A Time for Giving

by Jean Little

  Raffle Mania

  Wednesday, November 9th, 1892

  Last night, I dreamed of Christmas morning in our lovely new home and of waking to find a Christmas stocking on my silk jacquard counterpane with an orange and ribbon candy and a pair of cashmere gloves inside. The hall carpet felt soft and clean under my feet and I could hear Mama, Papa and Sarah laughing in the dining room below as the smell of toast and ham drifted up from Christmas breakfast. Alfie called, “Merry Christmas, Triffie!” as he rushed to join me.

  Then I really did wake to find myself lying beside Sarah, staring at the raw wooden beams of our warehouse home in the early morning dark and feeling as if we’d just lost everything all over again.

  Thursday, November 10th, 1892

  Alfie’s schoolmaster gives him lots of homework every night, so I have time to write in my diary. Everyone is trying to be cheerful, but I am dreading Christmas. It seems we’ve barely progressed since the fire last July. The parts of town that were untouched by the fire are filled with heaps of garbage (or worse). At least the City finally cleared the rubble from Water Street, though it took one hundred men with one hundred carts to do it.

  But Christmas will come, so I must fix my mind on the good things that have happened since the fire. Unlike many in St. John’s, we have a solid roof over our heads (though it belongs to an old warehouse). Papa’s shop on the floor below us is thriving, with twenty clerks and shopgirls now at work. Behind them, rows of tailors and dressmakers fill the air with the cheerful clatter of their sewing machines all day long. Best of all, our new candy kitchen will soon open in a storefront on Merrymeeting Road. The demand for candy at Christmas is boundless, of course, and we have orders from shops all over the island.

  That should be enough to make anyone happy, but I still feel crooked. Maybe Alfie has finished his homework.

  Friday, November 11th, 1892

  We often get past Christmas without snow, but last night we had three inches, followed by torrential rain, leaving the streets all mud and puddles. Today a reckless cart flew past May on King’s Bridge Road and she was so busy mopping the mud off her coat, we didn’t get much chance to talk before class. But as she passed my desk, she gave me a mysterious smile. I could hardly sit still, wondering what put that twinkle in her eye. At recess we bundled into our coats and rushed outside to talk. The children from St. Thomas’s school have recess at the same time, but we don’t mix. They seem to think the Church of England Girls’ School must harbour snobs, though we’ve been using their abandoned schoolhouse since September.

  May and I walked arm and arm along the Mall (where no carts are allowed, thank heaven) and she revealed her mystery the once. “Aunt Maude visited the school in Bannerman Park yesterday,” she began. Miss Maude (as always, devoted to good works) was looking for a poor girl who might benefit from a scholarship to our school. I shuddered at the mention of the park, remembering how Papa’s shopgirls, Miss Rosy, Liza and Phoebe, lived in a tent there among many hundreds displaced by the fire until we brought them to live with us. Those who still remain live in mean, low sheds that were quickly framed up last summer. Susie Verge’s family is among them. “Did she see Susie?” I asked.

  “Yes! That’s what I want to tell you!”

  May said Susie is working at the school in the park, helping the little ones. I was dismayed to learn Susie is working, but May rushed on to say that both of Susie’s parents are now employed at the new Harvey’s Bakery and Tobacco Factory in Hoylestown.

  I’m afraid that sent me off on a tangent, and I told May of Alfie’s fascination with the tobacco factory, an iron building shipped especially from London, England. All October, Alfie begged Sarah and me (or Mr. Morrissey with his cab when the weather was bad) to detour down to Wood’s Cove on our way home so he could watch the construction.

  May interrupted to bring the conversation back to Susie, and I was ashamed to have prattled on so about the building. Since the fire, I try to think of those who are less fortunate, but May has much more practice, living in a family of clergymen. Since both of Susie’s parents now have jobs, May told me, she may be allowed to return to school. Miss Maude will visit the Verge family this weekend to make the case. “Susie is too clever to leave school without finishing her education,” she concluded.

