Child of the Mountains

8





It’s about making Christmas presents.




TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1953

I figured out one thing I can do to keep myself busy. I’m going to start making Aunt Ethel Mae and Uncle William Christmas presents. I ain’t got no idea what to make for Mama, stuck in prison as she is. I wonder iffen they even let people celebrate Christmas in jail. Maybe that’s part of how they punish them, not letting them get any gifts from family. Iffen them guards in Ohio say it’s okay, I hope Uncle William will tell Aunt Ethel Mae to let me send Mama something. I’m afeared Aunt Ethel Mae will commence to crying iffen I ask.

I’m going to embroider Aunt Ethel Mae’s initials on her hankies. Maybe I’ll add some purple flowers on account of that being her favorite color and all.

One time Uncle William pointed out some big, fuzzy pink dice hanging from a car mirror in the hospital parking lot. He said he sure enough would like to get hisself a pair of them for his car. My jaw about dropped to the ground! I never, ever would of thought he would want hisself a pair of pink dice. But iffen that’s what he wants, I figure I can sew him up some.

I’ll need six squares for each one of them. I ain’t got no fuzzy pink material, but I saw some white muslin in Aunt Ethel Mae’s scrap box. I wish Gran or Mama was here to help me mix up some dye. It’s been a few years since Gran learned me how to do it. Aunt Ethel Mae growed up too citified to know stuff like this. I hope I recollect how much salt or vinegar to add and how long to soak the material. I think I’m supposed to add salt for berries and vinegar for plants. Or was it the other way around? I’ll figure it out, I guess. I sure am glad they’s a lot of muslin in them scraps!

Mama and Gran and BJ and me always had fun making gifts for Christmas. We’d whisper to each other about what we was a-making for everbody else. That way we could trade ideas and help each other. But we all kept our lips clamped shut when the gift getter tried to worm it out of us.

BJ was the most ornery about trying to get us to tell them secrets. One time he started up coughing real hard. Mama had went to a ladies’ meeting at church to help plan the Christmas party. Gran took herself a little nap in her bedroom.

“BJ, are you okay?” I asked him.

“I’m a-feeling real poorly,” he said as he stretched out on the couch.

“Do you want some water? Should I wake up Gran?”

“There is something you can do that might help me feel better.” He hacked again.

“What’s that?”

“Maybe iffen you told me what Mama and Gran was a-making me for Christmas, I’d be able to think about that instead of about feeling so awful.” He looked at me with big, sorrowful, puppy-dog eyes.

“Well, the other night, Gran did tell me what she made you,” I said.

Hack, hack.

“I know Gran wants it to be a secret,” I went on.

Hack, hack, hack.

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you, seeing as it’s just a few more days till Christmas.”

Then I saw it. This little, teeny, tiny grin started creeping up the corner of BJ’s mouth like a mouse a-climbing up a wall. His eyes didn’t look sick no more. They lit up like they was a-giggling!

I put my hands on my hips and stared a grown-up stare at him. “Benjamin James Hawkins!” I told him. “You almost tricked me!”

He busted out laughing. And he didn’t hack. Not even once!

* * *

I liked to whittle Christmas presents for BJ. Mama learned me how when I was five. “Your gramps learned me when I was just a little thing, maybe even younger than you,” she said. “You must never whittle toward you. Always whittle away from your body.”

She showed me how to hold the knife with my thumb on top and fingers curved around the handle. “I like to use cedar because it has such a sweet, comforting smell,” she went on. “But the most important thing is to find a piece of wood that speaks to you. Listen to what it tells you it wants to be.”

The first thing I whittled was a whimmy diddle. All I had to do was whittle a few notches in a stick. Mama helped me cut a propeller out of a piece of cardboard. The only hard part was to stick a straight pin through the middle of the propeller and into the end of the stick. When I finished, BJ could rub another stick across the notches real fast to make the propeller go around. That was the first Christmas gift I made for BJ out of wood. I felt right proud of that whimmy diddle.

When BJ was four, I decided to whittle him a train for Christmas. Him and me walked to the railroad tracks along the Kanawha River a lot. BJ loved to pretend he was all growed up and riding the train, going on a adventure. He’d make up stories about being a famous doctor, traveling all over America to save sick kids. He took them cures he invented. I was always his faithful companion.

