1933. December 24, 7:30 p.m.
If I wanted Doodles to sleep warm as buttered biscuits, I’d have to do
some more quilt tucking.
I
pressed it in good and tight all along her side and under her chin. There. Now
she wouldn’t shiver in her sleep or roll off to the floor. It wouldn’t hurt her
any if she did cause our mattress was only four inches of feathers and cloth
and it was laid right on the floor on top of an old blanket that had a few moth
holes.
Doodles
was nine years younger than me and mostly my responsibility. Truth is, I was so
glad to get another girl in this family, I didn’t mind doing anything for that
skinny little baby. I had two older sisters, but they were already married by
the time I got any sense.
I’d
been stuck with eight brothers and me the only girl for miles around for so
long ... shoot, Doodles was like getting a tiny angel to take care of. Ol'
heaven sure waited a long time to give her to me, though, cause I’m thirteen and almost
growed up now.
I
put my ear on top of the wood floor and tried like crazy to overhear the soft
talking going on in the room down below me. No matter how hard I tried, I
couldn’t make out the words. Something was scooted here and yonder. Something
big.
Yep.
That’s the right sounds for shore. Same as every year. It meant Mama and Dad
were getting things ready for us kids to have Christmas in the morning. My old
raccoon grin broke out so big on my face, you couldn’t erase it with a mop!
I
yelled straight into my squashy pillow until my eyes watered. I did that
sometimes when I was excited and didn’t know what else to do. I got that over
with and flipped on my back. I cracked every one of my fingers one at time. I
learned how to do that from Calvin—one of my brothers. Most of them boys were
good for nothing at all, except learning me how to do things like fistfight and
get in trouble. Only thing I was glad about was how Sam taught me how to spit
across the room and make it land in a can. Now, that was useful.
Shush
now,
I told myself. None of that mattered tonight. Not with the magic dust swirling
all around me so hard my stomach felt like a Mason jar full of cow cream right
before it turns into curdled butter.
Nothing
no how could ever be as fun as Christmas at the Woodson house, even if it
wasn’t much of any kind of fancy. It had us—this family—in it, didn’t it? That
was enough, even if we were as poor as dirt and too dumb to stop laughing about
it.
Us
kids had to go to bed extra early on the night before Christmas so special
things could happen. I didn’t know how Mama and Dad did anything special for us
with us having just about no money in the world. I sure loved it when they did,
though. Loved it more than running home barefooted the last day of school.
I
stared into the dark with my hands folded over each other and whistled for a
little while until those sweet banana pies Mom was making after breakfast
tomorrow just rassled my mind down to the ground. She never made such a thing
as that except on Christmas day. Those pies tasted so dang good, you felt rich
as Solomon when you ate them. She made enough for us kids to have two whole
slices if we cut them kind of skinny.
After
the pies, Mama would stir something else together in her big crockery bowl.
Pretty near the best thing anyone ever made—her Christmas Candy Cake! She’d take
that pretty thing out of the stove with the marain icing sitting up on it like
stiff snow. Shiny patches of melted red, green, and white candies sparkled on
the top. Whooee, us kids about lost our eyeballs right out of their sockets
just looking at it. Wouldn’t have been surprising at all to see our eyes
rolling across that wood floor after Mom whisked her cake over to the griddle
to cool down.
Thinking
about it now bout made me throw up since I wanted a piece of it so bad. How
could I ever fall asleep? Dang near stupid to try. Next
thing I knowed about is when one of those no-good brothers threw a pair of
overalls on my head. I flung it off madder than a bee with three stingers and
couldn’t believe it was light outside.
Morning?
I leaped off of that mattress
and grabbed Doodles up tight and barreled down those creaky steps two at a
time. I ran quick through the kitchen and into the front room and into Mama and
Dad's tiny bedroom. Had
it happened? The magic?
The
glow in my mama’s eyes was as loud as any shouted-out bunch of words. I couldn’t
hardly take my eyes off of hers, they were so bright. I put Doodles down and
shook my hands in the air just to get my nerves settled down.
Can
we? Can we look now? Huh?
