A Time for Giving

by Jean Little

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Introduction

  Preface to The Angel of Citadel Hill

  The Angel of Citadel Hill by Sarah Ellis

  Preface to The Real Blessings

  The Real Blessings by Jean Little

  Preface to Dear Sachi

  Dear Sachi by Susan Aihoshi

  Preface to A Candle for Christmas

  A Candle for Christmas by Karleen Bradford

  Preface to The Rescuers

  The Rescuers by Jean Little

  Preface to The Light and the Dark

  The Light and the Dark by Carol Matas

  Preface to Winter with Grandma

  Winter with Grandma by Ruby Slipperjack

  Preface to Raffle Mania

  Raffle Mania by Janet McNaughton

  Preface to Snowflakes for Christmas

  Snowflakes for Christmas by Barbara Haworth-Attard

  Preface to A Proper Christmas Feast

  A Proper Christmas Feast by Norah McClintock

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  Also Available

  Books in the Dear Canada Series

  Introduction

  Mountains, prairies, seaside … Wartime, one hundred and fifty years ago, half a century ago … The ten stories in this new Dear Canada Christmas anthology take us all across our land, from remote homesteads to internment camps, from towns destroyed to a city bursting with pride. Set in landscapes of snowflakes and snow angels, wilderness and cozy homes, these stories feature Christmas traditions both familiar and new.

  In one of the stories — a departure from exploring our diarists’ lives the Christmas after — we have the prequel to an upcoming Dear Canada novel: Ojibwe writer Ruby Slipperjack’s story of young Violet (Pynut) Pesheens, the Christmas before she goes away to Residential School.

  I hope you enjoy reconnecting with old friends here, and making some new ones, as you let these young diarists share with you their latest challenges and successes.

  Happy Christmas and Happy Reading,

  Sandra Bogart Johnston, Editor, Dear Canada Series

  It has been over half a year since Dorothy spent time with her grandparents in England, put on plays with Millie and Owen, and had deep discussions with Grandfather — a time that seems far off, given her harrowing voyage aboard the Titanic. Right now it’s nearing Christmas and Dorothy is looking forward to a visit from her big brother Charles and his girlfriend Naomi.

  The Angel of Citadel Hill

  December 5, 1912

  Today we had a letter from Charles. Mother always saves his letters for me to open when I come home from school so that I can read them first. She knows how much I miss him.

  Today’s letter had BIG NEWS. Medium-sized surprise: He is coming home for Christmas. This is a surprise because for the past three years he has not had leave from his job over Christmas because he is a junior in the firm and so he hasn’t been able to travel from New York all the way to Halifax. (They don’t even have Boxing Day as a holiday in the United States, so they only have one day’s holiday, which is sad for them.) (Of course, he did come home last spring, to bring me back, but I don’t want to write about that.) He couldn’t give us much notice because he didn’t know about his holidays.

  Very large surprise: He is engaged to be married! His fiancée is named Naomi Livingston. (I had to go and ask Mother about the spelling of fiancée. It sounds as if it has something to do with finance and it also sounds French, but really it just means a woman who is engaged to be married. He’s a fiancé; she’s a fiancée.) She is twenty years old. Charles met her at a sailing regatta in the summertime.

  Gigantic surprise: Naomi Livingston is coming home with Charles! They will arrive on December 13. Eight days, I can’t WAIT.

  December 6

  By breakfast this morning Mother was already planning for the visit. Father said it was like she was heading a military campaign, and he started to sing a tongue-twister song called “A Modern Major General” until she said, “Father! Settle down,” in a very stern tone.

  The first thing to be decided was what room Naomi would have. This was a long discussion lasting through porridge as well as toast, but it was mostly Mother discussing with herself. The conclusion was that Naomi would have my room and they would put a cot in the box room for me. I don’t mind. I like the box room, which is tiny and cozy and also on the third floor where I think it might be easy to smuggle Borden into the room to sleep with me.

  At school I shared the NEWS with Winnifred and Flo. We all agreed that Naomi is the most beautiful name ever. Flo thinks that having a sister-in-law will be just like having a grown-up sister, but much better. Flo has a grown-up sister herself, so she’s the expert. I asked why a sister-in-law is better and she said that a grown-up sister remembers having to change your diapers and that makes it impossible for them to ever take you seriously.

  This got us all giggling and while we were in the middle of giggling, Winnifred said that Naomi will probably be very sophisticated, being from New York and all, and didn’t we all wish we could go to New York sometime. And then Flo said, “Winnifred!” and all the giggling stopped.

  I hate this. Winnifred forgot that New York was where I was taken after the Titanic disaster. I like it that she forgot. I don’t want people to always remember and be careful and then go all awkward and apologetic. I don’t want to be the one who makes the giggling stop.

  December 7

  The Major General has become possessed. Since she found out that Naomi is coming, she seems to think that the whole house needs to be taken apart and put back together again. Her favourite word is shabby. Last night we were sitting in the parlour just reading when Mother suddenly looked up and said, “Oh, Father, look at the hearth rug. It’s so shabby. What will Naomi think?” Father replied that of course it was shabby because Borden had been sleeping on it. Mother said we had to find a new one right away and Father said wouldn’t a good beating do and Mother said certainly not, and Borden, who really should have had the final say, did not contribute to the discussion.

