Till Morning Is Nigh (2 page)

Those words, spit out in barely contained fury, worked painfully at my insides. It was easy to see the anger churning so prominently in Willy’s eyes. But it seemed to be melancholy working in Joe, who answered quickly with his voice low and somber. “
You
stop it, Will. He’s jus’ a little kid. He don’t know no better.”

Lizbeth didn’t speak to either of them. She seemed to be doing her best to ignore Bert’s boisterous carol as well as the reaction it had gotten. “I tried to get some breakfast down her,” she said, talking about Emmie again, “but she didn’t want nothin’. Didn’t drink much neither.”

“I’ll try again,” I assured her. “Maybe just some water for now.”

The big boys polished off most of the rest of the mush and set their bowls and spoons in the dishpan.

“Sarah, Katie, get your books,” I called, cradling Emmie in one arm and reaching for lunch pails with the other. Robert was pulling on his coat and hat, and Harry went searching under the table for a fallen mitten.

“It’s gonna snow,” Kirk announced gloomily.

Nobody acknowledged the words with anything more than a look. I didn’t address them either. Snow was the last thing I wanted to think about right now.

I suddenly realized I hadn’t heard a peep out of Rorey, the only other Hammond girl. She was just a little older than my seven-year-old, Sarah, and usually one of the loudest of the bunch. But today she’d stepped in quietly without a word. She was sitting sideways in one of the chairs, not looking quite herself.

“Rorey, are you feeling all right?”

She shook her head. I walked to her quickly to feel whether she was as warm as her little sister, but before I got there, she suddenly pitched forward and lost her unidentifiable breakfast all over the floor.

“Ewww!” Harry shouted.

I handed the baby to Joe and tried my best to clean Rorey up a little. Sure enough, she was feverish too.

“Are any of the rest of you feeling poorly?” I asked with a sinking feeling. Oh, what terrible timing!

“I wish,” Willy answered me glumly. “I don’t want no tests today.”

“Can I lie down?” Rorey asked me miserably.

“I’ll wash the floor,” Lizbeth offered, so I went with both of the little girls into our bedroom. Rorey climbed up on the bed, and I tried to lay Emmie down too, but she didn’t want to let go of me.

“I don’t wanna be sick,” Rorey told me.

“I don’t blame you, honey. And I’m so sorry.”

“I wish I didn’t get out of bed today.”

“You can stay right in this bed for awhile. It’s all right. Were you feeling poorly when you first got up?”

She nodded, sinking into the pillows and looking miserable.

Maybe Lizbeth had been too busy with Emmie to realize that Rorey was sick too. Maybe Rorey hadn’t even tried to tell anyone. I didn’t know. But she shouldn’t have been sent out in the cold, that was for sure.

Rorey sniffed, tears filling her eyes. “I hate winter! It’s always full of bad stuff.”

“Oh, honey. There’s a lot of good too.”

Emmie fussed so much I really couldn’t console Rorey. Emmie wouldn’t lie down. She only wanted to be held, but even though I obliged her, she continued to fuss. And the rest of the kids needed to scurry on to school now. Rorey shut her eyes, and I knew she was ready to rest. I took Emmie with me to get Rorey a glass of water, and then I turned my attention to getting the other little girls and everybody else on their way.

I made Katie and Sarah pull on double stockings and bundle up against the chill. Neither of them had boots that fit, but we could be thankful that their sturdy shoes would last them through the winter.

“It just figures that somebody’d get sick in December,” Willy said. “Just like Mama and Emma Graham last year.”

Such a thought left everybody quiet. Both women had died just days before Christmas.

It was a sullen group of children that left my house for school that morning. Even Katie, who hadn’t been with us a year ago to understand the losses that had hit us so hard, seemed sullen and preoccupied.
Lord, be with us. We can’t help but think about it! How are we ever going to get through Christmas?

I watched at the window for a moment as four Hammond boys, along with Lizbeth, Robert, Sarah, and little Katie trudged across the farmyard with their lunch pails and books in hand. Lizbeth wouldn’t have left at all, except for my promise that I’d be fine tending to Rorey and Emmie without her. But it was more than the little girls’ sickness on my mind. Only ten days until the holiday was upon us. What on earth was the matter with me that I hadn’t been doing more to prepare these children, to start sharing holiday blessings with them? No wonder they seemed so down in the mouth, even my own children. They must all be wondering what Christmas would hold for them this year, when we were still so aware of the empty places inside us. Wilametta Hammond, mother of ten. And dear old Emma Graham, my precious friend. Both gone in one awful, frigid night.