Mama
counted our heads to see if we were all there. After the last head, her usual
serious face broke out in a smile bigger than the whole of Oklahoma. She
stepped away from the iron-post bed where her and Dad, and sometimes a few
young’uns, slept. I tell you, us kids scampered under that bed like rabbits out
running a pack of slobbery hound dogs. When we came back out, we were holding
on to one of Dad’s long gray and white winter socks. Those socks looked like
they had the mumps, they were so full.
Doodles laughed right out loud at us
holding our fat socks with both hands like someone was gonna steal them away
from us. We
clawed them open and dumped everything out in our own special spots. Hazelnuts,
walnuts, Brazil nuts, and pecans poured out first. Then came an apple and an
orange. My mouth went dry to bite into that shiny red apple, so I did and ate
it all up. That was all the winter fruit we’d ever get, so us kids always
gobbled it up quicker than you could say shut up.
The
bottom of our socks sagged with ever kind of hard candy. Oh, the colors and
shapes just made us crazy happy. Some of the candies were square with dimples
all in them. Other kinds were round with flat ends and little drawings like
Christmas trees and holly painted on them. How someone painted so tiny on so
many pieces, I’ll never know. Best of all were the big hunks of folded over
ribbon candy. That was our mama’s favorite, too.
I
finished eating my orange and was looking for a dishrag to wipe my hands on
when my brother Snipe threw an orange peeling at the side of my face. My hands
turned into fists, but then something kind of strange took me over and dusted
the mad feeling right off me. I just felt like smiling at him instead. I tossed
him a piece of my own candy. He shore did look surprised.
After
a breakfast of mama’s special red-hot pork sausage, eggs, biscuits,
milk gravy, and sorghum, we started in eating our candy. Only time all
year we’d get any.
Two
of those no-account boys had to help me with all the stacks of breakfast
dishes, and that, all by itself, was a Christmas miracle. I almost never got any
help with those dadgummed dishes. This morning while we worked, we had a
contest to see who could put the most ribbon candy in their mouths.
I
don’t know who won cause we sucked and slurped on it with our mouths gaped open
and our eyes bugging out just like a dog when you pulled his ears way back.
After a while, we busted out laughing and near choked to death on candy juice.
Dad
said, “Hey,” at us in a low, gruff voice from the other room. We knew that
meant stop right now or get your rear ends whooped, so we hid and did it one
more time.
After
making her banana pies, Mama got Dad's hammer and put a big peppermint
stick and a handful of those ribbon candies inside a flour-sack dishtowel. All
us kids gathered around to watch. We made Big Eyes at each other every time she
swung that hammer in the air and brought it down to crush the candy for the top
of the Christmas Candy Cake.
You
know, I can't swear, well, you ain't even supposed to swear, but anyways ... I can't promise if it's true or not, but I got my feelings about it that God
Hisself must have gave that Christmas Candy Cake recipe to our Mama.
I
mean, why not?
Don't
it stand to reason the Almighty would want a special cake like that for His
son's birthday?
–
Biddy Woodson, Nowata County, Oklahoma, 1933
~~~~~~
For
a complete adventure mystery featuring Biddy, read Blackberry Road published
by Sundown Press and Available on Amazon in Audible, Print, and eBook.
Click
HERE for Mama's Christmas Cake Recipe, both the Old-fashioned version & the New-fashioned version.
What
holiday stories and recipes have been passed down in your family?
I
love to hear from you!
Merry Christmas!
BlackberryRoad is published by Sundown Press and is available on Amazon in Audible,
Print, and eBook.
“Trouble
sneaks in one hot Oklahoma afternoon in 1934 like an oily twister. A beloved neighbor
is murdered, and a single piece of evidence sends the sheriff to arrest a Black
man that a sharecropper’s daughter, Biddy, knows is innocent. Hauntingly
terrifying sounds seeping from the woods lead Biddy into even deeper mysteries
and despair, and finally into the shocking truths of that fateful summer.”
"A teen and her mom escaping an abusive husband tumble into the epicenter of crime peddlers invading Arizona and Nevada in the 1950s. Stranded hundreds of miles from their planned destination of Las Vegas, they land in a dusty town full of ghosts and tales, treachery and corruption. Avoiding disaster is tricky, especially as it leads Kat into a fevered quest for things as simple as home and trust. Danger lurks everywhere, leading her to wonder if she and her mother really did take The Accidental Road of life, or if it’s the exact right road to all they ever hoped for."
