A Season of Gifts

by Richard Peck

  She and Ruth Ann had made up little packets of suet to hang in the trees of the yard for the winter birds, the chickadees and cardinals. They tied them up in red and green ribbons, like Christmas presents coming early.

  Now they were running a big lawn roller from somewhere, back and forth to hull the black walnuts carpeting her yard. Walnuts for cookies to come. They’d cut the sage and hung it in bunches from the cobhouse beams, for Thanksgiving dressing. In her kitchen, wherever the pumpkins weren’t, were big dough bowls of bread crumbs, drying.

  For their yard work, Mrs. Dowdel wore a pair of old cotton stockings pulled over her canvas coat sleeves, to keep out the draft. Ruth Ann was apt to burst into song while they worked. “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” and “We Gather Together to Ask the Lord’s Blessing.”

  At school there was a lot of talk about pilgrims, but then there always was, this time of year. Mrs. Weidenbach, the banker’s wife, came to our class to tell about how either she or one of her ancestors had come over on the Mayflower.

  One thing I gave thanks for was that Newt Fluke had been taken out of sixth grade. He wasn’t doing time, even though Mrs. Dowdel had caught him red-handed. Instead, the coach, who was also the high school principal, promoted Newt to freshman year so he could play out the football season. The coach planned to build a new ground offense around him.

  And without Newt, Elmo Leaper, Jr., wasn’t much. In fact he was kind of lonely. He came over to me one noon and said, “You wanna swap lunches?” He held up his bucket. “Mine’s peanut butter and grape jelly on Wonder Bread.”

  And I did because mine was corned beef and carrot sticks.

  * * *

  For a preacher’s family Thanksgiving is all about feeding the hungry. Mother and the Methodist Women’s Circle used the church as a gathering place for the food donations.

  The church had new, top-of-the-line windows now, combination storms and screens.

  Moore’s IGA store donated turkeys, and the DAR brought canned goods. Mrs. Weidenbach herself promised her famous candied yams. I had to beg various stores for boxes to pack the dinners in because we’d be delivering them to shut-ins.

  Though Mrs. Dowdel was no church woman, she was in and out all Thanksgiving week, gradually taking over the entire Methodist Feed the Hungry Thanksgiving Campaign. She was everywhere Mother turned.

  “Who’s baking them turkeys for you?” she demanded to know. When she heard it was Mrs. Pensinger, she said, “Reba Pensinger? Her turkey’s dry as the bottom of a canary cage, and you could lubricate your car with her pan gravy. I’ll do the birds in my oven. Have this boy bring them to the house.” Meaning me.

  Also, she thought very little of cranberry sauce in a can. “I wouldn’t slop hogs with it. You can taste the can.” A cauldron of bubbling, popping cranberries and orange peel seethed on her stove top, spiced with cinnamon sticks. As soon as school was over every afternoon, Ruth Ann stood on a kitchen chair and stirred.

  Since Mrs. Pensinger didn’t need oven space for the turkeys, she baked two or three pumpkin pies and brought them over to the church. But she said her pumpkins had let her down and all the good ones had vanished from her patch. Mrs. Dowdel baked twenty pumpkin pies at least. She showed Ruth Ann how to roll out dough and how to keep a bottom crust from getting soggy in the middle. Three mountains of dressing grew in her kitchen: chestnut, oyster, and cornbread.

  The Methodist men volunteered to deliver the dinners on Thanksgiving Day. Broshear’s Funeral Home offered their hearse. But Dad thought it might send the wrong message to people who saw it turning in at their place.

  Somehow Mrs. Dowdel was in our car with us when we headed out. She hadn’t dressed up. She wore her kitchen apron under her hunting jacket. Ruth Ann was in the backseat with her, also aproned. Dad was behind the wheel, and I sat beside him, where I liked to be. The whole Pickle smelled like turkey and cranberries and baked-this-morning Parker House rolls. Mrs. Dowdel gave us the directions to Aunt Madge’s house, whoever she was. Mrs. Dowdel had been particular about us calling on Aunt Madge.

  “Who is she anyway?” Ruth Ann wanted to know. “Is she a poor old widow woman?”

  “Well, she’s poor all right, and old as the hills.” Mrs. Dowdel pondered. “Though I don’t know as you could call her a widow woman. Nobody in that family ever got around to marrying.”

  “Then is she an old maid?” Ruth Ann inquired.

