Under A Living Sky (4 page)

“The
Leader
says before the crash we produced forty percent of the world's wheat. Wasn't that a time!” Papa leaned his head back, dreamed a moment and aimed a wry grin at Mary. “Forty percent of the world's grasshoppers now.” Picking up the paper again, he mumbled, “Might as well feed the hoppers, I suppose. Can't sell the goldarn grain anyway.”

Mother put down her knitting, frowned, picked it up again.

He read on, his lips moving painstakingly over the words. His lips moved when he read because Grandpa had made him quit school early to help on the farm. Mary had never met Grandpa, but she knew that he and Grandma had come from Holland, a place so far away that you had to travel across an ocean by ship. It was a place where people wore wooden shoes.

“Hitler is making it warm in Europe,” said Papa. “He's got the German farmers producing most of their own food now. Guaranteed prices. No wonder we can't sell our grain! Says he'd like some more land.”

“Wouldn't we all,” said Mother, measuring with a long index finger. Then her needles clicked on. The presents were far from her mind and his too. “That man'll want ours next and welcome.”

“Like to see him try. Even if it is a dust bowl,” muttered Papa. “Goldarn paper!” Two halves of a page had come apart in his hands.

He looked imploringly at Mother, and she actually giggled.

“What I'd give for a new one, or at least one every farmer 'tween here and Regina hasn't spilt on, stood on and sat on.” The pieces hung to his knees. “Maybe we ought to get us a wireless. Keep up that way. Radio is the voice of the future, Johnson says. Lots happening out in the wide world these days. What do you think?”

“We can't afford it after...you know.” Mother's knitting became rough and jerky, and Mary knew this was not a good time to ask whether Saint Nicholas had happened by with new shoes. It was obvious that Black Peter had stayed away: All the packages were too big to be lumps of coal. “You know how we spent all the money, and that's that.”

Papa sighed. “Don't let's get into that again,” he said. “You did the best you could, Ruth. You had to have those drugs. And the doc wasn't sure it would hold...”

The needles had stopped clicking altogether. Papa fell silent too.

They were searching for words about the little angel Mother had lost, a baby who was born dead back when Judith had started this school year. This angel had gobbled up all the candy money and a lot of the shopping money. How did a lost baby have anything to do with money? There must be more to it, Mary reasoned. But she sure wasn't going to ask about that now. That topic always brought everyone's spirits crashing down. She didn't want to spoil what was left of Christmas. She understood that money was low, and her chances of getting shoes were even lower. But then, Christmas was magic too. Anything could happen. She sat on a stool and threw out her feet, imagining the fine comfort of her shiny new shoes.

“Johnson says he'll swap a kit radio for milk.”

They were moving on from the angel topic, then, but only to adult interests. Mary grew fidgety. Why did she always have to wait? Wait for school, wait for Christmas, wait for shoes, wait through small talk. “Papa!” she whined.

He leaned forward. “Did you want something, honey?” He began winking and smiling the way he used to do when they all went to town and each of the children was allowed a small but private stash of candy.

“Not till the others come down.” Mother's face was firm as stone. And don't try changing her mind on this, the furrowed brow warned. Her needles clicked on again.

Knowing how much any argument had won her in the past—exactly nothing—Mary drifted off to the kitchen. She sat by the warm stove and waved her finger through the steam jetting up out of the kettle. Hearing a rattle at the window, she rose to have a look. A single tiny bare spot showed large drops of rain falling, with balls of ice mixed in for good measure. “Papa, it's raining!”

He came in and performed an exaggerated squint out the window. Picking up Mary, he let her kneel on the counter for a better view. He took a flat-ended wooden spoon from a nail on the wall and scraped away a swath of soft frost. “Chinook,” he said. “There's a wind clear from the Pacific coast. Old Clyde couldn't pull in this nohow.”

“We were smart to get ourselves home then,” Mary said.

“I figured this morning it had warmed up a tad.”

“Good.” Mother's voice came unexpectedly from the other side of Papa's head. “At least now we can move.”

“Move?” Papa sounded worried.

“Take the buggy to town now and again.”

