A Treasury of Christmas Stories (6 page)

I cherish Winston's Christmas cards. The holidays give us a reason to reconnect with people we value. And his cards remind me of how wondrous my life looks to someone whose path has diverged greatly from mine. Likewise, his holiday greetings give me a glimpse into the blessings of Winston's life and into a fascinating world I might not otherwise know. I've never been to visit him in New Hampshire and probably never will, but I imagine him walking down a rose-lined lane to his mailbox, sitting in a garden of black-eyed Susans, or building (for he is a carpenter), or studying (for he is an academic), or quietly enjoying nature. I am intrigued by his quiet, solitary life among the wildflowers, just as he is fascinated by my life with my colorful, cacophonous family. Yet, there is no envy between us. We rejoice in one another's happiness.

Without Christmas cards, we would not connect in this way. We've tried e-mail, but for two kids who met in the fifties, its joy was fleeting. Phone conversations would be awkward, too. After all, I am married, and even though I was in fourth grade when my crush on Winston was sparked, my husband would be wary if I were to call Winston regularly.

But Christmas cards, and the letters we tuck in with them, seem to be just the right way of “catching up” during the season of sharing. Because we write only once a year, we don't expect the connection to change our day-to-day lives, though it most certainly enriches our inner lives. What we do expect of one another in that one card a year is honesty. We speak of our triumphs and milestones, as well as our tragedies, for example, when Winston lost his brother and I lost my mother. We relay new discoveries about life and love and ourselves, made during the passing year. With paper and ink, we explore the big questions:
Did I make a mistake? What do I fear? What do I want? Do I feel satisfied, or discontented? Am I really happy?

When I met Winston he was a boy of ten. He wrote me letters in code, in pale, lemon juice ink that could be detected only by lighting a candle underneath the thin, white paper. We sailed paper airplanes into the flowering dogwood trees that lined our properties with notes on their wings: “When will you be home from school?” “Do you like me?”

In the many years since those days of innocence, we have learned to abandon code and, in the spirit of Christmas and friendship, to commit our thoughts and truths to paper with candor and trust. No mere holiday greetings of cheer for us. We delve deeper, sharing what has transpired during the year and in our hearts, whether happy or sad. And the underlying message — that we still care, after all these years, about one another, about each other's hopes and dreams and accomplishments — never changes.

Christmas, to me, means many wonderful things. Among the most wondrous is my yearly card from Winston. The card will eventually go into my junk drawer, his message filed forever in my heart.

Kathryn E. Livingston
is a freelance writer living in Bergen County, New Jersey, with her family. The coauthor of
The Secret Life of the Dyslexic Child
and
Parenting Partners
, she has also published articles in national magazines and is currently (always) at work on a novel.

Toy Soldiers

By Pat Gallant

T
HE RIDES TO
Pennsylvania were filled with anticipation. I preferred the train to driving. Something about trains charmed me. I waited anxiously for the train to pull in, eager to see my new baby cousin, representative of siblings I wished to have and didn't.

The downside to the trip was that my mother and grandparents always stayed at a motel and I slept at my aunt and uncle's. Though I hated sleeping away from home, they were loving to me and their apartment was cheerful enough by day, filled with bright sunlight and a balcony overlooking a grassy knoll. But nights in the country were dark and scary, and there was an intangible chill that frightened me. I was a city girl used to city lights. When I visited, which I did nearly every Christmas and on summer vacations and other special occasions, I, of course, had to follow their rules. Also, there was a man in their house — my uncle. I wasn't used to having a man in the house or even other children. I was accustomed to living alone with my mother since her divorce from my father.

Worse, at my aunt's house, I was the oldest child. I was expected to “know better” and to do right. Only I didn't know better and seldom seemed to do right. In my house, I was an only child. I was treasured and pampered by my mother and a loving pair of grandparents. At my aunt's, I was just one of three and the “big girl.” So I was embarrassed to tell her how afraid and lonely I was at night.

