Clara's Mail Order Joy (Home for Christmas Book 5)

by Natalie Dean

  “Martha’s father would agree, I’m sure,” Clara said politely.

  “Oh, him,” Long Sally said dismissively. “He’s no more. Got his neck stretched for thieving. Any more coffee in that pot?”

  Clara refilled Long Sally’s cup. How could a woman speak so callously of the man who had fathered her children, she wondered. Conversely, how could Long Sally have married a man who was a thief?

  “I should like to meet the children who are old enough to take part,” Clara said. “I shall assign the main parts then.”

  “My children are behaved,” Long Sally said. “You won’t regret assigning the parts to them.”

  “You seemed to be reluctant, when we first spoke of this, when you learned that they would just be standing.”

  “It didn’t make no sense to me, but when I told them about it, it kind of perked up their interest.”

  “You have five of the children in camp. Who are the others?”

  “Well, there’s China Jean, but you can’t rightly have one of them in the play now, can you? There ain’t any China people in the Bible.”

  “How old is this girl?”

  “Fourteen,” Long Sally disclosed reluctantly as if unwilling to admit that the age of this girl might compete with her Martha’s age.

  “The other children in the camp?”

  “Boys or girls?”

  “Both. We’ll need boys to portray Joseph, Herod, the Wise Men. We’ll need a choir of angels, in addition to Mary. The girls can be any ages for the angels.”

  And angel costumes would be easy to sew, Clara thought.

  “I should come to the camp to meet the children.”

  “Any time,” Long Sally said. “We’re always there. My man goes down in the mines with the others, but us women, we’re in the camp, cooking and cleaning and chasing after the young ones.”

  “There is no schooling at all for the children?” Clara inquired, although she knew the answer. Still, it seemed unpardonable that children were spending their days in the dismal shelter of a mining camp and not gaining an education.

  “No one to teach them,” Long Sally said. “They’ll listen, though, to the story. You’ll tell it?”

  “Yes, of course. Do they not know it?”

  “Oh, they know it, mostly,” Long Sally shrugged. “But it don’t grab them the way a good story does. I was thinking maybe you could tell the story so’s they’d pay it mind and stay away from sinful ways.”

  There wasn’t much about sin in the story of Christ’s birth, at least not that Sarah could recall.

  “I shall do my best,” she said.

  Long Sally said that she’d be getting on her way now; it was time to be thinking about what to cook for dinner. Just as they were getting into the wagon, Peter appeared, leading Angel.

  Long Sally called out his name. “That camel of yourn gonna be in the play?” she yelled.

  Peter came over to the wagon. “I don’t know that she’d be welcome,” he said in a friendly manner.

  Clara noticed that he did not look at her as he spoke.

  “They had camels in the Bible, didn’t they?” Long Sally asked. “Sheep and goats, I know they had them, there’s a Bible story about sheep and goats. You gonna have animals in the play, Mrs. Edwards?” she asked.

  “I think it will be all we can do to have the children doing their parts,” Clara said.

  “It would sure be something to see the animals,” Long Sally said wistfully. “Just like in the story.”

  “I shall return soon,” Clara said. “I am taking Mrs. Cartwright back to the camp.”

  Long Sally let out a guffaw. “There’s no Mrs. Cartwright,” she announced. “Just Long Sally, that’s me. Long Sally Cartwright.”

  “But your children . . .”

  “They’re mine. Martha’s Pa give her his name before he went to his Maker. My others, they’ve got their Pa’s name, Sanders. But I’m not a Mrs.”

  Clara wasn’t at all sure what to say. She knew that there were such things as children born out of wedlock—appearances suggested that Oakley, the child who lived at the Wyatt ranch, was surely the offspring of Harley Wyatt, although he had not acknowledged her as such—but she had never thought to hear a woman proclaim the details in such a cavalier manner. And this was the mother of a child who wanted to portray Mary, the mother of the Savior, in the Christmas performance!

  Chapter 17

  Hazel arrived at the Edwards home with fabric and thread for the making of the costumes. She found her sister uncharacteristically subdued.

  “Whatever is the matter? You have talked of nothing but the Christmas program for days and now that we’re preparing for it, and Mother and Father will be there to see it, you seem to have lost interest,” Hazel said. “Are you unwell?”

  “I am well. I’m simply doubting that this is the best way to celebrate the holiday. I went to the camp the other day to meet the children. Hazel, I don’t know how they endure their lot!”

  She had not spoken of her reactions to Peter. At one time, she would have told him her thoughts and observations and he might have been able to present a perspective that she had not considered, one which did not find the squalor of the camp to be its chief defining trait. Or he would have found something redeemable in their lives.

  But she and Peter were still engaged in the long silences of a couple with too much to say to one another in a language that was too fraught with peril for the words to be spoken. As Peter had promised, the new bed would be finished by week’s end. She and Peter would be sleeping in it by Sunday and Clara wondered how, if her sleep was so troubled now by the unsettled quarrel between them, she would manage to find rest in the bed that symbolized the cause of the dissension that kept the two of them apart.

