by Deborah Smith, Sandra Chastain, Donna Ball, Debra Dixon, Nancy Knight, Virginia Ellis
“You’re up early, Adele,” I studied her suspiciously. “If you’ve come to talk me into going to some meeting over at the Baptist Church, I’ll tell you again. I’m a Presbyterian. Always been a Presbyterian, and I reckon I’ll go to my Maker that way.”
Adele was scrawny but righteous. She pretty much meddled in everybody’s business, her and her Mossy Creek Ethics Society. She’d nearly sunk young Jayne Reynolds’s business last month, and I was still aggravated with her over that foolishness. She frowned at me. “Mr. Brady, I’ve got a back seat full of pies for the Christmas Festival, and I thought if you could help me deliver them to the church, I could drop you off at the nursing home while I’m setting up the booths. Then we could ride back together. I could really use the help. And I have an extra pie for you.”
For Ellie, I’d ride with Adele. The possibility of being given a pie didn’t sway me, even if my mouth did water at the smell of apples and cinnamon.
On Tuesday, it was Jamie Green—my rural route postman—in my driveway at the crack of dawn. Jamie’s not called the postman anymore; now he’s a rural letter carrier. When I saw him, I put on my coat and went out on the front porch.
“Get in, Mr. Brady. I got a special delivery for Magnolia Manor. You can sit with Ellie, and I’ll pick you up when you’re done.” He took a look at me, frowned and added, “Thought you might want to get your beard and your whiskers trimmed before the tree lighting ceremony.”
“Don’t think so. Not sure I’m playing Santa Claus this year. Still thinkin’ on it. But I’ll take you up on the ride.”
My Wednesday driver was a surprise. Casey Blackshear was sitting in her specially outfitted van, honking her horn. “Mr. Brady, I’m on my way to the library with some kittens for story time. I wonder if you’d help me out.”
I frowned. “Help you out, how? Unless you’re reading the Farmer’s Bulletin to those kids, I’m not likely to do you any good.”
She laughed. The sound was musical, catching in the wind like bells, and for a minute, I thought I heard Ellie again, laughing like a girl. When Ellie laughed, even the birds listened.
“No, Mr. Brady. I can handle the reading. What I need help with is the basket of kittens in the back. I plan a theme every week, and today it’s stories about cats. The children love it when I bring animals—though I’m not sure the library staff is as enthusiastic.”
The girl had a happy smile, and she never asked for an ounce of pity about her circumstances. When I saw an orange and white kitten climb across her shoulder, I decided she could use my help.
“Oh, all right,” I said, and went ‘round to the other side. The kittens had escaped from their box and were having a town meeting in the middle of the van. Corralling them was about as easy as it had been convincing Ellie to marry me after the war. But I was determined, still am. And finally, they were boxed up, and we were ready for travel.
It wasn’t until we got to the library that I learned Casey had a real cat carrier in the back, hidden behind her wheelchair. Casey Blackshear was a smart one, all right. She’d come prepared to deal with an ornery old man.
“Next week, we’re reading Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” she said.
“A basket of kittens is one thing,” I said, “but I’m not rounding up reindeer back here.”
She said she was just joking about the reindeer, but she’d pick me up bright and early.
I liked her.
Thursday brought Robert Walker, Miss Ida’s son, who didn’t even offer an excuse for his presence. “Ready to go, Mr. Brady? Mother said to take you to see Miss Ellie and bring you over to Hamilton’s when you’re done. We’ve just gotten in a new Santa suit. She had it custom-made for you.”
“I like my old one fine,” I grumbled. “Now look, a ride is one thing, but what makes your mama think she can just run my life?”
“Mr. Brady, that’s between you and my mother. By the way, she wants to know if you’ll look at one of the muscadine vines you sold her. She hasn’t taken it out of the pot yet. She left it at the store for you to see. She says it looks spindly, and her new farmhand pruned it by mistake. She’s not sure it’ll make it through the winter.”
“Well, I guess I could take a look at it,” I said.
By lunchtime, I left Hamilton’s Department Store with a new jacket, a pair of trousers and a shirt. Payment, Miss Ida said, for pruning services on her grape vines. But I refused to look twice at the new Santa outfit Robert pulled out of a clothing bag. When Ida Hamilton Walker sets her mind to something, she gets it done, and I wasn’t about to get caught up in her scheme or anybody else’s. I know how things are in Mossy Creek.
