American Progress Page 31

  “I like it because it tells the message of Christmas in just a few words. It tells us that the Lord Jesus came to earth at Christmas, and we are to make room for Him in our hearts. He came to overturn the curse of the Fall caused by Adam’s sin.”

  “All right, all right, Preacher Caroline. I think that’s enough,” Miss Tilden said impatiently. “What’s your next favorite?”

  Flipping through the pages again, Carrie came to “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” She liked this one because of the fourth verse, where it said, “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep, ‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep….’” Surely that song would touch Miss Tilden’s heart and help her to know that God loved her.

  But there seemed to be no reaction from her teacher. Only instructions about chording, rhythm, and volume.

  When the lesson was over and Carrie had on her red wool coat and warm knit hat, she turned to Miss Tilden and said, “I think it’s awfully nice of you.”

  “What do you mean, Carrie?”

  “It’s awfully nice of you to celebrate Jesus’ birthday even if you don’t know about His Father.” Then she turned and went out the door.

  As she tripped down the stairs, she hummed to herself, Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; drive the dark of doubt away….

  “You don’t have to eat your Thanksgiving dinner with a baby in your lap,” Aunt Frances said with a chuckle.

  The Ruhles, the Maurers, the Albrights, and the Constables were all crowded about the large dining room table at the Constable house. Elbows were hitting other elbows, but no one complained. Four-year-old Felix and three-year-old Patricia were at a smaller table close by the kitchen door. The high chair sat empty over in the corner.

  Carrie scooped up another bite of yummy mashed potatoes and giblet gravy then gave Joey a squeeze. “But I want to hold him,” she said. “And besides, he likes sitting on my lap, don’t you, Joey?” As though to answer, the toddler wiggled and gave a squeal.

  “Caroline,” Mother said, “please don’t talk with your mouth full.”

  “Sorry,” Carrie said.

  Liese laughed. “Every time that baby is around Carrie, he gets more and more spoiled.”

  “That’s not true,” Carrie protested. “Aunt Frances helps a lot.”

  “So do I,” Gloria chimed in.

  “And me,” Edie echoed.

  By now everyone was laughing.

  “All right, all right,” Liese said. “I have to face the fact that everyone in the family is helping to spoil our son.”

  Father, still excited about his Detroit trip, described the station in detail. And again there was a discussion about the pros and cons of commercials on the radio.

  In the midst of the conversation, Edie turned to Garvey and asked, “Well, tell us, Garvey, how was the airplane ride? We haven’t heard from you yet.”

  Carrie watched as Garvey ducked his head and pretended to be very interested in buttering a fat yeast roll. “It was okay, I guess.”

  “Okay?” said Don, Liese’s husband. “You rode all the way from Minneapolis to Detroit on your first plane ride, and it was only okay?”

  Carrie watched closely to see how her cousin would handle this.

  Slowly, Garvey looked up at all the family members and said, “I got real sick. So sick I threw up.” His face was pink with embarrassment, but at least he’d been honest. Carrie was proud of him.

  At that moment, Larry spoke up. “Garvey,” he said, “did I ever tell you—the same thing happened to me my first time up.”

  Garvey’s face registered astonishment. “No kidding? You got sick?”

  “Cross my heart.” Larry crisscrossed his finger over his shirt pocket. “A lot of people do, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know.” Garvey glanced at Carrie and smiled.

  “Well, it’s true. So don’t feel bad about it.”

  Garvey looked as though someone had opened a cage door and set him free.

  Edie turned to Carrie. “How’s your tutoring coming along?” she asked.

  By now, everyone in the extended family knew about Carrie’s project with Dvora. “Just great. Dvora’s grades are steadily climbing. Since we’re in the same class, I see things that give her problems, and then we work on those areas.” Carrie paused to give Joey a little bite of turkey dressing, and he chewed it happily.

  “Mrs. Harwell keeps close tabs on what we’re doing,” Carrie continued, “and she gives me ideas on how to present the concepts.”

  “What a blessing that you’re right there to be her friend,” Edie told her. “It’s no fun being different from all the other kids.”

