by Joe Wheeler
After supper when Lillie started the dishes, pa went out to see to the team and mamma followed to pick out two of her fat hens for the Christmas dinner.
In the dusk of the unusually mild December evening, mamma stood looking about her as with the eye of a stranger. Then she said she wished things had been in better shape before Carrie and Bert got here, that not one thing had been done around the place to fix it up since the last time.
“That rickety old shed, pa,” she said mildly. “I remember as well as I’m standin’ here you tellin’ Carrie you was goin’ to have that good new lumber on by the next time she come.”
It was as match to pine shavings. It made pa good and mad. With him working his head off, day and night! He blew up. In anyone under 12 it would have been called a tantrum. He rushed over to the tool house and got his hammer and started to yank off a rotten board.
“I’ll get this done before Carrie comes,” he shouted, “if it’s the last thing I do.”
A psychoanalyst, after much probing, might have discovered what caused pa’s sudden anger. But mamma, who knew less than nothing about psychoanalysis, having only good common sense, also knew what caused it.
Pa’s own regrets over his big mistake made him irritable at times. He was one of those farmers who had turned their backs on old home places during the protracted drought. Mamma had wanted to stick it out another year, but he had said no, they would move to town where everybody earned good money. So they had sold the farm and bought this little place on Mill Street, the only section of town where one could keep a cow and chickens. The very next year crops were good again and now the man who had bought the old place for so little came to River City in a car as fine as the Dillinghams’. Yes, any casual criticism of the Mill Street place always touched him in a vital spot of his being. So he yanked and swore and jawed, more mad than ever that mamma had walked away and was not hearing him.
It was not hard to get the old boards off. Soon they lay on the ground in a scattered heap of rotting timbers. Bird and Bell, from their exposed position across the manger, snatched at the alfalfa hay, quivered their nostrils and looked disdainfully at proceedings. The cow chewed her cud in the loose-jawed way of cows and stared disinterestedly into space.
Looking at the animals of which he was so fond, pa admitted to himself he needn’t have ripped the boards off until morning, but balmy weather was predicted all through Christmas. And mamma had made him pretty mad. Suddenly the fire of his anger went out, for he was remembering something Ernie had said and it tickled his fancy. The last time Carrie brought her little boys home, Ernie had told them it was bubble gum the cow was chewing and the kids had hung over the half door an hour or more waiting for the big bubble to blow out.
Tomorrow night the little kids would be here and the thought of it righted the world again.
Mamma came toward him with two hens under her arms as though she wanted him to make up with her. But he fussed around among the boards, not wanting to seem pleasant too suddenly.
His flashlight lay on the ground, highlighting the open shed, and the street light, too, shone in. An old hen flew squawking out of the hay and the pigeons swooped down from the roof.
Mamma stood looking at it for quite a while, then all at once she chucked the hens under a box and hurried into the house. When she came out, she held Maisie, the manikin, in front of her and Lillie was close behind with her arms full of sheets.
“What you think you’re up to?” pa asked.
“You let me be,” mamma said pointedly. “I know what I’m doin’.”
She set up the manikin and with deft touches Lillie draped the sheets over its body and head and arranged it so it was leaning over the manger. Then mamma put pa’s flashlight down in the manger itself and a faint light shone through the cracks of the old boards.
“There!” said mamma, stepping back. “Don’t that look for all the world like the Bible story?”
“Seems like it’s makin’ light of it,” pa said critically. “The Scotts and the Dillinghams didn’t do nothin’ like that. They just used Santy Clauses.”
“I ain’t doin’ it for show, like them,” mamma retorted. “I’m doin’ it for Carrie’s little boys. Somethin’ they can see for themselves when they drive in. Somethin’ they’ll never forget, like’s not, as long as they live.”
Mamma and Lillie went out to the fence to survey their handiwork from that point. They were standing there when Ernie drove into the yard. Ernie worked for the River City Body and Fender Wreck Company, and one viewing the car and hearing its noisy approach would have questioned whether he ever patronized his own company.