  December 9

  I am in the box room. Mother calls it sulking. Sulking is a word grown-ups use to keep you from having your say. It is NOT FAIR that when you are a child you are not supposed to talk back and you are not supposed to sulk. That’s like saying if you’re angry you can’t keep it in and you can’t let it out. What are you supposed to do? Sit by and let Mr. Puddlington redecorate your room and cover up your ivy wallpaper?

  Back up and report the story properly.

  Today, when I got home from school, Mother was in the kitchen with Aunt Hazel and Mr. Puddlington. Father calls Mr. Puddlington the house genius. He sees to the boiler. He knows all about drains and leaky roofs. It turns out that he is also a wallpaper hanger, and he was sitting at the kitchen table with a big book of wallpaper samples. Mother had decided that the wallpaper in my room was “shabby” (of course) and needed to be replaced. She and Aunt Hazel were favouring a pattern called Floral Bouquet.

  I said most politely that I was very fond of my ivy wallpaper and that I didn’t care to have new. They asked me why I didn’t want a “lovely fresh bright new modern pattern.” This is when I knew I was doomed. I knew I could not tell them that on my wallpaper all the ivy vines link up. You can lie in bed and travel all around the room and you never take the same route twice. Floral Bouquet is just blobs of flowers. You can’t go anywhere on blobs unless you hop like a frog. So I just said that I liked the ivy and wanted to keep it. Then Aunt Hazel said, “Is somebody perhaps just a little jealous of Charles’s new sweetheart?” Then I went into a rage so I left the room before I said something bad. That’s why I’m in the box
room. Sulking.

  Later

  Father took my side! He came up to see me when he returned from work and he said that it is my room and I am allowed to make decisions about wallpaper. “Your mother is just nervous about meeting Naomi,” he said. “Being busy helps her.” He then proposed the compromise that we let Mr. Puddlington repaint my woodwork. “Mother thinks a nice cream colour would brighten things up.” I like my green woodwork and was getting ready to disagree when Father winked and said, “Concede the battle, Dorothy. You won the war.”

  December 12

  Tomorrow is the big day. I think Mother would like it if we all stopped breathing so as to not dirty up the air.

  December 13

  Friday the thirteenth is the opposite of unlucky in our house because Naomi is here and she’s perfect. She’s taller than I expected, nearly as tall as Charles. She has dark brown hair, short and wavy. I love the way she says water — “wohdr” — and coffee — “cahfee.” The first thing she said when Mother showed her to my room was, “What a pretty room, I do like the wallpaper,” and that made Mother and me both laugh and then Mother told her she would explain later. Even Borden likes her, and he is very particular. She is settling in and soon it will be dinner.

  December 14

  I think I’m finding out more about what it is like to be in love. Naomi and Charles just exchange these little looks as though there is nothing else in the world, like everything else has disappeared.

  For example, this evening Father decided to play some Christmas carols on the mandolin. When he plays “Joy to the World” he makes it sound like a dance number. We all got silly and sang many verses. I noticed that Naomi wasn’t singing along. Mother said, “Do you enjoy singing, Naomi?” She gave a big smile and said, “No, I have a complete tin ear. I’m musically hopeless.” Then Charles said, “Yes, she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket!” Then he looked at her as though not being able to carry a tune was something so wonderful and special. I always thought that somebody loved somebody else for what they were good at. But it also looks like you can love somebody for what they are not good at as well. That’s a relief.

  December 15

  Naomi came with presents for everyone. Mine was a polished wooden box with a tortoiseshell tatting shuttle and several colours of tatting cotton. Charles had told her that I know how to crochet, and she said that tatting is even more fun and she’s going to teach me to make lace. She was wearing a beautiful lace collar that she made herself.

  December 18

  I have been too busy to write. In a nutshell, over the past three days we decorated the house and made a wreath. Christmas concert at school. I went shopping with Naomi and I’m trying to finish a tatted doily for Mother’s present. Charles brought a newfangled camera with him and he’s been taking photographs. His friend Cedric came over and they compared cameras and had long talks about daylight loading and tank development.

  We had a Christmas parcel from England with letters. Millie has joined the Girl Guides. My present from Grandmother and Grandfather feels like a book.

  December 19

  Only one more day of school. Today Winnifred and Flo and Phoebe and I poked along home as slowly as we could. Phoebe says that there is going to be a Girl Guide group starting at the church next spring. We’re all going to join. Why should Boy Scouts have all the fun?

  When I got home Charles and Naomi had gone out somewhere. Aunt Hazel and Mrs. Hill were over for tea. I passed the tea things and then I settled down under the piano with Borden and my tatting. After they admired my picot stitch they forgot about me. I’ve noticed that this happens if I sit under the piano. It’s a good location for finding out what’s going on.

