Ten

Christmas Day

“Rise and shine, everybody! This is the day of our Savior’s birth! Merry Christmas to all!”

Judge Ragsdale walked along the upstairs hallway, calling out his greetings and rousing the sleeping household.

“Breakfast in one-half hour!” he called.

As T. J. and Madison awakened, they discovered that during the night, whether by necessity of position, or seeking more warmth, they had come together. Madison was lying with her back spooned against him. T. J.’s arm was draped over her shoulder, and she had embraced his arm.

For a moment they lay there, enjoying the warmth and ease of lying together in a comfortable bed. Then, in a simultaneous realization of what they were doing, they moved abruptly to pull away from each other.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean to crowd you.”

“That’s all right,” she replied. “I think we just crowded into each other.”

Sliding out of bed, T. J. hurried over to the fire and tossed on several more pieces of wood. Soon the fire was again blazing cheerfully and radiating enough heat to take the chill out of the room. They dressed quickly, carefully staying on opposite sides of the bed and affording each other the privacy of the moment. When both were ready, they went downstairs.

“Mom! Dad! Look what we have!” Timmy said, bringing some of his toys over to display, with Christine at his side. “I didn’t know what all of them were, but Dermott told me.”

“Well, show us what you have,” T. J. said.

“This is called a cup and ball,” Timmy explained. “See, this ball has a string tied to it, and there’s a cup on the end of this stick. What you do is, you swing the ball out, then you catch it in the cup.”

Timmy tried to demonstrate. “Well, it’s hard when you first try it,” he said. “But Dermott can do it real easy.”

“Dermott sounds like quite a lad,” T. J. said.

“He is.” Timmy tried again to catch the ball in the cup and failed again. “Dermott says that if you do it a whole lot of times, it gets easier.” He tried it once more, and this time he was successful. “I did it! See?”

“If you keep that up, the next thing you know you’ll be getting a ball-and-cup scholarship to Vanderbilt. Then, you’ll make All-Southeast Conference ball-and-cup team, and you’ll be drafted by the National Ball-and-Cup League. Then you’ll play in the Ball-and-Cup Super Bowl. After that, you’ll start getting endorsements—why, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you didn’t wind up on the side of a Wheaties box.”

Timmy started laughing halfway through T. J.’s spiel. “Dad, remember what I told you? Sarcasm does not become you.”

“What, you mean you don’t believe me? Well, maybe I was exaggerating a little. The National Ball-and-Cup League doesn’t actually play a Super Bowl.”

Timmy laughed again.

Madison turned to Christine, who was holding her gifts. “Show us what you got, honey.”

“I got this doll. I named her Britney because she’s so pretty. She’s got a glass face.”

“That’s called bisque,” Madison said.

“Biscuit?”

“Bisque. It’s a type of porcelain.” She examined the doll. “T. J., do you have any idea how valuable this doll is?”

“I don’t know, what? Fifty, sixty dollars, maybe?”

“Try a thousand dollars,” Madison said.

“What? No way. One thousand dollars?”

“At least. I did a show on antique dolls a couple of months ago, and I was amazed at how expensive some of these dolls can be. We can’t let Judge Ragsdale give her something like this.”

“Maybe it isn’t an antique,” T. J. suggested.

“Of course it is. Nobody makes dolls like this anymore.”

“Well, antique or not, he seems to have given one to every little girl here,” T. J. said. “If we make Christine give her doll back, might that not cause trouble with the other children?”

“Mama, you aren’t going to make me give Britney back, are you?” Christine clutched the doll anxiously.

Madison looked at the doll, then at the other little girls, then back at Christine. With a sigh, she relented.

“You can keep her.”

“Thanks, Mama,” Christine said happily.

“Don’t thank me, thank Judge Ragsdale.”

“I tried to,” Christine said, “but he said the toys all came from Santa Claus.”

“He said that?” T. J. was surprised.

“Well, he said they came from Saint Nicholas, but isn’t Saint Nicholas the same thing as Santa Claus?”

