CHRISTMAS RUSH IN GOOD OLD DAYS

Advent time - after a war with black curtains. Illustration: Finn Bringsjord

Christmas tree with star and candles and golden spruce cones had dropped straight to the floor under grandmother's Christmas party 3. Christmas Day last year, and Christmas tree foot cracked in half.

It was really my twin brother's fault. I was almost sure he had pilfered one of the Smørbukk caramels which I had just won in grandmother's Christmas bingo, but when I sped up to intercept him in flight, I was unlucky and toppled Christmas tree with a crash.

Granny was old and wise - yes, almost psychic. She bought herself a perfect cabinet to radio long before anyone else on Bringsjord had thought of things - yes, long before broadcasting company began its first broadcasts for that matter. And although the radio now was invented it helped little, for she had no electricity, but fired with wood and lit up with candles and kerosene lamps.

Radio-cabinet stood in the corner against Kjerringdølda, and there had Grandma's Christmas tree its home place. But 3. Christmas Day last year cracked tree foot two, and that the tree should stand upright rest of the evening had to father splint it with knitting needles and wool.

Then it went almost an entire year, the frost was returned and a new Christmas pig was reluctantly dragged across the yard and into the coach house and slaughtered and scalded by boiling water from the huge, black coffee pot which even in time was used by China mission Female Association in Å parish.

When we second week of Advent went to grandma to taste america lollypops she had got in the Christmas package from Aunt Lydia in Chicago, and to hear a bit about the size of her Christmas tree this year, she was saddened capricious and sighed: "No and no ... This year will be no Christmas tree in the living room Grandma," she sighed again and fumbled for the apron collar.

"But what is it, grandmother," said Kjell absolutely horrified, "what is it that is wrong - it is not Christmas bingo rather"?

Then I remembered what had happened during the Christmas bingo last year, and it began to pinch in my stomach and I wriggled down the wicker chair and got in a hurry to tie up the laces on your ski boots off at the kitchen door.

But Kjell had no thought to lie low profile; he must with horror have looked for a Christmas without Grandma bingo, and did not give in: "Have you no Christmas three foot, Grandma, it's what worries?"

Grandma nodded and stroked his cheek. "Yes, Kjell, so it is. The good old Christmas tree foot which I received from Thorvald at Christmas in 1927, is no longer any good. It is divided into two, and not applicable to other than wood in the stove. "

She rose heavily up from the rocking chair, pulled together knit shawl across his chest and walked out into the cool entrée and brought the two sad plank pieces that lay ready in step three in the attic stairs. So she sat down on the stool in front of the stove in the living room, beat up the warm clasp on oven door with a stick of wood, and muttered, "Never so wrong that it is not ..."

"No and no, Grandma," I interrupted her, "you must not burn up Christmas three foot from 1827. If I could borrow it for a few days, so we'll probably get it fixed repaired. It should at least be as good as a brand new one! "

I promptly got plank pieces handed in my lap, and grandmother came in better spirits again and went to the corner cupboard in the living room and opened a pack of five Wrigley's chewing gum and pulled out one to each of us. Gum from the US changed us immediately to granite-jawed cowboys, and when we walked on the way home across the prairie in front of the house of Anna Kvavik we chew Wrigley in line with crashing of the frozen buffalo grass under the boots.

Grandma's Christmas-tree-foot was just two sad pieces of planks.

As soon as I had gotten off my overcoat out of the porch, I vent straight into the living room to the father who had taken a coffee break in work of splitting firewood, and sat in the chair and read about peasant party's solid progress in the neutral peasant party newspaper “Agder Tidende”.

"Dad," I said slighly cautious voice, "I promised grandmother that we should fix a repair on the Christmas tree foot that you made for her in 1827".

He folded the newspaper aside, and I was sticking the two wretched halves of the once so stately tree foot. He just threw a glance at them, but as long and searchingly at me: "Yes, Finn, you have promised something, you must also be a man to keep it. So it is." He turned the page and continued to read. Typical father! He believed always that one first had to hone their nose before one asked others for help.

That night the sky was dark blue, and out of the night it began to snow heavy. I know, because I lay awake pondering how to splice together the two halves so that involuntarily parted.

In our days had such a split not been a problem; a bottle of wood glue and a pair of clamps was all it took. But in my boyhood there was no wood glue around the farms. Glue was then made of animal drugs as horns, hoofs, hooves and fish waste. It had to be boiled before use, and was difficult and dangerous to handle, even for adults.

