Till Morning Is Nigh

by Leisha Kelly

  Of course he was right, but we had precious little to give. All of the Hammonds would be at our house again. That was an agreement Samuel had already made with George, who insisted that he couldn’t handle Christmas at all without our help. He’d promised to bring a ham. We were making presents. But those would not be the important things. We would need a touch from God this year to find healing, to find real peace.

  “Lidda Lor’ Jesus,” Berty was singing under the table. “As’eep on da hay.”

  At least there was one of us in the Christmas spirit. Emmie tugged a strand of my hair loose as I put the teakettle on to heat. Maybe some mild chamomile tea sweetened with a touch of honey would be of benefit to both girls. Or willow bark, to cut the fever.

  Franky must have been thinking along the same lines. “You got medicine?”

  “I’ve got a few things. But rest is probably what they need most.”

  “Rorey’s a’ready asleep. That’s good, ain’t it?”

  I hadn’t noticed him going to check on her. “Yes, that’s good. Hopefully she can sleep several hours. It’d be the best thing for her.”

  “She bad sick?” Berty suddenly asked, the uncertainty plain in his eyes.

  “I don’t think it’s bad, no.”

  “Like Mama sick?”

  “No. Nothing like that. She’ll be just fine. Don’t worry.” It was easy to assure him, and he quickly turned his thoughts to our regular routine. “We do school today?” He ran for the drawer that held Crayolas. Berty had felt left out when Harry started school without him this year, so I always gave him something to do when I worked with Franky. That satisfied him that they both “did school” at our house.

  “You can color me a picture to go along with that lovely song you were singing,” I told him. “Then after I get Emmie to eat something, or at least drink aplenty, we can start something else.”

  “Okay,” he answered me, reaching into the cupboard for paper.

  “You usually wash the breakfast dishes first,” Franky observed. “Do you want me to do that for you?”

  I hesitated. But he was already started across the kitchen. He dipped warm water into the dishpan from the large pot I’d set at the back of the stove before breakfast.

  “Where’s the soap?” he asked me.

  I reached for a cake of Alberta Mueller’s homemade lavender lye hand soap from the cupboard. “This is the only kind I have left. I was going to grate just a bit. But the dishes can wait—”

  “Oh, I’ll grate it for you,” he offered immediately. “I like to grate soap. Lizbeth lets me do that a lot.”

  I smiled. Franky always wanted to keep busy and stay helpful. He’d been that way even when his leg was bothering him the most and he couldn’t do outside chores like the other boys. And Lizbeth had gotten very good at finding small tasks that gave him an opportunity to contribute. “Wonderful,” I told him. “That will be a great help.”

  I tried to interest Emmie in the last dab of mush. Nothing doing. I tried a little applesauce, and she wouldn’t take more than three bites. She didn’t want milk either, but she did drink water for me, a good half a cup, and that was a relief.

  Rorey slept most of the morning, but I couldn’t get Emmie to sleep at all, so she was cranky as a little bear by the time Samuel came home around lunchtime. Our neighbor, Barrett Post, had come early in the morning for Samuel’s help with his furnace, and I’d prayed they could get it in good working order quickly. Louise Post had been down with the flu, and I knew she needed the heat.

  Samuel gave me a kiss and told me they’d managed to get the furnace fixed all right. “Looks like you’ve had your hands full,” he said and lifted Emmie from my arms.

  “Constantly. She hasn’t tolerated me putting her down for more than a minute all morning.” Then I told him about Rorey in our bed with a fever and George over at their house resting alone after slipping on their back steps.

  Samuel shook his head. “You’d think Lizbeth would have wanted to stay home with all three of them.”

  “She would have. But George wouldn’t let her.”

  Samuel frowned. “I’ll go talk to him after lunch. Maybe he just wanted your doctoring help with the girls, without troubling you to come out.”

  “Maybe.” I certainly wasn’t convinced, and Samuel knew my doubts. He had enough understanding of George to have plenty of doubts of his own. “I’ll send some liniment with you when you go over there,” I told him. “And a bite to eat too, in case he hasn’t stirred around to get himself anything.”

