The Homecoming

by Earl Hamner, Jr.

  “I don’t remember any more,” said Emma. “Nobody was ever good enough for Papa.”

  “I never told you this, Emma,” said Miss Etta, “but Ashley Longworth kissed me one time.”

  “If you’ve told me once you’ve told me a thousand times,” sighed Miss Emma.

  “He was a student, you see,” Miss Etta continued, ignoring her sister’s bored expression, “over at the University. He liked hunting and fishing, and somehow found his way out here, and asked permission to hunt on Papa’s land. Papa said yes, and Ashley just got to be a regular fixture out here every weekend. Wasn’t he a handsome thing, Emma?”

  “Knew it, too,” commented Emma from her chair where she sipped her eggnog reflectively.

  “Anything that handsome had to know it,” Miss Etta commented and turned back to Clay-Boy. “On my twenty-fifth birthday, October 19, 1902, Ashley was here as usual and he asked me to go for a walk with him. The woods were on fire with color, and we stopped beneath a maple tree that had turned blood-red. There was a little breeze and a shower of leaves fell around us. Ashley reached up very impulsively and touched my cheek and that was when he kissed me.”

  “Having no idea that Papa was standing a hundred feet away,” said Miss Emma.

  “Papa was very upset about it all. Ashley left that evening and I heard from him once, a farewell letter, you might call it, and then nothing. I think of him often, but as the years went by and no more word of him came, I decided he must have died in one of the wars.”

  Clay-Boy shook his head sympathetically as Miss Etta turned away and gazed thoughtfully at the Christmas Tree.

  “Ah me!” said Miss Emma to no one in particular and, for a while, each of them was alone with his separate thoughts.

  “Etta, put a record on the Victrola,” said Miss Emma. Etta had been sitting looking dreamily at the Christmas Tree, and did not hear. “Etta!” called Miss Emma sternly.

  Miss Etta rose and floated to the Victrola. She searched about in the storage cabinet beneath the machine, found a record and placed it on the turn-table.

  “It probably needs winding,” advised Miss Emma. “It hasn’t been used since the last time we had a party.”

  “That was before Papa died,” said Miss Etta as she cranked the handle of the Victrola. “Remember his cousins from Buckingham County dropped in; he hadn’t seen them in years. He brought them all in here and we played hymns and sang and afterward everybody cried and hugged.”

  “Papa was a rounder,” said Miss Emma reflectively. She refilled her silver mug with eggnog and then, noting that Clay-Boy’s mug was empty, filled his, too.

  Miss Etta moved the lever which turned on the Victrola, placed the needle in the groove, and stood with hands folded while the machine made a couple of preliminary scratchy revolutions.

  Then music came into the room and the two old women and the boy listened silently as Enrico Caruso sang “It Came upon a Midnight Clear.”

  For a moment when the song was over, they remained still.

  “The nice thing about life,” said Miss Etta, “is you never know when there’s going to be a party.”

  “It wouldn’t of been if Clay-Boy Spencer hadn’t taken it in mind to stop in,” said Miss Emma.

  When Clay-Boy realized that they thought the object of his trip had been to pay a call, he decided not to tell them otherwise. His father was obviously not there, nor had he been there, for the old ladies would surely have mentioned it.

  But now when he looked there were four old ladies, a twin Miss Emma and a twin Miss Etta, their images blurring and waving into each other. His lips and his tongue were edged with numbness, and he would have liked nothing better than to have stretched out and gone to sleep.

  He roused himself and with some difficulty managed to stand upright, although the rest of the room swam unsteadily.

  “I certainly appreciate everything,” he said in the general direction of his hostesses.

  “Oh, you mustn’t go yet,” cried Miss Etta. “It’s still the shank of the evening!”

  “No, ma’am, I expect it’s getting along toward eleven o’clock.”

  “How are you traveling, Clay-Boy?” asked Miss Emma.

  “On foot, ma’am,” he replied.

  “Why, you’ll never get home walken in this weather,” said Miss Etta, “unless Santa Claus comes along and gives you a lift.”

