To Make My Bread (39 page)

“With Preacher Turnipseed there,” she said, “hit wouldn't do. Unless you might play hymn tunes on it.”

Granpap drooped at the shoulders. “I reckon hit's better left at home,” he said and followed Bonnie out of the door.

When they reached the school auditorium a few young men were already standing just outside the door, in the cold December night. They were waiting until the tree, which was especially for women and children, should get finished and the box supper begin. Bonnie felt that their faces turned to watch her. She held the box closer to her side, so that feeling it would give her courage to walk without fear and trembling up the steps. Yet their looks gave her courage, too.

She stopped just inside the door and put out her hand to touch Granpap who would have gone in at once.

“Isn't it a big crowd?” she asked him.

People were standing in groups, talking, and seemed to fill the whole place. Benches were set against the walls, and on these sat women with small children and with some of them were their husbands.

“Why, Granpap, hit's good to see ye,” someone said. And there was Ora, holding the baby with one arm, and reaching out to Granpap with the other. Frank was beside her on the bench.

“Take your box right up there to the front,” Ora said to Bonnie.

Turning to come back Bonnie saw that John was standing in the front part of those waiting for the exercises to begin. She felt that he was looking at her with approval, and the blood burned up in her cheeks from his appreciation and from excitement. She returned to Granpap and stood before him while Mr. Turnipseed was getting the young ones together on the floor in front of the tree.

On the platform sat the Superintendent, Mr. Burnett, the three preachers from the village, and a visiting preacher.

When the young ones were settled, and the older ones had found places in a half circle behind them, Mr. Turnipseed stood up on the rostrum. The talking quieted down slowly until there was a silence like church.

Mr. Turnipseed announced that the tree with all its many and fine decorations had been donated by kind people in the town. The entertainment was given by all the churches of the village, so money from the sale of boxes would be divided among them. It was the usual Christmas announcement. It was fitting, he continued, at a time of peace on earth, good will to men, for all denominations to come together as one family in Christ. The speaker of the evening was from a different denomination from any in the village. He wanted to introduce Mr. Warmsley from the town.

Mr. Warmsley spoke in a fine voice. When Bonnie heard it she thought of molasses, brown and thick, pouring from a pitcher and spreading out on a plate. Mr. Warmsley's voice spread through the hall slowly and quietly.

“I have asked Mr. Turnipseed,” he said, “to let me speak to you early in the evening, because in my home little ones are waiting for their father to begin Christmas Eve. There, in my home, we have a tree, just as you have one here. Over all the earth it is the same. People of all races, nations, are celebrating the birth of Jesus.”

Mr. Warmsley's ruddy face glowed beneath soft white hair. His deep, slow voice reached to every part of the room and created a feeling of good will, so that people listened with attention.

“Why do people celebrate?” he asked—and answered the question. “Because Jesus brought love to the earth. God, the Almighty, gave commandments to men. Sometimes to us he seems a bitter, jealous God who punishes and does not love. But we can never really feel that, when we realize that ‘God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son.' In Jesus Christ he gave us love divine, the love that suffers and forgives, the love that bears all things, the love that these mothers, holding their babies, have for the children in their arms.

“There are times when your lot may seem hard to you. You may feel that you do not possess much. Let me say to you, my friends, that you possess the only true greatness and power. I have been among you and have watched when you did not know. I have seen the dignity in you that rises above worldly considerations. I have compared your dignity with that of the rich. And beside yours their dignity of wealth and possessions is nothing. Yours is the true greatness. Have I not seen your dignity and worth under abuse?

“Let me tell you a story. One day some years ago I was in my study, which is in one of the wings of the church. I heard cries outside my window and went to find what had caused them. On the lawn were some of the boys of my congregation. They were hooting and jeering. And standing before them, the butt of their jeers, was a boy from this mill. He stood there dignified and aloof as Jesus Christ himself might have stood before his accusers.

