by Jean Little
“Not your father,” the teacher said quickly. “You have other friends. It was Dr. Schumacher.”
“Dr. Schumacher!” Anna breathed.
“Where did he find so much money?” Bernard asked practically.
“Doctors are all rich,” Josephine Peterson told him.
“That is not true, Josie,” the teacher corrected her. “Now people are having a hard time paying their bills, so they often leave the doctor till last. But Dr. Schumacher has no wife and children of his own to make Christmas for — and Anna is a special friend of his. He told me so himself.”
Anna remembered how she had felt that day in his office when the doctor had said she must go to a special class.
He said I would like it and I do, Anna thought. He was my friend even then.
“He didn’t do it all,” guessed Bernard, studying the supplies. “I’ll bet you helped, Miss Williams.”
“A little,” the teacher admitted, her cheeks flushing under his direct gaze. “I have no family in Toronto either.”
“How about your mother and your sisters?” the class wanted to know.
Miss Williams had often told them stories about her childhood. They knew her family well.
“They’re in Vancouver.” The teacher got busy as she talked, moving books on her desk. “It’s too far to go for Christmas but I already have a box full of presents from out West.”
The others were distracted by talk of presents. Only Bernard still remained grave and Anna thoughtful.
I could ask Papa to invite them, she told herself. It can’t hurt to ask. Miss Williams would like our tree. Dr. Schumacher is busy, but maybe he’d have time that night.
“Now let’s begin,” Miss Williams said.
Anna was still worried but she watched carefully and listened hard. It did not sound impossible.
First they had to choose the shape they wanted their baskets to be. Anna picked an oval base. It looked good and big — she did not want to make a small present. She had just learned how to use a ruler. She took hers out of her desk and measured the piece of wood. It was six inches wide at the centre and ten inches long. Anna smiled and put the ruler back.
Next they put the reeds to soak in a bucket of water. Anybody could do that. Anna did it carefully, slowly. Josie hurried and broke one of her reeds.
“Treat them gently, Josie,” Miss Williams warned. “Watch how Anna handles hers.”
By the middle of the afternoon the reeds were pliable enough to weave. Anna put in the upright pegs first. They had to be even. She placed each one slowly, coaxing it, guiding it through the correct hole, measuring first with her eyes and then with her ruler.
“That’s it, Isobel. Good, Veronica.” Miss Williams went from one to another. “Not so fast, Jimmy. They’re uneven at the top.”
She paused by Anna’s desk. The others were getting ahead of Anna but she was paying no attention to that. She wanted this basket to be just right, like something Gretchen would make, or Mama.
“That’s perfect, Anna,” the teacher said.
Perfect!
Anna started to tuck in the ends, one behind the other, so that the underside of her basket would be trim and neat. It made an attractive pattern. She stopped to admire it.
“Let me see that,” Isobel said, reaching for it. “Oh, I get it. Thanks, Anna.”
She handed the basket back and bent her head over her own, undoing her mistake and fixing it. Anna blinked with surprise.
Then, intently, she listened as Miss Williams explained how to do the actual weaving of the reeds. It sounded almost easy. You started with the thin ones. Anna reached for a length of reed. Her hand shook.
Catch the end behind one of the uprights.
She did that. For an instant, she felt all thumbs. The reed slipped loose. Anna bit her lip and began again, more slowly. This time it stayed put. She took a deep breath, gathered her courage, and started to weave.
In and out, in and out. Each time she had to pull the whole long whip-end of reed all the way through. What seemed like yards and yards of it curled and coiled around her. There! She had done it.
Now pull it tight.
Not too tight, Anna reminded herself.
It must fit snugly around the straight sticks, but pulled too hard, it might break. She tugged at it until it felt exactly the way it should. She did not wonder how she was so certain. Her hands knew.
Miss Williams came to her again. There was not a mistake in the child’s work. She was concentrating so intently that she was not even aware of the woman who stood watching her.
“How deft your fingers are, Anna!” Miss Williams said.
Anna’s head jerked up. She stared at the teacher. What did “deft” mean?
“Deft means quick and clever,” the teacher answered her unspoken question. “Sure of themselves.”
Anna knew that up till that very moment, she had had clumsy hands.
“Let me do it, Anna,” Mama or Gretchen or even Frieda had often said impatiently. Rudi still called her Awkward Anna when he thought about it.
Now she had deft fingers.
Anna went on weaving the reeds around and around, over and under, over and under. As she worked deftly, neatly, nimbly, a new song was singing itself inside her heart.
A Christmas present,
I am making my Christmas present.
I am making my very own.
It will be from me.
A Christmas present,
A surprise for a Christmas present!
I am making it by myself
And Papa will see.
She had never known such joy. But Miss Williams made them stop long before they were finished.
“There is still something called Spelling,” she told them dryly. “And Arithmetic, too, Jimmy.”
The next day she gave them time to work on the baskets again, though. Slowly the sides rose. Anna finished with the narrow round reeds and began to weave the flat ones. In and out, in and out.
“My hand’s tired,” Josie complained. Her basket was messy too.
