If I Die Before I Wake

by Jean Little

  Thursday, December 19, 1918

  We had a long discussion tonight about what sort of tree we should get for our Christmas tree. I hope it is decided to my satisfaction. I want a white pine. They don’t prick you and they smell lovely. The others seemed to listen but one cannot be sure. Aunt is convinced all such trees should be firs.

  Friday, December 20, 1918

  Father and Fanny and Theo and I went to the country and got a Christmas tree. Theo chose it — an extremely prickly spruce. We set it up, with great difficulty, in a tub, with bricks to brace it and earth around it. We were so pleased that Theo began to dance about and sing “Jingle Bells.” This actually inspired Hamlet to do his first, and I hope his last, prance … and down came the tree. Jane, you would not have believed the mess. It hit the piano, which made such a noise that Hamlet reared back and knocked over the little bookcase with ornaments on it.

  The cheap ones survived. The one Royal Doulton shepherdess, who stood on top, will never herd sheep again. Theo howled and so did his dog.

  “He didn’t mean to do it,” he kept roaring.

  Tomorrow we are going to get another tree. We have to get another or Theo will spend Christmas comforting Hamlet who, he assures us, is heartbroken.

  I think he probably does have some small bruises. He keeps trying to hide but he cannot find a big enough hiding place.

  I wish I didn’t keep thinking how Jemma would have laughed. I did not speak this thought but I think the rest thought it too.

  Monday, December 23, 1918

  The new tree is up and decorated. We put it in a corner fenced in with chairs. I must go and sing carols.

  Tuesday, December 24, 1918

  I did not tell you that our second tree is a white pine! Guess who chose it? I told Theo it would hurt Hamlet less if it fell on him and the boy almost cried again. I did not mean to bring back painful memories!

  The stockings are hung and Theo is trying his best to go to sleep to make the morning come. I remember doing the same thing when I was his age. He put out apples and carrots for the reindeer. He says everyone else leaves food for Santa Claus and he is sure the animals must be starving. After all, St. Nick has a warm coat, hat and boots.

  What a funny little brother I have!

  When Jemma was ten, she crept down and ate the sugar cookies Aunt had left out for Santa Claus. What a fuss there was when she got caught!

  Happy Christmas Eve, Jane.

  Wednesday, December 25, 1918

  Christmas afternoon

  We did it. Everyone knew it mattered. We found out, not long ago, that little Theodore David Macgregor had taught himself to read. Father gave him a set of the Book of Knowledge in its own bookcase for him to keep in his room. It is wonderful and Theo loves it. I do too. It is full of coloured pictures of butterflies and birds. The very things he loves.

  Jo and Aunt bought him a globe of the world on a stand. It spins around and he loves it, too.

  But Fanny and I gave him his favourite presents. We bought him two goldfish in a big bowl with glass marbles to go in the bottom and coloured stones. We had done that much when Aunt brought home a china castle to go in the bowl. There is an archway the fish can swim through, too, and she found three more beautiful marbles that are transparent but wonderful blues and greens.

  Theo was too overjoyed to speak when he beheld it all. He hugged everyone, even Hamlet.

  Grandmother has been out at various parties and meetings so she was not in on the plans for Theo as much as the rest of us. When she saw his gifts, however, she went upstairs and brought down a coral brooch that is too big and heavy to pin on a dress. She had managed to get it loose from the metal clasp on the back of it. She said that coral had grown in the ocean and it would give the fish something nice to look at. It is beautiful, all carved with tiny flowers and leaves. She got an extra hug. I’m glad Fan and I chose an especially large bowl.

  Theo still has a nap, or at least a “quiet time,” after lunch, and he has put the bowl where he can lie and watch his new friends glide around and around.

  Just before he feeds them, he rings a silver bell from our china cupboard and he is sure that Sunshine and Spot will soon know the bell is calling them to dinner. They are remarkably intelligent goldfish, Jane, as I am sure you have guessed. Fanny and I chose them because they had faces full of fishy wisdom. That is what we told Theo, anyway.