  Liese nodded her agreement. “We Maurer children were called all sorts of not-so-nice names during the Great War,” she said. “Not only were we called names, but sometimes the kids just ignored us. And for no more reason than our German name. That’s how ridiculous prejudice can be.”

  Carrie caught Garvey’s attention to make sure he’d heard those words, but he quickly looked away. She’d be sure to remind him of his cousins’ statements the next time he sided with Nate about Dvora.

  By this time, Carrie’s knowledge of Jewish holidays was growing. From Dvora, she’d learned about the High Holy Days in the early fall when Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) and Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) were followed closely by the Feast of Tabernacles or the Ingathering. She asked Dvora questions about them, then went home and, with Father’s help, looked them up in the Old Testament.

  “It’s amazing,” Father said. “Amazing that these feast days have been kept alive for thousands of years.”

  “Mr. Clausen told me that each of these feasts were fulfilled in Jesus,” Carrie said. “For example, Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement. When Jesus died on the cross, He atoned for our sins. I like the way it all fits together.”

  Her father was quiet for a time. When she looked over at him, he was gazing off into space. “It certainly does all fit together, doesn’t it?”

  Even more interesting than the feasts was the way Dvora and her uncle observed the Sabbath, or Shabbat, every week.

  “Gentiles believe a day begins in the morning,” Dvora once told Carrie, “but in the Torah, it says, ‘And the evening and the morning were the first day.’ It names evening first. So our day begins at evening, and our Shabbat observance begins at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday.”

  Dvora went on to explain how they lit the Shabbat candles and prayed. On the Sabbath, they did no work nor were they supposed to travel any distance.

  Carrie went home and looked in the book of Genesis. Sure enough, it did say evening first. But somehow she still liked to think of her day ending when she fell asleep and beginning when she first awoke. She was also thankful that she could go to Saturday matinees at the movies and did not have to stay inside all day and observe the Sabbath as Dvora did.

  “We’ll cut out our construction-paper Santas, our angels, and our snowmen,” Mrs. Harwell instructed the class. “Then we’ll unroll the cotton matting from this package.” She held the box up that had a red cross on the side. “You can tear strips of cotton and glue them to your picture however you please. When you’re finished, we’ll post them on the bulletin boards around the room.”

  Snow was falling outside the large classroom windows, which made Carrie even more excited about the approach of Christmas. In spite of bad weather, the students kept the bird-feeding station clear of the snow and kept seed out for the winter birds. Just then, a cardinal had come up to the feeder, its bright-red feathers contrasting against the white snow.

  Carrie carefully cut out her fat, jovial Santa. She cut out black boots and a black belt and pasted them on, using the thick paste from the jar in her desk. When she was ready for the cotton, she went to Mrs. Harwell’s desk to tear off the needed strips. Only then did she glance over at Dvora. The girl’s face was sad. Almost as sad as it had been when she first arrived. She was not cutting or pasting. She was just sitting there. />
  Carrie was glad it was their lesson night at the garage apartment. There, in the quiet of Dvora’s home, Carrie could ask her Jewish friend what was wrong.

  “I cannot celebrate your Christmas,” Dvora said softly. “I have read the words of the songs of your Christmas. The Christ Child is not my Lord. The God of heaven, the God of Israel is my Lord.”

  “Oh, I see,” Carrie said. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

  “We will be celebrating Hanukkah. We also call it the Festival of Lights.”

  “Tell me about it,” Carrie said. “Tell me about the Festival of Lights. It has such a nice sound.”

  “A nice sound, yes. But before the ‘nice,’ there was death and destruction. Years before Jesus was born, the Jews were taken over by a wicked man named Antiochus from Syria. He demanded that all the people of Judah become Greek and bow to Zeus, their Greek god. Mean soldiers from Syria destroyed the sacred Temple in Jerusalem and demanded that the Jews eat of the pigs they had killed there, which was against our Law. One brave man refused to do so. His name was Mattathias.”

  “Almost like the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,” Carrie said, “when they wouldn’t bow to Nebuchadnezzar.”

