Montana Sky Christmas: A Sweetwater Springs Short Story Collection by Debra Holland Read Free Book Online Page B

up?”
    “I’ll take shelter in town. You know the Nortons will let me stay with them. Please, Da. There’s only three days until…” With a tilt of her head, she glanced at the younger children, not wanting to say more. But her parents were in on her secret plan to provide a special Christmas for her siblings.  
    Her parents exchanged glances.
    Ma selected a new stocking, slipped the wooden egg inside, and turned it over to expose the hole in the heel. “Let the girl go, Rory.” She began to darn.
    Her father stared into the fire, mulling over the idea.
    Sally was wise enough to let him be. He’d come to a conclusion, and that would be that. There’d be no hurrying him, no matter how she begged. But she studied his face to see if she could glean his thoughts.  
    The minutes passed. Although her mother placidly continued her handwork, she kept giving her husband quick glances. The firelight glinted off her auburn hair, and when she gave Sally a reassuring smile, she looked too young to have a grown-up daughter.
    Not for the first time, Sally wished she’d inherited her mother’s beautiful hair color. All the O’Donnell children had their Da’s dark hair and navy-blue eyes, but luckily for them, not his angled features. They each had their mother’s oval face and refined nose.
    At eighteen, Sally was old enough to recall the holidays when they lived in Virginia, and the whole family gathered at her grandparents’ home. She remembered the rambunctious games with her cousins, as well as the food, the candy, the stockings filled with nuts, rare oranges, coins, and small presents, and most of all, the decorated Christmas tree with the presents underneath.
    But since the O’Donnells had traveled to Montana to homestead their own land, life had been hard and money scarce. At the most, Christmas meant Ma baking a cake or a pie and knitting new stockings or mittens or a cap, a reading of the Biblical story about the birth of Jesus, and singing carols after dinner. A special day. One they all looked forward to. But the meager festivities didn’t match Sally’s memories.
    Sally wanted her sisters and brother to have the lavish Christmases she’d experienced in Virginia, or at least as close to them as possible, given the family’s limited means. This year, her parents had agreed.
    Da was going to cut down a tree. Ma had saved sugar and white flour for a treat, although she wouldn’t tell Sally what she was going to make, saying that something needed to be a surprise for her. But there still wasn’t money for presents beyond the wool stockings Ma knitted after the children had gone to bed.
    So Sally had come up with a plan to take her scarves to the mercantile and trade them for candy, nuts, and three oranges. Maybe if she possessed some Irish luck, there’d be enough for some fine cotton to make handkerchiefs for her mother and father. They’d be so surprised. She could barely sit still in her seat just thinking about how wonderful Christmas would be this year.
    Finally, her father spoke up. “We’ll see the weather in the morning, mavoreen . If the sky is clear, ye can go.”
    “Oh, thank you, Da.” She clasped the scarf she was holding to her chest. “Thank you!”
    He held up an admonishing finger. “Ye just be careful.”
    “I will, Da. You know I will.”
    “That I do, daughter. Ye are a good, dependable girl. And proud I am that ye are doing this—“ he glanced at the children engrossed in their work “—when ye could be using the money for yerself. I know ye need a new dress.”
    “That doesn’t matter, Da. This one’s fine. It’s not as if I go anywhere, anyway.”
    Just saying the words made Sally remember her occasional restlessness, an odd longing that came sometimes despite the closeness of her family. Like usual, she dismissed the feeling.
    Da sighed. “I know. And that’s na right either. Ye are almost nineteen now. Maybe this summer we’ll try harder to get to town for church