Chapter Eight

The first day of school, on the last Monday in September, turned out to be as warm as any day in summer. Still, Cecile, Elisa, and Albertine had insisted on wearing the navy blue wool cloaks their mother had made for them—with the navy bonnets to match. The cloaks weren’t too hot to wear in the cool morning mist, but they were bulky and heavy to carry home in the afternoon heat.

“You wanted to wear them, you carry them,” Emmanuel said as he set off down the dusty road leaving the girls to trudge home together. The bonnets they had tossed off their heads looked like papooses on their backs.

“Do you like our teacher?” Elisa asked Cecile as the girls finally turned into the lane leading to their farmhouse.

“I think she’s just strict enough,” Cecile said.

“Alfred said his father was a teacher in Switzerland. He was very strict.”

“Do you plan to spend every recess talking to Alfred Buffat?” Cecile teased.

“I might as well since you’ll be talking to Albert Chavannes,” her sister replied.

“Alfred and Albert,” Albertine sang as she skipped up the lane to meet Turk, who was running to greet her. “Alfred and Albert.”

“They sound like they should be related to you, Albertine!” Elisa shouted after her little sister.

*  *  *

As the school year continued, Elisa became absorbed in her studies and was soon doing all her lessons in English. She loved telling the other children about Brazil when they had a geography lesson on South America. But most of all she loved being able to see her friends and cousins Mary and Lily Esperandieu and Emma Chavannes every day instead of just on Sundays.

The warm days of Indian summer were the most beautiful days Elisa had spent in the new country. She did her chores quickly after school so she could go on her hiking adventures and be home before dark. The leaves on the trees turned completely red, orange, and gold, then fell to create a multi-colored carpet for Turk to run through. Elisa loved hearing the leaves crunch under her high-button shoes. Now when she looked up she could see blue sky through the branches of the trees.

Instead of summer berries, Elisa collected walnuts and chestnuts on her walks. “You’re gathering nuts for winter just like the squirrels,” Mama teased. Some days Elisa took her accordion into the woods with her and played and sang from her favorite rock on the creek bank. She thought the sound was enchanting, but Turk howled at the high notes.

One Friday, Elisa invited Emma to come home to spend the weekend. Emma loved to hike too, and she and Elisa started out early the next day and climbed all the way up through the woods to a rolling green ridge. From there they could see the Smoky Mountains in the blue haze forty miles away.

The girls picked the last of the high meadow wildflowers to put on their straw hats. “Elisa, promise me we’ll travel to the mountains together someday,” Emma said as the girls were leaving.

“I promise!” Elisa said. “We’ll go in a finely polished black buggy pulled by two matching black horses.”

“Oh, yes! How perfect,” Emma said as the girls ran down the trail.

*  *  *

As time went by Turk turned from a fluffy ball into a long-legged dog, but he still had the exuberance of a puppy. Adele and Albertine kept their promise to feed and water him, but the whole family became involved in his training. Keeping him in the yard was a particular challenge.

Elisa was surprised one afternoon after school when she saw Turk coming out of her father’s bedroom.

“I thought Papa didn’t want Turk in the house,” Elisa said.

“He finds him good company when Adele and I are busy in the kitchen,” Mama said with a wink. “Guess you could say he changed his mind.”

Not only was the dog in the house, he was taking his afternoon naps on the bed with Papa. He curled up wherever a ray of sunlight beamed across the coverlet. Some days Papa would reach out and pat Turk on the head. But more and more often, he was asleep himself and didn’t even know Turk was there.

The distraction of school and of enjoying the last warm days of autumn outside kept the children from focusing on their father’s failing health. They would all visit him to tell him what they had learned each day. They always went in to kiss him goodnight before going to bed. But it wasn’t until the colder days of November kept them inside more that they realized how violent his coughing spells had become and how much he slept.

Dr. Clark rode out from Knoxville regularly to see Papa, but nothing he suggested that Mama do for Papa seemed to help very much.

