The Unplowed Sky

by Jeanne Williams

  “Yippee!” Rory whooped.

  “You must be tired of cooking,” Hallie protested.

  “Not for my family,” Shaft chuckled, tying his beard out of the way. “Hallie, if you’ll open up a can of applesauce and heat it with molasses, it tastes real good poured over the pancakes.”

  “When’re we gonna open presents?” Jackie yelled. His new knife-pocket boots clopped down the stairs with a satisfying racket.

  “Soon as you wrap yourself around a couple of these pancakes,” Shaft called. “Say, are we celebratin’ your birthday today on top of Christmas?”

  Jackie nodded, hugging Smoky who meowed, as if explaining that she had wanted to sleep with Jackie last night, but Shaft had been gone a long time and needed a soft warm kitty, too. “I was six day before yesterday. But I wanted to wait for you, Shaft, and Rory and Garth. We’ll have my cake today, and I bet I can blow out all the candles!”

  “Bet you will,” Shaft said. “All right, birthday boy, you get the first pancake. Sit down and see what you can do with it.”

  “Sounds like we’re already having a merry Christmas,” said Garth, helping Meg to the table.

  Jackie finished first. Shaft helped him through the difficult wait for the others by giving him a pan of crumbs. “Scatter these for the birds, son, so they can have a Christmas breakfast, too.”

  As soon as Jackie came back in, the cardinals fluttered down, the male bright crimson against the snow, his mate gray brown with ruddy touches. They were joined by a host of larks and sparrows, so Jackie begged more crumbs. “Do you think they’d like some of my birthday cake?” he asked.

  “I doubt that chocolate’s their favorite flavor,” Hallie laughed. “But we have lots of crumbs. I save them to put on top of macaroni and cheese, you know.”

  “And this pancake’s scorched a tinch past brown,” said Shaft.

  So the birds had their Christmas feast outside while, inside, the humans enjoyed theirs. When Hallie started the dishes, Shaft steered her firmly into the front room. “Rory and me’ll see to the dishes today—and we’ll see to these after the presents on account of Jackie’s gonna bust if we wait much longer.”

  Meg spun her chair smartly around by the tree. Some new presents had appeared since the caroling last night, including one very large box wrapped in brown paper with a big red bow. “Let me hand the presents to Jackie,” Meg appealed to Garth. “Then he can deliver them. But he gets to open one first because he’s the youngest.”

  Garth glanced at Hallie, who nodded, but Jackie with supreme effort said, “Let’s give Smoky and Laird their presents first.”

  Laird wurfed jubilantly and galloped away with the bone Jackie had put in a shoebox that morning. Smoky batted a tinkling plush ball till Jackie tired of retrieving it from under the davenport and looked expectantly at Meg.

  She scooted a large box forward. “This one’s from me, Jackie!” The cardboard was decorated with crayoned Christmas trees and cardinals. Meg ripped at it as eagerly as Jackie and beamed when he cried out in delight.

  “A train! And a track and station and a tunnel and—and—”

  “The locomotive’s got real piston rods,” Meg pointed out. “Wind it up and it pulls the coal tender and rest of the cars. And there’s a crossing signal and semaphore and railroad gate and telegraph poles!”

  Shaft whistled. “Hey, Jack, if you’ll let us, we’ll all have some fun with that!”

  “Yes, but everybody’s got to get their presents first,” Jackie said a bit regretfully. His excitement over handing out gifts rekindled as he turned toward the tree and picked out the small package that held Meg’s watch. “Meg, you’re next youngest!” He thrust the parcel into her hands. “Here! You can’t guess what it is, not in a jillion, million years!”

  She gasped at the shimmering white-gold bracelet and the dainty case. “Jackie! It—it’s even more beautiful than I thought it could be. But it cost too much! You’ll have to let me pay you for some of it.”

  “I didn’t got quite enough money,” Jackie confessed. “Hallie helped.”

  Meg’s radiance dimmed. “Oh. Well—thank you, too, Hallie.”

  Stung and hurt, though she had expected nothing more, Hallie had to swallow before she could say, “I hope you’ll enjoy it.” She couldn’t tell whether Garth’s frown was for her, his daughter, or because he had intended to give Meg the watch on some future occasion.

