The Pilgrim Song (22 page)

Lewis had built up a big fire in the living room hearth, and it threw its flickering shadows over the tree. The women sewed the berries and the men the popcorn, and as they finished each string, they draped it over the limbs of the tree.

Clint played the harmonica while they sewed, keeping them entertained with all the Christmas carols he knew. The family joined in singing, and from time to time, Clint would stop playing and would sing along too in his clear baritone voice. Curiously, Hannah asked him, “If you never went to church, how do you know so many Christmas songs?”

“Well, everybody sings them at Christmas. They just stuck in my mind, I guess.”

“Did you have big Christmases when you were growing up, Clint?” Kat asked.

Clint hesitated and dropped his head. “No,” he said softly, “I didn’t.”

Seeing the sadness on the big man’s face, Hannah quickly intervened. “Give us another one, Clint. You play that harmonica so well.”

After the tree was decorated, Clint said, “We ought to make some candy, but I don’t know how to do that.”

Lewis spoke up. “I know how to make taffy.” They all turned to look at him in disbelief, and he shot back with some irritation, “Why is that such a surprise to you?”

“I don’t know, Dad.” Jenny grinned. “I just never knew you could cook anything. How do you make it?”

“First, we have to know if we have the ingredients.” He looked over at Clint.

“We’ve got some molasses, a little sugar, and butter.”

“Great!” Lewis said. “And how about vinegar and baking soda? Do we have either of those?”

Kat was wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Why would you put vinegar in candy?” she said. “I don’t believe that’ll be any good.”

“You just wait,” Lewis promised.

“We have a little, Father,” answered Hannah. “Do you need much?”

“We only need a little of each. Okay then, I’ll take care of the cooking, but then we’ll all have to pull it.”

The women went in to watch their father prepare the candy. He buttered the sides of a large saucepan, then dumped in two cups of sugar, a cup of molasses, and a quarter cup of water. Putting the pan on the stove, he brought the mixture to a boil, stirring it slowly.

After a time he lifted the pan, added two tablespoons of butter, a pinch of soda, and two teaspoons of vinegar, then poured the mixture into a buttered pan. He used a large butcher knife to turn the edges. “All right. Time to pull.”

“What do we do, Daddy?” Kat demanded.

“Well, the first thing you do is put butter all over your hands,” Lewis said as he demonstrated.

Kat laughed. “That’ll be fun.” She buttered her own hands and then ran to get Josh and Clint. The two men came in, and following the example of the others, they greased their hands.

“This is the way you do it,” Lewis said. “You get the taffy
up into a ball, and you pull it with your fingertips like this. You keep pulling at it until it’s hard to pull, then you pull each piece into a long strand about an inch and a half thick. Then you cut if off with buttered scissors or a buttered knife. We need to get going. It gets hard quick.”

The kitchen was soon filled with the sound of laughter, for as the taffy hardened, it became harder to pull. It was soon too hard for the women to handle, so the men finished the job, and Lewis said triumphantly, “Now, that’s molasses taffy.”

“That was such fun, Dad!” Jenny exclaimed.

As he looked at his daughter’s glowing face, Lewis thought,
It’s the first time she’s looked happy since we left New York. We’ve got to do more things like this.

Finally they went back into the living room and nibbled at the delicious taffy while Lewis said, “You know, I think it’d be a good thing if we read the Christmas story.”

“That’s a fine idea, Father. I’ll go get my Bible.” Hannah jumped up, ran upstairs, and was soon back with Bible in hand. “Here, Father, you read it.”

“No, you read it, Hannah. You’ve got such a good reading voice.”

Hannah hesitated and glanced around, but then settled down on a chair with the Bible on her knees. She began to read the story from the book of Luke, and they all listened attentively.

While Hannah read, Lewis let his eyes run around the room, feeling sad as he looked at his family. He glanced at Josh, who had drawn slightly away from the others, sitting in a shadowed corner, his head averted. A pang of grief caught at Lewis for the loss of his son. Josh was living in his own world, still drinking, though Lewis could not, for the life of him, imagine where Josh was getting the money to buy liquor.

His glance shifted to Jenny, and he was struck again with her beauty. Yet the hard times had changed her. She had lost the vivacity that was once hers.
It’s all my fault. I should have had more sense somehow.

His eyes moved to Kat, and here his heart warmed.
At least Kat’s happier here than she was in New York,
he thought.
I’m glad of that.

He observed Clint sitting back, his hands laced together, watching Hannah’s face intently.
I don’t know what we would have done without Clint. He’s been our lifeline, and I don’t know what we’d do if he left. We’d all sink. Thank you, God, for sending him to take care of us.

Finally his eyes rested on Hannah, and as she continued to read the Christmas story, Lewis wondered, not for the first time, what was to become of his oldest daughter. She had been an enigma for years.
She should be married now with children, but she’s never again talked about men since breaking up with Preston. I don’t know what went wrong there, but it must have hurt her deeply.

The soft sound of Hannah’s voice filled the room, and the fire added soft poppings and groanings as the logs settled. Outside, the world was nearly frozen, but inside they felt warm and comfortable. Yet, as Hannah read, everyone in the room was wondering,
What will we do? How will we survive?

When Hannah completed the reading, she closed the Bible and said, “That’s a beautiful story, isn’t it?”

Everyone just nodded, except for Kat, who said, “I bet this house is nicer than the stable Jesus was in.”

She was sitting beside Lewis, and he reached over and put his arm around her, saying huskily, “Yes, it is, and I’m thankful that He made a place for us here.”

His words warmed Hannah’s heart, and she smiled. She was proud of her father. His emotions had been going downhill, but now, at least for this one moment, the Winslows were together and he seemed happier. Her eyes lifted, and she met Clint’s gaze. He smiled at her and nodded, and then the wind outside rose into a keening whine.

