CHRIST
IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter
{For
many years I wrote a new Christmas story each year to use as a Christmas eve
sermon. This is the most well-known, and most-often published. Feel free to use
it yourself if you have need.]
WHEN FATHER RODE
THE MAIL--1926
Before the green hills had become the
spoil banks of the strip mines, when United States highways were graveled
ribbons and mules still pulled the plows, where the Wabash meets the Ohio, my
father "rode the mail."
It was not a regular job. The people in the hills read slowly and wrote
only when they had something important to say.
A postage penny was a lot of money.
Once each week or two, however, the
letters and circulars for the folks in the hills mounded up until they filled a
leather mail-pouch. When the papers
peeked over the bag top, my father unhitched the mules with which he had been
grading the roads since he was twelve, saddled up his horse, and clucked a
"giddyap" out toward the cabins where no roads dared to go.
The trackless hills, where the woods
are deep, are cool and pleasant in the haze of summer. When the autumn comes,
though, the heavy rains dump the soggy maple leaves down upon your head. The water sneaks in between your hat and the
collar of your coat. Then the hills hunker down and close in and say,
"Beware."
It was on such a day that Father
lost his way. So when he crossed a clearing
and saw a cabin, it was both relief and fear that ran with the rain down along
his backbone. From underneath his
dripping hat he hailed the gray, unpainted shack.
"Helloooo, the cabin," he
called.
No answer. The owner must be in on such a day, he
thought, or else the cabin was deserted.
His right foot had left the stirrup
and was half-way over the horse's rump when he saw the shotgun. Only one barrel, but it was big, and it
looked straight out at him from where the door had cracked open. Off the saddle, he waited.
"What do y' want?" a thin
voice from behind the shotgun demanded.
Father thought fast.
"I'v brot your mail," he
called.
"And I need a place to git
dry," he added.
The shotgun held its place, and so
did Father. Finally, however, the muzzle
lowered toward the rough boards of the porch, and Father lowered himself to the
ground.
"Come," the cabin called,
and Father went.
Inside the door he met the oldest,
frailest-looking woman he had ever seen.
A hound dog that must have shared her birthday lay in front of the
fireplace. A table, a ladder-back chair,
a bed, the shotgun, a shaker chest, and a stool were the cabin's only other
occupants.
The woman was still wary.
"I don't git no mail," she
said.
Father fished into the pouch and
hooked an old circular. He pushed it out
across the gap between them. A thin,
veined hand took it and held it close to two slow eyes. The eyes were satisfied. The hand pointed to the chair.
"Sit," she said.
Father sat. He wondered a little at how the old woman had
read the circular while holding it upside down.
She brewed some tea. They sipped and
sat before the fire until the silence of the roof reported that the rain had
gone. They did not talk--just sat and sipped together--the very young man who
was only beginning, the very old woman whose life was ending.
Father said, "I'll be goin'
now. I thank you for the shelter and the
tea."
The frail old hands picked up the
circular as he left.
From then on when Father rode the
mail, he put into the pouch an old sale bill, or a circular, and he took it to
the little cabin in the clearing in the woods.
Each time the young man and the old woman sat and sipped in silence. Each time Father noted that the
"mail" of his last trip had been tacked up on the wall.
When the winter comes, the rains
stop, but the sky is gray as slate sometimes, and the wind sneaks past the
button sentries. In those cold days,
Father was especially glad for the cabin and the fire and the tea and the
silence.
A week before Christmas, Father put
an old catalog into his pouch, along with all the cards for others on the way,
and set out to ride the mail. He took
the catalog to the cabin. There they
sat, the silent young man and the quiet old woman. As Father rose to leave, the old woman spoke
into the silence.
"It was good of y' to leave
your own family and come out to see me on Christmas day," she said.
Father looked at the walls around
him. There was no calendar, only the
circulars and sale bills winking back at him in the firelight.
Father did not ever talk very much,
but many, many years later, when he told this story to his children and
grandchildren, he said, "I guess she never did know it wasn't really
Christmas day."
Perhaps he never knew it really was.
John
Robert McFarland
When my Christmas stories
were compiled in a book, I was going to title it THE YEARS OF CHRISTMAS, since each story is set in a different past
year. WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL… was
so popular, though, that publisher people thought that should be the title of
the book. You can order a copy at lulu.com. I think you can order just using
the book title or my name, but the ISBN is 978-1-300-38566-0.