Anna’s hand was not one bit tired. And her basket was not messy.
“She’s pretty good for a kid, isn’t she?” Bernard said to Miss Williams.
“Not just for a kid,” Miss Williams answered. “Anna has a gift for taking infinite pains.”
Even Bernard had to have that explained, though he had spoken English all his life.
I wish I could make him a present too, Anna thought. And Isobel and Ben … and Miss Williams … and Dr. Schumacher.
She could never do it. Not five more presents! She who had not even been able to make one until Miss Williams showed her how. But she thought about it, as her hands pulled the long reeds through and pushed them back. She thought and she began to see how she might.
The basket must be done first though. Her excitement mounted as she neared the end. When she was two inches from the top, she went back to the thin, round reeds. It was like making a border. Then, suddenly, it was complete. It stood almost a foot high. The sides slanted out a little, gracefully. (Several of the others had not been able to manage this. Theirs went straight up like stovepipes.) All the ends were tucked in out of sight. There were no gaps. Anna turned it around slowly, gloating over it.
“Take your pencils and print your initials on the bottom,” Miss Williams instructed. “I have arranged to have them painted at the School for the Blind. I wouldn’t want you to get them mixed up when they come back.”
Anna laughed. As though she would ever confuse her basket with anybody else’s! She printed her initials clearly on the white wood.
A. E. S.
Then the baskets were taken away.
At home, the other four were busy with their plans.
Gretchen waited and waited for Papa to offer her the money so she could refuse. Papa seemed to have forgotten.
“You’d better tell him anyway,” Rudi decided. “We want them not to worry.”
“About the Christmas m
oney, Papa …” Gretchen began that night at supper.
Mama interrupted. Her face was very red and she did not look at the children while she talked. She stared at a spot on the table.
“Gretchen, I was meaning to tell you. This year Papa and I would rather not have any presents. Your love, that is enough for us. We … Really, that is the way we want it. There will still be the tree, of course. Don’t be afraid. But …”
“That’s fine, Mama,” Gretchen managed to break in. “I … we …”
Rudi kicked her under the table and she was quiet.
“We understand,” Rudi told his parents. “Don’t worry.”
Later, when the children found themselves alone for a moment, he said to the others, “It’s even better this way. They won’t expect a thing. It will be a complete surprise.”
“Three complete surprises,” Fritz reminded him with a giggle.
Anna said nothing at all.
As Christmas Eve drew closer and closer, the four older children would not tell each other what they were up to, but hints flew back and forth. Gretchen hid her knitting quick as a wink when Papa or Mama came into the room and she would not let anyone look at it closely. But they all knew it was something blue — and then something yellow.
The twins were shovelling snow after school. Not many people could pay to have snow shovelled, but Frieda and Fritz had kept asking from door to door until they found two or three customers.
Rudi was busy playing hockey.
“Don’t worry about me. I have days and days yet,” he told them.
“But what are you planning to get?” Fritz plagued him. “Just give us a rough idea. We’re getting something Papa will really like, something he doesn’t have — and always wanted.”
“We hope,” Frieda added.
“Mine’s going to be something that’s a special Christmas thing.… You’ll see when the time comes. I have to go.” Rudi brushed by them and was gone into the winter world of ice and hockey sticks and pucks. He felt completely Canadian.
Anna did not hint. Nobody knew, nobody for one second suspected that she too was working on a Christmas gift. The other four did not think of her at all.
17
The Days Before Christmas
ONE NIGHT, Anna went to Papa with her amazing idea.
It’s only Papa, she reminded herself as she tried to decide on the right words.
But she had to screw up her courage and the words came out all muddled. Staring down at her father’s shoes, Anna almost wished she had not even tried.
“Dr. Schumacher and Miss Williams!” Papa exclaimed. “But … but why, Anna?”
“Miss Williams’ mother is in Vancouver and Betty and Joan are too. They’re her sisters,” Anna explained in a rush. “But Miss Williams cannot go to see them because there’s no money this year.”
Papa nodded. That much he understood.
“And Miss Williams said Dr. Schumacher has no wife or children. Maybe he does have a mother, though …” Anna stopped at this new, startling thought.
“No,” Papa said. “Franz has no family. He was raised in an orphanage in Berlin.”
Anna lifted her head at that. Eagerness lighted her face. “Then he might want to come,” she cried. “They both might.”
Her father rubbed his chin. His answer came slowly.
“Anna, my darling, you know we ourselves will not have such a large Christmas. There will be no wonderful presents. No skates, I’m afraid.”
Anna hurried to comfort him. “Gretchen already knows. Don’t worry, Papa,” she said.
“Does she?” Papa sighed. Then he looked thoughtful again. Reaching out, he held her by both shoulders. “About these people coming though, Anna …”
“It isn’t only the presents,” Anna said.
Yet, if Papa did not understand, she knew no way to make it clear. She twisted free and ran for the door.
“All right. I will ask,” her father called after her.
She did not turn. He did not know whether she had heard.