  She would not tell Hazel of her situation. Hazel would not understand why it had so vexed Clara to learn that her home was supplied with furniture from her sister’s wealthy husband and Clara did not wish to explain.

  Better to talk about the mining camp.

  “The children are dressed in such mismatched clothing, in all sizes, whether they are a fit or not,” she said. “They ought to have warmer clothing than they are wearing . . . I don’t see how they can ever be warm, living as they do, in tents. . . there is no school, no one to teach them. Long Sally has a daughter, Martha, a very pretty girl. The miners are already courting her and she is but thirteen. She will end up in a bad way if there is no other path for her to follow. She will be Mary.”

  “Oh?”

  “I could not refuse. She wants to be Mary so much and there is no reason why she cannot be. There are thirteen children who can take part; most will be shepherds and angels, of course.”

  “That will be easy enough,” Hazel said as she unrolled the bolt of cloth that she had brought. “They’ll all wear robes. White for the angels, brown for the shepherds?”

  “Yes, that should suit.”

  “Blue for Mary? Brown for Joseph?”

  “Yes.”

  “Something a bit grand for Herod, and a crown?”

  “Very well, yes . . . “

  “Clara, what is it? We must get started on these costumes; you know that once Mother and Father arrive, we’re not going to be of a mind to get much done except for enjoying them. We’ll have to practice the songs sometime, but I trust that will wait until we have the performance securely planned.”

  “Hazel . . . “

  “Yes?” Hazel’s scissors were gliding through the cloth with a practiced hand. She had been doing more sewing of late than ever before. She had sewn a new shirt for Harley, who was used to buying his shirts ready-made at the general store. She was also sewing a new dress for Jane, something pretty that the girl could wear to church, or to a dance, or to go out walking with a boy when courting time came, as it soon would, Hazel thought. In a town insufficiently supplied with females, courting could begin early, and Jane was already sixteen.

  “Would you be very disappointed if we didn’t sing
for the performance?”

  Hazel was so stunned by this question that Clara’s first reaction to her sister’s expression was contrition. “I am sorry,” Clara burst out. “I didn’t realize that you were looking forward to the singing. Of course we shall sing, there, forget that I said anything.”

  “Clara,” Hazel reminded her, laughing, “it is you who has your heart set on singing, not I. Certainly not Minnie.”

  “You don’t think that Mother will be disappointed?”

  “Mother doesn’t know what you have planned,” Hazel said. “How could she be disappointed? What changed your mind?”

  “The children,” Clara said, relieved that Hazel did not object to the changes she had proposed. “They have so little that this performance, minor though it is, must serve a greater purpose. I realized when I met with the children and told them the story of the birth of Jesus that they don’t realize how – oh, Hazel, this will sound blasphemous, but does it not seem to you that our Lord’s birth must have been very similar to the lives of the children in the camp?”

  “I don’t know . . . I have never thought of it that way.”

  Clara wished that she could discuss this with Peter. He, she knew, would have understood what she meant. But except for the exchange of the most basic of greetings and information, there were no discussions on any subject taking place in the Edwards household.

  “What do you want to do instead?”

  “I would like the children to play the roles that I have assigned to them. Long Sally has had the most fascinating idea, one that I hardly know how to present. . . she brought up the point, and a very accurate one it is, too, that there would have been livestock in the stable where Jesus was born. I suppose it must have been terribly malodorous, but the smells of the animals are those with which the mining camp children are entirely familiar.”

  “If not worse, I should think,” Hazel said.

  “Do you think that Harley would let us have a cow for the performance? I am going to ask Gavin to bring a sheep.”

  “I believe that one of the ewes is about to give birth,” Hazel said. “There would be a lamb; that would be something that the children would enjoy and it would be easier than bringing a sheep to the camp. I’ll ask Harley about the cow; I suppose that if he can drive a herd of cattle to the railroad, he can bring one to the mining camp.” With a twinkle in her eye, Hazel said, “And what about Angel? I am sure that Peter would not object to having his camel included in the Bible menagerie.”

  But Clara did not respond to this suggestion, stating only she hoped it would not be too cold for the performance, even though it would be in January. She wanted to serve a good meal after the performance and did Hazel think that Mrs. De la Rosa would be able to cook that much food?

  Hazel was quite confident that Constanza would rise to the occasion, and she agreed to ask Harley about the cow, and to ask Gavin, if she saw him before Clara did, about the lamb.

  The sisters sewed for another hour or so and then Hazel said she needed to leave so that she could give Oakley her lessons.

  “Oakley . . . “

  “She’s doing very well,” Hazel said.

  That was not the question that Clara was going to ask. But she did not press the point. If it did not matter to Hazel that her husband was raising his illegitimate daughter in his own home, well then it was none of Clara’s affair. Mother would certainly want to know and perhaps Hazel would confirm to her what her sisters suspected.

  Perhaps it didn’t matter, Clara decided as she continued to sew the angel costumes. Whatever transgressions Harley had committed in his past, he was certainly not given to loose living now. He was paying for a gift for each of the children and he was providing the food for the meal after the performance. He was generous with his money.