  And this is true. Most girls in Susie’s circumstances are already in domestic service. But Susie deserves more. She’s not a friend (Susie has no friends but her books). I’ve never seen anyone win so many prizes for her work in our class every year. She belongs in our school.

  So there’s another cheerful thing to add to my list: Susie Verge may come back to school.

  Saturday, November 12th, 1892

  The marble candy slabs arrived from New York a few weeks ago and the new candy makers are trained, but Papa is worried. Three of our head candy makers left Newfoundland after the fire to work in New Brunswick. Only Miss Serena Angel remains. She never worked until her father, Dr. Angel, died, and she lives in a world of her own. Before the fire, when we passed the candy kitchen in our old premises, I often heard her declaiming poetry. Today Papa told Mama that Miss Angel went into full mourning when Lord Tennyson died last month. She even made herself black aprons.

  After the fire, Miss Angel and her mother took many of Papa’s candy kitchen helpers into their fine house on Monkstown Road, so we certainly owe her a debt of gratitude, but no one would have chosen Miss Angel to take charge of the entire kitchen.

  Monday, November 14th, 1892

  The most terrible thing happened! The new Harvey’s Bakery and Tobacco Factory burned to the ground last night! Alfie noticed the flames before the alarm was raised, while he was looking at the harbour through his spyglass just before nightfall. At first Papa said someone must be burning garbage, but the fire grew until Alfie could make out the shape of the tobacco factory. No one knows how it started, an article in today’s Telegram said. As it was Sunday, the flames got a good hold before the watchmen noticed. All hands tried to save the buildings, but it was too late.

  More than one hundred and sixty people have lost their jobs, Susie’s parents among them. I wish buildings would not go up in flames as often as they do.

  Now the money Susie earns by helping at the Bannerman Park school will be needed more than ever, and she will never come back to school. Today May and I made a solemn vow to help the Verge family have some sort of Christmas, in spite of this calamity.

  Friday, November 18th, 1892

  May and I spent all week thinking of ways to help Susie’s family, to no avail. They will receive Christmas charity, of course, but that’s hardly enough. May has one dollar for Christmas presents and I have three, but I’m sure Miss Rosy and Phoebe and Liza will have gifts for me, and Mr. Matt always makes me a toy (a gift I never thought to return until now). Then there’s Ned.

  Since I found him sleeping in his boat under the wharf, he has become one of the family (albeit one who works very hard). This will be his first real Christmas since his parents died when he was ten — six long years with no Christmas. He’s helping to clear the bottom floor of the warehouse, which is chilly work, so I’ve budgeted twenty-five cents to buy him the best wool scarf I can find.

  May and I will have nothing left when our presents are bought. We are despondent.

  Monday, November 21st, 1892

  What a strange and happy Sunday evening we had! Sarah, Alfie, Ned, May and I were left alone while all the grown-ups went to George Street Wesleyan Church to hear Miss Georgina Stirling sing. They call her “the Nightingale of the North.”

  Nettie left us a cold supper of roast chicken and it felt like a picnic.

  Sarah’s making presents so, after we ate, she extracted the solemn promise that we would not peek, under any circumstance, and disappeared with an oil lamp down to the shop. May and I soon found ourselves telling Ned the sad story of the Verge family (because we seldom talk of anything else now). When we told him we wished we could help Susie’s family, he reminde
d us that a raffle is the best way to make money at Christmastime. May said yes, but we’d need a wheel of fortune (which Christmas raffles generally use). Ned replied that we could just draw tickets with numbers on them. We were all set to make tickets right then. With the girls in our school and the children in St. Thomas’s as well, we’d have a ready-made market at recesses.

  Then Alfie asked what we would raffle off.

  Nothing, of course. All our trinkets disappeared in the fire last July, along with everything else. Our grand plan came crashing down around us.