“As a matter of fact, I believe you’re right,” Madison said.

In addition to the cup and ball, Timmy had a game of checkers and a box of pickup sticks. Christine also received a game of “graces,” hoops and wands included.

As the children were playing with the gifts Saint Nicholas had left them, breakfast was called.

The hungry group gathered yet again around the table for a country feast the likes of which T. J. and Madison had rarely seen. Madison reached for a biscuit topped with butter and sorghum molasses.

“I’m going to be 300 pounds by New Year’s,” she muttered to T. J., hoping no one else had heard her.

“Sorghum is a little stronger than Log Cabin syrup, isn’t it?” T. J. teased, when he saw Madison’s reaction to the rather pungent taste.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever really tasted sorghum molasses,” she said.

“My grandma served it all the time,” T. J. explained. “I like it, but you do have to acquire the taste.”

After breakfast the children returned to their toys. The adults were enjoying coffee in the keeping room when Emma walked in.

“Can we have the taffy pull now?” she asked.

“Taffy pull? Taffy pull? Who said anything about a taffy pull?” Sylvia teased.

“You did!” several young voices responded in unison.

“Oh, my! If all of you say so, then I must have mentioned it. Very well, I suppose we should get started then, shouldn’t we? Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael, have either of you ever experienced a taffy pull?”

“I haven’t,” T. J. admitted.

“Nor have I,” Madison added.

“Then you are very welcome to join us,” Sylvia invited.

T. J. and Madison followed Sylvia into the kitchen where the children, from four-year-old Betty Anderson to twelve-year-old Dermott Duncan, gathered around the stove, a big iron wood-burner.

“Oh, look at that stove,” Madison said quietly to T. J. “Have you ever seen one of these before—other than in pictures?”

“Sure, my grandmother had one,” T. J. said.

“She did? T. J., you were born in the late fifties. Are you telling me that you can remember your grandmother using one of these?”

“Not all the time,” T. J. said. “It had belonged to my great-grandmother, and my grandmother used it for baking. She said it was better than gas or electric. And as I think back on how delicious her pies and cakes were, I can’t argue with her.”

“All right, children, here’s what we do,” Sylvia explained. “We mix water, sugar, butter, and a little bit of vinegar into a sauce pan.”

“Vinegar? Oh, vinegar doesn’t taste good,” said Betty.

“We don’t put enough in to make it taste bad,” Sylvia said. “We use just a little bit.”

“My, look at all that sugar,” Madison said, as she saw Sylvia preparing the mixture. “That can’t be good for the children.”

“Oh, but it is good. They love it. Wait until you taste it; you’ll like it too.”

“No, I meant, it can’t be healthy for them.”

“What a strange thought. They’re children. You don’t have to worry about children being healthy!”

Sylvia held the pot over the stove lid, then moved it off and put it back on several times, explaining that she didn’t want it to overheat. When the sugar was completely dissolved, she cooked it a while longer, then dipped out a teaspoonful of the mixture.

“Let’s see if it is ready.” She poured the liquid into a glass of water, where it immediately formed into a ball.

“All right, my part is done,” she said, pouring the mixture onto a buttered platter. “Now it’s up to you children to finish it.”

“Yea!” Emma said.

The children, including Timmy and Christine, greased their hands with butter, then, as soon as Sylvia determined it was cool enough to touch, broke pieces off and began pulling and stretching. Even T. J. and Madison got into the act, buttering their own hands and pulling on opposite ends of the same piece of taffy. Surrounded by the children’s squeals of delight and the warmth of the kitchen, T. J. and Madison were absorbed in the moment.

When the taffy had been pulled into several rope-shaped pieces, Sylvia announced that it was ready to take outside and put on the snow to cool.

“If you listen, you’ll hear it pop and crack, like icicles breaking off the trees and falling in the woods,” Sylvia explained.

“We’re going to go outside and listen,” Emma said.

“You all can listen if you want to,” Dermott said. “I’m going to play with my new sled.”