  “Six, seben . . .” Berty’s voice, quiet with concentration, floated in from the sitting room. I’d given him and Franky each a bowl of dried beans to use for an arithmetic lesson. Berty was just to line his up and see how high he could count. But Franky had a much different assignment: find out how many beans in his bowl and divide the number by five, and then by twelve. I hoped it wasn’t too difficult for him. Berty kept up his counting aloud, but Franky didn’t make a sound.

  I turned my attention to fixing lunch, and Samuel sat at the kitchen table with Emmie in his arms. “Barrett said he couldn’t pay me for the help today,” he said with a sigh. “Things are bad when even the Posts can’t pay. He said he’d return the favor when he could.”

  I counted potatoes, trying to decide how many we’d use with Rorey and Emmie not likely to have very big appetites. “That’s all right. That’s what neighbors are for.” But despite my words, I felt a familiar uneasiness stirring inside me. We were facing the holidays again absolutely penniless.

  Even without looking his way, I knew Samuel was watching me. “I’ve been working on some ideas for a few of the boys,” he told me, his voice barely above a whisper. “Have you been able to make much progress toward gifts?”

  “Some. Not enough yet.”

  “There’s time. We’ll have something for everyone before the holiday.”

  I plopped potatoes in a pot, jackets and all. Something for everyone? Oh, there was so much more to Christmas than the gifts! But he was right. We had to make do. “I’ve been working on a blouse for Lizbeth. And a doll for Katie.”

  “Any ideas for the oldest boys?”

  I wasn’t sure what to tell him. But a shuffle of footsteps coming in from the sitting room interrupted our conversation anyway.

  “There was a hun’erd an’ eighty-nine beans in my bowl, Mrs. Wortham,” Franky announced. “Dividin’ out fives makes thirty-seven with four lef’ over. An’ dividin’ out dozens gives fifteen, leavin’ nine.”

  I stared at him for a moment. He’d gotten done far more quickly than I expected. It took me a while thinking that through before I could answer him with a nod. “You’re right. That was very good.”

  “Excellent figuring, Franky,” Samuel congratulated him. “You’ve made great progress with your arithmetic.”

  The boy acknowledged the compliment with barely a nod. “You don’t hafta fix me up nothin’ for Christmas,” he told my husband immediately. “I got a pocketknife from your brother in July, and there weren’t nobody else got a present back then.”

  Samuel shook his head. “He gave that to you because he felt terrible about hitting you with his car. That’s something different.”

  “It was still a present. An’ I sure have liked it too. So I’m satisfied with nothin’ else this year if we’re comin’ up short. All I need’s some wood to whittle on regular, an’ that’s easy to come by ’round here.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I could almost picture us wrapping up a pile of sticks for his Christmas gift, which really would suit him. He took to working wood even better than he took to dividing beans.

  “Now, Franky,” Samuel said. “It’s not your job to be worrying over gifts. All right? The Lord will provide for our needs.”

  Franky nodded, suddenly seeming far more grown up than his years. “But he uses people often as not, and I a’ready heard ’bout people’s hands bein’ empty this year. Mr. Willis said he don’t remember a time in his w
hole life when things was this bad. So I know his wife an’ the other church folks can’t send us stuff like they did last year to make us feel better ’bout things.”

  “Would you like to help me set the table?” I asked him, hoping to change the subject. His talk of gifts, and especially about last year, was making me uncomfortable. He pushed a chair toward the cupboard, but I really didn’t want him climbing on it to reach the plates, so I passed them down to him.

  “I know somethin’ Pa needs,” he said suddenly.

  “What?” I asked him in spite of myself.

  “Some new hankies. He ain’t got hardly a one without holes in it no more.”

  I might have expected almost anything coming from Franky, who knew very well about his father’s struggles. But this was a very practical suggestion. And workable. I thanked him.

