The House Without a Christmas Tree Read online

  “What’s the minimum?” asked Delmer, being silly.

  “Zero!” said Billy Wild from behind me.

  Everybody giggled at his dumb joke, and I turned around and made a face at him.

  “You’re so parsimonious!” I said. It was a new word we had just learned in vocabulary that morning, and I was delighted to find an opportunity to use it so soon. I was very good in vocabulary, and always tried to use new words right away—especially if I could use them on Billy. He was always showing off his cowboy boots because he was the only kid in class with a horse. I would have given anything for a horse, but even getting a pair of cowboy boots seemed unlikely.

  Billy made a face back at me and gave one of my pigtails a yank. It always annoyed him that I usually got better grades than he did. Whenever I got 100 on a test he would call me “teacher’s pet,” and I would plot to get back at him the rest of the day. I knew I was the best student in the class, but I had been taught at home to be modest about it, so I took the attitude that my smartness was just an annoyance I had to put up with, like being born with freckles or six toes. I couldn’t help it if I got good grades all the time, it just happened.

  I knew if I didn’t get straight A’s, I would be in trouble with my father. My mother had been valedictorian of her high school class, and he expected me to live up to that. He hardly ever talked about her to me, but that was one thing he had told me. He had never finished high school himself, and I think he wanted me to make up for that too.

  I got home right after school that afternoon, because Grandma had to fit my costume for the church Christmas pageant. I was playing the lead angel, and while I was busy wrapping foil around my coat-hanger halo, she was fitting my white angel costume. She had made it from an old sheet, sewed up on her sewing machine. She sat at the machine in the little bedroom we shared, and I stood on a kitchen chair in front of her so she could make the hem even all around. I turned around and around as we talked.

  “You kids will be stopping by here tomorrow night to sing Christmas carols, won’t you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know if we’ll be here or not,” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “Why not?” Grandma asked, sounding surprised.

  “Well, I’m ashamed to have them come here.”

  “My glory! Why? You’re not ashamed of your old grandmother, are you?” she asked.

  “No! It’s just … well, I’m ashamed we don’t have a Christmas tree. We’re probably the only people in town who don’t.”

  “If you don’t come here and sing carols, your Dad is going to feel awful bad!” she said.

  “It serves him right!” I said angrily. “I feel bad not having a Christmas tree!”

  “Addie! Being vengeful is not Christian! What would Reverend Teasdale say if he heard you talk like that? I’ll bet you wouldn’t be playing the lead angel in the Christmas pageant.”

  I gave a big sigh and went on fixing my halo. I knew the only reason I got to play the lead angel anyway was because I was the tallest and could hold the star of Bethlehem up higher than anyone else, but Grandma thought it was some kind of honor for good behavior, so I let her go on thinking that. She took churchgoing very seriously, and always insisted that I go to Sunday School and church and young people’s Bible-study classes. She didn’t go very often herself because she could no longer hear or see well enough to participate in the services, but she read her Bible faithfully every day.

  When she was reading, she would push her thick glasses up on top of her head, hold her Bible just a few inches from her face and squint at it, sometimes through a magnifying glass. When she found a verse she particularly liked, she would get a stubby little pencil, which she sharpened with a paring knife, and scrawl the verse on a little scrap of paper. She would add that to all her other little scraps of paper. She was always cutting out recipes and patterns from the newspaper and little tidbits of information, four or five line stories that newspapers refer to as “fillers,” which she thought were the best part of the paper. It would be something about Bolivia producing 600,000 tons of coal last year or that the largest tomato in the world was grown by Mr. Jonas Phillips of Rhode Island.

  She tried to keep all these scraps of paper in one place, in a cigar box on the floor near the sofa, but somehow they always found their way to other parts of the house. You never knew when you were going to suddenly be confronted with a verse from Isaiah or part of a Psalm or a recipe for chocolate meat loaf or a flash about Mr. Phillips’ tomato.

