Christmas with Tucker (6 page)

Mary Ann Stevens pushed me from across the aisle of the bus. She wore her hair in ponytails and though she was a year older was not too snooty about associating with a seventh-grader like me. I liked talking to her on the bus and she seemed to fill in where my sisters left off. She shook me again. “We’re almost there.”

I opened my eyes in disbelief. “Already?”

The bus had followed the highway and arrived at the Crossing Trails Central School, which housed grades one through twelve. The school was but several years old. Before the county schools consolidated in the late 1950s, I could remember my older sisters riding their ponies to a one-room schoolhouse that was only two miles from McCray’s Hill.

The road to the school was clear that morning since the maintainer had blazed through the snow just an hour earlier. I had rested my head against the cold glass window and slept the entire way. My first snow day had worn me out.

As I stumbled out of the bus, Mary Ann continued to tease
me. “Sleepyhead, I was talking to you for fifteen minutes before I realized you were asleep.”

“Did you say anything interesting—for a change?”

“You’ll never know.”

I teased her back. “Next time I have a hard time falling asleep, I know who to call.”

I had assumed that my teacher, Mrs. Weeks, liked me. That morning I realized I was mistaken. I barely had my coat off when she excitedly made her morning announcements.

“Class, the lead part in our annual holiday all-school play goes to …”

She paused dramatically as all the girls commenced oohing and aahing, as if one were about to be crowned Princess of the Kansas Territory.

“George McCray,” she said proudly. “You will play the part of our narrator, Santa Claus! Isn’t that exciting?”

This was awful. I smiled politely and tried not to groan. Last week she had mentioned the play, and I figured I would get stuck doing something, like building the sets. But this? Memorizing lines would take time and work—on top of all my other newfound responsibilities. Her news was hardly cause for celebration. My male classmates snickered at my “good fortune” until she began casting them as assorted elves, reindeers, and angels, which was even more humiliating.

Mrs. Weeks must have assumed that because I loved to read, a major part in the school play would fit me nicely and add some much-needed cheer to the first Christmas without my father. If Dad had been around, he would have helped me with my lines, and my mother would have made me a costume and a long white beard. It certainly wouldn’t be that way this year.

My teacher was right about one thing—I did love to read,
and I was one of the best readers at Crossing Trails Central School, even better than some of the high school kids. Instead of having to read what Mrs. Weeks assigned, I was allowed to choose whatever appealed to me, from Zane Grey to Walter Farley, Dickens to Defoe. Reading was a passion that I’d inherited from my father.

Dad never went to college, but he was far from uneducated and was insistent that we take school seriously. He read paperback novels, from the classics to pulp detective novels, and loads of magazines, his favorites being
Popular Mechanics, Sports Illustrated, Time
, and
Scientific American
. He remembered what he read, too.

He bought us the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
from a silver-haired traveling salesman who drove a long black Buick, wore a striped suit with a red bow tie, and swore up and down that with these encyclopedias the McCray children were virtually assured of success in their chosen endeavors.

For three years, my father stayed up long nights reading all the volumes. His mind traveled over a wide range of subjects the following morning. At breakfast, the conversation was as likely to cover wheat prices and weather as the feeding habits of orangutans or the farming techniques on an Israeli kibbutz in the Negev desert. My sisters typically acted bored, but Mom would always say, “Hush, girls, it won’t hurt you to learn something.”

My father read stories to my sisters and me every night, even when the girls claimed to be too old. Mom would walk in and out of the room and simply smile. I think she enjoyed watching him read to us as much as we enjoyed being read to. He chose rollicking adventure tales, animal stories, classics, and even fairy tales that always seemed to be just right for all three
of us. Those evening reading sessions were among the things I missed most about Dad.

Although it was hardly compensation for being cast in the play, Mrs. Weeks did give us a free period later that day, encouraging us to start learning our lines. But I decided to write to my mother. We had a lot of catching up to do.

Though I used the letter to let off steam about the extra work, my goal was simply to let Mom know how much I loved and missed her. I purposely stopped short of telling her that I couldn’t wait to move to Minnesota, and that I was considering taking her up on that offer of a bus ticket. Writing it down on paper felt like a real commitment, and a reality I wasn’t ready
to confront. Once again, I wondered fleetingly what would happen to the McCray Dairy if I left it behind. How would it be for Grandpa Bo and Grandma Cora to be alone on the farm?

On the bus ride home that afternoon, I tried to memorize my lines, but it was hard to concentrate. It occurred to me that if I left Kansas before Christmas, I would get out of having to play Santa. Somehow, though, the idea of leaving just to avoid memorizing a bunch of words didn’t do much for me. The wind shook the bus and we had to drive slowly to avoid the snow that drifted across the county roads. I knew that my grandfather would be out late into the night. I did not know that very soon he would have a reluctant helper.

