Ice Carnival

by Spaeth, Janet

  “Since it’s a wild bird, wouldn’t it be better if it was outside?” Christal rinsed the mop in her bucket, and as she wrung it out, the water ran so dark it looked like mud.

  She remembered her pet toad, and her counterargument that Jesus had been born in a stable, and the explanation her mother had given her that kings can live anywhere but wild animals must live outside.

  Aristotle didn’t seem like a king.

  “I’d think it was unkind to keep the bird inside. It should have been outdoors, where it could fly free,” Christal said, leaning down to get a spot she’d missed. “I think Aristotle would be happier if he had the entire neighborhood to annoy.”

  “He’s got something wrong with his wing,” Aunt Ruth told her as she attacked the grime on the stove. “He can fly a little bit, but he would die outside. So John saved Aristotle, and I think Aristotle saved him.”

  Christal nodded and peeked around the corner. The bird had moved closer to her mother, who was carefully cleaning out the cage. Now that she understood why Aristotle meant so much to Mr. Lawrence, the bird didn’t look quite as disreputable.

  It flapped over to her mother, lit on her head, and nipped her ear. Her mother yelped softly with surprise and waved the bird away.

  Christal shook her head. No matter what, the bird was cranky, even if it was beloved by Mr. Lawrence.

  She and Aunt Ruth set to soaking and washing the dishes. It was quite a process, but apparently Aunt Ruth had never met a plate that she couldn’t get clean. She scrubbed until it seemed the pattern might come off.

  As Aunt Ruth washed and Christal dried, they talked about the weather and the preparations for Christmas that were already under way even though it was still October. Christal was used to planning for Christmas this early. That was the life of a minister’s family. Having two holidays come so close together—Thanksgiving and Christmas, both of which required special services and celebrations—meant they had much to do to be ready.

  A church member had proposed that the church supply a festive meal for a poor family or two at Christmas, and at the moment Papa was busily working on the details of such an arrangement.

  “People don’t always like to be helped,” Aunt Ruth said as she handed a pan to Christal. “Here. I finally got the last bits off. I was nearly at the point of throwing it out and simply buying him a new one.”

  Aunt Ruth sometimes had the ability to carry at least two conversational threads at the same time. Christal had learned to wait it out if it got confusing. Her aunt would eventually resolve it.

  “So we have to be careful when we choose this poor family, which is, of course, quite logical. No one wants to be categorized as ‘that poor family,’ especially then to become the ward of the church no less. So how do we do this without hurting their feelings? Careful, now, I believe that cup is Limoges. And it must be old. I wonder if it wasn’t his wife’s.”

  “Mother will know how to do it,” Christal said. “She can do that kind of thing.”

  “The thing is,” her aunt said as she wiped out the basin, “to be able to figure this out on your own without relying on her. You’re getting old enough that you need to quit expecting her to do everything. Your mother is, without a doubt, the picture of tact, and she will have some way of making the family the church selects feel as if they’ve won a treasure. But what would you say, Christal?”

  The question made Christal uneasy. She knew she didn’t have her mother’s diplomatic skills, and the thought of the possible missteps she could make terrified her. “I probably wouldn’t say anything. Maybe, ‘Here’s some food.’ ”

  Amusement flitted across Aunt Ruth’s face. “And then when they asked where the food came from, what would you say?”

  “I’d probably stammer out something like, ‘People. It came from people.’ And then I’d turn and hurry away.”

  “My dearest niece, you are charming, but you do lack your mother’s poise, don’t you? I don’t think it’s quite that simple. John Lawrence is snoozing away in the other room, but what happens when he wakes up and sees that three women have come into his house, uninvited, and cleaned it? What will you say?”

  “ ‘Surprise’? Oh, I don’t know. We don’t want to say that his home is a mess, do we? But what can we say? Maybe we should just sneak out and let him wonder.”

  “And have him doubt his sanity? He knows what the house looked like when he fell asleep. Imagine his reaction if he wakes up and it’s all cleaned.”

  “Like the shoemaker and the elves!” Christal thought of the fairy tale that had been her favorite when she was a child. She’d hated cleaning her bedroom, so the story of the elves who did the shoemaker’s work while he slept had been quite appealing.

  “I think he’s a bit old for fairy tales. I wonder—”

  What her aunt had been about to say was interrupted by a loud snort as John Lawrence woke up in the living room.

  “Sarah Everett, what are you doing here?” he asked, his voice still slurred from sleep.

  “Listen carefully,” Aunt Ruth whispered in Christal’s ear. “Learn from what she says.”

  They moved to the doorway where they could watch but not be seen by the elderly man.

  Mother straightened the blanket over his feet. “You’ve been sick, you know, and my Christal came by with Isaac Bering to visit with you and Aristotle. Do you remember that?”

  “Yes.” His voice was raspy from the extensive coughing, but the hacking had stopped.

  The medicine must be working, Christal thought.

  “I wanted to see if there was something you needed, but you were asleep. I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in. Christal and Ruth are with me, by the way.” She motioned them into the room. “We wanted to visit with you. Aristotle was out of his cage, so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to clean it out.”