“We learned all about Thanksgiving at school today!” Albertine said when the children burst into the house after school one day. Then they all told Mama, Papa, and Adele about the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock, and how the Indians taught the English how to grow corn. They told them how the Pilgrims held a feast to express their gratitude for their new home in America.

“We have a lot to be thankful for too,” Mama said. “Since this will be our first Thanksgiving ever, I think we should celebrate with a big Thanksgiving dinner in our new home. Don’t you think so, dear?” Mama asked Papa. Papa smiled and nodded his approval, and the children were delighted.

Preparations began the weekend before the big day. Mama asked Emmanuel to take the door off the log shed out back and scrub it good. She also asked him to empty two rain barrels and let them dry. The girls couldn’t imagine what all this had to do with Thanksgiving until they came into the dining room to see Mama and Emmanuel putting the door on top of the two barrels to create a long, sturdy, dining room table.

“Now, I’m going up in the attic to find some table linens,” Mama said. “While I’m up there, I’m going to have another look for my wedding veil. I haven’t thought about it in months.”

The girls busied themselves in the kitchen pitting cherries and peeling apples for the pies. A big kettle of cider was boiling so Mama could make apple butter, and the whole kitchen smelled wonderful.

Aunt Cecile and Uncle Theodore and their children, Laure, fourteen; and Henri, almost six, were coming for dinner too, so there was a lot of cooking to do.

Elisa put down her knife and dried her hands when she saw Mama come into the kitchen with an armful of white linen and lace.

“Did you find the veil, Mama?” she asked. “Let me see!”

“No, honey, I didn’t, but I still don’t think we should give up hope. You must have packed it in a trunk other than the one with the linens. We’ll come across it someday.

“Meanwhile, we have our work cut out for us. These linens are turning yellow already. Wouldn’t Josepha and Maria have a fit if they could see them? We have to boil them in hot water and get them out in the sun early enough in the day to bleach them out again. The sun isn’t nearly hot enough this time of year to bleach them properly, but we must try. Hurry, now!”

By late afternoon the linens were ready. They weren’t pure white, but they had dried in the late autumn sun. Soon they were in place on the makeshift dining room table. No one cloth was large enough, so Mama and the girls layered them, alternating linen and lace until they created a table dubbed “fit for the angels.”

Cecile folded linen napkins into swan shapes and positioned one at each place. From the trunk in the bedroom, Mama brought out her best silver flatware and two candelabra that she hadn’t used since they left Pernambuco. Emmanuel polished all the silver until it gleamed, and then the girls set the table.

“Aren’t you going to bed, Mama?” Elisa asked when she noticed her mother had taken her coffee and a kitchen chair into the dining room and was sitting and staring at the beautifully set table. Elisa had forgotten about the elegant dinners her mother and father had hosted in Brazil. Now she was reminded of just how much her mother had given up to come to America.

“I suppose it’s time,” Mama said. “Here. Help me cover the table with this piece of muslin I cut off the bolt. Our masterpiece will be unveiled on Thursday, just before the guests arrive.”

For weeks the French-Swiss women had been trading recipes at Sunday services, so Mama knew exactly what the menu for Thanksgiving would be. On Wednesday, Emmanuel came back from hunting with Uncle Theodore with a fresh turkey that he and Mama plucked and cleaned. The turkey was stuffed with cornbread dressing and roasted on a spit over the fireplace.

In addition to the cherry and apple pies, there was mincemeat pie and pumpkin pie, and three loaves of homemade bread ready to go. The children couldn’t wait to taste the corn pudding and cranberry sauce Mama made. She also made a cream sauce for the last of the fresh garden peas that had been stored in the basement since before the first frost.

Aunt Cecile and Uncle Theodore operated a candle making business in one of the buildings on their farm, so they brought beautiful wine-colored candles for Mama’s candelabra. Finally the candles were lit, the food was on the table, and everyone gathered in the dining room.

“Where are Emmanuel and Uncle Theodore?” Adele asked.

