The Love Comes Softly Collection Read online

  “Well . . .” Marty turned it over in her mind, trying to recall exactly what had happened at her home to prepare for Christmas. There hadn’t been the reading of the Scripture story, but they could add that easy enough. And there had been a good supply of corn liquor, which they could do without. Otherwise, there must be several things she could do the way her mother had. This would be her first Christmas away from home—the first Christmas for her to make for others, rather than have others make for her. The thought made her feel both uneasy and excited.

  “Well,” she began again, “I’ll git me to doin’ some Christmas bakin’. Maybe Ma has some special recipes she’ll share. Then we’ll have a tree fer Missie. Christmas Eve we’ll put it up after she be tucked in, an’ we’ll string popcorn an’ make some colored chains, an’ have a few candles fer the windows, an’ we’ll kill a couple of the finest roosters, an’ I’ll find me somethin’ to be makin’ fer Missie—”

  The excitement growing in her must have been infectious. Clark joined in with his own anticipation of the coming Christmas.

  “Roosters, nuthin’,” he announced. “I’ll go myself an’ buy us a turkey from the Vickers. Mrs. Vickers raises some first-rate ’uns. Maybe there be somethin’ we can be makin’ fer Missie together. I’ll ride over to Ma’s today an’ git the recipes—or better still, it looks like a decent day. Ya be wantin’ me to hitch ole Dan an’ Charlie so ya can be goin’ yerself?”

  “Oh, could I?” Marty’s tone held the plea in her heart. “I’d love to see Ma fer a chat—iffen yer sure it be all right.”

  So it was decided that Marty would go to the Grahams’. But Clark added another dimension to the plan. If it was okay with her, he’d drive her to Ma’s, and then he and Missie would go on to the Vickers’s and get the turkey. That way they’d be sure to have it when the big day arrived. Missie could do with some fresh air, too, and some time with her pa.

  Marty hurried through the dishes as Clark went to get the team. She bundled Missie up snugly and slipped into her long coat. It was the first time she had worn it, and she thought, looking at herself with a grin, perhaps the last for a while. Two of the buttons refused to meet their matching buttonholes. She sighed. “Well,” she told Missie, taking her shawl, “guess I’ll jest have to cover up the rest o’ me with this.”

  The day spent with Ma was a real treat. They pored over Ma’s recipes, Marty selecting so many that she’d never get them all baked. She would choose some from among the many at a later date. She also wrote down careful instructions on how to stuff and roast the turkey, it being her first attempt at such an endeavor. They shared plans and discussed possibilities for the holiday ahead. Marty felt a stirring of new interest within her at the anticipation of it. For too long she had felt that the young life she carried was the only living part of her. Now for the first time in months she began to feel alive again.

  Before she knew it, she heard the team approaching. Clark was called in for a cup of coffee before setting off for home, and he came in carrying a rosy-faced Missie, excited by her ride and eager to tell everyone of the “gobble-gobble” they had in the wagon for “Christ’as.”

  Marty could hear the live turkey vigorously protesting his separation from the rest of the flock. Clark had said he would be placed in the hens’ coop and generously given cracked corn and other fattening things until a few days before Christmas.

  Missie romped with young Lou while the grown-ups had their coffee, too excited to even finish her glass of milk.

  On the way home Marty got up the nerve to voice a thought that had gradually been taking shape. She was a bit hesitant and hardly knew how to express it.

  “Do ya s’pose—I mean, would ya mind iffen we had the Grahams come fer Christmas dinner?”

  “All of ’em?” Clark’s shock was evident.

  “’Course, all of ’em,” Marty rejoined stoutly. “I know there be thirteen of ’em an’ three of us; thet makes sixteen. The kitchen table, stretched out like, will hold eight. Thet’s the four grown-ups an’ the four youngest of the Grahams. Missie’ll be in her chair. Thet leaves seven Graham young’uns. We’ll fix ’em a place in the sittin’ room an’ Laura an’ Sally Anne can look after ’em.”

  She would have babbled on, but Clark, with a laugh and an upright hand, stopped her. “Whoa.” Then he said, “I see ya got it all sorted out. Did ya speak with Ma on it?”