But I could not stop to dwell on such things now. With a sigh, I turned from the window to face the four little Hammonds still here with me. I almost wished I could have kept all the children home longer, perhaps for a game or some holiday baking, anything to bring a smile to their faces before they had to head out in the cold. But there would be time for that, though I’d been putting it off too long. I needed to bring out the decorations, immerse the children in all the holiday cheer I could muster. Samuel had even told me the same thing. “As hard as it is for all of us,” he’d said, “they’re going to need all the Christmas we can give them this year.”

Of course he was right, but we had precious little to give. All of the Hammonds would be at our house again. That was an agreement Samuel had already made with George, who insisted that he couldn’t handle Christmas at all without our help. He’d promised to bring a ham. We were making presents. But those would not be the important things. We would need a touch from God this year to find healing, to find real peace.

“Lidda Lor’ Jesus,” Berty was singing under the table. “As’eep on da hay.”

At least there was one of us in the Christmas spirit. Emmie tugged a strand of my hair loose as I put the teakettle on to heat. Maybe some mild chamomile tea sweetened with a touch of honey would be of benefit to both girls. Or willow bark, to cut the fever.

Franky must have been thinking along the same lines. “You got medicine?”

“I’ve got a few things. But rest is probably what they need most.”

“Rorey’s a’ready asleep. That’s good, ain’t it?”

I hadn’t noticed him going to check on her. “Yes, that’s good. Hopefully she can sleep several hours. It’d be the best thing for her.”

“She bad sick?” Berty suddenly asked, the uncertainty plain in his eyes.

“I don’t think it’s bad, no.”

“Like Mama sick?”

“No. Nothing like that. She’ll be just fine. Don’t worry.” It was easy to assure him, and he quickly turned his thoughts to our regular routine. “We do school today?” He ran for the drawer that held Crayolas. Berty had felt left out when Harry started school without him this year, so I always gave him something to do when I worked with Franky. That satisfied him that they both “did school” at our house.

“You can color me a picture to go along with that lovely song you were singing,” I told him. “Then after I get Emmie to eat something, or at least drink aplenty, we can start something else.”

“Okay,” he answered me, reaching into the cupboard for paper.

“You usually wash the breakfast dishes first,” Franky observed. “Do you want me to do that for you?”

I hesitated. But he was already started across the kitchen. He dipped warm water into the dishpan from the large pot I’d set at the back of the stove before breakfast.

“Where’s the soap?” he asked me.

I reached for a cake of Alberta Mueller’s homemade lavender lye hand soap from the cupboard. “This is the only kind I have left. I was going to grate just a bit. But the dishes can wait—”

“Oh, I’ll grate it for you,” he offered immediately. “I like to grate soap. Lizbeth lets me do that a lot.”

I smiled. Franky always wanted to keep busy and stay helpful. He’d been that way even when his leg was bothering him the most and he couldn’t do outside chores like the other boys. And Lizbeth had gotten very good at finding small tasks that gave him an opportunity to contribute. “Wonderful,” I told him. “That will be a great help.”

I tried to interest Emmie in the last dab of mush. Nothing doing. I tried a little applesauce, and she wouldn’t take more than three bites. She didn’t want milk either, but she did drink water for me, a good half a cup, and that was a relief.

Rorey slept most of the morning, but I couldn’t get Emmie to sleep at all, so she was cranky as a little bear by the time Samuel came home around lunchtime. Our neighbor, Barrett Post, had come early in the morning for Samuel’s help with his furnace, and I’d prayed they could get it in good working order quickly. Louise Post had been down with the flu, and I knew she needed the heat.

Samuel gave me a kiss and told me they’d managed to get the furnace fixed all right. “Looks like you’ve had your hands full,” he said and lifted Emmie from my arms.

“Constantly. She hasn’t tolerated me putting her down for more than a minute all morning.” Then I told him about Rorey in our bed with a fever and George over at their house resting alone after slipping on their back steps.

Samuel shook his head. “You’d think Lizbeth would have wanted to stay home with all three of them.”

