Momma and the Magic Bag

 

Momma and the Magic Bag

By Lila L. Smith

 

The howling wind made the tall old house rock and creak. It came down the stovepipe blowing puffs of smoke into the room from the big pot-bellied stove.

 

The windows were rattling, and Mama was stuffing rags into the cracks to hold back the snow. I ran to her and held onto her skirt. Sternly she told me to let go so she could move around.

 

She stopped for a minute, scraped frost from the glass pane, looked out, then started to cry. Mama cried a lot those cold winter day. Papa said she was just homesick, but I knew better, for I heard them talking after they put me to bed.

 

"There’s no use in staying in this God-forsaken place," Mama said. "Now that you have sold the cattle, we can go back to Southern Utah, and live like other people!"

 

"I am not leaving the land I took in as part payment on the cattle," Papa said. "Besides, Canada is a coming country, already the land is fast being taken by homesteaders."

 

I did not know what a God-forsaken place was, or what homesteaders were but I thought it must have something to do with all the snow and ice piling up outside, and something terrible would happen to us as it did to the people in the Bible, when God did not like them.

 

It was dark when Papa and the boys came in, stomping the snow from their boots and clothes. Mama lit the lamp and started supper.

 

"Is it time to put the nails in the wall for the stockings?" I asked Mama.

 

"Yes, get your brothers to put them in behind the kitchen stove, so the things Santa puts in them won’t freeze," Mama said looking at Papa.

 

"Do you think Santa Claus can get through the deep snow?" I whispered to my big brother.

 

"Sure," he said, "Mr. Taylor at the post office says he always gets through. Sometimes the mailman brings things for him."

 

I ran to get the stockings and started hanging them on the nails, but as I reached far over to the last nail my hand slipped and I touched the back of the hot stove. I let out a scream. Papa picked me up and started soothing me.

 

Mama did not say a word. She just reached for the Magic Bag from the top of the cupboard, took me from Papa, put salve that smelled of camphor on my burned arm, and wrapped a clean white cloth around it.

 

She dried my eyes, kissed my cheek, and put me in the big rocker. "You’ll be all right now," she said with a smile. "Just think about it being Christmas Eve, and Santa coming."

 

Somehow it did not hurt any longer, and I almost fell asleep as I smelled the loaves of brown bread Mama was taking from the oven and watched her dish up hot stew for our supper.

 

The house did not creak any longer, and after supper my brothers rubbed the frost off the window so we could see the deep snow glistening in the moonlight.

 

Papa said the storm was over, and Mama said, "After three days it is about time, or we will all be buried alive!"

 

We had just settled down to story reading when the knock came at the door.

 

Papa opened it, and a big man in a fur coat and hat came in. He was covered with snow, and icicles hung from his eyebrows and mustache.

 

"I am Mr. Armstrong," he said. "My wife needs help, and I can’t get through those drifts to Kimball to get Mrs. Talbot in time. I heard that your wife has had training with the sick, so I came to ask her to help us."

 

Mr. Armstrong was all out of breath when he had finished. Papa tried to take his coat and hat, but he said, "No, there is not time, I must get back."

 

Mama took down the Magic Bag, opened it to check the medicine inside, then I followed her into the bedroom and watched while she combed her long black hair. She whirled it round and round, then pinned it in a big bob on top of her head. She put on a clean white apron and let me kneel beside her while she said her prayers.

 

Papa helped her into his big fur coat, he put Lorin’s overshoes on her feet. She put a wool fascinator scarf around her head, then followed Mr. Armstrong into the cold frosty night.

 

I cried myself to sleep when Papa put me to bed. It was sad not to have Mama home when Santa Claus was coming.

 

The room was still dark when I woke up and saw a light shining through the curtain over the doorway. I jumped out of bed and ran into the big room that was kitchen, boy’s bedroom, and living room for our family.

 

A blast of cold air came in the door with Mama and Mr. Armstrong. They were both covered with snow. Mama said the horse could not pull them and the buggy through the deep drifts and they had to get out and walk. She looked tired and pale. Papa helped her off with the big coat.

 

In my excitement at seeing Mama, I had forgotten about Santa and the stockings. Then the boys jumped out of bed, and we went to look behind the stove. Santa had gotten though. The boys had skates and standing beneath my stocking was a pretty Red-Riding doll.

