Under A Living Sky (2 page)

When Judith grew bored of tormenting her sister, she left the room. Mary took a deep breath, slipped off her flannel nightie and sprang into her cold clothes. Oh, they were cold! She ran by Joseph's bed, a small nest low in the corner, empty. She ran down the stairs, cold but happy. Christmas had come at last.

Downstairs, Joseph played on the floor with lettered building blocks and an old toy wagon. The blanket was drawn back from the window, and Judith was staring out its only tiny clear corner. Mary hopped on the sofa too. Using her breath to soften the ice, she scraped a clearing of her own. The ice was softer today than last night, easier to scrape. Using the building block with the letter “S” on it—“S” for shoes—she cleared enough window to see that new snow had fallen. A light frosting of white covered the old snow. The snowman wore a clean white toque set so stylishly it reminded Mary of a dashing young man in the Eaton's cataloge. The wind had died down in the night.

It began to snow again, a snowfall so heavy the granary disappeared. The corner of the barn, usually visible from the parlor window, went with it. Snow had filled in every crack and footprint. Papa's path to the barn, a hard channel cut into deep snow by use, was now a gently snaking valley, a miniature of the big valley they lived in. And looking at her valley was Mary's first and most necessary duty every morning. But this morning there was hardly a trace of the valley to look at. The usual wispiness of the dawn, the streaks of snow blowing across frozen fields, in fact everything past the snowman was hidden in the heavy snowfall. It was like being alone in a sudden fog. But the long wide valley was out there, Mary knew, and this valley was hers.

“Strange to go to church on a Friday,” said Judith, flopping down. She twisted her body and looked at the tree, festively decorated with popcorn and colored-paper angels and antelope. The scent of spruce pitch filled the room. Only the treetop star was missing. “But maybe we won't go to church at all.”

Mary eyed Judith warily. Was this plain statement to be taken as a moment of honesty or was it a trick to get her into trouble? Judith stared at the tree, smiling innocently. Today being Christmas, Mary decided she'd risk agreeing with Judith. “I hope we can stay home too.”

She turned to watch out the window for Papa. Presently he emerged from the curtain of white flakes. Another gust came, and the flakes swirled upward so that the end of his scarf played up behind him like a dog's tail. He stepped high, following the blown-in path, and butterflies of white snow swarmed around him. He carried a milk pail, which steamed and scraped across the low-crested drifts.

Mary ran back into the kitchen. Mother's hips moved gently as she stirred milk and eggs into a bowl. Eyes half-closed, she stood at the counter in front of the tiny window. Mother couldn't have seen much because that window was frosted over too. Mary was ready for Papa when he walked through the kitchen door. Before he could even set down the milk pail, and hardly before he could get the door closed, she hugged him at his hips and shouted, “Merry Christmas, Papa!”

He reached down to her. The pail clunked on the floor. He picked her up. The metal handle clinked as it fell against the milk pail's side. He put his cold bristly face against her warm one and said, “Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”

The flapjacks hissed as the batter dropped spoon by spoon into the big black frying pan. Mary felt sorry for not saying something nice to Mother. So she wiggled down out of Papa's arms and ran to Mother. “Merry Christmas, Mother!” she shouted.

Joseph came in wailing, his wooden wagon in one hand and a large black wheel in the other. He stopped, looked at Mary with large wondering eyes and began to jump up and down instead. He ran to them shouting as loudly as he could, confident that today he would get away with as much noise as he cared to make.

Then Judith came charging in, and the three of them clung to and leaped about Mother, shouting, “Merry Christmas, Mother!” She gave each child a hug, although quick and too businesslike for a real Christmas hug, and returned to spooning batter into the pan. But they wouldn't go away.

Setting the spoon on the stove, Mother reached down to give each of them another hug, each slightly longer than necessary. Then she said, “Come now. We have to get ready.”

Papa was hanging up his coat. “Get ready for what?”

Mother's shoulders straightened. There was trouble coming.

“You're not actually wanting to go out, are you?”

“It's Christmas.”

“Have you looked outside, Ruthie? No one will be there today. Or not if they have any sense, they won't.”

Mother's brave smile turned to frost. With suddenly firm hands, she ushered the children to the table. One by one they were deposited roughly on their chairs.