“Oh, Mom, can I go outside too?” Timmy asked.

“Me too? Can I go outside?” Christine pleaded.

“All right, you may go, but bundle up,” Madison said. “I don’t want you two coming down with the flu.”

Emma laughed. “That’s funny,” she said.

“What’s funny?” Madison asked.

“I’ve heard of Saint Nicholas coming down the chimney, but I’ve never heard of boys and girls coming down the flue,” she said, giggling.

The other children laughed as well.

“Mama, what’s a flue?” Christine asked.

“Well, it’s, uh . .. ask your father.”

“Dad, what’s a flue?” Timmy asked.

“Don’t you know what a flue is?” Emma interrupted. “It’s where the stovepipe connects to the chimney so the smoke doesn’t get in your house.”

“Yeah, that,” T. J. said.

Minutes later, when T. J. and Madison were up in their room washing the butter from their hands, Madison started to laugh.

“What is it?” T. J. asked. “Why are you laughing?”

“‘ Yeah, that,’” Madison mimicked. “You didn’t know what a flue was either!”

“Sure I did. I told you, my grandmother had one of those old stoves. And it had a stovepipe that went to one of those .. . thingees.”

“Thingees?”

“Yeah, well, I’ve seen them. I just didn’t know what they were called.”

Madison splashed water on him.

“Hey! Stop that!”

She did it again.

“Okay, two can play that game.” He picked up the water basin.

“No, no!” Madison said, holding her hands up in front of her. “T. J., be careful with that. Do you have any idea how old it is? It would be awful if you broke it.”

“All right, all right, I guess you’ve outsmarted me again.”

Madison stepped over to the door, then smiled at him. “Outsmarting you isn’t such a big accomplishment . ..”

T. J. picked up a pillow and threw it at her, but hit only a shut door.

As he returned the pillow to the bed, he realized that this was the first time he and Madison had bantered in a long, long time. He liked the feeling.

While the children played outside, the adults gathered in the keeping room.

“Now, folks,” the judge announced, “if I can prevail upon Sylvia to play the piano for us, I suggest we have a musicale, with everyone taking a turn to sing us a song.”

“Sing a song? You mean, individually?” Madison asked.

“Yes, it’ll be great entertainment,” the judge replied. Sylvia walked over to the piano and sat down.

“Now, wait a minute, John,” Thomas Duncan said. “You might remember that when I sang last year, you said I sounded like—what was the phrase you used?”

Cynthia laughed. “I think he said you sounded like a heifer bawling because her foot was hung up in a barbed-wire fence.”

The others laughed.

“That’s what he said, Thomas,” Angus said. “And he was right, too.”

“There. Now, remembering that, do you still want me to sing?”

“I do, indeed,” Judge Ragsdale insisted. “Part of the fun will be in listening to the bad as well as the good. For only by going into the valley can you enjoy the peaks.”

“We promise not to throw chairs at you, Thomas,” Jim Anderson said, and again the others laughed.

“I wish Corey were here,” T. J. said. “He could do the singing for all of us.”

“Who is Corey?” Sylvia asked. “A relative of yours?”

“I’m talking about Corey Doolin. He’s one of my clients.”

When T. J. got no response, he said Corey’s name again. “Corey Doolin.”

T. J. got nothing but blank stares from the others.

“Come on, don’t tell me that none of you have ever heard of Corey Doolin. ‘Ruby Lips’? ‘Christmas Past’? You’ve never heard of those songs?”

As the others looked at each other in absolute confusion, T. J. glanced over at Madison, his own face a mask of exasperation. “I guess they aren’t country music fans,” he whispered.

Madison chuckled. “Now you know how I felt yesterday when no one had heard of me,” she replied quietly. “Welcome to Ego Reality Check 101.”

