His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
For several moments after the last, sweet voices hushed, everyone was silent. It was then that Alice felt the presence of the Lord so strongly. Lifting up praises to heaven with song was such an integral part of Christian life, but the Christmas season had its own, very solemn significance. There was no better way to honor the birth of Jesus Christ than through the voices of the children He had taken on human form to save.
After the pause, enthusiastic and appreciative applause made the girls’ faces flush. Parents came forward to claim their daughters for hugs, and offered their own heartfelt praise to the children and to Alice. The outpouring of approval, as well as Clarissa Cottrell’s reminder to drop by the bakery for hot chocolate and sugar cookies, made the ANGELs’ smiles widen.
Before the girls left with their parents, Alice distributed her little gift bags and asked the youngsters to join hands for a short prayer.
“Dear Lord,” Alice said, “In this holy season when we are given so much, do not let us forget the many gifts and blessings You bring into our lives. Help us to remember that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Remind us to be grateful for our friends and families, whom we so often take for granted. We thank You for the beauty and peace of this holiday, for giving us the voices to reach into each other’s hearts and up to heaven with our praise, and for filling our lives with joy of worship and fellowship. You are the way, the truth and the life, now and forever, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
The ANGELs then surprised Alice by presenting her with their own Christmas gift, a scrapbook that they had made, filled with photographs and handwritten descriptions of what their group had done since the previous Christmas. Each girl had made her own pages, and they had all met after school to work on the book together.
It was the loveliest present Alice had ever received from the girls, and after thanking them and joining in an affectionate group hug, she sent the girls off with their parents to have their treat at the bakery.
Jane, who had come to hear the girls sing, came to her side. “It’s too cold out here for you to be crying,” she said. “The tears will come out like little ice cubes.”
“Heaven forbid.” Alice rubbed a gloved hand over her eyes. “Were you able to finish up your chores?”
Jane nodded. “I want you to know that I am clearing my schedule from here on out. No more marathon baking or house-cleaning sessions. This is our vacation, and I’m going to spend it with you and Louise.”
The note of determination in her sister’s voice puzzled Alice. “If you want to have fun baking things, you go right ahead. This is your vacation too.”
“Don’t encourage me.” She tucked her arm through Alice’s. “In fact, if you could drag me out of the kitchen more often, I’d appreciate it.”
Alice was about to ask why when she saw Louise’s car. “Oh, look, there’s our big sister.” She waved at the car.
They returned home together, and over a late dinner that evening, Alice and Jane listened to Louise’s report on her experience guiding the tour group.
“I must say that Viola and the Holzmanns were extremely helpful by providing so much information about their homes,” Louise said after they cleared the table. “I would not have had as much success without their assistance. Alice, when you take the group to Mayor Tynan’s home tomorrow, you should ask Lloyd if he would do the same.”
“You can ask him now,” Aunt Ethel said as she came through the kitchen door, followed by the mayor. Both were carrying old-fashioned berry baskets filled with various baked goods wrapped in holiday-patterned cellophane. Their aunt took the basket from her beau and handed both to Jane. “Just put these out of reach before he sneaks something else, like he did on the walk over here.”
“I did not sneak anything,” Lloyd said, looking very self-righteous.
“Crumbs,” Jane murmured as she passed by him and tapped the right side of her lips.
The mayor hastily brushed the betraying bits of pastry from the corner of his mouth, but the damage had been done. “Now, Ethel, you know I can’t resist your cooking.” He patted his ample waistline. “However much I wish I could.”
“You can work it off by helping the girls decorate their tree tonight,” their aunt said firmly, then turned to Alice. “Were you able to bring down the ornament boxes from the attic?”
“Yes, Fred helped me carry them down earlier when he delivered the tree.” She grimaced. “I think some of the glass balls might have been broken when we were moving things around in the attic. I distinctly heard the sound of broken glass rattling about in a few of them.”