Papa took his chair grimly. Mary felt afraid. Christmas was going to be like any other day. “It's storming out there, you know,” said Papa. “Why put the children and yourself in danger?”

In answer, Mother dropped the tea basket into the little brown pot. This alone showed how special today was to her, and that Papa had better watch out. Because of their finances, Mother now brewed tea only on special days and Sundays, even though Papa grumbled about doing without. She clunked the teapot onto the table. There was a kind of finality about her way of slipping the bright blue cozy over the pot. There was no going back. Taking the mugs and plates from where they were warming on the stove, she set them on the table. Mary felt the crockery to see which parts were the warmest. She expected to burn her hand, probably need a trip in to the doctor. Her plate was not hot enough.

Yet empty warm plates in winter were sort of funny to think about, since plates were not alive like cows and chickens. This is a question I'll certainly ask next fall in school, Mary told herself. She was sure she'd be allowed to go this coming year, as the doctor had promised that the hole in her heart would heal by the time she was eight or nine. Meanwhile, she'd missed a lot of school and resented it. How would she ever catch up? But Papa was afraid to let her go, afraid something bad would happen, something unforeseen. For two years, Mary had entertained herself with scenes of fainting spells in the schoolyard. Carried to a place of refuge, she'd wake up in a sunny room with frills on the bed and cakes on the side table. She felt her plate again. Why did animals and people have warmth in themselves, but things like plates and beds need to be warmed? In school she'd ask about filling the holes in people's hearts and many other smart questions. The teacher would adore her.

Her plate was no longer hot, nor was it empty. Two flapjacks lay on it. Papa put a big yellow gob of butter on top. Giving her a wink, he poured her some milk from the clay jug. The fresh milk was skinned with warm foam. Mary buried her lip into the foam as Papa poured Joseph's milk. Judith poured her own after Papa handed her the jug.

Finally Mother sat down. They had all been waiting for her, not daring to touch their food. The butter was melting nicely. “Judith?” Mother said.

Judith bowed her head. “God is great. God is good,” she chanted. Mary snuck a quick look. Judith had her eyes open. Her hard black pupils were directed unblinkingly at the pancakes losing steam on her plate. Papa did not bow his head. As if he had a backache, he studied the ceiling till grace was over.

“Let us thank him for our food,” Judith finished.

“Ah-men,” Mother said. Mary and Joseph and Judith all said the same, repeating “Ah-men” after Mother in the same solemn way. A strong blast of wind shook the kitchen, rattling the windowpane in its frame. The wind whistled in the stovepipe. The walls vibrated around them as if the house were flying through the air. They could hear the screech of the weather vane as it swung to meet the wind.

“They're singing now,” said Papa, tearing his eyes from the stained ceiling. “Wind's turned.” He poured the tea into the mugs and rested his gaze on Mary.

Mary's toes were cold. A draft went right through her sweater too. She thought of the stable and the angels, and shepherds bowing before heavenly messengers. “I hear them,” she whispered. “I do.”

“Who?” Joseph asked.

“Mother,” said Judith, sounding offended. “Just this morning Mary was saying she didn't want to go to church.”

Mary started at the sound of her name. There was the familiar triumph in Judith's pinched face. Mary looked down at her plate. She wanted to eat now. She didn't want to see the disapproval on Mother's face, nor the approval on Papa's. She didn't want either of them to ask why she would or would not want to stay home. Why did Judith have to be so mean? Couldn't she be nice for a few minutes on Christmas morning?

“Who?” Joseph repeated, mouth full. Somehow a smear of butter had reached his forehead, slicking both eyebrows upward. He looked surprised by everything.

“Don't speak with your mouth full,” Judith said. Prim as could be, she cut a small piece of pancake and bit it gently.

Papa looked at Judith with the blankest of expressions. The calf, whenever Mary offered him hay, always looked at her like this. She knew this was because calves ate only milk. Mary felt afraid. Papa sighed.

Suddenly the tension annoyed Mary even more than Judith and all her finking did. “I'll want to go if you want me to, Mother,” she said.

“What I want isn't important, obviously.” Picking up her mug of tea with both hands, Mother took a slow sip and then turned her gray eyes to Papa. “It's Christmas, and the children need to go. We all do.”

