[I stumbled on this fine, old Canadian classic Christmas yarn a couple of weeks ago and was charmed. It's pitifully smarmy, but so is Dickens at Christmas. Who cares?--Christmas is, after all, the time for miracles--as in, you know, a king in a manger. The writer's name is Lucy Maud Montgomery. Yes, that's her atop the page, and yes, she's the blessed woman who wrote Anne of Green Gables. It's a sweet story--that's all I say. It'll come in installments. Enjoy!]
"Of course, Santa Claus will come," said Jimmy Martin. Jimmy was ten, and at ten it is easy to be confident. "Why, he's got to come because it is Christmas Eve, and he always has come. You know that, twins."
He wasn’t wrong, and the twins knew it. Cheered by Jimmy's superior wisdom, their doubts passed away. There had been one terrible moment when Theodora had sighed and told them they mustn't be too much disappointed if Santa Claus did not come this year. After all, the crops had been poor, and he mightn't have had enough presents to go around.
"That doesn't make any difference to Santa Claus," scoffed Jimmy. "You know as well as I do, Theodora Prentice, that Santa Claus is rich whether the crops fail or not.” He pointed outside, as if there were proof. “They failed three years ago, before Father died, but Santa Claus came all the same. Probably you don't remember it, twins, 'cause you were too little, but I do. Of course, he'll come, so don't you worry a mite. And he'll bring my skates and your dolls.” He looked up at his sister. “He knows we're expecting them, Theodora, 'cause we wrote him a letter last week, and threw it up the chimney. And there'll be candy and nuts, of course, and Mother's gone to town to buy a turkey. I tell you we're going to have a ripping Christmas."
Theodora wasn’t taken by his language. "Well, don't use such slangy words about it, Jimmy-boy.” She couldn't bear to dampen their hopes any further, and she told herself that Aunt Elizabeth might just manage it if the colt sold well. Theodora sighed again as she looked out of the window far down the trail that wound across the prairie, red-lighted by the declining sun of the short wintry afternoon.
"Am I going to always sigh like that when I get to be sixteen?" asked Jimmy. "When you were only fifteen, you didn’t do it, and I wish you wouldn't. It makes me feel funny—not a nice kind of funniness either."
"It's a bad habit I've got into lately," said Theodora, trying to giggle. "Old folks are dull sometimes--you know that, Jimmy-boy."
"Sixteen is awful old," Jimmy said. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do when I'm sixteen. I'm going to pay off the mortgage, and buy mother a silk dress, and a piano for the twins.” He rapped his knuckles down on the table top. “Won't that be cool? I'll be able to do that 'cause I'm a man.” He took a poke at his aunt. “‘Course if I was only a girl I couldn't."
"I just hope you'll be a good, kind, brave man and a real help to your mother," she told him, sitting down before the cozy fire and lifting the fat little twins into her lap.
"Never you fear," Jimmy told her, squatting down near the fire on the little skin of a coyote his father had killed four years ago. "You only get one, you know.” Suddenly, his eyes perked. “Now tell us a story, Theodora—a really good, you know, with lots of fighting and stuff. Only don't kill anybody. I like to hear fighting, but I’d just as soon the people come out alive."
Theodora giggled again, and began a story about the Riel Rebellion*—a story which had the double merit of being true and exciting. When finally she finished, it was quite dark and the twins were nodding, but Jimmy's eyes were still sparkling.
"That was great," he said. "How about more?"
"Bedtime for you all.” Theodora laid down the law. "One story at a time is my rule, you know."
"But I want to sit up till Mother comes home.” Jimmy always found a way to postpone bedtime.
"She may be very late, because she might have to wait to see Mr. Porter.” Theodora looked straight into Jimmy’s eyes and let out a big smile. “Besides, you don't know what time Santa Claus might come,” and then, cautiously, “. . .if he comes at all.” She pointed outside as if he were on his way. “If he were to drive along and see you children up instead of being sound asleep in bed, he might go right on and never call at all."
That was all Jimmy needed to hear. "All right, we'll go. But we have to hang up our stockings first.” He suddenly became the big brother. “Twins,” he ordered, “get yours."
The twins toddled off in great excitement, and brought back their Sunday stockings. After Jimmy hung them along the edge of the mantel shelf, they all trooped obediently off to bed.
The hope, of course, was that Mother could sell the horse. That’s about the only way that Santa would come. Theodora seated herself at the window, where she could both watch the moonlit prairie for Mrs. Martin's homecoming and knit at the same time.
If the truth be told, Theodora was no worry wart. She was the jolliest, bravest girl of sixteen in all Saskatchewan, something you would have read in a moment in her shining brown eyes and rosy, dimpled cheeks. She couldn’t help but fear the children were going to be disappointed--worse, heartbroken if Santa Claus did not come, and missing Christmas would hurt her hardworking little mother more than anyone else.
Only five years before had Theodora come to live with Uncle George and Aunt Elizabeth in the little log house at Red Butte. Her own mother had just died, and Theodora had only her big brother Donald left, and Donald had caught Klondike fever. Uncle George and Aunt Elizabeth were poor as church mice, but they had gladly made room for their little niece, and Theodora had lived there ever since, her aunt's right-hand girl and the playmate of the children.
They had been very happy, and then Uncle George had died just two years before this Christmas Eve. Since then, there had been hard times in the little log house. Mrs. Martin and Theodora had done their best, but it was a woefully hard task to make ends meet. And then, this year, their crops had been poor. Theodora and her aunt had made every sacrifice possible for the children's sake, and at least Jimmy and the twins had not felt the pinch very severely yet.
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The table is set. It's time for action. Stop by tomorrow.
*The Riel Rebellion, 1885, included the Metis people (mixed blood), as well as the Cree and Assiniboine First Nations, all of whom were convinced Canada was out to destroy their people and culture. Louis Riel led the rebellion. Eventually he was hanged. Some Canadians still think of him as a martyr, others a firebrand rebel.
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