Summary: Those often ridiculed have vulnerable souls, too. Who better than a Cartwright to acknowledge that?
Rating:  G  Words 1,860
Written for the 2022 Bonanza Brand Advent Calendar

A continuation of the Art-Universe

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The Icicle of Doom

 

December 26^th, 1869

Dear Uncle Sam,

Thank you very much for the parcel you sent me for Christmas. I haven’t seen anything like the zoetrope (Papa told me that’s its name) before, but it’s brilliant! Papa says he’s going to show me how to draw my own paper strips for it.

I like the horn, too, but Mama confix confesc confiscated it right after I blew into it for the very first time. It’s plain unfair! True, it woke Florence after she finally fell asleep, but it’s not my fault she’s teething and keeping her and Mama awake all night. Anyway, I’m not to get it back until spring when I can try it out in the back garden. “Far, far away from human ears,” Mama said, and Papa did not jump in to help me out but just shrugged and wore his “sorry, I can’t help you here”-expression, even though he looked less sorry than usual.

I got a bag of glass marbles in my stocking alongside the Christmas orange, and had a set of boardgames, a new cup and ball, and a book under the tree. Ivanhoe. It’s about knights and kings, and duels and love and treason Mama said, and Papa said that he’s sure I’ll find it’s a most magnificent read for any six year old in that funny English accent he sometimes uses. Everything was like it’s supposed to be till then, but after that it got pecoulier stranger and stranger.

It’s all Ned’s fault. Honest, it is! Because it was his idea to try and shoot at the icicles hanging down from the schoolhouse roof with our sling shots to see who can get down the most at recess the last day of school before Christmas break. He’s got a bigger sling shot and took down an icicle with every hit, but Uncle Joe has taught me how to aim well, so I hit them much more often. Shortly before the end of the break we were tied, and only one icicle was left – on the awning over the front door. Ned couldn’t get it, but I hit the icicle perfectly on my first shot. It came down beautifully. Uncle Sam, you should have seen it: it sparkled in the afternoon sun like gold or a Christmas light or a falling star, and it fell straight down into Mrs. Myers’s bosom. Because, of course, she had to step out to call the pupils back into the classroom at that very moment.

She shrieked like Mama when she sees a spider, only louder and shriller and longer. And she jumped at least two foot high. I swear, she did! And then she did some kind of funny dance until she slipped on the snowy planks and fell.

I don’t think she hurt herself, because she instantly stopped shrieking but looked around as if caught at doing something you oughtn’t. I tried to help her up, but by then she’d fingered her dress and seen the slingshot in my hand and figured out what had happened. She’s real smart that way. Anyway, she shooed me off and got up without any help, and then pointed her finger and looked down her nose at me and said, “You’ll stay after class, young man, I’m going to have a word with your father.”

Papa wasn’t happy to be kept at school, you could tell. Mrs. Myers was furious, she said she’d never in her life been humiliated that way, and that she didn’t know what had gotten into me and that “mayhap a young and susceptible soul” like me was spending too much time with my uncle Joseph. Papa sighed very deeply, and then spoke in his most adult voice, the one he uses mostly on Mrs. Myers and on travelling merchants. He made me explain how it all happened and apologise to Mrs. Myers, and in the end she said it was all well now.

And then she burst into tears. Papa immy immediately sent me outside, but I stayed close to the door because it had begun to snow and I didn’t want to get wet because then Mama would have scolded me, and it’s the smart way to act, and a man should always act the smart way, Papa always says, and I didn’t do it to eavesdrop, cross my heart, but I did hear what Mrs. Myers said. Not everything, though, only when her sobbing got louder. She said that after her husband’s death and now that her mother had passed, too, she was so lonely, and that she often felt ridiculed and like the laughing stock of the town.

I couldn’t understand what Papa said, but even through the wooden door his voice was soothing, and I knew he would make Mrs. Myers feel better. He can do it with everyone, me and Mama, Uncle Hoss and Grandpa and even Uncle Joe. I was mighty proud of him.

Until we were on the way back to the ranch, and he told me he had invited Mrs. Myers for Christmas Day.

Mama said he must be joking when he told her it, but Papa said he’d explain later. Mama looked heavenwards (she does not roll her eyes, she says, she just looks up to heaven in the hopes of help from whatever deity graces her with attention right then) and mumbled, “Good gracious,” and something of which I didn’t understand anything but “the nerve” and “deserve that”. Later she told me it was an honour to have my teacher with us on Christmas Day, and that I’m expected to be on my best behaviour.