Neighbors helped neighbors. People meddled. Young folks set their sights on a certain intended, for example, and pretty soon half the town would be playing matchmaker. Not that me and Ellie had needed any help, way back then. Course, I wasn’t planning on marrying nobody. Farming was too hard a life. I wanted to see the world.
That was before Ellie’s folks came to live in Mossy Creek that summer. Before we met at the old swimming hole behind the Hamilton House Inn. Before Ellie took my hand and told me she’d wait for me to get back from the war.
When I got home a few years later, I took a long look at myself in the mirror and grimaced. I was rail-thin and looked like I’d aged more than my time. And I’d seen things I still couldn’t get out of my dreams at night. Ellie said she loved me no matter what, and I was not getting out of marrying her even if my hair did have an extra part in it, courtesy of a German sniper. In the end she won out. We married. I started to farm, and we were happier than I ever hoped to be. But that was then, and this was now.
And now she was in a nursing home, and I was reduced to depending on others to get me to town. I gave myself a strong talking to. I’d stop being so disagreeable. If folks were going to help me, I’d try to help myself, too.
I lit a big fire in the fireplace of the main room. Possum woofed like he couldn’t remember what heat felt like. While the flames were licking at the logs, I gathered up the dirty clothes—everything I owned—and put a load in Ellie’s Kenmore machine. Once I decided to do something to make myself easier on the eyes, it made me think I ought to do something about the mess around me. I wondered where all the boxes along the wall had come from and knew Ellie would have a fit if she could see how I’d let things stack up. She’d always prided herself on a clean house. Dragging the boxes into the spare room got them out of sight ‘til I could do better.
By the time the heat got to circulating, I’d put some order to the place. At least it looked as if somebody lived there. Then came a real shower in a bathroom warm enough so’s I could wash my hair and my beard without worrying about giving myself pneumonia.
Over the next week, people continued to show up in my yard every morning. Folks who “just happened” to be going to town and stopped by to give me a ride. I didn’t much like it, but I didn’t argue. Human nature being what it is, I knew sooner or later Miss Ida and the chief’s taxi service would end. In the meantime, I fed Ellie and talked to her about Christmas. She never responded. But from time to time, she’d look at the tree in the recreation room across the hall.
The morning finally came when I was ready to leave, and there was no one outside my door. With only four days before the great tree lighting, everyone was too busy to remember me. I’d known this would happen, but I’d hoped it wouldn’t happen until I figured out how I was going to get back and forth to the nursing home on my own. I’d have to drive.
Except, as if it had taken Chief Royden’s orders personally, the old truck refused to crank. Sitting there in the cab, I rubbed my chapped, aching hands together and studied the sky. Snow was coming. I could feel it in my swollen knuckles. The weatherman wasn’t forecasting it. But I knew. Snow always fell on Bigelow County, even if no other town in North Georgia got weather. Mossy Creekites loved it. Everybody pitched in and turned the square into a palace of snowmen where younguns had snowball fights and made snow angels. The merchants
down in Bigelow would complain that the snow interfered with business and the tourists they tried so hard to attract. But a white Christmas would be welcome in Mossy Creek.
Ellie always liked the snow, and though I grumbled, she knew I liked it, too. Except today. I was worried. Frustration had set in. The thing that had kept me going for the last year had been my breakfast with Ellie. Now it seemed that was about to stop, too.
Crawling out of the truck, I reached back for my work gloves. Neither police officers, trucks, nor the elements were going to stop me. When the chief first took my license, I’d toyed with walking up to the highway and hitching a ride. Today, by George, I would.
I put on my gloves, pulled the earflaps down from inside my winter cap and started around the end of the truck.
There was my answer, staring me in the face. The green John Deere tractor I had used to plow my fields. I hadn’t used it much in the last few years, but it was worth a try.
Minutes later, I’d fired up the old girl. We made it down the driveway and, finally, onto South Bigelow Road. I might not be able to drive my truck, but a farmer has always been able drive his tractor on the public road.
Some things ought not to ever change.