  “It’s a bad night out there, Clay-Boy,” said Miss Emma. “Why don’t you stay here? We’ll make you comfortable.”

  “I appreciate it, but my folks would worry.”

  Suddenly Miss Etta rose and crossed to her sister and whispered something in her ear. She looked back to Clay-Boy briefly. “Excuse my bad manners,” she said, and then the two ladies held a brief whispered conference.

  At the end of it, Miss Emma rose, fixed an eye on Clay-Boy and said, “Wait here.”

  When her sister left the room, Miss Etta gazed at Clay-Boy with a sweet smile and said, “We’ve arranged a little surprise for you.”

  Clay-Boy looked worriedly after Miss Emma as he heard a door slam at the back of the house.

  “I really ought to be getten home.”

  “Oh, you’ll be home before you know it,” said Miss Etta. “Now get into your things while I get the blankets!”

  Clay-Boy felt he had fallen into the clutches of two old Christmas witches and he was tempted to slip out of the front door before either of them returned with whatever insane plan they had for getting him home.

  He felt his socks, which had been hanging by the fireplace and, grateful that they were almost dry, he slipped them on. His shoes were stiff from having dried so close to the fire, but he slipped them on his feet and was lacing them up when Miss Etta appeared at the foot of the stairway. She had put on an old fur coat with a hat to match and she carried several lap robes in her arms.

  “Wouldn’t you like one more eggnog?” she called. “A small one for the road?”

  “I had just enough,” said Clay-Boy.

  “It does make you feel good, doesn’t it?” said Miss Etta gaily.

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied Clay-Boy who could hardly feel anything at all.

  From somewhere outside the house came the silver jingle of bells.

  “There she is!” cried Miss Etta, grabbing up the pile of blankets. “Come!” she called and rushed toward the front door.

  Clay-Boy drew in his breath at the magic landscape beyond the door. The snow had stopped and the sky was a deep blue without a cloud in sight. A full moon shone down on an expanse of virgin snow, and waiting in the driveway was Miss Emma Staples in a horse-drawn sleigh.

  “It’s Papa’s sleigh,” explained Miss Etta. “We’ve kept it dusted and polished all these years. Just waiting for an occasion!”

  “Hurry up before Lady Esther falls asleep again,” called Miss Emma. Lady Esther, an old black mare, was the only one who showed no enthusiasm for the journey.

  Clay-Boy helped Miss Etta into the sleigh, then climbed in after her.

  “Gee hup!” called Miss Emma while Miss Etta arranged blankets over everybody’s knees.

  Lady Esther moved forward through the snow, and once she discovered the ease with which the sleigh flowed gently behind her, she seemed to warm to her job and broke into a lively canter.

  “Oh my!” exclaimed Miss Etta as each turning of the road revealed a new white landscape that glittered and sparkled in the moonlight.

  “What a treat!” exclaimed Miss Emma as she listened to the merrily jingling bells pealing out across the still night.

  Oh, God, thought Clay-Boy. Good manners decreed that he should ask the two old sisters in when they arrived at his home. Mama would hit the roof!

  EIGHT

  The children had been sitting drowsily around the living room table, but when they heard the sounds of sleigh bells they jumped up with cries of astonishment.

  “It’s Santa Claus!”

  Even Olivia rushed to the living room window and brushed aside
the curtains to look down at the front gate. There clearly in the cold white light was a sleigh, drawn by a horse which stamped its hooves and blew clouds of vapor into the air. Someone detached himself from the sleigh, stood for a moment and waved. “Merry Christmas,” came the words across the yard, and then the horse turned smartly and drew the sleigh away from the gate and it was lost at the turning of the road in a diminishing silver rattle of sleigh bells. “It’s Clay-Boy,” said Olivia, as the figure turned and walked up the front walk. Her heart went cold with disappointment. He had not found his father, and the time was racing toward midnight. Fear for Clay, and anger with him too, rose in her throat. Where could he be? Why wasn’t he home with the family on this of all nights?

  She followed the children to the kitchen and waited there until Clay-Boy opened the door and entered. He looked to Olivia questioningly and she shook her head. The children caught the exchange, sensed what it implied, and fell silent.