  “Yes, like that,” Dvora agreed. Just then, a little mew sounded from the corner as Vanya rose from her bed in the corner and came to rub on Dvora’s leg. Dvora reached down, picked up the kitten, and snuggled her in her lap.

  “This man Mattathias,” Dvora went on, “had five sons. His sons joined him in a long fight against the Syrians. Soon other brave men joined them, until they had a small army up in the hills outside the city. There was much killing, but the Maccabees, as they called themselves, held out.”

  “Weren’t they greatly outnumbered?” Carrie asked.

  Dvora nodded. “They were. But the Lord was on their side and brought the miracle they needed. After years of fighting, the Maccabees at last returned to Jerusalem in triumph. But the Temple, oh, the lovely Temple.” Tears filled Dvora’s eyes. “Dirt, blood, ashes everywhere.”

  “How terrible,” Carrie said, caught up in the story. “Did they clean it up?”

  “They did. But there was no oil for the menorah. The candle stand with the seven branches was to burn in the Temple continually, but the Syrians had put out the flames. It was important that the menorah burn brightly once again. It required a special clean and holy oil. There was none.”

  Dvora stroked her kitten, its noisy purring filling the air.

  “Then what happened?” Carrie asked.

  “Enough oil was found to burn the menorah for one day. They prayed and asked the Lord for more time. Time to prepare more oil. The Lord answered their prayers. The menorah burned another day. And another.”

  “With just the first little bit of oil?” Carrie asked.

  Dvora nodded.

  “How did it do that?”

  Dvora smiled. “The Lord’s miracle. It burned for eight full days. During those days, enough oil was prepared to keep it burning.” Pointing to a nine-branched candlestick up on a high shelf, she said, “Up there is Uncle’s menorah. We light one candle each day.”

  “What’s the ninth candle for?” Carrie asked.

  “We call it the ‘helper’ candle, or shammes. It is used to light the other eight.”

  “So that’s why the menorah is so important. It helps you remember the miracle of the oil,” Carrie said.

  “The menorah reminds us of the miracle of the oil,” Dvora agreed, “and all of Hanukkah reminds us of the faithfulness of the Lord. Now you see why we celebrate for eight days.”

  Carrie smiled. “That’s longer than our one day of Christmas.”

  Dvora went to a chest that sat against one wall. It was painted blue with brightly colored flowers decorating the front. Opening a drawer, she pulled out a small object and brought it back to the table where they studied.

  “Why, it’s a top,” Carrie said when Dvora had set it on the table.

  “We call it a dreidel,” her friend corrected. “When the wicked Antiochus ordered the Jews to no longer study the Torah, they did so in secret. When they heard soldiers coming, they hid their scrolls and brought out the dreidels and pretended to have a game.”

  Dvora gave the dreidel a spin. “This one belongs to Uncle Yerik,” she said. “Our family dreidel was lost when our cottage burned. We play games with the top, spinning to see which letter is on top when it stops spinning.”

  “We should tell Mrs. Harwell about all of this, Dvora.”

  But Dvora wasn’t finished. “Also during Hanukkah, we eat latkes, or potato pancakes. Cooked in oil, they remind us of the oil the Lord provided for the lamp. Mmm,” she said, thinking about it. “After we were driven from our home, when I was very hungry, I dreamed of eating latkes. When I came here, Uncle Yerik fixed them for me just special, even though Hanukkah was many months away.”

  “Are you happy here, Dvora?” Carrie asked.

  Dvora took a moment to answer. “I wanted so much for Mama and Papa to be here with me. But Uncle Yerik gives to me of his love. We are blessed with the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers.”

  She looked at Carrie and smiled. “Your many kindnesses, too,” she added. Then she said, “And the kind old lady who lives in the big house where you play with Violet. She, too, has spread happiness to me.”

  The comment about Mrs. Simmons puzzled her, but Carrie asked no more questions.

  As they set about to study, Carrie kept thinking about Hanukkah. By the time she was ready to leave, she said to Dvora, “First thing tomorrow, I’ll talk to Mrs. Harwell about your Hanukkah. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

  Mrs. Harwell agreed that Dvora shouldn’t have to sing songs about Christmas if she didn’t want to. Then she suggested that Dvora give a talk to the class about Hanukkah, its meaning, and how it is celebrated.

