The Love Comes Softly Collection

by Janette Oke

  Clark and Marty laughed. She was off again, kneeling before the dollhouse, handling each small item carefully as she took it out and placed it back again.

  Clark finally stood reluctantly to go do the chores. The storm was still raging, and he dressed warmly against it. Caring for the stock would be difficult on such a day, and he murmured to Marty that he was glad the animals were sheltered from the wind.

  Marty felt some concern as she watched him go out. The snow was so thick at times that you couldn’t see the barn. She was glad he took Ole Bob with him, as the dog could sense directions should the storm confuse Clark. He also left instructions with her. If he wasn’t in by midmorning, she was to fire the gun into the air and repeat, if necessary, at five-minute intervals. Marty fervently hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

  Much to Marty’s relief, Clark was in before the appointed time, chilled by the wind but reporting all things in order.

  She put the finishing touches on breakfast, and they sat down to eat. Missie could hardly bear to leave her new toys and came only with repeated promises that she could return to them following the meal.

  They all bowed their heads and Clark prayed. “Sometimes, Lord, we be puzzlin’ ’bout yer ways. Thank ya, Lord, thet the storm came well afore the Grahams be settin’ out. We wouldn’t want ’em caught in sech a one.”

  Marty hadn’t thought of that, but she totally agreed.

  “An’, Lord, thank ya fer those who share our table, an’ bless this day of yer Son’s birth. May it be one thet we can remember with warm feelin’s even if the day be cold. Thank ya, Lord, fer this food thet ya have provided by yer goodness. Amen.”

  “Amen,” said Missie, then she looked up at her pa. “The house”—she pointed—“thanks—house.”

  Clark looked puzzled. Marty, too, felt bewildered but tried to understand what the small child meant.

  “I believe she be wantin’ ya to say thanks fer her dollhouse,” Marty finally ventured.

  “Is thet it? Okay, Missie, we pray again. An’ thank ya, Lord, fer Missie’s dollhouse. Amen.”

  Missie was satisfied, and after her second “amen,” she quickly began work on her breakfast between quick glances over at the beloved dollhouse.

  They roasted nuts at the open fire, played the game Clark had made, which Marty won with alarming consistency, and watched Missie at her play. When the child was later tucked in for a nap, a tiny doll chair firmly grasped in hand, Marty got busy with the final dinner preparations. After the child awoke they would have their Christmas dinner. She wanted everything to be just right. From those early days of only pancakes to a bountiful table spread with all manner of good things in just a little over two months. Marty was rather pleased with herself.

  After they had eaten more than enough of the sumptuous meal, Clark suggested they read the Christmas story in the sitting room while their food settled.

  “Yer turnin’ out to be a right fine cook,” he observed, and Marty could feel herself flush at the compliment. “I think Ma Graham would be even more impressed than me,” he went on, “and we’ll jest have to plan us another get-together so she can find out fer herself.”

  They moved to the sitting room, and Clark took Missie on his knee and opened the Bible. He first read of the angel appearing to the young girl, Mary, telling her that she had been chosen as the mother of the Christ child. He went on to read of Joseph and Mary’s trip to Bethlehem, where no room was found in the inn, so that night the infant Jesus was born in a stable and laid in the cattle’s manger. The shepherds heard the good news from the angels and rushed to see the newborn king. Then the wise men came, following the star and bearing their gifts to the child, going home a different way for the protection of the baby.

  Marty thought she had never heard anything so beautiful. She couldn’t remember ever knowing the complete story before as it was given in the Scriptures. A little baby born in a stable was God’s Son. She placed a hand over her own little one.

  Wouldn’t be carin’ fer my son to be born in a barn, she thought. Don’t suppose God was wantin’ it thet way, either, but no one had room fer a wee baby. Still—God did watch over Him, sendin’ angels to tell the shepherds an’ all. An’ the wise men, too, with their rich gifts. Yes, God was carin’ ’bout His Son.