Later in the day I took the split foot of Christmas tree and spoke with Erling, son of Jakob, our neighbor. He had been around a lot in the US and on whaling in the Southern Ocean and knew what to do with this and that. He kept on checking antifreeze under the hood of Studebaker's, and had not the slightest objection to being distracted by the complexities of a young neighbor boy. "Initially, we must go for "wood-plug solution”, he said energetic," I drill holes and you make two plugs”. He took the two board pieces and turned them firmly in the mutilated clamps Jacob had in the workbench under barn bridge - let them exactly face to face with the fracture edges up. Then he put a slender three live in braces and away two by two holes in breach surfaces opposite each other, and I got in a hurry to whittle two plugs in the same thickness as drilled. So we hammered plugs in and faut parts together. Yay! The Christmas three-foot were spliced!

"You are a genius, Erling," I said admiringly, "you must apply for a patent on this" stopper solution "yours?" But Erling took the joke only as joke and laughed it off. He could later regret, for Swede Ingvar Kamprad "stole" the idea and founded a furniture empire built on wood plugs and flat packages.

IKEA was built on an idea taken from grandma's Christmas-tree?

Erling was not completely satisfied with the solution. He was afraid that the trunk of the Christmas tree would burst portions apart. And then there were questions about robustness. Should foot be sturdy enough to withstand a new fall to the floor, it had to "splint" with two flat iron bolted across the fracture line. "If they do not have such iron on Trade Store, you must go to Håskuld Seland and get him to make them in the forge. It is a good and solid solution, but it might look cakey? "He wondered out in the winter cold." I have an errand to Alleen in the morning, so you can get a ride if you want."

 I presented the problem for sister Plata standing in manufactories on Trade Store and knew all about the nasty and nice. She believed that such iron would not take so good up on the blanklakka radio cabinet, and that it would be best to hide them with a coating of textile. Since Plata always was kind down at the bottom, it ended with that she should knit a kind of "stocking" that we could pull over the Christmas tree foot.

That evening worked Kjell and I diligently to put up Christmas list and then cracked Erlings proposal iron fittings due to obvious financial difficulties. We had seven older siblings as it should be bought Christmas presents for. A financial nightmare every year. Altogether we had 30, - NOK to spend for gifts, and it was approximately four kroner for each. I could spend five million on iron to grandma's Christmas-tree, were therefore excluded. Such money did not exist, and I had to go to Erling and to cancel the trip to Alleen.

Later in the morning came a dull, pink colored sun voted down in the blue and yellow horizon. There was no wind, and snow threatened to trees surface in Hasselnøttlia. Father cared for the birds, and took a walk up on barn hayloft and brought down two sheaves. One hung him up in the cherry tree in the garden, the second he set aside in the coach. "Be sure to bring this sheaf when you go to grandma with Christmas tree," he said in a fatherly, good-hearted tone.

This day would father use daylight to shoe the horse, and we helped to shovel away snow so there was work ahead barn wall. Then he fetched Freia from the stables. The young, reddish-brown mare had svarttaglet tail, mane and forelock, and a beautiful white BLES from the forehead down to the muzzle. She was as usual a little heady and danced away by the snow. Scent of blood for pig slaughter earlier this week seemed well nor soothing, so far let the mare take a few laps in the snow before he tethered her up to a hoop on the barn wall. Then he brought "farrier checkout» in the coach and began picking off her flat iron shoes she wore in summer conditions.

While father work with the horse, I trawled the "rote Checkout» bottom of the tool cabinet, but without finding what I was looking for; two iron with holes that could be used to reinforce grandmother's Christmas-tree. When I came back to the farrier, he kept on adapting the hoof at Freia left hind foot to the horseshoe. The new Count shoe was steel-forged shoes with three sharp crampons, one in front and two behind. Far cut "tiles" of the hoof by tapping on the knife back, and this triggered a characteristic odor of the hoof and filled a boy's mind with a kind of transcendental pleasure.

It was in such a paradisiacal atmosphere solution came falling from the sky. I sat with four worn horseshoe between my hands, four iron pieces with many nail holes. Aha! The iron was curved in horseshoe, but a blacksmith could well - against small money - flatten them. Purely to be throwing the idea like a world accustomed problem solver in line with Erling Jakobsen. 

