Three Characters in Search of a Christmas Tree
A Christmas snapshot from the world of "Land of Hills and Valleys"
Way back in the murky mists of time—that is to say, in my 2009 NaNoWriMo draft of what eventually became Land of Hills and Valleys—there were some unfinished Christmas scenes, including one where several characters went to cut down a Christmas tree. Since it didn't advance the story at all, I didn't include it in the rewritten version of the manuscript. This month, I thought it might be fun to dig out that unused scene and polish it up enough to share as an "outtake." It wasn't exactly good enough for that (I must say, it's reassuring to see how much my writing has improved in twelve years), but I ended up taking the idea and a few lines from the original scene and wrote a couple of pages based off it. It's fairly different from the fragment in the old draft—Tony was originally in the scene too, and I decided to leave out some dialogue which I'd repurposed for a different scene in the finished novel. Chronologically, this would come around the beginning of Chapter 12 in Land of Hills and Valleys, and there are no spoilers for the novel in it. As far as story goes, it's pure and total fluff, but I thought you might enjoy it:
As Christmas drew closer I found myself harboring a nonsensical but potent longing: I wanted a Christmas tree. It didn’t make any sense, since I’d been invited to celebrate with the Stevensons. I was the only person in the house; there wouldn’t be anyone else to open gifts beside it on Christmas morning—no family to gather around it. But I wanted one all the same. I kept remembering how the Drapers’ big staid brick house, never very homelike at most times, seemed lit up by the big glowing tree in their parlor every December, and how it lent an extra touch of life and brightness to the faces and voices of the friends and relatives who gathered however briefly about it. Then I would look around the weather-beaten little ranch house and find it a bit bare and lonely on the short winter afternoons, marooned amid a white sea of great sweeping snowdrifts. A tree of any kind would make it seem more like a home.
I couldn’t go and cut one down by myself, but I still couldn’t bring myself to ask any of my ranch hands, even—or perhaps especially?—Ray. I was sure I’d see a smile or the twinkle of an eye that was entirely obliging but indulgent—I couldn’t bear to have anyone else see my silly little dream for exactly what it was.
I stalled self-consciously until we were into the week before Christmas, and then finally decided to ask Lane. I knew that even if he thought I was silly he would try not to show it, and would probably end up convincing himself that it made perfect sense.
I managed to catch him alone one morning while he was doing barn chores. “I’ve got a favor to ask you,” I said, and then stuck for a minute. I hesitated over the last shreds of self-consciousness, while Lane put down the grain bucket he’d been filling and waited, looking ready for anything. “I want to get a Christmas tree. It doesn’t have to be a big one, anything will do, really…I…I wondered if you could help me.”
“Sure I can,” said Lane readily. He didn’t laugh; he even looked pleased at the idea. “I know where there’s some good ones. You want me to go and get it for you, or do you want to come along?”
“Can I? I’d love to come. When do you want to go?”
“This afternoon, how about. I don’t think anybody’s using the truck, and I know a place where we won’t have to walk far to find some. That all right with you?”
“Perfectly! I’ll be ready.”
So that bitter-cold clear afternoon, I huddled up in the cab of the truck, bundled up in several layers of clothing and a man’s old overcoat over my own, with a knitted hat pulled well down over my ears and my cheeks tingling pleasantly from the cold, as Lane guided the truck up the snowy access road through the pastures, hard-packed and carved with wheel ruts and hoofprints, the engine growling along as if it had a cold in its head. The day was blindingly bright, brilliant white on the slopes of the hills and sunlight playing through a few shreds of cloud that whisked across the wintry sky. Lane and I were both in high spirits, and laughed and joked most of the way. Perhaps I’d been silly not about the Christmas tree, but in being so foolishly embarrassed over it.
We parked on a curve of the road near the foot of a long hill and got out. It was less than a hundred yards’ walk up into the grove of young spruces scattered over the crest of the hill, but we had to trudge through snow that came up over our knees, and I was breathless and glowing by the time we reached the trees. They stood poised like the backdrop to fairyland, with crystal drifts weighing down their branches and tiny whiffs of powdery snow released every time they were stirred by a breeze. Any one of them would have done, but I had to plow and stumble my way through the whole grove, circling tree after tree and appraising them from every possible angle to see which one was just right. Lane gave up following me after a while and waited near the middle of the grove with the hatchet over his shoulder, having realized that I really was going to look at every tree. Finally I tramped back to look again at one of the first few trees I had inspected, surveyed it with my head on one side, then nodded and pointed to it. “This one.”
Lane looked at the tree. It wasn’t too much taller than me, but it was swamped in a drift of snow even deeper than the foot or so which covered the ground, its lowest branches completely buried. “The whole thing?” he said.
“Oh, yes, it’s just about the right height. I don’t think it’s too tall for the house, do you?”