The sisters, Ethel and Lloyd adjourned to the reception area, where Fred had set up their impressive Douglas fir in a tree stand. Alice began passing out boxes from the neat stacks in one corner.
“Uh-oh.” Jane made a mournful sound as she looked down into the box she held. “Anyone have some instant-bonding glue and a heck of a lot of patience?”
Louise suggested they check through all the boxes first, and to their relief all of the antique ornaments they had inherited from their parents were still intact, thanks to careful wrapping and the old, heavy boxes they had been stored in.
The boxes of the glass ball ornaments they had purchased more recently, however, had not fared as well in their flimsier containers. Most of them had cracked or broken.
“It’s not Christmas unless you break something,” the mayor said, trying to cheer them up.
“Then it’s going to be Christmas for another twenty years,” Jane said, ruefully surveying the damages.
Lloyd helped Jane dispose of the boxes of broken ornaments, while Louise, Alice and Ethel began unwrapping the ones that were still intact.
“I should have ordered a smaller tree,” Alice said, feeling a little intimidated as she looked from the decidedly shorter stack of ornament boxes to the enormous tree. “I don’t think we have enough left to decorate it properly. I won’t be able to use any of these for my wreath, either.”
“We can improvise and make up some ornaments of our own.” Louise described the way Viola had decorated the greenery around her home with ribbons and fruit, and then added, “The tree is only for family this year, so no one should object.” One side of her mouth curled. “Unless you want to invite Max Ziglar to the house.”
“I hear that man is more depressing than rain on a Sunday,” Ethel put in, “when he’s not harassing that nice young man who has been taking all the photos.”
Louise regarded their aunt. “How do you manage to gather your information so quickly?”
Ethel produced a small, satisfied smile. “I’ll never tell.”
“Is he really as irritable as he looks?” Alice asked. She would have to deal with Max the next day, and from all the accounts that she had heard, she was not looking forward to it.
“I am not sure that he is.” Her older sister took a beaded apple ornament from one box and attached a wire hanger to it. “He does tend to be very gruff and gloomy, and to criticize Ted about his desire to be a professional photographer. I have yet to see much that has pleased him. However, I have the feeling there is a very deep-rooted sadness in him.”
“If he’s depressed why would he come on this tour?” Alice asked.
“I can’t say for certain, but …” Louise shrugged. “My thought is that he came because he is tired of being alone, but doesn’t know how to be anything else.”
“He’s missing his business and his money, more like,” Ethel said. “I told you.”
Jane returned without Lloyd.
“Our mayor insisted on making us his special-recipe hot chocolate,” she told her sisters and aunt. “I tried to argue him out of it for two seconds and then caved in. I think it was watching him get out the saucepan. I love men who aren’t afraid of pots.” She glanced at Ethel. “What’s this about money and why would anyone miss it?”
&nb
sp; “I was talking about Max Ziglar and the way wealthy men behave.”
Jane nodded. “Big man, unhappy eyes.”
“He gave Louise a hard time today and he’s got too much money for his own good.” Ethel plucked an ornament hanger and hooked it to a gleaming blue glass bird. “Wealth makes you unhappy and dissatisfied with everything.”
“I don’t agree,” Louise said at once. “Look at the Holzmanns. They are quite wealthy and yet they are a generous, happy couple who genuinely care about the community.”
“Rachel and Joseph are exceptionally good people, I’ll grant you that,” Ethel said. “But this Ziglar man is never going to be like the Holzmanns.”
“You’re not giving him much of a chance, Aunt,” Jane said. “People can and do change, all the time.”
Alice did not want to jump to conclusions about Max, either. “He might improve on better acquaintance.”
“I ran into that group in town today,” their aunt told them. “Their driver had brought them from the Holzmanns’ to do some last-minute shopping in town, but that rich man didn’t want to stay.”
“Men usually don’t like to shop,” Alice said.
