When the door pushed open, Maud rushed to greet her mother, hugging her tightly. But as she stepped back to take a look at her, Maud was shocked to find her normally robust mother looking unusually frail, and hoped she was just weary from the journey.
Maud tried to make the visit restful for her mother. She cooked the meals she liked best, made the boys stay quiet in the afternoon so her mother could nap, and attended to her every whim. Mother had always been the strongest person she knew—the one who never fatigued, who never complained, who always arrived ready to get the job done. So Maud was happy to have a chance to repay her in some small measure. Still, at odd moments, Maud realized that it had been eight years—eight years—since her mother had arrived in Aberdeen with her obstetric textbook and carbolic acid, determined that Maud would live through the birth of her third child.
How she had seemed like a giant to Maud then, looming over everyone and everything with her impassioned intellect, her fiery oratory, her encyclopedic knowledge, and, more than anything, her sheer confidence that the world would eventually bend to her bidding. Seeing her mother looking frail made Maud feel as if the natural order of things had been inverted, herself suddenly older than she had realized, needing to fill bigger shoes, and uncertain if she was ready.
One night, Matilda and Maud were seated in the parlor. Frank was traveling, and the boys were already in bed. Maud was sewing, and Matilda was reading; she set aside her book.
“If it’s not too heavy a burden,” Matilda said, “I would like to confide in you something that has weighed heavily upon me.”
“Of course, Mother. What is it?”
“It’s Julia.”
“What about her?”
“I know you love your sister dearly, and I’m grateful for that.”
“I’m not sure gratitude is called for. Of course I love her. She was always so kind to me when I was a girl. That is a debt I can never repay.”
“She almost raised you. I was so busy with my work.” Matilda stared off into the distance. “It seemed so close then, in the 1870s—we believed that we were just on the brink of securing the vote for women nationwide. I thought it was worth it, for your future, for the future of my daughters, and your daughters…and their daughters. And you were so spunky, so determined, I never needed to worry about you. You were born with the same iron stuff that I was made of…”
Maud smiled. She couldn’t deny it. She had been born tough.
“But Julia—she was different. She was not as tough.”
“Julia is strong in her own way,” Maud countered.
“I didn’t see it at the time. I was impatient with her physical frailty. I was angry at all that was the woman’s lot—the housekeeping, the childbearing, the care for aging relatives…” She paused to snort out a laugh. “If you don’t die in childbirth, then you might lose yourself to grief as you nurse an ailing child. If you and your child survive, then you face a lifetime of toil. And so many women are sickly—nervous disorders, female complaints, sick headaches, which leads to the imbibing of medicines that seem to do more harm than good. I was so impatient with all that. I thought if Julia were made of sterner stuff, she could simply will herself to health. That her headaches made her drop out of school was simply incomprehensible to me.”
“Until one is ill, it is hard to fully understand the plight of the invalid,” Maud said.
Matilda nodded. “Old age has taught me that.”
Maud smiled, but then she noticed that her mother was crying.
“I blame myself for baby Jamie’s death.”
“But, Mother, how could that have been your fault? You weren’t even there!”
“Julia wrote to me and asked me to send her money to return to Fayetteville for the delivery, as she had for Magdalena’s birth. But, you see, she had sailed right through her delivery, while you had taken ill. And, Maud, I had no idea of the conditions she was living in. When I pictured her homestead in Dakota, I thought of a civilized town like Aberdeen. So, when she wrote to me, I said no. You remember, your father was gone, the store was closed, and money was tight.”
“Of course, I understand.”
Matilda held up her hand, dabbed her tears, and tried to compose herself.
“I wanted to attend the National Woman Suffrage conference in Washington, D.C. I had enough money for my own fare. To send for Julia, I would have had to cancel my trip.”
Maud nodded.