“She would have. But George wouldn’t let her.”

Samuel frowned. “I’ll go talk to him after lunch. Maybe he just wanted your doctoring help with the girls, without troubling you to come out.”

“Maybe.” I certainly wasn’t convinced, and Samuel knew my doubts. He had enough understanding of George to have plenty of doubts of his own. “I’ll send some liniment with you when you go over there,” I told him. “And a bite to eat too, in case he hasn’t stirred around to get himself anything.”

“Six, seben . . .” Berty’s voice, quiet with concentration, floated in from the sitting room. I’d given him and Franky each a bowl of dried beans to use for an arithmetic lesson. Berty was just to line his up and see how high he could count. But Franky had a much different assignment: find out how many beans in his bowl and divide the number by five, and then by twelve. I hoped it wasn’t too difficult for him. Berty kept up his counting aloud, but Franky didn’t make a sound.

I turned my attention to fixing lunch, and Samuel sat at the kitchen table with Emmie in his arms. “Barrett said he couldn’t pay me for the help today,” he said with a sigh. “Things are bad when even the Posts can’t pay. He said he’d return the favor when he could.”

I counted potatoes, trying to decide how many we’d use with Rorey and Emmie not likely to have very big appetites. “That’s all right. That’s what neighbors are for.” But despite my words, I felt a familiar uneasiness stirring inside me. We were facing the holidays again absolutely penniless.

Even without looking his way, I knew Samuel was watching me. “I’ve been working on some ideas for a few of the boys,” he told me, his voice barely above a whisper. “Have you been able to make much progress toward gifts?”

“Some. Not enough yet.”

“There’s time. We’ll have something for everyone before the holiday.”

I plopped potatoes in a pot, jackets and all. Something for everyone? Oh, there was so much more to Christmas than the gifts! But he was right. We had to make do. “I’ve been working on a blouse for Lizbeth. And a doll for Katie.”

“Any ideas for the oldest boys?”

I wasn’t sure what to tell him. But a shuffle of footsteps coming in from the sitting room interrupted our conversation anyway.

“There was a hun’erd an’ eighty-nine beans in my bowl, Mrs. Wortham,” Franky announced. “Dividin’ out fives makes thirty-seven with four lef’ over. An’ dividin’ out dozens gives fifteen, leavin’ nine.”

I stared at him for a moment. He’d gotten done far more quickly than I expected. It took me a while thinking that through before I could answer him with a nod. “You’re right. That was very good.”

“Excellent figuring, Franky,” Samuel congratulated him. “You’ve made great progress with your arithmetic.”

The boy acknowledged the compliment with barely a nod. “You don’t hafta fix me up nothin’ for Christmas,” he told my husband immediately. “I got a pocketknife from your brother in July, and there weren’t nobody else got a present back then.”

Samuel shook his head. “He gave that to you because he felt terrible about hitting you with his car. That’s something different.”

“It was still a present. An’ I sure have liked it too. So I’m satisfied with nothin’ else this year if we’re comin’ up short. All I need’s some wood to whittle on regular, an’ that’s easy to come by ’round here.”

I didn’t know what to say. I could almost picture us wrapping up a pile of sticks for his Christmas gift, which really would suit him. He took to working wood even better than he took to dividing beans.

“Now, Franky,” Samuel said. “It’s not your job to be worrying over gifts. All right? The Lord will provide for our needs.”

Franky nodded, suddenly seeming far more grown up than his years. “But he uses people often as not, and I a’ready heard ’bout people’s hands bein’ empty this year. Mr. Willis said he don’t remember a time in his whole life when things was this bad. So I know his wife an’ the other church folks can’t send us stuff like they did last year to make us feel better ’bout things.”

“Would you like to help me set the table?” I asked him, hoping to change the subject. His talk of gifts, and especially about last year, was making me uncomfortable. He pushed a chair toward the cupboard, but I really didn’t want him climbing on it to reach the plates, so I passed them down to him.

“I know somethin’ Pa needs,” he said suddenly.

“What?” I asked him in spite of myself.

“Some new hankies. He ain’t got hardly a one without holes in it no more.”

I might have expected almost anything coming from Franky, who knew very well about his father’s struggles. But this was a very practical suggestion. And workable. I thanked him.