“No, it’s fine,” agreed Lane loyally. He circled the tree and chose a side, and kicked away as much of the snow as he could from one spot so he could get at the trunk with the hatchet. I helped him, digging out the lower branches with my mittened hands. “Can you hold those back so I can get underneath?” said Lane, and I bent back the pliant, prickly spruce branches, reveling in the spicy scent from the broken needles leaving their sap on my mittens. Lane went down on his knees in the hole he’d dug out in the snow and crawled in as far under the branches as he could get, and began to use the hatchet. The chopping sound was muffled; the air of the snow-frosted little wonderland around me was still and clear.
“Almost there,” came Lane’s voice from somewhere close to the ground, also muffled. He tried to shift position a little and the tree quivered. “Lean against it a little.”
I stuck my arm in among the branches and put my weight against the stalk. Lane twisted around a little further so all I could see was his boots, half buried in snow, and got in another blow with the hatchet. The tree swayed slightly.
In spite of the snowy stillness I hadn’t heard so much as a footfall behind me, and so I nearly jumped out of my skin and my four layers of wool and flannel when a horse snorted almost in my ear and Ray’s voice said, “Need some help?”
I turned around with a jerk and let go of the still-snowy spruce branches I’d been holding, which sprung back and completely smothered Lane as he was backing out from under the tree. At almost the same moment I heard the creak of splitting wood, and my tree tilted, rotating gently as it came down toward me, and buried me in a snowdrift and a flurry of prickly branches.
I’m not sure I’d ever heard Ray laugh like that before. It took him a minute to recover himself enough to lift the top of the tree so I could crawl out from beneath it. I floundered in snow up to my armpits, and finally managed to get my knees under me and struggle to my feet in the smothering powder. Lane disentangled himself from the other end of the tree, his hat crushed over his ears and his coat collar full of pine needles. His face was red but he was grinning, and in spite of having almost no breath left to do it with, I laughed till the tears came too.
“That was beautiful,” Ray informed us. “You couldn’t have placed it any neater.”
“Thanks,” said Lane, digging the hatchet out of the snow.
“I guess it was my fault—I let go of it,” I said, still catching my breath from laughter. “Where did you come from, anyway?”
“Oh, Tony was tearing the place apart looking for a hatchet, and when I couldn’t find you or Lane or the truck anywhere I figured I’d likely catch up with you somewhere in the neighborhood of pine trees. Why didn’t you tell me you wanted a Christmas tree? We’d have brought you home a truckload of evergreens if you’d asked for it.”
I floundered in snow and speech at the same time. “Oh—well—it didn’t matter. I mean, I was going to—” I gave it up with a sheepish smile and a shrug. “To be honest, I was sure you’d all think I was silly.”
Ray looked down at me, one hand in his horse’s mane and the familiar grave, pleasant look in his eyes. “Why?”
I had to think again, and shrug again. “Well, to put one up just for me, all by myself in the house—it just seemed—”
“You’d still want to celebrate Christmas if you were snowbound fifty miles from civilization, wouldn’t you?” he said. “What’s odd about doing it with a tree? If you really feel like celebrating, you can stand on your head and let off fireworks if that’s the way it takes you.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Why not!”
Ray bent to lift the top part of the tree and helped Lane turn it around so it could be dragged downhill. He straightened up and glanced at me and smiled. “Reminds me of when I was a kid. I haven’t gone out and cut down a Christmas tree in I don’t know how many years.”
“I never did. In case you couldn’t tell,” I said. “We bought ours on a street corner. And the Drapers had theirs delivered!”
“City people,” said Lane in a marveling sort of way.
I folded my arms against the cold, but there was a pleasant warmth inside me as I looked down at my tree. “You know,” I said, “some greenery would look awfully nice on the staircase…I don’t want to cut too much from any of these little trees, but those big pines by the house—”
Ray nodded. “I’ll cut you some branches when we get back. Or Lane can do it, if he’s not afraid of a tree attacking him again.”
Lane threw a handful of snow at him, and I ducked back out of the line of fire. “All right, I’m going. I’ve got plenty of that already.” I did, too; there was snow plastered thickly over every inch of my jeans and turning to icy raindrops in the ends of my hair. At least the truck cab was cold enough that it wouldn’t melt completely before we got home.
I headed down the trampled path we had made coming up the hill, and the others followed suit. Lane went ahead dragging the tree, and Ray kept step with me, leading his horse. The wind whistled across the slope, raising little powdery ghosts of snow, and made a silvery whisper in the trees. I dug my hands into my overcoat pockets. I felt as happy and contented as I’d ever been—happy to have a little tree cut from my hills and a room to put it in; happy to be here, happy to be understood.
I began to hum something absently under my breath—it was “Adestes Fideles,” though I was only half aware of it. Ray glanced down at me, but didn’t say anything; just a brief smile that I cheerfully returned.
It was good to be home for Christmas.
// photo by myself
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