  He nodded, but he seemed a bit confused still.

  “While we were waiting, we just puttered around a bit here and there, trying to make things a bit easier for you during your recovery.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Mother patted his hand. “Maybe not, but you can’t tell me that if you put three women in a house that’s lived in by a man and his bird, that those three women aren’t going to be fixing things. Remember when we had that door that wouldn’t close? You had stopped by for something else, and when you saw it, you got your tools and dealt with it right then and there.”

  “Ah, I do remember. That was a long time ago.” He put his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes.

  “But I still remember it.” Mother smoothed back a strand of white hair that had fallen over his forehead. “One always remembers a kindness.”

  A smile drifted over his lips before he succumbed again to sleep.

  Mother tucked the wrap under his feet again. “Sleep well, my friend.”

  With those words, the three women tiptoed out of his house and back into the October brightness.

  “Are you going on to the library?” Mother asked.

  Christal shook her head. What she had just learned today, about giving with kindness, was too big to dilute with a light fable or tale. She looped her arms through her mother’s and aunt’s. “Let’s go home.”

  ❧

  Isaac closed his Bible and laid it on the table in his room. He’d read through, yet again, the story in Mark of the woman who “suffered many things of many physicians” and who touched the hem of Jesus’ clothing and was healed.

  Jesus said to her, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.”

  He leaned back and thought about those words. John Lawrence had the faith of many, yet he also was not young, and his body wasn’t up to the fight that his illness was wreaking. Would his faith make him complete in heaven?

  He knew the answer. He opened his Bible once more, but the autumn sun had diffused to twilight, and he struggled to make the words out in the dim surroundings. He could get up and
light the lamp, but he wanted to sit and reflect.

  Again he closed the Bible, this time holding it against his chest as he shut his eyes and thought.

  This had been his first day in the practice of being a doctor. With his uncle, he had seen several patients, but John Lawrence was the one who had crawled inside his heart and stayed there. Perhaps it was because of the old friendship between his uncle and Mr. Lawrence.

  Isaac knew that Uncle Alfred had sent him home with Mr. Lawrence for a reason, but he hadn’t explained. And while he was certain his uncle hadn’t set it up this way, it was interesting that his first patient was a man who was heaven-bound.

  He remembered something his father had told him once, that medicine wasn’t completely about a physical cure but about making people comfortable on their earthly journey to their reward. Often the two were one and the same, but not always.

  Isaac shook his head. He needed to think about something else. He got up, lit the lamp, and picked up the volume his uncle had given him, the Jules Verne novel. Soon he was following the adventures of Phileas Fogg as he tried to circle the world in eighty days.

  His mood brightened as he read eagerly, and when finally exhaustion forced him to lay the book aside, he understood why his uncle was so insistent that he develop an outlet like recreational reading. It would serve him well in future days like this.

  Isaac got into bed and pulled the blankets up to his chin, staying still until his body warmed up. From below, the calming notes of a Brahms melody floated from the piano as his uncle played before he, too, went to sleep.

  It had been quite a day, and as he drifted off, thoughts of a wild bird and an old man mingled with those of a young woman who had a smile like an angel. Yes, it had been quite a day.

  Four

  Autumn took its crimson and golden garments and left as November entered with the icy breath of winter. The first frosty flakes of snow fell, melting as they hit the still-warm earth; and then, as the days moved toward the year’s end, bit by bit they accumulated into small white drifts along steps and roadsides, around trees and posts.

  Christal walked a little faster as she headed toward the library. Her hands were shoved into her pockets because she had, as usual, forgotten her mittens. Aunt Ruth would undoubtedly find them on the floor by the front door and be ready to chide Christal when she got home—a well-deserved rebuke, Christal thought as a gust of wind blew tiny snow particles into her face and down the neck of her coat.

  Yes, winter was definitely making an entrance.

  At least the library would be warm, and she could shed her coat and warm her hands and devote the rest of the day to her reading. Her parents were on a mercy mission to a family in need of assistance, and she had the entire day to herself. She’d even brought an apple to eat so she wouldn’t have to go home for lunch.

  Today she had things to think about—or to avoid thinking about—and the library was the perfect place. It had become her second home once she’d gotten strong enough to walk the distance by herself, and she went at least once a week. The librarian teased her that one day she would have read every book there, and then what would she do?

  Christal’s innocent answer had made the librarian laugh: Weren’t there more books being written, more books to buy?

  The library was hushed when Christal entered it. She took a deep breath and filled her nostrils with the glorious smell of books. She headed right to her favorite section, the classic tales of other lands.

  She ran her fingers over the golden lettering on the books’ spines. Today she was in the mood for something exotic. What would it be? Egypt? The stories of the pharaohs and the sphinx were enticing, but she passed them up. Japan? The history of Commodore Perry’s expedition there was exciting, but she had read it three times already. Italy? She loved the tales of ancient Rome, with gladiators and the Coliseum, but not today.

