From the Improvement Era, December 1951 –

The Unexpected Gift

By Marion Crawford

The day came into focus. From the station house which was also the office of the justice of the peace, real estate, insurance, and ice cream sodas, Julia watched the morning sun coming up lazily and half-heartedly, as if of a mind to turn back. She noticed that the cottonwoods and the poplars were bare and old and dark with winter. The little town lay shrouded in snow, a sleepy little burg with only one eye open. Yet across the main street a sign blazed in brilliant colors, “Merry Christmas,” and the store windows were festive with wreaths and lighted candles. In the distance high mountains loomed in splendor, snow covering their summits like icing running down chocolate cake.

Julie slowly drew it all in — this western country that was to be her new home. She had had a vague idea that Hollis Junction would be a sort of cowboy town with horses hitched to a rail outside a saloon — but the railroad crossing, the main street with its tired buildings, the residential district with its tree-covered walks were very like any eastern country town.

From this outpost of civilization she was heading for the edge of nowhere, journeying into the west’s last frontier of loneliness. She might as well look her best for the coyotes and mountain lions, she thought bitterly, as she powdered her nose. She frowned at herself in the little mirror, at the serious little face with the pointed chin, at the snappy dark eyes under brows shaped like swallows’ wings. She combed her dark straight mass of hair, paying special attention to the bangs. Her hair was a nuisance, she wondered if she were making a mistake in this era of short hair to wear hers long.

The voice of the stationmaster shattered her thoughts and stopped her primping. “That’s him, Ma’am — that’s Brett Olsen.” He chuckled appreciatively. “That young cowpoke’s still in the public domain — pretty hard to lasso, I guess — not easily corralled.”

Julie followed his gaze to where a man was alighting from an old-fashioned sleigh. She watched him closely as he approached, smiled at her, and offered his hand in greeting. This was the young rancher who would drive her to the remote farm where she would board until the teaching year was over. He wasn’t especially tall or especially handsome, but there was something in the expression in his eyes, in the fine curve of his chin — it was strength — the strength of rock. And his face was acquainted with grief. He seemed like a nice clean-cut sort, the kind you could trust your baby with, and the key to the house, and very likely the future of civilization. However, Julia smiled back economically. She didn’t want friendship. As for love — for all the stationmaster’s good-natured kidding about old maid schoolteachers, she was all the same as vaccinated against it. All she wanted from this rugged country was peace and forgetfulness.

“Good-bye, Miss Winsor. Good luck with the young varmints, and Merry Christmas,” the stationmaster called.

Julie’s thoughts broke like brittle twigs. A shiver went down her spine, as if one of the icicles on the station eves had been touched against the back of her neck. There were those words again — the words that invariably scraped across her memory like an emery board. “Merry Christmas — Merry Christmas.” People tossed them around with such reckless abandon, never thinking they might be rubbing sand into a wound. She wasn’t having any traffic with Christmas, as if it could ever be “merry” for her again.

Dazed as a sleepwalker, Julie took her place on the high spring seat of the sleigh.

She was ready to start off for a new life, feeling all too unprepared. One teacher had failed already in Coyote Mesa, and how was she, a greenhorn easterner, to do any better? However, she wouldn’t do as Miss Chapman had done, leave because of loneliness. She slammed the door of her mind on the idea. She smiled sardonically to herself as they passed a few leaning shacks that looked out with gaping window eyes. They looked as if they remembered nothing more than loneliness. But she knew better — loneliness was never a place. It dwelt in a cobwebby room of the heart, traveling every inch of life with you.

The past year had been a hard one to bear. Six months of it had died, like a tree lost by lightning. How much punishment can one person take, Julia wondered. How do you define the straw that breaks the camel’s back?

There had been nothing palatable in the taste of life since her brother Bob had been killed on Christmas day while delivering a gift — struck down by a car. He’d taken with him all the laughter and the happy times, leaving her heart as empty as a gourd, for he was all the family she had. And now all of him that sang and prayed and soared was stilled.

No, she wasn’t sorry she’d migrated west for a new beginning. What a strange thing courage was! It was just having the strength to do what you had to do.

And so an hour slipped away into limbo, and again her thoughts were interrupted by unwanted talk. The cowboy was trying to be polite.

“Pardon me,” she said, “I didn’t hear. What did you say?” He’d asked if she had just graduated from college.

You bet I’ve just graduated, she thought to herself. I’ve got diploma scars all over me. Only it wasn’t college where I acquired them. She felt the wind of her resentment blow. But she bit her lip and smiled politely. “No,” she said, “I taught school last year in a little town in Connecticut, not far from New York. I commuted every day. Course it wasn’t this kind of a trip,” she added, noticing the storm that moved across the valley. It looked as if it would engulf them soon.