  Mother told Auntie and Mrs. Hill all the things she knew about Naomi. Mrs. Hill asked who her people were and Mother said that she is one of the New York Livingstons and that they have an apartment in Manhattan and a summer house on some island or other.

  “She rides.” Nods from the ladies.

  “They sail.” More nods.

  She reported that Naomi has four brothers and sisters, two older, two younger. “She said she was the ham in the sandwich and then Charles said she was too elegant to be ham and was more like cucumber and cream cheese. Isn’t that darling?” The ladies agreed that that was darling.

  She forgot to tell them about Naomi’s dog. His name is Laird and he loves to swim but now he is quite old and a bit smelly, but nobody in the family minds except her younger sister Priscilla, who can be difficult.

  My mind wandered for a minute, but I started to pay attention again when Mother’s voice changed. She said that Naomi seemed very close to her family. “I had always assumed that Charles would come back to Halifax some day. Foolish, I know.”

  Then Aunt Hazel said that when a daughter marries you gain a son, but when a son marries you lose a son. Then everything went very quiet.

  Me too. I stopped tatting. I had always figured that even though Charles was in New York learning to be a businessman, his real home was Halifax. I thought that he and Naomi would come and live here. One day. When a brother marries, do you lose a brother?

  And what about Grandmother and Grandfather? When Father married he went to a completely different country, Canada. Maybe that is just what happens.

  Sometimes I don’t want to grow up.

  December 20

  I’m in bed and it’s late. My light is supposed to be out, but nobody comes and checks on me here in the box room. I can’t sleep because I have too much to think about.

  This evening Father and Mother went out to the Hills’ for dinner, but Charles and Naomi didn’t go because Naomi wasn’t feeling well. Charles said he would heat up some soup for Naomi and then there was a lot of teasing about whether bachelors could heat up soup without burning it. Naomi said she would so appreciate it if I could stay home as well to keep her company.

  As soon as Mother and Father left, however, Naomi made a miracle recovery. We sat in the kitchen to eat and Charles said I was sworn to secrecy, but really it was a white lie and he just couldn’t face an evening with the Hills. “Mrs. Hill’s all right, but that Rev. Hill! He’s just so pompous and boring.” I didn’t know the word pompous before, but he didn’t need to explain it. It felt naughty to say something bad about a minister, but also secretly fun.

  I told them about the day in confirmation class when he made Phoebe cry. One of the show-off boys in the class asked Rev. Hill if angels were boys or girls. He said they were neither. Phoebe, who is going to be the angel in the pageant, argued and said if angels weren’t girls, why did they have long curly hair and dresses? Then Rev. Hill said that almost everything we thought about angels was just sentimental and that all we knew about them from the Bible was that they are powerful and they come with messages. Then he went on and on about Seraphim and Cherubim and all the different angel kinds in a boring sort of way.

  Then Louise, who doesn’t usually speak up, said that the other thing we know is that when people die they become angels. And Rev. Hill said that there is no theological reason to believe that. I guess he forgot that Phoebe’s nana had just died. Anyway, Phoebe cried and we all started to argue and Mrs. Hill had to come in and give us fruit buns to try to settle us down.

  By the time I had told that story, the soup was hot and we were all starving.

  We ate fruitcake and shortbread with the soup and after the soup as well. When Charles was putting things away he found some mince pies in the pantry so we sampled those.

  Then Naomi told me about the night that Charles came to collect me from the Carpathia. First she asked if it was all right to talk about it. Mostly I hate it when people talk about the disaster, but it was all right, from her. Already she feels like family.

  “I wanted to come with him to the dock,” she said. “I had never met you, but I just wanted to hug you and take you home, safe and sound, dry and warm and alive. But Charles said that you would not be in any shape to meet new people and that he needed to get
you home to Halifax as fast as possible.”

  She said that Charles was beside himself with worry when all that confusing news first hit, but strong and level-headed and absolutely sure that I would survive.

  “That’s when I fell in love with him,” she said. “For months I had been dithering. I just didn’t know how I felt about him. I’m only twenty, after all. But that’s when I realized that he’s the person I want on my lifeboat with me.”

  “So I have you to thank,” said Charles to me and mussed my hair.

  Lifeboat.

  Life.

  Boat.

  This made me cry and that made Naomi cry. Charles took out his big white handkerchief, but he didn’t know which one of us to give it to and that made Naomi laugh and that made me laugh and then Charles just looked confused, so he made cocoa instead of trying to understand us. After that there were more mince pies and more talk of the Titanic.

  That’s what we were doing when the parents came home. Mother said that I should be in bed already, but she didn’t say it with much gusto.

  But now I am in bed and I have one big iceberg-sized thought. All these months I have been saying to myself, “It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.” But that hasn’t worked. Now I think it didn’t work because it isn’t over. The Titanic sank. Because of that, a young woman named Naomi fell in love with a young man named Charles. And for everybody who was on that ship, whether they lived or died, it’s the same. Things happened because of the disaster and things keep on happening. Most of the things were terrible. Some of them are wonderful.

  It isn’t over. It won’t ever be over. I am a girl who survived the Titanic. That’s part of me.