  My dad, who was terribly neat and organized, found this quite an irritation, but I rather liked it. I thought it was a pretty good way to get inspired in the middle of dusting under the bed—suddenly finding some message like, “Consider the lilies of the field.” In fact, I always wondered if Grandma didn’t scatter her scraps around on purpose, as a kind of supplementary education project of her own. It would have been just like her, because she liked being in charge of everything, and when she couldn’t do it one way, she would find another.

  I took after her in that respect, and between the two of us, I guess we kept my dad on his toes. He often found himself not knowing quite what to expect next, caught between two rambunctious and unpredictable females.

  I told Grandma then that I would think about our coming to the house to sing Christmas carols.

  “You’d better come,” she said.

  I didn’t say anything for a few moments, as she worked on the hem.

  “Why is Dad so parsimonious?” I asked suddenly.

  “That’s a pretty fancy word.”

  “We learned it in vocabulary this week. It means stingy.”

  “He’s not stingy,” she said. “He’s careful. He remembers what it’s like to be poor. Folks had a bad time back in the Depression.”

  “Well, he’s not poor now! He has almost $6,000 in the bank!”

  “How do you know?” she asked, sounding surprised.

  “He was teaching me how to write a check, and he had all his papers out, and I saw the balance in his bankbook.”

  “You shouldn’t be so nosy about other people’s business.”

  “Well, I’d have to be blindfolded not to see it!” I said. “You know, the other kids think it’s pretty peculiar.”

  “What?”

  “That we never have a Christmas tree in this house!”

  “Just say we’re going to Uncle Will’s and sharing his tree.”

  “That sounds so dumb.”

  “You don’t need to give a fig what others think,” she said. “Now, let’s see how this looks.”

  I twirled around on the chair. “How do you know angels dressed like this?” I asked.

  “Tells in the Bible,” Grandma said. “If you paid attention in Sunday School, you’d know too.”

  “It doesn’t say they wore old bed sheets!” I said, twirling around some more.

  “Stop fidgeting!” she said.

  “I bet angels wore robes of pure silk!”

  “Addie, will you stand still!”

  “Do you think Dad might do it this year? Might buy me a tree?”

  “Oh, yo!” she said, wearily. “I wouldn’t nag him about it.”

  “I don’t nag. He never listens to me! I have to ask him everything a million times!” I said. “He doesn’t care anything about me. He never pays any attention to me …”

  Grandma looked at me disapprovingly. “He buys your food and clothes, don’t he? Pays the doctor bills … all the bills in this house.”

  “But he doesn’t talk to me!” I said, trying to make her understand. “I’m a person too, you know. I like to be talked to.”

  Grandma went on working on the hem, and I could tell she was hoping I’d give up the idea.

  “You said Dad always bought my mother a tree. How come he wasn’t stingy with her?”

  “It was different then,” she said quietly. “They always spent Christmas Day at home. Now we go to Uncle Will’s.”

  “Do you think he might do it this y
ear, though?”

  “Well,” Grandma sighed. “I s’pose there’s no harm in asking.”

  I hugged her, thankful she was at least part way on my side. “OK! Tonight I’m going to implore him to buy a tree! Implore means beg, but it sounds better.”

  With that big decision made, I jumped down from the chair and struck a crazy pose in front of the old mirror on our dresser. I didn’t think I looked much like an angel.

  Chapter Three

  I got more and more nervous as the afternoon wore on. Dad would soon be home, and I would have to make my move. I was looking anxiously out the living room window, watching for his truck in the driveway, when Billy Wild came along delivering newspapers. He usually made the rounds on his bike, but he couldn’t get through the heavy snow that afternoon, so he was pulling his canvas bag of papers along on his sled. He was wearing galoshes over his cowboy boots, and I knew it was killing him to have to cover them up for even a second.