  The story captured Marty’s imagination as she waited for the birth of her own first child, and she thought on it as she did the dishes. After she was through in the kitchen she returned to the sitting room. Clark had gone out to do the evening chores before it got too dark. It was hard enough to see one’s way in the daylight in such a storm.

  Marty sat down and picked up the Bible. She wished she knew where to locate the Christmas story so she might read it again, but as she turned the pages she couldn’t find where Clark had read. She did find the Psalms, though, and read one after the other as she sat beside the warm fire. Somehow they were comforting, even when you didn’t understand all of the phrases and ideas, she thought.

  She read until she heard Clark entering the shed and then laid the Book aside. She’d best put on the coffee and get those “pickin’s” ready.

  Later that evening, after Missie had been put to bed, Marty got up the courage to ask Clark if he’d mind reading “the story” again. As he read, she sat trying to absorb it all. She knew a bit more about it this time, so she could follow with more anticipation, catching things she had missed the first time. She fleetingly wondered if Clem had ever heard all of this. It was such a beautiful story.

  Oh, Clem! her heart cried. I wish I coulda shared sech a Christmas with you. But it was not to be, and Marty took a deep breath and concentrated on the story from the Book.

  After the reading, Marty sat in silence, only her knitting needles clicking, for she did not enjoy idleness, even on Christmas.

  Clark put the Bible away and went out to the lean-to. He returned with a small package.

  “It ain’t much,” he said, looking both sheepish and expectant at the same time, “to be sayin’ thank ya fer carin’ fer Missie an’ all.”

  Marty took it from him with a slight feeling of embarrassment. Fumbling, she took off the wrapping to reveal a beautiful dresser set, with ivory comb, brush, and hand mirror. Hand-painted flowers graced the backs in pale golds and rusts. It nearly took Marty’s breath away.

  She turned the mirror over in her hand and noticed letters on the handle, M.L.C.D. It took a minute for her to realize they were her initials: Martha Lucinda Claridge Davis. He had not only given her the set, he had given her back her name. Tears pushed out from under her lids and slid down her cheeks.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered, “really beautiful an’ I . . . I jest don’t know how to thank ya.”

  Clark seemed to understand what had prompted the tears, and he nodded slowly.

  Marty went to put the lovely set on her chest in her room. She remembered the scarf. She lifted it out of the drawer and looked at it. No, she decided. She just couldn’t. It wouldn’t do. She shoved it back in the drawer. It just wasn’t good enough, she decided. Not good enough at all.

  Twenty

  A Visit From Ma Graham

  Thinking back, Marty declared it a good Christmas in spite of having to overcome her keen disappointment. It would have been so much fun to have shared it with the Grahams, but as she had concluded there was nothing that could be done about that, somehow she felt sure Clark’s prayer had been answered and that in years to come they would remember it with warm feelings.

  After the storm, the wind stopped howling and the sun came out. The stock moved about outside again, and the chickens ventured from their coop to their wire enclosure for a bit of exercising. Ole Bob ran around in circles, glad to stretch his legs. Marty envied him as she watched. How good it would be to feel light and easy moving.

  Looking carefully at herself for the first time in months, she studied her arms and hands. They were thinner than they used to be, she realized. She hiked up her skirt and looked at her legs. Yes, she def
initely had lost weight, except for the one spot where she decidedly had put it on. She’d have to eat up a bit, she chided herself. She’d been quite thin enough before. After the baby arrived, she’d “blow away in the wind iffen she wasn’t tied down,” as her pa used to say. Well, she was sure enough tied down now, she concluded. The baby seemed to be getting heavier every day. She felt bulky and clumsy, a feeling she wasn’t used to. Well, she realized, it was to be expected. December was as good as spent. Even as she thought of that, the month of January stretched out before her, looking oh so long. She wondered if she could endure it. Well, she’d just have to take it one day at a time.

  January dawned with a bright sky and no wind, something Marty had learned to be thankful for. She hated the wind, she decided. It sent chills right through her.

  This was the new year. What did it hold for her? A new baby for sure. Then a faint anxiety pressed upon her, and she implored Clark’s God to please, please let everything be all right.

