ONE NIGHT, Anna went to Papa with her amazing idea.
It’s only Papa, she reminded herself as she tried to decide on the right words.
But she had to screw up her courage and the words came out all muddled. Staring down at her father’s shoes, Anna almost wished she had not even tried.
“Dr. Schumacher and Miss Williams!” Papa exclaimed. “But … but why, Anna?”
“Miss Williams’ mother is in Vancouver and Betty and Joan are too. They’re her sisters,” Anna explained in a rush. “But Miss Williams cannot go to see them because there’s no money this year.”
Papa nodded. That much he understood.
“And Miss Williams said Dr. Schumacher has no wife or children. Maybe he does have a mother, though …” Anna stopped at this new, startling thought.
“No,” Papa said. “Franz has no family. He was raised in an orphanage in Berlin.”
Anna lifted her head at that. Eagerness lighted her face. “Then he might want to come,” she cried. “They both might.”
Her father rubbed his chin. His answer came slowly.
“Anna, my darling, you know we ourselves will not have such a large Christmas. There will be no wonderful presents. No skates, I’m afraid.”
Anna hurried to comfort him. “Gretchen already knows. Don’t worry, Papa,” she said.
“Does she?” Papa sighed. Then he looked thoughtful again. Reaching out, he held her by both shoulders. “About these people coming though, Anna …”
“It isn’t only the presents,” Anna said.
Yet, if Papa did not understand, she knew no way to make it clear. She twisted free and ran for the door.
“All right. I will ask,” her father called after her.
She did not turn. He did not know whether she had heard.
Anna had not heard, but by the next morning, she was too busy to brood over it any longer. She was making and finding other gifts. She began with Isobel’s.
It was hard to get it done without Isobel looking over her shoulder and asking questions. At last Anna went to the teacher and asked if she could stay in at recess to work on it.
“May I see it when it is done?” Miss Williams asked.
“It is a funny present,” Anna said very seriously. “It is … how do you say it? … a joke.”
“A joke!”
Anna nodded, still not smiling. “I will let you see,” she promised.
She made Isobel a dictionary. On each page was a word Isobel had taught Anna during the months they had known each other. Above the words were pictures.
When she took it shyly to Miss Williams, the teacher laughed aloud.
“Oh Anna, I knew you had imagination but I never dreamed you had such a sense of humour,” she said.
She was looking at the page which said “Undertaker.” The picture showed a coffin. Anna herself was sitting bolt upright in it. She was calling, “Help!” Her braids stuck straight up in the air with horror and her eyes, behind her glasses, were perfectly round. Isobel, ringlets and all, was the undertaker, spade in hand. There was another picture of Isobel as a lamplighter, falling off her ladder. There was one of Hallowe’en, with a ghost chasing Isobel, who dashed madly across the page. All the pictures were full of action and fun. Isobel starred in each one.
Anna wrote a poem for Ben. She had a feeling it was not a terribly good poem, not like Robert Louis Stevenson’s. But it said what she felt. She lettered it carefully on a Christmas card she made out of construction paper.
Benjamin Nathaniel
Is as brave as Daniel.
When snowballs fly
Through the sky,
When big boys came
And yelled a bad name,
Ben does not run away.
He says we must stay.
He gets Bernard to come
And we all help some.
Then the big boys are made
Very afraid.
We get them to run
But Ben is the one
Who tells us to stay
And not run away.
Benjamin Nathaniel
Is braver than Daniel.
We stand by his side
With pride.
Smiling, she hid it away in her desk.
What could she do for Bernard, though? She knew she could not write another poem. Ben’s had taken her days.
Then, like a miracle, she found a dime on the sidewalk. She could buy Bernard a present — and she knew exactly what he would like: rubber bands for shooting spitballs! She got them at the store from Papa.
“What do you want them for?” Papa asked.
“It is a secret,” said Anna.
Papa looked at the dime in her hand.
“There was nobody near who could have dropped it. I looked,” she assured him.
“You buy ice cream and I could just let you have the rubber bands,” Papa offered. The Soldens did not sell ice cream.
Anna shook her head.
“I want to pay for them, Papa,” she insisted.
Her father gave her the elastics. She hurried away before Mama got curious too.
Now she had something for everyone but Miss Williams and the doctor. Once again it was like a miracle. A package arrived from Aunt Tania in Frankfurt. Mama handed out pieces of marzipan. Anna got two. The other children gobbled theirs up at once. Anna put hers carefully away. All her gifts were ready.
Dr. Schumacher himself delivered the baskets back to the classroom.
“I couldn’t carry them all at once, Eileen,” he said. “I’ll fetch the rest.”
Isobel nudged Anna.
“What is it?” Anna whispered, staring not at Isobel but at the heap of baskets on the teacher’s desk.
“He called her Eileen!”
“Did he?” Anna said, still paying no attention.
Now Miss Williams was handing out the baskets one by one. They were beautiful beyond belief. Had something happened to hers?
“And here’s Anna’s,” Miss Williams said.
She placed it on the girl’s desk. Anna made no move to touch it. She simply stared. It was dark green now, with tiny threads of gold running through it. It was the most splendid thing, the most incredibly perfect present she had ever seen.
She looked down at her own two hands in wonder. They looked just as usual. Her fingernails were dirty. Could those hands actually have made this basket?