  At most of the houses along his route, he would just put the paper between the storm door and the inside door, or put it in a protected place like the milk box, but he usually knocked on the door at our house and handed it to me, and we’d talk a minute or two. I didn’t know why we always talked to each other, because if anyone had asked us, we would have said we didn’t even like each other. But for some reason, we would yak on about nothing.

  Today, though, I wasn’t in the mood for any idle chatter. As soon as he knocked on the door, I yanked it open, grabbed the paper out of his hand, said “thanks,” and practically slammed the door in his face before he could say a word. He just stood there on the porch giving me a disgusted look. I stuck my tongue out at him, and he did the same back and turned around and went down the steps. I watched him as he grabbed the rope of his sled and went on down the street.

  I plopped nervously onto the sofa with the newspaper and tried to concentrate on Dick Tracy, but the approaching confrontation with Dad kept interfering.

  When he finally came home, I tried to stay out of his way. I invented things to do, like picking lint off my sweater and polishing my brown oxfords, which I usually did about once a year. I hardly said a word all through dinner. Grandma kept looking over at me to see if I was going to take the plunge, and I would pretend to be interested in my mashed potatoes, which in reality I hated with a passion.

  When dinner was over, Dad went into the living room to read the paper, and I got very interested in helping with the dishes and putting away leftovers, something else I hated with a passion. Grandma, as usual, knew exactly what I was up to.

  “Weren’t you going to ask your father something?” she said, as I slowly stuffed leftover potatoes into an old peanut butter jar.

  “I was?” I said, sounding totally surprised. “What?”

  “You know what.”

  “Oh, that,” I said, as though I hadn’t given it a thought. “Well, I think I’ll wait till we finish the dishes.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to finish the dishes first!” I knew how ridiculous that sounded, but she had the grace not to laugh.

  “Never saw you so anxious to do dishes before!”

  “He’s … not in a good mood,” I said, trying to think of a reason not to ask him.

  “Any man’s in a good mood once he’s had a good meal,” said Grandma. She believed that eating would fix just about anything that was wrong with anybody. “That was when I’d always ask your grandpa for things—after supper.”

  “But Grandpa loved you. I don’t think Dad loves me.”

  “Of course he does!” she said, sounding shocked. “You’re his child!”

  “He never hugs me or kisses me.”

  “He ain’t very good at showin’ how he feels,” she said quietly, looking at me to see if I understood.

  “When Carla Mae’s father gets home, he grabs her up in his arms and twirls her around …”

  “Your Dad ain’t the huggin’ kind.”

  “He’d love me a lot more if I was a boy …”

  “Now that’s a gosh-darned thing to say!” Grandma said, and I knew she was upset, because she never used slang like “goshdarned.”

  “Well, he treats me like a boy. He taught me to box! I bet when I was born, he wanted me to be a boy!”

  “Your dad and mother waited for you for a long … they thought you were the greatest baby in the world!” She shook her head at the memory. “They didn’t give a fig whether you were a boy or a girl.”

  I fidgeted around the table for a moment, clearing dishes, then suddenly changed the subject. “Don’t give me a doll or anything like that this Christmas.”

  “Well, I sure wouldn’t,” she said. “The way you got all them poor dolls stuffed in the old dresser drawer in the basement, you don’t deserve another one.”

  “I want a pair of cowboy boots.”

  “Cowboy boots? What for?”

  “To wear to school, like Billy Wild.”

  “Thought you didn’t like Billy,” she said, giving me an amused look.

  “I despise him!” I said haughtily. “But I love his boots.”

  I went on putting things away. Grandma was not going to let me off the hook.

  “That’s enough,” she said. “I’ll finish up.”

  “I’ll dry!”

  “No, you go speak to your father.”

  “Shall I cover this pie with wax paper?”

  “I’ll do it,” she said. “You’ve got something to ask your father. Go ask him …”

  “Well, what’s all the hurry?” I asked. “Maybe I’ll wait and ask him tomorrow.”

