From the Improvement Era, December 1961 –

Stars in Your Eyes

By Verna Linburg

In that far-off year of 1906, western towns were new and business houses in these same towns were new. My deskmate, Lucy Thornton, gave me a coupon worth fifty cents in trade at her papa’s new drugstore. This was Mr. Thornton’s way of introducing his new establishment.

The fifty-cent coupon made me a plutocrat, and the minute school was out, I hurried to town to invest my wealth. My red fascinator framed eager black eyes and my high-topped black button shoes beat a happy tattoo on the wooden sidewalk. What could I buy for me? I had no idea of getting anything for anybody else. What was Christmas for, except to get presents?

Inside the store, Bill Thornton, hovered near while I walked up one aisle and down another, looking and looking. Blond Bill helped his papa run the store.

“How about this?” Bill asked. He opened a music box and out tinkled a gay tune, one to match the happy beat of my heart. Bill’s blue eyes lingered on my upturned face, and his eyes smiled in the friendliest sort of way.

His cordial manner didn’t mean a thing, I told myself. It was good business to be agreeable to all the customers. In confusion, my eyes dropped to a china figurine.

Bill’s eyes followed mine. Then he twirled the little statue round and round, but he kept looking at me.

I said not a word. As usual, I could find no carelessly appropriate things to say. Always I had to be like this, incapable of small talk, while other girls went on and on, like Tennyson’s brook.

“Oh, say! This just suits you,” Bill said. He opened a bottle of jasmine perfume and held it to my nose.

Mum-m-m! It smelled heavenly. I opened my mouth to say I’d take it, but before any words came, a mighty roar boomed from behind a back partition.

“Oh, Bill! O-O-oh, Bill!”

It was Mr. Thornton, Bill’s papa.

“Yes sir! ” Bill called to him. To me he said, “Just a minute, be right back, don’t go way. . . .”

And then I saw the red plush photograph album. It had gilt edges and a gold clasp to hold the pages shut. Mama would love it, and it cost just fifty cents.

I snapped back to reality with a thud. I didn’t have two coupons, and one wouldn’t buy both perfume and album. Which should I buy, the perfume for me, or the album for Mama? I couldn’t make so important a decision now.

Before Bill returned, I walked out of the store; I went with unseeing eyes down the drab street that had been white with snow until wagon wheels made muddy gashes in it. My heart had been clean, too, but now selfishness made black marks on it.

Selfishness whispered, “Be smart. Buy Mama the perfume, and you can use it, too.”

Why hadn’t I thought of that?

I let myself into the kitchen, comfortably warm from the big wood range. Mama had on a pale blue dress, which brought out the blue of her eyes and the copper of her hair. Mama was pretty. She was taking a pound cake out of the oven, Papa’s favorite and mine, too.

I took blue willow dishes out of the safe and began setting the table, my mind still back in the drugstore intent on the problem of perfume or album.

Papa came in the back door, letting in a blast of chill air. Papa was tall, thin, dark, silent. He had closed the newspaper office, but I somehow knew he was really still there, composing a superb editorial which would lift the town to higher heights.

At the supper table, the other children were interested only in food, and Papa, from his faraway look, was still deep in his editorial. This left Mama and me to chatter.

“Which perfume do you like best?” I asked her.

“Perfume?” Mama repeated. “The best perfume, Kathy, is the good clean smell of soap and water.”

But I intended to use jasmine perfume for the rest of my life, because Bill said it suited me.

Papa came out of his reverie. He said, “This year I hope to write the best Christmas editorial I’ve ever written. I’m calling it, ‘Recipe for Magic’ In it I’m making a promise. . . .”

“A promise?” Mama asked.

“Yes, I’m promising everyone who gives with no thought of getting, that his heart will become a harp upon which unseen hands will play Christmas chimes, and that stars will shine in his eyes.”

“Stars in his eyes,” Mama murmured. “Sounds pretty.”

Papa turned to me, “It’s more blessed to give than to receive, Kathy. Don’t ever forget that.” He cut himself a huge piece of pound cake and began to eat it, silently and meditatively.

I helped myself to a small piece of the cake. With my black eyes fastened on Papa’s black eyes, I also began to eat, silently and meditatively. More blessed to give than to receive; better to give a red plush album than to get jasmine perfume? That I doubted. Oh, a million years from now, in the great hereafter, eternity, Papa and I would sit under green trees in an eternal Spring. Then I would be as good as Papa. But not now. Not now! I must manage somehow to get both perfume and album.

My chance came the very next day.

Lucy said, “Why don’t you tell me what you want for Christmas and I’ll hint to Bill? Might as well make it something big, get all you can while the getting’s good. . . .”

“Oh, I can’t do that ”

“Well, for goodness sake! Why not? If I had your chance. . . .”

Lucy’s eyes were small and piggish. They definitely held no stars.

“Do you believe it’s better to give than to get?” I asked her.

Lucy’s laugh was like the tinkling music box in her papa’s store, “Of course not! Who ever heard of such a crazy thing. I just dare you to prove it.”

Lucy was always daring somebody to prove something. Her dare aroused me as Papa’s gentle words had not. “All right, I will. I’ll prove it to you and right now.”

Lucy’s sarcastic laugh followed me out the schoolroom door; it echoed in my brain when I walked into the warm, antiseptic drugstore. I walked straight to the back counter. I picked up the red photograph album.

Bill appeared out of the nowhere. “Let me help you, Kathy.”

“I’m buying the album for Mama,” I said. “When you love anybody, you want to give them something more than you want to get something for yourself. I mean . . . you feel . . . oh, you wouldn’t understand.”

Bill slowly tore off a length of holly-studded paper. As he looked at me, a miracle happened. Stars shone in his eyes. “But I do know,” he said, his voice all muffled and fuzzy, “I know because of you, Kathy. You’ll go to the Christmas dance with me. . . ?”

A tiny pulse beat in my throat, and deep inside me something trembled! “Of course I’ll go,” I murmured.

A bellow came from the back region, “Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!”

Bill fled before the urgency in his papa’s voice, and I fled before the love in Bill’s eyes.

Outside it was snowing. A white cloud blocked out the sordid world, and I floated up the street in a private world of my own. Papa was right. On the harp of my heart unseen hands played Christmas chimes, and before my eyes blossomed an ancient star. I had never been so happy, but this was one thing I couldn’t prove to Lucy. She would have to feel the chimes and see the star for herself.

I couldn’t wait until Christmas day to give Mama her present. I had to give it to her now.

When I put the package in her hands and told her about the coupon and the perfume I’d wanted to buy for myself, but didn’t, her face lighted up as if it really were Christmas day. When I looked into her eyes, though, I couldn’t decide whether tears or stars glistened in them.

The red album glowed in the lamplight. In time, no doubt, it would be worn and faded, but in my memory it would always live on in all its crimson glory because it had taught me the magic of Christmas. In time, maybe, I’d be able to give Mama presents which would cost many times the price of the little album, but no present, however costly, could possibly ever hold more of my love.