When Mr.Thomas had been gone long enough for her to be sure he would not be back,she gave way to tears and cried with abandon.The baby watched,puzzled.He threw the harness ring away,and when she did not retrieve it for him added his crying to hers.She put him on the bunk bed and swung to the gate before it that made it a safe place for him to creep.She had not the heart for sewing or work of any kind.When the bread had risen she kneaded it,and in spite of all she could do to stop them,wiping her eyes with her wrist,her tears fell on the dough.Not even the smell of the bread baking,which usually made her feel so housewifely and proud,could cheer her.She moped the day away,ate only because she knew she must,to feed the baby.And only when it was nearly time for her husband to come home did she make up the bed and sweep the earthen floor,with an indifference that would have shocked her grandmother.Then she washed some potatoes,put them in the oven to bake and lay down with a cold,damp cloth over her smarting eyes.The baby would not let the cloth be,but kept yanking it away and crying,"Peek!"in his own remarkable language.
Then,as though he could understand her sorrow and the cause of it,she began to explain his father to him."You see,Son,you father sees Christmas purely as the day sacred to the Savior's birth.Just that!His ma died,went to heaven,when he was only five,and his stepmother was cruel,unkind,unfair.His father is a stern man who does not hold with there being anything jolly about Christmas,and they never gave gifts,had secrets,surprises..."She began to cry again at the thought of his mother's dying before Mr.Thomas should have learned the full meaning of Christmas,and hugged the baby to her and held him close to protect him from a Christmasless boyhood and a wicked stepmother.
The baby struggled to be free,and to keep him she sang,sobbingly,"My only,my treasure,my precious,wondrous son!I mind most for Ma and my sister Bird not to have seen you in all these months of your growing.Now you'll be walking,talking,it may be,before they see you again."Then she looked at the clock,saw how late it was,got up and went to bathe her eyes again,recoiled her hair and,looking into Mr.Thomas'shaving mirror,tired to smile.
In the following days,with never a word of rebuke or any really sullen looks,Augusta punished her husband with long silences and remoteness for forgetting his promise and disappointing her.She saw to it that his clean shirt was ready each morning,made good lunches for him to take to school and had good suppers ready when he came in from doing the chores.When he tried to talk with her,she answered as briefly and politely as she could.But she smiled only at the baby.To her surprise and chagrin,he did not take her in his arms and say,"Come,let's make an end of this and be good to one another."
Friday came,the last day of school,and neighbors stopped by to give them a ride to the schoolhouse.Everyone said the Christmas program went very well.Everyone admired the baby.But even that prideful pleasure could not lift Augusta's gloom.
When they were home again and the baby was in his cradle,Mr.Thomas said,"If the weather holds,we'll drive into town in the morning and you may spend a fortune."
"A fortune?"Augusta asked,with a literalness he sometimes found amusing,sometimes dismaying.
"Yes,a fortune,"he said,and took a ten-dollar gold piece from his vest pocket and laid it in her palm."This was given me by a neighbor in appreciation for my talking a lad out of running away from home and into staying in school another year—advice I doubt I should have taken,in his place."
Augusta looked down at the little gold coin and thought,for less than half of this,Ozro and I could have gone home on the train.Without looking up at him,she asked,"What are we to buy?"
"Something for you and Cosmos here,"he said,nodding toward the cradle."Something you want for the house.Some folly,if you like."There was tenderness in his voice.
She looked away toward the window,where the lamp flame was reflected,and said,"It likely will snow."
In the night the baby fretted and she got up to make sure that he was well covered,and when she had quieted him,she went to the window.It was too dark to see whether it was snowing,but she was ashamed of saying only that it likely would snow,of not responding to her husband's wish to be good to her.When she got back into bed her cold foot touched his,and without waking he drew away.His unconscious rejection set her crying again,although only briefly.Not since the early weeks of their marriage,when she was beginning to be aware of there being worlds for him he would not or could not share with her,had she cried so much.
When she awoke to hear the wind and see sugary snow under the door,her lips set on the"I told you so"she did not dare speak aloud.It frightened her to think how many days had gone without her being loving and warm and merry.She got up,washed,dressed,nursed her baby,and when Mr.Thomas came in with the milk,went out into the gray morning and saw that the snow,while not deep,would keep them from going anywhere in the buggy.When she came in and hung her shawl on its peg,Mr.Thomas had strained the milk into the milk pan and was grinding the coffee and singing to the baby.
"Have you your list ready?"he asked."I'll have to go to town on horseback.Anything I cannot get into the saddlebag I'll have sent out by mail next week.Tell me what you'd have me bring home."
"The list is long made,"she said,"and the things will easily fit in the saddlebag.I have a package ready I want you to mail for me."The only luxuries she had added after he showed her the coin were a sliver of citron rind and a half pound of raisins for the making of a Christmas cake.