 

 But I lost interest in the doll when I heard Mr. Armstrong say that Mama had given them a beautiful baby boy for Christmas!

 

The rest of the day I played with my doll but kept looking at the Magic Bag on top of the cupboard in hopes another Christmas baby would come out.

 

We ate our dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, and creamed carrots, topped off with Mama’s suet pudding and sauce, which we could hardly choke down after Mama told us there would be no Christmas dinner at the Armstrongs, just potatoes, cabbage and an egg, if the hens laid enough. The early snow and freezing had covered their crop before it could be cut and threshed.

 

After the boys had washed the dishes for Mama, Papa brought around the horses and sleigh to take Mama to see how Mrs. Armstrong and the baby were getting along, and we all went with them.

 

The horses lunged through the deep snow, sending snowballs from their hoofs back into the sleigh. We laughed when the drifts were so high the sleigh bounced over the top, jarring us when it hit bottom.

 

We arrived at the Armstrong house that looked like two boxes put together with a lean-to porch in between. Papa tied the horses, and we followed Mama into one of the boxes. I looked at the other door, and just knew it must be the stable. The side we went in was a kitchen where four children sat with their coats on, huddled around the stove.

 

"You better keep your coats on," the oldest boy said. "There’s not enough wood to keep both stoves going, and Mama and the baby must be kept warm. Papa has gone over to an old shed to find more wood."

 

Mama told me to take off my hood and mittens. But when I pulled off my mittens out came the two red apples, I had carried clenched in my fists, and they rolled on the floor. I was afraid Mama would scold – but she just smiled as I picked them up and gave them to the two little girls.

 

Mama took the kettle from the stove and the Magic Bag and left for the stable. I helped the two girls cut out paper dolls from a catalog, and my two brothers played marbles with the two Armstrong boys.

 

Papa came in carrying a big box. He took out Mama’s big roaster and put it in the oven, then piled wood in the stove and a few chunks of coal.

 

Soon Mama came to the door and told us we could come see the baby.

 

When we went through the other door, it wasn’t a stable, but a big bedroom. The baby was in a cradle made of a wooden box, not a manger. He had a red face, but no halo on his head as it shows the Christmas Baby in the Bible stories!

 

Then we left for home and the setting sun made the white world and clouds look pink.

 

Mama said, "This has been a beautiful Christmas day."

 

And we sang "Jingle Bells" to the sound of the squeaking sleigh runners cutting the crisp snow.

 

 When we arrived home Mama and I took off our wraps, my brother Ray brought in the coal, and Papa built up a warm fire.

 

"What’s for supper, Mama?" Lorin asked.

 

"Oh, we can make sandwiches from the roast beef left form dinner," she said.

 

"I don’t think we can," Papa said. "I took it and the gravy to the Armstrongs. But we can have the rest of the suet pudding and sauce."

 

"No, we can’t," Mama said. "I took that to Mrs. Armstrong."

 

"Well, boys, let’s have some of the nuts and candy from your stockings," Papa said, "because it won’t matter if they do spoil our appetites now."

 

"We can’t give you any from our stockings, Papa. We took them to the Armstrong children," Ray said.

 

Everyone laughed, and we made jokes and riddles while we ate our supper of bread and milk.

 

From then on, if anything was lost, we would ask, "Did you take it to the Armstrongs?"

 

Mama never cried by the window any longer. She was too busy making carbolic salve, camphorated oil, liniment, and canker medicine from the recipes Grandpa Pugh had brought across the plains with him in the Magic Black Bag. They had been given to him by his Welsh ancestors and given to Mama when she left for Canada.

 

Mama always said she found a magic recipe for happiness in the Magic Bag that Christmas Eve, and she often told it to us: a lot of faith with a lot of work will make everything turn out right. And never feel sorry for yourself – there is always someone in the world with more miseries than your own.

 

All winter she went through blizzards, rain, winds, and floods to help children with croup, pneumonia, and broken bones. She left babies for ranch women, women on lonely homesteads, and women across the boundary line on the Indian reservation.

 

Through it all she had a smile, time to tell us stories, and time to sing.