“Oh. That would be nice, Ruthie, but if it thaws out too early, the road will be a mire. As for a melt being good, we need to keep this snow. Bare dirt just dries out and blows away, as I think we all know by now.”

“I'm hoping for a good rainy spring,” she said. “And I want to get out.” Mary remembered that Mother used to be adventurous, driving to town by herself. But other than this morning, she hadn't left the farm in months.

“Me too.”

Then Mother's hand was up by Mary's face, resting on Papa's shoulder. The fingers were long and tapered, though badly chapped. Mary had never really noticed them before. Mary inspected her fingers, which by comparison were smooth and stubby, with dirty nails.

“What are you looking at?” Papa asked, hugging her swiftly.

“Just checking if my hands are nice like Mother's.” Mary looked again, but the hand was gone, its tapered and veined beauty tucked bashfully into an apron pocket.

Papa smiled. “She always had nice hands, our pretty young Ruth did.”

Mother pulled away. Both hands stuffed into her pockets, she walked to the foot of the stairs, calling, “Judith! Joseph! You won't sleep tonight if you don't get up now!” She returned to her knitting in the front room.

Chapter 5

Within minutes of being called, Judith and Joseph tumbled down the stairs. Joseph ran to the tree and stooped to investigate a ceramic camel with a missing leg. Then, remembering his mission, he pounced on the parcels and brought them eagerly to Mother. He shouted, “What one's mine? What one's mine? Mine!”

Judith tried to snatch the presents from Mother's lap, but Mother placed her hand on them, looked up and asked, “Is this how we receive gifts from each other?”

“No, ma'am,” said Judith, blushing. “May I?”

Mother handed the presents to Judith. Studying the label on the first one, she read aloud, “M...A....” Eyes averted, Judith tossed it back onto Mother's lap. Then she read another, “J...U...D...I...T...H. That leaves this one for you.”

She didn't look at Joseph as she extended her arm to hand him the last package. He clutched it to his chest and stepped back, plainly expecting his oldest and meanest sister to change her mind. Just as his hand came down to rip the brown paper wrapping, Mother said, “Not so fast, young man. First we'll have the star and the story.”

“Aawwh!”

“We all heard the story this morning,” said Papa. “Do we really need it again?”

Mother raised her eyebrows, one at a time, like she was weighing the merits of his point: the usual good of children being made to wait for no reason whatsoever against the immediate peace of their gratification, in this case, unwrapping presents. “All right,” she replied. “But we still have the star to put on first. Who will do that?”

Judith and Joseph both galloped to the tree. “I will! I will!”

Papa asked, “How 'bout you, Mary?”

Mary pointed at Joseph. “Let him do it.”

Looking at Judith, Papa lifted his eyebrows.

“Draw straws,” she answered.

“Is it so all-fired important?”

Judith's bottom lip came out. “Yes.”

Sighing, Papa pulled three green needles from the tree. He arranged them behind his back, then displayed them between his thumb and forefinger. “Try yer luck, ladies and gent!”

Joseph chose a needle, and Judith did too. Mary took the last one and when they held them up, hers was longest. Papa picked her up and carried her to the tree, but she wiggled and kicked her legs. “No. No! I want Joseph to do it!”

As Papa set her down, Mary glanced over at Judith, who glared back at her. Mary sighed. As always, she would pay a price for Judith not winning the contest. Judith never forgot a slight.

Joseph was formally given the star by Mother and carried, squealing with joy and getting a whisker rub on his baby neck, toward the tree. Papa lifted him high and Joseph placed the star's green tin cone over the topmost stem. The star glittered. Its five arms were covered in sparkles that reflected any light that came their way. For the past two years, Mary had placed it. Judith brushed by and used her needle to leave a red scratch on Mary's hand. Still, Mary felt glad Joseph had set the star up high and glad that Judith had not.

Finally it was time. They were allowed to rip into the paper wrappings. Joseph cheered at the sight of a small wooden mallet. He immediately began to hammer the floor. Judith, slower in getting to her present, eventually uncovered a pair of shoes. Although they had been buffed up, Mary could see wear marks in their leather uppers. They were used.

“Thank you,” Judith said, without enthusiasm.

“You're welcome,” Mother answered.