  Friday, November 25th, 1892

  Today the wind twisted the frame of a house under construction and then the chimney on the house next door crashed onto it. Mr. Morrissey showed us the ruin on King’s Road near Alfie’s school. All the way home, we passed policemen stationed on corners to warn people away from shaky walls. The wind is still blowing a gale. It feels as if it must have a grudge against us. To cheer us up, Papa proposed a family expedition to the new candy kitchen tomorrow, as it is now up and running, and he invited Ned along. So now we have something to look forward to.

  Saturday, November 26th, 1892

  Miss Angel deserves her name and I forgive her strange ways, because May and I can run our Christmas raffle, thanks to her.

  The new candy kitchen is bright and cheerful, with whitewashed walls and marble tables where the boiling sugar syrup is poured inside tin curbs to cool until it can be worked. Everyone was going full steam, though Miss Angel seems to have it all in hand and she took time to show us around. Near the end of our tour, where everything is wrapped for shipping, I noticed a big wooden crate of broken ribbon candy and candy canes. Miss Angel said those pieces are too broken to be sold, and I had an inspiration.

  “Could I have them?” I asked.

  “Why, Tryphena, that much candy would make any child quite ill.” (She always calls me by my proper name.) I told her I planned to use the candy to make things easier for some children in Bannerman Park, and her eyes filled with tears of sympathy. Papa overheard and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Why, Triffie, what a splendid idea.”

  I’m sure they think I will give the candy to children in Bannerman Park. It might be wicked of me, but I did not correct them. May and I would not be allowed to run a raffle if anyone knew.

  Miss Angel offered to let me use her house to bag the candy, as it is so close to Bannerman Park, and Papa said he’d have it carted to her house along with penny-candy bags that we send out to shops. Then Papa said I was not to venture into Bannerman Park alone and told Ned he could accompany me whenever I need him.

  I can’t wait to tell May!

  Monday, November 28th, 1892

  May could hardly believe our luck. We went to Miss Angel’s house after school today and made up nice generous bags of broken candy at the dining-room table. Old Mrs. Angel is a sweet woman with a vague, misty air about her, much like her daughter. Then Ned arrived to escort us to the park. Of course, we had no intention of going, but there was too much candy for May to carry alone, so we walked her back to St. Thomas’s Church beside the school. (May’s grandfather was once deacon there and she knew of a cupboard we could use.)

  Since we were passing Bannerman Park anyway, Ned said it might be wise to visit so I wouldn’t have to lie if anyone asked at supper.

  I knew where to find the Verge family because we’d passed their shed the day we came to look for Papa’s shopgirls. The park was bleak in summer, but it’s even more desolate now. We found Susie outside with a mousy toddler clinging to her skirts, surrounded by boys playing hoist your sails and run. Susie told us her family now lives in two sheds with a doorway cut between, so they have more room, and they got a stove in October, so that would help over winter. She told us she could even bring the little ones to school with her when her mother was working. She said all this in her cheerful, distant way, sounding like a grown-up. I suppose spending her life in the kind of adversity that would utterly break my spirits has made her that way. We left her with six bags of candy, enough for each child in her family. No one mentioned the raffle, of course. If she wondered what we were carrying, she didn’t say.

  On the long walk home, after we left May, Ned asked question after question about Susie. I’ve never seen him so curious.

  Saturday, December 3rd, 1892

  The week flew by and our raffle is a roaring success. We sell three tickets for 5¢. Our girls have generous pocket money and some spend as much as 10¢ on tickets every day! May says they have “raffle mania,” since they can only win 5¢ worth of candy.

  The children at St. Thomas’s school pool their pennies to buy tickets. We quickly realized the injustice in this, so we now run two raffles, one for each school. We draw five winning tickets for each at the end of recess, behind the church porch, away from the teachers in the yard. (It’s lucky that Sarah spends recess indoors sewing for the Christmas sale.) At first we picked a child in Infants from each school to draw the tickets, but that didn’t work. Seraphina Lemessurier certainly looks angelic with her blond curls, but we caught her peering into the bag to find her friends’ names before she drew. (We had not noticed them writing on their tickets.) Now May draws the tickets herself.