Anna had not heard, but by the next morning, she was too busy to brood over it any longer. She was making and finding other gifts. She began with Isobel’s.
It was hard to get it done without Isobel looking over her shoulder and asking questions. At last Anna went to the teacher and asked if she could stay in at recess to work on it.
“May I see it when it is done?” Miss Williams asked.
“It is a funny present,” Anna said very seriously. “It is … how do you say it? … a joke.”
“A joke!”
Anna nodded, still not smiling. “I will let you see,” she promised.
She made Isobel a dictionary. On each page was a word Isobel had taught Anna during the months they had known each other. Above the words were pictures.
When she took it shyly to Miss Williams, the teacher laughed aloud.
“Oh Anna, I knew you had imagination but I never dreamed you had such a sense of humour,” she said.
She was looking at the page which said “Undertaker.” The picture showed a coffin. Anna herself was sitting bolt upright in it. She was calling, “Help!” Her braids stuck straight up in the air with horror and her eyes, behind her glasses, were perfectly round. Isobel, ringlets and all, was the undertaker, spade in hand. There was another picture of Isobel as a lamplighter, falling off her ladder. There was one of Hallowe’en, with a ghost chasing Isobel, who dashed madly across the page. All the pictures were full of action and fun. Isobel starred in each one.
Anna wrote a poem for Ben. She had a feeling it was not a terribly good poem, not like Robert Louis Stevenson’s. But it said what she felt. She lettered it carefully on a Christmas card she made out of construction paper.
Benjamin Nathaniel
Is as brave as Daniel.
When snowballs fly
Through the sky,
When big boys came
And yelled a bad name,
Ben does not run away.
He says we must stay.
He gets Bernard to come
And we all help some.
Then the big boys are made
Very afraid.
We get them to run
But Ben is the one
Who tells us to stay
And not run away.
Benjamin Nathaniel
Is braver than Daniel.
We stand by his side
With pride.
Smiling, she hid it away in her desk.
What could she do for Bernard, though? She knew she could not write another poem. Ben’s had taken her days.
Then, like a miracle, she found a dime on the sidewalk. She could buy Bernard a present — and she knew exactly what he would like: rubber bands for shooting spitballs! She got them at the store from Papa.
“What do you want them for?” Papa asked.
“It is a secret,” said Anna.
Papa looked at the dime in her hand.
“There was nobody near who could have dropped it. I looked,” she assured him.
“You buy ice cream and I could just let you have the rubber bands,” Papa offered. The Soldens did not sell ice cream.
Anna shook her head.
“I want to pay for them, Papa,” she insisted.
Her father gave her the elastics. She hurried away before Mama got curious too.
Now she had something for everyone but Miss Williams and the doctor. Once again it was like a miracle. A package arrived from Aunt Tania in Frankfurt. Mama handed out pieces of marzipan. Anna got two. The other children gobbled theirs up at once. Anna put hers carefully away. All her gifts were ready.
Dr. Schumacher himself delivered the baskets back to the classroom.
“I couldn’t carry them all at once, Eileen,” he said. “I’ll fetch the rest.”
Isobel nudged Anna.
“What is it?” Anna whispered, staring not at Isobel but at the heap of baskets on the teacher’s desk.
“He called her Eileen!�
��
“Did he?” Anna said, still paying no attention.
Now Miss Williams was handing out the baskets one by one. They were beautiful beyond belief. Had something happened to hers?
“And here’s Anna’s,” Miss Williams said.
She placed it on the girl’s desk. Anna made no move to touch it. She simply stared. It was dark green now, with tiny threads of gold running through it. It was the most splendid thing, the most incredibly perfect present she had ever seen.
She looked down at her own two hands in wonder. They looked just as usual. Her fingernails were dirty. Could those hands actually have made this basket?
With intense care, she picked it up and looked. There, on the bottom, in her very own printing, it said “A. E. S.”
School was over. The other children bundled into their coats, clutched their baskets, and headed for home.
“Coming, Anna?” Isobel asked.
“Not right now,” Anna said. “You go ahead.”
She sat at her desk and waited. Dr. Schumacher was still there too. He and Miss Williams laughed together.
“I told you she was in love,” Isobel whispered and, shrugging at Anna’s blank face, she too departed.
The teacher noticed Anna a moment later.
“Oh, Anna, I thought you went with the others,” she said. “Was there something you wanted?”
“May I leave my basket here till the last day?” Anna asked.
Miss Williams glanced at the doctor, who stood listening. Then she turned back to Anna.
“Of course you may,” she said gently.
She did not ask why. She knew that Anna still kept her beloved book of Stevenson’s poems in her desk. She had not even taken it home overnight.
“How are the glasses working?” Franz Schumacher asked.
Anna looked up at him through them. She wished she had words to tell him what he had done for her.
“They are very good, thank you,” she said primly.
“I remember when I first got my glasses,” Dr. Schumacher said. “What an exciting place the world was, all at once! So full of things I had not dreamed were there! … Would you like a ride home, Miss Solden?”
He knows about the glasses without me telling, Anna thought. He knows how glad I am.