  Her hand moved farther along, past the stories, past the poetry, until she came to the history section. She stopped at Palmetto-Leaves, a book by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Last year she’d read Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and the story had moved her greatly. She seized on Palmetto-Leaves at once, and opened it and leafed through the pages.

  It was about Florida, the St. Johns River, to be exact. She had no idea where the river was or if it was anywhere near Key West, where Isaac was from, but a few pages into the book was a map.

  The map cut off the very bottom of Florida, which included Key West, she was sure. But she began to read, and from the first chapter, “Nobody’s Dog,” she was captured. Stowe was such a good writer that soon Christal was caught up in the book.

  At last a rumble from her stomach brought her back from Florida and into Minnesota. Lunchtime.

  She placed the book on the table with a whispered message to the librarian that she would be back to read further, and she stepped out into the glorious November noon. The snow had stopped and the sun shone brightly in a brilliant blue sky. November certainly could be a beautiful month, she thought.

  She fished in her bag and withdrew a red apple that she bit into as she walked around the library. It was housed in a splendid building, the Ingersoll Block, and the library took up the entire second floor of the long, narrow structure.

  On the main floor were doctors and dentists, those who didn’t have home offices like Dr. Bering. She glanced in a window that was undraped to let in the noonday sun and saw a waiting room, its utilitarian furnishings not nearly as grand as those in Dr. Bering’s office.

  If she were a doctor, would she want to have her office in her home? She mulled it over as she strolled on slowly, enjoying her apple. There would be the issue of transportation, of course. In winter, travel to and from might be difficult, but on days like this, the early days of winter, being out in the sun was wonderful.

  Dr. Bering’s office had been in his house for so long, he’d probably never thought of moving it out. As it was, the house was still too large for him, even with his office in it. It was good that Isaac was there with him. He would be a great help in cases like John Lawrence’s, where the patient became housebound.

  She chewed away the last bits of apple from around the core as she thought about her life. It had been perfect, but it was starting to erode around the edges now that she was worried about Mr. Lawrence, whom she’d known for practically her whole life, and there was nothing she could do to help.

  Spending her day in the library was not enough, and, in fact, she felt as if she were idling away her hours there. She should be thinking ahead.

  What was her future like? She didn’t believe in fortune-telling, but there were times when she’d like a peek into God’s plan. What did He have in store for her? Certainly He didn’t intend for her to spend the rest of her days in the library reading.

  But what was she to do?

  She ran through her options.

  Could she be a doctor or a nurse and save lives? From what she had learned of the study of medicine from Isaac, she knew she couldn’t concentrate to the degree necessary. At her hands, her patients would undoubtedly all fail and die.

  She liked ice-skating, but there was no career in that, and besides she wasn’t at all good at ice-skating. Her ankles flopped back and forth as if they were made of paper, unless she proceeded very slowly and cautiously.

  Music was nice, but her singing voice was dreadful, and she didn’t know how to play an instrument. As Dr. Bering had pointed out, she lacked the interest in learning.

  Could she be a teacher? Perhaps, but the idea wasn’t one she was especially drawn to.

  An artist? Her drawings were unrecognizable. A cook? Not when she didn’t know how to turn on the stove. A seamstress? She’d have to be able to thread the sewing machine, or at the very least, a needle.

  No, she did what she did best, spending her days in the covers of books at the library. A life of idle, self-centered nothingness.

  For the past nine years, she’d taken advantage of her illness, although she hadn’t done so consciou
sly. Her parents were so glad to have her alive and well, after nearly losing her to death from scarlet fever and rheumatic fever, that they’d taken almost all responsibility away from her.

  It had been too easy to coast along, spending days and then weeks and finally years of a life with no responsibility. The time had come for that to end.

  She’d nibbled every possible piece of apple from the core, so she wrapped it carefully in her handkerchief and returned it to her bag. She’d throw it away later.

  She returned to the library and gave the book back to the librarian. Maybe she’d come back to it another time, but for the moment, the story had lost its allure.

  Slowly she put her coat back on and descended the stairs and went out into the November afternoon.

  What was she going to do with her life?

  She could be married, that much she knew. It was the usual path for women her age, but so far no one had asked for her hand. She didn’t quite believe that she was destined to be an old spinster, but the truth was that she was showing about as much promise as a potential wife as an ice-skater or a cook.

  For the past year or so, Aunt Ruth had been spending much of the time before church prodding Christal with her bony elbow, pointing out eligible bachelors. Sometimes Christal was sure that there must be something terribly wrong with her aunt’s vision. Just two months ago, she had indicated a man who was twice Christal’s age.

  That wasn’t how God meant for it to be done—Christal was sure of that. She wanted to find this man herself, and to fall in love and live happily ever after like her parents, who were still as openly in love now as they had ever been.

  So what about Isaac? The question popped into her thoughts and refused to go away.

  So what about Isaac? She let her mind drift over the question. She couldn’t get as far as the idea of marrying him, but there was something different about him, something that wasn’t like the boys and men she’d met in church.

  It was too early to know how it would go with him—if there even was anything to happen. He was a new friend, and she was glad for that.