Tombstone.
I went over to the orphanage tonight looking for Frances and called in to see if she was there and was invited to come inside. I grinned seeing a bunch of people sitting around the campfire. “
What ya’ll doin?” I asked, blushing at the sight of Jeff.
“It’s storytime!” Francis clapped.
“Oh! I was gonna see if Frances wanted to meet my daddy. I saw him over by the sheriff’s office.”
“Shoot I do! But... I don’t wanna miss the story! Uh oh!” Frances bit her lip.
“Oh okay. I’ll let you hear the story. Daddy’ll be around.”
“Have a seat Victoria and Natalie,” Miss Abi invited.
“I gonna go back to Daddy. I told him I’d be there,” I said.
“Okay,” Miss Abi nodded.
“Make him come listen to the story!” Frances laughed.
“I just wanted to see if Frances wanted to come but that okay.”
“You’re not staying for the story Natalie?” Jeff asked.
“Oh maybe I ask him that too! I ask daddy if he wanna come! I be back!”
“Okay,” Jeff said.
“You could bring him to story time,” Miss Abi told me.
I ran through town and I called out for Pa. I asked him to come to story time and pulled his hand to drag him towards the orphanage. “Ok ok ok… don’t pull my arm off!” he chuckled.
“But daddy can I ask ya somethin first?”
“Shore, what ya got?”
“Uh... what’s it mean when you have a dream bout a boy?”
Pa looked at me with a weird expression on his face and asked, “What do you mean dream about a boy?”
“Well um… We was playin. Like I used to dream about me and Jimmy, before we became bro and sis.”
“We? Whose we?”
“Uh…” I blushed, shifting on my feet. “Maybe we should just go to story time.”
“Natalie?!” Pa exclaimed and I looked down. He knelt down and looked me in the eyes and said, “Come on now, tell your pa, you can tell me anything… I promise.”
“But you’ll tell ma and she’ll get all worried and stuff.”
“No, I wont say a word… I swear.”
“It was me and Jeff,” I blushed beat red and looked down.
“Jeff? You mean Jeffery? You ain’t kissed him have you?”
“Ewww! Daddy!!” I gasped.
“Well I don’t know what you two do… you said playing… you two coulda been kissing and all sorts of stuff.”
“Come ooooon daddy. Les just go to the story time,” I said, unable to stop blushing.
“Ok munchkin, you lead the way, but no kissy kissy with Jeffery during story time, or I will arrest him,” Pa chuckled.
We went into the orphanage and my face was beat red and I pulled pa in to have a seat. Pa greeted miss Abi and we greeted people as they came in. I met a woman named Victoria and introduced my pa to everyone. Pa looked at Jeffery and then at me and shook his head, and I nudged him in the arm.
Jeff started to read the story and held it open with pictures on the pages. “Okay everyone, this is a story about the little march girl. I not know if any of you ever heard it before but I’m tellin it. And I got pictures to show ya. Okay, I’m starting now,” he said and put a picture up on the board. “The weather was frosty and cold. It was growing dark, and a heavy snow had begun to fall. It was Christmas Eve. A little girl wandered in the darkening streets. She wore ragged clothes, and she carried a bundle of matches in her hand. All day, the Little Match Girl had been trying to sell her matches. ‘A penny for a match!’ she had called in a small, pitiful voice to shoppers on the streets. But the people just glanced at her and then hurried on their way. Now it was almost night. The poor girl had not sold a single match. As she walked along, the Little Match Girl grew very cold. She wore only an old, thin pair of slippers. She had no socks, for she could not afford them. Suddenly, a voice bellowed, ‘Out of my way!’ At that moment, she heard the thundering sound of horses’ hooves. Did everyone see this picture?” Jeff asked and changed the picture.
Pa wrapped his arm around me and hugged me close as we continued to listen to the story.
