She would have taken more pleasure in the famous Bergstrom strudel had the Christmas star awaited them on the kitchen table. Though none of the adults mentioned the star at breakfast and Sylvia suspected most of the children had forgotten that it was still missing, she knew the prankster’s disregard for her father’s offer of amnesty troubled all of them.
Any hope that the prankster might have had a last-minute change of heart vanished as Sylvia helped Lucinda carry dirty dishes from the dining room to the kitchen. Only the jolly Santa Claus cookie jar and six red-and-green tartan placemats sat on the long wooden table.
“What will we put on the top of the tree?” Sylvia asked her great-aunt as they washed and dried the dishes, side by side.
“I don’t know. We’ve used that star as long as I can remember.” Great-Aunt Lucinda shrugged. “Perhaps we’ll just leave it bare and let the emptiness prick the conscience.”
“You don’t think I still have the star, do you?”
“No, Sylvia. I saw your face when you searched the empty crate and I know you were as bewildered as the rest of us.”
“Then who?”
Lucinda was silent for a moment. “I have my suspicions, but I’ll keep my own counsel.”
Sylvia did not pester her, for she was suddenly taken by suspicions of her own. Who had been most eager to lay blame? Who had the most reason to want Sylvia’s first attempt to hide the star fail?
Claudia.
“Aren’t you coming?” called Richard, racing into the kitchen. “Everyone’s waiting.”
“I suppose the dishes won’t get any dirtier if we save them for later.” Smiling, Great-Aunt Lucinda shook soapsuds from her fingers and dried her hands on Sylvia’s dishtowel. Richard whooped in delight and ran off to the ballroom where the other children were waiting eagerly with their gifts. Sylvia wished everyone could tear into their gifts all at once, as some of her friends’ families did, but the Bergstroms took turns opening one gift at a time, proceeding in order from youngest to eldest. Sylvia received a beautiful cardigan Great-Aunt Lucinda had knit from the softest wool, a coordinating skirt from Claudia, W. B. Yeats’sCollected Poems from her father, and from her brother, an illustrated story of a stagecoach robbery in the Wild West starring thinly fictionalized versions of the Bergstrom children.
The story Richard had written for Andrew was a slightly different version featuring the two boys. Andrew seemed pleased by his friend’s gift, but he could hardly take his eyes off what Santa had brought him: a steel train set with an engine, two boxcars, a passenger car, and a bright red caboose.
His expression, utter delight mixed with disbelief, touched and amused Sylvia. She suspected it was the nicest gift he had ever received. Suddenly she thought of his little sister and wondered what, if anything, she had found upon waking that Christmas morning. She had a horrible thought: How would that little girl feel when Andrew came home with beautiful new toys from Santa when she had received nothing?
She would think Santa had forgotten her.
How old was Andrew’s sister—four? Five? Four, Sylvia decided. She looked younger, but Andrew, too, was small for his age. She was just about the age to enjoy- Sylvia looked around the room and her gaze fell upon Uncle William’s youngest daughter, who was cradling the rag doll Santa had brought her. A doll. Of course. But Claudia’s old dolls were too worn and faded from so many years of hard love, though they remained in the nursery for the cousins’ visits. Sylvia had never cared for dolls, so she had none to give away.
Except—
Then she remembered a gift from her grandmother Lock-wood, her mother’s mother. The children had never met her until the day she came to live at Elm Creek Manor a few months before her death. When she first arrived, she had given Claudia an heirloom silver locket containing a picture of their great-grandparents that her own mother had given to her long ago. To Sylvia she gave a fine porcelain doll with ringlets of golden hair, dressed in a gown of blue velvet. It was a beautiful doll, but Sylvia had always preferred to play with toy horses and hardly knew what to do with it. But she had sense enough, even at eight years old, to hug the doll and pretend she liked the gift to show respect to the grandmother she barely knew.
Her grandmother had explained that the doll once belonged to Eleanor. “They were inseparable until she decided she was too old for dolls,” said Grandmother Lockwood in a voice as dry and as crisp as a cracker. “Then she sat on a shelf in the nursery gathering dust, the poor, neglected thing.”