With intense care, she picked it up and looked. There, on the bottom, in her very own printing, it said “A. E. S.”
School was over. The other children bundled into their coats, clutched their baskets, and headed for home.
“Coming, Anna?” Isobel asked.
“Not right now,” Anna said. “You go ahead.”
She sat at her desk and waited. Dr. Schumacher was still there too. He and Miss Williams laughed together.
“I told you she was in love,” Isobel whispered and, shrugging at Anna’s blank face, she too departed.
The teacher noticed Anna a moment later.
“Oh, Anna, I thought you went with the others,” she said. “Was there something you wanted?”
“May I leave my basket here till the last day?” Anna asked.
Miss Williams glanced at the doctor, who stood listening. Then she turned back to Anna.
“Of course you may,” she said gently.
She did not ask why. She knew that Anna still kept her beloved book of Stevenson’s poems in her desk. She had not even taken it home overnight.
“How are the glasses working?” Franz Schumacher asked.
Anna looked up at him through them. She wished she had words to tell him what he had done for her.
“They are very good, thank you,” she said primly.
“I remember when I first got my glasses,” Dr. Schumacher said. “What an exciting place the world was, all at once! So full of things I had not dreamed were there! … Would you like a ride home, Miss Solden?”
He knows about the glasses without me telling, Anna thought. He knows how glad I am.
She was not sure about taking the ride, though. Mama was so fussy about them taking rides. Then she looked at Dr. Schumacher again.
“I would like a ride,” she said.
“How about you, Eileen?” he asked then.
“No. I’ll be a while yet,” she said. “Thank you anyway.”
“I’ll see you at eight, then,” Dr. Schumacher said.
Anna, putting on her coat, almost missed those last words. Then everything Isobel had said fell into place.
Miss Williams and the doctor — in love!!
Anna was glad Isobel had gone. She would not have known what to say to her. The whole idea would take getting used to.
The girl and the man drove along in a comfortable silence. He did not pester her with the usual grown-up questions.
“That basket of yours is beautiful work, Anna,” he said once. “You can be very proud of it.”
“Yes,” said Anna simply. “I am.”
But when she got out of the car, she did remember to thank him. She even invited him in, although her parents would not be home yet. Mama always invited people in. At least, she had in Frankfurt.
“Another time, little one,” he said with a smile.
Anna walked into the house humming to herself. He had called her “little one” the way Papa did. And, long ago, he had said she was “as light as a feather” and “a challenge.”
His hair is grey, though. He is too old for Miss Williams, Anna decided.
Then the image of her lovely basket rose before her, and, forgetting the doctor and her teacher, she went slowly up the stairs, hugging close to herself her Christmas secret. Somehow she must manage not to tell.
The time passed like a turtle dawdling. But bit by bit, it did go by. At last it was the final day of school, the day before Christmas Eve.
That night Anna carried her basket home clasped in her arms as tenderly as if it were a newborn baby.
As she walked, she thought of how Isobel had laughed till tears ran down her cheeks when she went through her dictionary. Ben had been struck speechless by his poem.
“May I put it on the bulletin board?” Miss Williams asked.
Both Ben and Anna blushed. Ben nodded.
“The kid’s a genius,” Bernard said proudly, as though it were his doing.
Then she had produced his rubber bands.
“Oh, Anna!” Miss Williams had gasped, laughing almost as hard as Isobel had a few moments before. “Don’t you have any respect for my peace of mind?”
Anna had shaken her head. Both her dimples had showed.
“Watch it, kid,” Bernard had warned. “You’re getting as fresh as a Canadian.”
“I am a Canadian,” Anna told him.
She had left the piece of marzipan on Miss Williams’ desk when the teacher was out of the room for a moment. The teacher had not discovered it before Anna left. She was glad. It was such a small bit of candy.
She still had Dr. Schumacher’s at home. Maybe Papa would help her to deliver it — maybe they could drop it into his letter box.
She was nearly home. She hugged the basket more closely and kept an eye out for her brothers and sisters. There was Frieda, shovelling the Blairs’ walk. Anna breathed quickly. But she got safely by. Frieda did not look up.
The others were busy when she entered the house. Nobody paid any attention as she walked across the hall and up to her alcove. She tried hard to walk as usual. Her feet kept wanting to leap and skip. When the curtain was drawn, she knelt and hid the precious basket away under her cot.
Excitement bubbled and boiled inside her when she went back downstairs but she went on walking sedately. She had kept this secret for weeks. She could get through one more day.
Rudi was out late that night. Gretchen was shut in her room, knitting frantically. The twins whispered together. Mama and Papa looked tired but happier than they had been. Anna watched everyone and waited for the hours to pass. She counted the hours.
A full twenty-four, at least!
Her parents would have to work the next day even though it was the day before Christmas. They might even be late. They would probably not have the tree ready till at least eight o’clock. Maybe nine even!
Now Mama was looking through Christmas tree decorations they had brought from Frankfurt. Some were broken. Was the angel broken? No — there she was in Mama’s hand.
All at once, Anna could stay there no longer. Without a word to anyone, she got up and went up to bed. If she had not escaped and lain still, her face turned to the wall, she was certain the magnificent truth would have burst from her.
One more day, she chanted. One more day!
But the clock chimed eleven before she fell asleep.