“GRANDMA, I
can do the milking on my own today.”

Complaining to my mother seemed to have purged some of my resentment. Besides, it was Saturday morning, so there was plenty of time.

“Thanks, George. I could use the rest.” She sat down in her chair. Scratching Tucker behind the ears, she pulled him close to her. “Tucker and I will have a cup of coffee and wait for the sunrise.”

When the work was done, I rested inside, but I quickly grew bored, so I bundled up to walk Tucker—the part of my dog-sitting responsibilities that I enjoyed the most. Tucker loved to walk, too—so much so that in the days to come, it would seem almost cruel to deny him his outdoors time. That Saturday we ventured to a place where we would return many times.

My family always called it Mack’s Ground, though Mack was an early settler who had long since died. Decades earlier the land had passed into the hands of Mack’s descendants, who lived in Texas and didn’t pay much attention to their Kansas holdings. Tucker and I made it our private park.

Mack’s Ground was a thousand acres of timber, creeks, and secluded meadows that started out just east of Thorne’s house and went on for several miles. They were mysterious and ancient acres. While Mack’s collapsed old cabin was worth digging around in, my favorite place was Mack’s Lake. It was bordered by forest and filled with bass below the water and ducks above. The lake was built by the WPA in the 1930s. The banks were lined with stones, which made it perfect for fishing.

My grandfather told me that lots of lakes were built in that period just to keep men busy. As a young man, in his spare time, he himself ran a crew of horses that worked on several local lakes, including Mack’s Lake.

Tucker was eager to point a rabbit or a covey of quail, though I wasn’t much of a hunter. Lighting out after a squirrel or a woodchuck was more fun for Tucker than any game of fetch I might devise.

The best part of our journey was always returning to the lake, and that was where we invariably ended our late-afternoon scouting missions. Tucker loved to play along the shore. It was not yet cold enough for ice to cover the lake, so I skipped stones across the surface of the clear water and watched clouds pass overhead like herds of galloping white stallions.

Thinking about the week’s events as my rocks careened across the glassy lake, I made a mental note to tell my dad about the school play. And then I remembered. When I remembered, I just sat and felt very empty. The world seemed like such a big place, and I a very little occupant.

THANKSGIVING CAME
and went, and it was, indeed, a quiet one with just the three of us, Tucker, and too much food (most covered with Grandma’s gravy). The snow had come and gone, but mid-December was now upon us, and the reprieve was not to last.

One afternoon as the snow was falling again, and Tucker and I ambled back to the house from Mack’s Ground, I heard the phone ring. A few moments later my grandmother appeared on the back porch. “George, it’s your mother on the phone. Long distance!”

After knocking the snow off my boots, I raced inside to take the call from Minnesota. Today, a long-distance phone call is commonplace, but in 1962 it was an event.

It seemed like a scene from my old life—Mom talking to me after I came in from an outdoor romp. The only difference was that now her voice seemed riddled with sadness.

“I got your letter. I sure miss seeing you, too, George.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

Sounding as if she’d been crying right before she’d called,
she continued, “I haven’t been feeling like such a good mother lately, running up here to Minnesota and letting you stay behind. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“It’s okay. I asked you to let me. Remember?”

“I thought that being with Grandma and Grandpa was what was best for you, but maybe not. I didn’t want to pull you away from your grandparents and the farm before you were ready, but maybe you should come up here now and not wait for the fall term to end. What do you think?”

Her suggestion was in line with what I’d been thinking, but I hesitated. I wasn’t ready to pick up and leave right now, and in that moment I resolved to stay as originally planned.

“Mom, it’s only another few weeks until Christmas,” I began.

“Can you wait that long, George?”

“Yes, I’m okay,” I assured her, but clearly she was not.

“All right, then. I suppose I can wait, too. We’ll have a fun Christmas together, then head home. Now, tell me about Frank Thorne’s dog.”

I was thrilled to change the subject and talk about Tucker.

“He’s about the best dog in the world. Tucker goes everywhere with me, except school, and Grandma says he whines for an hour after I leave.”

“He sounds wonderful. I can’t wait to see him. Tell me something else … What do you want for Christmas?”

For the first time in my life, I had not thought about it. I knew what I wanted, but no one could deliver that. “I don’t care. Anything is fine.”

“George, you’re quiet today. Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked.

“Sure, Mom, I guess so.”

“Are you looking forward to the move?”

“Sure, Mom, I guess so.”

“Is that all you know how to say?”

I laughed. “Sure, Mom, I guess so.”

“All right, then, tell your grandparents hello and we’ll see you soon. I love you, George.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

Not an hour later, the phone rang again. Grandpa was still out working, so the sheriff just left a message. Thorne was getting out of jail and his court date was a week off. My grandmother marked the hearing date and time on the calendar they kept by the phone.