At the South Bigelow Bridge, I hit a patch of ice and went straight down the bank. Me and the tractor slid right into Mossy Creek. I woke up in a bed at the Mossy Creek Emergency Clinic wearing a skimpy hospital gown that left my hind-end bare. I said a few bad words about Dr. Champion. When I tried to move, I discovered how bad my right leg hurt. Gingerly, I twisted it and decided that being still was better.
On the other side of a curtain, I could hear Mutt Bottoms. “Chief, everybody in Mossy Creek knows that Mr. Brady is as blind as a bat. But this time it wasn’t his fault.”
“Just like it wasn’t his fault that he took down Miss Ida’s fence and put a dent in her silo?”
“Ah, Chief, you have to understand. He wouldn’t’ve run into Miss Ida’s pasture if it hadn’t a-been for that eighteen-wheeler. Ought not to have been on South Bigelow going fast in the first place. Them big trucks just cause trouble.”
“You got that right, Mutt,” I growled, but somehow my voice wasn’t loud enough to attract anybody’s attention. If I hadn’t known I was talking, I wouldn’t have heard myself either.
“Mutt,” the chief said patiently. Just the tone of his voice said he wasn’t going to listen to any excuses. “I’ve got a John Deere tractor in the creek and Ed Brady on the other side of that partition waiting to get a broken leg set.” The chief hesitated. “And I’ve got the governor in Dwight Truman’s office at the chamber, threatening to raise hell if I don’t drop charges against his driver.”
“I feel like it was my fault, Chief. I was supposed to pick Mr. Brady up and bring him into town, but I got hung up by a wreck out on Trailhead. Then, on the way out to Ed’s place, I met him driving that tractor up the road as big as you please. He was almost to town, not going more than ten miles an hour. I turned my patrol car around and fell in behind him, figured I’d follow him the rest of the way. Then the governor’s big black Lincoln came up behind us, with the driver honking his horn like he was an ambulance on an emergency. He didn’t have to do that! Mr. Brady was just crossing the South Bigelow Bridge, and that Lincoln could have waited another minute. The governor’s driver zoomed around me and crowded up beside Mr. Brady’s tractor just as Mr. Brady was heading onto the bridge. You know how old and narrow the South Bigelow Bridge is. Mr. Brady got rattled, I think, and swung out too far—just trying not to get sideswiped. The next thing I knew, him and his tractor were down in the creek.” Mutt snorted. “If you ask me, Chief, ought to have been the governor and his driver in the creek, not Mr. Brady.”
“Hello, boys.” I heard Miss Ida’s voice. She sounded mad.
“You’ve been over to the chamber office to see the governor?” the chief asked.
“Oh, yes. I dropped in unannounced. I took Sue Ora Salter and her camera along with me.” I could almost hear the sly smile in Miss Ida’s voice. “Sue Ora snapped a few shots of Ham shaking his fist at everybody. That quieted him down. She told him she’s picturing a headline that says, Governor’s Speeding Limousine Injures Elderly Farmer. Along with a lovely article describing how he was rushing to a meeting with Dwight. And why? Because our own Dwight Truman has agreed to serve as one of Ham’s key political organizers in this part of the mountains. The traitor.”
“If Ham gets elected, Dwight with be his ‘Director of Brown-Nosing,’” the chief said dryly.
Miss Ida laughed. “Maybe, but look at the bright side. I had a little talk with the governor. Ham will be paying all of Mr. Brady’s medical expenses, plus repairs on the tractor.”
“Good work, Mayor.”
“So for now, let’s just go have a little talk with Dwight. I want him to know that if I catch him helping Ham plot against Mossy Creek he’ll need protection.”
“No guns,” the chief ordered.
“Oh, Amos, you have no sense of fun.”
I muttered to myself as I heard Miss Ida, the chief, and Mutt walk away.
“Hey,” I called out, “what about me? You’re not going to leave me in this bed half-nekkid. Bring me my clothes. Do you hear me?”
Nobody did. Or if they heard, they ignored me. A nurse scrawnier than Adele Clearwater came in, stuck something in my ear, grabbed my wrist, and shushed me so that she could take my blood pressure. “Dr. Champion’ll be in in a minute to put a cast on that leg,” she growled. “Now you calm down. Your heart’s just racing.” I could have told her it was racing, but she didn’t give me a chance. Instead, she fed me a pill and left the room.