She thought of how, as a teacher, she had given knowledge of life. She had instructed in faith. She had taught love. But how to acquire courage could not be taught. The strange alchemy by which one person turned the stern lessons of life into strength, while another was defeated by them, was not a blackboard lesson.

“But I think I’ll like it here much better.” And as she said it, she felt it was true.

The hours of the morning limped along. The road turned and twisted, dipped and lifted, and nowhere was there a sign of life.

Brett turned and smiled at her. His eyes met hers, and it seemed to her that he saw and recognized all her loneliness. “Looks like you’re getting kind of blue with cold,” he said, “not that it’s not becomin’, of course. It’s only five miles from here to the Widow Mortensen’s where you’re going to board. Then you’ll get warmed up. Matilda will be so tickled to have you with her. She gets a hankerin’ for company. It’s mighty lonesome livin’ fifteen miles from any other critter — human, that is — there’s a mighty lot of coyotes in this territory.

“You’ll like Matilda,” he went on, “she’s got a lot of courage. I’ve seen her kill a rattlesnake without a flicker of fear.

“She won’t leave the ranch she and her husband loved. Got a daughter who’s a nurse out in Korea. She hasn’t heard from her since the fuss began, not a hint about what’s happened.”

Julia did not hear him, actually, but when he had finished, she played back the words from her subconscious. She felt a sudden sting of shame. Here she’d been acting as if she were the only one in the world with troubles.

The snow thickened, dark and whirling. Julia welcomed the storm. It provided a sort of theme song for her own keyed-up emotions. In the distance a dark hulk loomed against the horizon.

“That’s Matilda Mortensen’s house,” Brett explained. As they approached it, Julie thought, why, it’s so small. But at least it was a place to stop. Soon they would be warm and comfortable. As they drew nearer, she. noticed a brave little curl of smoke coming from the chimney — a fire — she could feel its warmth already!

The horses stopped at a jerk on the reins, and Brett got out first and then reached for Julie’s waist and lifted her from the sleigh. Julie’s high heels were snow soaked, and her hose clung to her legs.

Brett knocked loudly, and the door was opened to them and the intruding wind. There stood a thin, little woman whose face was taut with caverns. She was wearing blue jeans. Julia had expected Matilda to be an Amazon, at least, and she was taken back to discover her so diminutive. She had wrinkles all around her eyes and a rare twinkle in them.

“Land a goshun, look who’s here!” Matilda boomed in a voice that couldn’t possibly have come out of that little frame. “And Brett Olsen! Come on in.”

There was something about Matilda that tugged at Julia’s heartstrings. They walked into the cabin. It was a house that took you by the hand and warmed you when you entered. The front room was clean and warm and comfortable, the old pot-bellied stove freshly polished. Julia noticed that Matilda had put herself into every handmade drape, every curtain, every hooked rug. And she liked the book-warmed room, the wide-mouthed fireplace, and the bureau which was laden with pictures of all sizes.

Her attention was soon diverted by an unearthly noise. In the “parlor” two youngsters were yelling like Comanches. She guessed they weren’t twins — they didn’t look alike, but they were almost of a size.

“These two are my young’uns,” Mrs. Mortensen explained. “Say ‘howdy-do’ to Miss Winsor,” she urged them. “She’s your new teacher, and she’s going to stay with us.” Two little torsos bent over two little waists. “Pleased to meet you, Ma’am,” they chorused.

“Now git,” Matilda ordered. They got.

“Those two are my youngest,” Mrs. Mortensen explained. “Then there’s Ned. He’s my young man. He’s twelve and trying to take his dad’s place. He’s gone out now to get us a Christmas tree. I’ve got a girl, too. At least, I hope I have. She’s a nurse. That’s her picture over there — she was twelve when I started having my second family! I was mighty afraid I’d be raisin’ her alone.”

There was such life in the picture!

Seeing the picture of the young girl made Julie think of her brother, and she had to pause for a moment to let her eyes focus through the bright blue of tears.

While Julie and Brett had been wrapped in the picture before them, Matilda had been talking on and on like a radio someone had forgotten to turn off. Julie tuned in on the last sentence.

“My it’s nice to have some company,” Mrs. Mortensen was saying.

“I was getting to be a shut-in personality.” She laughed appreciatively at her own joke.

