Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt Read online

  “When?” persisted Sylvia. “When can we start?”

  With a nod, Lucinda indicated the Feathered Star pieces spread on her lap. “After I finish my Christmas Quilt, we will begin yours.”

  Thrilled, Sylvia raced off to tell her older sister the news, secretly pleased when Claudia tossed her brown curls and declared that she was too busy helping Mother to quilt with Great-Aunt Lucinda, a sure sign that she was sick with jealousy. Then Claudia added, “Everyone says she’ll never finish that quilt, anyway.”

  “She will so,” snapped Sylvia and marched back to the parlor to help. She had heard the teasing remarks, too, but they had never been a cause for worry until now.

  To Sylvia’s relief, her great-aunt kept up an industrious pace and showed no signs of abandoning her quilt. As Christmas approached, Sylvia forgot her worries in the excitement of the season. She and Claudia were both chosen to participate in the Christmas pageant at school—Claudia as an angel, Sylvia as a lamb. Between rehearsing for the pageant and practicing with the children’s choir at church, helping Grandma with the baking and secretly working on Christmas gifts for the family, Sylvia had little time to spare for observing the Christmas Quilt. Still, Great-Aunt Lucinda made good progress despite Sylvia’s absence from her side every hour of the day. Although she did take time away from her sewing to bake Christmas cookies, she always returned to her Feathered Stars by evening. Sylvia’s quilting lessons would surely begin before the end of winter.

  The approach of Christmas brought visitors to Elm Creek Manor, friends and relatives from near and far. Best of all was the day Sylvia’s beloved second cousin Elizabeth returned, accompanied by her parents. For the past five summers, she had come to Elm Creek Manor to help care for the children and, as she said, “enjoy the fresh country air.” Sometimes she went riding with a boy her age from a neighboring farm, but except for those annoying interruptions, she was Sylvia’s nearly constant companion, favorite playmate, and most trusted confidante. Sylvia could not help but adore her; Elizabeth was kind and funny and smart and beautiful—all the things Sylvia hoped to be when she grew up.

  Elizabeth was barely in the door before Sylvia was tugging off her coat and seizing her hand to lead her off on some secret adventure. Elizabeth laughingly obliged, shaking snow from her hair and handing off her mittens to her mother, but she seemed distracted and quiet. When Sylvia asked her what was wrong, Elizabeth looked surprised. “Nothing,” she said. “Everything is wonderful.” Then she tickled Sylvia and acted like the old Elizabeth so convincingly that Sylvia decided to believe her.

  Great-Aunt Lucinda finished her fifth Feathered Star block on the morning of Christmas Eve. “Only fifteen more to go,” she told Sylvia at breakfast, and Sylvia’s heart sank in despair. So many blocks stood between her and her lessons! But she brightened up when Elizabeth came to the table, breathless and apologizing for her tardiness, her long golden hair tied back in a grosgrain ribbon the color of the winter sky. Sylvia had a ribbon almost the exact same hue, and if Elizabeth helped Sylvia fix her hair the same way, they could be twins—except that Sylvia’s hair was dark brown.

  After breakfast, Uncle William and his wife went out to find the Christmas tree, sent on their way with teasing and laughter and strange remarks from the other grown-ups that Sylvia suspected she only partially understood. The couple had been married less than a year, and Sylvia overheard her grandmother say that it would be a very bad sign if they were gone more than two hours.

  “It will be a far worse sign if they’re back within thirty min-utes,” Sylvia’s father replied. The uncles grinned and the aunts nodded thoughtfully. Sylvia looked around at the faces of her family, puzzled. If they found a perfect tree right away and brought it home as quickly as they could cut it down, what could be wrong with that? They could begin trimming the tree sooner, and Sylvia couldn’t wait. The previous day, she and Claudia had helped Elizabeth and their grandmother unpack the two trunks of Christmas ornaments. They’d had a wonderful time admiring their favorite pieces, singing carols, and munching on Great-Aunt Lucinda’s lebkuchen still warm from the oven—until a cousin appeared in the doorway and called Elizabeth away to meet a visitor. Elizabeth rushed off with barely a word of good-bye, but Sylvia had not minded until dinnertime, when she discovered that the visitor was that man Elizabeth used to go riding with in the summers, and that he had taken the seat beside Elizabeth Sylvia usually reserved for herself. She scowled at him from across the table, but he merely smiled pleasantly back, so he was obviously not smart enough to understand when someone was angry with him.

