The Jumping-Off Place

by Marian Hurd McNeely

  “You give that sled back to your little sister!” called Joan from the bottom of the slope.

  “What you got to say about it, Skinny?”

  “You give it back or you’ll find out.”

  “Like to see you make me—or anyone else,” said Bill. He threw himself on the sled, lying flat on his stomach, and went down the incline, turning the sled as he went so it would run into the group of small children at the bottom of the hill. But Joan was not in the group when he arrived. She had run up behind him, and before he had had time to rise, had mounted his long frame from the rear. She sat down astride of him with no gentle motion; no ladylike grace. Once, twice, thrice, she raised herself in the air, and came down on the delicate region above the stomach with jounces that threatened to remove all the breath within him.

  “That’s what you get, Bill Welp,” said his torturer. “Mr. Peters said we could come down hard on you if you acted up.”

  Nothing was said about the occurrence in the schoolroom. Becky noticed that Bill had come in from his sleighing somewhat chastened in manner and green about the lips. She intercepted several baleful glances that afternoon between him and Joan, but on the theory that it was well to let sleeping dogs lie, asked no questions. Two days later in Joan’s class she assigned, as a language lesson, an essay on “A Bad Boy.” And it was from her little sister’s paper that she learned Joan’s version of the story:

  THE BAD BOY

  Once ther was a bad boy. They called him “bad boy,” he was the wurst boy in scool. His name was Bill. He had no freinds. Once he took his sister’s sled and she sade piece give me my sled, and he sade I’d like to see you make me.

  He slode down hill on it, and ran into some grils. One of the grils ran up to him and sat on top of him. She bonced three or fore times and verry hard on his stumake. After that he was not so gay. They all sade to the litel gril good for you.

  CHAPTER X

  SNOW BOUND

  A WIND that had started at Labrador was tearing over South Dakota, howling down chimneys and sucking through cracks. And there were plenty of cracks in Tripp County. A dark sky fell like a cup over the prairies, and the coyote who lived on the water-mark hill had stopped howling, and taken himself to winter quarters.

  Inside the Linville house it was snug and warm, with the base burner glowing, the student lamp shining, and the kettle near the stovepipe steaming away. The younger fry were abed, and Dick and Becky were at the table, the boy at his lessons, and the girl correcting papers. Bronx blinked contentedly behind the stove, the most luxurious dog in homesteading country. Becky looked up from her papers presently to see Dick frowning over a column of figures.

  “What’s the matter? Stuck on your algebra?”

  “It isn’t lessons; it’s finance. I was figuring to see if we were going to get through the winter.”

  “But we had that all decided. We figured out last month that we were going to get along all right if nobody was sick. Don’t you remember we had a margin of forty dollars?”

  “I know we did, but we were counting the rent in, then. And I’m afraid we’re not going to get it. They’ve just paid up for September now. At any rate, we can’t count on it regularly.”

  “No, I suppose we can’t. Mr. Dennison seemed to think it was better to let them stay on, rather than try to get new tenants this winter, but I don’t know if we were wise. They may be the worthless kind who’ll never pay up. And we’ll need every cent of it when it comes time to buy seed, and make our spring payment on the land.”

  Dick went on with his figuring. “The money seems to melt away. The coal cost eight dollars more than we counted on; I had to put tar paper against the house before we banked it; and we had to replace the ax. The oil can blew over, and we lost more than ten gallons. Then there were the kids’ shoes and our galoshes. If expenses go on in this way we won’t have enough left of that forty-dollar margin to cast a shadow. I don’t know what we’d do if you didn’t have the school.”

  “Well, we won’t go hungry. And, thank goodness, we don’t need many clothes out here.”

  “Except shoes.”

  “And overalls. Phil’s like the woman Uncle Jim used to tell about, who bragged of her son’s clothes—‘Just pants and pants and pants.’”

  Dick grinned at the family joke, but his face dropped back into worried lines. “Well, I know that we can’t spend a cent that we don’t have to spend.”

  “Christmas is coming too,” said Becky.

  “Swell chance we’ll get of a celebration. If we get a good Christmas dinner I’ll be satisfied.”