My aunt was waiting at the train station when we arrived. I was so excited to see my little cousin! But when we walked through the door of their home, my aunt announced that she had found a perfect playmate for me, a boy who had just moved into the apartment next door. A boy. That meant trouble. Boys were the ones who teased you at school, pulled your hair, and called you dirty names you didn't understand and your mother wouldn't explain to you. They carried out their threats to punch you in the stomach, so hard you gasped for air. At five and a half, I'd learned that it was best to stay away from boys, and I for sure didn't want one for a friend.

Despite my earnest protests, my aunt went next door and fetched Freddie. He was a little younger than I, having just turned five, but he was much taller. He came in and we were introduced. Neither of us spoke. I knew I was safe as long as the adults were around, but I didn't relish being alone with him. So when he asked me to come over to see his toy soldiers — “Because,” he said, looking askance at my doll collection, “there isn't anything good to play with here” — I hesitated.

“Go,” my aunt said. “Go. You're a big girl.” (There it was again.) “It's only across the hall.”

I hated to feel stupid, so I went. And there they were. Two hundred toy soldiers, lined up for battle. Colonels, commanders, lieutenants, officers, privates, and sergeants, ready for action, waiting for Freddie. They all wore green, all two hundred of them. In fact, everything was army green, right down to the tanks and jeeps.

Freddie fell to the floor: “Bang, bang!” he shouted. “Look out, men. The enemy! Vroom, vroom! Chuggle, chuggle!” The jeep rode along. “Bang, bang. Duck! Open fire! Charge!”

I was transfixed.

Freddie looked up at me. “Well, what are you waiting for? Come on. Let's play!”

He actually wanted me to play. I dove down but I didn't know what to do. I was used to dressing and holding my baby dolls. I tentatively picked up a soldier and made a feeble attempt at “bang, bang.”

“No,” Freddie said, looking genuinely appalled. “You just shot one of our men. The enemies are over there!” He pointed.

“They all look the same,” I offered.

“Girls,” he muttered. “On the other side of this line — over there!” he said, pointing again. “Those are the enemy.”

Then he did the oddest thing. He took my hand and placed it in his, over the soldier. “Now say ‘bang, bang,'” he said.

“Bang, bang!”

“Great,” he said. “Now, try it alone.”

We played for hours. It wasn't like playing with dolls, but Freddie made it fun. So much so, that I could hardly wait till morning when Freddie planned to come back for a visit.

The next day I tried out my cousin's bows and magnetic arrows, missing the target every time. Freddie walked over and put his arms around me. “Like this,” he said, guiding my hand gently and patiently. I drew my arm back and got a bull's-eye. Freddie's eyes lit up. I remember it as though it were yesterday. “Yes, great!” he said, genuinely happy for me.

Half of me was beginning to trust this male creature, the other half was waiting for him to start teasing or punching me. But it never happened. I had never felt the way I felt when Freddie placed his arms around me. It was a new feeling; a funny feeling. A very soft and close feeling. This, from a boy person. I felt, for the first time in my life, like a girl. A real girl.

Subsequent visits to my aunt and uncle's became less and less gloomy-sounding, and the nights, once scary, were now filled with the anticipation of the next day's bringing Freddie and his ever-ready toy soldiers. Freddie and his platoon seemed to be glued together. If Freddie came over, so, too, did the soldiers. If I went to Freddie's, the men in green stood ready and waiting.

I learned something by playing with Freddie. I learned to put my dolls aside and to play with soldiers, even if it wasn't as much fun. Because Freddie liked it. And he learned, too, I think, that playing father to my dolls wasn't the end of the world. In fact, sometimes I think he almost liked it.

I didn't know firsthand about romance, but I had seen many movies, and Freddie and I began to kiss goodnight, first on the cheek, then once behind closed doors on the lips. I felt pretty for the first time in my life. My family and other adults used to say how pretty I was. But the boys in school made me feel like I had the bubonic plague or something. With Freddie, well, I felt, just maybe, that I wasn't half bad after all.

We visited Pennsylvania again for Christmas. I got the doll I wanted from my mother and a real pearl necklace from my aunt. By now, Freddie and I had known each other about a year and a half. On this visit, we stayed for several days, so I had plenty of time to be with Freddie. When the last day of vacation came, I felt sad. It had been a wonderful holiday and I dreaded going back to school.