  “’Course not,” said Marty. “I wouldn’t be doin’ thet afore I checked with you.”

  He looked sideways at her, and his voice took on a serious note. “I don’t know.” He hesitated. “Seems to me it be a pretty big order, gettin’ on a Christmas dinner fer sixteen, an’ servin’ it in our small quarters, an’ ya bein’ the way ya are an’ all.”

  Marty knew she must fight for it if her idea was to be.

  She scoffed at his protest. “Pawsh! There be nuthin’ wrong with the way I be. I feel as pert now as I ever did. As to fixin’ the dinner, I’ll have as much of thet done ahead as I can, afore the house packs jam tight. Then ’twon’t be sech a problem. When they gits there, Ma and the girls will give a hand—an’ with the dishes, too. Oh my—”

  She stopped and fairly squealed. “Dishes! Clark, do we have enough dishes to set so many?”

  “I don’t know, but iffen ya don’t, Ma’ll bring some of hers along.”

  “Good!”

  She smiled to herself. He had as good as said that they could come. She had sort of swung him off track by diverting his attention to the dishes. She felt a bit guilty but not enough to be bothered by it. “It be settled, then,” she ventured, more a statement than a question.

  Nineteen

  Snowbound

  Clark went back to his days in the hills felling trees, and Marty went to work in her kitchen. She pored over the recipes and, after finally making her choices, spent day after day turning out tempting goodies. In spite of Missie’s attempts to “help,” baked goods began to stock up almost alarmingly, and she was having a hard time finding places to put all of them.

  Missie sampled and approved, preferring the gingerbread boys Marty had made especially for the children.

  In the evenings she and Clark worked together on a dollhouse for Missie. Clark had constructed a simple two-room structure and was busy making wooden chairs, tables, and beds. Marty’s part was to put in small curtains, rugs, and blankets. “Those things a woman usually be makin’,” Clark had said. She found it to be fun helping with the project, watching it take shape. The kitchen had a small cupboard with doors that really opened, a table, two chairs, and a bench. This was Clark’s work. Marty had put up little kitchen curtains, added a couple of bright rugs on the floor, and put small cushions on the chairs.

  The sitting-bedroom had a small bed complete with blankets and pillows, a tiny cradle, two chairs, a footstool, and a trunk with a lid that lifted. Marty still had to fix the blanket and pillow for the cradle and the curtains for this room. Clark was working on a stove for the kitchen.

  “Wouldn’t be much of a kitchen without a stove,” he reasoned.

  Marty was pleased with their efforts and glad that the dollhouse should easily be finished in time for Missie’s Christmas.

  Clark had made several more trips into town, stopping the first time to invite the Grahams to Christmas dinner. He seemed to feel these trips were important, yet as far as Marty could see, he had nothing to show for them when he returned. She shrugged it off.

  The last time he had brought back some special spices for her baking and a few trinkets for Missie.

  “She be needin’ somethin’ fer her Christmas sock,” he said as he handed them over to Marty’s care.

  Marty reviewed all this in her thinking as she laid cookies out to cool.

  Would Clark be expecting a gift from her? She supposed not. It would have been nice to have some little thing for him, but she had no money for a purchase and no way of getting someplace to buy it. And what could one sew for a man?

  As she worked she r
emembered the piece of soft blue-gray wool that still lay in her sewing basket. After she finished the cookies, she’d take a look at it and see if it were possible to make a man’s scarf out of the material.

  When she later checked the material, she decided it was quite possible. Knowing that Clark wouldn’t be in from cutting trees until chore time, she set to work. She finished the stitching, finding it necessary to do a bit of piecing, and then tucked it away. Tomorrow while Clark was away she would hand embroider his initials on it.

  Christmas would soon be here. She wondered if the day itself would be half as exciting as the preparations for it had been.

  Only three days to go now. They had finished their gift for Missie the night before and complimented each other on the outcome. Now breakfast was over, and Clark had gone back to cutting wood. Marty asked him to keep an eye open for nice pine branches bearing cones so she might form a few wreaths. He said he would see what he could do.

