1
"Stop the team a minute," Peter told Gus. He looked down upon the
white-roofed house and barns, the frozen creek, strawstacks like
giant mushrooms capped with white, the drifted hedgerows interlaced
with rabbit tracks, Lake Koshkonong like a floor of green glass
surrounded by its gnarled forests of black, leafless oaks.
"What's the matter?" Gus asked. "Had a fight with your girl?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"Don't trust no woman farther'n you could throw a horse," counseled
the hired man.
"I told her that if she went off to her Grandmother's in Madison
over Christmas she could stay away for good."
"And so she went!"
"How'd you know?"
"Any woman would."
"Damn her," said Peter. "No, I don't mean that." He wondered why he
was confiding in Gus. No one else to confide in, really.
"Just act like she doesn't exist," said Gus. "Go ahead and have a
good time without her. She'll come crawling back on her belly."
"You don't know this girl."
"Maybe not this one," Gus admitted, "but they're all cats out of
the same litter."
* * * * *
"You home, boy?" Stud asked.
Early Ann helped Peter off with his coat and chucked him under the
chin.
"Trailer factory's shut down, Dad. They're losing money."
"Shut down for good?"
"Start up again the first of the year more'n likely."
"What'd you do if the 'Trailer' shut down for good?"
"Don't know, Father."
"Might you come back to the farm?"
"I might," said the boy, averting his eyes.
Four days until Christmas. The house was already decorated with
holly and red bells. There were frost flowers on the window panes
and the base burner glowed brightly. His mother was sitting before
the stove in her favorite rocker piecing a quilt.
"There's lots of rabbits this year," Sarah said. She thought: I
don't want him to kill rabbits. I hate trapping, hunting, and
slaughtering. It made me sick the time I saw Stanley castrating the
little boars.
"I'll have a good time, Mother," Peter said. He thought: why
shouldn't I have a good time. Maxine probably lets half the boys in
Brailsford Junction kiss her.
"We haven't had a good rabbit stew all season," Sarah said. She
thought: I used to tell him stories about every piece in the quilt.
What dress it came from and where I wore it. This piece is out of
the brown silk I took along on my honeymoon. I wore it that night
we rowed out on Lake Mendota and saw the dome of the capitol at
Madison shining in the moonlight. I wonder if Stanley remembers.
"That's a pretty quilt," Peter said. He thought: she used to tell
me stories about the pieces she was sewing. I wish she would again.
"See, it's a flower design," she said. She thought: he's grown up
now. He wouldn't want to listen.
"I got the drawings for my camp trailer done, Ma," he said. He
thought: I'll do something great for Mother when I'm rich.
"I'm sure Mr. O'Casey will build one," she said. She thought: then
he'll be gone forever.
"I'm not so sure," Peter said. He thought: if the "Trailer" shuts
down I'll probably have to come back to the farm and be glad of the
chance.
Sarah thought: I want to know every little thing about his
life--how he gets on at the factory, how Temperance Crandall takes
care of him, whether he smokes or drinks, whether he's a good boy
and goes to church, or whether he hangs around the pool hall. I
want to know about Maxine Larabee. But I don't dare ask. It would
frighten him still farther away.
The needle clicked against the thimble. The silk rustled in Sarah's
hands. Coal crackled in the stove and the wind whispered at the
corners of the house. After a while the smell of roasting chicken
drifted in from the kitchen.
"You're getting to be a big boy," she said. She thought: I wanted
him to stay little forever. I wanted to keep him close to me, but
he's grown so far away.
"I'm more than six feet," the boy said. He thought: it's beautiful
with Maxine. I can't get along without her any more. I'm a man now
and know all there is to know about women.
Sarah was startled looking into his face. She thought: why, he
isn't my little boy. He's a stranger.
2
That night at supper--chicken, dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed
potatoes, giblet gravy, hot mince pie and coffee--Stud waved a
drumstick while orating just what he would do if Joe Valentine came
across the Brailsford line again.
Still grasping the drumstick he assumed a fighting pose which would
have startled John L. Sullivan, the strong boy from Boston.
"I can't sleep nights for thinking of that terrible man," Sarah
confessed.
"Why don't we chase him off the Point?" Peter asked.
"Or have the law on him?" suggested Gus.
"I'll shoot him if I ever get a chance," Early Ann cried
passionately.
"Leave him to me," Stud told the rest of the family. "He ain't
harmful. He's got a right to live the same as we have. We ain't
going to shoot him or have the law on him, or run him off the
Point. But if he comes across our line again I'll give him a real
licking."
"Give him a couple of extra punches for me," said Early Ann. "I
wish I was a man. I'll bet I could lick him."
"And meanwhile," said Stud, "it's almost Christmas day. We'll have
to take him some victuals for his Christmas dinner,--something for
the Olesons and the Widow Morrison, too. We'll do it tonight."
"Drive over to Lake House Point at night?" Gus asked in dismay.
"Scared cat," taunted Early Ann.
"I wasn't thinking of myself," said Gus, "I was just worrying about
the womenfolks."
Early Ann tittered.
After supper they put on sheepskin coats and mufflers, filled a
bob-sleigh with pecks of potatoes, bags of apples, three small
picnic hams, and some canned fruit. They sat in the deep straw
covered with fur robes and went gayly down the road to the
tumble-down Oleson shack.
"They're Svenskies," said Stud, "but they're better neighbors than
some civilized people." He poked Gus in the ribs to emphasize the
taunt.
"I'd rather be a Scandihoovian than a gol darn beef-eating
Englishman," sniffed Gus.
It made Sarah sad to see how grateful Hilda Oleson was for the
presents. Ole Oleson was sullen as usual.