  Rorey got up for lunch, feeling some better. She even ate a tiny amount and seemed to have no trouble holding it down. And her fever was gone. Emmie, on the other hand, was just as restless, feverish, and fussy as she was when they’d first gotten here that morning.

  “Do you need me to go and get the doctor?” Samuel asked.

  It wasn’t easy to answer. “I hate to call him out here. I really do. But maybe we should, just to be safe.” I could feel my eyes suddenly teary, and I got up to fetch Samuel a second cup of coffee, mostly so I could turn away from the children for a moment.

  Bitter memories rushed over me like a flood. Of Wila and dear old Emma both sick. And me in my helplessness stranded with them at the Hammonds’ in a snowstorm while the oldest Hammond boy, Sam, was missing for hours trying to get through to the doctor. Oh, how I hated the thought of someone sick in the winter again! I even hated winter now. I’d never, ever felt the barren coldness of it so much before.

  “I’ll check on George and borrow one of his horses,” Samuel told me.

  “Mr. Post’s truck would be faster getting to town,” I suggested, “if he’d let us borrow it again.”

  I turned back around with Samuel’s coffee, and he was looking at me with a tender concern. “He probably would, under the circumstances. I hate to ask, but I believe he’d understand. I’ll go there first and then get George on the way back from town. He ought to be here when the doctor comes.”

  I didn’t like to see him leave again, and yet at the same time, I was relieved with the thought of having the doctor’s opinion. Emmie being sick was scaring me, even though it didn’t seem to be anything serious. Just the idea made me tense inside, and the longer it went on—even just part of this one day—the worse I felt. God help us. It’s so foolish to overreact!

  I knew it would be quite awhile before Samuel got back. We didn’t have a vehicle, except the old tractor, or any horses of our own. Samuel would have to walk a mile and a half over to the Posts, then drive eight miles into town, and then stop and get George besides. Rorey and Franky helped me clear the table, but they were both very solemn. Maybe the doctor being called was enough to bother them too. Emmie wailed in my arms and refused my every attempt to get any medicine tea down her. I moved to the rocker in the sitting room, trying to console her. And Berty, who’d gotten quiet only toward the end of lunch, suddenly crowded onto my lap with her and lay his head against my shoulder.

  “Hurts,” he whispered.

  “What hurts?”

  “Dat ear I got,” he proclaimed, without pointing to either one. “Hurts inside.”

  For a moment I thought this could be nothing more than a ploy for sympathy because Emmie’d had so much of my attention today. But then I noticed the tears in his big brown eyes, and I felt like crying too. Another child ill. And every single one of the others surely exposed! How many more would be sick before this was done?

  Little Lord Jesus

  I had to do something to get the children’s minds off sickness. It was bad enough that they knew we were fetching the doctor. I didn’t want them dwelling on it. I didn’t want them scared. So even though Emmie and Berty were feeling far from perky, I tried my best to interest them all in singing a song with me. I thought Berty’s Christmas carol would be a good choice, but Rorey was not in the mood to cooperate.

  “Do we have to sing that?”

  “I suppose we could sing a different song. How about ‘Silent Night’?”

  “I don’t wanna sing,” Rorey complained. “Pa says Christmas won’t never be the same without Mama. So it won’t be no good this year. He says people just gave us stuff last year because they felt sorry for us.”

  “Our church family brought food and gifts because they love all of you,” I told her. “But if they aren’t able to do that this year, it’s because times are hard, not because they love you any less. And Christmas isn’t about the presents anyway.”

  She crossed her arms and huffed at me a little. “Pa said you’d prob’ly try to act cheerful an’ all—like ever’thin’s dandy, but he’d ruther jus’ skip holidays if he could.”

  “He spoke like that right in front of all of you?”

  She shrugged. “Not all, I guess. I think Berty an’ Emmie was sleepin’ then.”