  “The kids won’t. They’ve been counting on it for weeks. Look at Joan’s list. I found it in her spelling book last Monday.”

  Dear Santa Close

  Piece dont forget to Give Bronx a presat

  What I want for Crismase:

  haingkerches

  doll

  books

  games

  a pensl

  candy

  a dolls tronk

  rist wach

  past

  a litel pelo for the doll

  “What’s a pelo?” inquired Dick.

  “Something you sleep on, of course. I can provide that, easily enough, and the ‘pensl’ and perhaps the paste, but I’m afraid she can’t count on a trunk, much less the watch.”

  “They’ll have to do what I’m doing—count without getting any answer. Six months into $300 doesn’t leave much when you subtract for seed and payment on land and insurance and food.”

  Becky bent her eyes on her brother as he went back to his figures. Dick had certainly changed in the last seven months. When he left Wisconsin he had been a careless, happy-go-lucky boy, whose interests were football and skating and the running high jump; who never had a cent in his pocket, nor a worry in his head. And now he was spending the evening over family accounts! He had altered physically, too. His freckles and his rebellious reddish hair were unchanged, but his shoulders had broadened, his merry brown eyes were soberer and steadier, and his mouth was resolute. Tripp County had made Dick a man.

  “Well, we’re going to have a Christmas,” said the girl—“such as it is. I have two blouses for Phil, and two aprons for Joan cut out, for a start, and I’ve already sent Mary Dennison some money for a game and a book apiece. I’ll make some candy and some popcorn balls, and perhaps we can buy a few oranges. That would be a real treat for them. As for you, Dicky, you’ll have to take my blessing and a new pair of suspenders.”

  “Cut out the suspenders, and apply the money on the garden seeds next spring. I planned to subscribe to a couple of magazines for you, but you won’t even get the funny page of the Omaha Bee now.”

  “Funny how little you care for the unnecessaries out here. In fact, I never knew what the necessaries were until I tried homesteading.”

  “Food, clothing, and shelter,” quoted Dick. “And easy on the clothing, too. All you need is enough to keep heat off in summer and cold off in winter. If I went in to town wrapped in meal-sacks I don’t think anybody would look at me twice.”

  “Four dollars of this month’s salary has to go to the school children,” went on Becky. “I’ve sent for a box of crayons and some candy for each one. I’d have a tree for them if there were evergreens within reach of us. I don’t think one of them, except the Lamberts, ever had a Christmas. You ought to hear the questions they ask about it. Venus asked me yesterday if Santa Claus would come if you wrote to Sears-Roebuck about it. I don’t suppose the Wubbers ever had a Christmas gift in their lives.”

  “It’ll be a new thing for Phil and Joan to come down to small pickings. Uncle Jim used to have such a whale of a Christmas for us all.”

  Both children were silent. They could see Uncle Jim standing on the step-ladder, fastening the gold star on the treetop; Uncle Jim sawing away down cellar at the toy boats and doll houses he always produced at Christmas time; Uncle Jim coming in on Christmas eve, with bulging pockets, shining eyes, and flecks of snow p
owdering his coat… The old Christmases never could come back to Becky and Dick. They would do their best for the younger children, but it was Uncle Jim that had made the holiday for them.

  THE last week of school before vacation was bitterly cold, and it took real heroism to make the two daily trips. The whole prairie was changed by the snow; the black line of the creek-bed was the only landmark left. The sky seemed to drop lower over the gray waste, the cold bit into fingers, and the snow drove into cheeks like needles. The two little Welps came to school with their hands wrapped in cloth, and though Becky longed to give them mittens when she saw their poor, frost-bitten fingers, she dared not venture. She was glad, for their sakes, when the Christmas program was over, and the school dismissed for the holidays.

  Three days before Christmas Becky heard a timid knock on her back door, and opened it to find Crystal Wubber, breathless, and with a big bundle in each hand. “Miss Linville, kin I leave these things at your house until Christmas?” she inquired. “I been getting some giffs fer the kids and they mistrust something’s going on. I know they’ll find ’em if I keep ’em at home.”