“I didn’t neglect it,” Sylvia’s mother had said, her voice carrying a hint of sharpness. “You’re thinking of Abigail. That was her doll, not mine.”
“That’s not so,” said Grandmother Lockwood. “I recall very clearly giving it to you for Christmas when you were four.”
“That was Abigail. She said Santa brought it. When Abigail no longer wanted her, she gave her to me, but by then I was no longer interested in dolls, either.”
“You would have liked them still if Abigail had.” Grandmother Lockwood turned a sharp eye upon Sylvia. “Well, my dear, it seems I’ve given you the doll no one wanted. I suppose you, too, will abandon her.”
Sylvia did not like the dismissive tone her grandmother used to address her mother, but she nodded gravely and promised she would never abandon the beautiful doll. She had kept her promise, although she had not showered the toy with the affection Grandmother had likely hoped to inspire.
The beautiful doll had once been a Christmas gift, and it had already been handed down twice. It would not be parting with a family heirloom to pass it on to a deserving little girl.
Sylvia slipped away from the party and dashed upstairs to her bedroom, where she stood on a chair on tiptoe to reach to the back of the top shelf where the box had sat untouched for years. She pulled down the heavy white cardboard box, blew off the dust, and removed the lid. The doll was as lovely as the day Sylvia had put her away, her blue velvet frock and white pinafore spotless, her golden curls perfectly arranged. When Sylvia picked her up, the blue eyes opened above the button nose and rosebud mouth. For a moment she considered giving it to her favorite little cousin, who still enjoyed dolls and would adore this one. But she had so many dolls—she had received a new one just hours ago—and so many other toys as well. Resolved, Sylvia tucked the doll carefully into the box and replaced the lid, then wrapped it and tied it with ribbon.
The children were distracted with their toys when she returned, and the other women were off in the kitchen seeing to Christmas dinner. When her father and the other men were not watching, Sylvia slipped the box unnoticed beneath the tree, then strolled away and waited for someone to notice the new gift. After a while, when no one did, Sylvia pointed to it and exclaimed, “Isn’t that another present? How did we miss it?”
Her father gave her a speculative look as the children hurried to the tree and discovered the unexpected gift. “That wasn’t there before,” said Richard.
“Are you sure?” asked Sylvia. “Santa couldn’t have returned while we were here. We would have seen him.”
Richard threw her a brief, quizzical frown, but Andrew quickly drew his attention. “Sally Jane,” he read. “That’s my sister’s name.”
“We don’t have a Sally Jane in the Bergstrom family,” said Sylvia’s father. “It must be for your sister. I wonder why Santa left it here.”
“Maybe he made a mistake,” piped up one of the cousins.
“Maybe he wants me to take it to her,” said Andrew slowly. “I don’t think he knows where we live now.”
A shadow of concern passed over Sylvia’s father’s face. “I’m sure that’s what Santa intended,” he said. “He knows you’re a responsible boy and that he can trust you to get this to your sister safely.”
“I will,” said Andrew solemnly. Then he smiled, and for a moment, Sylvia glimpsed a boy as happy and as certain that he was loved as her own dear Richard.
The rest of the day passed happily but all too soon. The children played wit
h one another’s new toys while the adults spoke of Christmases past and read aloud from the letters of absent loved ones. Cousin Elizabeth and her husband, Henry, had sent a whole box of oranges from their ranch in California. Great-Aunt Lucinda read Elizabeth’s letter aloud so they could all enjoy her amusing stories about going to the beach in November and thinking of the folks back in Pennsylvania shivering by the fire, glimpsing a genuine movie star in a theatre—in the audience, not on the screen—and of her exasperation when, just after she had wiped away a blanket of dust that had settled throughout the house after a minor earthquake, an aftershock came along and threw another layer down. Sylvia shivered with excitement imagining her brave cousin pacing impatiently and waiting for an earthquake to stop, worried only about the mess she would have to clean up and completely indifferent to the danger.