  Clark would work in the morning in the hills, and in the afternoon he would kill the gobbler, who at the present was going without his breakfast. Marty hurried through her tasks, then took up the scarf for Clark. Carefully she stitched a bold C. D. on it and had it tucked away in her drawer before Clark arrived for dinner.

  Now just two days until Christmas, but the day was the Lord’s Day, and any further preparations would have to wait. Marty conceded to herself that perhaps a day of rest was not such a bad idea, and when Missie was tucked in for her afternoon nap, she stretched out on her own bed, a warm blanket drawn over her. She felt weary, really weary, and the weight of the baby she carried made every task she took on doubly hard. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to a delightful sleep.

  Day one—the morrow would be Christmas. The tom was killed, plucked, cleaned, and hung to chill in preparation for stuffing. Marty had carefully formed her wreaths, pleased with Clark’s selected branches, and tied them with her cherished store twine. She had placed one in each window and one on the door. A small tree had come from the hills with Clark’s last load of wood and waited outside until the time when Missie would be tucked in bed and it would be placed in a corner of the sitting room. The corn already had been popped and strung, and Marty had made chains from bits of colored paper that she had carefully saved. She had even made some out of the brown store wrap that had come from town.

  The scarf lay completed, but as Marty looked at it a feeling of uneasiness overtook her. Somehow it didn’t seem the thing to be giving a man like Clark. She wondered if she’d really have the courage to go through with it.

  Well, she said, mentally shelving the matter, I’ll have to be handlin’ thet when the time comes, an’ jest keep my mind on what I’m doin’ now.

  What she was “doin’ now” was peeling large quantities of carrots, turnips, and potatoes for the Christmas dinner. There would be cabbage to dice, as well. The batch of bread was rising and would soon be ready for baking. The beans were soaking and would be flavored with cured ham later. Canned greens and pickles were lined up on the floor by the cupboard, waiting to be opened, and wild nuts were placed in a basket by the fireplace to be roasted over the open fire.

  Mentally Marty ticked off her list. Things seemed to be going as scheduled. She looked around her at the abundance of food. Tomorrow promised to be a good day, and tonight they’d have the fun of decking the tree for Missie and hanging her sock.

  Christmas Day! Marty opened her eyes earlier than usual, and already her head was spinning. She must prepare the stuffing for the turkey, put the vegetables on to cook in her largest kettles, bring in plenty of the baking from the shed, where it was sure to be frozen in this weather. Her mind raced on as she quickly dressed.

  The room felt so cold she’d be glad to get to the warm kitchen. She silently bent over Missie to check that she was properly covered, then quietly tiptoed from the room.

  It was cold in the sitting room, too, and she hurried on to the kitchen. There was no lamp lit there, so Clark was not up. She shivered as she hastened to light it and moved on to start the fire. It was so cold that her hands already felt numb. She could hear the wind whining around the cabin as she coaxed the blaze to take hold. It would be a while before the chill left the air. She moved into the sitting room to light the fire there. She must have it warm when Missie got up.

  When both fires were burning, she checked the clock. Twenty minutes to six. No wonder Clark wasn’t up yet. He usually rose about six-thirty in the winter months. Well, she needed every minute she could get. She had so much to do.

  She turned to the frost-covered window and scratched a small opening with her fingers to look out on Christmas Day. An angry wind swirled heavily falling snow, piling drifts in seemingly mountainous proportions. She could not even see the well for the density of it.

  Marty didn’t need to be told that she was witnessing a dreaded prairie blizzard. The pain of it all began to seep in. She wanted to scream out against it, to curse it away, to throw herself on her bed in a torrent of tears. Her shoulders sagged and she felt weary and defeated. But what good would it do to strike back? The storm would still rage. None in their right mind would defy it simply for a Christmas dinner. She was licked. She felt dead again. Then suddenly a new anger took hold of her. Why? Why should the storm win?

  “Go ahead,” she stormed aloud as she stared out through the window. “Go ahead and howl. We have the turkey ready to go in the oven. We have lots of food. We have our tree. We have Missie. We’ll—we’ll jest still have Christmas!”

  She wiped angry tears on her apron, squared her shoulders, and turned back to add more wood to the fire. Then she noticed Clark sitting there, boots in hand, watching her.