  The newlyweds returned with a tree not quite two hours after they had departed. “That’s just about right,” Sylvia’s grandmother told Lucinda as they trailed after the rest of the family to the ballroom, where the tree would be raised. Her voice was so soft that Sylvia knew she was not meant to overhear. “Any sooner and I’d worry that she wouldn’t be strong enough for him.”

  “William can be stubborn,” said Lucinda. “I suspect he gave in quickly rather than displease his lovely bride. That contrary behavior can’t possibly last. We’ll see how long it takes them next year, and whether they’re still speaking when they return home.”

  “Ifthey’ll be eligible to choose the tree next year,” said Grandmother archly. “I suspect they may not be allowed a second turn.”

  The women exchanged knowing smiles and disappeared into the ballroom. Sylvia stopped in the foyer, frowning as she mulled over their words. Why shouldn’t Uncle William and his wife be allowed to pick the tree again? There wasn’t anything wrong with the one they had chosen. Was Great-Aunt Lucinda jealous because she had never been allowed a turn? Sylvia searched her memory but could not recall any other time when her great-aunt had seemed envious. Well, if Great-Aunt Lucinda wanted to pick the Christmas tree, she would just have to get married. That’s what the rules said, and Sylvia strongly disapproved of anyone—even Great-Aunt Lucinda—thinking she could simply toss out the family’s rules when it suited.

  Noise and laughter beckoned her from her worries, and she hurried into the ballroom rather than miss all the fun. As young and old adorned the branches of Uncle William’s tree with their favorite ornaments, Great-Aunt Lucinda told them stories of long-ago Christmases when her mother, Sylvia’s great-grandmother Anneke, was a little girl in Germany. Sylvia was surprised to learn that her great-grandmother had not been allowed to help decorate the Christmas tree. “None of the children were,” explained Great-Aunt Lucinda. “The adults of the family decorated the tree while the children waited in another room. On Christmas Eve, her mother would ring a bell and all the children would come running in to admire the tree and eat delicious treats—cookies and nuts and fruits. My mother and the other girls and boys would search the branches of the tree, and whoever found the lucky pickle would win a prize.”

  “A pickle?” said Sylvia. “How did a pickle get in their tree?”

  “Not a real pickle, dear. A glass pickle, an ornament. Her mother or father would hide it there before the children came in.” Great-Aunt Lucinda paused thoughtfully. “I suppose that’s where our tradition of hiding the Christmas star came from.”

  “Did Santa bring her presents?” asked Claudia.

  “Not on Christmas,” said Lucinda. “Of course you know that Santa Claus is really St. Nicholas, and that we celebrate his day on December 6. On the night before, Great-Grandmother Anneke and her brothers and sisters would each leave a shoe by the fireplace, just as you children hang stockings. If they had been good children all year, when they woke in the morning, they would find their shoes filled with candy, nuts, and fruit. If they had been naughty, they might find coal or twigs. One year, my uncle found an onion. I always wondered what he had done to deserve that.”

  “But we get St. Nicholas Day and Christmas,” said Sylvia. It didn’t seem fair that her great-grandmother had not.

  “You are very lucky children,” Great-Aunt Lucinda pronounced. “You’re fortunate in another rega
rd, too. In your great-grandmother’s day, St. Nicholas traveled with a helper named Knecht Ruprecht. He carried St. Nicholas’s bag of treats for him, and it was he who went up and down the chimneys filling the children’s shoes. But he also carried a sack and a stick. He used the stick to beat the naughty little children, and if a child was very, very bad, Knecht Ruprecht would stuff him in the sack and carry him off, never to see his family again.”

  Sylvia shivered.

  “Aunt Lucinda, you’re frightening the children,” said Sylvia’s mother.