They were anxious to know what Ernie thought. There were the horses nuzzling the alfalfa, the cow chewing away placidly, and the pigeons on the ridgepole. And there was the white-robed figure bending over the faint glow in the manger.
Ernie stood without words. Then he said “For gosh sakes! What in time?” The words were crude, but the tone was reverent.
“Mamma did it for the kids,” Lillie said. “She wants you to fix a star up over the stable. Mrs. Dillingham gave an old one to pa.”
Ernie had been a fixer ever since he was a little boy. Not for his looks had the River City Body and Fender Wreck Company hired Ernie Kurtz. So after his warmed-over supper he got his tools and a coil of wire and fixed the yellow bauble high over the stable, the wire and the slim rod almost invisible, so that it seemed a star hung there by itself.
All the next day pa worked up on High View Drive and all day mamma cleaned the house, made doughnuts and cookies with green sugar on them, and dressed the fat hens, stuffing them to the bursting point with onion dressing.
Almost before they knew it, Christmas Eve had arrived, and Carrie and Bert and the two little boys were driving into the yard with everyone hurrying out to greet them.
“Why, mamma,” Carrie said. “That old shed … it just gave me a turn when we drove in.”
But mamma was a bit disappointed over the little boys. The older one comprehended what it meant and was duly awe-struck, but the younger one ran over to the manger and said: “When’s she goin’ to blow out her bubble gum?”
After they had taken in the wrapped presents and the mince pies Carrie had baked, pa told them how they were all going to drive up to High View and see the expensive decorations, stressing his own part in their preparation so much that mamma said, “Don’t brag. A few others had somethin’ to do with it, you know.” And Ernie sent them all into laughter when he called it High Brow Drive.
Then he went after his girl, Annie Hansen, and when they came back, surprisingly her brother was with them, which sent Lillie into a state of fluttering excitement.
So they all started out in two cars. Ernie and his girl and Lillie in Ernie’s one seat, with the brother in the back, his long legs dangling out. Carrie and Bert took their little boys and mamma and pa. Not knowing the streets leading to the winding High View section, Bert stayed close behind Ernie’s car, which chugged its way ahead of them like a noisy tugboat.
Everyone was hilariously happy. As for pa, his anger about mamma’s chidings was long forgotten. All three of his children were home and the two little kids. The Dillinghams didn’t have any children at all for Christmas fun. We never lost a child, he was thinking, and the Porters lost that little girl. Our grandkids tough as tripe, and the Scotts got that crippled boy. It gave him a light-hearted feeling of freedom from disaster. Now this nice sightseeing trip in Bert’s good car. Home to coffee and doughnuts, with the kids hanging up their stockings. Tomorrow the presents and a big dinner. For fleeting moments Pa Kurtz had a warm little-boy feeling of his own toward Christmas.
Mamma, too, said she hadn’t had such a good time since Tige was a pup. And when one of the little boys said he wanted to see Tige when they got back, everyone laughed immoderately.
They passed decorated houses and countless trees brightly lighted in windows. Then around the curving streets of the High View district, following Ernie�
��s noisy lead so closely that Carrie said they were just like Mary’s little lamb. Across the street from the Porters’ colonial house, Ernie stopped, and they stopped too.
The evergreens with their sparkling blue lights seemed a part of an enchanted forest. Carrie said she never saw anything so pretty in her life and waxed so enthusiastic that pa reminded her again of his big part in it.
When Ernie yelled back to ask if they’d seen enough, pa waved him on. And around the curve they went to the Dillinghams’.
There were other cars in front of the houses. Pa said like as not the judges themselves were right now deciding the prizes, and by the tone of his voice one would have thought the fate of the nation hung on the decision.
At the Dillinghams’, the little boys waxed more excited over the reindeer, lighted by the searchlight which threw them into snow-white relief. Yes, pa said, it was worth all the work they’d put on them.
