Love Comes Softly

by Janette Oke

  Marty fretted over the realization, something she usually kept herself from doing. Finally, with real effort she pushed it aside.

  “No use takin’ on so,” she murmured to herself. “Guess I’m jest a mite off my feed or somethin’ to be stewin’ ’bout it so. Wish I could have me a good visit with Ma. Thet’d set things to right. By the time Clark gits back, it’ll be December already.”

  Time was indeed moving on, no matter how slow it could seem, and hadn’t Ma said that it was time that healed? She hoped the days would go quickly while Clark was away.

  Marty was more relieved than she would admit to see the team coming on Saturday as the sun was setting. She didn’t know why she should feel that way. Young Tom had done a fine job of the chores, she was sure, and she hadn’t at all minded his company in the evenings. After supper he played with Missie or read and reread her book to her. He was proud of the fact that he had learned his letters and knew how to read, as did each of Ma’s children. He loved to show off to Missie and—Marty smiled—to her, as well, she wagered. By now Missie could repeat many of the lines of her book and loved to pretend she was reading herself.

  They had gotten along just fine while Clark was away, so that had no bearing on her sense of relief to see him come home. Perhaps deep within was the haunting memory of a casual good-bye to Clem and a later discovery that it had been the last, but she shook off that possibility and went to tell Missie that her pa was home.

  Missie was overjoyed at the sight of her daddy and began a dance as soon as she spotted him from the chair at the window.

  Marty noticed the crate was now empty, but she could see no purchase that might have been made from the proceeds. Only a few small packages sat on the seat beside Clark. Dan and Charlie looked weary, she thought, as she watched them plod toward the barn, but their steps picked up as they drew near warm stalls and a full manger.

  Clark looks tired, too, she decided as she watched him climb down and begin to unhitch the team. He wasn’t moving with the same energy that usually accompanied his activities.

  “Well, your pa’s here now an’ he’ll be wantin’ some hot coffee,” Marty remarked as she helped Missie down from her perch at the window.

  Coffee presented no problem, for Marty had it at the ready. She had made it in between her pacings back and forth to the window watching for the first glimpse of the team.

  Things, she hoped, would continue on now in their usual way. This wasn’t the life she had wanted or planned, but at least her days had taken on a pattern now familiar to her, and there was a certain amount of comfort in the familiar.

  Clark came in with a few groceries, and Marty welcomed him with a cup of coffee and a happy little girl to greet him.

  EIGHTEEN

  Christmas Preparations

  “Our God,” Clark addressed the Almighty in his morning prayer, “as we be nearin’ the season of yer Son’s birth, make our hearts thankful thet He came, an’ help us to be lovin’ our neighbor with a love like He showed us.”

  He’s talkin’ ’bout Christmas, Marty thought with a sudden awareness of the season. Oh my, it be only two weeks away, an’ I haven’t even been thinkin’ on it.

  Her mind went plunging from thought to thought, so again she had missed the rest of the prayer and sat with eyes still closed after the “amen.” Missie pulled at her sleeve, wanting her breakfast.

  Marty lifted a flushed face and hurriedly fixed Missie’s porridge for her, blowing on it to cool it before giving it to the child.

  “Ya know,” she ventured a little later, “I had fergot all ’bout how close Christmas be.”

  Clark looked up from his own bowl of porridge. “I know Christmas be a mite hard to be a thinkin’ on this year. Iffen it be too hard fer ya, we can most ferget the day, ’cept fer the reading of the Story an’ maybe a sock fer young Missie.”

  Marty thought for a few minutes.

  “No,” she finally answered. “Thet wouldn’t be right. Missie needs her Christmas—a proper one like, an’ I reckon it may do us good, too. We can’t stay back in the past nursin’ our sorrow—not for her sake, nor fer our own. Christmas, seems to me, be a right good time to lay aside hurtin’ an’ look fer some-thin’ healin’.”

  Clark stared at her for a while, then dropped his eyes back to his bowl. He finally said quietly, “Seems I never heard a better sermon from any visitin’ preacher than the one I jest heard.” He paused a moment, then said, “Ya be right, of course. So what ya be plannin’?”

  “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 some-thin’ 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 remembered 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 usua
l, 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!”