  “Well, I don’t know as you could call her that either,” Mrs. Dowdel muttered.

  Dad was all ears for whatever he could hear from up front. We spun along a county road through the frosty fields. I watched him work through the gears on the Pickle. He was inclined to ride the clutch a little. Mrs. Dowdel reached up to poke his shoulder. “Make a left at that Burma-Shave sign, Preacher.”

  We were about five miles out now and getting down to one lane, then a track, then two ruts. Up a turning was what looked like a large junkyard, and the fence was down. “Turn up that lane,” Mrs. Dowdel directed, and Dad geared down.

  The house itself lurked low, and the roof was patched with Coca-Cola signs. We all helped to carry Aunt Madge’s Thanksgiving dinner. “Go on in,” Mrs. Dowdel said. “She don’t lock up.”

  Inside was a lot like outside and somewhat colder. You could see your breath. Dad had to duck in the doorway. The floor wasn’t all there. Then over by a stove a pile of rags became an old, old woman in a La-Z-Boy recliner.

  “Hoo-boy,” Ruth Ann whispered. “That’s the oldest-looking woman I ever saw.”

  Mrs. Dowdel nodded. “She was only about three years behind me in school.”

  We had to clear a plank table to put down the boxes of dinner.

  The old, old woman noticed us. She had a long red nose she kept wiping with a matching bandanna. “Get off my place,” she greeted. “Clear out.”

  “We’ve brought you your Thanksgiving dinner,” Mrs. Dowdel bellowed at her.

  “My what?” old Aunt Madge said. “It ain’t even Thanksgiving.”

  “Yes, it is,” Mrs. Dowdel boomed, looming over her.

  Aunt Madge squinted up. “From the look of you, it’s Halloween.”

  Mrs. Dowdel wore her flap cap. Aunt Madge wore a floppy straw hat tied under her chins with two mufflers.

  “Who are you anyhow?” Her eyes were slits. “You that big gal married Dowdel?”

  “That’s me,” Mrs. Dowdel said. “You want you some chestnut dressing? When did you eat last?”

  “I don’t know,” Aunt Madge said. “What day is it? And who’s these two kids? Your grandkids?”

  “They might be,” Mrs. Dowdel said. “I’ll have this boy stick some more cobs in your stove.” Meaning me.

  “I don’t feel the cold,” Aunt Madge said. “I’m too old. What’s that little gal doin’?” Meaning Ruth Ann.

  “She’s dishing up some of Wilhelmina Weidenbach’s candied yams for you. But you won’t like ’em. They’re so sweet they’d set your teeth on edge. If you had any.”

  “Where is my teeth?” Aunt Madge wondered, looking around. She spied Dad, pouring out a jar of gravy on the white meat. “Who’s that owlhoot?”

  “He’s the preacher,” Mrs. Dowdel bellowed at her.

  “What’s he here for?”

  “I brought him to preach your funeral in case you die before we can get some eats in you.”

  Ruth Ann stared at that. Dad too.

  “I ain’t dyin’ today,” Aunt Madge said. “I’m waitin’ for Thanksgiving because they’re goin’ to bring me my dinner.”

  * * *

  Aunt Madge managed to put away a lot of dinner, though she had to gum everything. She wanted seconds on everything except the candied yams. And she wanted a double-wide slice of pie.

  We were all watching her eat when a sound from outside made us jump. Dad dashed for the doorway and hit his head. I followed. It was the sound of the Pickle roaring to life. Then the clump of the hood and the bang of a car door. When we looked out, the Pickle was wheeling around
in the barnlot, throwing gravel. Now it was gunning down the lane and away in a cloud of exhaust. Dad grabbed for his car keys, and they were in his pocket. Somebody had hotwired our Pickle and stolen it out from under our noses. Dad looked real tense.

  Mrs. Dowdel was behind us in the door. “Bagged him,” she said. “This time for sure. I figured he’d be needing another car bad, but he won’t get far on an eighth of a tank.”

  She meant Roscoe Burdick. Roscoe Burdick, who’d need wheels because he’d piled up his own car on the Shellabarger steps and sent Phyllis flying. Come to find out, Aunt Madge was Roscoe’s grandma.

  “I counted on temptation overcoming him if we delivered a car right up to his door.” Mrs. Dowdel sounded about half satisfied. Of course, she hadn’t told us this was where Roscoe Burdick lived.