When Dr. Champion came in, he told me I’d bruised my shoulder and busted my leg. “I don’t think you can use a crutch yet,” he said, “and with a broken leg, you can’t go home alone.”
“‘Course I can. I’ve been alone for over a year.”
“Not with a broken leg. I’ve tried to get in touch with your son, but his office said he’s skiing in Colorado.”
“Champion, I’m going home. You can put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
“Not until you can get around, Mr. Brady. You stay in this bed. If you don’t, I’ll have the nurse give you a shot that’ll make you sleep for two days straight.”
I grumbled at him but knew I was trapped. He set my leg, and that hurt like a sinner. Nurse Scrawny gave me another pill, and I dozed. When Miss Ida came to visit, I kept my eyes shut and listened to her talk to the Doc. “I don’t know what to do with him,” Dr. Champion told her. “He’s acting like an old cuss, a regular Crankshaft.”
After he walked out, Miss Ida leaned over me and said, “Stop pretending to sleep, Mr. Brady.”
I opened my eyes. “Who’s Crankshaft?”
“He’s a character in a comic strip. A cranky old man.”
“Suits me, then.”
“Mr. Brady, I’ve been thinking. Miss Ellie already has a room at the nursing home. Dr. Champion says he can get you admitted temporarily, while your leg heals. They’ll put a bed in her room for you. I know you don’t want to move into the nursing home permanently, but would you mind staying there, with Miss Ellie, through Christmas?”
I fought the suggestion just long enough to make sure she meant it. Dealing with the U.S. Army taught me that trick. People always make sure you get the very thing they think you don’t want. “Okay, okay, I give up,” I said. Inside, I was so full of joy that my leg stopped hurting.
So, me and Ellie were back together again. The answer to my problem had come, and I didn’t even have to think about it. Mutt agreed to check on the farm. Casey took old Possum home with her. I worried about Possum, him being a country dog and all, but Casey said he thought he was a cat and was mothering the kittens like it was his job. Reckon he needed one now that we were both too old to hunt.
For the first few days at Magnolia Manor, I deliberately lived up to my reputation as a cantankerous old man. At least that’s what I told
myself. But in the wee hours of the night, when the nursing home was quiet, I could hear a swallowed sob in the silence, and I admitted to myself that I was covering up my own hurt. Somewhere in that last secret part of my heart, I’d thought that Ellie would start recognizing me now that I was spending all day and night with her. But she didn’t. The only thing she ever seemed to see was the Christmas tree across the hall. Once I even thought I heard her say, “Not ugly enough.”
Outside the nursing home windows, all of Mossy Creek was making ready for Christmas. The square was covered in little white lights, and all the shops had jingle bells on their doors. I watched the Kiwanis and the VFW fellows string lights and hang ornaments all over the big fir tree in the park. Everybody would be coming into town for the tree lighting. Somebody had sure better decide to play Santa Claus, soon. I kept reminding everybody. There’d been a steady stream of visitors in and out of our room all morning. The visitors hadn’t bothered Ellie, but they were sure pestering me.
“Mr. Brady,” Mutt said, “we don’t have another man in town who looks like Santa the way you do.”
“Besides,” his sister Sandy argued, “the kids are used to seeing you. Golly, Mr. Brady, it wasn’t Christmas to me and my brothers until we saw you each year. Look, now, the volunteer fire department has got the old truck out, and I’ve been helping ‘em clean it. It’s polished and shined up like you wouldn’t believe. But it won’t be the same without you on top.”
“Nothing’s ever the same,” I said, wishing they’d go away. “Ain’t no use trying to make it so.”
On the day of the tree lighting, Miss Ida walked into the room. She looked like a racy angel in a soft white pantsuit with a long white wool coat and a white furry hat to match. She liked to dazzle people, and she’d turned all her charm on me. “All right, Mr. Brady, it’s time to talk straight, here.” She dragged a hard-back chair to the side of my bed and sat down. “Ed Brady, you’re a pain in the butt, and you’ve got a problem. And I’ve got a problem. It’s two hours until the tree lighting, and I still don’t have a Santa.”