"Dad," I said with assumed indifferent tone, "Could I get two of those old, worn-out horseshoes"?

He hammer the final nail into hoof, trick it off and went over with crumb, so he let Freia’s foot down and turned to me: "Two horseshoes? What are you going to do with two horseshoes? Is it not enough with one? " Then he picked up the cracked aspirin-box with chewing tobacco, took of a capable bit, and looked at me searchingly.

And then it came into ... A-ha! I grinned broadly, raised thumbs and nodded strenuously.

In the evening Plata has found red woolen yarn and knitted Christmas tree-stocking. I showed her the horseshoe and how the shoe should be fitted. Plata wrinkled her nose and pointed out some brown goo down the seam-furrow, but I put it away: "I don’t give a dam cat if there is a little dried horse shit here and there, for everything is hidden beneath the lovely, beautiful red tree-stocking which you now knits for accurate tailor measurement”. But the confession did not fall on fertile soil. She was quite flustered. "Shame on you, Finn! Should grandma having a shit-filthy horseshoe under the Christmas tree? Must not we all wash our feet on Christmas Eve, even if we go with stocking socks? "

I was stuck for an answer, and so she continued in a loud voice and emphasis on every word: "Besides, I do not like a horseshoe should lie in hiding under grandma's Christmas tree. Everyone knows that a horseshoe in hiding brings black accident into house!"

Everyone in the living room fell silent and listened to Plata’s assertion and she sighed so deeply exasperated over world foolishness and waving knitting up and down in front of my nose, "Whether you lower this horseshoe in river on seven fathoms, or so I stop to knit. One of the two! "

And I, - I had nicely creep to the cross and renounce any further thought on such a wicked use of a horseshoe. Fair enough those angels could descend into hiding around Christmastime, but a horseshoe in hiding? God preserved for black misfortune!

When my mother came up to our room to pray evening prayer with us that night, I asked her if it was biblical Testament that a hidden horseshoe would bring black misfortune to grandmother's house. To this she replied that Israel’s children had not horses, but used camels and donkeys, and that she had never heard of neither donkey- nor kamelsko. She thought, therefore, that this was superstition that Plata had from grandma.

Grandmother had been married to a sailor who sank off Haiti in 1902, and everyone knew that seafarers both were exceedingly superstitious and occasionally profane. Then she ladled up and pulled out the names of sailors here from Bringsjord who had gone ashore - without parting the hair and with gold rings in ears - and bestowed spirits to her innocent little brother, Uncle Anton. And we nodded into the darkness; for we remembered that last Christmas Eve arrived St. Anton so late and animated to dinner that mom had to get a broadleaf spoon so he could get the well-cooked lutefisk up to mouth.

The next day my father asked us to join into the cattle barn. He stopped in hallway and said, "Just sit down here on concentrated feed sacks, guys, there's something I want to talk about from the old days." We sat without a word down on the sacks, and father chose to be stand-sitting on the edge of the big, metallic water barrel. Kjell and I glanced in amazement at one another; it was so unlike father to act like an old schoolmaster.

"As you possible may recall we had during the war a horse named" Bjuty "? I had good hope that she would become a real trotter, but the Germans took her from us."

"Yes, I remember that you came home without a horse, just reaching the sulky," said Kjell, "and that mother and all of us kids ran towards you on Mail road - and so we stood there emptyhanded and cried."

Father was a little glossy eye and swallowed and chewed slant. He grabbed water bailer, turned up the crane, and took some good gulps freezing tap water before he continued: "But it was not the first horse named Bjuty here on the farm. When I bought the farm of Grandma, I took over also her horse and two cows and some sheep. Old Bjuty was a small, but good and strong workhorse that Grandpa in Garden (mother's father) had horse traded on a farm in Ryfylke. You've sure heard him in his heyday was doing horse-trading in great style? ". We nodded in recognition. "I have now heard most of the times it was charade in the game," I said and grinned manly.

"Now, yes," continued the father, "my first horse, eh ... old Bjuty, had only a blemish; she was never my horse." Father paused and swallowed. "A few horses have it that they only relate to one man. And old Bjuty was so. As long as she lived she was grandmother's horse."

Again he kept silent he swallowed a lump before he continued: "When Bjuty heard grandmother came into the yard to fetch water in the evening, she was elated and whinnied loudly. And grandmother know well that Bjuty shouted at her, so she took a trip into the stable with some goody in her apron pocket, one crust of bread, a carrot or most often a sugar."