  We all got lovely gifts. Father gave Jo a locket with a little miniature of Jemma in it. He had it ready. I think he had one of Jo for Jemma but he did not say so.

  From Aunt, I got a great book called The Shuttle by the woman who wrote The Secret Garden and Father put Palgrave’s Golden Treasury on my pillow. I love poems. I have thought of trying to write one. I think I might be able to if I put my mind to it.

  Aunt’s gloves fit her perfectly and she was so pleased.

  William gave Jo a present but she would not show it to us.

  Thursday, December 26, 1918

  Boxing Day

  We did have a happy family day yesterday and splendid gifts, but I made up my mind to tell the truth to you, Jane. So I confess that, except for watching Theo’s excitement, this Christmas was really one of the saddest days of my whole life. We kept laughing and joking and being all excited, but Jemma’s not being there left such a dark emptiness just underneath all the shining celebration. It was like walking across a wood floor and feeling confident it would hold you up and then finding a couple of boards had rotted away and you were on the edge of falling into a gaping hole.

  I kept remembering how Jemma agreed with me about a white pine being the perfect Christmas tree.

  Father kept shutting himself in his study, saying he had marking to do. He has never marked papers on Christmas before. Jo too was unlike herself. She would bury her face in Hamlet’s neck whenever she didn’t want us to see her tears.

  It seems so wrong, so wicked that someone as beloved and good as my sister Jemma would be stolen away by an invisible enemy that crept in like a thief in the night.

  I must stop, Jane, and go to sleep. I hope you never have a Christmas like ours — although it was also one of the best we have ever had. That sounds impossible. How could two such opposite feelings live in my heart together? Watching Theo’s shining face worked the magic. The grieving made the day into a storm cloud but Theo was like the sun making the edge of the cloud gleam silver.

  Sunday, December 29, 1918

  We are beginning to laugh again. Hamlet is a blessing in that department. Talk about a tragic clown!

  We were just cheering up when Uncle Walter came over. He started telling Father how terrible it is when people come into the drugstore begging him for a cure for a member of the family who has been stricken. There is no cure. But seemingly many people believe he has medicine that he hides away and only gives to his friends and family. Fan swore his face was wet with tears when he left.

  “Nobody has ever mistrusted me before, Davey,” I heard him say.

  It is funny to hear Father called by such a little-boy name, especially since Uncle Walter is the younger brother. Father walked him out to his automobile. I watched the two of them and Father had his hand on Uncle Walter’s shoulder all the way.

  We are going back to sing to the soldiers tomorrow. I hope they enjoy it.

  Monday, December 30, 1918

  I wrote my first poem. It is very short. But it says what I was feeling as I wrote.

  Why does the sun keep shining

  When the world is so sad today?

  The sky should be raining teardrops,

  And the clouds should be darkest grey.

  The birds should sit still in the treetops

  And not keep joyfully winging.

  Yet, sad as I am, I do believe

  The children should go on singing.

  I won’t read anything in my Golden Treasury for a few days in case I see mine is too stupid to bear. I heard Theo singing “Jingle Bells” again and that started my writing it.
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  Tuesday, December 31, 1918

  New Year’s Eve

  Really it is nearly one a.m. So I suppose it is technically New Year’s Day already.

  It is a good thing Father and Aunt are asleep and can’t see our light. Neither of us can sleep so Fan is reading a chapter in her Christmas book while I tell about our evening.

  Carrie and her sister Gerda took Jo and Fanny and me with them to Mimico to visit their cousins. Her uncle is the superintendent of the Boys Training School there and he has the jolliest family. There are six of them. It was wonderful. They barely knew Jemma so they did not remind us of our grief. We played Hearts this time but then we switched to Pounce instead. Everybody shrieks and laughs. I’ll put the rules for it at the back of this journal, Jane, in case you want to teach it to your friends and I have forgotten how to play it. Even Jo got to laughing and then, all at once, she was weeping. Carrie’s Aunt Jen took her into another room for a few minutes and then Jo came back, red-eyed but ready to play again. It was like healing medicine, that game, and their big funny family. I hope we get asked back. None of them had been sick and the Flu is not nearly as bad any longer. It was the latest I have ever stayed out.