  “Ladies before men,” he said, rising. “This one’s for Hallie from Shaft and me, but it’s too heavy for you to lift, Jack.” Garth set the big box with the red bow in front of her, got out his pocketknife, opened the top, and lifted out what Hallie thought at first was a small suitcase till she saw the turning lever at the front.

  Shaft hooked a footstool forward so Garth could set the case on it. “Open the lid, honey,” urged Shaft, chuckling at her puzzlement.

  Hallie flipped up the brass clasps and lifted the hinged lid. “A phonograph! A portable one! It’s wonderful! And the top holds records!”

  “It’ll play ten- and twelve-inch records—two of ’em on one winding,” Shaft declared proudly. “Just listen to this!” He wound up the motor, put on a record, and carefully set down the playing arm. Male voices rose merrily in “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover.”

  “Will you let me wind it, Hallie?” asked her brother.

  “Of course. Just don’t get it too tight.”

  “We got you Vernon Dalhart singin’ ‘The Prisoner’s Song’ and ‘Wreck of the Old 97,’” said Shaft. “And there’s some mighty fancy fiddlin’ from Eck Robertson and Henry Gilliland.”

  “You fiddle better than anyone, Shaft.” Hallie squeezed his hand. “But it’ll be marvelous to have music while you’re away.”

  “This present’s for Shaft, Jackie,” said Meg, calling him to the gleeful task of giving Shaft the meerschaum.

  “Boy howdy!” Shaft flourished the box with his name embossed in gold. “My grandpa had a meerschaum, but it didn’t have such a fancy case. You kiddies shouldn’t have spent so much, but I sure will take care of it and think of you when I’m enjoyin’ my evenin’ pipe.”

  Meg’s gift to her father was a blue blanket bathrobe and Rory got pajamas. The brothers seemed pleased with the sweater jackets from Hallie and Jackie, and Shaft was delighted with his warm slippers and flannel shirt.

  To Hallie’s dismay, Rory’s gift was an elegant seed-pearl necklace with a pearl and sapphire festoon. It was the gift of a lover, and Garth’s eyes narrowed. Hallie thanked Rory but, to save her life, she couldn’t pay the natural compliment of fastening it around her neck.

  Jim Wyatt’s gift to Meg was a music box. Jackie got a two-propeller biplane. For Hallie there was Coty’s Muguets des Bois perfume and a note that said he would miss all of them next summer, but he’d located a good used engine he could afford so he’d be running it.

  On the card with a box of handkerchiefs for Hallie, Meg had signed her name and Jackie’s with no attempt at holiday greetings. The girl flushed when Hallie thanked her as pleasantly as if the gift had required much thought and effort. Jackie must have asked the Donnellys to get him a long piece of paper; for on a four-foot strip of pink butcher paper, he had drawn dinosaurs roaming amidst palm trees and belching volcanos while great winged creatures flew overhead.

  “I love it, Jackie,” she said truthfully, giving him a hug. “I’ll get a frame made for it and keep it for always.”

  Meg shrieked happily over the Ouija board Rich Mondell sent her. Jackie was thrilled with a jointed crocodile that meandered over the floor when wound up, opening and shutting its jaws. Hallie’s present was The Congo and Other Poems by Vachel Lindsay. “Lindsay is America’s troubadour. Read these poems to Jackie, and he’ll soon be chanting them along with you. Lindsay wrote a poem about harvesting wheat in Kansas. I wish he could have tasted your cooking, Hallie!”

  Jackie was thrilled with his gifts from Hallie, his ukulele from Shaft, fire truck from Garth, and bow and arrows from R
ory, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the train set.

  “All right, lad.” Garth gave him a pat on the shoulder. “You’ve held out just fine, but Shaft’ll help you fix your railroad while Rory and I bring in Meg’s last present.” He grinned. “We’ll call it Meg’s, but we’ll all enjoy it.”

  Meg caught his sleeve. “What is it, Daddy? I was getting scared you’d forgot me!”

  “You know I’d never do that. You’re going to have to figure out where to put it, because once it’s installed, you can’t be scooting it around.”

  “What is it?” Meg implored. Her father and uncle hurried out of the room and she turned to Shaft. “Do you know? Tell me! I’ll see it in a minute anyway.”

  “So you just wait that minute, girlie. Hmm, Jack, I guess this piece of curved track joins to the straight like this—”

  Garth and Rory brought in a polished wooden cabinet and set it down near Meg. “Open that top door,” Garth said.