“I heard him tell that skinny woman that he wasn’t interested in buying gifts for anyone.” Ethel sniffed. “What sort of man says that at Christmastime?”
“Maybe there is no one in his life.” Always the champion of the underdog, Jane jumped to his defense. “He might not have a family, and lots of wealthy people have trouble making friends.”
“Ebenezer Scrooge had friends once,” their aunt said darkly. “Look at how he behaved.”
“He also found redemption,” Alice felt she had to point that out.
“Exactly, Alice. Max might just be depressed about being alone during the holidays and he’s dealing with it by being scrooge-ish.” Jane turned to her. “I think you should try to cheer him up. Treat him like one of your crankiest patients at the hospital.”
“Somehow I don’t think Mr. Ziglar is going to let me give him a foot rub,” Alice deadpanned.
Lloyd brought in a tray of steaming mugs. “Jane, I nearly got lost in your pantry. But if I ever do, I won’t starve for at least two years.”
Feeling suddenly chilled, Alice paused to pull on a sweater before she accepted one of the hot cups. “I should adjust the thermostat, it seems like it’s getting colder in here.” She breathed in the dark, spicy scent of the drink before she tasted it. “My, this is very good, Mayor. Not like any hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted.”
“An old family specialty. I’ll give Jane the recipe, if she can guess what I put in it,” Lloyd teased.
“Let’s see now.” Jane carefully sampled hers. “Baker’s chocolate, milk, a touch of vanilla, cinnamon and …,” she took another sip before adding, “ground cloves?”
The mayor laughed. “You win.”
The front door opened, and Alice turned to see Fred and Vera Humbert walk in. They were smiling but looked very cold. “Did you happen to make enough for two more cups, Mayor?” Alice asked.
“Coming right up.” Lloyd went back to the kitchen.
The Humberts shed their snowy coats and handed over a parcel, as well as a Christmas gift basket filled with apple butter, spiced pears and Vera’s special homemade vanilla fudge as they greeted the sisters.
“Fred told me he was coming over to drop off some replacement Christmas bulbs Louise had ordered, and I thought I’d come along to bring our gift basket now, before the weather gets worse,” Vera said.
“Are we due for a storm?” Jane asked.
“There’s a blizzard in the works,” Fred told her. “The temperature’s been steadily dropping, and we’ve been getting more wind than usual. All the animals are holed up in their trees and dens too.” The store owner was also an amateur prognosticator and often made predictions about the weather based on signs from nature.
Alice and her sisters had never really taken Fred’s weather predictions very seriously, until one summer day when he had correctly predicted a violent storm. While Fred was not always one hundred percent accurate with his forecasts, they tended to listen to him more carefully now.
“Will it be a dangerous storm, Fred?” Alice asked as Lloyd returned with hot chocolate for the Humberts.
“I don’t know about that, Alice,” he said, “but I believe we’ll definitely be seeing a heap of snow before Christmas arrives.”
“You said we’d be hit with four feet of snow at Christmas a few years back, Fred,” Lloyd reminded him. “That didn’t pan out.”
“True enough,” Fred agreed. “But this time the signs are much stronger. I haven’t seen a bird or squirrel or rabbit for two days, and animals always sense these things. I’d bet money on it this time, if I were a gambling man.”
“It won’t hurt to stock up on a few things, just in case,” Alice said.
“It’s a good thing you girls took time off,” Ethel said. “You don’t need guests to deal with along with a snowstorm.”
Chapter Nine
The next morning Alice left bright and early to meet the tour group at Town Hall, where she escorted them inside to meet the mayor.
Lloyd Tynan came out of his office accompanied by Fred Humbert, who greeted the group before going over to a ladder set up beneath an overhead light. Alice suspected that he had been drafted to install the new bulb that he carried since the mayor was not quite as nimble as his friend Fred.