  Clark had been to town again the day before and returned home with a rather grim expression. Marty was about to ask the meaning of all of the trips but checked her tongue.

  Iffen it be somethin’ I be needin’ to know, he’d be sayin’ so, she told herself as she went to get the breakfast on the table.

  Seems on a new day of a new year, somethin’ good should be happenin’.

  When she checked out the kitchen window, she felt that it truly had, for there were three graceful and timid deer crossing the pasture. Marty ran back to the bedroom for Missie.

  “Missie,” she roused the little girl, “come see.”

  She hurried back to the kitchen, hoping the deer hadn’t already disappeared. They had stopped and were grazing in an area where horses had pawed the snow from the grass.

  “Look, Missie,” Marty said, pointing.

  “Oh-h,” Missie’s voice expressed her excitement. “Doggies.”

  “No, Missie,” Marty giggled, “it’s not doggies. It be deer.”

  “Deer?”

  “That’s right. Ain’t they pretty, Missie?”

  “Pretty.”

  As they watched, Clark came in from the barn, Ole Bob bounding ahead of him, barking at whatever took his fancy. The deer became instantly alert, long necks stretched up, legs tensed, and then, as though on a given signal, they all three leaped forward in long, graceful strides, lightly up and over the pasture fence and back into their native woods. It was a breathtaking sight, and Marty and Missie were still at the window gazing after them when Clark entered.

  “Pa!” cried Missie, pointing. “Deer—they jump.”

  “So ya saw ’em, eh?”

  “Weren’t they somethin’?” Marty said in awe.

  “They be right nice, all right, though they be a nuisance, too. Been noticing their tracks gettin’ in closer an’ closer. Wouldn’t wonder that one mornin’ I be a findin’ ’em in the barn with the milk cows.”

  Marty smiled at his exaggeration. She finally pulled herself away from the window and busied herself with breakfast.

  Later in the day, after the dinner dishes had been cleared away and Marty was putting some small stitches on a nightie for the new baby, she heard Ole Bob suddenly take up barking again. Someone was coming, she decided, and him not a stranger. She crossed to the window and looked down the road.

  “Well, my word,” she exclaimed, “it be Ma an’ Ben!”

  Joy filled her as she put aside her sewing and ran to make them welcome.

  Clark came in from the yard, seeming not too surprised. He and Ben took the horses to the barn for sustenance and rest after their hard labor to buck some large drifts across the road. The two men then seated themselves in the sitting room by the fire and talked of next spring’s planting and of their plans to extend their fields, and other man-talk.

  Imagine thinkin’ of plantin’ now with ten-foot drifts standin’ on the cornfields, Marty thought as she put on the coffee.

  The women settled in the kitchen. Ma had brought along some knitting, and Marty brought out the sock she was knitting for Clark. She needed help in shaping the heel and was glad for Ma’s guidance.

  They discussed their Christmases and their disappointment, but both admitted to having a good Christmas in spite of it all. Ma remarked that they were more than happy to say yes when Clark had stopped by yesterday, inviting them to come for coffee New Year’s Day if the weather held.

  So thet’s it, Marty thought. An’ he didn’t tell me fer fear it might be ruined agin by “mean” weather, as he calls it.

  The visit took on even more meaning for her. Ma told Marty the news that young Jason Stern was there “most ever’ time I turn me round.” With misty eyes she told how Jason had come Christmas Eve and asked permission for Sally Anne and him to be “a marryin’ when the preacher come for his spring visit.”

  “He seems a right good young man,” she added, “an’ I should feel proud like, but somehow it be hard to give up my Sally, her not yet bein’ eighteen, though she will be, jest by the marryin’ time.”

  Marty thought back to her own tearful pleas, begging her ma and pa for permission to marry young Clem. She had been about the age of Sally Anne. She suddenly saw her own ma and pa in a different light. No wonder they were hesitant. They knew life could be hard. Still, she was glad she had those few happy, even though difficult, months with Clem.