  For a moment Meg just stared at the handsome mahogany with the latticed scrollwork over a frieze-covered upper panel. “A—radio! Oh, Daddy!”

  The MacReynoldses had bought a five-tube table model the last year Hallie lived with them. The first commercial radio station began broadcasting from Pittsburgh in 1920, with the results of the November election when Harding and Coolidge defeated the Democrats. Since then, stations had sprung up all around the country. Farmers who could afford radios got them for market and weather reports. The music, news, educational programs, and other features had been a lot of company for Mrs. MacReynolds, and Hallie had enjoyed them, too.

  Radios were expensive, though. Her glimpse at them in the catalog before she riffled swiftly by gave prices of close to $100 for similar consoles.

  Of course there were “easy payments,” about $15 down and the same amount each month till paid, with interest. After the bank failure that ruined her father, Hallie was afraid of debt. Had she aspired to such a luxury, she would have saved till she could pay cash. She hoped Garth had though she understood his wish to make up for being away from his crippled daughter.

  Meg’s fingers trembled as she pulled down the carved door to reveal knobs that turned the set on and controlled volume and tone. As everyone gazed at what still seemed near magic, Garth said, “It won’t work till we set up the aerial, so you have to decide whether you want it here or in the kitchen. I vote for the kitchen since it’s where we are most of the time we’re indoors.”

  “It’ll get dirty in there,” Meg protested.

  “But it’s cold in here when the stove’s not going,” Jackie whimpered.

  “I can polish it every day with furniture oil,” Hallie offered.

  Shaft absentmindedly stroked Smoky, who had draped herself from shoulder to shoulder with her chin hooked above Shaft’s collarbone. “Why not move that little table at the foot of the stairs and put the radio there? That way you can hear it in the kitchen and the front room, too, when the door’s open.”

  “Let’s try it,” Garth said.

  Shaft got to his feet, still caressing Smoky. “You figger out the directions and tubes and stuff while Rory and me redd up the dishes.”

  Meg gazed longingly at the phonograph. Hallie started to tell her she could play it all she wished but checked herself. It might not hurt to let Meg ask for something. Hallie smoothed and folded the reusable paper and ribbons, storing them in a box for next year.

  Next year. Would she be here then? She didn’t think so. Not if Meg was still so difficult. Not if Garth were so mistrustful. But taking Jackie away from Meg whom he adored—Even if Shaft came with them, it would be terribly hard on the little boy. Why, why couldn’t they all be a family? Last night, singing carols, it had almost seemed they were.

  It still looked that way, Jackie absorbed in his train, Meg closing her eyes to move the Ouija marker, the men talking about detector-amplifier storage battery tubes, voltmeters, battery testers, and aerials. But while Hallie was delighted with the phonograph and Jackie’s mural and touched at being remembered by Jim Wyatt and Rich, she was troubled by Rory’s expensive gift and oppressed by Garth’s coolness.

  What she wanted more than any lavish present was for Garth’s eyes to glow as they sometimes had, for that sweet wildness to flow between them, for him to smile and act as if he liked to be with her. Instead he behaved as if it were an ordeal.

  Hallie put the wrapping box in the sideboard and started for the kitchen. As if the words were jerked from her, Meg blurted, “Is it all right if I play your phonograph?”

  “Use it all you like.” Hallie smiled. Somehow, after all the rebuffs, she still hoped that sometime Meg would smile back freely and happily. “After all, we’ll soon be listening to your radio.”

  “Yes,” said Meg, winding the motor, “but phonographs are still nice because you can play what you want to hear.”

  The strains of “Bye-bye, Blackbird” followed Hallie into the kitchen. Garth had gone outside to see about where to run the aerial. Rory caught her wrist. “Aren’t you going to put on your necklace?”

  She freed herself and began making cranberry sauce. “I’m going to save that necklace for you, Rory, till you find someone as special as it is.”

  “I already have.”

  “No, Rory.”

  “I can wait.”

  Shaft grunted. “You’ve never waited long. Now are you dryin’ dishes or lollygaggin’?”

  As soon as the two men finished the dishes, they joined Garth in working with the radio. Jackie made his wish and blew out his candles to strains of Christmas music and the new apparatus was kept on the rest of the afternoon. It was Shaft’s fiddle they listened to that night, though, and sang more carols as he played and Jackie strummed his ukulele.