“Before we go over to the house, I’d like to tell you a little about the history of Acorn Hill,” the mayor told the group and proceeded to show them through the Visitors Center. “And this year we have a special display, made by none other than our local hardware store owner—and lightbulb-changer extraordinaire—Fred Humbert.”
Fred smiled down from on high, then quietly turned his attention back to maintaining his balance.
Lloyd glanced over at Fred, who had begun his descent. “Fred,” he called out, “do you have a minute to show the folks what you’ve done for the holidays?”
Fred consulted his wristwatch. “I can spare a few minutes before I have to be at the store.”
Alice was surprised to see that Fred had set up two incredibly detailed model train layouts of different sizes.
It’s like I’ve been transformed into a giant, she thought as she looked down on a model of snow-covered hills and a picturesque valley town.
The train set that Fred had assembled possessed the exact detailing that made it an authentic copy of the real thing. Allan Hansford experienced a moment of nostalgia for the trains that had traveled near his home in his youth.
Ted crouched down to take a photo of the layout. “Do you set up model trains at home, Mr. Humbert?”
“When my daughters were little, I’d always have a train layout of some kind set up for them,” Fred said as he bent to switch on something beneath the model. Tiny electric lights sparkled all over the model. “Alice, would you push the little blue button by the mailbag pole?”
Alice did so, and the entire model went into motion.
In the village, traffic and car lights blinked. Windows in the ceramic houses and shops lit up. A horse-drawn sleigh moved on a hidden track from town to a farmhouse, jingling bells all the way. The church’s tiny doors opened and the choral sounds of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” drifted out. On a mirror serving as a frozen pond, little children skated figure eights around each other.
Fred scanned the rapt faces around the table and then grinned. “It’s not as impressive as the big layouts they have over at the model train museum, but I like to go for quality over size.”
“I wish my dad could see this,” Ted said as he changed positions to take another photo from a different angle. “You’d never get him out of this room.”
Fred seemed pleased to hear that. “After the holidays I was thinking of setting up the trains as a permanent display in my store. If you’re ever back in the area, you’re more than welcome to stop by with him any time.”
“
You mentioned a museum, Mr. Humbert. Where is that, exactly?” Edwina asked.
“Well, ma’am, we’ve actually got two train museums in this region. The Train Collectors Association, of which I’m a member, operates the National Toy Train Museum. Then you have the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, which has more than a hundred full-size, antique locomotives and boxcars they’ve restored and preserved. Both of them are in Strasburg, just west of here.”
“Now I know where you sneak off to whenever Vera goes to the Amish markets,” Alice teased.
“Model train collectors like to congregate regularly,” he admitted. “It’s a hobby that encourages friendships, as we like to trade ideas and swap cars, tracks and so forth with one another. We can share it with our kids, too, which isn’t something you can do with a lot of grown-up hobbies.” When the bells from the Methodist church began to chime the hour, he glanced at his watch. “I hate to show off and run, but I do need to get to my store.”
Everyone thanked Fred and bid him good-bye as he struggled into his coat and left the lobby.
“Grown men, playing with toys,” Max grumbled, but even his eyes were drawn to the fine detailing.
“How long has your family lived in this region, Mayor?” Ted asked after he had taken several photos of the various other displays in the Visitors Center.
“I’m the third generation Tynan to grow up in this town and the fourth member of a Tynan family to be elected to the office of mayor.” Lloyd curled his hands around the edges of his jacket lapels and regarded the display with pride. “You could say the Tynan family has always had an interest in community leadership. We’ve certainly never been shy about stepping up to serve the people.”
“I would have thought a man like you would move to the big city, where the politics get really interesting,” Allan said.
“I do enjoy politics, but I’m just a small-town boy at heart, Allan. Here, before I forget.” Lloyd handed out town guidebooks to everyone. “These will help you get around if you’re out to do some shopping.”
Alice thought the mayor had come a long way from the man who once had insisted, “Acorn Hill has a life of its own away from the outside world and that’s the way we like it.”
Home for the Holidays Page 9