  I had to sigh. No wonder the Hammond kids had all seemed so glum. What they must be hearing all the time! I’d been far too reluctant to face the holidays myself. We couldn’t go on like this. These children shouldn’t go through any more days carrying around such gloomy thoughts instead of Christmas joy. “You know what?” I answered Rorey brightly. “It’s high time we got into the Christmas spirit around here. We have decorating to do, and so much baking. We’re going to have to get started this very day.”

  Berty looked at me with a tiny smile, but Rorey turned her head and stared out the window. “Kirk says not even you can make things right without Mama, Mrs. Wortham. Not at Christmas.”

  I sighed. “Probably not. But the Lord can still bless all of us, and we can do our best to honor him in this season. Besides,” I tried to entice her, “we can have a little fun. You like cookies, don’t you? We’ll need to make a lot of cookies. Shaped like candy canes and trees and stars like last year.”

  “An’ angels,” Franky added.

  “Yes. And I’ll need lots of help.”

  Rorey didn’t look convinced. She crossed her arms and stared at me. “Sarah can help when she gets home.”

  “What are you going to be doing?” I asked gently.

  “I’ll jus’ watch. Maybe. Anyhow, I dunno if I can even eat no cookies nohow. Maybe my tummy’ll get sick all over again.”

  “I think you’re going to be fine. And you might decide to help. You might as well if you’re going to be close enough to watch us. Which kind of cookie is your favorite?”

  She frowned, but she didn’t hesitate to give me an answer. “The candy canes, ’cause you gots to use red sugar. You still got any red sugar?”

  “I have plenty of red coloring,” I told her, though I knew very well that we’d be sorely in need of sugar before long. I had so hoped that Mr. Post would be able to pay Samuel even just a few cents today. But if there was no other way, perhaps we could take a few eggs into the grocer in trade. The Lord would provide. My grandma Pearl and dear old Emma Graham had told me that so many times. And I’d told others the same thing and seen the Lord provide for us over and over. There was certainly no reason to doubt that he would continue to do so. And yet, the uncertainty was like a little gnawing beast inside me. We had no way to get any money, no way to get anything at all besides what we already had on this farm right now. I’d felt so blessed over the fall to be able to can some food for the winter and give to a family in town who had an even more desperate circumstance than we did. But since the weather had turned cold, I’d begun to feel pinched and empty, stretched and afraid.

  I couldn’t show it. It wasn’t right even to feel the way I did. I knew God was faithful. He’d always been faithful. But as Emmie tugged her ear and cried again, I felt a quivering angst. Was I just fooling myself? How could we make the holiday bright for all these kids, in addition to our own? Wh
en their own father was the gloomiest one of the bunch? It was too much.

  I thought of the Scripture that said to take no thought for what we would eat or drink or what we would have to wear, because God who takes care of the birds would even more provide for us. I was sure that in these depression times there were many across the country who were questioning that. But the words must be true. Somehow.

  “We make cookies today?” Berty asked hopefully.

  “We’ll see. Let me rock Emmie a little and see if I can’t get her to nap. Then maybe we’ll get started.”

  Emmie protested, and Berty’s squirming didn’t help matters a bit. I tried to sing again, just a little, but Rorey interrupted me, her voice suddenly stark and cold.

  “It’s snowing.”

  With those words, a thousand crazy worries swirled through my mind. About Samuel on his way to the Posts on foot. And the children soon to be walking home from school. And me here alone with sick children. The first snow of the season, and it had to come today.

  It’s just flurries, I tried to reassure myself. Rorey’s probably just seeing a few lonely flakes floating down, and maybe that’ll be all there is to it. It won’t be like last year. No one will get stranded. No one will be left wondering all night if young Sam Hammond had been able to get through the storm to town and the doctor.

  Franky went to the window, and his assessment jarred me. “It’s really coming down, Mrs. Wortham.”

  I heard the fear in Franky’s voice and knew that his thoughts were surely not far from mine. But this was silly. This was not last year. Everything would be fine.

  “Maybe you’ll all be able to go sledding tomorrow,” I suggested, hoping I sounded as cheerful and encouraging as I wanted to.