  Mrs. Evans looked around her at the small house, and Elizabeth held her breath. If her mother-in-law found fault with it …

  But instead, Mrs. Evans beamed. “This house is absolutely charming! It’s cozy and warm and quite obviously filled with love!”

  Elizabeth exhaled in relief.

  Mrs. Evans sniffed in delight. “I must admit, I’m hungry. My son may be rude but he has excellent taste. Whatever you are cooking smells wonderful!”

  “Brother Jensen gave us a wonderful goose, but I’m afraid it won’t be ready for a while,” Elizabeth apologized.

  Mrs. Evans shook her head. “No, that’s not what I mean. Something smells warm and spicy and inviting.”

  “It could be the cake, I suppose. It’s about ready to come out now.”

  “I know you probably have everything planned out, but could we please have a piece of it now?” Mrs. Evans smiled at her.

  “Listen to my mother beg, would you,” Joel said teasingly from the bedroom where he’d put his mother’s belongings. “But she’s right. It smells good, and I’m hungry.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Well, that settles it, then.”

  She took the cake out of the oven and sliced it into servings. She watched anxiously as both her husband and his mother bit into it. “This is delicious,” Mrs. Evans said.

  Joel grinned at her. “Don’t I recognize some of our own raspberries and blackberries in it?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “So it’s prairie fruitcake, then, isn’t it?” Mrs. Evans’s tinkling little laugh sounded like a hundred tiny bells ringing at once.

  “Oh, don’t you remember Aunt Susan’s fruitcake?” Joel asked his mother, who smiled in return.

  “Indeed. That was the first sign of the holiday season, when her fruitcake arrived at our door.”

  “When I think back on the Christmases of my childhood,” Joel said, “I remember those fruitcakes.”

  “Weren’t they something?” Mrs. Evans smiled at the memory.

  “I think Lizzie’s prairie fruitcake is better than Aunt Susan’s,” he proclaimed loyally.

  Elizabeth felt her face grow warm. Was the terrible subject going to arise this early?

  She pressed her hands to her heated face, and Mrs. Evans glanced at her.

  “Elizabeth, are you all right? Look, Joel, she’s flushed. Perhaps she has a fever.” Mrs. Evans stood up and reached for Elizabeth’s forehead.

  “I’m all right. I just—I just have a confession to make. I wanted this Christmas to be special.” She looked at her husband, who was watching her with concern. “It’s Joel’s first Christmas with me, his first Christmas on the prairie, and when he talked about his memories of Christmas, the fruitcake …”

  “So you made this one?” her mother-in-law prompted.

  “I made this one, but I wanted it to be like the ones Joel remembered.” The tears began to flow as rapidly as her words. “So I bought the ingredients, and a mouse ate them, and then I bought more, but it turned out so awful that even the wild animals won’t eat it. I threw it out yesterday, and I checked today: It’s still there, with not even a tooth mark on it. Although,” she finished, sniffling, “there are probably some broken teeth laying around it. It was like stone.”

  She blinked away her tears and realized that they were laughing at her. The man she loved and his mother were laughing at her! “It’s not funny!” she protested. “It’s all I have for Joel’s Christmas present. I wanted to get him—”

  Mrs. Evans hushed her. “There, there. We’re laughing because we know what happened. You used Aunt Susan’s recipe, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aunt Susan fancies herself quite a cook, my dear, but she is not. She’s a sweet woman, but not in the kitchen. Her fruitcake is a tradition in our family, that’s true, but we can—and do—live without it.”

  “Her fruitcake is like the Yule Log,” Joel continued, “except no self-respecting fire will touch it.”

  “Joel!” his mother chided, but she laughed.

  “Well, it’s true, Mother. It’s harder than brick, more unbreakable than steel, and totally impervious to any natural forces known to man.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Mrs. Evans said. “Let’s make a new tradition here. It will be something good, something wonderful, something wise. We will call it Elizabeth’s Christmas Cake.”

  “Do you know what Aunt Susan’s fruitcake reminds me of?” Joel asked.

  The two women shook their heads.

  “It reminds me of the stone which the builders rejected. Remember?” He crossed the room and got the Bible from the table. “Here it is. Psalm 118:22: ‘The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.’ From an awful traditional recipe comes a wonderful new one. That is,” he added, “if you will make this every year, Lizzie dear.”