“She scurried across the street,” Jeff went on, “Barely managing to get out of the way of a large carriage pulled by two enormous horses. When she stopped to catch her breath, the Little Match Girl looked down at her feet. In fleeing the carriage and horses, she had lost her slippers. Now the Little Match Girl had no shoes at all. The Little Match Girl wandered through the streets as the hour grew later and later. Up ahead, she saw a light shining through the window of one of the houses. The Little Match Girl looked in the window and saw a table spread with a white tablecloth and set with candles and silver. On the table was a grand Christmas feast -- a fat goose stuffed with the traditional apples and nuts, cakes and pies of all sorts, puddings, and every imaginable fruit. The Little Match Girl had never beheld such a feast.”
I grinned, remembering the Thanksgiving dinner and started to giggle, but covered my mouth to stay quiet as Jeff changed the picture and went on. “A family came into the room and sat down at the table. The little girl wished that she could join the mother, father, and three young ones who were about to eat this beautiful Christmas dinner. How hungry she was! The Little Match Girl sighed and turned away, then continued down the street. Soon she saw a light shining from the window of another house. This time when she looked inside, the Little Match Girl saw an extraordinarily lovely Christmas tree. There was a gold star at the top, and candles flickered on the branches. Gaily wrapped packages were piled beneath the tree. While the Little Match Girl watched, a group of joyous girls and boys entered the room. They clapped their hands with delight when they saw the tree and all the presents.” Jeff got a little teary as he read, and holds his head down so no one could see. “How the Little Match Girl wished she could have laughed and played with the children around the Christmas tree! As she turned away from the window, the Little Match Girl heard singing from a group of carolers nearby.”
Changing the picture, he went on. “When they finished singing, the carolers were invited to come inside a brightly lit kitchen. Standing near the door, the Little Match Girl could smell bread baking inside. Once again, she was all alone. Now it was growing late, and the Little Match Girl was very cold. To keep warm, she decided to light one of her matches. She struck the match, and the light flared. In the bright glow of the match, she imagined herself sitting at a table eating a Christmas feast just like the one she had seen through the lighted window. The Little Match Girl was eating Christmas goose, with pudding and fruit and cake and pie. How warm and full and happy she was!Just then, the match went out. The bright light was gone, and the Little Match Girl was alone again in the dark. She shivered with cold.”
I frowned, looking down, and snuggled closer to Pa as people in the room started to cry too.
“The Little Match Girl decided to light a second match to try to get warm again. She struck the match, and once more a warm glow and bright light appeared. In the light from this match, she saw herself with the boys and girls around the Christmas tree. She was about to open a Christmas gift wrapped in red paper and tied with a gold ribbon.”
“This ain’t gonna end well is it?” I whispered to pa.
He snuggled me close, holding me tighter without an answer as Jeff continued to read. “I don’t know, sweetie.”
“She was anxious to see what might be inside. Just then, the match burned out. Suddenly, everything was dark, and again the Little Match Girl was cold and alone. Except for the light from street lamps, the night was utterly dark, and the Little Match Girl grew so cold that she decided to light the entire bundle of matches.” Jeff took a deep breath and went on. “When she struck all her matches, the whole world suddenly seemed to light up. Stars shot down from the sky. The Little Match Girl felt warm and wonderful. As she looked around, the Little Match Girl had an amazing vision. She saw an angel dressed all in white. The angel was smiling and coming toward her with outstretched arms.”
Jeff changed the picture and went on, “The angel picked the Little Match Girl up in her arms and smiled upon the small face. The angel started to walk, carrying the Little Match Girl. ‘Where are we going?’ asked the girl. ‘I am taking you to a place where you will never be cold,’ the angel replied as they rose slowly into the night sky. ‘It is a place always filled with light and warmth. We will go where there are only laughter and smiles, and where you will never be hungry again.’” Jeff smiled at everyone as I started to cry and he went on. “The next morning, those who emerged from their houses saw the bundle of burnt matches lying in the snow. They wondered what had happened. What they could not know was that the Little Match Girl had gone to a place where she would always be warm and loved and happy -- so happy that every single day would seem just like Christmas!”
“Did she die??” I looked at Pa and asked.
“The Little Match Girl finally found her way ‘home.’ In that same home, The Littlest Angel experiences many ups and downs that ultimately teach her to grow,” Jeff said as he finished the story. “Yes she went to heaven,” Jeff said to me. “But now she is warm and not hungry.”