“I wasn’t willing. I thought that the fate of all womankind was more important than the fate of one individual—my own daughter. I thought it was the duty of we women who were fighting the fight to stay strong.” Now Matilda was openly sobbing. “I didn’t understand that you can’t always just ‘stay strong,’ that sometimes the conditions we are fighting are greater than our individual abilities. If that ignorant back-country nurse hadn’t told Julia to dry up her milk, that baby might still be alive.”
“Mother! You don’t know that! You mustn’t be so hard on yourself.”
“No, Maud. I had to learn something that you always knew instinctively. The fight for all women has got to begin with the women closest to you.”
“No mother is perfect,” Maud said. “I’ve always been proud to be your daughter.”
“But all that I’ve given up…and so little to show for it,” Matilda said.
“So little to show for it, Mother? Not so! The day will come when you will be proven right. Your daughters, or at least your grandchildren, will be alive to see that day, and we will thank you.”
Matilda was looking at Maud searchingly, as if hoping her daughter could answer her deepest fears. “And that will be enough?”
Maud stood and enfolded her mother’s frail shoulders in her arms, catching her faint scent of mint and lavender. “Oh, Mother dear, of course it will be much more than enough.”
* * *
—
ON CHRISTMAS EVE, the giant fir in the parlor of the Baum household reached all the way to the ceiling, and the entire thing was cordoned off behind a giant red curtain that Frank had fashioned to hide half of the room. At the agreed-upon moment, Maud pushed open the parlor door, and the boys tumbled in behind her, like a litter of puppies on their way out to play. The boys—Robin, twelve; Harry, eight; Kenneth, six; and even fifteen-year-old Bunting—had not outgrown their excitement about Christmas. Every year, Frank spent weeks preparing an elaborate pantomime. In terms of gifts under the tree, no Christmas had ever equaled their first in Aberdeen, when a profligate Frank had brought half of their store home to place under the Christmas tree. Now Maud controlled the Christmas budget. She counted out just a few dollars for Frank to spend on gifts. But he more than made up for it in homegrown merriment.
“Well now, Santa.” Frank’s voice was audible behind the curtain. “Have I paid you enough? Will you be getting on your way?”
A deep hearty “Ho-ho-ho” followed.
“Open the curtain!” Kenneth piped up. “Open it!”
“Yes, open it!” the other boys called out. Even Bunting (who now insisted on being called Frank Jr.) had joined in the fun.
“Well now, don’t leave just yet…” Frank’s voice said behind the curtain. “There are some boys here who would really like to meet you!”
This was followed by some rustling of the curtain and the sounds of much shuffling.
“What? Don’t leave! Please!” Bells jingled behind the curtain; then came the sound of hoofbeats. More bells.
Frank had rigged the red curtain on a rope pulley, and suddenly the curtain jerked aside to reveal the giant Christmas tree, trimmed with popcorn and cranberry strands, blue balls made of glass, delicate gingerbread men decorated by Maud, and shining candles that cast a warm flickering glow across the room. Underneath was a modest assortment of colorful packages tied up with bright satin ribbons.
A collective “Aaah” went up from all assembled.
Then little Kenneth said in a voice as clear as a silver bell, “But where’s Santa?”
“Why, he’s…” Frank feigned shock as he looked all around himself. “Why, I don’t know. I swear he was just here a minute ago. I asked him to wait!”
Harry turned and pointed to the hearth.
“There he is!” everyone cried.
A pair of red pants and black rubber boots (that looked suspiciously like a pair of Frank’s) were sticking out from the hearth. Only the legs and feet were visible.
“Santa! I thought you said you would wait!” Frank called.
The younger boys didn’t notice when he grabbed a second rope, and with a flick of the wrist, suddenly the boots and pants disappeared, as if climbing up the chimney.
“He’s gone!” Kenneth cried.
“Quick, everyone! Outside!” Frank called out. “We may just catch St. Nick’s sleigh as he’s flying away.”
“Outside? Children, not without your jackets and boots!”
Ignoring Maud’s entreaties, the entire group burst out the front door into the frigid night, where fat snowflakes were swirling, softening the city’s edges and making the world look like a wonderland.