  He cleared his throat, and she looked steadily at him. She had worked so hard for this day and now she was cheated out of it. She hoped he would not try to say something understanding or her resolve might crumble. She quickly moved to stand in front of him as he sat lacing his boots, and with a smile she waved her hand toward the laden cupboard. “My word. What’re we ever gonna be doin’ with all this food? We’ll have to spend the whole day eatin’ on it.”

  She moved back to the cupboard and began work on preparing the turkey for roasting.

  “I do hope thet the Grahams haven’t been caught short-fixed fer Christmas. Us sittin’ here with jest us three an’ all this food, an’ them sittin’ there with so many. . . .” She drifted to a halt and glanced over at Clark, who sat there openmouthed, a boot dangling from his hand.

  He shook his head slightly, then said, “Ma’s too smart to be took off guard like. She knows this country’s mean streak. I don’t think they be a wantin’ at all.”

  Marty felt relieved at that news. “I be right glad to hear thet,” she said. “The storm had me worryin’.”

  She finished stuffing the turkey, then opened the oven door.

  “Best ya let me be liftin’ thet bird. He’s right heavy,” Clark said and hurried over to put it in.

  Marty did not object. With it safely roasting and the stove gradually warming the kitchen, Marty put on the coffeepot and then took a chair.

  “Seems the storm nearly won,” she acknowledged slowly, “but it can’t win unless ya let it, can it?”

  Clark said nothing, but as she looked at him his eyes told her that he understood her disappointment—and more than that, her triumph over it.

  He reached out and touched her hand. When he spoke his voice was gentle. “I’m right proud of ya, Marty.”

  He had never touched her before except for helping her in and out of the wagon, and something about it sent a warm feeling through her. Maybe it was knowing that he understood. She hoped he hadn’t noticed her response to his touch and quickly said, “We’ll have to cook the whole turkey, but we can freeze what we can’t eat. I’ll put the vegetables in smaller pots an’ cook only what we be needin’. The rest will keep fer a while in the cold pit. The bakin’”—she stopped and waved a hand to all the goodies stacked around and laughed—“we be ea
tin’ thet till spring iffen we don’t git some help.”

  “Thet’s one thing I don’t be complainin’ ’bout,” Clark said. “Here I was worryin’ ’bout all those Graham young’uns with their hefty appetites comin’ an’ not leavin’ anythin’ fer me, an’ now look at me, blessed with it all.”

  “Clark,” Marty said in mock dismay, “did you go an’ pray up this storm?”

  She’d never heard him laugh so heartily before, and she joined in with him. By then the coffee was boiling, and she poured two cups while he went for the cream. The kitchen was warmer now, and the hot coffee washed away the last of the chill in her.

  “Well,” she said, getting up as quickly as her extra burden would allow, “we may as well have some bakin’ to go with it. Gotta git started on it sometime. What ya be fancyin’?”

  Clark chose a spicy tart and Marty took a simple shortbread cookie.

  They talked of the day ahead as they shared their coffee. Clark wouldn’t go out for the chores until after Missie was up. That way he wouldn’t miss out on her excitement. Then they would have a late breakfast and their Christmas dinner midafternoon. The evening meal would be “the pickin’s,” Clark said. That would save Marty from being at the stove all day. It sounded like a reasonable plan to her, and she nodded her agreement.

  “We used to play a game when I was a kid,” Clark said. “Haven’t played a game fer years, but it might be fun. It was drawed out on a piece o’ paper or a board, an’ ya used pegs or buttons. While ya be busyin’ about, I’ll make us up one.”

  The clock ticked on and the snow did not cease nor the wind slacken, but it didn’t matter now. It had been accepted as a fact of prairie life, and the adjustments had been made.

  When Missie called from her bed, Clark went for her. Marty stationed herself by the sitting room fire to watch the little girl’s response to their Christmas preparations. They were not disappointed. Missie was beside herself with excitement. She rushed to the tree, went from the small toys in her sock to the dollhouse, then to the sock, back to the dollhouse, exclaiming over and over her wonder of it all. Finally she stopped, clasped her tiny hands together, and said, “Oh, Chris’as bootiful.”