  Dvora shook her head. “I am too frightened to stand in front of all the eyes in the class.”

  “What if I stood beside you?” Carrie suggested.

  Dvora thought a moment. “If my friend was with me, then I would be brave enough to do it.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The Accident

  Vi never let it be a secret that she did not like Dvora Levinsky. It made for many unpleasant and awkward moments at school. Dvora even said to Carrie one day, “I am sorry your friend Violet does not like me. Perhaps you should be friends with only her.”

  Carrie wasn’t sure what to say. Sometimes she felt she wasn’t being a very good friend to either one of them. Dvora still spent many lonely hours by herself at recess. No one invited her to play with them. Although Carrie longed to include her, she was certain Vi would never stand for it.

  At the same time, Vi was having other problems and with Nate, of all people. Opal had asked Vi why Nate was going off with Sonny late at night.

  “What could I say?” Vi asked Carrie with a worried look in her eyes. “It was the first I’d known anything about it.”

  “But I thought Nate didn’t even like Sonny.”

  Vi gave a shrug. They were walking around the snow-covered playground together during recess. “I think he wants very much to impress Sonny. To do that, he has to tag along.”

  “Where do you think they go?”

  “Oh, Carrie,” Vi said, her voice trembling. “I think they go to Klan meetings.”

  Carrie thought about that. “Maybe it’s time to talk to your aunt Oriel.” Carrie was sure that’s what she would do if she were Violet.

  But Vi disagreed. “I could never bother Aunt Oriel. Opal says she doesn’t want to be bothered. Ever.”

  Carrie thought that was terribly sad.

  Dvora did well in her talk to the class about Hanukkah. Carrie knew the girl was terrified. Dvora’s voice was soft but steady as she explained about the different aspects of the holiday and what it meant to her and her family. The night before, at Dvora’s kitchen table, Carrie had helped her draw pictures of the menorah and the dreidel. Now as Dvora spoke, Ca
rrie held up the pictures and gave her friend moral support, of course.

  No one was rude to the immigrant girl, because Mrs. Harwell was right there keeping a close watch. But neither did anyone act interested. Later during recess, Vi said she thought Carrie was silly for standing up there with “that Jewish girl,” as she called her. Vi hardly ever said Dvora’s name.

  The Christmas tree at the Ruhles’ house was so loaded with gifts that Carrie was almost embarrassed. Garvey told her if there were four kids in her family instead of just one, she’d never get so many toys.

  On Christmas morning, she opened gift after gift. She received a new doll and doll buggy, a doll cradle complete with a pretty lacy pillow and coverlet, a six-room dollhouse with all the miniature furniture, and a set of watercolors. There were games and new clothes, too. How Carrie wished she could share a few of her new things with Dvora, who had so little.

  Not that she wasn’t grateful. In fact, she thanked her parents several times for all the nice things. But she was glad when it was time to go to Aunt Frances’s house for dinner. She was happiest when the families were all together. That, to her, was more important than all the presents in the world. How awful it would be to have no parents at all. Like Dvora. Like Violet and Nate.

  When dinner was over and the dishes were cleaned up, Aunt Frances announced to the family that Carrie would be playing the piano for them. The radio was switched off, and Carrie sat down and began to play the Christmas carols that she loved so. She hadn’t gone far when voices began to join in. Before she knew it, the family was standing around the piano, singing with great gusto. They asked her to play another and another.

  “We used to do this years ago,” Uncle Kenneth said later. “I wonder why we ever stopped?”

  “Perhaps it’s because of a thing called radio,” Aunt Frances quipped.

  Throughout the day, Carrie kept an eye out for an opportunity to talk to Aunt Frances privately. She wanted to ask her aunt’s opinion about this problem with Vi. Her chance came late in the afternoon. There was a new drama featured on the radio, which had captured everyone’s attention. Aunt Frances had been rocking Patty, and the little girl was nearly asleep. Baby Joseph was already sleeping on the bed in the downstairs bedroom.