Mary hustled about the cabin. Robert and the boys had left at sun-up with the homemade sled to go up into the canyon after wood. Mary didn't notice the passing time because there was so much to do. The red berries the boys had brought back from the mountainside last week, that she had dried so carefully, must be strung on some of her precious thread so that they could garland the rough walls of the new cabin. There was Indian popcorn to pop for more garlands to drape around the small cedar that fragrantly filled one corner of the small room. But over and above all was the pudding. She had hoarded her precious store of cloves and spices. The sugar ginger in its little tin box she had brought all the way from England with her. Then there was the orange peel from oranges Robert had carried so carefully from California when he had rejoined them after the battalion broke up. She had preserved it in wild honey. The chopped suet was from a deer. Instead of brown sugar the sweetener was molasses mixed with honey. But, would it taste like English pudding? It had to. She had looked forward so long to this Christmas.
Not since she and Robert had left England had they celebrated a real Christmas. There were the warm shirts for the boys and the knitted stockings and mittens for Robert and a handmade doll for the baby. It had taken her months to make them and they were now wrapped in brown paper under the little tree. The tree wasn't really English either, but some of the German Saints in the fort last winter had put one up and she had liked the idea. This year, in their own home, rough cabin though it was, they would be a family again. Last winter they had been in the fort and the winter before they had shivered through a lonely Christmas at Winter Quarters. But now she would make her English memories live again for her children. She would make Robert remember when they were first married in their snug little English home.
She hadn't noticed how dark it had grown until she opened the door and looked out to see if she could get a glimpse of her menfolk. The bright sun of the morning had gone and snowflakes were starting to drift down. A small frown creased her forehead but she supposed they would come soon. Mary Ellen started to cry so she closed the door and turned back to where the baby sat on the fur rug in front of the fireplace. She sang to her softly until she went to sleep, then laid her on the hand-pieced quilts that covered the bed behind he curtain.
She went again, to look out and this time her heart thudded in her chest. There were fresh tracks in the new snow and they lead around the shed where their one and only milk cow, the only one in the west valley in fact, was housed. Mary forgot her fear and turned back to the corner for the old gun. They had been warned about spending the winter outside the fort. But no, she would have her own place. Perhaps they would all be scalped for Christmas. Then who would eat the pudding now in its rag bubbling merrily in the iron pot over the fire?
She gasped when she turned around. Four heavily blanketed figures stood at the door. But she dropped the gun as one held out a bundle to her. Her mother's heart went out to the small infant that was mewing like a kitten. The baby's skin was hot to her touch. She looked up to ask what to do. But her visitors had left as silently as they had come with only the tiny baby to remind her that they had been there. In the next hour she forgot everything but this small life. She warmed some of Bessie's good milk and spooned it between the small lips. She applied warm goose grease to the little brown chest and crooned and talked the tiny stranger into a sound sleep, then laid him lovingly along side her own sleeping Mary Ellen.
The boys came crashing in as twilight deepened and Mary shushed them. When Robert saw the sleeping child his face whitened. "Do you know what you have done?", he declared. "If that baby dies, we'll be blamed."
"But it's Christmas Eve, Robert. Remember the other child. I could not turn him away." Robert nodded his head, but he determined he would sit awake through the night with the gun at his side. Sometime later, when the candle guttered low, the babe felt cool to Mary's touch and she went to sleep to dream of another baby in another time and another land.
The snow stopped during the night and Christmas morning dawned bright and clear. Mary almost forgot about the baby sleeping so quietly now as she hurried about building the fire and rousing the boys from their quilts in the loft. Not until the door opened quietly did she remember. At first she thought it was Robert coming in from his chores, but it was the blanketed figures of yesterday. She could see now that it was three men and one woman. As she placed the now peaceful child in the woman's arms the look that they exchanged was that of one mother to another. The other mother squatted down and began crooning softly. One man went out then but returned in a minute with a puzzled Robert. He was carrying a large foul of some kind.
When that day ended, Mary knew it had not been an English Christmas after all, but a new way in a new land. They had shared this day with their Lamanite friends and every bite of pudding had been a delight.
Years passed and often a growing Indian lad came to share a day with Mary. And when she was old and left this land at last, a dignified Indian Chief came to kneel and share in her family's grief.
The Writings of Zelda Lorraine Brown Kline
Edited by Owen A. Kline and Michael E. Kline. Assistant Photo Editor David O. Kline
Copyright @1999 The Kline Family Organization, Inc.
First published in the United States of America by The Kline Family Organization, Inc. 4381 West 5375 South Kearns, Utah 84118
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