When Mrs. Myers arrived at lunchtime on Christmas Day, everyone else was already there, Grandpa and Uncle Joe, Uncle Hoss and his new fiancée Miss Susan, Doctor Paul and Granny Hawkins, and they all looked very surprised, but none as shocked as Uncle Joe.

Mrs. Myers brought Mama a glass icicle, one of those we’d seen at Barnes’s Mercantile. Mama had taken them all in her hand, each and every one, for they were all different, and said how much she liked them and how beautiful they would look on our Christmas tree. But then she’d not bought any of them. “We don’t want to overindulge in decoration,” she’d said. And that one should not purchase everything that took one’s fancy.

And now Mrs. Myers gave her one. “Because ultimately it was an icicle that brought me here,” she said to Mama.

Mama put the icicle on our tree, right in the front, and you could tell she really liked it.

Mrs. Myers had a gift for me, too. It’s a book called 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation, and they were written down by George Washington.

The good thing was that after it had been very awkward with Mrs. Myers around, now everyone was taking turns in reading out Rules from the book, and while some got responses like “hear, hear” and “haven’t I told you that a million times, Joe”, some made everyone laugh out loud. Papa loved Rule 12 the most. “Roll not the Eye,” he read out and looked at Mama, who looked heavenwards until she caught herself and glared at Papa, who smiled innocently and continued, “Lift not one eyebrow higher than the other,” whereupon everyone burst out laughing.

Mama lifted her right eyebrow. “It’s all nonsense, of course,” she said, and then had to laugh, too. She snatched the book out of Papa’s hand and then read, “Rule 16: Do not thrust out the lips, or bite them. There.” And she looked quite triumphant.

Uncle Joe said this was the most entertaining Christmas gift he’d seen in years, and then he sat down on the sofa and started to study the book in earnest. For a time we didn’t hear more that an occasional giggle from him or a “yes, that’s how it is!”

Mrs. Myers then said to Mama that she was amazed how much Uncle Joe had changed since he’d been her pupil, and what a fine gentleman with appreciation for the finer ways of life he’d become, and Mama said, yes, he was quite the knight in a shining armour, wasn’t he, and wouldn’t Mrs. Myers like to sit down on the sofa next to dear Joseph for tea and sandwiches.

Uncle Joe looked a little pained but after Mrs. Myers sat down she asked him about…I forgot about what, but it was something about the ranch and his work, and he answered her, and she asked more questions, and they chatted happily for a long time, and Uncle Joe didn’t look so pained anymore at all.

After a while Mrs. Myers didn’t appear a stranger anymore. She made me show her all my Christmas presents and then challenged me to a game of Halma – which she won! Her voice was much less loud and shrill than at school when she discussed some latest poem by Longfellow with Mama, and her smile wasn’t as forced as usual. She even rocked Florence after she woke up and instantly began to cry, and Florence must have been so surprised, she calmed down at once.

When in the late afternoon she said her goodbyes, she looked genuinely happy as she thanked Mama and Papa for having her. And Mama and Papa looked genuinely happy when they said that it had been their pleasure and that they should do this again.

I guess from now on I’ll have Mrs. Myers here at Christmas.

But the strangest thing was Uncle Joe saying later he’d never have thought Miss Abigail could be so interesting to talk to, and that he’d actually enjoyed seeing her again.

“Did you now,” Papa said then with that gleam in his eyes everyone fears, and that he now understood certain events much better than before and would, perchance, Joe like to borrow his guitar.

Mama clapped a hand in front of her mouth but you could easily hear her snigger, Papa grinned broadly, and Uncle Hoss laughed out very loud. Uncle Joe glared at them and rolled his eyes (even though we’ve just learnt it was not to be done) and then opened the Book of Rules and read out in a very dignified voice, “Rule 24: Do not laugh too loud or too much at any Public Spectacle.”

And then we were all laughing our heads off.

And that’s how our Christmas was.

I hope you had a good one, too.

Yours sincerely,

Henry

 ~ * ~

Dear Henry,

The most permanent lessons in morals are those which come, not of book teaching, but of experience.*

Between your father’s unfailing moral compass, your mother’s generous heart, and that teacher of yours, who seems to be far more courageous than anyone is giving her credit for, you are bound to get the best education possible.

One day, you’ll understand.

Your devoted godfather,

Sam Clemens

 ~ * ~

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.~ Sam Clemens aka Mark Twain

 *This is an original quote by Mark Twain, too.

 ~ * ~

Link to the 2022 Bonanza Brand Advent Calendar – Day 24 – The Found Christmas Star by FanofoldTVshows