T. J. addressed the others. “I just can’t believe . . .” he started, then, as if thinking about something else, he stopped in midsentence and smiled. “All right, if you don’t know who he is, it’s not too late to find out. Corey Doolin is a singer, and a very good one. He is one of the most popular singers in America. ‘Ruby Lips,’ ‘Waiting for You,’ and ‘Christmas Past’ are three of his greatest hits. Right now they are selling more CDs and getting more airplay than all the other songs out there.”

T. J. reached into his pocket and pulled out the golden treble clef brooch. He stepped over to the piano to hand the piece to Sylvia. “Here,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

Sylvia examined the jeweled brooch for a moment, then quickly handed it back, almost as if it had burned her fingers.

“I can’t take this,” she said.

“What?” T. J. asked, surprised by her reaction. “What do you mean? It’s my Christmas gift to you.”

“Oh, no, this is far too valuable a gift,” Sylvia insisted.

T. J. said, “Well, I’m giving away trade secrets here, but it isn’t as valuable as you think. Anyway, I have a bunch of them to give away. Do you see this ruby? That’s to remind people of Corey’s song, ‘Ruby Lips.’ It’s called promotion, so if you wear this, you will actually be doing me a favor.”

“It is lovely,” Sylvia said, weakening somewhat as she examined it. She looked up at the judge.

“Go ahead, Sylvia,” Judge Ragsdale said. “I think it will look very pretty on you.”

A wide smile spread across Sylvia’s face. “All right!” she said. “I’ll wear it, and proudly. Thank you very much, Mr. Carmichael.” She pinned the jewelry to her blouse, then showed it off to the other women who came up for a closer examination.

“I wish I had brought enough for everyone,” T. J. said quietly to Madison.

“Why? If they are as isolated as we believe them to be, you wouldn’t get much promotional value from the gifts.”

“I don’t care about that. I just think it would be nice to give them all something.”

“Why, T. J.,” Madison said, holding his arm and leaning into him. “I never knew you were such a softhearted soul.”

“Maybe if you’d stick around a bit longer you would find out other things about me you never knew before,” T. J. suggested.

She silently held his arm, experiencing a feeling that was different, yet familiar. At that moment she knew she didn’t want anything to come between them or ruin their marriage. The love of the season and the day welled up within her.

Sylvia had turned her attention back to the piano. “Now, who will be first to sing for us?” she asked.

“I’ll go first,” Laura Anderson said.

“Are you ready for this?” T. J. whispered to Madison.

“Shh. Be nice, now,” Madison whispered back.

Laura began singing “It Came upon a Midnight Clear.” To T. J.’s surprise, her voice was sweet and clear. Almost involuntarily, he reached over to put his arm around Madison, pulling her close to him.

“Listen to this,” he said in awe.

“It’s beautiful,” Madison replied.

“You know who her voice reminds me of?”

“Charlotte Church.” It was an answer, not a question.

Laura finished the song to the applause of all in the room.

“I wonder if Laura would be interested in a music career,” T. J. said to Madison. “I’d love to sign her.”

“No,” Madison replied.

“What do you mean, no? She could make a fortune.”

“Don’t do it, T. J.”

“Why not?”

“For the same reason you asked me not to do a television show about these people. If Laura became famous, do you think for one minute some enterprising reporter wouldn’t find out about her background? The next thing would be an exposé of this unique and isolated culture. If that happens, all this is gone.”

T. J. took Madison’s hand in his, patting it gently. “It’s a shame that the world is going to be deprived of such a beautiful voice, but you’re right. I couldn’t be a party to destroying what they have here.”

The others persuaded Laura to sing a couple more songs, making it obvious to T. J. and Madison that her talent was genuinely appreciated. Laura was followed by Cora MacLeod, who wasn’t bad. Then came Thomas Duncan. T. J. decided that Thomas had been right in resisting the invitation to sing. He wouldn’t quite compare the attempt at singing with the sound of a bawling heifer, but listening was somewhat of an ordeal.

After Thomas, it was Angus’s turn, and he had just stepped up to the piano to offer his own musical effort when shouts were heard from the children. The room emptied as the grown-ups rushed outside.