“I’m afraid so.” Frank sank into a chair, looking utterly defeated. “I’m going to have to pay the bank back. It wasn’t insured.”
Maud laid a hand upon his shoulder, absorbing the weight of his news. “Never mind, Frank. I’m sure we can recover.”
Frank turned to Maud, looking mournfully at her with his wide gray eyes.
“It’s not the money,” he said.
“Of course it’s the money,” Maud said. “What else would it be?”
“Maud, darling, do you really not understand? I’ve made a solemn promise that Baum’s Bazaar would bring Christmas to every child in this part of Dakota Territory—we don’t have near enough merchandise on hand to fulfill the need.”
Even now, after seven years of marriage, sometimes Frank deeply surprised her. Maud had quickly taken stock of the parameters of this disaster: Frank had overextended and gone into debt in order to have plenty of goods on hand for the Christmas season. The 1888 harvest had produced Dakota’s third straight bumper crop of wheat. While some of the small individual farmers, like Julia’s husband, were struggling, the townsfolk in Aberdeen were feeling prosperous, with extra money to let them indulge in Frank’s luxuries. But the Dakota people were a practical lot—they might gratify themselves at Christmastime, but they would not consider doing so all the year round. Frank had been counting on a big holiday season to put his enterprise firmly into the black; instead they would miss the Christmas season and have to go deeper into debt. Yet sales had been brisk so far. Frank would need to be careful, but with good management, they would come out all right. But to Frank, kind, good-hearted Frank, none of this was what mattered. He was worried about children not getting their favorite toys for Christmas.
“It’s nothing more than a minor setback.” Frank’s tone had an edge of forced cheer. “There are still quite a few nice toys in the store, and if we don’t have the sales we were hoping for, it will all even out over time.”
* * *
—
ON CHRISTMAS EVE, there was not a fir tree to be found anywhere within a hundred-mile radius of Aberdeen, but Frank came home from downtown dragging a fine balsam fir that had been shipped in from St. Paul and surely had cost more than Maud would think wise. He stood it up in the parlor, filling the room with the crisp scent of Maud’s childhood. They decorated the tree with candles and popcorn that Maud cooked on the back of the stove, and silvery tinsel and red glass balls that Frank had brought home from the store.
In the morning, when Maud came downstairs, she found Frank standing beside the tree with a look of unmitigated delight.
“But, Frank!” Maud opened her mouth to protest, only just then Bunting and Robin, clad in their red woolen long johns, appeared at the top of the stairs, their faces slack with astonishment.
Under the tree, Frank had constructed a city of blocks the likes of which Maud had never seen. It had tall buildings and turrets, roadways and rivers lined with shiny blue paper, and even tiny flags that fluttered from its ramparts. There were miniature trees, and tiny people, and a mechanical train that surrounded all of it. Maud knew that all of these toys must have come from the store, but only Frank could have so artfully constructed it.
“With all of these oohs and ahs, I think we must christen it the Land of Aahs,” Frank said, clearly pleased at the boys’ reaction. They had already crept forward, eyes bright, and knelt down to inspect their magical city up close. Now they looked at their father with wonder.
“Tell us about it, Father!” Bunting and Robin said together. “Tell us the story!”
“Well, it’s a fairy kingdom,” Frank said, “and of course that means it’s inhabited by fairies…” The boys sat rapt, each on one of his knees while Frank spun a tale about his imaginary kingdom that he conjured seemingly from thin air.
For Maud, there was a delicate Japanese paper fan, and in a small square box, Maud was astonished to find a ring with a sparkling emerald.
“Frank?” Maud looked at him, puzzled. It was one thing to buy toys, and another thing entirely to buy jewels.
Frank bowed low. “I’m afraid, my darling, that it’s nothing but paste, made up to look like an emerald for a queen.”
Maud’s face relaxed. “Oh, thank goodness!”
Christmas Day of 1888 was full of cheer and happiness, of delighted children and laughter, of carols and cakes, and, of course, the enchanted fairy kingdom Frank had built for the boys, which kept them occupied, wrapped up in make-believe, for the rest of the day. But in spite of her delight in the boys’ happiness, Maud felt a niggling undercurrent of concern, and she couldn’t help but add up in her mind how much all this must have cost. Like the paste jewel Frank had given her, everything was sparkling and bright, and yet she felt as if a single tear in the shiny fabric would expose the flimsy garment underneath.
Two days before New Year’s, Maud was washing dishes when she realized she’d forgotten to take off the ring. She pulled her hand from the scalding water only to realize that the paste stone had faded to a dingy gray and the gold finish had stripped off, revealing the tin underneath.
Maud showed Frank the ring. “I’m so sorry! I should have taken it off. Look what I’ve done.”
Frank whirled her around and planted a kiss on her forehead.
“No, darling! I’m the one who’s sorry. You deserve a genuine emerald. I promise I’ll get you one someday.”
Maud wanted to tell Frank that it was not an emerald she craved as much as stability—a home, her family, and some money in the bank for a rainy day—but how could she fault Frank now? She remembered the first time she’d seen Frank on the stage, in the theater, how she had fallen in love with his magical world. She had seen that expression on the boys’ faces as they stood at the top of the banister, looking down at the world of wonders Frank had created. Wasn’t that the gift she had married?
* * *
—
AFTER HIS DEPARTURE FROM Aberdeen, Jamie lived only a few more months. On March 15, 1889, Maud received a telegram. The baby had passed that morning, and the burial was planned for that afternoon. But the northbound train was delayed, and so by the time Maud arrived in the tiny town of Edgeley it was late afternoon, and they still needed to make the journey by wagon to Julia’s claim, about eight miles to the west. Reverend Langue, a Presbyterian minister, made the journey with her. A wooden box, covered in a dark cloth, rested at their feet.
Baby Jamie was laid out on the kitchen table in the main room of Julia’s shanty. His shriveled body still smelled faintly of the brandy from the bath Julia had given him to try to revive him after she’d found him not breathing. Maud helped her sister dress him, inserting his stiff little legs into woolen stockings, then threading his rigid arms through the sleeves of a fine white dress that Maud had hand-embroidered.
Julia placed her son into the small pine coffin lined in white cloth. Affixed to the box was an engraved silver plaque: SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME. Maud had brought Kenilworth ivy, rose geranium leaves, and smilax vines from Aberdeen, and they draped these over the rough pine box.
Outside, the ground was covered with a thin crust of frozen snow. The men had worked up a sweat digging Jamie’s narrow grave in the expanse north of the house. At half past five, the March sun hung low like a flat disk. The long, straight horizon was colored a faint orange and shrouded in haze as the small group of people gathered next to the open grave, also lined with pristine white cloth. James Carpenter stood, shoulders hunched, staring into the grave without expression.
Magdalena’s eyes were dry, and she held herself stiffly. She was dressed in a faded black frock, with a wool shawl wrapped tightly around her thin shoulders. Now and again she shivered, but otherwise she was completely still. Maud held tight to one of her hands. With her other hand, the girl grasped her doll. As the first spadeful of dirt hit the coffin, Magdalena flinched. With a sudden jerk, she wrung her ice-cold hand free from Maud’s grasp and rushed forward to the edge of the open grave. Violently, she hurled her doll into the pit. The porcelain doll hit the edge of the pine box and shattered. Its head, sheared from its body, settled on the newly spaded dirt, its painted blue eyes staring up unblinking into the heavens.
“Magdalena!” Julia shrieked. “What have you done?” She yanked her daughter’s thin arm, pulling her away from the edge of the open grave. “Why did you do that?” she screamed.
Magdalena stared silently at her mother, her violet eyes shimmering in the fading purple light.