  And with his possessions, Clara realized with a sudden awakening of understanding. The furniture, the wagon, even the horse, that Harley had provided for her and Peter to use were no hardship to him and he did not calculate those possessions as a loss. He had extra and he was more than willing to share.

  Just as Peter would have shared what he had with others, if the circumstances were reversed. She had been embarrassed by the need that Harley had been entirely willing and able to meet, and he had done so with a lack of ceremony. Because, she understood now, they were only things, possessions, items for use. They were not to be valued in the same way that loved ones were prized. Or to be equated with the intangible things that were not concrete; the beauty of music, for instance, which Hazel had given to that man who had tuned the piano when it first arrived, letting him play the instrument even before she touched it. Because the music that he played was not something to hoard, but something to share.

  She had to tell Peter this! Clara put the angel costume down and, without stopping to put on her warm coat, hurried out into the open air, running until she came to the opening of the Silver Belle Mine. She halted in confusion; this was where Peter went every day to work, but she knew nothing of it.

  She peered down into the opening of the mine, no more than a dug out hole wide enough for a body to fit into. There was a ladder leading from the opening. She remembered Peter telling her that he was still working the first level of the mine and that he had not gone farther. When that time came, he had said, he would have to do more construction on the mine itself, in order for it to be navigable at a greater depth.

  She had not understood what he meant. But now, looking at the rope ladder which was securely fastened with thick bolts to the tree trunk at the opening of the mine, she grasped his meaning. If the silver that he sought was not found at the depth where the ladder reached, he would have to go lower. Lower into the forbidding confines of the earth, where, if there were an accident or a mine cave in, he might not be able to get out.

  A strangled sob burst from her throat. What good would silver be to her if Peter were buried alive inside the mine that contained it?

  Without stopping to think or reason or pause, Clara positioned herself upon the ladder and began to descend. Her heeled shoes and her skirts were an impediment to her progress, but she held onto the rope ladder with all her strength, rung by rung, until she came to the end of it and her feet touched the ground.

  “Peter!” she called. “Peter, where are you?”

  Dear God, where was he? Why did he not answer? Surely he would not stay silent merely because he was still angry with her for her foolish and willful quarreling?

  “Peter?”

  “Hush,” she heard him say and then, suddenly, he was at her side, looking at her with concern. “Don’t make a loud noise in a mine; it could cause the earth to shift. Now, what’s the matter? Are you all right?”

  She flung herself into his arms and he did not push her away. “Clara, what is wrong?” he asked, holding her close.

  “I don’t want you to be a miner,” she sobbed. “I don’t care if there’s enough silver in this mine to make the Silver Belle the richest mine west of the Mississippi! You can be a carpenter, Peter, you know how to do that, and if you do that, you can build things and you need never come down here again.”

  “Now, what’s brought this on?”

  He sounded amused and not distant as he had been for what seemed like an eternity.

  “Come on,” he said. “I think I’m done for the day. You climbed down the ladder?” he said in amazement.

  She nodded. “I don’t want to have to do that again.”

  “Well, if you want to leave the mine,” he said whimsically, “there’s only one way out. You go first, and I’ll be right behind you, sweetheart.”

  It was easier to leave the terrible darkness of the mine and move up so that she was climbing in the direction of the daylight.

  “You’ll move faster if you hike up your dress and tuck it around your waist,” Peter advised.

  “I couldn’t do that!” she gasped.

  “Then I’ll do it for you,” he said. Before she realized what he intended to do, he had rai
sed the bottom of her dress and knotted it around her waist, leaving her undergarments exposed. “You’d best get moving,” he suggested, “it’s cold down here and you’re not used to this.”

  Conscious of what an image she must be giving him, Clara made her way to the top of the ladder. Once she was there, she halted. “How do I get out?” she asked, still whispering because of his warning about noise making the ground shift.

  “Your clothes are already going to need a good laundering after this,” he said, “so you might as well crawl out on your belly. I reckon I should have gone first, I could have pulled you out. Now that you’re at the top, just stretch out on your belly and you’ll get out.”

  “How will you get out?”

  “Same way I always do,” he said, “and I’m not wearing skirts.”

  She crawled out of the opening to the mine and got to her feet, swiftly loosening the bottom of her dress to cover her exposed lower limbs while Peter reached the top of the ladder, turned around, sat down and then shifted his legs so that he was outside the mine. He rose to his feet with limber grace.

  “Now,” he said, “do you want to tell me what this is all about?”

  Chapter 18

  Peter was a good listener. He didn’t interrupt as Clara explained to him what had transpired inside her after she’d met the children at the mining camp, and how little they had and how much she and Peter had in comparison and how it didn’t matter to Harley Wyatt if they were using his table and Gavin didn’t mind if they slept in his extra bed and the mine was so dark, how could he endure being down there—

  “Whoa,” Peter said, finally. “I’m a careful kind of chap, you know. I don’t take risks.”

  “But it’s so dark,” she said, the tears beginning to form again.

  Peter was sitting on the kitchen chair and she was sitting in his lap, unwilling to release him from her sight or touch when it felt as though he had been apart from her for too long, separated not by distance but by the division in their affections.