“That poor boy, dressed almost in rags, stood up under the lash of scorn with a dignity that shamed those other boys, rich though most of them were.

“And I tell you that some day the rich will see your goodness: and bow before your spiritual wealth that is greater than their material wealth, so that in the end they will endeavor to become like you, simple and good.

“And when this spiritual brotherhood will have been accomplished, the rich will say, ‘What is our wealth, that our brothers do not share in it?' And they will straightway share the wealth, so there shall be plenty, and all will be furnished with the necessities and the good things of earth that God has given us.

“Then the spirit of Christ will shine in all hearts like the star on the summit of that Christmas Tree, and all men will acknowledge each other as brothers in Christ and sharers of wealth. Then, my brothers, there will truly be peace on earth, good will toward men.”

W
HILE
the minister spoke faces strained upwards toward him, as if they were sniffing in the words he said with their nostrils. There were gaunt men and tired looking women, old before their time. There were boys and girls, wan and stunted of the second and third generation of those who had worked in the mills. They seemed about ten or twelve, but they were old enough to be looking at each other, thinking of marriage. The faces, raised to the light, seemed to have no flesh, but to be made of bone with skin stretched tightly over it.

When the preacher finished and the people turned to each other for talk, their faces showed color and some animation. The town preacher shook hands with his colleagues on the platform and hurried away to his home and children. Bonnie stood near Granpap who was talking with Frank.

“What he said had sense,” Granpap told Frank. “If the rich could get the grace of Jesus Christ in their hearts, hit stands to reason we'd all have enough.”

“I didn't like so much his speaking about us as being pore so much,” Frank said. “If he'd spoke it just once . . .”

“No,” Granpap answered before Frank could finish, “hit didn't seem to fit in exactly. But what he says is mighty true. Only all the rich would have t' do it together—for there are so many pore.”

“You run along, Bonnie,” Ora spoke to Bonnie and gave her a push with her big hand. “Go and mix with the girls. The young men will be in soon. Can't you see how Lessie and Tiny and the rest are watching that door? You mustn't let them grab all the boys from ye.”

Bonnie wished to do what Ora wanted. She was not very timid at home, but her greatest desire was to get between Granpap and Ora and hide the fact that she was there at all. Suppose no one picked her out—no one thought her box good enough to buy!

They were giving out gifts from the tree, a bag of candy and an orange for each child. Facing Granpap Bonnie heard the door to the yard open. She heard the heavy steps and knew the young men had come into the hall.

“You go along,” Ora insisted. “Mr. Burnett's going t' speak. You go nearer and listen.”

Some of the women had gone up front to find their young ones and take them home. People were walking around and talking together. But when Mr. Burnett rose to speak there was silence.

Mr. Burnett said he would not make a speech. He only wished to give them all a Merry Christmas from the management, the Directors, and the President of the Company. Before anyone left he wanted to ask them all to join in singing the Doxology. Bonnie, who had slowly made her way into the crowd of people, raised her voice and sang with the rest. When the Doxology was finished someone began “The Old Time Religion.”

Bonnie, singing “It was good for Paul and Silas,” heard someone speak in her ear. She turned and her cheek brushed against the cheek of a young man. She looked at him. This was one she had never seen before, but in the short glance he gave it was plain that he was not one who might be speaking to her because he was unwanted elsewhere. He was not tall like the men of her family, but she saw blue eyes, and brown silky hair brushed back from a white forehead, which frowned at her coaxingly, as if saying, “Don't be too hard on me.”

“I asked if I could talk with you,” he said. “But you didn't seem to hear.”

She looked up again, and the flush that had been on her face before came up into her cheeks.

“You have the prettiest mouth,” he said, “of any girl here.”

“And you can talk the prettiest,” Bonnie answered him, “of any man here.”

“I don't know just how to take that,” he told her.

“I think I'll have to be going,” Bonnie said. She felt that she must have spoken the wrong words.