  We knew we were not allowed to stay out too late, so at eleven we told ourselves we were somewhere in the world where it was already twelve and we sang “Auld Lang Syne.” It was not easy, for we thought of Jemma and all the others who had gone from us, but the words held us up and we crossed our hands and sang lustily. Their Uncle George knew verses I’d never heard and I especially liked this one:

  So gie me your hand, my bonnie dear,

  And here’s a hand o’ mine.

  Let’s tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet

  For the days o’ auld lang syne.

  I thought of Jemma and almost burst out crying until, all at once, their Aunt Jen saved the situation by coming with a broom and opening the door and sweeping out the old year. By the time we had finished drinking a toast of her raspberry vinegar, which was lovely, it really was midnight, but William was nowhere to be found. We were hunting for him when there was this thundering on the door knocker. Carrie ran to open it and William, with a silly hat on his head, bowed low. “God bless all in this house and gie ye a glad New Year,” he said.

  “And a glad New Year to you, laddie,” their Uncle George said.

  Then I remembered about First Footing. If the first foot to cross your doorsill is that of a dark-haired young man, you’ll have good luck all the months ahead.

  It was such a grand way to end the evening and start 1919.

  “A year with no war,” Jo said softly.

  We had come by streetcar and shank’s mare but one of the Galt cousins drove us home. We had a time packing all of us into their Model T Ford. There were three of us, plus William, Carrie and Betty Galt and the driver. Gerda took one look and said she would spend the night and come home in the morning. I would have had to sit on her knee, I think, so I was relieved. Jo ended up on William’s knee and got teased. Every time we hit a bump in the road, Jo’s head banged against the roof of the car. She said her brains felt positively scrambled by the time we reached Collier St. again.

  January 1919

  Later on New Year’s Day, 1919

  Surely this year will be a happier one with the sorrows of war past and the Flu no longer taking so many lives.

  For a while, people hung ribbons on their doors to signal death had visited their house, a purple one for an old person, a grey one for an adult who was not old, and a white one for a child. Perhaps we should have hung one on our door when Jemma died, but Jo screamed at us not to do such a barbaric thing. So we didn’t. Aunt drew down the blinds so the whole house was shadowed like our hearts.

  But today is another day in another year and we are having roast goose for dinner and steamed carrot pudding with brown-sugar sauce. We never had it during the War. Grandmother will make hard sauce, too. You are supposed to choose between the two sauces but I like both and nobody can say a word against me since our mother always took both when she was alive.

  We pulled crackers, too, with paper hats inside. Grandmother looked like Queen Victoria in her crown but she did smile when everyone licked their lips and praised her hard sauce to the skies.

  Father proposed a toast as usual but it sounded so different this year. “To all our dear departed,” he said and he had to clear his throat.

  Thursday, January 2, 1919

  I made a puzzling discovery this morning. Aunt and Grandmother had gone to visit neighbours whose father has died. It was not the Spanish Flu that killed him. He had a heart attack. I was being a good girl, the way I had resolved to be, and I was putting the clean clothes away. Usually I just carry them up and leave them on people’s beds but I decided I could make an effort and fold them and put them away in the bureau drawers. When I was putting Aunt’s clean petticoat in hers, my hand hit something hard and I dug it out. It was a picture of Father, taken long, long ago, and written across the bottom were these words:

  Rose, dear heart,

  This is to say I will love you,

  all my life long.

  Your own, David

  I backed up and let myself plop down on the edge of the bed. I still had the picture in both hands and I almost slid onto the floor. Then I just sat and stared at his young face. It was as though I was under a spell.

  Jane, I could have been sitting there yet if I hadn’t heard footsteps starting up the stairs. It wasn’t Aunt but I leaped up like a scalded cat and shoved the picture back into its hiding place. I hope she can’t tell by looking that somebody has seen it.

  I came away into Fanny’s and my room and threw myself down on our bed and tried and tried to puzzle out the meaning of what I had found.

