Free Jacob's Ladder by Donald McCaig Page B

opened the door, murmuring “Christmas gift?”
    â€œMeemaw,” young Pauline shrieked, and young Thomas’s voice broke from excitement. “Oh Happy, Happy Christmas. I’m so happy I could burst!”
    â€œMay God bless you, you silly boy!”
    Catesby Byrd bowed deeply. “All the felicities of the season, ma’am.”
    Byrd was a knobby man, more bones than flesh, and how her daughter Leona could lie beside him, Abigail Gatewood couldn’t imagine. Might as well lie down with a sack of barrel staves!
    â€œLeona, my dear. How fetching you are.”
    In her flounced yellow gown, with her lily-pale complexion and vermilion lips, Leona Byrd strongly resembled one of her daughter’s dolls. Leona’s smile was so hopeful and so timid it invariably took Abigail’s breath away. Abigail thanked God her daughter had married Catesby. Leona needed a strong man to take care of her.
    His father-in-law took that worthy’s hand, beaming. “Good to see you. Isn’t it all . . . ?” Samuel admired the mountains, the snow-covered pastures, the neat negro cabins with their chimney smokes, the barns, his grandchildren, his wife. “Well, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes sir. It is. It certainly is!”
    Yes, everything had been going well with Catesby. Always plenty of law work in the county seat. “We’re more disputatious than you good country folk!” No, Catesby’s selection for the bench was just rumor. Several other men had as good a chance, nay better, when Judge Ayres retired.
    â€œOh, I’m sure you should get it,” his wife, Leona, cried, “if the courthouse loafers would hush up for one minute!”
    A grinning Pompey ushered them into the hall, and when pretty Leona Byrd passed, he muttered, “Christmas gift?”
    â€œBut Pompey, the children’s gifts will be under the tree, I’m sure.”
    And so it proved. Firecrackers banged in the Quarters while the Byrd children received their gifts and Pompey kept a wary eye on the candles. Little Pauline got a huzzit—the thinnest cunningest sewing kit—as well as two dolls, one handmade in the Quarters, the other pink glossy porcelain whose tiny gown had been in vogue last summer in Richmond. Accompanied by many solemn warnings, Thomas was given his first hunting rifle.
    Samuel Gatewood filled his son-in-law’s cup and took another himself. Wordlessly the two men toasted this gathering, so precious and so fragile. They did not speak of the terrible storm gathering beyond the peaceful boundaries of Stratford Plantation.
    When servants came to receive their annual issue of clothing, poor Pompey was torn between duties. He was wanted in the front hall, but daren’t abandon a tree that looked mightily like a lit bonfire.
    â€œI’ll keep an eye on it, Pompey,” Catesby volunteered. “Give me that snuffer before you impale yourself.” Byrd dug in his pocket for a two-bit piece, said: “Happy Christmas, Pompey.” And Pompey left, not knowing whether this was “Christmas gift?” or not, whether the new magical charm was efficacious.
    Bundles of clothing were stacked on a long table in the front hall, and as the servants filed past, Jack the Driver addressed them, “Master and Missus be givin’ you new clothes. Finest blouses, finest pants, best-quality linsey-woolsey. All year Grandmother Gatewood spun and loomed so you’d not traipse into the New Year naked. And whenever Mistress Abigail be havin’ time, she knittin’ your socks. Wool socks from Stratford Plantation, big ones for the mens, medium ones for the womens, and little ones for the children. You know that Mistress Abigail, she cast off a strong stitch, and these socks they last until next year if you treat ’em right, wash ’em every Sunday, don’t put ’em on when you can go barefoot. Shoes made by a German shoemaker in Lexington,