Mimi ran her fingers up and down the crinkles of the blue and white striped bed cover. She made dents with her fists for lakes then smoothed them all out and began again. This time she made a deep curving gulley which was Green River flowing around Camp. The flat space over her stomach was the open space around the flag pole where the campers had gathered as soon after reveille as they could slide into their bathing suits. The small point she had pinched up with her fingers was the Lodge and the great bump her doubled up knees made was the Hotel far up on the hill above camp.
Chimes rang out in the distance, suddenly her knees collapsed and she burrowed her flushed face in the pillow. A miniature earthquake had leveled her make-believe land. Now it was raining on her pillow. What a great god she was to build country and shake it down and wash away the debris with rain.
After the deluge she was as alone as in the beginning. All of her best friends were gone. They had not been permitted in the ward to say goodbye. When Nurse relayed their farewells from the corridor to the patient some of the sadness melted away, but not all, not by any means.
She had begun all the make-believe nonsense to keep from remembering it was Christmas and that she was sick-a-bed without her family, without her chums. But it was no use. Stubbornly she put her mind back to her “Child’s Garden of Verse.” She said “The Friendly Cow,” “Singing in the Rain,” “Sea Cups,” and in spite of herself between each one she would revert to “When I was sick and lay abed——”
The siege of flu had begun to look like an epidemic. There were six single beds in a row in the Infirmary and this Christmas morning each bed cradled a sick girl. Mimi, however, was the only one awake.
Ding, dong—ding, dong.
Mimi listened to the bells ring out. Perhaps they could do what trying-very-hard and poetry had failed to do. But she gave up. There was no use trying to forget it was Christmas for all day there would be reminders. She must hope that somewhere in Leipzig Junior was dumping the contents of a bulging stocking on his bed instead of racing with her and winning by sliding down the bannisters to their usual tree at home. She hoped the gifts she had sent arrived in time. If it took as long for things to go to Leipzig as it did for them to come from there to America, the gifts would be late. Mimi knew that Mother Dear had sent her something in plenty of time but so far no package had reached her. As soon as Nurse would let her get up she would go to the Post Office and ask them to send a tracer. She was that sure Mother and Daddy had not failed her.
Gray morning was peeping around the cracks of the window shades. Mimi leaned over and eased her shade up the tiniest bit; at least that is what she intended to do but the shade slipped from her cold fingers and went whr-r-r—zip—all the way to the top. Mimi shut her eyes against the sound, and when she opened them and looked out, wonder of wonders a fairy world bade her good-morning. So softly the snow had fallen that no sleeper had heard.
Nose against the pane, breath making fantastic wreaths on the glass, hands clutched as if praying, Mimi gasped in awe. Then because she could never be unhappy long and because it was Christmas inside her, a WHITE Christmas, she sang out:
“Merry CHRISTMAS! Oh wake up, wake up, there is snow!”