“Yeah, she went to be with God sweetie, so she would never be cold or hungry ever again,” Pa looked down at me as he held me close.
“You think my first ma and pa are in heaven? And miss Ashley?” I looked up at Pa.
“My momma and daddy are…” Jeff said after some thought. I looked over at him, seeing we had something in common, and he just nodded. “Well I’m going to heaven.”
“My ma and pa both were killed. And the lady who almost was my ma,” I said. “So they gotta be with the angels. Lookin over us right? Like the ones in Abi’s room!!” I said excitedly then.
“Welp the story wasn’t so long but I liked it,” Jeff said. “But we all gots a warm place to stay.”
“It was a sad story but a good one,” Neilty said.
“But Miss Abi is an angel so she gots angel pictures,” Jeff said.
“I wrote bout it in the Bee! This weekend she talk bout how all the angels watch over us. Right Miss Abi?” I looked at her. She tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“We all have a guardian angel watching over us,” Pa said.
“Well if anyone gots anything they wanna tell or anything they can,” Jeff said.
“Hey pa? What happened to your ma and pa?” I asked him.
“I know something we can do we can tell a special Christmas story we member. A special time,” Jeff said.
“I have a story I would like to share,” Pa said.
“Ok Mr. Thomas,” Jeff nodded.
“Yay!! Pa!!” I grinned.
“Anyone here ever hear of the bluebonnet?” he asked but everyone shook his head. “It’s a beautiful blue and yellow wild flower thats grows in Texas.”
“There a song about that, Pa?” I started to wonder. “I heard ma sing it sometimes. Cause that where she moved to first when she left Canda.”
“There was once a little indian girl who lived in a village in Texas. They were the Cherokee indians.”
“They was mean to ma,” I frowned.
“But these were the friendly kind Natalie… I promise,” Pa looked at me and went on. “Her people were a great tribe, and they all worked together to survive the harsh heat and weather of Texas. At the time, they were in a serious drought, and her people were scared. Well the elders of the tribe gathered, and the little girl was the great chief’s daughter. They were deciding what to do, before they all died from starvation and thirst. There had been no rain for their crops or for their animals. So the great chief asked everyone in the tribe to cast the most prized possession into the great fire, so it would please the great God and bring rain back to the land.”
I thought about what great prized possession I would give and thought it probably would be my Sherlock. I stayed quiet as pa continued to tell the story.
“The little indian girl, being she was only a child, had nothing worthy to throw into the fire to please the great God. All she had was a beautiful doll her grandmother had given her that was hand-made. The little girl waited and waited until everyone had thrown their item into the fire...and she went out to the great fire all alone, by herself, at night, once the others were asleep, and wanting to please God, and asking for rain and food to return to her people, cast the doll into the fire. She watched it burn and fell asleep by the fire. When she woke the next morning, the fire had burned out, and the ashes from the great fire had blown all over the tribal land, and up popped the beautiful Texas Blue Bonnet...her people had food and water, and to this day the Texas Blue Bonnet grows wild every year during the Spring.”
I blinked and smiled. “That’s a good story pa! What would you guys put in the fire? I’d put my sherlock in probably. It’s what I use the most.”
“Hmm… My hat,” Neilty said. “Either that or my teddy bear.”
“Well… if it saved all the folks and gave them life again and water,” Jeff said.
“I know what I would throw in there. That Thanksgiving turkey you ma cooked Natalie,” Pa chuckled and I giggled, laughing hard.
“I would give my BB gun,” Jeff said slowly. “Santa gived it to me last year.”
“Then the turkey could grow into lots of other little turkeys,” I said and blinked at Jeff. “You got a gun!??!”
“I would give away ... my sling shot,” Neilty said. “My mom gave it to me before she disappeared.”
“Now Natalie, little girls don’t play with bb guns,” Pa smiled.
“But…” I frowned.
“I would give my favorite pair of boots,” Miss Abi said.
“It is a good sling shot too,” Neilty said.
“I’m not like other girls! I wearing pants, see??” I said and held up my legs for pa.
“I’ll show ya my bb gun Natalie,” Jeff promised.