One time, we found a pop bottle on the way. We stopped at the store to return it and got three cents back. We each bought a stick of licorice for a penny apiece. I told BJ he could have the extra penny. He didn’t want to spend it, though. When we got to the tracks, it was almost time for a train to go by. He put the penny on the track. The train came by and squashed it flat. BJ picked it up and held it to the sky. “This is a magic penny,” he said. “I’ll always keep it with me. When I hold it tight in my hand, it will take me on a train trip, anywhere I want to go.”

He did keep that penny with him all the time—in his pocket or under his pillow. Mama said she thought he used his magic penny a lot when he stayed in the hospital.

That’s why I knowed BJ would love to have his very own train. Mama thought that sounded like a real hard project, but I just knowed I could do it. Mama said she would make the train whistle.

I commenced to working on the train in August so’s I would have plenty of time. I had to whittle on it when BJ stayed at the hospital. That way he wouldn’t know about it.

I figured I would make a engine, a car for coal, a passenger car for clothespin people, and a caboose. Mama and Gran gived me good ideas. Uncle William helped, too. Him and me sawed some blocks of wood for the cars. We cut wheels from an old broomstick somebody throwed out in the trash. He let me use some of his wood glue, too.

It took all of us thinking real hard about how to connect them train cars. Gran had the best idea. She said I could use cup hooks. Uncle William bought me some at the hardware store. He paid for them, but I told him I would do some chores for him the next time I went to his house. We had ourselves a deal. On one end of the cars, I screwed in a cup hook that I closed up with a pair of pliers. On the other end, I screwed in a cup hook left open. That way, BJ could put the train together and take it apart any old way.

My very favorite was the caboose. We used beets to make a deep red dye for it. Mama said I could use her black liquid shoe polish for the engine. Grapes made blue dye for the passenger car, and spinach made a good green color for the coal car. Mama thought that train would be the best Christmas present BJ ever did have.

We went to pick up BJ at the hospital on December 23, singing Christmas carols almost the whole trip up there. I kept smiling the entire time, thinking about BJ getting his train on Christmas day. This secret would be hard to keep. Gran and I sat in the waiting area while Mama went up the elevator to get BJ. I kept watching people getting offen the elevator, hoping BJ would come out of them doors.

Finally, I saw him. Mama carried a newspaper and the pillowcase full of his stuff. Nurse Chapel pushed BJ in a wheelchair. BJ’s grin covered up his whole entire face, almost. He had a big box on his lap.

“Lyddie! Lyddie!” he shouted. “Come see what I got!”

“Shhh!” Nurse Chapel leaned over and scolded him. “We use quiet voices in a hospital, young man.”

“You might, but I don’t,” BJ said. He didn’t even look at her.

I runned over. When I saw the box, it had a picture of a train on it with a big, fancy locomotive.

“Look, Lyddie, look! It runs on electricity!” BJ pulled off the top, and I saw a locomotive, just like the one on the box. There was passenger cars, boxcars, and a caboose. It had lots of track and even a railroad crossing sign. I never ever saw a toy that looked so much like the real thing.

“That’s great, BJ,” I said. Tears started burning my eyes and quick as I could I blinked them away. BJ was too busy looking at the train to see them tears.

“And I got my picture in the paper, too!” he said. “A real live basketball player gave the train to me. A man took our picture and wrote a story about us. Can Lyddie see the paper, Mama?”

“Not now, BJ,” Mama told him. “We need to get on the road.” Gran and Mama looked at each other and then at me. I felt my face get hot, and I bit my lip. “Gran and Nurse Chapel will take you to the car, BJ. You can show Gran your picture when you get settled in the backseat. Lydia and I need to stop at the bathroom afore we start back.” Gran took the pillowcase and newspaper from Mama.

“How do you know Lyddie has to go to the bathroom, Mama?” BJ asked.

“It’s a mother’s job to know these things, BJ.”

Mama put her hand softly on my shoulder, and we both turned toward the bathroom. When we got there, the tears started pouring out of my eyes. Mama put her arms around me, and I sobbed into her. “I know. I know this is hard, sweet girl,” Mama said as she patted my back.

When I quieted down, Mama ran some water on a paper towel and wiped my face. “Lydia, this doesn’t change what you done for your brother.”

I looked in the mirror at my puffy face. “Mama,” I said, “when we get home, will you let me go in the house first? I want to get the train out from under the Christmas tree and put it in my closet. Maybe some little boy at church will want it.”

“No, Lydia. That train stays under the tree for your brother. I think this might turn out different than you think. Let’s wait to see what happens Christmas day, okay?”

I told her okay, but I wasn’t sure I believed her.