Then to Doctor Scott’s, and here the little boys practically turned inside out. For Santa himself was up on the roof as plain as day; and more, he was singing “Jingle bells, jingle bells.” When he stopped, they clapped their hands and yelled up at him: “Hi, Santy! Sing more.” And the adults all clapped too.
Then Ernie signaled and the little procession swung down out of High View and circled into the part of town where the blocks were prosaically rectangular and everything became smaller; yards, houses, Christmas trees.
“Look!” mamma said happily. “Ain’t it nice? There ain’t no patent on it. Everyone can make merry. Every little house can have its own fun and tree, just the same as the big ones.”
Over the railroad tracks they went and into Mill Street, where Ernie adroitly picked his way around the mushy spots in the unpaved road, with Bert following his zigzag lead. And the trip was over.
There were Bird and Bell and the cow. There were the pigeons huddled together on the stable roof. There were the white Mary and the light in the manger, and the star. The laughter died down. Everyone got out quietly. Carrie ran her arm through her mother’s. “I like yours, too, mamma,” she said.
Inside, they grew merry again. Over the doughnuts and sandwiches there was a lot of talk. They argued noisily about the prize places for the decorated houses, betting one another which ones would win. Carrie and Lillie both thought the lights in the trees were by far the most artistic. Ma and Ernie’s girl were for the reindeer at Dillinghams’. But Lillie’s potential beau and Ernie and Bert and the little boys were all for the Scotts’ Santa Claus. Pa, as one who had been the creator of them all, stayed benignly neutral.
After a while Ernie took his girl home. Her brother stood around on the porch awhile with Lillie and then left. The little boys hung up their stockings, with the grown folks teasing them, saying Santy could never find his way from the Scotts’ down those winding streets.
Mamma and pa kept their own bedroom. Lillie took Carrie in with her. Bert made the little boys a bed on the old couch, with three chairs in front to keep them from falling out. She had no sheets left for them, but plenty of clean patchwork quilts.
In the morning there were the sketchy breakfast and the presents, including a dishpan for mamma, who had never had a new one since her wedding day; the bit and braces pa had wished for so long; a flowered comb-and-brush set for Lillie; and fully one-third of the things for which the little boys had wished.
The children could play with their new toys and the men pitch horseshoes, but mamma and the girls had to hop right into the big dinner, for everyone would be starved. Ernie’s girl and her brother were invited, too, and when they came, said they could smell that good dressing clear out in the yard. The hens practically popped open in the pans and mamma’s mashed potatoes and gravy melted in the mouth. Oh, never did anyone have a nicer Christmas than the Kurtzes down on Mill Street.
It was when they were finishing Carrie’s thick mince pies that the radio news came on, and the announcement of the prizes. So they pulled back their chairs to listen, with the girls cautioning the menfolks, “Now stick to what your bet was last night and don’t anybody cheat by changing.”
The announcer introduced the committee head, who gave a too wordy talk about civic pride. Then the prizes:
“The third prize of ten dollars to Doctor Amos R. Scott, 1821 High View Drive.” That was Santa-in-the-chimney. And while Ernie and his group groaned their disappointment that it was only third, the others laughed at them for their poor bet.
“The second—25 dollars—Mr. Ramsey E. Porter, 1484 High View Drive.” The blue lights! With Carrie and Lillie wanting to know what the judges were thinking of, for Pete’s sake, to give it only second, and mamma and Ernie’s girl calling out jubilantly that it left only their own choice, the reindeer.
Then a strange thing happened.
“Listen, everybody.”
“Sh! What’s he saying?”
“The first prize … for its simplicity … for using materials at hand without expense … for its sacred note and the fact that it is the personification of the real Christmas story of which we sometimes lose sight … the first prize of 50 dollars is unanimously awarded to Mr. Harm Kurtz at 623 Mill Street.”
A bomb would have torn fissures in the yard and made an unmendable shambles of the house, but it could not have been more devastating.
For a long moment they sat stunned, mouths open, but without speech coming forth, and only the little boys saying: “He said you, grandpa; he said you.”