  What do you think, Jane? I was all set to ask Aunt when they came home and then, I knew I couldn’t. She must have hidden it away in the drawer, where nobody would see, for a good reason. It was private. As Mother said, so long ago, it was not my business.

  But it seems to say that my father was in love with my mother’s sister when they were young. I’ve gone over the words dozens of times and it is as plain as a pikestaff, whatever a pikestaff is. I mean, he says it right out. He isn’t hinting. He’s practically yelling how much he loves her.

  But if that is true, why did he marry Mother and leave Aunt to go off to teach in a one-room schoolhouse in Alberta?? Just thinking about it makes me feel queasy in my stomach. Did Mother know? I do not understand.

  I must get to the bottom of it somehow but I will have to be careful. It isn’t my business, after all. It was so long ago. He looks terribly young. Why did she keep the picture? I hope I put it back exactly the way she had it. I couldn’t quite remember which way up it had been.

  I’m guessing it must have something to do with those strange words Mother spoke, all those years ago, when I asked her why Aunt had never married.

  It has to be part of it but it is baffling and I don’t want to hurt anyone with my prying.

  Sunday, January 5, 1919

  We went to see a movie yesterday. It was marvellous. It had Mary Pickford in it. She is a Canadian, Jane. I cannot imagine her living here. She is so beautiful and she and Douglas Fairbanks make such a handsome couple!

  We saw an episode in The Perils of Pauline, too. That girl is so intrepid and so silly and she is forever escaping death by inches. I know it is ridiculous but when she is tied to a railway track by the villain and you hear the whistle of the train sounding in the distance, your heart thumps in spite of you. And then, you have to wait a week!

  I have not found out anything about that photograph. I keep watching Father and Aunt, but they never give each other the kind of looks Mary Picford gives Douglas Fairbanks. They are old, of course. Father is forty-five. Mother and Aunt were twins so Aunt must be thirty-nine. I can’t imagine Father being in love with anyone. Well, maybe that isn’t true. But I can’t imagine him writing words like those on the photograph.

 
Jane, it is disturbing. I wish I had never found it. Yet, at the same time, I am glad I did.

  Epiphany

  Monday, January 6, 1919

  Last night was Twelfth Night. Today is Epiphany, the day the Wise Men came to give their gifts to the baby Jesus. Yesterday in church we sang “We Three Kings” and I wondered how they could tell that a star, high in the sky, was above the stable and not the sandal-maker’s shop next door or the synagogue. I asked Father at lunch.

  “That’s my thinking daughter, Fee,” he said, smiling his special smile at me. “I do so enjoy it when one of you shows a spark of intelligence.”

  They all laughed, all but Grandmother. “Don’t be sacrilegious, Fiona. I should think your aunt would have raised you to respect the Good Book and the stories of our Saviour,” she said.

  Aunt gave a small chuckle, more a breath than a laugh. “I tried, Mrs. Macgregor,” she said in a silky voice. “But her father’s influence undid my best efforts.”

  Everyone but Grandmother burst into gales at this. Even Theo, who has no idea what was meant, giggled.

  Nobody seemed to notice that Father had avoided answering my question.

  I was annoyed at Grandmother for interrupting but Jo got revenge for me. She came into the front room where we were gathering, with a brown paper bag.

  “What have you got there, girl?” our grandmother demanded.

  “Buns,” Jo said, sweet as honey. “Would you like to try one?”

  “Well, thank you,” said Grandmother and reached into the sack.

  Jane, it wasn’t buns; it was bones! Real ones — human!! Grandmother dropped it like a hot potato and Jo positively cackled.

  Even Father was shocked at her glee. Jo had to put up with a lecture on the sanctity of human life but her eyes were sparkling all through it. When Grandmother finished, my big sister said calmly, “I’m going to get a skull next. Carrie already got hers — one with a crack in it because the woman had been murdered with an axe blade.”

  Grandmother had to be helped to her room. I longed for Jemma to have been there and I knew Jo felt the same. It wasn’t funny, of course. It was Grandmother’s spasm that made us helpless with laughter.