When we got home, Mama told BJ that his new electric train was a Christmas present and belonged underneath the tree. He could play with it on Christmas day. My stomach had a knot in it for the next two days. I kept thinking how embarrassed I would be when BJ opened the gift I had made for him.

The picture in the paper showed the basketball player sitting on the hospital bed with his arm around BJ. BJ’s eyes and mouth both grinned. Him and the basketball player held up the train box. The article said that a company donated toys for all them sick kids. Basketball players took time out of their busy schedules to deliver them. Mama put the picture and story in a old picture frame. She hung it in his bedroom. I felt real thankful that I didn’t have to go in there and see it.

On Christmas day, we drank hot sassafras tea and ate cinnamon rolls while we opened our gifts. Mama said, “BJ, you hand out the gifts this year. You already know about your electric train, so why don’t you save that for last.”

BJ sorted the gifts into piles in front of us. Mama told me to open my gifts first. I forgot about the knot in my stomach. I opened a crinoline Gran sewed for me. (I used to call them stick-out slips when I was little.) Mama made me a new blue dress (my favorite color) with a big white muslin collar and white cuffs on the sleeves. I knowed I would look like them kids in the magazines at the company store, even iffen it was a feed-sack dress. I held the dress up to me and ran to kiss Mama and Gran.

Mama also made me a pine jewelry box lined with felt. Gran gived me a pearl ring that she always wore on the pinkie of her right hand. She said her grandmother gived it to her and now it was time for me to have it. I unwrapped a new whittling knife from Uncle William and Aunt Ethel Mae. BJ had drawed me a picture of me and Mama standing in front of our make-do house. There was a big heart drawed around us. Him and Gran stood off to the side. They had just let go of purple balloons.

Then it was BJ’s turn. A knot tightened up in my stomach again. First he unwrapped the train whistle from Mama. He blew it. Whooooooo whooooooo! It sounded just like a real train. Then he opened a Jacob’s ladder, two string puzzles, and a marble puzzle that Gran made him. “I don’t know why I bother,” Gran said. “That boy’ll have them puzzles figured out afore day’s end.” Gran winked at BJ and he winked back.

Mama had also whittled a dancing mountain man for him. A mountain man is real fun. His knees and arms have hinges so’s he can fling all around. He has a stick that you hold glued to his back, and he dances on a wood paddle. One end of the paddle is under your leg, and you hold him on the other end like he’s onstage. When you tap the paddle with your fingers, he bounces on it and sounds like he’s a-clogging his fool head off.

Then BJ found my gift. I had wrapped it up in Sunday funnies Uncle William always saved for us. The knot in my stomach turned into dancing butterflies. I felt tears come up in my eyes. BJ tore off the paper and held up the train. “Wow! A train!” he said. “Lyddie, did you make this for me?”

“Yes,” I whispered. I couldn’t hold back a few of them tears, and they rolled down my cheeks. “I’m sorry, BJ. I didn’t know somebody’d bring you a fancy store-bought one.”

BJ giggled. I looked hard at him. “Did you forget we ain’t got no electricity, Lyddie? I’m going to have to take it to Uncle William’s house to play with it.”

I had plumb forgot about that.

BJ took the magic penny from his pocket and put it in his left hand. Then he picked up the train with his right hand and held both of them up to the window so the sun shined on them. “This is my magic train,” he said. “When I hold my magic penny, this train will be the one that takes me anywhere I want to go.” He put the penny back in his pocket.

Then he commenced to pushing my train around the floor. “See, Lyddie? It don’t even need no track. It can go anywhere. It can even flyyyyyyyyy!” he said as he rolled it over the couch and pushed it through the air. He picked up the train whistle with his other hand. Over and over he said, “Clickety clack, clickety clack, going down the track.” Then he blew the whistle. Whoo whoo!

Me and Mama joined in:

“Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, going down the track.

Whoo whoo!



Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, going down the track.

Whoo whoo!”



Gran pulled out a couple of spoons from the silverware drawer and bounced them in her fingers to sound like a train. I runned and got the mountain man and made him dance on my lap. Mama grabbed her dulcimer and started playing a tune. She sang:

“I’m going to get me a ticket, a ticket, a ticket



On engine number seven, on seven, on seven.



My gold and silver ticket, it’s one way, it’s one way, it’s one way



To take me straight to Heaven, to Heaven, to Heaven.”



We had us the best Christmas ever that day. BJ did take the electric train to Uncle William’s and they played with it a few times. But it was my train BJ took to the hospital. When I saw him for the last time at the funeral parlor, I laid the train beside him.