“They’ll be here soon,” Mama said.

Just then the two of them entered the room. They had locked arms to make a chair for Papa, and they carried him right to his place at the head of the table.

Elisa saw the tears in her mother’s eyes glistening in the candlelight.

“Papa! You’re back at the table with us!” Albertine said.

“Yes, darling girl, I am,” Papa said. “Shall we bow and thank the Lord for this wonderful bounty?”

It was so good to have Papa praying at the table again that the children didn’t mind if the turkey and corn pudding got cold while they waited for the amens.

Elisa peeked at her father through one of the candelabra during the grace. Uncle Theodore had helped him dress in his best gray suit, but Elisa thought it looked far too big for him now. The starched, white shirt collar stuck out all around Pap’s neck instead of fitting snuggly. This made his tie seem far too bulky. It hadn’t been nearly so obvious that her father had lost weight when he was in bed under the covers.

Uncle Theodore carved the turkey and gave the drumsticks to Adele and Henri because they were the youngest. Papa took just a few bites of his food before asking to be excused to go lie down.

“Let me help,” Mama said, and she laid down her napkin and stood up.

“We’ll take care of him, Elise,” Uncle Theodore said as he and Emmanuel picked Papa up again. “You stay here and enjoy this delicious feast you’ve prepared.”

An awkward silence fell over the room after they carried Papa out.

“I think I’ll move around here to give us all a bit more room,” Emmanuel said as he returned, and he slipped into the chair Papa had vacated. It was easier to get back into the holiday spirit without the empty place at the end of the table. Soon Papa was napping with Turk, and everyone else was passing their plates for thirds and fourths.

*  *  *

The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas seemed to fly by. Each day after school the children would rush in to see if anything had come by post and been delivered by one of the neighbors who had gone into Knoxville for supplies.

One day there was a box from Josepha and Maria in Brazil. Inside were two loaves of holiday bread traditionally enjoyed at Christmas in Pernambuco. Because of the European influence in Brazil, residents along the coast were accustomed to enjoying both Italian panettone and German stollen. Scattered around the carefully wrapped loaves were handfuls of the wonderful bolas quemada, balls of caramel candy the children remembered fondly.

“How sweet of Josepha and Maria to try and keep us from being homesick for Christmas in Brazil,” Mama said.

Then, just a week before Christmas, on the last day of school before the holidays, Adele greeted the children at the door.

“Grandfather Bolli’s box is here! It’s here from Paris!” Adele announced. Mr. Buffat had dropped it off at the house on his way back from town that day.

The children stood in the front foyer staring down at the big box covered with stamps as if it had fallen out of the sky from another planet.

“We won’t be opening that until Christmas Eve,” Mama called to them. “You might as well stop staring at it and come help me bake the bricelets.”

Mama always made Swiss bricelets for Christmas. They were lacy, wafer-life cookies baked in bricelet irons over an open fire. At Christmas time, fresh bricelets sprinkled with sugar were put into baskets lined with white linen to give to the neighbors. Ginger cakes and pies were also given as gifts, as were preserves and jellies.

The next week went by very fast as the children helped with the baking and decorating. Cecile and Elisa made brightly colored paper flowers to put on the spruce tree Emmanuel had set up in the front parlor. The extra ones they affixed to the curtain rod in Papa’s room. On the branches they put balls of cotton to simulate snow just as they had done in Brazil, but it still hadn’t snowed. The cotton made it seem more Christmasy.

Under the tree the children arranged the figures of the presepio—the Brazilian nativity scene. A second crèche with figures hand-carved of Brazilwood was on the mantel.

“How will we celebrate Christmas this year, Mama?” Elisa asked as she sat at the kitchen table looking through a stack of postcards bearing Christmas greetings. Reading the messages from friends and relatives in Switzerland and Brazil, Elisa noticed how many people had inquired about Papa.

“Much as we did in Brazil, Elisa,” Mama said. “Here little children talk about Santa Claus instead of Papa Noel, but the real meaning of Christmas is the same everywhere for those who celebrate the birth of our Lord.