  “Thet Jason,” Ma went on, “he already be cuttin’ logs fer to build a cabin. Wants ’em ready fer spring so there can be a cabin raisin’ an’ a barn raisin’, too. Workin’ right hard he is, an’ his pa’s a helpin’ him. He’s gonna farm the land right next to his pa. Well, we couldn’t say no, Ben an’ me, but we sure gonna miss her happy ways an’ helpin’ hands. I think it be troublin’ Laura, too. She jest not been herself the last few days. Moody an’ far off like. She always was a quiet one, but now she seems all locked up in herself like. Bothers me, it does.”

  Ma stopped and seemed to look at something a long way off. Then she pulled her attention back to the present. “We’s all gotta settle in an’ add to Sally Anne’s marriage things—quilts an’ rugs an’ sech. Got a heap to do ’twixt now an’ spring.

  “How be things a comin’ with the doc?” Ma asked, changing the subject and catching Marty completely off guard.

  “What doc?” puzzled Marty.

  “Why, the one Clark be a workin’ on to git to come to town. The one he be makin’ all the trips fer an’ gettin’ all the neighbors to sign up fer. He’s most anxious like to git him here afore thet young’un of yourn makes his appearance.”

  At Marty’s dumbfounded look, Ma finished lamely, “Hasn’t he been tellin’ ya?”

  Marty shook her head.

  “Hope I haven’t spilled the beans,” Ma said, “but ever’one else in the whole West knows ’bout it, seems to me. Thought you’d be a knowin’, too. But then maybe he thought it best ya not be gettin’ yer hopes up. Might be ya jest not mention my big mouth to him, huh?” Ma Graham smiled a bit sheepishly, and Marty nodded her head, dumbly agreeing.

  So that was it. All the urgent trips to town and sometimes beyond, even in poor weather, coming home cold and tired, to get a doctor to the area before her baby was due. She shook her head as she got up to put on the coffeepot. She had to move away quickly before Ma saw her tears.

  Their morning coffee together was a sumptuous affair. Marty thought back to the time of Ma’s first visit when all she could offer her was coffee. How different this was with the abundance of fresh bread and jelly, fancy cakes, tarts, and cookies. Ben remarked several times about her good cooking, and she responded that she should be—his cook had taught her. Missie wakened and joined them in her chair, asking for a gingerbread boy. Time passed all too quickly as they shared table and conversation.

  Marty was reluctant to see them go but thankful for the unexpected time together, and she did want them to arrive home before nightfall.

  After they had gone their way, she cheerfully began to clean up. She turn
ed to Clark. “Thank ya so much fer invitin’ them.”

  At his surprised look, she explained, “Ma let it slip, not knowin’ thet I didn’t know you had invited them.” She couldn’t resist adding, “I noticed, though, thet ya didn’t invite all of those young’uns with the hearty appetites.”

  They shared a laugh together.

  January’s wintry days crawled by. Clark made more trips to town, or wherever he went. Marty was no longer puzzled, and she felt quite sure he was going off on these cold days on her behalf. Her sewing was nearly completed now, and she looked at the small garments for her coming baby with much satisfaction. She would be so happy to be able to use the baby things, so new and sweet smelling.

  Clark fretted about the lack of a cradle, and Marty assured him one wasn’t needed yet as she planned to take the wee one into her bed until he grew a bit. Clark was satisfied with that, saying that come better weather he’d get busy on a bigger bed for Missie and let the baby take over her crib.

  As the month drew to a close, Marty felt the time had come when she could share her secret with Missie. Clark had gone away again, and the two of them were alone in the house.

  “Come with Mama, Missie,” Marty said. “Mama wants to show ya somethin’.”

  Missie didn’t have to be coaxed. She loved to be “showed somethin’.” Together they went to the bedroom, where Marty lifted the stack of small garments from the drawer. She couldn’t help but smile as she held the top one up for Missie to see.

  “Look, Missie,” she said. “These are fer the new baby. Mama’s gonna get a new baby fer Mama and Missie. Jest a tiny little baby, only ’bout so big. Missie can help Mama take care of the baby.”