Then Elizabeth’s tone grew wistful. “I do miss Elm Creek Manor and all who reside therein, especially at this time of year,” Great-Aunt Lucinda read. “I wish I could spend just one more Christmas surrounded by family. I make the famous Bergstrom strudel here, but it just isn’t the same without the aunts and uncles there to tell me mine doesn’t taste as good as Grandma Gerda’s. On Christmas Eve, know that I will be thinking of you all and wondering which lucky child placed the star upon the tree that night.” Great-Aunt Lucinda cleared her throat. “Good-bye for now and God Bless. Merry Christmas from your loving Elizabeth.”
Sylvia ached to see her cousin again. She would even be glad to see Henry if only he would bring her beloved cousin home.
Christmas dinner was delicious. They had scrimped and saved for months so that they might have a feast that day, just as the first Bergstroms who had settled in that country had done. They savored the tender jagerschnitzel—grilled pork loin with mushroom gravy—sweet potatoes, creamed peas, and all the dishes without which Christmas would not seem complete. After the children were excused, the older members of the family lingered at the table, sharing Christmas memories and hopes for the year to come. The Depression couldn’t last forever, Uncle William said, as he had the previous year. Better times were sure to come. The horses were thriving, and the Bergstroms would be ready when their old customers returned. In the meantime, the Bergstroms would weather the storm as they always had.
“What was in the box you gave to Andrew’s sister?” Sylvia’s father asked her.
“A doll,” she replied. “She’s like new. I rarely played with her.”
“I can’t remember ever seeing you with a doll,” remarked Aunt Nellie. “It must have been very long ago.”
Claudia leveled her gaze at her sister. “You don’t mean Grandmother Lockwood’s doll, do you?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“But she was Mama’s!”
“No, she wasn’t. She was Aunt Abigail’s.”
“But after that she was Mama’s.”
“Mama never played with her, and neither did I.” Sylvia looked from her sister to her father, worried. “I thought Andrew’s little sister would like to have her.”
“It’s a generous gift,” said Great-Aunt Lucinda. “I’m sure little Sally Jane will adore her.”
Claudia looked shocked. “You don’t mean to let her go through with it?”
Great-Aunt Lucinda shrugged. “We can hardly take it back now.”
Sylvia’s father regarded Claudia, concerned. “Did you want the doll for yourself? Aren’t you a little old for dolls?”
“I don’t want it to play with. It’s a family heirloom.”
“You never showed any interest in it before.”
Sylvia detected the trace of irritation in her father’s voice and wondered if her sister did, too.
Indignant, Claudia replied, “I never dreamed Sylvia would give it away or I would have.”
“What’s done is done,” said their father firmly. “It’s a fine doll—for all that I know about dolls—but it was never a cherished family heirloom. Aunt Abigail played with it as a child but your mother never did, and even if she had, she would have been the first to offer it up to a little girl who hasn’t had a tiny fraction of the blessings you children have received every day of your lives, Depression or no Depression. Your mother was generous that way, and it seems that Sylvia has learned from her. And for that, I am grateful.”
Shocked, Sylvia could only stare at her plate, her face hot. She had never heard anyone speak so sternly to Claudia. In a strangled voice, her sister asked if she could be excused. Their father dismissed her with a nod, and she hurried from the dining room as quickly as she could without running.
“Nephew,” chided Great-Aunt Lucinda after she had gone.
“I’m sorry, Aunt, but I just couldn’t bear any selfishness today. Not on Christmas. Eleanor would have been so disappointed. And as for you, young lady—”
Sylvia quickly looked up. “Yes, Father?”
“You could have asked your sister first before giving away the doll.” He held up a hand to stave off her protest. “I realize she never played with it, but you know how she loves the stories your mother used to tell about her life in New York. This doll is a link to the world she knows only through your mother’s stories. Even so, I think she would have gladly given it to Andrew’s sister if you had allowed her to have a say in the decision.”
Ashamed, Sylvia lowered her eyes again. “I—I should have thought of that.”