“Yay!” I grinned wide and smiled triumphantly at Pa.
“I would throw all of Mister Lots candy apples in the fire….” Evey said. “Cause they makes you run to the outhouse.”
Pa rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Yeah, well we will have to fix that if yore gonna start dating.” Pa smiled and rubbed my head playfully.
“DADDY!!!” I blinked and looked at him in awe.
“Okay so what’s a special Christmas you had before, Miss Abi?” Jeff asked, and I relaxed as he obviously hadn’t noticed it.
“The best one was when my brothers came home from the Military right in time for Christmas,” Miss Abi said. “Did not need anything else that year.”
“Jeffery, when do you plan to start courtin my daughter here? So I know when to get my shotgun and rockin chair ready?” Pa asked him.
“Pa!!” I blinked and covered pa’s mouth.
“When we are a hundred sir,” Jeff looked seriously at him and I giggled, exhaling with relief.
“Hmmm, I like the sound of that number....see Natalie, he’s a smart boy,” Pa said.
“I gonna sick Shira on you!!” I glared at Pa and Jeff giggled.
“What’s courtin’? Isn’t that like where you go to court?” Neilty asked. “For doing something wrong?”
“Naw it means to kiss girls Neilty, and hold their hands,” Jeff told her. “And then smile and stuff.”
“Are you trying to tell me I’m in the doghouse with you?” Pa chuckled.
“Ewwww no kissing Jeffrey!!” I blushed beat red and Jeff giggled and turned red too. Looking over at Neilty I tried to change the subject and asked, “So your ma disappeared??”
“Yep yep,” she nodded.
“Maybe ma could help find her.”
“I lost her when we were headin to San Franscico,” Neilty said.
“Pa is that far from here?” I asked.
“Well… How you lose your whole mama?” Jeff asked. “Where she go?”
“My parents lost me or threw me away,” Evey shrugged.
“I dunno we went here and left me at the tracks and said she’d be right back,” Neilty said. “And then I never heard from her again. That was three years ago.”
“Natalie, Evey and Neilty, I have something for you,” Miss Victoria said then.
“You do??” I blinked at that.
“Hmm…” Evey said. "Must have taken the turn my parents did…. so she lost you too!”
“I would like to give out a present to all the little ones here if I may. Since I don’t know what to get everybody, I thought I would give a silver dollar to each one of you if you would allow me Miss Abigail,” Pa said.
“That is fine Victoria,” Miss Abi said.
“I get an allowance?!??” I grinned wide.
“Only if you don’t sick Shira on me,” Pa looked at me and chuckled.
“Only if you stop talkin bout me and Jeff!” I giggled at him.
“But I know my mom will show up one of these days,” Neilty declared.
Miss Victoria gave us each two silver dollars each and we thanked her for it.
“And you can’t throw your hat in the fire, cause then you be lost with out a hat!” Evey said then.
“It’s one of my most favorite things,” Neilty said. “I found these in the trash. I got these shirt hat and pants miss and these shoes.”
Pa reached into his vest and took out a handful of silver dollars, handing one to each kid.
“I gonna take mine to the bank!” I exclaimed. “Then it’ll turn into lots of other silver dollars!”
“Well I ain’t. I not gonna trust no bank with my loot. I’m taking mine to the candy store,” Jeff declared.
“Oh yeah... banks ain’t safe are they?” I remembered.
“They sure ain’t.”
“Maybe I should put mine in the safe with ma. With her stuff.”
“Yeah that would be a good idea Natalie,” Pa smiled and looked down at me. “You getting tired munchkin?”
I nodded and curled against him, about to go to sleep already. “You gonna have to carry me to Bisbee. Wish we had a carriage or somethin.”
Pa kissed the top of my head and hugged me. “Everyone, I best take my little munchkin home to bed...also its time for me to get some rest too.”
“Thanks for the story time Jeff!” I smiled at him. “I see your bb gun tomorrow maybe Jeff?”
“Night Natalie,” Jeff said to me.
Everyone said goodnight and I invited them to our house. On the way out I glared at him and told him I’d wanted him not to say anything and he just hugged me and carried me back home.
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