Grandma did not have tap water in the house. She went with this yoke on her shoulders and brought water into two buckets. In summer she fetched water in a well down in Kjerringdølda, winter she fetched water at the farm. Photo: Finn Bringsjord

"When old Bjuty after four years became ill and died, it was hard for Grandma. We dug Bjuty down on the embankment in front of grandma's house; out on the edge against Kjerringdølda. And grandmother let into a habit of taking a rest there on the edge when she carried water up from the well."

Kjell was totally gripped and Choking back tears, "I do not feel sorry for old Bjuty for she came to"the eternal pastures" and trots around with Manitous mustangs at the heavenly prairie, but it's so sorry for poor grandmother; First she lost her grandfather and then she lost Bjuty."

"Yes," I said, and continued in a tone of voice that suited for a repentant sinner on neighbor Jacob witnessed meetings, "now she just have us twins... and we must be much better to visit her, and much better to take us time to tell news from houses and stables and fields, not just run away as soon as we get some of the corrupting good candies in our hands."

There was an eloquent silence, and father turned away and took another sip of water bailer before he continued: "I have a memory for old Bjuty and it is the horseshoe hanging there over the doorway. It lay behind in the stable when the neighbors came and dragged her out. If you want to brush it up and give it as a Christmas present for Grandma, I'll take it down now with the same. "

And I jumped up from the sack and started jumping up and down after the horseshoe, "Oh. Yes, father, please father, we will refurbish it as shiny as the brass to mother! "Father turned away and went and went for the pincher. 

And we got a busy evening with soapy water, scrub and steel wool.

The next day Mom and Dad was going for Christmas trading in Alleen, and we vent along with them. Father fetched the slender, dark blue frame sled down from the barn hayloft and feisty Freia from the stables. Now she was perfectly equipped for winter driving and sleigh.

Mother came out with a rag and dusted off the sled and goat skin which was attached to the front as foot cover, and father fetched jingle bells inside the bowl and tied them firmly on horse harness. With tinkling bells we turned onto the post road and let optimistic about the way to this year's holiday shopping.

Freia was parked with mates on a designated deposited somewhere behind Trade Store. It was very close to the back door to the slaughterhouse, so horses thrived not so well there. Freia got a warm blanket over her back and a sack with high hanging under the nose, and the father asked us to go and see her as often as it crosses so.

Although we never felt particularly high in the hat inside the shops, purchases this year went unusually smoothly. Gift shop "Diversen" was groaning of affordable gifts, and some little things we had made ourselves, and such could be attached to the purchased gift whenever it evened out. After a while disappeared mother over to sister Lillian standing on Glassmagasinet, but then we had been warmth and on good speaking terms with shop lady. The result was that when the day of reckoning pling in front of the blank cash register, we were left with seven packages and a red two crown banknote to spare.

Before we went to Trade Shop to see how it went with our father, we stuck backside and visit Freia and assured us that she was fine. Inside Trading Shop smelled heavenly of freshly baked raisin buns and pastry from the other side of the counter, so we got ourselves in line with the red banknote lifted. But luckily father came in time and treated a bag of bowls on himself and his family.

A while later came the mother in the door, but she disappeared right into the manufactories where sister Plata was working. When we carefully glanced at the door in there, we saw that something white was wrapped with twine around brown paper, and we immediately realized that also this Christmas would be the package with solid underwear under the tree. Fair enough. The old from last year was cramped and small and stopped at the knees.

Something strange happened then. On manufactories appeared sister Plata in a new light. She handled customers, rolls of cloth and surveying as a tanned shopkeeper, and I got strong doubts about this lady would approve old Bjutys worn horseshoe planted outside Christmas tree foot. Throughout last night we had refurbished with sandpaper and steel wool, but it was impossible to get the shoe so fine that it really looked shining on the red Christmas tree-stocking.

I pulled Kjell aside for a brief consultation, and he agreed that we still had to share fraternal at all costs. "Yes, for you know, whoever is in the game - must share the roast ... ', and Kjell nodded and agreed and clucking a little in terms of pork roast 1. Christmas Day with brown sauce and crispy rind. (It was only in 6th grade that Thorvald Haugeland taught us that "roast" aimed at purgatory). We went back to father inside the large store between manufactories and meat shop, and for the last two crowns we bought a bottle of gold gilding. Then it was home to Bringsjord and Freia was perhaps the most relieved and happy and lashed out in cheerful trot.