  We made $2.00 this week! At this rate, we will have a fortune for the Verges by Christmas.

  Saturday, December 10th, 1892

  Raffle mania continues unabated. This week we made $2.50. Some girls have had to write I must not eat candy in school on the blackboard after class, but no one tattled on us, thank heaven. May and I plan to place all the money in an envelope and slip it under the door of the Verges’ shed before Christmas. This is a very sensible plan, though it’s disappointing to think we will never know what good our money did.

  Tuesday, December 13th, 1892

  Today Alfie asked if he might run his own raffle at the Church of England College to help the Verge family. It seems Ned has been talking to him non-stop about the Verges since he met Susie in the park. Now I am all nerves. Some of the C of E College boys are so much older than Alfie that they are preparing to go to university. But he would not stop asking about a raffle of his own, and someone was bound to overhear if I didn’t agree. This means I must sneak bags of candy over to Alfie before school each day.

  We had a lovely snowfall though, all fluffy for once. It hid all the mess in the streets and St. John’s looks ready for Christmas.

  Friday, December 16th, 1892

  Running over to Alfie’s school made me late for class this morning. Miss Simms was not angry, but she said that next time I will have to write lines. Because of the snow, we almost always go in Mr. Morrissey’s sleigh now, so Alfie is dropped off first and I can’t bring him with me to fetch the candy himself. Money from the raffle was down this week; we only cleared $1.00.

  Alfie, however, made a handsome $2.20, as the raffle is still a novelty at his school.

  Sunday, December 18th, 1892

  Sarah and I were allowed to go Christmas shopping by ourselves yesterday! I found a ten-cent novel, Topsy Turvy by Jules Verne, which will delight Mr. Matt, and a tartan lambswool scarf for Ned. We did feel disloyal, going into shops on Water Street, but they are mostly just sheds. Our solid warehouse felt grand in comparison when we returned. We splurged on armloads of evergreen boughs men were selling on street corners. Now our warehouse smells like a forest. Christmas is only a week away!

  Tuesday, December 20th, 1892

  Alfie came toward Mr. Morrissey’s sleigh this afternoon with his head down, carrying a letter from the headmaster. He sniffled all the way home while Sarah peppered him with questions, but I knew he’d been caught. I’d feared an older boy might steal his money. Instead, a high-minded one turned him in for gambling! No one has ever spoken harshly to Alfie, so I forgive him for tattling under pressure. He told everything. The headmaster wants a meeting tomorrow with Papa and Mama and Alfie and me, but also Miss Cowling and, worst of all, May, with Mrs. Seaward and the Reverend Mr. Seaward. Mama and Papa are to
o poisoned with me to even show their fury, which is a terrible punishment.

  I have disgraced my entire family.

  Wednesday, December 21st, 1892

  I felt like a prisoner facing the gallows all day. It was a relief when Miss Cowling finally called May and me to her office. As daylight faded we walked in silence to Alfie’s very beautiful school, where our parents were waiting with Alfie and his headmaster. The whole story tumbled out and everyone seemed greatly relieved to learn we had not set out to rob our schoolmates for personal gain. Miss Cowling was especially moved by our concern for Susie.

  I expected Alfie’s headmaster, Mr. William Walker Blackall, to be the fierce kind of Englishman, but he is a mousy fellow with bright, enquiring eyes. He did demand we refund all the money, but he softened when May burst into tears.

  When I explained we had no way of knowing how much anyone had spent on tickets, it was agreed that the money should be given to the Verge family after all. As “punishment,” Alfie, May and I are to deliver the remaining candy to the school in Bannerman Park. Then Papa said he was prepared to find work for Mr. Verge, on the condition that Susie is allowed to return to the C of E Girls’ School after Christmas.

  Papa says he hopes I have learned a lesson. I might have, but it will take time to sort out what the lesson might be. Now, at least, I am fully prepared to throw myself into Christmas.