At nine,after an undeserved thrashing that had stiffened and all but lamed him,Williard had run away from home and begun to make his own way in the world,chopping wood and herding cows for a place to sleep and food handed from kitchen doors.Finally,wanting to see his younger sister and brother and wanting his father to be at least a little proud of him,that he had survived,he returned home.But at fifteen he left once more,never again to live under his father's roof,but always to keep in touch with him,to write him when he had made some advancement in his life,longing ever for recognition and a first"Well done."
Unbidden,a memory came to his mind,of his near drowning when he was seven.As he was going down for the third time he saw two turtledoves running along the muddy riverbank and thought,"The last thing I see is two pretty birds."Someone saved him,and when he opened his eyes on the bank,he saw his father bending over him,yearning love in his face.
Riding in the sparsely falling snow toward town,to do what he could to make up for disappointing his young wife,Mr.Thomas felt a wave of homesickness for the early childhood he could barely remember,for his only sister and younger brother and for the father approval he had never known,and said aloud in the middle of the white,wide Kansas prairie,"I should not have failed her,forgotten.She is so little,so tender,and such a maid still.I am failing her most in letting her make of the child a supernatural being,a prince royal,a confidant,a doll—her very life.I fear for the boy,and hope there will be other children."
Augusta marveled at the baby's having taken his first steps,and longed for Mr.Thomas to come home and be told about them.Kneeling on the carpet strip,she coaxed him to try again,but he chose only to creep—away from the carpet and onto the cold floor.She put him on the bed,but he climbed the gate and would have fallen from it.She tied him in his cradle,where he roared and struggled in a rage that frightened her.Kneeling on the carpet beside him,her arm about him,she got him to nurse and talked to him soothingly until he was appeased and fell asleep.
Then,sitting in her rocker,her finger tapping her lips,Augusta planned Christmas decorations for her house.From newspapers she cut camels and kings three and tried to paste them to the window panes,but the flour paste she had made in the bowl of a teaspoon would not stick to the steam-wet glass.From her trunk she brought out a piece of buckram she had been saving for the making of her new bustle.Using the paper pattern,she cut the camels and kings from the buckram,with a bit of desert for them to walk upon,then carefully folded the desert base and stood the cutout before the window.Then she stood off to admire her work and softly clapped her hands.Next she pulled her hatbox from under the bed,took out her bonnet and carefully ripped from it the red berries and tacked them to the window frame.She replenished the fire and washed three potatoes and put them in the oven to bake.Mr.Thomas would slice the salt pork when he came."Never touch the butcher knife,the hatchet or ax when I am away,"he had cautioned her.
While she made biscuit-dough cinnamon rolls Augusta thought and thought as to what she might use for the guiding star,and when the rolls were in the oven she searched in her scrap bag for a piece of gold slipper satin her Aunt Matt had given her,and after drawing many patterns,cut out a five-pointed star from it and pinned it to the lintel above the window.This time her hand-clapping woke the baby.
"You be good,now,"she told him,"while I get into my new dress.Just before Mr.Thomas comes,I'll array you in your new dress and petticoat,for you to wear only for his welcome.Then I'll take it off you and put it away for this wedding we are to attend on Christmas Day,providing the weather is fit for you and me to make the trip.When he opens the door,how astonished Mr.Thomas will be!"
The new dress,when she got herself into it and fastened its twenty-odd buttons,was even prettier than she had thought in its last trying-on.And her pleated newspaper bustle made the back peplum stand out most satisfyingly.She must remember to sit on the edge of the buggy seat and of her chair at the wedding and not crush it.Going to the wedding would not be like going home,but it would be going somewhere—it would be a trip.
While she was dressing the baby she said,"Now that you can walk—you will walk,won't you,for Mr.Thomas when he comes,bear me out when I tell him that you did walk,can walk,took two steps?—I'll make you short dresses from some of the long ones you have outgrown.You will be falling many times,learning.May you never hurt yourself!I could not bear it for you to hurt yourself,nor for anything or anyone to hurt you."Her eyes darkened,remembering the time Mr.Thomas had spoken sharply to the child and had threatened with his hand,as though he would slap the baby's hand when he had torn a book left on a chair.She had snatched the boy up and away before the hand descended on him,and cried out,"Mr.Thomas!"in incredulous reproach.
About her very slender waist Augusta tied the white Sunday apron with the three-inch crocheted border that her grandmother had made for her.She set the table with great precision,using the wedding-silver knives and forks instead of the everyday pewter ones.She set the lighted lamp in the window,to be moved later to the supper table."Now let's go out and see the Wise Men and the star,"she said to the baby.She swirled her shawl,nestled it about the two of them and went out into the cold.
In the dusk,the lamplight threw angled,grotesque shadow kings and camels on the snow.The buckram Biblical beings in the window were pricked with light that shone through the weaving,and were beautiful."Look!"she said to the baby,who seemed determined to look everywhere else.