  * * *

  Dad and I had to tramp back to the Burma-Shave sign on the county road to flag down a ride. In the end, a farmer named Sensenbaugh picked us up and brought us all home. Mrs. Dowdel sat in the cab of the truck with him.

  We Barnharts rode in the truck bed behind, wind-whipped all the way back to town. It was really cold back there. Dad held Ruth Ann wrapped in his arms. But she thought it was great, like a hayride, though her eyes streamed and her nose was as red as Aunt Madge’s. She wanted to sing “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come,” trilling it out across the frosty fields: “All is safely gathered in, e’er the winter storms begin.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Selective Service

  We got our car back, though it reeked to high heaven of Budweiser and Lucky Strikes, and the ashtray was full. The sheriff of Macon County west of us had pulled Roscoe over on the Lost Bridge road. So Roscoe was in a pickle in more ways than one. The sheriff over there wouldn’t hold him but overnight. C. P. Snokes over here didn’t want him that long.

  Everybody heard, of course. Grounded up in her room, Phyllis heard. Hermits heard. Everybody agreed that Dad wouldn’t press charges. With Dad it had to do with turning the other cheek.

  But the Macon County sheriff wouldn’t set Roscoe loose in his county. C. P. Snokes had to go over and haul him back.

  “Bring him directly to my place,” Mrs. Dowdel said. And C. P. Snokes did because it was always easier just to do as she said.

  She told all us Barnharts to come over too, as quick as we saw the police chief’s Dodge pull in. Phyllis too—all of us. Ruth Ann was probably already over there. She and Mrs. Dowdel were getting real serious about fruitcakes and nut bread and divinity fudge.

  * * *

  It was just evening on that Friday after Thanksgiving. The whole town was eating leftovers when the official Dodge turned in at Mrs. Dowdel’s, towing our Pickle.

  “I don’t want Phyllis anywhere near that crooked boy,” Mother said. But Mrs. Dowdel had been particular about Phyllis coming too.

  Phyllis was looking pale and washed out, but she was anxious to be with Roscoe in what she called “his hour of need,” since even the sheriff of Macon County was prejudiced against him.

  We trooped over there, under the suet trees, around the Dodge and the Pickle. We went on up to Mrs. Dowdel’s front door since this was a formal call. Ruth Ann opened it.

  Her apron trailed the floor. Her braids were tied up, and there was flour on her face. “Hoo-boy,” she piped, jerking a small thumb behind her. “They’ve got the jailbird here. Come on in. Wipe your feet.”

  I was kind of hoping Roscoe would be cuffed, behind his back. After all, he’d sure trussed me up good before he pitched me in the crick. I was still bearing that grudge. I still am.

  It was nearly winter, so the parlor stove was up and aglow. I’d never been in Mrs. Dowdel’s front room. An old gasolier light fixture hung down. The paper was loose on the walls. Mrs. Dowdel sat in a platform rocker. Her specs reflected red flame from the isinglass window on the stove.

  C. P. Snokes and Roscoe stood by. Roscoe was still more or less in custody, but, sadly, not in handcuffs. His sideburns were down to here, and his shirt was unbuttoned down to there. He was gazing away at nothing and chewing something. Maybe gum, maybe not.

  At this sight of him, Phyllis made a small squeaking sound. A candied-cherry smell drifted in from the kitchen.

  “Doggone it, Mrs. Dowdel,” the police chief was saying, “I can’t hold him at headquarters overnight without charging him. Anyhow, if I had him to sleep there, he’d dig his way out. You know what these Burdicks is. They’re like a passel of chicken-eatin’ raccoons. They can burrow in and burrow out of pretty nearly anyplace.”

  “Well, if you turn him loose, you better sleep in your Dodge,” Mrs. Dowdel remarked, “or he’ll hotwire it out from under you.”

  Roscoe shrugged off this whole conversation. His weird blue-and-green gaze drifted Phyllis’s way. He seemed to be humming some song just under his breath, and it may have been “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”

  Phyllis quivered.

  “Mrs. Dowdel,” said the police chief, “my hands is tied.”

  Roscoe’s big hands were on his Levi hips. He could hum, chew, and sneer all at the same time.

  I personally thought he was a free man already. We all did. We were wrong.

  C. P. Snokes glanced over at Dad. “I doubt if the preacher’s going to press charges.”

  “Well,” Dad said, “I’m sure the boy is sorry for—”

  “Nobody around here presses charges against the Burdicks,” Mrs. Dowdel proclaimed. “It’s the best way I know of to get your outbuildings burned down under mysterious circumstances.”