Mary's present didn't feel right. It was too soft. And Judith's new scuffed shoes meant one thing: no money. Could there possibly be two sets of shoes if Judith's pair was used?

In that moment Mary's shoes vanished, sucked back into the world of daydreams.

Mary swallowed and made a show of reading the newsprint wrapped around her present. But as nobody seemed to pay any attention to her, she went ahead and ripped the paper. A dark painted eye gazed up at her. Mary looked at Papa, who was smiling broadly. Mother smiled too, smiled as she had not done for some time, smiled even though she had practically promised new shoes for Christmas. A sense of quiet panic stole up Mary's throat. Hot tears began to form. She forced them away.

The present she'd waited for so patiently all these months turned out to be a doll, not un-Judith shoes. Mary closed her prickly eyes and opened them to the awful sight of Judith grinning at her.

Mother smiled sadly. “I didn't think a nosebag would do the trick.”

Papa's eager face had relaxed into disappointment.

Mary looked at her mother and her father. She tried to smile. She knew they had done their best, but knowing that didn't make it any easier. She'd got nothing but an old nosebag.

She bolted upstairs, hid under the bed covers and cried, asking over and over why nothing ever went right for her. Later, drained of tears, she felt foolish. Why had she imagined there would be money for shoes when they had to do without the simplest everyday things like tea? She sighed and unwrapped her present anyway.

It was a doll, but not a real one with porcelain hands and feet and face and lacy clothes like Judith's. This doll was canvas and naked. Two crude arms and two crude legs stuck out into the air as if stretching to recover lost hands and feet. Its seams were evenly stitched, but with a fine black thread. The white-painted but expressionless face had large black spots for eyes, lips of red paint, and hair of black paint. The paint was still sticky. It was a nosebag with no nose. Who could feel anything for such a doll?

And worse, when fall came, she would have to go to school in Judith's annoying old shoes. With cracks. No, I won't! she vowed angrily. I'll go barefoot first!

Then she thought of the ride in to the play that morning, how cozy it had been, how full of hope. Her parents always did the best they could, she told herself. If the Christmas money had been spent on other things, nobody was at fault, unless they blamed that little angel Mother had lost last fall. She looked at the doll again and propped it up against the pillow. With a face like that, the doll could use a friend. When the doll fell over, she sat it back up. When the light disappeared from the window, Mary took the doll downstairs.

“I'm sorry, Mary,” said Papa as Mary sat on the bottom step. “There was no money left to buy a nice one.”

“Nor shoes,” said Mother. “Maybe next year.”

Judith sat between Papa and Mother, holding her feet out in her new shoes. “I think they do fit well, Mother. They're oh so comfortable.” She raised her lip at Mary.

Just then Joseph whacked Papa's foot with the mallet.

“Ow! Joseph, by gum and by golly, you go over there and fix yer jalopy, will ya?”

“I didn't buy a thing for you,” Mary confessed, ignoring Judith.

“Well, it's not much, I know.” Papa pointed Joseph off to a far corner, picked up his foot to rub it and faced Mary appealingly. “We made her while you kids slept.”

No kidding, thought Mary. “No, Papa. I love her. Is it a he or a she?”

“He.”

“She, as anyone can see.” Mother peeked up from beneath lowered brows.

Mary put her face against the doll's cold, coarse face. “And what is my baby's name?”

Papa glanced at the nativity scene and smiled mischievously. “Jessy.”

“Don't be sacrilegious, Raynold,” Mother scolded.

“Jessy is sacrilegious?”

“We all know what you're getting at.”

He smiled guiltily, as if he'd been caught in a lie. “Okay, but it's not so far from the stable to a nosebag. Pretty darn close, if you ask me.”

Mary looked up to the yellow angel on the ceiling and remembered their deal. She had given up her shoes. Would she get the peace and quiet she had asked for in return?

Mother fussed with her knitting, brushing Judith's hand away as she picked at the pretty blue wool.

“Jessy. Hmm.” Mary liked the feel of that name. Ignoring the disapproval in Mother's eye, she dandled the doll on her knee. She thought the face looked a bit happier now that everyone knew her name. “Maybe Jessy needs to go to bed for a while,” said Mary, “even though she didn't do anything wrong yet.”