The stream of talk went on. Julia was a small, silent oasis in the bright talk. She didn’t really listen, but she appeared to — even supplying the necessary polite laughter when it was called for. Suddenly one of the “Indians” thundered in and asked about supper.

They all looked guiltily at the clock, but as they did, Matilda’s face turned chalk white.

“Ned,” she whispered, “he’s been gone four hours — he must be lost!”

“How’d he go?” Brett asked. “Did he go on his pony or did he have snowshoes? Which canyon did he follow?”

“He went up Trail Creek, only there’s not any trail. I tried to get him to ride Paint, but he wanted to try the snowshoes I couldn’t wait until Christmas to give him. Anything new a kid’s got to try out.”

“I’d better go look for him,” Brett volunteered.

“Could I help?” Julie asked, feeling her own inadequacy.

“A girl’d be no good,” Brett said, “specially a city girl. You’d get lost. Besides I can’t see you strug glin’ in two feet of snow in them things.” He pointed at her best pair of Saks Fifth Avenue shoes.

For a minute her blood boiled. Then she suddenly thought, here I am getting angry because he doesn’t like my shoes, when a boy is out there lost in that storm.

She’d show them she wasn’t a sissy. She had plenty of courage, and she’d prove it.

“I think I could help,” she said. “You see, I ski rather well and I’ve got my skis in the sleigh, and ski pants — and boots,” she emphasized, “right in my trunk. I can move faster on skis than either of you could with snowshoes. The quicker we find him the better.”

“All right,” Brett said, narrowing his blue eyes, “I’ll take the horse and go up along the rim above the left fork of Trail Creek, and you try to follow the slope of Bronco Canyon just above the willows. First one to find him will light a fire. It’s good the snow has stopped. Now, Julia, if you find him, don’t you two try to come back. Just wait by the fire for me. Here, you’d better take plenty of matches. Know anything about building fires?”

“Enough,” she said.

After changing her clothes Julie was ready to leave. As she opened the door Mrs. Mortensen came up quietly behind her, her eyes filled with tears, and put a gentle arm around her shoulders. “God bless you, my dear,” she said tenderly. Once outside, Julia adjusted her skis, took a firm grip on her ski poles and started for the mountain’s trackless slopes. It was a smooth, silent ascent. She could see the sweep of distance, the high climb of mountains, and herself all alone in this new world.

On the summit of a high ridge she paused and scanned the distance in every direction. Nothing moved, not a bird rising from the willows, no swift rabbit leaping to safety, no boy carrying home a Christmas tree.

She cupped her hands and shouted into the silence. “Ned — Ned — Ned.” Her words struck the rocky ridge and reverberated back to her, “Ne-e-e-d, Ne-e-e-d, Ne-e-e-d!”

Terror like an agonizing cold ran through her veins, paralyzing her; it choked the breath out of her lungs. She hated the cold ridges. Why had she come to this land of cold and subtle fear? She was a fireside girl, the quiet type. She wanted to curl up and read her adventures vicariously. Miss Prudence Prim, her brother used to call her. She never would have learned to ski if he hadn’t wanted her to go skiing with him.

These stark western ridges were certainly not like the Connecticut hills, with their smooth and slanted slopes. And, Bob wasn’t here. He would never be here. Wherever she went, he would never be there. And he had been her world — the beginning and the end of it. Nothing else now for her. No long talks, no laughter, no quiet peace that the heart knows when a brother — one’s dearest friend and confidant is close. She remembered his profile against the wind, his azure eyes and laughing smile, his strong young body disappearing down a slope. The bitterness welled in her. He was so young, she thought; he was today and tomorrow, not yesterday.

Night drew her draperies. Julie was lonely and cold. Her teeth were chattering like castanets. She shouted again, “Ned, Ned, where are you?” Unexpectedly she heard an answer, “Here! Here!”

Which way had the voice come? She looked toward the dark fringe of evergreens above her. It seemed to have come from there. She called again. But no answer broke the solitude. She swung upward through the silence of space, under the million silences of the stars, and now there was real purpose in her movement, for a boy was alive in the night, and he needed her. How good it was to feel needed! No one had needed her since Bob had gone.

Some minutes later she saw a dark spot in the snow ahead. It was Ned! He was lying across his Christmas tree. She hurried over to him and swiftly brushed back the snow. She put her arm under his head. He was very still. She examined his limbs carefully to see if any were broken. It looked, from the swelling of his right foot, as if it were sprained.

She took off her skis, and with one of them scooped away the snow. Then, reaching back under the limbs of a fir tree, she gathered some dry needles and branches and lighted them. A flame leaped up. Would Brett see it? How long would it take him to come?