Out in the morning tiny, tiny Christmas Eve, my father said that today we had to dress well for now we were going to the woods and cut Christmas trees. This time he spent Freia for “sluffe”, one sleigh that was wider and heavier than the elegant frame sled, and with clanging bells we turned onto the old road towards Strømnes and waved nice grandmother who had thawed away frost in the middle of the kitchen window .

 As usual we had difficulty finding a small Christmas tree that guarded grandmother radio cabinets, but it was not so importen. Having shaken the snow off 20-30 trees, we chose out the prettiest to us, and one which was just nicely in the top to grandmother. "It is not dangerous with icing that is too long," said the father, "we use only the upper part of the tree for grandmother, branches at bottom we can put on the porch."

It was real Christmas atmosphere around us. Frozen fresh snow lay thick on the branches. An occasional crimson-breasted bullfinch got snow to sprinkle the crisp tones of falling snow crystals where he flew around and light up food on their hideouts.

Father placed Christmas trees gently back in sleighs. So turnout ourselves optimistic and excited at the center seat, and while Freia lashed out homeward, we let the song reverberate in cloud:

Oh jingle bells, jingle bells
jingle all the way!
Oh what fun
it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh, Hey!

On Bringsjord we were stopped by Grandma at front porch. She cast a satisfied glance at the two spruces sticking up from sleighs and shared four hot donuts. Three rings went to us man folks; the fourth disappeared into the muzzle of Freia and all four thanks to his show and munching pleased the last hundred meters up to the yard.

After dinner father vent to the barn and cut Christmas trees in the right length and put them on foot. (He pinned splice against slipping to hammer 4 small diver nail down in the wooden plugs). When he had fastened the tree to grandma on Christmas tree foot, he turned to me and said, "Yes, Finn, now you have kept your promise to grandma. The tree is ready to deliver. "

"But Dad," I said, "I cannot disappoint Plata and Laila who have shifted on knitting overdrafts to three foot ... and then Kjell and I thought that ..." I took a deep breath and paused. He also had to wait for some surprises.

That evening we leave well with newspaper out on the kitchen table, and gilded horse shoe to old Bjuty ... and some fingers and nails and something here and there on the old aprons mother had forced on us. The golden horse shoe was "gårsens fine" if I do say so myself, and we were absolutely certain that Grandma would be satisfied.

Inside the living room had Plata begun to shed the "ankle" on the sock, and the discussion went loudly between mother and the girls about how she would get it on the Christmas tree foot. "You have to cut into the base," said mother, "so you can sew again the opening afterwards." But Plata did not think it was necessary. She had ribbed ankle, and it ought to keep. The discussion ended with that I was summoned and they demanded to get the Christmas tree foot on the table promptly. I went to the barn and fetched grandmother's Christmas-tree stand with an attached Christmas tree, and to save the five fixture hanging lamp with the decorative glass bowls, I placed the tree gently out on the end of the dining table.

 Once Plata finished trap of, began an operation that might be compared with a reverse calving; as if a sped calf should be placed back in the cow. But with luck and patience, everything went well, and Tordis went in the attic and brought a blue ribbon which she tied around "ankle" with a pretty ribbon knot. The following day was gilding dry, and I attached gold shoe on the red foot with four severed, golden horseshoe seams. Mom and Dad praised the result and father believed that such beautiful feet on a Christmas tree did not exist in seven parishes.

And we guys boys were happy and relieved. Thank God! Another year it would be Christmas bingo in grandmas house.

Thank God! Another year it would be Christmas bingo in grandmas house.

In the afternoon the day before Christmas, we bound newspaper on Christmas tree foot and went to the grandmother. Kjell bar corn sheaf and I carried the Christmas tree. There was a lot of snow, but the skis were left home for urgency to get to grandma before the sun went down. In twilight she looked poor and we had certainly something to show off.

We tramlet into the porch and knocked on the kitchen door. Grandma was going to drink coffee after dinner rest to her room, and was very happy for such an unexpected early Christmas visit.

"Good day in the house," said Kjell and got rough in voice, "we come with Christmas sheaves and Christmas tree to the kind grandmother our». Grandmother clapped her hands together, and I hurried to continue in the same tone of voice: "And then shall we say - courtesy of Mom and Dad ... and all the kids - you are very welcome to the farm on Christmas Eve - tomorrow night ... when the church bells have seeded and resounded a good hour between marsh and mountain."

