Then Mr. Bear drew up his big rocking-chair to the fire, while Mr. Dog threw himself down on the rug in front of it and stretched out to enjoy the blaze with his paws clasped under his head. And they both said there had never been such a Christmas and that it was the greatest fun having it that way, all alone. I suppose they meant not having the forest and the farm people there; and perhaps this is a good place and time for you and me to leave them, too.
[26] Reprinted by permission of the author and “St. Nicholas Magazine.”
A BURNT FORK SANTA CLAUS[27]
Elinore Pruitt Stewart
Mrs. Culberson stood in her cabin door, and looked out upon the sparkling beauty of a sunny winter morning. Beyond the valley rose the shining, snow-covered mountains. A mile below lay the white surface of Henry’s Fork, tree-bordered and ice-bound. She could see the exact spot in the stream where she and the children had caught the barrel of suckers that had been their chief food since the snow came.
When Henry Clay, her oldest child and only son, had come from the creek one day and told her that there were a great many fish at the bend, and that they were lying on the bottom almost too lazy to move, she had said, “We’ll go and catch a lot; we will salt them down in our water keg; they’ll come in handy.” That had been almost four months before.
“Pa” Culberson was one of those Micawber-like persons who are always expecting something to turn up. In more prosperous days, when the Culbersons had lived farther east, they had owned a good team of horses and a cow; but Pa’s waiting propensities had encouraged the man with the mortgage to “turn up,” and the family had been left without their horses and their cow.
Mrs. Culberson had urged her husband to sell their little plot of land and to use the proceeds to begin anew in another place. Pa had a “swapping” streak in him, and so it was not long before they had traded their land for a rickety wagon and a pair of small beasts that Mrs. Culberson called “dunkeys.” Then, with all they owned piled into the wagon, they set forth to make a fresh start in the world. Pa sat on the top of the load to drive the donkeys, and Mrs. Culberson and the children walked alongside.
One night they had camped by a stream in a fertile little valley. Mrs. Culberson liked the water and the view, and refused to go on. Weeks of wandering had worn out the children’s shoes, and winter would soon be upon them; so they unloaded their scanty belongings and set about building their cabin. It stood close to a hillside for shelter from the fierce winds, and it had no floor except the earth. A place had been left for a window in one end, but there was no glass in it. A piece of cheesecloth tacked over the opening let in light and a wooden shutter kept out the storm. The roof was made of poles laid carefully side by side and well covered with earth.
While Mrs. Culberson and the children were chinking and daubing the cracks in their cabin, Pa began to build the stable for the donkeys. The golden September days were slipping away, and the food supply was getting low; as soon as he had finished the tiny stable, Pa went off to get work with the sheepmen. The family were left alone in their new house; it might be months before they saw him again; in fact, it might be as long as that before they saw anyone except “Grandma” Clark, who lived in a cabin near the stream.