  “Never put off until tomorrow …” she started to say.

  “I know, I know,” I said, nervously hanging onto the back of a chair. “OK, I’m going.”

  “Go ahead, then.”

  “OK, OK.” I somehow let go of the chair and went into the living room.

  Dad was settled in his big chair reading the newspaper. I eyed him surreptitiously to see what mood he was in. It was hard to tell, because, as Grandma had said, he wasn’t much on showing his feelings.

  There were a lot of things I liked and respected about my father. I liked that he was tall and slender and had slightly gray hair and looked a little like Randolph Scott, who was always the star of cowboy movies. Dad was an expert with his crane and even though he had his hands in machine grease all day, his fingernails were always clean. He could whistle through his teeth, which I never could learn to do. I liked the way he smelled—of To A Wild Rose hair tonic and tobacco and shaving cream and leather. He knew how to fix his own car and he always beat me at cards and anagrams and checkers.

  I knew there were things he liked about me too, but we never told any of this to each other. Instead, we waged a constant, subtle war of irritation, sometimes going at each other “like two cats in a sack,” as Grandma would say. On those occasions, she would usually be in the middle, trying not to undermine Dad’s authority and at the same time, trying to dispense a little justice on my behalf. I never actually kept score, but I think I broke even in the long run.

  I thought I would busy myself with something before I approached him. Our living room was so small, though, that whatever I did always seemed to involve everybody else, especially because I was a bit noisy and Dad was the quiet type. There was Grandma’s rocking chair, our small sofa, which was my domain, and the writing desk, where we each had drawers of belongings. Dad’s drawers were full of receipts and insurance papers; and Grandma’s, full of her stubby pencils and writing tablets and her ubiquitous scraps of paper; and mine, full of playing cards and marbles and jacks and other important things of that nature.

  I tried not to disturb Dad as I looked through the drawers. I spied my bag of marbles in the back and pulled the drawer way out to get at them. Of course, it dropped with a tremendous clatter, and Dad put down his paper and looked very annoyed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said meekly.

  “You left the paper in a mess again,” he said. He liked
to have it folded up neatly, just the way it came, and I almost always forgot to do it after I read the comics.

  “Sorry, Dad.”

  He showed me where I had made a mistake on the crossword puzzle too. It didn’t seem to be my night, but I saved the situation a little by complimenting him on how much better he was at crossword puzzles than I was. I couldn’t tell if it helped or not. He went back to reading, and I got busy with my marbles on the floor. It was so quiet in the living room that every little click of the marbles seemed tremendously loud. I could tell he had stopped reading and was watching me. I deliberately made a couple of sloppy shots.

  “No, no,” he said, “not like that.” He got out of his chair to show me how. I had known he would fall for it.

  He spent a few minutes showing me how to get my knuckle flat on the floor for a smooth shot. I already knew, but I figured being sneaky and making him feel good was fair play when I had an important question to ask.

  “Play a game with me, Dad?”

  “Nope,” he said, getting back into his chair. “Going to bed early.” He lit a cigarette and tossed the empty package to me. “Here’s something for you …”

  “Thanks,” I said, and started to take out the foil to add to my collection. “Don’t know what to use this for …” I said, under my breath.

  “What?”

  “Can’t use this to make tree decorations because we don’t have a tree.”

  “Are you starting that again?” he asked.

  “Won’t you please buy me a tree, Dad? Please? Just a little tree?”

  “I’ve already told you no, and no means no!”

  “A tiny tree? That wouldn’t cost very much. You spend more on cigarettes in a week than a tree costs! I added it up!”

  I could see that had struck a nerve. He was angry.

  “Addie! I told you …”

  “Please! I implore you!”

  The big word seemed to annoy him rather than impress him.

  “You do not need a tree!”

  “I do! I do!”

  “What for? We’re going to Will’s.”

  “It would make this house happy-looking.”