  Her worried little face looked relieved, as Becky promised their safe-keeping. “They ain’t no spot to hide things over to our house,” she said, “Except under the bed, and that’s ma’s place. An’ Miss Linville, I want to ask you something else.” She unwrapped an unwieldy bundle, covered with newspapers. Out of it fell a giant tumble weed, its spiny leaves dried on its skeleton stalk; its bushy top mounted on a trunk made of a broomstick. “Do you think that would do fer a Christmas tree?” she asked.

  Becky looked at the dry bush with softened eyes.

  “I thought maybe I could use some plum brush fer a tree,” went on the child. “But I just hate the switchey look of ’em for Christmas. So when this whopper tumble weed came along last fall it stuck in our chicken wire, and I hung it up in the barn. It dried just that way, and I thought maybe the childern would like it fer a tree. The little ones never seen no pictures of one, even, and they wouldn’t know if it wasn’t just like. I got a pail of sand to stick that broomstick down in. I could hang the popcorn and the light things on the tumble weed, and put the rest around it. Do you think that would work, Miss Linville?”

  “I’m sure the children would love it.”

  Crystal opened the second bundle. There were strings of popcorn, and chains of colored paper; there was a corncob doll for Venus, a wagon made out of a codfish box for Autie, a ball wound of rags for Twinkle; and there were three sticks of candy.

  “This is fer ma,” said Crystal. It was the shallow lid of an oatmeal carton, covered with a scrap of black velvet and a ruffle of tarnished gold lace. “Mis’ Lambert give me those pieces. I been savin’ ’em a long time. It’s fer ma to put her thimble on, an’ thread. She ain’t got no thimble—she allus uses the arm of the chair to push—an’ she don’t sew very much anyway. But it’s nice to have in a room. An’ I’m going to give pa this stamp. I found it in the store, an’ when I turned it in to Mister Lambert he said I might keep it. Pa ain’t got no folks but us, and he can’t but just write his name, but if he had to write a letter, ever, there’d be the stamp!”

  As Becky commended and admired a plan grew. She could hardly wait until the little girl had gone to tell the rest of the Linvilles about it. Dick and Phil and Joan looked over the pitiful little hoard of ‘giffs,’ and became, by comparison, not poor homesteaders, but Lords and Lady Bountiful. The Wubbers could certainly, surely, have a Christmas.

  “I’ll make one of those boats that you work with a rubber band,” said Dick.

  “I’ll give them my flinch game,” said Phil.

  “They can have my jacks,” offered Joan. “And I’ll put in the glass prism with a thermometer on it for Crystal. You can always be looking at a thermometer in Dakota—either it’s too far up or too far down. And she didn’t have one thing saved for herself.”

  During the three long winter evenings that followed the Linville children were busy under the student lamp. Under Becky’s deft fingers a whole family of paper dolls sprang and were costumed; a jumping Jack and a Jack-in-the-box, as well as the boat, were evolved by Dick, and the two younger children traced outline pictures for the Wubber crayons. Becky added a thimble that she felt was large enough to fit Mrs. Wubber’s finger, and some popcorn balls and candy from their own store. And on the afternoon before Christmas, when the north wind blew Crystal across the snowy prairie to collect her gifts, she carried away in the big bundles a number of treasures that would be a surprise the next day to the little girl herself.

  “I’ll store ’em in the barn till morning,” said Crystal joyously.

  “Does your mother know about them?”

  “No, ma’m,” responded Crystal, “I ast her about it in the first place an’ she said Christmas was just one thing too many fer her. So it’ll be a supprise on her, too. Thanks, Miss Linville, and Merry Christmas. Ain’t that what folks say?”

  “Merry Christmas to you, dear,” said Becky, as she let the little girl out of the door with an affectionate hand on her shoulder. She stood at the window looking at the small figure until it disappeared around a bend in the trail. It was gray and desolate on the prairie. On either side of the road stretched the miles of snow, unbroken except by the shabby cornstalks that made the lonely landscape look still more forlorn. Over the snowy wastes bent the metallic gray sky.