  This is good, Hallie thought as she looked around in the mellow lamplight. This is happy. This is what I’ll save to remember all the months and weeks till spring. Whatever happens, I’ll remember this and be grateful.

  Garth’s eyes met hers, held. Just for the pause of a heartbeat, a surge of achingly sweet awareness seemed to pulse between them. Then he looked away.

  Had she imagined it? Had the feeling been only hers? “I’m plumb fiddled out,” Shaft said with a last sweep of his bow. “You want any more music, you’ll have to get it from the phonograph or the radio.”

  “We’d all better turn in,” said Garth, rising. “We need an early start tomorrow.”

  “Do you have to go tomorrow, Daddy?” Meg asked.

  “’Fraid so, sweetheart. But spring’ll be here before you know it.”

  “It won’t! It’ll seem like—like forever!” Meg’s glance touched the manger. Did she think of those who had made it, who really wouldn’t see Rusty again on this earth? Whatever went through her mind, Meg straightened. “The radio will help a lot, Daddy. And I’ll be walking when you come back.”

  “Sure, honey.” He helped her out of the chair. “I’m going to need my water monkey!”

  As she did before bedtime every night, Hallie supported Meg down the steps and waited for her outside the privy. The thin layer of snow was luminous blue in the starlight and crunched beneath their feet.

  “Are you going to marry Uncle Rory?” Meg asked.

  Too startled to consider her words, Hallie said, “Goodness, no! I don’t love him.”

  “I wish you did. It’d be sort of nice if you married him. There’d be more—more family.”

  So you’d like me for an aunt, but not a stepmother. I guess that’s some improvement. “Families are wonderful,” Hallie said. Gracious, on the way back from the privy on a freezing winter night, they were almost having a friendly conversation! “Especially at Christmas.” Hallie hesitated and then decided to risk the truth. “I’m glad Jackie and I were here with all of you instead of by ourselves.”

  Meg shivered. “Oh, that would be lonesome! It helps to be with people, doesn’t it? Like Luke and Rusty’s wife and her mother and the kids must make each other feel better. Maybe when one’s real
sad, the others talk and get them cheered up.”

  “I’m sure that’s how it works. Laughing’s better with others and so is crying.”

  “Men don’t cry.”

  “Maybe they should. They certainly must feel like it.”

  They went up the steps. It was the closest Hallie had ever come to Meg’s thoughts but when they entered the kitchen, Meg said a careless general good night to everyone except Jackie. She bent on her crutches for his hug and kiss and then let her father help her up the stairs while Shaft carried Jackie, his locomotive, and a dump truck.

  Not wishing to be alone with Rory, Hallie wished him a hasty good night and followed hot on the heels of the others. After Jackie was tucked in, Hallie heard Shaft go downstairs and Garth a few minutes later.

  The outside door shut. Shaft must be going to his place. A little muffled conversation passed between the brothers. Then one of them came up and entered their shared room. Because of the rapid footfalls, Hallie thought it was Rory. Garth moved more silently and slowly.

  He must be downstairs alone. She halted with her fingers on the buttons at her throat. What if she went down? Would he immediately go up or would he talk with her a while?

  Nothing ventured, nothing gained. As well hang for a sheep as a lamb. Better to have loved and lost—Hallie broke off the chain of proverbs and buttoned her collar. If he played Great Stone Face, she’d fuss in the cupboard a minute as if she had forgotten something and retreat.

  What she wished she had the gall—or courage—to say was, “I love you, Garth MacLeod. When our eyes meet and my bones melt, don’t you feel anything at all?” But she knew she couldn’t do that unless he gave a sign.

  She was going down, though, to give him that chance. Her hand was on the doorknob when she heard a vehicle coming down the lane. Who could it be at this hour?

  Surely not the Donnellys. Raford? Hallie could see the back yard from the window. She tugged the edge of the curtain aside and tried vainly to peer through the frost-sculptures on the pane. All she could see was the haloed lights that went off as the engine stopped.

  If it were Raford, he wouldn’t try to hurt Garth, would he? Should she go down? Nothing in her room would serve as a weapon, but there were all kinds of deadly objects in the kitchen, from carving knives to the fire poker. Hallie’s hand was on the knob again when she heard a female voice, one she hadn’t heard in months but recognized at once.