  “Prejudice,” Phyllis muttered.

  “Hush,” Mother said to her.

  “Pure prejudice,” Phyllis muttered.

  C. P. Snokes said, “So my hands is—”

  “But you might cast your thoughts back to this galoot’s eighteenth birthday,” Mrs. Dowdel said. She was smoothing the apron across her mighty knees. Her mouth worked in a thoughtful way as she cast her own thoughts back.

  Roscoe himself seemed to think back to whatever he might have been up to on his eighteenth birthday.

  “What did he do?” the police chief asked.

  “It’s what he didn’t do,” Mrs. Dowdel replied.

  A silence fell over us. The smoke sighed up the stovepipe. Late November wind twanged in the lightning rods above.

  “He didn’t register with the draft board,” Mrs. Dowdel said, “to serve his two years in the army, which is the law. The federal law.”

  Phyllis had been receding into the shadows. She stopped and swayed slightly. Roscoe hadn’t done his army service like . . . Elvis. He was a—what do you call it?

  “He’s a draft dodger,” Mrs. Dowdel said. “They can put him away for that.”

  I didn’t know who to look at, Roscoe or Phyllis.

  “Oh well shoot, Mrs. Dowdel,” C. P. Snokes said, “I have an idea the army wouldn’t want him. Anyhow, the draft board meets over at the county seat. I doubt if any of them citizens on the board ever heard tell of the Burdicks.”

  “Snokes,” Mrs. Dowdel said, “do you know who any of them citizens on the board is?”

  “Well, I don’t know as I could put a name to any of them. They drafted me in 1940, and all that bunch is dead or out of office.”

  “I could name you one,” Mrs. Dowdel said in a loud, carrying voice.

  Then an eerie thing happened.

  We were all there in the circle of orange light around the parlor stove, Phyllis over at the edge. But now a figure was there in the door to the kitchen. Small, gnomish, and neck-less, but there.

  Ruth Ann was all eyes. Who wasn’t?

  “Come on in, Flora.” Mrs. Dowdel waved a hand. And into our midst stepped Miss Flora Shellabarger, Miss Cora’s feistier sister.

  Roscoe wasn’t chewing anything now. He’d swallowed hard.

  “Evening, all,” Miss Flora said grimly. The same Miss Flora who’d got her front yard plowed under and her mounting block chipped when Roscoe lost control of his DeSoto and Ph—

&nb
sp; “Roscoe Burdick,” she said, scanning all the way up him, “I’ve overlooked your case because I didn’t want to wish you on the U. S. Army. But I’d be derelict in my duties as chair of the Selective Service Committee if I left you at large another night. Maybe the army can make something out of you. You haven’t made anything out of yourself except a public nuisance, a danger to young girls, and a waste of space.”

  She was a small woman and dried up, and she had no neck to speak of. But she didn’t mince words.

  Roscoe had pretty poor posture, but he drooped some more and went pale. Even his sideburns looked worried. He reached for his ear. But he’d smoked his last Lucky Strike.

  “You’ll be doing a two-year hitch for Uncle Sam, beginning with boot camp,” Miss Flora said. “Or you’ll be doing two years’ hard time in the federal slammer down at Marion. What’s it to be? And bear in mind, I speak as a representative of the federal government in Washington, D. C., and the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.”

  Even I noticed that Phyllis’s head was whirling. Her own personal Elvis had been a draft dodger while the real Elvis was serving his country. And looking good in his uniform. Phyllis didn’t know what to think, but it was too good a moment to miss. A quick inventory of every Elvis Presley movie seemed to unreel across her brain.

  “I’ll wait for you, Roscoe,” she blurted. “However long. Don’t be too . . . shook up.”

  Mother sighed.

  C. P. Snokes was pointing Roscoe at the porch.

  “Love me tender,” Phyllis called out with a catch in her voice.

  * * *

  Roscoe left on the milk train for the induction center at St. Louis. Miss Flora Shellabarger processed his papers personally. The clerk at the Norfolk & Western depot flagged down the train and gave Roscoe a free ticket for the chair car, donated by a grateful community. C. P. Snokes put him on the train.

  Quite a few people stood out on their porches that nippy Saturday morning, gladly seeing Roscoe off. As the train pulled out through town, Mrs. Dowdel herself stood on her front porch, waving Roscoe good-bye with a dish towel in her mighty hand.