“With Papa so sick, I don’t think we’ll be doing any entertaining here. But the Chavannes family is having a party after services on Christmas Eve, and I’ve arranged for you to go with the Esperandieus. When you get home we’ll open our gifts here together.”

Elisa was excited about a party, and about seeing herself and her friends all dressed up for the holiday, but she was sad to think of going to services without Mama and Papa. Still, Christmas Eve went just as Mama planned, ending with everyone except Papa gathered around the tree in the parlor.

As always, the box from Grandfather Bolli was the highlight as the children tore through the tissue paper to find the gifts and chocolate. “Slow down, children!” Mama shouted above the excitement. “Open your gifts one and a time so we can all see what you received.”

Emmanuel already had found his gift in the box, so he got to open his first.

“Oh, look! It’s a brass telescope!” he exclaimed.

“Now we’ll really be able to see the moon when we sit out on the porch on summer evenings,” Elisa said.

“You’re assuming I’ll let you look through it,” Emmanuel laughed as he tossed a ball of wrapping paper at Elisa.

“Let’s open our gifts together, Cile,” Elisa suggested. “They are exactly the same size so they are probably just alike. If you open yours first, I won’t be surprised.”

“Good idea, Elisa. One, two three, go!”

When the girls tore away the red velvet ribbons and red and green paper holding their packages together, out fell exquisite lace collars and cuffs. Grandfather Bolli wanted his Tennessee granddaughters to look just as fine as Parisian girls when they went to fancy parties. He had spared no expense in choosing the lace.

“These are so beautiful,” Elisa said. “I wonder if we’ll ever be invited to a party that’s fancy enough for us to wear them.”

“We’ll just have to have one!” Cecile said.

“May we open our presents now?” Adele called out. “May we, please?”

Everyone laughed when they looked at Adele and Albertine and saw that they had been sitting patiently with two gifts on each of their laps. Since Christmas was special for younger children, and Grandfather Bolli still thought of Albertine as younger than she really was, he was doubly generous with both of them.

“You’ve been so patient,” Mama said. “Open at once.”

Albertine opened her larger present first. It was a beautiful waxhead doll with eyes that opened and shut. A separate box contained a tiny porcelain tea set.

“Hurry and open yours, Adele,” Bertie said. “See if you got a doll too.”

“I did! I did!” Adele shouted as she reached through the packing to retrieve a raven-haired doll with blue eyes. “She can come to your tea party!” In a separate box, Adele found a parrot carved from Brazilwood.

“Oh, look! He looks just like Columbo, the parrot we had on our ship!” Adele said.

The children had a merry time looking at all their gifts, and stayed up much later than usual before going up to bed.

*  *  *

Christmas morning they were up early to fix breakfast. It was the custom in Brazil for children to serve their parents breakfast in bed before they could look around the house for more little hidden gifts.

Emmanuel stoked the fire, collected the eggs, and made a pot of hot coffee. Cecile scrambled eggs with cheese and cooked them and some saucisson, homemade Swiss sausage, in a big iron skillet. The other girls made fresh biscuits. Elisa put some peach preserves in a crystal bowl on the tray and Cecile added a sprig of holly.

Emmanuel declared the tray ready to go and the five of them went down the hall together. “Boas Festas! Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noel!” the children called out as they knocked on the door.

But what they saw when they entered the bedroom surprised them. Mama was sitting in a straight-back chair right next to Papa’s bed still in the green velvet dress she had worn on Christmas Eve. She turned to look at the children, and they knew immediately that she had been awake all night.

“Shhh!” Mama said as she motioned for the children to be quiet. “He had a bad night,” she whispered. “Oh, how lovely,” she said when she saw the tray. “Please take it back to the kitchen. I’ll join you there shortly.”

The children sat quietly around the kitchen table staring at the untouched tray of food. This was their first Christmas in America, but there would be no joy in the new year without Papa.