  “Why should these children be scared?” protested Great Aunt Lucinda. She looked around the circle of worried young faces, brow furrowing in concern. “None of you children were naughty this year, were you?”

  The children shook their heads fervently, but as they did, Sylvia thought of the times she had argued with her sister, disobeyed her parents, and taken cookies from Great-Aunt Lucinda’s cookie jar without permission. She hoped Knecht Ruprecht had stayed behind in Germany with the pickle trees.

  “Perhaps a less alarming story, Aunt Lucinda?” prompted Sylvia’s mother.

  Great-Aunt Lucinda played along. “Did I ever tell you children about the Bergstroms’ first Christmas in America?”

  They shook their heads.

  “I’ve been remiss, then.” She composed her thoughts for a moment. “Your great-grandfather, Hans, arrived in America several years before Anneke and Gerda—Hans’s sister—but their first Christmas together wasn’t until 1856. The stone house that we now know as the west wing of the manor wouldn’t be built for another two years, so for a time they lived in a log cabin on the land they called Elm Creek Farm. Hans and Anneke were newlyweds, and Anneke was determined to make their first Christmas one to remember, as grand an affair as she would have put on had she been a hausfrau in Berlin, the city of her birth.

  “As you can imagine, this was not easily done. The Bergstroms were recent immigrants living in a small cabin in the middle of rural Pennsylvania. They had the land, some livestock, and the stores of their first harvest, but none of the comforts we enjoy today. Anneke wanted a goose for Christmas dinner, but there were none to be had. She wanted to give her new husband a gift that befitted her love for him, but the shops in town had nothing suitable that she could afford.”

  “And no pickles for the trees?” asked Sylvia.

  “Not a single pickle,” said Great-Aunt Lucinda. “On Christmas Eve, Gerda discovered Anneke digging through the steamer trunk she had brought over from Germany. Anneke confessed that she was searching for a Christmas gift for Hans, but she had found nothing worthy of him. ‘What will he think of me,’ lamented Anneke, ‘if I have no gift for him on Christmas morning?’

  “‘Do you think my brother loves you for the things you give him?’ asked Gerda. ‘Give him the gift of your heart and your company, and he will want nothing more.’

  “‘But I’ve already given him those,’ said Anneke.

  “‘Then he already has his heart’s desire.’

  “Anneke seemed comforted by this, but not completely satisfied. So late that night, after everyone else had gone to bed, she wrote Hans a letter telling him how much she loved him and how much she looked forward to their future together. On Christmas morning, she gave him the letter. He read it in silence, and when he finished, he hugged her and told her it was the greatest present he had ever received.”

  “Did Hans get her anything?” asked Claudia.

  Great-Aunt Lucinda considered. “I suppose he did, but the story doesn’t say. I do know what Gerda gave Hans and An-neke, though. She had traded with a neighbor for two shiny, red, perfect apples, and as she gave one to her brother and one to her sister-in-law, she said, ‘I give you simply the joy and hope of the season.’”

  At this the grown-ups nodded and murmured in approval, but Sylvia frowned. “She gave them apples?”

  “They were more than just apples,” said Great-Aunt Lucinda. “Think of the sweetness of the fruit and the promise in the seeds. In that simple gift, Gerda was expressing how joyful her life was with Hans and Anneke, and how full of blessings their future would be.”

  Claudia looked dubious. “They were just apples.”

  “They were not just apples,” said Great-Aunt Lucinda firmly. “They were expressions of her love and hopes, simply and eloquently presented. Don’t you see? You can give someone all the riches of the world, but it is an empty gesture if you withhold the gift of yourself.”

  “I think that’s beyond their understanding,” said Uncle William with a grin. “They’re awfully young for such philoso-phizing.”

  “Perhaps.” Great-Aunt Lucinda looked around the circle of young, curious faces until her gaze settled on Sylvia. “If they don’t understand today, someday they will.”