“In a near blizzard.” He stated it flatly, again like a calf.

“In a near blizzard,” she answered, just as flatly. “If need be.”

“I have to go,” said Judith. “I'm in the play.” Her eyes rolled back and forth over her milk glass, as if measuring the distance between her mother and her father.

Mary thought of the peacefulness of them all snuggled warmly under the quilts in the sleigh. It would be better than this. “Let's go, Papa,” she urged.

Joseph was standing on his chair. His hands were planted flat on the table, and he still looked surprised as he leaned over his plate and shrieked, “WHO!?”

Chapter 3

“Whoa, Clyde,” Papa said, pulling on the reins. Clyde and his cutter-load of people came to a sliding stop before the fence surrounding the playground. Papa threw back the quilts and hopped out. Cold air rushed over Mary's legs. Joseph wiggled with excitement beside her. Papa walked forward, patting Clyde's withers as he went along the shaft.

“Lots of people here, I see,” Mother said.

Papa looked back, and so did Clyde, his breath streaming out in two long funnels. He was breathing fire. He was a dragon on the prowl, searching the street for tasty children, and there were a few. Papa just shook his head.

But it was true. Many children with their parents were coming together at the little schoolhouse, a building located on the edge of town. Some were parking horses and sleds in the drive-in shed of the church next door. Some were walking up the street from the heart of Davidson. Across the road a man was blowing on his fingers and putting his head under the upright hood of his car. Two walkers bent forward into gusts of wind rushing around the grain elevator, which was a tall ghostly gray rising into the snow-swirled heavens. Scarves and arms flapped in the wind. Mary wondered if everyone would find a place to sit. The schoolhouse contained only a single large room.

Giving Clyde's head a scratch, Papa tied the lead rope to a post. Only then did he call back “Okay!” He returned and pulled a canvas nosebag of oats and a dirty blanket out from under the seat of the cutter. The blanket he threw over the horse's wet gray back.

Papa took a long slow look at the nosebag, fingering its old canvas thoughtfully before passing its strap over the big horse's high ears. The bag smothered the cones of steam puffing from Clyde's nostrils. The dragon became a plain old workhorse again, hitched to an old sled and wearing an old blanket that sailed off in the wind. Papa caught the blanket and wedged it between the shafts and Clyde's flanks. He knotted its corners into the harness.

Meanwhile Mother, on the other side of Judith, slid out and hurried her children from the cutter. They had to step carefully because the drift was high, well over the children's knees. “Watch out for each other,” she said. “And stay clear of the traffic.” Horses and sleighs trampled and swished past them all around the snow-swept yard.

“Hello, Ray!” shouted a man just driving by. He turned his horse and cutter into the deep drift before the next parking post. “How's my old gelding doing? Still pulling?”

“Pulling good, George!”

As Papa and George began a conversation over Clyde's broad rump, exposed and steaming due to the horse-blanket being too small, Mother pulled the children away. Mary heard no more of what they said. “We have to hurry to get a seat,” Mother said.

Though she was nervous about all the people, Mary felt eager to meet them and jealous too. Judith was allowed to come here for school while she had to wait practically another year. She had often complained about the unfairness of it. “A whole 'nother year,” Mary said, looking at the schoolhouse longingly. She hadn't been inside the place since last summer, when Papa had shown her the desk and bench where he'd sat as a boy.

“Talking to yourself now too?” Judith said.

Mary smelt wood smoke then, a brief whiff swallowed by the wind. The chimney was a rusty pipe shoved up into a white sky. But she could see no smoke. That tireless wind rushed everything away into the fluid and stormy morning.

“Must you dawdle, Mary? Come along.” Mother pulled Mary's mitted hand sharply, then dropped it and stooped to pick up Joseph. “You two girls hold hands,” she said over her shoulder. “And don't dawdle.”

Judith held Mary's hand and dragged her along until Mother's back was turned. Then she pushed Mary off into a drift beside the path. Mary stepped onto the path again to follow at her own pace. She felt a spot of cold where snow entered her shoe through the big crack. Rather, it entered Judith's shoe. Near the entrance, Mary joined the line to mount the steps.