This last was something I made up when I think it sounded extra fine and holidays.

"Oh no, oh no, so kind you are against an old grandmother," she said and sat down on a kitchen stool and took a glance at the gifts, "oh, so fine a Christmas sheaves ... oh, so fine a Christmas tree ... but why have you wrapped Christmas tree foot in newspaper? Do you have any secret scare matters for me "?

"Yes, just a little bit," I said, "it's really a kind of Christmas present, and we think it's best to unveil the artwork when tree stands on radio cabinet."

"Yes, we hope you will be completely thunderstruck," supplemented Kjell. Grandma looked like a big question mark, and we realized that it was best to start now with the same, so we kicked off ski boots and bar tree into the living room.

Grandmother hurried to move away a hydrangea from top of radio cabinet in the corner against Kjerringdølda, and so we placed gently tree on the available space. "Now the best you sit in the rocking chair, and I'll pour a cup of coffee," said Kjell carefully and turned the chair toward the kitchen door. "Yes, grandma, you can be absolutely confident that we say when you can turn around," I said, "this is a lot better for you than that you have to be blindfolded as another" blind thief," he he -he ".

Grandmother realized it made sense and sat willingly down in the rocking chair - and waited well slowly to get a small cup of coffee, but the move was this refreshment forgotten. While Kjell gently lifted the tree up from the cabinet, tore I newspaper of foot and rolled the remains into a ball that was thrown in the direction of firewood basket.

As we whispering agreed there and then we went to either side of the rocking chair, grip firmly grasp the chair back and shouted, "Sim sala bim-»! But grandmother had suspected some surprises and planted felt-slippers well in the floor, and it became part the hassle before rocking chair with grandmother was waving around.

"Oh, what a nice Christmas tree!" said grandmother elated. She did not see much more than the top. I was in a uplifted state of mind and had put me in the face between her and Christmas tree foot. I had thought a lot about this moment and pondered me to the conclusion that it was best to serve her excerpts from the lecture father had kept in cattle barn.

I cough and began: "It was in 1827. The horse Bingo ... AEH ... Bjuty, came with the purchase along with a sheep and a Christmas pig ... when your beloved son Thorvald, so to speak ... AEH ... AEH ...", the so-called "Iron Curtain" rolled down. Puzzled, I went away to Kjell and said: "I've lost the thread ... '. Kjell just shrugged and thought that it was best that we sang the verse brother Ludvig had helped us to put together, and we went and lined up in front of the sliding door to the consist room and captured the "Silver Boys" songs pose; open-O-shaped mouth and flexed neck - as they were depicted in newspaper "Lister"

This move meant that grandma got sight of the red fairy foot with the blue loop around the ankle, and she was SO excited: "No, this has to be the finest Christmas tree foot in seven parishes," boasted she without shame, "but what is it that flashes like a golden ring around the base "?

She got up from the rocking chair and walked over to the tree. "No, you should have seen; a gilded horseshoe! ... You mentioned old Bjuty in the short speech Finn. It is not the shoe for old Bjuty? No, I cannot hope "?

We nodded eagerly behind her back, and she must have mirrored us in the window. Circumspectly she stroked back and forth across the horseshoe with her fingers before she staggered backwards down into the rocking chair. And we went equally well back in front of the Christmas tree and with serious, shiny, blue eyes, we lined up and began to sing:

Old Bjuty, good friend that pulled the plow.

Old Bjuty, you were the best horse in the woods.

When you would not have to struggle anymore,

waiting green flower meadows,

on you, my good old friend.

Race now freely good friend, Manitou stand and show you the way.

Dance away old good friend, grandma standing and waving at you.

Far to the north, where the road disappears,

it stands only open gates ...

Now be quick, good friend, the road goes straight over marsh and hills.

(Tone: Old Blackie)

It was certainly too many memories that came up from oblivion by our old grandmother on bit Christmas Eve that year. She hid her face in her worn out work hands and began to weep, and we looked lost at each other, slipped quietly into the kitchen, found boots and outerwear and ran home.

"Far to the north, where the road disappears, it stands only open gates ..." Illustration: Finn Bringsjord

This story was printed in the newspaper "Lister" on Christmas Eve, 24. September 2015.