  Becky’s thoughts went back to Platteville as it had been a year ago. The little church, hung with greens and lighted with candles; the jolly crowds in the street; the carols of the children at every door. And Uncle Jim, carrying home the Christmas turkey himself, “so the delivery boy won’t be tempted to abscond,” buying new scarlet decorations for the tree—“Red’s a poor color for a patch, but a good color for candles, Beck;” unpacking Phil’s new fire engine—“Now, how do you think that will suit our fire chief!” All the dear old memories that hung around the holidays came rushing back: the unimportant little speeches and doings that a mind treasures so long after the real things are dust and ashes.

  Out on the prairie there was no reminder of the day. Not a candle in a window, not a wreath at a door, not even a Christmas card in the store at Winner. She had done her best to right things for the children, to help the Wubber family to a Christmas, to bring some little observance of the day into the lives of her pupils. But for herself she knew that there could be no Christmas without Uncle Jim… She turned away from the window and went back to her work. The three children were out in the barn hunting for eggs that had become so scarce since cold weather set in, and the house was so still that the kettle’s hum was noisy. She glanced at the dressed chicken that they had sacrificed for tomorrow, at the covered dish that held the popcorn balls, at the little pile of gifts that she had made ready for the children. And then she put her head down on the kitchen table, and cried—not noisy weeping, but dry, broken sobs for the year that had gone and taken Uncle Jim.

  THEY MOVED SLOWLY ALONG IN THE BITING SWEEP OF THE STORM

  THERE was the sound of wheels outside. Bronx barked joyously, and the children shouted with delight. Becky had just time to dry her eyes and push back her hair. There was a great stamping of snow on the back steps, and in came Mr. Cleaver, with Phil and Joan holding a hand apiece, and Dick behind him.

  “Santa Claus has come!” cried Joan. Red-faced and fur-coated, the guest didn’t look unlike that Christmas visitor.

  “I’ve come to get, instead of to give,” he announced. “Mrs. Cleaver has sent me to bring you in to her for Christmas.”

  The children shrieked for joy. “Tomorrow?” asked Becky.

  “Today. Right now. Up to yesterday we expected to go to Omaha for Christmas. But that’s fallen through, and we don’t intend to have the whole day spoiled. When my wife suggested that we have the fun of four kids in the house I couldn’t wait to get started out this way. You’re to come back with me, spend the night and tomorrow, and I’ll bring you back late Christmas afternoon
.”

  “All of us?”

  “The whole bunch, including Bronx. We want to see how it will go to have some kid stockings hanging beside ours. Hustle up and get your duds on. Wrap up, too; that’s a real Christmas wind coming from the north.”

  It was queer how that desolate sweep of snow-fields lost its lonely look as the big car sped along the trail. The menace disappeared from the sky that hung so low, and there was a hint of holiday in the wind that had seemed so threatening. Mrs. Cleaver met them at the door of the Dallas home; a soft, motherly woman with red cheeks, who had a cup of hot soup for each one, and a roaring fire in the furnace. They had an early supper, and while the other children went to a Christmas entertainment with Mr. Cleaver, Mrs. Cleaver took Becky off down Main Street with her.

  “We didn’t dare plan anything until we were sure we could have you,” she said. “Now we’ve got to work fast.”

  In the little frontier town she found a jointed doll for Joan, a wonderful box of paints for Phil; and a sweater for Dick: candy and nuts and oranges, and even a tiny Christmas tree.

  “Oh, Mrs. Cleaver, you mustn’t!” protested Becky, shocked at the size of the doll, and the splendor of the sweater.

  “Becky Linville,” said her hostess. “I haven’t put a doll in a stocking for ten years. Don't spoil things!”

  After the younger ones were abed, Dick and Becky helped trim the tree and filled the stockings with the Christmas things they had brought from home at Mr. Cleaver’s suggestion. Becky caught the quick look that passed between Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver as the little bundle of homemade gifts was opened, but she didn’t mind it for some reason. It seemed sweet to be pitied, to be petted, to be treated like a little girl, instead of the head of a family. It was lovely, too, to be kissed good-night; to be told that you were “plucky kids to have stuck it out;” and that it was far nicer for the Cleavers to have you there than for you to be there. As she crept into bed beside Joan, Dakota didn’t seem so different from Platteville, after all.