  The roasted turkey, still warm from the oven, rested in the center of the table beside the two applesauce cakes, but the joy was gone from them now. They had been the trappings of a festival. Now they were simply food.

  “Who was that let you off at the gate?” asked Olivia.

  “It was Miss Emma and Miss Etta,” said Clay-Boy holding out a Mason jar of Recipe. “They sent this. Said it was Christmas Cheer.”

  “It’s bootleg whiskey is what it is,” observed Olivia.

  “What do you want me to do with it, Mama?”

  “I’ll take it,” said Olivia, accepting the jar. “I can use some to make frosting for my applesauce cakes.”

  Clay-Boy looked around at the children, who were still not in their pajamas.

  “Shouldn’t you tadpoles be in bed?” he asked.

  “I promised them they could go to the stable,” said Olivia. “They’ve been waiten for you.”

  “Will you go with us, Clay-Boy?” asked Pattie-Cake.

  “Sure, honey. I’ll go.”

  “Tell me about it again, Clay-Boy,” urged Pattie-Cake.

  “Well, a long time ago when Jesus was born it was in a stable, because they didn’t have any room at the hotel. Right away, this star as bright as the sun came up in the sky and set over the stable to show the wise men and the shepherds and the angels where the baby Jesus was. The first things to lay eyes on Him except for His Mama and Daddy were the sheep and the horses and the cows and the goats that lived there. Here they were, just dumb old animals that lived in a stable, but they were the first to see Jesus’ face.”

  “Was there a mouse there too, Clay-Boy, like in our stable?”

  “I expect so, honey, and maybe some doves and sparrows roosten in the eaves. Anyway, ever since that night, animals all over the world wait up, and right at the stroke of midnight, they kneel down and pray and speak in human voices.”

  “I wonder what they say?”

  “Let’s go to the barn and find out.”

  While the children were getting into their warm clothing, Olivia filled the stove with fresh firewood. She felt near tears and she did not want Clay-Boy to see. He watched her in silence from the door, and finally he said, “Come on, Mama. Why don’t you go with us?”

  Olivia had heard the legend all her life, had even believed it as a child. When had she stopped believing? Where, along the way, had her belief in miracles left her? For a moment some vestige of that childhood faith returned. Who was there to say that the legend was false?

  “I’ll go,” she said, and took her green corduroy coat from its hanger and was putting it on when the children returned, delighted to have their mother’s company for the trip to the stable.

  With Clay-Boy leading the way, Olivia watched her brood make their way up through the backyard, past the crab-apple tree to the stable. From Clay-Boy down to Pattie-Cake their shadows made a stairstep pattern in the snow.

  Children are such fragile things, she thought. Arrows shot from her body, gone now beyond any calling back. She catalogued them in her mind. Clay-Boy, so smart and ambitious. Becky, so independent, so capable and vulnerable. Shirley, so beautiful and so maternal. Matt, so self-reliant and full of love and promise. John, with the talent born in his hands to play music on a piano. Mark, all business one minute and wanting a hug in the next. Luke, the handsome wild one with his eye already on some far horizon, and Pattie-Cake, too spoiled to turn her hand for herself, too pretty and sweet to spank. What will become of them all, God only knows. Life be good to them. God, help us all.

  At the barn, Clay-Boy turned and with his finger to his lips motioned for silence. He indicated that they were to use the outside ladder lest their presence become known to Chance and she refuse to pray.

  One after another the children furtively climbed the outside ladder, crept through the sweet-smelling hay to the edge of the loft and looked down. Olivia was the last one up. She arranged herself in the hay and then looked with pleasure at the sight of the eight excited faces peering down where Chance was lit by the moonlight through cracks in the wall of the barn.

  An expectant hush filled the hayloft. The children breathed lightly. Down below, Chance was standing, the great bellows of her lungs moving evenly as she chewed her cud, then reached with her long raspy tongue into the feed trough for remnants of the mash Clay-Boy had fed her for supper.