  She was about to respond when something small and furry brushed her leg. She leaped up, ready to go for the broom, when Joel, to her astonishment, laughed.

  “I see my Christmas present escaped.”

  He lifted up a tiny bundle of gray-striped fur. “This is your mouser. I know how much it bothers you when the field mice come to visit, and this fellow will keep them at bay. Won’t you, Little Gray?”

  Elizabeth took the kitten from him. It immediately began to purr, and Elizabeth lost her heart a second time.

  “I hope you like him. Brother Jensen gave me the idea. He has a cat in his house, and it catches the mice for him. He told me the Larsens in town had a new litter of kittens, and that’s what I was doing there the day we got caught in the blizzard—picking him out for you. They took it to Brother Jensen’s house, and Mother and I picked it up today.”

  “So that’s what all that intrigue was about!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  Joel laughed. “It was quite the plot.”

  “Well, I guess there’s no reason to wait on giving you my present,” Mrs. Evans said, “seeing as the kitten already brought it out to you.”

  Elizabeth noticed a trail of yarn from the kitten’s paws all the way to the door of the bedroom. It was a beautiful blue wool, the color of Nebraska skies, the color of her husband’s eyes.

  She was speechless as Mrs. Evans rolled up the yarn and handed it to her. “Joel told me you had been looking at some yarn in the store but you hadn’t bought any. I hope the color is all right.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Elizabeth managed to say.

  Joel gave his mother the book Brother Jensen selected, and as they all chatted happily, Elizabeth took the goose out of the oven and placed it on the table.

  Elizabeth noticed her mother-in-law touch the white linen tablecloth she’d sent in the wedding trunk. “I’m glad you’re using this,” Mrs. Evans said, almost shyly. “It was mine when I was first married.”

  “And you gave it to me?” Elizabeth asked in astonishment. She hugged her mother-in-law impulsively and was gratified when Mrs. Evans returned the embrace wholeheartedly.

  “That tablecloth has seen many dinners served and eaten in love, and I’m glad it will continue to serve its purpose,” Mrs. Evans said.

  Joel grandly seated his mother and Elizabeth before taking his place at the table.

  “The goose looks and smells divine,” Mrs. Evans said. “God has certainly blessed this food already, but I believe we should give Him our thanks.” Elizabeth nodded. “Joel?”

  She grasped the hands of her husband and his mother as they joined in the circle of prayer. She had never been happier, she realized, than she was at that moment. She’d been foolish to worry about recreating the traditions of Joel’s youth.

  The greatest tradition of Christmas was something that could not be roasted or knitted or baked. It was too big for any wrapping
, except, perhaps, some swaddling clothes that enveloped the best gift of all.

  Love transcended the unimportant boundaries of coast and prairie.

  Joel began the grace. “For the gifts of Christmas—Your Son, Your love, and Your grace—we thank You. Your love is endless and magnificent, and what we feel for each other is only a portion of what You feel for us. May we be worthy of Your love, and may we love as You have taught us.”

  He paused and added, “Thank You for the circle of love we are enclosed in tonight, for bringing my mother safely to our hearthside, and I especially thank You for my dear Lizzie, who … Amen.”

  Elizabeth looked up in surprise and realized that the kitten had gotten up on the table and was making off with a goose leg nearly twice his size.

  Their first Christmas together, their first holiday memories.

  She imagined them sitting side by side fifty years from this night, remembering the fruitcake that didn’t work and the one that did. She could see Joel in her mind, his hair as white as the prairie snow, his smile still charming its way into her heart. She would love him forever. That was a tradition that would never change.

  This Christmas was perfect.

  The kitten jumped off the table with a thump, the goose leg grasped in its tiny teeth.

  “Amen,” Elizabeth said happily.

  ELIZABETH’S CHRISTMAS CAKE

  (Prairie Fruitcake)

  Elizabeth didn’t have all these ingredients at hand, but make the best of your modern grocery store and try this newer version. By the way, Elizabeth used dried raspberries and blackberries, but this is also good with any dried tart fruit, such as cranberries or cherries.

  ½ cup shortening

  1 cup white sugar

  1 cup brown sugar

  2 eggs

  1½ cups applesauce

  1½ teaspoons baking soda

  1½ teaspoons salt

  1 teaspoon cinnamon

  ½ teaspoon cloves

  ½ teaspoon allspice Generous dash of nutmeg