She bent over Ned again and folded her heavy scarf under his head. She rubbed a little ball of snow across his face. He came from the deep depths of sleep, starlit and reluctantly, like a swimmer still submerged in deep waters. She saw him lift his hand and rub his eyes. Then he was unconscious again.

She felt dizzy, as if she were going to faint. No wonder people fainted! It was a good way to duck out of facing the things you didn’t want to face. She stumbled toward the tree for more branches for the fire but collapsed.

From out of the night across the canyon she heard a voice calling, “Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo — Juu-lie.”

She tried to answer, but her strength was gone. Seconds were born in pain and travail and grew into minutes and were thrown on the dust heap of eternity, and still she could not answer. The voice became faint and faraway, “Ju-ulie — oh, Ju-ulie.”

And after awhile the voice went away in the wind. It seemed to come from another year, another world.

The events of the day came back floating through her head like wisps of clouds. She remembered disconnected phrases, “Merry Christmas, Ma’am. . . . God bless you, my dear.” They were like the words of a song she had learned by heart. She was very warm now.

“Julie, are you okay?” It was Brett.

She stirred like a sleeper rising from a dream. His eyes were searching her face as if it were something infinitely rare and precious. His nearness was like a healing hand touching her, warming her, making her eyes blur.

Gently he took her in his arms and moved her toward the fire. He took off his jacket and laid it over her. Then he turned his attention to Ned.

*****

It was a clear night, luminous with stars as the little party made its way down the mountain, Ned on the horse, with the Christmas tree tied behind, Brett plunging through the snow with the reins in his hands, and Julie gliding along on her skis. Ned broke the silence with, “Do you think the folks will stay up to decorate the. tree tonight?”

“Sure, they’re depending on that, you bet,” Brett said, “and I don’t reckon I’ve ever seen a whiter, brighter Christmas, ever. Look, there is the house.”

“Yes,” Julie exclaimed, “I can see the light in the window.” Julie watched the light from the window play across the path. She had never before realized how good one light could look in a great world of winter.

Matilda was all business as she bustled them into the house. “Now Julie, you lay there on the couch and try to get some rest — and Brett you put the horses up, and here, young ‘un, I want to put some liniment on that ankle.”

Four little hands were grabbing Julie. It took her a minute to realize where she was and that she’d been asleep. The little hands had voices. “Look — look at the tree!” Julie’s eyes went to the far corner of the room. There was the beautiful little fir tree. It was adorned with everything that a happy heart could think of. There were popcorn balls, chains made out of colored paper, and little candles in tinsel holders. And on top there was a crepe-paper star. It sagged a little, it was true, but Julie had never seen anything so beautiful.

“I’ve got a present for you,” Matilda said, thrusting a package forward, tied in bright patterned paper.

Julie took it, trembling a little, wondering what it could be. She carefully unwrapped the ribbon. It was a pair of bright red gloves.

“The were for my daughter,” the little woman explained. “But I figured she wouldn’t be needing them for a while. I wanted you to have them — made ‘urn myself.”

Julie choked. Then she started to cry.

“Never mind, dear,” Matilda whispered, “chalk it up to happiness.”

A voice was softly singing. It was Brett. His voice was a solemn silver bell. Then Matilda joined. She sang with a voice like a trumpet. “Silent night, holy night — all is calm — all is bright.” The old room filled to the ceiling with the warmth of music. Julie tried to join them, but her voice was wavering like a candle in a snowstorm.

Maybe it was not exactly the world which had dropped in her lap. But, as they always say on the radio, it was a reasonable facsimile thereof. It was as if she had reached the end of a circle, woven of darkness and unending loneliness that was now at an end. It seemed that she had been lost and wandering on in darkened shadow, and here were Brett and Matilda holding out their hands to reassure her, to guide her footsteps here, to walk the rest of the way together, and together it might not be frightening at all, especially since her heart had the right-of-way.

And she thought of the death of her brother — how it had marred and made her life. Why she thought, I own every street that we walked on, every star we looked at together. She thought of the Bible quotation, “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.” She thought softly, we can unite ourselves without a touch of the hands. We can love even when the flesh is dead. It is not the flesh that binds us together. You can only gain and hold the past when you set it apart in its own richness; then a new happiness is made possible. It comes as an unexpected gift. Her childhood seemed suddenly so close at her heels that she could have turned and taken its hand.

Why she really didn’t have a case against Christmas at all. For Christmas is something which each one makes for himself out of the faith and joy, the love and hope which are in his heart, out of giving of himself and receiving the overflow from other full hearts.