  Olivia felt a hand reach into hers and she shifted her body so that Pattie-Cake might move closer. Pattie-Cake was trembling and her breath was coming in an open-mouthed gasp. Whether she was cold or frightened, Olivia didn’t know, but she put her arm around her to comfort her.

  And then across the hills came the deep bong, bong, bong, of the bell in the steeple of the Baptist church. Old Mr. Higgenbottem always waited there to ring the bell at the stroke of midnight and let the world know that Christmas had come again.

  Now the children leaned forward and watched Chance intently. Something quivered in her shoulder, some incentive to movement, and then she folded the ankles and arms of her front legs and went down on her knees, and a human voice spoke.

  “I’m a-scared,” cried Pattie-Cake, but still the children watched. Chance rested on her knees for only a fraction of a second, then lowered the hind part of her massive body to a reclining position.

  The children released the breath they had been holding, and every eye went accusingly to Pattie-Cake.

  “You milled it!” cried Becky.

  “I want to go home,” cried Pattie-Cake through chattering teeth.

  “Just when Chance was goen to speak,” muttered Shirley with disappointment.

  “There’s no truth in it,” said Olivia. “It’s just a story.”

  “Mama, Chance was on her knees,” objected Becky. “If Pattie-Cake hadn’t opened her yap, it would of happened.”

  Pattie-Cake, cold and frightened, began to sob.

  “Come on, Clay-Boy, let’s get these children to bed,” called Olivia.

  Herding the children back to the house, Olivia wished she had not allowed them to go to the barn. Just before she closed the door she looked for one long instant up and down the road, but it was white and cold and empty. Clay Spencer was not on it. Foolishness, she thought. There are no such things as miracles.

  NINE

  Olivia and Clay-Boy sat in the living room. Olivia had brought the wind-up kitchen alarm clock out with her and it sat on the table beside her chair, where its ticking seemed to fill the room.

  Olivia had been drowsing, but now when she woke and saw that it was one o’clock, she called softly, “Clay-Boy.”

  “Hum?” he asked sleepily.

  “You go on to bed now.”

  “I’ll wait a little while longer, Mama.”

  “No, you’re sitten there half asleep. Just go on upstairs and lay down.”

  “Where you reckon he is, Mama?”

  “I don’t know any more than you do, son.”

  “I’ll go up and lay down, but I’ll keep my clothes on, just in case any word comes.”

  “I don’t
expect to hear a word before mornen,” said Olivia.

  “Good night, Mama,” he said at the landing.

  “Good night, son.”

  He was about to call “Merry Christmas,” but it was obviously going to be anything but merry so he held his tongue. Tiptoeing, carefully, picking his way around boards that squeaked he made his way to the top of the stairs.

  “What time is it, Clay-Boy?” called Becky in a whisper as he passed the room the girls slept in.

  “Time for you to be asleep,” he whispered, and continued on down the hall to the boys’ room.

  His brothers, two in each bed, were asleep. Luke had kicked his covers off, so Clay-Boy pulled the blankets and the homemade quilt up and tucked it around Luke’s shoulders.

  Clay-Boy was starting for his own bed when there came an enormous crash on the roof. At the same moment from somewhere in the backyard someone could be heard shouting and cursing. Again the thudding noise came on the roof and in the next moment the stairway was alive with pounding feet and cries of alarm as each child scrambled downstairs to find his mother.

  Olivia was already on her way to the back door when Clay-Boy, followed by the children, ran into the kitchen.

  “What in God’s name is it?” he cried.

  His mother’s face was twisted with worry.

  “It sounds like your daddy, but I don’t know!”

  The children stopped their onrush and huddled together at the living room door as Olivia unlocked the back door and apprehensively swung it open. Framed in the doorway was Clay Spencer, half-frozen, an impish grin on his face, his arms overflowing with bundles.

  “I’ve been worried sick about you,” said Olivia but her voice broke, and she buried her face in her hands and wept.

  “Mama, don’t cry,” said Clay-Boy. “He’s home!”

  Struggling with packages, Clay entered. He placed his bundles down on the table, knelt and opened his arms and immediately they were filled with children, brushing the snow from his face, hugging him around the neck, crashing his chest with their frantic embraces.