<< Go Back

A Christmas Tale for Little Women

By Linda Brooks Davis

Order Now!

A Christmas Tale for Little Women
by
Linda Brooks Davis

Chapter One

Christmas Eve 1912
Broadview Estate
Needham, Oklahoma

The final notes of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” settled like a dusting of fine powder into the crevices of the expansive ballroom. Multifaceted Christmas lights showered their brilliance and pirouetted on the piano's glossy surface.
 I held my hands above the black and white ivory. My Italian music instructor had often declared, “Miss Adelaide, your hands. They are swans poised on a placid lake.”
Turning to my listeners, I lifted my shoulders and raised open hands. “‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ is a song for the ages, don’t you agree?” 
 Dahlia and Camellia Evans, my young houseguests this Yuletide season, had perched on their tufted chairs, their variegated blue gazes riveted on me.
 Camellia nodded, and the tiniest of creases formed on her brow. “It’s Mama’s favorite.”
Dahlia squeezed her eyes shut and raised her face toward the ceiling. “We miss our family, but Mama says we’ll have an extraordinary Christmas here with you, Auntie Addie.”
Make it so, Lord.
These girls, two of five orphaned sisters my lifelong friend Ella and her husband Andrew adopted in 1905, had waited months for Christmas at Broadview, my Fitzgerald ancestral estate on the banks of Rock Creek. I must not disappoint them.
Today we had enjoyed a meal and exchanged gifts—golden lockets from me to them and crocheted snowflake ornaments from them to me. Their parents’ gifts awaited them on the morrow.
Settling into the armchair nearest the girls, I contemplated my two bright-haired charges. These budding young ladies were preparing for the program they and their four sisters would present at our annual Epiphany gathering in January. I had established the tradition while living in Rome a decade ago.
Their absent siblings would practice their parts while spreading Christmas cheer at Colorado Indian Mission School. I chuckled, imagining the train rides to and from their destination. No doubt their parents could recite their parts word for word.
Indomitable Dahlia, ten years old and a defender of women’s rights like her mother, enjoyed reading, especially the newspaper. But she claimed baking as her labor of love. She would prepare pastries from recipes originating in the thirteen original colonies. Tonight’s rehearsal had served as a tasting party.
“Now it's my turn.” Eleven-year-old Camellia prepared to read Chapter One of Little Women.
Dahlia rolled her cornflower-blue eyes. “Must you? We know you can read it without a bauble.”
“Excuse me, Dolly.” Camellia peered at her sister under a lowered eyebrow. “I’ll have you know, I’ll practice using various voices.” She claimed acting as her favorite endeavor.
Her younger sister gave a groan suitable for a moving picture. “Must you be so dramatic?” Dahlia had taken on what her sisters had dubbed her “mother voice.”
Her elder sister flashed a nonchalant, one-shoulder shrug. “Sometimes drama is called for.” She scooted into the sofa’s corner and bent her legs beneath her.
Dahlia leaped onto her chair and flung a pointed finger at her sister. “I protest!” This child possessed more spunk than she could corral.
Before I could speak, Camellia’s eyes widened, and she ordered, “Dolly, get down!”
Dahlia looked at me, then slid down and flopped onto the rug with a huff.
Camellia settled her skirt and adjusted her reading glasses. She opened Little Women and held it in the electric lamp’s bright light to read.

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled
Jo, lying on the rug.

“You won’t be seated Epiphany night, Camy.” Dahlia slouched to the side and propped herself on an elbow. “Stand up.”
Her sister threw her a peeved scowl and hiked her chin. “I know perfectly well how to stand, sister mine. For your information, I can see better here at the lamp.”
“But our guests will be occupying the furniture on Epiphany.” I scanned the room and pointed to the tree’s blazing lights. “How about beside the tree?”
Camellia pried herself from the sofa and assumed the reader’s position at the tree. She paused to smooth her corduroy skirt and blouse, reminding me of her tinkling voice proclaiming not so long ago: Girls as blessed as ourselves must take care of our clothing.
Ever-so-earnest, she cleared her throat and continued.

“It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at
her old dress.
“I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of
pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy
with an injured sniff.
“We’ve got father and mother and each other,” said
Beth contentedly from her corner.

Camellia lowered the book with a frown. “I agree with Amy March. It isn’t fair that some have plenty and others not enough.”
Dahlia nodded, sage-like. “Like the March sisters, we too have a mama and papa and each other.” She sat up with a hand at her waist and her elbow cocked. “Then again . . . I’m with Meg. It would be dreadful to be poor.” Her eyes flashed blue blazes.
“But we aren’t poor, Dolly.” Camellia repositioned the book in the lamplight. “Now, where was I?” Her aquamarine gaze slipped left to right across the page, and she continued.

The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words
but darkened again as Jo said sadly, “We haven’t got father and shall not have him
for a long time.”

Camellia snapped the book closed. “Unlike the March sisters, we’re missing our mother and our father on Christmas.” Her voice cracked, and her chin trembled. “We won’t have them for New Year’s either.” Her seemingly perpetual smile turned down at the corners, and she released a broken sob. “Christmas won’t be Christmas without our parents.”
Both girls sniffled and dabbed at the corners of their eyes.
I had intended to save my news for Christmas morning, but this appeared to be the appropriate moment. “Listen up, sweet ones. I’ve a surprise for you.”
They lifted their curious gazes.
“As you know, your parents have been planning to return from Colorado Mission School in time for Epiphany in January, but they’ve changed their minds. Just today I received a telegram.” I pulled the folded cable from my pocket and extended it toward them. “Your family will arrive on New Year’s Eve.”
“Mama and Papa?”
 “And our sisters?”
 “Back home for New Year’s?”
Grabbing the telegram, Camellia relinquished her place at the tree and plopped onto the floor beside Dahlia. They smiled and exchanged hugs.
I leaned down and gathered their hands into mine. “Your parents can’t bear to celebrate both Christmas and New Year’s without you.”
Their eyes widened into bright pools.
 “Here with us?”
 “In a week?”
 I grew pensive. With Ella and Andrew and four of their daughters blessing orphans in Colorado, it fell to me to provide a glorious Christmas for the two remaining children. Tomorrow morning, I would take them to their home in the copse across the way. Even now, their housekeeper was preparing the house and the girls’ favorite treats before she joined her family in Ardmore.
Make this their best Christmas ever, Lord.
“I’m sure the mission children will miss Mama and Papa.” Camellia’s eyebrows knitted together. “They’re bound to be wishing our parents were their own parents.”
Dahlia dabbed a nostril with her hankie. “We’re blessed. And they’re poor.”
“Poverty is a stranger to you and your sisters, girls, but destitution lives nearby.”
They cocked their heads to the side, curiously catlike.
I pointed north, past Broadview’s gardens. “Just the other side of Rock Creek.”
Camellia’s forehead creased. “Mama and Papa say there’s nothing good across that stream.”
“What’re you getting at, Auntie?” Dahlia said.
“A migrant family is living at the old Sloat place.” I crooked a beckoning forefinger. “Come with me to the parlor. I’ll tell you what I know.”

Order Now!

<< Go Back