A Christmas letter was dropped off to our office late on Monday. Pam Cates found it in an old desk that was purchased from a local second hand shop. Along with the letter was a report card with the name, Rick Hall Worth on it. Other names on scrap paper were Mr. and Mrs. Blake Patchell. There was also a piece of paper with Wytopitlock written on it.
Other than that we have no other information. It appears to be a letter written to a granddaughter about a Christmas of long ago. We thought our readers would enjoy this step back in time.
Dear Joyce,
I want to tell you a story about something that happened about fifty years ago.
When I was a little boy I lived in a little old sawmill town in the state of Maine.
My daddy was a lumberman, who went into the woods during the winter months. He was usually the boss in a camp of loggers. He would live in the camp all winter with these other men.
The only time that I and my brothers, Blake and Fay, and my Mamma would see him was at Christmas time.
I remembered this one year when two days before Christmas it started snowing. It snowed for two days and heaped up drifts as high as a house. The boys and I and our Mamma made tunnels to the barn so that we could feed and water our cows, horses and hens and also our pig.
After supper that night before Christmas when we had all our chores done, such as milking the cows, feeding the hens, chopping wood, carrying it into our big wood box, and splitting up the fire kindling wood, Mamma gathered us boys around the big heater in the front room to read to us.
She read all about the ‘Night Before Christmas’ and we boys were getting awfully excited. Then she stopped reading and started to talk to us. She told us that on account of the big storm that our Dad might not be able to get home for Christmas and she also said that perhaps it might delay the arrival of Santa Claus.
We three boys were very sad and sober youngsters when she told us to get into our nightshirts near the old stove and head for bed. She told us to be sure and hang our stockings on the mantel just in case Santa did arrive.
In those days, we all had big knitted stockings that came way up over our knees and they were always black in color. We held them up by an elastic band just above each knee. Fay was the baby, just four and a half years old and as his stockings weren’t as big as Blake’s and mine, mother said that he could hang up both of them.
We got ourselves ready for bed, hung our socks and climbed the stairs. Boy, was it cold up there that night. After we had said our prayers and Mamma had kissed us goodnight, we snuggled down under about four big quilts and woolen blankets. We put our feet on our heated and wrapped up flat iron that Mamma had brought up for us. It got to be quite cozy, but we fellows did not feel gay at all. All we could think of was we would not have Christmas the next day and that Daddy and Santa might not get there for a week.
After some sobbing and crying to ourselves we finally went to sleep. We woke up the next day with our dog, Gyp jumping all over us, barking and kissing us and our Daddy standing in the doorway.
He yelled “Merry Christmas, you loafers, get up and see what Santa Claus has brought you.”
Did we scramble! We grabbed him and gave his face with the beard still on, a bunch of kisses. We all rushed down the stairs.
There in the living room was a real Christmas tree, our first one that we had ever had. It stood over by the French doors and it was all decorated with strings and strings of popcorn, several sewed together and strings and strings of red cranberries and pieces of lead foil that had come out of the big old store tea bale. Then there were apples, red and green, hanging by a thread around each stem and some fancy red, yellow and green candles sticking up all over the tree held on by snap clothespins. Then there were pairs of mittens, socks, and shoe packs (a kind of moccasin) hanging with the names on them for each of us boys.
Under the tree were more gifts. For Blake and me there was set of real bob sleds, skis and snowshoes, sweaters that we pulled over our heads with tassel leg caps and, best of all, our shoe packs which came halfway to our knees and were made of moose skin with the fur still on them.
For Fay, our little brother, there was a big old rocking horse made out of a log that stood about two feet high. He had a regular bridle and reins like dad’s workhorses and a tassel with bone rings to decorate it. He also had a regular tail, which looked suspiciously like an old deer’s tail. And then there was a little cage under the tree, which had a chipmunk in it. He had a coffee can that was covered with a sock and suspended like a wheel. Poor Mr. Chipmunk spent most of the day just running and running around on that wheel.
Our stockings were full to the overflowing with apples, popcorn balls, jaw crackers and a big box of spruce gum.
Mamma had the Christmas dinner cooking. She had killed and stuffed the old red rooster and then she had mince pie, pumpkin pie, crab apple jelly, turnip, onions, yeast rolls, nuts, raisins, maple sugar, spiced crab apples, tomato and mustard pickles and everything you could think of, nearly ready for one of my best of all Christmas’s.
Love to you,
your Grandpa