"Ay t'ink next yar Ay vill gif you sometink to eat, ya?" He puffed
vigorously at his corncob, and continued to carve his ship model.
The rosy Hilda, all aflutter, began to apologize for the state of
her house which was as spotless as a new pan. She led them in on
tiptoe to see young Ole, who would be a year old in a few months
now. He lay with his small, plump arms thrown above his head, his
lips working busily as he dreamed of Hilda's breast. The lamp light
made a halo of his blond fuzz, shone upon his pink cheeks and his
long eyelashes. The soft spot on his head beat rhythmically with
his pulse. He stirred, made a lusty sucking noise with his mouth,
opened his big blue eyes, and began to cry for his evening nursing.
Sarah, as always in the presence of a baby, mourned her age. Stud
was frankly envious; Gus, embarrassed.
"It seems like yesterday you were this size," Sarah told the
discomfited Peter.
Hilda put the baby in Sarah's arms, and he began to nuzzle at her
shrunken breasts. Quick tears sprang to her eyes.
"Ve yoost love little Ole," Hilda whispered to Sarah as they
returned to the other room. "Ay t'ink anudder kom pretty soon."
Ole senior brightened, seeing the Brailsfords gathered around his
son. He helped his wife to serve coffee cake and coffee, and when
the visitors were leaving forced them to take a beautiful little
full-rigged ship with a Norse figurehead at its prow. They had
never seen such exquisite carving. He followed them to the door,
and called after them, "Tack sa mycket ... thanks, thanks."
They were only a few minutes at the Widow Morrison's, then went
jingling through the snowy moonlight down the all but overgrown
road to Lake House Point. They crossed the corduroy stretch
bordered by leafless willow trees and climbed the rutted,
precipitous lane which rose through scrub oak and hazel brush to
the old hunting lodge. As they reached the kitchen door the light
went out, and although Stud went boldly in and called Joe Valentine
no one answered. They unloaded the food and carried it into the
dark kitchen, then turned the horses toward home and went plunging
down the hill,--sparks flying from the sharp-shod hooves.
One evening they went hunting rabbits in the moonlight to test out
the new shotgun which Temperance had given Peter as a pre-dated
Christmas present, and the next night all the young folks for
miles gathered for a bob-sleigh party.
Coming home at three in the morning through a white, silent world
Early Ann rested her head on Peter's shoulder. The moon was going
down in the west throwing long shadows from fenceposts and trees.
The tired horses walked slowly, blowing steam from their frosty
nostrils. Peter slipped his arm around Early Ann and she did not
take it away. He kissed her as they turned in at the farm and she
returned the kiss.
But he was happy that next morning she made no allusions to their
love-making. Instead she challenged him to a skating race and they
battled eagerly across the bay with the wind stinging their cheeks
and their skates ringing.
3
On Christmas Eve the whole family helped to decorate the Christmas
tree. They pinned their socks and stockings to the branches and
each in turn played surreptitious Santa Claus. Such rare luxuries
as oranges and English walnuts were stuffed into bags of red
netting, and these in turn were shoved into the foot of each
stocking. A very few inexpensive but thoughtful gifts were wrapped
in tissue paper and tied with silver ribbons. Stud had the worst
of it, trying to tie pretty bow knots with his large, blunt fingers.
They gathered about the organ and sang Christmas carols while
Sarah played. Beginning with such semi-frivolous songs as "Jingle
Bells" and "Deck the Halls with Wreaths of Holly," they progressed
to the more moving hymns such as "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,"
and "Silent Night, Holy Night." Sarah's sweet soprano, Stud's deep
bass, Early Ann's husky alto, and Peter's clear baritone joined
to praise the Mother and Child who one thousand nine hundred and
thirteen years before had occupied a manger in Bethlehem.
On that same Christmas Eve, Joe Whalen and Kate Barton who had been
respectively pumping and playing the Methodist pipe organ since
their late teens decided to elope to Janesville. Kate had finally
induced Joe to take the temperance pledge, but he felt that a quart
of rye was imperative to celebrate his coming nuptials.
Temperance Crandall lit the candle in her front window. She could
hear the children singing at the church, but she did not cross
the street to attend the cantata. After a while she blew out the
candle, stoked the fire, went up the cold, dark stairs to her bed.
On a Pullman sleeper roaring toward New York, Mike O'Casey awoke
from a fretful sleep, pulled up the blind, and found he was in
Cleveland. Christmas carollers were making an ungodly racket on the
station platform. He made obscene remarks about the whole idea of
Christmas as well as the fool notion of attempting to run a trailer
factory in Brailsford Junction. His friend O'Hallohan, the New York
banker, would have to sign his note for fifty thousand dollars, or
he would tell Tammany what he knew about O'Hallohan.
To the tune of the "Junkman Rag" Maxine Larabee was dancing the
night away in Madison, Wisconsin, with a Beta from the University
of Wisconsin who would presently know the last word on legumes,
rotation of crops, and soil analysis. She was very sleepy the next
morning when her wealthy grandmother came into her bedroom crying
"Merry Christmas."
From the windows where he sat brooding Joe Valentine could see the
Brailsford home ablaze with Christmas. A plan began to take form
in his slow mind. If Stud Brailsford thought that he could buy
him with a few groceries he was badly mistaken. Joe never forgot.
He hadn't forgotten that nigger who had knifed him in Rockford,
Illinois. Some black woman was probably still hunting for that
shine.
And Stud Brailsford--when the others were in bed--went out with his
lantern to take a last look at the barns. The ponies drowsed in
their box stalls, the big bull's eyes glowed in the lantern light.
Stud stopped to pet the stallion and the twin Percheron colts. One
of those twins would some day make a great sire.
He noticed that the stars were very large and bright above his barn
that night.
BOOK FOUR