Then the hypnotic spell broke and Ernie let out a yell: “Fifty bucks, pa! Fifty bucks!”
And mamma, still dazed, kept repeating like some mournful raven, “But I just did it for the little boys.”
Several got up and dashed over to the window to see again this first-prize paragon. But all they could see was bird and Bell and the cow out in their little yard, an old dilapidated shed, and high up over it a piece of yellow glass.
In the midst of the excitement pa practically turned pale. For it had come to him suddenly there was more to this than met the eye. What would the Scotts and the Porters and the Dillinghams say? Especially Mr. Dillingham, whose expensive reindeer had won no prize at all. He was embarrassed and worried. The joy had gone out of winning the prize. The joy had gone out of the day.
The girls had scarcely finished the dishes before the Mill Street neighbors started coming to have a share in the big news. The Danish Hansens came and the Russian family from the next block, all three of the Czech families down the street, and the Negro children who lived near the mill. They were all alike to mamma. “Just folks.” She gave everyone a doughnut. In fact, they ate so many, that late in the afternoon she whipped up another batch. Also, out of honor to the great occasion, she combed her hair again in that high skinned-up way and put on a second clean apron. Two clean aprons in one day constituted the height of something or other.
“Somebody might come by,” she said by way of apology.
“They’ll get stuck in the mud if they do” said Ernie. “I’m the only one that knows them holes like a map.”
Mamma was right. Somebody came by. All River City came by.
Soon after dusk, with the star lighted and Bird and Bell back in the shed, the cars began to drive past in unending parade. Traffic was as thick as it had ever been up on Main and Washington. You could hear talk and laughter and maybe strong words about the mud holes. Then in front of the yard, both the talk and the laughter would die down, and there would be only low-spoken words or silence. Bird and Bell pulling at the hay. The cow gazing moodily into space. The pigeons on the ridgepole in a long feathery group. White Mary bending over a faint glow in the manger. And overhead the star.
In silence the cars would drive away and more come to take their places.
Three of them did not drive away. They swung in closer to the fence and all the people got out and came into the yard. Of all things!
“Mamma, there come the Scotts and the Porters and the Dillinghams.” Pa was too excited for words and hardly knew what he was
doing.
But mamma was cool and went out to meet them. “Sh! They’re just folks, too.”
The Scotts were lifting the wheeled chair out of the car, which had been custom built for it. Doctor Scott wheeled the little boy up closer so he could see the animals. Carrie’s little boys ran to him and with the tactlessness of children showed him how they could turn cartwheels all around his chair.
“Why, Mr. Kurtz,” Mrs. Porter was saying, “you’re the sly one. Helping us all the time and then copping out the prize yourself.”
Pa let it go. They would just have to believe it was all his doings, but for a fleeting moment he saw himself yanking madly at the shed boards.
Mrs. Her-I-don’t-like Scott said, “It’s the sweetest thing I ever saw. It made me feel like crying when I saw it.”
Mrs. Dillingham said it made their decorations all look cheap and shoddy by the side of the manger scene. Even Mr. Dillingham, who had won no prize, said, “Kurtz, you certainly deserve it.”
Pa knew he couldn’t take any more praise. At least, not with mamma standing right there. So he said, “I guess it was mamma’s idea. She’s always gettin’ ideas.”
Right then mamma had another one. “Will you all please to step inside and have a cup of coffee and a doughnut?”
The women demurred, but all the men said they certainly would.
So they crowded into the kitchen, mink coats and all, and stood about with coffee and doughnuts. And Lillie got up her courage and said to Mr. Dillingham, “I don’t suppose you know me, but I work for you.”
“Oh, yes, sure; sure I do,” he said heartily, but Lillie knew he was only being polite.
“And this is a friend of mine,” she added with coy bravado, “Mr. Hansen.”
Mr. Dillingham said, “How do you do, Mr. Hansen. Don’t tell me you work for me, too.”