2018.08.08

It's Wednesday.

Pa came in, bring a big fat turkey. If it weighed less than twenty pounds, he said, he’d eat it, feathers and all. He asked Laura how that was for a Christmas dinner and told her that he thought she could manage one of those drumsticks. She said, yes, she could. But she was sober. Then Mary asked him if the creek was going down, and he said it was too bad. She hated to think of Mr. Edwards eating his bachelor cooking all alone on Christmas Day. Mr. Edwards had been asked to eat Christmas dinner with them, but Pa shook his head and said a man would risk his neck, trying to cross that creek now. He said no, because that current was too strong, and they would just have to make up their minds that Edwards wouldn’t be here tomorrow. Of course that means that Santa Claus could not come, either. Laura and Mary tried not to mind too much. They watched Ma dress the wild turkey, and it was a very fat turkey. They were lucky little girls, to have a good house to live in, and a warm fire to sit by, and such a turkey for their Christmas dinner. Ma said so, and it was true. Ma said it was too bad that Santa Claus couldn’t come this year, but they were such good girls that he hadn’t forgotten them; he would surely come next year. Still they were not happy. After supper that night they washed their hands and faces, buttoned their red-flannel nightgowns, tied their night-cap strings, and soberly said their prayers. They lay down in bed and pulled the covers up. It did not seem at all like Christmas time. Pa and Ma sat silent by the fire. After a while Ma asked why Pa didn’t play the fiddle, and he said that he didn’t seem to have the heart to. After a longer while, Ma suddenly stood up. She said that she was going to hang up their stockings, and maybe something would happen.