“Well, give her back the Christmas star and I’m sure she’ll forgive you.” Great-Aunt Lucinda laughed at Sylvia’s expression. “I’m teasing, dear.”
Sylvia’s father glanced out the window. Although they had dined early, already it was dusk. “I suppose I’d better take Andrew home,” he said, pushing back his chair.
The rest of the family saw them off, except for Claudia, who had not been seen since she left the supper table. Andrew seemed reluctant to go until Sylvia’s father made a joke about how the car was so full of gifts that it reminded him of Santa’s sleigh. The boy brightened at the idea and willingly climbed into the front seat beside Sylvia’s father.
After they departed, Sylvia helped Aunt Nellie and Great Aunt Lucinda tidy up the kitchen and dining room. They had almost finished when they heard her father return, opening the back door and stomping his feet on the steps to knock the snow from his boots before coming inside. Sylvia was putting away the dry dishes, but she heard her father talking to Lucinda at the back entry.
“We should have invited the whole family,” he said, removing his coat. “I don’t think they had much of a celebration.”
“No Christmas dinner?” said Great-Aunt Lucinda.
“I’m not sure they had any dinner at all. Aunt, if you could see the squalor they live in—” He sighed, frustrated. “No man should have to raise his children that way. What is wrong with our country that we allow this to happen?”
“I don’t know that our country is to blame.”
“Weare the country, Aunt. People like us. We all have to do what we can to help one another, just as my Eleanor said. But so many men out of work for so many years—That’s not a problem that will resolve itself. Something must be done.”
Fondly, Great-Aunt Lucinda teased, “Why, Frederick, are you asking for a Christmas miracle?”
“If there were any chance of getting one, you’d better believe I’d ask.” He fell silent for a moment. “Do you know what the boy said to me as I drove him home? He said that this was the best Christmas he had ever known. You and I, William and Nellie—and perhaps even the older children—we’ve compared these past few Christmases to those of the twenties and note how we’ve come down in the world, and yet this little boy was overwhelmed by our abundance.”
“That’s a lesson for us all.”
“Aunt Lucinda—” He hesitated. “I can’t help thinking how much more we could do for Andrew and his little sister if—” “No, Frederick. I know your heart’s in the right place, but you can’t take children from their parents.”
“If you could see their home, you�
�d feel differently.”
“Perhaps, but that doesn’t change the fact that there is much more to a home than material comforts.”
“I’m not so sure that Andrew’s home has all those intangibles.”
“And I can’t say for certain whether you’re condemning them simply because they’re poor. Nephew, dear, there are so many families like the Coopers. Are you going to take in all their children?”
“No,” he said. “No, I suppose that would be impossible. But I can help this child and his sister.”
“We will continue to share what we have with Andrew, just as we always have.” Great-Aunt Lucinda sighed. “We should have thought of the little girl. Thank goodness for Sylvia’s generous heart. We can and we should do more for Sally Jane, but at least today, she learned that Santa has not forgotten her.”
Sylvia’s father and great-aunt walked off down the hall, their conversation fading until Sylvia could no longer hear them. Was it true, as Great-Aunt Lucinda had said, that she had a generous heart? No one had ever said such a thing before, and she had never thought of herself that way. She just couldn’t bear the thought of a little sister believing she was less loved than an older sibling. Santa couldn’t remember Andrew and not Sally Jane. It simply would not be fair.
Christmas of 1934 was drawing to a close. Sylvia helped see the children off to bed, then curled up in a chair in the ballroom with the book of poems her father had given her, reading and enjoying the beauty of the lights on the Christmas tree, which seemed unfinished without the ruby-and-gold star on the highest bough.
She remembered then that she had not seen Claudia in hours. Marking her place in the book with a scrap of ribbon from a Christmas gift, she set it aside and went looking for her sister. She eventually found her kneeling on the floor of the front parlor, packing the Feathered Stars, appliquéd holly plumes, and haphazard Variable Stars into a box. Inside, Sylvia spotted the larger cuts of fabric from which Lucinda, Eleanor, and Claudia had taken the pieces for their blocks.
Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt Page 13