He reached out and touched her arm. “Don't go away,” he begged. “I'm a stranger here and need a friend.

“They're going to sell the boxes, now,” he added, holding her arm lightly with his fingers. “Wait.” She felt each of his fingers touching her lightly on the arm just above her elbow. They were like bolts that held her to him.

They watched Mr. Turnipseed, with the help of one of the boys, lift the table loaded with boxes of all colors to the platform. All the other people had gone from the stage, and in the auditorium the onlookers were settling down on the benches around the room preparing for the auction. They passed Bonnie and her new friend, and some of them, knowing Bonnie, looked curiously at her. She did not even see them, and her voice answering questions seemed far away, as if she was in a cloud on a mountain and heard someone speaking far down in the valley.

“What's your name?”

“Bonnie McClure.”

“Will you tell me what your box is like, Bonnie?”

“It's—why, I don't know whether I should say.”

“You tell me.”

“It's yellow crepe paper with silver stars.”

“Jim,” one of the young men from the side of the room called out.

“My name is Jim Calhoun,” Bonnie's friend said. “And you're my girl. Don't forget.” He pressed her arm and went over to those who had called.

“Come here, Bonnie.” Lessie Hampton made a place on her bench, and Bonnie joined the group of girls who were strong in the confidence that their boxes were already as good as taken.

“Is he going to buy your box?” Lessie asked her.

“I don't know,” Bonnie answered, for she was not yet certain that what was promised would come to pass.

“Watch out, Bonnie,” another said. “Jim Calhoun has a name for being mighty fickle.”

Bonnie looked toward the young men and saw Jim Calhoun talking intimately with the others. He had said he was a stranger, but he seemed to know people and they to know him. Somehow it didn't matter.

Mr. Turnipseed brought his fist down on the stand. “What am I bid for this beautiful box?” he asked, holding up a box covered with white paper, and decorated with red hearts.

Someone made a timid bid. Mr. Turnipseed shook the box close to his ear. “Sounds like there's mighty good things in there,” he said.

The bidding was slow at first, but it gathered interest with every box sold. Mr. Turnipseed reached for another and then another box. Still Bonnie's yellow one remained on the table. She almost hoped he would overlook it altogether.

As soon as a young man bid in a box he opened it to find out the name of his partner for supper. Bonnie had written her name many times before she had made the writing as she wanted it. The slip lay in her box, on top, “Bonnie McClure,” in large round letters.

Some of the young men frowned when they saw the names in their boxes. And this was what she dreaded, that her name would be frowned upon. She would be glad, almost, for Sam Fellows to get her box, if he would only behave as if he was glad to have it. Sam, who was very greedy, had bid in three already, and had three girls around him: but what was more important to him, there were three boxes from which he could choose his supper.

“What am I bid,” Mr. Turnipseed said, “for this box, the color of ripe corn silk.”

Bonnie saw that the box was hers.

“I can just imagine,” Mr. Turnipseed continued holding the box up high so all could see, “I can just imagine the girl who made this exquisite arrangement of stars and crescents. She must be beautiful as the stars, and good and kind as the moon on a summer's night. What am I bid?”

“Ten cents,” a boy from the right of the platform called out and everyone laughed. But Bonnie wished to hide her face because of the laughter, and because it had brought her down from a high place where Mr. Turnipseed's words had taken her.

“One dollar,” came from the group of young men. Jim Calhoun was speaking. He stood up and spoke angrily looking in the direction of the boy who had called out “ten cents.”

Mr. Turnipseed said, “One dollar, one dollar.” He held the box to his nose and sniffed at it. “I seem to smell fried chicken,” he said.

Sam Fellows looked up from his three girls and three boxes. “One dollar and twenty cents,” he called out very loud.

“He's got three. Now he wants more,” the boy from the right said complainingly.

“I haven't got one with fried chicken,” Sam Fellows called back.

“One twenty. One twenty,” Mr. Turnipseed droned.