“Tomorrow’s Christmas,” Clint said. “We’ll have to hang those stockings on the mantel.”

It had been Clint’s idea to do this, and Hannah knew he
had some scheme in mind. He had asked each person to provide a stocking, and as Clint fastened them with tacks to the mantel, she said, “You think Santa Claus will come?”

“Yes, I think he will.”

****

The next morning everyone’s stocking was bulging with nuts, hard candy, an apple, and an orange. In Kat’s stocking she was delighted to find a fine new pocketknife. Her eyes glowed. She knew that Santa Claus had not brought this, but she played the game. “Santa brought me exactly what I wanted.”

Hannah was standing back with Clint. “Where did you get that?” she whispered.

“Picked it up at the store a week ago.”

Hannah was filled with pleasure. “That was so kind of you.”

Clint turned and looked down at Hannah, his smile lightening his whole countenance. “Children need Christmas,” he said quietly.

Kat went over to Clint and reached up to plant a kiss on his cheek, her eyes sparkling. “It’s a good knife, Clint. I’ll keep it always.”

“Always is a long time,” he said, pleased that he’d brought some joy into her young life.

“I don’t care,” Kat said. “I’ll give it to my little boy when he’s my age, and I’ll tell him about this first Christmas in Georgia.”

“You’re making pretty long-range plans,” Hannah said with a smile. “The Bible says, ‘Take therefore no thought for the morrow.’ ”

But Kat ignored her sister’s admonishment. “Play that pilgrim song, Clint.”

“Now? But it’s not a Christmas song.”

“It is in a way,” Kat insisted. “We’re all pilgrims, and one day we’ll have a big Christmas in heaven—with Jesus there!”

Hannah felt tears rise to her eyes at this simple thought, and as Clint brought out his harmonica, she sang with Kat the words that had come to mean so much to her:

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Trouble at School

“I don’t want to go to school, Daddy.”

Lewis had stopped the truck and was preparing to get out when he heard Kat’s plaintive cry. He turned to look at her and saw that her face was tight with apprehension. He reached over and drew her close. “You’ve got to go to school, honey, you know that. And you’ll make a lot of friends here.”

“But I don’t know anybody!”

“Well, you will before the day’s out. Come on, now. We’ve already talked about this. You can make it either good or bad, so let’s make it good.”

Releasing the girl, Lewis got out of the truck and stood looking at the school. It was a relatively new two-story red-brick building. He had been told that this new school in town replaced several ancient one-room schoolhouses scattered throughout the county.

“Come along,” he said.

Kat kept very close to her father, brushing against his arm. She glanced at the children playing in the yard, and when they stared back at her, she averted her face. Kat had always been good at her studies, but New York was a different world from Summerdale, Georgia.

The two entered the building, and Lewis asked the first person they saw, a young man, if he could direct them to the principal’s office.

“Right down there. Last door on the left.”

Lewis followed his direction, and when they entered the
office, a middle-aged woman sitting at a desk turned and said, “Yes, sir, may I help you?”

“My name is Lewis Winslow. This is my daughter Katherine. I need to enter her in the seventh grade.”

“Come in, Mr. Winslow. You’ll want to meet our principal.”

Lewis and Kat waited until the woman had knocked on the door to her left, then opened it. “A new pupil, Mr. Latimer.”

“Have them come in.”

Lewis and Kat stepped into the principal’s office, nodding to the woman, and saw that a smallish blond man was getting up from behind his desk, which was littered with papers. He wore gold wire-rimmed glasses and a dark brown suit. “I’m Gale Latimer.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Latimer. My name is Lewis Winslow. This is my daughter Katherine.”

“You’re new to the community, then.”

“Yes, my wife’s family used to live here. Her name was Laurent.”

“Well, let’s get this young lady settled. How are you today, Miss Katherine?”

“Fine,” Kat said. The principal had a kind face and manner, and as he spoke with her, she felt somewhat more at ease.

The two filled out the necessary papers, and then Mr. Latimer said, “I’ll have Miss Rogers take you to your classroom. Your teacher will be Miss Lane, Katherine.”

“I’ll just leave you here, Kat, but I’ll be waiting outside when school is out.”

“All right, Daddy.”

Kat followed Miss Rogers down the hall to a room. The woman opened the door, and Kat followed her in. She shot a glance around the room and saw about two dozen students at their desks, all of them staring at her.

“This is Katherine Winslow, Miss Lane. A new student.”

“Thank you, Miss Rogers.”

Miss Lane was an older woman with gray hair and smallish
eyes. She wore no makeup, and her hair was pulled back in a bun that seemed to stretch her eyes to a slant. She wore no jewelry, Kat noticed, and there was no smile on her face. “Well, Katherine, you’ll be behind. You’re late entering. Where did you go to school previously?”

“New York City.”

The expression on Miss Lane’s face changed, and Kat heard somebody mutter, “Why, she’s a Yankee girl.”

“That’ll be enough from you, Johnny Satterfield! Katherine, take that desk in the third row,” she said as she indicated the desk in front of the round boy who had just spoken. “We’re going to start with geography today, but since you don’t have your books yet, you can just listen.”

“Yes, Miss Lane.”

Kat had brought a small bag containing pencils, a small pencil sharpener, an eraser, a ruler, and her lunch. She put the bag down on the desk and sat down tensely. Miss Lane gave her a careful look and went on speaking. A map of the world was rolled down over the blackboard, and she began to call out the names of cities, asking different students which country they were in.

Kat was good at geography and was surprised that she knew them all.
Why, this is easy,
she thought. She was surprised when the other students had difficulty naming where Peking was located. Miss Lane grew impatient and said, “Well, come along. You must know where Peking is.”