Another from Karen Our Karen sent me this, to cheer me up when I was not feeling too well last week & it did! It's a beauiful story. With her permission I wanted to post it at the appropriate time of X'mas but I dont want to risk forgetting, it's too good to be hidden away - enjoy.
The Christmas Weed
By Karen D Bumgarner
November, 2010
It was December, 1939,and they said the great depression was over, but James Womack wondered if it was true. There didn’t seem to be much difference yet, far as he could see. Oh, there were a few jobs to be had, but not nearly enough to go around.
Idalou was a small community in the Texas panhandle who’s main source of work was the big cotton gin down on highway 97, but the need for cotton was way out-paced by the need for food and other essentials right then.
On a cold , blustery December day, James and his younger brother, by one and a half years, stood on the corner of the highway crossing at the edge of town, along with fifteen or so other men, hoping to be chosen by the crew foreman on the cotton gin truck, which stopped there each day during ginning season. Only 8 to 10 workers were needed that day to load cotton bales onto large flatbed trucks. Homer, being the larger and stronger of the two, got picked more often than James, but on that day they were both left standing on the corner with the other unlucky rejects.
As they plodded towards home, James was thinking how grateful he was that Homer had moved in with him and his children after James’ wife, had dropped dead on the kitchen floor of a stroke two years before, leaving him to raise his ten year old daughter, Josette, and his nine year old son, Joey by himself.
Back at the house, Josette and Joey had more important things on their minds. The closer it got to Christmas, the more they worried. Tomorrow was the 23rd, and they still didn’t have a Christmas tree in the house.
That night at supper, they got up the courage to ask, “Do you think maybe we will get a tree soon, Daddy? A really little one would be good.” They were old enough to know how hard a dollar was to come by and didn’t want him to feel bad if he couldn’t afford a big one. Yet, they were young enough that a tree at Christmas was still a big deal.
The sadness in his eyes came and went so quickly, they weren’t even sure they saw it. With a forced grin on his face, he said, “Don’t you worry your noggins now. We’ll have a tree by tomorrow. I promise.” After a supper of red beans and cornbread, James sat on the front porch and smoked. The wind had laid down some, so the cold wasn’t near as biting as that morning. Annie hadn’t tolerated smoking in the house, and even after so long a time, he still went outside to smoke out of respect for her.
Homer stood at the screen door and silently watched his brother. After a minute, Homer spoke. “A penny for your thoughts Jimmy.”
“I’ll take it," replied James. “Ninety-nine cents more and I might be able to get a tree for the kids. I thought things would be so much better by now. I can’t hardly stand the thought of disappointing them. I spent what I could on a present for them, and the rest went for food and heat and light bills. There’s just nothing left for a tree. Dang! Why did I make a promise like that, when I know I can’t keep it?"
“You know, I been thinkin',” said Homer. “Remember when we both had Miz Roberson for a teacher? That year , there wasn’t such a thing as a real Christmas tree around here, except for rich folks who had them shipped in special from up north.”
He paused , taking a draw on his own smoke, and continued. “Remember how she had us make our own tree, like her family did when she was a little girl? Why can’t we do that? What do you say, James? We just had a windstorm!”
For the first time in a long while the smile on James’ face was genuine. “Lets do it!” he whooped.
At first light the brothers tiptoed out the back door, munching on left-over cornbread, and headed for the field out back. At first it only looked like a big empty space, strewn with dried out maize stalks. But as they neared the center of the 5 acre field, they could just make out the outlines of what they sought. There, captured in a big jumble against the barbed wire fence on the east side, were dozens of tumbleweeds. Tumbleweeds of all sizes. They began to pick through the tangled mass of brittle round stuff, looking for more recently uprooted bushes. They would be much more pliable and less likely to crumble with handling.
They half carried and half drug the three chosen weeds back to the house, and squeezed them through the door and into the front room. Homer fetched an old sheet from his bedroom and laid it out in a corner of the room. There, James sat the biggest weed -ball and Homer put the next biggest one on top of it. Then they put the smallest one on top of that, until the whole thing looked kind of like a big, brown, scraggly
Snowman.
The night before, they had figured out how they would decorate their makeshift tree. The had placed two of the wooden kitchen chairs, one on each side of the stack. Homer had found the old fly sprayer and filled it with alcohol and water. James had the flour can and sifter ready to go. They took up their stations, each on his own chair, and as Homer pumped and sprayed, James sifted flour over the pyramid of tumbleweeds. Before long , from that homely pile of tangled twigs, emerged an amazing pretender of a snow covered Christmas tree!
The two men then set about trimming the tree with the colorful balls, red bows and gold and silver garlands, accumulated over the years, and carefully stored away by Annie each year. James had to stop once and furtively wipe the tears from his eyes, before continuing on. He wondered if it would ever stop hurting and if he would ever be able to love another half as much as his sweet Annie.
Later, they sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, worn out from their project, but wearing smiles as wide as Texas itself.
“You think they’ll like it? They’ll know it isn’t really a tree. Maybe they will be disappointed.” James’ smile started to fold under a furrowed brow.
Homer pondered over that a moment. “Nope. Don’t you remember how excited we were when Miz Roberson’s tree was done? It was a tree, and we didn’t care what kind it was. Times may be different now, but I don’t think kids are. They’ll Love it , you’ll see.
Time proved the truth of that. When Josette and Joey came into the front room that morning, not expecting to see a tree, but with hopes of a wrapped gift or two under the front window, they couldn’t believe their eyes, which were as big as saucers with surprise. And joy. “Oh, Daddy! This is the prettiest and best tree ever I ever saw!” cried Josette. Joey was speechless, for the first time since he’d learned to talk.
James and Homer watched from the kitchen door, both wiping furtively at their eyes.
