Haywire by Brooke Hayward (android based ebook reader .txt) 📕

house. It is cold and there is snow on the ground. Agnes the cow and the sheep want to stay inside out of the cold air. Agnes makes wonderful milk and cream so thick you can’t pour it. I have been away in a place called Boston—which is a beautiful city. In about another week I am going to another city called Baltimore which I love very much. The reason is because before Mother and I were married she was working there and I used to go there to see her all the time and we had wonderful fun together. We used to eat codfish cakes all the time. We will be leaving for home in a little over four weeks now and are both so excited we can hardly wait. I think Christmas is coming soon, too. I love you all a great deal. So does Mother and we both send you millions of kisses—Father.”

“Oh, my darlings,” scribbled Mother hastily, “four more performances—and I have never been so excited in my life.… I think when I see you, my three wonderful grown-up children, I shall just sit down and bawl like a baby. You’ve never seen me cry, well I have a small tear in my eye right now thinking about you. This will be my last letter; did you know Father’s produced a play and that it’s a terrific smash hit—which means that so many people want to see it that there are not enough tickets? It’s a very fine play about our soldiers who go into conquered lands and try to teach the people a good way of life. You can all go see it next spring. I love you all so much that it makes me want to cry. That’s a silly way to show how happy I am, isn’t it? Just think, we’ll all be together again—forever and ever—Ten kisses apiece on my favorite spots—God bless you! Mother.”

With A Bell for Adano, Father became an overnight success as a Broadway producer. But all Bridget, Bill, and I knew was that it was Christmas and Mother and Father had finally come home.

It was our last Christmas at Evanston Street. Not a single detail of the usual preparations escaped Mother’s unwavering sense of tradition. Out came the antique German crèche, and on the mantel knelt a flock of carved angels with gold-leaf wings and halos like Fra Angelico paintings; thousands of Christmas cards were wedged around all the books in the library, solidly covering them. In The Barn, a thirty-foot fir tree, like an apparition from the Nutcracker Suite, rose dramatically to the ceiling. As usual, it was so high the top branches had to be decorated precariously from the balcony, and it took everyone who passed by, working in shifts, several days to trim. Bridget and I, in angel costumes, flitted around the mountain of packages that slowly began to compete in height with the tree; whenever Emily’s back was turned, Bill, coached by us, tried to scale his way to the top where all new shipments were consigned. Most of the presents were sent, it was explained, by complete strangers, fans of Mother’s who had probably seen our names in movie magazines. “Horrifying!” exclaimed Mother. “I’ll let you open them all on Christmas Day—that part’s the most fun anyway. Then Emily will store them all away for a rainy day.” From previous experience we knew that “rainy day” was another way of saying that the entire mountain would be hauled off in a truck to a children’s hospital after the holidays. (Mother had one longstanding fan who kept track of all kinds of dates, and on Bridget’s fourth birthday sent her a diamond brooch, allegedly a valuable family heirloom; for once, Mother was at a loss.)

Christmas mornings were altogether overwhelming. We invested them with so many expectations, such conjecture and petty rivalry, that when they arrived like long-awaited guests, we were stricken by shyness. The big question was whether or not Santa Claus would come through. That year, Bridget, Bill, and I, with Emily and George Stearns in tow, had spent several days on his trail. After unsuccessfully canvassing all the Beverly Hills department stores, we pinned him down at Sears. Our desires were precise. Bill asked for a flashy red fire engine with an extension ladder, and Bridget, as she did every year, a life-size doll baby with all the attendant paraphernalia. I had never been interested in dolls; to me they were clumsy facsimiles of life, with their artificial smiles and limbs, and I couldn’t understand how Bridget could spend hours dressing and undressing them or sticking bottles of water into their mouths to wait, fascinated, for what would come out the other end. I had spotted, in the toy store, a doll’s house, which I instantly coveted; the idea of moving furniture from one room to another made perfect sense, I confided to Santa Claus. What I remember about Christmas morning that year was coming downstairs, cautiously negotiating each stair as if it were slippery with ice, and, at the bottom, Mother and Father waiting to lead me to the center of the room and a doll’s house, surpassing in magnificence anything I had ever imagined, towering, it seemed, over the tree and everything else in The Barn. It was a marvel of craftsmanship, a Gothic confection of some twenty rooms, every one wallpapered, carpeted, hung with a tiny chandelier, and crammed, like San Simeon, with a prodigious supply of furniture. George Stearns stood beside it, beaming; he had built and decorated it entirely himself, working secretly every night for weeks—an old hobby, he said, carving and cabinet work, and a great pleasure to discover he had the skill to make some furniture for me to move around. Mother nudged me gently. I had forgotten to say thank you. My legs felt so wobbly I didn’t quite dare reach inside to see if the furniture really moved. “Brooke,” Mother whispered, “George has