  Sylvia longed to show Lucinda that she understood, but she was not sure that she did. An apple didn’t seem like much of a present to her, but maybe back in the olden days, apples were considered wonderful gifts. Maybe, she thought suddenly, Hans and Anneke had planted the seeds of the apples Gerda had given them. Maybe those very seeds grew into the orchard their family tended and enjoyed today. If that were true, Gerda had indeed given Hans and Anneke the joy and hope of the season—and continued to give it, with every harvest, to their descendants.

  When the tree decorating was almost finished, Grandmother entrusted Elizabeth, her namesake, with the task of hiding the glass star somewhere in the manor. Sylvia hoped Elizabeth would give her a secret clue to help her find the star before the others, but a few minutes later, Elizabeth slipped back into the room, whispered close to her grandmother’s ear, and smiled equally warmly at all her young cousins. If anything, her gaze lingered longest on her friend, that man from the neighboring farm, who had reappeared while the family was setting the tree in its stand and showed no sign of leaving anytime soon. With dismay, Sylvia realized that she would probably lose her favorite seat at the dinner table two nights in a row.

  Lost in this new troublesome concern, she did not hear her grandmother send out the children to search for the star.

  “Sylvia,” she heard her mother call. “Aren’t you going to help find the star this year?”

  Sylvia raced for the ballroom door, but Claudia and the cousins had made a good head start. She could only watch from a distance as they sped off in all directions, intent upon reaching the manor’s best hiding places first. She ran for the front parlor, where Claudia had found the star the previous year, only to discover that a cousin had already claimed that room. She ran upstairs to the library, but two other cousins were already searching there. In every room it was the same: Claudia and the cousins raced about, laughing and shrieking and tearing the house apart in their quest for the star, leaving Sylvia with no choice but to dart out of the way.

  Miserable, Sylvia went to the bedroom she and Claudia shared, knowing it was the one place no one would bother her.

  All of the fun had gone out of the game, but she would be disgraced if she returned to the ballroom before the star was found. Squeezing her eyes shut to hold back tears, she flung herself upon the bed—and gasped when her head struck something hard beneath the pillow. In a moment she was sitting upright on the bed, the star in her lap, its eight red-and-gold points glistening faintly in the dim light.

  The star, beneath her own pillow. Elizabeth had left it where no one else would think to look. She had left it especially for Sylvia, her favorite.

  Bursting with pride and gratitude, Sylvia climbed down from the bed and hurried downstairs, clutching the precious glass star to her chest. “I found it,” she called out as she ran. “I found it!” She burst into the ballroom, breathless. “I found the star!”

  The adults crowded around her, offering her hugs and congratulations. Someone called out to the other children that the game was over. In the distance, Sylvia heard their answering cries of dismay.

  “Where did you find it?” one of the uncles asked.

  Sylvia could not bring herself to tell h
im. “Upstairs,” she said, and her eyes met Elizabeth’s. Her cousin smiled at her, bright-eyed and mischievous, and raised a single finger to her lips. Sylvia, suddenly warmed by happiness, smiled until she laughed out loud.

  The prize her grandmother awarded her was a small tin filled with red-and-white striped peppermint candy. At her mother’s prompting, Sylvia offered each of the other children a piece, and her joy in the secret she and Elizabeth shared made it hardly matter at all that the tin was returned to her half empty.

  All the while, Sylvia clung to the Christmas star. Suddenly, strong arms swept her up. “It’s time, little miss,” her father said, lifting her high above his head beside the tree. “Reach for the highest branch. You can do it.”

  Sylvia stretched out her arms and fit the star upon a strong bough that pointed straight up to the ceiling. Everyone applauded as her father lowered her to the ground. As the aunts lit the candles upon the tree, Sylvia stepped back so she could take in the whole of it, from the quilted skirt draped around the trunk to the star she had placed so perfectly upon the very top.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Elizabeth. Her friend smiled and placed an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him with a sigh of perfect contentment. Sylvia glared at him, but neither he nor her cousin noticed.

  At dinnertime, he earned another glare by stealing Sylvia’s seat again, just as she had known he would. She had raced for the dining room as soon as they were called to supper, and she would have beaten him, too, except that her mother had taken her aside to wash her face and hands, sticky with peppermint candy. Sylvia was stuck at the far end of the table between Uncle William and Claudia.