My aunt, grandmother, and mother went out shopping. Freddie came over shortly after they left. He was carrying a large, crumpled brown paper bag. Freddie held out both arms and pushed the bag into my hands.

“What's this?” I asked.

“Open it,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

I looked in the bag and then up at Freddie. In the bag were Freddie's toy soldiers.

“What?” I said.

“It's for you,” he said.

“But they're yours,” I said, astonished.

“No, I want you to have them,” he said, and he ran out of the door, slamming it behind him, not staying to play.

I just looked at the door, not understanding why Freddie didn't stay to play. Finally, I sat down on the floor and poured out the contents of the bag. Then I counted. Two hundred. All two hundred. Tanks, jeeps, guns, soldiers, everything.

I put each soldier in place, lining them up as Freddie had taught me to do. I organized them into the good guys and the bad guys. I put the kneeling men with their guns on the front line. Then I began. “Bang, bang.
Vroom, vroom. Chuggle, chuggle.
” But it was no use. They just didn't come to life without Freddie. I sat for the longest time, just staring at the soldiers, missing Freddie.

When my mother returned, she glanced at the soldiers, all neatly lined up on the floor, and asked, “Where's Freddie?” The natural question. “I know he must be nearby.” She smiled and pointed, “The soldiers …”

After all, Freddie and his soldiers were one.

“He's not here,” I said.

She looked at me, puzzled.

“Freddie gave me all his soldiers. He wants me to have them.”

My mother gasped. I remember that. She gasped.

“You can't take them,” she said. “Freddie loves those soldiers. You have to give them back.”

I knew she was right. They were Freddie's. But something in me wanted to hold onto them. My mother must have sensed that in my expression.

“I have an idea,” she said. “Give Freddie his soldiers, but you keep one.” She waited.

Of course! It was the most brilliant idea I had ever heard. I could keep one!

“Okay!” I said, flooded with relief, as I suspect my mother was also.

“I'll go over and speak to Freddie's mother,” she said. I was further relieved that I wasn't alone in this now.

My mother returned after about ten minutes. “I'm going to tell you something,” she said, “but you must promise not to tell Freddie.”

I nodded. I loved it when my mother confided in me.

“Freddie has been crying for hours,” she said. “He misses his soldiers but he told his mother he wouldn't ask for them back. He wants you to have them.”

My heart sunk. I felt so awful that I hurt inside. I had made Freddie, my best friend Freddie, cry.

“You've got to give the soldiers back to Freddie. Tell him you love them and want them more than anything but you want him to have them.”

I put the soldiers back into the crumpled brown paper bag, one by one, careful not to damage any of his treasure. I took my mother's hand and the bag, and we went over and rang Freddie's bell. Freddie's mother answered and called for Freddie. He came to the door, his eyes red and puffy from crying. I said nothing.

Then, “Freddie, I can't keep these. I love them more than anything but you love them more and they're yours.”

Freddie didn't look happy. Rather, he looked crestfallen. Then I understood.

“But I'd like to keep one. This one,” I said as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a soldier. “Meet Sergeant Freddie!”

Freddie's face lit up.

“Can I keep him?” I asked tentatively.

Freddie nodded enthusiastically. “That's a great idea!” he said, reaching out and accepting the brown bag from me. Then he poured out 199 soldiers and began to set them up.

“Can she stay awhile?” He looked up at my mother.

“For just a few minutes,” my mother answered, smiling. “We have to catch the six o'clock train.”

I dropped down on the floor and began playing, watching Freddie bring the soldiers back to life again. It was magic.

On the train ride home, my mother and I sat together, behind my grandparents. We were both very quiet. “Do you have the soldier?” my mother asked. “You mean Sergeant Freddie,” I corrected and pulled him out of my pocket. “See? He's right here. I'm taking Freddie back to New York, and I'm going to keep him by my bed. I'm going to keep him forever, Mommy. Forever.”